With her two new harps Gwilan made all sorts of music.

She played at all festivities and funerals in the neighborhood, and with the musician’s fees she bought good strings; not Uliad’s strings, though. for Uliad was in his grave before her second child was born. If there was a music day nearby she went to it with Torm. She would not play in the competitions, not for fear of losing, but because she was not a harper now, and if they did not know it, she did. So they had her judge the competitions, which she did well and mercilessly.

Often in the early years musicians would stop by on thier travels and stay two or three nights at Torm; with them she would play the Hunts of Orioth, the Dances of Cail, the difficult and learned music of the North, and learn from them the new songs.

Even in winter evenings there was music in the house of Torm; she playing the harp–usually the three-heifers one, sometimes the fretful Southerner–and Torm’s good tenor voice, and the boys singing, first in sweet treble, later on in husky unreliable baritone; and one of the farm’s men was a lively fiddler; and the shepherd Keth, when he was there, played on the pipes, though he could never tune them to anyone else’s note.

“It’s our own music day tonight,” Gwilan would say. Put another log on the fire, Torm, and sing ‘The Green Leaves’ with me, and the boys will take the descant.”

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Question to Ponder: Have you ever given up on a dream? What was it? Why did you let it go?

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Next time: “The Unrelenting March of Time and Change”