Keeper of the Dream
Page 48
“I suppose so,” she said again.
Again the old man seemed to lose himself in thought. With a surprising spryness for such a very old man, he stretched to his feet. It took her a moment to realize he was leaving.
She sprang up after him. “Wait! I haven’t thanked you for … I don’t even know your name.”
He turned around. A boyish smile creased his weathered face and his black eyes glittered with a white light, as if slivers of the moon had been caught within them. “My name is Taliesin,” he said.
The girl watched the old man hobble down the beach. She looked down into the bowl she cradled in her hands. The metal felt warm against her palms and it seemed to surge and pulse as if alive.
As she looked down into the bowl’s golden depths she thought she saw a man and a woman twirling around and around on top of a hill full of heather, their mouths open in laughter. But in the next instant they were gone.
The girl laughed at herself. It was only the sun that made the bowl feel warm and the image she had seen of the whirling couple were the clouds reflecting in the bowl’s shiny bottom.
She looked down the beach again. But the old man was gone.
Then she saw it, far out to sea … the mist parted and there it was, the island! In the time it took her to draw breath, the mist closed up again and the island was gone.
But she was sure, oh yes, she was sure that she could hear a man and woman laughing.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
For the purposes of this novel, I have constricted the passage of time and altered a few historic events to suit my romantic inclination to make things turn out happily ever after. A bardd teulu would tell you that such is the right of all storytellers.
In 1157, Henry II of England did invade Wales. At the time, it was not a country so much as a collection of tiny kingdoms with a predilection for fighting more among themselves than against their common enemy. But there did emerge a strong leader in Owain, Prince of Gwynedd. And he fought Henry to a standstill.
Owain and Henry signed a truce, whereby the English king recognized the right of the Welsh to rule themselves. In return Owain swore fealty to Henry. He also gave up Rhuddlan Castle and the lands known as the Tegeingl, and he surrendered two of his sons as hostages. (Owain, the Prince of Gwynedd, had nine sons by three different women. The history books neglect to mention whether he had any daughters.)
One hot August seven years later, Henry invaded Wales again. The English were crossing the Berwyn mountain range when they were struck by a freakish rain storm. Henry’s army, already decimated by the storm, was attacked by the Welsh and destroyed. Henry flew into one of his famous rages and ordered his Welsh hostages blinded. The command was carried out, but even for that violent time many were sickened when they learned of Henry’s retribution. It was an act of barbarism he never lived down.
The rainstorm that was Henry’s undoing was unseasonable and violent, seeming to come out of nowhere and then disappearing just as quickly—yet the result was that once again the hated English were driven from Wales. Welsh liberty was preserved.
As for that strange and violent storm—historians have never been able to explain it. Some say it never really happened after all, but is only folklore as sung by bards. Yet this much is known: in all the Celtic tales of magi, the wizards all share the same powers … and one of those powers is the ability to conjure storms out of a clear blue sky.
Romance is part of the blood and earth of Wales. That tiny country is the birthplace of some of the most romantic tales ever recorded. Of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, of Tristan and Isolde. And of that quintessential wizard, Merlin, or Myrddin as he is called in Welsh. The origins of these tales go back to the time of the Celts, and in these earlier stories there ran a common theme—that a man could be redeemed by the spiritual and physical love of a woman. Often he was sent on a quest to win the woman’s love, and once won, the woman’s love in turn gave him immortal life.
What stories these are, what lessons they teach us. That the redemption of mankind comes through woman, for she takes man’s seed, nurtures it within her, and brings it forth into the world. That love is often a quest, to be earned and deserved before it is given. That love can be lusty and earthy, as well as emotional and spiritual….
But above all that love is forever.
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Copyright © 1992 by Penelope Williamson
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