Rhiannon

Rhiannon emerged in the night, riding a white horse, with a veil upon her face...Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed, watched her ride past. He mounted his horse and pursued young Rhiannon, but his horse wasn't fast enough. Though she moved no faster or slower, he always fell dreadfully behind...
The next night, she rode past again, and again, the prince pursued this radiant lady. When he noticed his mount failing, bloody along the sides, he called out to her. 
He cried, "Maiden, for the sake of whomever you love best, please, wait for me!"

She replied, "I would gladly wait, and it would have been much better for your horse if you'd asked sooner."
She revealed, through the course of conversation, that she was to be married to an old man, but had fallen in love with Pwyll and should never marry if he did not take her as his wife.

He agreed to take Rhiannon as his wife, and she told him to come to her father's House to claim her after a year and a day.

After a year and a day, Pwyll took ninety-nine of his men and went to claim Rhiannon.

There was a great feast at the coming of Rhiannon's chosen. Following the feast, a red-haired youth entered the hall, and he asked Pwyll for a favor.

Pwyll responded as grand men often do, replying: "Ask for whatever it is you want, and I shall give it to you."

Rhiannon was outraged. "Why did you give this youth such an answer?" she demanded.

Pwyll did not respond to his bride. Instead, he asked what it was the lad wished.

The youth said to him, "I ask that I may sleep tonight with the lady I love best, and have come to ask for her."

Pwyll was speechless, but Rhiannon was simply angry. "Be as silent as you wish, husband, for perhaps then you shall appear less witless!" she thundered.
Pwyll was not a happy man, and tried to make excuses to Rhiannon. "That is Gwawl, son of Clud, whom I have refused to marry! You have given your word, you twit, and now you must give me to him."
"I can't," Pwyll told his wife.
"Do it, husband," she replied, "And I shall make it so he shall never have me."

An arrangement was made: Gwawl should return in a year to possess his beloved Rhiannon. Another great feast was held in the House of her father, and during the time Gwawl was making merry with Rhiannon at his side, Pwyll and his men dressed as beggars and entered the hall. 

Pwyll asked a favor of Gwawl.

"What is it you wish?" asked Gwawl.
"Only to fill my little wallet with food," Pwyll replied.

Gwawl set his servants to the task, but soon all the feast was held in Pwyll's little wallet!

"How does this end???" asked Gwawl.

"A great lord must stomp down the food in the bag," Pwyll replied.

Gwawl looked about, but Rhiannon pinched his ear. "You're my champion, are you not? Why do you not do it yourself?"

So Gwawl, enthralled by his ill-gotten lady, stomped his feet in the bag with his great oafish boots. Pwyll captured him within the magic wallet and his men struck it until Gwawl broke free and fled.

Gwawl did return to try and take Rhiannon by force, but that is a story I'm not terribly concerned with.

Three years later, Rhiannon still had not borne a child to Pwyll.

His ninety-nine men wanted him to put Rhiannon away, or to take another wife who might bear him a son. Pwyll would have none of this.

They agreed that if, in another year, Rhiannon bore no children, they should discuss the matter further.

But before year's end, Rhiannon birthed a radiant son.

Hai, Pwyll loved Rhiannon with all his heart. He was simply...impressionable, as you may see. 

Six women were in attendance upon the mother and son, but soon all fell into a deep sleep. 

Her women woke to find Rhiannon asleep, with no son in her arms. He had vanished.

In order to avoid being executed for losing Pwyll's heir, the women decided to kill some pups that had been recently born, throw the bones and blood upon Rhiannon, and claim she had torn her son apart in a frenzy.

When she awoke, Rhiannon asked for her son. The women told her the untruth they had concocted, and Rhiannon wept for her son. She knew they had lied to her. She offered to protect the six women from her husband's punishment, but they still insisted she had destroyed her son.

Pwyll heard the tale...everyone had, for these women knew that a little gossip might save their lives...and refused to accept the counsel of his men. Rhiannon would not be put aside for her crime, he insisted. Instead, she should serve penance.

Rhiannon agreed to allow this, though she was innocent of the accusation. For seven years, Pwyll decreed, his wife should sit by the gate on a horse block, telling the sad tale of her misdeed to all who passed through, and carry upon her back anyone who so wished it.

In a neighboring kingdom lived a good, fair king. His mare was the most beautiful and steadfast in all the lands of faery. Every year, at the feast of Beltane, the mare would throw a foal...and every year, the foal would vanish at the first sign of morning. 

Teyrnon, the king of whom I spoke, sought to discover what should be taking his foals. When the mare gave birth, a commotion was heard outside the stable, and a great claw came forth to snatch the foal. 

Teyrnon sliced the clawed arm cleanly, and the hand fell, with not a foal inside, but an infant clad in silks...

He brought the child to his wife, for they had no children, and she called him Gwyri, for the color of his golden hair. He grew strong, smart, and fond of horses...

Teyrnon and his wife heard of the punishment of Rhiannon, and noticed that the child they now called their own looked startlingly like their friend Pwyll.

Though the very thought of losing Gwri pained them, they knew they must return him to his mother and father.

When they arrived at Pwyll's House, they found Rhiannon still at her horse-stone. "Do not walk any farther m'lord, for I have killed my son and it is my punishment to carry those to the hall that so wish it upon my back," she told them.

"We thank you, but have no need," Teyrnon replied, and his party entered the hall of Pwyll.

They sat for a small feast, and Teyrnon recounted his adventure. When he was finished, none could claim that Gwri did not resemble perfectly his father Pwyll...nor could Pwyll not deny that this must be his own son. 

Rhiannon cried out, "If this is true, I shall be left of my sorrow!"

Lo...it was true. Rhiannon renamed her son Pryderi, which means "sorrow" or "burden"...and Pryderi grew to be the most handsome, skilled, intelligent, gallant prince of any land. He ruled his father's kingdom justly, fairly, and compassionately after Pwyll has passed back into the source.

Pryderi married Cigfa, and wed his mother to her lover, the sea god Manannan MacLir.

After the wedding feast...for they were all married together, so great was their love...they stole away to Rhiannon's sidhe, from whence she had emerged so many years ago. They sat upon it, talking and laughing about the day's events, when a thick mist descended upon them. They could not see one another, so how were they to return home...? 

After a day, the mist lifted...

What they saw brought agony to the hearts of the kind rulers. Where before the land of Pryderi's kingdom was fruitful and bright, there existed only a wasteland. 

Pryderi and Manannan were hunting one day for game to provide their wives with sustenance when they came upon a ruined Hall. They sent the dogs in after their quarry, but the dogs did not return.

Manannan protested Pryderi's decision to rescue the hounds, telling his friend it was far too perilous. But Pryderi had grown to be a gallant man...

Manannan knew, when his friend did not return from this task, that the Hall was enchanted. He returned to tell the sad tale of the man's disappearance to his wife, and to Cigfa.

Rhiannon asked, "where is my son, and where are the dogs?"
Manannan told her the tale of his woe, and she replied, "You have been a bad friend and have lost a good one." 

She rode to the Hall herself to see what had become of her beloved son. The gates were open, and she rode inside.

It was there she saw a marble fountain...

...and Pryderi, unmoving, touching a golden bowl at the top of the mysterious fountain. He seemed frozen, as though Ice itself had been carved and painted in his image. He was unable to move, to talk...

"My son, what do you do?" she asked, and tried to remove the bowl from his hands. She became frozen as well, and a great peal of thunder shook the very earth. A thick mist descended upon the Hall, and it vanished, taking Pryderi and Rhiannon with it.

Rhiannon, who had emerged from a sidhe long, long ago, was thus returned to her kin, and her son with her...

Rhiannon suffered great misfortune, though not necessarily of her own doing...she tried to remain strong, even in adversity, though I am sure her heart was aching and she most likely longed to return home to her Sidhe kin...which she could have done at any time.

Instead, she found the courage to live, and to love...and to forgive herself and her surroundings.