“I am so sorry I did not travel faster,” she said, “Nor return sooner.”
Braith turned and looked into Owena’s face. “Do not fear,” she said. “It was no delay of yours that brought this end.” And Braith told them the sorrowful tale.
“It was not long after you left, Owena,” she began. “Mother stirred, and tried to speak, but I could not understand her words. I thought if she were warmer she might rally, so I gathered wood for a small fire. But before I could kindle the flame her body was wracked with convulsions, and I knew the child was coming.
“I covered her with her own cloak and knelt between her legs, spreading them wide, and removed the breech cloth, which was soaked in blood. Her body shook and trembled again, and a great rush of red blood came forth over the cloth with which I had hoped to receive the child.” sobs. Owena held her close. silence, no expression upon their faces. At last Braith began to calm. She went on, in words so quiet she could scarcely be heard.
“The blood kept coming and coming. I knew I could not save her. And then she lay still, and I could feel her spirit leave. The child thrust a foot out into the world, and then was still itself. I pulled a blade from our pack, cut the bottom of the birth opening to make it wider.” Braith’s body began rocking back and forth where she sat. “I reached inside, found the other foot, and drew it out. Then slowly, there was so much blood, slowly I drew the child forth. I saw she was a girl. She squirmed in my arms, and her little arms and legs thrashed about, but she was blue. The cord was twisted about her neck, flattened with the press of her head in the birth channel. She was suffocating, and in a moment, she was gone.” Braith lay back upon Owenas’s breast, crying quietly. No one spoke.
“So I lay the child on her breast,” Braith said, finally. “I covered them both with my blanket, and stood on the shore to watch for you. How long, I know not, but the stars traveled far across the sky before I saw your boat in the morning light.” At last Braith was silent in Owena’s arms. In a few moments, she fell asleep, exhausted.
The priestesses took the bodies in the little boat out into the open waters, where they gave mother and daughter to the marsh. Later, as Braith and Owena both slept, they walked silently together around the island until Ynys y Niwl came into view. They watched as the light from the rising sun made its way slowly down the flank of the tor. Between them and Niwl lay a narrow marsh channel that sometimes, in the midst of a dry summer, became passable land. To the left of the tor rose a rounded hill not half as high. Even from a distance the Braith broke into shuddering The priestesses looked on in priestesses could see the wild apple trees growing on its sides.
“The apples of Ynys y Niwl,” said Glynys. “Some call the island Affalon, the place of apples.”
“Some say that between that hill of apples and the high tor lies a valley with healing springs,” answered Gwenyn. “I should like to see for myself it is so.”
~
When the sun was high in the sky and Owena and Braith were rested, the priestesses sent them home.
“If we take the boat,” Braith protested, “how will you return to Cysgodion?”
“That is a way of the world over which we have some power,” said Glynys. “The Lady will send a boat to take us back.”
So the four women parted, who had found a bonding in the sorrows of death. Braith and Owena, in their small marsh boat, disappeared into the reeds in the direction of Crib Pwlborfa. When they had gone, Glynys said, simply, “Come.” Gwenyn followed her over the crest of Bol Forla, down to the shore that faced Ynys y Niwl. Together they waded the shallows between the two islands, and became the first humans, as far as it is known, to set foot on the Isle of Mists.
They walked across a long open field which priestesses would one day call Dolgwyl Waun, the festival meadow. Above them, to their right, rose the long spine of Bryn Fyrtwyddon, which some now call Wirrheal. And then, for the first time, priestesses of Affalon entered Glyn y Ffynhonnau, the valley of the sacred springs. There they set eyes upon y Ffynnon wen, the spring whose calcium laden waters deposited white faerie-land forms upon all they touched. And then the iron filled waters of y Ffynnon goch, the Red Spring. This they followed uphill to where it emerged from the ground, in a small valley shaded by ancient yews, between the tor and the hill of apples.
“There is healing here,” said Glynys. And, Gwenyn answered simply,
“There is healing in this place.”
~
Nights later, Glynys and Gwenyn sat with the priestesses of Affalon around the hearth fire of the council hut. Vivian sat as one of them in the circle.
“Had we been found on Niwl,” Glynys was saying, “We might have arrived in time to save the woman.
“But you heard the daughter’s tale,” said another priestess. “She likely had died before the midwife reached Cysgodion. Even if you had been on Ynys y Niwl you could have done nothing.
“But, sisters, this happened not in isolation,” Glynys urged. More and more often the folk of the marshes seek our help. Many cannot find us here in the shadows. And for those who do, we often come too late.”
“Do not blame the shadows, they have for all these years kept our community safe from the world.” There was power in Vivian’s words, and all were silent for a time.
“My Lady, I do not deny the shadows have protected us, and our mothers and grandmothers as well,” Glynys said finally. “But we cannot wish to be protected for ever. Not when there are those in the marshes whom we might serve.”
“Ever there is a battle between safety and service,” said Vivian quietly. “I am called to keep and care for Cysgodion. What do I care for the wider marshes?”
“It is not the marshes, themselves, Lady, but the people who live there.”
Vivian grew irritated. “Alright then, what care I for the people of the wider marshes? My community is here, on Ynys y Cysgodion. The people who swarm the other islands care not for us,” she said. “They are not of our kind.”
“But, my Lady, they are people, notwithstanding.” Glynys’ response was a dangerous one, but, for a long time, the Dark Lady was silenced. She seemed to wrestle with voices within, with unseen spirits, or ancestors who hovered about her. At last she spoke.
“Glynys speaks the truth, though this time it would not have saved the woman on Bol Forla. Some of you will go to Glyn y Ffynonnau on Ynys y Niwl, and form a community there. On Niwl people of the marshes may come for help and healing at y Ffynnon goch. But Cysgodion will remain here, inviolate, in the shadows. And I will remain on Ynys y Cysgodion.”
~
So came the community of the priestesses of Affalon to Ynys y Niwl. For many seasons they served the people of the marshes, offering counsel in time of trouble, healing in illness, comfort in grief. Women came in great numbers to Bol Forla, for help in childbirth, or relief of orphan foundlings, or occasionally, for refuge from men whom they ought not to have loved. And often a priestess from Ynys y Niwl would return to Cysgodion, to relieve or replace one of the small number who remained there and cared for the Lady.
Then one day, in the spring of the turning year, when myrtles were in bloom upon Ffyrtwyddon, a dark woman robed in black came walking up the valley of y Ffynnon goch. She arrived at the springhead, where members of the community were bathing those with illness or injury. Priestesses and marsh folk alike turned and gazed at the solitary figure in wonderment, as the red waters tumbled downhill over blood colored rocks.
“So I have come,” said Vivian. “But do not expect me to stay.”
Chapter Nineteen XII. The Dragon’s Womb
“We have always known the gods are everywhere, Annwyl, but in the marshes there are places of mystery and power where they can more easily be found.” The Lady of Cysgodion dipped her alder paddle in the dark waters as she spoke, easing their small marsh boat through the tall reeds. Annwyl, a young girl of six summers, sat in the bow, immersed in her mother’s tale.
“Is it really a dragon’s belly, Mam?” she asked
. Her eyes were fixed upon a large blue and green dragonfly that had come to rest on the bow.
Vivian smiled. “We will be there soon, Little One, then you may see for yourself.”
The marshes were young then. Not many women had yet carried the name of Vivian, nor borne the duties of the Lady. Yet some things were already ancient as we now reckon time, and Vivian was taking her young daughter that day to the most ancient of all. They had long since left Llyn y Cysgodion behind. Reeds hissed along the sides of the boat as Vivian found her way down the narrow channels that turned and twisted their way eastward. Annwyl reached for the dragonfly, but it escaped her grasp, hovered for a moment before her eyes, and then sped off down the channel ahead of them. Again Vivian smiled.
“It seems your dragon is leading us,” she said.
They glided slowly along as the sun rose higher toward midday. Together they sang marsh songs, laughed at the clowning of an otter, watched in wonder as a covey of marsh hens was flushed before them and flew off into the reeds. At the sun’s height, they shared a meal of barley bread and cool chamomile tea, while the boat rocked gently on a slow current, held fast by the closeness of the reeds.
“Tell me again, Mam, what is a womb?” Annwyl turned to face her mother as they resumed the journey. There were so many mysteries she did not yet understand. Her mother was full of them.
“It is a little sack in a mother’s belly,” Vivian told her, “where her babies grow until they are big enough to come into the world.”
Try as she might, Annwyl could form no image of such a place. She screwed her face up into the most intense concentration she could, but it was no use.
memories she was always curled up on her
already out in the wide world.
In her earliest mother’s lap,
“Will we see the mother dragon?” she asked. Will she have a little one in her belly?”
“Such questions!” Vivian laughed. Wait and see, we are nearly there.”
The boat passed into more open marsh where the channel was wider, the reed tussocks farther apart. Annwyl noticed the brackish smell of the marsh waters had lessened, and the currents had grown stronger. They were not far from the north shore. The Bryniau’r Mendydd loomed over them on their left.
“Look, Annwyl,” Vivian said, pointing toward the hills. A silver brook was falling through a rough gorge in the high hills, tumbling over rocks and falling over ledges higher than the trees. “That is Ceunant y Gwar, made long ago by the giants who hid their treasures in the hills. They threw all the rocks from the gorge out into the open waters that flow into the neverending sea, to make Ynys Bryn Llyffaint.”
Annwyl had never been that far west, beyond Ynys Mawr. She tried to imagine a great hill made of frogs, but the giants were easier.
“Look, down by the shore.” Vivian pointed to the last waterfall, where the brook cascaded into the marsh. “That is why the water here is sweeter,” she said. “We call this place y Gors Felys. We are nearly at Ynys Groth Ddraig.”
~
They pulled the boat up onto a narrow beach of smooth, green pebbles. Annwyl looked overhead at the twining arches of three lush marsh willows, waving slowly in the gentle breezes.
“Blessings of the day, gentle spirits. Yes, the young one is my daughter,” Vivian said. Then to Annwyl, “They are the guardians presence.” “They welcome you,” Vivian told her daughter.
Annwyl stared in wonder. “Can they really hear us?” she asked.
“Say something to them,” Vivian answered.
Annwyl stepped forward into the midst of the willows and looked up to where their green branches crossed against the deep blue sky. “Hello, trees,” she said. Boughs waved above her, and whispering grew in the leaves. Annwyl plopped down where she sat, wide eyes entranced. “Oh, my,” she said, quietly.
Vivian held out a hand to lift her daughter from the ground. “Come, Little One,” she said, “It’s on the other side of the island.” Together they climbed the narrow path that wound over the crest of Ynys Groth Ddraig.
As they came down the other side, the rays of the lowering sun slanted over their shoulders, lighting the way ahead. Several paces off to their left the underbrush on the dry hillside gave way to damp mosses and ferns, and the soft sounds of a gentle flow of water.
“Come and see where the ground bleeds,” said Vivian. “It is woven about with protective spells, but you and I may enter.” They crept quietly closer, Vivian aware of the sacredness of the place, Annwyl conscious only of a power she could not identify. At their feet, in a crescent perhaps an arm’s span across, water, clear and cool, rose up and bubbled out of the earth. “Here rise the waters of life,” Vivian said. She stooped to dip her fingers in the water, and with them traced a of the island, and they are delighted by your There was a whispering in the green branches. waving design across Annwyl’s forehead. Immediately the young girl felt a tingling throughout her body. The light around her grew brighter and more clear. She looked at familiar trees and ferns as if she had never seen them before.
“I, I can feel it,” she whispered to Vivian. “I can see!”
Vivian took her by the hand. “Come,” she said, and led her downhill alongside the gathering stream. Ahead and just below them, a pool of crystal water sparkled in the sunlight. Vivian stopped, stood behind her daughter with her hands upon the young girl’s shoulders. “Y Groth Ddraig,” she murmured. “The Cauldron of Life.”
~
The Dragon’s Womb was a stone cauldron perched in the hillside, surrounded by the tall trunks of oak trees, their roots weaving a basket of sorts around the rock and holding it fast. The bowl of the cauldron was perhaps an arm’s span deep, and yet more broad. It was worn smooth with the flow of the water, and its rim was covered with blue-green lichens that reveled in the water’s touch. Opposite the flow, a dip in the bowl’s rim allowed water to pour out onto the rocks below, and make their way downhill toward the marsh.
Vivian led her daughter around the cauldron to where the waters flowed out with a sparkle of silver. From there the wet lichens on the rim seemed to glow a deep blue, as if they were dragon’s scales made of crystal. “Dragons are a way of talking about the power of life,” she told her daughter. “The power is inside you, and you cannot see it. But it is bold and strong, like the wings and talons of a great dragon of the old tales. And sometimes as dangerous.” She dipped a cupped hand into the water, and held it high, letting the water fall again into the stone bowl. “It is even more powerful here than up on the hillside,” she said. “Come and see.”
Annwyl stepped cautiously to the rim of y Groth Ddraig. Her chin was just above the edge, and her eyes could look on the level across the rippling surface of the water. Raising her arms, she placed her hands upon the lichen covered rim. Ice cold water welled between her finger, over the backs of her hands, and ran down her bare arms. She gasped out loud from the cold, and then again as she began to see what the waters held. Again, but stronger this time, the tingling sensation coursed through her body. And again she whispered,
“Oh, my.”
Vivian came to her side. “What do you see, Dear One?” she asked.
“I see people,” she said, “Shining people. And I hear singing!”
Vivian took both her hands and led her to a nearby patch of soft grass. “And you shall see even more in a moment,” she said, looking deeply into her daughter’s eyes. She stepped back a pace and took the hem of her summer shift in both hands. Lifting it up over her head and dropping it onto the grass, she stood naked in the rays of the lowering sun. And then she did the same for her daughter, and the two women stood facing each other.
“This is a gathering place of goddesses, Annwyl,” Vivian said. And she showed her daughter each one, speaking their names in the old language as well as the common tongue. Raising both arms over her head, Vivian intoned,
“Awyr!”
and freshening breezes swirled through the trees, caressing mother and daughter and raisi
ng the hair on their skin.
“Pridd!”
Vivian called, and Annwyl’s toes sank into the soft loam at her feet, the scent of humus rising about her.
“Dwr!”
A fine, cool mist rose from the marsh and floated over the hillside, covering Annwyl in droplets of water that ran down her body and dissolved again into the ground. She shivered with the coolness of it.
“Tan!”
and the rays of the blazing sun broke through the mist, warming the bare skin of the two as though it were a blazing bonfire.
Annwyl danced in the soft grass, rejoicing in the wonders she had beheld.
“The goddesses are that which bring us life, and death,” Vivian explained. These are the ones that bless us the most, and there are some I must not name until you are older and stronger. Come now, and step with me into y Groth Ddraig.”
Vivian eased herself up onto the rim of the cauldron and slowly lowered herself in. As the ice cold water enveloped her body, freezing her blood, her mind began to swim with images of living spirits. She longed to give in to their songs, but gently suppressed her awareness. This visit was for her daughter. Moving the swirling patterns to the back of her mind, she stretched out her arms towards the young girl.
“Come,” she said. “Step into the water and let your soul come with me.”
Annwyl sat at the edge of the cauldron and swung her feet into the water, as Vivian’s hands held her by the waist, easing her in. Vivian sang to the water, warming it, calming the spirits, for her daughter’s first experience. Annwyl stood before her mother, submerged nearly to her shoulders, and felt the living water swirl around her, while Vivian opened her own soul to her, and journeyed with her.
“Oh, Mam, it is so so beautiful,” Annwyl said, her eyes glazed over as if she were looking at something far away, or deep within. Slowly, unafraid because of the nearness of her mother, Annwyl released herself to the songs of the spirits that sang and danced with her. They told her tales of their living, tales from the earth’s dark womb, secrets of the ages. And among them she saw shining ones, like those she had felt while standing naked on the soft grass. Goddesses took her by the hand and sang to her the songs of life, and she felt in an instant the birthings of children across the wide marshes. She swayed and began to swoon, but Vivian saw and gently lifted her from the water and lay her beside the cauldron on the soft grass in the sunshine, drying the girl’s skin with her own shift. Annwyl’s eyes closed, a glow of deep peace in her young face.
Tales of Avalon Page 19
