Mari Lwyd (Mah'-ree Loyd:)
Shantyman Season 1 Episode 4
Welcome to the fourth episode of my free serial adventure! If you don’t wish to receive these weekly (this season is only six episodes total) you can choose to only receive monthly updates in your subscription settings. Thanks, friends!
Haul on the bowline, before the day was dawnin’.
Haul on the bowline, the bowline HAUL!
The Dawnswyr paced up and down along the Californian coast while her crew waited for fog to unveil their destination. Finally, the sun appeared between patchy clouds and the fog dissipated enough to find the right cliff out of a seemingly endless rocky coastline. Captain Morris commanded them to anchor near a narrow inlet to a very large bay. Everyone kept busy with the usual work until low tide. Then Captain Morris addressed the crew.
“Men, you’ve served me well to get us to our first destination. Mr. Rhys, choose a landing party. Mr. Weaver, I leave the ship with you. Double rations for the crew left on board!”
The looks and nods he gave his first and second mate didn’t escape Jack Hudson’s notice. The shantyman knew they were there to collect a relic, but not much more than that. Any questions regarding what business they could possibly have on a desolate, rocky coastline fled the rest of the crew’s minds at the mention of double rations.
Mr. Rhys selected a dozen men to launch and man the captain’s gig, including the shantyman, and armed them all with pistols. Rowing was a much less trying task without a ship dragging along behind. Jack whistled a common shanty tune, keeping the tempo even when pulling his oar stole the sound from his breath. They rowed directly up to the cliff face, just under a perfect landing jutting out of the base of the black cliff. Directly northward along the rocky coast, there was a cave opening large enough for one man to walk through comfortably.
Two men nearest the prow climbed the short distance up to the ledge and held the boat’s ropes as commanded. The others scrambled up and Captain Morris assigned orders, first to the men holding the boat steady and then the rest of the landing party.
“You’ll hold her until we get back unless we don’t return before high tide. Stay as long as you can stand on this ledge. If you can no longer hold her, return to the ship and come looking for us at the next low tide. The rest of you, with me.”
“Aye, Captain.” Everyone assented.
“You’ll be needing this, Hudson.” Mr. Rhys said as he drew Jack’s violin from under a sailcloth in the boat.
Jack was a little perturbed that Mr. Rhys snuck his instrument on board rather than ask him to bring it. But he said nothing. Jack was wise enough to reason that perhaps the second mate had wished to keep it from most of the crew. Bringing it himself would have saved a lot of hassle.
The rest of the landing party, half a dozen men, filed through the cave entrance after their captain with Mr. Rhys bringing up the rear. The procession naturally halted inside the first small cavern while their eyes attempted to adjust to the darkness.
“I can grab a torch from the boat.” One of the men turned to backtrack.
“Belay that.” The Captain said and then turned to Jack. “Play something. Anything, just do it slowly.”
The shantyman obeyed, turning the tuning knobs as he heard need during the first couple of lines of Loch Lomond. By the time he reached the chorus, there’d been a couple of short, faint rumbles.
“Slower,” Captain Morris spoke lowly, like one would in church.
A few drawn-out notes into the chorus, the rumble started again. Pebbles fell from the cave roof.
“There! Play that one,” the captain ordered.
Jack couldn’t have drawn the bow more majestically across the second string if he were Michaelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel. The rumble crescendoed. Jack played on. Slivers of light appeared through the roof of the cave and grew with the roar of rock scraping rock. Light streamed through openings that grew until they were perfect dinnerplate-sized holes bored through the thick roof of the cave.
“Stop,” Captain Morris ordered with a wave of his hand.
The holes allowed columns of dazzling sunlight into the cave. A line of vivid dots on the cave floor plotted a straight line further inland. Faint illumination beyond the sunny columns revealed the cavern walls and the men froze, marveling at the sight. Wonder makes no distinctions of rank or age when she strikes.
The layers of sediment formed undulating lines in the cavern walls. Though the top layers alternated the expected earthy brown and gray tones, the colors changed nearer the water. First a bright lichen green, then an orange hue. The orange faded seamlessly to pastel pink which then to a faded but lovely purple. The sedimentary lines flowed to and fro within these colors, leading the men’s gazes toward the back of the cave. A glimmer here, a shimmer there, increasing inward added to the lure of the back of the cavern.
In moments, every man among them stared into the depths and few could contain their awe. Crystalline structures lined the deepest parts of the wide room and a tunnel that led further into the rock. Light glittered unevenly off the walls, brightest near each stream of light from above.
“Felly mae'n wir!” Mac Gruffyd broke the spell.
“Aye, ‘tis true lads.” The Captain answered in English for the shantyman’s sake, for everyone else there understood the Welshman’s exclamation. “The red dragon’s caves exist.”
“I’d have thought you’d have brought a harpist in keeping with tradition. Or a Welshman at the very least.” Another sailor boldly challenged Captain Morris’s choice of Jack Hudson for the quest.
“I brought a music man we can trust. And that’s far more important than the instrument he plays or the parish he was born in.” The Captain left no room for any more protests. He immediately turned and followed the dotted path of light into the tunnel, allowing his fingers to bump gently along the crystal-lined wall.
“Don’t take anything. Not a crumb.” Mr. Rhys warned the men.
But the cave had a sacred air about it and only a heart saturated in greed would have dared vandalize it. Captain Morris slowed and the group halted behind him. The men started to murmur about the wonders of the spiked, gemstone-lined walls while they waited for their leader to proceed.
“Sh.” Captain Morris said and held up a finger.
They stood under the last of the skylights and peered into the darkness. The Captain turned his head to listen better and soon the men heard it, too. A low moan emerged from deep in the mountain.
Captain Morris stepped forward tentatively and searched the walls around him. The final hole in the roof of the cave ran upward for a long time before opening to the ground level.
“We’ve gotten too deep into the cliff. There has to be another light source. Shantyman, try again.”
Jack understood the task better. This time, he started low and played a chromatic scale. As the notes rose by half-steps, tension filled the air. The landing party waited for whatever miracle Jack might trigger next.
For a few moments, they’d forgotten about the moaning from ahead. Then, Jack struck a note and a woman’s voice echoed from ahead. He stopped. It was brief and unintelligible, but none doubted what they heard.
“Cyhyraeth? The sign of death,” said one sailor with a shaky voice.
“No, surely a morgen to lure us to our demise in some pool,” said another.
“Enough. Continue Hudson. But let’s avoid whatever note that was for the time being.”
So the shantyman slowly made his way through each note until he played notes that were quite high.
“Wait! Go back a couple. Nice and slow,” Captain Morris ordered. “I swear I saw better for just a moment.”
The shantyman obeyed. Three half-steps down, the darkness thinned. Soon, the party could see a glow off the crystal-lined walls. The crew followed the light upward and several gasps resulted. There was a meandering path of illuminated crystal in the roof, like a river of light flowing above their heads.
Jack Hudson lowered his violin and marveled with the rest of the men. The Captain continued to lead them down the path, but within minutes the light began to fade.
“It looks like you’ll have to keep it up, Hudson.” Mr. Rhys said from behind him.
Jack, being the music man that he is, didn’t just play an endless high D; he played a soaring melody in fourth position that strengthened the men’s spirits and lightened their hearts. Unbeknownst to the crew, he carefully avoided the note that previously resulted in an eerie answer. Only the Captain at the front of the procession still heard the moaning noises, which grew increasingly agitating, over the song.
“Hudson,” the Captain called from the front. “Come here, please.”
Jack paused his melody and made his way past the men. In the absence of his tune, the groaning noises struck the party anew. It was a low grating and whine combined that accosted their nerves. Tensions rose faster than flags up a signal line and several men rested their hands on their weapons.
As he squeezed past the short line of men, Jack struck his arm on a crystal but quickly forgot about the scrape when he drew up next to Captain Morris.
Before him was an immense cavern, at least fifty feet across. His gaze followed the illuminated crystal around the domed ceiling of the chamber. It was a halo over the entire room, though nothing about it seemed heavenly. Directly below, the crystal threw light on a wide landing that circled along the cave wall. The path was wide enough for one man to walk, but not quite comfortable enough for two.
A couple of feet lower than the level of the roughly circular pathway, water filled the rest of the room. In the center of the dimly lit subterranean pond, a boat sat anchored. It was a hide boat, in the fashion of St. Brendan. Torn sales and a scraped hull indicated that the boat had seen at least one rough voyage, but it didn’t appear aged in any other way.
“Yes, Captain?” Jack reported for whatever duty he’d been called.
“There.” Captain Morris pointed to the water and Jack briefly saw a spiny dorsal fin before the creature submerged. “Morgens or sirens as you’d call them. Don’t look them in the eye. But they’ll hold the secret instructions for recovering the tablet.”
Technically, Jack believed in many nonhuman entities. Giants and whisps. Angels and demons. But mermaids? Sirens? But he didn’t have time to decide whether he believed his captain or not. His responsibility was to obey orders as far as his conscience allowed.
“What would you like me to do, sir?”
“Play that note.”
“What that made the voice answer last time?”
“Aye. Do you know the one?”
“Aye.”
Jack hesitated a moment. Resolutely, he drew the bow downward. The note rang out. Just as he began to slide the bow upward, they heard it again.
The ear-grating sound echoing through the cavern altered slowly. First, it lost the grating sound. Then, the whining note divided into several that harmonized together. When these settled into perfectly blended women’s voices, a tension that no one had realized was there, vaguely behind each man’s ears, resolved. There were sighs of relief. Shoulders dropped from reaching toward the ears tensely to a relaxed position.
The song the creatures sang was an epic adventure. After several minutes of Jack playing that same note, the morgens had sung several stanzas. But the adventure they described had only begun.
No one was bored with the monotony of the violin. In fact, the morgen’s opus mesmerized the crew. They sat to listen. Then they drooped, lazily leaning back on their arms. Some even reclined on the jagged walls and others made a pillow of his neighbor’s outstretched legs. Even Captain Morris sat cross-legged on the pathway and leaned his head and all back against the wall just inside the large room.
But Jack stood.
Jack tried to warn the men to get up and stay alert. He knew that they might be lulled into an unbreakable slumber. He also knew that he had to keep playing. This song had to be the key to their next move.
But it was more than honor that kept Jack upright. The unending note resonated through his very being. It counteracted the siren song, keeping every cell in his body vibrantly awake. In fact, it dawned on him that his arm no longer hurt where he’d run into the crystal. The combination of the morgen’s song and his own monotonous accompaniment had healed the abrasion. And yet, the other men lay lulled into unconsciousness.
That’s the design. One man, one music man could receive the message. Only a poet could retrieve the secret of Caedmon’s tablet.
“Get on with it!” He shouted toward the water. “I don't want to leave this tomb alone!”
A tiny whale-like tail of sickly green slapped the water and a wretched screech echoed off the walls. The men stirred and looked around confused.
The morgens took up their song again and the men settled like dust into their slumber again. By some miracle, the morgens obeyed Jack and skipped to a later piece of the epic. A hero. A treasure. A sea voyage. A passage through the earth. Lives given to protect such a precious stone.
Anyone listening might think the instructions would lead to a diamond or ruby. No, the morgens song gave clues for retrieving one of the Tablets of Caedmon: vernacular verse inspired by the Holy Scriptures carved in Northumbrian granite. The song described a battle, not of sword or bow, but of verse. Light, dark, knowledge and hope passed through poets.
Suddenly the song changed. A solo voice sang a verse, but Jack couldn’t understand. Then the shantyman’s violin rang out alone.
Jack wondered if that was it. Puzzled, he lowered his violin. Once again, the groaning, screeching moan began. It crescendoed until all the men shifted. Captain Morris leaned forward onto his hands and knees, questions written all over his face directed toward Jack.
“The last verse, sir. I can’t understand it. It’s in…Well, now I think about it I think it’s Welsh, sir.”
“It makes sense.” The Captain’s voice was sleepy and hoarse. “Play again. I’ll do everything in my power to stay awake.”
Jack played the same note as before. Again, one voice sang these words:
Wel dyma ni'n diwad
Gyfeillion diniwed
I ofyn cawn gennad
I ofyn cawn gennad
I ofyn cawn gennad i ganu.
“The Mari Lwyd! You must answer, Hudson.”
“The Christmas party to-do? I don’t know any Welsh, sir!”
“Then sing it in English! You must know the Sans Carol.
“No sir.”
“For This Morning?”
“No.”
“How are we from the same island? Here, I’ll sing the first verse. She will answer and I then don’t think I’ll be able to stay awake for long. You’ll just have to sing the Boars Head or Good King Wenceslas or something. She’ll continue to answer until the ritual is over.”
“Then what?”
“Well, at the Christmas party, the procession moves to the next pub. Here, your guess is as good as mine.”
The shantyman continued to play the same tiresome note. Captain Morris didn’t waste any more time on conversation and began to sing a Welsh carol. They say there’s no such thing as a Welshman who can’t sing. The captain did his countrymen no disservice as he sang For This Morning.
Ar gyfer heddiw'r bore, 'n Faban bach, 'n Faban bach;
Y ganwyd gwreiddyn Jesse, 'n Faban bach.
The siren answered and the Captain fell into his slumber with a faint smile, knowing that the ritual proceeded and he was one chorus closer to his goal. After the soprano voice finished the next piece of the Mari Lwyd, the Shantyman sang the Boar’s Head as Captain Morris suggested.
The boar's head in hand bear I,
bedecked with bay and rosemary;
And I bid you, my masters, be merry,
Quot estis in convivio.
Caput apre defero
Redens laudes Domino.
Caput apre defero
Redens laudes Domino.
Back and forth the songs echoed through the caverns, the siren and then the shantyman. Jack couldn’t resist playing the tune along, but so long as he answered in song the morgens continued the Mari Lwyd. Finally, the morgens decided the ritual was over and they sang the traditional farewell of Mari.
Ffarweliwch, foneddigion,
Ni gawsom croeso digon.
Bendith Duw f'o ar eich tai
A phob rhyw rhai o'ch dynion.
Which means:
Farewell, gentlemen,
We were not welcomed enough.
God bless your houses
And all of your men.
Jack ceased playing and the grinding, screeching sound of the morgens resumed. The men stirred, shifted from their awkward drooping positions and slowly returned to the awakened world.
“I think I’ve done whatever I was meant to, Captain.”
Captain Morris rose sleepily and stood next to Jack. Dark green shapes of three to four feet long swam clockwise around the pool. Occasionally a wide froggish face or a spiny dorsal fin would appear above water only to disappear with a violent slap of a translucent green tail. After a few moments, they realized the water churned along with the nasty creatures, swirling constantly faster.
“I think you have, mate.”
The other men joined them gawking at the whirling pool.
“Captain, it’s gooin’ down!” Mr. Rhys shouted.
And sure enough, boulders emerged in front of them as the water sank away. The boat remained straight ahead in the center, resting on a perfectly smooth pillar of dappled rock. The pillar was smaller than the hull of the boat giving the appearance of a model balanced on a display stand.
“Where’s the water getting to?” Mac Gruffyd voiced the question on every man’s mind. The water level fell and fell until the boulders became pillars of rock that seemed to rise from the abyss.
“I don’t care where it’s going. I just want what’s on that boat.”
“Aye, aye!” And the sailor leaped forward from pillar to pillar until he stood before the boat. Jack watched him take a few breaths and understood his trepidation. Would the ancient-looking vessel crumble under his weight?
Mr. Rhys hadn’t chosen cowards for his landing party. After one moment to summon his bravery, Gruffyd bounded forward and landed with a solid thud, his body draped over the hull.
As he carefully climbed into the boat, the rest of the party held their breath. No one said a word. He would still need to make it back across the giant stepping stones with the heavy tablet. Mac looked around the boat, obviously not seeing anything too exciting.
“What am I looking for?”
“A stone tablet.” Mr. Rhys answered.
“Like the Ten Commandments?” He said walking towards the stern.
“Smaller. But that’s the idea.”
He picked up a bundle of cloth and unwrapped it. The tablet. To Jack, all the world fell dark except the scene before him, which seemed to radiate with saintly significance. Captain Morris closed his eyes and took a long slow breath before speaking in a voice full of forced steadiness.
“Alright, now get it back safely lad and we’ll be out of here.”
Mac Gruffyd leaped back across the pillars and the men cleared the way for his final landing. He handed the cloth-covered tablet to the Captain who hugged it like a long lost child.
“Diolch yn fawr, hogyn.” The Captain’s voice was thick with emotion. “Thank you, laddie.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Gruffyth said like he would if he’d just completed any normal sailing task.
The cavern dimmed slightly.
“Better give us a tune for some light, Hudson. To the boat, men.”
