Epona's Horse

When I stated in a previous post that the Irish King Niall stayed at the inn called Epona's Horse, I was in fact rereading a passage about an earlier visitor to Ys, the Northman Gunnung Ivarsson. However, Niall, on his arrival, does take a room at Epona's Horse so I had not gone far wrong.

Epona's Horse is frequented by "...moderately prosperous foreigners and Ysan commoners." (Poul and Karen Anderson, Dahut (London, 1989), p. 368). The tile floor of the taproom is warmed by a hypocaust. Tallow candles and blubber lamps light murals of both real and fabulous animals. Owned and managed by a large family, the inn serves good food and a wide choice of drinks whereas the Fish Tail inn that we encountered earlier was limited to mead and indifferent wine. Niall and the fisher captain Maeloch, sharing ale, bread and cheese, are too engrossed in conversation to heed a nearby courtesan.

By describing not just one but several inns catering to various classes of clients with different income levels, the authors make Ys a substantial setting for the political, psychological and even theological dramas that are the plot of the novel. By drawing out Maeloch, who is an acquaintance of the disaffected Queen Dahut, Niall, a mortal enemy of Ys, begins to learn how he can manipulate Dahut as she has already manipulated three unsuccessful challengers to her father's Kingship. Thus, while the reader enjoys reading about a conversational interlude in the "...snug cave..." of the taproom, the plot is at the same time significantly advanced. (p. 368)