Gwenhwyfar

All our own work, though in different centuries. I wrote the words in the 1980s; Maz put them to music in the 2020s. This is the grand finale of the British folk front side of the new Sapphire Wedding album ("Peacocks Tales, launch and listening party on Bandcamp Sunday Dec 1 5 pm) and, particularly after the instrumental section recapitulates the various strands we've pursued in unison and harmony: folk song, poetry, British storytelling and the combination of all three. It's a worthy subject for this, the long glories of the Arthurian legend narrated in the style of ancient Welsh alliterative verse as they come to their tragic end, imbued with ancient mysticism and Celtic myths of the cycle of the seasons, and from the point of view of Gwenhwyfar, joined by Bedwyr, the dwindling Round Table and the centuries of elegising bards after the bridge.) A very different Gwenhwyfar from the cocky Norman minx of track 6. Lord Arthur is gone, I laud my Beloved: Cross on invincible shield, blood-red, Dragon on young-summer green, red, The terrible clatter of returning hooves. I never quite believed. Always feared him Dead. But he always came. Arthur is gone, I laud my Beloved: Swift white charger swooping like a spear On the bonfire builders, the wolvers of women, Scourging the rat run barbarian inroads, Animal tracks of attacking Saxon, His spur-tensed Britons beat back the Beast. (Then Llugh fought battles within himself, Cei fought his own rule, Bedwyr fought Llugh, And some sought long for the holy caldron, Sought it like a spoil of war, And, gentle as light, my Beloved loved me.) And Medraut gnawed through the golden years Myrddin called a threshold to the dark, And its beacon. Medraut, eyes on me Like a dog’s on the moon, snapping his moment. To Camlann the coastland, carried me off. Gone my Beloved, my Beloved I mourn. Bridge And little the faith I had yet in Arthur, The Angel campaigner, strong as light, His sun-bright stars above the wicked forest Seeming to fade. Rusty the scabbard, Still magic the sword. And, once more, he came. I’ve believed too little. I make my Confession. At last I understood. The flincher from spears, Medraut, was part of Arthur, his shadow, Chancel and gargoyle had to be cancelled Where all deeds are drowned, all swords returned: Avalon. And I’ll run no more. I’ve believed too little. I make my Confession. Night and this nunnery will fall. Ravens Will flock on the gore. Let others keep A glimmer, a glorious page, of Logres alight Until the dawn. My confession’s done. Still my heart waits for hoofbeats. (Still, my heart waits for hoofbeats…) © Gareth Calway 1991 credits from PEACOCK'S TALES (The Sapphire Wedding Album) Maz: lead vocal, acoustic guitar Gaz: bass, percussion, harmonium, howls, vocals and voice in Part 2, common flute The film combines a seasonal cycle - Medraut the winter king to Arthur's May king and with Gwenhwyfar's autumnal mood as Logres falls into the dark - with a lake supplying the hints of Celtic water divinity and our splendidly spacious heathland-situated alma mater (UEA) standing in for Logres, Camelot and civilisation.

Lady Guinevere - the music video

This Guinevere lyric is written in imitation of the French romance verse form (octosyllabic couplets giving a lighter, faster feel than the English iambic pentameter) and tries to evoke the medieval Guinevere of the troubadours of Provence rather than the Gwenhwyfar of Celtic myths and of Dark Age history (who will have her own very different song in the set). We wanted Guinevere to sound contemporary and confident, chipping against the beat of the courtly love tradition in which she was a love object rather than a love subject.

The original poem continues and concludes as follows:
I have a heart, self-determined
Core of I Am, God-underpinned,
Won on the Cross, for me. It can
Choose a beloved, a ‘husband’
The church would make him. But marriage
On earth’s not as it is (a rich
Royal land transaction) as one
With my Lancelot – in heaven.)  

lyrics

Lyric

Belle ami, si est de nous, ne vous sans moi, ni moi sans vous.

Let them play at boyish games round
A table. Though walled up, bound,
In an unpublished garden, stone
Tower with window, all alone,
This court still revolves around me.
I twist them all round my pretty
Little finger, a studded ring:
The champion knight, the poor king,
Modred, Gawain, my Lancelot.
It’s the only power I know.

Who waits… and do not wait to see  
The object of his worship pass,
Wasted, into this looking glass,
Wheat-hair, rose-lips, unsown, should he
Choose to deny himself – and me.

He comes through enchanted forests,
Rough-horses, haunted castles, mists;
From slaying giants, big bad knights:
Barons with feudal appetites;
Impossible quests for Our Lady,
Sowing wild seeds Love meant for me;
Obsessed so with courtly sin and
Confession – Indulgence’s twin;
Greets Artos, old friend – clash of mail 
(So grieved his crown still lacks a graal,
So tedious!) He comes to me  

Who waits… and do not wait to see  
The object of his worship pass,
Wasted, into this looking glass,
Wheat-hair, rose-lips, unsown, should he
Choose to deny himself – and me.

The Winter King (We're Only Making Plans For Nigel)

pic by Kevin Fackrell

Far away and long ago, the land was divided and leaderless. Barbarians invaded from north, east and south. A May king – a dragon head - was needed to unite the people and drive out the invaders. Such a king could prove himself by drawing out a wondrous sword from a weathered rock. Many years passed and many strong men failed. At last, a boy succeeded. His name was Nigel.

Nigel built a great fastness called Camelottery and trained a band of mounted warriors, called the 52 Brexiteers, employing the White Knight Sir Bors as his faithless deputy. And all we know who wears the jodhpurs in that marriage. Together, they drove out the invaders and the land grew in peace and plenty. Nigel married Gwenhwyfar, white phantom, first lady of these islands, the most beautiful woman in the world. And the people loved him.

But the traitor 48 and the witch Sturgeon tore the land apart again. It was no ordinary armed rebellion. There was a fell Celtic magic at its root. Aided as always by the wizard Murdoch, and bouyed up the far white Trump of Freedom, Nigel overcame even this but was mortally wounded and escorted from the field in the 120th minute by three blind maidens just before the penalty shoot out. 

Nigel's last request was that the brand of Britain, which gave him great power, be cast back into the faery lake from which it came. He was last seen being shipped out by the maidens beyond the red dragon sunset of Breck's Isle to the lunatic isle of Elba, where he will live on as a Maimed King and return to slave us in our darkest hour.  This one.