Manawyddan Captures the Mouse and Breaks Dyved’s Enchantment

Manawyddan’s capture of a mouse turns a ruined harvest into a reckoning with the magic that has emptied Dyved. By refusing increasingly valuable offers to spare his captive, he discovers that the devastation of his fields, the disappearance of the country’s inhabitants, and the captivity of Pryderi and Rhiannon belong to a single act of revenge. His insistence converts the apparent punishment of a small animal into a negotiated release and the restoration of the land.

Return to Narberth and the ruined harvest

Manawyddan returns to Dyved carrying wheat and settles again at Narberth, a place that recalls his former hunting with Pryderi and Rhiannon. He resumes fishing and deer hunting, then sows three separate crofts. The wheat grows exceptionally well: each field comes to promise an abundant harvest, making the loss that follows all the more stark.

When the first crop is ripe, Manawyddan decides to reap it the next morning. At dawn he finds only bare straw, every ear of wheat removed. The second croft meets the same fate. He reads the repeated destruction not as an isolated loss but as evidence that some force is bringing ruin upon both him and the country. With the final field also ripe, he resolves to keep watch rather than let the last harvest disappear unseen.

At midnight he sees an immense multitude of mice descend upon the third croft. They climb the stalks, bend them under their weight, cut away the ears, and carry them off, leaving the stalks behind. Their numbers make them impossible to pursue as a group. In his anger, Manawyddan rushes after them, but catches only one: a slower mouse that he manages to overtake on foot. He puts it in his glove, ties the opening, and brings it back to the hall.

The captive at the Gorsedd

Kicva urges Manawyddan not to demean himself by hanging a creature so small, but he insists that it is a thief caught robbing him and that it will receive a thief’s punishment. The disagreement establishes the terms of the coming encounter: she counsels restraint, while he treats the mouse as accountable for the damage done to his livelihood. He carries it to the Gorsedd of Narberth and sets up two forks on its highest point to make a place for the execution.

The scene unfolds against the country’s long emptiness. Manawyddan says that for seven years he has seen no person or animal there, apart from the four people who had remained together before two were lost. The first stranger to approach is a poor, ragged scholar returning from singing in Lloegyr. Seeing the mouse, the scholar asks Manawyddan to release it and offers a pound received as alms, rather than see a man of his rank engaged in hanging such a creature. Manawyddan refuses both the payment and the request.

A priest arrives next, mounted on a horse with trappings. He too urges Manawyddan to spare the mouse, offering three pounds to purchase its freedom. Manawyddan rejects the offer. A bishop then appears with attendants and sumpter-horses. He first offers seven pounds, then twenty-four pounds, and finally all the horses and baggage visible on the plain. Manawyddan turns down each offer. The negotiations make clear that money and valuable goods cannot settle what he seeks: he will not free the captive merely because its rescuers can pay.

Llwyd’s confession and Manawyddan’s terms

Only when the bishop asks what more Manawyddan wants does he name the people and land whose loss lies behind the punishment. He requires Rhiannon and Pryderi to be freed, and demands that the enchantment be lifted from Dyved’s seven cantrefs. Even after the bishop agrees, Manawyddan will not release the mouse. He asks to know its identity, and the bishop reveals that she is his wife.

The bishop then identifies himself as Llwyd son of Kilcoed and explains the revenge that brought the calamity. He cast the charm over the seven cantrefs of Dyved to avenge Gwawl, to whom he had been bound by friendship. His grievance reaches back to the Game of Badger in the Bag, which Pwyll had played against Gwawl at the court of Heveydd Hen. Llwyd says that his household first asked to take mouse form and destroy Manawyddan’s crops; his people carried off the first two harvests, while his wife and the court’s ladies transformed themselves for the third night. His wife, being pregnant, was slower than the others and could be caught.

Manawyddan adds two further conditions. The enchantment must not be placed upon the seven cantrefs again, and vengeance for the affair must never be taken against Pryderi, Rhiannon, or Manawyddan. Llwyd accepts both. Manawyddan explains that he asked for protection because he feared the trouble might otherwise fall upon them. But he still keeps the mouse captive until Pryderi and Rhiannon are brought before him, making their actual freedom—not a promise alone—the condition for releasing Llwyd’s wife.

Release and restoration

Pryderi and Rhiannon appear, and Manawyddan rises to greet them before sitting beside them. With both now present and free, he agrees to release the mouse. Llwyd strikes his wife with a magic wand, and she resumes the form of a young woman. Her transformation confirms that the captured animal was not merely a servant or a tool of the enchantment, but Llwyd’s wife herself, caught while carrying out the scheme he had described.

Llwyd directs Manawyddan to look across the land. The seven cantrefs, formerly empty under the charm, are now tilled and filled with herds and dwellings. When Manawyddan asks what bondage Pryderi and Rhiannon endured, Llwyd explains that Pryderi had the knockers of the gate of his palace about his neck, while Rhiannon had worn the collars used by asses carrying hay. Their release completes the settlement: the captives return, the country’s ordinary life is restored, and Manawyddan has secured a promise against both renewed enchantment and retaliation.

The episode’s decisive reversal comes through a change in scale. It begins with three crofts and the loss of their wheat, narrows to one mouse held in a glove, and ends with the fate of an entire region being negotiated at the Gorsedd. Manawyddan’s refusal to accept payment keeps the conflict focused on restoration rather than profit; he presses for the release of his companions, the lifting of the charm, and protection from future revenge. The apparent thief proves to be the means by which the hidden cause of Dyved’s ruin is exposed.