Centaurs: NOT Just Party Ponies

Not universally, of course. C. S. Lewis understood them, as he did a great many other things. I first met Centaurs in Narnia, and it was “Jack’s” description that shaped my imagination regarding these creatures:

“ . . . and at last, breaking and trampling the thickets, there came in sight the noblest creatures that Caspian had yet seen, the great Centaur Glenstorm and his three sons. His flanks were glossy chestnut and the beard that covered his broad chest was golden-red. He was a prophet and a star-gazer and knew what they had come about. . . . As soon as Glenstorm had spoken everyone felt much more serious.” ~ Prince Caspian

“No one thinks a Centaur funny when he sees it. They are solemn, majestic people, full of ancient wisdom which they learn from the stars, not easily made either merry or angry; but their anger is terrible as a tidal wave when it comes.” ~ The Silver Chair

“The Centaur raised the bowl and said, ‘I drink first to Alan and truth, Sire, and secondly to your Majesty.’ He finished the wine (enough for six strong men) at one draught and handed the empty bowl back to the page.” ~ The Last Battle

Noble, wise, perilous prophets who can still put away some serious wine: that’s how I saw Centaurs, and I liked it that way.

Though I was interested in mythology as a girl and read a lot of it just for fun, I somehow never came across any depiction of Centaurs to counter Lewis’s interpretation. The Harry Potter Centaurs were a bit darker, but still somewhat mysterious and noble. When I met the raucous “party ponies” in the Percy Jackson series, I thought Rick Riordan was just taking artistic license; after all, the main Centaur in those books, Chiron, is right in line with the Narnian breed.

Imagine my chagrin, then, when I began to do research for The Ancient and discovered Centaurs’ true reputation in mythology: wild, uncouth, irreverent cads who can’t hold their liquor, driven by drunkenness to commit all sorts of unsavory misdeeds. I should have known: Rick Riordan does his research, bless him. The only artistic license he took was to keep the horse-men’s exploits safely PG.

Fie.

Thankfully, at this point in my research, I had already discovered that The Ancient was taking on far more scope than I had initially planned. As I shared in last week’s post, my original scheme was to write about two Ancients: the Last, and the Faithful (aka the Griffin). As I began to stumble blindly through the tunnel of writing, however, my hand started encountering new plot points and brushed up against several new characters. Finally, a huge turning opened up on one side – and I fell down the rabbit hole, willing and happy and so grateful I hadn’t missed it.

For you see, my friends, the rabbit hole turned out to be the road I was supposed to take all along.

In The Rock that Is Higher, Madeleine L’Engle writes:

“When I am working on a book I move into an area of faith that is beyond the conscious control of my intellect. . . . The struggle is to let my intellect work for what I am working on, not against it. And this means, first of all, that I must have more faith in the work than I have in myself.”

In the margin, I wrote “The Ancient”.

Then, in the very next paragraph, I encountered this:

“When the storyteller insists on being in control of the story, then the story has no chance to take off and take the writer with it into strange and unexpected places.”

For me, the “strange and unexpected place” was the reimagining of mythological creatures I described in my recent post “Genre-Bending and Other Daring Endeavors”. Not only did I want to tell new stories – stories that redefined the mythological creatures as the Ancient heroes of my imagination – but I had to tell them in such a way that it would be clear how this “true” story has been twisted and distorted into the myths widely circulated today.

You know. Easy stuff.

But I am loving it, friends.

I am trying to have more faith in the work than I do in myself. And, along the way, I have made many more delightful discoveries that I eagerly look forward to sharing with you.

As a foretaste, let me introduce you to one of my new friends – not Chiron, and not a Narnian prophet, and not a “party pony”, but an inimitable hybrid of all three (and more):

     “This is a tale of the Joyous, whom you, in your tongue, call the Centaur.
     “The Wasting has poisoned Humankind’s memory of all the Ancients, but in none, perhaps, is the tainting so lamentable and loathsome as in the case of the Centaur. Men speak of him now as a rash and violent scoundrel, driven entirely by the basest of animal impulses and easily undone by wine. There are even tales of a wedding at which a troop of Centaurs became so inebriated and wild that they attempted to carry off all the women present, including the bride, resulting in a fierce and bloody battle.
     “In truth, the Joyous was as wise as the Dragon and as gentle as the Unicorn; but, as the Dragon bore in her soul the flame of every generous hearth, the Joyous was lit from within by the fire of life. As his name reveals, gladness flowed in and out of him like a river, but was never diminished. He was pulsing with the brightness and beauty of living, and seemed to radiate the very essence of the Light – not unlike you, Dáibhí. And, like you, he burned, but he was not consumed; and, like you, the more he poured out his brilliance on behalf of others, the more brilliantly he shone.
     “While the Wise, who kept her hearth open for all who sought her, the Joyous traveled far and wide, bestowing the blessing of vibrant gladness on whatever hearth would welcome him. ’Twas a tangible blessing: so rich was the river of joy within him that, when he breathed on the poorest farmer’s plain cup of water, it would become wine – the best wine, surpassing any quality attainable by mortals. And it was more satisfying, and more sustaining: any household that tasted this wine was ever after infused with its jubilation. Regardless of what physical circumstances befell them, they carried that burning river of gladness within them, and never failed to extend the same merry hand of fellowship to any guest.
     “One day, while he was walking and singing through the forest, the Joyous heard a cry. Following the plaintive sound, he found a baby – a little boy, wrapped in a blanket and lying at the foot of a tree. The cries were small, for the child was not long past birth; and they were weak, for it seemed he was not long from death. The Joyous deduced that the boy had lain there for many hours, so faint were the criers; still, he was hesitant to remove him, in case his parents or some guardian would return to claim the child. So, the Joyous called upon his animal kin nearby. A kind mother goat suckled the babe, and then the Joyous held him close to his chest. Contentedly full, and warmed by the heat that always emanated from the Ancient, the baby fell asleep.
     “The Joyous lingered there with the child for another three days, keeping him warm and fed with the help of the mother goat, and singing away his fears whenever sleep proved elusive. Finally satisfied that no one was returning to claim him, the Joyous decided to take the baby and raise him as his own son. He named him ‘Liron’, which means ‘song for me’ or ‘joy for me’.

What happens to this Centaur and his adopted foster son? How does the tale get twisted into the “party ponies” of popular mythology?

Stay tuned for more sneak peeks of The Ancient!

P.S. My clever niece accepted the challenge in last week’s post to find a different word for “badass”. Current contenders are “audacious”, “magnificent”, and “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”. Yay, niece! What do you think, fellow readers?