Coll the Storyteller’s Tales of Enchantment

Extract

This is an extract from the beginning of Coll the Storyteller’s Book of Enchantments. Just imagine Branwen as a baby chick. Bet she was cheeky even then!

IN THE BEGINNING…

Long past long ago, behind the shadow mists of a thousand tales, the Islands of Britain floated on the edge of the world. They were lands of green hills and roaring seas, of soft sunshine and slanting grey rain, filled with magical oak groves and mysterious tall stones; where giants walked and fairies danced and seal-people sang amongst the waves. In those days enchantments lay in every clod of earth and grain of sand, and spirits of wind and water could be heard whispering in the sound of every breeze and ripple of every stream.
And in a certain hollow green hill, guarded by Merlin’s spells, the Thirteen Treasures of Britain lay hidden . . .
The centuries rolled by, and invaders came from oversea. Cruel wars were fought, cutting through the threads that held the enchanted cloth of the lands together. Little by little even the strongest magic weakened and was driven underground. Only the druids and the bards remembered, passing on the secret knowledge and teaching the old stories in schools hidden in faraway places where no one would find them unless they were meant to.
And in a certain year, at the time when the sun was hot in the sky and the hazel nuts were ripening on the bushes, a baby boy named Coll and a raven chick called Branwen were blown by the winds to the island school at Callanish in Alba (which in these days we call Scotland). There they stayed for thirteen years….

When Coll sails over to Armorica (which we now call Brittany), in France, this is one of the magical people he meets there. Spooooky!

The Story of Yann-An-Odd, Lord of the Dunes

“Hush,” say the fishermen in their boats at dusk, “hurry!” And they sail swift and sure for the safety of the harbour and home. For far out in the dark and the drift of the waves comes a howling cry.
“I-ooou! I-ooou! I-ooou!” it goes, eerie and shrill as a seagull, a lonely, lost sound. And sometimes a sailor will sigh and stare, and turn his tiller for the open ocean, hearing words which draw him on, on, to the wrecking rocks and down into the deep. And there he will join Yann-an-Od, Lord of the Dunes, in his house made of bones and sea-wrack and shell, surrounded by whispering ghosts and mermaids, who feast on silver pilchards and rainbow mackerel stolen from the nets above.
But at other times a sailor far out on the waves, lost and helpless in a storm, will hear in that cry a sound of hope and comfort, and he will see a green glow ahead. And an old man, sometimes giant, sometimes dwarf, but always dressed in black, will row in front of him and guide him safe to shore by the light of his shadowy lantern.
It all depends, say the fishermen, on whether the Lord of the Dunes is in a good mood or not.