See How They Run (17 page)

Big M sat still for a while, his eyes gleaming.

‘We’ll see, Llwyd, we’ll see what you’re really made of. And do you know something, Llwyd? You could actually change my story a bit. Every story is warped with time, even our own individual stories. In the
old days this story would have ended with Catrin
returning home with you obediently and living a rather sad life, never fulfilling herself. But you can give it a new ending, Llwyd. It’s up to you and Catrin to change the ending, not to be helpless individuals swatted this way and that by the gods. Correction, it’s up to the whole of the human race to sort it out now.’

‘You sound as if you’ve given up,’ said Lou.

‘I haven’t given up on life, but I’ve almost given up on humanity,’ answered Big M. ‘Anyway, when this project is up and running I’m thinking of retiring. I’ll go back to Ireland, or maybe to the Isle of Man. That’s where my family comes from, you know. Sea all around me, I need the sea. It’s very important to me.’

‘Why?’

Big M gave him a wry smile.

‘Oh, I don’t know. Wide open spaces? Mystery? Very few people? The sea’s a huge sleeping monster. I like its power, its beauty.’

‘You don’t like people very much?’

‘I like them individually, but as a mass they’re so destructive. They’re a plague, really. But they think they’re gods. That’s what mirrors are for, to remind them every day that they’re gods.’

‘And there aren’t any real gods?’

Big M took off his moccasins and massaged his feet. After a while he looked up at Lou and said:

‘You know that song about the three blind mice?
My mother used to tell me a story about those
mice when I was a kid. Bedtime story. She said the first mouse was a messenger from the vast plains of the North, at a time when there were many gods, gods of small things like rivers and trees. The mouse announced that all the small gods were going away and they would never return to Earth again, but that one of the gods would stay behind in the South, just in case...

‘Then a second mouse came from the South and
said that the sole god who’d stayed on Earth had
become lonely and had decided to join the rest, but he’d left a mouse in the East to act as a messenger between mankind and the gods...

‘Then a third mouse came from the East and told the people of Earth that all the gods were dead, but they needn’t worry because a fourth mouse would come from the West one day to save mankind...’

‘And what does all that mean?’ asked Lou, puzzled.

‘Not really sure. Mum was a great one for stories. I think she was trying to warn me that humans are a race of fibbers who are constantly changing the story to suit themselves. God was the best alibi they ever invented. But Lou, they really do have to face up to their responsibilities now and realise it’s up to them. No excuses.’

Big M replaced his moccasins, got up, and stretched.

‘Anyway, that’s enough moralising for now. That’s another human minefield, preaching. Come on, let’s join the rest of them.’

Lou walked along, thinking about their conversation. He really did mean it; he was sincere when he made his pledge to Big M. But then his mind clouded over when he thought about his promise to Catrin about the baby and being a good father. Still, he really meant it this time.

They joined the rest of the group, who were still celebrating the return of Pryderi and Rhiannon. They looked different, more engaged and vital than the urbanites who usually milled around Lou. They were as sleek as the mice, more in tune with their surroundings.

A simple breakfast had been prepared and laid out on a table made of haybales. They were discussing the day’s plans, how they’d try to save what they could of the crop, who’d do what. The woman called Rhiannon pointed to the world below them and
said: ‘Look, I can see the road again, and some
walkers over there on the coastal path. People again!’

Lou left them and went to stand at the edge of the compound, trying to formulate some plans of his own. Below him the mist had cleared and the
landscape had emerged extra sharp, clear and very beautiful. Fields stretched as far as the eye could see: there were countless vales with rivers between them;
trees and hedges stitched together in a quilt of
classical beauty. Lou felt very big and very small at
the same time. He was a giant with a great story
inside the miniature world of the memory stick, and
he was also a midge in the rolling landscape of
Wales. He might stay here himself, if they let him. If he could stand the country life. Town mouse, church mouse, country mouse. He’d probably scuttle back to brickwork eventually. Up to now he’d been a man who liked to gnaw his way through other people’s walls, other people’s cables. Perhaps it was time for a change. Time for a nice relaxing time in the country, a hammock slung between two trees, siestas in the afternoon sunshine. But there again, he’d have to work hard and that might not be quite so...

Lou turned round to see what the rest were doing. He swivelled, and held the scene in a long stare.

There was nobody there. Perhaps they’d gone down to the fields to start work. Perhaps they’d disappeared into the memory stick again. He had no idea, but he wanted to find them. In passing the breakfast bales he picked up a small, flat, freshly baked loaf, and took it with him as he started walking by the edge of the ripe corn, towards the second field. He tore off chunks of bread and ate them as he went, picking off blackberries and wild strawberries on the way. At some point he took his digital camera from a pocket and took a picture of the cornfield still standing, yellow under blue. It would be ideal as a screensaver if he went back to his college desk, to start all over again.

At some point he found himself calling, calling out a name.

‘Manawydan... Manawydan...’

It was the first time he’d ever used his full name, unconsciously, without thinking.

In that moment, his lips red with raspberry juice, alone in the cornfield under a vast blue sky, he felt like a small child calling out to his father.

Third Branch of the
Mabinogion
:

Manawydan, son of Llyr

After the seven men had buried Bendigeidfran’s head at the White Tower in London, Manawydan sighed with sorrow. ‘I am the only one who has no place to go,’ he said.

His friend Pryderi then offered him the seven cantrefs of Dyfed, as well as his mother Rhiannon. As Manawydan talked to Rhiannon he was delighted and agreed to Pryderi’s proposal.

With Pryderi’s wife, Cigfa, they began a circuit of Dyfed, hunting and enjoying themselves; they had never seen a place better to live in, or hunt in,
or more abundant in honey or fish and a friendship developed between the four of them. They began a
feast at Arberth, but as they sat there they heard a
tumultuous noise and a blanket of mist fell. The mist became bright, and when they looked they could see nothing at all where they had once seen flocks and herds and houses, only the desolate court and the four of them remained.

They wandered through the realm living on wild animals, fish and swarms of bees but after a year they grew tired and set of for England to seek a craft and earn a living.

They came to Hereford, where they began saddle­making. Their saddles were so fine the other saddlers
wanted to kill them, but they were warned and
Manawydan decided they should leave, although Pryderi wanted to stay and fight. In the next town they took up shieldmaking, but the same thing happened, and in the third, shoemaking, but the same thing happened again and they decided to head back to Dyfed.

Hunting on the way, their dogs found a gleaming white boar in a thicket and a huge fort, newly build. Pryderi went inside and saw a well with a golden bowl, but when he touched it his hands stuck fast and he couldn’t leave. Rhiannon followed to find him, and she, too, stuck fast.

Seeing she and Manawydan were alone, Cigfa
despaired, but he swore he was a true friend. They
tried their hand at shoemaking again, but their
shoes were so fine the other shoemakers wished to kill them. So they took some wheat back to Arberth and settled there. Manawydan planted a field, then a second and a third. But when he came to harvest the first field, and then the second, he found them stripped bare. Keeping watch over the third field he saw a huge army of mice climbing the stalks and stealing the ears. He managed to catch one that was very fat and took it back to court.

He wanted to hang the mouse as a thief, but then saw a poor cleric approaching, who begged him to stop, a priest followed and then a bishop. The bishop asked him to name his price to spare the mouse and Manawydan asked for the release of Rhiannon and Pryderi and for the enchantment to be removed from the seven cantrefs of Dyfed, and this was granted.

Manawydan still refused, asking to know who the mouse was. The bishop told him the mouse was his pregnant wife and that he, Llwyd, had enchanted the land to avenge Gwawl, son of Clud.

Manawydan still refused, until Llwyd promised
there would be no more vengeance and he saw
Rhianon and Pryderi returning. Then he released the mouse who turned into a fair young woman. He looked around and saw all the land inhabited again, complete with herds and houses.

Synopsis by Penny Thomas

for the full story see
The Mabinogion, A New Translation

by Sioned Davies (Oxford World’s Classics, 2007).

Afterword

The original
Mabinogion
probably took centuries to form and coalesce, but I wrote this book very quickly, in a couple of months, and I really enjoyed the experience.

First I read the preceding books in this new Seren series, and I got something from all of them, though I particularly liked Niall Griffiths’ boisterous contribution so I stole some of his sulphur for my own use. I like this idea of a modern take on the fables, though
it directly contravenes the tradition of the Celtic
storytellers, who told it as their grandfathers did, with no extra bits, in a formal and dignified manner. One factor I found especially interesting: were the authors looking towards the Old World as they wrote their stories, or towards the New World? When I was a young man I was actively aware of the ties and the traffic between Wales and Ireland, and I was conscious of the Celtic countries’ ancient (but never moribund) dance around each other, and around England too. I refer in my story to a special relationship, but not the arranged marriage between Britain and the US, rather the brotherhood between Wales, Ireland, Cornwall and Brittany, created by blood ties and the resultant cultural connections. Of course America has long been important to Wales; at least eight presidents have had Welsh ancestry, but with
the recent blooming of a global US pop culture via TV and the web it seems to me that American
culture has swamped Britain and skewed the island’s cultural axis, so that Celtica has faded from general consciousness, other than some woolly and romantic tosh seen on our screens, with the Potterisation of Merlin being a typical example. How many modern Welsh people have read that Irish classic
The Táin
? How many had delved into
The Islandman
by Tomás
O’Crohan and Robin Flower, or
The Aran Island
s by J.M. Synge? How many of them have heard of
Sorley MacLean or his quintessentially Celtic poem, ‘Hallaig’?

The
Mabinogion
in general, and the third branch in particular, owes a great deal to Ireland, Manawydan
himself coming from across the water. Originally a five-star sea god, he was made mortal by the Welsh
and rendered as a clean cut nice guy, a Sean Connery
figure who’d retired because he didn’t want the agro any more. In the American version George Clooney would be cast as a tired but still attractive ex-federal agent inveigled into one last assault on the Mob. He’s still cool and he’s still a fixer, but he wants to stay poolside with a tall drink and good company. This turn-the-other-cheek side to the Welsh Manawydan smacks of Christianisation, but I’m no expert.

Having written some pretty outlandish stuff in my time – I didn’t realise how strange I was until I
wrote a book – I decided to play it straight with this story, mainly because I was writing to commission and didn’t want to let the side down. I would have loved to write it as noir or noir pastiche, and I think Malcolm Pryce would have had a field day, but I
haven’t his talent. So here it is, my version of the
third branch. I feel privileged to be part of this venture, since I’m in pretty impressive company. I have tried to reflect the huge, unpeopled landscapes of pre­history – the space, the light, the silence, the epic time spans. I have also tried to reflect the Celts’ fabled absorption with detail, as seen in their metal work and decorative artwork; the computer memory sticks in my story are the equivalent of decorated capitals in the
Book of Kells
. I’ve told the story from the viewpoint of the ‘baddie’ and I’ve tweaked his motives for revenge; I hope purists will forgive me. Otherwise
I’ve played it pretty straight. I have to admit that
during the process I felt no fellow-feeling with the original story-tellers, who would be appalled, probably, by the liberties I’ve taken.