Merlin

FOUR

At Garth Greggyn we camped for two days and on the third day the dniids came. I half-expected the gathering to simply appear – like Otherworld sojourners in elder times – even though I knew better. The warband waited in the glen below the sacred grove, and were happy to do so since, like most people, they regarded druids in number as a menace to be avoided.

That is a curious thing. Having a bard attached to his court was high prestige for a lord, and certainly every king who could find and keep one enjoyed enormous benefit. Also, the harper's art was respected above all others, including the warrior's and smith's; sorry indeed was the celebration with no druid to sing, and winters were interminable, intolerable, without a bard to tell the old tales.

Nevertheless, let three druids gather in a grove and men began to whisper behind their hands and make the sign against evil – as if the same bard that gave wings to then-joy in celebration, eased the harsh winter's passing, and gave authority to their kingmaking, somehow became a being to be feared when he joined with his brothers.

But, as I have said, men's hearts remember long after their minds have forgotten. And I do not wonder that men's hearts still quake to see the Brotherhood gathered in the grove, remembering as they do an older time when the golden scythe claimed a life in blood sacrifice to Cernunnos, Forest Lord, or the Mother Goddess. Fear remembers long, I tell you, if not always wisely.

After breaking fast on the third day Hafgan rose and stood looking at the hilltop grove, then turned to Charis saying, 'Lady, will you come with me now?'

I stared; another time Blaise might have questioned the Chief Druid's invitation, but this seemed to be a time for unprecedented events. He held his peace and the four of us began the long climb up the slope to the sacred grove.

The grove was a dense stand of ancient oak with a scattering of walnut, ash and holly. The oak and walnut were by far the oldest trees: they had been sturdy, deep-rooted youngsters before the Romans came, planted, some said, by Mathonwy, first bard in the Island of the Mighty.

Deep-shadowed and dark, with an air of imponderable mystery emanating from the thick-corded trunks and twisting limbs, and even the soil itself, the sacred druid grove seemed a world unto itself.

In the centre of the grove stood a small stone circle. The moment I set foot in the ring of stones I could feel ancient power, flowing like an invisible river around the hilltop, which was an eddy in the ever-streaming current. The feeling of being surrounded by swirling forces, of being picked up and carried off on the relentless waves of this unseen river nearly took my breath; I laboured to walk upright against it, my flesh tingling with every step.

The others did not feel it in the same way, or if they did gave no indication and said nothing about it. This, of course, was why the hill was chosen in the first place, but still I wondered that Hafgan and Blaise did not appear to notice the power flowing around and over them.

Hafgan took his place on the seat in the centre of the circle – nothing more than a slab of stone supported by two other, smaller slabs – there to wait until the others arrived. Blaise inscribed a series of marks on the ground and then stuck a suck upright over them. The sunshadow had not passed another mark on the ground before the first druids appeared. They greeted Hafgan and Blaise, and regarded my mother and me politely but coolly, while exchanging news with the two druids.

By midday all had arrived in the grove and Hafgan, cracking his rowan staff three times against the centre stone, declared the gathering assembled. The bards, thirty in all, joined him in the ring, and younger filidh and ovates began making their way round the ring with washing bowls and cups of heather water, and pouches of hazelnuts.

I was included in the circle. Charis stood looking on, a short distance away outside the ring, her face grave and intense, and it came into my mind that perhaps she knew what was about to take place. Had Hafgan told her? Was that why she had been asked to accompany us?

'My brothers,' said Hafgan with staff upraised, 'I greet you in the name of the Great Light, whose corning was foretold of old within this sacred ring.' Some of the Brotherhood shifted uneasily at these words. Their movement did not go unnoticed, for Hafgan lowered his staff and asked, 'You resent my greeting – why?'

No one spoke. Tell me, for I would know,' said the Chief Druid. His words were a challenge; quiet, gentle, but spoken with an authority that could not be ignored. 'Hen Dallpen?'

The man singled out made a slight movement with his hands, as if to show himself blameless. 'It seemed to me a strange thing to invoke a foreign god in our most sacred place.' He looked to the others near him for support. 'Perhaps there are others among us who think the same way.' 'If so,' said Hafgan flatly, 'let them speak now.' Several others voiced agreement with Hen Dallpen, and more nodded silently, but every man there felt the strain of Hafgan's challenge. What was he doing?

'How long have we waited for this day, Brothers? How long?' His grey eyes swept the faces of those gathered around him. 'Too long, it appears, for you have forgotten why we come here at all.'

'Why no, Brother, we have not forgotten. We know why we assemble here. But why do you castigate us so unfairly?' It was Hen Dallpen speaking out, more boldly now.

'How so unfairly? Is it not the Chief Druid's right to instruct those below him?'

'Instruct us then, Wise Brother. We would hear you.' The voice was that of a druid standing beside Blaise.

Hafgan raised his staff and turned his face heavenward, making a low moaning noise in his throat. The strange sound drifted off into the silence of the grove and Hafgan looked at those around him. 'From ancient days we have sought knowledge so that we might learn the truth of all things. Is this not so?'

'It is so,' intoned the assembled druids. 'How should we be slow to grasp the truth when it is proclaimed before us now?'

'We know many truths, Master. Which truth is proclaimed this day?' asked Hen Dallpen.

The Final Truth, Hen Dallpen,' replied Hafgan gently. 'And it is this: the Great Light of the world has ascended his high throne and calls all men to worship in spirit and deed.'

This Great Light you speak of, Wise Brother, do we know him?'

'We do. It is Jesu, him the Romans call Christus.' There were murmurs. Hafgan's eyes swept the assembly; many looked away uncomfortably. 'Why does his name frighten you?'

'Frighten us?' asked Hen Dallpen. 'Surely, you are mistaken, Wise Leader. We are not afraid of this foreign man-god. But, neither do we see good reason to worship him here.'

'Or worship him at all!' declared another. 'Especially since the priests of this Christus declaim against us, mocking us before our own people, belittling our craft and authority even as they seek to extinguish the Learned Brotherhood.'

They do not understand, Drem,' offered Blaise gently. They are ignorant, but that does not change the truth. It is as Hafgan says, the Great Light has come and is being proclaimed among us.'

'Is that why he is here?' The one called Drem turned angrily to me. I saw other dark looks, and understood the reason for the coolness of our reception.

'It is his right to be here,' said Hafgan. 'He is the son of the greatest bard to draw breath.'

Taliesin turned against us! He left the Brotherhood to follow this Jesu, and now it seems you would have the rest of us do the same. Are we to abandon old ways to chase after a foreign god simply because Taliesin did it?'

'Not because Taliesin did it, Brother,' replied Blaise, restraining his anger, 'but because it is right! He who was foremost among us knew the truth of a thing when he saw it. That alone argues for the Tightness of it.'

'Well said, Blaise.' Hafgan motioned me to join him in the centre of the ring. Blaise nodded encouragement, and I stepped forward hesitantly. Hafgan placed a hand on my shoulder, and raised his staff in the air. 'Before you stands the one whose coming we have long awaited, the Champion who will lead the war host against the Darkness. I, Hafgan, Archdruid of the Cor of Garth Greggyn, declare it!'

Silence greeted this pronouncement. Even I questioned the wisdom of such a proclamation, for clearly many of the Learned Brotherhood were unhappily nursing wounds they had received at the hands of the Christian priests, and others were openly sceptical. But the words were out and could not be taken back. I stood there, quaking inside, not from anxiety only, but from the implications of the Archdruid's words: the Champion… leading the war host… Darkness…

'He is but a boy,' scoffed Hen Dallpen. 'Would you have him sprung full-grown into life, like Manawyddan?' demanded the druid beside Blaise. There were a few allies among the Learned Brotherhood at least.

'How do we know he is Taliesin's son? Who can attest to his birth?' wondered one of the sceptics. 'Were you there, Indeg? Were you, Blaise? And you, Wise Leader; were you there? Well?'

'I was.' The voice took everyone by surprise, for by this time they had forgotten that my mother stood looking on. 'I was there,' she said again, stepping forward. Yes, this was why she had come, not only to see her son proclaimed among the Learned Brotherhood, but to help if things went awry, which, as Hafgan had anticipated, they had.

From now on, Hafgan had said, men will begin to recognize you. That sly fox meant to give it a fair beginning.

'I bore him and watched him bora.' My mother stepped into the sacred ring and came to stand beside me. So, there I was, Hafgan on one side, my mother on the other, surrounded by unhappy druids, feeling the strange power of the grove flowing around me. It is not surprising then that I should be taken out of myself to perform an act I was scarcely aware of, and remember now only in amazement.

The druids stood looking on, unconvinced. '… a child bom without breath or life. Taliesin sang life into his still body… ' Charis was saying.

I felt the air shudder around me, pulsing with the power of the grove. The stones in the sacred circle appeared to change from grey to blue as around us thickened a wall of shimmering glass, spun from the intense, charged air; the enmity of the druids towards me, together with my presence, had awakened the sleeping force of the omphalos, the centre of power on which the hill had been constructed.

I saw Otherworld beings moving among the circled stones. One of them – tall and fair, his face and clothing shining with a gleaming radiance that danced like sunbeams on water – came towards me and pointed to the Druid Seat where Hafgan had been sitting. I had never seen an Ancient One before, but part of me expected to see him and so I was not surprised. No one else noticed, of course; nor did I give any indication of the wonder taking place around us.

The being pointed to the stone slab which rested at the vortex of the hill's power. I turned to see the stone – blue now, like the rest of them, and shining faintly. I stepped up onto the stone and heard the druids gasp behind me, for only the Chief Druid may touch the stone – and never with his feet!

But I stood on the stone and it rose up. So highly charged had the vortex become that it lifted the stone, with me on it, straight into the air. From this lofty vantage I began to speak, rather the Ancient One spoke through me if that is how it was, for the words were not my own.

'Servants of the Truth, stop your whining and listen to me! Indeed you are fortunate among men, for today you witness the fulfilment many have lived and died longing to see.

'Why do you wonder that the wisest among you should greet you in the name of Jesu, who called himself the Way and the Truth? How is it that you, who seek truth in all ways, should be blind to it now?

'Do you believe because you see a floating stone?' I saw that they did not believe, though many were awed and amazed. 'Perhaps you will believe if all the stones dance?'

At that moment I actually believed that I could do such a thing, that I had only to clap my hands or shout, or make some sign and the stones would shake themselves from the ground to swing in whirling dance through the glistening air.

I believed, and so I clapped my hands and gave a loud shout – it did not sound like my own voice at all, for the shout resounded over the land, echoing in the glens and valleys round about, trembling the stones of the magic ring in the earth.

Then, one after another, the standing stones began to rise.

One by one they pulled themselves from their sockets, like teeth twisting themselves from the jaw that holds them, and they rose trailing dirt to stand in the air. And then, when all were together in the air, those ancient stones began to turn.

Around and around, slowly, slowly at first, but then a little faster, each stone began turning around its own axis as it whirled in the air.

The druids looked on in horror and wonder, some cried out in fright. I thought to myself that it was a handsome sight – those heavy blue stones spinning and whirling in the shining air, as in a dream.

Perhaps it was a dream after all. If so, it was a dream we all shared together with eyes wide and staring, mouths open in disbelief.

Once, twice, and again, the stones whirled through their course. From my place on the Druid Seat, I heard my own voice ringing, high and strange, voicing a song, or laughter – I know not which – to the stones dancing in the air.

I clapped my hands again and the great stones plummeted instantly to earth. The ground shook beneath them and the dust rose in a cloud. When it cleared, we saw that some of the stones had fallen back into their socket holes; most, however, simply lay where they dropped. One or another had cracked and shattered and the ring was broken.

The stone on which I stood had settled back onto its place, and I stepped off. Blaise, his face alight with the wonder of what he had seen, rushed towards me and would have taken hold of me, but Hafgan restrained him, saying, 'Do not touch him until the awen has passed.'

Blaise made to step back, caught sight of the Druid Seat and thrust his ringer towards it. 'For any inclined to doubt what we have witnessed this day, let this be a sign of the truth of what we have seen.'

I looked at where he was pointing and saw the prints of my feet etched deep into the stone of the Druid Seat.

So the Great Light was proclaimed among the Learned Brotherhood that day. Some believed. Others did not. And although none could deny the power of what they had seen, some chose to attribute the miracle to a different source.

'It is Lieu-sun!' some said. 'Mathonwy!' said others. 'Who else has such power?'

In the end, Hafgan lost his temper. 'You call me Wise Leader,' he said bitterly, 'but refuse to follow where I lead. Very well, from this day let each man follow who he will. I will not remain Chief of such small-minded and ignorant men!'

With that, he raised his staff in both hands and broke it over his knee, then turned his back and strode from the assembly. The Learned Brotherhood was dissolved.

We followed Hafgan from the grove – Blaise, Charis, myself, and two or three others – and returned to the glen where the warband was waiting. We broke camp at once and rode south towards Yr Widdfa. Hafgan wanted to see the great mountain again, and to show us where he was born.

He was angry for a time after leaving Garth Greggyn, but this passed very quickly and he soon appeared joyful and more content than I had ever seen him – singing, laughing, talking long and happily with my mother as we rode along – a man freed from a tiresome burden, or healed of a wearying pain. Blaise noticed the change as well, and explained it to me. 'He has been divided in his heart for a very long time. I think he wanted to force the decision back there, and now that it is over he is free to go his own way.' 'Divided?'

'Between Jesu and the old gods,' Blaise replied. 'As Chief Druid he must uphold the eminence of the ancient gods of our people, though that has become distasteful to him hi the years since he discovered the Great Light.' I must have frowned or shown, my lack of comprehension, for Blaise added, 'You must understand, Myrddin Bach, not every man will follow the Light. Nothing you or anyone else can do will change that.' He shook his head. 'Though dead men rise from their graves and stones dance in the ak, they will still refuse. It makes no sense, but that is the way of it.'

I did not altogether believe him. I thought he was telling me the truth as he saw it, and respected his insight; but in my innermost heart I thought that if men did not believe the truth it was only because a better way of explaining had yet to be discovered. There is a way to make all men see, I thought to myself, and I will find it.

Two days later we sat on a high hill, the wind riffling the sparse grass and sighing among the bare rocks as we gazed at the cold, white-topped and solitary splendour of Yr Widdfa, Snow Lord, Winter's Fortress.

In that lonely land of brooding peaks and darksome vales it is easy to believe the things whispered before the firelight, the tales and scraps of tales men have passed to their children for a hundred generations and more: one-eyed giants in halls of stone; goddesses who transform themselves into owls to haunt the night on soft, silent wings; water maids who lure the unwary to rapturous death below the waves; enchanted hills where captured heroes sleep the centuries away; invisible islands where gods cavort in the twilight of never-ending summer…

Easy to believe the unbelievable there among the hollow hills.

We dismounted and ate a meal on the hilltop, then rested. I did not care to sleep, and decided to walk down to the valley and fill the water jars and skins at the stream. It was not a difficult walk, nor even very far, thus I did not pay particularly close attention to the features of the land – not that this would have helped.

I stumbled and slid down the hill, laden with skins and jars swinging from their thongs round my neck and shoulders. A quick-running stream lay in the centre of the valley, in among the tight tangles of blackthorn and elder. I found a way in to the water and set to filling the skins.

I cannot say how long I was at it, but it could not have been long. Nevertheless, when I gathered up the filled containers and stood to look around, I could no longer see the hill: a dense, grey fog had come down from Yr Widdfa and wrapped the higher hills in a clotted mass thick as wool.

I was concerned, but not frightened. After all, the hill stood directly before me. All I need do was put one foot in front of the other and retrace my steps to the top where the others waited. I wasted no time, but set off at once in the event that the others awoke and became anxious to find me missing and a fog filling the valley.

I quickly found the path I had taken down the hill and began the ascent. I walked a long time, but came ho nearer the top. I stopped and peered into the swirling blankness and, try as I might, I could not make out where I was on the hillside.

I called out… and heard my cry muted and silenced by the thick, damp vapours.

What to do?

There was no telling how long the mist might last. I might wander the hill-track for days on end and never find my way. Worse, and far more likely, I might stumble over a rock in the path and break a leg, or step over a cliff and fall to my death. I sat down to think it through.

It seemed obvious that I had been walking in a circle – and equally obvious, as I sat there, that the fog was settling in. I had no better choice than to set off once more, as I did not relish spending a cold, wet night alone, clinging to a rock on the side of the hill. So I started walking again, but this time slowly, making certain that each step led upward. In this way, though it might take half the day, I would eventually reach our camp at the top.

And in this way I did eventually reach the hilltop – only to discover our camp abandoned and no one there. I dropped the waterskins and looked around. The mist was not as thick as in the valley, so I could, with a little difficulty, make a complete survey of the hilltop. The others were gone, leaving not a trace behind.

Strange. And frightening.

I called again and again, but heard no answering call. I went back to the place where we had eaten our meal, thinking to find some token of our presence, however small. But, try as I might, I could not locate the place. Not a crust or crumb remained to show where we had been; there was not a single hoofprint, not a blade of grass disturbed…

I had climbed the wrong hill! In my blind haste to escape the fog, I had lost my way, and now would have to wait until the mist cleared and I could see where and how I had made my mistake. In the meantime, I had no choice but to do what I should have done in the first place – stay put.

My cheeks burned with shame at my stupidity. I could make a stone circle dance in the air, but could not find my way to the top of a simple hill without getting lost. It was too absurd for words.