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you see,’ said the girl.
    ‘Like a lot of children he disobeyed his father,’ added the girl’s father, giving her a meaningful stare.
    ‘But . . . but . . .’ I struggled for a response. ‘What about the bit, you know, “A new commandment I give unto thee, that ye love one another”?’
    ‘He made it up,’ said Peredur.
    ‘He was very naughty,’ added the girl.
    ‘And for two thousand years mankind has been deceived.’
    ‘Are you sure about this?’ I asked.
    ‘The evidence is there in the gospels but people just don’t have the eyes to see it. Has it never struck you? The startling difference in the personality of God between the Old and New Testaments? How do you account for such a thing? Do you supposeGod, the divine and immutable, underwent a personality change? Or that He is somehow schizophrenic? That He perhaps drank a potion like Dr Jekyll to transform His character? It is absurd. The true God, as revealed by His prophets, is stern and vengeful, quick to anger, jealous and terrible to behold. And yet He is fair and loves us after His fashion, but demands obedience. He is, in fact, like most fathers. He wants only what is best for His children but He is wise enough to know that the route to their felicity does not lie through the fields of softness and indulgence. “Spare the rod and spoil the child” was never more truly written than about God’s children. What He categorically is not is sentimental. And yet the New Testament, the outpourings of Jesus, is a febrile, toffee-coated chocolate box of vile and corrupt sentimentality. Love thy neighbour? How can a man in Aberystwyth follow such a precept? Oh, yes, I know they will say it is not literally true but we are not shilly-shallyers here, sir. For us a gospel is precisely that: gospel. The true and undiluted, literal word of God. If it says we must turn the other cheek, we suppose it to mean that. And yet who could take such a precept seriously? Is it not obvious, when you consider it, that Jesus was taking the piss when He said that? Love, forgiveness, charity . . . it is all the grossest sentimentality, foisted on a credulous world by a disobedient son. He was a terrible disappointment to His father.’
    Calamity sneezed. ‘’Scuse me.’
    ‘Oh dear!’ cried the girl, seemingly grateful for the opportunity to divert the conversation from Peredur’s gloomy liturgy.
    ‘You poor little thing, all the time we’ve been prattling away and you there still suffering. Wait a moment.’ She put her face into her hands and started to groan. She groaned for a whole minute and then looked up.
    ‘I’ve spoken to the spirits and they recommend a little salve of wormwood, betony, lupin, vervain, henbane, dittander, viper’s bugloss, bilberry, cropleek and madder. That should do the trick.’
    ‘All I want is a goddam aspirin,’ said Calamity.
    ‘Don’t use bad words, Mary-Lou!’ I said with the sternest voice I could muster.
    ‘One of my salves is much better than a silly aspirin,’ said the girl. ‘You just boil it up in sheep’s grease, place under an altar, sing five masses, strain through a cloth and use it to anoint your face after meals.’
    ‘It works best at five-night-old moon,’ said the old man.
    ‘Oh, Dad!’ laughed the girl. ‘You are so old-fashioned!’ She smiled at us conspiratorially, adding, ‘If you replace the viper’s bugloss with blackthorn bark and boil it in ewe’s milk it’s good against goblins, too.’
    ‘And if you say, “Wizen and waste shrew till thy tongue is smaller than a handworm’s hipbone,”’ said the old man, ‘it’s effective against a chattering woman.’
    The girl flushed. ‘Oh, Dad, really! You always go too far. You know I don’t like to hear such talk.’
    The old man winked at us and said, ‘See what happens? I send my daughter to the school in Talybont and they send me back a feminist.’
    We stood up and I said, ‘Maybe we’ll try a chemist.’
    The girl showed us out to