Star of Mercia: Historical Tales of Wales and the Marches

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by Blanche Devereux




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  Star of Mercia

  Historical Tales of Wales and the Marches _by_ Blanche Devereux

  _With an Introduction by_ Ernest Rhys

  Jonathan Cape Eleven Gower Street, London

  _First published 1922 All rights reserved_

  _Printed in Great Britain by_ Butler & Tanner, _Frome and London_

  INTRODUCTION

  There are three reading-publics to which a tale-writer who attempts theuncertain business of writing about Wales may appeal. One is thehomebred Welsh public that asks for a tale in the old tongue, _yr heniaith_, and has never been quite satisfied, I believe, by any novel orshort story about its life, or its real or romantic concerns, writtenin English. The second is the quasi-Celtic public, which may or maynot know the _Mabinogion_ or Borrow's _Wild Wales_, and is glad ofanything that gets the romance atmosphere. The third is the ordinaryfiction-loving English public, which asks for a good story, ratherlikes a Welsh background as in Blackmore's _Maid of Sker_ (a muchbetter book than _Lorna Doone_ to my mind), and does not trouble aboutthe fidelity of the local colour in the reality of the setting. It isfrom the second and third of these audiences that Miss Devereux canlook to gain her "creel-full of listeners," as the story of _The YellowHag_ has it.

  She has, to begin with, the genuine tale-teller's power of using amotive, a bit of legend, or a proverbial and stated episode, and givingit fresh life and something original out of her own fantasy. In her wayof narrative, she does not adopt any rigorous ancientry. She has asporting sense in dealing with an archaic character like _Mogneid_,and is satisfied to see him hammer at a door with the butt of hisriding-whip. She will make _Gildas_ and _St. David_ or _Dewi Sant_,collogue as they never did in the old time before us; and devise acomedy and a drunkard's tragedy of her own for a wicked old sinner likeKing _Gwrthyrn_, just as she mixes chalk and charcoal freely in theSaxon cartoons that follow the Welsh. The important thing is, she makesher people live, and by the bold infusion of the same old human naturewith prehistoric Welsh and old chronicler's English, she succeeds increating a region of her own. It is not literally Cymric or Saxon; butit is instinct with the fears, loves, hopes and appetites that neverdecay, and realizes alike the drunkard's glut and the saint's mixedpiety and shrewd sense.

  In her story of _Saint David_ she has gone to the old "Lives" and thedocuments for some of her colour. There are passages that may terrifythe modern reader, who has no Welsh and does not know how to pronounce_Amherawdwr_ (the Welsh form of imperator or emperor), _Dyfnwal_,_Llywel_ or _Cynyr_. The average English reader who is brought up onsoft and sibilant C's and i-sounding Y's will probably end by turningthe last name into "sinner" in vain compromise. And possibly MissDevereux is too hard on the average un-Celtic reader; for though sheturns _Gwy_ into Wye, she retains _Dyfi_ for Dovey. But these are thepleasant little inconsistencies that exist in every English writer,from Shakespeare and Ben Jonson to Sir Walter Scott and GeorgeMeredith, who has attacked the impregnable old fortress of the Britishtongue.

  It is interesting to compare the two tales of wilder Wales with thoseof Mercia and Saxondom that succeed them in this mixed story-book. Thefirst are realized almost entirely, you will discover, from the man'spoint of view. The Saxon tales are more intimately felt, and realizedfrom the woman's dramatic angle. It is avowedly so in the chronicle ofWinifred, Ebba's daughter, telling the grim love-story of Earl Sweynthe Nithing and Algive. This is in texture, and reality of presentment,maintaining the pseudo-archaic mode with just the faintest reminder ofthe modern tale-teller pulling the puppet-strings, on the whole thecompletest of all these new-old tales. In the portrait of Algive,tenderly and joyously painted, there is a faint reminiscence of aCeltic romance-heroine like Olwen (in the _Mabinogion_), which adds tothe charm. And in other ways it will be found by the story-loving andunprejudiced reader, who reads for the pleasure of the thing, and notfor criticism or edification, that these _Tales of Two Regions_ gain bycarrying over at times the atmosphere of the one--never so lightlyindicated--into the actual presentment of the other.

  ERNEST RHYS.

  1922.

 

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