The Holy Grail

A shack of fallen beech trunks, roughly sawn into planks. Roofed with turf, it had a window at each point of the compass. Seven in all. The only door faced the sunrise in the morning and the sunset in the evening. It was that kind of shack.

He had built the hearth and chimney from river cobbles. And now sat by the fire, as the wind rattled the seven windows, one at a time. Some slightly damp coal gleaned from a finger tip hissed in the grate. The infamous cauldron bubbled. Infamously. In its tarnished bronze depths, a stew of cowardly vegetables was taking forever to cook. Pwyll regarded the cauldron sceptically, there certainly wasn’t anything holy about it, whatever those crazy monks from the Ystrad Fflor claimed.

It all took time.

Outside the seven windows the sun rose hesitantly among the black twigs of winter trees. At midday, amid shafts of yellow light, the green buds glistened. In the afternoon the leaves gave the forest dappled shade and in the twilight the sunset matched the red and gold of falling leaves.

It all took time.

The cauldron was both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it could never be emptied, however much stew you consumed, which saved on shopping. On the other, it could never be emptied however much stew you consumed, which made washing up a bit of a Sisyphean task. As mentioned, it would not boil the food of a coward, or cowardly food. Like a modern gadget (almost) it would recite poetry if breathed on by nine maidens. If you could even find nine maidens in this day and age. Plus the poetry tended to be of Dark Age origin and spoken in Brythonic with Latin phrases bunged in for good measure. Finally, it also had the ability to raise the dead, which made it fun at parties. Though you had to get the dead person actually into the cauldron. Which was a bit of a squeeze. 

How he had come by it was a tale in itself, like one of those tales in the Mabinogion. Only it sort of made sense. It had certainly taken him time to find the bloody thing. 

Pwyll had been walking along a beach on a cold day when the sea flashed and glittered with a cold fire that it borrowed from the sun. Such a beach it was, with a dragon at its head, diving and surging out into the ocean, foam wreathing its vast head. A wide beach, a long beach. A beach that curved around a bay formed by a high down which looked down on the virtually infinite ocean with contempt. Above the beach was another beach, an old beach from a time which even mythical heros like Pwyll regarded as ancient. A different world where up was down and down was up. When the sea was in a different place, or different places all at once.

A memory of another sea
Now breaking on a silent shore
From a world that used to be
Before time hushed it’s clashing roar

But this beach was now, a beach where things happened. 

Treasure was strewn at his feet; long arcing stripes of flotsam from successive tides. Bladder wrack, though the wreck of what, but itself. Odd bits of driftwood. But, but, thousands upon thousands of razor shells, arranged amid the fronds of seaweed like notes on a stave. A forgotten music left by the waves. He had spent some time rescuing star fish from little pools. One had only four limbs left, but he was sure it would find its own firmament. 

Having initially emerged from the dunes at the north end where surfers posed with their absurd planks, he had wandered south towards the arching coils of the dragon, drawn by the memory of a cafe on the cliffs where a decent breakfast could be found. No doubt you could also get cockles, if you liked eating dead things. Having finished his task of returning stars to the reflection of the sky, he strolled on, in no particular hurry until he spotted a bottle amongst the wrack. Wracked as homeward it had come. A green bottle (no doubt one of ten), he dreamily surmised that it would contain a message. Which it did. For this is a fairy story (albeit purged of verminous fairies) where such things happen. Always. 

Pulling the cork, no modern screw tops or plastic stoppers for this lad, he shook out the piece of paper it contained. A tattered flyer for a window cleaner in Narberth. Turning it over he read the words neatly printed in pencil:

Look in holes and caves
Where hewn rock perfectly
Encircles waves
To make a pool as blue
As lapis.
An extreme sea.
Go west young man.
To find your prize. 

Always up for a challenge, Pwyll considered his options. He could head back to Abertawe, but it was a rowdy place and best avoided. But he had the sea before him and a clear path west across his own Principality. Albeit the hegemony of this land was now disputed. 

On the beach below the village he found a sturdy little skiff named Helvetia. Although a Prince of the blood, Pwyll was not above common theft if the need arose. With some effort he pushed her into the water and began to row across Caerffyrddin Bay in the vague direction of the Fort of the Fish. 

Needless to say things soon started to go wrong. The weather turned and hints of an Atlantic swell pushed at his cockle shell craft. But Pwyll was a stout fellow and he rowed with all his might. Mermaids came to taunt him, gaping with their fishy mouths and flaunting their shapely human legs. Wondering absently how they managed to shave, the Prince of Dyfed pushed on for his home shore. Finally, he was beset by a great sea worm which threatened to upset the boat and blew on him with its warm, salty breath. Pwyll invoked the spirits of all star fish, especially those with only four limbs, to tell it to bugger off. Which it did. 

But what with one thing and another he made landfall not at the Fishy Fort, but at Ynys Bŷr. Pwyll was undaunted, remembering that he knew a man who knew a man. Managing to avoid the treacherous rocks as he drew his little craft on to the beach at Drinkim Bay, he spotted cormorants fishing off the headland, and a voice in his ear recited

Thence up he flew, and on the Tree of Life,
The middle tree and highest there that grew,      
Sat like a Cormorant; yet not true life
Thereby regained, but sat devising death  
To them who lived
Birds of ill omen, he had better watch his step. 

It wasn’t easy to scramble up off the beach with all the red sandstone cliffs, but eventually he found himself surveying the largely flat landscape. Not far off he spotted some new old buildings, a cloister that little resembled the humble monastic cells he remembered. Pwyll didn’t care for monks, or God botherers in general, but, undaunted, he set off in search of his auld acquaintance. 

Eventually he spotted a chap in a white robe and a black scapular. He asked,

“Where might I find Abbot Pyr, brother?”, the man regarded him oddly and placed his finger to his lips. Monks, mad as a box of frogs. Thought Pwyll. Undaunted, he wandered on and saw an identically robed brother.

“Where might I find Abbot Pyr, brother?”, he asked again. Again the monk placed his finger to his lips and scurried away. Shit, thought Pwyll, trappists!

Abandoning verbal enquiry he headed for the main cluster of buildings and adjacent to a clearly ancient chapel he chanced upon a well. Knowing how these things were done, he shouted down the well,

“Is Abbot Pyr about?”

“Down here Bud” came a faint reply.

“What are you doing in the well?”

“I’m dead boy, and it’s Saint Pyr, if you please”

“Since when were you a saint, you old drunk?”

“Since I was dead. Is that the Lord Pwyll whom I am addressing?”

“The very same old chum” Pwyll wasn’t keen on disembodied voices, not being a modern man.

“You’re looking for something?”

“Though I know not where nor what.”

“Ogham stone in the chapel is your best bet Bud”

“Many thanks old Pyr, by the way why are you down there?”

“Pissed as usual, fell down the well, drowned.”

“Tough” Pwyll was sympathetic.

The chapel did indeed contain an ogham stone. The inscription said.

Aeisio gwr aramathea – so he was looking for bloody Joe! He might have guessed.

Pwyll tramped west along the road out of the Fort of the Fish, weighing up what Pyr had told him and cursing the traffic roaring past. Whilst he had grown used to these hideous metal boxes, he still hated them. Tired at last he sat down where the verge was almost as wide as the road, trying to find a comfortable spot among the strips of tyre rim and cardboard coffee cups. He had just drifted into a daydream about carrots when he noticed that the sparrows were chattering in the hedge and that all else was blessed silence. Except, except… He now caught the clack of hooves and the distant jingle of harness, and in the distance he spotted a “gypsy” caravan. 

As the van drew level he saw his old acquaintance the Bearded Lady at the reins, regarding him with curiosity. 

“Well met, o Prince of Dyfed” she intoned, “will you climb up on the vardo? Take a trip along the drom”

“Don’t mind if I do” says Pwyll climbing up beside her, “beats walking any day” 

She shook the reins and for some time they rode in silence, the vardo having seemingly exorcised the traffic. Eventually, he said, 

“I don’t think I ever asked your name… “

“Well it might be Wilgefortis, yes it might”

“And you play the fairs? Exhibit, as it might be?” he suspected he was on shaky ground. 

“Don’t you fret, fair Prince” she looked at him sideways, “many as asked me of the whys and wherefore, I bear no malice chuck”

“Tis an honourable estate, look you, bourne by saints, queens and Shakespeare’s witches ‘you should be Women, And yet your beards forbid me to interpret, That you are so.’ – you know? The Scottish play? And old Will, bless him, wasn’t far wide. For those of us so blessed are regular of the Craft and of petty sorceries. Dukkerin, like that old cow in the booth that you blew away.” (see The Fforest ed.) She laughed a deep throaty laugh that ended in a fit of coughing whilst she drew a calabash pipe from her ample bodice and proceeded to light it without any apparent source of flame. 

“You have the glamour Lady Wilgefortis” Pwyll observed, and she laughed again. 

Letting the pony trot on, she regarded him critically. A small wiry man, but none the less carrying the rumour of immense strength. He had long hands, stranglers hands. His blue-black hair formed a widow’s peak above what might be called an elfin face, no surprise given his history. But this symmetry was spoiled by the rudder of a nose that separated his blue-green almond eyes. Whatever Rhiannon had seen in him, he wasn’t exactly handsome. 

“So where bound?” she enquired. 

“On another quest, though before you ask I neither know what for, or where it is”

“The why…” 

“Oh, you know, I just knew I had to, it goes with the territory. Anyway, I at least know now that whatever it is, Joe had it.” 

“Joe? Fuck, he must be long gone?” 

“Maybe, you never know when Annwn is involved, he might be snoring under some hill for all we know.”

“So just heading west?” 

“The west is the best, get here and we’ll do the rest” 

They returned to companionable silence as the Bearded Lady Wilgefortis sucked on her pipe. And so they remained for a little while. Or maybe a long while. 

A million years passed. 

In the distance, a figure emerged. 

Wilgefortis saw that it was a tall man. 

Pwyll saw that he was old, and wearing a dirty, possibly dark blue trench coat. 

Wilgefortis saw that he had worn out boots and a mere dusting of what had once been hair. 

They both noticed the oddest thing. Starting to the left of his mouth and rising up his cheek and temple were an increasingly large sequence of “Z”s, tattooed as if to represent someone sleeping in a children’s cartoon. 

They stopped. The man looked at Pwyll and said, 

“Whom do I address, sir?”

“Don’t tell him, Pwyll” said the Bearded Lady. 

Pwyll dismounted and approached. 

“How may I help?” he noticed that the man smelled slightly ripe. 

“I am the Z man” said the Z man. 

“I have a message for Pwyll, from a great one” 

“OK?” 

“You will learn more of what you seek on the hill, at Ynyswytrin.”

“Is that it?“

The Man regarded him briefly and spoke again, he had a particularly “cultured” English accent, very public school. 

“You wouldn’t happen to have the price of a cup of tea?“ he enquired. 

Pwyll rooted in his many pockets and came up with an assortment of coinage, which he duly handed to the man. He assumed at least some of it was legal tender. 

Nodding, the tall figure turned away and seemed, almost immediately, to vanish. 

Pwyll remounted thoughtfully. 

“Sounds like I need to have words with Gwyn ap Nudd”

“We’re not far off Ynyswytrin, now” the Bearded Lady gave the reins a brief shake and the horse plodded on. “But then it’s never far from anywhere” 

Ynyswytrin had known better days, it had always known better days. It was infested with people seeking the Other World, and dodgy shopkeepers selling the means to reach the Other World, none of which would work in a century of Beltanes. As one who passed, not always intentionally, between the world’s, Pwyll regarded it all with contempt; better to stick to the dimension you know, if you can. The hill, sometimes called the Isle of Glass, was to the east of the town, a steep climb up what may have been grassy lynchets. On top was a tower, all that remained of a God Box dedicated to brigadier Michael, most of which had collapsed in an earthquake 800 years ago. 

Pwyll sniffed the air and spoke loudly. 

“I would have words with you Gwyn ap Nudd” 

He waited. 

The ghost of a figure emerged from the ruined tower and drifted towards him. It’s voice seemed to come from a long way away, but in some sense not far enough. 

“What the fuck do you want Prince of Dyfed? ” it whispered loudly. 

“I’m told you can help with the burthen of my quest, maybe you know where Joe is?” 

“It’s cos of him I had that fucking so-called Saint Collen up here, “banishing” me and my retinue, as if he could, the stupid cunt. And it’s why we have all those shit heads down there,” The figure gestured at the town ”looking for the entrance to Annwn, like it was a supermarket”

“Tell me about it” Pwyll sympathised, “none the less?” 

“If it’s about Joe it’ll be that frigging cup, or whatever it is”  

“Cup? Like the Nanteos Cup? Cures your piles?” 

“No! that’s some fake from those God Box Wallahs. The ones from Ystrad Fflur. According to the story around Joe, he’s supposed to have brought the cup from Palystein. And that Jebus used it at parties.“

“Judas’s carryout” they said in unison, sniggering. 

“I take it, your worship, that this too is nonsense?”

The ghostly figure began to spin, resembling a small tornado, but eventually settled back to a vaguely humanoid form

“That’s precisely what pisses me off!” it yelled quietly, “The whole thing is some cock and bull story got out by this character Cretin the Third, based on something he heard from our Bretton cousins. And that’s the principal reason there are all those fools down there with their crystals and wind catchers disturbing our peace.”

“That and claiming the grave of Arthur, when you and I know he and his mates are kipping under the Dinas Rock, waiting for that bloody great bell to ring” observed Pwyll

“Too true, little Prince, too true” the ghost began to fade, but in a distant, but very loud echo it added “its not a fucking cup, something for older and bigger, and Joe had it… He did… “

“Don’t despair your majesty” Pwyll muttered as he turned away “peace shall return in time” 

Heading back down the hill he found the pony unharnessed, cropping the grass and Wilgefortis brewing up by the van. 

“What cheer?” she poured “two lumps?” 

“The king is not a happy bunny, all these god botherers have given him a royal headache. But he gave me a few clues, still going west, still looking for Joe”

With some regret, Pwyll parted from the Bearded Lady, who had business elsewhere concerning a hex. He found himself on the old Romanian road out of Leucarum, which was later the pilgrimage route to Tyddewi. Somehow that seemed like the route that Joe would have taken. Trudging up the hill with a fine view of the estuary, he eventually came upon another chapel, Capel Berwic, which resembled that on the fish island. I’ll wager there’s another ogham here. he thought and lo, there it was;

“Mae joe wedi marw. mynd i abereiddy.” So Joe had finally croaked. What was the world coming to? Abereiddy was at the far west of his domain of Dyfed, an inconsequential spot, but hey ho! On he tramped along the Romanian road, reflecting on how fortunate it was that these ancient text messages had been left just for him.

Much later…

Pwyll followed a narrow path towards the sea, bizarrely passing a large patch of gunnera, growing wild.

The path opened into a field which descended to the beach. There was no one there but a caravan selling food and drink, so he bought some tea from the beautiful but bored looking girl, and wandered on to the north. The land rose past a row of ruined quarrymen’s cottages, where there were no beatles. And lo he came upon a pool, an almost perfectly circular cove with a narrow gap which opened to the sea. Even on a dull day such as this it glowed turquoise. This was it!

Gingerly making his way around the sheer cliff at the edge of the pool, he knew what he must do, but hesitated. Then, garnering all the courage of a Prince of Dyfed, he leapt from the cliff, and after an eternity hit the freezing water.

And down, down he went.

The water changed from turquoise to the deepest midnight blue.

Down, down he went.

The sea was icy and changed to bible black.

Somehow, despite the absence of light, Pwyll was sure he could see a huge rectangle of even darker black before him. Like a vast letter box, except that it moved from side to side, as if seeking something.

It was an eye, a very big eye, the eye of Dylan ail Don, the sea god. The kraken. Now I am really in the shit, Pwyll concluded. And as if to confirm his apprehension, he felt something touching his leg, the Kraken’s tentacle! What a way to end, gobbled up by a giant cephalopod. But it was not to be.

Out of the murk more tentacles appeared, holding an object.

*************************

Pwyll surfaced, spluttering, grimly clutching the Cauldron of Diwrnach, which is what it was. He found he was sitting in warm shallow water. For indeed he was sat in the white enamel bath in his shack, in the Fforest of Annwn. (just how there was a bath in the shack and where the hot water came from is unknown, for this was the nature of Annwn).

About a week later he went to the beach again and, walking its entire length, ventured out onto the head of the dragon, as far as he could clamber. Here he marshalled all his strength and hurled a bottle out into the ocean waves. In the bottle was a message, written on the back of a tattered flyer for a window cleaner in Narberth. It read

Look in holes and caves. 
Where hewn rock perfectly 
Encircles waves
To make a pool as blue
As lapis.
An extreme sea. 
Go west young man. 
To find your prize. 

 

Some Sources

The Mabinogion (Oxford World’s Classics) Sioned Davies (Translator) 2008, OUP

Berkeley Mary A. 1920 Glastonbury and the Grail Legend, Folklore, 31:4, 307-319,

Bowman, Marion. 2006 Power Play. Ritual Rivalry and Targeted Tradition in Glastonbury. Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis 19:26-37

Cowper Powys, John 1932 A Glastonbury Romance Bodley Head

Lagorio. Valerie M.1971 The Evolving Legend of St. Joseph of Glastonbury Speculum ,Vol. 46, No. 2 pp. 209-231

Lagorio. Valerie M. 1978 The Glastonbury legends and the english Arthurian grail romances Neuphilologische Mitteilungen , 1978, Vol. 79, No. 4 pp. 359-366

Loomis, Roger Sherman 1991 The Grail: From Celtic Myth to Christian Symbol. Princeton.

Nitze, William A, 1908 Glastonbury and the holy grail. Modern Philology.

Weston, Jessie L. 1920 From Ritual to Romanc