The Green Lady and the King of Shadows

by Moyra Caldecott

  The Green Lady and the King of Shadows

  Moyra Caldecott

  Mushroom eBooks

  INTRODUCTION

  I believe that myths and legends, while appearing to be pure fabrication hallowed by constant repetition, actually have their roots in a deep and abiding truth that can only be expressed through symbol and allegory. As a substratum of the main truth which is universal, there often lies a stratum of a more local and literal truth, an ancient event or belief that sparks off a chain of linked stories about a particular place. Many legends suggest that Glastonbury Tor in the sixth century was the scene of a confrontation between the old religion and the new. In an imaginative fusion of several crucial legends from Glastonbury’s past I hope to give some insight into the living truth that they, together, illuminate.

  The setting — Glastonbury, Somerset — has been described by Anthony Roberts in his book Glastonbury: Ancient Avalon, New Jerusalem as ‘an enchanted area of land — that generates and guards a powerful magic . . . the symbol of a great and holy mystery’. Frances Howard-Gordon, after asking why so many myths and legends are associated with Glastonbury in her book Glastonbury: Maker of Myths, concludes: ‘there is a certain quality about the place, in the weird and wonderful landscape, in the peculiar shade of light, in the air we breathe . . .’

  It is not for nothing that Glastonbury has continued to be a place of pilgrimage for so many centuries — that generation after generation have sought the secret meaning of their lives there — that today a visit to it is a ‘must’ for anyone interested in the dawning of a New Age in this troubled and crippled world . . .

  1

  The hermit straightened his back and looked up, the axe still in his hand. He had been chopping logs for some time and had begun to feel his age. He thought for a moment he saw a dark shadow move in the forest to the side of him and turned his head quickly. There was no movement now, but he could not shake off the impression that he was being watched — and not by an animal.

  He put down the axe as quietly as he could and his hand went to his belt where a flask of water hung — holy water from the Sacred Well — a weapon more effective than any axe against the kind of enemy that threatened him.

  It seemed that he stood a long time there — tense, ready.

  There was no further movement.

  The sun reached its zenith and a shaft of light suddenly blazed through the leaves of the forest canopy and almost blinded him. When it passed on, the feeling of another’s presence was gone too.

  Collen relaxed and started to gather up the logs of wood in his arms.

  2

  Lukas could have sworn the earth had moved beneath his foot.

  He stood still, staring in alarm at the apparently firm greensward of the apple orchard.

  He had known this orchard for years, ever since he had come to the monastery. Why had it moved? How could it possibly have moved? The earth was immovable, unchangeable, the beautiful anchorage of his life. His father had died. His mother had died. Even the walls of the church were taken down and rebuilt from time to time. But the earth with its covering of deep green grass, rich in cowslip and daisy, was surely there forever.

  After staring at the ground for a few moments he convinced himself that he had imagined it. Above him in the branches of the trees the birds sang and fluttered. They were not alarmed. Nothing had changed for them.

  He took another step.

  The earth gave way and, with a shout of astonishment, he fell down a huge hole that had suddenly opened up beneath him.

  ‘Mother of God!’ he gasped, smarting and terrified, struggling with the loose earth full of wriggling worms and fibrous roots that had fallen with him. He fought hard to get a grip on the lip of the hole and haul himself out, but the more he tried, the more the lip gave way, and more earth and grass joined the mass already in the hole.

  At last he paused for breath and, finding that in fact no one was attacking him and he was not in any great pain, he looked about him to try to decide what had happened. Apart from the mound of earth that had come in with him he saw large stones that appeared to have been roughly squared and fitted upon one another to make the floor, walls and ceiling of a tunnel. The smell that came from the darkness was so musty that Lukas could not but think that it was very old and had been closed for a long, long time.

  The fear that had come with the shock of falling had passed, and he now felt only excitement. He had discovered something that no one else in the monastery knew about. At last he had something that was his own, that need not be shared. He had come to the monastery as an orphaned and homeless boy and had drifted into a novitiate as he grew up. Now as a young man he was approaching the taking of his first vows without any great conviction. He would be a monk out of gratitude for what the monks had done for him and because he scarcely knew another life. There were times when he experienced a deep and intense sense of mystic reality, but mostly his life was hard work and routine shared with a hundred or so other men who held everything in common and who implicitly obeyed the rule of the Abbot.

  More and more recently Lukas had found the routine of the monastery irksome, particularly the lack of privacy.

  He thought back upon the stories he had heard about the Tor, wondering if there had been anything about a tunnel, but he could remember nothing. There had been other tales, tales of demons sighted on the summit, tales of mysterious hounds heard howling in the air at night or in a storm, tales of boats seen approaching the island through the mists and yet never seen landing — all cited by the abbot as being proof that the ancient religion that used to be practised on the Tor was the work of the devil, and dismissed by Brother Peter of the kitchen as superstitious nonsense. But no one had ever said anything about a tunnel.

  Lukas’ days at the monastery were divided mostly between working in the kitchen under Brother Peter, peeling and chopping food, scouring iron pans, stoking fires; working in the scriptorium copying texts; singing in the choir. There was a rota system for the choir so that there was not a moment of the day or night when the chant of praise to the Lord was broken or interrupted. The perpetual choir had been the idea of a previous abbot and had been intended as a flow of beautiful and harmonious sound that would lift the hearts of the imperfect, earth-bound creatures to unite with the perfect choirs of heaven. The present abbot had kept up the practice not for any such noble motive, but because he loved custom, regularity and routine. In spite of that, the deep, rich sounds of the chant of praise never failed to thrill Lukas and some of his happiest moments were, paradoxically, those when he was least alone, his ‘little’ self totally transcended in union with the angels as he sang in the choir, or when he was most alone, working in the vegetable garden or the orchard, his thoughts his own.

  Now, crouching in the tunnel, he wondered how to keep his discovery secret. He stacked the squared stones that had fallen from the ceiling carefully and, climbing on these precarious steps, stretched and struggled until at last he scrambled back into the fresh air and the familiar green orchard. He checked the position of the sun and knew that it would not be long before he would be expected for his duties in the kitchen.

  He looked at the hole. Although it had seemed huge to him as he fell, it was not really so large and, luckily, it was well to the side of the main orchard in a place so overgrown with brambles and weeds that not many people came that way. It was for this very reason he had chosen to be there, often yearning for privacy in the relentlessly communal life of the monastery.

  He dragged fallen branches from the wood that bordered the orchard, and tugged and pulled until he had a makeshift cover for the hole. He wanted to be sure he would
have a chance to explore the tunnel before anyone else found it. He didn’t know what he expected of it — but whatever it revealed or wherever it led he wanted to experience it alone, in his own way.

  3

  The following day a fowling expedition took Lukas away from the monastery and the orchard.

  They set off in three shallow punts just after the earliest dawn prayers. The coming of light brought sound and movement to the water lands and there was the rustle of small rodents from the bank, the splash of fish leaping and falling back into the meres, the call of bird to bird on the wing, and occasionally the honking of a wild goose.

  The party was in the charge of Brother Andrew who knew that he had a great many mouths to feed at the monastery and must return with a good supply of fresh meat for the cook. He intended that they should penetrate deep into the marshes before they started hunting. Lukas was in the third punt, moving quietly behind the others, enjoying the peace. Their pace was leisurely enough for him to enjoy the soft hush of the sedges as they stroked the sides of his boat, while the feathery flower heads of the reeds he touched shook above him, the pollen from them drifting like fine gold dust in the air. He saw pink orchids and purple gentian quietly pushing the grass stems aside on the little islands and wished that he had time to explore. He thought of living on an island by himself, providing his own food, dreaming his own dreams, poling his own punt when he felt like it. He forgot about the cold winter mists and the clammy ghosts of departed souls he might encounter, the wind and the icy rain flattening the reed heads, the snow flurries and the crackling ice. Summer always seemed as though it would last forever when it was there, and as though it would never come back when it was winter.

  ‘What were you doing yesterday?’ his companion, Matthew, suddenly asked. Lukas was startled out of his reverie. He remembered the tunnel.

  ‘Why?’ he asked sharply.

  ‘I was looking for you and I couldn’t find you.’

  ‘I was in the orchard.’

  ‘I looked there, but I didn’t see you.’

  ‘Just because you don’t see someone it doesn’t mean that they’re not there.’

  Lukas could see that keeping his secret from Matthew might well be more difficult than he had thought. The boy was fourteen, but a very small and sickly lad. He had somehow made Lukas his hero since he had defended him on several occasions against bullying, and tended to follow him about like a dog its master.

  The young man frowned as he lent out of the punt and pushed at the reed covered bank to extricate it from the mud. He had not been concentrating on the water as he should and had come in too close. The other boats were already out of sight. Should he tell Matthew about the tunnel? It might be easier in the long run than trying to keep it hidden. Of anyone he knew Matthew would be the only one with whom he would enjoy sharing a secret. But if Matthew were cornered he might tell the others. A secret in a community where they were all bunched together with very little privacy might serve to buy him importance, a temptation Matthew might not be able to resist.

  ‘Take the pole,’ he commanded. ‘Push that log.’

  Matthew eagerly took the pole and pushed. His arms were like sticks. He was proud to be asked to help, but no matter how hard he worked, the boat did not break clear.

  ‘Come, give it to me,’ said Lukas impatiently. The punt rocked dangerously as he moved beside Matthew and leaned out as far as he could, the pole gripped in both hands. Matthew watched as Lukas pushed. His hero was tall and strong. His admiration for him knew no bounds.

  The punt was dislodged at last, but by this time the other boats were nowhere to be seen. The plan had been for the three to stay close together until Brother Andrew gave the signal, and then Lukas and Matthew were to create a disturbance so that the wild duck would rise from their hiding places in the reeds. Cerdic, a sullen, heavy-set youth, and Brother Andrew, would then shoot their arrows. The other boat would retrieve the kill. The monks never used more than three punts, for one direction must always be left open for the birds to escape if they could.

  Once clear, Lukas poled hard, weaving in and out of the little islands, avoiding mud banks and rotting logs. The daylight was growing stronger every moment and he began to fear that they were lost. As he rounded each bend, each cluster of tall bulrushes, he was sure that he would see the others. But there was no sign of them. He decided to find an island and chose one that had a bit of height to it. He waded ashore while Matthew looked after the punt, and climbed through the tangled weeds to its summit. From there he had an extensive view over the vast expanse of flat marshland. To the east there were hills on the far horizon but in the immediate vicinity was nothing but flat marsh and the one sudden, extraordinary hill, the Tor, the abode of demons, rising from the forests clinging to its sides. As Lukas looked at it he was almost blinded by the blazing golden light of the sun rising behind it. He shut his eyes quickly, but even through the smarting and the watering, he could see an after-image of glory that made him gasp.

  ‘Is anything wrong?’ called Matthew as he saw Lukas stagger slightly and cover his eyes with the palms of his hands.

  Lukas shook his head, but he felt very strange, as though he at that moment was someone else, seeing the Tor in a different way, influenced by different memories.

  But as suddenly as the strange feeling had come, it went, and he turned his attention back to the low-lying marshlands and scanned for any signs of the other two boats. At first he saw nothing and then he noticed the reeds shaking to the south-west. Suddenly, as though a handful of seed had been scattered in the air, a flight of frightened ducks arose, heavily beating their wings and crying their long sad cries. The scene was distant but Lukas could make out the sudden break in the composite pattern of their flight. He saw the falling of limp bodies, and heard the calls of the hunters.

  ‘We might as well go home,’ Lukas said as he rejoined Matthew. ‘The others seem to have managed without us.’ He climbed into the boat and pushed off without another word, his face clouded. Matthew watched him anxiously, sensing that something had happened on the island, but did not know what.

  Lukas was thinking about the Tor, the strange and magical Tor that both frightened and fascinated him. It rose, mysterious and compelling, to the east of the untidy cluster of wooden buildings which comprised the monastery. Its lower slopes were forested but its summit was strangely flat, bare and windswept. Many were the stories of hauntings he had heard about the Tor, and no one of the village dared visit it. There were legends that in the ancient days when his people were still pagan, the island on which Glastonbury monastery was built had been the gathering place of all the spirits of the dead and the Lord of the Underworld waited on the Tor to greet them.

  Four times a year, at the turning points of the seasons, the monks wound through the forest, circling the base of the Tor, chanting prayers of exorcism but never, as far as he knew, climbing to the top. When Lukas was a boy he had decided that when he was a man he would march boldly right up to the top of it and see for himself if any of the tales were true. Now it seemed, if his tunnel led where he hoped it did, he might well learn its ancient secrets in a different way.

  4

  Three days passed before Lukas could go back to the tunnel, but when he did he was well prepared. He wore his sheepskin jerkin against the clammy cold and carried rushes dipped in tallow for light and a sharp kitchen knife against the dangers he might meet.

  He spent some time reinforcing the lid of branches and twigs he had fashioned, so that it could be drawn aside easily from the inside of the tunnel as well as from the outside. He did not want company on his secret expedition.

  The rush light made weird flickering shadows and for a moment he hesitated to take the first step into the unknown. If the roof had fallen once, might it not fall again? What creatures lurked in the depths of the earth? He shuddered, remembering dark stories he had heard of monsters in underground caverns and tunnels. But in the stories they usually guarded treasure. What
treasure might he not find in this dark place? This island had been inhabited since very ancient days. Old bones had been found, flint arrowheads, small carved stone heads from pagan times — even golden bracelets and necklaces. The chalice they used for the Eucharist each morning was made of gold melted down from ancient artefacts found in the earth not far away.

  Lukas found that he was sweating, though even in his jerkin he was very cold.

  ‘Fool! Idiot!’ he muttered to himself. ‘Those are just old stories!’ But he went slowly forward, holding the flame of his torch well above his head, feeling with his left hand the knife at his belt and the sheaf of spare rushes strapped by a thong of hide to his back.

  The light flickered wildly on the damp and crumbling walls as his hand shook.

  ‘Stupid!’ he said aloud, and then looked sharply over his shoulder as his voice came back to him as a hollow whisper.

  He had the impression that he was in the presence of a very powerful force — whether for good or evil he could not tell. It was as though he could feel the tremendous energy of the earth, coiled, waiting to spring; the energy that pushed huge oak trees out of tiny seeds, that raised mountains out of plains. And it seemed to him that the energy was conscious — was conscious of him — was in fact watching him in some way . . .

  It was as dark behind him now as it was ahead. He moved quickly, determined to find out where the tunnel led and to return to the comforting sunlight as soon as possible. But as the icy moments went by and there was nothing but the rough stone and the clammy darkness, his heart grew heavier and heavier and he began to have second thoughts.

  ‘I’ll come another day,’ he told himself.

  He turned, his shoulder brushing the wall and displacing the dust of centuries. The flame of his rush was burning low but its light momentarily caught a marking on one of the stones, the first mark of any kind that he had noticed on the walls. He lit another rush from the dying one and with the brighter light examined the marking. It seemed very old, blackened by the same time that had darkened and mouldered the blocks of rock out of which the tunnel was built.