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Hopeless inhabitants

Repelled by Rhymes

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No one knows why there are so many horse skulls on the island but no actual horses. Clearly there has been some historical relationship between the appearance of skulls and the absence of living equine creatures, but no one admits to remembering what happened.

A horse skull, devoid of the rest of the horse is rather more menacing than the living version probably suggested. This may well be why said skulls are so popular with demons. It’s a good look. 

Islanders tasked with keeping the Mari Lywds for ceremonial purposes have to be adept at dealing with frisky demons. Traditional demon management techniques are passed down through the families. Like the Mari Lywds they inhabit, demons can seldom resist a rhyming battle. Hit them with a challenging couplet and at the very least they’ll feel obliged to think about a witty response. This can give you a critical few seconds to get them back in their bag or subdue them with your holy relic.

Entering a rap battle with a demon is not something to do lightly. Keepers of the Mari Lywds train for years to be able to handle rhyming under extreme pressure. If the demon defeats you, then it may try to eat you, it’s bound to unseat you, with its bones it will beat you…

Hopeless Tales

The Hopeless Mari Lwyd

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The Mari Lwyd is a Welsh traditional item, a horse skull on a decorated pole, usually taken round to houses for riddling games, and general frolicking. It’s also worth noting that Davies is a common Welsh surname, and that a great many pirates came from Wales. Whether Reverend Davies is descended from Welsh pirates is a question for another day.

In this picture, taken from the next volume of Hopeless Maine – Victims – we see Reverend Davies and a group of Marie Lwyds heading for the beach. Clearly this is not the usual door knocking riddle making activity you normally get up to when you have a collection of horse skulls on poles.

What happens is that they all go down to the beach together. This is a small beach and the sea doesn’t move that far as it goes in and out. The ritual has to be carefully timed. The Mari Lwyds follow the tide out. They shout at the sea, demanding that it let them leave and return to their native lands. Most of the people inside the Mari Lwyds do not remember Wales personally, but they have been brought up to understand that hiraeth is a thing to take seriously. And so every year, when the tide is just right, they go to the beach and shout at the sea about how they want to go home.

Then every year, the tide turns, and the waves wash over their feet and over the hems of their kit. The Mari Lwyds shuffle slowly back up the beach, usually a bit faster than the advancing waters. The sea declines to let them go home. The Mari Lwyds admit defeat and go back to the Squid and Teapot to get riotously drunk and do all the riddles that more normally go with having a horse’s skull on a pole. Reverend Davies does not join them for this bit. He has his own words to say to the sea at this time, and they are not words anyone else gets to hear.