THE GREAT CHASM

The heck with the sword. I want that harp.

We all have that book or author. You reread the book, reread the author. Don't necesarrily read all their books but the ones that stick with you. For me it's Morgan Llywellyn. Took my long enough to finally spell her name. The Welsh they are a curious race. In this case it's the Irish, or who legends claim became the Irish, the novel is Bard. The Gaelician tribe of Celts and the clan headed by the Mil. Milesios with seven sons. Only two are important to this part of the story. 

Ir, the eldest. The best looking, the strongest, the finest warrior. And the relative you hope won't show up at any important gathering. Ir is dangerously unstable and no one is ever quite sure when he will lash out. The other is Amergin. Not the oldest, not the youngest. And dark haired where all his brothers are as gold as the sun. Trained as a bard, struggling to find his voice. He's learned the harp, memorized the tales and generologies. The poestry is there, he hasn't found his voice. 

It's been years since the traders from the Middle Sea have come to trade for tin, the foundation of the wealth of the clan and those who look to them for wealth and protection. The tin mines are failing, years of drought threaten the cattle herds, even wild boars are harder to find. 

On the edge of a storm a fleet of trade vessels find refuge in the Gael's harbor. Neither side is really honest about what is available for trade. A great feast is laid on. All the most important people are in the Hero's Hall (if you've seen Return of the King think Meduseld, seating around the sides, not so large and a gallery above for the women) including Ir, the one you wish wasn't there. Milesios is aging, getting in a nap before the festivities begin, Amergin is in the bench reserved for the bards. 

Enter the traders. richly dressed, shorter, darker, speaking their language etc. and Ir has a paranoid breakdown,  seizes the captain of the traders, eating knife at his throat. Into the melee the poet finds his voice. Thie is Llywellyn's version of the Song of Amergin and there about as many versions as there are authors to write about it. Note: a dolman is a megalithic single tomb with a stone slab for a roof. Usually covered with earth or turf.

Amergin strikes a chord and begins a chant that rings through the hall above the shouts

        "I am the wind upon the sea,

...and they could hear the high keening of the storm voice: they could they could feel the wind on their faces! Men glanced at one another startled.

        I am the flood across the plain.

And their visions were filled with a tremendous wall of water bearing down upon them as the rivers burst periodically from their banks,surging across the land.

        I am the hawk above the cliff,

        I am the thorn beneath the rose.

Sharp stab of painmaking beauty more poignant, as death does life, as winter does summer.

        I am the stag of seven tines,

        I am the salmon in a pool,

        I am wisdom; who but I can cool the head aflame with smoke?

A soft curling of sound surrounding a pulsing center, soothing and easing.

        I am the hill where poets walk,

A stately tread of revered feet from a height above them; an awareness of remote creation.

        I am the lure beyond worlds end.

A haunting call of irresistable beauty. the bard's voice ached with longing and they were all forced to share it, suddenly hungry for they knew not what, or where.

        I am the spear that rears for blood,

        I am the tear the sun lets fall.

        I am the breaker, threatening doom,,

        I am an infant; who but I peeps from the unknown dolmen arch?

The implacable power of granite stones; the bones of the Mother, arranged in a portal linking worlds. The earth's womb with a newborn face emerging from the archway, its eyes already ancient with wisdom." From Bard by Morgan Llywellyn. (And there it is. The great gulf between the "I am that I am" of the Abrahamic religions with God separate from the rest of Creation and the I am complete identification of what we know of the Celts and the world around them.)

The power of the poet works. Everyone has stopped shouting, Ir drops his knife, finds some excuse about testing their guests, and goes looking for some wine. The trader is shaking in his sandals. He makes an offer to Amergin. "Come to my ship tomorrow, choose whatever you wish to pay my debt to you." Or words to that effect.

Amergin tries to tell him that he needs nothing. His gift is in service to the tribe and whatever he needs is supplied. One of his responsibilities as a bard is to separate combatants when needed. And that is just exactly what he did. Finding a spark of the talent he's searching for.

That is not the world of the trader. A debt has been incurred and the Gods must be appeased. He tells Amerigin that he is counted as a prince among his people, his houses are full of children and the fairest is a daughter, U-ropa (odd choice here sometimes Llywellyn is about as subtle as a train wreck). When he returns home he will offer her to Melqart in Amergin's name so that Tyre will learn of him and the debt will be repaid.

Sidenote here: the novel was written in the eighties. What was seen as almost wholesale sacrifice of infants and small children by the Phoenecians has been reexamined. And back in the day travelers tales could have inflated the death toll. It isn't so much the death toll as the mind set behind the practice. The Gauls were accused of practicing human sacrifice although the main accuser was Julius Caesar.

At any rate Amergin is appalled by the trader's offer. He begs him to spare the life of the child. Trader looks around him. These Celts look like giants to him. They shout, they drink, they love bright colors and wear a king's (or at least a trader's) ransom in jewelry.

"Even the smallest of their women looked as though she could break him across her knee. Yet this man begged for an inconsequential child's life as if that life by itself had any meaning. Age-Nor was swept by sudden longing for sea-girt Tyre, for white southern light and the rustle of palm trees. For people who understood that life was both cheap and expendable and only property had lasting value."

This is probably my fourth read of this book. Each time something sticks out. This passage was like slamming into a brick wall. There it is. The great chasm. What we see around us now. Those who value Creation and those who see dollar signs.

A tree has no value until it's milled into lumber leaving a clear cut behind. A mountain is valued for the ore beneath the surface, open pit mine the waste dumped into the stream below. Water valued for irrigation, bottled for sale or to carry our sewage. The split began long ago and it's killing us.