The Galley Trot

The Galley Trot
Glenn Wallis

I woke in bloody haircloth
Seared in skin, flesh choked
Like the thicket’s ground in tangled
Turf of bracken and scrub,
The body’s dream of beauty
Dead. Who will want me now?

I lurch in shame toward
The cave near the stane
Past smoothed-skinned gawkers
Shopping, past the honey-spewed mead
Where the wind wafts to ripple
Waves of trichome, bud, and stem.
Here I will live.

I skulk at night to the sea,
Lusting in its violent roar.
Sharp under the moon’s sliver the black-back’s
Gakker signals skate and whiting—
Gifts to the poor and hungry.
I plunge in. I will give to them.

I step to the sill, my tithing bowl,
Place my offering on the slab.
Light glows in the room.
A face appears with fearful eyes.
Leaves rustle.
I am alone.

_______________

A Galley Trot is a figure out of Gaelic folklore. It’s a strange word; but, given its possible etymology, it makes sense. “Galley Trot” may stem from some combination of the following: the French gardez le tresor (“guard the treasure); Old English agælwan > British Isle’s dialect gally (“frighten”) + the German Trötsch (“spirit”) or Gaelic trot < root trud =”distress, bother” (cf. English “threat”); or from the Frisian glay or gley (“shining”). (See: George M. Eberhart, Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology, volume 1, p. 184; and Alexander MacBain, An Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language, p. 377.)

Some people view the Galley Trot as a kind of werewolf. As you know, werewolves are always portrayed–in movies, literature, and art–as ferocious beasts. I’ve always felt sorry for the werewolf. He is, after all, a human being–just one with a difficult condition. It’s this condition that interests me. His condition separates the werewolf from the rest of humanity. It renders him unfit for humanity and violently and irretrievably casts him out into the wilderness. He cannot be happy about that.

The werewolf’s case spurs me to ask this question: don’t we all have some condition that rends us, separates us, from others? The condition may be physically based, such as a deformity, ugliness, obesity, shortness, tallness, a lisp, a stutter, or (fill in the blank)____. The same goes for mentally-based conditions. The separation that such conditions create may stem from others’ judgments, or they may result from our own self-consciousness and insecurity. In any case, don’t we all carry with us some idea about what qualities–mental or physical–we need to get or get rid of in order to really throw ourselves into life and living, or at least not hold back so much? (Sometimes our perceived difference and self-disgust is fatal. I think now, of course, of the recent suicides of gay teenagers.) What would it take to overcome our fears, our hesitancy, quit our evasions, and live fully–in spite of our real or perceived condition?

In my poem, the Galley Trot is such a creature. Because of his condition–he is a normal man who is covered with hair and has a head that resembles that of a wolf–he feels profoundly alienated. This alienation stems both from the reactions of others and from his view of himself (really, aren’t the two too often connected?). His alienation thrusts him into isolation. Yet, he never has humanity far from his mind. As a normal man, how could he? Somehow, he finds a way to connect. But it will take a while to figure out. Probably, though, given the nastiness of the “normal”–both the concept and the people who consider themselves this–it won’t end well.

From a site on the subject: “As long as the wulvers [another name for the Galley Trot] are left in peace they show no aggression to anyone. The best known stories about a wulver claim that it would spend its time sitting on a rock and fishing. That rock is still known today as “The Wulver’s Stane.” When the wulver was finished fishing it was known to leave some of its fish on the window sills of poor families.”

From another: “The Galley Trots or Wulvers are a peculiar hybrid of canine and human parts, and are associated mainly with old burial grounds and ancient buildings. Their presence was once thought to indicate that valuable items or money was hidden somewhere in the nearby vicinity. There was also again the suspicion that to see a Galley Trot was an omen of approaching death. In parts of Wales, tales are told about the Dog of Death. This strange white hound was rumoured to suddenly appear when serious disease or injury was in the air and to then sit mournfully outside the home of the terminally ill person.”

Here is an image of a Galley Trot. Do you know of any? What would it take to turn that frown into a warm smile?

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