Bran

I watched the people as they traced drawings of fire in the air and raised circles of stone among the hills and rocks, and they watched you, as you danced across the sky, drawing their festivals and their seasons and reflecting their heroes and their gods.  This is a tale of you, Corvus, the crow, and your black wings and the soul that became you, the soul of the Celt named Bran.

He was a Giant and a protector of his people, of the Druids and their secret rituals, and of all Briton and Wales.  He was born of the sea but strode across the land in great, earth-swallowing steps that took him from border to border in a day at an easy pace.  His name was Bran, and he had a sister, Branwen.

War with the Irish was brewing again, threatening to rise up over the horizon and arch across the skies, pitting the two islands against each other once more.  Bran rallied for war, but there had already been so many wars, and even a giant could not be assured of victory any longer.  The Druids whispered that the land was tired, and while Bran prepared to enter battle with his shoulders back and his sword drawn, in his heart he was worried for his people.  So, when an offer of peace came to him from the Irish king, he listened and considered.

King Maddolwch asked for an alliance sealed by marriage, binding blood to blood so that no more needed to be spilled by weeping cuts across the ground.  There is more than one way to take blood and flesh from each other, he said.  Let there be peace, and let me marry your sister.

Bran was torn between desiring peace for his land and peace for his sister, for he knew that the Irish king had the soul of a vulture, cruel and dry, while his sister’s was nearer to that of a songbird and flew lightly upon the wind.  He asked Branwen what she desired; she said peace, and so she sent herself away to be married.

King Maddolwch took her, the proud sister of his enemy, and determined to break her.  He kept her locked away when she was not drudging through chores and laboring with the slaves.  But there was peace, and Branwen endured, silent, with a raised chin and stubborn eyes.  He began to take away her food, reducing her meals and leaving her feeble, and she no longer had the strength to keep her chin in the air, but her eyes remained stubborn and her spirit whole.  And there was peace, so she endured.  It was not until a messenger from her homeland saw her and carried the news back to Bran that her troubles echoed across Briton and Wales. The people rallied, for they loved her, and when Bran declared war that she might suffer no longer, an army came behind him.

The Britons, led by the Giant Bran, attacked Ireland, burned the green fields and hunted for the king.  But the months of peace had only lent the Britons enough strength to attack and push forward a few times before they began to weaken.  They knew that victory would be a long struggle.  Bran watched his people die as they pushed as far as they could towards his sister, watched and kept his sorrow underneath the anger on his face, but that only put it nearer to his heart.

Another messenger came from the Irish king.  Let us meet on one final field.  Let that decide everything.

And so Bran knew that the Irish were tiring as well and that if a side did not win soon, both would be so weakened that even the victor’s future would be unstable.  A few more deaths, and there would not be enough hands to gather food or to offer protection against other enemies.  He agreed.  A field was selected and the battle raged well into the night, our time.  There have been many nights of blood that we have witnessed, and while this might not have been the worst, the blood ran black and thick in the darkness and glowed where our light hit it as the life faded away.

Under our lights, Maddolwch breathed his last, and Branwen was returned to her people but not to her brother.  She arrived as he lay dying, a poisoned arrow in his side, and she heard him request that they cut off his head and bury it facing south so that he might always watch for an invasion and protect his people.  She took his sword above her head and complied, releasing his soul.  As it filled the air around them, it took shape, first wings then feathers, and then Bran, now a crow, flew high into the night sky taking his place among the constellations so that while his eyes watched for danger below the ground, his soul might watch from above.

The story was told, over and over, and Bran protected his people from invasions long after his people’s time.  With half-remembered reasons and guesses, their descendents built a city called London around what had been the Britons' stronghold.  On the ground where Bran’s head was buried, they built a great Tower, where they stored their valuables and their criminals and all else that needed keeping above Bran’s watchful eyes.

Words from the Typist

While trying to locate constellation myths from cultures that are not as well known as the Greeks, I stumbled across this Celtic myth about the origin of the constellation Corvus, or the Crow.  I was not able to find the variety of sources for this story as I was for Orion, so much of the story outside of the basic facts, such as the relationship between the siblings and how the characters felt about the events, were fabrications on my part.  I imagined the details of Branwen’s suffering and the motivations of the characters. I also inserted a few more references to birds and souls: the Celts believed that when someone died, their soul became a bird.  I did not want to say that in so many words but tried instead to connect the two so that when Bran died and his soul flew away as a crow, the idea was not completely out of left field.  I also introduced the idea of a continuing conflict to explain why Branwen needed to marry Maddolwch in the first place so that Branwen became more of a person than an object to be bartered with by the men.

I especially loved the idea of the Tower of London being built over Bran’s head and had to include it.  There is another part of this story that I left out, however, because I thought that it would cause unnecessary confusion.  In it, Bran’s soul actually becomes a raven---the Celts called Corvus “Bran’s raven”---and it is said that if the ravens ever desert the Tower of London, the country will be conquered.