Star of Mercia Part 1

Star of Mercia.

by Blanche Devereux.

INTRODUCTION

There are three reading-publics to which a tale-writer who attempts the uncertain business of writing about Wales may appeal. One is the homebred Welsh public that asks for a tale in the old tongue, _yr hen iaith_, and has never been quite satisfied, I believe, by any novel or short story about its life, or its real or romantic concerns, written in English. The second is the quasi-Celtic public, which may or may not know the _Mabinogion_ or Borrow's _Wild Wales_, and is glad of anything that gets the romance atmosphere. The third is the ordinary fiction-loving English public, which asks for a good story, rather likes a Welsh background as in Blackmore's _Maid of Sker_ (a much better book than _Lorna Doone_ to my mind), and does not trouble about the fidelity of the local colour in the reality of the setting. It is from the second and third of these audiences that Miss Devereux can look to gain her "creel-full of listeners," as the story of _The Yellow Hag_ has it.

She has, to begin with, the genuine tale-teller's power of using a motive, a bit of legend, or a proverbial and stated episode, and giving it fresh life and something original out of her own fantasy. In her way of narrative, she does not adopt any rigorous ancientry. She has a sporting sense in dealing with an archaic character like _Mogneid_, and is satisfied to see him hammer at a door with the b.u.t.t of his riding-whip. She will make _Gildas_ and _St. David_ or _Dewi Sant_, collogue as they never did in the old time before us; and devise a comedy and a drunkard's tragedy of her own for a wicked old sinner like King _Gwrthyrn_, just as she mixes chalk and charcoal freely in the Saxon cartoons that follow the Welsh. The important thing is, she makes her people live, and by the bold infusion of the same old human nature with prehistoric Welsh and old chronicler's English, she succeeds in creating a region of her own. It is not literally Cymric or Saxon; but it is instinct with the fears, loves, hopes and appet.i.tes that never decay, and realizes alike the drunkard's glut and the saint's mixed piety and shrewd sense.

In her story of _Saint David_ she has gone to the old "Lives" and the doc.u.ments for some of her colour. There are pa.s.sages that may terrify the modern reader, who has no Welsh and does not know how to p.r.o.nounce _Amherawdwr_ (the Welsh form of imperator or emperor), _Dyfnwal_, _Llywel_ or _Cynyr_. The average English reader who is brought up on soft and sibilant C's and i-sounding Y's will probably end by turning the last name into "sinner" in vain compromise. And possibly Miss Devereux is too hard on the average un-Celtic reader; for though she turns _Gwy_ into Wye, she retains _Dyfi_ for Dovey. But these are the pleasant little inconsistencies that exist in every English writer, from Shakespeare and Ben Jonson to Sir Walter Scott and George Meredith, who has attacked the impregnable old fortress of the British tongue.

It is interesting to compare the two tales of wilder Wales with those of Mercia and Saxondom that succeed them in this mixed story-book. The first are realized almost entirely, you will discover, from the man's point of view. The Saxon tales are more intimately felt, and realized from the woman's dramatic angle. It is avowedly so in the chronicle of Winifred, Ebba's daughter, telling the grim love-story of Earl Sweyn the Nithing and Algive. This is in texture, and reality of presentment, maintaining the pseudo-archaic mode with just the faintest reminder of the modern tale-teller pulling the puppet-strings, on the whole the completest of all these new-old tales. In the portrait of Algive, tenderly and joyously painted, there is a faint reminiscence of a Celtic romance-heroine like Olwen (in the _Mabinogion_), which adds to the charm. And in other ways it will be found by the story-loving and unprejudiced reader, who reads for the pleasure of the thing, and not for criticism or edification, that these _Tales of Two Regions_ gain by carrying over at times the atmosphere of the one--never so lightly indicated--into the actual presentment of the other.

ERNEST RHYS.

1922.

Gwrtheyrn the Drunkard

"_Vortigern of repulsive lips, who, drunken, gave up the Isle of Thanet to Hengist._"

--WELSH TRIADS.

Mogneid son of Votecori tapped upon the lintel of the open doorway and called "Ho, there! Is there refreshment for wayfarers?" From within came a luxurious sound of snoring. Mogneid muttered a curse, and began to hammer impatiently with the b.u.t.t of his riding-whip. The father of the household coughed, rolled heavily from his bed of rushes, and appeared at the door--an old man, blinking with sleep, but collected and courteous.

"What, lord?" said he. "There is tired you are now! How may I serve you? Please you share the shelter of my roof till evening!"

"Nay, not so," Mogneid replied, "I am in haste to reach my journey's end. Give us to drink, sir, I pray you--beer, milk, or water--what you will--anything! We are dried up with this dust! And tell me, if you can, how far hence dwells Gwrtheyrn the King?"

Without waiting to answer, the old man hobbled away, and returned a few minutes later with a big stone pitcher and two little cups of horn.

"Alack, my friend," he grumbled, "they have taken all the beer. They are all gone to mow the hay, look you, my son and the women! and I am left to milk the cows and tend the livestock. Sore thing it is that old age comes so soon! Well, lord, if ye will not stay to cleanse your feet and enter my dwelling, let us at least converse in the shade. Here is new milk, that quenches thirst." He led Mogneid and his four serving-men beneath the boughs of a great hawthorn-tree, the only ornament of his straw-littered, pig-frequented entrance-yard.

"Seek ye King Gwrtheyrn?"

He dropped thankfully on to a low seat surrounding the tree trunk, and Mogneid sat down beside him, quaffed at the creamy liquor, and wiped the dust and sweat from his countenance. The traveller was a middle-aged man, thin and muscular, with a dark grizzled beard, and vague-looking light blue eyes that missed sight of nothing that went on around him. Upon the backs of his hands was tattooed a mystic design of circles interlaced.

"I am from the land of Dyfed, reverend sir," he answered, "and I travel to the court of Gwrtheyrn son of Guitaul, lord of Ewyas, of Erging, and of Caer Glouwy. My folk were somewhat akin to his, many a generation ago, and there is talk of a marriage between my niece and a lord of Gwent who follows King Gwrtheyrn. If I mistake not greatly, I am now not very far from my kinsman's palace."

"n.o.ble 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 the commanders of the Romans, see you now; and in truth a very great prince is he; none braver, or taller, or more just and more generous. But the pirates came by sea on every side; and those Britons of the East--they cannot fight like us men of the west; so King Gwrtheyrn sought to procure peace, that the land might have time to rest and gather her strength. When the chieftains of the Saxons, or Jutes, as they call that tribe of them, came to confer with him, they feasted well together, and Gwrtheyrn looked with eyes of love upon the daughter of Hengist the Jute; and he wedded her, and gave to her kinsmen a parcel of land in Kent, to hold under him, that they might aid him to beat off all other robbers. But after this there was no peace at all. G.o.d's curse on the Saxon ruffians! Would they keep within their boundaries, think you? Nay, they disquieted the Britons upon every side. Then the lords of Britain, with old Emrys at their head, grew angry, and refused to follow Gwrtheyrn longer: even Gwrthefyr, his son by the Roman woman, declared for another Amherawdwr[1] and other ways. So what was left to Gwrtheyrn, when they had taken from him the government of Britain, but to dwell here in the land of his fathers, amongst his own natural born people, 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 old days--not so very long ago, truly. And behold me now--a life fit for a cart-horse! And I a free tribesman of Gwrtheyrnion!"

[1] Imperator.

"Why, from thy saying," said Mogneid, "thou bearest great love to Gwrtheyrn."

"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 said and done, he is only lord of Morganwg. And he is a stark Roman, who will have all things cut and dried about him. I tell you, I have a very little opinion of these Romans, and of them who follow in their steps. I have often heard my father tell of them. They came to our land, and cut down our fair sheltering forests, and carried away our fighting men to their own wars, so that Britain was left naked to the Saxons. 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 to bear the trial.' Not such for me! I have fastened a sc.r.a.p of my clothing above the old healing--well out yonder."

"The old G.o.ds are indeed very wise! And Gwrtheyrn son of Guitaul? How does he pa.s.s his time?"

"Alack that I must tell it! Is the caged beast as princely and as mighty as he that roams abroad where he will?... Sometimes he hunteth the stag or the boar--and there is metheglin, or wine, perchance--and good beer. What else is left to our lord Gwrtheyrn? he who was a hero in good King Arthur's time! That fat-faced Queen--I trow she is no stay to him! 'The sweet Verge of Drunkenness!' That was a song my father used to sing."

"Most honoured sir," Mogneid broke in, "I thank you very heartily for your kind entertainment. But I must press on upon my road. I shall praise your hospitality to my n.o.ble cousin, believe you me. Tell me, I pray you, how soon I may be with him?"

"Fifteen miles and more is Caer Gwrtheyrn from here. Cross you Clywedog and Ithon both. From the ford of Ithon there is a bridle-track the whole way. May the Saints and Mary keep you! and all the powers that be! May you suffer no violence, and may no goblin or hound of h.e.l.l affright you!"

"May all the powers bless you, my father! May the She-Greyhound of the Heavens,[2] who maketh fat both land and cattle, favour you! Fare ye well!"

[2] Ceridwen.

Mogneid and his little train set forth once more. They reached the glen of Trawscoed in the cool of the evening when the sky was aglow with amber lights and calm turquoise depths.

Caer Gwrtheyrn, the residence of the King of this country, which took the name of Gwrtheyrion from its then lord, rose a mile or so before them, upon the heights of Mynydd Denarch. As the Demetian cast his eye over the surrounding country, in the east, upon the track that descended from the hills of Gref-o-dig and Bron-y-Garn-llwyd, he caught sight of what looked to him like the glint of the sun on steel helmet and corslet.

Mogneid lost no time. He quickened his pace, and reached the gateway of Caer Gwrtheyrn in about fifteen minutes. Soon the customary ritual was fulfilled: his feet were bathed by the porter, to signify his acceptance of hospitality for the night, and the King's door-keeper ushered him into the castle hall.

It was dark already there. The torches smoked foully. There was a manifold smell of beer, roast meat, barley-broth, rosemary and woodruff, dogs and humanity. Mogneid felt that he could never find his way except perhaps by the sense of touch. Presently a loud, harsh voice rang out:

"Who is it? Who? What say you? Thou didst not inquire? What have I told thee? I will have the name and ancestry of every considerable visitor to my house--announced to me"--the voice spoke thickly--"as has always been my wont! Curse thee for a numskull! Whom have we here?"

Mogneid, who had reached the head of the board, looked up, and saw, scowling down upon him, a gigantic, loosely-built personage, of dignified bearing for all his violence--the wreck of a fine man, with a flushed face and swollen, bloodshot eyes--Gwrtheyrn, King of Gwrtheyrnion, Erging and Ewyas, whom the Britons had deposed from the sovereignty of them all for all his ill-judged policy and for what they deemed extravagant, un-British notions--Gwrtheyrn the Goidel, of the foreign "repulsive" lips.[3]

[3] Supposedly so called from his Goidelic accent in speaking British.

"Gracious lord," said Mogneid, "it is your humble kinsman, Mogneid, son of Votecori, son of Maelumi, from the land of Dyfed, praying that he may sojourn awhile under the King's protection. There is a family matter in question, O Gwrtheyrn, in which I seek the aid of the chieftain of my tribe."

"Son of Votecori!" cried Gwrtheyrn, with outstretched hand. "My father's cousin's son! Now welcome, kinsman. Ho! bring meat and wine for the Lord Mogneid! Thou must eat ere we further confer."

Seated by the side of his host, the new-comer feasted upon broiled mutton-chops, which were carried in from without, for during the summer weather Gwrtheyrn's food was cooked in a kitchen in an outhouse. The King's hall was crowded, but the company presented few elements of interest to the man of Dyfed. The Jutish Queen sat upon Gwrtheyrn's other hand, counting the st.i.tches in her needlework; she had a broad face, a square full chin, and heavy auburn plaits. There were a few old women, her attendants; the huntsmen, servants, and men-at-arms; some rustic n.o.blemen, talkative and disputatious; and some half-dozen of the King's pages or foster-sons, who squabbled in whispers over noughts and crosses chalked upon the empty hearth-stone.

"Lord," said Mogneid, "there come others to claim hospitality of thee ere nightfall, I do think. As I looked back upon the eastern valley, I beheld a party of hors.e.m.e.n, clad in steel armour, such as the Romans wear."

"Art clever, kinsman," Gwrtheyrn replied. "It is Emrys, to a certainty! or emissaries of his! Well that we are warned. They shall be warmly received, I promise!"

"Whence comes Ambrosius?" Mogneid asked. "As I travelled hither, I heard of him at Caerdydd."

"Look you, cousin," said Gwrtheyrn, "Ambrosius and I have some contention toward, concerning my lordship of Buallt, of which this overweening person claims the right to dispose, forsooth!--One cup more, kinsman Mogneid; it is of the Kentish vintage. Now when these Romanizers----"

"They are here," said Mogneid.

In truth, the clatter of horses' hooves resounded outside the building, and the voices of men. Twenty mail-clad soldiers entered the hall, with a keen-faced leader at their head.

"Greeting, King Gwrtheyrn," the officer cried, "from Ambrosius the Imperator!"