Gwydion the storyteller
steps into a version of himself.
The smoky hall lined with iron men,
bright, shiny, awkward,
dreaming a glorious future:
fame in battle, marriage
their own estates and children.
Or rusting to the benches.
Bent, battle scratched,
stale veterans going sour
watching their time leaking away
like spilt ale down a long hill,
no longer believing in a future,
their chances fading like their hair.
Don’t patronise them.
We are born into stories we did not write.
Happy the men and women at home in theirs.
Uther Pendragon, at the high table,
surrounded by his court officials,
attendant lords, and a woman
with hair the colour of midnight in a cave
laughing with the man beside her.
Uther comes towards him,
with the shambling swagger
of a horseman after an epic ride,
shouldering his way through an imagined crowd.
He stops in front of Gwydion,
toe to toe, inspecting him.
‘I need a bard. Heard you’re good.
Had the last one thrown off the roof.’
He smiles, his head to one side,
‘I like that. You didn’t ask me why.
Because you know I’m going to tell you.
He told a story about the House of Brutus,
how The Thin Man had my father killed
then manipulated my brother’s bodyguard
into killing him as well.’[1]
He turns towards the muttering faces.
They’ve all heard that story.
‘Well that’s utter bollocks init.‘[2]
His hands throwing words across the room.
‘A disgruntled servant knifed my dad.
I made enquiries.’ Four syllables, loitering
unpleasantly. Something to be avoided.
‘I fought with Huns. I mean with them
and against them. Allans, Goths, Lombards.
I know tribal warriors. These aren’t Romans
who switch loyalties faster than you refill your cups.
It would take some kind of deviant Christ
to pull that miracle; to make
a tribesman turn on his ring giver.’[3]
He saunters back to Gwydion.
‘My court needs a bard. Tell me three stories:
one now, here, for the drinkers at the benches;
one for my officers in my room;
one for my lady in her chamber.
Job’s yours if they’re good. If they ain’t,
we’ll throw you off the roof
for claiming to be someone you’re not.’
The storyteller bows.
‘But first, I’ll tell you one.’
The drinkers at the benches settle.
The night loses its edge.
Pendragon, chief of warriors;
they admire, respect, adore
although he terrifies them all.[4]
‘My brother, the King of Britain,
by right of conquest and inheritance,
decided the British Lords
who’d died on Salisbury plain
deserved a fitting monument.
So he holds a great council,
and everyone chips in.
Like all councils, no one can agree.
Merlin walks in. The fiend himself.
I’ll get you a monument, he says.
It will stand for eternity.
Where is it, asks my brother.
In Ireland, says Merlin
and we all laughed at him.
Except the king, who sends me,
with an army, to get this Giant’s Ring.
The locals pissed themselves
when they heard why we’d arrived.
They thought it was the best joke, ever.
So we taught them not to laugh at us
and finally arrived on this god-forsaken,
wind-raked hill in the middle of a great green nowhere.
There’s stones. Huge, upright stones.
And we just stood and stared at them.
Try moving them, says Merlin.
We dug and pulled and pushed all day.
The stones stayed put.
Then Merlin mumbles some words
and did that thing with his hands,
like he’s tying knots in the air.
Try now, he says, so to humour him,
we pushed a stone, and it fell over.
Stone turned to feather!
We hauled them to the coast,
watched by the astonished locals,
then sailed and dragged them
all the way to where you see them now.
A monument to British lords
slaughtered by Hengist and their own stupidity.
Now,’ he says to Gwydion, ‘top that.’
3
He will not try,
not knowing how Uther may react
to being beaten here, in this game.
They will not ask, why this story?
He can only throw the pebble in the pond
He can’t predict how far the ripples run.
‘After The Great Slaughter,[5]
when the tribes were broken
and the Great Queen died in despair,
a prince was struggling home.
He’d lost his weapons,
retainers and horse.
Hadn’t eaten for days.
He stumbled along the valleys,
staggering up and over the hills.
His life could only get worse.
He knows the Romans will steal his cattle
burn his farm, enslave his kin.
If he gets home, he can’t stop them;
if they find him there, they’ll kill him.
But he keeps on: beaten, not broken.‘
Rumbling approval betrays their interest.
Been there; done that.
‘It was a dark night, no moon, no stars,
and he’s stumbling along through the trees
in the valley below Maen Llwyd.
At the point where the path forks,
he sees in front of him a darkness,
darker than darkness, and as he watches
it grows even darker, a shimmering shimmering,
and the Devil on horseback blocking his path.
Down on your luck warrior?
No luck left to be down on.
Well, says the Devil,
offering him bread from his bag,
I do deals on nights like this,
with desperate men like you.
I have nothing to bargain with says our man.
But my friend, says the devil, you do.
Seven good years without effort or pain,
safe from your enemy’s eyes,
wife and children growing old
with the comforts that money can buy.
At the end of those years,
bring a beast from your farm,
if I name it, you serve me in hell.
if I can’t, you won’t be harmed,
and you’ll have been richer as well.’
He pauses, to let them consider
if they’d take such an offer.
Even if the devil speaks English
how could he lose?
Seven years of pleasure
for an eternity in hell?
The muttering subsides.
They’re waiting to see
what this warrior will choose.
‘He’d seen the sacred groves in flames.
The druids and their people slaughtered,
the tribes broken on that red, Roman line.
How could Hell be any worse?
So he agreed. Home to his wife.
They watched the Roman army trooping past.
Seven years to the day, as the sun was setting,
he said goodbye to his daughters and sons.
What’s ails you husband, have you gone mad?
She nagged him ‘til he confessed what he’d done.
What an idiot’s bet, but leave it to me,
the Devil’s a man and men can be fooled.
Put your life in the hands of God and your wife
as every sane husband should do.
Bring me bird lime, as much as we’ve got
and the feathers we pulled from the birds.
Stripped naked, they smeared her with stickiness
‘til she was covered from navel to head.
Then she tipped out the feathers all over the floor
and she rolled and she rolled ‘til she’d covered herself.
Now lead me to your devil with a halter round my neck.
At the place where the path splits
the Devil was waiting,
a gloating darkness.
He looked at the beast:
a daughter of Eve
from her navel on down,
but the strangest of fowl
from her navel on up.
By my tail, he said, what a terrible sight!
What perverted mating produced such a bird?
I'll be damned if I know what it is.
Thank you. I’ll take it to hell.
That wasn’t our deal!
What I said, and I quote:
If I name it, you serve me in hell.
If I can’t, you won’t be harmed,
and you’ll have been richer as well.
I didn’t mention the beast.
Or your family. Or your farm.
She’ll make a fine addition
to the freak shows of hell.
The halter was gone from his hand.
That sound on the breeze?
It’s my favourite tune.
A Roman patrol,
with your daughters and sons.
Before he could scream,
take me instead,
he was alone on the road
with the flames of his farm
lighting the way home.’
After the silence that followed
Uther is calling his name.
‘This ring is yours.
If the other two are as good
I will be honoured to have you as my bard.’
‘My Lord is very generous.
It would be my honour to serve,
if, at the end of my service,
you will grant me one request.’
‘As long as it is in my power,
does not diminish that power,
compromise my honour
or endanger my life or those near to me.
And that is my promise
in the hearing of these witnesses.’
He can only throw pebbles in the pond.
[1] The Thin Man is Vortigern.
[2] Geoffrey, Wace and Laȝamon narrate the murder of Uther’s father by a disgruntled servant. Pages or lines later, all three have Aurelius state, as a fact, that Vortigern murdered him.
[3] Throughout this book, Uther’s knowledge of late Imperial history is ‘uneven’ by modern standards. He also seems to know some stray facts and sayings from earlier Greek and Persian times.
[4] Geoffrey of Monmouth seems to have misunderstood Pendragon and linked the name to a dragon banner made in imitation of a comet. It’s more likely that Pendragon meant chief or first warrior. The story Uther tells is Geoffrey’s explanation of how and why Stonehenge was built.
[5] This story was suggested by Martin Carthy’s singing of ‘The Devil and the feathery wife’. I’ve changed everything except the terms of the deal and the wife’s solution. The ‘Great Slaughter’: defeat of Boudica’s rebellion at least four hundred years before this story takes place.
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