To you, Adonai, I cry for help, for you are my rock,
and my sure foundation.
He sighed, and reached for his shovel. It was time to wake the others and get back to work.
Suddenly the earth groaned and shook, like the awakening of one of the giants of the old tales. The roof of the shaft opened above him and a river of water came crashing through. He leapt back to avoid the torrent, which saved him from being buried alive by the collapse of the tunnel. Still, a falling rock glanced off his left shoulder, throwing him to the ground near the back of the shaft. The fallen roof turned the flow of water toward the opening of the mine, where, unknown to Asaryedd, the raging current swept away his three companions. There were a few moans from the surrounding rock, and a shuddering of the earth, then all was silent again, as though the old giant had rolled over and gone back to sleep. There was a choking smell of damp earth. The darkness was complete.
Asaryedd was no stranger to cave-ins. Though lying, hurt, in utter darkness, he did not immediately begin to worry. But as he tried to stand, rubbing his sore shoulder, the worry suddenly came. He was not halfway to his feet when his head struck hard rock. He dropped to his knees and raised his hands to feel overhead. For several arm spans all around him the tunnel roof was just barely above his head as he knelt on the floor. Further probing led to walls of rubble in each direction. He was trapped in a small pocket perhaps not more than ten paces across, half again his own height. His thoughts immediately began to search a miner’s knowledge of escape. But the cold fist of the dark earth gripped his heart, for it was in his heart he feared the worst. He shifted his legs so he could sit and lean back against the rubble. He listened for sounds, hoping to hear his companions digging through the collapse. But his companions were no longer in this world, and there would be no digging, no sounds. No help. Asaryedd knew his peril. The size of his small prison meant he would run out of air long before he missed either food or water. Death was not far away. The Death whose presence every man who delves in the earth sees ever over his shoulder, and hopes never to meet. Asaryedd began to pray.
Adonai, thou art my shepherd . . . Thou I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
thou art with me.
His shoulder ached. There was a dizziness in his head. Hoping to save air, he closed his unseeing eyes and lay still.
He had been asleep for some time when a soft tapping entered his troubled dreams. The others were coming to save him. They were digging through the rubble. “Hinani!” he cried out in his own tongue, “I am here!” Only when he leapt up to go to them, crashing his head again upon the collapsed roof, did he realize he had been asleep. He sat heavily in the middle of his cell, the new ache in his head as bad as the ache in his shoulder, while flashing lights of pain seemed to appear before his sightless eyes. He held his breath and listened. No sound. It had been a dream.
Then it came again. Louder. Tap. Tap. Tap.
He crawled gingerly toward what he supposed was the source of the sound, though it was difficult to tell, surrounded by darkness and rock. Several times he thought he had found it, then, tap, tap, it was coming from somewhere else. He could already sense the foulness in the air. Dizziness was growing in his head. Tap. . .
When at last he was certain the sound was in the wall directly in front of him, he knew instantly that he was imagining it. For as he reached out to touch the wall he found it was not the fresh rubble of the cave-in, but the hard, smooth wall of the end of the tunnel. Yet there it was again. Tap. Tap. Tap. Asaryedd drew his knife from its sheath at his rope girdle, and frantically pounded the handle against a large rock in the wall. Inside the wall the tapping ceased. He leaned forward and put his ear to the packed earth.
KNOCK .
In the total silence of his prison the sound rang in his ears. He fell back from the wall, sitting upon his heels. His eyes fought to focus, to see the wall that stood before him in total darkness. And then the sound began in earnest, as if it had found him and was determined to communicate. Knock, Knock, Knock.
The part of Asaryedd’s awareness where mining legends were stored knew what he was hearing, though there was no place for it in his Iuddic understanding of the world. In the tin mines of Cornualle they were named for the sound they made in the rock walls. Bwbachod. But surely they were not real? What name had the Mendydd miners used?
“Coblynau,” he whispered, under his breath. Knockers in the mines. Immediately there came to his mind the vision of an ugly little goblin, not as tall as a man’s knee, wearing a bright red cloak, a red kerchief spotted with yellow tied about its head. In Cornualle the Knockers were feared, for they were able to cause rockslides. But in the Mendydds it was believed they knew where lay the rich veins of silver, and could guide a miner to great wealth.
Knock. Knock.
Asaryedd picked up the knife he had dropped by his side. With both hands grasping the hilt, he began using the long blade to dig into the earth before him, avoiding the larger rocks, prying loose the smaller stones. After what seemed like ages he had dug perhaps an arm’s length into the earth. The knocking seemed to retreat before him, as if leading him on. Beads of sweat stood out upon his face. His breathing came in ragged gasps. The air was nearly gone.
Knock. Knock, Knock.
Suddenly there was no resistance under the blade of his knife, and a blinding light filled the small chamber. Fresh air rushed in with nearly the force of the water earlier. Asaryedd blinked, trying to adjust his eyes to the light. When finally he did, it was not a blinding light at all, but the soft glow of a tiny lantern. It contained a single candle, and was held by a tiny, hairy hand about half a man’s arm-length from the floor. Behind it was the open expanse of a new mine tunnel; beside it the gnarled, misshapen, and grinning face of the first Coblyn that Asaryedd had ever seen. Its white teeth sparkled in the candle’s light, in the midst of a deeply lined and copper colored face. It stood there, blinking, and smiling up at him.
Asaryedd’s lungs burned with the joy of clean air. For long moments he could not speak. The Coblyn seemed content to stand there before him in the lamplight. But finally it was the Coblyn who broke the silence.
“Asaryedd,” he said with a voice that sounded like the grinding of pebbles, “Where have ye been? We’ve been waitin’ for ye.”
The Coblyn stepped through the hole to sit down beside the Tinner, who was still gathering his wits. He set down the lantern and offered his hand in greeting. “Creigiog,” he said, “at your service.” Asarayedd fell into a dead faint.
When he awoke, Asaryedd found himself in the comparative expanse of the new shaft, lying on his back with a cobly cloak folded under his head for a pillow. The light from several lanterns flooded the tunnel with a warm glow, and several Coblynau were sitting in a circle around him. They were all smiling, having cheered loudly when he opened his eyes. Creigiog gently lifted his head and gave him a long drink of water, followed by a few sips of rich, red wine.
“Just a bit for now,” he said. “More later, after you’ve eaten.”
Asaryedd sat up slowly, feeling his shoulder and head for injury. He seemed to be in good shape, though his left arm was in a sling. He looked questioningly at Creigiog, who gave him another smile. Though Coblynau are immensely ugly, they are good tempered and friendly, and smile often.
“Nothing broken,” said the little goblin. “Just rest it a bit.” His voice had softened some, but he looked even worse in the brighter candlelight. His long nose and chin curved toward one another, nearly meeting in front of a huge mouth with thick lips that covered large, crooked teeth. On his chin, just to the right of center, was a huge, hairy mole. Tufts of ginger colored hair grew from his ears like witches’ brooms in a hackberry tree. He had a great round belly that made him nearly as wide as he was tall. It peeked out from under his short cloak. A Coblyn does not smell very good. Several of them sitting together in the tunnel very nearly caused Asaryedd to yearn for the stale air of his cave-in. There was a long si
lence.
“Well that’s that,” said one of the Coblynau at last. “Time to get back to work.” He stood up and slung a pick over his shoulder. The others followed, singing a mining tune and disappearing in single file down the tunnel. Creigiog sized up his patient.
“Can you walk? We really ought to follow them.”
Asaryedd got to his feet. The dizziness was nearly gone, and he thought he could walk for a bit. Creigiog picked up his lantern and a small shovel and hurried off after the others, with Asaryedd shuffling along at his heels, managing to keep up only because of the great difference in their sizes.
They had not gotten far when thin, spidery lines appeared in the tunnel walls, sparkling faintly in the light of the lantern. The tin miner, curious, stopped to look, and Creigiog went on for several paces until he realized he had left his charge behind in the shadows.
“Arian,” he called out. “Come on, we’re falling behind!”
Asaryedd reluctantly turned and struggled to catch up. They could just see the lanterns of the other Coblynau off in the distance. The deeper they went into the belly of the mountain, the wider and brighter were the veins of silver. Presently they approached a tunnel that turned off on their right, with a sign over it that read “OUT” in the cobly tongue. Asaryedd could not read it.
“That way to the surface,” said Creigiog in explanation, and he hurried on further down the main tunnel. Just as Asaryedd reached the mouth of the exit tunnel a Coblyn came rumbling out of it pushing an empty mine cart, nearly running him down. Making a quick right turn, the Coblyn raced his cart down the tunnel, just missing Creigiog in passing. A second and a third cart followed quickly after, turning Asaryedd round and round several times. When he finally got his bearings, Creigiog was standing before him.
“Lots of work to do, and so little time to do it! We never get it all done.” He turned and hurried on again, with Asaryedd close in his tracks. “Watch out for the carts,” the goblin said, as an afterthought.
The passageway began to get brighter and brighter, not because of Creigiog’s lantern, but because the veins of silver had grown pure and wide. Occasionally they would meet a Coblyn coming toward them with a loaded cart which shone like the moon. Pushing his cart slowly and struggling with the weight, the Coblyn would nevertheless greet them cheerfully before continuing on his way to the surface. After a bit, Asaryedd could hear voices ahead of him, and the sounds of delving so familiar to a miner’s ears. A glow at the end of the tunnel became brighter as they approached, until it completely outshone the goblin’s lantern and nearly blinded the Tinner’s eyes, so that he bumped into Creigiog when the little Coblyn stopped.
“We’ll wait here a bit,” said Creigiog. “Let yer eyes get used to it.” They shared a biscuit and some wine before moving on to the end of the tunnel, which opened onto a dizzying precipice at the edge of a wide cavern. To their left a pathway as wide as two Coblynau descended in a twisting spiral around the walls of the cavern and down into its depths. Everywhere he looked, Asaryedd could see Coblynau miners at work on the walls with picks and carts, and the sound was like the crashing breakers of the sea upon a rocky shore. Up from the depths of the cavern came Coblynau in their dusty boots and red cloaks, struggling with silver-laden carts, singing their mining songs.
Deep we delve in halls of stone
through tunnels long and caverns wide! Found by Coblynau alone
the arian that the Cewry hide!
The Coblynau were hard at work throughout the great cavern. Some carved chunks of silver the size of a man’s fist out of the rock. Some carried it in sacks to where little wooden carts waited. Some pushed silver laden carts slowly up the spiral track to the top of the cavern, while others returned empty carts to the site of the digging, barely able to hold them back from careening down the steep slopes.
Asaryedd rubbed his eyes and blinked several times, but the amazing sight remained.
“There ye be!” beamed Creigiog. “We’ll be a-goin’ now!”
Suddenly all was silent. No singing, though Coblynau mouths continued to open and shut. No clanging of iron tools upon rocks, though Coblynau arms continued to swing their picks. And then the Coblynau left. They did not lay down their tools and walk out of the mine. They simply, well, faded away. In mid-swing and mid-verse. They faded until Asaryedd could see the shining veins of silver through their bodies. And then he could see them no longer. The Coblynau were simply gone, along with their tools and carts. All that was left were the tiny lanterns hanging from the walls, lighting the cavern, and the tunnel which led to the surface. For that, indeed, is what Coblynau do. Asaryedd stared in wonder for a very long time at the wealth that now was his, before he turned and slowly climbed the long path to the fresh air that lay under a starlit sky. ~
In the days that followed Asaryedd sent word to his sons in the Cornualle mines, by means of the Lake People. Two of his sons, Jaredd and Eosaidh, came to him with their wives and children, and they founded a small village there at the Coblynau mine head. Prydde they named the place, which means earth, for it was from the earth that Asaryedd had received his wealth. And it was not far from the Giant’s Gorge of the old tales.
Men of the Mendydd tribes came to work with them in the mines, and the wealth of Asaryedd, the old Iuddic tinner, increased until no one could count it. For generations they worked the mines around Prydde, and oversight was passed down in Asaryedd’s family from father to son. In time, oversight became ownership. They traded the tin of Cornualle and the lead and silver of the Mendydds in ever growing regions of the world. And sometimes, in a dark and quiet stretch of an unused mine shaft, a miner walking alone would swear he heard a soft knocking in the rock walls. But no one ever saw the Coblynau, in those mines, again.
Chapter Fifteen IX. Hiraeth’s Tears
Far to the north of the marshes, off the rocky coast of a storm-swept land, the isle of Ynys y Ywen lay on the edge of an endless sea. Wild winds howled across the rocks, raising a great salt spray that joined with flying rain to lash alike sea and skerry and stony strand. Gray were the rocks, gray the heaving waves, and gray the whirling dark clouds of the lowering sky, where lightning flashed and the loud thunder roared without pause.
Far from shore and yet within the circling cliffs of the bay there was a small skerry which at the turning of the tide yet stood above the crashing waves. And upon that skerry a maiden sat, with long golden locks of hair that curled about her shoulders and fell in wild waves over her young breasts. Her pale white hips blended into the long, curving, silvery sheen of a scale covered tail, the fins in which it ended dipping into the churning gray green sea. A mor-forwyn was Hiraeth, a seamaiden of the lineage of Llyr. She was brushing her long, golden hair, all the while singing to herself in her silver mirror a song of maidens and the sea. For the mor-forwynedd are at home in the element of water, be it peaceful lake or raging sea, and the wild rain is naught to them but akin to the realm in which they live. The heart of Hiraeth was attuned to magic, and in her heart she knew there was fate hovering about her that day.
Not so accustomed to the violent wind and wave were the twelve men, sea-hardened though they were, who fought to flee the angry sea and make landfall among the rending rocks. Their coracle, fashioned of alder and sealskin, spun and heaved upon the waves, at each crest threatening to capsize, and drop them into the depths. Twelve men they were, warriors of a clan that dwelt beyond the isles, lost upon the sea and seeking haven where it might be found.
Hiraeth spied the tiny craft as it entered the bay. She lay her mirror in her lap, gazing into the very teeth of the gale to see the faces of the desperate and determined men, for it was their fate, she knew, which suddenly was bound with hers. Between the men and the safety of land lay many a rock and reef that surely would tear apart a better ship than theirs. Her eyes moved from rock to rock, seeking a safe path through the mortal danger. From rocks to coracle she looked, back and forth in the storm, and the song was gone from her lips.
; The man who must be captain she saw leaning to the fore, searching into the gloom as she for a way through the rocks. A look of forceful will there was upon his face. But his eyes were hard with a practiced hardness that dwelt there before ever they peered through the storm that day. In the hardness of those eyes she saw not any trace of one who, in his living, did ever love or laugh. She thought it sad that he faced the moment of his death without the consoling memory either of laughter or of love.
With desperate oars the men the currents fought, calling courage or direction to one another over the din of crashing breakers, crying out at a blow from a hidden rock, or loss of an oar to the violent sea. All day the craft had been filling with sea water and dusk was fast approaching. With wooden buckets they gave as much as they could back to the sea between turns at the oars.
From her skerry seat Hiraeth searched the faces of the struggling men, seeking any face that would in look of eyes or set of jaw reveal an inner heart that burned with a love honest and true. At last, in the midst of the coracle she saw him, and knew it in her own heart. Other faces either strained in fear or even fright at the wild sea, or rage that such a fate had overtaken them. Or, like the captain’s, not calm but stolid, as hard and unfeeling as the rocks around them. But the one. . . She strained to see more closely in the rain swept gale. Bare to the waist he was, with muscles in his arms and shoulders that tensed and strained upon his oar. Yet in his face there was a peace. The peace that comes when great danger is known and accepted, but not feared. The calm that comes when a man understands he is one with the sea, that his fate is his whether he succeeds in surviving or no. The gentle strength borne by a heart that is able truly and deeply to love. And when she saw this, Hiraeth sang in her own heart, and the song escaped her lips and rose above the gale.
To the others her song was only the wild wind, but Adolwyn heard her voice and understood. As he pulled on the oar he raised his head and lifted up his eyes to hers, and in a moment of time they saw one another and each fell deeply into the other’s gaze. For the two, for that brief moment, the wind no longer howled and the sea no longer crashed upon the rocks. Adolwyn lifted up his eyes to hers, and kissed with his eyes her heart, across the churning, heaving sea.
Tales of Avalon Page 15
