John Fish B.Sc. Publishers of Tenby in Wales (UK)

TENBY PORTAL PAGES

Helen of Wales

"But my forces are mobile so I'm going to lay siege to Carew where the last tournament of knights in shining armour in Britain was held in 1507."

"And I ..."

"But wait a minute you cheated. When I laid siege to Manorbier how come your army was able to escape and capture Tenby?" Carter avoided eye contact and shrugged. "You cheated and I nearly fell for it, if you carry on like that you'll definitely get silver spooned. Right so I remove my siege of Carew and we go back to me sieging you at Manorbier, two against one with it being your turn.

"Manorbier is where Gerald the Welshman was born in 1146. He was of mixed Norman and native Welsh parentage and his Welsh grandmother was said to have been so beautiful that she was known as the Helen of Wales - they even fought a war over her but that's another story. He invented the science of comparative philology, which is the study of the relationships between human natural languages, and wanted to be the Bishop of Saint David's Cathedral. Saint David is the patron saint of Wales and three pilgrimages to Saint David's was counted as being the equivalent of one to Jerusalem and the Holy Land itself; two was the same as going to Rome. You know, even William the Conqueror made a pilgrimage to Saint David's and me and the first king of England got something in common: we're both from single parent families!"

"Is Saint David's near Newport?"

"On the same stretch of coastline but to the far west. In between is Fishguard where the last invasion of Britain took place in 1797 by the French with an American called Colonel William Tate in command. It's also where the film version of Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick which starred Gregory Peck was filmed and, also, Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood which starred the World's favourite Welshman, Richard Burton."

"Okay, I'm laying siege to Cilgerran with my Newport armies."

"You can't move two at once!"

 

Extract from Preseli Bluestones by Sion Pysgod

Published at Tenby in the Pembrokeshire Coastal National Park (Wales, UK)

As a Star of Pembrokeshire Series Paperback