MYFANWY

For a pint and a packet of nuts Gareth would sing you Myfanwy and he'd own your heart and soul in return.

In fact, he hadn't bought his own drink for over ten years now, ever since he took over as the resident pub singer in his late father's favourite old pub, The Green Dragon in the little town in North Wales where he lived. There was no ceremonial ritual to formally announce his lineage title in the pub. He just opened his big geg one day as a tribute to his father's passing and out poured his golden honey tones.

From then on, it was written (or sang) as they say.

If his success was demonstrated in the amount of pints he'd drank each time he'd sang Myfanwy then his gargantuan gut was a true reflection of it also. In fact the transaction of drink for song had become as much a curse as it was a blessing and Gareth sometimes wondered if he should ask for some other form of currency (other than liquid) by way of payment.

If Orpheus, the god of music, had drank as much as Gareth perhaps he wouldn't have even met his Eurydice in the first place, preferring to stay sequested on his favourite plush red velvet seat by the fire in the pub instead. It would have spared him a lot of heartbreak in the underworld, but then again, Gareth always suspected it was better to have loved and lost than never to have sunk a pint at all.

Women did fall under his spell for those brief few minutes while he spun his vocal magic in the Green Dragon, but that was the extent of their infatuation. His power of enchantment was sufficent for him to feel enough of a god before counting his remaining nuts on the ripped foil packet laid out before him.

But what many didn't know was the reason he'd taken to drinking in the first place was due to having his own heart broken by his very own Myfanwy/Eurydice. Her name was Aelwyn and she was the landlord's daughter of the rival pub The Red Fortress. She was as likely to enter the Dragon as he was likely to cross the road to the Fortress. But every man, woman and their mangy dogs in the village knew he sang for her each time he sang Myfanwy and that only made his unique rendition all the more poignant.

Having lost her hand to Gruffydd, the big bully prop for the local rugby team, Gareth vowed never to love again after Aelwyn left him for the old bruiser that new year's eve night twenty years ago at the village fireworks. He never forgot the promises she'd made to him before he discovered the couple kissing in the urine scented derelict bus shelter while catherine wheels fizzed and whizzed in the night sky behind them, symbolically sealing their fate.

"What you drinking Gar?" Tom, a handsome young youth in his 20's, asked him.

"Buckly."

Tom nodded.

"What about you, Tom? What do you fancy?"

"Myfanywy's a good one."

Gareth smiled. He must have broken the world record for the amount of times he'd sung this one song.

As Tom went to the bar to get the singer's pint, Gareth closed his eyes, accompanied only by the sound of the crackling fire nearby and began to sing the song from the deep depths of his soul as the Green Dragon fell into a hushed silence.

He imagined that magical day when Aelwyn would finally return to him and they would be together again for the rest of their days.

Paham mae dicter, O Myfanwy,
Yn llenwi'th lygaid duon di?
A'th ruddiau tirion, O Myfanwy,
Heb wrido wrth fy ngweled i?
Pa le mae'r wên oedd ar dy wefus
Fu'n cynnau 'nghariad ffyddlon ffôl?
Pa le mae sain dy eiriau melys,
Fu'n denu'n nghalon ar dy ôl?