26 January 2004
Journey
There are no dates passed down for the life of Saint Ia. She is a figure of late medieval legend. She crossed the Irish Sea on a leaf which grew miraculously to accommodate her. She came at last to St Ives and the town was named after her.
This story reminds me of a psychological test. You listen to a story – a story with you at its centre. The narrator tells you what happens to you and you must decide how each crisis is resolved. Some people turn their story into a dream. A fierce animal confronts them? It dissolves into a mist. The path ends abruptly in dense forest? There is a glimpse of lamplight in the distance. Your food is exhausted? There are berries on the trees.
The story of Ia is a tale of wish fulfilment. There is also an opposite journey.
Sisyphus was a king of Corinth. He was punished in Tartarus, a region of the Greek hell Hades, for his swindling and trickery in life. He was obliged for eternity to push a heavy boulder up hill but, each time he reached the crest, it tumbled back down gain and he had to start again.
Ixion, king of Thessaly, was tormented in Tartarus alongside Sisyphus. He murdered his father-in-law and attempted to seduce Juno. Juno's husband Jupiter tricked Ixion with a likeness of Juno made from clouds. His punishment was to be turned forever on a fiery wheel.
Tantalus, king of Lydia, was guilty of murdering his own son and revealing certain secrets of the gods to humankind. For this he was condemned to stand forever up to his lower lip in a lake whose waters receded each time he tried to drink. Likewise, the fruit that hung just over his head was blown out of reach by the wind each time he tried to eat.
Tityus was a giant who tried to rape the mother of Apollo and Diana; they killed him with arrows. His punishment was to be pegged out on the ground with two vultures tearing at his liver – supposedly the seat of human emotions – with their beaks.
I am Kate Mosse, creator and writer in residence of www.mosselabyrinth.co.uk. My 'crime' is to have written a novel - Labyrinth - an adventure story set in the medieval past and the present.
My 'punishment' is the torture felt by almost every writer, obliged to hand over their completed work …
It is a shock to leave the Labyrinth.
