Talan and King Doniert's Torc

By Lee Robertson

Talan is a medic and cleric in dark ages Cornwall. Having travelled from Wales with St Nectan, he has been working among the new religious communities across the land.
After being caught up in a murder of a new, young King, he finds himself a pawn in the political turmoil of the age, and must help Petroc defeat a tribe from Dartmoor.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lee Robertson
• Release date: May 28, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476441061

Lee Robertson

Living by the coast in North Cornwall, Lee Robertson has worked as a chef, hotelier, and pub owner. More recently he works as a photographer, short film maker and location manager. He has been a lifelong surfer and currently enjoys teaching young people to be lifeguards. When he isn't by the coast he enjoys wandering the moors and lanes. The idea for Talan came from searching for the old Holy Wells and Celtic Crosses that crop up in obscure places over the Cornish landscape.

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Talan and King Doniert’s Torc

Lee Robertson

Published by Lee Robertson at Smashwords

Copyright Lee Robertson 2012

Read more about the author at

lee-robertson.co.uk

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For Alby

Welcome! wild rock and lonely shore,

Where round my days dark seas shall roar;

RS Hawker

Foreword

Talan is a young cleric, living in Cornwall at a time we now call the dark ages or early medieval.

For a writer it is an interesting period to set a story, full of myths and legends that even now are handed down generation by generation. Myths that twist and change according to the morality and faith of the time, offering a truth of sorts to the scryer peering through the murky glass of history.

Steeped in the present day landscape are many weathered relics from these days, soaking up the history that passes them by, they stand sentinel among the present day modern world of roads and signs and houses offering a simple direction to contemplate the past.

I never fail to be transported back to the time of these sentinels when I travel the countryside -Holy wells, Celtic crosses, stone circles or ancient groves, the county has a plethora.

For direction markers, boundary signs, and at sites of interest the people of the time erected crosses. Wheel head or enclosed and granite and heavy they remain on duty but slightly weathered after well over a thousand years. Many were built in the time of Talan. There are perhaps six hundred or so left. Occasionally another is found after having been used as a gatepost or a lintel.

The solar wheel is a symbol of the sun god of the ancient Celts, and also a symbol known as the Ankh to the Egyptians. We know that Celts were great travellers, their communities reaching across present Europe as far as Turkey, and would have certainly traded with all the communities of the Mediterranean. Signs of Roman pottery have been found at Tintagel, a community used in this story. The early Christian Celts naturally subsumed these symbols into the new iconography and it seems that the height of cross building happened in Cornwall between 700 AD and 1200 AD.

I have seen markings in an old writing called ‘Ogham’, a code left in stone with an axe or other sharp instrument. Ohgam is a very old lettering or code easily left with an axe or sword, charmingly the ‘letters’ all correspond to trees. It seems to be most used for naming.

In these stories I mix what I can gather from the history I find with my own imagination. Many of the characters are from history, and may or may not have known each other. I am guilty of mixing years to suit dramatic purpose, and I apologise in advance that in this story I do so over a hundred years. However I do have a feeling that many of the characters, and now celebrated as saints must have known each other.

For instance, St Nectan and St Morwenna, both known to the imaginary Talan were said to be brother and sister, along with fifteen other siblings of the Welsh King Brychan, sometime in the 500’s. All becoming saints in the Cornish landscape, from Hartland in Devon, down the coast and into the moors, and now the namesake of of many of our churches or villages: St Ive, St Endellion, St Minver, St Teath, St Mabyn, Merewenne at Marhamchurch, St Wenn, St Keyne, St Issey, Morwenna at Morwenstow, St Clether, Keri at Eglsoskerry, Helie at Egloshayle, Adwen at Advent and Lanent at Lelant.

My Talan is fictional, but I place him among historical characters. His name is old Welsh, and I have him trained in Wales at the court of Brychan. He was sent along with Nectan to start the abbey at Hartland. We know that the King was a very powerful ruler, many sources mention his great number of children from three marriages, perhaps numbering twenty-four in all.

At this time, we could say 550 AD, the Celtic world had diminished across Europe, conquered and broken by the Romans except for the more remote Atlantic fringe communities in present day France, Spain, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. That there was a lot of travel can be accepted, Brittany, Wales and even far Galicia, still have many common words, and the old lives of the saints are full of descriptions of Bretons in Cornwall and also travel right across the old world. Petroc spent time in Rome, and myth suggests he travelled to India.

I have added a few descriptions of the accepted history of some of the characters at the end of the book, so as not to spoil any suspense.

I tend to use the modern spelling and names of places for ease of reading. Of course many of these places would have been named for the progenitor long after their death, but that is perhaps not the case in all circumstances, and Morwenstow, and Petrocstow for instance may well have been in use during their incumbency.

King Doniert’s Torc is an imagination also, but throughout the Celtic world, the torc, a ring worn around the neck by warriors, chiefs, Kings and Queens have given us some of the finest jewellery we have from these times. It is said that some of the bravest warriors wore nothing else in battle. Often with an animal’s head at the arms, and using plenty of gold, they must have been very valuable pieces.

Chapter 1 Golitha Falls

On foot, and crossing the moor. The high peaks are to the west, and the ground underfoot is boggy and cold. A slight frost has left a crunch on the peat, and the sky is clear and sharp. The sky is a blue that only good spring days are made of, and the green of the land as fresh and bright as can be. I have a journey to make this day and will find little place to rest until I get down off the high ground, so I pick up my pace, and put my head down on the way up hills, and open up my stride on the way down.

At last I come over the pass, and all south Cornwall lies below me. The Fowey valley begins here, and my path follows the growing stream south, The first mile is hard among the boulders, but the river soon grows, and a gentle path starts up next to the tinkling stream and I enjoy the morning sun on my face, and the shelter of the moor behind from the western winds. Trees soon appear by the banks, stunted oaks mainly and by the river daffodils and primroses are plentiful. I have seen no one since I left this morning, and I am enjoying the serenity of this spring day, and the presentiment of the warmer weather.

For now I have a freedom of sorts, a letter from Nonna is in my bag that will give entry to any monastery in the kingdom. I have skills in medicine and am still yet to take my vows. The air feels good and clear and full of promise.

A mile or so further on and I stop at a pleasant spot in the woodland next to a steep part of the river known as Golitha. I am just opening my bag to find some food when I hear the thunder of horse hooves and shouts from the valley above me. I quickly rise to my feet, and step into the shelter of a clump of small trees pulling up my hood. I can see a rider on a large stallion threading fast through the trees and reaching a fording place on the river. Not pausing the horse he pushes on into the stream where his mount stumbles on the slippery, round