Taliesin's song from 'The Fabled Third'.

 From The Fabled Third. 

Gwydion the storyteller has challenged Taliesn the poet to write an honest song about war. They are both drunk.

 ‘I tried an honest war song once.
Your challenge, remember?
Didn’t polish it but I’m drunk enough to hope

we’ll both forget it in the morning.’[1]

 

‘Did he saddle his horse, before the sun rose

stung by the cold, while the shivering torches

flicked long shadows on the stockade walls?

 

Did his hands shake, checking his harness

watched by proud elders, whispering siblings? 

Was there refuge in detail? Did the tearful maid, 

 

tangle his thoughts as he rode through the gate?

Old men compared scars, repeating their stories,

hiding the horror so boys become warriors.

 

The hero scorns death, dies laughing,

protecting his fame. Preposterous tales,

polished as heirlooms, handed down,

 

prophylactics against doubt. And was there doubt

in the rider’s banter, on the straight road to battle?

Did he boast with his friends of the deeds they’d perform?

 

Did he pay for his mead with the blood in his veins?

Did his training suffice, did he conquer his fear?

Did his sword strike sparks from his enemies’ steel?

 

Did he beg for the life he had not lived

as the spear pushed home? As the blade slashed down?

What was he thinking when his comrades fled; 

 

left him to die, to bleed out alone

watching the ravens, watching him, waiting, 

before their beaks hooked into still open eyes?

 

Did she work with her parents, watching the road?

How long did she hope, with stragglers returning.

Did she remember his face, in the years remaining 

 

in another man’s hut, in his arms, in his bed?

Watching her children, did she ever consider

what kind of father that boy might have been

 

Old men in winter, shun the fire’s warmth,

sit by the door, still watching the road,

for sons to return from last spring’s raid.

 

I forget the rest.

Who’d want to hear it?'

TheFabled Third published by Shearsman in the UK. 

 https://www.shearsman.com/store/Liam-Guilar-The-Fabled-Third-p673705296

Information and samples: http://www.liamguilar.com/the-fabled-third

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[1] No attempt has been made to copy any of the metrical patterns used by the historical Taliesin. 

Gwydion and Uther's stories. from The Fabled Third

 

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.

 

The Fabled Third is published by Shearman and available from online booksellers. Samples, background information and signed copies can be found at www.liamguilar.com

Clicking on the link will open a new window, 

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[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.

Praise for the Fabled third #2

 

(David McCooey, Australian poet and critic, on The Fabled Third and its predecessors. Email correspondence, published here with his kind permission.)

‘I love the sense of mood in all of your work. I love, too, your skill with, and attention to, the sonic condition of poetry (not something often talked about these days). Like this:

A dappled grey horse, huge,
its rider dressed for the hunt,
in fawn-coloured clothes,
horn slung around his neck,
watching him from the trees.
A bent note in the rustle of the forest.

 What superb vowel music. And then there is, of course, your historical imagination. I love moments like the footnote on ‘gebedda’. Your skill with narrative and image is often, to use a hackneyed term, cinematic. (I’m thinking especially of when you start and end a scene.) And lastly, though not finally, as a work of intertextuality, I am in awe of the knowledge and adaptation skills evident in your trilogy.

Congratulations on the trilogy; it’s an extraordinary achievement.’

( David’s most recent collection The Book of Falling, is published by Upswell Poetry. He is Professor of Literature and Writing at Deakin University.)

Praise for The Fabled Third.

The English poet and critic Jeremy Hooker on The Fabled Third. (Email correspondence reproduced here with his kind permission.) 

 'The Fabled Third is a rare, magnificent achievement both alone and in relation to the sequence.  The only problem I have with reading it is that I can't always tell who is speaking - which makes me wish for more information at the front or back of the book. Yet the absence of this may also be seen as a virtue. For you, the invisible author, are completely inside the narrative and the actions and characters. 

The stories are driven, and the many short, verbless sentences compel them forward. This, though, is only one technique, in a work in which style, matter and pre-modern attitudes create a world. You are, as I have said, invisible, only present in occasional footnotes and quotations that reveal the depth of scholarship on which the work is based. 

But you are of course the poet, the master of language, responsible for the clean drive of the prose narrative and the more poetic or aphoristic passages, such as 'small birds alighting on a tree/after a storm has rinsed the air bright.', or 'Nostalgia is  a perverse mistress./ Memory's destructive sister, ...' Evocations of atmospheric landscapes (eg., p. 122) and of rich clothing and weapons (e.g., pp. 146 - 148) enhance the narrative. 

Many passages are memorable. For example: 'What do you think life means, storyteller?' and the preceding and following lines, and 'We are not rivers, trees, or rocks./We are the animal that narrates,/ ... free to reimagine.'

 

My congratulations. I do not know of any other poetic work as substantial, ambitious or memorable as this written in our time.'

The Fabled Third is available from Shearsman books in the UK, most online book sellers, or direct from the author at www.liamguilar.com/shop  where you can also find samples and information about the books 

Narrative Poetry and the Critic

I tell stories. I don’t think of it as writing poetry.

 

Poetry is T.S.Eliot, W.B.Yeats, David Jones, Basil Bunting, Louis MacNeice, R.S.Thomas, Wyatt, Shakespeare...it's an endless list.

 

OR 

 

If you prefer your poets alive then Jeremy Hooker, John Mathias, Jo Balmer, Jenny Lewis, Leslie Saunders... They write poetry, and I wouldn’t be able to define ‘poetry’ any more than most people, but like Graves’ honest housewife, I know the genuine article when I read it.

 

But I’m not trying to do that. My models are the adults I remember who told stories as a form of entertainment; the rhythms of the liturgy, with the congregation chanting in unison; traditional stories, be they folk or fairy tale; the story songs of the tradition, stripped back to bare bones and beautiful; voices round a campfire shaping the day into a narrative, and of course, the medieval storytellers. 

 

What I write is historical fiction. But it’s sold as poetry because the lines don’t go all the way to the right margin. 

 

The people who would normally read historical fiction are put off by the layout and the label. The people who read poetry are used to reading short verse, and have a set of expectations about what that verse should and shouldn’t do and are therefore put off by a book length narrative.

 

It's a problem facing everyone writing narrative verse. 

The critic and reviewer are lost, a vocabulary developed and designed to talk about ‘poetry’ and what ‘poetry’ is supposed to be and do, flounders. 

 

Or they buy into Kinney’s ‘doubling’ even if they haven’t heard the phrase: the idea that verse narrative can be separated out into verse and narrative, forgetting you could just as easily separate prose narrative into prose and narrative. And then the verse can be considered on its own and the critic can play the usual ‘poetry review’ games while ignoring story. 

 

It’s as though someone reviewing American Psycho discussed nothing but sentence structure and word choice, or made a great deal of fuss over another writer’s preference for similes over metaphors.

 

And because in a verse narrative the intelligence should be in the architecture, the inability to discuss this means no one notices how plot and character can be constructed so that they (can) work differently in some ways then they do in (some kinds of) prose, or how some prose writers can create stories that work more like verse narratives.

 

A Presentment of Englishry, A Man of Heart, The Fabled Third

I started writing these ten years ago and now they are finished and I can hear the Grateful Dead singing; 'What a long strange trip it's been'.

Narrative poetry, or Historical fiction, or historical fiction in verse. I think of it as storytelling, 

From a prehistoric tin trader visiting the island to the struggle for power at the end of Roman Britain and the coming of the English.

The stories of Locrin, Gwendoline and Aestrild; Vortigern and Rowena; and Uther and Ygrayne are taken from Laȝamon‘s late twelfth century version of the legendary history of Britain. The Fabled Third also contains versions of three stories from The Mabinogion. 

Laȝamon‘s own story is sketched in A Presentment of Englishry and he returns to close the books at the end of The Fabled Third in Laȝamon‘s Last Interview. 

Information and samples on Shearsman UK’s website, Information, Samples and background at  www.liamguilar.com.    

Nu biddeð Laȝamon alcne æðele mon;

for þene almiten Godd.

þet þeos boc rede; & leornia þeos runan.

þat he þeos soðfeste word; segge to-sumne.

for his fader saule; þa hine forð brouhte.

& for his moder saule; þa hine to monne iber.

& for his awene saule; þat hire þe selre beo. Amen

The Fabled Third is now published

 

The Fabled Third is now available directly from the publisher: Click Here  and from the usual online outlets. Take advantage of a weak Australian Dollar and buy direct from my website: Click Here where you will also find samples and background information.

Summary.

Following the outline of Laȝamon the priest’s late twelfth century version, The Fabled Third is the story, in verse, of Uther Pendragon’s attempt to rule what’s left of the Roman province of Britannia in the late 5^th /early 6^th Century. His British subjects are more interested in squabbling over their privileges than in working together against the increasing numbers coming to plunder the ailing province. 

 

Gorlois Duke of Cornwall, a survivor of the previous regime, resents Uther, is resistant to royal authority and is looking for an excuse to renounce his oath of allegiance and go to war. An equally resentful Merlin, banished from the court, is plotting his revenge.  

 

The women are caught in a struggle for precedence and power, knowing the consequences of failure are horrifying. Ygrayne, the wife of Gorlois, has seen what happens to the wives of defeated rulers. Knowing that her husband can’t beat Uther, she too is plotting. 

 

The book begins when Gwydion, a British storyteller, arrives at Uther’s court. Uther is in need of a bard. He challenges Gwydion to tell three stories, for three different audiences.  Versions of Gwydion’s stories will later be collected in ‘The Mabinogion’ but as he becomes involved in Uther’s struggle to rule the province, the first two stories are easy. 

The third is the problem. 

John Masefield's versions of the story of Arthur's conception.

(King Uther and Igraine after Gorlois's death, from Uther and Igraine by Warwick Deeping, illustration by Władysław T. Benda, 1903)

Now that I’ve finished writing about Uther, I have been reading other people’s versions. 

 

The story in its early medieval versions operates on the ugly edges of desire, where obsession lurks and destroys both the object of desire and the person doing the desiring. If ever there was as story to illustrate the idea that identity is fluid, and if desire is desire for the desire of the other and we are willing to transform ourselves to become the object of that desire, this is it. 

 

In ‘Midsummer Night And Other Tales In Verse’ (1928) John Masefield (1878-1967) provides an example of the problem caused by rewriting a story to make it acceptable for ‘modern’ sensibilities. Interestingly, he tells the story twice. 

 

 In ‘The Begetting of Arthur’, the longer of the two versions, there is no magic, no Merlin there is no transformation, there is no deception of the woman, and the lovers are married before they consummate their relationship (ain’t euphemisms lovely?).  

 

In this version, Uther is trying to unite Britain. He goes to Cornwall to try and talk the King, Melchyon, into joining him. Melchyon is ‘aged savage mean and grim’ and baron Breuse the Heartless ‘of all men the worst’ lives with him. The king dismisses Uther. As he’s about to leave, he meets Ygern, the King’s daughter, and they fall instantly in love. Uther turns around and goes back to ask the king for her hand. Her father refuses his request, thinking Uther’s simply trying to ‘win my power through a bride’. As Uther and his two companions ride away, Ygern’s sister catches up with them, and tells him that Ygern is to be married that night to Breuse the Heartless. 

 

To save her, Uther concocts a plan to sneak back to Tintagel, wearing a disguise of  ‘crown and scarlet and a sheep-wool beard.’knowing the Porter is old and will be half asleep. He gets in, finds a waiting Ygerne, they immediately escape to the old Hermit (Bran the Blest) who immediately marries them. 

 

They flee Cornwall, riding day and night, until out of Merchyon’s land,  before consummating their marriage in a suitably romantic outdoor spot ‘in this orchard of the fairy queen’ but  Merchyon and Breuse  catch up with them and murder Uther while he’s sleeping. Ygern is taken back to Tintagel to await the birth of her son.

 

Give Masefield his dues, it enjoyable, he was an a skilful narrative poet. It reads like a literary version of a ballad. It’s reminiscent of The Eve of Saint Agnes as the lovers creep out of the castle and make their escape, except it’s more dramatic than Keats’ poem. 

 

But the story itself, stripped of magic and made decent for the moral reader, is as dead as Uther’s fake woollen beard. He is heroic and moral and utterly forgettable. 

 

In the same collection, Masefield tells another version of the same story. ‘The Old Tale of the Begetting’.  He introduced the poem: The men of old who told the tale for us/Declare that Uther begat Arthur thus’.

 

It’s much shorter, 10 rhyming couplets with a final stanza of three lines,  against seven pages of ‘The Begetting of Arthur’. This is the familiar version, with Merlin and magic, deception of the woman, and it ends with Uther crowing and Ygrain distraught ;

 

Uther drinks and boasts at his board,

Ygrain sings for her dead lord:

‘Would I were pierced though with a sword’.   

 

It’s possible Masefield was trying to mimic a ballad in ‘popular form’, and thought this sounded like the story if it had been told by someone uneducated or at least ‘non-literary’.   But whatever the intention, it isn’t a version of the story that can be taken seriously.  Remember, this is the man who wrote ‘Cargoes’.

 

His rhyming couplets and diction undermine any seriousness the story might have had. 

 

‘Uther saw Ygrain the Bright/His heart went pit-pat at the sight’.

or

‘He said to Merlin, ‘Make her mine/Or you’ll be hog’s meat for my swine’.

 

An uncharacteristically awkward syntax also spoils the story.

 

‘As he climbed into the Queen’s bed/Ygrain’s Duke on the moors fell dead’.

 

 

‘The Begetting of Arthur’, if you don’t know the usual version of the story, makes sense, but as a version of the story, it’s like watching an earnest, well-made film that somehow misses the point. ‘The Old tale of the Begetting’ puts the usual version at a distance, and manages to simultaneously  tell the story and mock it. 

 

Cleaning up a medieval story so it’s acceptable usually means killing whatever made the story hold its readers’ attention for centuries. 

Publication: The Fabled Third.

 P

Photos are what happen when you need a break from the seriousness of proof reading the final proof copy.

The Fabled Third, the last instalment in the run of books that began with A Presentment of Englishry, will be published by Shearsman in the UK in January 2025. Details and samples on the publisher's website.

https://www.shearsman.com/store/Liam-Guilar-The-Fabled-Third-p673705296

Who was King Arthur's mother? Laȝamon’s version.3/3

Laȝamon’s version.

 

It’s a relief to move from texts written in Latin, a language I can’t read, to two texts written in languages I can; Anglo-Norman and Early Middle English. 

 

Laȝamon’s early middle English version is the most dramatic of the four. As was his practice, while closely following Wace, he expands incidents and adds speeches. He removes Wace’s criticisms of Uther, while consistently adding comments which emphasise Ygærne’s innocence. 

 

In places you can almost see how he had visualised what he read and then, in translating, added small but significant detail. However, he also possessed a limited vocabulary of praise and an apparent lack of interest in ‘motivation’. Some terms in French which would later enter English, seem to have had no equivalent in his version of English.  

 

Ygærne is introduced by her social role, as most of Laȝamon's characters are. Gorlois ‘sat with his gracious wife’, ‘the fair Ygærne the wife of Earl Gorlois, the fairest of all women’. Wace’s ‘Courteous and wise’ disappear, but Laȝamon seems to have had trouble translating ‘curteise’ (courteous) which may account for its absence here. (Later in the story he translates ‘Curteise’ as ‘of tuhtle swipe gode’ (Which Barron and W translate as ‘refined in bearing’ and more literally ‘of very good manners’)

 

Wace’s ambiguous ‘Ygærne behaved in such a way as neither to consent nor refuse’, leaves his translator confused: ‘He looked at her often, flashing glances from his eyes, often sent his cup-bearer to her table, smiled at her and eyed her often; and she looked kindly upon him-but whether she loved him I do not know!’  

 

Laȝamon makes her more than just the object of Uther’s lust. When Gorlois sends her to Tintagel he writes: ‘To Tintagel he sent his beloved, gentle wife, called Ygærne, the fairest of women, and shut her up securely in the castle, Ygærne was sorrowful and sad at heart that so many men for her sake should lose their lives there.‘

 

For Laȝamon, Uther’s problem is not the impregnability of Tintagel, but Ygraene’s character. To Wace’s Ulfin he adds: ‘If you think to win Ygærne  with such violence , then she will behave as no woman ever does, feeling in extreme fear the sweetness of love. But if you love Ygærne you should keep it secret, and quickly send her gold and silver and woo her with cunning and with fair promises. Even so it would be doubtful whether you could possess her, for Ygærne is a good and very faithful woman as her mother was and others of that family. 

 

In Wace and Geoffrey, Merlin is sent for. In Laȝamon he has to be found. He is staying with a hermit. Merlin tells the hermit: ‘Uther is filled with longing for the lovely Ygraene, greatly besotted with the wife of Gorlois. But it will never happen, as long as time shall last, that he shall win her save by my magic skill: for there is no truer woman in this mortal world.’

 

By dramatizing Uther’s arrival at Tintagel, Laȝamon reinforces the success of the deception. ‘They came to the gate of the castle and called out in a  familiar manner: Undo the bar of this gate, the earl is come here, the lord Gorlois’. But instead of the gates being thrown open, soldiers come to the wall and speak with Gorlois ‘and recognised him clearly’. 

 

He gives Ygærne the only lines of direct speech in the four versions:

‘Welcome my lord, dearest one; and Jurdan and Brutael are welcome too. Did you escape from the king without harm?’

 

Neither Geoffrey nor Wace give much space to what actually happened in Tintagel. But Laȝamon describes the scene. It contains perhaps the quietest moment in The Brut:

 

Ygærne beh to bure; & lætte bed him makien.

wes þat kine-wurðe bed; al mid palle ouer-bræd. 

Þe king hit wel bihedde; & eode to his bedde.

and Ygærne læi adun; bi Uðere Pendragun. 

 

He insists that Ygaerne is unaware she’s in bed with Uther. 

 

‘Now Ygerne truly believed that it was Gorlois; in no way whatsoever did she recognise Uther the king. The king went unto her as a man should to a woman and his way with the woman most dear to him and he begot on her a marvellous man, the boldest king who ever was born; and he was called Arthur..(9513) 'Ygerne knew not who lay in her arms, for all the time she fully believed that it was the earl Gorlois.' 

 

After he returns to his army, all reference to Uther’s response to Gorlois’ death is removed. Uther sends messengers ‘to greet Ygærne, the noblest of women, and sent her as a sign something she had said in bed, commanding her to yield up the castle immediately-there was no other recourse for her lord was dead. Ygærne still believed the truth was that the dead earl had gone to join his troops and she firmly believed it was not true that king Uther had ever come to her. ‘ 

 

‘There and then Uther the king took Ygærne as queen: Ygærne was with child by King Uther before she was married, all through the magic of merlin.’ 

 

Laȝamon, who we know was a priest, adds one more detail to this story. IT's not in his sources. When Arthur is born:

 

Sone swa he com an eorðe; aluen hine iuengen.

heo bigolen þat child; mid galdere swiðe stronge.

heo ȝeuen him mihte; to beon bezst alre cnihten.

heo ȝeuen him an-oðer þing; þat he scolde beon riche king.

heo ȝiuen him þat þridde; þat he scolde longe libben.

heo ȝifen him þat kine-bern; custen swiðe gode.

þat he wes mete-custi; of alle quike monnen.

þis þe alue him ȝef; and al swa þat child iþæh.

 

I’ve quoted the original because Barron and Weinberg translate Aluen as fairies, but I’ve always read it as elves. The Middle English dictionary says it could be either. For a modern reader fairies might evoke the disneyfied version. Elves, especially the Old English, pre Tolkien variety, were more sinister and much less benign. The elves attend and give gifts: strength to be the best of knights; that he should be a mighty king, and they gave him long life. ‘So that he was the most liberal of living men’. 

 

 What's is a reminder that what's important to the tellers of this tale, is not Ygærne, or the twisted morality of the the story, but the fact that it leads to the birth of Arthur. 

Which should lead to Ygraene as a 12^th century lady. 

What 'they believed'. The Middle Ages and the American Election.

Looking at attitudes to magic and transformation in the Middle Ages, before the 13^th century in particular, the scholarly implication seems to be that these beliefs are discredited and therefore they can be studied as something very much in the past, cut off from us by the Enlightenment and the advances of modern scientific understanding. 

‘We’ don’t believe this stuff anymore. Those medieval figures who argued that transformation was impossible were obviously ‘well ahead of their time’.

 

The recent coverage of the American election should qualify that attitude and raise questions about who that ‘we’ excludes. What do 'we' believe?

 

(Ignore the ignorance behind the claims that we’d be better off as ‘medieval peasants’ or that there is a pure ‘Anglo-Saxon’ ethnicity.) 

 

So far, I’ve read reports in the mainstream papers that in America there are people who believe that hurricanes can be ‘weaponised’, to the point where meteorologists have received death threats. One prominent politician is reported to not only not believe in vaccines, but to believe he suffered memory loss because a worm eat part of his brain and died inside it. Another is reported to have claimed to have been attacked by a demon while he slept, and was left scratched and bleeding after the assault. 

The paper reported the last two as objective facts, without comment. 

 

This is the twenty first century. 

 

And yes, you can buy spell books on Amazon and their buyers seem to be upset if the spells don’t work. You can hire people to cast love spells for you to enchant the object of your desire. You can even pay for transformation spells.  

 

And this is the twenty first century. 

 

If there is a twenty fifth, will historians of these times, working through the archives, dismiss beliefs like these as fringe lunacy, or take it as mainstream belief? 

What will they say ‘they believed’? 

Who was King Arthur's Mother? 2/3 Geoffrey of Monmouth and Wace.

The four texts are The Vulgate version of Geoffrey of Monmouth (GOM), the First Variant Version of GOM (hereafter FVV), Wace’s ‘Roman de Brut’ and Laȝamon's ‘Brut’. 

 Quotations are taken from these editions.

The Wife of Gorlois is respectively, Ygerna, Igerna, Ygerne, and Ygærne.   

 

In all four texts the story of Arthur’s conception follows the same sequence and contains the same elements that first appear in Geoffrey’s account. Only Laȝamon adds anything substantial to the account. However, each writer treats the material differently. Geoffrey relates the story. Wace is critical of Uther. Laȝamon removes the criticism of Uther and goes out of his way to emphasise Ygaerne’s innocence.

 

 

The Sequence:

 

At a feast to celebrate Uther’s recent victories, he sees the wife of Gorlois. Uther is besotted, and his behaviour outrages Gorlois who storms out. 

 

Gorlois puts his wife in the safety of Tintagel, which is impregnable, while he fortifies and occupies another castle. 

 

Overwhelmed by desire, Uther besieges Gorlois but can’t take the castle. Sick with love, he asks Ulfin for advice.

Ulfin points out that Tintagel is impregnable, and advises him to seek Merlin.

Merlin offers to transform Uther into Gorlois so he can enter the castle and bed Ygerna.

While Uther is absent his men attack Gorlois, kill him and capture his castle.

Uther hears the news and leaves Tintagel.

He then takes Tintagel and marries Ygerna. Arthur is born. Later, a daughter,  Anna is born. 

And there is no further mention of Ygerna. 

 

The differences between the Vulgate and the First Variant are slight. 

 

Neither mention Ygerna’s reaction to Uther’s behaviour at the feast. FVV notes the David and Bathsheba parallel, with ‘Satan as the go between’, perhaps alluding to the earlier meeting of Vortigern and Rowena, also at a feast, where the devil was indeed busy. 

 

Uther is upset by the news that Gorlois is dead but in GOM ’he mourned for the death of Gorlois; but he was happy all the same, that Ygerna was freed from her marital obligations’. In FVV‘ ‘…pretending to be saddened by the death of his duke, but rejoicing not a little about Igerna’s release from her marital bond.’

 

Uther takes Tintagel and marries Y/Igerna. GOM states: ‘From that day on they lived together as equals united by their great love for each other: and they had a son and a daughter’. The First Variant ‘After their nuptials were lawfully and splendidly celebrated, the King and Queen Igerna lived together side by side. And at the time for her delivery she gave birth to that famous Arthur. Afterwards she conceived and brought forth a daughter named Anna.’  

WACE

 

As I’ve said before, the conception of Arthur was a ‘morally ambiguous’ story for a cleric writing in the 12^thCentury. Possibly far more morally ambiguous then it would have been a century later. Uther is intent on committing adultery and/or rape: Ygerne’s actions could be described as adultery, though unintentional. Later writers, Malory most notably, would make sure Gorlois was dead before Arthur was conceived, but this isn’t in Geoffrey. 

However, in all four versions, only Wace shifts the narrative so it becomes openly critical of Uther. He also adds a little to Ygerna’s character. 

 

In his version of the story, even before he’s seen her, Uther ‘had loved and desired her for she was exceedingly celebrated’. 

I don't know at what point the Church decided the intent to sin was the same as committing the sin but Mathew 5;28 is quite explicit: 'But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.' The implication in Wace is that he’s been waiting for his opportunity and he intends to make the most of it.

 

Y is introduced: ‘There was no fairer in all the land: she was courteous, beautiful and wise, and of very high rank.’ Courteous and Wise distinguish her from other dangerous beauties, like Rowena and Aestrild.  

 

While Uther is flirting with her the obvious question is ‘what was she doing?’ Geoffrey doesn’t describe her reaction. Wace adds: ‘Ygerna behaved in such a way as neither to consent nor refuse.’ Which may have been a sane policy in such a situation, but it doesn’t exonerate her either. 

 

Wace’s Ulfin becomes the voice of reason. For Geoffrey’s Ulfin, the impregnability of Tintagel is the only problem, but Wace leaves Tintagel out of Ulfin’s speech.  

 

‘These are astonishing words,‘ said Ulfin. ‘You have harassed the count with war, destroyed his lands and confined him to this castle. Do you think that that pleases his wife? You love the wife and make war on the husband! I don’t know what sort of help you need; I can’t advise you.’

 

When he learns of the death of Gorlois: Uther ‘was grieved that the count was slain, he said; that had not been his wish. He was full of regrets and compunction, and angry with his barons. He seemed distressed but there were few who believed him.’

 

‘The king, deeply in love with Ygerne, married her without delay. She had conceived a son that night and in due course bore him.’

And that’s the end of her role in the story.

In the Next Post, Laȝamon’s version.

(The arguments over whether the ‘Vulgate’ version of GOM came before or after the ‘First Variant’, or whether it’s the work of one or two writers, aren’t relevant here nor is the debate about which version Wace used, or whether or not Laȝamon had read Geoffrey.)