turn and seemed to reach into our very souls. He scared the babbies witless. He had grown men and women cursing and bellowing like cloddish fools. At my side a boyish Notyet was caught sorely stiff afraid. In my excitement I let my fists fly, made her yowl, banged her on the ear to bring her back.
‘Hoy!’ she cried, returned her closed hand, and cuffed me back.
And I? What did I make of this Beggar Bard? When he spoke, it was as if time itself ran at a listless pace, against its nature. Rogrig was…spellbound, beguiled. The Beggar Bard drew us all into his dark tale.
‘Look sharp, my friends. Look sharp about us,’ he began. He spoke through rotten teeth and with a rasping, ailing breath. ‘We are at the beginning of all things. So come and watch with me, as a single scratch of light appears out of an eternal darkness.’ The old man’s withered hands enticed, beckoned to us, all the while drawing magical, fleeting pictures in the smoke-filled air around us. ‘Pass through this stagnant swirl of ageing yellow mist. And come upon a tall grey figure, standing motionless before a great stone tablet.’ The Beggar Bard’s open fingers and narrowed eyes signalled a caution. ‘Make no sound! Keep deathly still. This man before us is a Great Wizard, a Lord of Creation. He must not see us here.’
From somewhere among our gathering there came a gentle roll of knowing laughter. (This childish Rogrig mistook it for simple pleasure.) There were many there who already knew this tale by heart, and the manner of its telling. They were content to play their part and hear it told again, but they took the Beggar Bard’s performance for what it was: common trickery and simple amusement. Sleight of hand to baffle Tom Fool, not a faerie’s Glamour, worthy of the gibbet. The Beggar Bard continued his tale, unabashed.
‘Now, my friends, watch carefully. Do not blink! Or you will miss the first of it!’ He gave a waggle of his bony finger. ‘See? The stone tablet, its surface, quite plain and unadorned, in an instant is deeply cut: incised and embellished by its master’s hand. The form is a map. The image is a pair of islands – one great, the other small – set upon the broadest sea. Notice how its waters glisten, even upon the stone. And the smaller island: it is such a strange curiosity. What magic is this? See how it moves…marking out its course as it cuts a swathe across the surface of the tablet.’
Again and again the Beggar Bard’s fingers made magical pictures in the fire smoke. The stone tablet…The Great Wizard…The map…The islands…The sea…I was so convinced of what I saw there that night I can still see it all, vividly. Every detail, everything conceived.
‘And why was the stone map made?’ asked the Beggar Bard, rhetorically, expecting no answer but his own. ‘It was like a great eye that looked out upon the whole world and saw everything. An Eye Stone,’ said the Beggar Bard, ‘an Eye Stone, created, that all creatures everywhere should know their place in the world and marvel at its splendour. Nothing was missed. For a Great Wizard knows his task and his world quite well enough. And if his concerns were for design and skilful ornament, rather than for accuracy and scale, then he made up for its lack with an indubitable certainty.’ Now, the meaning of many of the Beggar Bard’s words was often lost to the ears of an ignorant child (aye, and the contradictions too) and yet this only added to their mystique and to my unwavering belief in their authority.
‘He made a mark for the Stronghold of The Graynelord; the Headman of all the graynes…And a mark too, for the bastle-houses of lesser men,’ added the Beggar Bard, shrewdly. At which, there came a great stamping of feet and a roaring of approval. ‘There were marks made for the mountains of the gigants, and for the dwarven holes. Marks for the elfin forest dells; for the lakes and for the mires, where the kelpies lie in wait for unsuspecting travellers; and for the broad grasslands of the unifauns. There were simple marks for the hills and the vales; for the roads; and another for the great River Winding that comes out of the mountains and finds its way into every part of this land. All manner of things were cut upon that stone face: the marvellous and the mundane.
‘And when, within the making, the Great Wizard found himself at a loss – after all, if he knew his own homelands best, and other, stranger parts at the world’s furthest corners hardly at all, can he be blamed for his enthusiasms and omissions? – he simply cut these words and wrote: The Great Unknown, or Here Be Monsters.’
‘And what of this curious moving isle, Lord Bard—?’ The interruption came from the Headman of our house: Wolfrid, my elder-cousin, eager to have the story told. He spilled wine from the mouth of his stone drinking jar as he spoke, left a spattered trail upon the earth floor at his feet.
‘You do well to ask, my friend,’ replied the Beggar Bard. His fingers continued to draw fleeting shapes upon the smoke-filled air. ‘It is, of course, the Faerie Isle. Never yet seen by any mortal man, I would swear; only ever believed in. For such, you will agree, is true faith?’
Again there came the knowing laughter from among our company, if slightly less certain now. The Beggar Bard continued.
‘Just as surely as he knew the Moon moves across our night sky, the Great Wizard knew the Faerie Isle moves across our sea (if, ever and always, just out of sight). He knew it was there, and so he marked it there upon the stone as best he could; adding waves and ripples in want of movement and effect. And he was well satisfied, for he also knew that it was from the Faerie Isle that all the creatures of the world first came.
‘Finally, and with flourish, all around the edges of the tablet inscriptions were made, numbering the natural laws of this land, though in a symbol and tongue known only to the Great Wizard himself; that no common creature might challenge their worth or seek to interpret their truth to its own advantage.’
Here the Beggar Bard was forced to pause and take a breath. His sallow eyes briefly passed over us again, as if he was looking for the measure of our understanding. He smiled – at us, not with us – before continuing.
‘With that, my friends, the Great Wizard’s work was all but finished. The Eye Stone, almost complete. The world unmade, was at once a world made. Cut upon cut, line upon line. Only, in that very last moment of its making, he marked it with a name, and called it – Graynelore.’
There were sudden, fervent cheers. Wolfrid hauled himself upright, applauding loudly (if his wine-sodden face carried something of a befuddled look). At my back, men and women in a jolly drunken fashion, clashed their drinking bowls together, slopped and splashed a rain of warm ale down upon our heads. Notyet yelped and jumped at the excitement of it, which only encouraged the Beggar Bard to more.
‘Now then…there came a solemn day, when The Eye Stone was at last revealed to the creatures of Graynelore. And, all at once, they believed in its truth and in its accuracy. They believed without question; because they believed in the Great Wizard without question. And, just as these things occur, just as the Great Wizard had set it in stone, so the world at large became…and still is.’
The Beggar Bard fell silent, and for the first time stood suddenly stock-still. Though, his eyes continued to sharpen themselves upon us.
As if it was a given signal, the elder-women of my house quickly stood up. They offered the Beggar Bard a bowl of the best wine and a board of fresh meats, which he quietly accepted and sat down upon the stone hearth by the fire to consume. Out of courtesy, he was also offered a young woman for his own close company, which he politely refused.
Our general gathering sat on, unmoved, waited in eager anticipation of his return. Fortunately, his was a meagre appetite, soon sated. It was not long before he set his bowl and board aside.
In his own time, and beckoning both my own mother and Notyet for their support, he carefully stood up, and prepared himself to continue. It was obvious his great age was getting the better of him. ‘That ancient stone
