Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T01:23:07.876Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - Pestilence, rebellion and renewal, c. 1283–1536

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2014

Geraint H. Jenkins
Affiliation:
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Get access

Summary

Hwch Ddu (Black Sow) and Chwilen Bwm (Beatle the Cockchafer) are two rough-hewn fictional characters in one of the most exuberant and successful Welsh-language novels of recent times. Written in the genre favoured by Boccaccio (who also makes a cameo appearance in the tale), Pestilence (Y Pla) (1991) recounts the odyssey of Salah Ibn al Khatib, a young Islamic student, who was dispatched from Cairo to assassinate the King of France at a time when the calamitous pandemic known as the Black Death was remorselessly pruning the population of Europe. During this picaresque adventure the student found himself in the upland demesne estate of Dolbenmaen in Eifionydd, at a time when the pestilence was threatening to destroy the socio-economic fabric of this small medieval community in north-west Wales. On his arrival, he was immediately dubbed the ‘Dark One’, a satanic figure whose presence boded nothing but ill for the traumatized peasants. The serf girl, Hwch Ddu, gloomily predicted that ‘we'll be no more than flies on a bullock's arse, to be whipped by the devil's tail’, a reminder not only of the transience of human life but also of the sheer impotence of men and women in the face of such a deadly, killing disease. Unfit for the squeamish, this harrowing tale offers a far more convincing insight into the plague-ridden world of fourteenth-century Wales than any conventional historical account based on official documents can provide.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×