by Peter Harris
6
The Book of the Quintessence
When the goatherd had gone, Calibur felt more alone than ever before. He realised that he had always expected one day to return and tell Rosa all he had seen and done. For she had been the love of his youth, and his comfort after the death of his father and mother. She had listened to his dreams and hopes, and laughed and sang to him of children and a home to which his feet would hurry at night after his labours at the hot forge. She had been a home for his wandering mind, soothing water to quench and temper his fiery spirit.
Then, when his love for her had faded, there had been the icon of the Perfect Woman, and his heart’s hope of finding his true Destiny with her. And for his mind’s comfort he had had the Book, on which he had pinned such high hopes of enlightenment; then for company the Platonic brothers to help him forget that he was alone in the world.
But now the book was eaten by a rat, the icon was given to a goatherd, and the Perfect Woman had rejected him, sending him back to Rosa. And even she was gone, and their old home was a ruin. His aching heart now turned again to Rosa, remembering in her dark eyes the deep truths of the Earth. And the tears ran down his soot-blackened cheeks as he wept for her in the ruins of the cottage under the rampant briars.
When he looked up it was growing dark and the first stars were out. He shivered; it had grown very cold. He unrolled his tattered hermit’s blanket and curled up in a pile of mouldy straw, the charred remains of the thatched roof. Exhausted, he was soon fast asleep.
In the night he tossed and turned, feeling something hard under his blanket. Groping through the straw, he found a small rectangular object. He sat up and looked at it in the starlight. It was slashed and charred, but he recognised it at once: it was the icon of the Lady of Avalon which Rosa’s mother had given them on their wedding day, a talisman to bring the blessing of the Goddess to their union. Once she had brought it out and said, ‘If we pray to the Lady, perhaps She will grant us a child.’ He had snatched it from her hand, accusing her of being a foolish and superstitious woman, and thrown it out. But she had secretly retrieved it.
Now he looked at the broken image of the Lady through his tears, and her eyes looked into his heart, and he felt it confess to her, ‘My life was always in your hands, and the One dwells also with You here in the valley, not just on the mountaintop.’
With a sudden joy he felt his divided heart become one. Often in the mountains, after meditating on the pure truth of the One in the Platonic realm, he had felt depressed when he came back down to Earth, ‘this imperfect shadowland,’ as the hermits called it. Now he felt those same shadows flow with the milk of love and the wisdom of life. ‘Though You are as hard as the stars, You are also soft and forgiving as the breasts of a mother,’ he murmured. ‘You have forgiven me, and you will surely lead me to Rosa, and perhaps she too will forgive me.’ He lay back, and gazing at the night sky he fell asleep again, still clutching the tattered icon of Avalon.
Towards morning, as the sky lightened in the east like a shell with delicate rosy hues, he dreamed that he saw the ferryman of Avalon, the magic faerie island in the far West beyond this world, which can be found only by those who are worthy. And in his dream the ferryman called to him from across the water, ‘Seek for Rosa in Avalon, if you be a true man and worthy of her, and wish one day to fulfil your true Destiny.’ And in his sleep Calibur vowed to become worthy of her, find Avalon and beg Rosa’s forgiveness.
Then out of the water rose a sword, golden in the light of the sun sinking over Avalon. The emerald in its hilt sparkled like green fire. ‘It is the Sword of Truth!’ Calibur thought. But as he walked over the water to seize it, he began to sink and the waves covered his head.
He woke up, gasping for air, as the rays of the rising sun caught the ruined walls of the cottage and shone into his eyes. He looked at the ruins of his house, and remembered the bitter news of the night before with a heavy heart. Then his heart leaped within him as the memory of the Sword returned. But he remembered his rejection by the only one who had understood his desire to create such a sword, and he recoiled at the thought of following that will-of-the-wisp again. He remembered Rosa’s scornful words about his ‘meaningless dreams,’ and yawned, and thought, ‘What a foolish dream! As if there was such a place as Avalon, that I might find my wife there! She is gone, and will never wish to return. I really was a dreamer, as she said, and unworthy of her. Now I must return to the real world, and rekindle my father’s forge. There may be no such thing as the Sword of Truth, but ordinary swords will still be needed by ordinary men.
‘And perhaps one day when I am successful and rich, I will set out to find Rosa again, and win her back. Or perhaps she will come back to me, when she hears I have returned and become sensible and successful at last.’ He did not admit it to himself, but he also thought ‘Perhaps Gwynneth will come to me, if I become successful, now that Rosa is gone. Did she not say herself, “our destinies are linked”?’ For his heart was still divided.
So he returned to his smithy, and gave the saddler his notice, and rebuilt his ruined forge, and began to make more practical swords, putting away his old dreams of the Sword of Truth. And the fragments of the sword that had shattered lay forgotten in the corner.
Soon Calibur became an armourer to the kings of the lands to the east of England, who were preparing for a great onslaught from the barbarians.
The busy months passed, full of cares and worries, and Calibur took on an apprentice, whose name was Padrafer, and he all but forgot his old hope of creating a magical sword and changing the world. The barbarians kept coming, and his swords kept getting better, sharper and tougher. But none of them was magical. And sometimes he saw the work which his swords and others like them had done: men limping along on one leg, or with one ear missing, or a hand or eye. And widows seeing him in the street would turn the other way.
And the religion of the Romans, forged under the dark clouds of the torture and tyranny of an empire that was no more, continued nevertheless to take hold in the hearts of the people, and he began to fear for his safety, being a smith and husband to one who was said to be a witch. For blacksmiths, along with Jews, Gypsies and women (it began to be whispered) are the natural enemies of Christ. Still, sometimes he prayed in secret to the Goddess for the return of Rosa, and he tried to live a balanced life, between the hot noisy forge and the cool leafy garden of herbs and roses and cabbages, which he had replanted. But he lived in the smithy until he could afford to rebuild the cottage, which remained in ruins.
Then late one day as he was closing an old man with hooded face came to the smithy, and offered him a little book. ‘I suppose you want all my swords in exchange for it, old man?’ said Calibur, with a grim smile, thinking of that fateful morning when the trader had sold him the Book.
‘No sword you have could buy what I offer you now, though I hear you have become a good swordsmith,’ replied the old man.
‘Once long ago I gave all I had to buy one Book, which led me to madness and ruin. Never again will I make such a bargain!’ said Calibur, beginning to bolt the shutters.
‘This Book is for you, my son. It is free.’
‘Who are you? Why do you not show your face?’ said Calibur, suddenly afraid and hopeful at the same time. He felt the wheel of his fate turning again, as it had that day at the market so long ago.
‘I am Anselm of Avebury. I wrote the Book which you followed to your ruin. I was under a vow of seclusion in the Hermitage, but I heard that you had come. Indeed, I pressed my ear to the wall and listened to your conversations, and when you left to seek your wife I heard your speech. That is when I saw the light of the Goddess, and wrote new truths, which speak of Her, and balance the old Book.
But the missionaries of Rome came, and converted the brothers, and I alone would not turn to their world-slandering doctrines, though they tortured me. That is why I do not show my face; it is branded and not fair to look upon – if it ever was! But when the brothers threw me out in
to the snow to die, I wandered into the arms of a band of pilgrims on their way to Avebury, and they gave me succour, and I lived, and went with them to seek the Goddess.
There I was reborn. Afterward I resolved to come in search of you, since it was you who (unknowingly) converted me to the wisdom of the Goddess. I want to teach you all the new truths I have learned, and expound the old in a new light. For your time has come; your destiny calls. Do you not feel it?’
‘Perhaps I do, old man. But I am afraid of seeking for truth; afraid of not finding it; perhaps more afraid of finding it.’
‘Then you are ready. Before, you thought that your mind alone could hold the truth, and be enlightened. So did I. But now I know, as you do, that the truth is only to be apprehended in our lives, by doing it; nay, by becoming it. And that is sometimes frightening, is it not?’
The old man’s words stirred Calibur as he had not been stirred for many days, and so he said, ‘Welcome, Anselm of Avebury! You may stay with me in my humble garret above the forge; it is not a palace, but it is warm and dry.’
So the old man stayed with Calibur, and in the evenings after Padrafer the apprentice had banked the fire and departed, Anselm taught him the five truths written in the book, all but the last one.
These were the five facets through which Anselm had looked into Life, and the concepts by which he began their elucidation:
THE FOUR ELEMENTS
BY WHICH ALL LIFE IS ORDERED
Two of which belong to the Masculine pole, and two to the Feminine.
I THE ELEMENT OF LOVE
Being defined as openness to the other, whether great or small, whether existing or merely possible. By love are the five doors of the senses flooded with all the beauty of all that is and may be; love is the Common Sense by which the many are perceived also as one. By love is the World and the Soul appreciated. Without love there is only pride and blindness. True life is receptiveness to the other, both the One and the Many. Love is the doorway to Faerie and the imagining of new Forms. Love is of the Divine Feminine; it is our Mother.
II THE ELEMENT OF BEAUTY
Being defined as the harmony of all that is, the harmony of the One and the Many, the Part and the Whole. When we love, we see every Part as a beautiful Whole, and every whole as part of a greater Whole; and through Imagination we explore that Whole. In Beauty is the path to Faerie and the creation of new Forms. Beauty is of the Divine Feminine; it is our Mother.
III THE ELEMENT OF TRUTH
Being defined as the laws by which all things relate. It is the logic and pattern of all flow, all life, on Earth, in Faerie and in Heaven. All things flow, all balance; nothing is lost, only transformed. By Truth new Forms are perfected. Truth is of the Divine Masculine; it is our Father.
IV THE ELEMENT OF FREEDOM
Being defined as the ability of all things to express their essence, in action and reaction to one another. The law of all things, on Earth, in Faerie, and in Heaven, is freedom constrained only by the truth — the way in which all things relate and react. So all things are free to be themselves; yet no act is without its consequences. By Freedom new Forms are manifested upon the earth. Freedom is of the Divine Masculine; it is our Father.
V THE FIFTH ELEMENT: THE QUINTESSENCE; THE GREAT UNION
This is both masculine and feminine, and neither; it is a third thing, a magical middle way between the two poles, a fusion of opposites. It is the element from which Faerie is made — and by it Avalon, the Blessed Isle, at favourable times approaches the shores of Earth. And by it the four elements work together in harmony.
Being defined as the union of the two Divine Feminine Elements with the two Divine Masculine, to create the Middle Way of True Life, the Union of Opposites, the Marriage of Heaven and Earth. He who has the two opposites within, is blessed and knows at once both masculine and feminine bliss, and has the power of both male and female. All White Magic comes from the power of the Fifth Element. The magical Sword of Truth and Freedom must be paired with the sheath of Love and Beauty. All unions of man and woman thus have the magical power to create the Fifth Element; very few do. From one such union will come the forging of the great Sword that is to be created for the restoring of the Faerie republic of Logres in Britain.’
VI OF THE GREAT DIVORCE
Black wizardry is the rebellion of the masculine elements against the feminine; then Truth and Freedom become fixed, unable to evolve, and turn to Hatred and Ugliness, and violence undoes the good that was intended.
Black witchcraft is the rebellion of the feminine elements against the masculine; then love and beauty turn to deception and enslavement.
And many black wizards will come, and in reaction many black witches will arise, and hatred and fear will separate Man and Woman, before the Goddess prevails again, and the Fifth element is reborn, and by it the Forms are re-created, and Logres returns to Britain.
There were many other prophecies in Anselm’s book, and many thoughts on how the Fifth Element may be achieved, and how the ideal Forms to build Logres might be created, but no final answers. And he concluded:
‘The greatest power we have is in the union of opposites, as man and woman. Yet how is that to be achieved in these days of strife, when the man fears yet dominates the woman, and the woman fears yet resists and deceives the man?’
‘I was unlucky in love,’ said Anselm to Calibur once as they watched two lovers walk hand in hand past the door of the smithy, ‘Or, so I used to say. But ever since I heard your speech at the hermitage that day, I knew that in a woman I was offered the Goddess, and in Her, Life, but I was afraid of Life, and chose instead the pursuit of Truth. But the greatest truth is Life itself. And Life is only to be found in Love, not knowledge.’ And he sighed, having at last told the whole truth about himself.
A few days later Anselm called Calibur to his bedside, and said, ‘I am at death’s door. I have fought the good fight, and though victory is not certain, I must leave the great Quest to others. For I am ready for the halls of rest. At sunset I will lay down my life and depart for the blessed realm.’ Calibur asked him why he had not explained the last truth written in the book: that of the Fifth Element, the Marriage of Opposites.
‘Because it is not complete. I myself do not know it, because I have not, in this life, actually become it. To learn it you must become it. To become it I foresee that you must go into the West and seek Avalon. For Rosa is there. And when you have found her, and have learned the secret, and are one with her, finish my book!’
‘But, master, if the only way to Avalon is by knowing the Middle Way of the Fifth Element, and if I can only learn that with Rosa, how can I get there to find her?’
‘Those who seek wisdom have already begun to possess her in their hearts, my son. Only, they must be single-hearted,’ the old man replied.
And at sunset he died in Calibur’s arms.
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7
The Road to Avalon
Calibur burned Anselm’s body in the forge according to the old man’s wishes, and took the ashes up into the mountains and scattered them to the four winds at the entrance to the cave of the Goddess.
The next day he entrusted the smithy to Padrafer his apprentice, saying, ‘Farewell, perhaps forever! For I seek a land that lies beyond the margins of the World.’
‘I knew you would go one day,’ replied Padrafer.
And Calibur set off into the West, towards Land’s End.
He wandered long over hill and dale, going ever westward, until one day he came to the top of a high ridge and saw the sea. He heard a cry below, and there was the goatherd, climbing towards him up the wind-blasted turf. They embraced, and the goatherd said, ‘What took you so long?’
‘I did not believe that Avalon truly exists, and as my father would say, I had a living to make,’ replied Calibur. ‘I thought it was wise to…’
‘A “living”! “
Wise”! Your kind of “wisdom” would have us all tending dusty shops and weary forges until we forget the green of the fields and the joy of life, and all the magic has departed from the land and the Goddess has no man to defend her honour!’ cried the goatherd. He ran at Calibur, who was too surprised to draw his sword, and taking it by the hilt the goatherd flung it into the ground, and challenged him to a fight, and they wrestled. This time the goatherd was the stronger, as well as strangely agile, and pinning Calibur to the springy turf, he made him swear to never stop seeking life and magic and the Goddess. And Calibur said, ‘I swear, by my life and She who upholds it!’
‘That’s better!’ he grinned, letting Calibur get up again. ‘I forgive you, for you have not yet been to Avalon. Now you must wait on the westernmost shore until the Faerie Isle appears. For it is true, it exists,’ he said with shining eyes. ‘Thanks to the icon which you gave me, I have been there.’
‘You have been to the Blessed Isle! What is it like?’
It is a very fair land, full of wonders, and green, yet not in truth more fair and green than this. It is part of that world which the Book of the priests calls the Garden of Eden, and there the magic of life is not dimmed, and war does not ravage it, and there… if I may speak of it… the very Tree of Life still stands. Yet an evil has come to Aeden, and it is growing.’
‘Did you see my… did you see Rosa there?’ asked Calibur, suddenly fearful.
‘No, I am sorry. But she is there, somewhere. You must find her; she needs your help.’
‘Why, what has happened to her?’ cried Calibur. But the goatherd would not say any more, except that she was safe. ‘But only love will bring her back. Yet you forfeited that when you left her. He who sent me back gave me this message for you, if I should happen upon you:
“The way of true love, the way of the Fifth Element, is for the most part blissful and easy, blessed by the Goddess, strewn with rose petals. But for the fallen man, one who has forgotten the Goddess, regaining it is hard, a wandering, stony way through many pains, a labyrinth where the heart will be broken ere it remembers. Are you ready for this? If not, seek not Avalon.”’
‘I am ready for anything, to win back my love and fulfil my Destiny,’ said Calibur. ‘But this message fills me with foreboding.’
‘Still, the heart knows what it seeks,’ said the goatherd. ‘It will lead you there, though for you, as the poet says:
The Joyful Island, Avalon
Lies on a lake of tears;
The blissful lovebird, Estamon
Flies in a forest of fears.
‘Now, as payment for my help, give me your sword. Anyway, you’ll not be needing it: no blade of steel may be taken into the land of Faerie.’
Calibur was afraid at the thought of going unarmed into the perilous enchanted realm, but he trusted the goatherd, and gave him the sword, which he had named Rosethorn. So they parted, and the goatherd went away eagerly into the East, where he sought a sign of his own destiny, while Calibur did as the goatherd told him, and journeyed on into the West until he came to Land’s End. He climbed down the craggy cliffs to the shore to await the full moon and the vision of Avalon appearing on the western horizon, and the Ferryman coming out of the mist.
The moon had only just begun to wane, so he prepared for a long vigil on the cold shore. Finding a cave that overlooked the western sea, and a spring nearby, he set up camp there, and his companions were the penguins, puffins and other sea-fowl that fished in the stormy waters. He watched them through lonely hours. Bands of penguins dived like fish in the surging seas while others suddenly leapt from the water onto the rocks to sun themselves. The puffins flew faster than the wind, catching piper and racing back to their burrows in the cliffs. The seagulls sped on the relentless wind from the ocean and wheeled in the updrafts about the cliffs. Their wild cries rang over the thunder of the surf and the booming of the sea-caves. He imagined that he was flying with them, and cried out to them, and wished that the cry of his own heart might be as single-minded as theirs. Before, he had cursed Rosa’s ducks, and the rat, and the roosters that woke him after a long night at the forge. But now he was thankful for the company of the wild creatures.
‘If I had not seen the goatherd, I would think I was truly mad now, seeking Avalon in this lonely place,’ he thought often as he wandered the shore or picked mussels and seaweed off the spray-drenched rocks to cook in the fire at the cave-mouth. And often he took out Rosa’s old icon and looked at the broken image of the goddess, and thought of her lovely hands which once held it, and were now so beyond the borders of this world.
There came a night when the moon was almost full, and it seemed to Calibur to have a strangely bluish tinge. It was riding high above a sea that was unusually calm, except for the gentle swells that broke in long silver waves on the shore. And as he sat in the cave-mouth warming himself by the fire, wondering at the strangeness of the moon, Calibur saw the Faerie Isle of Avalon appearing like a ship on the horizon, mist-shrouded, glowing in the blue-tinged moonlight. He thought he could make out on its slopes the twinkling of distant faerie lights, and great fear and longing came upon him.
Then with a thrill of joy and fear he saw approaching over the sea a shining object like a great sword. But as it drew nearer to land he saw that it was a boat with shimmering sails swelled by an unseen breeze, high-prowed like a Viking ship. It was making straight for his headland, the bow-wave pearly in the moonlight. Fear of the barbarian invaders gripped him, until he thought, with a stab of a different kind of fear, ‘It is far too small to be a Viking craft…and there is no war-chant… it must be the ferryman of Avalon!’ He ran inside to get his bundle, which was all ready and waiting. Last of all he picked up Rosa’s tattered icon from the hollow of the rock where he had kept it, and ran down to the shore.
In fear and trembling he waited in the shallows of the little bay of the headland, reviewing the Five Wisdoms he had learned from Anselm, hoping that they would enable him to answer the Ferryman’s questions.
In a halo of silver-blue moonlight, the boat stood off just beyond the breakers. The Ferryman hailed him with the words, ‘How far is it to Avalon, and who is worthy to cross over?’
‘A thousand thousand leagues, or none;’ he called back, ‘for those who know Love and Beauty find Faerie in their hearts, and walk there always. Only they may cross over.’
‘Yet, the isle exists outside of the heart also. I repeat: who is worthy to cross over in my boat to Avalon?’
‘Those who honour the Truth of the Oneness of all things, and their sacredness in the Web of life.’
‘Yet many they be who know these things, and pay lip-service to them. I repeat once more, who may cross over?’
‘Those who from the heart live in love and beauty and truth, and in so living, awaken to their Destiny, woven by their ancestors and the Goddess in the great tapestry of time, and become free to be what they truly are.’
‘Well said; yet still a man may know all these things severally, Love, Beauty, Truth and Freedom, and still not have the fruit of them all, by which he may enter Avalon. What is this Fifth thing, and do you possess it?’
‘It is the union of them all, the Fifth Element, the Marriage of Opposites. I…’ The gaze of the Ferryman penetrated to his soul, and he could not lie. ‘I do not think I have it.’ And he hung his head in despair.
‘What is that in your hand?’ said the Ferryman.
‘It is an icon that belonged to my wife.’
‘Why is it burned and broken?’
‘It was burned by those who persecute the Goddess.’
‘Where were you when this happened?’
‘I was in the mountains, seeking the Sword of Truth.’
‘What do you seek now?’
‘I seek Rosa my wife. Please let me go with you to Avalon. I know she is there!’
The Ferryman said nothing as Calibur wept. The boat slowly turned and a wind sprang up from the land, filling the sails. Calibur, in despair
, waded out as far as he dared; he could not swim. ‘Wait! I beg you, take this icon, if you will not take me, and give it to Rosa, and tell her I love her always, and wish her well. But I was not worthy of her.’ And a wave covered his head, but still he held out the icon.
The Ferryman smiled as he shook his old head. ‘The beginnings of the Fifth Element,’ he murmured. ‘Just enough to get him across. About time!’ He leaned hard on the tiller, and the boat came about and as it glided past, with one heave the old man lifted Calibur over the glistening gunwale. But the icon slipped over the side and slowly sank into the depths.
‘If I cannot take her the icon; I will have to bring you instead - if she will have you!’ said the old man gruffly, but his eyes twinkled in the moonlight. Calibur lay spluttering in the bottom as a wind from the shore filled the sails and the boat headed back out to sea.
Feeling the oaken planks of the boat lifting beneath him and the salt spray stinging his face, Calibur raised his head and, crying aloud for joy, thanked the ferryman, who only shook his head as he gripped the tiller and pointed the prow to Avalon. Behind them, Land’s End was swallowed in a grey mist, while ahead the Faerie isle grew brighter, and the stars above grew strange.
So Calibur was carried off through the portal between the Worlds, into the blessed Isle of Avalon.
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