I have retold this story in my own words - feel free to tell it in yours.
So Llywelyn and his men had to set off from the hunting-lodge without him, and they did not have their usual success. As evening fell, Llywelyn returned to the lodge while his servants stabled the horses. But when he came to the door, to his surprise it had been pushed partly open, and thinking at once about his young son who had been left in the cradle upstairs, he rushed up to find him.
But the sight that met his eyes was not the peaceful scene he had left there that morning; none of the maidservants were there, everything was overturned or smashed or most ominous of all covered in blood. There was the wooden cradle, lying on its side, empty; there were the bed-clothes in a bloody heap, and there was Gelert lying on the floor, his jaws covered in blood and wagging his tail.
Llywelyn did not know why his dog had so betrayed him and attacked the baby boy - hunger or jealousy perhaps - and he did not care. Only revenge mattered, and drawing his sword he stabbed him to the heart. Gelert gave a low moan, but did not move; and there came an answering cry from under the pile of
In memory of his faithful dog, Llywelyn had a grave dug for him, outside his lodge, and erected a carved stone to mark the spot; the village which later grew up nearby was called after this, Beddgelert, the Grave of Gelert.
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About the Story
Although this well-known story is linked with the village of Beddgelert,
at the foot of Snowdon in North Wales, its association with that location only goes back a couple of hundred years.
But even though this 'Beddgelert' version is comparatively modern, the
story itself can be traced a long way back, as Baring-Gould did in his
book Curious Myths of the Middle Ages.
Perhaps the oldest version is that in the famous Indian collection of animal fables known as the Panchatantra. Here a Brahmin rescues a mongoose and takes it home as a pet; one day he comes home to find his baby son missing, and kills the mongoose; only then does he find the huge snake killed by his pet.
A Mongolian version describes how a king, sometimes Genghiz Khan himself, was out hunting with his hawk one day when he came across a spring, and being tired and thirsty he sat down to have a drink. He filled his cup with the clear spring water, but before he could drink it, his falcon knocked over the cup with his wings, spilling the water on the ground. He swore at the bird, and refilled the cup; again, the falcon knocked it over only to be cuffed out of the way. A third time he filled the cup, holding tightly onto it, but the hawk dug his talons into his wrist to make him drop it. This time he drew his sword and cut off its head. One last time he picked up the cup, and only then did he notice on the rock above the spring, a snake sitting, dripping its venom into down into the water; his hawk had been protecting him.