Okay folks, to wit,
friends and fans, and even constructive critics—that does not include
destructive critics—the first volume, or cyfrol (Welsh) of Rylie Rabet Goes On An Adventure—A Tale of
Magike and Wundorcræft Amongst
the Wee Forest Fólc, is finally completed.
The
only thing left for me to do now is find an agent or publisher. Simple, right? Not.
Wish me blessings in my efforts.
I have already submitted to dozens, all of whom rejected this hybrid
animal-story-myth. Originally begun as a
simple children's animal tale, along the lines of those of Thornton W. Burgess,
written and published in the early part of the twentieth century, to encourage
my own two daughters to read, it swiftly became something truly different. I am one of these authors whose writing takes
over from me, and pretty much grows itself. The result is that Rylie became a
combination of Burgess's concepts, and the allegorical spirit of Tolkien's
Hobbit and Lord of the Ring trilogy, with not a little influence from C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia.
Like
the Sherrod Colsne Mysteries, Rylie is not for
everyone. The shallow reader, with
limited vocabulary, and an even more constrained wish to expand knowledge of
his or her own language, or ȝereard,
will not enjoy this high and mystical yarn.
Mr. and Mrs. Rylie
Rabet are not everyday rabbits. On the
other hand, what is revealed in this tale is that no rabbit is what most
of us take them to be. One day, about
middle spring, Rylie tells Muffet that he has been hankering to see a little
bit of the wider world, beyond the Green Meadow and the Babbling Brook. At first Muffet is wary, and telling him her
fears of known and unknown threats.
Making light of his own yearnings, he brushes the thought aside, talking
of their favourite berries that should be very good that year. After a visit from Eldma Cottontail, who
scolds Muffet, her elddaughter, telling her that she shouldn’t deny her
husband, Muffet changes her mind. She
runs to catch up to him at Marty and Marcy’s hutch, and after they have a very
close talk, Rylie and Muffet decide to set off on what he calls an adventure.
Very quickly they
cross the Big River and wind up in the
Great Forest. There they meet a huge
rabbit, also with the last name Rabet, i’ sooth one Rylan Rabet, who turns out
to be Rylie’s ealdǣm, or granduncle.
After helping them to grasp, at
least at bottom, who he is, he takes them to his tree burȝ, or castle,
Haremore, and tells them that they began their “adventure” because of a calling
that they had felt in their hearts from earliest kithood. There, among many wundorweorcs, or miracles,
they are ushered into, by Ealdmōme Musset, Rylan’s wysress wife, a sight of,
indeed brief walk along the fringes of the enchanted realm, indeed heaven.
They also find that they are growing, not only in understanding, but in
body, and that over time they will become of a size not unlike Ealdǣm Rylan,
and Ealdmōme Musset. On an enchanted, or
gealdored dream eýre they encounter and begin to get to know Cærwyn, an ælf
lord, and at a coming-out banquet meet all manner of gealdored fólc, finding
out that what they thought was their three-day stay was truly over thirty days,
a thrīnight.
The day after the
banquet Ealdǣm Rylan sends them to the town of Wilmington, NC for a schipfáre
to Wales, and on their way there they slowly begin to understand all that they
have been told by Rylan and Musset about what it soothly means to be part of
the gealdored kingdom. For the first
time since leaving the Green Meadow, they find themselves in mortal danger,
escaping once by the wiles they’ve known since kithood, and once with the help
of Cærwyn and a twain of seven-league boots sent with him by Rylan and Musset.
Once at sea they
find that their “adventure” was foredoomed from the first Age, by none other
than Elesudor, or Arglwydd O’ Olau, Lord of Light in Welsh. After meeting in person, and face to face, a
human, an enkerly large human, also part ælf and droich, and the skipper of the
craft, the H. M. S. Columbia, they come upon the workings of Serynbore, Prince
of Deorcness, through his minion, Draygul.
The schip is pierced with deorc wundorcræft, broken up and sunk. Along with Trevor Legrand, the skipper, they
are saved by Cærwyn, and his môrælfr kinswoman, Môrweissa, queen of
môrælfr. By the help of Albræshé and
Lorænell, two strapping môrælfr accompanying Môrweissa, Rylie and Muffet,
together with Trevor Legrand, are swiftly and joyfully borne to Bermuda. There they are discovered by foul and dark birds
sent by Serynbore, and learn that they themselves are fiercely sought by him,
to kill or at least delay in reaching their Welsh kinman, Thurborn, a wysar of
the seventh rank.
During their brush
with the deorclyng birds, Cærwyn finds them another schip, the Glamourgyn. Once at sea it is also attacked, by the same
Draygul who destroyed the first. Growing
in the gifts given them by Elesudor, and in body, both Rylie and Muffet help
defeat the onslaught, but in the process see an evil and terrifying example of
Serynbore’s wicked and twisted magike, their own scueƶ, or shadow twins made by
deorccrǣft. Through this encounter they
learn that they have an enkerly big part to play in the struggle between good
and evil that even Ealdǣm Rylan did not ken.
By the time they are able to continue their odyssey they have grown,
soulefully and bodily, into a full
understanding of the warfare that had been going on in the heavens and on
earth, since the first Age. I’ sooth,
they have grown much faster and much more than even Rylan had foreseen. Too, they take and welcome the part they will
play in fighting the evil behind that warfare, and opening the eyes of many
earthly fólc to the purpose they all have in being in the world, and the choice
that comes with it.
In the aftermath
all aboard schip, eardfólc and ǣldere
fólc alike, sailors, ǣlfr, sprites and môrpixie, and the wundor that is Trevor
Aubrey Legrand, have the scales swept off their eyes, and see what Elesudor had
first moulded them to be. All see, with
many understanding as well, who and what Rylie and Muffet truly are, and catch
a glimmer of their purpose, foredeemed from the beginning by the Fæder of
all. Môrweissa and Cærwyn, looking upon
this reawakening of eardfólc understanding, albeit by just a few, feel snug and
proud that their charges finally understand their true selves. Indeed, the môrælfr queen and her ǣlfr kinman
saw not the full of it anymore than Rylan, and take great joy that the long
forecast ǣldlyngs are truly a promise fulfilled.
All on the
Glamourgyn are set, in heart and mind, to get to Wales, so that wysar Rylie and
wysress Muffet may find their kinman Thurborn, who will guide them further into
the gealdored, or heavenly, realm. There
is much before them, and they see that as fearsome and staving to the heart as
were the trials they had already undergone, there are far deeper and deorcer
bales ahead. But because of the
preparations of their gealdored kinfólc, and no less their own opened sight and
knowledge of who and what they truly soothly are, they don’t feel “sceart” by the
coming storms; they fear, but are not cowed, wary, but not rattled. They have seen evil up close, and have no
wish to flee, but to overcome it, and now they know that they fight alongside
Elesudor, not by themselves.
They will find
greater fears to come, in things shown them by kinman Thurborn, and there will
be times when they’ll truly feel alone, and open to the deorcest attacks, but
they now have ken of the greatest good, or to put it in the ealdest tongue, duȝeðe.
They know that that duȝeðe flows through them by the might of Elesudor,
and that they are son and daughter of the Fæder of all. Their “adventure” has truly become a fyrding, an odyssey to home, not away from it.
If you have any
questions, suggestions, offers, interests, et alia, please contact me at jsyantiss@gmail.com.
