"Then there is no place you can die," said Blodeuwedd. "Or is there a place?" There was a place, and Lleu told Blodeuwedd where. In those days, people made special baths. Caldrons were placed near rivers for the fresh water and roofed to keep off the rain. If Lleu stood with one foot off the ground on the back, say of a goat all requirements for his death would be fulfilled: He would be in a borderline place, neither indoors nor out, neither on dry land nor in the water, neither on horseback nor on foot. Blodeuwedd laughed and asked no more. Lleu thought this was because he had soothed her fear, but the messenger she sent in the morning to Goronwy, waiting in his fortress at Penllyn, knew better.

A year passed peacefully in Ardudwy. Blodeuwedd remained just the same to Lleu: She still was sweet and fragrant and loving, and he was happy, but off in Penllyn, Goronwy spent his time working on the spear. In a year, the spear was finished, long and straight and tipped with poison. Goronwy carried it secretly to the very walls of Mur Castell, and in secret he sent word to Blodeuwedd that he was there and ready. Blodeuwedd was ready, too: Her long waiting was almost over. She went to Lleu and said in her pretty way, "If I have a bath built, will you show me how you would tempt the fates?"

Lleu said yes. What harm could come from his wife so childlike and so flower like? And harm might come from playing the coward before such a wife. The bath was built on the banks of the river Gynvael. Blodeuwedd led Lleu there and watched while he bathed. Others eyes watched too: Goronwy hid with the spear in the shadows across the river. When Lleu rose from the bath, Blodeuwedd was there, offering the back of a goat tostand on. He indulged her: He put one foot on the rim of the bath and one on the goat's back, and in that instant, Goronwy cast the spear from the shadows. The shaft broke withthe blow, but the head pierced Lleu's side. He gave a great cry of pain and shot one look at his wife. Then he disappeared. Where he had been, there stood a great wounded golden eagle. It rose into the air, wheeled and vanished into the mountains. Goronwy and Blodeuwedd paid no heed. Their waiting was over, and they returned to Mur Castell. Goronwy took the fortress, as he did the woman, for his own. In the days that followed, he and his companions subdued all of Ardudwy, so that he had those lands as well as those of Penllyn.

It was not very long. before Math knew what Blodeuwedd and Goronwy had done. As soon as he knew, hetold Gwydion. Of the two enchanters who had dared to create a woman, Gwydion grieved the more, for Lleu was as a son to him and he had used his powers for the younger man's good. He and Math tried all their arts to find Lleu or to see the form he had taken, but the answer they received was silence and darkness.

At last Gwydion began to search, alone and on foot. He walked all through Gwynedd and through Powys, sheltering now in peasants' huts and now in castles. Weeks passed, but Gwydion saw no creature that might be Lleu Llaw Gyffes. The day came when Gwydion rested at a farmer's house near Pennardd, on the western coast of Gwynedd. When the house-hold gathered in for the night, the farmer's swineherd told of a strange sow he had. It disappeared every morning and reappeared every evening, fat and sated. At once, Gwydion knew that his journey's end was near, and in the morning he followed the animal into the forest and along a stream called Nant y Lleu. At last the sow stopped beneath an oak tree and began to feed. Gwydion strode to the tree and looked. The beast was feeding on rotton flesh.

The wizard raised his head and found what he sought. High in the branches of the tree clung a great golden eagle, which shivered continuously. As it trembled, bits of flesh fell from it to the foot of the tree. Gwydion sat on the ground. The sow snuffled beneath the tree and the wind sighed in the branches , but the eagle made not a sound. The wizard gazed at it thoughtfully for some moments. Then he sang a charm. The bird slipped down to the middle branches of the tree. Gwydion paused, he sang another charm, and then he waited. The feeble creature dropped to a lower branch. And a third time, Gwydion sang, bidding the bird to come to him. When he finished, the eagle dropped to Gwydion knee.

At once he struck the bird and it vanished. Before the wizard lay Lleu Llaw Gyffes. The bones were starting from the young man's flesh, and he had a great wound in his side. But Lleu was alive. There followed a time of healing and waiting. Gwydion took Lleu to Math at Caer Dathyl, and the two enchanters set to work. They used the herbs of the forest and their own incantations, as well as the skills of all their physicians. Between them, they healed the young man. In the period of healing, the men of Gwydion began to arm and leave their strongholds and their farms. Across the hills and through the forests they came, gathering at the call of Math and Gwydion. The enchanters raised a mighty force to capture the false bride and her lover.