Letter from the Lonely Shepherd

Stephen Price

A switch was flicked at the removal of the Severn Bridge Tolls and then again during Covid times.

Our home turf, our hidden quiet places, our local backdrops soon became known.

Places where we played, where our parents played before us, became Instagram background stars, a mecca for the photographer, the daytripper, the collector of pins and What Three Words.

A perfect place for a bolthole.

Extensions of home, extensions of us, where we foraged, fought, forged, pushed limits out of sight, now familiar, overcrowded, not quite ours any more.

At odds with the place names, people, gravestones and legends, a recent émigré to Wales told my sister how Monmouthshire isn’t *really* Welsh after all.

How far do we need to go back? Only decades, mere decades, and it *really* was then.

I can almost remember.

Cruel man

Leaving thoughts of the shire behind, I arrive at The lonely Shepherd, which never was in old Monmouthshire, anyway.

There’s no debate, not that one need be had, this is Brecknockshire to the generation above, and before any other names were adorned, the land of the Silures.

Beautiful Cymru outstretched ahead – Mynydd Llanelly, to my right, Ysgyryd Fawr to my left, and somewhere behind, Arthur’s Seat – Pen y Fan.

A larger rocky outcrop lies nearby – known to us as ‘Daddy’s armchair’ but without the footfall, without the acclaim or poetic name.

We’d walk to both after school, picking mushrooms (magic and otherwise), and recount the legend of the Lonely Shepherd.

Although ancient in appearance, the outcrop of rock was cut by early 19th century quarrymen into approximate human shape and left attached to its bedrock.

The Lonely Shepherd, or Pica (or Peaky) Stone as we knew it as children, has acquired myths akin to those associated with genuine prehistoric standing stones.

Said to be a shepherd who had been turned to stone after his wife drowned herself to escape his cruelty, on Midsummer Night’s Eve, he is said to walk from its vantage point down into the valley below to search for her and ‘drink’ from the river.

Anyone who bore witness would be brought to death, and for this reason, locals whitewashed the stone to ward him off, to know of his coming.

Until around the time of the First World War, local people are said to have gathered at Midsummer to whitewash and robe the stone before feasting and dancing took place.

Oh to have been there then.

Whitewashed

I’m never free of the thoughts I try to climb from, so powerful are they that they break through music, reading, meditation and the like. But something untangles nonetheless.

The rivers and the mountains continue to call. Perhaps I’m asking for too much to have a clear mind.

And perhaps apt for this walk, this homecoming, this place that used to be my playground, I carry a sadness that hasn’t quite lifted from an Instagram reel shared the night before

A montage of all the photos of women known to have been killed by men in the UK up to that point this year.

A montage that, even when I recall now, makes my face screw up to hold back the tide.

 

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While watching, always another task in hand, my busy brain needing more, more, more, I hunted down news reports of some of the faces that cut the deepest.

Stories of abuse, of coercion, of vulnerability, of kindness and weakness and goodness trampled upon.

Of the most abhorrent, painful deaths.

So undeserved. So much more than ‘statistic’.

And then, for a second, I’m back in the moment.

Admiring the clouds.

Shouting for my dogs.

Thinking of the past.

Wondering if someday we’ll resurrect this Midsummer tradition. I hope we do.

Dancing, celebrating, coming together, painting stone in lime.

And remembering, with sadness, that once upon a time mankind was cruel.

Llythrau eraill, Mr Price: Clydach, Libanus, Brynmawr, Nantyglo/Annwn, Partrishow, Glastonbury