E14 The Story, Part 1

Can one have a book in one’s mind? Yes, of course, it’s like a development of Kindle….

The outwardly anonymous story, in my mind, told me that it was written in a place called Skara Brae, Orkney Islands. Interesting. It was written as fact and not fiction. Significance? Skara Brae was originally built by Neolithic Scandinavian people, and became a staging post for journeys further west and, eventually across the Atlantic to Iceland, Greenland and North America, which they optimistically called Vinland. Skara Brae was the first ‘modern’ settlement in what later became Britain.

And so I did, begin reading. It made interesting reading. The ‘writer’, who I assumed to be Merlin, set out to explain why the story of Arthur Pendragon had been made into a myth, with so many variations that everybody assumes it was totally fabricated. The story is too long to repeat here but I shall attempt to paraphrase. Some of the words of Merlin:

‘You will note that real-time (yes, I do understand that term) contemporary views seem to dismiss Arthur as a myth, not worthy of historical recognition. Untrue. A big mistake. But first, take myself. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth's work called Historia regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain, 1137), I?was rumored to have been the son of a demon or incubus and a mortal woman who was a nun. I was ‘probably?born?in the town of Carmarthen, it said’.

‘So, I am Welsh … sort of? Poppycock!’

I like that word. I wondered how Merlin would have picked up such a word, with origins in American English and possibly a Dutch dialect.

‘Excuse me! My vocabulary has been developed over 1,500 years from hundreds of sources.’

‘My apologies.’

‘To continue, the real?Merlin, Myrddin Wyllt,?born about AD540 and had a twin sister called Gwendydd. He once served as a bard to Gwenddoleu ap Ceidio, a Brythonic or British king who ruled Arfderydd, a kingdom including parts of what are now Scotland and England in the area around Carlisle.’ From Undiscovered Scotland.

‘So, I am Scottish? Little do they know, these ‘students’ of history.’

He was getting into his stride.

‘What is a demon? Have you ever met a demon? They do not exist. Every evil aspect attributed to demons by the mythologists can be found widely in ‘mortal’ humans. Humans often have worse attributes than anything claimed for demons.’ I detected a modicum of perverse humour, that I liked. Humour used well can cut through stupidity.

‘Agreed.’

‘What is an incubus? Just a male demon, apparently. The same applies, they do not exist.

There are many more versions of the myths. None tells the whole story. Most do not come close.

There are no spirits, apart from whisky (!) – so what am I, here with you? This may surprise you, or maybe not, as I am aware you do not accept such things, in which case you are right. But there is the family of life, of living things, connection which you have lost over time. I do not speak of you in particular, but of the whole of your species, your arrogant and ignorant species.’ He wrote as though he were not of this species.

‘Species evolve, not always in the right direction. We were able to rise above that for a time but our connection suffered an irreversible decline after the arrival of the Saxons, who did not accept such things, even making mere talk of such a punishable crime, and Saxon punishment was something to be avoided! This was a great misfortune and has condemned humanity to its present madness. You will see soon enough.’ More menace.

‘After the Romans were forced to leave, the order, about which they were so obsessive, also left, there was a gap into which the Saxon opportunists leapt. The Saxons were not just violent plunderers, they had their good points, but respect for nature and fellow life was not one of them. Anything that stood in the way of their aims, or contested them was brutally swept aside. We fought them, but the numbers were too great. We lost. As Boudica and the Iceni had eventually lost 400 years earlier to the Romans. Like them we had to retreat into a sanctuary where we were left alone, at least for a while.

Meanwhile Rome was not the centre of the Universe, other peoples in other places were quietly developing their skills, knowledge and philosophy. One such was in what you call North America. European contact was made with these people by what you know as the Vikings. One of the first was the Wampanoag tribe, also known as the?People of the First Light, inhabiting what is present-day Massachusetts and Eastern Rhode Island for more than 12,000 years. They were part of a rich tapestry of indigenous people with a vast variety of tribes, societies and cultures numbering many times over those of the present today.

Both the Wampanoag and the Vikings lived with a close and venerating connection to nature. The Vikings developed boats that could cross the Atlantic not long after the time of Christ. They used remote parts of the British Isles as staging posts, notably Orkney, where their ancestors had been established for thousands of years.’

‘They met with the North American natives of that time, traded with them, shared ideas and ideology, long before anybody in the Mediterranean had any inkling. They also inter-married with them. But they did not settle, leaving the native population to their own device, and peace. A rare such happening in human history.

I was later the progeny of one of those marriages. I was born on one of those boats. Blown off course by a storm we landed in what is now West Wales, near Carmarthen, so Geoffrey was partly right.’

He seemed to enjoy reminiscing about this. ‘What were the Saxons’ good points?’ I asked, in all innocence.