Star of Mercia
Historical Tales of Wales and the
Marches by Blanche Devereux
With an Introduction by
Ernest Rhys
Jonathan Cape
Eleven Gower Street, London
First published 1922
All rights reserved
Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner, Frome and London
INTRODUCTION
There are three reading-publics to which atale-writer who attempts the uncertain businessof writing about Wales may appeal. One is thehomebred Welsh public that asks for a tale in theold tongue, yr hen iaith, and has never been quitesatisfied, I believe, by any novel or short storyabout its life, or its real or romantic concerns,written in English. The second is the quasi-Celticpublic, which may or may not know the Mabinogionor Borrow's Wild Wales, and is glad of anythingthat gets the romance atmosphere. The third isthe ordinary fiction-loving English public, whichasks for a good story, rather likes a Welsh backgroundas in Blackmore's Maid of Sker (a much better bookthan Lorna Doone to my mind), and does not troubleabout the fidelity of the local colour in the realityof the setting. It is from the second and thirdof these audiences that Miss Devereux can look togain her "creel-full of listeners," as the story ofThe Yellow Hag has it.
She has, to begin with, the genuine tale-teller'spower of using a motive, a bit of legend, or a proverbialand stated episode, and giving it fresh lifeand something original out of her own fantasy.In her way of narrative, she does not adopt anyrigorous ancientry. She has a sporting sense indealing with an archaic character like Mogneid,and is satisfied to see him hammer at a door withthe butt of his riding-whip. She will make Gildasand St. David or Dewi Sant, collogue as they neverdid in the old time before us; and devise a comedyand a drunkard's tragedy of her own for a wickedold sinner like King Gwrthyrn, just as she mixeschalk and charcoal freely in the Saxon cartoonsthat follow the Welsh. The important thing is,she makes her people live, and by the bold infusionof the same old human nature with prehistoricWelsh and old chronicler's English, she succeedsin creating a region of her own. It is not literallyCymric or Saxon; but it is instinct with thefears, loves, hopes and appetites that never decay,and realizes alike the drunkard's glut and thesaint's mixed piety and shrewd sense.
In her story of Saint David she has gone to theold "Lives" and the documents for some of hercolour. There are passages that may terrify themodern reader, who has no Welsh and does notknow how to pronounce Amherawdwr (the Welshform of imperator or emperor), Dyfnwal, Llywelor Cynyr. The average English reader who isbrought up on soft and sibilant C's and i-soundingY's will probably end by turning the last nameinto "sinner" in vain compromise. And possiblyMiss Devereux is too hard on the average un-Celticreader; for though she turns Gwy into Wye, sheretains Dyfi for Dovey. But these are the pleasantlittle inconsistencies that exist in every Englishwriter, from Shakespeare and Ben Jonson to SirWalter Scott and George Meredith, who has attackedthe impregnable old fortress of the British tongue.
It is interesting to compare the two tales ofwilder Wale