1999 December, Wrecsam People, Wales BC
BC in Wales
Ty Mam Duw
What was happening 2000 years ago? This correspondence, found in a Celtic barrow somewhere to the west of Ty Mam Duw, and translated with painstaking accuracy from the Latin, may date from that interesting period. But then again, it may not.
Kyndylan, son of Rhys, son of Rhygyferch
to Alexander, son of Joseph of Arimathea.
Greetings!
The letter brought by your father’s sea captain, the worthy Aaron, has reached me. We were much amused at your characterisation of our fair land. I suppose that there is less rain in the Province of Syria; if, to oblige the Lord Joseph, we could sell him some, believe me, we would. In compensation, with our usual quota of gold and copper and our consignment of fighting dogs for the Roman Circus, I have sent a pair of dogs for you, personally. I have chosen names for them that you will be able to recognise and pronounce: Brutus and Dana.
Brutus was our first King. He fled from Troy with the noble Aeneas, but he was carried by a great storm beyond the Pillars of Hercules, washed up here, on the shores of Decangl, and became a Welshman. Dana is the goddess of the people of the neighbouring Island. They, too, claim descent from the Danaans. Dana is the Celtic form of Danae.
Now, be prudent with Brutus and Dana, they are a cross between the Wolfhound and the Wolf. Longer in the leg and squarer in the jaw. Do not cast out casual challenges to people whose friendship [or whose dog’s friendship] you value. Brutus likes humans but he will infallibly lay out anything on four legs. That is why our fighting dogs have proved such a paying export to Rome.
Salutations to your father and family, in happy memorial of your visit to our Caer,
Kyndylan ap Rhys ap Rhygyferch
To the Lord Kyndylan from the Lady Noë Caecilia, daughter of Joseph of Arimathea.
Sir!
Peace!
I write on behalf of my brother, Alexander.
In his excitement at receiving your so appreciated gift, he stepped too hastily from the deck of my father’s ship. Unfortunately he did not fall into the sea but upon the new harbour arm built by our self-styled monarch, the Lord Herod the Great, here at Antioch. His right arm is fractured in three places (Alexander’s, that is, not the lord Herod’s) and he is unable to write.
What is it like in your island? Can you see the big star there that they are all talking about here? What gods do you worship? My mother is Roman, you know, her name is Caecilia Lucina. She thought her daughter should be brought up Roman and her sons should have their father’s beliefs, but my father said everyone was going to have his. So my mother told me about Jupiter and Minerva and Mars and my father told me about the one true God we worship here in Israel (as we call our land). I can read Hebrew as well as a boy. I also speak Greek, as well as Latin and Aramaic. My father and mother disagree about everything except each other. My father says there is no one like my mother and my mother says that there is no more wonderful man than my father - though I really don’t know why.
The dogs are lovely.
Peace!
on behalf of Alexander ben Joseph
Noë Caecilia bath Joseph
From Kyndylan to the Lady Noë Caecilia
Lady,
I thank you for your greetings and I sorrow with your sorrow at the injury to your esteemed brother. I rejoice that the dogs give satisfaction. Yes, we can see the great star here. But our sages, men (and women) whom we call Druids, and who come from the Island of Môn on our coastline, say that it is not one star but two, for behold, they have again parted and, I am told, shall soon be joined by a third. But I cannot claim to understand its significance or the interest in it. Here everyone is wrapped up in myths and magic. It is inexpressibly wearisome to me. Our people, the Decangeli, worship what you might call a nymph, though they do not speak her name, in a damp grove of sacred oaks.
My mother’s people, the Atrobates, in the south, are very Roman. I spent part of my childhood there. My Uncle Tincommius is in Rome even now. They eat off the best Samian ware and drink Greek wine out of of glass made in Gaul. But this does not prevent them from severing the heads of their human sacrifices and manipulating them so that they seem to speak.
I do not wish to give offence. Perhaps your people, too, engage in human sacrifice. I know nothing about your father’s religion, but to me it is a dark and burdensome side of life.
My greetings to Alexander. May he soon have the use of his right arm to embrace his friends and chastise his foes.
Kyndylan ap Rhys ap Rhygyferch
To the Lord Prince Kyndylan of the Decangli
Lord Prince,
My Father says that I have been addressing you very disrespectfully and that your father is a king and your Uncle Tincommius is a very famous king, too. I beg your pardon.
Alas! My brother regained the full use of his arm and engaged Tribune Marcus Octavius son of S. Sentius Saturninus, our Governor, for a dog fight. Brutus won. Then the humans started fighting - and my father was obliged to send my brother to Egypt with great dispatch. However, Saturninus also has departed, taking his sons with him. You see, he was obliged to sit in judgment on King Herod, who recently murdered his own sons Alexander and Aristobulus, and he (Saturninus) though that he (Herod) might have something nasty - and fatal - put in his soup. So he’s magnified a mild ague into malaria and gone home. However, Quirinius, the Governor of the neighbouring province is commanding a legion in the Taurus Mountains with a view to putting down some of our neighbours. So there’s someone to keep an eye on Herod.
The star grows bigger. My father’s steward is a Chaldean Jew from Sepharvaim called Achshah. He told me that the one apparant star is made up of Zedek whom the Romans call Jupiter and Kokhav Shabbtai whom the Romans call Saturn. In our language Zedek means righteousness or justice. And there is a prophecy in our psalms that justice and peace shall embrace: Achshah said that it was the sign of a new age. And that Mars would join to make it a bigger star and that this was the very sign that appeared in the heavens more than a thousand years ago when Moses, the founder of our religion was born.
No, we don’t sacrifice human beings. It is absolutely forbidden. We are taught that obedience is better than sacrifice and a contrite heart is better than the fat of rams.
We believe there is but one God who made all things and all nations. And we may not make images of him. He is a God of loving kindness, slow to anger and abiding in love.
But my father says that Alexander will have to stay in Egypt till he learns to behave responsibly.
Brutus the dog is in my care. He is lying on his back with his feet in the air and an old leather ball between his excellent teeth. Dana has puppies.
Yours respectfully,
Noë Caecilia bath Joseph
To the Lady Noë from Kyndylan
Dear Lady,
I cannot praise the efficiency of your father’s shipmasters too highly - we see them every three months. Though the trade in Welsh gold and lead is doubtless worth it. It enables me to write to you.
Please do not apologise. Though my father is a [small] king and he rules from Decangl to beyond the Clwyd, I am but the third of his sons and my eldest brother is in excellent health, despite our dense mists which clog the lungs, and through which one cannot see a thing.
Your God interests me greatly. What is he called? What does he do, and what does he require?
Also, are your eyes brown or blue?
Your friend,
Kyndylan
To the Lord Prince Kyndylan from the Lady Noë
Kind prince,
Dana’s puppies are now large enough to start eating the furniture. Their appetite for cushions is great. I have grey eyes and brown hair.
The star is now enormous and people are saying that it heralds the coming of the Messiah. But they are not saying it very loudly, because it might upset Herod.
You see, long ago, God chose our forefather Abraham and he made him into a people for himself. And later our people went down to Egypt - but God was still with them. He was not a God tied to the land. Then he called Moses, who, though one of us, had been brought up as an Egyptian prince. Moses wanted to know his name and God said: “I am.” You would have to learn Hebrew to understand that and to say it as a name - not that we ever do say it, except in our hearts as a prayer.
God led our people out of Egypt and they walked through a sea to come to our land. Then we understood that God cannot be likened to any visible thing or sculpture or stone, but only to history, because he commands history.
Then he gave us laws. Not like anything anyone else had here; commending justice and respect for the dignity of others. But hard to live up to.
The history of our people has been the history of our failing God. But God is still with us when we fail. That is part of his covenant with us. All through our history, from the very beginning, he has promised us a Messiah, an Anointed One who will save us. He has given us prophets who have told us that the Coming One will be a peace maker, a suffering servant, the eternal king.
To be the mother of the Messiah is something every woman of our race longs for. My father is a very wise and holy man and he knows many things others do not know. I asked him if I could be the mother and he said: ‘My dear, she has already been chosen.”
I truly think this is the promised time. But I don’t know why I should. We are a miserable, stagnant backwater in a great and meaningless empire, our people fail, our priests are corrupt, our hope seems gone. We are bitterly divided amongst ourselves.
But I cannot reason myself out of the knowledge that this is the fullness of time.
Peace!
Noë
Kyndylan to Noë
Dear Noe,
I am re-reading your letter in my favourite place. There is a stone arch here, made of two enormous uprights with a great flat roofstone above. These, and the circles elsewhere that consist of similar arches are a relic of a people long gone. Perhaps they were once part of a dwelling or had some long lost practical use, but to me they seem to have their own significance. I am sitting with my back against a tree. Trees feature in many of our legends. It is as if the tree is life, and the gateway is time, or perhaps I mean that it leads to a thing beyond time. Perhaps if I could really walk through it I would meet your Messiah. Your religion sounds like a religion and not a sickening degradation and a nightmare of horror.
May I ask how old you are, and whether you are married?
‘Dylan
From the Lord Joseph of Arimathea
To the Lord Prince Kyndylan son of Rhys son of Rhygyferch
Lord Prince,
The dogs that you have so generously bestowed upon my household have eaten my furniture, attacked my menials, initiated dog fights and disrupted my family life. I would beg you to send someone here who knows how to control them. The bitch, Dana, has just had another litter of eleven puppies. I have, sir, no wish to start a circus in Antioch. The weather in Judea is considerably hotter and drier than that in your admittedly greener country. It seems to exasperate their temper.
My daughter is fifteen, she is headstrong, intelligent, exceptionally comely and quite charming. I could not recommend her as a spouse to any but a man of great sense and I have not so far found the like in the Province of Syria.
My captain Aaron is accompanied by a freedman of mine, Appollo, he is an admirable tutor of Greek and Aramaic and he has with him copies of some of our sacred scrolls in Greek to facilitate the study both of that language of our religion. He is a pleasant and entertaining companion for anyone who wishes to take a protracted sea voyage.
Judea is a rather uncivilized backwater, in an uncomfortable political position. But then, so is Decangl.
Our God is the Lord of the whole earth and the faith in God which our people have may be shared by anyone, anywhere. Nonetheless, for the next, let us say, forty years this will be a unique place to live - a time unrivalled in history - the fullness of time.
Joseph [of Arimathaea]