Thursday, 30 November 2006

New Miracle Play Discovery?!

The following article from Proc.Ker.Inst.(10.06) may be of interest.

MS find in late C20 Plymouth midden.
A recently discovered manuscript suggests that Kernowek Kemyn may be historically attested earlier than previous studies have allowed. Using the latest coprochronological methodology, we can now trace KK back to 1984.04.01 (±0.001yr), thus making this year and day doubly auspicious.

This incomplete palimpsest (Ll/g.Gen.Cym. MS. 2.71828/3.14159/GUM) has been tentatively identified as a fragment of a late 20th-Century work, which contains a portion of the previously unknown miracle play 'Bÿwñànz Cê[ñn]'. It is interesting to note that, even at this early stage in the self-styled 'Blessed One's' (B.O.) life, he and his teachings were evidently finding their natural level in the societal matrix of his times.

Tantalisingly enough, it may be that the episode described below is his rumoured, but previously undocumented, 'Road to Damn! Arse! Cuss!' epiphany, in which the B.O. was granted, after a surfeit of bad scrumpy, his miraculously inspired vision of Kemyn. Was it not, indeed, this very epiphanic vision that encouraged his followers to evangelise his teachings with all the humour of a Holy Hangover, and to smite the infidel, with so many colourfully worded invocations?

It may also represent the earliest known hagiography of Sen Hogh (often conflated with Sen Pol), who initially rejected the teachings of the B.O., before becoming one of His most zealous acolytes, and the patron saint and rôle model of many of his followers.

Unfortunately, the subsequent scene is almost entirely missing. What little has been preserved suggests it may have described the Advent of the Archangel Moronic, bearing the Gospel of Kemyn engraved on tablets of gold, one of the central tenets adhered to by the faithful.

Even with the latest forensic techniques, some of the text is unclear, and the following translation cannot be considered as either definitive or complete. Reconstructed and undeciphered portions of the text are indicated with ellipses or square brackets.

— — — — — — — — — — —
The Life of Cê[ñn]*

It was early [ … ] December, as near as I remember,
I was walking down the street in drunken pride.
No one was I disturbing,
As I lay down by the curbing,
When a pig came up and sat down by My side.

As I lay [ … ] in the gutter, thinking thoughts I could not utter,
A lady passing by was heard to say,
You can tell those who speak [Kumijn]†
By the company that they slum in,
And with that the pig got up and walked away.

Then, Lo!, came forth Great Mo[ …]
Ro [ … ] ns [ … ]
[ … … ]

— — — — — — — — — — —
* 'Cê[ñn]'= scum? ringworm? wormtongue? Problematical to gloss, but 'Cê[ñn]' is a possible scribal error.
† 'kumijn'= kemyn? 'Kemyn' may be a flawed transliteration.

Editor's Note:

Despite the incomplete status of current studies of this fragment, the editors felt that some urgency was attached to its publication, in order to be assured of academic priority and for reasons of public security. There have been persistent rumours that the militant /dj/ihadist wing of Al Quaesva were preparing an unauthorised anarchist edition of the 'Life of Cê[nn]', in an attempt to blow up their own sense of self esteem, and cause as much collateral damage as possible.

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