Uruz
*
…So, Merlin became a sylvan man.
He lived on roots and grasses, the fruit of trees,
and mulberries of the thicket.
For a summer he remained immersed in the woods,
unmindful of self and kin.
*
When winter came he had no food to live on…
He raised a lament:
‘What, now, shall I do?
The trees stand without leaves and fruit,
the south wind and the rain have dispensed with them.
Now, I wander, the old wolf beside me, hard hunger
has weakened us both.
We fill the air with our howling
and stretch out tired, wasted, limbs on the earth.’
*
A traveller journeying through the wood
heard Merlin’s lament, issuing from a hazel thicket,
but was unable to catch him as he, again, fled.
*
The traveller reported to King Rhydderch of the Cumbrians,
who was married to Merlin’s sister, Ganieda.
*
The king sent out messengers to find Merlin,
and one of them eventually came upon the renegade,
reclining by a fountain, on a mountain top,
an old wolf laid down beside him…
