The Lad Of The Gad

The Lad Of The Gad
Alan Garner

The much-loved classic, finally in ebook.In 'The Lad of the Gad' Alan Garner has reworked five stories from the Gaelic layers of British folktale.Folk and fairy tales have not always been relegated to children, and older readers will appreciate Garner's ability to give these stories a new vitality for our time.

for Natasha

Contents

Cover (#u8efe6b52-33df-585f-9b03-e8f382e6d675)

Title Page (#u32b06e8c-5e8a-5c2a-abf3-2bbd21cbe081)

Dedication (#ulink_7cd3de1e-b8e4-5a5e-b190-05a067aca0ed)

INTRODUCTION (#ulink_f0a012f4-1181-501f-824f-7855629fb967)

UPRIGHT JOHN (#ulink_13288461-62ae-573a-a29f-5d9c2b1ec33c)

RASCALLY TAG (#ulink_3d597e7b-d1bb-5717-a531-8a9f1431cc9d)

OLIOLL OLOM (#litres_trial_promo)

THE LAD OF THE GAD (#litres_trial_promo)

LURGA LOM (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Praise (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Introduction (#ulink_c04b9bd0-9288-534e-b76d-809917779364)

The oral tradition of folktale no longer exists in the English language. Now, rather than human recollection shared through community of audience and the storyteller’s own belief, the source of every folktale is another book. Made written, folktale is treated as a juvenile branch of literature; but the two are different, and we should mark the differences. The word in the air is not the same word on the page.

We can say that, while folktale scarcely engages the intellect, fiction does not allow imagery to carry the weight. Both forms are valid metaphors of reality; but folktale speaks with the logic of dream; it is supple, changing in the mouth of the storyteller, always archaic, not a single creation, but a weaving of existing threads.

The folktale, when written, should still continue to be worked as it was when it was a spoken form, so that it stays relevant and vital; yet the body of British folktale is obsolete, a reductive continuity of Nineteenth Century texts, which reflect the attitudes of the period when the bulk of our traditional remains was set in print. Since that time, the British folktale has become, properly, a subject for scholarship, and, less properly, a vehicle for the moral instruction of the young. Shorn of its inherent music, mistakenly pursued for rational meaning, folktale has lost its force within the general culture.

Among societies where oral tradition has not been abused, folktale is no dull matter that anyone may touch, but more a collection of patterns to be translated with the skill, bias and authority of the craftsman, who, in serving his craft, allows that craft to serve the people. The contrast between intuitive mediation from within and externally applied precept is nice, and crucial. British folktale, in untutored and literary hands, has become infant homily or adult science. There remains no middle ground.

“The Lad of the Gad” is an attempt to recover a middle ground. I have tried to place my literate ear in the way of a preliterate voice, so that, although the word in the air is not the same word on the page, the force may be recreated and felt. My approach has been to give the stories something of the sequential structure of a controlled fiction while retaining an impression of the original dream.

The stories are taken from the Goidelic layers of British folktale. Another writer would choose differently, and I would choose differently myself at another time. But these are the stories now, because, in a way that I understand only after having listened to them as they were being worked, they offer compensatory images of the world that I cannot find in a more conventional prose today.

Upright John (#ulink_092cf501-d768-50ee-b789-995b5096f100)

There was a king and a queen, and between them was a son called Upright John. The queen died, and the king married another.

One day John was at the hunting hill, and he got no game at all. He saw a blue falcon and let an arrow at her, but he did no more than to drive a feather from her wing. He lifted the feather, put it in his bag and went home.

When he came home, his stepmother said to him, “Where is the game today?” He took out the feather and gave it to her.

She said, “I set it as crosses and as spells, and as the decay of the year on you, and as the seven fairy fetters of going and straying, that you shall not be without a pool in your shoe, and that you shall be wet, cold and soiled, until you get for me the bird from which that feather came.”

And John said to her, “I set it as crosses and as spells, and as the decay of the year on you, and as the seven fairy fetters of going and straying, that you shall stand with one foot on the castle, and the other on the hall, and that your face shall be to the tempest whatever wind blows, until I return.”

He went away to look for the falcon from which the feather came, and his stepmother the queen was standing with one foot on the castle and the other on the hall, her front to the face of the tempest, however long he might be away.

Upright John went, travelling the waste, but he could not see the falcon. He was by himself, and the night came blind and dark, and he crouched at the root of a briar.

A Foxy Lad appeared to him and said, “You are sad, Upright John. Bad is the night on which you have come. I myself have only a trotter and a sheep’s cheek, but they must do.”

They blew a fire heap, and they roasted flesh and ate the trotter and the sheep’s cheek. And the next morning the Foxy Lad said to the king’s son, “The Blue Falcon is with the Giant of the Five Heads, the Five Humps and the Five Throttles, and I shall show you where he lives.

“And my advice to you,” said the Foxy Lad, “is for you to be his servant, nimble to do all that he asks of you, and each thing he entrusts to you, with exceeding care. Be very good to his birds, and he will let you feed the Blue Falcon. And when the giant is not at home, run away with her: but see that no part of her touches any one thing that is the giant’s, or your matter will not go well with you.”

“I shall do all these things,” said Upright John.

He went to the giant’s house. He struck at the door.

“Who is there?” said the giant.

“One coming to see if you need a lad,” said John.

“What can you do?” said the giant.

“I feed birds,” said john, “and swine; milk a cow, a goat or a sheep.”

“I want someone like you,” said the giant.

The giant came out and he settled wages with John, and John was nimble and took exceeding care of everything the giant had.

“My lad is so good,” said the giant, “that I begin to think he may be trusted to feed the Blue Falcon.”

So the giant gave the Blue Falcon to Upright John for him to feed her, and he took exceeding care of the falcon. And when the giant saw how well he was caring for her, he thought he would trust him altogether, so he gave the falcon to John for him to keep her, and John took exceeding care of the falcon.

The giant thought that each thing was going right, and he went from the house one day.

Then Upright John said, “It is time to go,” and he took the falcon. But when he opened the door and the falcon saw sunlight, she spread her wings to fly, and the point of one of the feathers on one of her wings touched one of the posts of the door, and the post let loose a screech.

The Giant of the Five Heads, the Five Humps and the Five Throttles came home running, and caught Upright John and took the falcon from him.

“I would not give you my Blue Falcon,” said the giant, “unless you could get for me the White Sword of Light that the Seven Big Women of Jura keep.”

And the giant sent Upright John away.

John went out again, travelling the waste, and the Foxy Lad met with him, and he said, “You are sad, Upright John. You did not, and you will not, as I told you. Bad is the night on which you have come. I have only a trotter and a sheep’s cheek, but they must do.”

They blew a fire heap, and they roasted flesh and ate the trotter and the sheep’s cheek. And the next morning the Foxy Lad said to the king’s son, “I shall grow into a ship and take you over the sea to Jura.

“And my advice to you,” said the Foxy Lad, “is that you say to the Big Women that you will be their polishing-lad, and that you are good at brightening iron and steel, gold and silver, at burnishing and at making all things gleam. Be nimble. Do every job with exceeding care. Then, when they trust you with the White Sword of Light, run away with it: but see that the sheath touches no part that is of the inside of where the Big Women live, or your matter will not go well with you.”

“I shall do all those things,” said Upright John.

The Foxy Lad grew into a ship, and they sailed across and came to shore at the Rock of the Flea on the north side of Jura, and Upright John went to take service with the Seven Big Women there.

He struck at the door. The Seven Big Women came out and asked him what he wanted.

“I have come to find if you need a polishing-lad,” said John.

“What can you polish?” said they.

“I brighten, make clear shining, gold and silver, or iron, or steel,” said John.