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Star of Mercia

Historical Tales of Wales and the Marches _by_ Blanche Devereux

_With an Introduction by_ Ernest Rhys

Jonathan Cape Eleven Gower Street, London

_First published 1922 All rights reserved_

_Printed in Great Britain by_ Butler & Tanner, _Frome and London_

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 butt 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 appetites 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 documents for some of her colour. There are passages that may terrify the 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 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.

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION 5

GWRTHEYRN THE DRUNKARD 11

DEWI SANT 35

STAR OF MERCIA 65

EARL SWEYN THE NITHING 86

EDITH'S WELL 109

RICHARD THE SCROB 120

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 butt 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."

"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 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. God'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 scrap of my clothing above the old healing--well out yonder."

"The old gods are indeed very wise! And Gwrtheyrn son of Guitaul? How does he pass 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 noble 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 hell 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 stitches 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 noblemen, 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 horsemen, 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!"

"Greeting!" returned Gwrtheyrn shortly. "What would the Lord Emrys say to us by your lips?"

"Thus says Aurelius Ambrosius to you, O Gwrtheyrn King of Erging: The renowned and mighty lord Ambrosius himself is now at Buallt, whither he is come to bestow the lordship of those lands--which are his as much as thine by hereditary right, be it said--upon the valiant prince Pascent thy son, for fitting appanage and livelihood. And he charges thee, O Gwrtheyrn, to attend him straightway, upon the morrow, to witness the installation of thy said son in all due form and order."

"Fore God!" Gwrtheyrn roared, "this is passing insolence! Hence to thy master, sir, and tell him that Gwrtheyrn permits not that another force from him what is his own! Or if it be too late now to make the return journey, why, there are my villeins' cow-houses at your service for the night. Ye shall have a guard set over you while ye are sleeping. Out of our presence, instantly, by blessed Paul!"

"So be it," said the soldier. "We will back to the lord of Britain."

While they were departing, the Queen and her women rose and withdrew. The foster-children went out into the twilit courtyard to play; the servants, after removing the dishes and the victuals, one by one left the room. Mogneid drew his seat closer to that of Gwrtheyrn.

"Ticklish fellows, these mongrel Romans," he observed.

The King was drinking deeply; the veins of his forehead still throbbed with rage and shame. By and by he put down his cup, and began to talk, with much gesticulation.

"Romans! Romans! Romans! Curse them all, high and low, up and down!... Ambrosius their tyrant, to the lousiest beggar's brat--and----What good are they to the clans of Britain?--with their fine habits and their sickly vices? What good to me was my wife Severa, Maxen's daughter? Ye see what sons she brought me--Gwrthefyr, and Cyndeyrn, and Pascent--cleave to Ambrosius, and forsake their own father! Here, in the west, are men mightier and taller and braver than all their enfeebled town-dwellers. Good fighting Goidels...."

"All men do know as much," said the other. "For my part, I would that my kinsmen were the chief men of the land."

"God!" panted Gwrtheyrn. "What is gone is gone--for ever." He looked upon his companion with a watery eye. "Thou art verily welcome, good Mogneid. A man is always glad to gossip with one of his own blood, especially after long time of dreariness. Few guests knock at my castle-gate--we are out of the run of life nowadays, alas! alas!"

The monotony and the squalor were all too evident.

"It were surely unjust," said Mogneid, in soothing tones, "that Buallt should be taken from thee."

"And shall I suffer it? I have my favourite hunting-lodge in that lordship. They are my lands--my lands! It pleases me to dwell there!" Gwrtheyrn shouted with maudlin vehemence.

"What is your purpose, O King?"

"Well, that--I know not. But he shall not have my lands! Look you, kinsman, it is near the harvest-time: I think my men will not come willingly to arms."

"Then speak Ambrosius fair, biding thy time. Go not to Buallt, if thou like not the indignity; and when the harvest is over, levy thy forces and win back thine own. Is there difficulty in this?"

"All the priests are ever on the old fox's side. A man cannot well struggle if he have holy Church against him. These are evil days indeed. They meddle in everything, these rascally adze-heads.[4] Now in the days of old, we could worship whom we would, aye, and how we would. Prosperous days!... There were the sacred fires at the spring and at the fall--those were things of power; they made the earth yield bravely and plenteously. I remember I have run through the bonfires, myself, many a time, when I was a child. And the magic of the wise ones--I swear each spell was worth ten blessings of a priest!"

[4] Celtic priests, from their form of tonsure.

"The King speaks soothly. In Dyfed there are many who do think as we, and who will scarcely permit the new-fangled faith to show its head. It is not too late, O King, to throw off the yoke of the Romanizers. Ye are all the world yet to your own people; they hate to see you idle and dispossessed. There are many men of my country eager to rise at your bidding: I know their minds."

"Cousin, this is a cheerful saying! Thy coming has filled me with hope."

"Know then that the ancient wisdom is mine, perfectly: from my childhood was I trained up in it by the last survivors of the venerable sacred order. Listen, then, my lord, that should be King of all the kings of Britain, to the words of the high gods that they have spoken unto Mogneid! Thus and thus, O Gwrtheyrn, foretold the entrails of the slave-boy accepted of Ceridwen...."

* * * * *

"Lord King," said Eliseg the chief huntsman, "it is not meet, nor is it wise, to talk of intimate matters with the scavenger of the by-ways. In other words, master, there is an old crafty bird, called cuckoo, who stealeth the nests of others that his own offspring may grow and flourish. Few have seen the cuckoo, but there are some that have had sight of him. The cuckoo is perfectly familiar to me."

"Aye, so," said Dyfnwal the King's chamberlain.

"By Hu the Mighty! speak plainly, Eliseg, or else hold thy tongue, thou naughty rogue!" cried Gwrtheyrn; but he smiled upon his trusty servant.

"Lord, I think ye cannot know what ye are about. The cuckoo of my simile, look you, he is the new-come guest, the lord from Dyfed, from whom the King has no secrets. This is not the first time this man has crossed my way. In Dyfed I was born, and there my wife's parents do still dwell. O King, this is Mogneid the Druid, of very evil fame!"

"The devil take thee for a lying slanderer! Mogneid is near of kin to me, within the nine degrees. He is a worthy prince, and fit to company me in all my undertakings. Well, and if he be learned in the ancient wise things--what can we show to-day to compare with the might of our forefathers?"

"By my dogs and my horns and my leashes! King Gwrtheyrn," said Eliseg, "we seek not to meddle impertinently, Dyfnwal and I, look you. But I have served you four and thirty years, and Dyfnwal thirty, day in and day out, in storm and shine, and we would not, for the love we bear you, that ye should now ride for a fall."

"We speak as your friends," Dyfnwal grunted.

"It is a dangerous reptile ye have sheltered," continued the other. "Dreaded is he throughout the land of Dyfed for his unfathomable deeds. He has all the art of the Druids; and he is the last of the brood, God be praised! The days of darkness are over, my king: men will no longer take succour from the wiles of devils, thanks be to the Lord Christ and to Mary the dear Lady of mankind!"

"Will ye hold your peace?" stormed the King. "Get you gone, both of you, or I will have your tongues slit for you! What next, what next, I ask you?"

"The tantrums of him!" said Eliseg, when they two were outside the door. "Dyfnwal, look you, I fear that this fellow will bring peril upon the King. He was never up to good from the hour wherein he first drew breath. He is up and down the country, about and about, each day, questioning every gaffer and goodwife, every lad, lass, and babe that will waste the precious hours talking with him. Already Lord Gwrtheyrn is never from the metheglin. We must let nothing escape us, lest our master be undone."

"I have eyes," said Dyfnwal. "I use them."

"Hist! I see him," exclaimed the huntsman. "Grows there gold in the villeins' hay-meadow, think you?"

Within the hall, Gwrtheyrn raged and muttered. When his wrath began to cool, he felt the want of the congenial society of Mogneid. This King's life was a lonely one. The Queen spent hours at spinning and carding, weaving and embroidery; and although she would listen, nodding and smiling, at any time to her husband's remarks, she seldom spoke, and her thoughts seemed always far away, at rest upon things serene and pleasant. So it came about that he seldom sought her company. Why must his kinsman tarry so long from him? wondered Gwrtheyrn. He gulped down a cupful of metheglin, and then another, and subsided into a chair, to wait.