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The Floating Press - Blanche Devereux

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76 pages

English

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Fans of folklore and local legends will delight in this charming volume from renowned writer Blanche Devereaux. Star of Mercia brings together a number of important fables and folk tales from Wales and the surrounding regions, all rendered in Devereaux's endearing and engaging storytelling style.

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 juin 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781775458487
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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STAR OF MERCIA
HISTORICAL TALES OF WALES AND THE MARCHES
* * *
BLANCHE DEVEREUX

*
Star of Mercia Historical Tales of Wales and the Marches First published in 1922 ISBN 978-1-77545-848-7 © 2012 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
*
Introduction Gwrtheyrn the Drunkard Dewi Sant Star of Mercia Earl Sweyn the Nithing Edith's Well Richard the Scrob Endnotes
Introduction
*
There are three reading-publics to which a tale-writer who attempts theuncertain business of writing about Wales may appeal. One is thehomebred Welsh public that asks for a tale in the old tongue, yr heniaith , and has never been quite satisfied, I believe, by any novel orshort story about its life, or its real or romantic concerns, writtenin English. The second is the quasi-Celtic public, which may or maynot know the Mabinogion or Borrow's Wild Wales , and is glad ofanything that gets the romance atmosphere. The third is the ordinaryfiction-loving English public, which asks for a good story, ratherlikes a Welsh background as in Blackmore's Maid of Sker (a muchbetter book than Lorna Doone to my mind), and does not trouble aboutthe fidelity of the local colour in the reality of the setting. It isfrom the second and third of these audiences that Miss Devereux canlook to gain her "creel-full of listeners," as the story of The YellowHag has it.
She has, to begin with, the genuine tale-teller's power of using amotive, a bit of legend, or a proverbial and stated episode, and givingit fresh life and something original out of her own fantasy. In her wayof narrative, she does not adopt any rigorous ancientry. She has asporting sense in dealing with an archaic character like Mogneid ,and is satisfied to see him hammer at a door with the butt of hisriding-whip. She will make Gildas and St. David or Dewi Sant ,collogue as they never did in the old time before us; and devise acomedy and a drunkard's tragedy of her own for a wicked old sinner likeKing Gwrthyrn , just as she mixes chalk and charcoal freely in theSaxon cartoons that follow the Welsh. The important thing is, she makesher people live, and by the bold infusion of the same old human naturewith prehistoric Welsh and old chronicler's English, she succeeds increating a region of her own. It is not literally Cymric or Saxon; butit is instinct with the fears, loves, hopes and appetites that neverdecay, and realizes alike the drunkard's glut and the saint's mixedpiety and shrewd sense.
In her story of Saint David she has gone to the old "Lives" and thedocuments for some of her colour. There are passages that may terrifythe modern reader, who has no Welsh and does not know how to pronounce Amherawdwr (the Welsh form of imperator or emperor), Dyfnwal , Llywel or Cynyr . The average English reader who is brought up onsoft and sibilant C's and i-sounding Y's will probably end by turningthe last name into "sinner" in vain compromise. And possibly MissDevereux is too hard on the average un-Celtic reader; for though sheturns Gwy into Wye, she retains Dyfi for Dovey. But these are thepleasant little inconsistencies that exist in every English writer,from Shakespeare and Ben Jonson to Sir Walter Scott and GeorgeMeredith, who has attacked the impregnable old fortress of the Britishtongue.
It is interesting to compare the two tales of wilder Wales with thoseof Mercia and Saxondom that succeed them in this mixed story-book. Thefirst are realized almost entirely, you will discover, from the man'spoint of view. The Saxon tales are more intimately felt, and realizedfrom the woman's dramatic angle. It is avowedly so in the chronicle ofWinifred, Ebba's daughter, telling the grim love-story of Earl Sweynthe Nithing and Algive. This is in texture, and reality of presentment,maintaining the pseudo-archaic mode with just the faintest reminder ofthe modern tale-teller pulling the puppet-strings, on the whole thecompletest of all these new-old tales. In the portrait of Algive,tenderly and joyously painted, there is a faint reminiscence of aCeltic romance-heroine like Olwen (in the Mabinogion ), which adds tothe charm. And in other ways it will be found by the story-loving andunprejudiced reader, who reads for the pleasure of the thing, and notfor criticism or edification, that these Tales of Two Regions gain bycarrying over at times the atmosphere of the one—never so lightlyindicated—into the actual presentment of the other.
ERNEST RHYS.
1922.
Gwrtheyrn the Drunkard
*
" Vortigern of repulsive lips, who, drunken, gave up the Isle of Thanetto Hengist. "
—WELSH TRIADS.
Mogneid son of Votecori tapped upon the lintel of the open doorway andcalled "Ho, there! Is there refreshment for wayfarers?" From withincame a luxurious sound of snoring. Mogneid muttered a curse, and beganto hammer impatiently with the butt of his riding-whip. The father ofthe household coughed, rolled heavily from his bed of rushes, andappeared at the door—an old man, blinking with sleep, but collectedand courteous.
"What, lord?" said he. "There is tired you are now! How may I serveyou? Please you share the shelter of my roof till evening!"
"Nay, not so," Mogneid replied, "I am in haste to reach my journey'send. Give us to drink, sir, I pray you—beer, milk, or water—what youwill—anything! We are dried up with this dust! And tell me, if youcan, how far hence dwells Gwrtheyrn the King?"
Without waiting to answer, the old man hobbled away, and returned a fewminutes later with a big stone pitcher and two little cups of horn.
"Alack, my friend," he grumbled, "they have taken all the beer. Theyare all gone to mow the hay, look you, my son and the women! and I amleft to milk the cows and tend the livestock. Sore thing it is that oldage comes so soon! Well, lord, if ye will not stay to cleanse your feetand enter my dwelling, let us at least converse in the shade. Here isnew milk, that quenches thirst." He led Mogneid and his fourserving-men beneath the boughs of a great hawthorn-tree, the onlyornament of his straw-littered, pig-frequented entrance-yard.
"Seek ye King Gwrtheyrn?"
He dropped thankfully on to a low seat surrounding the tree trunk, andMogneid sat down beside him, quaffed at the creamy liquor, and wipedthe dust and sweat from his countenance. The traveller was amiddle-aged man, thin and muscular, with a dark grizzled beard, andvague-looking light blue eyes that missed sight of nothing that went onaround him. Upon the backs of his hands was tattooed a mystic design ofcircles interlaced.
"I am from the land of Dyfed, reverend sir," he answered, "and I travelto the court of Gwrtheyrn son of Guitaul, lord of Ewyas, of Erging, andof Caer Glouwy. My folk were somewhat akin to his, many a generationago, and there is talk of a marriage between my niece and a lord ofGwent who follows King Gwrtheyrn. If I mistake not greatly, I am nownot very far from my kinsman's palace."
"Noble lord," his host rejoined, "if ye be akin to Gwrtheyrn our King,doubtless ye lament, as we do, his fall from greatness. Our Gwrtheyrn,heaven protect him! was lord of all the armies of Britain—like thecommanders of the Romans, see you now; and in truth a very great princeis he; none braver, or taller, or more just and more generous. But thepirates came by sea on every side; and those Britons of the East—theycannot fight like us men of the west; so King Gwrtheyrn sought toprocure peace, that the land might have time to rest and gather herstrength. When the chieftains of the Saxons, or Jutes, as they callthat tribe of them, came to confer with him, they feasted welltogether, and Gwrtheyrn looked with eyes of love upon the daughter ofHengist the Jute; and he wedded her, and gave to her kinsmen a parcelof land in Kent, to hold under him, that they might aid him to beat offall other robbers. But after this there was no peace at all. God'scurse on the Saxon ruffians! Would they keep within their boundaries,think you? Nay, they disquieted the Britons upon every side. Then thelords of Britain, with old Emrys at their head, grew angry, and refusedto follow Gwrtheyrn longer: even Gwrthefyr, his son by the Roman woman,declared for another Amherawdwr [1] and other ways. So what was left toGwrtheyrn, when they had taken from him the government of Britain, butto dwell here in the land of his fathers, amongst his own natural bornpeople, and rule over us?—and there is well he does rule over us—yes,yes! I and my sons were with him in his army, in the grand olddays—not so very long ago, truly. And behold me now—a life fit for acart-horse! And I a free tribesman of Gwrtheyrnion!"
"Why, from thy saying," said Mogneid, "thou bearest great love toGwrtheyrn."
"Indeed yes!" cried the old man. "These are ill times we live in!Emrys commands in Britain now, or would command—but when all is saidand done, he is only lord of Morganwg. And he is a stark Roman, whowill have all things cut and dried about him. I tell you, I have avery little opinion of these Romans, and of them who follow in theirsteps. I have often heard my father tell of them. They came to ourland, and cut down our fair sheltering forests, and carried away ourfighting men to their own wars, so that Britain was left naked to theSaxons. As for their priests—sir, I perceive you to be from the west,where, I hear, priests are few.... Well, well! father Pewlin says,when the ague torments me, 'Pray that thou mayest be given strength tobear the trial.' Not such for me! I have fast