Codex Rosmanicus: Twelve Tales of Enchantment ~Compiled by Jaren the Traveller

By Bret James Stewart

Codex Rosmanicus: Twelve Tales of Enchantment Compiled by Jaren the Traveller

The literature of the past fascinates the modern reader. Part of this fascination is the paradox of the time and distance that creates a sense of the alien while remaining relevant in the present. Such literature is both ancient and modern. Some of the most interesting examples of such work can be found in the codices, such as the Exeter Book, that are frequently compilations of anonymous older texts. Codex Rosmanicus (“The Book of Rosman”), as the title implies, is modelled after such works.

The codex is a collection of writings compiled by the fictitious narrator/compiler Jaren the Traveller, a retired bard. The corpus consists of twelve bardic tales. The lines between fiction and reality are nebulous as the book contains personages/settings from the real world as well as those that are fictitious/fantastical. No attempt has been made to separate the two, and the result is a work that could be real but isn't.

In keeping with the feel of an ancient compiled work, the codex contains a mixture of literary forms: poetry, a play (a dramatic tragedy), and short stories. Thematically, they can be divided into the genres of fantasy, dark fantasy, high fantasy, horror, supernatural, and/or magic realism.

This book is populated by the bizarre. A death knight, an Ice Maiden, and a collection of the denizens of faerie lurk within its pages. The text struggles with light and dark, wrong and right, and the sometimes obscure border between fantasy and reality.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bret James Stewart
• Release date: Nov 5, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370347995

Bret James Stewart

I love to read and write. When I was a child and envisioned my future, I saw myself smoking a pipe in a study, happily studying. My dreams have come true! I praise the Lord, who has given me the ability to pursue my dream. I have many varied interests, and this has resulted in me writing in many different genres and styles. I greatly enjoy hiking, playing games, and learning. I fill my professional and hobby time with these endeavours. I live in the beautiful mountains of Western North Carolina surrounded by National Forests and State Parks. This definitely helps with the hiking trail reviews I write--see www.blueridgehiker.com. I love music in virtually all genres and almost always have something playing. I am also a lifelong learner. I am currently attending school. In addition to official/professional studies, I always have a book going that contributes to my knowledge in some fashion. I have been called into ministry and am a Christian Druid focusing upon proper Christian stewardship of the environment. I am also a member of the inter-faith druidic organization of the Ancient Order of Druids in America (AODA) www.aoda.org. My goal is to have a specifically Christian Druidry website up soon providing Christians and others with resources to fulfill this often-neglected area of God-given responsibility. Writing is an art for me. I have no interest in catering to fashion or whim in order to strive for a runaway best seller. I craft each book with love and create what I feel to be the highest quality book possible. Of course, some books are more artistic than others. With some of the non-fiction, for example, "highest quality" can simply mean accuracy. Other areas, such as poetry, are exclusively artistic, so "highest quality" means I do it to the best of my ability. If I can touch someone's life in a meaningful way, then I consider my book a success. I am lucky enough to have grown up in the small town of Brevard, North Carolina. Much of my family still lives in the area. I have two grown sons who have left home, leaving me with my feline buddy, Petit-Leon, le Chronicleer du Fay.

Book preview

Codex Rosmanicus:

Twelve Tales of Enchantment

Compiled by Jaren the Traveller

by

Bret James Stewart

Table of Contents

Prologue-------------------------------------------------------------

The Pursuit of Lorantha--------------------------------------------

The Misery of Charlene---------------------------------------------

The Lay of O'Donaghue and One Winter's Rose----------------

The Ballad of Conner ap Conlann---------------------------------

A Dragon Like No Other--------------------------------------------

I've Lost Mab---------------------------------------------------------

The Tale of Sir Trevor of Ostwick, Slayer of the Sun-----------

Come and Let Us Join the Dance----------------------------------

In the Hall of the Sylvan King--------------------------------------

The Necromancer's Death-------------------------------------------

The Death of Shadowbender----------------------------------------

Epilogue---------------------------------------------------------------

Codex Rosmanicus: Twelve Tales of Enchantment

Compiled by Jaren the Traveller

Prologue

For many years, have I travelled the length and breadth of the land: this one and many others. Always, no matter the level of urbanity or lack thereof, people amuse, instruct, and immortalize themselves in literature. The travelling bard, be he known as a trouveur, a minnesinger, or skald, is welcomed into the lord's hall as readily as the peasant's cot. Ah! Fair is such a life, though not without its dangers. Many times have I been at the mercy of bandits, sickness, and foul weather. Howbeit, the free life of the wandering minstrel is, I believe, the best sort of existence.

My name is Jezra-El ab-Melin, but I wisely, due to popular misconceptions and humours that are nigh universal regarding my descent, proclaimed myself Jaren the Traveller. By this name, I entertained many a soul during my adventures, not the least of whom was myself. After many years, I settled here in the Southern country alongside a placid river and its peaceful valley. No longer travelling more than a fortnight from home, I found my exposure to the tales of the bards reduced. Attempting to make up for this deficit, I began collecting various works. I have compiled many such tomes, and, in this manuscript, it is my desire to compile local legends.

Verily, some sort of defence is necessary should I claim these tales local, containing, as some of them do, characters from other locales. By local, I mean tales told by local poets in the taverns, along the paths, and by the hearths of this most hospitable land. I make no claim as to the veracity of these tales. Suffice it to say they, like any other tales, are both true and false. False in the narrow sense of historical accuracy, perhaps, but broadly true in the most important sense—that of artistic truth.

Twelve tales have I penned herein with appurtenances. There are many more tales that could be told and any chronicler is faced with the unenviable task of sorting through the morass in order to find the best sampling of work. Hist! There is no best sampling, only different samplings. This is mine.

The tales I selected might well be deemed tales of enchantment. The people here, living on the edge of great forests, inaccessible peaks, yet along the crossroads into several other lands so as to host wanderers from a great many foreign and strange realms, are subjected to an amazing collection of poetry to rival nearly every other place in the known world. It is not surprising, then, to learn the mystical, dangerous, and unknown feature prominently in their poetic works. Achingly aware that even the most mundane of occurrences can harbour the most fantastic of results, this folk had come to understand that the enchantment within the world is only beneath the surface of the profane, when it is beneath the surface at all. Many are the men with whom I spake that would no more be surprised to encounter a fiend or sorcerer on his way to the village as to encounter one of the villagers. It is because of this expectancy that such men do encounter the mystic. Those who do not believe in the supernatural seldom find it and, when they do, attribute it to some other source. These people do not have the sour faces of the logician, for they expect to encounter the supernatural and, indeed, have on many occasions. Fortunately for me, they have also been eager to share such encounters. As a result, the corpus of bardic knowledge here is rich. Twelve of the most representative tales, either because they are among the most common or because they are representative of style, follow. Shalom.

(Signed)

Jaren the Traveller

I. The Pursuit of Lorantha

Unlike most bardic works, this piece was given me in written form. A young adventurer and his companions discovered the poem in the ruins of the Castle---Ah! Now, that would be telling, would it not? In any event, let us just say it is a well-known local ruin, a vestige of the previous inhabitants. Within the vault of the keep, the poem, along with no little coin, or so I understand, had safely waited out the past century. The poem itself is much older than that, I am sure, with the references to Christ being later emendations. The soul-sick despair of the warrior is a common theme, as is the mental journey from romantic optimism to realistic pessimism.

It is possible that this poem is fragmentary, though it is not definitely so. The poet, perhaps, wishing to magnify the bleakness of the subject, may have purposely ended the poem as it appears. Fragment or not, the poem follows.

The Pursuit of Lorantha

O’ were I some cavalier

Thro’ the greenwood riding

Seeking some secret faerie queen

Within the primrose hiding,

Would I be a fool to spend my life

Seeking such as she?

For the heart’s worn out eventually

By things illusory.

What, then, of fair Lorantha

Tripping within her glade?

A man might do somewhat worse

Than loving a faerie maid.

Mortal women may abound,

But they’re all the same.

How evil ‘twould be were I bound

To base mediocrity.

Through the wood I ride

East toward the crystal sea,

Caring not for life’s alarms

Or grinding reality;

Give me instead a dryad wife

And let me sink into her arms,

Pulled into her arboreal bower,

Heedless of time and its decaying power—

Time enough to purge the venom I’ve acquired—

Until that distant appointed hour

When Christ appears in glory.

Then will I atone my sin;

Already He knows my story.

My youth has been spent in arms,

To martial might aspiring,

But, now, Lorantha, I’m tired of war

And, God, I’m sick of the dying.

Lorantha is beautiful and apart,

Full of the essence of Other;

Meant not for this desolate land

Where man will kill his brother.

And, if I roam a thousand years

Within this mystic wood,

A wraith, perhaps, shall I become

And, methinks, deem it good—

For wraiths feel nothing.

II. The Misery of Charlene

This haunting poem is a local favourite. I have met no fewer than eight men who have solemnly affirmed that they have witnessed the events and/or locations of the poem. One of these men even claimed to be one of the men to stake the unfortunate Charlene to the village crossroads after her self-murder. I find this difficult to believe as the poem in question, or its variants, have been recited up and down the land for several generations. I have twice heard variations of this poem, both times performed in chant with two distinct voices, with differing names for the title character. I suspect this poem, like many others, is changed to suit the audience or merely for aesthetic reasons.

Two voices are present in the poem. The first voice, the Lo! voice, sets the scene. Note that this voice is in the present. The second voice, the even-numbered stanzas, alternates with the first voice. Most of the stanzas featuring this voice are in the past. In this way, the Lo! voice explains the current situation, and that in a distressed and harsh manner to emphasize the powerful sense of despair, and the second voice provides the background information that explains why the current situation is in effect. The alternating voices, so dissonant in theme and style, serve to enhance the strangeness of the tale. I have heard this poem performed, to wonderful effect, with two bards chanting the different parts.

The term opium-eaters in the fifth stanza puzzles some scholars, but I see no reason to doubt this is the original meaning. Opium has been known since ancient times, though the term itself may be a newer usage. Corpse candle, to me, indicates the foreign origin or influence within this poem as this term is not the local usage. The local folk refer to such occurrences as fetch lights or fetch candles as they serve as harbingers of death indicating the path the soon-to-be corpse will take on its way to the burial ground. Incidentally, I have seen one—not alone, fortunately—and they are, indeed, distressing. The light in question was fetching the miller's wife, who died not two days later and whose corpse was carried across the very point where the light was witnessed.

The poem:

The Misery of Charlene

Lo! ‘tis a hard night,

A red night and the light

Of the moon iridescent

Flickers off