Autumn Glimmer - Halloween Adventure in Ireland

Autumn Glimmer, Book Two in my Young Adult Glimmer Series, brings readers to County Wicklow's scenic woods and a fairy castle beneath an ancient Irish lake.

The Glimmer Books, which feature Ireland's mischievous fairies, are paranormal prequels to the Band of Roses Trilogy, whose "what if" premise supposes that High King Brian Boru survived the Battle of Clontarf in 1014 A.D. and established a royal dynasty still in existence. As head of state, the current King Brian upholds ancient traditions, as do his children, Princess Talty and Prince Liam. Teenager Liam stars in the Glimmer Books, along with his American friend, Janet Gleason, who can’t seem to stay away from the fairies.

In Glancing Through the Glimmer, Janet’s grandfather becomes the U.S. Ambassador to Ireland. Janet lives in Dublin and attends an upscale boarding school. She still misses Boston, especially in autumn, when New England’s trees are so gorgeous and vibrant. But she’s settled into her new life well and landed the lead in the next school play. In Autumn Glimmer, King Brian invites the Gleasons to his country estate to celebrate Halloween, Janet is happy: she’ll be with Liam again. She should know Ireland better by now…

Blurb for Autumn Glimmer: Janet and Liam meet again for a Halloween weekend they’ll never forget… Fairies living beneath the lake on the King of Ireland’s country estate? Janet Gleason isn’t surprised. The American teen and her royal friend, Prince Liam Boru, have met the Good People before. Just before Halloween, three of the fairies, Blinn, Mell, and Lewy, leave their watery home to fill a magical bag with the flowers their queen requires to keep a hungry monster asleep. Blinn decides she’d like to see the mortal king’s house. Lewy wants to taste oatcakes again, and Mell goes along on a tragic ride that leaves poor Lewy lost and alone. Can Liam and Janet help him find the flower bag before the monster awakens? Or will Lewy’s misguided glimmer trap the young mortals forever in the palace beneath the lake?

Excerpt: Below the bubble, the water brightened to lustrous cobalt blue. Stars seemed to shimmer deep in the lake. A forest of vegetation waved on the lake bed. The impossible sight of crystal towers emerged beyond the greenery, and Liam wanted to dance.

Janet raised a hand to her face. “It’s lovely, but why does it smell so bad?”

She was right. A nasty whiff of something vile had seeped into the bubble.

Becula raised her arms. “Hasten!"

The bubble’s downward speed increased. The stench intensified. Trying to pinpoint its source, Liam scanned the ghostly lake. An amber mist glowed in the inky water beyond the light and seemed to be pursuing them.

“What is it?” he asked, dreading the answer.

“The Crogall Cú,” said Becula, her nonchalant tone at odds with the stiffened sags and bags on her face. “When it hunts, its nostrils blow foul vapors to confuse its prey. Fear not, young prince. It shall not harm us.”

A terrible roar tore through the bubble. Janet yipped and clung to Liam. Squashing his lips to keep from yipping himself, he hugged her to him.

The mist billowed into to a putrid fog that poured like custard to sully the water. Another roar, much closer this time, jolted the bubble.

Janet screamed. Liam’s heart leapt into his throat. A blood-red eye as big as an autumn moon stared in at them from the water. How could such a behemoth exist in the little pond? Liam tightened his hold on Janet and hoped the Invincible Orb lived up to its name.

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The Glimmer Books / Available in Print and eBook

Book One: Glancing Through the Glimmer
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Book Two: Autumn Glimmer
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Book Three: A Pot of Glimmer
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New Release! A Pot of Glimmer

A Pot of Glimmer, Book Three in the Glimmer Series, is now available in both Print and eBook. As with the first two books in the series, Glancing Through the Glimmer and Autumn Glimmer, the story is set in Ireland and features Ireland's mischievous fairies. Adventure for Young Adults of All Ages!

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A leprechaun’s feud with a Viking ghoul puts Janet and Liam in deadly danger…

 Ireland, January 1014 - Fledgling leprechaun Awley O'Hay leads a raid on a Dublin mint. The mission: steal a shipment of coins to aid the High King, Brian Boru, in his war against the Vikings. Awley and his team plan the heist with commando precision, but they hit a glitch and only escape a bloodthirsty mob with the help of Hazel, the uncommon sister of one of the leprechauns. Yet the money master's vengeful ghost troubles Awley for centuries. So do Awley's forbidden feelings for Hazel.

Ireland, July 2015 - Janet Gleason has had her fill of fairies. They've not only plagued the American teen since she arrived in Dublin, they've also damaged her romance with her gallant friend, Prince Liam Boru. When Janet's grandfather, the U.S. Ambassador to Ireland, throws a Fourth of July celebration, Liam reluctantly attends with the rest of the royal family.

Also attending are several uninvited guests. A fairy witch named Becula arrives with Hazel, her clever and quirky protégée, to beg a favor of Janet. The unplanned appearance of Awley O'Hay and his leprechaun pals triggers a chilling visit from Awley's ancient enemy, now an undead monster hungry for human flesh.

Liam and Janet fall into a nightmare that tests their courage in ways they never imagined. Nor did they imagine that real leprechauns are nothing like the "little men" of Irish lore.

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The Fairy Thorn: Bad Advice!

Get up, our Anna dear,
from the weary spinning-wheel;
For your father's on the hill,
and your mother is asleep;
Come up above the crags,
and we'll dance a highland-reel
Around the fairy thorn on the steep.

* * * * *

Bad advice, this first verse of The Fairy Thorn by Sir Samuel Ferguson. Everyone knows if you dance around a fairy thorn, the fairies will steal you away. Especially in Galway, home of Finvarra, the King of the Connaught Fairies.

Finvarra is usually a decent sort. He likes human women, however, and often kidnaps them as dancing partners, as Janet, an American teenager living in Ireland, learns to her dismay. Janet and Finvarra costar in Glancing Through the Glimmer, the first of The Glimmer Books, my young adult adventure series.

Here's the Blurb:

In the modern Kingdom of Ireland, few mortals believe in the fairy folk. Without that belief, the fairies are dying. Finvarra, the King of the Fairies, would rather dance than worry—but he must have a mortal dancing partner.

When Janet Gleason’s grandfather becomes the new U.S. Ambassador to Ireland, the sixteen-year-old orphan must leave Boston and her friends behind. Janet is lonely in Dublin and unused to her grandparents’ stuffy social life. An invitation to a royal ball terrifies her. She can’t even waltz and dreads embarrassment. Finvarra’s fairy witch overhears her fervent wish to learn to dance.

Seventeen-year-old Prince Liam Boru loathes the idea of escorting another spoiled American girl to a ball. In fact, he detests most of his royal duties. He dresses down to move through Dublin unnoticed and finds himself on his royal backside when Janet crashes into him. Intrigued, he asks to see her again, and she willingly agrees. Unaware of each other’s identities, they arrange to meet. When they do, the fairies steal Janet away.

Liam’s attempts to find her trigger a series of frustrating misadventures. Can he and Janet outwit a treacherous fairy king who’s been hoodwinking mortals for centuries?

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Ride the Fairy Wind!

The fairies of Ireland star in my young adult adventure novels, Glancing Through the Glimmer, and its sequel, Autumn Glimmer. I couldn’t have written these books without learning more about the Good Folk and their ways, and my research has led to bursting bookshelves. Most of these volumes are my own acquisitions, though some are on loan from my aunts’ incredible library of Irish lore and history, books so old the pages are falling apart. Among my favorites are the authoritative A History of Irish Fairies by Carolyn White, and Meeting the Other Crowd, a fascinating collection of eyewitness accounts of “Them” from Irish oral tradition.

Autumn Glimmer features the Fairy Wind, a supernatural phenomenon known in Irish as the Sí-gaoith (Shee-gwee-ha). According to those who understand such things, the Fairy Wind usually signals the passage of a fairy troop. In its more sinister forms, the wind delivers a grave warning to mortals trespassing on or interfering with fairy property—and it inflicts dire vengeance upon those who foolishly ignore the warning.

The Good Folk aren’t all bad, however. Sometimes the Fairy Wind serves as a gift to those who require assistance. A farmer struggling to harvest his hay might find it suddenly blown into a tidy pile, thank you very much.

Mortals have, of course, provided every account I’ve seen of the Sí-gaoith. In this brief excerpt from Autumn Glimmer, I offer the Good People’s take on the Fairy Wind. As “They” have clearly allowed me to do so, who knows? Perhaps this is how it really happens.

A breeze arose in Crooked Wood, a whistling gust that rapidly grew loud and powerful.

Blinn shouted over the racket, "Line up, boys. We’re going for a ride!"

Lewy scooted behind her; Mell took up the rear. Around them, fallen foliage whirled like tiny tornadoes, gaining in speed and number until they formed a wall of buzzing, spinning leaves.

"Whoa ho!" Mell cried as they rose in the air.

He grabbed Lewy’s waist, and Lewy grabbed Blinn’s. A sudden upward tilt forced them to sit on the firm bed of leaves. The wind took off, soaring like a magic carpet, whisking them up and over the treetops. Lewy whooped. Blinn shrieked with delight. Even Mell laughed.

Secure in Blinn’s glimmer, Lewy held tight to her willowy waist and gazed down at the water. The small oval lake glittered beneath the slanted rays of the rapidly tiring autumn sun. Shadows from the approaching storm clouds speckled the falls at the pond’s northern end.

Their bird’s-eye view revealed the remains of the crannog, submerged near the reedy eastern shore. Or was it submerged? From so high up, the ruins appeared to break through the pond’s glassy surface. An illusion, no doubt.

On the western shore, a small bog sloped from a knoll to the edge of the crystalline water. Boulders littered the southern shore, the passage by which the Daoine Linn accessed Crooked Wood every seven years. The woods glowed in the autumn light as if an invisible hand had slathered the treetops with honey and marmalade. Lewy’s mouth watered to think of such treats, but he had no time to admire the show: Blinn veered sharply east.

Thousands of years before, the mortals had cleared the land of the rubble the big ice had left behind. They built walls of stone, creating neat squares for pastures and farmland. The familiar squares still checkered the emerald landscape, and the road to the house unspooled through the patchwork. In the distance, the mist-wrapped Wicklow hills endured, standing like phantom sentinels, a bulwark between the sinister sea and the midland lakes the Daoine Linn called home.

The carpet of leaves abruptly dropped. A trapdoor opened in Lewy’s gut. He managed to keep from screaming, but Mell roared in horror.

"Hey! You could warn a guy!"

"Sorry," yelled Blinn. "It went down by itself, and I can’t get it to go back up."

"I knew it," Mell said. "You’re tired. Lewy, call up your glimmer and help her!"

Lewy scrunched his eyes and tried. Feathers of glimmer tickled him from his toes to his ears. He had to coax it, expand it fast, make it fill his chest and shoot to his fingertips, but he couldn’t remember how. Many wheels of time had spun since he’d last summoned glimmer.
The Fairy Wind bucked and plunged through the air.

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Glancing Through the Glimmer / Available in Print and eBook

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 Autumn Glimmer / Available in Print and eBook
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Away With the Fairies

“In a shady nook one moonlit night a leprechaun I spied . . .”

Thanks to my family’s love of music, I learned the poem/song, The Leprechaun, when I was knee-high to a fairy. ‘Twas on an Irish record, of course, one of many recorded by the great Irish tenor, John McCormack. (Enjoy The Leprechaun in its entirety at the end of this post.)

I knew about the teensy Tinker Bell types of fairies from stories like Peter Pan and Sleeping Beauty, but the fairies of Irish folklore were always leprechauns to me. Not so, I learned while delving into the wealth of literature depicting these elusive beings. Leprechauns belong to the class of “Solitary Fairies,” which includes cluricauns, dullahans, pookas, merrows, silkies, and banshees.

Then we have the “Trooping Fairies” who party in crystal palaces beneath the Knock Ma (See Knock Moo), the hill in County Galway said to house the palace of Finvarra, the King of the Connaught Fairies. Finvarra costars in my Young Adult novel, Glancing Through the Glimmer. We didn't meet him the day we visited Knock Ma, but the local postman assured us that he and his troop were there.

It’s no surprise that these beings and the lore surrounding them have inspired many tales over the years. Glancing Through the Glimmer incorporates alternate Irish history with the magic of the Other Crowd, and it has been a joy to research.

More than once, I’ve felt inexplicable tugs toward wonderfully inspiring articles and books. I've learned that Irish lakes provide homes for water fairies, who live in underwater palaces, such as the one featured in Autumn Glimmer, the sequel to Glancing Through the Glimmer. And the leprechauns star in A Pot of Glimmer, the third book in the Glimmer series, currently in the works.

I’ve found countless web sites devoted to fairies, faeries, fae, fay, etc. During my latest visit to Ireland, I added several volumes on the Good Folk to my personal library. The public library helped my research too, but my most successful foray was into the incredible collection of Irish books my aunts have compiled over the years (See Seeking Irish Heroines.)

Every culture has fairies, whole hierarchies of them. In Ireland they aren’t the cute little Walt Disney squeakers we all know and love. Many are human-size, and all can be downright mean if one crosses them. Hair, eyes, teeth, and toenails can all fall out if we mortals distress them. (I'm in high hopes they’ve willingly joined the cast of the Glimmer Books.)

My grandmother once said that when she was a child in County Sligo (circa 1910), her father would set out a line of stones before he erected an outbuilding on their farm. If in the morning the stones were still where he’d placed them, he knew he was good to go. If not, then the fairies had disapproved of his choice, and he had to try again. Superstitious nonsense?

I’ve visited Ireland too many times to be sure, to be sure. What do you think?

The Leprechaun

(Attributed to Robert Dwyer Joyce)

In a shady nook one moonlit night,
A leprechaun I spied

In a scarlet cap and a coat of green,
A cruiskeen* by his side.

'Twas tick, tack, tick, his hammer went
Upon a tiny shoe,

And I laughed to think of a purse of gold,
But the fairy was laughing too.

With tiptoe step and beating heart,
Quite softly I drew nigh.

There was mischief in his merry face,
A twinkle in his eye.

He hammered and sang with tiny voice
And drank his mountain dew.

And I laughed to think he was caught at last,
But the fairy was laughing too.

As quick as thought I seized the elf.
"You're fairy purse!" I cried.

"The purse," he said, "is in her hand,
The lady by your side."

I turned to look, the elf was off,
And what was I to do?

Oh, I laughed to think what a fool I'd been,
And the fairy was laughing too.

* jug

From Fairies to Giants: A Story in a Story

Ireland’s fairies star in my young adult novel, Glancing Through the Glimmer. Who are the fairies? Where did they come from?

According to one legend, the Celts, the ancestors of the modern Irish, arrived in Ireland 1700 years before Christ and defeated the magical Tuatha de Danann, the Tribe of the Goddess Danu. One of the Danann leaders, a womanizing rascal named Finvarra, negotiated a truce with the Irish that gave the Dananns half of Ireland—the bottom half.

Finvarra became the King of the Connaught Fairies, and though he loves his wife, Queen Oona, he prefers to dance with ‘grippable’ mortal women. He’s been known to kidnap them, as Janet, an American teenager living in the modern Kingdom of Ireland, learns to her dismay in Glancing Through the Glimmer.

Janet is on her first date with Liam and doesn’t know he’s the King of Ireland’s son. Seventeen-year-old Prince Liam is not only a scholar, he's also a storyteller, or shanachie. His talent for telling tales helps him rescue Janet from Finvarra and his gang, who are partying in an underground cave north of Dublin. Finvarra knows Liam for a shanachie and demands a story.

Liam eyed his peewee host and pint-sized audience. The perverse idea of telling them a story about giants appealed to him. He began with the standard "long, long ago" and eased into the tale of the giant Finn MacCool’s encounter with his Scottish rival, Benandonner.

Liam told an old folktale that offers one explanation for the origin of the Giant’s Causeway, a spectacular stretch of Irish coast in north Antrim. The Causeway is supposedly all that remains of a bridge Finn MacCool formed long ago to link Ireland and Scotland. Finn who, you ask?

Finn MacCool was the leader of a roving band of gallant warriors who lived in Ireland centuries ago. He and his comrades appear in many entertaining tales. The legend concerning the Giant’s Causeway depicts him as a mighty giant who challenged his Scottish counterpart, Benandonner, to a contest of martial skill.

"Finn shouted across the sea to Scotland and challenged Benandonner to do battle. The two had never met. Now Finn being a thoughtful sort, he set a trail of mighty stones into the sea between Scotland and Ireland so Benandonner might keep his feet dry when he came."

Finn expected a sporting fight, some fun and entertainment, but when he saw the monstrous size of the approaching Scottish titan, he ran in terror to his wife and asked her to hide him.

"She dressed him as a baby and placed him in a giant cradle. Benandonner entered their house, and when he saw what he thought was an infant, he screamed in fright. ‘If this is the baby, why, the father must be huge indeed!’"
The fairies belly-laughed at Liam’s theatrical imitation of the terrified giant’s hasty retreat to Scotland. "He tore up the stepping stones as he went so Finn couldn’t follow."
The stones that Benandonner left in his wake formed the Giant’s Causeway. Having seen this amazing World Heritage site, I prefer this enchanting version of its origin, though geology tells a less fanciful story.

The Giant’s Causeway is part of the Antrim Plateau, the largest lava plateau in Europe. Its massive cliffs are the result of volcanic activity that occurred 60 million years ago. Lava filled a river bed and cooled slowly, cracking into columns and forming unusual structures with intriguing names like the Giant’s Boot, the Chimney Tops, and the Giant’s Organ. (Nothing anatomical here - it seems Finn created a pipe organ for his son, Oisin, to play).

Liam paused. Benandonner had given him an idea. He must rip up stones, so to speak, to keep the fairies from following him. He decided to give his story a brand-new ending.

. . . and Finvarra isn’t going to like this brand-new ending one bit . . .

The Giant's Organ

The Giant's Boot

The Chimney Stacks

Glancing Through the Glimmer / Available in Print and eBook from
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(This post first appeared on Flowers on the Fence)

Storytelling for Actors and Monsters

Aspiring actress Janet Gleason, the teenage heroine of my young adult books, Glancing Through the Glimmer and Autumn Glimmer, has lived in Dublin since her grandfather became the U.S. Ambassador to Ireland. At first, she hated Dublin. (She really hated being kidnapped by the King of the Fairies, but that’s the first book.)

In Autumn Glimmer, Janet has settled into her new Irish school. She loves the Drama Club, and she’s learned a lot about acting. She’ll soon pick up some fabulous new techniques.

To celebrate Halloween, Janet and her grandparents visit Ireland’s royal family (hint - she likes Prince Liam). Cousin Fintan, an elderly shanachie, is also visiting to entertain everyone.

A shanachie (from the Irish seanchaí) is a traditional Irish storyteller. The ancient Celts wrote nothing down. They entrusted their laws and legends to the minds of brehons, poets, and shanachies. The shanachies told hundreds of tales from memory. And, as Janet is going to learn, some of those tales were inspired by real events.

Janet’s theatrical eye noted the arrangement of chairs before the hearth. The rough half-circle they formed gave everyone an unobstructed view of Cousin Fintan, perched on a stool beside the fireplace. His right hand held his blackthorn stick like a pole in a subway train.

He laid the blackthorn across his knees. Like a safecracker coaxing a bank vault open, he ran the tips of his long white fingers over the knobby wood. Twisting the stick toward him, he deftly reeled his audience into the story world he summoned.

"I’ll tell ye a story to shorten the night. Ye’ll scarcely believe a word I say, for I’m going back on old times, to the days when the Good People made the rounds more than they do now."

Fintan had no idea that the Good People were making the rounds that night. In fact, two were outside the open window, listening. Janet listened too, fascinated by Fintan’s tales. He painted pictures in her head no stage set could ever match.

"Long before the great ice came, giant creatures lived in Ireland. They foraged and fought and ate each other, and no man ever saw them. The ice killed all but the swimmers among them, monsters who slumbered in caves beneath the lakes until the glaciers disappeared.

"New animals came to Ireland. Men came too, and the hungry monsters leapt from the lakes and devoured them all. The heroes among the men fought back."

Fintan told the story of Gann of the Glen, a hero who helped the fairies in the lake get rid of a hungry monster.

"Gann drew his weapons. The battle fury rose in him." The blackthorn whooshed through the air as Fintan, shouting now, mimicked Gann’s swordsmanship. "With a mighty cry, he raised his sword and cut off the Crogall’s head. This he hurled away, spattering the shore with its blood. To this day, the rocks on the shores of the pond are red, and the Crogall’s bones became the jagged stones on the northern bank."

The fairies outside the window recalled a different version. The correct version. One that Janet is going to find out all about…

 

 

GLANCING THROUGH THE GLIMMER / Available in Print and eBook
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AUTUMN GLIMMER / Available in Print and eBook
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*Storytelling for Actors and Monsters originally appeared on Jester Harley's Manuscript Page

Autumn Glimmer: Halloween Adventure!

Adventure for Young Adults of All Ages! Autumn Glimmer, the sequel to my young adult novel, Glancing Through the Glimmer, is set in Ireland on Halloween weekend, when the "veil" between the physical world and the Otherworld is thinnest—and it's always a little thin in Ireland. Here's the blurb and an excerpt!

* * * * *

Janet and Liam meet again for a Halloween weekend they'll never forget . . .

Fairies living beneath the lake on the King of Ireland's country estate? Janet Gleason isn't surprised. The American teen and her royal friend, Prince Liam Boru, have met the Good People before. Just before Halloween, three of the fairies, Blinn, Mell, and Lewy, leave their watery home to fill a magical bag with the flowers their queen requires to keep a hungry monster asleep. Blinn decides she'd like to see the mortal king's house. Lewy wants to taste oatcakes again, and Mell goes along on a tragic ride that leaves poor Lewy lost and alone. Can Liam and Janet help him find the flower bag before the monster awakens? Or will Lewy's misguided glimmer trap the young mortals forever in the palace beneath the lake?

* * * * *

At a bend in the trail, Janet stopped. “Do you hear that bird? I heard it earlier. It sounds like a person crying. Do you know what it is?”

Amidst the rustle of autumn leaves and the trilling and whistling ...of flitting birds, Liam detected a whimpering noise. “That’s not a bird, Jan. I think someone is hurt.”

He released her hand and hurried up the trail, concerned when the weeping stopped, standing motionless until it resumed, moving quickly toward it when it did. A child, or perhaps a young teenager, he thought, touching the pocket that held his cell phone.

Janet was right behind him. She pointed to the right. “It’s coming from there.”

The sobbing had stopped again, but Liam spotted a patch of turquoise cloth. He shoved his way through the undergrowth. “It’s one of the boys who’ve been playing pranks. Looks like he’s caught in a thorn bush. Easy, lad. We’ll get you out of there in jig time.”

They knelt on either side of the boy. Uttering senseless but soothing words, Janet pulled branches from the child’s shirt and his mop of white hair.

Liam wondered why the wig didn’t come off. “What’s your name, lad?”

“Lewy,” the boy replied through chattering teeth. “I’m Lewy. Please don’t hurt me!”

The words sputtered out, his youthful voice so shrill with fear, he didn’t sound quite Irish. A regional thing, thought Liam. Yet something about the boy’s accent sounded familiar.

“Of course we won’t hurt you,” Janet said as if she were calming a frightened pet. “We’re going to help you.”

Liam untangled one last branch from the shirt of the boy’s costume. “There, that should do. Can you stand, Lewy? Here, grab hold of my hand.”

Lewy stared at Liam through eyes as round as bright blue lollipops. Liam had seen such eyes before. They tripped a silent alarm in his head.

As the boy reached his shaking hands toward Liam, Janet gasped and covered her mouth. At the same instant, Liam noticed the webbing between Lewy’s fingers. He took hold of the long thin arms and helped the boy to his feet.

Bare, web-toed feet.

No boy, this. At his full height, Lewy was as tall as Liam kneeling, and his tear-streaked face, while far from old, was hardly the face of a boy—or a human.

* * * * *

Read more on my website's Autumn Glimmer Page

 

Autumn Glimmer - Available in eBook and Print from
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Enya the Bride

When the ancestors of the modern Irish arrived in Ireland 1700 years before Christ, they defeated the Tuatha de Danann, the magical Tribe of the Goddess Danu. The leader of the Dananns, a womanizing rascal named Finvarra, negotiated a truce with the Irish that gave them half of Ireland—the bottom half. And so, the Dananns became known as the Daoine Sídhe (Deena Shee), the People of the Mounds.

Finvarra supposedly lives in a palace beneath a hill in Galway. During a recent trip to the Emerald Isle, I stopped by this hill, called Knock Ma (See my post, Knock Moo). I wanted to see Finvarra's home, as he costars in Glancing Through the Glimmer, my young adult adventure coming soon from MuseItUp Publishing. I didn't meet him that day, but the local postman assured me that he and his fairy troop were there.

Here is a wonderful old Irish tale starring Finvarra, the King of the Connaught Fairies.

ENYA the BRIDE

Retold by Pat McDermott

As everyone knows, the beauty of mortal women attracts the fairies. Finvarra, the King of the Connaught Fairies, enlisted his minions to find and abduct the prettiest ladies in Ireland. The fairies bewitched the loveliest women and brought them to Finvarra’s crystal palace beneath Knock Ma in Galway. The women heard only fairy music, which lulled them into a trance. They remained enchanted, forgetting about mortal life and living as if in a dream.

Long ago, in that part of the country, a great lord had a comely wife called Enya. He held feasts in her honor and filled his castle from dawn till dusk with music. Lords and ladies danced with great pleasure in Enya’s honor.

At the merriest part of the feast one evening, Enya entered the dance. She wore silver gossamer bound with jewels that outshone the stars in heaven. Suddenly, she released the hand of her partner and fell to the floor in a swoon.

The servants carried her to her chamber, where she lay insensible all night. At dawn, she awoke and told them she’d spent the night in a beautiful palace. "Oh, how I long to go back to sleep and return there in my dreams!"

The servants watched her all day, and she fared well enough, but when evening fell, they heard music at her window. She fell again into a trance from which no one could rouse her.

The young lord set Enya’s old nurse to sit with her, but the silence enticed the woman to sleep until dawn. When she looked at the bed, she saw to her horror that Enya had vanished.

The household searched the castle and gardens but found no trace of Enya. The young lord sent riders into the wind, but no one had seen her. He saddled his chestnut steed and galloped away to Knock Ma to speak to Finvarra, the King of the Fairies, for he and Finvarra were friends. Many a keg of good wine did the young lord leave outside his castle to quench the thirst of the fairies. Finvarra would surely have tidings of Enya.
But little did the young lord know that Finvarra himself was the traitor.

When the young lord stopped by the fairy rath, he heard voices in the air: "Finvarra is happy now, for in his palace he has the bride who will never more see her husband’s face."

"Aye," spoke another. "Finvarra is more powerful than any mortal man, though if the husband dug down through the hill, he would find his bride."

The young lord swore that devil nor fairy nor even Finvarra himself would stand between him and his bride. He sent word to every able-bodied man in the county to come with their spades and pickaxes, and they dug to find the fairy palace.

They made a deep trench, and at sunset they quit for the night. But the very next morning they found that the clay was back in the trench, as if the hill had never been dug.

The brave young lord asked the men to continue their digging, and they dug the trench again. For three days they dug with the same result: the clay was put back each night, and they were no nearer to Finvarra’s palace.

The young lord prepared to die of grief, then he heard a whisper in the air: "Sprinkle the soil you have dug with salt, and the salt will preserve your work."

He scoured the countryside for salt. That night, his men salted the soil they had dug that day. At dawn, they awakened to find the trench safe and the earth untouched around it.
The young lord knew he had beaten Finvarra. He bade the men dig, and by the next day, they’d cut a glen right through the hill. When they put their ears to the ground, they heard fairy music, and voices floated on the air.

"Now," said one, "Finvarra is sad, for if those men strike a blow on his palace, it will crumble and fade away."

"Then let him surrender the bride," said another, "and we shall all be safe."

Then Finvarra himself spoke clear as a silver bugle: "Stop!" he said. "Lay down your spades, mortal men, and at sunset the bride shall return to her husband. I, Finvarra, have spoken."

The young lord commanded his men to stop digging. At sunset he mounted his chestnut steed and rode to the top of the glen, and just as the sun turned the sky blood-red, Enya appeared on the path. He lifted her to the saddle, and they rode to the castle like storm wind.

But Enya spoke not a word. Days passed, then months, and she lay on her bed in a trance.

Sorrow fell over the castle. The young lord and his people feared the enchantment could not be broken. But late one night, when he rode in the dark, he heard voices in the air.

"It is now a year and a day since the young lord reclaimed his bride, but she is no use to him. Though her form is beside him, her spirit is still with the fairies."

Another said, "She will be so until he breaks the spell. He must loosen the pin from the girdle she wears at her waist, and then he must burn the girdle. He must throw the ashes before the door and bury the pin in the earth. Only then will she speak and know true life."

The young lord spurred his horse and hastened to Enya’s chamber, where she lay like a lovely wax figure. He loosened her girdle and found the pin in its folds. He burned the girdle and scattered the ashes before the door, and he buried the pin in the earth, beneath a fairy thorn, that no hand would disturb it.

When he returned to his young wife, she looked up at him smiling and held out her hand.

Knock Ma

Joyfully he raised her to him and kissed her, and she stood as if no time had passed between them, as if the year she had spent with the fairies was only a dream.

The cut in the hill remains to this day and is called "The Fairy’s Glen."

("Enya the Bride" originally appeared on The Celtic Rose)

Alaska - The Celtic Connection

Baby Polar Bear Courtesy of Photobucket

Nearly everywhere I’ve traveled, I’ve found something Celtic to weave into the stories I write. Last month's Alaskan cruise proved a challenge in this respect. A recent Trinity College Dublin study states that ancient hanky-panky between Irish brown bears and prehistoric polar bears produced the modern polar bear. Would that do? Probably not. It wasn’t until the end of the trip that I found the Alaskan/Celtic connection I needed to enhance my work-in-progress.

Despite all the shore excursions and cruise activities, I got some work done. Stealing a block of writing time (and a Kir Royale or two) in one of the ship’s secluded spots proved no hardship. By the end of the voyage, I’d managed to draft three chapters of Autumn Glimmer, a young adult adventure set in Ireland, and the sequel to Glancing Through the Glimmer, scheduled for release this November. I’ve spent months reading mythology and archaeology books to spruce up my knowledge of water fairies, lake monsters, and crannogs, man-made islands built in lakes and rivers by prehistoric and medieval people. Fairies and monsters make sense to me. The crannogs do not.

Ten months have passed since I blogged about my visit to the Connemara Heritage and History Centre to view a reconstructed crannog. Archaeologists have dated these lake dwellings to prehistoric times. Written history tells us the Irish still inhabited them during the Elizabethan period, when they served as forts, arsenals, and hideouts. Who first built these strange abodes? And for all the toil it took to construct them, why did they bother?

Theories abound; I’ll note a few here. In Mesolithic times, impenetrable forests covered Ireland. Lakes and rivers served as the people’s highways, and they might have built crannogs as clan gathering places during seasonal festivals. Still, I can’t help wondering why the people didn’t simply fell a few trees and build houses. The idea that they venerated trees and refused to cut them down doesn’t work. They set plenty of tree trunks into the lake beds as foundations for their crannogs.

Did they live on the water because they felt the woodlands belonged to the forest gods they very likely worshiped? Or did they fear the wild boars, wolves, bears, and gigantic, lethally antlered deer who lived in the woods? Perhaps the ancients revered a sun god and had to go out on the lake to commune with him because the dense forest canopy blocked the sky. Then there’s the idea that if clearing land for cattle and crops proved more labor intensive than building crannogs, the people would consider their precious arable and pasture too valuable to waste on human habitation.

Crannogs clearly housed a wide range of social classes over the ages. In addition to weapons, sewing needles, and tradesmen’s tools, archaeologists have unearthed precious objects only the privileged classes could have afforded. The discovery of manacles suggests some crannogs served as prisons. Most experts believe pre-Celtic peoples used crannogs as storage facilities, for shelter and defense, and for platforms from which they tossed votive offerings to assuage lake gods. Some crannogs stood as single structures. Temples or shrines? Others formed entire "water towns." Why?

In my recent post describing the end of my Alaskan cruise, I mentioned a catamaran trip to Misty Fjords, a glacially carved wilderness accessible only by boat or plane. In a small inlet called God’s Pocket, the naturalist on board narrated the Native American history of the area. She also described how the mountains teemed with bald eagles, brown and black bears, moose, wolverines, river otters, black-tailed deer, mountain goats, mink, beavers, and foxes. She pointed out a rocky ledge frequently crossed by wolf packs. Spruce, hemlock, and cedar covered the steep slopes right down to the shore. No hiking trails pierced the trees, and hikers who dared to explore the region often lost their way.

Gazing out at the fiercely beautiful scenery, I sensed an odd kinship with the first crannog builders. I felt eerily safe on the tour boat, and I was only visiting the area for a few short hours. For superstitious peoples living their entire lives in such a ruggedly primitive world, a crannog must have imparted an otherworldly sense of security, a mystical, life-giving refuge whose protective waters provided food and simplified travel.

I already have my lake monster and a troop of mischievous water fairies. I think I’m good to go.

Fuel Efficiency

My developing young adult story jerks like a crotchety old car that doesn’t want to go for a ride on a cold New Hampshire morning. Stop and start, rev and stall. What will I call it? Why am I writing a sequel when the first book hasn’t found a home yet? Will I have a page or two ready for my writing partners in time for our next meeting?

I don’t worry too much, as I’ve done it all before. The story will soon leave rubber. Yet so many ideas churn in my mind, I don’t know what to write. My muddled  thoughts confuse and distract me. It’s a familiar feeling. It makes me crazy.

I love it.

Treasure

I am running on high test. Not only have I visited several web sites (some of which will surely have me on the “radical watch” list of those who track such things), I have read a variety of books obtained both in Ireland and in my aunts’ amazing library. But did all that reading about bardic poems, magical herbs, fairies and archaeology start this quandary in the first place?

No. As one of my favorite old Irish sayings goes, “Seeking one thing often finds another.” Research inspires. I doubt I'll ever write about dendrochronological data or the River Lagan’s Water Monster. These interesting tidbits might clog the fuel line, but they swirl with the fairy wind and the leg irons found beneath old forts. Fine, but how do I sort all these tidbits for better fuel combustion?

I procrastinate by insisting I must finish other writing projects. Between loads of laundry, grocery runs, and social visits, I wonder if I should escape to a writing retreat. I launch a new cooking blog and begin reading L.A. Meyer's wonderfully addictive Bloody Jack books. Creating a new Windows Media playlist inspires me. I zoom in the left lane for a bit, then stop to clean bird droppings from the windshield. I manage to write the first chapter.

The pit crew is ready. Soon, the story will rip down the track like a well-tuned sports racer. I might be driving the vehicle, but I will have no power to stop it.

I can’t wait.