The cottage was on Kerry Road; an old cattle drove, which had been one of those ancient roads that criss-crossed this land,
built by the first farmers in Britain during the Bronze Age, some 3000 years
ago. The cottage had been an inn, supplying the needs of the men who drove
cattle from the grasslands of the West to the towns in Central and Southern
Britain. Across the road was a paddock, where cattle were kept, while the
drovers made use of the inn. The building was now a tastefully restored holiday
cottage where my wife, friends and I were staying for a week. It was a remote
spot, on an empty and, nowadays, a largely unused road, overlooking the Welsh
border and the mountains of Snowdonia in the far distance.
While my dinner was being prepared, I thought I would slip
over the road to the paddock, now a garden, and watch the sun set over the
sprawling valley below. I crossed the road, a glass in one hand and a bottle of
whisky in the other. There was a bench seat in the garden, placed in position for
just my intended activity; watching the sun set. My eyes on the sun, I was
trying to calculate how many glasses of whisky it would take to put the sun to
bed, when suddenly I stopped; there, in front of me, just a few feet away, sat
a man. I looked about me but there was no other person, nor was there a car
that I could see, in which this stranger might have arrived.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
The stranger continued to watch the setting sun over the
valley and without looking around said, “No, just on the lookout...”
The man was quite old, perhaps in his eighties or more,
“Do you live around these parts?” I asked.
“No... No longer. It’s a quiet road these days; a good place
to meet up... with old ghosts.”
At the mention of ghosts, my ears pricked up. It was
September and not far off the season of ghost stories. Being a storyteller, and
part of a monthly storytelling club, I was on a constant search for ideas that
would spark off stories for me to tell at the end of each month.
“Are there many ghost stories from these parts?” I asked,
sitting down on a low log, to one side of the bench seat.
“I suppose there are.”
“You see I’m a storyteller,” I said, sounding rather too
eager, “and each month we have a club night and I have to find a new story.
What with Halloween coming up...”
“If it’s a story you’re after, I could tell you a story.”
The old man spoke with a sad air to his voice as though it would hurt him to
tell it. I sat and waited for some time in silence and began to wonder if I
should speak, when, continuing to gaze across the fields below, he began his
story:
“There was once a young poet. Yes, he was so young, so
young. He was in search of artistic inspiration from the ancient corners and
long lost voices of this land, he came to these Welsh borders; to walk, wander
and seek out new sparks for his old art.”
I wondered where the old man’s accent was from; not from
these parts; Irish perhaps, but the voice of someone who had travelled often
and far from home. He continued:
‘The young poet was down in the valley, yonder, and wanting
to find the path up to this road, the drove road, he asked a woman, he assumed
to be a farmer’s wife, if there was a way up to the old drove road and the Inn
on this ridge way. She said that there was but that it passed an old clay pit
and over time the path had become slippery and dangerous. “We tell the children
the way is enchanted, to keep them away from the pit, you understand,” and she
laughed, “but if you follow the road along, after a mile or so, there is
another road up the hill, which joins up with the drove road, although the Inn
on the drove has long since been closed. When the roads meet, if you go the
other way there’s an inn in Bishop’s Castle.” He thanked the woman and walked
on but when he came to the overgrown gate to the path up to the clay pit he
could not resist the dangerous way, what inspiration would he find along a safe
road? Brambles and nettles almost blocked his path but with his stick he
managed to clear enough of the route. “Dangerous Workings, Keep Out” said a
faded sign. He kept on and soon came to the clay pit; a deep cut in the
hillside, the path traversed the left hand side of a steep ravine. Above the
narrow path were iron rings driven into the cliff side, which held a rope
serving as a handrail. The young man thought it looked safe enough. Below him a
tiny stream had worn away through the soft clay and several remnants of
buildings and steps showed that it had once been a place of industry. He started along the narrow path and soon
rounded a prominence in the cliff face where the rope did not look as safe;
thick enough, but it was quite worn and frayed. Suddenly, a magpie flew out
from a crevice in front, startling him, he misplaced his foot on a loose rock
and fell, putting all his weight on the rope, which gave way at the iron cleat
he had just passed. He swung down, desperately clinging to one end of the
broken rope. Ten feet below his shoulder hit a protruding rock; his grip gave
way and he tumbled down the rock face, landing badly on his left leg.
As he tried to straighten his leg, the pain was so much that
all he managed to do was to roll over, with his face lying in the wet clay and
gravel. He felt that he was going to scream with the pain but darkness came
over him and he passed out. When he awoke, he managed to get himself rather
more comfortable; enough to call out for help but the situation was hopeless,
his right shoulder and arm were injured and he was sure that he had broken a
bone in his leg, which meant that he could not walk, climb or even crawl out of
the ravine. To add to his feeling of hopelessness it was beginning get dark and
rain. After an awful night of pain, cold and fitful consciousness, the sun rose
and he stopped shivering. The pain seemed to lessen with the coming of day, he
called again for help, but his voice was sounding weak, even to him. He closed
his eyes and gave way to sleep.
How long he slept, he could not tell but he was awakened by a
tug on his coat sleeve. Opening his eyes he saw a woman, dark hair covering her
face as she bent over him. “Come, follow me, I know the way out of here.”
“But I can’t...” He raised his right arm but the pain had
gone. He carefully got to his feet and his leg seemed better. He stood and
followed the girl. She had a long black skirt, torn and mud splattered at the
hem. Her white blouse was drawn in at the waist and she wore a dark red shawl
over her shoulders. At the end of the ravine, there was a wooden ladder leading
up to the path, which he had fallen from. She climbed and led him along a foot
path to a paddock full of cattle. She climbed the fence and pushed the tightly
packed cattle out of their way. He followed more cautiously. A gate led to a
muddy road, worn and churned up by the recent passage of herds of cattle. Over
the road, at a slightly lower level, with small windows and a wide porch, there
stood a long building. They went in and his rescuer was greeted
enthusiastically by name from those inside. She showed him to a table, telling
the few dishevelled men leaning, half asleep over their tankards, to move
elsewhere and after grumbling a few grunts, they did. The young man sat down
and she brought him a tankard of beer. “Welcome to Tuffin’s,” she said placing
a plate of food on the table and sitting opposite him. “Eat some of me tarts. They’ll cure whatever
ails thee. I’m famous for me tarts, they say my tarts are talked of by every
drover from Llandudno to London.”
He ate a couple. They were good and they lifted his spirit.
Made him want to talk and laugh. He watched as the woman, threw her hair back
and slowly it fell back over her face.
“They are good,” he said, “your tarts, very good. What’s in
them?”
“What! Tell you me secrets? Then, every inn on the drove
road to Warwick would be offering tarts to the drovers! The paddock opposite
would be empty as would our cooking pot.”
The young man looked into her inviting eyes. They were so
beautiful, and all the more so, because every few minutes that dark hair would
fall and cover her face and what seemed like ages would pass before she shook
it back over her shoulders and the sunshine in her eyes was restored.
“What were you doing down in that old clay pit? Lost, were
you? You don’t look like a clay tile maker or potter. How can anyone get lost
on a drove road? It’s as straight as a stream of a steaming mingo piss from a
lean cow on a cold morning, and it smells like it to! Any man with a nose can follow
the drove road on a dark night, even with their eyes shut. So...”
“So?” repeated the poet.
“So, where are you going and where have you been? You ain’t
no drover, ain’t no cattleman either. You were as a feared as a sparrow by
those young cows,” and she nodded over her shoulder.
“I am looking for ideas for my poems. You see I am a poet,
or rather I hope to be.”
“A what? A poet? What, you write pomes; in books and things?
My God. Keep your voice down. Don’t tell these men here or they’ll throw you back
in that clay pit! Poet! Who’d have... I got a pome!”
“A poem? Have you?”
“Yes. Shall I tell you me pome? Would you like that?”
“Ahh, yes!”
She stood up and shouted, so all could hear, “Father! I’m
going to tell me pome!” She put some fresh logs on the fire making it spit and
crackle and clapped her hands together, tables were pushed back, sleepy
customers were bullied, seats were arranged and the settle was cleared. She
ushered the poet to sit next to her on the settle by the light of the fire.
Others climbed around and sat in front to get a better goggling view of the
handsome young woman. Excitement grew with the crackling of the fire. The
landlord brought out a tray of his daughter’s tarts and passed them around,
cuffing anyone who tried to take more than their allotted share.
“Quiet everyone, quiet,” said the Landlord, “me daughters
doing her pome.”
“Alright then, this is my pome! And it ain’t from no
writing, nothing like that. Old Tuffin, him what got too old to drove
cows and took over this inn. He told me the pome when we were sitting on this
very settle here...”
Muttering went around the room, as all the older men
remembered, with fondness, old Tuffin. The inn had been his in the old days and
for many years he had sat by that fire entertaining all that drove by. With a
tankard in his hand he would tell his tales and his pomes, through a wicked
toothless smile and some remembered the night when he had died on that very
settle. This landlord that followed had tried to get people to call the inn the
Britannia, when he had taken it over from Tuffin but the name stuck and
Tuffin’s it had remained.
The girl stood and hands on hips began, “There was this
giant. Big he were...”
“Ain all giants big?” called out the youngster sitting on
the floor in front of the woman. Those behind pushed his hat over his face,
telling him to be quiet.
“He were the biggest giant for miles around but gentle with
it. And kind too, despite his bigness. And this giant had a milk cow, a dun
cow. And of course that was a giant too. A giant dun cow. And the giant was
quite agreeable to any folk bringing their bucket and helping themselves to his
dun cow’s milk. Providing that they only took one bucketful each. And there
were a wicked witch nearby, what disliked the giant ‘cause all the folks for
miles around liked him and hated her; on account of her boils and stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“Hairy lips! Yes, she had hairy lips, so no one liked her.”
“I didn’t know she had hairy lips,” said the boy in the
front.
“Yes, she had hairy lips. And she came, not with a bucket
but a sieve. And of course the cow couldn’t fill the sieve with milk, ‘cause of
the holes in it. And the giant dun cow was drained of all its milk. And that
upset it and enraged it so much that the giant dun cow ran off down the drove
road and all the way to Warwick. And the giant was so cross he turned the witch
into stone and put her in a stone circle to stop her escaping.”
“Is that the end?”
“No, cos the cow was in Warwick and started eating all the
people. And no one could stop it. And the famous knight Sir Guy of Warwick was
sent for. And normally he wouldn’t bother with a dun cow but this one, being
huge... and he just recently being denied by his betrothed... her name was
Phyllis, yes Phyllis. And she had just said to Sir Guy that she wanted him to
prove his love for her by slaying a dragon. Now Sir Guy said ‘But there ain’t
no dragons in Warwick.’ And there weren’t any dragons in Warwick at that time.
And so Sir Guy was quite pleased that giant dun cow came along eating everybody.
But his horse was scared ‘cause it ain’t ever met a giant dun cow before and it
ran off. And then his lance, and then his sword got snapped by the dun cow’s
great horns. And the dun cow was just about to gore Sir Guy to death, a terrible
death, and trample him into the mud, when a passing magpie flew just above the
cow’s head. And the dun cow looked up, saying, ‘What the feck was that?’ And
Sir Guy saw his opportunity, pulled out his dagger and slit the giant dun cow’s
throat. And it was dead. And so everyone was happy, especially the butchers of
Warwick... but giant, he weren’t happy ‘cause his dun cow was dead and he had
no milk anymore.”
The audience sat in stunned silence for several seconds
until the young boy in the front shouted, “fecking magpies!” It broke the spell
and everyone started talking at once and gradually the men in the parlour
returned to their tankards and their usual places.
“Well, poet,” the Landlord’s daughter asked, her cheeks
glowing and her eyes burning with excitement ,“do you like me pome?”
“Well, it’s not really a poem.”
“What!” the woman looked so distraught that the poet
immediately wished he had kept quiet,
“But it’s wonderful! Truly wonderful. A wonderful... pome.”
“Your turn, you tell me your pome.”
“Well, that’s the trouble I hate all my poems.... That’s why
I came here, to get ideas for new poems.”
“And have you got any new ideas?”
“Well..”
“Go on then. What’s it about?”
“You.”
“Me?” She feigned mock embarrassment and fluttered her eye
lashes sending a quiver through the whole poet’s body.
“I gave her gifts of mind
I gave her poems to say,
With her own name there,
And her own dark hair
Like clouds over the fields in May.”
“What? My hair ain’t like clouds. How can hair be like
clouds. That’s daft.”
“Well in May... when the clouds go over the sun... it
suddenly turns quite cold and you look up awaiting the return of the warm
sunshine. And that is how I feel when your hair covers your smile, it’s
suddenly cold and I can’t wait until your smile comes again.”
“Oh...Yes, that’s lovely. Ain’t that nice. ‘My hair is like
fields in May. Can it be April. I like April better?”
“Well, nothing rhymes with April... Oh, yes certainly it can
be April, if you like, it’s your poem... pome for you to say.”
“Thank you. And could I have my name in it...”
The landlord interrupted and told his daughter that they
needed more tarts. She left and the big man sat down opposite the poet. “Listen,
my daughter seems to have taken a fancy to you. Like she used to take a fancy
to wounded critters, bring ‘em in and keep ‘em in a box, ‘til they died or ran
off. You can stay here over hay-making time and help out, and I’ll give you
your feed but if I find you making hay with my daughter...” he ran his finger
across his throat, “I’ll slit your throat.”
“We need some tart filling, Father.” said his daughter,
returning, much to the relief of the poet.
“Get him to get it; he needs to earn his supper,” said the
Landlord.
“What, and tell my secrets, for everyone to hear? I’ll take
him and show him and he can get it next time.”
They went down the drove and off up the hill collecting
blackberries in a trug and the bright pink and orange berries, which, the Landlord’s
daughter explained, were spindle-berries. “They’re poisonous, make you see
little devils and angels everywhere. Then they’ll open you up, top and bottom,
make you overflow like a roadside ditch full of cow shit in a downpour. But
with just one or two mixed in with the blackies, you’ll fly like a bird.. like
clouds over fields in April.”
Back in the tiny kitchen of the inn she showed him how to
make the pastry and boil down the fruit to make the tarts. “There you are. You
can do it next time and father will be happy as sparrow, with you working for
your supper, and all!”
Close up, being told how to do this and that by the girl,
and still feeling the effect of the swindle-berry laced tarts, the poet felt
overwhelmed. He could not take his eyes off the girl. He sat down on the stall
at the kitchen table, while she scrubbed it clean. Finished, she sat down
opposite him, making her eyes wide and wild, a look she knew drove young men
crazy with longing; “Well,” she said, “you got another pome in that head of yours?
Cough it up then. Let’s hear it!”
“Marry me.” He said.
“What?”
“Will you marry me. Please, please, marry me.”
“What? Marry you? Marry a poet? What goods a poet to me?
“As good as any other man and I would be kind and gentle,
loving and caring. And I’d give you a poem every day.”
“A poem, every day! Can you brew beer? Can you mend a stoved
in barrel. Can you lift a keg of beer? Collect wood? Kill and butcher a cow?
Patch up the roof when the rain is dripping on my head? Can you stand up for me
when Glendower’s Boys come over the border and want more than a tart with their
tankard? Eh? Can you do any of that?”
“I could collect wood, if you show me where.”
“What about Glendower’s Boys? Knock ‘em out with one of your
pomes, would you, and send them back over the border?” She mimicked a welsh
accent, “Well I was going to rip ‘is ‘ead off, you see but then he comes out
with this lovely pome, about clouds and that, I thought, fare dos, and went
back home to Llandudno.”
The poet picked up the Landlord daughter’s knife, “I can
fight! I’d fight, if I had to!”
“Put that knife away before you cut yourself. Look, you're a
good man. I like you. I like listening
to all the words you say. You make me laugh. You're different to all the
drovers that come along here; you’re gentle and kind but this is the Border
country. It’s a wild place and there are dangerous men on the drove road. I
need a real man, not a poet.” She touched his hand. “One day, this will be a
place where poets will be just what a woman needs. But that time ain't now and
that place ain't here.”
An uneasy silence followed. She pulled his hands from his
face and leant across the table to kiss him but the Landlord pushed his head
through the curtain from the parlour and shouted, “Tarts, get those tarts out
here, daughter.”
Days passed and the poet followed the Landlord’s daughter
around like a faithful pup, hoping against all the odds that he could change
her mind.
Then one night, a young lad rushed in shouting, “Glendower’s
Boys are up on the drove.”
“Daughter,” said the Landlord, “Run, go to the Castle and
get the Bishop’s men here, quick.”
“No,” she said, “You go. If you stay they'll murder you,
I’ll keep ‘em quiet for a while. Go.”
The old man and the boy went. But the poet refused to go.
She urged him to run, “They’ll kill you.”
“I’ll protect you.”
“You'll what?”
It was too late. The door opened and a dozen red bearded
men, carrying swords pikes, cudgels and cutlasses burst in. They pushed passed
the Landlord’s daughter, searching every room in the inn. Back in the parlour
they sat down, “Well, women, we've heard that there’re only two things worth
coming across the border for to this stinking hole; one is you and the other is
your tarts. So first of all we’ll start with your magic tarts. And fill up the
tankers boy and quick. The poet began filling the tankers and passing them
around.
“Ain’t got any tarts, ready at the moment. I’ll have to go
out and get some filling. Weren’t expecting any droves along at this time.”
“You ain’t going anywhere. We’ll be wanting you later. Send
the boy. The boy there.”
She gave the poet a couple of trugs and he went off. As
quickly as he could he collected the berries and returned with the trugs
covered and went through to the kitchen. The Landlord’s daughter had rolled the
pastry and had the pan ready to boil down the blackberries. But when she
uncovered the trugs, there was as many spindle berries as there were black
berries. She looked at the poet and his eyes went wide. “There’s a good lad,”
she said. Plenty of pinkies! Perhaps there’s more to me poet than pretty
words!”
She added just enough blackberries to take away the sharp
taste of the poisonous spindle-berries, filled the tarts, placed them on trays
and put them in the oven. After a few minutes she took them out, slid them onto
plates and took them into the drunken Welshmen, who greedily ate up.
“Now,” said the biggest and meanest looking of Glendower’s
Boys stabbing his cutlass into the table and leaving it to quiver, “Time for
the main course. Come here girl.”
The poet stood in between the Landlord’s daughter and the
men “Leave her alone.”
It went silent in the room for a while, and the big fellow
said, “Why? Who is going to stop me.”
“I will,” said the poet, trying to make his voice sound
threatening but only succeeding in making it tremble.
“You will!”
The poet remembered the knife he had in his pocket and got
it out. There was laughter all around as the gang picked up their, considerable
bigger, array of weapons and crowded behind their leader.
“Have some more beer,” said the Landlord’s daughter trying
to build on the laughter of the moment. But the leader’s eyes were growing
wild. He turned and pulled his cutlass from the table. Then he stepped back
looking worried, “What? What’s this, this boy’s grown wings, look he’s got
fecking English wings. You think you can use your magic to better me boy? Well
you’re wrong. Grab him. Hold him down I’ll cut those fecking wings off and then
I’ll...”
But he stopped froze for a moment, held his stomach, then
his throat, spun around as if to run out but vomited, spraying the rest of his
crowd. This seemed to trigger the others who all began to vomit and shit
themselves at the same time. The poet stood holding his tiny knife as the floor
was covered in diarrhoea and vomit.
“Come, quick, some might recover.”
She dragged him with her climbing over the moan heap of
Welshmen. “This way, through the paddock, down to the clay pit. We’ll cut the
rope, so they can’t follow. Father will be here by morning with the Bishop’s
men.”
They got to the narrow path with the hand rope and she
skipped lightly along the ledge. But the poet went rigid, remembering his last
trip along this way. He could move. “Come on, Come on, I can hear them coming”
she pleaded.
Still the poet was frozen with fear. He could hear the
stumbling of the leader of the Welshmen behind him, cursing and shouting. He
looked down at the knife he held in his hand. The man was nearly upon him. He
took the knife and cut through the rope, letting it fall into the ravine below.
He then looked, one last time at the Landlord’s daughter. She smiled and...
There was no more time the Welshman was onto him and went to strike at the
poet’s head but missed and hit him on the shoulder. Then, picking him up in his
arms and shouting, “Let’s see how good your wings are now, English.” And he
threw him into the pit.
“He’s coming round, I think. You’ll be alright now son”,
said a voice. “We’ll just pull you up the cliff on this door and then get you
down to the doctors in the village. You'll be fine in a while. Didn't you see
the signs warning you about the dangerous pit? Luckily, my wife said she
spotted a look in your eyes that might ignore her advice and come this way.”
The doctor strapped up his broken collar bone and put his
leg in splints and after a couple of weeks, in a house in the village, he made
his way, with the help of a stick, back home to his home over the sea.
And that is the end of my story and welcome to it you are.
But it’s all a long while ago, a long, long...‘
“Wow, I said that’s a great story. Just wait there, while I
get my wife and friends out. They would love to meet you. But when I returned
he was gone. After my disbelieving friends had wandered back for dinner, and my
wife had collected the empty whisky bottle, I noticed on the seat, where the
old man had been sitting, a handful of blackberries and two strange brightly
coloured berries, orange and pink.
The next day I climbed over the fence, and made my way down
the hill to where the man, of the night before, had indicated that the clay pit
was. At the edge of an overgrown clump of trees there was a fallen post,
tangled up with brambles. I reached through, turned the sign over and read the
faded letters, “Dangerous Workings, Keep out”... and I did.
Had I been a younger man though...
---***---
Luke Kelly sings Patrick Kavanagh's song, which inspired this tale:
And those spindle berries, don't try them!
 |
On Raglan Road of an Autumn Day,
I saw her first and knew
That her dark hair would weave a snare
That I might one day rue.
I saw the danger, and I passed
Along the enchanted way
And I said let grief be a falling leaf
At the dawning of the day.
On Grafton Street in November,
We tripped lightly along the ledge
Of a deep ravine where can be seen
The worst of passions pledged.
The Queen of Hearts still making tarts
And I not making hay,
Oh I loved too much; and by such by such
Is happiness thrown away.
I gave her gifts of the mind.
I gave her the secret sign
That's known to the artists who have known
That true gods of sound and stone.
And word and tint without stint.
I gave her poems to say
With her own name there and her own dark hair
Like the clouds over fields of May.
On a quiet street where old ghosts meet,
I see her walking now
Away from me, so hurriedly.
My reason must allow,
That I have loved, not as I should
A creature made of clay.
When the angel woos the clay, he'll lose
His wings at the dawn of the day
I saw her first and knew
That her dark hair would weave a snare
That I might one day rue.
I saw the danger, and I passed
Along the enchanted way
And I said let grief be a falling leaf
At the dawning of the day.
On Grafton Street in November,
We tripped lightly along the ledge
Of a deep ravine where can be seen
The worst of passions pledged.
The Queen of Hearts still making tarts
And I not making hay,
Oh I loved too much; and by such by such
Is happiness thrown away.
I gave her gifts of the mind.
I gave her the secret sign
That's known to the artists who have known
That true gods of sound and stone.
And word and tint without stint.
I gave her poems to say
With her own name there and her own dark hair
Like the clouds over fields of May.
On a quiet street where old ghosts meet,
I see her walking now
Away from me, so hurriedly.
My reason must allow,
That I have loved, not as I should
A creature made of clay.
When the angel woos the clay, he'll lose
His wings at the dawn of the day
[1] Patrick Kavanagh 1904 – 1967 was an Irish poet and novelist. Regarded as
one of the foremost poets of the 20th century, his best known works include the
novel Tarry Flynn and the poem "On Raglan Road".
