The handful of gifted storytellers who ply this
country, still recall the didactic story of the Cornafau Anfar and the hubris
which had brought them low. Many of their ancient rules and regulations were
recalled by the Bards and the story often descended into a dull litany, riddled
with dry lists and boring moral invective but storytellers come in all shapes
and sizes in Prydein. The sobering story of the Cornafau Fawr is taught to
children across Prydein and Gallia and remains a firm favourite with the more
professional story tellers to this day.
*
* * * *
“The two great families which had come to dominate
our early world, were from two distinctly different races. One was the House of
Caleb, whose tribe was civilised and sophisticated and had taken to burying
their dead with distinctive drinking beakers of a fine design and a subtle
beauty. The second great family was the House of Grut, a dark mountain tribe of
merciless hunter-killers, who were everything the House of Caleb were not. The
House of Grut had perfected their method of battle using huge double-headed
battle axes of perforated stone and the giant warriors who wielded them, were
buried with these fearsome weapons.
The Cornafau were naturally gigantic, as were
their truly ancient Godly progenitors and these two hale tribes lived in
some-sort of peace with each other, mostly by keeping their distance. This
didn’t last however and eventually as they were so different, they came to war
with each other. Thus, they fought among themselves for many centuries one
family against the other, cleaving off each other’s heads with a great and
furious difficulty until in time, their numbers were reduced to just
thirty-three male warriors and thirty-three female warriors in each of the two families.
This marked a cessation in their warring and ended the long bloody years of PenAgr Fawr, the great ‘early age’ of
head-taking, which inspired the enduring and honoured cult of the head-hunter
and stimulated those wild and ancient Bards to write these enduring englyns.
In this long period of time and thus reduced, the
two families eventually came to yearn for peace and let from the long ages of
slaughter and sought to rebuild the amity between themselves, which they did at
their great council after much violent debate, deciding to separate and remain
apart. Many years of peace and harmony were then known to them and they built
their massive houses and halls apart from each other, settling to the earth and
begetting many children, all of whom were still buried with either a
fine-looking beaker or a stone axe but neither tribe would associate with the
other. They were great warriors all and soon became restless with the boredom
of peace and eventual loneliness, but they kept their blood-oaths, as they had
never yet broken one. In this frustrating time they drifted away from their
Gods and neglected them, thinking no more of them and this caused a black,
twisting upheaval of vengeful wrath in the Underworld below. In response to
this neglect, Lug and Camulo together made a spell of ‘adamantine’ on these
people as a test but more as an amusement and to settle a gambit between them.
Only two such powerful Gods working in complete harmony could make so powerful
a magic and that earth-shaking, omnipotent spell transformed the twin tribes into
the Cornafau Anfar, the immortal ones!
These now immortal
giants were thus impervious to any wound, which would heal itself quickly once
the offending weapon was removed from the body. Many wounding weapons could also
be borne by these huge, now immortal warriors and withdrawn at ease, with
little pain or discomfort witnessed. Their wounds would heal by the count of
three and only three tiny drops of blood were allowed to fall from each wound.
These fearsome and immortal giants however, could be slain still but only by
each other and that by cutting off the head of the vanquished, clean and with a
blade of metal or hewn stone.
Over the following centuries, the mountains of ice
which had conquered and occupied the earth melted away, revealing a much bigger
world to those warlike and impervious giants. Marvellously made invulnerable to
all others, they determined together to conquer all the newly revealed surrounding
lands of the mortals and to gather much war booty and many heads for their
amusement. Thus enjoined, they were the rulers of all the high Caucasus
mountain Kingdoms of the giants and their cunning Alchemist priests had devised
a way of preserving the taken heads of the mortals in cedar oil, as the severed
heads of the immortals never perished. So the Cornafau Anfar pleased with the
work of their holy men, took their dread army to the lowlands to make a great
and bounteous reaping of mortal heads.
Following uncountable years of slaughter and the
taking of mountains of severed heads, this dark and perilous period of history
became known as PenAgr Fach. A thousand years of joyful slaughter had passed
and the jaded giants of the Cornafau Anfar eventually turned their gaze toward
the sacred isles of Prydein. These giants of the Cornafau Anfar had become
complacent over this vast period of time and when they waded across the German
Sea to invade Prydein, it is told that they came ashore at a most beautiful and
abundant cove.
There was much shade under blossoming trees in
this sheltered bay and the air was cool and sweet with the fragrance of their
bounty. The spring water which flowed from a musical brook nearby was like the
finest wine and all around, the boughs in the orchards were heavy with the
sweetest and most luscious fruit. Here the Cornafau Anfar came to abandon all
thoughts of conquest and put-aside their two patron Gods, to worship a woman
who awaited them there, a cunning woman who cleverly deceived them with magic
to believe she was the Goddess Isis. The warriors forgot their intended and
oath-sworn invasion and made themselves comfortable on the soft yellow sand,
whilst the woman sang to them in such exquisite tones, they became completely
enraptured. They praised her and adored her, promising their devotion and
making oaths to her sanctity and to her future worship.
‘Isis of the Cove’ demurred but whilst accepting
their devotion, instructed them to continue their conquest, as they would need
a Dun of their own from which to conquer the fabled land of the Brythons. The
Cornafau Anfar needed no second invitation to do battle and in earnest honour
of Isis of the Cove, they dedicated the coming battle to her and not to Lug and
Camulo as they had done for so many uncounted centuries, adding immeasurable
injury to insult. Lug and Camulo were
deeply wounded at their loss of respect and glory and their amity was
hard-strained at the treason of these immortal giants, so they decided that the
adamantine spell would be undone without their knowledge and at a particular
time of their own choosing. The two Gods embraced in their Underworld lair and
then rose up together to drive away the imposter from the Cove, before drawing
near to the field of battle and there took gambit on various aspects of the
imminent slaughter.
The immortal giants of the Cornafau Anfar moved to
slaughter their first tribe of aboriginal Brythons, to claim more land and to make
more murder, for more booty and many more prized heads. This they did at a
careless walking pace amid much laughter, playfulness and drunkenness. Certain
they could not be killed except by one of their own and as they were sworn with
a sacred oath of blood in this regard, they strode onward in fine mood,
clapping each other on their huge backs and smiling broadly. Half of them carried
ancient swords, whilst the other half swung enormous double-headed axes of
edged and polished blue stone. The Cornafau Anfar paused not at the sight of
the great host of warriors arrayed before them on the fortified and palisaded
heights of a hillfort. Laughing and joking amongst each other, they sauntered
up to the battlements and bestrode the ditches, expecting fully to slay the
diminutive enemy to the last man, woman, child and beast within the small
fortress. The little children and beasts would then be roasted together on the
iron spits and devoured in the grand feast which was sure to follow, after the
dull labour of plucking out small spears, swords and axes, whilst swinging
heavy weapons and splashing in blood for many hours. At the very point when the
first war spear was thrown from the battlements, Lug and Camulo unmade their
cunning work and their adamantine spell of invincibility was broken in a flash,
the Giants’ invincible power rescinded forever.
The Cornafau Fawr
strutted toward their enemy with the most extreme arrogance as was their
custom, but they knew not that their time on this Earth had ended. They began
to receive a great many injuries, as clouds of arrows and spears flew from the
battlements and tore into their flesh, felling a few of those gigantic warriors
from the onslaught. When the Brythons saw that the rumours were untrue, that
their foe were indeed giants but in every way mortal, they stormed over their
battlements and poured into the giants below like an unstoppable landslide of
sharpened iron and bronze. The giants were stunned to inaction with absolute
disbelief as however small their enemy, they were fierce and fearless beyond
belief and there were thousands of them. The Cornafau were scythed-down like
gigantic stalks of ripe wheat and Lug and Camulo’s dark Underworld was drenched
in their rare blood, as the ancient line of giants were swarmed as if by ants
and cut to pieces, almost to a man and to a woman.
Two warriors from the House of Caleb; the honoured
and respected Gŵyr Calebo ap Calebello and his daughter
Gawres Cunagallo ferch Calebo were survivors of this historic blood-letting,
who were delayed from the battle by a large band of drunken mercenaries who had
attempted to way-lay them. They had easily scattered their robbers but then
came late upon the battlefield and saw before them a great and terrible
slaughter, which had destroyed their people. Staying hidden and looking over a
nearby hill, they witnessed their once immortal
brothers being cut to pieces amid great celebration by the victorious defenders.
The tiny enemy warriors with their red dragon pennants, were dancing and
singing in their victory and were red from head to foot with the gore of their
efforts. Father looked at daughter and they both guessed the worst. Calebo and Cunagallo
withdrew carefully and began to plan their uncertain future as they trotted
away.
There was too another survivor that day, one from
the wild ranks of House Grut and he was known as GrutArd and he was known too,
to be a monstrous and black-hearted Chieftain. GrutArd was a notorious
head-hunter, who longed to murder and loved nothing more than to feast on the
tender flesh of captured children. Eschewing the hours of sweaty axe-slinging
and the plucking-out of stinging barbs, he had drifted backwards in the
sauntering crowd of immortal giants, to slink away to the rear-guard of the
formation. Planning to run-in at the end to claim his share of the spoils, he
eased himself down on to a comfortable seat on the grass, where he could watch
the amusement. GrutArd threw his beautifully pierced blue stone battle-axe to
the turf at his feet, before pulling a small amphora of wine from his tunic and
he took a long swig. At the outset of battle, GrutArd saw the death of the
first immortal and he coughed up a gout of red wine and spittle in shock. The
gouts of blood emanating from his mortally wounded relations had told their own
story however and GrutArd slunk away in stunned disbelief, as the shocking one-sided
slaughter had ensued.
As fate would have it, these two surviving parties
from each family met later that morning further north, at one of the eleven
great and holy crossroads of Prydein. Both parties were unsure as to whether
they were still immortal or not and this uncertainty caused them to pause and
eye each other suspiciously. Both senior men were suddenly consumed with a
great hatred for each other as old enmities resurfaced amid the uncertainty, bringing
with them painful memories of long-dead ancestors, killed in the internecine
blood-letting of ancient history.
“Blackguard and thief!” Spat Gŵyr Calebo, drawing his great sword.
“Ha and where were you, you mouse?” GrutArd roared
back at him, hefting his huge blue stone battle-axe and spitting into the
ground between them in the age-old tradition.
The young Lady Cunagallo moved smartly to stand
between the two great warriors with her arms outstretched, arguing for calm and
the need for prudent discussion. The daughter although famously ferocious,
remained unarmed and argued bravely for diplomacy and repeated to the two huge
warriors, that they were the last three Cornafau in existence and should be
allies and friends not enemy. Although Calebo was amenable, the undeniable
hatred of GrutArd could not be appeased however and so they circled each other,
each on the very point of attack and only the calming, mellifluous words of Lady
Cunagallo kept them apart.
Her intellect and fine vocabulary were her weapons
and her immutable reasoning was her shield. Cunagallo was perceptive,
compelling and true and she called upon all the Gods to confirm her proposal;
that each warrior must go to the very opposite ends of Prydein, never to meet
again. Gawres Cunagallo ferch Calebo was answered mightily by Arglwydd Taranu
himself right over their heads, making them fall and prostrate themselves to
the ground in fear. All three were scared witless, for nothing strikes fear
into the hearts of Brythons even the
immortal ones, like the terrifying prospect of the heavens falling on their
heads.
For an hour, the three were pinned to the earth by
the maelstrom of forked lightning and hailstones which Fwlch and Taranu hurled
at them in their displeasure, acting as Ambassadors for the two piqued Gods;
Lug and Camulo. Fwlch scorched and scoured the earth around them with bolts of his
pure brilliant fury, whilst Taranu blasted them with curses, threats and
insults but also with the strict demand that they must obey, or they would no longer
hold back the venom of Lug and Camulo and their fate would be sealed.
Once Fwlch and Taranu were done and moved away,
the three stood once more and whilst suitably subdued, it was very clear that
the mutual hatred remained. However, they decided in their wisdom to take the
oath proposed by Cunagallo and offered by the two Lords of the Sky, to do as
bid and each great Gŵyr swore an oath to take themselves to the
very ends of Prydein and so to never meet again, until the end of days.
Gŵyr Calebo must migrate south and west, to
the very toe of Prydein and there settle a southern tribe; the Cornafau Dde,
the tribe of the Sword and War-Horn. GrutArd was to travel northwards, to the
very crown of Prydein and to establish his people there on the Coast of the
Black Bull. This great tribe became the Cornafau Ddu, the tribe of the
Battle-Axe and War-Horn and who would one day produce the first Gadwyr warrior.
GrutArd agreed to this but with great reluctance, as this dark and dread
warrior had been accustomed to doing precisely what he pleased over the many
centuries of his debauched and depraved life. It was then that GrutArd in a fit
of spite had sundered the sacred hill of DunAlclwyd in two and to the very
ground, when he passed on that bitter northward journey of his into myth and
legend.
Gawres Cunagallo was tasked to travel to the very
heart of Prydein and establish her tribe in the midlands there, to act as
mediator, sentinel and buffer between the two warring warriors for all time. So
in the heart of this great country, Cunagallo ferch Calebo founded the great,
wealthy and much respected tribe of the Cornafau Calon; the tribe of the
Crossed War-Horns and who became known too as the People of the Tactful Heart.
If two travelling warrior mercenaries of the
future, offspring from either opposing tribe should ever meet, they would
instantly know that each was mortal enemy to the other, at a distance of twenty
reeds and by a great clamour in their heads. This was so that they could both
either remove themselves or set about each other smartly as they saw fit and
then fight to the utter death. Should more than one warrior ever come to fight
as in a shield-wall or a gang, they would be removed from this earth by the
Gods in an instant, to live in a silent black cave for eternity and to never
reach the Underworld, and so would never return to this world in whatever form.
Only single combat could be enjoined by those wild old warriors and even that
deplored given their God’s-given alarm, which had been physically impossible to
ignore but which also ceased in an instant should the warriors withdraw, or
attack as they often did. Not only do the glorious Gadwyr hail from these heroic
ancients, the Ailyllwr also claim
lineage from this truly primeval line of progenitors and state that their
intuitive, built-in alarm whispers and their shape-shifting almost mythical
hunting abilities, are a small remnant of this clarion call to ‘enemy-close’
and felt only by the direct descendants of those long-dead immortals. These giants and legendary immortals are long gone from
this earth and the powerful curses and restrictions which bound them are long-forgotten
too, to all but a few.
The Cornafau Calon have since this ancient time of
foundation, kept good relationships with their sister tribe the Cornafau Dde in
the far south, with regular trade and intermarriage with their families. They
have good relationships with their northern, highland relatives of the Cornafau
Ddu too, with occasional cross-marriages and more irregular trading. However,
they are oath-sworn in blood to the debt of all their bloodline, to always
remain neutral in the ancient and irredeemable Galanas between the northern and southern Cornafau families, one
that goes back those countless generations to the very beginning of time.
Moreover, they are sworn never to invite or receive a person of both tribes in
one of their Ports, Duns or Towns at one time together, for fear of the
greatest violence and slaughter ensuing from this eternal ‘blood-feud’.
Although the perceived descendants of the Cornafau
Fawr have fought in armies and shield-walls in recent generations, no warrior
has suffered the mental clamour for a similar length of time, except perhaps in
reduced form by the matchless Ailyr. Many thought the curse had faded over the
centuries but the Cornafau still hold-on to the old traditions in many ways,
now mostly for ceremony and the perpetuity of their culture and history. The
Cornafau Calon are sworn to remain neutral to this ancient Galanas and oath-sworn
further, to only offer hospitality to one tribe of the Cornafau or the other,
at one time. They are further sworn to endeavour to do all that is right, to
keep the enemy warriors apart from each other if by accident they should meet
on their lands, as in the past once two opposing tribesmen were enjoined in
death-combat a huge storm of violence erupted, and a great hue and cry was
thrown up by the fight, resulting in great collateral damage and death.
The mediators of Prydein; the modern Cornafau
Calon, have become extremely wealthy in the intervening centuries, a great deal
coming from trade and almost all their imported goods arrived via their Porth
Defed, the safe harbour situated inside a fine bend of the Afon Dyfrdwy. Most
of their vast wealth however, has been accrued by their assiduously prosecuted
legal and diplomatic systems. Protected by their authority and by the walled
stronghold of CaerDyfry, a little over six miles from the estuary of Aber Dyfrdwy
in Breged and facing the major arterial river of Arglwydd Linn Belissama, their
port had flourished.
Iddel ap Madoc’s Druids and Officials at
CaerUricorn are renowned not just for their famed diplomacy, but also for their
necessarily accurate celestial calculations. They have become empirical in
these heavenly deductions, so that all their dealings with their clients,
especially their two warring and related tribes are done to the strictest
schedule of the calendar, agreed in advance with all parties. Both extreme Houses
of the Cornafau are told exactly when they can send their caravans north or
south to their bustling markets in the wealthy heart of Prydein. This constantly
adjusted calendar must always and necessarily be strictly adhered-to and it has
been thus for thirty-three generations. The last time two mortal warriors of
north and south met accidentally was fourteen generations ago, when a
descendant of GrutArd called Grutimon lost his head to a descendant of Gŵyr Calebo, known as one Gŵyr Caleborno.
The sacred arms of these two great ancestors
Caleborno and Grutimon are kept in reverence by this neutral, midland tribe to
this day and in great secrecy. The bright and terrifying soul reaping blade of
Gŵyr Caleborno from the southern tribe of Calebo, was
reverentially laid alongside the monstrous, blue-black and pierced, bone
splitting Axe of Nêr Grutimon of the northern tribe of
GrutArd, forged as it was from alien meteorite steel. These priceless and
ancient icons have become more than the weapons of the Cornafau’s predecessors,
as they had over the generations become mythical treasures to the three tribes.
Both the stone axe and the sword had to be secretly enshrined, as they are
rumoured to possess unassailable magic power and the Bards sing, that no wound
caused by either blade, steel or stone would ever heal. The Cornafau Calon
remain the spiritual leaders and a legal and religious powerbase for all three
families of the great Tribe of the War-Horn but neither north nor south could
ever touch or even see the wondrous blades of their two ancestors. They were
kept forever secret to them, lest one of them should take-up one of the weapons
and lay asunder the whole of Prydein. The head-hunting immortal warriors of the
Cornafau Anfar have passed from this living world long ago but there are still
whispered rumours in the extreme northern and southern tribes that now and
again somewhere, another immortal is born.…”
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