Many, many years ago a long since vanished people raised great mounds or barrows to bury their honoured dead, each one held the body of a great chieftain and his most prized possessions, and the druids laid many strong and potent wards so that they would remain undisturbed for eternity. This story deals with the inhabitant one such barrow, Bryn yr Gwyn, or to render it into the current tongue, Bryn the Blessed. A hero to his people, strong of hand and swift of blade, he fought against all who would raid their livestock or take their lands and people. He rose to lead his tribe, being chosen as their chieftain and crowned with a circlet of iron. As a warrior he was matchless, as a chieftain he was respected for his even handed ways, never brutalising his people, but never shielding them from the realities of their world. But as bright as a fire burns, it soon crumbles to ashes, and so it was with Bryn.

As a matchless warrior he often took the field and sought single combat with the foe's leader, challenging them to a duel to settle the matter, relying on his swift blade to carry the day. One cunning warlord knowing this offered him single combat, but the moment Bryn stepped into the ring archers opened fire leaving him mortally wounded. While the warlord was beaten back Bryn lived only a few days more before passing from the numerous wounds inflicted both by the archers and in the ensuing battle. He was buried with all the dignity that could be accorded one of his valour and rank. The druids laid their blessings on Bryn's body and their curses on the barrow. One druid, thinking of his late chieftain's fierce reputation inscribed on one of the curse stones that rather than the spirits wreaking vengeance on any tomb robber, that Bryn himself would come to reclaim his treasures. And so, wound in fine black sheets he was laid to rest for what was to be all eternity.

Unfortunately time and tomb robbers had other ideas, centuries later his barrow was broken into, sharp spades dug into the hollow chambers where he lay and many artefacts were removed, all they did not take were those items wound inside his grave sheet, the circlet and his sword. That night, for the first time in centuries he stirred, a cold, misty night shrouded the barrow as the fair-haired man looked about him, disorientated, but his mind soon realised the full horror of his new existence. While under the cover of night he looked as he had the day he'd fought his final battle, as dawn broke and the sunlight struck his face it was as if his flesh withered away leaving only a skeleton in tattered rags with an iron crown on its brow, he fled the light into his cold tomb, but even there he was afflicted, his visage, while not the grinning skull that sunlight had revealed, was that of a shrivelled husk, something that should have been long dead but somehow animated still.

He had become what had once been but a myth to his people, a barrow wight.

When night fell again he returned to his human appearance, and wrapping his grave shroud about him like a cloak ventured out into the night to seek for his lost treasures.