Griffith ap Lleu sank to rest on a riverside boulder. His feet hurt from the day's long march. Spray from the waterfall blessed his overheated face. Perhaps he should soak his feet before going on.
Griffith looked at the path ahead. The land rose in great lurching steps towards the Brecon Beacons, their soaring peaks glazed from the rosy sunset. Perhaps he should have sought lodging in that last village, Glyn-Neath.
He grimaced. "Gone too long already." He missed his wife Arianwen with a pain deeper than aching feet. He stood and hoisted his pack. He'd hike all night to speed his journey home.
The waterfall's song changed its note, and Griffith shot it a glance. The cascade broke around something as white as its own foam. The head of a horse.
Griffith blinked, startled, as a pale horse stepped gracefully through the streaming curtain of water. Was there a cave behind the falls?
The mare splashed to shore and shook herself, droplets dancing through the air, all a-shimmer in the last light of the setting sun. The horse turned big soulful eyes to Griffith and whickered in greeting.
"Offering a ride, are you?" He shifted his pack and nodded. "Don't mind if I do."
No saddle or bridle, but this wasn't one of those hulking English plow-horses. Griffith climbed astride the small horse and took hold of the snow-white mane. "Up and over the mountains, please," he said, giving a knee-nudge.
The white mare set off up the path leading northeast. The steepness of the way didn't slow her. In fact, her pace sped faster and faster, though her gait remained smooth as butter. He grinned into the dusk. "I'll be home soon, sweet Arianwen!"
Trees whizzed past. The river churned to one side of the path, uncoiling like a serpent. Griffith glanced down – and gasped. Those silvery hooves were not striking ground.
His delight turned to worry and wonder. And then, as the landscape melted into a blur beneath him, to terror.
There had been no cave behind the waterfall. This was a water-horse, a ceffyl-dwr, a treacherous creature from the Otherworld.
Griffith clung tighter to mane and withers, which had not yet melted into mist. And a good thing, for now they soared over shadowy mountain peaks. Like lightning, the ceffyl-dwr came plunging down the Beacons' northwest side, over wild ridges, dense forest. They'd forsaken the path miles ago.
The moon, just past full, crept up over the eastern horizon. The moment its light struck Griffith and his unearthly mount, the horse bucked. Its rider fell to ground, at the crest of the hill they were over-flying.
Griffith tumbled and came to rest. He couldn't breathe, couldn't see, couldn't think.
At last he heaved in a great gasp, and lurched up, aching all over.
There stood the ceffyl-dwr, looking amused. As she ambled away, she blurred into a mist that shivered on the night breeze.
Dazed, Griffith limped downhill, coming to the village of Llanddewi Brefi – fifty-some miles from that haunted waterfall near Glyn-Neath, and still fifty miles from home.
folktale from Wales, with haunting similarities to my tales "Night Riders" and "Tagalong." (Night Riders": set in Telemark, Norway, and written in March 2018; "Tagalong": set in the Faeroe Islands, written in May 2017)
