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Some faerie tales start out with “once upon a time” or with an event or action on someone’s part. Cinderella started out with the mother’s death, and a “once upon a time”. Rumpelstiltskin began with a lie and a kingdom while Jack and the Beanstalk starts with a lazy boy. This story begins with a person. Not just any person but one that is special and unique though not just because of who and what he is, but because he is so strange and mysterious. Only one or two know the truth about this boy, really a young man, but this story teller is neither of those said people. This may be a good thing for you listeners though, when a story teller knows all about the story then the story becomes less than what it really is. When the teller knows not quite enough, then, and only then is the tale a truly excellent one. I keep referring to a “story”, well, this is no story. It’s as real as you and me, the only thing that keeps it from being real to some is where it takes place. There are different types of real. Real to a believer is not as real to an unbeliever. A walk in the park is not as real as a day in school. The difference between real and real is where it takes place and who is involved. This tale becomes a story to those of do not truly believe and to those who do, it’s a tale that takes place too far away to see for ourselves. Enough talk, you will either understand or not, it is fruitless to waste words. A boy was born deep underground in a thick green forest one year in the Land of Faerie. He was born in a hollow hill where the Sidhe traditionally live. Music was played for a year and a day starting when he was born as a celebration of his life. And he grew with the sound of songs in his ear and harmony in his heart. People of the Faerie do not die, though they can choose to be born again in new bodies and age as quickly or slowly as they choose. This was not the boy’s first life, but because he was special he had only lived a few times and did not remember any of those lives clearly. Daoine was he called and what it means even I do not dare tell you for in it’s meaning the secrets of FaerieLand are woven. Faeries are not cruel and do not like to inflict pain or cause death, but they are not human and do not have the soft human views of death and pain. No human can trust a non-human in the same type of way they can trust another human. One theory says that's why the Sidhe and all other sapient beings cannot live in the same realms, they are too different in their views of mortality. Daoine was raised by a lesser Queen of the Faerie, her name was Mael Duin and she was young one moment and ancient as our Egypt the next. She instilled in Daoine the Faerie art such as how to use Faerie Magick and call forth the elements to do his bidding. She had once a mortal for her lover and loved him as much as any Faerie can love a human, but him being human, he died & so for her mortal lover's sake she taught Daoine human values and human things such as poetry, writing, and reading, and hate. Daoine grew up in that year and a day with songs in his ear and harmony in his heart and Faerie and Human things in his head. Mael Duin had a tradition that none of her charges may live with her past their maturity, for fear she might never recover if they left her of their own accord. Daoine left his foster-mother when he was about 17 in human development. He knew nothing of his heiritage, nor wanted to since heiritage was a thing he was not taught to care for. Daoine left the FaerieLand one midwinter evening for the Human realm and ended up in a blizzard. The FaerieLand weather is never severe unless it’s inhabitants desire it so, and climate can change dramatically upon transference from one realm unto the next. Daoine was a fine figure of a man since he was what a man looked like in Faerie realm and Human realms. He was tall, about 6 feet and an inch or two more in stature with broad shoulders, but was not so brawny as to be beefy. His was like Bacchus’s wine. A brown with magical highlites of gold, red, blonde and darker brown. His eyes had a wonderful sea-color to them that changed according to mood like a Dragon’s scales. And when he smiled the shape of his eyes changed so that they looked like two twin teardrops welling up in his face. They slanted downward when he smiled like that, and it seemed to some he was exotic though he appeared to be of good English stock. He was considered very handsome in the Faerie Realm, though no one thought to tell him that his nose was the perfect one to fit in his heart-shaped face and that his eyes turned a dark, unknown color the rare times he was angry. No one mentioned that his lips appeared soft and delicate yet not at all feminine. Daoine didn't know that he was considered handsome because he had no experience in love. No female Sidhe tried to woo him with her charms because they all knew he was see through them with his dragon eyes and piercing, but gentle intelligence. No one thought to tell him these things because one grows accustomed to the sight one sees everyday and so cannot see a change in height. On his walk to safety during his first blizzard he thought to himself, "I know not where I go, except that I must get there soon". He wandered until he was tired, more tired than he had ever been. He stumbled into an inn’s barn that some careless stable boy had left unlocked. Daoine fell into a deep slumber that lasted a full day. Whether or not his foster mother Mael Duin, (who welded enough power to send her magick into the Human Realm) sent such a deep sleep, or it was pure exhaustion from his long, cold walk we shall never know. But when he did awake he stared into the face of a man staring into his face. Daoine discovered he was covered with a warm, wooly blanket and saw what he recognized as kindness in the man's eyes and so he felt warmth for the first human he had ever met. The man spoke with a heavy Cornish accent and had warm, deep brown puppy eyes. His face was so fat and round it was actually horizontally oval. Wrinkles and laugh lines streaked his ruddy red-brown skin and a bulbish nose was sometimes brushed by too-long silver-black hair. The Cornish man said to Daoine “I know something of who and what you must be, but do not worry, you’ll never have to fear me to say it to another living soul.” And for some reason Daoine was not frightened that this man would betray his secret. For it was a secret. A Faerie might have walked safely in the HumanRealm when the humans were still young, and confused the Sidhe with lesser gods, but not now, not now that humans had forgotten their rightful place in the Wheel of Life. A Faerie would be pestered for wishes and sometimes hurt when he came across the strange Cult of Jesu worshipers, the Fisher Men. Daoine then asked the puppy-eyed man what he was called, and the puppy-eyed man who saw Daoine with eyes filled of reverence and respect, said he was called Oisin son of Finn, chief of the now legendary Fenian warriors of Eire. Daoine knew of the story of how a Fenian warrior named Oisin had fallen in love the Faerie princess Niamh of the Golden Hair, daughter of Manannan, and went with her to the Irish Faerie Island of Tir Nan Og. There they lived together for 300 years until Oisin found he had a strong longing to visit his fellow Fenian warriors and Eire. Niamh had let him go for her love, and gave him a fine Faerie beast. But the condition was that Oisin’s feet must never touch mortal earth. Oisin returned to Eire and found his Fenian brothers long dead and legends-made and Eire converted to the Jesu Cult. He was so upset by this drastic transformation that he fell from his enchanted horse and lay weeping on the ground. Of course the Faerie beast returned to his mistress, the devastated Princess Niamh, and Oisin was turned from a young handsome man in his prime to an old man with a sad, sad heart. This story flashed through Daoine’s mind in a matter of seconds, but Oisin must have
seen the shadows that appeared in Daoine’s face and read them correctly. Oisin said to
Daoine “Do not remind me of those days, the days in Niamh’s arms or of the days
with my Fenian brothers. My heart is heavy, and I only wait to die and join either my
love or kinsmen. Of course,” and then Oisin brightened, “I do managed to have some
fun while I wait out my heart’s appointed number of beats.” Oisin was now smiling
wonderfully and Daoine thought he saw a reflection of a young man with a golden
haired woman in Oisin’s right eye, and the same handsome man amidst a large battle
surrounded by similar looking men in the left eye.
Daoine took about a week to recover completely from his nightlong journey in the
blizzard. It was a week spent mostly sleeping and learning how to behave around
humans. Daoine had always been a serious “man”, but had as many sides to him as a
country road has pebbles. It took the Faerie man most of that week learning what side of
him was good with what people and what mood he should choose at what time. Finally,
Daoine had this human thing down well enough to start working with Oisin in the Inn,
tavern and in the garden. Daoine might have looked human enough, though definitely
more attractive than most humans by far, but he retained an other-worldliness about him.
This aura made others leave a few feet circling around him in a crowded room, like he
needed, no, required more room than an average man.
Daoine spent many weeks in Oisin’s tavern like this, fine-tuning and perfecting his
human mannerisms. It was during one busy night in the tavern, in which Daoine served
as a bartender or waiter, that he first saw the girl Rowan.
Rowan was human, had a fine temper and fairly good looks on human standards. There
was something about her however; something that drew the eye and held it; though not
everyone could see it. The something made many men try to find out what made them
drawn to her, what held their eyes to her pleasant, though not beautiful face. No man
succeeded, anymore than no woman found out why this girl of seventeen or so could
capture the attention of men her age and men four times her age.
Daoine had just lost his heart for all eternity.
 
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