Cursing Jemmy leaned forward, with his hands on his knees and his elbows spread. He took a great breath, and launched into his aria of finely burnished abuse and blasphemy.
Welsh, like Irish and Scottish Gaelic, is an apt language for scurrilous abuse and bitter condemnation, as it is for poetry and prayer. It is in its heart a language of the Middle Ages, when speech was well-salted and frank, but the Celts brought poetry and rhetorical splendour to it, and an ear for rhyme and assonance that makes Welsh poetry an untranslatable marvel of ingenuity and subtle music. So much I had known, but at a distance, because I know no Welsh and had to take on credit what I heard about it in books. Notice that I heard books, I did not scan them with the eye alone, and I think this is what made me a good, and often idiosyncratic, critic. But now, as I watch this film, I understand; the Welsh tongue, after – I don’t know how many generations – is mine again. I feel, and I marvel not merely at the sense but at the overtone, the suggestion, of Cursing Jemmy’s diatribe. With brutal force he suggests what the traveller might do with his Lord, and he develops fanciful details that could only have been carefully arranged beforehand in his mind. This is no extemporaneous blasphemy. It is the creation of a powerful imagination. Jemmy is long-winded, too. He delivers his blast in a single breath, and he has the lungs and control of a great singer.
(4)
THE TRAVELLER, leaning back in his chair, listens with appreciation, and when Jemmy closes with a fine coda he taps on the floor appreciatively with his staff.
“Well done, Jemmy,” he says, in a gentle voice. “Well done for a mountain man and an unimproved intellect. If you can find an eisteddfod that offers a crown for cursing, you might well chance your luck. I could not have done much better than that in my own best days, and I was a notable curser, let me tell you, before I found my salvation.”
“Let us hear you, then,” says the harper. “You cannot speak to Jemmy in that voice without proving yourself. Curse, preacher! Curse, you braggart! You shall not eat or rest here till you have made good your boast.”
“Nay,” says the traveller. “I have forsworn cursing, for it is the Devil’s work. Though, I tell you, cursing is also the Devil’s poetry, as Jemmy has shown us. I will gladly go without food, and I will go out again into the storm, before I will swear and blaspheme as Jemmy has done. But perhaps I may offer you a real eisteddfod judge’s opinion on Jemmy’s style. Would you like to hear it?”
“You would not dare,” says the harper. A stir and a murmur among the men told of their agreement.
“Indeed, I will dare anything in my pursuit of Our Lord’s work,” says the traveller.
“Let him speak,” says Jemmy. “To find fault with my cursing – it is very great impudence, and impudence too may be a form of poetry if it is bold. Speak, damn you, you black-coated turd from Jesus’ arse. Say your say, and then I shall kill you. At a blow! I shall kill you!”
“So I shall, for it is always a pleasure to bring light into darkness and improvement into ignorance. Now, listen to me, all of you. What Jemmy has spoken – with eloquence, I grant you – is not true cursing at all. It is naught but blasphemy and filthy abuse. Jemmy is a mere mountain – cacafuego and no more, good as he is. Do you not know what a curse is? Abuse is trivial sport, for women and children – unless the woman be a witch, in which case her abuse may well be feared, for she has given her soul to Satan and rails in his name – which is no foolish or feeble name, let me tell you. But I wander from my point. A curse is an imprecation, in which the curser outlines and details the future of the accursed, under which he must suffer forever, in this life and perhaps in the next until the curse be lifted. Who taught us to curse, think you? It was God himself who laid the first curse on Cain, the evil-doer and murderer. What did Great Jehovah say to Cain? ‘Now art thou cursed from the earth – a fugitive and vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.’ And is it not so? Does not Cain walk abroad still, bringing war and rape and villainy and every cruelty to unredeemed mankind? You tell me that you know not Christ, but I am sure upon my soul that you know Cain, for he speaks loud and clear in your filthy songs and your un-Welsh want of hospitality to the stranger among you. Cain is raised here in Dinas Mawddwy, but you are so sunk in your evil that you know it not. God’s curse upon Cain was the primal curse, and every curse since then has been in its pattern. Truly to curse is to call down the Divine vengeance, and those who have no light of the Divine, or the blackness of Satan, in their natures cannot curse. They can only spew filth, which Jemmy does very well indeed. Seek the Divine, men of Dinas Mawddwy, if you would learn to curse, but be assured that the better you know the Divine, the less you will be inclined to curse.”
There is silence. Neither the harper nor Cursing Jemmy has a word to say. They want time to think about what the traveller has said. But after a few minutes a voice is raised, and it is that of a lad of about fourteen or fifteen who has sat on the floor in a corner. He is the pot-boy of this miserable inn and he has the dark red head of Dinas Mawddwy; he does not look as though his life has been a happy one.
“Tell us more about cursing, master,” he says. “Your Bible curse is well enough, but we are Welsh. Do you know of a Welsh curse?”
Some of the men murmur. Yes, tell us of a Welsh curse. They know of the Bible. They have heard of Bishop Morgan’s Welsh Bible, though it is doubtful if any one of them has seen it, or could read it if he had done so. These men are as Welsh as Welsh mountaineers could be. For them it is as though the Romans had never brought four hundred years of European culture to their remote land. Their Wales is an area of perhaps two miles in all directions from the hovel in which they sit. A Welsh curse! Now that would be a fine thing, a comprehensible thing.
The traveller is caught in his own net. He has talked too much, his old fault, against which John Wesley himself has warned him. He will have to pray hard for correction of that flaw in his nature. Meanwhile he must keep his hold over these troglodytes, if he hopes to preach God’s Word to them before the night is over. He temporizes.
“For a truly Welsh curse, a curse uttered before there was any knowledge of the Curse of Cain in this land, I should have to go back very far into history,” he says.
“Go back as far as you please and we shall be at ease wherever you lead us. We are Welsh history, preacher.”
“You are? What do you mean?”
“You have not recognized us?” says the harper. “You have not seen that we are the living Gwylltiaid Cochion Mawddwy? You must have heard of us. We are very famous. Even in England we are known.”
“The Red Banditti?” says the traveller. “I did not know that I had fallen into such distinguished company. But surely that was in olden times.”
“It was in the days of King Henry the Eighth – and that was a very, very long time ago – that we were heard of in England. The King sent his black devil Lewis Owen to hunt us down and it was on a very famous Christmas Eve he seized eighty of us, and hanged us from trees like the carcasses of sheep. It was then that we forswore Christmas and all it means, because it is the worst day in the year for us. But it was many months after that those who had escaped met with him on the road to Mallwyd – the road you are taking, preacher – and they dragged him from his horse and put more than thirty stabs into him. They still call that place The Baron’s Gate, and indeed it was his gate to hell. We are the blood of those men, and we are as good as those men.”
“And as red-headed as those men,” says the traveller, and wished he had not, because the silent red-haired men give him a look of unpleasant consideration.
“Yes, as red-headed as those men,” says the harper. “And as apt for history as those men. So tell us of this Welsh curse, traveller, and be warned that we expect a good story.”
(5)
“YOU SHALL HAVE one,” says the traveller, “and from much further back into the antiquity of this land than Henry the Eighth, who was a Welshman too, and a scourge to us, God forgive him! What I tell you goes far, far back to
the time of the great princes, and the old gods. And one of these princes was a mighty magician, and his name was Math fab Mathonwy, and he was a strange one indeed. Only when he was at war would he stand upright, and then he was invincible. But when he was not at war he lay at his ease, and for his greater ease he decreed that his feet must always nestle in the lap of a virgin. There were many of these royal virgins, and when the time came for them to marry, Royal Math would give them fine dowries.
“Now it came to pass that the loveliest of these foot-holders was a maiden called Goewin, and she was of royal blood, the daughter of Pebin, who was a king.”
“By God, if I had my feet in a virgin’s lap they would not linger there long,” says Cursing Jemmy. “I have a better thing for a virgin’s lap than my feet, boys, isn’t it?”
“Silence!” says the harper, who seems to have more authority than could be justified by his miserable body. “Let us hear this story. It has weight.”
“But Jemmy has spoken well,” says the traveller, “for there were men like him at Math’s court, and they lusted as Jemmy lusts. Like Jemmy they were great cursers and fighters but there was no light in their souls, not so much as a candle. It is about them you shall hear, and what their fighting and lusting brought to them. Do you want to hear, or will you listen to what Jemmy thinks he would do with the lovely Goewin?”
These men are true Welshmen. They want the story. Lust can always wait and be enjoyed for itself, but stories like this come rarely.
“At Math’s court were two trusted warriors of the King; their names were Gwydion and Gilfaethwy, and they had their magic, too. Now Gilfaethwy was a loving man, and he yearned for the beautiful Goewin, as she lay at the foot of the King’s bed, doing her duty by his royal feet. ‘How may I win this lovely maid?’ he cries, and his brother Gwydion hears his moan and he vows to help him. So – to rouse the King from his bed he contrives a war between Math’s kingdom and that of his neighbour, and the King rouses himself and puts on his armour and takes his sword and goes off to fight. So – what follows?”
Without anyone having said a word the pot-boy has put a big jug of ale at the traveller’s side; he pauses to take a long, refreshing pull at it. The red-haired men are leaning forward now, for they can guess what is coming, but they want to hear it from the lips of the story-teller.
“Very good drinking, that is,” says the traveller. “And more than welcome to a wet and weary man. So – as soon as the King has gone to war Gilfaethwy goes to the royal bed, where Goewin still lies, and in his terrible lust he takes her. She shrieks, but there is no one to hear. Gilfaethwy is very rough, for his lust is his master. He forgets his love, and a very bloody deflowering it is, and when that is done his love-talk is of no help at all, for the girl weeps and will not be consoled. Gwydion, dirty dog that he is, stands by the bed and feasts his eyes on the terrible scene. Ah, a painful tale, my red-haired friends, and it is no pleasure to me to tell it.”
The traveller pauses again, for the pot-boy has brought him a big hunk of bread and some cold mutton, and he sinks his teeth into the rude sandwich with the pleasure of a starving man. His hearers must wait until he has satisfied his hunger.
“King Math is victorious, and he returns triumphant, and he sees what has happened. Indeed, he sees it as clearly as I see the bottom of this empty tankard,” says the traveller. Jemmy gives a jerk to his great red head, and the pot-boy hastens to refill it.
“That is more like it,” says the traveller, and takes a long swig. “Now, I suppose you want to know what the great King does.”
The outcry from the men, so silent until now, is loud and eager.
“Well – here comes the great curse. As I told you, King Math is a mighty sorcerer, and when he sees the wretched maid and the bloody sheets, he is cold with rage. Does he rave and scream and strike at Gwydion and Gilfaethwy with his sword? He does not. Unbridled rage is for fools. He lifts his staff, and holds it over the two evil brothers, who are valiant no longer, for what is valour against magic? – I could eat more of this meat, and not so much of the fat this time, if you please.”
The excitement of the red banditti is intense, but they must wait until more bread and meat is brought, and the traveller has munched a large chaw.
“Very good meat, this is. Stolen, I suppose? Such sweet flesh is not from any creature on this slatey mountain. – Now, let me think. Where was I? Ah, yes, King Math lifted his wand. ‘Now,’ says he, ‘I do not mean to kill you, traitors and ravishers that you are, so you need not cringe at my feet. I have other plans for you. Let me arrange my thoughts. First, I shall take this poor girl into my bed, not as my foot-warmer, but as my wife, and as my Queen her honour is restored and the evil seed of Gilfaethwy dies in her, and her maidenhead is as it was before.”
Ah, that was noble. That was indeed royal, murmur the red-headed men, and the harper cries that it was great magic as well, for who can mend a torn virginity but a great sorcerer?
“ ‘My judgement on you, evil brothers, is this. And hear me well, for nothing can recall my curse, once spoken. Behold, I turn you into deer. You Gilfaethwy a hind, and you, Gwydion, a stag, and you shall flee to the forest and there you shall mate all day and all night until Gilfaethwy is big with young. Red deer you are from this time forward. Return to me in a year and a day.’
“And so the evil brothers did, and their mating was very rough and noisy, every thrust a pang, so as to teach them a lesson. It was a year and a day later that King Math’s seneschal came to him and said: ‘Lord, there is a stag and a hind outside, and with them a sturdy fawn.’ The King said, ‘Come, my Queen, we have business with these beasts,’ and they went into the courtyard where the creatures were.
“King Math was ready to forgive them, but he saw the dark look on his Queen’s face, and he knew that it was because after the rape she had been unable to bring a child to full term. So he composed his countenance into a frown of disdain, and said: ‘Gilfaethwy, you that have been a hind this year past shall now be a wild boar, and you, Gwydion, shall be a sow. The fawn I shall keep, and he shall be baptized and fostered.’ And at once the fawn became a fine boy. ‘This boy I name Hyddwn, the deer. Now back to the forest with you, and mate as wild swine for a year, and when the year has passed come to me again and bring the finest of your nine farrow.’
“It was so. Gwydion and Gilfaethwy lived as swine for a year, and Gwydion littered nine piglets. They came again to the King, but his Queen’s face was still stern, and the King said: ‘The piglet is well enough,’ and he struck it with his staff and it became a fine boy with red hair, who was christened Hychdwn – which means pig, as well you know. ‘The Queen is not appeased,’ said King Math, ‘so back you go to the forest, but now Gilfaethwy shall be a she-wolf, and you, Gwydion, shall be a wolf. You know what you have to do. Be outside my walls a year from today.’
“The year passed and the wolves came to the gate of Math’s castle, and it was all as it had been before. The King said: ‘Have you had your fill of rapine, you false men? I shall take the wolf-cub and he shall be named Bleiddwn, the Wolf. Is it enough, my Queen?’ Goewin nodded, and the King spoke again: ‘Go then, my dishonoured kin, and be men again, and marry what dishonoured women will take you. But these three fine boys shall be three true champions – Bleiddwn the Wolf, Hychdwn the Boar, and Hyddwn, the tallest, the Stag, and my Queen and I shall raise them as our own.’ And that was the great Curse of King Math.”
“But was their mating terrible?” says Cursing Jemmy, with hope in his voice.
“Pain at every push,” says the traveller.
“I swear I have sometimes wondered what it is like to be the woman, when I am merry,” says Jemmy.
There was a long silence, and then the harper said: “By God, that was a mighty curse. Was ever such a curse heard before or since?”
“Never,” said the traveller. “And now I have done my part of the bargain and now you shall do yours. I am about to preach, so settle yourselves to hear God’s
Holy Word.”
Preach he did, so long and so powerfully that when he was finished the light of dawn was beginning to reach even into that desolate valley. Many of the men had fallen asleep, some from drink, and some from weariness, and a few in what was perhaps a holy stupor of astonishment. Never have they been so bamboozled and buffeted with edification.
“That was very refreshing,” says the traveller, and he must be speaking to himself. “I am well rested, and I must be on my way.” And, damp as he is, but with the heart of a lion, he leaves the awful inn, and sets forth on his path, which is not much easier, but is at least seen by daylight.
(6)
HE HAS COVERED about a mile in his journey toward Mallwyd when he hears a sound at his back, and when he turns it is the pot-boy – a poor shrivelled scrap of a lad – who has followed him.
“What do you want, my boy?” he says, kindly.
“I want to go with you, master,” says the boy.
“For why?”
“Because I have never heard such talk in the whole of my life,” says the boy. “You have won my heart for Christ, master, and I cannot leave you. Drive me away if you will, but I shall follow you until your heart opens to me. You have made me your servant forever.”
“I am no tyrant, boy,” says the traveller. “I cannot drive you away. But what am I to do with you?”
“Perhaps God will tell you, if you ask Him,” says the boy.
“That was well spoken, and I accept the rebuke,” says the traveller. “But I really do not know what I can do with such a boy as you. Have you a name?”