Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire - "Lone Star Planet"

Margaret Alice Murray - "The Witch cult in Western Europe"

Frank Hamilton Cushing - "Zuni Fetiches"

Henry Beam Piper - "A Slave is a Slave"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Forest Lovers

M >> Maurice Hewlett >> The Forest Lovers




They went together. "My lord," said she then, "my lodging is far from
here and ill to come by. Nevertheless, I know of a hermitage hard at
hand where we could rest a little, and thereafter we could find the
way to my house. Will you come with me thither?"

"Whither?" asked Prosper.

"Ah, the hermitage, or wheresoever you will."

Prosper looked steadily at her.

"Tell me the name and condition of the dead man," said he.

"Ranulf de Genlis, a knight of Brittany."

"The badge on his breast was of our blazonry," said Prosper, half to
himself, "and he looked to have been of this side the Southern Sea."

"Do you doubt my word, Sir Knight?"

"Madam, I do not question it. Will you tell, me how he came by his
death?"

"I was hunting very early in the morning with my esquires and ladies,
and by ill-hap lost them and my way. After many wanderings in search
of either, I encountered this man now dead, and inquired news of him.
He held me some time in talk, delayed me with sham diligence, and at
last and, suddenly professed an ardent love for me. I was frightened,
for I was alone in the wood with him, in a glade not far from here.
And it seemed that I had reason, since from words he went on to force
and clamour and violence. I had almost succumbed--I know not how to
hint at the fate which threatened me, or guess how long I could have
struggled against it. He had closed with me, he held me in a vice;
then all at once he loosed hold of me and shuddered. Some seizure or
sudden stroke of judgment overtook him, I suppose, so that he fell and
lay writhing, with a foam on his lips, as you saw. You may judge," she
added, after waiting for some comment from Prosper, which did not
come, "you may judge whether this is a pleasant tale for me to tell,
and whether I should tell it willingly to any man. For what one
attempted against me another might also try--and not fail."

She stopped and glanced at her companion. The manner in each of them
was changed; the lady was not the scornful beauty she had seemed,
while Prosper's youth was dry within him. She seemed a suppliant, he a
judge, deliberate. Such a story from such an one would have set him on
fire an hour ago; but now his words came sharply from him, whistling
like a shrill wind.

"The grave was dug overnight," was what he said.

The lady started and paled. Then she drew a deep breath, and said--"Do
you again doubt my word, sir?"

"I do not question it," he replied as before. It is a fact that he had
noticed the turned earth by the pit. There was gossamer upon it, but
that said little. Rabbits had been there also, and that said
everything.

The lady said nothing more, and in silence they went on until they
reached a fork in the path. Prosper stopped here. One path led north,
the other west.

"Here is my road," said he, pointing to the west.

"The hermitage is close by, my lord," urged the lady in a low voice.
"I pray my lord to rest him there."

"That I cannot do," says he.

She affected indignation. "Is it then in the honour of a knight to
desert a lonely lady? I am learning strange doctrine, strange
chivalry! Farewell, sir. You are young. Maybe you will learn with
years that when a lady stoops to beg it is more courtly to forestall
her."

Prosper stood leaning on his shield. "The knight's honour," he said,
"is in divers holds--in his lady's, in God's, and in the king's. These
three fly not always the same flag, but two at least of them should be
in pact."

"Ah," said she slyly, "ah, Sir Discreet, I see that you have the lady
first."

Prosper grew graver. "I said 'his lady,'" he repeated.

"And could not I, for such service as yours, be your lady, fair sir?"
she asked in a very low and troubled voice. "At least I am here--
alone--in the wood--and at your mercy."

Prosper looked straight in front of him, grave, working his mouth.
Those who knew him would have gone by the set of his chin. He may have
been thinking of Brother Bonaccord's prediction, or of the not very
veiled provocation of the lady's remarkable candour. There grew to be
a rather bleak look in his face, something blenched his blue eyes. He
turned sharply upon the woman, and his voice was like a frost.

"Having slain one man this day," he said, "I should recommend you to
be wary how you tread with another."

She stared open-mouthed at him for a full minute and a half. Then,
seeing he never winked or budged, she grew frightened and piteous,
threw her arms up, turned, and fled up the north path, squealing like
a wounded rabbit.

Prosper clapped-to his spurs and made after her with his teeth
grinding together. Very soon, however, he pulled up short. "The man is
dead. Let her go for this present. And I am not quite sure. I will
bide my time."

That was the motto of the Gais--"I bide my time." He was,
nevertheless, perfectly sure in his private mind; but then he was
always perfectly sure, and recognized that it was a weakness of his.
So the woman went her way, and he his for that turn...

Riding forward carelessly, with a loose rein, he slept that night in
the woods. Next day he rode fast and long without meeting a living
soul, and so came at last into Morgraunt Forest, where the trees shut
out the light of the day, and very few birds sing. He entered the east
purlieus in the evening of his fifth day from Starning, and slept in a
rocky valley. Tall black trees stood all round him, the vanguards of
the forest host.




CHAPTER III

HOLY THORN AND HOLY CHURCH


In South Morgraunt stands Holy Thorn, more properly the Abbey of Saint
Giles of Holy Thorn, a broad and fair foundation, one of the two set
up in the forest by the Countess Isabel, Dowager of March and
Bellesme, Countess of Hauterive and Lady of Morgraunt in her own
right. Where the Wan river makes a great loop, running east for three
miles, and west again for as many before it drives its final surge
towards the Southern Sea, there stands Holy Thorn, Church and Convent,
watching over the red roofs of Malbank hamlet huddled together across
the flood. Here are green water-meadows and good corn-lands, the abbey
demesne; here also are the strips of tillage which the tenants hold;
here the sluices which head up the river for the Abbey mills, make
thunderous music all day long. Over this cleared space and over some
leagues of the virgin forest, the Abbot of Saint Thorn has sac and
soc, tholl and theam, catch-a-thief-in, catch-a-thief-out, as well as
other sovereign prerogatives, all of which he owes to the regret and
remorse of the Countess Isabel over the death of her first husband and
only lover, Fulk de Breaute. Further north, in Mid-Morgraunt, is
Gracedieu, her other foundation--equally endowed, but holding white
nuns instead of white monks.

Now it so happened that as Prosper le Gai entered the purlieus of
Morgraunt, the Countess Isabel sat in the Abbey parlour of Saint
Thorn, knitting her fine brows over a business of the Abbot's, no less
than the granting of a new charter of pit and gallows, pillory and
tumbril to him and his house over the villeins of Malbank, and the
whole fee and soke. The death of these unfortunates, or the manner of
it, was of little moment; but the Countess, having much power, was
jealous how she lent it. She sat now, therefore, in the Abbot's great
chair, and before her stood the Abbot himself, holding in his hands
the charter fairly written out on parchment, with the twisted silk of
three colours ready to receive her seal. It was exactly this which she
was not very ready to give, for though she knew nothing of his
villeins, she knew much of the Abbot, and was of many minds concerning
him. There was yet time; their colloquy was in secret; but now she
tapped with her foot upon the stool, and the Abbot watched her
narrowly. He was a tall and personable man, famous for his smile,
stout and smooth, his skin soft as a woman's, his robe, his ring, his
cross and mere slippers all in accord.

At length, says he, "Madam, for the love of the Saints, but chiefly
for Mary's love; to the glory of God and of Saint Giles of Holy Thorn;
to the ease of his monks and the honour of the Church, I beseech your
Ladyship this small boon."

The clear-cold eyes of the Countess Isabel looked long at him before
she said--"Do I then show love to the Saints and give God honour, Lord
Abbot, by helping you swing your villeins? Pit and gallows, pillory
and tumbril! You go too far."

"Dear lady," said he, "I go no further, if I have them, than my
Sisters of Gracedieu. That hedged community of Christ's brides hath
all these commodities and more, even the paramount privilege of
Sanctuary, which is an appanage of the very highest in the Holy Fold.
And I must consider it as scarcely decent, as (by the Mass) not seemly
at all, that your Holy Thorn, this sainted sprig of your planting,
should lack the power to prick. Our people, madam, do indeed expect
it. It is not much. Nay!"--for he saw his Lady frown and heard her
toe-taps again--"indeed, it is not much. A little pit for your female
thief to swim at large, for your witch and bringer-in of hell's
ordinances; a decent gallows a-top for your proper male rascal; a
pillory for your tenderer blossom of sin while he qualify for an airy
crown, or find space for repentance and the fruits of true contrition;
lastly, a persuasive tumbril, a close lover for your incorrigible
wanton girls--homely chastisement such as a father Abbot may bestow,
and yet wear a comely face, and yet be loved by those he chasteneth.
Madam, is this too much for so great a charge as ours? We of Holy
Thorn nurture the good seed with scant fortune, being ridden down by
evil livers, deer-stealers, notorious persons, scandalous persons. A
little pit, therefore! a little limber gallows!"

But the Countess mused with her hand to her chin, by no means
persuaded. She was still a young woman, and a very lonely one; her
great prerogatives (which she took seriously) tired her to death, but
the need of exercising them through other people was worst of all. Now
she said doubtfully, "I have no reason in especial to trust you,
Abbot."

The Abbot, who knew better than she how true this was, bit his lip and
remained silent. He was a very comely man and leaned much to
persuasion, particularly with women. He was always his own audience:
the check, therefore, amounted to exposure, almost put him to open
shame. The Countess went on to ask, who in particular of his villeins
he had dread of, who was turbulent, who a deer-stealer, who notorious
as a witch or wise woman, who wanton and a scandalous liver? And here
the Abbot was apt with his names. There was Red Sweyn, half an outlaw
already, and by far too handy with his hunting-knife; there was
Pinwell, as merry a little rogue as ever spoiled for a cord. There
were Rogerson and Cutlaw; there was Tom Sibby, the procuress. Mald
also, a withered malignant old wife, who had once blighted a year's
increase by her dealing with the devil. Here was stuff for gallows,
pit and pillory, all dropping-ripe for the trick. For tumbril, he went
on (watching his adversary like a cat), "who so proper as black-haired
Isoult, witch, and daughter of a witch, called by men Isoult la
Desirous--and a gaunt, half-starved, loose-legged baggage she is," he
went on; "reputed of vile conversation for all the slimness of her
years--witch, and a witch's brat."

He looked sideways at the great lady as he spoke of this creature, and
saw that all was going exactly as he would wish it. He had not been
the Countess' confessor for nothing, nor had he learnt in vain the
story of her secret marriage with Fulk de Breaute, and of the murder
of this youth on Spurnt Heath one blowy Bartlemy Eve. And for this
reason he had dared to bring the name of Isoult into his catalogue of
rogues, that he knew his woman, and all woman-kind; how they hate most
in their neighbours that which they are tenderest of in themselves.
Let there be no mistake here. The Countess had been no luxurious
liver, though a most unhappy one. The truth is that, beautiful woman
as she still was, she had been a yet more beautiful girl, Countess of
Hauterive in her own right, and as such betrothed to the great Earl
Roger of March and Bellesme. Earl Roger, who was more than double her
age, went out to fight; she stayed at home, in the nursery or near it,
and Fulk de Breaute came to make eyes. These he made with such
efficacy that Isabel lost her heart first and her head afterwards,
wedded Fulk in secret, bore him a child, and was the indirect means of
his stabbing by the Earl's men as he was riding through the dark over
Spurnt Heath. The child was given to the Abbot's keeping (whence it
promptly and conveniently vanished), the Countess was married to the
Earl; then the Earl died. Whereupon she, still young, childless so far
as she could learn, and possessed of so much, founded her twin abbeys
in Morgraunt to secure peace for the soul of Fulk and her own
conscience. This will suffice to prove that the Abbot had some grounds
for his manoeuvring. The breaking of her troth to the Earl she held to
make her an adulteress; the stabbing of Fulk by the Earl to prove her
a murderess. There was neither mercy nor discernment in these
reproaches. She believed herself a wanton when she had been but a
lover. For no sin, therefore, had she so little charity as for that
which the Abbot had imputed to his candidate for the tumbril. Isoult
la Desirous it was who won the charter, as the Abbot had intended she
should, to serve his end and secure her own according to his liking.

For the charter was sealed and seisin delivered in the presence of Dom
Galors, almoner of the Abbey, of Master Porges, seneschal of High
March, and of one or two mesne lords of those parts. Then the Countess
went to bed; and at this time Prosper le Gai was also lying in the
fringes of Morgraunt, asleep on his shield with his red cloak over
him, having learned from a hind whom he met on the hill that at
Malbank Saint Thorn he would find hospitality, and that his course
must lie in such and such a direction.




CHAPTER IV

DOM GALORS


Next day, as soon as the Countess had departed for High March, the
Abbot Richard called Dom Galors, his almoner, into the parlour and
treated him in a very friendly manner, making him sit down in his
presence, and putting fruit and wine before him. This Galors, who I
think merits some scrutiny, was a bullet-headed, low-browed fellow,
too burly for his monkish frock (which gave him the look of a big boy
in a pinafore), with the jowl of a master-butcher, and a sullen slack
mouth. His look at you, when he raised his eyes from the ground, had
the hint of brutality--as if he were naming a price--which women
mistake for mastery, and adore. But he very rarely crossed eyes with
any one; and with the Abbot he had gained a reputation for astuteness
by seldom opening his lips and never shutting his ears. He was
therefore a most valuable book of reference, which told nothing except
to his owner. With all this he was a great rider and loved hunting.
His _Sursum Corda_ was like a view-holloa, and when he said,
_Ite missa est_, you would have sworn he was crying a stag's
death instead of his Saviour's. In matters of gallantry his reputation
was risky: it was certain that he had more than a monk, and suspected
that he had less than a gentleman should have. The women of Malbank
asseverated that venison was not his only game. That may or may not
have been. The man loved power, and may have warred against women for
lack of something more difficult of assault. He was hardly the man to
squander himself at the bidding of mere appetite; he was certainly no
glutton for anything but office. Still, he was not one to deny himself
the flutter of the caught bird in the hand. He had, like most men who
make themselves monks by calculation, a keen eye for a girl's shape,
carriage, turn of the head, and other allies of the game she loves and
always loses: such things tickled his fancy when they came over his
path; he stooped to take them, and let them dangle for remembrances,
as you string a coin on your chain to remind you at need of a
fortunate voyage. At this particular moment he was tempted, for
instance, to catch and let dangle. The chance light of some shy eye
had touched and then eluded him. I believe he loved the chase more
than the quarry. He knew he must go a-hunting from that moment in
which the light began to play will-o'-the-wisp; for action was his
meat and dominion what he breathed. If you wanted to make Galors
dangerous you had to set him on a vanishing trail. The girl had been a
fool to run, but how was she to know that?

To him now spoke the Abbot Richard after this fashion. "Galors," he
said, "I will speak to you now as to my very self, for if you are not
myself you may be where I sit some day. A young monk who is almoner
already may go far, especially when he is young in religion, but in
years ripe. If you prove to be my other self, you shall go as far as
myself can push you, Galors. Rest assured that the road need not stop
at a mitred abbey. In the hope, then, that you may go further, and I
with you, it is time that I speak my full mind. We have our charter,
as you have seen--and at what cost of sweat and urgency, who can tell
so surely as I? But there, we have it: a great weapon, a lever whereby
we may raise Holy Thorn to a height undreamed of by the abbots of this
realm, and our two selves (perched on the top of Holy Thorn) yet
higher. Yet this charter, gotten for God's greater glory (as He
knoweth who readeth hearts!), may not work its appointed way without
an application which poor and frail men might scarcely dare for any
less object. There is abroad, Galors, dear brother, a most malignant
viper, lurking, as I may say, in the very bosom of Holy Church; warmed
there, nesting there, yet fouling the nest, and grinding her tooth
that she may strike at the heart of us, and shiver what hath been so
long a-building up. Of that viper you, Galors, are the chosen
instrument--you and the charter--to draw the tooth."

The Abbot spoke in a low voice, and was breathless; it was not hard to
see that he was uncommonly in earnest. Galors turned over in his mind
all possible plots against an Abbey's peaceful being--tale-bearing to
the Archbishop, a petition for a Papal Legate, a foreshore trouble, a
riot among the fishermen of Wanmouth, some encroachment by the ragged
brethren of Francis and Dominic--and dismissed them all as not serious
enough to lose breath about.

"Who is your viper, father?" was what he said.

"It is the girl Isoult of Matt-o'-the-Moor; Isoult whom they call La
Desirous," replied his spiritual father. The heart of Galors gave a
hot jump; he knew the girl well enough--too well for her, not well
enough yet for himself. It was precisely to win the woeful beauty of
her that he had set his snares and unleashed his dogs. Did the Abbot
know anything? Impossible; his reference forbad the fear. Was the girl
something more than a dark woodland elf, a fairy, haggard and
dishevelled, whose white shape shining through rags had made his blood
stir? The mask of his face safeguarded him through this maze of
surmise; nothing out of the depths of him was ever let to ruffle that
dead surface. He commanded his voice to ask, How should he find such a
girl? "For," said he, "in Malbank girls and boys swarm like dies on a
sunny wall." The deceit implied was gross, yet the Abbot took it in
his haste.

"Thus you shall know her, Galors," he said. "A slim girl, somewhat
under the common size of the country, and overburdened with a curtain
of black hair; and a sullen, brooding girl who says little, and that
nakedly and askance; and in a pale face two grey eyes a-burning."

All this Galors knew better than his Abbot. Now he asked, "But what is
her offence, father? For even with power of life and member the law of
the land has force, that neither man nor maid, witch nor devil, may be
put lightly away."

For this "put away" the Abbot thanked him with a look, and added, that
she was suspected of witchcraft, seeing Mald her mother was a
notorious witch, and the wench herself the byword and scorn of all the
country-side. Sorcery, therefore, or incontinence--"whichever you
will," said he. "Any stick will do to beat a dog with."

Galors had much to say, but said nothing. There was something behind
all this, he was sure, knowing his man by heart. He judged the Abbot
to be bursting with news, and watched him pace the parlour now
struggling with it. Sure enough the murder was out before he had taken
a dozen turns. "Now, Galors," he said, in a new and short vein,
"listen to me. I intend to do what I should have done fourteen years
ago, when I held this girl in my two hands. I let slip my chance, and
blame myself for it; but having slipt it indeed, it was gone until
this charter of ours brought it back fresh. You know how we stand
here, you and I and the Convent-all of us at the disposition of her
ladyship. A great lady, my friend, and a young one, childless, it is
said, without heir of her own. Morgraunt may go to the Crown or Holy
Thorn and Gracedieu may divide it."

"She may marry again," put in Galors.

"She is twice a widow," the Abbot snapped him up, and gave his first
shock. "She is twice a widow, once against her will. She will never
marry again."

"Then, my father," said Galors, "we should be safe as against the
Crown, which the Countess probably loves as little as the rest of her
kind."

"The Countess Isabel," said the Abbot, speaking like an oracle, "is
not childless."

Galors understood.

"Do not misunderstand me in this, Brother Galors," said the Abbot. "We
will do the girl no unnecessary harm. We will slip her out of the
country if we can get any one to take her. Put it she shall be married
or hanged." Galors again thought that he understood. The Abbot went
on. "There shall be no burning, though that were deserved; not even
tumbril, though that were little harm to so hot a piece. There shall
be, indeed, that which the Countess believes to have been already-a
sally at dawn and a flitting. There will then be no harm done. The
tithing will be free of a sucking witch, and the heart of our
benefactress turned from the child of her sin (for such it was to
break troth to the earl, and sin she deems it) to the child of her
spiritual adoption, to wit, our Holy Thorn." He added "You are in my
obedience, Galors. I love you much, and will see to your advancement.
You have a great future. But, my brother, remember this. Between a
woman's heart and her conscience there can be no fight. There is,
rather, a triumph, wherein the most glorious of the' victor's spoils
is that same conscience, shackled and haled behind the
. That you
should know, and on that you must act. Remember you are fighting for
Saint Giles of Holy Thorn, and be speedy while the new tool still
burns in your hand."

So with his blessing he dismissed Dom Galors for the day.




CHAPTER V

LA DESIROUS


Prosper le Gai--all Morgraunt before him--rose from his bed before the
Countess had turned in hers; and long before the Abbot could get alone
with Dom Galors he was sighing for his breakfast. He had, indeed, seen
the dawn come in, caught the first shiver of the trees, the first
tentative chirp of the birds, watched the slow filling of the shadowy
pools and creeks with the grey tide of light. From brake to brake he
struggled, out of the shade into the dark, thence into what seemed a
broad lake of daylight. He met no living thing; or ever the sun kissed
the tree-tops he was hungry. He was well within Morgraunt now, though
only, as it might be, upon the hem of its green robe; the adventurous
place opened slowly to him like some great epic whose majesty and
force dawns upon you by degrees not to be marked. It was still
twilight in the place where he was when he heard the battling of
birds' wings, the screaming of one bird's grief, and the angry purr of
another, or of others. He peered through the bush as the sound
swelled. Presently he saw a white bird come fluttering with a dropt
wing, two hen-harriers in close pursuit. They were over her, upon her,
there was a wrangle of wings--brown and white--even while he watched;
then the white got clear again, and he could see that she bled in the
breast. The sound of her screaming, which was to him like a girl
crying, moved him strangely. He jumped from his saddle, ran to the
entangled birds and cuffed the two hawks off; but seeing that they
came on again, hunger-bold no doubt, he strangled them and freed the
white pigeon. He took her up in his hands to look at her; she was too
far gone for fear; she bled freely, but he judged she would recover.
So she did, after he had washed out the wound; sufficiently at least
to hop and flutter into covert. Prosper took to his horse and journey
with her voice still ringing in his head.

In another hour's travel he reached a clearing in the wood, hedged all
about with yew-trees and holm oaks very old; and in the midst of it
saw a little stone altar with the figure of a woman upon it. He was
not too hungry to be curious, so he dismounted and went to examine.
The saint was Saint Lucy the Martyr, he saw; the altar, hoary as it
was with lichen and green moss, had a slab upon it well-polished, with
crosses let into the four corners and into the middle of the stone;
there were sockets for tapers, and marks of grease new and thick.
Before he approached it a hind and her calf had been cropping the
grass between the cracks of the altar-steps; all else was very still,
yet had a feeling of habitancy and familiar use.

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