Elphin’s wedding feast continued the next day, and the next. On the fourth day the casks and skins began going dry, and by evening the food was running low as well. Many of the guests took their leave then; those who lived further distance stayed one more night but left early the next morning, so that by midday all the visiting guests had departed and the feast was over.

The following morning Elphin rose, dressed quickly, and strode from the house. He called the men whose labor his father had promised him and led them to the place he had chosen for his house. He paced off the dimensions of the structure, gave orders, and the men began digging-halfheartedly, for they disapproved of Elphin’s choice of plot for his house and begrudged the whole project, thinking it unnecessary and, most likely, unlucky.

Toward evening, when they had finished, they called Elphin to inspect the work. He took one look at what they had done and said, “This is not what I told you. It must be bigger!”

The next morning they went back to work and at midday called him again. When he saw the size of the hole, he frowned and shook his head. “It is still not big enough. Since you will not listen to me, I will show you. Look here” He took a wooden stake and drove it into the ground, and then another, enlarging the square to a huge rectangle. “This is how I want it.”

The men grumbled to themselves but went back to work. “What does he need with such a big house?” they muttered when he had gone. “There is only one lord in this caer, and it is not Elphin.”

“Perhaps he hopes to make himself lord by building a big house,” remarked one disgruntled worker.

“Ha! It’ll take more than a big house to make him lord,” replied his companion.

By evening they had nearly completed the excavation for the house. Elphin surveyed their efforts and approved. “Now, then, the firepit will be here,” he said, pointing to a spot in the center of the hole.

“Dig it yourself,” growled one of the workmen. “You want such a big house.” The man threw his shovel at Elphin’s feet.

“Very well,” replied Elphin, dropping into the hole. He retrieved the shovel and walked to the place he had indicated. There he scratched out the dimensions of the fireplace and dug the first shovelful, pushing the wooden blade into the dirt with his foot.

But the shovel hit on something hard and stopped. “An old root,” someone said with a snicker. “Better make the firepit somewhere else.”

“That is no root,” said Elphin, scraping away the dirt. “It is a stone.” The stone had an edge to it, and Elphin scraped around it to discover that it was a large, square piece of flat slate. When he had cleared the dirt away, he pried up the edge of the black stone and saw a scrap of coarse-woven cloth.

“What is this?” he said, stooping. The filthy rag fell apart as his hand closed on it, but under the rotten tatters he saw a glimmer of yellow. The others watched curiously as Elphin dropped to his knees and began scraping at the dirt with his hands.

“Look at him,” they laughed. “He thinks he is a dog.”

Elphin ignored them and took up the shovel again, thrust it into the soil, and withdrew it. And there, dangling from the end of the wooden blade, was a golden tore.

The workmen ceased laughing. Elphin took the tore and held it in his hands, brushing away the clinging soil. It was as thick as three braided chains, and on the ends were the carved heads of animals: a bull on the right, and a bear on the left. “See what I have found!” he cried. “A golden tore, a king’s tore!”

Elphin raised his voice in a shout, and soon almost everyone in the village-including Gwyddno and Hafgan-had gathered around the excavation. “See what I have found,” said Elphin in a loud voice, holding the tore high in the air for all to see. “A tore of gold-buried right where I have set my hearth.”

There were murmurs of amazement through the throng. “Let me see it, if you will,” said Hafgan, elbowing his way forward.

Elphin placed the tore in the druid’s hand and stood with his arms crossed over his chest. Hafgan studied it carefully, turning it this way and that. He took the edge of his robe and rubbed the tore until it shone with a bright luster. “Did all of you see this take place?” he asked.

“We saw it,” the workmen admitted reluctantly.

“Does anyone doubt?”

They shook their heads. “Elphin found it as he said,” one of the men replied, and explained how they had refused to dig the firepit and challenged Elphin to dig for himself. “He took up the shovel and struck the stone; the tore was under it.”

Gwyddno clapped his hands. “This is a fortuitous sign!”

“Indeed,” Hafgan replied. “Most fortuitous. There is little doubt that this tore once adorned the neck of a king. It was found in Elphin’s home, beneath an ancient hearthstone.”

“What does it mean?” asked one of the workmen.

Hafgan hefted the tore in his hand. “The meaning is clear: where is the king’s hearth?”

“Why, in the king’s house,” the man answered.

“And who lives in the king’s house?”

“The king himself,” answered Gwyddno grinning broadly.

“It is so,” said Hafgan. He held out the ornament to El-phie saying, “Do you claim the tore, Elphin ap Gwyddno?”

“I do claim it,” replied Elphin.

“Then wear it,” said Hafgan. At this the people murmured in surprise, for by this the druid indicated Elphin’s worthiness to succeed his father.

Elphin took the tore and carefully spread the ends, raised it to his neck and slipped it on, then pushed the two ends together. The cool weight of the tore felt good on his shoulders.

“Here is the third treasure that Elphin has found,” said Hafgan, speaking to all gathered there. “He has found a son of virtue, a noble wife, and now the tore of a king. Who among you will call him unlucky?”

No one stirred; who could speak against such evidence?

“From this day, let no one disparage the name of Elphin, for to do so will bring dishonor-not upon Elphin, but on the speaker. You have all seen that Elphin’s luck has changed and his fortune is now as great as his previous misfortune.” He raised his staff over them. “Here is the evidence that all I have foretold is coming to pass. Hear and remember.”

They all dispersed, and Elphin climbed from the hole to show Rhonwyn his incredible find. Rhonwyn, unlike the others, expressed no surprise but merely raised her hand to finger the tore and said, ‘ ‘When I first saw you, I saw a tore of gold about your neck. Now here it is. This is but the first of my husband’s many glorious achievements.”

That same night Elphin lay in bed, Rhonwyn beside him with the infant at her breast. It was late and the hearthfire burned low, and although it had been a busy day he tossed this way and that, unable to sleep. After a few minutes of his thrashing, Rhonwyn said, “What is the matter, Elphin? Are you troubled?”

“No,” he said, “yet sleep eludes me. I cannot rest.”

“It might help to walk a little.”

“Perhaps you are right.” He rose quietly, pulled a calfskin around his shoulders, and stepped outside to a night alive with stars. He stood contemplating the sky bowl for some moments, the crisp air making his breath a silver mist in the starlight.

“This is a night for enchantment,” he thought. “On such a night as this, great deeds are done for good or ill.”

The thought was still in his mind when he heard a sound- a shrill keen in the night like a nightbird’s call. And though he listened for the sound to come again, all he heard were the nightsounds of the caer. Curious, he walked down through the center of the caer, passing the great oak and the dark houses of his kinsmen, moving toward the palisade. At the gate he climbed the inner rampart and looked out over the palisade to the cattle pens beyond. It was dark and quiet beyond the enormous timber circle of the fortress. As he turned to retrace his steps back down the rampart, he caught a glimmer out of the corner of his eye-like the gleam of starlight on a naked blade.