Lydia and the uncertain, daily life of Prydein’s werrin.

The fictional seaside fishing and salt-panner’s village of Môrcorn, Gabrantofica in Breged.

It wasn’t long after sunrise, when one of the stockmen’s children delivered the fresh cow’s milk in one of their tall earthenware jars and now Lydia mixed the dusty rolled oats with it in her Mam’s thick cooking pot, adding a healthy dollop of local honey. This was followed by a small knob of butter and a pinch of the village’s own sea-salt, before she placed the pot on the Cerrig y Badell. These were the flame-blackened flat stones which were placed correctly around the edge of the hearth fire, precisely for her mother’s cooking-pots. The largest of these was the Cerrig y Gradell, the large and carefully selected stone for the Gradell, the ubiquitous iron skillet the Brythonic women use across Prydein, on which they griddle their biscuits, eggs and their popular flat butter cakes. Used in conjunction with the Padell; the domed lid for the same, these two items are the most common cooking devices found in these lands and Lydia covered this familiar pot, leaving the porridge to Bubble.

Greid and Granwen their long-legged lurchers bounded into the thatch, through the door Lydia liked to keep open when she was cooking. They both charged up to lick her face, as her presence was still novel to them and they clearly adored her. When she had arrived home the previous day, they had almost bowled her over in their frenzied welcome and Lydia hugged them both now, having missed them both equally. She began singing quietly to herself and threw the shaggy pair of sibling dogs a few scraps she carved from a hanging ham in the thatch, before bending to turn the pot. Lifting the lid, she gave it a good stir with a wooden spoon as it thickened, and it was soon ready.

Spooning the gloopy porridge which supported the Brythons and which they called Siot into two wooden bowls, Lydia took one to her mother on the pallet-bed at the other side of the crackling hearth. Putting the bowl down, Lydia helped her mother into a sitting position, propping her up with the sheepskin pillows.

“Come on cu-mam sit up, here’s your siot and just how you like it!” Lydia smiled her encouragement.

“Thank you dearest.” Efa thanked her daughter in a querulous voice and Lydia sat on a three-legged milking stool to help her mother take some of the sweetened siot, looking around at the back of the thatch and over her Mam’s now neglected old work space.

The single-frame loom with her long needles, distaffs and bobbins of the varying weights which determined the thickness of the yarn all gathered dust, exactly where she had seen them last. For as long as she could remember, Lydia knew that differing wools needed different weights to spin them effectively into yarn, especially if it was the greasy wool reserved for rainproof cloaks and scabbard lining. Although Efa still possessed all the tools of her old trade and the life-long experience and expertise which never went away, she lacked the physical and constitutional strength to do the work anymore. Due to some unknown and undiagnosed creeping sickness of the body and soul, Efa no longer had the energy or the will to continue to produce the village’s clothing and bedding. All this equipment which once governed and controlled all life in and around their thatch now lay indolent from disuse, resting in retirement under its own gathering blanket of dust. Lydia had prayed and made frequent sacrifice to the triple Goddess aspect she worshipped since Efa’s obvious decline, that of Brigid, Sulis and Arianhrod but it seems this tiny and insignificant Treflan of Môrcorn slipped under the gaze of those hard-working deities, as had the ailing Efa gwraig Ofydd and Lydia was forced to become pragmatic about her mother’s future.

She made sure her mother had eaten most of her siot before she went to eat her own, with her favourite spoon that she always left here, the one her Tad had carved for her. It had a handle like a fish tail and the outside of the bowl was gently carved with fish scales. Her heart constricted then at the memory of her father’s brave but foolish death. Lydia’s much grieved and longed-for Tad was one Ofydd ap Odgar, a nobody really in the grand scheme of things but he had been everything to Lydia and his family.

Ofydd was a respected village elder, being a renowned warrior as a younger man and all the youth of the village would love to listen to his old tales of heroism, honour and imperative victory around the village fire especially at Samhain, the age-old season for warfare and tall tales. Each night as the sun sank below the ocean, he would regale his neighbours with lurid war stories and his main claim-to-fame, that he had fought against the mighty Gadwyr once in a border-dispute war in the year 3872. He had been twenty-five years old at the time and he had been one of the very few to have survived, to tell the tragic tale. As Ofydd settled at this seaside village to fish in his retirement and raise a family, his injuries and age had insidiously conspired against him in those later years and slowed his sword-arm and more, he had been a fisherman on this east coast for more than twenty years when that first merciless seaborne attack had come.

Despite not picking up a sword in anger for more years than he could remember, Ofydd ap Odgar’s warrior spirit had been undiminished however, and he had chosen to inspire the young men of the village with his courage to stand and fight with him that early and dark morning, rather than flee with the women and children. As the elders and the young gathered in the village in absolute panic before fleeing for the forest, Odgar had spoken softly to the men and boys around him on the sand, knowing from experience how valuable and comforting a few well-chosen words could be from a calm leader, in a situation as dire as the one they faced that day. That same experience had shown on his lined and weathered face, telling him and everyone there that none of them would ever see the sun come up again. Ofydd had been immensely proud to stand in front of those young but brave Brythonic werrin, as the wave of guttural-grunting, monstrous Germanic invaders had swept ashore on that bleak and fateful morning, leaping from their high-prowed longboats and roaring their primal, atavistic hatred.

That had been four long years ago and unannounced, murderous seaborne attack had become a terrifying but irregular occurrence since that first unforgettable raid. The constant threat of rape and slaughter had weighed heavily on the people of Môrcorn, forever changing these once happy, seaside villagers. Utterly merciless, horn-helmed, fur-swathed, bearded and screaming axe-men of enormous size had spilled from their ships and onto their lovely white sandy beach. Lydia had clung to her mother as they fled the village that terrible night, the night their lovely white beach had been spoiled red. They had both turned at the ridgeline for a last look back, before they vanished down the other side to the plain below, before running for the forest over half a mile away. Lydia had often wished they hadn’t paused on that ridge to look back, to see her father slaughtered like a sacrificial goat on this beach.

The fighting figures in the one-sided battle on the shore that night had been back-lit by the stars, as they reflected a glittering light across the ocean behind them. A huge warrior’s battle-axe had cleaved her father’s head and upper body apart like a log of kindling, with one monstrous stroke that ended at his waist. That pin-sharp image would stay with Lydia forever. That searing, unbearable image had been burned into her retinas in that instant and she would carry that heart-breaking vision with her to the Underworld, when this hard life ended. Lydia shook her head, realising she’d been staring at the back of the spoon like a nerco! By the time she had eaten her siot and rinsed out the bowls, throwing the muck into the rill-washed ditch outside the door, Lydia’s honoured father had retreated to his resting place.

Lydia busied herself tidying-up and making sure her mother was comfortable, before she grabbed the lovely warm cloak her mistress had given her, and she left her nest-thatch, both dogs bounding out of the door with her. Lydia looked up to place the sun and judged it to be almost at its highest and just shy of its anterth, which marked the imminent noon. Greid and Granwen sprinted ahead to join the other village dogs, as they tore across the sand, flinging the gritty sand up behind them. Many of the smaller dogs yapped with their excitement, scooting around the two tall lurchers in circles and Lydia smiled, as that ‘home’ feeling finally struck her. It was magnified by her years of absence and the local girl looked around the familiar fishing village of Môrcorn again now, with the eyes of an experienced, well-travelled and knowledgeable young woman.

She surveyed its salt encrusted and moss-blackened thatches with the same love as the girl but with a different, more objective and worldly perspective. It was with a measure of sadness that Lydia came to realise that her home which had seemed so permanent in childhood, clung to a truly precarious existence in reality, and the evidence of her village’s decline lay everywhere to her saddened eyes. Vital seasonal maintenance had clearly been forsaken by many, as for many dark months her kinfolk had counted their lives in days, one to the next.  Some fences needed repair and one or two gates sagged on their posts and the once thriving coastal village had the unmistakeable air of neglect about it, but it was nothing serious, as one season could see all repairs and work needed complete. With death unfolding its huge black wings in their nightly dreams however, it was no surprise that her old neighbours doubted their future. Clearly the community’s morale was at a low ebb, she could feel it and see it in their faces and their tense postures as they went about their business.

A new thatch on the high ridge-line to the west however showed vividly in the bright afternoon sunshine, with bright thatch growing like a yellow mushroom from the gleaming new whitewashed enclosure. There was the bright crimson banner of Gabrantofica fluttering from the newly fenced bluff before this new house and the view must be breath-taking. Lydia thought it must be the house of a Nêr at least and she determined to go and introduce herself to the new inhabitant of her birth village a little later.

There were more children running around since her last visit, which bode well for her village’s future and pleased her immensely. The line of seaweed and limpet-encrusted coracles, drawn up on the sand above the fragmented tide line were there still, as were the mounds of netting between them and higher on the beach, marched the long rows of cane racking which supported the dozens of drying fish and Lydia took it all-in again. The children ran up and down the avenues between these rows of double-sided drying racks as they chanted old nursery rhymes, brandishing long horsehair frewyll, which they flicked constantly and expertly to keep the flies off their fish.

From further down the long beach, arose the acrid but deeply familiar spirals of smoke and dense clouds of steam from the salt-panner’s fires, and they smudged the pale eastern sky in a memorable pattern. As the village dogs frolicked in the cold sea, the familiar harsh smell carried up the shoreline to her nostrils, mixing with the feint but foul odour from the retting ponds behind the dunes and she knew then, that she really was home.

Lydia called on an old next-door neighbour and life-long friend, giving the stout door a knock before entering without invitation, as was her life-long practice. Llinos the lady of the thatch, looked up from her work but the drop-spindle kept spinning as the wool twisted into yarn without pause, something every woman in every thatch across Prydein and beyond, did constantly throughout the day with little thought, every day.

“Lydia bach I knew you were back, come in - come in, would you like some milk and oatcakes?” Llinos offered from her seat and Lydia bent to kiss her.

This enormous woman overflowing the stool she sat on, was a village elder and the only person in the village to own a rotary quern stone and so she would grind everybody else’s grain, keeping a tenth as tithe. Llinos also wove, stitched and sold tough and durable Jute grain-sacks and good quality linen, made from the growing fields of nearby Jute and Flax. The sloping Flax fields had been divided in two by ditches as many were, not just for added irrigation, as one half was a species grown for the vital nutrition given by the big fat Linseeds they produced, whilst in the other up-slope and less-boggier half, they grew the more fibrous species commonly used for producing linen. The foul-smelling retting ponds were far enough away, except when the wind came from the east, but all three crops were a vital part of the economy of this community. This impressive lady with the lightning fast fingers had been instrumental in their creation and ongoing maintenance, mostly done by the older children of the village. However Llinos Fawr as the children called her, was the acknowledged spiritual leader of this small seaside community and her life had been spent in the service of its people. Llinos tended the sick and infirm, as well as Lydia’s mother and Lydia put six silver coins and a fine bronze brooch on a shelf-stone in her kitchen, a payment she made each time she visited, as some small token of personal thanks. Whilst they always caused instant alarm, the peaceful traders that arrived here on occasion were always eager to exchange their goods for silver or bronze, and Lydia knew this metal would be spent wisely.

“You stay where you are Modryb Llinos, I’ve just eaten.” Lydia told her and although Llinos was no blood relation, she had called her ‘Auntie’ all her life and this lady’s large, callused but caring hands had brought Lydia screaming into this world.

“Oh dearest Lydia, you shouldn’t!” Llinos complained half-heartedly, eyeing the coins and the golden coloured brooch, already deciding what she would trade them for.

A big and still fluffy mound of wool sat in front of her between her enormous ham-like thighs, but it was a dwindling pile, which had already been washed, dried, graded and combed before it could be spun into yarn. The first parts of this process were done by the children of the Pwll y Panny, the ‘fulling ponds’ where they washed and scrubbed the raw wool before grading it, leaving their hands chapped and just as raw as the wool until they hardened to it. More of this wool sat outside uncombed, drying on a big rush mat and held down with a square of fine fishing net and a ring of pebbles. The laborious task of combing-out with wide and specially made wool combs of bone or fruit-wood, was a part of the process seen as a chore by all, as often all members of Brythonic families were involved even Tad, although he would never admit to it. These pairs of combs used in tandem, pull all the tangles out of the wool and allow any foreign body to be easily removed. After being well-combed, the wool can finally be spun into yarn with a drop spindle.

Lydia grabbed a big mound of uncombed wool from the back of the thatch and went to sit on the opposite stool in her old and so familiar position. Putting it between her feet she picked up a pair of Llinos’ wool-combs, before setting-to on the tangled wool and it wasn’t long before there was a useful mound of combed and clean wool on the rush mat between them. Swapping the combs for one of Llinos’ drop-spindles, Lydia recognised it by the carving on the spindle and the wheel-like disc of the whorl, as one she had made herself as a girl from a local apple wood. She remembered boring out the hole in the centre for the spindle as if it had been yesterday, with its metal hook set into the tip which Llinos’ husband had made for her from a bent bit of wire.

“Yes, I’ve still got that one dearest!” Llinos said smiling and Lydia fell into her old routine in a moment. It was soon as if she’d never been away, as they worked and chatted merrily together.

“Sunwise or other Modryb?” Lydia asked the obvious question.

“I’m spinning sunwise darling, so if you’d do other.” Llinos answered her, as to prevent the yarn unwinding it was spun together in pairs, each single yarn twisted the opposite way and thus when they were spun together, they remained twisted, as useful woollen yarn.

The ancient four-stage process came to Lydia’s hands without thought once more, as she caught up with all the local news and gossip with her old friend and her nimble fingers were soon back in the old routine. Spin and catch, feed more fibre and draw, unhook and un-notch, wind, spin and catch. This was the repetitive imperative that she no longer had to devote most of her waking hours to, so the age-old chore was enjoyable to her now, as her quick fingers recalled the so-familiar patterns of movement in a blink. Even out on these wild eastern fringes, preparations were being made for the imminent Beltain fayre and Lydia chatted merrily to Llinos, helping her with the planning whilst doing the seemingly endless task of wool preparation and spinning.

Lydia spent a happy day visiting all the villagers, helping her aged and infirm neighbours of old and introducing herself to the new young chieftain on the high head of the western promontory. Once the young Bregedian Nêr realised that Lydia was Princess Eirwen of Galedon’s famed hand-maiden, he had his servant rushing about his new abode to offer her refreshment and hospitality. Following this enlightening and thrilling visit where to her delight, she had been treated as a lady of influence, Lydia had blessed each thatch she had visited in the usual and expected way but with her self-confidence soaring. Leading up to dusk, she then spent long hours foraging in the inland pastures and woodlands she knew so well, which rose and fell as the familiar Glyn Briall before the great promontory to the east. It formed a beautiful and deeply wooded valley she had explored and foraged as a child.

As the sun sank below the western mountains inland, at least an hour before sunset proper when a new day would begin, Lydia shared the delicious fish soup her mother had shown her how to prepare as a little girl. It had been made possible with a beautiful dressed sea-bass given to her by the new village Nêr; a new friend. This was bolstered with crisp samphire, wild sage, sea-beet, mussels, clams and a handful of slices thrown in from the hanging smoked ham and the mouth-watering aroma filled the smoky thatch, making the two dogs drool in anticipation.

Lydia spent an enjoyable evening regaling her mother with stories about her wayward, often rash royal mistress, her gruff and majestic father the King, and his terrifying ghost-warrior she had met last year. Lydia also shared with her mother her delight at her mistress’ pregnancy, looking forward to the birth around Lughnas and outlining the plans her royal patrons had already made for the child. Both dogs were curled up at her feet, snoozing and blissfully happy to hear her voice and Lydia relaxed in the warm and comforting glow of both the crackling hearth-fire, and a happy, productive day.

As night fell heavily on this tiny seaside community, the village settled down beneath it and the uncountable stars it suspended over them. The hearth in their thatch was an agreeable red glow now and both dogs were snoring gently. Lydia looked across the embers of the fire to her mother now, who was snoring in rhythm with her dogs and Lydia sighed, looking back down to the work in her hands. She was being picked up tomorrow off the beach for her return voyage to DunEryr, that high, snow-topped craggy fortress on the Aber of Linn Gwidan in Fotadina. A further two-day journey south with a trading caravan would see Lydia returned to Bidog in Albion, her new home and place of occupation as Gwraig y Let of Prince Cadwy’s CaerCarwyn.

It was the same each time on the last night of her annual visits home, as her emotions slowly mounted. It was leaving her Mam each time, in a little weaker state on each visit which tore at her the most, that and the guilt from wanting to leave again, missing her Princess and yearning for the new life the Gods had given her. She was a respected woman of Albion now, with a position of influence and importance in the town of Draenwen and she had never been happier than she was, at that happiest of northern market towns. She longed to see its clean orderly streets, full of laughing children and the rows of tidy golden thatches with the vibrant hanging baskets of flowers at each entrance.

The daffodils and crocuses will be out now all along the main road and the hawthorn which the town is named for, will have blossomed all along the banks of the Clwyd. The pens will be filled with fluffy-white, frolicking lambs and the surrounding forests will be carpeted with bluebells. Beautiful Bidog seemed a long way away at that moment and Lydia sighed. At least her aunt Llinos in the next enclosure was still able to care for her Mam. Without her beloved Modryb’s vital care, Lydia wouldn’t know what to do.

Getting up to put the spindle and the wool away, she crept out of the thatch, taking the yawning dogs out for a run along the beach before retiring for the night. As Lydia watched Granwen and Greid joyfully kick up sand in the darkness, she took some deep breaths of the salty sea air and looked back at her birthplace, huddled under the stars, but her melancholy wouldn’t budge. Her dogs began to bark then, looking out across the softly crashing waves with their ruffs standing, setting off the other dogs of the village. Lydia’s eyes narrowed and swept across the dark horizon, her heart banging in her throat and she was wide-awake suddenly.

People appeared at lantern-lit doorways, all wearing the same terrified expressions but one glance out to sea told them all and Lydia, that they were not about to be attacked again from the merciless and marauding Jutes. Just a single rowing boat approached this wild eastern coast of Gabrantofica from the open German sea, and it calmed Lydia and all these nervous werrin of Môrcorn. The flare of panic abated quickly, and Lydia heaved a great sigh of relief, watching with a scowl as the tiny little boat seemed to be heading for the beach, huddled below the foot of the distant forested headland to the east. It lay a little over a mile from where she and her now silent lurchers stood watching. 

That low, gliding vessel was little more than a black silhouette and it was filled with dark shadow-figures, all huddled over their oars. The small craft carved its way through the bright sword of yellow moonlight which blazed across the glittering sea. Lydia, Granwen and Greid watched absently as this dark and crowded rowing boat gained the lee of the distant promontory, before drawing swiftly up to the beach below it.

As the fishing village settled down again in darkness behind them, three black and hooded figures leapt from the prow of the boat as it ground to the sand and even from here, she could see the warriors draw three long swords. Another even bigger man jumped out and the armed trio stood silently facing the edge of the forest ahead of them, clearly guarding the last one ashore. Lydia’s curiosity overcame her melancholy briefly, as she watched the distant scenario unfold but her lurchers soon lost interest and bounded away.

Barely moments later, another dark figure broke from the tree-line and furtively approached this anonymous group of arrivals on the beach. Following a brief discourse, the five men then headed off together in single file into the woods and the distant shoreline became deserted once more.

Lydia shrugged her shoulders and headed back to her steadily smouldering thatch, as armed men skulking around in the dark was a common thing in Gabrantofica. In fact in Lydia’s growing experience, it was a common thing across northern Prydein. She whistled Greid and Granwen and the dogs came bounding to her, their bright pink tongues lolling.

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