The Ladies of the Lake and the Order of the Pomegranate celebrated the Eleusinian Mysteries together in honour of the ancient bonds between the two organisations. Cora participated, as did Morgan – who went into a trance and proclaimed a strange prophecy.
It is the Autumn of the Gods and the Winter of Christ approaches. I stand in darkness and pour out my cauldron, I unleash the horses with thorn bridles and lightning hooves. I forge the Fire of Hell into the Thaw of Elysium and shade my faithful from the glare of the burning bush.
When the Ladies of the Lake are ash on the wind, I will rule in Avalon, and when Britain calls for Avalon I will send a dead man in answer. There is one here that already doomed by her mercy, and from that mercy will come a blow that consumes Britain in Christ’s name. Only a road watered in the blood of knights will appease Christ, but Britons will say that Christ is kind and the Morrigan is cruel.
Who will test the cuckoo’s brood? An egg on the ocean on May Day! Who is Merlin when he wears a hat and winks? Another braggart nailed to a tree!
Five years of exile. Fifteen years of darkness. Fifty-five years of shining hypocrisy! Five hundred years of forgetting! An eternity of blasphemy, gossip, and lies!
From the Isle of Apples you have cast well. But who will put these lands in order?
“Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: Σίβυλλα τί θέλεις; respondebat illa: ἀποθανεῖν θέλω.”
(“For I indeed once saw with my own eyes the Sibyl at Cumae hanging in her jar, and when the boys asked her, ‘Sibyl, what do you want?’ she answered ‘I want to die’.”)
This seems to be an oracular proclamation on behalf of the Morrigan, one of the more sinister Celtic goddesses, though some of it applies equally to Morgan herself – the inclusion of subtle hints at an Odin-Merlin connection suggesting once again that the most powerful enchanters of the Chronicle are in fact disguised versions of pagan gods. Despite the ambiguity as to whether Morgan is the Morrigan or merely speaks for her, the passage is known as the Morrigan Oracle to students of the Salisbury Chronicle and is full of hints of things to come, most of which are obvious to those of us who know the story but are obscure now. (T.S. Eliot is believed to have lifted the Satyricon quote from here when trawling the Chronicle for Grail lore to use in The Wasteland.)
Troubled by these strange tidings, Sir Roland and Sir Edward head to Sarum to meet with Sir Pubert and advise Countess Ellen. The Countess was troubled by the continued failure of Duke Ulfius to produce Sir Loholt for trial in matter of the death of Sir Edward’s sister, and had begun to suspect chicanery on his part. She was concerned that to press further would damage relations between Silchester and Salisbury, but also did not wish to ignore the situation. The knights decided to disguise themselves as hedge knights and travel to Loholt’s manor to investigate. Luckily, it was quite close to the border with Oxford county, and most of Duke Ulfius’ forces were more concerned with watching for Saxon invasions from the East than British knights coming from the Northwest, and they arrived at the manor without incident.
Challenged by the guards, they claimed to be heading East to seek opportunities for battle against the Saxons. As it happened, this was an auspicious time for such a cover story, for the Angles had invaded Caercolun and claimed it as Anglia. The gate guard sent word to the “Custodian”, who was apparently ruling here in Loholt’s stead, and in response a squire was sent to lead them to the Eastern frontier of the Duchy and help them gain service there. It was late enough in the day to propose staying the night, so the party stayed at the village inn, where they heard enough wry references to the Custodian to believe that there may be something worth investigating there.
Relying on Pubert’s silver tongue to gain them a rare direct audience with the Custodian, they found him a man of knightly bearing but worn down from years spent confined indoors. He was, of course, Sir Loholt himself, ordered to seclude himself until needed in battle by Duke Ulfius. It was noted that he did not wear a coat of arms – expected of a steward appointed to rule in a manor lord’s absence, but forbidden because Ulfius had ordered Loholt to wear no identifying marks. Confronted, Loholt confessed to having killed Edward’s sister during a fit of unbidden rage of the sort he was cursed with; Sir Edward, for his part, did not want to simply execute Loholt when he could be used against the Saxons. They went to Duke Ulfius, who was suitably chastened; he offered to give Loholt’s manor to Edward’s son Marick when he came of age, and also offered to put his army at the knights’ command. For the knights of Salisbury had tired of the demands for tribute, and planned a great attack on Wessex the next year.
That winter, Ygraine and Morgan were kidnapped by Saxon infiltrators, but they did not get far. According to Morgan they had had “an accident” – an accident that had eviscerated the Saxons and left one nailed to a tree with an eye gouged out. Ygraine declared that she was going to wait no longer but take Morgan to be married to the King of Gorre, for in truth she feared to be near her now…
The Salisbury Chronicle