Precious Bane – Mary Webb

How does the writer portray the English countryside?

Precious Bane was written by Mary Webb in 1924, it was quite popular in the first years of it’s printing, with Stanley Baldwin famously supplying a preface to the 1928 edition, after a literary dinner speech in which he praised Webb, shortly after her death. Mary Webb was born in Leighton, Shropshire, and spent all her life around the Shrewsbury area. The fictitious Sarn Mere could easily be any of the vast meres in the area. She died in 1927 and is buried in Shrewsbury cemetery.

The first thing you notice about Precious Bane is the dialect. Mary Webb has chosen to use the language of her immediate ancestors, the 19th century south Salopians, to tell her story. Prue Sarn, the heroine of the tale, is from Sarn Mere, a fictitious Mere in the north of Shropshire. It is her voice that tells the tale and right from the beginning you could be baffled by the dialect: ‘Maybe you never slept on a cot of rushes; but all of us did at Sarn, and Old Beguildy’s missus was a great one for plaiting them on rounded barrel-hoops.’[1] Gideon Sarn, Prue’s brother, is equally baffling in his speeches. Mary Webb’s descriptions of the Mere of Sarn are sometimes hauntingly beautiful, with religious overtones often as this is one of the major themes of her work, for example, ‘It was a wonderful thing to see our meadows at Sarn when the cowslips was in blow. Gold-over they were, so that you would think not even an angel’s feet were good enough to walk there.’[2] This is in contrast to some of the descriptions of the villagers, which are rather plain and ordinary, including Prue. This diminishes the people in the village somewhat, while creating a view of the world that puts God and his Angels in their place at the top of village society.

Religious themes are evident in the descriptions of the two main protagonists of the Novel, Gideon Sarn and the wizard, Beguildy. Both have rejected god and are bent on material gain purely for selfish reasons. Gideon killed, accidentally and on purpose, his father and mother, respectively, and has become a sin-eater, a role usually reserved for the poor and destitute of the village. Beguildy, as a wizard, has a reputation; ‘Not that Beguildy was wicked, but only empty of good, as if all righteousness was burnt out by the flame of his fiery mind.’[3] This reputation leads many to believe that Beguildy is a servant of the Devil, although that doesn’t stop them using his services when it suits their purposes. It is their conflict that drives the novel, as Gideon would like to marry Beguildy’s daughter, Jancis. These views of Beguildy and Gideon are important because, unlike the rest of the village, they are self-centred and purely seeking monetary wealth. Because of this they are both punished, Gideon’s farm is destroyed by Beguildy, Jancis kills herself, Beguildy is locked away for the crime of arson and Gideon eventually commits suicide as well. It seems that any suggestion of one getting above one’s station is looked down upon in this novel.

The devil is ever present in Sarn, as the villagers and nearby townsfolk who are always wary for signs of devilry. Prue suffers from a Hare-lip, a sure sign of the person afflicted being a witch so when she goes to the local tavern, The Mug Of Cider she recalls: ‘When we were come by these old ancients, everyone held his mug where it was, and stopped in his singing, and so sat with his mouth open and his eyes fast on me.’ [4] The townsfolk make it clearer; ‘"She’s a witch, an ugly hare-shotten witch.”’[5] The constant threat of the Devil and God is made very clear near the start of the novel. Explaining the fiery nature of the Sarn bloodline Prue notes ‘Timothy [Sarn] went against his folk and the counsels of a man of God, and took up with the wrong side… So he was struck by lightning and lay for dead… But Sarns were obstinate men. He kept his side [and] was struck again.’[6] This time fatally.

The treatment of Prue is also indicative of the treatment of women in general in the novel. Although Beguildy is a known wizard people do not instantly think to dunk him to find out if he is evil, they already know that, they seem to tolerate it because he is male. Prue, on the other hand has to suffer verbal abuse from the gentry and the local townsfolk. Eventually after Gideon’s death, an event supposedly caused by Prue, the locals decide to dunk her to test to she is a witch; she is only saved by the timely arrival of Kester.

The people of Sarn and the nearby town are almost totally without compassion. They exercise the right to bull bait, killing dogs and bulls for the fun of it and seem very perturbed when Kester tries to stop it ‘”Why I tell ya there’s bin bull-baiting in England ever since it was England!”….”It inna cruel. The dawgs like it. They enjoy it. And the Bull likes it right well.”’[7] Says one of the Inn’s denizens, with no sense of irony. When Gideon’s farm is burnt down by Beguildy there are only a few of the locals which try to save the crop, the rest seem content to help only when it suits them, for example when the crop is brought in the day before, the whole village helps but they are rewarded with a hearty meal and refreshments later. There is no promise of that at the fire.

It seems that in all this there is no hope. There is a glimmer from the lives of Prue Sarn and Kester Woodseaves. The romance in Precious Bane is a typical feminine fantasy; the handsome young man settles for the less pretty, but more virtuous, woman and they live happily ever after. In the novel the main reason they survive to the end is their love for each other and the piousness of their lives. Both are selfless individuals ready to give of themselves to help others in need. Gideon will not even consider helping the love of his life as it will ruin his plans for the future but Prue gives up her life in an instant to help first Gideon and then Kester. Kester is willing to give his life and a significant sum of money to protect a bull being used for bull-baiting. Their relationship is unsullied by material concerns and they are both ready to give themselves to each other, so they survive not by any great talent, although they both toil very hard throughout the novel, or particular worthiness, other than selflessness. Both Prue and Kester are tested by the populace, Prue is nearly ducked and is saved by Kester, and Kester is almost fatally injured by a dog trying to protect a bull, only to be saved by Prue.

To conclude, the novel is not a terribly nice portrayal of the English countryside. While the landscape is fit for Angels and fair folk it seems that sinners cannot make the land work for them. Hard work seems to be punished if it is not selfless toil and no man can claim to be above god, as Gideon and Beguildy find out to their cost. Women are held in much lower regard than men, even the female gentry is not beyond the reach of Gideon in the Novel, although Prue would not entertain such thoughts.

Footnotes

1 Webb, M Precious Bane, 1928, p11
2 Ibid, p12
3 Ibid, p14
4 Ibid, p80
5 Ibid, p81
6 Ibid, p17
7 Ibid, p160

Bibliography

Webb, M, Precious Bane, 1928
Dickins, Gordon An Illustrated Literary Guide to Shropshire, 1987
Literary Heritage West Midlands, http://home.freeuk.com/castlegates/creative.htm