Beyond Belief: A Tale of the Great Saint Lungo

By Paul McLaw

The story of the holy man Lungo, who has dreams of being a bishop, takes in cunning, political intrigue, pilgrimage and the madness of war. As you would expect from a saint, there is an abundance of miracles. Little known historical figures from the sixth century are brought to life in more ways than one. Discover the school for saints, the true origin of the Loch Ness Monster and useless dark age weapons of mass destruction. Lungo meets a formidable female entrepreneur and sets up business in cooperation with her. Nuns appear in unexpected roles, and so do various animals such as elephants. Lungo get kicked out of the kingdom but makes friends with a possible father and king of the next kingdom, then sent on to Rome, meets the pope and emperor, coming back as a bishop. After the battle of Killplenti he meets a very unusual nun who has been pardoned in advance for what her spy job requires. He later returns to the old kingdom and gets involved with the new king, his wife and the famous fish with the ring.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Dec 14, 2016
• ISBN: 9781326891688

Book preview

lungo

Paul McLaw

Tapdrop Limited

2016

Copyright © 2016 by Paul McLaughlin

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing: 2016

ISBN 978-1-326-75208-8

Tapdrop Limited

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Edinburgh United Kingdom EH4 6NZ

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Dedication

To my lovely wife Jennifer and my two daughters Catriona and Helen.

Thank you. With your support and patience, I got there.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my fellow countrymen and women who inspired the dialogues for this book. I could not have invented the half of it without their street patter, and also my family without whose help this book would never have been completed. I would also like to thank the Irish people for the Irish sections of the book. I also want to thank my illustrator Sonya Hallett, for the images on the cover and help with the maps. My advisor on all horse matters and local information herein, Shelagh Hogg, gets special thanks. I need to thank my old school chum, journalist and editor. Jim McGhee. He is familiar with the folk tales and even the folks implied in the story. I must thank in a very late way, King David I, of Scots who caused the story of Saint Mungo to be written by a monk called Jocelyn. Without that, I would be short of source material, and although there are other sources, Jocelyn is most inventive.

Foreword

After 45-odd years of purporting to be an editor/writer, to my shame I still do not have a solitary book to my name. A few poems, the odd ditty yes, but I just never believed I had an imagination fertile enough to dream up a novel. My old schoolmate Paul McLaw, on the other hand, an engineer by profession, has beaten me and lets his imagination run wild with the sometimes surreal, irreligious but entertaining satire Beyond Belief. Following the travails of St Lungo (a heavy-smoking version of Glasgow’s patron saint?) and other colourfully twisted characters, it is an anti-war fable that pokes fun at the myths and miracles of religion in an amusing way. The scary Catholic nuns who taught us would not have approved, but any boy who graduated with Higher-level Guilt is entitled to have the last laugh.

Preface

‘Warriors ready for battle, for slaughter armed,

For this battle, Arfderydd, they have made

A lifetime of preparation.

A host of spears fly high, drawing blood

From a host of vigorous warriors –

A host, fleeing; a host wounded –

A host, bloody, retreating.’

Taliesin (Urien of Rheged’s bard, sixth century)

As a young boy, I grew up surrounded by the foundation myths of the city of Glasgow. These involved the town where I grew up and went to school, Alclutha, the rocky fortress of the Britons, now called Dumbarton. Much of the action involved my home town. It was the bustling capital of the ancient Strathclyde Kingdom, after all. The nuns and the teachers dismissed much of what we wanted to hear about our home town and these impossible miracles. How did the salmon get a ring in its mouth? How did it stay there while it was being cooked? How did a smashed up dead robin get pulled together and resurrected? What was the great sinful deed that Queen Languoreth was up to with her attendant? The teachers did not tell a class of six-year-olds what the hanky-panky was all about. Then there was the mystical birth of the great saint. How did his mum survive the trip downhill on a cart? What was all this stuff about the boat and the sea god? What was special about lighting a fire, maybe Scotland was even windier back then?

Later my wife asked me to explain some of this as she had never heard any of it, as she came from West Lothian. Strange, as so much of the early action involved Lothian. She was beside herself laughing as I explained it as best as I could, but adding my own bits, she was almost in stitches. She suggested that I write up my own version as she found the ‘official version’ nothing nearly as humorous. It took me years to get around to it. There was a lot of research to be done. How can you bring a dead robin back to life? I have seen a woman sawn in half and know about the Indian Rope Trick, with a seemingly dead boy. Compared to the Indian Rope Trick, the dead robin trick should be easy to a good illusionist.

I had no idea who Lord Urien of the Kingdom of Rheged was. I also found out very few people had any idea who the great king was either. I hope this book gets him some of the limelight he definitely deserves. Similarly, poor King Rhydderch. His wife is more remembered than he is. Yet, in terms of battles, he was involved in a great many more than Napoleon. If there is a real miracle in the book, it is the survival of Rhydderch. In those troubled times, he managed to be the first king of Strathclyde to end his days as an old man, peacefully, in his own bed. He did this even though he fought in battles as far south as deepest Wales, into the Highlands, and as far east as York.

The figure of Merlin is based on Laylowken, who variously seems to have been the bard of the enemy king, Gwenddoleu, maybe the court jester of king Rhydderch, but possibly and most intriguingly the twin brother of the Queen, Languoreth. The historical sources are a mess, and not reliable.

I have added much that is from my own imagination and love of stage magic. The ancient writers wrote their Arthur stories, and unfortunately, in my opinion corrupted all knowledge of Urien, Gwenddoleu, Gawain, Myrddin, Leudin king of Lothian, and turned them into walk-on parts in the fantasy Arthur stories. We have lost much of early history and even important place names. Dunpelder is now known as Traprain, the Sea of Rheged is now known as the Solway Firth. Laylowken, was possibly a druid, certainly an important bard of king Gwenddoleu, but he became Merlin, a magician who walks a tightrope between pagan witchcraft and Christian worship. I have returned him here to a poor soul suffering from post traumatic stress disorder and subsequent mental breakdown.

Introduction

This is not a historical story about historical characters, although some of them may seem familiar. Liberties were taken with the characters of Lord Ooryin and his son, Owain. I believe they certainly did exist around the time of this story. It was useful to include them to interact with the other characters. The country that becomes Scotland was not yet born. The Romans abandon Britain in the year 410 AD. There are Roman Remains remaining around for a long time afterwards. Romains, maybe? In return, the sensible Brits withheld the Roman taxes.

Beyond the Great Wall of Hadrian, Wally to his friends, life goes on much the same. Rape, pillage, injustice, intolerance, murder, wars and sheep stealing to name a few carry on much as before. Graffiti is not a problem as nobody can read or write. The monks are about to change all that. The Picts meanwhile are making a lot of pictures to look at on stones. These are interesting times to be alive. If only you can stay alive there is a lot to see. There are miracles, and if you like royalty, lots of royal families and kings every few miles. Money is in short supply but there are plenty of pigs being traded.

PART ONE

ORIGINS

Chapter 1.       An innocent young girl

Lungo almost got a good start in life, but not quite. His mother, Saint Heiddebaw was the daughter of King Cloth. Old King Cloth was the despotic ancient king of all Lothian and the Goddoderry tribe. The Lothians are named after him. The C was dropped as polite people in Lothian did not like to mention what a rotten C he was. The mighty Cloth had done his diplomacy diploma and used Rome’s power to threaten his neighbours. He was so clever that the threat of his neighbours was also a bargaining chip against Rome. In the end, Cloth got lots of booty from Rome without a fight. His neighbours had to apply to him to keep Rome on side, avoiding any sudden interest Rome might take in local affairs. He was also useful for all Roman imports, like wine, olive oil, and other fine Italian and empire products. Hence another name for him: King Lot. He had lots of booty after all.

After a brief disagreement with the Roman army, the Lothian people, the Votadinny to the Romans, made themselves useful to Rome and its great plan for Britain. Nobody knew what the great Roman plan for Britain was, not even Rome it seemed. If there was any real plan, it changed like the wind. Britain was more a problem than an asset in the previous centuries anyway. Dissident would-be-emperors raised armies in Britain and took them over to the continent, often just to get slaughtered. The great Constantine was first proclaimed Emperor in Britain and had gone onto great things, but many others were not so lucky. New would-be-emperors could end up confusing matters even more. Alliances formed, and would-be-emperors lasted weeks, then more confusion. In the middle of the confusion and at the end of the empire, in fact, beyond the fringes of the empire too, lay the court of Lothian.

Calling Cloth’s palace a court makes his kingship sound grand. Referring to The Great Palace is being altogether very grand. To be more correct The Great Hall was on top of a very high hill. In truth, this great palace was as fine a piece of mud and wattle walling as you would find anywhere in the entire island of Britain. It could sleep at least 50 people with their goats. These animals were useful in winter for keeping warm and also for comfort. People will tell you that it was sheep, but this is historically incorrect. It was always goats back in the day.

How did Saint Lungo become a saint in the first place? His mother’s aunt the nun, Holy Betty of Haidtoun, was responsible. Holy Betty became a Christian nun at an early age when she met some remaining Romans who were roaming near the palace. They were called ancient Roman Remains, even then. Holly Betty ducked young Heiddebaw at age of seven in the palace duck pond and they called it a baptism. Any old dirty pond would do for a quickie baptism to some folks. Being a baptised daughter of a great king made her a saint in some people’s opinion back in the day. It is much tougher now. There are Vatican rules to pass.

With no critical monitoring, testing and evaluation of any miracles, sainthood should have been for certain in the sixth century. Life was looking good for Heiddebaw. However, she was starting to reach that certain age when young girls get frisky. It was common practice for Romans to have their young girls married off at thirteen and she was already past this age. Heiddebaw protested at any proposed union and told the entire court that she wanted to be a nun too, like her aunt. Heiddebaw liked the idea of being a saint. On the other hand, she did not have any problems with an interest in the big strong looking young men working at the foot of the mighty Dunpelder Hill. She was fond of sneaking off the great rock to see the people working below, sometimes even at night. She wandered off to watch the working boys and men, and was fascinated by what she saw. In truth, she was just being a girl, but an adolescent girl. Her hormones were rising, and it was just a matter of time before she would land in trouble.

This story opens with Heiddebaw coming to her father screaming, ‘Some father you are, you just want me married off to some stinking unwashed prince from another stinking palace, heck knows where. I have decided I am going to be one of the Christian nuns and pray and sing and I will not have anything to do with sex and men and their hunky fine big strong bodies.’

King Cloth exploded,

‘Heiddebaw, that’s not what I heard. The word’s going around. Seems that you have a lot of curiosity about such things. Anyway; I have asked the Prince Ewan of faraway Redegg to come and court you, and to take your hand. It will unite our people and also keep you out of trouble.’

Heiddebaw countered her father,

‘Sounds like you just want me out the way, maybe I am a big embarrassment to you, being Christian and a little saint and all.’

‘Aye, right!’ bellowed the king, ‘some saint you are if the stories of you watching the shepherds and the farmers are true.’

It was common knowledge that even princesses received no education. So for a privileged one like Heiddebaw, there was little to amuse in the miserable palace on top of Dunpelder Law.

It was mostly a plateau up there, apart from a few rocky projections. These gave some shelter to the main building avoiding much of the wind. There was also a natural pond that was used for drinking water and with a bit of luck it served as a duck pond, and sometime baptism font, but only when Holy Betty was in town. The great base of the palace was constructed of solid stone, in a circular style that rivalled any broch. The brochs were normally lived in by Picts and were very good defensive structures, almost as good as later medieval castles. It was no broch, however. There were stories that in the dim and distant past the entire palace, or main dwelling, or big hut was much grander. Indeed, that it was much taller, that it was whitewashed to stand out as the bold symbol of King Cloth’s incredible might. The base of the palace was a waist high stone circle, then the mud and wattle completed the structure to just above head height. Then there was a turf roof on top of it all. That roof had a superstructure of willow. It was good enough for its purpose. There was a fire burning constantly in the middle of the floor of the great palace. This was just as well as it was bloody windy up at the top of the hill. It was massive compared to anything else in the British Isles. It was about five hundred square meters in the complete floor area all under this massive roof. The other great palace of Edin's Hall, in the rival neighbouring kingdom of Bryneich, was not quite as large, at least not on the inside.

Old King Cloth was at war with just about every one of his neighbours; the Selgovae, the Bryneich, the Alcloots and of course the Angles. This had kept domestic affairs in the palace far from his mind and now here he was, his sons killed in battle, and his last chance to settle Lothian was to arrange a marriage with a friendly, but more distant kingdom. He had not reckoned on his daughter having other plans. His own plan involved Ewan, the prince of the mighty Redegg.

Long before it was acceptable there was always the problem of boys who wanted to be different. Ewan was one such lad. Way back when he was growing up he liked to play with his sisters. He had a favourite older sister and when she was twelve years old she got pregnant from a bit of playing too much with a goatherd in the hills of Redegg. Her father, the king of Redegg did his best to hide this incident, as that would bring shame on the family. In Roman times this was all too often what happened. The young Ewan was never told what had happened. It seems his poor sister had not been old enough to give birth and had died in labour, or some said when the witches mishandled an abortion. The result for the young Ewan was a lot of grief and on occasion, he took to wearing his sister’s clothes. His parents were very worried about this and sent him to the best school of Druids to get the advice from the archdruid. The archdruid at that time was living in Embra. This is when Ewan became known to king Cloth and his wife the magnificent Queen Saltensos. The archdruid never had such a right royal problem to deal with before. Nonetheless, he heard there was a new Christian saint living over in Fife who had some great knowledge and even had these mysterious books. The books were amazing things. The owner could look in them and be able to read what the mysterious characters on the page were telling them. It was in this way that ideas could be carried on from one person to another without speaking and from one generation to the next. The druids relied on a verbal tradition of repeating the knowledge from one druid to another trainee druid. This resulted within a short time in a corruption of the words. As ever, what was heard soon became less like what was said.

The prince got his name of Ewan the Mad from his strange behaviour, not in any way lessened by his fondness for gruit ale. This was an amazing concoction much favoured by Picts. There was no standard recipe for this as the brewer would use whatever was to hand. In Pictish, it was hailed as Gaesintae. This might on occasion include some nasty hallucinogenic substances such as a drop of henbane, or maybe some mushrooms of dubious origin. Ewan found that during his occasional drinking bouts he liked men just as much as women. This led to his other epithet, the Uranian.

Ewan made frequent visits to Dunpelder and the distant cousins at the royal court of King Cloth. He also spent much of his time hanging round the druids hoping to get a cure for his drinking, drugs and sexual identity. It was during his visits to Dunpelder that he got to know the other royal teenagers. They would all be expected in time to produce other royal families to run the various tribal kingdoms of Britain.

The many tribal kingdoms, in these dark times, were constantly at war both internally and externally. The Romans had not bothered too much in local affairs so the kingdoms had developed very much into the two types: Pro Roman such as the Goddoderry and the much less pro-Roman ones such as the Picts. The Brits in Alcloot were usually Pro Roman, while the Selgovae fought with the Romans. The new kids on the block were the Scottii. They were on the extreme west coast and supported from Ireland, as they shared a similar language. The old kids on the block were the Lothian Goddoderry, the Manau, the small Bryneich kingdom, the Redegg people, and among others, the Alclooters, also known collectively as Little Britons. These last groups were Welsh. That is a loose term, as they did not call themselves Welsh. This is a terrible Saxon word that means either slave or just foreigner. It just shows what Saxons think of people that are not Saxons.

Ewan's family, the royal family of Redegg were very keen to make alliances. One such alliance would be a nice marriage to the royals of the Goddoderry. There was some real danger that the royal line of Redegg would die out if the prince didn’t produce a legitimate heir to the royal line. The obvious choice was any daughter of King Cloth. His suitable girls included Heiddebaw.

The prince of Redegg, Ewan, was kept by King Cloth as a royal hostage for the last few years following the normal practice. The advantages were that at least Heiddebaw knew Ewan. Better still, the king knew who Ewan was. It was not a great plan but it was the best he could do in the circumstances.

She had turned fifteen years old and was now suitable for marriage. The problem was she was still a child in many ways and maybe would never grow up. A much better prospect for Redegg’s royal line would have been the Princess Senga from Fife, but she was a little bit younger and not known to the Redegg royals. 

About this time, the great Saint Servus came to visit. There were already Christians around the mighty capital on Dunpelder, such as Holy Betty. King Cloth did not like them much but the magnificent Queen Saltensos liked their super stories, and it was a good political move to keep what was left of the Roman Empire on side.

No way was old Cloth going to upset those guys, much as he loathed them. Anyway, he liked this saint, his lovely foreign accent and the way he told his stories. This guy had conquered a dragon. So it was said. Saint Servus came from Ireland in his youth, full of missionary fervour to convert the people of Pictland, Lothian, Alcloot and Fife. He settled in Fife, first on an island in Loch Leven, then later established a school at Cooross. The king of Fife, old King Coal, gave him leave to build there.

King Cloth welcomed Saint Servus warmly, ‘Welcome once again to my palace, Servus, please take a seat, and rest, but later, you must give us some of your wonderful tales.’

Servus replied,’ Great and kind King, my tales are merely God’s truth, and these words are matters of faith’.

However, King Cloth returned to him with a wink, ‘Oh aye, like the one about you and The Dragon, eh? Good one that.’

‘My King, that is a story told about me, not one I have invented by myself.’

‘Hmm’, the king mused, ‘Not what I heard. The word is, you told the story yourself one night in a pub over in Fife, and it went down well too. Heard you could not walk at the end of the night. Another miracle, healed yourself with a good sleep and could walk the next day, turned a lot of wine into water, no end to them miracles of yours.’

The entire great palace laughed at the king’s joke, even his Christians. At this moment, the old head Druid, Dabbleclick came in and spat, ‘Oh, what is this impostor doing here again? He does not respect our ancient religion, our laws, and his magic tricks are pure puff and often duff.'

Servus looked at Dabbleclick, and recognised a formidable opponent,

‘Ah, convert now to the holy religion of Rome, it is not too late, and by the way, you are known to have a few tricks up those sleeves of your own.’

Everyone had seen Dabbleclick produce rabbits from seemingly nowhere. He could also make small objects disappear. However, in the great buzzing metropolis of Dunpelder, he was the guardian of the old religion of the Druids, and the font of the law. It was not the job of any British king to make the law. That was only done by the ancient Guild of Druids and Associated Trades. The job of the king was to keep a trained war band together, to expand it when needed and also to enforce the law. In fact, no British King was in theory above the law.

King Cloth shouted, ‘Enough! No more religion tonight, we must honour our traveller with food and drink.’

Saint Servus looked happy, ‘Great, I could do with that. What is for dinner? And Dabbleclick, we can have an ecumenical chat another time, we have some important feasting to do. ‘

Dabbleclick agreed, he was no fool, and he was also hungry.

While the meal was cooking, the aperitifs were served. Servus took the chance to have a chat with Heiddebaw. He came up to her just outside the palace.

‘So you are getting to be a fine big girl, Heiddebaw, you were just…..’

She interrupted him immediately,

‘Heard that wan…… you are starting to sound just like my uncles and aunts.’

But in truth, Heiddebaw was growing fast into a full woman, much faster than her peers. It was most likely the better feeding a royal princess got, and also she did not have hard work to keep her thin and gaunt like the peasants. Her developments were so much in evidence, even a holy saint like Servus could not keep his eyes off her. At once he realised the danger he was in of a sin of the flesh, her flesh. As a giant of piety, he was able to control himself, but he realised now the danger the young girl was in. In a short time, no man could resist her. He knew it, but were others aware? He thought they must be, but of course, her parents would be the last to realise their little girl was growing up.

Heiddebaw then challenged him,

‘Hey, I saw that, I saw it, wow! I have done another miracle all by myself. ‘

She was pointing at his clothing, even dressed like a monk, it was obvious to the girl he was excited by her.

‘Aye, quite the saint, me, I am doing that miracle all the time these days. ‘

Worried by this, he asked her,

‘You have, erm, done this miracle many times? Since when? ‘

‘Well, it started to happen only the last few months, when these things started to grow much bigger.’

She was, of course, pointing now at her breasts.

‘Oh dear!’, thought the saint,’ Only a matter of time now before she gets in big trouble to match their size.’

He knew