Layered Language: Linguistic Connections Between Folklore and Christianity in
Mary Webb’s Precious Bane
Melissa Young
In Precious Bane, author Mary Webb faithfully presents the language, culture,
superstitions, and beliefs common in Shropshire, England, at the time of the
Napoleonic Wars. Webb describes the setting as a place where “the dignity and
beauty of ancient things lingers long” (Webb, 7). The authentic voice of Prudence
(Prue) Sarn gives life to the blend of ancient folklore and Christianity that binds the
lives of the people living in the villages of Sarn Mere and Lullingford.
The dialectic language of the novel roots us in Prue’s world, lending a sense
of linguistic accuracy to the text. Examples include werrited (worried), frittening
(frightening), lief (prefer), and dizen (dress up). Inherent in the world of Sarn Mere
is a tension between traditional folklore beliefs and a devout faith in God and
Christianity. This tension is overtly referred to in the novel as Prue considers the
source of her harelip: “I wondered why [the hare] cursed me so. Was it of its own
free will and wish, or did the devil drive it? Did God begrutch me an husband and a
cot of rushes, that He’d let it be so?” (Webb, 45). This duality is not only part of the
fabric of the story, it is also reflected in the language used to tell it.
In addition to using language to establish a sense of time and place, Webb
uses language patterns throughout the book to mark specific concepts or images,
often highlighting the folklore/Christian tension. Names of characters and places
also serve to enhance this tension. For this paper, I have chosen to focus on three
specific examples of this duality manifested either by repeated language patterns or
onomastics. The first of these is an exploration of character and place names.
Following that, I will examine the idea of the “troubled water” of Sarn Mere as it
relates to both physical and metaphysical troubling and how this troubling ties to
both superstitious traditions and biblical belief. The third area of study will be the
use of the words bane and banner as opposing themes, exploring the etymological
and phonetic link between the words.
Character and Place Names
The word for Prue’s name, prudence, is defined by the OED as good sense,
discretion, and wisdom. It stems from the Latin word prūdentia, meaning “foresight,
providence, practical understanding, proficiency, wisdom, sagacity.” Her name is an
accurate description of her character, and she also functions as a type of bridge
between folklore superstition and Christian belief as she is influenced by both
throughout the novel. Gideon tells her, “You talk like an old ancient woman, Prue,”
and “You’ve got the second sight, seemingly, our Prue.” To which she responds, “No.
Only a bit of sense” (Webb, 78). Gideon’s comments reveal a sense of foresight and
wisdom about Prue; her response indicates her practicality. She functions in a
providential role as an angel for Kester (Webb, 139) and also demonstrates an
ability to sense future events (Webb, 204, 206). Almost every facet of the word
prudence is demonstrated to some degree in the character of Prue, and she herself
embodies the duality of superstition and Christianity as she tries to sort her own
beliefs.
Kester, the weaver, unilaterally represents a type of Christ in both name and
character. His name is a variant of Christopher, meaning “bearer of Christ,” and
shares phonological features with the word christ. Prue repeatedly uses the text
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“The Maister be come” to describe how she feels about him (see Webb, 107). He
functions in a salvific role, both at the bull baiting as he works to save the bull and
the villagers themselves from the traditions that harden their souls, and at the end
of the novel when Prue is about to be punished as a witch. He eschews superstition,
refusing to believe that Prue’s harelip marks her as a witch, and he “canna abide
bull-baiting nor cock-fighting nor shameless women” (Webb, 102). He turns down
political employment, stating that “he’d liefer work with his hands . . . ‘I’ll weave
white linen rather than black lies’” (Webb, 106). In all of these instances Kester
typifies a Christian moral ethic.
At the opposite ethical extreme is Beguildy, whom Prue describes as “the
villain in our story” (Webb, 154). The name Beguildy most strongly resembles the
word beguile, though it could be a blend of beguile and guild. Fixing him with a name
that calls to mind deception and the workings of Satan is apt, as he eventually
destroys the Sarn family as well as his own daughter by setting fire to the harvest
after Gideon had brought in all the grain. However, the blend of his name also gives
room for Christian grace or brotherhood, for though he is a wizard and a preachedagainst man, he is also the one who teaches Prue how to read and write, opening the
window of education to her that eventually results in her salvation.
Another interesting name blend is that of Lullingford, the village closest to
Sarn Mere where the family goes to market. Lulling, meaning “soothing,” and ford,
meaning a shallow place in water where people may cross (OED), stand in
semantically stark contrast to the troubled, deep waters of Sarn Mere. Lullingford is
also where Kester lives, and Prue says of his house, “I never could tell why this
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cottage drew me, even from a child . . . It drew me as heaven draws the poor sinner,
weary of his miry wanderings” (Webb, 69). “Miry” in this quote alludes to Sarn
Mere, which is also described as marshland (Webb, 12). Lullingford, however, is also
the location of the house that Gideon wants to buy—the physical representation of
all he is working for; in essence, the precious bane itself. Lullingford contains the
dreams of the two main protagonists in the form of houses—types of heavenly
mansions—though the reasons Prue and Gideon are drawn to them differs greatly.
The only overt reference to onomastic meaning in Precious Bane is in regard
to Prue’s brother, Gideon. Prue states that he was born in the year that the war with
France began, so their father chose the name of Gideon, “it being a warlike name”
(Webb, 15). Interestingly, Prue observes that “…most people never called him by his
Christen name at all. They called him Sarn.” The name Gideon is derived from the
Hebrew word gidh’on, meaning “cutter down, hewer, feller” (net.bible.org). This
onomastic meaning serves to amplify Gideon’s character. He is consistently
portrayed as a tireless worker who relentlessly drives not only himself but his
family as well to work and harvest the land in his drive to accumulate wealth and
prosperity. It also reflects his fate, as his early death might be interpreted as a
falling—a hewing of his own soul and cutting off of his own life.
Sarn appears to be a neologism, unrelated to any word or name on record. It
is both the family surname and the name of the place they live, Sarn Mere. Its
emptiness of meaning allows Webb to fully develop a meaning of her own, especially
in relation to place. Phonetically, it shares consonant sounds with the phrase “sin
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eater,” most obvious when Beguildy curses him as “Sarn, the sin-eater” (Webb, 134).
Troubled Water
Prue says of Sarn Mere, “There’s a discouragement about the place . . . It used
to seem to me sometimes as if Sarn were too old to be true. The woods and the farm
and the church . . . were all so old, as if they were in somebody’s dream.”
Contributing to the sense of discouragement about Sarn Mere is the repeated
description of the waters being troubled. There is both a physical and metaphysical
troubling of the water. Prue describes the physical phenomenon in connection with
dragonflies emerging from their shrouds: “We had a power of dragon-flies at
Sarn…every one was bound in due season to climb up out of its watery grave and
come out of its body with great labour and pain…seeing that the troubling of the
water was even now beginning, with a slow gentle simmering all over the mere, I
thought I would go to a place I knew where there were always a mort of dragonflies, and take comfort from seeing them coming out of their bodies” (Webb, 180).
The troubling of the waters is both real and practical, and even comforting—
removed from the trouble of superstition.
However, this physical troubling caused by emergence of the dragonflies
“like the torment of childbirth, a rending like the rending of the tomb” (Webb, 180)
has its opposite sense in the metaphysical troubling of the water—the feeling of
discouragement, hauntedness, and dumbness (see Webb, 75) that cling to the water
and the area around it, and by association, the people who live there. The word
trouble encapsulates many facets of the mere, and is significant because of its
repeated use in connection with the water. The first definition of trouble in the OED
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is “disturbance of mind or feelings; vexation, worry; affliction; grief.” Additional
definitions include, “a misfortune, calamity,” “a disease, disorder, ailment,” and “a
woman’s travail.” Each of these definitions connects to at least one aspect of the
novel—the drownings in the mere, Prue’s harelip, and the emergence of the
dragonflies. Another definition that specifically ties to Gideon is, “Pains or exertion,
esp. in accomplishing or attempting something; care, toil, labour.” By using the word
troubled to describe Sarn Mere, Webb is able to layer all of these meanings into the
sense of place.
Troubled water also has a biblical connection to the waters at Bethesda,
which Prue refers to: “It was said that this troubling of the water was the same as
that which was at Bethesda, and though it had not the power of that water…yet
every seventh year it was supposed to cure one, if the disease was not too deadly.”
Both Gideon and her mother forbid Prue to attempt a healing in this way, yet Prue
sees the irony after Gideon’s death as she remarks, “I thought how Gideon forbade
me to go down into the water as folk did of old time, and be cured of my ill. And now,
see! He was gone down into the mere himself to be cured of his own curse” (Webb,
257). The troubling of his mind, symbolized by the troubled water (“his eyes had the
look as if the mere was running behind them, cold, and bitter cold,” p. 74) led to
Gideon ending his life by that same water.
Bane and Banner
One of the most significant moments in the novel, also marked by a repeated
distinct phrase, occurs when Prue has a type of theophany while in her attic:
“…there came to me, I cannot tell whence, a most powerful sweetness that had never
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come to me afore. It was not religious, like the goodness of a text heard at preaching.
It was beyond that. It was as if some creature made all of light had come on a sudden
from a great way off, and nestled in my bosom….Though it was so quiet, it was a
great miracle, and it changed my life” (Webb, 53). Prue later connects this moment
with the text “His banner over me was love,” which is the recurring phrase.
The word banner is defined by the OED as a “sign, token, or as the standard of
a king under which an army marches; a rallying-point or symbol of protection.”
Banner comes from the Indo-European root bhā, meaning “to shine” (AHDIER). The
root is also connected to beacon, beckon, and the Greek phainein, meaning “to bring
light” (AHDIER). In this way, “banner” encompasses not only the spiritual rallyingpoint which this experience became for Prue (“for when I was lost for something to
turn to, I’d run to the attic,” p. 54), but is also descriptive of the light-centeredness of
the experience itself. The OED states that banner may also come from the same root
as the words bind and band, signifying again the strengthening sense of the word (an
army unites under one banner) as well as possibly alluding to the feeling of being
bound to the Source of the theophany after an experience such as Prue’s. The
banner, or light, made the attic “both parlour and church” (Webb, 54) a physical
space that she returned to often as she felt (and became bound to) God’s love and
peace.
The OED also provides a botanical meaning of the word banner as the
vexillum (large external petal) of a papilionaceous flower—a flower having petals
arranged in a form resembling a butterfly. This additional definition begins to take
on meaning as the feeling Prue experienced in the attic becomes associated with
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Kester Woodseaves. The connection between the banner and Kester is first made
textually on p. 94 as Prue asks to sing “He brought me to His Lordly House/His
Banner it was Love,” and as the women were singing that Prue describes a long ray
of sunshine (iconic and linguistic connection to light) from the door to herself with
Kester standing in the doorway. Though Prue initially hides from Kester because of
her harelip, she describes that “while I thought upon him I loved, [I became] a flower
and the petal of a flower” (Webb, 113). Later at a hiring fair, she hides again from
Kester but after overhearing him ask about her, she states, “I’m a flower in the sun”
(Webb, 137). As Prue eventually draws closer to Kester, she also draws away from
the folkloric superstitions that mark her as cursed. She draws closer to God.
There is some phonetic play between the words banner and bane, two of the
most predominant words in the novel, but there is also an etymological link. The
Indo-European root for bane is gwhen, meaning “to strike, kill” (AHDIER). The first IE
definition lists the O-grade form of the word as gwhon, which specifically means
“bane.” It is also connected to the word autobahn, from Middle High German ban,
meaning way or road (“strike” in the same technical sense as “swath,” which in turn
connects to the meaning of Gideon’s name). The suffixed form of the root, gwhn-tyā-,
produces the Old Norse gunnr (war) and is also related to the Italian gonfalone,
which is a battle flag (AHDIER). Even though the bhā root for banner differs from the
root for bane, gwhen still shares a shred of semantic meaning with banner,
connecting the two opposing word-themes of the novel.
The titular words precious bane are taken from a phrase in John Milton’s
Paradise Lost: “Let none admire/That riches grow in Hell; that soyle may
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best/Deserve the precious bane.” Prue mentions that she read about the precious
bane “in the book the Vicar lent [her]” (Webb, 124), and afterward the phrase
reappears throughout the novel. As stated by W.K. McNeil, “This is simply an
eloquent way of expressing the idea that the love of money is the root of all evil”
(McNeil, 132). This interpretation is the most overt, there are additional nuances to
the word that contribute to the complexity of the concept in the novel.
Bane is defined by the OED as a “slayer or murderer; that which causes death,
or destroys life; especially poison.” It is further defined as an “agent or instrument of
ruin or woe, the ‘curse.’” Gideon is twice cursed in the novel, first by being the sin
eater at his father’s funeral and then by Beguildy. While the curses are a function of
folk traditions and superstition, they are both related to the actual bane of greed and
ambition, the poison that eventually destroys Gideon.
Prue also considers herself to be cursed because of her harelip, though her
physical bane interacts with the concept of “preciousness” differently than Gideon’s
does. She states, “I fell to thinking how all this blessedness of the attic came through
me being curst. For if I hadna had a hare-lip to frighten me away into my own
lonesome soul, . . . I should never have known the glory that came from the other
side of silence” (Webb, 55). While the bane destroys much in her life, Prue is also
able to see what is precious about her experiences.
Conclusion
Tension between local superstitious folklore beliefs and Christian theology
form much of the fabric of the novel, Precious Bane. Studying the linguistic elements
of the text help to discern the richness of the individual threads used in forming that
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fabric. Names for characters and places were chosen with deliberate thought given
for how they would enhance traits and themes, even to the detail of “Kester” sharing
phonetic consonance with “Christ.”
The phrase “troubled water,” consistently repeated to describe the waters of
Sarn Mere, is layered with multiple meanings. The water is literally troubled as
ripples are created when dragonflies emerge from their shrouds, but it is also
haunted with superstitions regarding deaths and other events that have happened
there. The phrase connects biblically to the pool of Bethesda, further reflecting the
folklore/Christian duality that is played out throughout the novel.
Finally, bane and banner server as opposing word themes as the phrase
precious bane is consistently used to describe Gideon’s ruthless pursuit of wealth
and goods. The banner of God, a phrase representing Prue’s attic theophany and
later her feelings toward Kester (himself a symbol of Christ) describes the peace and
acceptance Prue feels through God in opposition to the cursedness and confusion
resulting from the superstitions that mark her as a witch. Her bane is essentially
destroyed by the banner of God’s love, while Gideon is destroyed by the bane of
greed and blindness.
An area rich in potential for further study is that of sin eating as compared to
sacramental emblems. Both use bread and wine and symbolize a transfer of sin,
though sin eating results in a curse and sacrament in redemption. There may be
language details that further enrich the picture of how these forces interact in the
novel.
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Bibliography
McNeil, W. K. “The Function of Legend, Belief and Custom in Precious Bane.” Folklore,
Vol. 82, Issue 2 (1971): 132-146.
http://net.bible.org
Oxford English Dictionary, online edition.
Watkins, Calvert. The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2011.
Webb, Mary. Precious Bane. New York: Penguin, 1989.
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