The Woman who Loved an Octopus and other Saint's Tales Read Online Free PDF Page A

fled to Wales to escape an unwanted marriage. She lived in the wilderness for fifteen years, until her solitude was disturbed by a prince hunting. The hunted hares sprang to her for protection, and Melangell caused a miracle to happen: all the hunters found themselves rooted to the spot, the huntsman’s horn frozen to his lips.
    After she released the hunters, the prince granted her freedom from any molestation in the spot she had lived in for so long. Hares are known locally as ‘Melangell’s lambs’.

Dwynwen
    Fifth or sixth century

    One of the fifty sons and daughters of King Brychan. A certain Maelor wished to marry her but she rejected him. She dreamt that she was given a drink which delivered her from him, and which turned Maelor to ice. She prayed that he be unfrozen; that all lovers should find happiness in each other (or else be cured of love); and that she herself should never marry. She is – somewhat surprisingly – the patron saint of lovers in Wales. She founded a nunnery on Llanddwyn Island off Anglesey, and was invoked for the curing of animals.

D
    I grew up in a big house, a large family. Brothers and sisters everywhere you turned, and lots and lots of servants, and I thought I’d never ever get away from there.
    I was a loner.
    No. I tried to be a loner. When my sisters and my friends played Weddings and Happy Families and Smacking the Naughty Baby, with their dolls, I sat in the grounds under a bush and played Being Alone. For it really to count, I had to turn slowly all around in a circle and not see anybody. Usually I cheated by keeping my eyes shut.

    My father liked to call himself the King of the District. He was an Important Man, and he liked his daughters to make themselves useful by cementing business and political alliances; oiling the wheels of fortune and finance.
    So I knew that at some point in the future, my time would come, no getting away from it.
    I wanted to get away from it.
    I very much did not want to be married.
    Nobody understood that.
    You’ll get used to it, my mother said. Everybody gets married sooner or later.
    These are different times, I argued back, the Great War over and the old Queen long dead and the Pankhursts triumphant. She did not know what I meant. She’d never even heard of Women’s Suffrage.
    Some of my older, married sisters narrowed their eyes and said they didn’t see why I should be spared when nobody else was.
    My father – in a good mood – laughed and sai d nonsense, of course you will, I bet you’ll get used to it – with a nasty twinkle in his eye. He did not have much imagination, and he was not a nice man. But he was amused, and slapped me fondly, twice.
    Some of my younger sisters laughed at me; they were looking forward to the big day, the beautiful new clothes and the reception and the honeymoon; all the attention they would receive.
    I thought of the days and the nights afterwards, the rest of my life.

    M
    I had heard of her, of course. The story had travelled, even across the water, even into rural Ireland. Especially into rural Ireland.
    Women would tell of her and her unwanted bridegroom, encased in an impenetrable block of ice. And though the people tried and tried (so the story was told) with hammers and chisels and blow torches – they couldn’t get him out.
    A miracle.
    It takes a miracle where I come from to get you out of an engagement, believe me.

    Not everybody believed in the miracle.
    Or even in her.
    They thought it was just a story, make-believe; a sop; not something that had really happened.
    Some said that even if it had, she’d be dead by now, she’d died years ago.
    I grew up in her shadow. In her light.
    I wanted to meet her. I believed I would, one day. I could never picture her dead. How could she be dead when I was here, waiting for her?

    I’ll never forget the day my father brought the suitor home.
    That’s what he called him: I have a suitor