I promised adarkfuneral a Welsh story today, and since she likes Bran the Blessed, I will tell one about him.

Now, Bran was a great giant of a man, son of the god Llyr, grandson of the god Belanos, and he was king of Prydain. Sorry, Taran

He had three brothers, and a sister, Branwen. Branwen was very beautiful, and one day, the Irish king Matholwch came to seek her hand, asking Bran's permission to marry her.

Bran was all, "Sure, sounds good, then we'll have a nice alliance and it'll be great." But one of his younger half-brothers, Efnisien got mad that he wasn't asked permission too.

So... he killed a bunch of Matholwch's horses. Needless to say, this did not go over well. And Bran was all, "Dude, dude, little bro. Not cool, yo."

So Bran apologized to Matholwch, and offered him a cauldron of regeneration to help patch things up. Matholwch thanked him for the gift, agreed to keep the alliance, and took Branwen as his bride.

At first, things were fine, and Branwen gave birth to a son, Gwern, but a lot of the Irish were still pissed about Efnisien killing their horses, and Branwen took the brunt of their anger.

She started being mistreated, banished to the kitchens and beaten daily, and finally she has enough and tames a starling to send back to Bran and let him know what's happening.

When Bran gets the news about his sister, he is Not Happy, and so, with his brother Manawydan and a GREAT BIG ARMY, he comes to save her.

The Irish are all, "Oh shit, this is bad," and offer to make peace by building him a great big house, which they do. But in the house are a hundred bags, supposedly holding flour, but no, actually an army.

Efnisien is along too, and he's all, "Yeah, I don't trust this." So he goes through and finds the army and smashes all their heads. You'd think this would be enough to stop the war, but...

Remember that cauldron? ...yeah. That complicates things.

And, as if that's not bad enough, Efnisien feels insulted by the planted army so he decides to kill Gwern, you know, his own nephew, at a feast, burning him alive.

So... all hell breaks loose doing that.

Efnisien then realizes, "Oh, maybe I shouldn't have done that." And, having learned that the Irish keep recycling their dead with the cauldron, hides among the bodies until he gets thrown in too.

Thus, he breaks the cauldron from the inside.

He dies in the process.

Now, as for Bran, he's been fighting hard too, and gets mortally wounded. So, he tells his men to cut off his head and take it back home with them. Which they do.

But it does take them awhile to get back. For one thing, only seven people survived (even Branwen died from a broken heart), and they spent 7 years among the Irish, during which time Bran's head talked to them.

But eventually, after like 80 years, they finally bring Bran's head to the white hill of Gwynfryn and bury it there to ward off invasion from France.

The end.

well.

Sorry Bran it's a little creepy your head talked after death. JSYK.

For seven years, no less.

That is not how to get 8ahead* Bran