Read Online The Castle of Llyr by Lloyd Alexander - Free Book Online

potions.”
    â€œPotions!” cried Fflewddur. “Great Belin, that’s something we’ve little use for!”
    Taran, nevertheless, continued to scan and sort the pages. “Wait, I think I’ve found the name of whoever wrote them. Glew, it looks like. And the potions, as it says here, are to”—his voice faltered and he turned anxiously to Fflewddur—“to make yourself grow bigger. What can this mean?”

    â€œHow’s that?” asked the bard. “Bigger? Are you sure you haven’t read it wrong?” He took the pages from Taran’s hand and examined them carefully himself. When he had finished, he gave a low whistle.
    â€œIn my wanderings,” said Fflewddur, “I’ve managed to learn a number of things, not least of which is don’t meddle. I fear that’s exactly what this fellow Glew did. Indeed, what he sought was a potion to make himself bigger and stronger. If those are Glew’s boots over there,” he added, pointing to the corner, “he surely needed one, for he must have been a little fellow.”
    Half hidden by leaves, a pair of well-worn boots lay on their side. They were hardly large enough to fit a child and seemed, to Taran, pitiful in their smallness and emptiness.
    â€œHe must have been painstaking,” Fflewddur went on. “I’ll say that much for him. He describes everything he did, and set down all his recipes, quite carefully and methodically. As for his ingredients,” the bard said, making a sour face, “I should rather not think about them.”
    â€œI say,” Prince Rhun eagerly interrupted, “perhaps we should try them ourselves. It would be interesting to see what happens.”
    â€œNo, no!” Gurgi shouted. “Gurgi wants no tastings of nasty lotions and potions!”
    â€œNor do I,” said Fflewddur. “And neither did Glew, for the matter of that. He had no wish to drink his concoctions until he had some hope they’d work—for which I can’t blame him in the least. He went about it very cleverly.
    â€œAs I gather from what he’s written down here,” continued the bard, “he went out and trapped a mountain cat—a small one, I should think, since Glew himself was such a small person. He
brought her back, put her in a cage, and fed her his potions as fast as he could cook them up.”
    â€œPoor creature,” said Taran.
    â€œIndeed,” agreed the bard. “I shouldn’t have liked to be in her place. Yet he must have grown fond enough of her to give her a name. Here, he’s written it down. Llyan. Apart from feeding her those dreadful messes, I expect he didn’t treat her badly. She might even have been company for him, living alone as he did.
    â€œAt last it happened,” Fflewddur went on. “You can see by his writing how excited Glew must have been. Llyan began to grow. Glew mentions he was obliged to make a new cage for her. And still another. How pleased he must have been. I can easily imagine the little fellow chuckling and brewing away for all he was worth.”
    Fflewddur turned to the last page. “And so it ends,” he said, “where the mice have eaten the parchment. They’ve done away with Glew’s last recipe. As for Glew and Llyan—they’ve vanished along with it.”
    Taran was silent looking at the empty boots and overturned cookpots. “Glew certainly is gone,” he said thoughtfully, “but I have a feeling he didn’t go far.”
    â€œHow’s that?” asked the bard. “Oh, I take your meaning,” he said, shuddering. “Yes, it does look rather—shall I say, sudden? As I see Glew, he was a neat and orderly sort. He would hardly go off leaving his hut as it is now. Without his boots at that. Poor little fellow,” he sighed. “It only proves the dangers of meddling. For all his pains, Glew must have got himself gobbled