Powys

Powys is named as one of the territories Gwydion proposes to involve in a political rising and later appears as a stage on his route while escaping with Pryderi’s swine. Its clearest narrative significance lies in that double role: a realm imagined as a source of collective force, and a landscape through which the deception briefly leaves its mark in local names.

Political Setting

When Gilvaethwy confesses his love for Goewin, Gwydion promises to arrange matters so that Gilvaethwy might succeed in winning her. He says he will cause Gwynedd, Powys, and Deheubarth to rise and seek the maiden if no other course is possible. The proposal places Powys within the political reach of Gwydion’s scheme, though the narrative does not describe an actual rising there: Gwydion instead visits Math son of Mathonwy with a story about unfamiliar animals and obtains permission to go to Pryderi for the swine.

The Swine Journey Through Powys

After Gwydion secures the swine by exchanging them for horses, greyhounds, and gilded shields fashioned from fungus, he warns his companions that the illusion will last only until the same hour the next day. The company presses onward with the animals, and its route passes through a commot in Powys called Mochnant. They spend that night there before continuing toward the Cantrev of Rhos. The episode gives the region a concrete place in the escape: it is one of several successive stops made under pressure, as Gwydion tries to get the swine to the fastnesses of Gwynedd before the pursuit closes in.

Place-Names and Narrative Trace

The account links the journey to names that remain attached to places. It says that a stop in the upper part of Ceredigiawn gave rise to the name Mochdrev; the following day the company passed through Melenydd and stayed at another town called Mochdrev, between Keri and Arwystli. After the stop at Mochnant in Powys, the travellers reached the Cantrev of Rhos, where the place of their night’s rest was again said to be called Mochdrev for the same reason. These names make the passage legible as a remembered route, though the narrative’s explicit naming of Mochnant is the point that locates the journey in Powys.

The escape ends its journey through these regions when Gwydion and his men reach the highest town of Arllechwedd, make a sty for the swine, and proceed to Math son of Mathonwy at Caer Dathyl. There they learn that Pryderi is assembling twenty-one cantrevs to pursue them. Powys thus belongs to a route whose apparent success is temporary: the swine have been delivered, but the pursuit has gathered into an armed confrontation.