The Chapter Heading Explained
For the chapter heading of Chapter 5, I used a line from Taliesin’s Cad Goddeu, (Middle Welsh: Kat Godeu] The Battle of the Trees, from an old and not great translation by W. F. Skene, available here. It’s definitely worth reading in its entirety and in a better translation, but the Welsh original is transcribed here.
The presentation of bardic prowess and shape-shifting in the person of a battle-hardened warrior magician is really interesting, along with the references to words and language as intrinsic to power and magic, and I took this theme in The Day We Ate Grandad to very similar places. If you read the full poem and the idea of Gwyddion being begotten not of parents but existing in some form or other before time began, that’s all very appropriate to twist and adapt into a modern eldritch horror concept.
I’ve taken this and mashed it with Lovecraft’s Nyarlathotep and The Crawling Chaos, as well as Robert Chambers’ The King in Yellow to hint at the power of Wes’s image, and his ability to command legions as a result.
I love the idea of a battle in Wes’s eye, which in the poem may just mean ‘reflected in’, or in his mind’s eye, but I took this line out of context and literally. So the chapter heading relates to the things Wes can command his legions to do (if he were to become a cult leader), and to the internal struggle taking place within him, and to the conflict in the gents’ that he’s currently partaking in.
And there it is: the reason for the header!
C. M. Rosens 