Friday, February 20, 2009
What is this?
This is a selection of sample chapters from my books Storyteller and Flight of the Hawk (both copyright 2007 by G. R. Grove). The selections from Storyteller, the first book, start here. The selection from Flight of the Hawk, the second book, starts here.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Storyteller: Chapter 1 - Ghosts
Blood and fire, gold and steel and poetry, a river’s voice in the silence of the night, and the shining strings of a harp—all these and more I have known in my time. Steep mountains, dark forests, and the endless song of the rain; music and laughter and feasting in the fire-bright halls of kings; a dusty road, and a fast horse, and a good friend beside me; and the sweet taste of the mead of Dun Eidyn, with its bitter after-math: a dragon’s hoard of memories I have gathered, bright-colored as a long summer’s day. Now they are all gone, the men and women I knew when I was young, gone like words on the wind, and I am left here in the twilight to tell you their tale. Sit, then, and listen if you will to the words of Gwernin Kyuarwyd, called Storyteller.
The place which men name Caerllion, the City of the Legions, lies on the low banks of the river Wysg not far from the sea in south Wales. Even when I first came there it was ruinous, and that was a long lifetime ago. But many men’s lifetimes had already passed since the Eagles who built it flew south from Britain and left us on our own, to sink or swim as we could against the Saxon tide. Arthur held them for a while, checked their advance and forced them back into their beachheads of the south and east, and gave us time to breathe. But Arthur died at Camlann three years before I was born, and how long now we can hold the crumbling sea wall he built is anyone’s guess. Many a kingdom has gone under already; many a fair fortress lies now beneath that wave. I wonder if I shall not, before I die, see my fair Pengwern herself laid waste, and Cynan’s halls home to the wolf and the raven…
But I was speaking of Caerllion, and the wonder that lies there. I saw it first on a mild evening in late spring, when my friend Ieuan and I came humping our packs over the last hill-crest to the east, and saw the hearth-smoke rising from amongst the gray stone ruins at either end of the bridge. Time had not treated Caerllion kindly; the villagers’ huts for the most part were reed-thatched shells of houses that had once been crowned in red tile, with wattle and daub filling gaps here and there in their crumbling walls. Only a few buildings near the river gate were still in use; the rest of that stone-walled enclosure was full of broken rubble half grown up in alder and oak scrub, a tangled wilderness where once were only the straight lines that the Romans so loved. In the midst of it all crouched a great brown block like a small hill, its top green with grasses and willow-herb, a silent presence brooding over all the rest. Tumble-down walls and fortresses I had seen before—indeed, I was born in one, though I remember little enough of it, before the Black Year came to sweep away that life and send me to my aunt’s house in Pengwern—but this was something new, beyond my previous experience, and as always I hungered to know more.
First, however, there was the question of lodgings for the night. The inn at the east end of the bridge was still open and doing business, and there Ieuan and I made our way. It seemed strange to me, new to the road as I was, to be paying for the food and lodging which my people would have given freely to any passing traveler, but as Ieuan had explained to me, such a small place, home to no great lord, and yet located on one of the main trackways used by the merchant-kind, could not be affording unpaid hospitality to all comers. Besides, the excellence of the landlord’s ale was legendary, and well worth the small coins we exchanged for it and our supper, with the promise of more to come if my tales pleased an audience that night.
After we had struck our bargain, and eaten our supper of stew and barley bread, washed down by some of that famous ale, I left my friend chatting amiably in the tap-room and wandered out again, heading for the great ruinous hulk that had earlier caught my eye. Baths, the landlord had called them, built like everything else here by the Romans. Palaces, I thought, as I stood staring up at them from the edge of a patch of waste ground, might have been a better term. Fully two-score paces in length and perhaps half as wide, and tall as the lordliest ash tree that graces the slopes of Powys, the Baths dwarfed any king’s house that I had yet seen. Their towering walls gazed back at me out of the twilight, pieced with dark window-openings that gaped like empty eyes. I returned their stare thoughtfully, but curiosity still won out.
Crossing the waste ground where the soldiers had raced and wrestled, I picked my way forward over broken stone, clogged with blown dirt and white with bird droppings, until I stood within the gloomy vault itself. Around me the red-brick walls rose up, towering into owl-haunted cliffs and caverns, while beneath them the scummy pools of the baths themselves lay gleaming here and there like tarnished mirrors. There was a strong smell of must and decay, and a sense of ghosts watching from behind one’s shoulder. Almost it might have been the mouth of a fairy mound, a gateway to Annwn itself, and the wonders that lay there—or so I thought at the time.
The silence was eerie, with a faint echo in it as of the wind, or the sea in a shell, or distant music, so that when a bit of stone dislodged by who-knows-what dropped from somewhere above and plopped into one of the pools near me, I jumped, and stumbling on the uneven footing, found myself almost over the edge before I knew it. As I teetered on the brink, I dimly saw a leering face with snakes for hair peering out at me from among the broken tiles at my feet, and in the roof above me I heard a rustle of wings.
Then the owl came gliding down, silent as a ghost. Like a pale shadow she came, and passed so close I could feel the chill breath of her wings as they stroked the air, and see her golden eyes, bright in the white mask of her face. She sailed through one of the empty window-vaults and was gone, and the huge cold room seemed the darker and more threatening for her leaving. Yet I stood my ground for a moment more, waiting for I knew not what. And at last it came, one white feather floating slowly down to land at my feet. I bent and picked it up. It lay light in my hand, soft and weightless as a scrap of silk, real as a memory. I put it in my belt-pouch for safety, and came away; I had seen enough to slake my curios-ity for that night. Behind me in the darkness I could feel the ghosts of the soldiers still watching as I went, but they were silent.
Outside the twilight seemed bright as day by compari-son, the air incredibly fresh and sweet—heavy though it was with the evening scents of wood-smoke and cow byres. I looked back once from the bridge at the towering ruin, looming against the last of the sunset like a young hill. Already those who should know better are beginning to say that the Baths are really the ruins of Arthur’s Palace, built for him in the space of a night by magic. Built, so they say, by the King’s Bard himself, using nothing but harp-song and moonlight, and a strong spider’s-web of spells to bind it all in place. Traveler’s tales, or stories for children, but still… On that quiet evening it almost seemed possible. And who should know better than I what feats music may encompass? That night I earned my ale in the tap-room with the tale of Gwydion the Magician and Blodeuwedd, the woman—if she was a woman—who became an owl. And later, in my sleep, I could swear I heard the beat of ghostly wings.
All of this seems a small story to relate, a small thing to remember after so many years. And yet it sticks in my mind for many reasons, not least because of what came after, when I came to know in truth, in bone and blood and spirit, the real cost and meaning of the Gates of Annwn.
But that, O my children, is a story for another day.
(Chapter 1 from Storyteller, Copyright 2007 by G. R. Grove.)
The place which men name Caerllion, the City of the Legions, lies on the low banks of the river Wysg not far from the sea in south Wales. Even when I first came there it was ruinous, and that was a long lifetime ago. But many men’s lifetimes had already passed since the Eagles who built it flew south from Britain and left us on our own, to sink or swim as we could against the Saxon tide. Arthur held them for a while, checked their advance and forced them back into their beachheads of the south and east, and gave us time to breathe. But Arthur died at Camlann three years before I was born, and how long now we can hold the crumbling sea wall he built is anyone’s guess. Many a kingdom has gone under already; many a fair fortress lies now beneath that wave. I wonder if I shall not, before I die, see my fair Pengwern herself laid waste, and Cynan’s halls home to the wolf and the raven…
But I was speaking of Caerllion, and the wonder that lies there. I saw it first on a mild evening in late spring, when my friend Ieuan and I came humping our packs over the last hill-crest to the east, and saw the hearth-smoke rising from amongst the gray stone ruins at either end of the bridge. Time had not treated Caerllion kindly; the villagers’ huts for the most part were reed-thatched shells of houses that had once been crowned in red tile, with wattle and daub filling gaps here and there in their crumbling walls. Only a few buildings near the river gate were still in use; the rest of that stone-walled enclosure was full of broken rubble half grown up in alder and oak scrub, a tangled wilderness where once were only the straight lines that the Romans so loved. In the midst of it all crouched a great brown block like a small hill, its top green with grasses and willow-herb, a silent presence brooding over all the rest. Tumble-down walls and fortresses I had seen before—indeed, I was born in one, though I remember little enough of it, before the Black Year came to sweep away that life and send me to my aunt’s house in Pengwern—but this was something new, beyond my previous experience, and as always I hungered to know more.
First, however, there was the question of lodgings for the night. The inn at the east end of the bridge was still open and doing business, and there Ieuan and I made our way. It seemed strange to me, new to the road as I was, to be paying for the food and lodging which my people would have given freely to any passing traveler, but as Ieuan had explained to me, such a small place, home to no great lord, and yet located on one of the main trackways used by the merchant-kind, could not be affording unpaid hospitality to all comers. Besides, the excellence of the landlord’s ale was legendary, and well worth the small coins we exchanged for it and our supper, with the promise of more to come if my tales pleased an audience that night.
After we had struck our bargain, and eaten our supper of stew and barley bread, washed down by some of that famous ale, I left my friend chatting amiably in the tap-room and wandered out again, heading for the great ruinous hulk that had earlier caught my eye. Baths, the landlord had called them, built like everything else here by the Romans. Palaces, I thought, as I stood staring up at them from the edge of a patch of waste ground, might have been a better term. Fully two-score paces in length and perhaps half as wide, and tall as the lordliest ash tree that graces the slopes of Powys, the Baths dwarfed any king’s house that I had yet seen. Their towering walls gazed back at me out of the twilight, pieced with dark window-openings that gaped like empty eyes. I returned their stare thoughtfully, but curiosity still won out.
Crossing the waste ground where the soldiers had raced and wrestled, I picked my way forward over broken stone, clogged with blown dirt and white with bird droppings, until I stood within the gloomy vault itself. Around me the red-brick walls rose up, towering into owl-haunted cliffs and caverns, while beneath them the scummy pools of the baths themselves lay gleaming here and there like tarnished mirrors. There was a strong smell of must and decay, and a sense of ghosts watching from behind one’s shoulder. Almost it might have been the mouth of a fairy mound, a gateway to Annwn itself, and the wonders that lay there—or so I thought at the time.
The silence was eerie, with a faint echo in it as of the wind, or the sea in a shell, or distant music, so that when a bit of stone dislodged by who-knows-what dropped from somewhere above and plopped into one of the pools near me, I jumped, and stumbling on the uneven footing, found myself almost over the edge before I knew it. As I teetered on the brink, I dimly saw a leering face with snakes for hair peering out at me from among the broken tiles at my feet, and in the roof above me I heard a rustle of wings.
Then the owl came gliding down, silent as a ghost. Like a pale shadow she came, and passed so close I could feel the chill breath of her wings as they stroked the air, and see her golden eyes, bright in the white mask of her face. She sailed through one of the empty window-vaults and was gone, and the huge cold room seemed the darker and more threatening for her leaving. Yet I stood my ground for a moment more, waiting for I knew not what. And at last it came, one white feather floating slowly down to land at my feet. I bent and picked it up. It lay light in my hand, soft and weightless as a scrap of silk, real as a memory. I put it in my belt-pouch for safety, and came away; I had seen enough to slake my curios-ity for that night. Behind me in the darkness I could feel the ghosts of the soldiers still watching as I went, but they were silent.
Outside the twilight seemed bright as day by compari-son, the air incredibly fresh and sweet—heavy though it was with the evening scents of wood-smoke and cow byres. I looked back once from the bridge at the towering ruin, looming against the last of the sunset like a young hill. Already those who should know better are beginning to say that the Baths are really the ruins of Arthur’s Palace, built for him in the space of a night by magic. Built, so they say, by the King’s Bard himself, using nothing but harp-song and moonlight, and a strong spider’s-web of spells to bind it all in place. Traveler’s tales, or stories for children, but still… On that quiet evening it almost seemed possible. And who should know better than I what feats music may encompass? That night I earned my ale in the tap-room with the tale of Gwydion the Magician and Blodeuwedd, the woman—if she was a woman—who became an owl. And later, in my sleep, I could swear I heard the beat of ghostly wings.
All of this seems a small story to relate, a small thing to remember after so many years. And yet it sticks in my mind for many reasons, not least because of what came after, when I came to know in truth, in bone and blood and spirit, the real cost and meaning of the Gates of Annwn.
But that, O my children, is a story for another day.
(Chapter 1 from Storyteller, Copyright 2007 by G. R. Grove.)
Monday, February 9, 2009
Storyteller: Chapter 2 - The Cloak-Clasp
Nowadays I often find, looking back, that the years and journeys blend together, so I can no longer be sure as to which time or place many of my memories belong. One day on the road is much like many another, within the usual gamut of heat and cold, dust and mud, sun and rain and snow; one rough lodging much like the next. Even the faces blend together over the years, various and individual though they all are: bright with interest in my performance, or dull with boredom; young or old, sober or drunken, ill or well. But at the time of which I speak, I was still new to the road and to my trade, and every day was an adventure, every night a fresh excitement as I stretched my growing abilities. So it was with Caer Dydd, my first big festival. Every detail of it is still clear in my mind, bright as a fresh-opened flower, not only for its own sake, but also for what came after.
We arrived there on a fine spring day, not long after our stop at Caerllion. Indeed, it was for Caer Dydd we had been making all the while, and the great Beltane fair that was held there every spring, when the roads and the seas first opened to travelers and traders. Many of them came, as we did, to set up their booths by the strand, and there I first stared open-mouthed at two things I had never seen before: the sea, and the ships that lived and traveled on her back.
It was the sea that caught me first: the sea of which I had heard so often in the tales. On the sea the Romans had come to Britain, and over it they had sailed away. On the sea Maxen Wledig had come to us, and over it he had gone when he left, taking many of our warriors with him to settle Less Britain. Yes, and older still: Brân the Blesséd had crossed the sea to rescue his sister from Ireland, and into the sea had gone Dylan ail Ton after his birth, to bide there with his great seal father, and rule over it in his turn. And over the sea, more prosaically, had come the foreign traders with their bright wares to the Beltane fair at Caer Dydd.
That afternoon the sea near the mouth of the Severn stretched broad and blue away from me, wind-ruffled into short sharp waves, hiding infinite possibilities. The tide was out, and the smell of mud and fish and seaweed, and who knows what besides, was strong on the warm spring air, and the sky above loud with the crying of gulls. Three or four small boats were lying beached on the mud, while other larger ships swung at anchor some way out. Above the tide-line fishermen and traders alike had set up booths and tents, and a busy market was already in progress.
I followed Ieuan as he worked his way through the crowd—a thin crowd as yet, for it was early in the fair—looking for a place to set out his wares. This early in the year his stock consisted mostly of small, light items of bone and horn and wood—double-sided combs, elaborately carved and decorated; pins for the cloak or the hair, painted or wound with wire; cases for bronze needles; and small trinket boxes for a lady’s treasures. Rings, too, he had, and a few bracelets, fashioned of twisted copper or silver wire. Ieuan himself had made most of them during the winter, working steadily through the short days and long nights by the fire. Now he would trade them, if he could, for other small, light things of greater value, brought by the traders from overseas, to carry with us on our travels and sell or trade again along the way. Not until autumn would we go home to Pengwern.
In the meantime, here at Caer Dydd, there was the Bel-tane fair to enjoy, and the competitions to look forward to. Christian though these lands were then, at least in name, yet most of us held also by the old festivals, which are the rhythm of the land and the seasons. And Beltane has always been one of the Great Festivals, the spring festival that follows the first plowing. There would be days and days of celebration, and meat and drink in plenty; plenty of employ-ment, too, for storytellers and minstrels such as we.
Whether because of its position on the coast of south Wales, a popular landfall for traders on their way to Ireland, or because there had already been a settlement there when the Romans came, Caer Dydd had fared better than her sister Caerllion, having been taken over by the local chief as a strongpoint rather than being left to fall to ruin. Some of the buildings in the fort had been maintained, and it was in one of these, on the last night before Beltane, that a storytelling competition took place: for as you know, many tales—Winter-tales—should only to be told in the dark half of the year, between Samhain and Beltane. There it was that I first stood up to speak in contest, to be judged against my peers.
Well I remember the flickering firelight on the roughly plastered walls and blackened roof-beams of that hall, and on the watching faces of my audience, glinting on here a fine shoulder-brooch, and there a gilded bracelet, as the owners moved. I remember the patter of rain on the roof-tiles, and the barking of dogs outside the hall, and the smell of the blue wood-smoke from the central hearth-fire that eddied now and then into my face and stung my eyes. I remember the listening silence of that crowd of men and women and children, broken from time to time by a cough or the scrape of a bench, and the beating excitement in me, half fear and half exaltation, as I first told my tale before so many, weaving with all my skill a net of words to catch and hold their interest.
I wish I could say that I won that contest, but I am sworn to keep to truth in these tales, so far as the truth may be known—for often it seems to me to change with the observer. No, I did not win, but my performance was well received, and toasted afterwards by one of the local lords, who gave me a ring-brooch from his own shoulder in token of his approval. A simple thing it was, but pleasant, made of good bronze, with a red enamel design covering the two terminals of the ring and the base of the pin. It had been fashioned at his own court of Dinas Powys, a short journey to the south and west from Caer Dydd. I wonder now, looking back, if it was not my choice of a tale told often in his home country that commended me to him as much as my expertise. However that may be, it was my first such moment of recognition, and shines the brighter in my memory be-cause of it. Though I have since had many finer jewels, I still keep that brooch as a talisman. Worth is not always measured in weight of gold.
It was the same Lord Dafydd of Dinas Powys who that night issued a general invitation to all the bards and storytell-ers there to join him at his court for a few days after the fair ended. “For,” he said, “it is seldom I have the enjoyment of such an array of riches as you have spread before me here, and I would fain keep it for a little longer. Moreover, I currently have no bard in my hall, and must needs chose one soon,” and he grinned, “least my word-fame be lost, and my name vanish with me.”
So it happened that on the day after the fair Ieuan and I and several others were making our way up the steep track which led to Dinas Powys, a track deep-rutted from the wagon-loads of wine-barrels and oil-jars that had come up from the harbor earlier in the week to gladden the hearts of the merchant-kind. Ieuan was in a good mood for a change, for his trading had gone well, and our packs rode the lighter on our shoulders for it. He was a quiet man as a rule, given to gloomy silences, but that day he spoke more than usual, asking the others with us about their travels, and about the temper of the country that spring.
“Quiet enough so far,” said Kyan Goch, a red-headed man from Dumnonia in southwest Britain. “The Saxons will likely be stirring again before long, though. Still, I suppose we should be grateful for such peace as we have.”
“Ah, but where is the glory in peace?” asked another. “No warfare, no glory; no glory, no need for bards to sing it; no need for bards, and we are on the road again!” And he laughed.
“Na, there will always be need for bards,” said Kyan. “If not to sing the warriors’ deeds now, then to remember those who fought before, and teach those who will fight afterwards the way of it. There is always need for songs of Arthur, and Maxen Wledig, and those who went before. One way and another, there must always be bards, as long as the earth stands, and the stars shine above, and the gray sea surrounds us. We are like the pin in the cloak-clasp,” and he touched the great brooch on his shoulder, “the smallest, plainest part, and yet without it the brooch falls away and is lost, and the cloak with it, and the man perishes from the cold. So is it with us. If the bards should ever take the druids’ road west, it would be a black day for the Cymry, for what is there to hold a people together who do not remember their past?”
No one answered him, for we had reached the top, and the hospitality of Dinas Powys awaited us.
But that, O my children, is a story for another day.
(Chapter 2 from Storyteller, copyright 2007 by G. R. Grove)
We arrived there on a fine spring day, not long after our stop at Caerllion. Indeed, it was for Caer Dydd we had been making all the while, and the great Beltane fair that was held there every spring, when the roads and the seas first opened to travelers and traders. Many of them came, as we did, to set up their booths by the strand, and there I first stared open-mouthed at two things I had never seen before: the sea, and the ships that lived and traveled on her back.
It was the sea that caught me first: the sea of which I had heard so often in the tales. On the sea the Romans had come to Britain, and over it they had sailed away. On the sea Maxen Wledig had come to us, and over it he had gone when he left, taking many of our warriors with him to settle Less Britain. Yes, and older still: Brân the Blesséd had crossed the sea to rescue his sister from Ireland, and into the sea had gone Dylan ail Ton after his birth, to bide there with his great seal father, and rule over it in his turn. And over the sea, more prosaically, had come the foreign traders with their bright wares to the Beltane fair at Caer Dydd.
That afternoon the sea near the mouth of the Severn stretched broad and blue away from me, wind-ruffled into short sharp waves, hiding infinite possibilities. The tide was out, and the smell of mud and fish and seaweed, and who knows what besides, was strong on the warm spring air, and the sky above loud with the crying of gulls. Three or four small boats were lying beached on the mud, while other larger ships swung at anchor some way out. Above the tide-line fishermen and traders alike had set up booths and tents, and a busy market was already in progress.
I followed Ieuan as he worked his way through the crowd—a thin crowd as yet, for it was early in the fair—looking for a place to set out his wares. This early in the year his stock consisted mostly of small, light items of bone and horn and wood—double-sided combs, elaborately carved and decorated; pins for the cloak or the hair, painted or wound with wire; cases for bronze needles; and small trinket boxes for a lady’s treasures. Rings, too, he had, and a few bracelets, fashioned of twisted copper or silver wire. Ieuan himself had made most of them during the winter, working steadily through the short days and long nights by the fire. Now he would trade them, if he could, for other small, light things of greater value, brought by the traders from overseas, to carry with us on our travels and sell or trade again along the way. Not until autumn would we go home to Pengwern.
In the meantime, here at Caer Dydd, there was the Bel-tane fair to enjoy, and the competitions to look forward to. Christian though these lands were then, at least in name, yet most of us held also by the old festivals, which are the rhythm of the land and the seasons. And Beltane has always been one of the Great Festivals, the spring festival that follows the first plowing. There would be days and days of celebration, and meat and drink in plenty; plenty of employ-ment, too, for storytellers and minstrels such as we.
Whether because of its position on the coast of south Wales, a popular landfall for traders on their way to Ireland, or because there had already been a settlement there when the Romans came, Caer Dydd had fared better than her sister Caerllion, having been taken over by the local chief as a strongpoint rather than being left to fall to ruin. Some of the buildings in the fort had been maintained, and it was in one of these, on the last night before Beltane, that a storytelling competition took place: for as you know, many tales—Winter-tales—should only to be told in the dark half of the year, between Samhain and Beltane. There it was that I first stood up to speak in contest, to be judged against my peers.
Well I remember the flickering firelight on the roughly plastered walls and blackened roof-beams of that hall, and on the watching faces of my audience, glinting on here a fine shoulder-brooch, and there a gilded bracelet, as the owners moved. I remember the patter of rain on the roof-tiles, and the barking of dogs outside the hall, and the smell of the blue wood-smoke from the central hearth-fire that eddied now and then into my face and stung my eyes. I remember the listening silence of that crowd of men and women and children, broken from time to time by a cough or the scrape of a bench, and the beating excitement in me, half fear and half exaltation, as I first told my tale before so many, weaving with all my skill a net of words to catch and hold their interest.
I wish I could say that I won that contest, but I am sworn to keep to truth in these tales, so far as the truth may be known—for often it seems to me to change with the observer. No, I did not win, but my performance was well received, and toasted afterwards by one of the local lords, who gave me a ring-brooch from his own shoulder in token of his approval. A simple thing it was, but pleasant, made of good bronze, with a red enamel design covering the two terminals of the ring and the base of the pin. It had been fashioned at his own court of Dinas Powys, a short journey to the south and west from Caer Dydd. I wonder now, looking back, if it was not my choice of a tale told often in his home country that commended me to him as much as my expertise. However that may be, it was my first such moment of recognition, and shines the brighter in my memory be-cause of it. Though I have since had many finer jewels, I still keep that brooch as a talisman. Worth is not always measured in weight of gold.
It was the same Lord Dafydd of Dinas Powys who that night issued a general invitation to all the bards and storytell-ers there to join him at his court for a few days after the fair ended. “For,” he said, “it is seldom I have the enjoyment of such an array of riches as you have spread before me here, and I would fain keep it for a little longer. Moreover, I currently have no bard in my hall, and must needs chose one soon,” and he grinned, “least my word-fame be lost, and my name vanish with me.”
So it happened that on the day after the fair Ieuan and I and several others were making our way up the steep track which led to Dinas Powys, a track deep-rutted from the wagon-loads of wine-barrels and oil-jars that had come up from the harbor earlier in the week to gladden the hearts of the merchant-kind. Ieuan was in a good mood for a change, for his trading had gone well, and our packs rode the lighter on our shoulders for it. He was a quiet man as a rule, given to gloomy silences, but that day he spoke more than usual, asking the others with us about their travels, and about the temper of the country that spring.
“Quiet enough so far,” said Kyan Goch, a red-headed man from Dumnonia in southwest Britain. “The Saxons will likely be stirring again before long, though. Still, I suppose we should be grateful for such peace as we have.”
“Ah, but where is the glory in peace?” asked another. “No warfare, no glory; no glory, no need for bards to sing it; no need for bards, and we are on the road again!” And he laughed.
“Na, there will always be need for bards,” said Kyan. “If not to sing the warriors’ deeds now, then to remember those who fought before, and teach those who will fight afterwards the way of it. There is always need for songs of Arthur, and Maxen Wledig, and those who went before. One way and another, there must always be bards, as long as the earth stands, and the stars shine above, and the gray sea surrounds us. We are like the pin in the cloak-clasp,” and he touched the great brooch on his shoulder, “the smallest, plainest part, and yet without it the brooch falls away and is lost, and the cloak with it, and the man perishes from the cold. So is it with us. If the bards should ever take the druids’ road west, it would be a black day for the Cymry, for what is there to hold a people together who do not remember their past?”
No one answered him, for we had reached the top, and the hospitality of Dinas Powys awaited us.
But that, O my children, is a story for another day.
(Chapter 2 from Storyteller, copyright 2007 by G. R. Grove)
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Storyteller: Chapter 3 - The Power of Names
What power lies in a name? Gwernin Kyuarwyd am I, Gwernin Storyteller. So have I said before. And yet I practice all the bardic arts, so far as I am able—poetry and song and harping, as well as storytelling and the recitation of lore. So why do I call myself Gwernin Kyuarwyd, Gwernin Storyteller, and not Gwernin Fardd, Gwernin the Bard?
Modesty, perhaps. Or a stronger regard for the truth than some display. But mostly for another reason, of which I intend to tell you now.
The feasting at Dinas Powys was behind us, and we were on the road again. Fine indeed had it been while it lasted, for though the Lord Dafydd’s hall was smaller than some I have since seen, his table was bountiful—roast meat in plenty, both cow’s and pig’s flesh; made dishes in the old Roman style; flat wheaten loaves from the bake-stones; barrels of red Gallic wine; and great pitchers of the clear honey-sweet mead with its faintly bitter aftertaste, which seems to light all the world like a golden lantern while it lasts.
Half a dozen bards had performed, all eager to fill the empty chair of the household bard at this wealthy court, and all the other performers got a turn as well, and a gift of silver afterwards for their pains, myself included. Mine was a bracelet in the Saxon style, and not the least by any means of the presents given. I got, too, a word of praise and encouragement from Kyan Goch, which I valued above the silver; he it was who won the bards’ contention, and stayed on as the new household bard to the Lord Dafydd. I was glad for his good luck, but sorry to lose the chance of his company on the road, for he seemed more friendly and less full of self-pride than some of the bards there—more friendly, at least, to me…
All and all, then, I was thinking very well of myself by the time Ieuan and I set out on our travels again. Westward the two of us were going, toward Dyfed, following the Romans’ old paved road which runs straight as a arrow from Caer Dydd to Maridunum, or Caer Myrddin as it is sometimes called nowadays. As one often does, we fell in with a number of other folk who were also following that road on their way home from the festival. What with the bright spring morning, and my recent moments of triumph, I was in high spirits, and kept the company entertained as we went with jokes and riddles and tales. I mind there was one little fair-haired girl in particular who seemed very taken with me, or at least with my stories. She walked close beside me to hear them, and I was not sorry, for her bright eyes made me feel taller and stronger and wiser, maybe, than I was, or was ever like to be. Ah, well, we were young, and it did no one any harm.
As the day went on, most of the folk dropped away from us, turning off to north or south toward their homes, until at last, when afternoon was fading into evening, there was none left but myself, and Ieuan, and one gray old man. I had not talked much with him earlier, being taken up with my own brilliance, but now I turned my attention to him for lack of any other audience (Ieuan being a silent type on the road, and not likely to be impressed with me anyway).
“And where are you bound, sir?” I asked him as we drew near to the village of Y Bont Faen, where the Roman’s stone bridge spans the little river Thaw, and where we were hoping to get lodging for the night.
“To Maridunum, near which I live.” His speech was that of an educated man, despite his shabby tunic and faded brown cloak, and I looked at him with more interest.
“We also are bound that way,” I said, and smiled. “Perhaps we can travel together and keep each other company on the road.”
“Perhaps.” I thought he looked a little amused. “What is your name, lad?”
“Gwernin Fardd am I,” said I, feeling very splendid, “and I come from fair Pengwern in Powys, where Cynan Garwyn has his court on the banks of Severn River.”
“Oh,” he said, “it is a bard you are, is it? You look full young for such distinction.”
“Why—why, perhaps I am.” I was rather taken aback by this challenge, which I had not expected. “But I will grow older.”
“And wiser?” The glint of amusement in his dark eyes was very marked now. “Discourse to me, then, O bard, of your wisdom. Why is stone hard, and why is a thorn sharp? What is as hard as a stone, and as salty as salt?”
“Why—I do not know,” I had to admit, for the riddles were unfamiliar to me. “That is–”
“Yes?” Then, when I made no further reply, “What is as sweet as honey? What rides on the gale? Why is the nose ridged? Why is a wheel round?”
Deeply troubled, I said, “I do not know.”
His smile had reached his mouth, and glinted through his gray beard—and yet I think it was of triumph without malice. “Until you know the names of the verse-forms,” he said very softly, “the name of rimiad, the name of ramiad, until you can name the nine elements by the aid of your seven senses, then I think, Gwernin, that you should keep silent, for whatever else you may be, you are not a bard.”
“No, master, you are right,” I sighed. “I am plain Gwernin Storyteller, and nothing more.”
“That is honestly said, at any rate.” Then, when I continued down-cast and silent, he added, “Do not be so discouraged, youngster. By admitting what you do not know, you have made a first step toward wisdom.”
I smiled despite myself. “A first step on a very long road! Master, if we should travel together, might you be so generous as to share a little, a very little of your knowledge with me?”
“So. A second step already. Yes, Gwernin, I will.” I thanked him earnestly, and he nodded. “But I think that must wait until tomorrow, for look, here we are at the bridge, and the sun is setting.” And it was so.
Several days we traveled together, and I learned much from the stranger, who called himself Emrys. We parted at last by the bridge outside Maridunum, we going on into the town to seek our fortune, and he off up the valley toward his homestead. I never saw him again, but I heard tales, long afterwards, and guessed who he was. I will not say his name now, for naming calls, and I would not trouble his rest; it was well-earned, and in times and places which have now passed away. But I remembered his lessons, and began, as I walked, to make and polish—with such clumsy labor and pain, but such pride!—my first songs. This is a craft which cannot be learned too young—or rather, cannot be learned at all. No true bard that I have known ever feels he has got to the end of it, however far he has gone—no, not the greatest of us all. And his name I will say: for he was called Taliesin, which means Shining Brow; and his rest I cannot disturb, for he is with me still.
But that, O my children, is a story for another day.
(Chapter 3 from Storyteller, Copyright 2007 by G. R. Grove.)
Storyteller is available from Amazon.com and other on-line booksellers.)
Modesty, perhaps. Or a stronger regard for the truth than some display. But mostly for another reason, of which I intend to tell you now.
The feasting at Dinas Powys was behind us, and we were on the road again. Fine indeed had it been while it lasted, for though the Lord Dafydd’s hall was smaller than some I have since seen, his table was bountiful—roast meat in plenty, both cow’s and pig’s flesh; made dishes in the old Roman style; flat wheaten loaves from the bake-stones; barrels of red Gallic wine; and great pitchers of the clear honey-sweet mead with its faintly bitter aftertaste, which seems to light all the world like a golden lantern while it lasts.
Half a dozen bards had performed, all eager to fill the empty chair of the household bard at this wealthy court, and all the other performers got a turn as well, and a gift of silver afterwards for their pains, myself included. Mine was a bracelet in the Saxon style, and not the least by any means of the presents given. I got, too, a word of praise and encouragement from Kyan Goch, which I valued above the silver; he it was who won the bards’ contention, and stayed on as the new household bard to the Lord Dafydd. I was glad for his good luck, but sorry to lose the chance of his company on the road, for he seemed more friendly and less full of self-pride than some of the bards there—more friendly, at least, to me…
All and all, then, I was thinking very well of myself by the time Ieuan and I set out on our travels again. Westward the two of us were going, toward Dyfed, following the Romans’ old paved road which runs straight as a arrow from Caer Dydd to Maridunum, or Caer Myrddin as it is sometimes called nowadays. As one often does, we fell in with a number of other folk who were also following that road on their way home from the festival. What with the bright spring morning, and my recent moments of triumph, I was in high spirits, and kept the company entertained as we went with jokes and riddles and tales. I mind there was one little fair-haired girl in particular who seemed very taken with me, or at least with my stories. She walked close beside me to hear them, and I was not sorry, for her bright eyes made me feel taller and stronger and wiser, maybe, than I was, or was ever like to be. Ah, well, we were young, and it did no one any harm.
As the day went on, most of the folk dropped away from us, turning off to north or south toward their homes, until at last, when afternoon was fading into evening, there was none left but myself, and Ieuan, and one gray old man. I had not talked much with him earlier, being taken up with my own brilliance, but now I turned my attention to him for lack of any other audience (Ieuan being a silent type on the road, and not likely to be impressed with me anyway).
“And where are you bound, sir?” I asked him as we drew near to the village of Y Bont Faen, where the Roman’s stone bridge spans the little river Thaw, and where we were hoping to get lodging for the night.
“To Maridunum, near which I live.” His speech was that of an educated man, despite his shabby tunic and faded brown cloak, and I looked at him with more interest.
“We also are bound that way,” I said, and smiled. “Perhaps we can travel together and keep each other company on the road.”
“Perhaps.” I thought he looked a little amused. “What is your name, lad?”
“Gwernin Fardd am I,” said I, feeling very splendid, “and I come from fair Pengwern in Powys, where Cynan Garwyn has his court on the banks of Severn River.”
“Oh,” he said, “it is a bard you are, is it? You look full young for such distinction.”
“Why—why, perhaps I am.” I was rather taken aback by this challenge, which I had not expected. “But I will grow older.”
“And wiser?” The glint of amusement in his dark eyes was very marked now. “Discourse to me, then, O bard, of your wisdom. Why is stone hard, and why is a thorn sharp? What is as hard as a stone, and as salty as salt?”
“Why—I do not know,” I had to admit, for the riddles were unfamiliar to me. “That is–”
“Yes?” Then, when I made no further reply, “What is as sweet as honey? What rides on the gale? Why is the nose ridged? Why is a wheel round?”
Deeply troubled, I said, “I do not know.”
His smile had reached his mouth, and glinted through his gray beard—and yet I think it was of triumph without malice. “Until you know the names of the verse-forms,” he said very softly, “the name of rimiad, the name of ramiad, until you can name the nine elements by the aid of your seven senses, then I think, Gwernin, that you should keep silent, for whatever else you may be, you are not a bard.”
“No, master, you are right,” I sighed. “I am plain Gwernin Storyteller, and nothing more.”
“That is honestly said, at any rate.” Then, when I continued down-cast and silent, he added, “Do not be so discouraged, youngster. By admitting what you do not know, you have made a first step toward wisdom.”
I smiled despite myself. “A first step on a very long road! Master, if we should travel together, might you be so generous as to share a little, a very little of your knowledge with me?”
“So. A second step already. Yes, Gwernin, I will.” I thanked him earnestly, and he nodded. “But I think that must wait until tomorrow, for look, here we are at the bridge, and the sun is setting.” And it was so.
Several days we traveled together, and I learned much from the stranger, who called himself Emrys. We parted at last by the bridge outside Maridunum, we going on into the town to seek our fortune, and he off up the valley toward his homestead. I never saw him again, but I heard tales, long afterwards, and guessed who he was. I will not say his name now, for naming calls, and I would not trouble his rest; it was well-earned, and in times and places which have now passed away. But I remembered his lessons, and began, as I walked, to make and polish—with such clumsy labor and pain, but such pride!—my first songs. This is a craft which cannot be learned too young—or rather, cannot be learned at all. No true bard that I have known ever feels he has got to the end of it, however far he has gone—no, not the greatest of us all. And his name I will say: for he was called Taliesin, which means Shining Brow; and his rest I cannot disturb, for he is with me still.
But that, O my children, is a story for another day.
(Chapter 3 from Storyteller, Copyright 2007 by G. R. Grove.)
Storyteller is available from Amazon.com and other on-line booksellers.)
Friday, February 6, 2009
Flight of the Hawk: Chapter 4 - In the High Hills
Elmet is a land of contrasts. It stretches from the Low Peaks in the south to the Pennine Gap in the north, from the Western Wall above Aquae Arnemetiae to the eastern hills that fall by slow stages to the Saxon plain. Much of it is moorland and mountain, little peopled or visited, broken here and there by deep and fertile valleys. Once it was a big kingdom, but bit by bit it has been nibbled away by the Saxons in the east and northeast and by Rheged in the northwest, until only the rocky core is left. But rock can be very strong, and falcons are no less fierce for nesting high. On the high tops the old ways still linger, and stone circles are more common there than churches.
After our experiences in the marshy country to the west, and our steep climb up the Western Wall, Neirin and I were glad to stop for the night at a shepherds’ camp, where we were made welcome by the tough brown herders and their women and children. All summer they spend up there, from Beltane to Samhain, and care little for the goings-on below, but bards and storytellers they value above gold. Indeed, so warm was our welcome that we stayed three nights, and might have stayed much longer if we had so wished it. Night-times we sang and told stories by the fire, and daytimes we spent walking or lazing on the dry sheep-cropped turf; and bit by bit the silence of the high places soaked into us, and made us whole. Also the shepherd girls were very friendly, and the beer was good, so that all and all, we were almost sorry to move on.
We were going first to Aquae Arnemetiae, where we hoped to find Gwallawg Elmet, Neirin’s uncle. “Not,” as Neirin had said to me the day before, lying stretched out like a cat in the sunshine while one of the shepherd girls rubbed his back, “because I love him or he loves me over-much. He has never forgiven my mother for preferring the North to Elmet, or the man of her own choice to the one he would have chosen for her.”
“Did you not grow up here, then?” I asked lazily, half-asleep myself with my head in another girl’s lap. She bent over me and smiled, and her dark hair tickled my face.
“Na, na,” said Neirin, “I got my birth and my raising in Manau, with my Gododdin cousins, and only came south to this country when I was of an age to bear arms. And then I compounded my offense: for it was here Taliesin found me, not long after, and took me for his prentice, so I have never really lived in Elmet at all. But the general lay of the land here I know—well enough, at any rate, to find Aquae, where Gwallawg has one of his chief courts. Then we will be seeing—what there is to see.” And he rolled over and pulled his little dark girl down for a kiss, and we spoke no more for a while.
I was thinking back to that conversation as we came down the last hill to Aquae Arnemetiae, which in our tongue means “the Waters of the Goddess of the Sacred Grove.” This was a holy place time out of mind, as hot springs often are, and although the Ro¬mans had taken it over and made it largely theirs, some of its ancient aura still clung. Nowadays the town was the usual mixture of British wood and thatch over Roman stone which was beginning to be familiar to me. Aquae differed only in having relatively more stone than wood, and also in lacking a defensive palisade: an indication in itself of how secure—and how distant from its enemies—this falcon’s nest was.
Neirin had guessed right: Gwallawg was in residence. A big burly red-headed man with only a little grey starting in his abundant beard, he greeted us friendly-wise, though the embrace he gave his nephew was somewhat perfunctory. Aside from their general coloring there was no resemblance; Neirin, I thought, must take after his father. Gwallawg accepted our stated reason for the visit—that Neirin was set free by his master for a summer’s journeying, and was on his way north to compete in a bardic competition in Manau at the Lughnasadh Fair—readily enough, and went straight on to his own concerns. He swept us into his fire-hall, talking non-stop, ordering one servant to take our gear to the guest-house, another to bring food and wine, a third to build up the fire and bring lamps. As he began to tell us of his last-year’s raiding suc¬cesses against the Saxons of Deira and Bernicia, I perceived that uncle and nephew were not so unlike after all. It might be one reason for their lack of friendship.
“Iffi will think twice,” he was saying, “before he comes raiding in my domains again, I can tell you. We met them near Verbeia, and caught them in an ambush where the valley narrows; many a corpse they left behind them when they fled. If only Rheged had joined with me, we could have wiped them out; but so it is ever with Urien: he is more likely to attack his neighbors than combine with them against our mutual enemies. If you are going to his court on your way north, boy, you should go with care, for he does not love my bloodline, and he has reason.” And he smiled grimly.
“I will remember,” said Neirin soberly. “What news of the Saxons this spring?”
“Very little so far, but their raiding parties will be abroad be¬fore long. Do you carry weapons? I saw none about you.”
“Only a knife. Bards are generally safe.”
“Ha! Not from the Saxons!” Gwallawg grinned. “Is that all your master has taught you? I will find you a sword before you leave, if you can use one.”
“I can,” said Neirin tautly, his eyes sparkling and a flush rising into his thin cheeks. “And my friend Gwernin can as well.” He compressed his lips, as if holding back angry words. For myself, I tried to keep the surprise out of my face; swords and I were not well acquainted.
“Good,” said Gwallawg. “Then I will see you two here this evening. Perhaps you will show me then what you have learned.” And he turned away and went out without pause, shouting for his chamberlain, and leaving us to find our way to the guest-house by ourselves.
“Have you been back, since Taliesin took you?” I asked as we unpacked our saddlebags.
“Once,” said Neirin. His color was still high. “But I had him with me then. I should not be letting Gwallawg bait me so, I am too easy a target. I knew this would be hard. I should not have brought you here.”
“Why not?” I said lightly. “It is only for a few nights, and my heart tells me we will see worse in our wanderings.” And that was a true word.
Neirin sighed. “Yes, you are right. Let us walk outside; the need is on me for fresh air. And I can show you something—interesting.”
From the court he led me to a little hill. Halfway up it were stone-built ruins of a circular building. “This is part of it,” said Neirin, pushing aside the willow-herb and ivy that half blocked the entrance. “They do not use it now; the Christian priests have their way here instead. The Romans—improved—this place, but the core is older.”
Within the ruined walls was an open space, partly overgrown, and in the center a carved block of stone. I looked with interest at its front, but the figures were too worn to recognize. “Here,” said Neirin, going up to it, and placing both hands on the top. “Just—here.”
I put my square brown hands beside his freckled ones. At first there was only the chill of the stone, there in the shade of the ivy-grown walls, and the distant call of a bird in the trees outside; then I began to feel something more. The world around us grew paler, out of focus, in a way I was coming to know. There was a sound that was not a sound, and the faint echo of a presence recently familiar to me. I took a deep steadying breath, and looked up to meet Neirin’s eyes. He nodded. “Yes. He was here.”
It cost me an effort to lift my hands from the stone. Slowly the world came back into focus, and the air warmed toward summer, which had been winter-cold. My mouth was dry; I spoke with difficulty: “Claddedig?” Neirin nodded again; his eyes were wide and dark. I wondered what he was seeing. Then he too lifted his hands deliberately from the altar block and stood back, and sighed. “Yes,” he said. “Taliesin showed it to me, when we were here before, but I did not know…” He shook his head as if to clear it. “Come, there is more.”
“I am not sure I am for more, just now,” I said, striving for lightness as I followed him out of the ruin. “What else do you have to show me here?”
Neirin looked back and smiled. “Nothing so … heavy. I swear it. Is it that you are afraid?”
“More and more, with you,” I said, smiling back at him. “I think it is a Druid that you are.”
“Na, I am not. But—come you, and see. It is not far.” He went on up the hill, and I followed. Around the crest were young oaks, their leaves still golden-green with spring, and mixed with them two or three dark hollies. They spread a shadow over the hilltop all out of proportion to their size, like a memory of things past. I shivered as I went under them, but I followed Neirin.
At the crest he stopped and turned round, his gaze going up into the small trees that were not small from below. “Do you see it?” he asked. His eyes were bright. I shivered again; I had felt the Old Powers before. What he was seeing I did not want to see, but I had no choice. The light was fading even as I stood there, fading to dark green dusk, and again there were the sounds that were not sounds, that were memories of sounds: the echo of a brazen horn, faint and far-off, like the horn of Gwyn mab Nudd, and the sound of voices chanting. I closed my eyes and felt myself falling.
Then warm hands had mine in a hard clasp. “Gwernin,” said Neirin’s voice close beside me, “it is well with you: open your eyes.” I did so: we were in the grove, and sunlight was pouring through the young oaks to dapple the grass around me. Neirin was on his knees beside me, looking down at me anxiously, his dark red head cocked a little to one side and his amber eyes narrowed in concern. When he saw I was back in my body, his face relaxed. “It is sorry I am, not to have warned you,” he said. “I had forgotten… It took me like that the first time, too. Can you sit up?”
“Yes,” I said hoarsely, and did so. I looked around at the trees and the sunlight, and felt the peace that lay on the place now, and a deep calmness entered into every part of me.
“Arnemetia,” said Neirin softly. There was birdsong in the branches, a small sweet piping, and a little wind rustled the leaves. We sat for a long time listening to it. Only with the approach of evening did we rise and go back down the hill to Gwallawg’s court.
The torches were lit in the mead-hall that night, and fire burned on the central hearth, for though the day had been mild, Aquae lay high in the hills. Gwallawg kept no pencerdd in his hall just then, but he had a harper—a dark young man not so many years older than myself—who played for us during the first part of the meal. When hunger and thirst were satisfied, Gwallawg turned to Neirin, sitting beside him at the high table. “Well, Sister’s-Son, have you a song for me?”
“Na, na, Mother’s-Brother,” said Neirin lightly, “let me wait until tomorrow, that the song may be worthy of this hall. My friend Gwernin, I know, has a tale ready for you and would gladly tell it.”
“So I do, Lord,” I said, as Gwallawg turned to me. “Would you hear the tale of Maxen Wledig, and how he won a wife, and the High Kingship of Britain as well?”
“Gladly,” said Gwallawg. “Speak your tale.”
This was one of the stories I had learned from Talhaearn the past winter, though it is not a winter-tale as such, and I enjoyed the telling of it, and the gradually increasing look of interest and engagement on Gwallawg’s bearded face. “Well,” he said at the end, when the applause of the hall had died, “you at least have been well-taught, young man. Who is your master?”
“Talhaearn Tad Awen,” I said, not without pride, “and if I have a little lived up to his reputation I am glad, though I am the least of his students.”
Gwallawg smiled, and took a silver bracelet from his arm, and gave it to me. “Well have you done so,” he said. “I hope my sister’s son can do half so well tomorrow.” And with that he rose up and left the hall.
The next morning I woke in the green dawn to see Neirin by the door. “It is out I am going, Gwernin,” he said, when he saw I was awake. “I will be back with evening; bide you here in the court this day.” And before I could answer he was gone, leaving me wondering. I spent the day as I was bidden, and talked some time to Gwallawg’s young harper, Padarn, who came from the lands of the southwest near that other Aquae which is dedicated to Sulis, and had in his blood-line and his face much of the Roman. And with evening Neirin returned, though saying no word of where he had been that day.
When the feasting was over that night, Gwallawg turned to his nephew as before. “Well, Sister’s-Son,” he said, “are you ready now to show me what you have learned, or do you need yet more time to prepare?”
Neirin smiled faintly. “Since you offer it, Mother’s-Brother, I will take a little longer: tomorrow night I will be more ready. And I know that my friend Gwernin has yet another tale prepared that you will enjoy…”
“Indeed I have, Lord,” I said. “Would you hear a tale from Ire-land, of the warrior Cuchulainn and how he took up arms?”
Gwallawg laughed shortly. “It seems I have no choice, since my sister’s child is yet unready for his work. You I know to be well taught. Sa, I will hear that tale gladly.”
So I told the tale that I had told once before to Cyndrwyn’s young men while we stood the wolf-guard that past winter, and it was as well received by Gwallawg and his war-band, for it is a tale that appeals to all of the warrior-kind, whatever their nation. And at the end Gwallawg took another silver bracelet from his arm, and gave it to me. “I hope,” he said then, “that my sister’s boy-child is ready with his art tomorrow night, for the day after that I ride north, and would see you both a little way on your road.”
“I will be ready, Mother’s-Brother,” said Neirin calmly enough, though the tell-tale flush was mounting in his cheeks.
“Do you see, then, that you are,” said Gwallawg shortly, and he rose up as before and left the hall.
Again I woke in the green dawn to see Neirin by the door. “I am going out now, Gwernin,” he said, “but I will be back tonight.”
I yawned. “I suppose you know what you are doing,” I said sleepily, “but are you sure you would not like company? I can be ready in a moment.”
“Na, na,” said Neirin, and he laughed softly. “Do not you be worrying: I know what I am about. I will see you tonight,” and he was gone before I could protest more. And that day passed as had the day before; and at evening he came back to the court.
When the feasting was over that night, Gwallawg turned to his nephew as before. “Well, Sister’s-Son,” he said, “tomorrow I take the war-trail. Have you anything to show me before I go, that I may see the worth of your teaching, and your teacher?”
“Sa, sa, I do that,” said Neirin. “I have a song for you, Mother’s-Brother: weigh it as you will.” And he stood up, and took the singer’s stance, and he began.
“A golden song for a golden one,
a bright song for a bright fallen star:
she is gone down into deep darkness;
my heart within me is heavy as stone.
A golden song for a gold sister,
a bright song for one bright as day:
she is gone out forever from Elmet;
my heart within me is winter-dark.
A golden song for a gold lady,
a bright song for one briefly loved:
she is gone out now from Manau;
my heart within me is empty and cold.
A golden song for a golden one,
a bright song to warm my cold heart:
heavy green turf grows now over Dwywei:
who will not weep with me here for her loss?”
Gwallawg looked a long time in silence at his nephew when the song was done. “Sa, sa,” he said at last, and I could hear the tears in his voice. “I will weigh it and reward it.” And he called to a servant, and had a heavy chest brought into the hall and opened. From it he took a sword in a jewel-set scabbard, a weapon for a king, and held it out to Neirin. “Take you this, Sister’s-Son, as a small part of the value of your song: I repent me that ever I spoke against your master or his teaching. Hereafter you will both be welcome in my hall.”
Neirin looked long at his uncle and the offered gift, and I saw there were tears on his own cheeks as well. Then he nodded. “Sa, sa, I take it as it is offered,” he said, “provided only”—and here he smiled with that special warmth that lit up his face—“that you find some weapon as well for my friend Gwernin, who has defended me nobly while I prepared.”
“I might,” said Gwallawg, “do even that.” And with a smile the equal of Neirin’s own, he reached into the chest again, and from it drew a second, only slightly lesser, weapon, which he gave to me. And the next day when we rode out with his war-band, we both rode armed; and well it was for us that we did so.
But that, O my children, is a story for another day.
(Chapter 4 from Flight of the Hawk, Copyright 2007 by G. R. Grove.)
After our experiences in the marshy country to the west, and our steep climb up the Western Wall, Neirin and I were glad to stop for the night at a shepherds’ camp, where we were made welcome by the tough brown herders and their women and children. All summer they spend up there, from Beltane to Samhain, and care little for the goings-on below, but bards and storytellers they value above gold. Indeed, so warm was our welcome that we stayed three nights, and might have stayed much longer if we had so wished it. Night-times we sang and told stories by the fire, and daytimes we spent walking or lazing on the dry sheep-cropped turf; and bit by bit the silence of the high places soaked into us, and made us whole. Also the shepherd girls were very friendly, and the beer was good, so that all and all, we were almost sorry to move on.
We were going first to Aquae Arnemetiae, where we hoped to find Gwallawg Elmet, Neirin’s uncle. “Not,” as Neirin had said to me the day before, lying stretched out like a cat in the sunshine while one of the shepherd girls rubbed his back, “because I love him or he loves me over-much. He has never forgiven my mother for preferring the North to Elmet, or the man of her own choice to the one he would have chosen for her.”
“Did you not grow up here, then?” I asked lazily, half-asleep myself with my head in another girl’s lap. She bent over me and smiled, and her dark hair tickled my face.
“Na, na,” said Neirin, “I got my birth and my raising in Manau, with my Gododdin cousins, and only came south to this country when I was of an age to bear arms. And then I compounded my offense: for it was here Taliesin found me, not long after, and took me for his prentice, so I have never really lived in Elmet at all. But the general lay of the land here I know—well enough, at any rate, to find Aquae, where Gwallawg has one of his chief courts. Then we will be seeing—what there is to see.” And he rolled over and pulled his little dark girl down for a kiss, and we spoke no more for a while.
I was thinking back to that conversation as we came down the last hill to Aquae Arnemetiae, which in our tongue means “the Waters of the Goddess of the Sacred Grove.” This was a holy place time out of mind, as hot springs often are, and although the Ro¬mans had taken it over and made it largely theirs, some of its ancient aura still clung. Nowadays the town was the usual mixture of British wood and thatch over Roman stone which was beginning to be familiar to me. Aquae differed only in having relatively more stone than wood, and also in lacking a defensive palisade: an indication in itself of how secure—and how distant from its enemies—this falcon’s nest was.
Neirin had guessed right: Gwallawg was in residence. A big burly red-headed man with only a little grey starting in his abundant beard, he greeted us friendly-wise, though the embrace he gave his nephew was somewhat perfunctory. Aside from their general coloring there was no resemblance; Neirin, I thought, must take after his father. Gwallawg accepted our stated reason for the visit—that Neirin was set free by his master for a summer’s journeying, and was on his way north to compete in a bardic competition in Manau at the Lughnasadh Fair—readily enough, and went straight on to his own concerns. He swept us into his fire-hall, talking non-stop, ordering one servant to take our gear to the guest-house, another to bring food and wine, a third to build up the fire and bring lamps. As he began to tell us of his last-year’s raiding suc¬cesses against the Saxons of Deira and Bernicia, I perceived that uncle and nephew were not so unlike after all. It might be one reason for their lack of friendship.
“Iffi will think twice,” he was saying, “before he comes raiding in my domains again, I can tell you. We met them near Verbeia, and caught them in an ambush where the valley narrows; many a corpse they left behind them when they fled. If only Rheged had joined with me, we could have wiped them out; but so it is ever with Urien: he is more likely to attack his neighbors than combine with them against our mutual enemies. If you are going to his court on your way north, boy, you should go with care, for he does not love my bloodline, and he has reason.” And he smiled grimly.
“I will remember,” said Neirin soberly. “What news of the Saxons this spring?”
“Very little so far, but their raiding parties will be abroad be¬fore long. Do you carry weapons? I saw none about you.”
“Only a knife. Bards are generally safe.”
“Ha! Not from the Saxons!” Gwallawg grinned. “Is that all your master has taught you? I will find you a sword before you leave, if you can use one.”
“I can,” said Neirin tautly, his eyes sparkling and a flush rising into his thin cheeks. “And my friend Gwernin can as well.” He compressed his lips, as if holding back angry words. For myself, I tried to keep the surprise out of my face; swords and I were not well acquainted.
“Good,” said Gwallawg. “Then I will see you two here this evening. Perhaps you will show me then what you have learned.” And he turned away and went out without pause, shouting for his chamberlain, and leaving us to find our way to the guest-house by ourselves.
“Have you been back, since Taliesin took you?” I asked as we unpacked our saddlebags.
“Once,” said Neirin. His color was still high. “But I had him with me then. I should not be letting Gwallawg bait me so, I am too easy a target. I knew this would be hard. I should not have brought you here.”
“Why not?” I said lightly. “It is only for a few nights, and my heart tells me we will see worse in our wanderings.” And that was a true word.
Neirin sighed. “Yes, you are right. Let us walk outside; the need is on me for fresh air. And I can show you something—interesting.”
From the court he led me to a little hill. Halfway up it were stone-built ruins of a circular building. “This is part of it,” said Neirin, pushing aside the willow-herb and ivy that half blocked the entrance. “They do not use it now; the Christian priests have their way here instead. The Romans—improved—this place, but the core is older.”
Within the ruined walls was an open space, partly overgrown, and in the center a carved block of stone. I looked with interest at its front, but the figures were too worn to recognize. “Here,” said Neirin, going up to it, and placing both hands on the top. “Just—here.”
I put my square brown hands beside his freckled ones. At first there was only the chill of the stone, there in the shade of the ivy-grown walls, and the distant call of a bird in the trees outside; then I began to feel something more. The world around us grew paler, out of focus, in a way I was coming to know. There was a sound that was not a sound, and the faint echo of a presence recently familiar to me. I took a deep steadying breath, and looked up to meet Neirin’s eyes. He nodded. “Yes. He was here.”
It cost me an effort to lift my hands from the stone. Slowly the world came back into focus, and the air warmed toward summer, which had been winter-cold. My mouth was dry; I spoke with difficulty: “Claddedig?” Neirin nodded again; his eyes were wide and dark. I wondered what he was seeing. Then he too lifted his hands deliberately from the altar block and stood back, and sighed. “Yes,” he said. “Taliesin showed it to me, when we were here before, but I did not know…” He shook his head as if to clear it. “Come, there is more.”
“I am not sure I am for more, just now,” I said, striving for lightness as I followed him out of the ruin. “What else do you have to show me here?”
Neirin looked back and smiled. “Nothing so … heavy. I swear it. Is it that you are afraid?”
“More and more, with you,” I said, smiling back at him. “I think it is a Druid that you are.”
“Na, I am not. But—come you, and see. It is not far.” He went on up the hill, and I followed. Around the crest were young oaks, their leaves still golden-green with spring, and mixed with them two or three dark hollies. They spread a shadow over the hilltop all out of proportion to their size, like a memory of things past. I shivered as I went under them, but I followed Neirin.
At the crest he stopped and turned round, his gaze going up into the small trees that were not small from below. “Do you see it?” he asked. His eyes were bright. I shivered again; I had felt the Old Powers before. What he was seeing I did not want to see, but I had no choice. The light was fading even as I stood there, fading to dark green dusk, and again there were the sounds that were not sounds, that were memories of sounds: the echo of a brazen horn, faint and far-off, like the horn of Gwyn mab Nudd, and the sound of voices chanting. I closed my eyes and felt myself falling.
Then warm hands had mine in a hard clasp. “Gwernin,” said Neirin’s voice close beside me, “it is well with you: open your eyes.” I did so: we were in the grove, and sunlight was pouring through the young oaks to dapple the grass around me. Neirin was on his knees beside me, looking down at me anxiously, his dark red head cocked a little to one side and his amber eyes narrowed in concern. When he saw I was back in my body, his face relaxed. “It is sorry I am, not to have warned you,” he said. “I had forgotten… It took me like that the first time, too. Can you sit up?”
“Yes,” I said hoarsely, and did so. I looked around at the trees and the sunlight, and felt the peace that lay on the place now, and a deep calmness entered into every part of me.
“Arnemetia,” said Neirin softly. There was birdsong in the branches, a small sweet piping, and a little wind rustled the leaves. We sat for a long time listening to it. Only with the approach of evening did we rise and go back down the hill to Gwallawg’s court.
The torches were lit in the mead-hall that night, and fire burned on the central hearth, for though the day had been mild, Aquae lay high in the hills. Gwallawg kept no pencerdd in his hall just then, but he had a harper—a dark young man not so many years older than myself—who played for us during the first part of the meal. When hunger and thirst were satisfied, Gwallawg turned to Neirin, sitting beside him at the high table. “Well, Sister’s-Son, have you a song for me?”
“Na, na, Mother’s-Brother,” said Neirin lightly, “let me wait until tomorrow, that the song may be worthy of this hall. My friend Gwernin, I know, has a tale ready for you and would gladly tell it.”
“So I do, Lord,” I said, as Gwallawg turned to me. “Would you hear the tale of Maxen Wledig, and how he won a wife, and the High Kingship of Britain as well?”
“Gladly,” said Gwallawg. “Speak your tale.”
This was one of the stories I had learned from Talhaearn the past winter, though it is not a winter-tale as such, and I enjoyed the telling of it, and the gradually increasing look of interest and engagement on Gwallawg’s bearded face. “Well,” he said at the end, when the applause of the hall had died, “you at least have been well-taught, young man. Who is your master?”
“Talhaearn Tad Awen,” I said, not without pride, “and if I have a little lived up to his reputation I am glad, though I am the least of his students.”
Gwallawg smiled, and took a silver bracelet from his arm, and gave it to me. “Well have you done so,” he said. “I hope my sister’s son can do half so well tomorrow.” And with that he rose up and left the hall.
The next morning I woke in the green dawn to see Neirin by the door. “It is out I am going, Gwernin,” he said, when he saw I was awake. “I will be back with evening; bide you here in the court this day.” And before I could answer he was gone, leaving me wondering. I spent the day as I was bidden, and talked some time to Gwallawg’s young harper, Padarn, who came from the lands of the southwest near that other Aquae which is dedicated to Sulis, and had in his blood-line and his face much of the Roman. And with evening Neirin returned, though saying no word of where he had been that day.
When the feasting was over that night, Gwallawg turned to his nephew as before. “Well, Sister’s-Son,” he said, “are you ready now to show me what you have learned, or do you need yet more time to prepare?”
Neirin smiled faintly. “Since you offer it, Mother’s-Brother, I will take a little longer: tomorrow night I will be more ready. And I know that my friend Gwernin has yet another tale prepared that you will enjoy…”
“Indeed I have, Lord,” I said. “Would you hear a tale from Ire-land, of the warrior Cuchulainn and how he took up arms?”
Gwallawg laughed shortly. “It seems I have no choice, since my sister’s child is yet unready for his work. You I know to be well taught. Sa, I will hear that tale gladly.”
So I told the tale that I had told once before to Cyndrwyn’s young men while we stood the wolf-guard that past winter, and it was as well received by Gwallawg and his war-band, for it is a tale that appeals to all of the warrior-kind, whatever their nation. And at the end Gwallawg took another silver bracelet from his arm, and gave it to me. “I hope,” he said then, “that my sister’s boy-child is ready with his art tomorrow night, for the day after that I ride north, and would see you both a little way on your road.”
“I will be ready, Mother’s-Brother,” said Neirin calmly enough, though the tell-tale flush was mounting in his cheeks.
“Do you see, then, that you are,” said Gwallawg shortly, and he rose up as before and left the hall.
Again I woke in the green dawn to see Neirin by the door. “I am going out now, Gwernin,” he said, “but I will be back tonight.”
I yawned. “I suppose you know what you are doing,” I said sleepily, “but are you sure you would not like company? I can be ready in a moment.”
“Na, na,” said Neirin, and he laughed softly. “Do not you be worrying: I know what I am about. I will see you tonight,” and he was gone before I could protest more. And that day passed as had the day before; and at evening he came back to the court.
When the feasting was over that night, Gwallawg turned to his nephew as before. “Well, Sister’s-Son,” he said, “tomorrow I take the war-trail. Have you anything to show me before I go, that I may see the worth of your teaching, and your teacher?”
“Sa, sa, I do that,” said Neirin. “I have a song for you, Mother’s-Brother: weigh it as you will.” And he stood up, and took the singer’s stance, and he began.
“A golden song for a golden one,
a bright song for a bright fallen star:
she is gone down into deep darkness;
my heart within me is heavy as stone.
A golden song for a gold sister,
a bright song for one bright as day:
she is gone out forever from Elmet;
my heart within me is winter-dark.
A golden song for a gold lady,
a bright song for one briefly loved:
she is gone out now from Manau;
my heart within me is empty and cold.
A golden song for a golden one,
a bright song to warm my cold heart:
heavy green turf grows now over Dwywei:
who will not weep with me here for her loss?”
Gwallawg looked a long time in silence at his nephew when the song was done. “Sa, sa,” he said at last, and I could hear the tears in his voice. “I will weigh it and reward it.” And he called to a servant, and had a heavy chest brought into the hall and opened. From it he took a sword in a jewel-set scabbard, a weapon for a king, and held it out to Neirin. “Take you this, Sister’s-Son, as a small part of the value of your song: I repent me that ever I spoke against your master or his teaching. Hereafter you will both be welcome in my hall.”
Neirin looked long at his uncle and the offered gift, and I saw there were tears on his own cheeks as well. Then he nodded. “Sa, sa, I take it as it is offered,” he said, “provided only”—and here he smiled with that special warmth that lit up his face—“that you find some weapon as well for my friend Gwernin, who has defended me nobly while I prepared.”
“I might,” said Gwallawg, “do even that.” And with a smile the equal of Neirin’s own, he reached into the chest again, and from it drew a second, only slightly lesser, weapon, which he gave to me. And the next day when we rode out with his war-band, we both rode armed; and well it was for us that we did so.
But that, O my children, is a story for another day.
(Chapter 4 from Flight of the Hawk, Copyright 2007 by G. R. Grove.)
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