Myths and Legends from Around the World

by Robin Brockman

  “I am sure she does not wish to marry him, but is compelled by circumstance and the danger he poses to her people. She could never prefer him.”

  “A mother would say so,” Colin smiled sadly.

  “Yes, that is so,” she allowed. “I see you would know her true mind and be sure in your heart that she loves you.”

  “Yes, I long to know it.”

  “Perhaps there is a way,” the knight's foster-mother considered for a moment.

  “Please advise me, mother.”

  “Very well. Stay here tonight, and in the morning go in your beggar's clothes to the castle on the Islet. Stand at the kitchen door with other beggars, and refuse to go away until the bride herself brings you some food and drink. She is very kind and considerate of both beggars and her servants. Eventually, if you persist and they insist, she will come. When the Lady of Loch Awe hands you something to drink, put your token in the cup. Her reaction will show you if her heart is in this marriage and whether she still loves you.”

  Thanking her, he agreed to abide by her plan. Meanwhile, the young man who had been to Rome to find Colin had been quietly sending the rest of the family to the farm to be reunited with their foster-brother. One by one they came home and were greeted by their long-lost kinsman, and all swore not to reveal Colin's presence to anyone else.

  Early the next morning Colin went alone to the castle, dressed in his beggar's rags. Even at that hour all the servants were up and busy and the whole place was a-buzz with preparations for the wedding. Vagabonds of every kind were already hanging round the doors in honour of the day, begging for food and money, and he took his place among them.

  The big newcomer looked little different from the others but he behaved much more boldly. From the start he planted himself right in the open doorway and begged for food and drink with scant humility and no shame. Indeed, his lordly manner impressed the servants and soon one of them brought him what he asked for, oatcake and buttermilk.

  “Here you are. Now, on your way.”

  Colin drank the buttermilk, tucked the cake inside his clothing, ostensibly for later consumption, but still would not budge from the doorway, making it impossible for the servants to enter or exit without hindrance. Their testy comments would not make him move, so one of the servants tried bribing him with more food and a horn of ale.

  “All right, take this second gift of food and be off with you. You are in the way standing there.”

  He thanked the servant but yet again did not move.

  “Will you please go before you get us and yourself into trouble.” one of the exasperated servants cried.

  “No,” he said standing more firmly than ever with his stout travelling-staff planted on the threshold. “I will not go.”

  “Go now, or it will be the worse for you. You have had more than enough for a single beggar.”

  “I won't go away until the bride herself, with her own fair hand, gives me a drink of wine,” said the disguised knight. Sure enough, he would not move, no matter what they said or did, yet he was not offensive and they could not find it in their hearts to treat his courtesy with outright anger and aggression. There was also the question of his size. Despite his appearance, he was strong and agile and clearly could be dangerous with that staff. In the end they just wanted to be rid of him and, after whispering among themselves, agreed to fetch their mistress to indulge his fancy. Doubtless he wished to say a few obsequious words of congratulation in hope of some other gift, and then finally go away. They hoped she would not mind too much, on such a day as this, being asked to help get rid of the fellow.

  Hearing of the problem with the importunate beggar the Lady of Loch Awe took it with her usual good grace.

  “It's a small matter on my last day in the old house,” she said, laughing, and asked a servant to bring a large jug filled with wine and accompany her to the door.

  In fact, the Lady was glad of the distraction from her own concerns and the opportunity to delay her personal preparations for a few minutes.

  When she came out to the beggar, he bowed his head in greeting. “You've travelled far, good man,” she said, glancing at his travel- stained attire.

  “Yes, lady, from distant lands.”

  “Would that others also gone to distant lands had returned,” she said wistfully. “Well, if you desire a drink from the bride's own hand, here I am. You may have your wine now.” Holding a bowl in her hands, she asked the servant to fill it. “There you are,” she said, managing a smile.

  “I drink to your happiness,” said he, draining the bowl. As he gave the bowl back to her, he dropped his half of the engraved ring inside it. “Lady, allow me to return this cup a little richer than I took it.”

  Her curiosity aroused, she looked into the bowl. When she saw the token she gasped and snatched at the small piece of gold, dropping the bowl which fell to the ground and broke at her feet. Now trembling violently, she examined the token. When she saw her own name engraved upon it, tears welled in her eyes. Looking long and intently at the token, she pulled a chain from around her neck, and held up her half of the ring with Colin's name engraved upon it.

  “There is no hope now,” she whispered in despair, tears flooding down her cheeks. “But, stranger,” she said, grasping his sleeve. “Please tell me, did you know him and does this truly mean my husband is dead?”

  “Dead?” he said with gentle warmth, looking tenderly at her. “No, it simply means he's home.”

  Hearing his tone more than his words, she stared hard into his eyes and then fell into his arms.

  “Colin, my husband,” she cried holding him tightly against her pounding heart, prayers of thanks racing through her mind.

  Flabbergasted the servants stood staring in bewilderment, until after a few moments their mistress turned to them, beaming.

  “Run, bring everyone in the household, bring all the clan, Black Colin of Loch Awe, your chief and my own wonderful husband, has come home to us.”

  Soon all in the castle knew the great news and amidst tremendous excitement and rejoicing, they feasted on the already prepared wedding banquet. In mid-celebration, and while the glowingly happy wife sat beside her long-lost husband, holding his hand as if she feared to let him leave her, the distant sound of bagpipes was heard.

  The Baron MacCorquodale was coming for his wedding, which in their joy the people of Glenurchy had entirely forgotten. They looked at one another in amusement and then at the Lord and Lady of Loch Awe.

  “Will someone kindly go and tell the Baron that I will take no new husband today, as my old one has come back to me. And say that there will be certain questions asked of him when the time is right.”

  A group of gleeful clansmen fell over themselves to deliver this message, but one man was ahead of them all. He set out in a rowing boat, and pulling for all his worth on the oars sped towards Baron MacCorquodale's great wedding party of relations, henchmen, vassals and pipers who were making ready to enter the boats that would take them across to the Islet.

  “What can this be,” the Baron wondered as the man – a spy he had placed in the Lady of Loch Awe's household – approached. He took the man aside to hear his message. The news of Colin's return was unexpected to say the least and put him in a fury of frustration.

  With a frantic gesture the Baron ordered the pipers to cease their music.

  “There will be no wedding today. We must be off at once, Black Colin is home again,” he cried. The astonished party looked about them in confusion, but the Baron's haste told them all they needed to know. Everyone soon followed his example, fearful of the terrible vengeance the long-lost chieftain might take. All reached their homes out of breath but safely.

  In the days that followed, Colin had many things to tell his wife about his travels, the wars and his pilgrimage. He was also curious about her life during all these years alone. They told each other everything and Colin read the forged letter that had been sent to his wife. Like everyone else, he knew who must have b
een behind it.

  His anger, or so it seemed to all who heard him that morning, was white hot against MacCorquodale.

  “That evil man, who has wrought this wrong and so nearly gained his end, must pay in blood,” he vowed.

  Sympathizing with him but deeply concerned that a terrible war might result, his wife calmed him. Finally, in front of many witnesses, she got him to swear he would take no grisly revenge on the Baron, whom she felt she had made a fool of throughout, and who must now be living in fear. In the end everyone, especially the Baron, credited her with preventing the wrath of Black Colin from descending on his head.

  “What have you done with the rents of Glenurchy all these years?” Colin asked his wife one day not long after his return, wondering if his long ago hunch about her interests and abilities was well founded.

  “With some of it I lived,” the happy lady replied. “With some I've guarded the glen, and with some I made a cairn of stones at the head of Loch Awe.” By now she knew from his foster-brother that Colin still did not know the particulars of her stratagem to delay the Baron's wedding day, only that she had done so.

  “A cairn of stones?” Colin asked with a smile.

  “Come with me, and let me show it to you,” she said.

  Deeply puzzled, Colin rode with her to the head of Loch Awe. Grand and white, shining in the rays of the sun, the new castle which now stood on the site of the former home of the MacGregors, struck him as truly marvellous.

  “Well,” his proud wife laughed, “do you like my cairn of stones? It took a very long time to build.”

  Leaning out of the saddle he put his arm around her waist and kissed her rapturously, lost in admiration.

  Black Colin was indeed pleased with the magnificent castle she had raised for him, and renamed it Kilchurn Castle. Staying true to his vow, and to his own hidden nature, which his wife soon happily fathomed, he took no warlike vengeance on Baron MacCorquodale. However, there came a time when it became necessary for that gentleman to resign much of his lands to the Knight of Loch Awe, which were united with those of Glenurchy. It was the reverse of what the Baron had hoped to accomplish by dishonesty, achieved fairly and through clever plans largely conceived by the Lady of Loch Awe.

  Izanagi and Izanami

  The worship of the forces and forms of nature was central to the ancient native religion of Japan, Shintoism. Over time this developed into a kind of polytheism (the worship of numerous gods) and there was little scope for the formulation of spiritual ideas. Izanagi and Izanami are the last of the seven generations of Japanese gods, and it is they, according to Japanese myth, who are responsible for the creation of the world. The mythology and legends of Japan were preserved for centuries through an oral tradition practised by the Katari-be, or ‘reciters’. Much later, in the seventh century AD, they were written down and incorporated in the first history of Japan. As a pair of bickering, sibling-lovers, Izanagi and Izanami have spoken to people down through the ages.

  Below the floating bridge of Heaven there hung a thick, impenetrable mist. Nothing lay within that mist and nothing existed but the Heavens. Upon the bridge stood twin deities, in whom burned a powerful desire both to fully experience one another and to create. As Izanagi, ‘The Male Who Invites’, watched by Izanami, ‘The Female Who Invites’, thrust his jewelled spear into the nothingness and slowly stirred it, a thrill ran through them both. From the mist arose a great bubbling, a further thickening of the mist and the strange sound “Koworokoworo”.

  Izanagi withdrew his spear and the two deities watched as its point dripped curdles of brine. The brine fell below, forming an island. Down to this solid ground the young god and goddess descended and here, with a grand burst of creative energy, they set about causing to appear a great hall whose central feature was a giant pillar. All the while, however, both were aware of another very startling new fact. In making this physical world, they too had become physical. From around the pillar, they eyed each other shyly.

  Suddenly they realized they could not communicate with one another except by speech. Mouthing words and thoughts with difficulty, they discussed the slight but obvious deviations in their two bodies. While one had soft hemispherical mounds on her upper body, the other had one pronounced appendage on his lower body. Closer examination revealed other fascinating features, but what exercised most of Izanagi's attention was a strategically placed niche in Izanami's body which corresponded in position exactly to that of the increasingly prominent protruberance on his own. He conceived the idea that one might actually be inserted into the other with interesting results, and with the usual difficulty of speech and by using gestures, he said so.

  Incredulous at first, Izanami soon realized the possibilities and discovered a growing inclination towards the notion. To merge, to embrace without and within, had great appeal for them both. Instinctively, they felt, this might lead to further, better creating and in a new way. So now, just as Izanagi was assailed by a profound need to bury his strangely exterior organ in warmth, an equal need to fill a yawning, yearning void within herself overtook Izanami.

  Sensing that a ritual of sorts was called for, that many precedents were being set, and subject to a sudden shyness, they repaired to opposite sides of the giant pillar. Stepping round one side of it and meeting Izanagi's gaze, Izanami cleared her throat and searched for the unfamiliar words of spoken language.

  “Oh,” she said at last, “what a handsome man.”

  “Oh,” Izanagi, thus inspired, uttered in response, “what a lovely young woman.”

  Slowly they drew one another into an embrace.

  Awkward, uncomfortable, especially for Izanami, their first coupling was unsatisfactory and all that came of it creatively was a bloodsucking water leech. An almost reluctant second attempt produced a small island of foam. A new approach was called for, though neither questioned the instinct that drove them to carry on with the experiment.

  Meeting now on the other side of the giant pillar, Izanagi spoke first.

  “Oh, what a lovely young woman.”

  “Oh,” Izanami replied, “what a handsome man.”

  Falling into one another's arms, they fitted together more easily, less clumsily and with slightly greater abandon. The results were quickly recognized as being of a far more satisfying nature, and a grand creative flowering immediately followed. The seven islands of Japan were born, then the sea appeared, all the land of the world as a whole, the four seasons, wind, trees and mountains. Finally, issuing from its mother Izanami, came the flaming, leaping, male Spirit of Fire.

  This last offspring was Izanami's undoing, however, for it so burned and damaged her that she lay down vomiting, giving life even by that to many lesser creatures. Soon, she died. Weeping, her brother and lover fell at her feet, stricken with grief and confusion. His tears ran down his face and from them the spirit who lives on Mount Kagu was born.

  Taking up Izanami's limp body, Izanagi carried it to the boundary between Idumo and Papaki and buried her. Then, in his rage he drew his sword and decapitated the fire child, whose blood created countless wild animals and from whose headless corpse emerged many thousands more.

  In his loneliness, Izanagi descended into the kingdom of the Night. Here, at the portal of the Palace of Darkness, his sister-lover waited.

  “Izanami,” he cried, “the world we created, the living things you gave birth to are yet incomplete. Please return with me to the light and air.”

  “I wish I could go back with you,” Izanami said sadly. “But it may already be too late. You should have come before this. I have already eaten and drunk in this dimension but I will go inside and speak with the spirits who dwell here. Please, do not follow me there.”

  For what seemed an age to him, Izanagi lingered but impatient with love and worry he pulled from his hair one of his two ornamental hair combs and set it alight to use as a torch. Cautiously he went through the door where his twin sister had gone. And there she lay, rotting and eaten half away by ma
ggots inside and out.

  Great was the horror he felt at the sight but worse was the terrible knowledge that something had been violated, some rules of the place and the power and nature and divinity. Words of warning seemed to ring in his ears.

  Loud-thunder in her skull,

  Burning-thunder in her bosom,

  Dark-thunder in her belly,

  Crack-thunder in her womb,

  Young-thunder in her left hand,

  Earth-thunder in her right hand,

  Resounding-thunder in her left foot,

  Reposing-thunder in her right foot.

  From the decayed body itself came the scream: “You have shamed me!” And up rose the monster that the dead Izanami had assumed in all its frightfulness, howling. It chased Izanagi through the gates of the Palace of Darkness, out of the kingdom of the Night, into the upper world. Here, in this still-fertile land, where all grew at his slightest inspiration, he threw down his headband as he ran. At once a bunch of ripe grapes sprang up and these, as he had hoped, the monster stopped to gobble up. Soon it continued its pursuit, running with the Eight Spirit Thunders beside it.

  Now Izanagi tossed aside his second hair comb and it became bamboo shoots, which once more the monster stopped to rip up and devour hungrily. This time it created and ordered ahead fully 1500 longfanged soldiers of the night, which Izanagi desperately fought off with his sword.

  Still fleeing, he came to the pass between the physical world that can be seen and touched, whose mysteries can be largely understood and the other dimension which is unknown. Here a mystical peach tree grew and Izanagi, weary and out of breath, stopped to rest. As his enemies appeared, he threw peaches at them and all except the monster itself retreated before this magical onslaught. With a mighty effort, Izanagi pushed and rolled an enormous boulder into the pass, blocking it.

  On the other side he heard his sister-lover gasping for breath from her exertions. He shouted out his anger and outrage. Forever, he cried, he would deny her. They were no longer one. He would divorce her.