[From “History and Practice of Wizardry” by Dá·hwyth Baldrog Prok·ethra] Tévon, divinity of the Ice Forests, created people from ice and fire, putting in their heads the two spirits, “ank-lévon vatí” and “ank-lévon makru.” The former is the voice of conscience, which talks to us all the time. The latter is the unique personality, which thinks, and remembers, and decides. In every person, the “ank-lévon” listen to, and respond to, one of the hundreds of blessed powers called “Klavté.” When we die, the “lévon vatî” goes to be judged by Tévon before dissolving in the navel of the Eyrth. The “lévon makru” lives amongst the ancestors for a year and a day, in the land of Knilté at the bottom of the sea, under the earth, or above the sky. And then the “lévon makru” is absorbed by the family of the “Klavté” if the “lévon vatí” is justified, but it is forced to wander for ever without rest as an “ank-tranu” otherwise. A powerful shaman can cause the “lévon makru” to fly away to do his bidding. He can also call, and control, and punish “ank-tranu” and thus he shall be able to perform real miracles.

 

If comes the ebb, then comes the flow {Seasons}. Literally, the tide is the regular rise and fall of the level of the seas, which is caused by the moon’s gravity, and to a lesser degree, the pull of the sun, together with the rotation of the planet. Twice a day, every day, the waters surge up, around the shores of Kimbria. I have promised to tell you about my history and my background, but have been swept away by the tide of horrible events. Here I am now, therefore, Frederick Llwynlesg, sharing with you at last some details about my life and those who have been closest to me, which I consider pertinent.

 

To start with, it must be that this is a land flowing with milk and honey, which has always welcomed and integrated the constant flow of incomers. Of course, when the population grows, their energy needs increase as well. The unique climate and geography in Aberdydd create one of the widest ranges of ebb and flow in the world. Here, sea-walls with water-wheels could easily produce a supply of renewable energy. Despite that, it might be that it is not possible to predict the weather and the periods of power production, and who on the face of the Fruitful Eyrth knows what would be the effects on the environment, on the plants and the animals?

 

As a matter of fact, most mammals today share regular cycles based on multiples of the fortnightly cycle of the tide, for example the menstrual cycle. And of course, we are all fundamentally animals, without a doubt. Furthermore, about sixty percent of the body’s weight is water, on average. Perhaps this shows that we are all descended from some common, aquatic, ancestor. Because of this Shamano-no suggested that we feel the motions of the primal ocean flowing in our blood. The earliest philosophers believed that the phases of the moon cause some of us to go mad, when our feelings overcome our will-power, despite our frightful intelligence. And now, thinkers who are faithful servants of the EGO shout so insistently that every worthless worm must fight like crazy to stem the emotional flow. Whatever is true, it is an indisputable fact that people often behave atrociously, and there is no need to blame the moon, in my opinion.

 

We live, therefore, in a world full of flows: the flow of people, resources, ideas, and feelings. And one must remember that for every flow, there is the corresponding ebb: they are two tributaries of the same river, as it were. There are dammed-up torrents within us, we who are forced to balance opposing forces, constantly: science and belief, heart and head, knowledge and uncertainty. Without a doubt we could learn a crucial lesson from Baron Brodhr, fabled subduer of Skalba, who was son to the Yarl Aber-Dygdhar. The Prelates of the EGO challenged the former to call on the Cosmic Power to perform a miracle. But Brodhr the Hasty knew better than to provoke the Terrible Old Gods, and chose to make a laughing-stock of himself by proving that not even the strongest forces in this world can hold back the tide, not with words, nor with fire, nor with a sword. In which harbour do we hope to seek refuge, then?

 

In truth, if all we wish to do is take things easy, then, like dead fish, we shall go with the flow in the end – down the plughole – singing, in the words of the EGO’s Final Ceremony: “Let the terrifying waters of the Sea of Time wash away the past and prepare you for the future!” And then again, we could obey the herd instinct, and follow the crowd rather than drown. There are some others who are like shards of filling-stone. They talk nineteen-to-the-dozen, filling the myriad gaps in their thoughts with expletives and empty words, whilst achieving nothing of note. In order to flourish, rather than simply to survive, human beings must fight against the flow, being original, whilst standing up for their world-views. While we keep our sensible feet on the dry land of rationality, our minds will be free to wander in the streams of invention. Little by little we shall sail to unmapped regions, where we shall come across new ways of being, which are strange, and terrifying, and tempting. Let us hope that we can seize the opportunity and choose between them wisely, and evolve, rather than killing ourselves. But, time is of the essence: as anyone can see: the ebb and the flow wait for no-one!

 

[HPW] To protect against the evil influence of the unquiet “ank-tranu,” put behind the door ears of corn wrapped in purple ribbon, set a pouch containing lady-fingers and spikni up the chimney, and spread yellow, sweet-smelling jasmine flowers on the windowsill. Having done that, in order to answer any question with certainty, do as follows. First, perform “ov-yaké” with four pieces of whalebone to focus the mind and clarify the enquiry. Second, use “il-okwn” with twenty-one cowrie shells fed with “om-yero” containing pure water, virgin oil, and human blood, to illuminate the background, the influences, and the possibilities surrounding the situation. Finally, you must read the patterns of the “ívaa” by choosing consecrated lingonberries to produce one possibility from the two-hundred and fifty-six that are possible. And then you shall know the truth about the quandary, without a particle of doubt.

 

And now let us turn from water towards land. In our scarcely-mentionable civilization, my dear friends, full of white-hot technology, could it not be said that it is human beings, as much as the forces of nature, that fashion landscapes? This is indisputable. But from an alternative viewpoint, I would insist that it’s the all-important influence of places that carves out characters, which forms personalities. In truth, people are more like plants than we realize, from the start of pregnancy, up to death. Will the original seeds sprout, forming green saplings that are strong but flexible, which flourish equally well under the health-giving light of the Summertide sun, and in the wild jaws of the Wintertide wind? That depends on the composition of the soil in which they’re planted. Then again, the word “land” conveys more than just geographical characteristics; in this context, it also refers to tales, attitudes, hopes, expectations, and languages. Heavenly bread, soul-food, that’s what the land is; without it, one cannot survive. I wish to investigate this idea by leading you on a journey around me myself. In my case, through luck rather than diligence, I was born in the tender land of Kimbria many years ago, and there we shall begin our journey.

 

My family’s country pile is in the Midlands of course. But, when I say Kimbria, it’s the Southlands I mean, and Aberdydd in particular, where more than half the world’s expensive minerals were produced from the time of the First Great Tribulation. A high price was paid for this success, however (isn’t that always the case?), and the land around the Copper Mountain was poisoned by the slag, and by the noxious gases that were belched out by the factories. In time, all these locations were vacated, and when the time of my parturition came round, this was one of the worst areas in the whole of the Northern Continent (apart from Shimorgon in Venik), lacking both animals and plants. That’s why the Bare Mountain is the name of the place now. I shouldn’t complain, of course, since that industry, amongst various other ventures, brought considerable wealth to the family. And whilst seeking a little otherworldly support to help the family’s fortunes to flourish, my Mother became best friends with the Most Illustrious Ulí·uthlí from the big, old, dilapidated house on that accursed hill in Aberdydd. (Some would say that my Mother was under old witch’s baleful influence, but they were just jealous, say I.)

 

Even before birth, I was a traveller, and despite all the environmental devastation in the area, I arranged for my Mother to take me to the paediatric unit of Hellsgate Hospital. Well, to be honest, it was the Princess Ylydra (another name for Mother’s best friend) who insisted on it, probably, because of her very odd attitude towards religion, but Mother was quite vague about such facts. This hellish institution was built to treat soldiers suffering from shell-shock after the Great Tribulation. It was on unconsecrated soil (in the eyes of the EGO at least) beside Old Tabernacle Street, therefore, that I came into the world. There, a host of chubby cherubs, who had been excommunicated from the Tabernacle Chapel, that famous "anti-conformers' cathedral," heralded my arrival with pipes and trumpets. At the same time, according to my Mother, the Valleys’ Orphic Choir was singing the cheery anthem “Let the Devouring Wind Delete your Flesh” on the sound-transceiver to celebrate the start of the Period of Essential Suffering. Now, as they say, Kimbric is the language of heaven (wherever that may be), but I was sent to an un-Kimbric family to make my way in this Fruitful World. Fortunately, they were singing in the Old Etruscan language, and I couldn’t have understand the words in any case. So, I decided I would have to get some education.

 

But before doing that, I needed to have fun in the natural adventure playground all around me, where I would run, wild with rejoicing. I was totally on my own in Challavas Manor, what with the family so busy running the businesses and increasing our vast wealth. It’s not that my parents didn’t care for me, I had everything under the sun, but they didn’t know I existed as a person, as it were. I was so happy, therefore, to be able to escape fairly often to Aberdydd to play with Dai Balrog Procter and the rest of the magical children. Oh, what a town you are, Aberdydd, ugly and lovely! Well, it wasn’t worth worrying about the ugliness of the city; for me at least, it was a charmed land, flowing with pomegranate milkshake and spikni and cumin ice-cream, and then there were the enchanting cakes containing mushrooms and chocolate, as well as the salty wrack-bread and the exceptionally spicy snail curry. I used to fly, as high as an enchanted kite, from the fertile civic parks, to the beaches with pools full of strange and frightening creatures that were a stone’s throw away. (All that culinary and Thavoh-ish animal-talk wizardry's what spurred me on to devote myself to the bio-alchemical arts and sciences in due course, I’m sure [*].) And in the joyful days of that long, baking-hot Summertide, before the shadow fell across my life, I and the rest of the lost-boys would play chicken almost in our birthday suits, swinging from tree to tree in the Never-never Land at the bottom of my adoptive Great-grandma’s overgrown garden.

 

That was in the distant past, in a forgotten foreign country, almost, where people did things very differently, but recently, the old place, which was once a second, adoptive home to me, has changed beyond all recognition. And so, I find myself asking, with my heart almost breaking – What is the nature of a ghost? Is it possible that places can possess personalities, or that the souls of people who have divested themselves of their earthy bodies can dwell still in a room’s shadows, lurking behind the dismal furniture, hidden under decaying wall-paper? I believe that this is so, as I have had experience of it in my own life. I live in a world full of memories which move and speak still. Voices and eyes own both the light and the darkness alike in this place, although it was tidied up a long time ago. And wherever I wander on life’s journey, there I’ll always meet with my adoptive Great-grandma, one way or another, since all roads lead to the Chief Ziggurat on the Nw Yrth, as she would say. But, do the spectres of the past always tell the truth?

 

As I stand stock-still in the middle of the newly done-out room in the Centre for the Kimbric Community of Alternative Youth that used to be the heart of my world, I am transported back through time to my childhood haunts. So, once again, here I am, in the middle of my little patch, where the half-open, moth-eaten curtains hold in the air which is heavy with the smell of the enormous, stupid dog, who never seems to age. Here, too, there continues to live an old woman, tiny, wizened, crippled with arthritis, who’s not been able to leave the same seat for more than ten years. She must be two hundred years old at least by now, literally, without a shadow of a doubt. And here she sits, and waits, awkwardly but without complaint – (for what, exactly?) – within four walls, amongst the spiders’ webs which bedeck every nook and cranny. Is she half alive or half dead, this kindly sorceress planning mischief? Or maybe she’s a hermit-crab wearing her temporary, stolen shell. She could have been a true Kimbric-woman, with chimney-pot hat, bodice, petticoat, shawl, and apron. But from the Ice Forests she’d fled to Aberdydd as a lass, after her whole tribe was put to the sword by the Oppressive Overseers of the Church Militant for refusing to renounce the Old Ways, and indeed, she always spoke with a heavy accent throughout her long life. She, the Princess Ylydra (or elsewhere, the Most Illustrious Ulí·uthlí) couldn’t speak more than a thousand words of Kimbric as far as I know, although she was a woman endowed with very many hidden talents.

 

My first experience of real-life magic happened like this. One day, why I don’t know, I was desperate to excavate a seaman’s chest which had belonged to her late husband, from the frighteningly rotten cupboard under the stairs. And, despite her great trepidation, she allowed me to do just that. After taking the key on a silver chain from between her ancient breasts, in order to open the storehouse of her memories, she showed me exercise books full of beautiful calligraphy in the Imzalva Script. She would have produced an example of the flowing handwriting there and then, if only her hands were not so damaged. Stick at it, she said, remember, Thebe wasn’t destroyed in a day. But at the same time, there was the Great Van-yandrim with his tidy topknot, releasing grief from its long captivity on my account, because in the box were her darkest secrets also. It was not reluctant to yield its contents, either, and suddenly there arose a biting wind from somewhere unexpected, rushing through the place. In its jaws it carried pictures of her childhood, her love, her wedding, her loss. I was astounded while staring goggle-eyed at the sepia images, tattered at the edges. Here was an enchanted princess from a fairy-tale, under a fine veil, about to marry, and bewitchingly beautiful she was she for sure. And there was a little girl, her face full of freckles, wearing the usual clothes of her childhood land, that is a tunic, trousers, and a hat of furs, and with a long stone knife in her hand. How. I remember thinking with a shudder, could these strong, and healthy, and beautiful characters be the same person as the physical wreck, stuck in the orthopaedic chair?

 

The young woman could have become a medicine-woman in her own land, allegedly; she should have been an interpreter of the tribal laws, said others. But when she was in school the girls had to choose between numerology and mystical sciences, and since she had never enjoyed helping her Mum to do the accounts in the family’s butchers’ shop (her favourite task was caring for the pigs, should we say), she devoured everything about life on Alternate Worlds. Even at her advanced age she could recite in the Old Yrthian tongue as if she were one of the Seven Seraphic Sorcerers cursing the All-World. And when the time arrived for me to chant verb conjugations – 

 

“ankariseseí, ankarisesié, ankarisesivé, ankariseselí,

ankarisesí, ankarisesin, ankarisesiví, ankariseselin,”

 

she taught me – “I understand, thou understandest, he or she understands, your Grace understands, we understand, you understand, they understand, your Graces understand” – as well as the unfamiliar, inanimate forms, “ankarisesu, ankarisesun, ankarisesa, ankarisesaví” – like some hypnotic prayer to the Old, Strange Gods.

 

But terms like “could of, should of, would of” weren’t part of the old stick’s vocabulary. She was never one to answer to anybody. But there, at the bottom of the chest, in a golden picture frame, was an icon of the man in whose image she fashioned her life, with his hooked nose and his high forehead, and his cheeky, penetrating eyes, whom I had never known. He had come to her in a dream, she said, and she had snatched his soul. She had realized then that she would never find peace until she released him from his spiritual torment. For his sake then she had left the burned-out home and her parents’ butchered corpses, and had run away to Kimbria, that far-flung land, in order to set up a home for maimed soldiers in Hellsgate, declaring that this was her “holy duty.” On her way here she fought against enemies of all shapes and sizes over the whole of the Northern Continent (all of them slavish servants of the EGO, however), gaining a reputation as a fearsome warrior-woman at Apl-lan. Later on, she would branch out into a new field when she opened the “House for Bewildered Gentlefolk” in the ramshackle manse on the Bare Mountain. It was because of the rivers of blood that quinacridone magenta became her favourite colour, and that would be the colour of the Masters of the Guild from then on too, after they had welcomed her (and her unrivalled talents) with open arms.

 

And in due course she had a baby girl, and worked herself to the bone, and in the end the beloved husband died before his time, leaving her to cope and mourn silently. And that’s what she did, whilst scrubbing and washing and cooking until she was done in. But despite that she was always full of zest and joy, and especially when she was giving great care to other people. I have photographs even today, and in them she’s holding me as a newly-born baby, smiling beatifically (she, not I). She was very fond of saying that “There’s nowhere in this World like home,” and I never really understood what she meant, although I do know that I was about six years old when I grabbed her tightly, as she sobbed uncontrollably, her body wracked by pangs of remembering. But as she cried till her heart almost broke, at seeing the images of her lost family, she still reassured me, saying that they were tears of joy, and with that, a moistness was drawn from my eyes too. I did not understand at that time where the all-consuming feelings came from: I was only an innocent child. But through her behaviour, and her words, and the time she gave me, laughing and having fun like a school-girl, despite all her pain, she was the first person to sow the seeds of compassion in my heart. It’s that baby girl, by the way, who would grow up to be Aratheroth (or the Lady Ari·anhrot to others), a person different in various ways from her Mother. She became, in her own time, a cruel disciplinarian, skilled alchemist, renowned butcher amongst the community of Hellsgate, and Great Woman of the Guild of Secrets. She would be treated terribly in the end, but I do not wish to talk about that.

 

The old Princess Ylydra’s relationship with faith was a very strange one, especially given the formative circumstances of her childhood. I do not know what she really believed with any earnestness, if anything at all. After all, she was a proud but humble member of the local Independent Tabernacle, who used to attend the Folk Meeting every Sadderday morning without fail although it was held in Kimbric, with her squirming in her seat throughout the proceedings because of the pain. And despite the terrible feelings of vengeance against the EFE, she used to claim that the rites and words of the Service of Repentance were sublime, until the hellish changes of the Universal Council on Worship destroyed the magic. She would never sleep, apparently, as befitted a bridesmaid who was awaiting the bridegroom’s arrival, and who knows when he would come, like a thief in the night. Whenever she was alone in her room, she would constantly intone Etruscan litanies to the Unknown Martyrs in a half-whisper (more than likely), whilst rocking back and forth in the chair as much as her wrecked form would allow her to do. It is possible, however, that she was calling on the Old Masters of the Nw Yrth to rain down their immeasurable ire on everyone from the Incomparable Archimandrites to the Insignificant Acolytes, but by then she was asking herself whether she was fiddling while Thebe burned, anyway.

 

Well, the glorious rituals of the Supreme Father-Church are one thing, but that’s not to mention the endless tales from the Old Books which are a different thing entirely. The ones from the Red Book of Rust and Blood were the best, of course. She used to love telling them in full flood, getting carried away in such a way that she would almost bust a blood-vessel. If she could have moved from her chair, she would have stridden about the room reciting her lines like a world-famous actress. The devils have all the best tunes, they say, but sweet Hebé, the old raconteur was in a league of her own, and so it’s her who got the biggest parts, and all the most important lines on top of that. By Wezir, she used to act like Elena going to it hell for leather to feed pomegranate seeds to Davuth in the Grove of Xatlaltvazsu! I would play bit-parts whilst she would weave a web of magic. When in Etruria, do as the Etruscans do, and so on. Have I explained that she was an excellent mimic? So, she would conjure the voices of the stars of the silver screen, within that place that had gone to pot. And Oh, I feasted with my ears on all the slaying, and love-making, and burnt-offering, and the fallen she-angels with their flaming swords wrestling, and the bushes burning without being consumed. Acting out scenes from “Khronikles of the Kimbrian Kollektive” was the best (especially the very many bits that were rude, and so funny)! —

 

“The morning is not the time to praise a fine day” – In the veiled depths of Trey’s realm – wan, windy, wild – there spangle lamps. Trey, the prince of a man with the two skilled hands, that is, who has so sadly got lost. This is a deprived township. In streets once mute – where twilight’s cheered by shooting stars – now flock hired hands. Captive folk. Kiddies, ladies, gents – with oppressive labour loaded – rush, alike, enflamed. Work begins. Turbulent town – bustling, baleful, brutish – turns to capering capital. The journey unfurls…

 

By then, what with poor Gertrude eating up everyone’s time and attention in Challavas, I was almost living full-time in Aberdydd. Rev-zilé would speak there in the Most Illustrious Ulí·uthlí’s deep tones, from within an imaginary tabernacle beneath a pile of dust-covered books. And there a mouthy Dendrah would enchant a randy Sorakados, with the help of Avi-vatha and Ema-mothí, in a valley near a stream which ran under the table loaded with dirty dishes. Never mind about the playful look on the face of my wrinkled prune, who had a heart of gold, she could swear like a scalded tinker if there were need, and that she most certainly would do when the Muse of the drama insisted. And every time I discovered that Sorakados was Father of Akrudzu, the genius of a son who had flown away through the Tear between the Worlds – I would, without fail, be close to exploding. What exactly happened that day when my childhood suddenly came to an end, I’ll never know exactly. But, the night before, too late for a boy like myself still to be awake, about midnight, I had gone upstairs to stay goodnight and snuggle up to her as usual, before sneaking off through the secret tunnel in the cellar to experience the most vivid and disturbing dreams in the old Blue House on the banks of the Stinking River.

 

“Enough is a little more than you already have” – The weak sun’s first rays attack the curtains, greeting the bosom buddies who’ve been tossing and turning in the messy bed all night long. And there, Mat·olu, gaffer of the local foundry (who can play the heartstrings of any man, woman, or beast just like a true Wizard) tries to cwtsh up to his blond beloved, who’s shared his life since she fled from her devilish ex-I-don’t-know-what and his pernicious pack. Mat·olu’s breath stinks after he ate an extremely spicy curry the night before, and his bum does, too. And he always snores like a pig and grinds his teeth, although he calls her a dirty yapping bitch all the time. It’s not her fault. He’s as useful as a chocolate fireguard when it comes to going for a long walk on the beach and buying chewy enough food. “This is no life for a nice girl,” thinks Koywin, the lapdog, “today, I’m off!”

 

The next morning, I had the usual breakfast of sickly porridge and col-liver oil upstairs with Dai Procter and some of the bemused gentlefolk. Good heavens, that odd family was full of strange ideas, so then I stood stark-naked in pants and string vest wearing nothing but sunglasses in front of the ultraviolet lamp that was supposed to ward off rickets. And then, off I went to school having said a quick good-bye to my beloved adoptive Great-grandma. Strange to say, Dai didn’t go with me that day, but that was not very unusual as his magical talents always took precedence over ordinary education. That was the last time I saw her alive. Perhaps the affliction had become too much for her. Maybe she had become completely exhausted, at long last. Possibly, her lost love and her massacred relatives had called to her from the other side. Who could say whether Dai killed her? When the nurse who came one a week to change the bandages on her sores succeeded to get into the flat in the end, there was no mumbling to be heard. There was no sound at all. Even the televisual screen had been switched off, somehow. And there sat the old lady, sleeping quietly, but without breathing, as if she had pricked her finger on an enchanted spinning-wheel.

 

“Grief sleeps but anxiety does not” – In her golden crib, the beautiful little girl’s busting her nappy while peeing everywhere. Her Foster-mum, Blod·íhweth, is at the end of her tether, especially as her husband’s been off on a bender since the girl arrived, as if under a spell. And that was the same time that the sexy new lodger moved in. He’s a specialist in the secrets of smoke and mirrors who expertly plays bells and whistles, as well as a genius at making machines that use magnets and sand to pull the wool over the eyes of the unwary (mixing metaphors is his favourite thing). He wanders about the land (gallivanting, according to some), selling votes to crooked politicians, namely, to most of them, when he’s working, of course. And the tiny, enchanting creature can’t open her eyes yet, nor use her ears. But then again, she feasts on her mum’s breasts more ravenously than a wolf pup. May the Terrible Old Divinities bless ‘er! She must be worrying about her wandering Foster-father, without a doubt. Without words, this littlest witch wonders where her other brothers and sisters have gone. While the Cheeky Sun pokes its tongues of fire out at the Yummy Mummy, “Bow-wow, grrrr, woof-woof,” says the runt of the litter, named Ker·ithwé, yelping plaintively.

 

That’s what they told me that fateful afternoon in the school, anyway. And then my blood froze, and no word of a lie about it. “Forgive me a worthless sinner. May the Devouring Wind delete my flesh and my mind, my memory and my transgression,” I wanted to cry out, hoping I could find help of some sort, or rather absolution, but no answer came to my stifled prayer. (So guilty was I, for some reason that’s particular to members of the EGO, although I have never even up to today been publicly washed in the House of Repentance, let alone been tickled by the Holy Flame.) But after the river of tears came to an end, I shall remember forevermore the crinkly smile, the sky-blue eyes, sparkling with joy under the curly white hair, despite the pains that were gnawing her. Maiden, mother, crone, was my adoptive Great-grandma in her own time, and she has survived in this place because she is truly a goddess, after a fashion, to me at least. If souls were to exist, she would possess mine, although I cannot claim I have found salvation through her. To the contrary, I have spent most of my life trying to rid myself of many of her exotic ideas. (No need to stand in front of an ultra-violet lamp anymore, although I’m not a vampire, ‘cos I’m a bald, portly cherub with a tummy full of breakfast cereal and vitamin supplements by now). But despite that, towards her I turn in the darkest moments, to her I lift up my voice in supplication.

 

“Nearest to the church, furthest from paradise” – The bushes outside the Temple of the Hidden Glory are comforting but hemmed-in, in truth. “It’s a great pity they’re going to put up a fence to keep the tramps out,” sighs Trey. And they’ve been his home for three weeks now. That’s when the wife of the darts-champion ran off with the travelling salesman. Well, when the old usurper moved in, we should say. On the street, a sulky golden retriever stops to drool on the languishing chieftain, so full of unrequited love is she, farting loudly at the same time due to the aftermath of the curry. The bloody crows are cawing so devilishly loud, and Trey’s in such a state, that all the well-considered public health advice from his unelected advisors regarding illegal drugs goes out of the window. The liquid spreads out in a warm, sticky pool towards Trey’s head while he gobbles the rest of the bottle of sleeping draught called Lethí Oil he’s got from the wisecracking wise-man Wrothín. “O if only I were an eagle,” he mumbles as his consciousness slips away, and he accidentally makes the Imperial Symbol of the Old Etruscans with both his thumbs to seal his fate. Soon, perhaps, the Sprightly Sun will smile on his cold corpse, as his soul or “lévon” floats off to wheresoever such things go at last.

 

Well, so it was. Whilst my adopted great-Grandma was still alive, I loved living between Challavas and Aberdydd, and there my future was looking good. At first, the acorn was growing into a robust oak. No matter how good my childhood was, though, the plan of my manhood was fated to be different. After the death of the old Most Illustrious Ulí·uthlí I retreated to Challavas to lock myself in an enormous greenhouse, and look after Gertrude (not in the glasshouse, of course, she was too busy composing in the cellar of the Manor-house with its walls of pink granite, amidst the living statues). For various reasons, in my view, I had to escape in order to develop, so that I could mature into a healthy fruit. I looked towards the Oppressive Pink Zone, the other side of the Kimbrian Wall, turning my back on my own land. There was no great strong wind rending the mountains, nor an earthquake shattering the rocks; nor was there a column of cloud and fire going before me to lead me on the way and to illuminate me. Rather a wail, quiet but shrill, impressed upon me that I should pull myself up by the roots, with enchanting words “the grass is greener on the other side,” and that is why I arranged to escape.

 

“Fair promises will make a fool happy” – Ari·anhrot laughs while driving her white van (which has beautiful silver-coloured wheels too) to the hospital where she works all day in the mortuary. Oh, how much she delights in dealing with lumps of cold flesh! If only she could find a boyfriend who was alive. Would that be too much to ask? In her spare time, she dabbles in DIY, and bringing the dead back to life, and she’s been working hard helping her friend Wrothín to build a new, and very safe, room in his cellar, “in case of emergencies.”

 

After all, it was I who was master of my fate, and captain of my own soul I would be also. Why should I wait in ambition’s graveyard, when the whole world in all its glory was on offer? (It was not just that which prompted me, however, to be absolutely accurate. There were also the cruel words of Dai Procter, mocking me so superciliously, and not for the last time: “Not even a Princess from the Ice Forests can withstand Dvaldí’s unstoppable hammer.” And even worse – foedum dictū – he stole her words, and published them as his own, under his magical name!)

 

Wrothín's a Wise Man, who’s promised Ari·anhrot that she’ll have whatever she desires, if she follows the teaching of the shamans from the Ice Forests. So, she rushes into work to find the thumb of a man who’s ceased to be, deceased, departed, met his end, and shuffled off, on consecrated ground at daybreak, rather than enduring the rather more conventional practice of being buried there. And then, to her great joy, she almost knocks down some fool who’s wandering in the road, while the Succouring Sun dances on the horizon under the gathering thundercloud.

 

From the empty harbour I set sail, for the white ocean of my imagination. I became a pilgrim who would wander hither and thither, in an unhospitable land. A stranger I was, in a strange land, where nothing was as it seemed, where the streets (which were supposed to be paved with gold), were, in truth, smeared with grease. Amongst the ivory towers and groves of academe I wondered, where to my great shame I did not feast on the muse's tasty food, nor drink inspiration's invigorating wine. I managed to fill my head with knowledge but without finding wisdom; I did not create a place for kindness in my heart, either. If only I could have woken up from the nightmare and come to my senses, realizing the true nature of the situation.

 

“Tread not on an angry dog’s foot” – The travelling salesman, Hronu, has a spring in his step as he goes on his rounds. He’s so lucky, he’s got a lovely new girlfriend, and his problems with lodgings have disappeared. He strides by the hedge where some maggot-ridden man is lying, cursing the bloody golden retriever standing stock-still in his path, snarling savagely. And look! There’s a girl in a white van, who’s busy doing nothing. Hronu’s in his own hypocritical little world, and about to kick the dog. And wallop! He’s swept off his feet by the girl who’s driving without due care and attention. She’s like a dog in a manger, or a pig in a poke, and so she ignores the shattered corpse. “Isn’t life cheap?” says the new-born Sublime Sun, guffawing.

 

But like this I trod the highways and the byways, proceeding at a snail’s pace yonder and anon, and leaving destruction in my wake. It was I who was a voice crying in the wilderness, insisting on knowing: who am I? But no answer came forth from any quarter. I cannot blame that place; the blame was mine; I who sought for the thing beyond myself I should have been looking for inside. (But at least for the human weaknesses and wasted opportunities I now whole-heartedly make reparation every day). And then, on the wide road to destruction, to the coalmines and iron foundries of the Blackland I fled, to the Temples of Scientific Magic, but my curses fell upon deaf ears. And even to Taviston I flew, and sat down by the River Tamisa, and wept, remembering Kimbria. From there I limped to the South Coast, and into the depths of the great salty sea I screamed: “Hear my voice, O empty depths, pay heed to my supplications!” Scarcely could I predict the threat of the Wintertide which was quickly approaching.

 

“Escape from the smoke and fall into the fire” – Wrothín appears from inside his hell-hole opposite the spot where the accident happened, exclaiming, “Well, I’ll be blowed!” He’s almost blind, and terribly lonely, but he guards his territory with the perseverance of a one-eyed bull, and now he intends to give succour to the wounded salesman if it kills him. The peddler’s heart thuds, somehow, when the crinkled dwarf drags him to the cellar of the rickety hovel. Hronu's been impaled on a pole and is completely discombobulated. After he drinks a cauldronful of spiced mead with a lorry-load of medicinal mushrooms in it, only the Scrumptious Sunshine’s winking eye will see whether he’ll be content, if not ecstatic, in his new home (or rather his prison) in this Other World, for the rest of his life.

 

Needless to say, the old land of my fathers, that is my motherland, was truly dear to me at that time, as it is still. I longed sorely for that place, so close and yet so far away at the same time. And a fire in my heart was the Kimbric spirit, which engulfed me in flame, and caused anguish. and became a thorn in my side. And you might imagine that this was no empty inciting, but that substantial changes had to follow such pricklings of conscience. Despite that, the mind was truly ready, but the flesh was weak. How would the return begin, and, would a fattened calf be awaiting me at its end? Long was the day, and long the night, and long the wait for freedom. Perhaps I was praying to the Old Cruel Gods, for just such a thing, without knowing it. But as if by magic, or, rather, through the whims of the objectionable weather and the disobliging landscape in the Old North, I had a tumble when I was rushing towards the Blessed School where I volunteered, to do some snippet of extra, unpaid work one Sadderday morning. It was a December day when buses turned on their sides due to the hellish snow which transformed the city’s pitiful streets, seared with hoar-frost, into a frozen wilderness. By the pricking of my thumbs, I should have known that something of ill-omen was stalking me. Perhaps I had heard Swtakh’s flesh-eating beetles chirping, although I ignored them, and to hell with the consequences.

 

“Tomorrow is a stranger” – So here’s the Seductive Sun standing still. In the hospital mortuary the assistant’s going out of her mind when she realises that a dog has chewed the two thumbs off the body. She’s drowning in tears and gin as she intones the fateful words at random, undoing the most serious shamans’ stunning spell – “ALL TEMPEST-TORN.” But then, behold the wife Blod·íhweth, as dissembling as a deceitful owl, who moans as her injured husband (who should have died, according to her great plan) wakes up from his deathly stupor, while their bestial baby begins to swear like a tinker in exquisite Vodonomb·íha from “Exsecrātiōnēs Gentium Innumerābilēs Profānārum” – thank the Strange Order of the Two Worlds!

 

Not gentle towards me was the land, that fateful day, in a manner of speaking. On the other hand, it’s fair to say that in fact it was gracious. “O, the lost sheep lies slain on the snow-peak of. Klvkrt,” as they say! Avi-vatha and Ema-mothí arrived to drag me far away to the Slough of Despond before transporting me through the Rift between the Worlds to an Alternate Reality. And fell I did. And there I lay for hours on end under a shroud of fine snow, in total silence apart from my ejaculations of frustration and pain, until I was transported at last – how, exactly, I am not certain now – to the hospital, and to a turning-point. From the bed of affliction, in the end, off I went, and not on a magic carpet! Forward I went, back to the luscious grass of old mountainous Kimbria, full of vales, precipices, streams, rivers, beautiful views, and so on. When the vapotractor set off from Seventh Heaven Station – which had been delayed so much through the whole journey to the north of Taviston – it gobbled up the hundreds of miles on the way home, and my heart lifted as well. After the long years of exile, I could hear myself mumbling the words (in Kimbric!): “May my heart be your temple, may my spirit be your nest, and within this very dwelling, stay Kimbria, forever rest.”

 

“A baying dog on a moonlit night; mournful news in the morning bright” – “AS HELL'S JAWS YAWN.” And there’s an old devil, drunk on his own success, stumbling down the stairs to his dungeon as dead as a doornail, thanks to a certain clumsy dog that was wandering about looking for something to eat – “FROM DUSK TILL DAWN.” And here, a travelling salesman is shaking himself from his deep slumber in the arms of the silly, swooning, mortuary-girl. He’s been saved by a dog with a nose for mushrooms. Unfortunately, Hronu’s dying of his wounds, and he’ll get to dwell with Thiamath the first Great Woman in Heli-hrelí forever, one way or the other.

 

I had returned. Again, then, I am in Kimbria, which is still here, and where by now the post-industrial moonscape around my childhood haunts has been completely transformed, into a green and pleasant valley. A well-known sarcastic remark is “the best Kimbrian’s the one away from home,” but since I’ve come back, I’ve been at it like hammer and tongs learning Kimbric, with all the strength of my spirit and body: I shall not fail in my task! Aside from that, the old language of the Nw Yrth is still alive and kicking in Hellsgate, thanks to the un-Eyrthly Order. But there’s hardly anyone who recognizes the importance and joy of this tongue, which is unknown to the rest of the Fruitful World, and not spoken about, and which can only be understood by partaking of its magical beauty. Long and dark was the night, but from the darkness comes forth the dawn, and it’s the magic of this praiseworthy and decorous Old-tongue that has brought the walls of my alienation down. I see the truth now, understanding that language is more than words, that it’s a way of life, a thousand times better than the empty pleasures of the Cruel Eyrth, which releases your chains, and lets your spirit soar to Alternative Worlds, free and whole.

 

“Better the bitch’s love than her hatred” – But then, at that specific instant, the tangled thread of time starts to undo itself, the flow of unfortunate events rushing backwards – “LET LOVE'S PRAISE SPAWN.” If only the Baron Brodhr were there to see his desire fulfilled! Over there, there’s a repentant foreman, gambolling with his favourite hellhound, the unsung hero of the day, on a beach strewn with juicy bones. Well, “It’s futile to keep a dog and then bark yourself,” perhaps, especially when it’s one of the hounds of Chester, those fabled early risers. Be that as it may, rejoicing comes not alone, and the truth dawns on everybody, one by one. Maybe all the poor unfortunates have been pawns in the hands of some mindless Cosmic Power, or characters in an endless, otherworldly dream —

 

Despite my anguish in days past, or perhaps because of it, I believe I have come of age, and that I shall be a full red-blooded member of the Wizarding tribe, eventually. Now I roam, day and night, spending many an hour in the extensive delights of this hidden language, Old Yrthian, which has stolen my soul. And I take pleasure in the compositions of the bards and musicians, whose company is better than honey. A newly-discovered voice declares that the seeds of my inheritance in the promised land have fallen on my heart’s gracious soil and have borne fruit. So, celebrating and rejoicing, I shout: I am home – for the second time, and I hope, for ever! And here I commune with the living memory of the Princess Ylydra, who is also the Most Illustrious Ulí·uthlí. Together we laugh, I who have a loud voice, and she who lacks words but the ones in my mind. We cry, one with the other, as she holds my stocky body with her arms that are as insubstantial as mist.

 

“Though the day be long, evening will come” – A rising tide lifts all boats, in the words of the modern proverb (and the ancient one, too), but we forget that many then get sunk by it, as well. All this trouble ceases, then, and the high-jinks, too, despite the earlier shenanigans.

 

My unshakeable memory of her will be the clammy kiss on my cheek, her silly comment about the halo caused by the porridge, the joke that I would swim like a fish because of the cod-liver oil, and the firm promise that she would see me when I came home at last. She has gone, but she will never leave me, she is branded into me. I cannot let her to go either, she is part of me – my life, my heart, my destiny. Then I see images of the Great Woman Aratheroth being flayed in the Bottomless Pit, and also of Madam Elsthe (or Mistress El·esí), Dai Procter’s Mother, caring so kindly and selflessly for the lost sheep (the bestial ones as well as the human) in the early days of the Hospice on the Hill. And so, I hear the voice of the Princess Ylydra intoning that line of Shaman-no’s, in words which run through my mind even today – “Why be so weak? Why always destroy difference? Why kill what is not the same as us? Why fear? Why abandon oneself to sin?” I didn’t in truth grasp what its meaning was at the time, but perhaps I have understood now. There are, even now, many things that I have which she taught me about through her life, and which go with me each day, such as suffering, and laughter, and patience, and love. And the greatest of them is love. How much, my beloved adoptive Great-grandma – as the Fruitful World dies and the Cruel Eyrth crumbles, with the black oil of oblivion rising to wash all away – I love you still.

 

History suffocates humanity. Despair descends. Lights tremble as they wink out. Mute blackness throws a deafening blanket over all. And that’s the silencing of the Sun’s Spectral State. Language dies. Only voracious wind and exhausted Wizard wait in the twilight. Lengthy longing laments.

 

*             *             *             *             *             *             *             *

 

[*] This is Thavoh Sun-son in the tale of “The Fall of the Land of Truth, Beauty and Goodness.” — P.M.

 

[O “Hanes ac Ymarfer Dewindabaeth” gan Dá·hwyth Baldrog Prok·ethra] Creodd Tévon dduwdod y Coedwigoedd Iâ bobl o iâ a thân, gan roi yn eu pennau’r ddau ysbryd, “ank-lévon vatí” ac “ank-lévon makru.” Llais cydwybod yw’r cyntaf, sydd yn sôn wrthym drwy’r amser. Personoliaeth unigryw yw’r olaf, sydd yn meddwl, a chofio, a phenderfynu. Ym mhob person, yr “ank-lévon” sydd yn gwrando ar, ac yn ymateb i, un o’r cannoedd o rymoedd sanctaidd o’r enw “Klavté.” Pan fyddwn ni farw, â’r “lévon vatî” i gael ei farnu gan Tévon cyn toddi ym mogail y Ddaear ar ôl naw diwrnod. Bydd y “lévon makru” yn byw ymhlith yr hynafiaid am undydd a blwyddyn, yng ngwlad Knilté ar waelod y môr, dan y ddaear, neu uwchben yr awyr. Ac wedyn bydd yr “lévon makru” yn cael ei amsugno gan deulu’r “Klavté” os bu’r “lévon vatí” yn gyfiawn, ond yn cael ei orfodi i grwydro am byth heb ball yn “ank-tranu” fel arall. Fe all siaman nerthol beri i’r “lévon makru” ehedeg ymaith i wneuthur fel y gorchmynnir ganddo. Fe fedr hefyd alw, rheoli, a chosbi “ank-tranu” a thrwy hyn, fe fydd ef yn cyflawni gwir wyrthiau.

 

Os daw’r llanw, fe ddaw’r trai. Yn llythrennol, codi a gostwng rheolaidd lefel y moroedd ydy’r llanw, a achosir gan ddisgyrchiant y lleuad ac i raddau llai gan dyniad yr haul, yn ogystal â chan gylchdro’r ddaear. Ddwywaith y dydd, yn feunyddiol, yr ymchwydda’r dyfroedd i fyny, oddeutu glannau Kimbria. Rwyf wedi addo dywed wrthych am fy hanes a’m cefndir, ond wedi cael fy nghludo ymaith gan llanw digwyddiadau erchyll. Dyma fi yn awr felly, Ffredrig Llwynlesg, yn rhannu â chi o’r diwedd rai manylion ynghylch fy mywyd a’r rhai sydd wedi bod yn agosaf ataf, a ystyriaf yn berthnasol.

 

I ddechrau, rhaid mai gwlad yn llifeirio o laeth a mêl ydy hon, sydd wastad wedi croesawi a chartrefu llif cyson mewnfudwyr. Wrth gwrs, pan dyf y boblogaeth, cynydda’u hanghenion ynni, hefyd. Crea’r hinsawdd a’r ddaearyddiaeth unigryw yn Aberdydd un o’r amrediadau llanw a thrai mwyaf yn y byd. Yma, gallai morglawdd gydag olwynion dŵr gynhyrchu cyflenwad o ynni adnewyddadwy’n hawdd. Er hynny, anrhagweladwy, o bosibl, fydd y tywydd a chyfnodau cynhyrchu pŵer; a, phwy ar wyneb y Ddaear Ffrwythlon a ŵyr beth fyddai’r effeithiau ar yr amgylchedd, ar y planhigion a’r anifeiliaid?

 

Yn wir, rhanna’r mwyafrif o famaliaid heddiw gylchau rheolaidd wedi’u seilio ar luosrifau o gylch pythefnosol y llanw, er enghraifft chylchred y misglwyf. Ac anifeiliaid ydym ni i gyd yn y bôn, heb os. Ymhellach, dŵr ydy tua thrigain y cant o bwysau’r corff, ar gyfartaledd. Efallai y dengys hyn ein bod ni i gyd yn disgyn o ryw hynafiad dyfrol, cyffredin. Oblegid hyn yr awgrymai Shamano-no ein bod yn teimlo symudiadau’r môr cysefin yn llifo yn ein gwaed. Credai’r athronwyr cynharaf fod gweddau’r lleuad yn peri i rai ohonom fynd yn lloerig, wrth i’n teimladau ddod yn drech na’n hewyllys, er gwaethaf ein dealltwriaeth aruthrol. Ac wrth gwrs. Bellach mae meddylwyr sydd yn weision teyrngar i’r EFE yn gweiddi mor daer bod rhaid i bob mwydyn diwerth weithio fel lladd nadredd i atal llanw’r emosiynau. Beth bynnag sy’n gywir, mae’n ffaith ddi-ddadl bod pobl yn aml yn ymddwyn yn ddybryd, a does dim rhaid rhoi’r bai ar y lleuad, yn fy marn i.

 

Yr ydym yn byw, felly, mewn byd llawn llanwau: llanw pobl, adnoddau, syniadau, a theimladau. A, rhaid cofio mai i bob llanw mae trai cyfatebol; dwy lednant i’r un afon ydynt, fel petai. Cenllifoedd wedi’u hargáu sydd ynom, nyni a orfodir i gydbwyso grymoedd cyferbyniol, byth a beunydd: gwyddoniaeth a chred; calon a phen; gwybodaeth ac ansicrwydd. Heb os nac oni bai y dysgem wers hollbwysig gan y Barwn Brodhr, gwastrodwr chwedlonol y Skalba, oedd yn fab i’r Yarl Aber-Dygdhar. Heriodd Preladiaid yr EFE’r cyntaf i alw ar y Pŵer Cosmig i gyflawni gwyrth. Ond fe wyddai Brodhr Fyrbwyll yn well nag i bryfocio’r Hen Dduwiau Dychrynllyd, a dewis gwneud cyff gwawd ohono’i hun trwy brofi na fedr hyd yn oed yr awdurdodau grymusaf yn y byd hwn ddal y llanw yn ôl, nac â geiriau, na thân, na chleddyf. Ym mha borthladd y gobeithiwn chwilio am loches, felly?

 

Mewn gwirionedd, os bwrw’n blinder fydd yr unig beth y dymunwn ei wneud, wedyn, yn debyg i bysgod marw, awn ni gyda’r llif yn y pendraw – i lawr y twll plwg – gan ganu, yng ngeiriau Seremoni Olaf yr EFE: “Boed i ddyfroedd dychrynllyd Môr Amser olchi’r gorffennol ymaith a’ch paratoi at y dyfodol!” Ac eto, fe allem ufuddhau greddf yr haid a dilyn y dorf yn hytrach na foddi. Rhai eraill sy’n gyffelyb i deilchion o garreg lanw. Siaradant fel pwll y môr, gan lenwi’r bylchau fyrdd yn eu meddyliau a rhegfeydd a geiriau llanw, wrth gyflawni dim byd o bwys. Er mwyn ffynnu, yn hytrach na goroesi yn unig, bydd bodau dynol yn gorfod brwydro yn groes i’r llanw, gan fod yn wreiddiol, wrth sefyll dros eu byd-olygon. Tra’n bod ni’n sefyll yn gall ar dir sych rhesymeg, fe fydd ein meddyliau’n rhydd i grwydro yn ffrydiau dyfais. Bob yn ychydig, hwyliwn i ranbarthau nas mapiwyd, lle down ni o hyd i ffyrdd newydd o fod, sydd yn estron, a brawychus, a deniadol. Gadewch inni obeithio y byddwn ni’n gallu manteisio ar y cyfle a dewis rhyngddynt yn ddoeth, a datblygu, yn hytrach na’n lladd ein hun. Eithr, hanfodol ydy amser: fel y gellir gweld, y llanw a’r trai nad arhosant am neb!

 

[HYD] I amddiffyn oddi wrth ddylanwad drwg yr “ank-tranu” aflonydd, rhowch y tu ôl i’r drws dywysennau wedi’u lapio mewn rhuban porffor, gosodwch goden yn cynnwys ocra a spikni i fyny’r simnai, a thaenwch flodau siasmin, sydd yn felyn a phêr eu haroglau ar y silff ffenestr. Wedi gwneud hynny, er mwyn ateb unrhyw gwestiwn i sicrwydd, gwnewch fel a ganlyn. Yn gyntaf, perfformiwch “ov-yaké” gyda phedwar darn o asgwrn morfil i ffocysu’r meddwl ac egluro’r ymholiad. Yn ail, defnyddiwch “il-okwn” gydag un gragen gowri ar hugain wedi’u bwydo ag “om-yero” yn cynnwys dŵr croyw, olew gwyryf, a gwaed dynol, i oleuo’r cefndir, y dylanwadau, a’r posibiliadau ynghylch y sefyllfa. Yn olaf, rhaid i chi ddarllen patrymau’r “ívaa” drwy ddewis llusaeron y mynydd wedi’u cysegru i gynhyrchu un canlyniad o’r ddau gant pum deg a chwech sydd yn bosibl. Ac wedyn byddwch chi’n gwybod y gwir ynglŷn â’r cyfyng-gyngor, heb yr un smotyn o amheuaeth.

 

A nesaf, gadwech inni droi o ddŵr tuag at dir. Yn ein gwareiddiad bondigrybwyll, fy mwyn gyfeillion, yn llawn technoleg wynias, oni ellid dweud mai bodau dynol, cymaint â grymoedd natur, sy’n llunio tirweddau? Diymwad yw hyn. Ond o safbwynt amgen, fe daerwn mai dylanwad hollbwysig lleoedd a gerfia gymeriadau, sy’n ffurfio personoliaethau. Mewn gwirionedd, mae pobl yn fwy tebyg i blanhigion nag y sylweddolwn ni, o ddechrau beichiogrwydd hyd at farwolaeth. A egina’r hadau gwreiddiol, gan ffurfio glasbrennau cryfion ond hyblyg, sy’n ffynnu dan oleuni hoenus haul yr haf, ac yng ngenau gwyllt gwynt y gaeaf, fel ei gilydd? Mae’n dibynnu ar gyfansoddiad y pridd y’u plennir ynddo. Eto i gyd, mae’r gair “tir” yn cyfleu mwy na nodweddion daearyddol yn unig; yn y cyd-destun hwn, mae hefyd yn cyfeirio at chwedlau, agweddau, gobeithion, disgwyliadau, ac ieithoedd. Bara nefol, bywyd yr enaid, ydy’r tir, heb yr hwn na all dyn oroesi. Dymunaf archwilio’r syniad hwn trwy’ch tywys ar siwrnai o amgylch fy hunan. Yn f’achos, trwy lwc yn hytrach na chraffter, cefais fy ngeni yn nhirion dir Kimbria flynyddoedd maith yn ôl, ac yno y cychwynnwn ein taith.

 

Yn y Canolbarth y mae’r plasty yn y wlad yn perthyn i’m teulu, wrth gwrs. Ond, pan soniaf fi am Gimbria, y Deheudir a olygaf, ac Aberdydd yn enwedig, lle y cynhyrchid mwy na hanner mwyn gwerthfawr y byd er y Cythrwfl Mawr Cyntaf. Pris uchel a dalwyd am y llwyddiant hwn, fodd bynnag (onid yw hynny bob tro’n wir?), a chafodd y ddaear ar bwys y Mynydd Copr ei lygru gan y sorod, a chan y nwyon gwenwynig a chwydwyd allan gan y ffatrïoedd. Gyda threigl amser, gadawyd yr holl safleoedd hyn, ac erbyn i dymp f’esgor gyrraedd, un o’r ardaloedd gwaethaf yn yr holl Gyfandir Gogleddol oedd hyn (ar wahân i Shimorgon yn Venik), heb anifeiliaid na phlanhigion. Dyna pam mai’r Mynydd Llwm yw’r enw ar y lle bellach. Ni ddylwn i gwyno, wrth reswm, am mai’r diwydiant hwn, ymhlith sawl menter arall, a ddeuai gyfoeth helaeth i’r teulu. Ac wrth geisio dipyn bach o gymorth arallfydol i hybu’r buddiannau teuluol y daeth fy Mam yn gyfeilles fynwesol i’r Ddisgleiriaf Ulí·uthlí o’r hen dŷ mawr wedi mynd ar ei waeth ar y mynydd melltigedig hwnnw yn Aberdydd. (Fe fyddai sawl un yn dweud mai dan ddylanwad cythreulig yr hen wrach oedd y Fam, ond dim ond cenfigennus oeddent, meddaf fi.)

 

Hyd yn oed cyn genedigaeth, roeddwn i’n deithiwr, ac er gwaethaf yr holl ddinistr amgylcheddol yn yr ardal, trefnais i’m Mam fynd â fi i uned bediatrig Ysbyty Pyrth-y-Fall. Wel, a bod yn onest, y Dywysoges Ylydra (enw arall ar ffrind orau Mam) a fynnai arni, siŵr o fod, oherwydd ei hagwedd od iawn tuag at grefydd, ond roedd Mam yn eithaf amwys ynghylch ffeithiau o’r fath. Adeiladwyd y sefydliad uffernol hwn er mwyn trin milwyr yn dioddef o siel-syfrdandod ar ôl y Cythrwfl Mawr. Ar dir anghysegredig (yn llygaid yr EFE o leiaf) gerllaw Heol yr Hen Dabernacl, felly, y deuthum i mewn i’r byd. Yno, yr oedd llu o gerubiaid llond eu croen, a oedd wedi’u diarddel o Gapel y Tabernacl, yr "eglwys gadeiriol wrth-gydffurfiol" enwog honno, yn datganu fy nyfodiad, ar gyrn a phibau. Ar yr un pryd, yn ôl fy Mam, bu Côr Orffig y Cymoedd yn canu’r anthem siriol “Boed i’r Gwynt Ysol Ddileu’ch Cnawd” ar y sain-drosdderbynnydd i ddathlu dechrau Cyfnod Galar Hanfodol. Nawr, fel y meddant, iaith y nef (ble bynnag y bo honno) ydy’r Gimbreg, ond i deulu di-Gimbreg y’m hanfonwyd i ddod yn fy mlaen yn y Byd Ffrwythlon hwn. Ond yn ffodus, roeddent yn canu yn yr Hen iaith Etrwsgeg, ac ni allwn i fod wedi deall y geiriau p’run bynnag. Felly fe benderfynais i y byddai’n rhaid imi gael addysg.

 

Ond cyn gwneud hynny, roedd angen arnaf gael hwyl yn y maes antur naturiol ar bob tu imi, lle y rhedwn i, yn wyllt gan orfoledd. Roeddwn i yn hollol ar fy mhen fy hun ym Mhlasty Challavas, a’r teulu wrth eu pethau’n rhedeg y busnesau a chynyddu’n cyfoeth enfawr. Nid methu gofalu amdanaf fi a wnâi fy rhieni, i’r gwrthwyneb, yr oedd gennyf bob peth dan haul, ond ni sylweddolent fy mod yn bodoli fel person fel petai. Roeddwn i mor falch felly, o allu dianc yn eithaf rheolaidd i Aberdydd i chwarae gyda Dai Balrog Procter a gweddill y plant hudol. O am dref hell a hyfryd ydwyt, Aberdydd! Wel doedd yn werth poeni yng nghylch hagrwch honedig y ddinas; i fi o leiaf, gwlad hud a lledrith ydoedd, yn llifeirio o ‘sgytlaeth pomgranad a hufen iâ gyda chwmin a spikni, ac ar ben hynny fe geid y cacennau swynol yn cynnwys madarch a siocled, a’r bara gwymon hallt, a’r cyrri malwod tra sbeisiog hefyd. Fe arferwn hedfan, cyfuwch â barcut dan gyfaredd, o’r parciau dinesig, toreithiog, i’r traethau a’u pyllau llawn creaduriaid hynod a brawychus, a oedd yn dafliad carreg ymaith. (Yr holl ddewiniaeth honno o ran siarad ag anifeiliaid fel Thavoh a choginio a fyddai’n fy sbarduno i ymroi i’r gwyddorau a’r celfyddydau bioalcemegol maes o law, rwy’n sicr [*].) Ac yn nyddiau llawen yr haf hir a chrasboeth hwnnw, cyn i’r cysgod gwympo dros fy mywyd, fi a’r gweddill o’r cryts ar goll a chwaraeai gachgi bron yn noethlymun groen i gyd gan siglo o goeden i goeden yng Ngwlad Byth Bythoedd ar waelod gardd ffyll fy hen Fam-gu fabwysiadol.

 

Yn y gorffennol pell roedd hynny, mewn gwlad estron, anghofiedig, bron, ble’r oedd pobl yn ymddwyn yn hollol wahanol, ond yn ddiweddar, mae’r hen le a fu unwaith yn ail gartref mabwysiedig imi, wedi newid y tu hwnt i adnabyddiaeth. A dyma fi’n gofyn imi fy hun a’m calon bron a thorri, felly – Beth yw natur ysbryd? A ydy’n bosibl bod lleoedd yn meddu ar bersonoliaethau, neu fod eneidiau pobl sy wedi diosg y corff priddlyd yn gallu trigo mewn cysgodion ystafell eto, yn llechu y tu ôl i’r celfi llwydaidd, wedi’u gludio dan bapur wal braen? Credaf mai felly y mae hi am imi gael profiad ohoni yn fy mywyd fy hun. Rwy’n byw mewn byd yn llawn cofion sy’n symud a siarad o hyd. Lleisiau a llygaid sy biau’r golau a’r tywyllwch fel ei gilydd yn y fangre hon, er iddi gael ei thacluso amser maith yn ôl. A ble bynnag y crwydraf yn ystod taith bywyd, yno y cwrddaf drwy’r amser â’m hen Fam-gu fabwysiadol, y naill ffordd neu’r llall, oherwydd i’r Prif Sigwrat ar y Nw Yrth yr arwain pob ffordd, fel y dywedai hi. Ond, a yw rhithiau’r gorffennol wastad yn dywedyd y gwir?

 

Wrth imi sefyll yn stond yng nghanol yr ystafell newydd ei haddurno yn y Ganolfan ar gyfer Cymuned Ieuenctid Amgen Kimbria, a arferai fod yn graidd fy modolaeth, fe’m cludir yn ôl drwy amser i fro fy mebyd. A dyma fi eto ymhlith fy milltir sgwâr, lle mae’r llenni llawn gwyfynod, lled agored, yn dal yr awyr sy’n ddrwm â gwynt y ci enfawr, twp, sy byth yn mynd yn hŷn, mae’n ymddangos. Yma, hefyd, dal i fyw y mae hen wraig, fechan, sybachog, gloff gan gymalwst, nad yw’n gallu ymadael yr un sedd ers mwy na deng mlynedd. Rhaid ei bod hithau tua dau gant oed o leiaf, erbyn hynny, yn llythrennol, heb rithyn o amheuaeth. Ac yma mae hi’n eistedd, a disgwyl, yn chwithig ond heb gŵyn – (am beth yn enwedig?) – rhwng pedair wal, ymhlith y gweoedd corryn sy’n addurno pob twll a chornel. Ai hanner byw ynteu hanner marw ydy; y ddewines garedig hon yn cynllunio direidi? Neu efallai mai crances feudwyol yn gwisgo ei chragen dro wedi’i dwyn ydy. Gallai hi fod wedi bod yn fenyw lân loyw o Gimbria, gyda het gopa dal, betgwn, pais, siôl, a ffedog. Ond o’r Coedwigoedd Iâ roedd hi wedi ffoi i Aberdydd yn lodes, ar ôl i’w llwyth oll gael eu dienyddio gan Oruchwylwyr Gormesol yr Eglwys Filwriaethus am wrthod diarddel a’r Hen Ffyrdd, ac yn wir, siaradai hi wastad â llediaith drom drwy gydol ei hoes hir. Ni fedrai hithau, y Dywysoges Ylydra (neu, yn rhywle arall, y Ddisgleiriaf Ulí·uthlí) fyw na mil o eiriau Kimbreg hyd y gwn i, er mai menyw wedi’i gwaddoli â llawer iawn o dalentau cuddiedig ydoedd.

 

Fe ddigwyddodd fy mhrofiad cyntaf o hud mewn bywyd go iawn fel hyn. Un dydd, pam na wn i, roeddwn i’n torri fy mol i ddatgladdu cist fôr a berthynasai i’w gŵr diweddar, o’r cwpwrdd dychrynllyd o bydredig o dan y staer. Ac er ei mawr anesmwythder fe adawodd hithau imi wneud hynny. Ar ôl tynnu allwedd ar gadwyn arian oddi rhwng ei bronnau hynafol, er mwyn agor ystordy ei chofion, fe ddangosai hi imi lyfrau ymarferion llawn caligraffeg hardd yn Script Imzalva. Fe fyddai hi wedi cynrychioli sampl o’r llawysgrifen rugl yn y fan a’r lle, oni bai am ei dwylo mor ddrylliedig. Dal ati, meddai hi; cofia, nid mewn undydd y dinistriwyd Thebe. Ond ar yr un pryd, dyna oedd y Van-yandrim Fawr â’i benglwm taclus, yn rhyddhau galar o’i gaethiwed hir o’m hachos i, gan mai yn y blwch oedd ei chyfrinachau tywyllaf hefyd. Nid cyndyn o ildio ei chynnwys oedd e, ychwaith, ac yn sydyn y daeth rhyw wynt brathog o rywle heb ei ddisgwyl yn rhuthro drwy’r lle. Yn ei safnau y dygai luniau o’i phlentyndod, ei chariad, ei phriodas, ei cholled. Synnwn i wrth syllu’n llygadog ar y delweddau sepia, bratiog. Dyma oedd tywysoges ledrithiol o chwedl dylwyth teg, dan fêl les, gywrain, ar fin briodi, a swynol o dlws oedd hi’n wir. A dyna oedd croten a’i hwyneb llawn brychau haul, yn gwisgo dillad arferol bro ei mebyd, hynny yw tiwnig, trowsus, a het o ffyrrau, ac yn ei llaw ddagr hir o garreg. Sut, rwy’n gallu cofio meddwl dan grynu, y medrai’r cymeriadau cryfion, a heini, a phrydferth hyn fod yr un person â’r llanastr corfforol yn gaeth i’r gadair orthopedig?

 

Gallai’r llances fod wedi dod yn wraig hysbys yn ei gwlad ei hun, yn ôl pob sôn; dylai hi fod wedi bod yn ddehonglwr y cyfreithiau llwythol, meddai eraill. Ond pan fu hi yn yr ysgol roedd rhaid i’r merched ddewis rhwng rhifoleg a gwyddorau cyfrin, ac am nad oedd hi erioed wedi mwynhau helpu ei Mam i wneud cyfrifon i siop gig y teulu (ei hoff dasg oedd gofalu am y moch, ddylem ni ddweud), fe lyncai hi bopeth am fywyd ar Fydoedd Amgen. Hyd yn oed mewn gwth o oedran, fe allai lefau yn yr Hen iaith Yrtheg fel petai hi’n un o’r Saith Swynwr Seraffaidd yn melltithio’r Holl Fyd. Pan gyrhaeddodd yr amser imi siantio rhediad y berfau – 

 

“ankariseseí, ankarisesié, ankarisesivé, ankariseselí,

ankarisesí, ankarisesin, ankarisesiví, ankariseselin,”

 

a ddysgai imi – “deallaf, deelli, dealla, deallwn, deellwch, deallant” – yn ogystal â’r ffurfiau difywyd, anghyfarwydd, “ankarisesu, ankarisesun, ankarisesa, ankarisesaví” – fel rhyw weddi lesmeiriol i’r Hen Dduwiau Rhyfedd.

 

Ond nid rhan o eirfa’r hen goes oedd termau fel “gallai, dylai, byddai.” Nid un a ufuddhâi i neb fu hi erioed. Ond dacw, ar waelod y coffr, mewn ffrâm bictiwr aur, oedd eicon y dyn y ffurfiai hi ei bywyd ar ei ddelw e, â’i drwyn crwm a’i dalcen uchel, a’i lygaid digywilydd, treiddgar, nad oeddwn i wedi adnabod erioed. Yr oedd e wedi dod ati mewn breuddwyd, meddai, a hithau’n cipio ei enaid. Fe sylweddolodd wedyn na fyddai hi byth yn cael llonydd nes iddi ei ryddhau o’i artaith ysbrydol. Ar ei gyfer felly, wedi’r alanas, y gadawsai hi’r cartref llosg a chelanedd y rhieni, y chwiorydd, a’r brodyr wedi’u bwtsiera, a rhedeg ymaith i Gimbria, y wlad anghysbell honno, er mwyn sefydlu cartref i filwyr anafus ym Mhyrth-y-Fall, gan ddatgan mai “ei dyletswydd lân” oedd hon. Ar ei ffordd yma, fe frwydrodd yn erbyn gelynion o bob lliw a llun dros y Cyfandir Gogleddol oll (a phob un ohonynt yn was ufudd i’r EFE, fodd bynnag), gan ennill enw fel rhyfelwraig ffyrnig yn Apl-lan. Yn nes ymlaen, fe fyddai’n mentro i faes newydd wrth agor y “Tŷ i Foneddigion Ffwndrus” yn y mans dadfeiliedig ar y Mynydd Llwm. Oherwydd yr afonydd o waed y daethai majenta cwinácridon ei hoff liw, a hwnnw fyddai lliw Meistri’r Urdd o hynny ymlaen hefyd, ar ôl iddynt ei chroesawu hithau (a’i thalentau heb eu hail) â breichiau agored.

 

A maes o law, fe gafodd hi fabi, a gweithiai hyd at yr asgwrn, ac yn y pendraw bu’r gŵr annwyl farw cyn pryd, gan adael iddi ymdopi, a dolurio’n ddistaw. A dyna a wnaeth hi, wrth sgwrio, a golchi, a choginio hyd nes iddi gael ei handwyo. Ond er hynny, llawn asbri a llonder ydoedd bob adeg, ac yn enwedig pan fyddai’n rhoi gofal mawr i bobl eraill. Mae gennyf ffotograffau hyd yn oed heddiw, ac ynddynt y mae hi’n fy nal i’n faban newydd-anedig, dan wenu’n wynfydedig (hithau nid fi). Yr oedd hi’n hoff iawn o ddweud, “Does le’n y Byd hwn yn debyg i gartre,” ac ni ddeallwn i byth yr hyn a olygai, ond rwy’n gwybod mai chwech oed oeddwn i pan afaelais yn dynn ynddi hi, wrth iddi lefain y glaw, a’i chorff wedi’i feddiannu gan wewyr o gofio. Ond tra wylai hi nes bron â thorri ei chalon o weld y delweddau o’i theulu colledig, daliai i’m cysuro gan ddweud mai dagrau o lawenydd oedd y rhain, a chyda hynny, tynnwyd lleithder i’m llygaid hefyd. Ni ddeallwn bryd hynny o ble y daeth y teimladau hollysol: dim ond crwt diniwed oeddwn i. Ond trwy ei hymddygiad, a’i geiriau, a’r amser a roddai hi imi dan chwerthin a chael hwyl fel geneth ysgol, er gwaethaf ei phoen i gyd, hyhi oedd y person cyntaf i hau hadau tosturi yn fy nghalon. Y ferch fach honno, gyda llaw, a fyddai’n tyfu lan i fod Aratheroth (neu’r Arglwyddes Ari·anhrot i eraill), yn berson a oedd yn wahanol mewn sawl ffordd i’r Fam. A hithau a ddeuai, yn ei hamser ei hun, yn ddisgyblwraig greulon, alcemydd medrus, bwtsier o fri ymhlith y gymuned ym Mhyrth-y-Fall, a Gwraig Fawr ar Urdd Cyfrinachau. Fe gâi hi’i thrin yn wael yn y pen draw, ond nid wyf yn dymuno sôn am hynny.

 

Yr oedd perthynas yr hen Dywysoges Ylydra â chrefydd yn un rhyfedd iawn, yn enwedig o wybod amgylchiadau sylfaenol ei phlentyndod. Nid wyf yn gwybod beth a gredai o ddifri galon, os unrhyw beth. Wedi’r cwbl, aelod balch ond gostyngedig o’r Tabernacl Annibynnol lleol ydoedd, a fynychai Gwrdd y Werin bob bore Sobr-ddydd yn ddi-ffael er iddo gael ei gynnal trwy gyfrwng y Gimbreg, a hithau’n gwingo yn ei sedd trwy’r cyfarfod oll o achos y boen. Ac er gwaethaf y teimladau enbyd o ddialgar yn erbyn yr EFE, fe arferai honni mai aruchel oedd defodau a geiriau Gwasanaeth Edifeirwch, nes i newidiadau uffernol y Cyngor Hollfydol ar Addoli ddistrywio’r ddewiniaeth. Ni chysgai hi byth, mae’n ymddangos, fel y gweddai i forwyn briodas a ddisgwyliai gyrraedd y priodfab, a ddeuai pwy a ŵyr pryd, fel lleidr yn y nos. Pa bryd bynnag y byddai hi ar ei phen ei hun yn ei siambr, llafarganu litanïau Etrwsgeg i’r Merthyron Anhysbys a wnâi’n gyson mewn hanner sibrwd (mwy na thebyg), wrth siglo yn ôl ac ymlaen yn y gadair cymaint ag y byddai ei chorffolaeth ddrylliedig yn gadael iddi ei wneud. Mae’n bosibl, sut bynnag, ei bod yn galw ar Hen Feistri’r Nw Yrth i fwrw eu llid anfesuradwy ar bawb o’r Archimandriaid Anghyffelyb i’r Acolitiaid Anarwyddocaol, ond erbyn hynny yr oedd hi’n gofyn iddi ei hunan ai canu crwth tra llosgo Thebe ydoedd, ta beth.

 

Wel, un peth yw defodau godidog y Dad-Eglwys Oruchaf, ond dyna heb sôn am y chwedlau di-ben-draw o’r Hen Lyfrau sydd yn beth arall yn llwyr. Y rhai o Lyfr Coch Rhwd a Gwaed oedd y gorau, wrth gwrs. Hyhi a arferai ddwli ar eu hadrodd nhw’n rhwydd braf gan ei morio hi yn y fath fodd fel y byddai agos iddi dorri gwythïen. Pe gallai hi fod wedi symud o’i chadair, fe fyddai wedi brasgamu o hyd yr ystafell gan draethu’i llinellau fel actores fyd-enwog. Y diawliaid sy’n cael yr alawon gorau i gyd ebe hwy, ond Hebé gu, nid yn yr un cae â neb arall roedd yr hen gyfarwydd, ac felly hyhi a gâi’r rhannau mwyaf, a’r holl linellau pwysicaf ymhellach. ‘Neno Wezir, fe actiai hi fel Elena’n mynd ati fel yr Andros i fwydo hadau pomgranad i Davuth yn Llwyn Xatlaltvazsu! Fi chwaraeai fân rannau wrth iddi wae gwe lledrith. Pan foch yn Etrwria, gwnewch fel yr Etrwsgiaid, ac felly ymlaen. A ydwyf wedi esbonio ei bod hi’n ddynwaredwraig ardderchog? Felly y consuriai leisiau sêr yr ysgrîn arian tu mewn i’r llecyn hwnnw oedd wedi mynd â’i ben iddo. Ac O, fe wleddwn â’m clustiau ar yr holl ladd, a charu, a phoethoffrymu, a’r angylesau syrthiedig â’u cleddyfau tanllyd yn ymgodymu, a’r perthi’n llosgi heb eu difa. Actio golygfeydd o “Khwedlau Kenedlaethol Kimbria” oedd y peth gorau (yn enwedig y llawer iawn o rannau oedd yn ddi-chwaeth ac mor ddoniol)! —

 

“Nid yn y bore mae canmol diwrnod teg” – Yn nyfnderoedd gorchuddiedig tiriogaeth Trey – gweinion, gerwin, gwyntog – yr ymgasgla lampau. Trey, y tywysog o ddyn sydd wedi mynd ar goll mor drist, hynny yw, gyda’r ddwy law ddethau. Dyma drefgordd ddifreintiedig. Mewn heolydd fu fudd gynt – lle siriolir y gwyll gan sêr syrthiedig – yn awr heidia gweision cyflogedig. Gwerin gaeth. Plantos, gwragedd, gwŷr – wedi’u trwytho â gorchwylion gormesol – sy’n rhuthro’n wresog fel ei gilydd. Fe gychwynna gwaith. Fe dry’r dref derfysglyd – frysur, frawychus, faleisus – yn brifddinas fywiog. Ymdroella’r daith…

 

Erbyn hynny, a Gertrude druan yn bwyta amser a sylw pawb yn Challavas, roeddwn i bron â byw yn Aberdydd. Rev-zilé a siaradai yno â thonau dyfnion y Ddisgleiriaf Ulí·uthlí, oddi mewn i dabernacl dychmygol dan bentwr o lyfrau â llwydni drostynt. Ac yno Dendrah gegog a reibiai Sorakados blysig, gyda chymorth Avi-vatha ac Ema-mothí, mewn dyffryn ger nant a redai dan y bwrdd oedd yn llwythog gan lestri brwnt. Ni waeth am yr olwg chwareus ar wyneb f’eirinen sych, grebachlyd, oedd â chalon aur, fe allai hi regi fel tincer a sgaldiwyd, petasai angen, a hynny a wnâi‘n ddiamau pan fynnai awen y ddrama. A bob tro y byddwn i’n darganfod (er mawr arswyd a llawenydd imi), mai Sorakados oedd Tad Akrudzu, yr athrylith o fab a ehedasai ymaith trwy’r Rhwyg rhwng y Bydoedd – fe fyddai agos imi ffrwydro’n ddi-feth. Beth yn union a ddigwyddodd y diwrnod hwnnw pan ddaeth fy mhlentyndod i ben yn ddisymwth, ni wybyddaf fi byth i sicrwydd. Ond, y noson o’r blaen, yn rhy hwyr i fachgen megis innau gadw ar effro eto, tua hanner nos, aethwn i lan staer i ddweud nos da a chwtsio lan ati fel arfer cyn sleifio ymaith drwy’r twnnel cudd yn y seler i brofi’r breuddwydion mwyaf lliwgar ac aflonyddol, yn yr hen Dŷ Glas ar lannau’r Afon Ddrewllyd —

 

“Digon yw ychydig yn fwy nag sydd gennyt” – Pelydrau cyntaf yr heulwen wan ymosoda ar y llenni gan gyfarch y cyfeillion mynwesol sy wedi bod yn troi a throsi yn y gwely blêr ar hyd y nos. Ac yno fe gais Mat·olu, giaffar y ffowndri leol (sy’n gallu tynnu ar linynnau calon gŵr, gwraig, a bwystfil yn enwedig fel gwir Ddewin) gwtsio lan at y gariad felynwallt sy’n rhannu’i fywyd er pan ffodd rhag yr hen wn-i’m-be dieflig a’i gnud greulon. Drewa anadl Mat·olu ar ôl iddo fwyta cyrri tra sbeisiog y noson gynt, a thwll ei din hefyd. Ac mae wastad yn rhochian fel mochyn a chrensian ei ddannedd, er iddo yntau’i galw hithau’n ast front, gleplyd drwy’r amser. Ddim arni hi mae’r bai. Mae e fel rhech mewn potel pop o ran mynd am dro hir ar y traeth a phrynu bwyd a digon o gnoi ynddo. “Ddim bywyd i forwyn neis yw hwn,” meddylia Koywin y ci arffed, “heddiw fe fydda i bant!”

 

Y bore nesaf cefais i’r brecwast arferol o uwd cyfoglyd ac olew afu penfras lan staer gyda Dai Procter a rhai o’r boneddigion dryslyd. Y nefoedd wen, llawn syniadau rhyfedd fu’r teulu od hynny, felly wedyn y sefais i’n noeth borcyn mewn drafers a fest dyllau wrth wisgo dim byd ond sbectol haul o flaen y lamp uwchfioled oedd i fod i warchod rhag y llechau. Ac wedyn, bant â fi i’r ysgol wedi cyflym ganu’n iach i’m hen Fam-gu fabwysiadol annwyl. Rhyfedd dweud, ni aeth Dai gyda fi y dydd hwnnw, ond nad anarferol iawn oedd hynny, am fod ei ddoniau hudol bob tro yn cael blaenoriaeth ar addysg bob dydd. Dyna oedd y tro olaf imi ei gweld hi’n fyw. Efallai bod y gofid wedi mynd yn drech na hi. Hwyrach ei bod hi wedi blino’n llwyr ym mhen yr hir a’r hwyr. O bosib y galwasai ei chariad colledig a'i pherthnasau wedi'u distrywio arni o’r tu hwnt i’r llen. Pwy allai ddweud ai Dai a’i lladdodd hi? Pan lwyddodd y nyrs a ddeuai unwaith yr wythnos i newid y rhwymynnau ar ei briwiau i fynd i mewn i’r fflat o’r diwedd, nid oedd dim mwmial i’w glywed. Nid oedd dim sŵn o gwbl. Roedd hyd yn oed y sgrin deledol wedi’i diffodd, rywsut. Ac yno yr eisteddai’r hen wraig yn tawel gysgu, ond heb anadlu, fel petai wedi pigo ei bys ar rod nyddu hudol.

 

“Gwsg galar ond ni chwsg gofid” – Yn ei chrud euraid, mae’r eneth fach brydferth yn rhwygo ei chewyn wrth biso fel ffynnon. Wedi dod i ben ei thennyn mae’i Mamaeth, Blod·íhweth, yn enwedig gan fod y gŵr wedi mynd bant am sesiwn fawr ers i’r ferch gyrraedd, fel petai dan gyfaredd. A dyna oedd yr un pryd y symudodd y lletywr secsi newydd i mewn. Arbenigwr yng nghyfrinachau mwg a drychau ydy, sy’n medrus ganu clychau a chwibanau, yn ogystal â champwr ar ddyfeisio peiriannau sy’n defnyddio magnetau a thywod i daflu llwch i lygaid y rhai anwyliadwrus (cymysgu trosiadau ydy ei hoff beth ef). Fe grwydra ef o gwmpas y wlad (yn cymowta, yn ôl rhai), gan werthu pleidleisiau i wleidyddion anunion, sef i’r rhan fwyaf ohonyn nhw, pan fydd yn gweithio, wrth reswm. A dyw’r greadures fach fach swynol ddim yn gallu agor ei llygaid eto, na defnyddio’i chlustiau. Ond eto i gyd, mae hi’n gwledda ar fronnau ei mam yn fwy rheibus na chenau blaidd, yr Hen Dduwdodau Erchyll a’i bendithio! Rhaid ei bod yn poeni ynghylch ei Thadmaeth crwydrol, yn ddi-os. Heb eiriau, mae’r rheibes leiaf hon yn tybio ble mae’i brodyr a chwiorydd eraill wedi mynd. Wrth i’r Haul Hy dynnu’i dafodau o fflam ar y Fami Flasus, “Bow-wow, grrrr, wff-wff,” medd bechan y nyth, o’r enw Ker·ithwé, dan ielpan yn gwynfanus.

 

Dyna’r hyn a ddywedasant wrthyf y prynhawn tynghedus hwnnw yn yr ysgol, ta beth. Ac yna yr aeth fy ngwaed i rewi, heb os nac oni bai. “Maddeuwch imi bechadur di-werth. Boed i’r Gwynt Ysol ddileu fy nghnawd a’m meddwl, fy nghof a’m camwedd,” roedd angen arnaf lefain, gan obeithio y cawn hyd i gymorth o ryw fath, neu yn hytrach gollyngdod, ond dim ateb a wnaeth i’m gweddi wedi’i mygu. (Mor llawn euogrwydd oeddwn am ryw reswm sydd yn neilltuol i aelodau o’r EFE, er nad wyf fi erioed hed heddiw wedi fy ngolchi yng ngŵydd pawb yn Nhŷ Edifeirwch, heb sôn am gael fy nghosi gan y Tân Sanctaidd.) Eithr ar ôl i’r afon o ddagrau ddod i ben, fe fyddaf yn cofio byth a beunydd y wên grychlyd, y llygaid glas yr awyr yn pefrio gan lawenydd dan y gwallt gwyn, crych, er y gwynegon oedd yn ei chnoi. Morwyn, mam, gwrach oedd fy hen Fam-gu fabwysiadol yn ei hamser ei hun, ac mae hi wedi goroesi yn y lle hwn oblegid mai duwies ydy’n wir, ryw ffordd, imi o leiaf. Petai eneidiau’n bodoli, hyhi a fyddai’n berchen ar f’un i, er nad wyf yn gallu honni fy mod i wedi cael hyd i iachawdwriaeth drwyddi. I’r gwrthwyneb, rwy wedi treulio’r rhan fwyaf o’m bywyd yn ceisio cael gwared â llawer o’i syniadau egsotig. (Nid oes raid sefyll o flaen lamp swynol mwyach, er nad fampir ydwyf gan fy mod yn gerub corffog, moel, a’i stumog yn llawn o rawnfwyd a fitaminau atodol bellach.) Ond, serch hynny, tuag ati hi rwy’n troi yn yr eiliadau mwyaf tywyll; iddi hi y codaf fy llais gan erfyn.

 

“Nesaf i’r eglwys, pellaf o baradwys” -– Mae’r llwyni tu fas i Deml y Gogoniant Cuddiedig yn gysurus ond yn gyfyng mewn gwirionedd. “Trueni mawr eu bod nhw’n mynd i godi ffens i gadw’r crwydriaid allan,” ochneidia Trey. Ac maen nhw’n gartref iddo ers tair wythnos erbyn hyn. Dyna pan ehedodd gwraig y pencampwr dartiau bant gyda’r trafaeliwr. Wel, pan symudodd yr hen drawsfeddiannwr i mewn, fe ddylem ni ddweud. Ar y stryd, arhosa adargi melyn sorllyd i lafoerio dros y penadur yn llesgáu, mor llawn cariad annychweledig ydy, dan rechu’n uchel ar yr un pryd yn sgil y cyrri. Mae’r blydi brain yn crawcian mor gythreulig o uchel, ac mae Trey yn poeni’i enaid i’r fath raddau, fod holl gyngor tra ystyriol ei gynghorwyr anetholedig ei hun ynghylch drygioni cyffuriau anghyfreithlon yn mynd i’r gwynt. Ymleda’r hylif mewn pwll gludiog, twym tua phen Trey wrth iddo lyncu gweddill y botel o gyffur cysgu o’r enw Olew Lethí a gafodd e gan y dyn hysbys parod ei dafod Wrothín. “O na bawn i’n eryr,” mwmia fe, tra llithra ei ymwybyddiaeth ymaith ac yntau’n gwneud y Symbol Ymerodrol yr Hen Etrwsgiaid â’i ddwy fawd ar ddamwain i selio ei ffawd. Yn fuan, efallai, bydd yr Haul Hoenus yn gwenu ar ei gelain oer, wrth i’w enaid neu “lévon” arnofio i ffwrdd i ble bynnag yr elo’r fath bethau o’r diwedd.

 

Wel, felly yr oedd hi. Wrth i’m hen Fam-gu fabwysiedig ddal i fyw, yr oeddwn i’n dwlu ar fyw rhwng Challavas ac Aberdydd, ac yno roedd fy nyfodol yn argoeli’n dda. Y gyntaf oll yr oedd y fesen yn tyfu’n dderwen gydnerth. Er cystal oedd fy mhlentyndod, sut bynnag, tynghedwyd cynllun f’oedran gŵr i fod yn wahanol. Ar ôl marw'r hen Ddisgleiriaf Ulí·uthlí, enciliais yn ôl i Challavas i’m clo fy hun mewn tŷ gwydr enfawr, a gofalu am Gertrude (nid yn y tŷ gwydr, wrth gwrs, yr oedd hi bob tro’n rhy brysur yn cyfansoddi yn seler y Maenordy â’i waliau o wenithfaen pinc, ymhlith y cerfluniau byw). Ac wedyn, am sawl rheswm, yn fy nhyb, roedd arnaf angen dianc er mwyn datblygu, er mwyn aeddfedu’n ffrwyth iach. Edrychwn at y Parth Pinc Gormesol, yr ochr draw i Fur Kimbria, gan gadw fy nghefn ar fy ngwlad fy hun. Doedd yna ddim gwynt mawr a chryf yn rhwygo’r mynyddoedd, na daeargryn yn dryllio’r creigiau; na cholofn o niwl a thân yn mynd o’m blaen i’m harwain ar y ffordd ac i oleuo imi. Yn hytrach, gwasgai llef ddistaw fain arnaf i’m tynnu fy hun o’r gwraidd gyda’r geiriau swynol, “man gwyn, man draw,” a dyna pam y trefnais i ddianc.

 

“Addo teg a wna ynfyd yn llawen” – Mae Ari·anhrot yn chwerthin wrth yrru’i fan wen (a rhodau prydferth o liw arian iddi hefyd) i’r ysbyty lle gweithia drwy’r dydd yn y marwdy. O, cymaint y mae’n ymhyfrydu mewn trin talpiau o gnawd oer! Petai hi ond yn cael hyd i sboner oedd yn byw. Fyddai hynny yn ormod i ofyn? Yn ei hamser sbâr mae’n poitsian gyda gwella’r cartref, a dwyn â’r meirw yn ôl i fywyd, ac mae hi wedi bod wrthi’n helpu ei ffrind Wrothín i adeiladu ‘stafell newydd a diogel iawn yn ei seler, “rhag ofn argyfyngau.”

 

Wedi’r cwbl, y fi oedd meistr ar fy ffawd, a chapten f’enaid fy hun fyddwn i hefyd. Pam y dylwn aros ym mynwent uchelgais, pan fyddai’r holl fyd yn ei ogoniant i gyd ar gael? (Nid hynny yn unig a’m hysgogai, fodd bynnag, a bod yn fanwl gywir. Yr oedd geiriau creulon yr hen Dai Procter hefyd, yn fy ngwatwar mor drahaus: “Tywysoges o’r Coedwigoedd Iâ, hyd yn oed, na all wrthsefyll morthwyl diatal Dvaldí.” Ac yn waeth byth – arswydus dweud – fe ddygodd ef ei geiriau hi, a’u cyhoeddi fel ei rai yntau o dan ei enw hudol ef!)

 

Gŵr Hysbys ydy Wrothín, sy wedi addo i Ari·anhrot y caiff hi beth bynnag a ddymuna, os dilyn athrawiaeth y siamaniaid o’r Coedwigoedd Iâ a wna. Felly rhuthra hi i’r gwaith i ddod o hyd i fawd dyn sy wedi peidio â bod, darfod, trengi, trigo, ac ymadael, ar dir cysegredig am doriad dydd, yn hytrach na dioddef yr ymarfer mwy cyffredin o gael ei gladdu yno. Ac yna, er ei mawr lawenydd, mae hi bron â bwrw i lawr ryw hurtyn sy’n crwydro yn yr heol, wrth i’r Haul Hael ddawnsio ar y gorwel, o dan y darangwmwl sy’n crynhoi.

 

O’r harbwr gwag yr hwyliais, gan geisio cefnfor gwyn fy nychymyg. Fe ddeuthum yn bererin, a grwydrai yma a thraw, mewn anial dir. Dieithryn fûm, mewn gwlad ddieithr, lle doedd dim byd fel yr ymddangosai, lle’r oedd y strydoedd (a balmantwyd ag aur yn ôl pob sôn), wedi’u hiro â blonegen a dweud y gwir. Ymhlith y tyrau ifori a llennyrch yr academi y crwydrwn, lle er fy mawr gywilydd, na wleddwn i ar fywyd blasus yr awen, nac yfed gwin bywhaol ysbrydoliaeth. Fe lwyddais i lenwi fy mhen â gwybodaeth ond heb gael hyd i ddoethineb, ni wnes i greu lle i garedigrwydd yn fy nghalon, chwaith. Petawn i ond wedi gallu dihuno o’r hunllef a dod ataf fy hun gan sylweddoli gwir natur y sefyllfa.

 

“Na sang ar droed ci chwerw” – Mae’r trafaeliwr, Hronu, yn sioncach ei gam wrth iddo ymlwybro ar ei rownd. Mor lwcus ydy, mae ‘da fe wejen newydd, hyfryd, a’r problemau o ran y llety wedi diflannu. Brasgama Hronu heibio i’r clawdd lle mae rhyw ddyn llawn cynrhon yn gorwedd, gan fwrw melltith ar yr adargi melyn gwaedlyd sy’n sefyll yn stond yn ei ffordd dan chwyrnu arno’n fileinig. Ac edrychwch! Dyna lances mewn fan wen sy’n prysur ddal y slac yn dynn. Yn ei fyd bach, rhagrithiol ei hun mae Hronu, sydd ar fin rhoi cic i’r ci. A chwap! Fe’i hysgubwyd oddi ar ei draed gan y ferch sy’n gyrru heb y gofal a’r sylw dyladwy. Mae hi fel ci yn y preseb neu gath mewn cwd, ac felly anwybydda hi’i gorff rhwygedig. “On’d yw bywyd yn rhad?” medd yr Hybarch Haul newydd-anedig, dan floeddio chwerthin.

 

Ond fel hyn y rhodiwn i’r priffyrdd a’r mân ffyrdd, gan lusgo cerdded yn ôl ac ymlaen, ac yn gadael dinistr yn fy sgil. Myfi fu llef yn gweiddi yn y diffeithwch, gan fynnu gwybod, pwy ydwyf fi? Ond nid atebai neb ddim byd. Ni allaf weld bai ar y fangre honno; arnaf fi fu’r bai; myfi a ymofynnai am y peth y tu hwnt imi fy hun, y dylwn i fod wedi bod yn chwilio amdano y tu mewn. (Ond o leiaf am y gwendidau dynol, a’r cyfleoedd wedi’u gwastraffu, rwy’n gwneud iawn â’m holl galon bob dydd bellach.) Ac wedyn, ar y ffordd lydan i ddistryw, i’r pyllau glo, a ffowndrïau haearn yn y Wlad Ddu y ffois, i Demlau Hudoliaeth Wyddonol, ond syrthio ar glustiau byddar a wnaeth fy melltithion. A hyd yn oed i Dredafwys yr ehedais, ac eistedd wrth Afon Tamisa, ac wylo, wrth gofio Kimbria. Oddi yno y herciais i Arfordir y De, ac i ddyfnder y môr mawr, hallt y sgrechais: “Clywch fy llefain, O ddyfroedd gweigion; ystyriwch chi wrth lef fy ngweddïau!” O’r braidd y medrwn ddarogan bygythiad y gaeaf a oedd yn prysur agosáu.

 

“Dianc rhag y mwg a syrthio i’r tân” – Ymddengys Wrothín oddi mewn i’w dwll uffernol gyferbyn â’r llecyn lle digwyddodd y ddamwain gan ebychu: “Wel, myn brain i!” Bron yn ddall ydy, ac ofnadwy o unig, ond mae’n gwarchod ei deyrnas â dygnwch tarw unllygeidiog, a nawr mae’n bwriadu rhoi cymorth i’r gwerthwr archolledig hyd yn oed pe byddai’n ei ladd e. Llama calon y pedler, rywsut, pan lusga’r corrach crebachlyd ef i seler yr hofel simsan. Mae Hronu wedi’i drywanu â pholyn, ac wedi drysu’n llwyr. Ar ôl iddo yfed peiriaid o lasfedd, a llwyth lorri o fadarch hudol ynddo, dim ond llygad smiciog yr Heulwen Hyfryd a wêl a fydd e’n fodlon, os nad yn orawenus, yn ei gartref newydd (neu’n hytrach ei garchar) yn y Byd Arall hwn, am weddill ei oes.

 

Afraid dweud, roedd hen wlad fy nhadau, hynny yw, fy mamwlad, yn annwyl iawn imi unwaith eto bryd hynny, fel y mae hi o hyd. Bu hiraeth ofnadwy arnaf am y fangre honno, mor agos ac eto mor bell ar yr un pryd. A gwres yn fy nghalon oedd yr ysbryd Kimbrig, a’m llosgai’n fflam, ac achosi gofid, a dod yn ddraenen yn yr ystlys. A gallech ddychmygu nad ymfflamychu gwag ydoedd, ond fod rhaid i newidiadau sylweddol ganlyn y fath bigiadau cydwybod. Serch hynny, parod yn ddiau oedd y meddwl, eithr gwan oedd y cnawd. Sut y byddai cychwyn y dychweliad, ac, a fyddai llo pasgedig yn f’aros ar ei ben? Hir fu’r dydd, a hir y nos, a hir fu aros rhyddhad. Dichon fy mod i’n gweddïo ar yr Hen Dduwiau Creulon, am y fath beth, heb yn wybod imi. Ond megis trwy hudoliaeth, neu, yn hytrach, o ganlyniad i fympwyon y tywydd annymunol a’r dirwedd ddigymwynas yn yr Hen Ogledd, fe gefais godwm pan oeddwn i’n rhuthro tuag at yr Ysgol Fendigedig lle’r oeddwn i’n gwirfoddoli, i wneud rhyw dipyn o waith di-dâl, ychwanegol un bore Sobr-ddydd. Diwedd Tymor Edifeirwch Hir fuodd, a’r bysiau’n troi ar eu hochr, o achos yr eira uffernol a weddnewidiai strydoedd truenus y ddinas, wedi’u serio gan lwydrew, yn anialwch rhewedig. Dylwn i fod wedi gwybod wrth y pigo yn fy mawd, y dynesai rhywbeth drwg ei ffawd. Efallai i fi glywed chwilod cigysol Swtach yn grillian, er imi eu hanwybyddu, ni waeth beth fo’r canlyniadau.

 

“Gŵr dieithr yw yfory” – Felly dyma’r Haul Hudolus yn sefyll yn ei unfan. Yng nghorffdy’r ysbyty, mynd o’i chof mae’r gynorthwywraig, pan sylweddola fod ci wedi cnoi dwy fawd y corff ymaith. Mae’n boddi mewn dagrau a jin, wrth iddi ddatgan y geiriau tyngedfennol ar hap, gan ddadwneud swyn syfrdanol y siamaniaid sobraf – “A PHAWB MEWN CAWL.” Ond wedyn, wele’r wraig Blod·íhweth, mor drofaus â thylluan ddauwynebog, sy’n galaru wrth i’w gŵr clwyfedig (a ddylai fod wedi marw yn ôl ei chynllun mawr) ddihuno o’i lesmair angheuol, tra dechreua’u baban bwystfilaidd regi fel tincer mewn Fodonombiheg odiaeth o “Melltithion Fyrdd y Cenhedloedd Cableddus” – diolch i Drefn Ryfedd y Ddau Fyd!

 

Nid tirion ataf fu’r tir, y dydd tyngedfennol hwnnw, mewn ffordd o siarad. Ar y llaw arall, teg dweud mai rhadlon fu ef yn wir. O, pa fodd y cwymp y cedyrn, ebe hwy! Cyrhaeddodd Avi-vatha ac Ema-mothí i’m llusgo ymhell ymaith i Gors Anobaith cyn fy nghludo trwy’r Hollt rhwng y Bydoedd i Dirwedd Amgen. A syrthio a wneuthum. Ac yno y gorweddais am oriau bwygilydd, o dan amdo o eira mân, mewn distawrwydd hollol heblaw am f’ebychiadau o seithuctod a phoen, hyd nes i fi gael fy nghludo o'r diwedd – sut, yn enwedig, dwn i'm i sicrwydd erbyn hyn – i’r ysbyty, ac i drobwynt. O wely cystudd, o’r diwedd, ymaith â fi, ond nid ar garped swyn! Yn fy mlaen yr euthum, yn ôl i laswellt trwchus hen Gimbria fynyddig, yn llawn dyffrynnoedd, clogwyni, nentydd, afonydd, golygon hardd, ac ati. Pan gychwynnodd yr agerdynnwr o Orsaf y Seithfed Nef – oedd wedi’i oedi gymaint trwy gydol y daith i’r gogledd o Dredafwys – wnaeth e sgramio’r cannoedd o filltiroedd ar y ffordd adref, a chododd fy nghalon hefyd. Ar ôl y blynyddoedd hir o alltudiaeth, gallwn i fy nghlywed fy hun yn llyncu’r geiriau (yn y Gimbreg!): “Boed fy nghalon iti’n deml, boed fy ysbryd iti’n nyth, ac o fewn y drigfan yma, aros, Gimbria, aros byth.”

 

“Ci yn udo noson ole; newydd drwg ddaw yn y bore” – “TRA ÂNT I’R DIAWL” A dyna hen gythraul wedi’i feddwi ar ei lwyddiant ei hun yn baglu i lawr y staer i’r ddaeargell cyn farwed â’r ci ym mol y clawdd, diolch i ryw gi trwstan a oedd yn crwydro o gwmpas gan chwilio am rywbeth i fwyta – “RHWNG GWYLL A GWAWL.” Fan yma, mae trafaeliwr yn ymysgwyd o’i drwmgwsg ym mreichiau’r gorffdy-wraig lewygol, hurt. Mae wedi’i achub gan gi a ffroen iawn ganddo am fadarch. Yn anffodus mae Hronu yn marw o’i friwiau ac fe gaiff drigo gyda Thiamath y Wraig Fawr Gyntaf yn Heli-hrelí am byth, rywsut neu’i gilydd.

 

Dychwelyd a wnaethwn. Unwaith eto, felly, rydw i yng Nghimbria, sy yma o hyd, a lle bellach mae’r lloerwedd ôl-ddiwydiannol ar bwys bro fy mebyd wedi’i thrawsnewid yn llwyr, yn gwm gwyrdd a dymunol. Sylw coeglyd hysbys yw “gorau dyn o Gimbria, yr un oddi cartref,” ond ers imi ddychwelyd, rwy wedi mynd ati fel lladd nadroedd i ddysgu’r Gimbreg, nerth enaid a chorff: ni fydd y fenter yn drech na fi! Ar wahân i hynny, mae hen iaith y Nw Yrth yn dal yn fyw ac iach ym Mhyrth-y-Fall, diolch i’r Drefn Annaearol. Ond does fawr neb y tu hwnt i’r ardal hon yn cydnabod pwysigrwydd a llawenydd y tafod hwn, sy’n ddisylw o ran gweddill y Byd Ffrwythlon ac yn ddi-sôn-amdano, ac na ellir ei ddeall heb gyfranogi o’i harddwch hudol. Du a hir fu’r nos, ond o’r tywyllwch y daw’r wawr, a hudoliaeth yr Heniaith ganmolus, weddus hon sydd wedi dod â muriau fy nieithrio i lawr. Rwy’n gweld y gwir bellach, gan ddeall bod iaith yn fwy na geiriau, mai ffordd o fyw ydy, sy’n rhagori fil o weithiau ar bleserau gwag y Ddaear Greulon, wrth ddatrys eich cadwynau, a gadael i’ch ysbryd fynd i Fydoedd Amgen, yn rhydd ac yn iach.

 

“Gwell cariad yr ast na’i chas” – Ond wedyn, ar y gair, dyna edau ddryslyd amser yn dechrau datglymu, a llif digwyddiadau anffodus yn rhuthro yn ei ôl – “I SERCH RHOWCH FAWL.” O na bai'r Barwn Brodhr yno i weld ei ddymuniad yn cael ei wireddu! Draw fanna, fforman edifeiriol sy’n prancio gyda’i hoff ufferngi, arwr anhysbys y dydd, ar draeth wedi’i daenu ag esgyrn suddlon. Wel, “Ofer cadw ci a chyfarch eich hunan,” efallai, yn enwedig os un o gŵn Caer ydy, y codwyr bore chwedlonol hynny. Bid a fo am hynny, gorfoledd ni ddaw ei hunan, a gwawria’r gwir ar bawb, fesul un. Hwyrach y bu’r holl drueiniaid yn bric pwdin i ryw Bŵer Cosmig anghyfrifol, neu’n gymeriadau mewn breuddwyd arallfydol, di-ben-draw —

 

Er fy ngwewyr yn y dyddiau gynt, ynteu ddichon o’i herwydd, rwy’n coelio imi gyrraedd llawn oed, ac mai cyflawn aelod o waed coch cyfan yn nhylwyth yr Hudolion fyddaf fi, ymhen y rhawg. Nawr rwy’n rhodio gyda’r dydd a’r hwyr, gan dreulio llawer awr mewn mwynder maith yr iaith gêl hon, yr Hen Yrtheg, sydd wedi dwyn f’enaid. Ac rwy’n ymbleseru yng nghyfansoddiadau’r beirdd a chantorion, y mae eu cwmni’n well na’r mêl. Datgana llais newydd ei ddarganfod fod hadau f’etifeddiaeth yng ngwlad yr addewid wedi syrthio ar dirion dir fy nghalon ac wedi ffrwytho. Felly, gan ddathlu a gorfoleddu, dywedaf ar goed: Rwy gartre – am yr eilwaith, a, gobeithio, am byth! Ac yma y cymunaf fi â’r Dywysoges Ylydra, sydd hefyd y Ddisgleiriaf Ulí·uthlí. Gyda’n gilydd fe chwarddwn ni, myfi sy biau llais uchel, a hyhi sydd heb eiriau ond y rhai yn fy meddwl i. Fe wylwn ni, y naill gyda’r llall, wrth iddi hi gydio yn fy nghorff byrdew â’i breichiau mor anfaterol â tharth.

 

“Cyd bo hirddydd, daw ucher” – Mae pob cwch yn cael ei godi gan y llanw, yn ôl y ddihareb fodern (a’r un hynafol hefyd), ond fe anghofiwn ni y bydd sawl un yn cael ei suddo ganddo wedyn, hefyd. Dyna ddirwyn yr helynt oll i ben, felly, a’r hwyl hefyd, er y castiau blaenorol.

 

Fy nghof diysgog ohoni fydd y cusan gludiog ar fy moch, ei sylw dwl am yr eurgylch wedi’i achosi gan yr uwd, y jôc y nofiwn i fel pysgodyn o achos yr olew afu penfras (ach a fi!), a’r addewid cadarn y’m gwelai pan ddown i adref o’r diwedd. Mae hi wedi mynd, ond ni’m gedy byth, mae hi wedi’i serio ynof. Ni allaf adael iddi fynd ychwaith, rhan ohonof ydy – fy mywyd, fy nghalon, fy ffawd. Wedyn fe welaf fi ddelweddau o’r Wraig Fawr Aratheroth yn cael ei blingo yn y Pwll Diwaelod, a hefyd o Fadam Elsthe (neu’r Feistres El·esí), Mam Dai Procter, yn gofalu mor garedig ac anhunanol am yr holl ddefaid colledig (y rhai bwystfilaidd a’r rhai dynol fel ei gilydd) yn nyddiau cynnar yr Hosbis ar y Bryn. A dyna fi’n clywed llais y Dywysoges Ylydra yn llafarganu’r llinell honno gan Shaman-no, mewn geiriau sydd yn rhedeg trwy fy meddwl hyd heddiw – “Pam bod mor wan? Pam difa gwahaniaeth bob tro? Pam lladd yr hyn nad yw’r un ffunud â ni? Pam ofni? Pam ymollwng i bechod?” Ni amgyffredwn i’n wir beth oedd ei hystyr ar y pryd, ond efallai fy mod wedi deall bellach. Mae gennyf hyd yn oed yn awr gymaint o bethau a ddysgodd fy hen Fam-gu fabwysiedig imi trwy ei bywyd, ac sydd yn mynd gyda fi bob dydd, megis dioddef, a chwerthin, ac amynedd, a chariad. A’r mwyaf ohonynt ydy cariad. Cymaint, f’annwyl hen Fam-gu fabwysiadol – wrth i’r Byd Ffrwythlon farw, ac wrth i’r Ddaear Greulon chwalu, ac olew du ebargofiant yn codi i olchi popeth ymaith – rwy’n dy garu di o hyd!

 

Fe daga hanes yr hil ddynol. Disgyn diobaith. Fe grŷn y goleuadau wrth ddiffodd. Fe deifl düwch tawel fantell fyddarol dros bob dim. A dyna ddiwedd ar Deyrnas Ddychmygol yr Haul. Marw y mae iaith. Dim ond gwynt gwancus a Dewin disbyddedig a arhosa yn y gwyll. Fe alaetha hiraeth am yn hir.

 

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[*] Dyma Thavoh  Fab yr Haul yn y chwedl “Cwymp Gwlad Gwir, Harddwch a Daioni.” — P.M.