Guary

This post is dated today because of its Holy Cross theme. Father died on St Catherine's Day this past Tuesday so he obviously had it scheduled well before. Please pray for the repose of his soul.

From Fr Hunwicke's Mutual Enrichment

By Fr John Hunwicke, R+I+P

As medieval Cornish parishioners attended their local Pleyn a Gwary, they saw at one end of the circular site an elevated strucure called the pulpitum. Round the circular edge, were 'tents' where kings had their 'tents'; perhaps so that the spectators might be able to admire the the especially extravagant gear worn by such lofty individals when eventually they emerged. Here, God the Father creates Adam and Eve.

After some 700 lines of drama, the now fallen Adam claims that the roots of the briars are so strong that his arms are torn; he wishes that the Oyl a vercy (Oil of Mercy) might help him. At this point, seamlessly, the narrative abandons the story which the lines of Old Testament dialogue prescribe. Adam cannot go searching for it himself', because, since the Fall, the footprints of Eve and himself are burnt.

The Oil is, punningly, the elaion, the Oil of Mercy, because it is the eleos, the Mercy Open to open to all.

So Seth makes the journey. A cherub permits him to look into Eden; he is amazed. Good fruit; beautiful flowers;minstrels;sweet song; a silver stream with four large streams flowing from it. And a tall tree, with many bare branches and no bark.

In the Tree, there is a serpent (sarf) and ... when Seth looks yet closer, he sees high up a little new-born child, in swaddling clothes. The cherub assures him that this is the Mab dev, Son of God, who will redeem Adam .. the Child is the oyl a vercy ... through Him the world will be saved. Seth is instructed to take three pips, try spus from the Apple which Adam ate and, upon his death, to put them between his teeth and his tongue. From them Seth will see three trees grow quickly, because Adam will not live more than three days beyond Seth's return.

People with more visual imaginations can always visit St Neot's church in Cornwall, with its fine set of medieval glass, where they will behold Seth doing his stuff with the pips. Off at the side, the tee is robustly portrayed with its naked baby. The rubric in this window is Hic Seth ponit tria grana sub linguam Adam.

After a finely described Noe, and Abraham, and Moses, we find the last of these up the Mountain; where he sees three splendid rods ... which he instantly discerns as a demonstration and token, dysquythyans ha token, of the three Persons of the Trinity. He declares that he will cut them down and take them home. They turn out to have curative properties' provided that a suppliant kisses them. They are subsequently found by King David, who is told that from them a Cross will be made to crucify the Son. 

At this point, there appears ... significantly? ... to be an insertion into the original manuscript to provide for the healing of a Cecus, a Claudus, and a Surdus. These stories, and texts, evolved.

And so the narrative proceeds. A diligent reader will notice the imprecation By my ballock, and that Bathsheba describes her affair with King David as agan guary (is this the sort of word girls used in order to play down their adulteries?). But, above all, he or she will appreciate the strong doctrinal theme linking the Tree of the Fall  with the Tree of Redemption. 

Links with our cultus of the Most Holy Cross are, I think, strengthened by descriptions of the Tree being garlanded with silver.