Gwel-A-Throt

Gwel-A-Throt

A Modern Day Faery Tale

* * *

I can't remember when I started walking the road to this place. If I think back too far, the memories turn into dreams, which turn into nightmares- and then they turn into half-conscious mumblings and darkness. From that point, I wake up, feeling hot, with an aching head.

Everyday, I walk down these lanes, constantly stopping to look at the endless miles of brambles that line the roads. They have blackberries in them, and I like to pick big, plump ones, and smash them between my thumb and my pointing finger, watching the black blood flow into my palm. There are stains on my fingers and hands from it. I eat some of them, but often I find them to be bitter, even when they looked ripe.

The sun never really shines here, but that is fine by me, because She is never seen in broad daylight. It's only when the insects start to chirr, and the yellow moon peaks out from behind endless walls of jagged clouds, that I start to feel stirred inside, and alert. I feel purposeful again, looking across the dark landscape for the Lady who walked out of her grave, to embrace me.

I don't eat much anymore, and I don't ever feel hungry. The thought of the Lady that I seek over-rides my sense of better judgement, any pang from my stomach, and any need for comfort. There is no real comfort without her, and I will discover her again.

When I have to sleep, I do it curled up in the ragged blanket I carry on my back. I drink water from the bottle I carry, which I fill from the streams that cut through this haunted, beautiful land. I walk these lanes, and when I think I hear a car coming, I step into the woods, or lie in a ditch. Most of the time, there is no car. I can't remember the last time I saw a person, and the last three houses I have seen were ruins of stone and wood, with just chimneys still jutting upward.

Even though an ocean seperates me from the Land where I was born, I still hear voices from that place out here, on these lanes and moors. I can hear my mother fighting with my father, sometimes, in the distance. I think they might get closer, and sometimes I'd swear I can see them, but as always, they stop. He drinks, she leaves, it goes quiet out here.

I know that my Lady wants blood. Where she lives, there is only half a moon, and it is always dark. The people who live in the forests and villages of her land have cold blood, and no body heat- they are all as pale as bones that have been picked clean by ants and dried in the wind. She took some of my blood, and even as I felt the terrible cold, I felt clear, blissful, at peace; I know she is leading me to where our love can finally be fulfilled.

This night, like so many others, a mist is rising. I am on the wet grass, moving quickly, even though I feel more tired than I ever have. Under my feet, there is a long strand, a thread... I can see it, pale in the moonlight, laying on the Land, stretching into the distance. If I follow it long enough, I will arrive at her feet, for this thread is wrapped around the long spindle She holds.

I can see her face in the moon now- no- I can see that the moon has sent dozens of tears down to earth, and there they sit, cold and white in the dark. It is a graveyard, full of white stones, and here is where the thread leads. Some of the graves have been dug up, and the rotting wood of their coffins has been strewn about. The old church adjacent to the graveyard has a strange yellow glow coming from within- but I will stay out here, with the trees and stones. I know She is nearby.

If I spill my warm blood on the ground here, She will come! She must! When her pale folk take warm blood, they become warm, and remember many things that they had forgotten- I need to empty myself to be complete; they must fill themselves to do the same. It's a fair trade.

* * *

The cut wasn't hard to make, and it didn't hurt like I thought it would, either. Blood looks very black outside at night, and it feels hot. Heat, life, here, my Pale Lady, come out of the Ground. Embrace me, kiss me, let me run my hands over your perfectly round breasts, smoother than silk, and let me taste your cold lips again.

I feel so weak now that I can only lie against a stone, and look at the ground. I wonder if I'll die here... not that it matters. I can hear the sound of her approach already. A fox just barked and made a yelp in the distance, and I can feel the ground moving. There is a steady, light touch of feet on the ground- her feet, I know it. I can smell her.

I remember the first time I saw her, hiking these rural lanes. I remember how I felt lying in her arms, and asking her name. She spoke without moving her lips, and She said I could never know Her name. I loved her all night, and felt my heart pour out of me, an ocean of love pouring out of me, for this mysterious and cold woman who never stopped staring directly into my soul, with her coal-black eyes. She drank blood straight from my chest, from my mouth, from my hands. I wanted her to swallow me whole, to never be parted from her.

In the morning, I was alone, tired and freezing, face down in the woods, near the great mound I had first seen her standing upon. I dreamed such madness- I saw the white dogs following her, the pale people who flitted along like bats; I saw the white strands of thread that cobwebbed the entire world- I saw what others cannot see: that we are warm, pulsing mortals stuck in an eternal web of white threads of death, and the ground beneath our feet that looks so firm and solid is just a crust that covers an eternal black void, full of the regrets of the ages, and the forms of every dead thing. We are ripening, we humans, getting full and ripe, and then, we fall below, severed from the vine of life that we are all unconsciously a part of. We go to join in the feast below the rotting hill.

There is no other point to our lives but surrender to the Great Dark that awaits. There was a time when I would have been frightened by such a prospect, but not now. In that surrender, a strange wisdom arises- you find out who you are when you give up on being anything. And I am he who loves the Black-eyed beauty that rose from the mound, and who broke open the graves. I will join her at the feast below.

I saw that spectral feast, but the food was red dust. I saw dark rivers and great halls, that resonated with a timeless splendor and a great macabre sadness. I saw a great black man, black as obsidian, with great spreading horns, sitting at the head of a table, drinking from a cup of stone. I saw my love, the only love I will ever have, running through twilit fields and forests, on a great white horse that had burning eyes. Oh, my angel, my goddess, my muse, my life, my soul, my hidden bride, my everything, please, deliver me from the torment of wanting you! I choose death and dust to be with you!

The next night after my meeting with her, I stayed near the hill. I slept on it. I didn't leave that hill for weeks. Finally, I had to start moving. People had come around, and I had run out of what supplies I had in my backpack. People had come one night, carrying lanterns and chanting something at the hill. I felt afraid; I didn't know what they were doing- but I knew they weren't her. It was a strange night, my dreams were chaotic, so I moved on. I ran through darkness, and I didn't care if I ran head-first into something, or tripped and bashed my head open on rocks. I didn't care about anything but Her.

I finally stopped moving, days later, and just cried. I slept day and night, but a dreamless sleep. I woke up finally, to see a woman in a brown jacket giving me a bottle of water and asking me my name. I couldn't tell her; I have no name. I am only the lover of the White Lady whose eyes were burned into my memory, and that memory had replaced all the others.

The woman who gave me the water seemed concerned, but I could tell she knew something. She was probably in her forties, I'd guess, but strong seeming, with mousy brown hair, sprinkled with grey. She told me something odd. She said "I see they are leading you. Act without thinking. And if there is something you need to know, just listen. Pay attention. It'll come to you."

I started to ask her a question, when she said "shhh... you need to drink more water, and eat something. You are not safe here, and you being here means that the local people aren't safe either. I can help you, but you must never mention me."

She put something in my pocket that looked like a piece of bark, and said "Lay under an elder tree with this, and they can't see you. That way, they will say what you want to know."

I don't remember that woman leaving. I just hiked off that evening, and down the endless lanes. Her advice was easy to follow- I was too tired and crazed to make clear thoughts, anyway. I just wandered over the nighted countryside, and tripped and fell into a stream. I thrashed out, and was dripping, freezing- and then I heard it.

I heard a haunting melody coming from downstream, and I walked down the banks, as quietly as I could. Finally, I shed my backpack and kept walking with only my blanket.

I saw a blue light in the distance, and saw at least nine people walking around in a circle, around it. I couldn't see what was making the blue light, but I perched behind a tree and got a better look. There was a bad smell in the air, but I ignored it to peak around. I was shocked at what I saw, and I almost laughed out loud, for now I knew that I was mad; I was certifiably out of touch with reality. There were no more consquences, no danger. I could laugh or scream or even run and grab one of these people and murder them with my bare hands- and nothing would come of it.

That's because I saw that these were no people- they had human bodies- and were naked, all of them, but they had the heads of animals. I couldn't tell what animals they were, but they all looked canine- like foxes or wolves or dogs. They weren't singing, but a beautiful song, sung in a woman's voice, floated everywhere. I didn't know how, but I knew it was Her, my one and only love.

I stood up, and immediately fell down. The animal people were gone, but a woman was left, with her back turned to me. She was waving this long pole around, that had a huge bulb of thread near the top; it was a spindle or a distaff or something. She was singing to herself, a song. This is what she said:

"Never let the moon be gone, nor the sun be blind and hot
Never let a summer leaf flutter onto me;
Never let the moon be full, nor the sun cruel and hot,
That is the fondest wish of Gwel-a-throt."

She got up and walked past me, and the blue fire faded. I looked at her, shocked- it WAS her. Every bit of me tried to lurch upward to grasp at her, but I couldn't move.

The next thing I remembered, it was morning, and I cried all day. By nightfall, I had started following the stream, in the direction she had gone, and yelling, at the top of my voice "GWEL-A-THROT!" I was hoping it was her name. I knew it had to be. I had to be with her.

And right I was. I finally fell asleep next to an old road, and I woke up to see her standing over me. She was smiling, and I leaped up to embrace her. She bit into me again, and I felt a rush of great joy and peace, as I felt her cold skin becoming warm. She looked at me, her lips now flushed red and dripping a bit, and told me that I could make her do whatever I wanted, because I knew her name. She only asked how I had discovered her name.

I told her I heard her sing it, around the blue fire- and that she hadn't seen me, though I lay under a tree near her. She seemed to realize what had happened- "under the stinking elder", she said- and she reached into my shirt pocket and plucked out the piece of bark. A dark look crossed her face when she saw it and she asked who had given it to me. I told her quite honestly that I didn't know, and then she asked me to describe the person who had.

I started to give her the description, when suddenly, I stopped. I felt scared. Then I told her that I couldn't say- I was told not to, and that I was afraid I'd lose her again if I told. She smiled and said that she understood. She pushed me gently to the ground and made love to me again- but I realized, in my great bliss, that the sun was coming up, and when I felt her start to stand up, I seized her hand. I wanted to stop her from going.

To my shock, her hand was not a hand, but a hoof- the hoof of a white horse. I looked at her in shock, but she was gone, then- I only saw the leaves in the trees above me, and the coming of the dawn.

I stood up and screamed "Gwel a Throt!"- and I was not disappointed, for even though I could not see her, I heard her whisper into my ear "follow my threads to the place where the dead go to lie... I will be with you there..."

Every night since then, I have seen the thread, and seen her face in the mist. One night, I saw her running, naked, ahead of me- and when I caught up to her, she had killed a rabbit and devoured it raw- I remember the gore smeared on her face, and how her teeth were still so white, even with the blood everywhere. I got tangled in thorns then, trying to follow her into the woods, and I lost her. But every night, I have seen the thread, and followed it. It runs straight on, never veering off- it runs straight on, into the great mystery. I know she spins it, and waits for me at the other end.

I have finally come here, to the graveyard, to die in her arms. I know she is coming near me; I smell her now, I can almost feel her. I can feel the ground getting thin beneath me; I feel so numb. I can hear the pale people calling my name, and I know that a feast is prepared for me.

Gwel-a-throt, my Lady, will be there with me; we won't ever be apart. I think I can hear a horse breathing heavily... I feel so... distant now. I am one with the love that is stronger than death, and it lives here, in the grave-ground... I spent my life running from death, afraid of the grave, only to live for the first time, here among bones. Love and Life are found in the place you'd least expect... I'd share this with everyone, but I'll never see anyone ever again, at least not above ground.

* * *

Note:

"Gwel-a-throt" is set in the Welsh hinterlands, and Gwel-a-throt means "Pale (one) of the Old Woman" or "Pale of the Crone".

There is a lot in that story taken from myth and folktale, it's heavy with traditional symbolism. You can find real world myths and fairy tales with characters like HABETROT (Ghab-a-trot) and Gwarwn-a-throt... I took my "name" inspiration from them- but they are very odd tales, not well known ones. They are still my favorites.

One of the FEW times in the historical folk tradition that we get an otherworldly being giving us his name, and it turns out to be "Gwarwn-a-throt"- "A-throt" refers to "Of the Old Woman" or "Of the Crone"- by extension, to me, "of Fate", or "Of the Otherworld" as embodied by the Great Dark Goddess. Habetrot, for instance, probably derives from "Ghab-a-throt", which refers to the "Giving of the Crone"- a reference to the generous nature of the Supreme Being and Habetrot, in the story about her, is a generous figure as well as a figure of the Supreme Being, for she is the Underworldly Spinner who spins Fate.

These tales have actual interest and use to that special sort of reconstructionist that I call "witch"- and in my story, the idea of love between this world and the otherworld, being a metaphor of love and death inter-twined (the root of the Vampyre mythology, as you can see by this story) is the issue; the idea of the Leannan Sidhe is the Irish equivalent. This story is about a man pursuing his Fetch-bride, his Faery-lover, to the destruction of mortality and ego, a hiker in Wales driven nuts by his taste of the spirit-bride, the embodiment of the timeless.

The idea that a man in love with an otherworldly woman is risking his life and soul is, I think, the christianized version of the divine madness that leads a man to the initiation of death and rebirth whether into this world or another one.