صدای جونور

CHAPTER FOUR

Voice of the Beast

Let me tell you a story.

It was Midsummer’s Eve in the year 1899. The moon was full over Brynmawr Hill in Central Wales. A farmer was out with his dog. He was waiting for the animal which had killed several of his sheep. A gun was under his arm. In the moonlight, he suddenly saw the sheep run across the field. Something large and dark was following them, moving fast. He held up his gun and shot. The thing cried out with a terrible sound, like a wolf, and stood up on its back legs. To the farmer, it seemed more than three metres tall. It was hurt, but it ran off on two legs down the hill into the woods.

The farmer’s dog turned and ran for home as fast as it could. The farmer shot his gun into the trees a few times and then followed his dog back. His face was white. He was cold and afraid. When he arrived home, he said nothing to his wife about the thing in the woods. But that night he did not sleep.

The next morning the farmer’s wife went into the village to do her shopping. Someone told her about something that had happened to the son of a rich family who lived near the village. Soon everyone was talking about the young man.

‘What do you think?’ the farmer’s wife said to her husband when she returned. ‘The boy has shot himself in the leg. He was playing with his gun and it went off by mistake. Really. He’s nearly a man now. He’s old enough to know better.’ The farmer said nothing but only shook his head.

After a while, everyone forgot about what had happened to the young man. Everyone except the farmer. He could not forget what he had seen on Brynmawr Hill. He noticed, too, that the young man had disappeared. No-one ever saw him again.

On the nights when he could not sleep, the farmer sat and wrote in a notebook. He wrote about that strange night on Midsummer’s Eve.

After he died, a few years later, his wife found the notebook. When the story came out, everyone said the oldfarmer had been completely mad. Of course, people did not think that the story was true. But by that time the rich family had moved away and their large house was empty. Strangely, no-one wanted to buy it.

Why am I telling you all this?

Well, I was that young man.

After I was hurt, I travelled to that part of Europe which goes from Hungary in the east, across Austria, Slovenia and the north of Italy. There I lived with others of my kind, in the hills and mountains, until I was better. Then I went south to Greece. I visited Mount Lykaon, the place where Lykaon was changed into a wolf, the place where it all began.

I was careful, hiding in woods all the time. I took people’s sheep or goats to eat only when there were not enough wild animals. For many years, I was not seen again but then I started to get careless. I went to many places in Europe. A soldier saw me in Germany in 1988 - outside a place called Morbach. I know that people tell stories about this.

Ah, but now I have returned. I have come back to the hills and old woodlands of Wales. This is my home, the right place, I think, to welcome in the new millennium.