The Bard
by Alasdair McPherson
Genre: Historical
Swearwords: None.
Description: On McStorytellers of old.
Swearwords: None.
Description: On McStorytellers of old.
Winter is the time of year when I come to life. I didn’t always feel this way – I can still remember how bored I used to be when I was a young warrior. I had to put my dreams of adventure away during the long dark nights of the endless winter. For days on end I’d only go out into the greyness that was all the daylight we got, to tend the beasts or check that roofs and fences were surviving the onslaught of wind and rain.
On the odd good day I’d go with the other single men and girls up onto the moor to bring down peat from the stacks to store close to the Great Hall. These would have been festive occasions even if they hadn’t given us the rare opportunity to flirt without catching the disapproving eye of the elders. Even better were the calm days after a winter storm when we set off along the shore in smaller groups to bring back the driftwood washed ashore during the gale.
You’d wink at a girl you fancied and if she liked you she would dawdle behind her friends until the pair of you could turn in amongst the rocks. You were never far from the others and you’d hear their voices while you held hands and sought words to say what your eyes were already telling her. The kisses you won were especially sweet since there was always the chance of an interruption – usually by a jealous rival!
Later, when I had a family of my own, I spent the winter evenings as a warrior in the place of honour close to the chief and the fire that filled the pit in the centre of the Great Hall. At the start of winter, I’d be one of the men describing how we had spent the summer exploring the lochs and islands far from the township. We’d shamelessly exaggerate the skirmishes and our personal heroism but we’d laugh with the rest when the truth came out as it always did eventually.
Some of the young warriors didn’t come back from our expeditions. Some died – a risk we all took in trusting our lives to frail craft on unreliable seas – but mostly they met a girl on a distant shore and stayed on in her township. There were always a few new warriors around our fire introduced by a grizzled father presenting the stranger that had won his daughter’s affection. In many cases the strangers replaced a son lost at sea or in battle and they were usually accepted without rancour.
As I grew older, my place close to the blazing fire was taken by younger men and I found myself closer and closer to the outer ring where the women sat huddled in their shawls. Some of the old men would snatch the flagons from the young girls and shuffle towards the heat where they would fill the horn drinking cups for the warriors; not only did they get close to the blaze but they were able to sneak sips of mead as they squeezed between the heroes. I was as cold as any of them but some residual pride kept me from joining them. I wanted to enter the circle close to the chief by right, not by subterfuge.
That’s when I decided to become a bard. Once the warriors have boasted of their exploits over the summer and the newcomers have been interrogated, there are still long weeks to fill. I discovered in myself an ability to spin the old yarns. As a young man I rejoiced in the moment when I saw defeat in the eyes of an opponent; he suddenly recognises your superiority and signals his surrender even before the puts down his weapons or utters a word. Nowadays I look round the faces as I speak and savour the fact that they’ve surrendered their will to mine.
I notice the mightiest warrior in the clan surreptitiously cross his fingers against the evil eye because of the story I’m telling. I’m aware of the rustle as women hide their heads because I’ve conjured up a malicious presence to chill my listeners with something worse than cold. Men and women know that there are things beyond our senses that influence our lives.
I’m as superstitious as the rest but I can weave my fears into tales that keep people dry-mouthed and looking over their shoulders. The whistle of the wind through the eaves resembles the piercing whistle of the shepherd guiding his dogs. But it’s different, eerie and otherworldly, raising the hairs at the back of your neck. The creature that whistles is a fiend that has risen from beneath the sea and the hounds it is guiding are monstrous beings, caricatures of a friendly hound, ready to tear a man or a cow to shreds. I might tell my audience that his flock is composed of drowned sailors or I might lower my voice to a whisper and tell the women that he has come for a human bride to take back beneath the waves.
The tales I most like to tell are based on trickery and ruses. Individuals, weak and vulnerable at the start of the story, overcome enormous problems by wit and courage. A girl courted by the whistling fiend will agree to accept him as her mate in return for wealth for her family but, at the last minute, will substitute her pet pig and go off with her chosen warrior to enjoy the fruits of her deception. People should always believe that they’ve a chance of defeating the most malevolent entity.
So I spend my winters close to the fire in a position of honour within the tribe. When the days lengthen, I help to plant the seeds and when that is done I set off for the next township. A bard is housed and fed wherever he goes; even at the height of the harvest when everyone is busy, people will make a space at the table for a bard and give him a bed to sleep on. I tell them tales of misers being bested by a farm hand or a dairymaid; foundlings that turn out to be princesses and strange old women that grant wishes when they’re given hospitality are my summer stock-in-trade. Chapmen bringing thread and ribbon may be more useful to the townships but they are no more welcome than a bard that brings only airy fabrications.
The great joy in my ramblings is to meet other bards: Brendan, the prince of bards; Angus, who makes up funny wee rhymes for his hosts; Cally, the studious deep thinker. As we talk, I realise that all the stories we tell are based on the same cycle of life. We all share the same goals whether we plan every step along our path through life or stumble from one crisis to the next. The bardic tales show just how alike we all are.
Romance, with obstacles ranging from the comic to the life-threatening, is the staple of the storyteller. Loss and recovery of wealth or position or a family member are at the heart of many a stirring yarn. Then, when the human capacity for misinterpretation and misunderstanding is exhausted, the bard has a host of mythical creatures at his command. Even a well-intentioned fairy can cause havoc in the lives of ordinary people.
Real life is mostly a struggle with the land we live in. What varies is the setting, the background against which the tales are told. In my stories the scene is a narrow crescent of soil where rivers deposit silt at the top of a sea loch. We use seaweed to fertilise our fields and we harvest the sea for fish and shellfish. At the same time, the bountiful sea is an ever present source of danger. In my tales the mischievous and malevolent creatures that plague mankind come from the depths of the ocean to supplement hurricanes and dense fogs, the natural banes.
There is a land to the south where hills are formed from limestone. Water dissolves the rock leaving caverns and tunnels reaching far into the earth. The entrance to a huge complex can be through a hole in the ground that you can step across. In that land the fiends come from these dark, hidden caves. Brendan is from a land dotted with low, round hills and his demons live underground entering through the fairy mounds. Angus is from a rich, prosperous farming country with few dangers so they imagine giants living amongst the hills that border their country descending from time to time to eat the humans and their crops. If you survive the marauding giant you’ll starve to death after he’s gone back to the hills to sleep off his gluttony.
During the summer, the bards meet and part. One of us may stop, rapt, as we pass a familiar scene; while the rest of us wander away his mind will be translating the scene into an epic or an epigram, a legendary tale of heroes or the merest whimsy. The thing about being a bard is that you must follow every idea to its conclusion – Burns destroyed the nest of a mouse and the result is a story remembered still for its insight into a universal truth.
Then there comes a morning when you stand at the door of some cotter that has given you his food and the best bed. There is still mist in the dells and amongst the boles of the trees so you realise that autumn is coming closer. With a sigh, you pack away the images and impressions that, with your clarsach, are the only baggage you carry and prepare for the journey home.
In recent years I’ve stood and looked to the four compass points and considered crossing the invisible boundary that’s the limit to my wanderings. It’s tempting to go to the lands of the limestone caves or the fairy hills but in the end I turn for home. If I hurry I’ll be back in time for the mackerel; I haven’t lost my skill in salting or smoking fish!
Some of the younger bards are satisfied that telling tales is occupation enough but I was once a warrior, a champion of the tribe. Nowadays I can barely lift the lance that once I threw so hard it would pierce a boiled leather shield but I still have the urge to help the tribe even if it is only by preserving fish – I can still take pride that my salting will keep the mackerel wholesome well into the spring of next year.
As I head home west through the blossoming heather I will compose a tale or two. I’ve an idea for a yarn about a boat foundering on an island shore where the crew are saved by finding the entrance to a sea cave. Forced ever deeper by the rising tide, they find a passage that goes down until it’s below the surface of the sea. They hear eerie music but overcome their trepidation to turn a corner into a banqueting hall full of tiny men and women. Or perhaps the passage will slope up and open into a valley full of giants where the field mice are the size of sheep. Whether I choose to go up or down there will be romance and opportunities for great deeds of cunning and valour as the story twists and turns through the labyrinth of my febrile mind.
I’m looking forward to winter already!
Of course, I never was a warrior and I never did lift a lance in anger, although I did once put my left arm into replica of a targe. But I am a bard – a weaver of stories and the source of the stories is just as I’ve described it. If McStorytellers ever open a branch in Hades, Homer will recognise the tales we tell. He won’t know exactly what the difference is between a silkie and a kelpie but he’ll be able to relate them to the sea-creatures he wrote about.
The supernatural creatures are important. I’ve always found it difficult to appreciate urban writers. I admire Sherlock Holmes but the cloistered claustrophobia in which he lives simply annoys me. As for Philip Marlow! – give me Miss Marple any day. I didn’t begin to understand urban demons until I read Damon Runyon and I’m not sure I’d have been convinced even then if I hadn’t seen for myself the steam coming through vents in every road on Manhattan Island.
I still feel more comfortable with sea monsters, dwarves and trolls but I can see where Angus’ giants come from. From the Kilpatrick Hills to the Solway Firth the land is rich but every so often, on the very eve of the harvest, a storm of wind and rain flattens the crop as if a giant had trampled all over it. Even the grain that can be saved is mostly spoiled and will not last until the next harvest. Eric Linklater and Cally’s Stickit Minister both had giants looking on as they wrote. Angus can face any human trial but he’s always aware of the Big Man lurking just out of sight.
Brendan is the prince of bards, as he should be coming from a unique culture. When his ancestor decided to conquer the land he could see across the Bay of Biscay from his tower in northern Spain, he couldn’t have guessed that he would win the island by losing the battle. The old king didn’t kill or enslave the beaten foe but sent a bard to negotiate a settlement where the newcomers would do all the work of tilling the soil and tending the beasts while the original inhabitants went underground to spend their days in feasting and dancing.
The Celts even had to call the island Erin after one of the daughters of the old king. Brendan’s demons are shared with the Dannae but with the added inconvenience of the mischievous Little People who handed over the poisoned chalice. It’s no wonder the people of Ireland make such good bards.
On the odd good day I’d go with the other single men and girls up onto the moor to bring down peat from the stacks to store close to the Great Hall. These would have been festive occasions even if they hadn’t given us the rare opportunity to flirt without catching the disapproving eye of the elders. Even better were the calm days after a winter storm when we set off along the shore in smaller groups to bring back the driftwood washed ashore during the gale.
You’d wink at a girl you fancied and if she liked you she would dawdle behind her friends until the pair of you could turn in amongst the rocks. You were never far from the others and you’d hear their voices while you held hands and sought words to say what your eyes were already telling her. The kisses you won were especially sweet since there was always the chance of an interruption – usually by a jealous rival!
Later, when I had a family of my own, I spent the winter evenings as a warrior in the place of honour close to the chief and the fire that filled the pit in the centre of the Great Hall. At the start of winter, I’d be one of the men describing how we had spent the summer exploring the lochs and islands far from the township. We’d shamelessly exaggerate the skirmishes and our personal heroism but we’d laugh with the rest when the truth came out as it always did eventually.
Some of the young warriors didn’t come back from our expeditions. Some died – a risk we all took in trusting our lives to frail craft on unreliable seas – but mostly they met a girl on a distant shore and stayed on in her township. There were always a few new warriors around our fire introduced by a grizzled father presenting the stranger that had won his daughter’s affection. In many cases the strangers replaced a son lost at sea or in battle and they were usually accepted without rancour.
As I grew older, my place close to the blazing fire was taken by younger men and I found myself closer and closer to the outer ring where the women sat huddled in their shawls. Some of the old men would snatch the flagons from the young girls and shuffle towards the heat where they would fill the horn drinking cups for the warriors; not only did they get close to the blaze but they were able to sneak sips of mead as they squeezed between the heroes. I was as cold as any of them but some residual pride kept me from joining them. I wanted to enter the circle close to the chief by right, not by subterfuge.
That’s when I decided to become a bard. Once the warriors have boasted of their exploits over the summer and the newcomers have been interrogated, there are still long weeks to fill. I discovered in myself an ability to spin the old yarns. As a young man I rejoiced in the moment when I saw defeat in the eyes of an opponent; he suddenly recognises your superiority and signals his surrender even before the puts down his weapons or utters a word. Nowadays I look round the faces as I speak and savour the fact that they’ve surrendered their will to mine.
I notice the mightiest warrior in the clan surreptitiously cross his fingers against the evil eye because of the story I’m telling. I’m aware of the rustle as women hide their heads because I’ve conjured up a malicious presence to chill my listeners with something worse than cold. Men and women know that there are things beyond our senses that influence our lives.
I’m as superstitious as the rest but I can weave my fears into tales that keep people dry-mouthed and looking over their shoulders. The whistle of the wind through the eaves resembles the piercing whistle of the shepherd guiding his dogs. But it’s different, eerie and otherworldly, raising the hairs at the back of your neck. The creature that whistles is a fiend that has risen from beneath the sea and the hounds it is guiding are monstrous beings, caricatures of a friendly hound, ready to tear a man or a cow to shreds. I might tell my audience that his flock is composed of drowned sailors or I might lower my voice to a whisper and tell the women that he has come for a human bride to take back beneath the waves.
The tales I most like to tell are based on trickery and ruses. Individuals, weak and vulnerable at the start of the story, overcome enormous problems by wit and courage. A girl courted by the whistling fiend will agree to accept him as her mate in return for wealth for her family but, at the last minute, will substitute her pet pig and go off with her chosen warrior to enjoy the fruits of her deception. People should always believe that they’ve a chance of defeating the most malevolent entity.
So I spend my winters close to the fire in a position of honour within the tribe. When the days lengthen, I help to plant the seeds and when that is done I set off for the next township. A bard is housed and fed wherever he goes; even at the height of the harvest when everyone is busy, people will make a space at the table for a bard and give him a bed to sleep on. I tell them tales of misers being bested by a farm hand or a dairymaid; foundlings that turn out to be princesses and strange old women that grant wishes when they’re given hospitality are my summer stock-in-trade. Chapmen bringing thread and ribbon may be more useful to the townships but they are no more welcome than a bard that brings only airy fabrications.
The great joy in my ramblings is to meet other bards: Brendan, the prince of bards; Angus, who makes up funny wee rhymes for his hosts; Cally, the studious deep thinker. As we talk, I realise that all the stories we tell are based on the same cycle of life. We all share the same goals whether we plan every step along our path through life or stumble from one crisis to the next. The bardic tales show just how alike we all are.
Romance, with obstacles ranging from the comic to the life-threatening, is the staple of the storyteller. Loss and recovery of wealth or position or a family member are at the heart of many a stirring yarn. Then, when the human capacity for misinterpretation and misunderstanding is exhausted, the bard has a host of mythical creatures at his command. Even a well-intentioned fairy can cause havoc in the lives of ordinary people.
Real life is mostly a struggle with the land we live in. What varies is the setting, the background against which the tales are told. In my stories the scene is a narrow crescent of soil where rivers deposit silt at the top of a sea loch. We use seaweed to fertilise our fields and we harvest the sea for fish and shellfish. At the same time, the bountiful sea is an ever present source of danger. In my tales the mischievous and malevolent creatures that plague mankind come from the depths of the ocean to supplement hurricanes and dense fogs, the natural banes.
There is a land to the south where hills are formed from limestone. Water dissolves the rock leaving caverns and tunnels reaching far into the earth. The entrance to a huge complex can be through a hole in the ground that you can step across. In that land the fiends come from these dark, hidden caves. Brendan is from a land dotted with low, round hills and his demons live underground entering through the fairy mounds. Angus is from a rich, prosperous farming country with few dangers so they imagine giants living amongst the hills that border their country descending from time to time to eat the humans and their crops. If you survive the marauding giant you’ll starve to death after he’s gone back to the hills to sleep off his gluttony.
During the summer, the bards meet and part. One of us may stop, rapt, as we pass a familiar scene; while the rest of us wander away his mind will be translating the scene into an epic or an epigram, a legendary tale of heroes or the merest whimsy. The thing about being a bard is that you must follow every idea to its conclusion – Burns destroyed the nest of a mouse and the result is a story remembered still for its insight into a universal truth.
Then there comes a morning when you stand at the door of some cotter that has given you his food and the best bed. There is still mist in the dells and amongst the boles of the trees so you realise that autumn is coming closer. With a sigh, you pack away the images and impressions that, with your clarsach, are the only baggage you carry and prepare for the journey home.
In recent years I’ve stood and looked to the four compass points and considered crossing the invisible boundary that’s the limit to my wanderings. It’s tempting to go to the lands of the limestone caves or the fairy hills but in the end I turn for home. If I hurry I’ll be back in time for the mackerel; I haven’t lost my skill in salting or smoking fish!
Some of the younger bards are satisfied that telling tales is occupation enough but I was once a warrior, a champion of the tribe. Nowadays I can barely lift the lance that once I threw so hard it would pierce a boiled leather shield but I still have the urge to help the tribe even if it is only by preserving fish – I can still take pride that my salting will keep the mackerel wholesome well into the spring of next year.
As I head home west through the blossoming heather I will compose a tale or two. I’ve an idea for a yarn about a boat foundering on an island shore where the crew are saved by finding the entrance to a sea cave. Forced ever deeper by the rising tide, they find a passage that goes down until it’s below the surface of the sea. They hear eerie music but overcome their trepidation to turn a corner into a banqueting hall full of tiny men and women. Or perhaps the passage will slope up and open into a valley full of giants where the field mice are the size of sheep. Whether I choose to go up or down there will be romance and opportunities for great deeds of cunning and valour as the story twists and turns through the labyrinth of my febrile mind.
I’m looking forward to winter already!
Of course, I never was a warrior and I never did lift a lance in anger, although I did once put my left arm into replica of a targe. But I am a bard – a weaver of stories and the source of the stories is just as I’ve described it. If McStorytellers ever open a branch in Hades, Homer will recognise the tales we tell. He won’t know exactly what the difference is between a silkie and a kelpie but he’ll be able to relate them to the sea-creatures he wrote about.
The supernatural creatures are important. I’ve always found it difficult to appreciate urban writers. I admire Sherlock Holmes but the cloistered claustrophobia in which he lives simply annoys me. As for Philip Marlow! – give me Miss Marple any day. I didn’t begin to understand urban demons until I read Damon Runyon and I’m not sure I’d have been convinced even then if I hadn’t seen for myself the steam coming through vents in every road on Manhattan Island.
I still feel more comfortable with sea monsters, dwarves and trolls but I can see where Angus’ giants come from. From the Kilpatrick Hills to the Solway Firth the land is rich but every so often, on the very eve of the harvest, a storm of wind and rain flattens the crop as if a giant had trampled all over it. Even the grain that can be saved is mostly spoiled and will not last until the next harvest. Eric Linklater and Cally’s Stickit Minister both had giants looking on as they wrote. Angus can face any human trial but he’s always aware of the Big Man lurking just out of sight.
Brendan is the prince of bards, as he should be coming from a unique culture. When his ancestor decided to conquer the land he could see across the Bay of Biscay from his tower in northern Spain, he couldn’t have guessed that he would win the island by losing the battle. The old king didn’t kill or enslave the beaten foe but sent a bard to negotiate a settlement where the newcomers would do all the work of tilling the soil and tending the beasts while the original inhabitants went underground to spend their days in feasting and dancing.
The Celts even had to call the island Erin after one of the daughters of the old king. Brendan’s demons are shared with the Dannae but with the added inconvenience of the mischievous Little People who handed over the poisoned chalice. It’s no wonder the people of Ireland make such good bards.
About the Author
Originally from Dalmuir, Alasdair McPherson is now retired and living in exile in Lincolnshire.
He says he has always wanted to write, but life got in the way until recently. He has already penned eleven novels and many short stories. His eight latest novels – The Island, Pilgrimage of Grace, Desert Ark, Swordsmiths, Loyalty, Killing Cousins, Damaged Lives and Patriotism – are all McStorytellers publications.
You can read Alasdair's full profile on McVoices.
He says he has always wanted to write, but life got in the way until recently. He has already penned eleven novels and many short stories. His eight latest novels – The Island, Pilgrimage of Grace, Desert Ark, Swordsmiths, Loyalty, Killing Cousins, Damaged Lives and Patriotism – are all McStorytellers publications.
You can read Alasdair's full profile on McVoices.