An
American travel writer is stranded aboard a train in Wales by a sudden
snowstorm. A local man tells him the country was originally called Gwynedd and
offers to tell him a story:
Rhodri
of Gwynedd stole the wife of a Norseman who came with his army to take her
back. There was a skirmish but the Welsh men appealed to the Red Dragon of
Dolgellau, Y Ddraig Goch. They supplied him with four young women as a
sacrifice, asking him to fight for their people. So the Dragon ate the
sacrifices and flew out to slaughter the Norsemen. They were all killed but one
managed to send a prayer to his gods before he died….
And
so, the Norse gods arrived: Thor, Odin, Vidar, Balder, Heimdall, Hermod, and
Agnar the Fierce. There is a battle occupying half the issue, ending with the
Dragon defeated. But Odin stops Thor from killing such a cunning and mighty
foe. Odin exacts a promise: the Dragon will stop requiring blood sacrifices and
have Rhodri return the woman he stole….
The
local man reaches his stop and gets up to leave. The American wants to know
what happened next. The local says that Rhodri tasted better than the women.
Stunned, the American rushes after him but only sees the dragon flying off into
the distance….