For Mikal 

Who taught me storytelling

In one of my many incarnations I was an active bard in the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA).

The SCA is an organization dedicated to researching and re-creating the arts and sciences of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. A bard in the SCA is usually a singer/songwriter, poet and storyteller.

As a storyteller one of my most popular pieces was the story "St. Mathurin and the Good Wife." It was based on a medieval Breton folk tale and rewritten to suit an SCA audience. The original story had Jesus, St. John and St. Peter as central characters, a common theme in Breton folklore One of the changes I made, to avoid controversy, was to change the characters to a lesser known Gaulish saint, Mathurin, and his servant Yann. That story is included in this collection.

Many years later I was searching for a book idea for the National Novel Writers Month (NaNoWriMo). It occurred to me to expand on the idea that had started with St. Mathurin; take a character and make him the protagonist in medieval folk stories that have been changed to fit more modern tastes. The result is this book.

I hope you find this book as fun to read as it was for me to write. If you want to learn more about the SCA visit their website at http://www.sca.org. If you are interested in finding out more about NaNoWriMo their website is http://nanowrimo.org.

Thank you, and Degemer mat!

Rex Deaver, Overland Park KS, February 2015

Mathurin looked up to see the bluest sky any man ever saw. It was the same sky he had seen for most of the days of his life, the cobalt sky of Brittany. Bretagne. Armorica. Home.

He wiped the sweat and dust from his brow as he looked back down the row of artichokes he had just finished hoeing. Clean of weeds, clods turned to loam, the broad green leaves shown in the sun like jade as God’s reward for a job well and truly done. Come harvest time the vegetables would feed him well, and provide trade goods to barter for the other things he would need to see him through the winter.

Tomorrow he would take his net and go down to the sea. He would sail his little boat out beyond the breakwater and cast the net for turbot, the great fish that swam the cold Atlantic waters. With God’s grace he would catch enough to sell at market, along with the salt from his pans along the shore, and put aside more stores for the long winter to come.

Such was the life of a Breton farmer, and it was a good one.

He took a drink from the leather bottel hung at his waist, swished it in his mouth before swallowing to gain the coolness of it. He grasped his hoe once again with purpose, and made to start back down the next row.

It was simple work, slicing quickly but carefully through the clotted soil. Breaking up the crust to catch and hold the rains, turning the roots of young weeds up above the ground to die before they could choke out the crop, without harming the tender roots of the plants that would be food and life and wealth when harvest came. He hummed a tuneless tune as he worked, and contemplated his happy life.

A dark shadow fell upon him suddenly, and at first he thought a cloud had passed over the sun. Strange as the sky had been all but cloudless but a moment before. But when he looked up, he found it was no cloud.

“You have turned the earth of my hiding place” a deep voice thundered from high above Mathurin’s head. The voice came from a mouth the size of a cow, the mouth was in a face the size of a house, and the face sat upon shoulders as wide as a hill. It was a some kind of demon, born of the deeds of God and the angels and cast into the ground long ago. “You have turned the earth of my hiding place” the demon repeated, “and released me into the world. You are my master, as long as I can serve you. But if I cannot serve you, I will destroy you.”

“What?” the befuddled Mathurin managed to mumble, and it was more than most wise men would have been capable of in the same situation.

“Give me work, or I will rend thee” the demon said, slowly as if to a child or a simpleton.

“Well. Then. If that is what is needed,” Mathurin temporized, trying to come up with some task that might keep the demon busy for a time, “finish weeding this field of artichokes,” he managed before the demon could become too impatient and start to consider the whole rending thing.

“That is all you have? Well, you are the master, and I will do as you command.”

It was little more than the blink of an eye before the field was clean and cultivated as if poor Mathurin had worked all day long. The demon turned its baleful glaze back upon him then and thundered once more. “Give me work, or I will rend thee.”

Quickly Mathurin thought of the other tasks of his days and, one by one, he commanded the demon to perform them. A boat full of fish, sacks of fine sea salt, great wheels of cheese, and baskets of bread were stacked beside him. All had been the work of less than an hour for the powerful demon, and it was smiling a very disconcerting smile. “Give me work, or I will rend thee’” the demon intoned once again.

Mathurin realized that he needed to think beyond normal tasks if he wanted to avoid being rended -- rent? -- and wracked his brain for something that would challenge the demon sufficiently. While the demon was sharpening its claws on a nearby boulder, he thought and thought. Finally, just as the demon started toward him with a rending kind of look in its eyes, he blurted out the next task.

“Build me a castle all of glass, upon a hill made of glass, surrounded by forest of glass trees.”

The demon stopped. It looked surprised, and a bit respectful. But then it smiled, and turned to the task. Many hours passed, and the sun was well past noon, when the demon finished working.

There before the stunned Mathurin, was a forest of glass trees, with little glass birds flying between the bright boughs. Glass squirrels leaped from clear branch to clear branch, gathering crystal nuts and storing them in the vitreous bowls of glassy hollows.

Rising from the forest was a hill of glass. Crystal grass waved in the breeze, and glass flowers bloomed upon the glass slopes. Pellucid boulders stuck out randomly from its hyaline sides.

And on the hill stood a glass castle, with towers of glass. Glass pennons waved from the towers, and the whole was surrounded by a glass moat in which glass moat monsters swam through crystal water.

This was many long years ago, and the winds and rain have worn the castle, the hill, and the forest down to white sand that lines the beaches of Plouarzel , but they once stood, and the demon had built them at Mathurin’s command.

“Give me work, or I will rend thee” the demon told Mathurin once more.

Now Mathurin had seen the demon working and new that the task he had set for it would not require more than a few hours to complete. He had used the time to think of the next task he would set it, and so he was more  prepared than he had been before.

“I command you,” he told the demon with confidence he did not necessarily feel, “to build a great causeway across the length of Brittany, so that a man might walk from Rennes to Brest in the heaviest rains and never get mud upon his boots.”

The demon did look at him with respect this time. And more than a little annoyance. It was clear that the game was no longer amusing to the demon, but it began the task it had been set. Many hours passed, and the sun had set when the demon completed its work.

There in the fading light of the day the great causeway shone. The risers were twice the height of a a man, the lintel stones as large as a ship. And the path they made above the fields and valleys and forests shone white in the rising moonlight, as far as the eye could see in both directions.

This was many long years ago, and the wind and rain have worn the great lintels to dust, cracked and toppled the risers. All that is left are the standing stones of Carnac that march for many miles still across the countryside. But the great causeway once was there, and the demon built it at Mathurin’s command.

Mathurin had no doubt that it crossed the length and breadth of Brittany, just as he had commanded, and his heart turned to ice within his chest.

The demon intoned once more its threat. “Give me work, or I will rend thee.” There was no hint of amusement in its eyes now, no sneering in its voice, no patience in its attitude. Mathurin knew this must be the last task, and it must suffice.

He prayed as he had never prayed before. “O Lord.” he said in his mind, “show me how to defeat this demon, and I will serve you for all of my days. Deliver me from this evil, and I will wander across all of Brittany, singing your praises, preaching your Good News, and helping those in need to Your everlasting Glory.”

And then he noticed the Moon, shining brightly in the black sky. And he saw it gleam upon the sandy beach not far away. And Mathurin knew that God had answered his prayer. He knew that his life was spared, and also changed forever.

“I command you to build for me,” he told the demon,” a stairway to the Moon. Made of sand.”

And the demon screamed like a lost soul as it knew its fate was sealed.

That was many long years ago, and the wind and rain has battered that coast for every one of them. But still you can find scattered all along that beach the little twists of sand that are the demon still trying to build the staircase to the Moon that Mathurin commanded it to do so long ago.

The next morning Mathurin packed a small bag of needful things. He said goodbye to his fields. He said goodbye to his net, and his little boat. He said goodbye to the salt pans that had served him so well, and to the flocks and herds that had fed and clothed him. He asked his neighbor to see that all was cared for, and used to feed, house, and clothe the poor and unfortunate.

For Mathurin knew he must fulfill his pledge to God, the God who had given him the wisdom to defeat the demon. That he must wander Brittany. That he must preach the Good News. That he must help the needy, teach the ignorant, lift up the wretched. He would miss his little farm, miss his little boat. But there was one thing he knew. This was the life of a Breton saint, and it would be a good one.

And with that St. Mathurin started his journey through the countryside of Brittany.