HARE AND HOUND
By
Autumn J. Laird
I
STAND BEFORE YOU ON A HILL. MY
HOMELAND WEEPS THE DREADFUL DEEDS THAT MAN ONCE HAS DONE TO HER.
THERE WERE WICKED MEMORIES AFOOT IN THE EARLY YEARS OF MY LIFE. I REMEMBER A TIME OF GREAT CHANGES AS A BOY.
THINGS WERE TO NEVER AGAIN BE THE SAME FOR ME AND FOR THOSE OF WHOME
WOULD CARRY ON MY MEMORIES. THE STORIES THAT I SHARE HAPPENED BY CHANCE, SOME OF IT GOOD
AND SOME OF IT BAD. WHO IS TO SAY
THE CIRCUMSTANCES WERE NOT MEANT TO BE? THESE
QUESTIONS HAVE BEEN MY OWN; EACH HAS PLAYED A PART IN WHAT IS TO BE TOLD.
So
now I stand here asking as you do what a young man could fear?
What it means to be swept into the oceans from your homeland to distant
shores, where the enemy is both inside and out.
Where your greatest friend can be both the magick working in the world,
and the greatest force turning you back.
I stand here looking at the fertile lands of my father. Green and lush, soft rains fall nearly daily.
The boundary of this place is the seashores; but beyond that is where I
ventured as a lad, still hungry for the world.
The sea brought me to a place to where my heart grew strong, and what
the sea will give it will eventually want back again - if by some chance we
have been claimed by her song. I
knew not then that I would not see the people of my young life disappear in
the fog that enveloped me on my journey.
I knew not that I would even loose myself in the Skye land.
I weep for all those gone from me now.
I weep for my tormentor and the man who taught me weapons – giving me
the greatest gift of all. The
magick is not gone though, and still I watch for the return of something that
began long ago. I scan the
rolling mists for their emerging ships, and the ghosts that wail in those
places where this world parts with the next.
My memories have grown like the swelling current on a story that seems
not to own one man nor one child who has grown, but many people all propelled
into a future uncertain as those claiming waters of time.
I
see my eyes so clear and cool, reflected back is the brightness of knowledge.
I traced my hand in the waters gliding past me on this my first trip
from the lands. It wasn’t
supposed to be a big deal, for my mother would have fretted so. My brothers and uncles had all done it hundreds of times.
How can one know what is to be when it calls suddenly like the storm
from the north? I had waited and
waited for this rite of passage. Splashing
on the beach as we pushed our people out into the sea year after year had told
me that this was an integral part my people.
The voyage was as much a part of us as the ancestors who had brought us
to the land. It was how we
retained our territory from invaders. It
was how we traded and found newer and more fertile homesteads.
It was simply how we lived. I
kept close the small shells that danced in the water’s retreat.
Until the wise woman said it was to be this time as all my ancestors
before me, on my birth year of thirteen.
Oh by then, I was not so strong or so very tamed by the cooing adults
around me. I ventured to the
farthest ponds, the edges of the forests, I listened to the words of the wind
and heard a story being played there. I
felt my hair stirred by ways that went deeper than a mere breeze.
I watched my dreams and felt the power in the weapons I could hold.
I watched the smiths hammer our weapons into shape with the hunger of
the fire licking the metal, and the song of that forging stirring into the
blades potency. I was always a
strange child I was told. One with a gift, but one I myself had not known I truly
possessed.
Our
home had a great hall filled with foods and preparations for a short journey,
which was to be my first. I heard
the stirrings of people muttering about invasions restarting this spring, and
listened vaguely as my excitement overtook those cautionary statements that
were quickly forgotten. There was
always some threat but life simply did not stop for chance alone.
It was nearly the summer solstice.
My heart thumped and grew eager to be off to test my new age. But I stayed quiet and said little. There was little to say in truth. What I knew people did not want to hear, and what I knew
people would fear. They made that
little ward with their hands to hush me at my mere mention of even the
weather. So I let my dark
hair fly, its red highlights shine in the sun, wild as my spirit felt. I was like the eager hawk on the edges of my little world and
I looking beyond it. How was I to
know the world had such plans for me?
I
left that morning with a great bolstering spirit.
Full of pride by my father’s pats, most of my uncles nudging me with
the same enthusiasm. I felt
as the first time welcomed by my brothers and their sailing fleet.
It was a celebration of our power at each launching.
Many sent well wishes to us from the shore, throwing flowers into the
water on our offset. I smiled at
them and waved, but most of all I remember going to the stern of a proud
wooden ship and holding myself above the waves that rocked us in a steady
procession.
It was many days on the ship before I came to love that motion. I came to fill a spot in the sailing vessel that I could not on land. I understood then how we must be ever vigilant of the weather and the threats born in the dangerous lands. There were also people more willing to take advantage of our ships than the hungry waves - each man pressing luck close to their bodies. We settled in a small village in a port for rations one evening, a hot hearth burning the travelers of an inn. I saw a rampant lion roaring on the wooden sign knocking against the entryway. There was always some animal or another on such doorways. Each inn just as loud and smoke filled as the next. My father muscled a large flagon of ale and spoke loudly in laughter with my uncles. I watched them listening and occasionally commenting. Later I slipped into the straw beds still slightly damp from the rain in the air. They would come in one by one stumbling and groaning in the darkness till each dropped into a deep snore. We set off in the morning after a hush of whispers making their way into my predawn alertness. There were things afoot in the small village. A disturbance from the next town over sent messengers on forward. They were lucky to escape with speed and knowledge of the land lay. There was word that the men were not from here but further off towards mainland, a people of great sea power and deadly for the spoils of victory. The raiders were feral, burning and slashing those who would stand in their way. Women taken and the left for deaths sweet summons if they were not worthy of seconds. One of my uncles had met his end fighting for our home in the invasion; he was the best of us at the time. He was the oldest of the clan; in duty it was his valor that shone through to his people. My youngest uncle of 7 had also fallen victim to the misfortune of the sea’s wolves. I was angry for them, but had no wish to challenge that power. We left the port for home in the stormy weather made by summer’s warmth and the cool voracious winds of the north clashing. It had been still that morning with a great red sunrise. My heart beat like a steady drum fixed on that horizon. My eyes were cautious but my mind blazed with a sense that now things would change. I had known change before, but it felt greater than any warning I could bring, any words to utter were taken by the stillness of that sunrise. The men worked oars far into the day, sweating on their throbbing muscles. We had all felt the urgency of distance between what we could sense was coming. Then as great as the wings of an eagle the storm swept upon us. It rolled in the distance with the power of a dragon seething with lightening flaring from its angry darkness. I could not help but hold on for myself, all else was water and wood; waves and noise so constant that breathing was just an afterthought.
I
cannot say how I lived through that storm.
It is a blur of many things to me.
My father grasped me and shoved me into the water as our craft broke in
two and plunged deep into the icy throngs of water rushing over us.
The sucking current that pulled me under, the arms of him carrying me
to air, the other’s being hauled up into my brother’s ship, and then light
streaking through the water. I
looked last into my father’s eyes, an image of myself in them in complete
love and peril. Sacrifice.
I
felt him pull away from me, the black waters washing him away from the arms
and the screaming voices. I was
driven from him in another direction. Nearly
hitting a boat that rode the dragon’s back.
I let go then, my body was tired and my mind even before I knew that I
was to live beyond these memories to grieve for those who lost their luck.
I lost everything for a while, my complete self in those drowning
waters.
There
was a battle on a sandy shore, stretched from the village into the waters
where people were dragged fighting and screaming for their livelihood.
Burning in the distant hills, men running in a clatter of armor and
swords against axes. Hoards of
food and belongings thrust into a ship by few who would return to help the
attack. They feared and worshiped
the man who wanted the titles to go with his reputation.
Like him, his was broiling with war over the lordships claiming
superiority. He was supported by
the French for who had seen his troupe as worthy contention and turned it to
their advantage, for a price. A
village woman with bloodied golden hair pounded at the chest of a man in brown
leathers and green tunic. His
smile was weighted by a laughter for which his wives would fear.
His black hair spoke of the deadly wolf but he was known as a hare.
He held a shield to his arm of great beauty with a hound chasing the
hare. It was his magick.
With a sudden gruff remark he gave up on the protesting woman and
slammed the point of the shield’s center into her belly, pressing her off of
him to the ground in a thump. Longtooth
bore little care for the children she had or the husband his men had killed in
the village. The other women saw
this and either bent to their will or surrendered into the depths that
submerged their bodies into the Otherworld.
A
band of men were finally able to break off the greedy Norsemen.
They were on the retreat and what could not be managed would be left.
A baby cried near the watery shore.
A line of attack was set. But
not so easy was this one, Longtooth had seen something here that caught his
interest. A point that would be a
gateway into the lands that meant his future.
He saw the stones dotting the edges of the countryside, the Ostara sun
that was so bountiful to the rabbit’s ways.
In this fight, he quartered back to the beach and let his men land ship
after ship. It was his but not without settling this matter of affairs
first. This was only one in ten
similar scenes in a course of 3 years of hard work.
Battle was battle, and men die in defense all the time.
The Gods willed death of foes every day in favor of this man.
In the strangeness of his stronghold, people would learn his courteous
and sly opinions trapping them with words and blades to back them up.
I
looked first into those memories of the beach with confusion.
I felt mystical animals of rubber skin brushing against my body,
bobbing on the surface of the storm. I
remembered the sea’s water as if breathing it.
I coughed lung full after lung full of the sailor’s livelihood and
poison. Then I came wet and full
of green kelp wrapped around me like chains unto the soft sand. The sound of crows and ravens were in the distance, but the
sky was clearing to a blue-gray with gulls circling spirals above my
misbegotten body.
Then
slow came the other sounds, the clangs of war.
I was thin, and pale - something now more of the sea than of the land. I saw eyes on me, eyes of a large man with a brute
stature. But it wasn’t
barbarian written on him, it was power. He
glared at me, cursing to his shipmates. They
were already on top of me, about to strike a kill.
He laughed at me and shouted to them, “Lay off hands! By some magick the boy must live. “ And so it was. I
was pulled to my feet, a sword thrust into my hand and I became a son to the
man who had become the vehemence of my family.
I
became the slave boy who washed the decks and who clanged swords with the
others. Learned a trade that my
own father would have taught me. Longtooth
was an angry man, he trusted not even the closest men at his side.
He let none hear what his mind hid.
I was often shoved this way or that to understand that this man had
demons inside him that came out during his battle fury.
But in all that time, he took me close and when danger threatened I was
there learning to be his closest comrade.
I watched the smiths as they hammered the broken armor and I took his
sword to be repaired, his axes sharpened, his knives cleaned.
Fire consumed those moments of forgery.
In the eyes of my tormentor I saw the bloody battles of the race that
wanted to overrun my homelands. I
was at first fed little dragged far, thrusted back and forth in the scurrage
of their trap. I felt deaf and
spoke little, their tongues were strange to me but I could speak it.
I felt the whispers now all around me, the looks of the men when I came
to touch the weapons of the furies. It
was dangerous for them, they saw me as a captive whom the man named Longtooth
did not destroy and would bring weakness to their band of power.
I walked with them - behind them often, as they overcame that small
place with the hills so near the water. Slaughtered
those who did not cooperate, and visiting the port where my clan flew from to
the sea with their swords. The
hoards sent for more of their kind to leave in their absence while we waited
and formed a new attack.
I
rode the waves with them, learning all the time my own hate for the family who
now sheltered me. I fought back,
and became a ward of magick in the arms of torment.
Longtooth often spoke of me in reverence, said that I was a son to him
like those he had at home, yet I was more like a magical tool being used as
leverage for his killings. I felt
little like a son; in so much as he protected me from the hands of his men
like the shield he bore yet treated me with the blows upon it that could
always be mended as long as it held the magic.
I knew his wives would bear a strong line of people for the new lands
under his control, because they must for this man.
He watched me handle the sacred objects of destruction and the tools
that became my trade as a smith of fire.
Forging the ground for all his assaults on land and over sea.
It became a merciless struggle knowing and watching these weapons of my
hands draw blood upon the people in the raids.
Though the power did not yet lie on my hands, I felt as if there would
come a time when I must change again into a man of my own will. I felt knowledge piercing the man Longtooth who took me from
the sea’s arms and to the life of an outlander.
Long
days we rode across lands, soon years seem to pass under my belt.
I was like any other, speaking with the accent of the tribe.
But one thing kept me apart. My
dreams often came at times of warning, tell me to join or leave the battles or
the fleet to move on before a larger party was able to join our ranks and put
down the quest Longtooth was working for.
That alone made me the sacred member and proof beyond reason that I was
the key to the future of his quest. I
grew up in those years, my heart mean and silent from the work.
Life seemed a fickle thing on the seas and I remembered the moments of
beginning as an innocent youth. I
did not speak often and I felt the lash of that from the men around me.
I asked only what I needed to know and no more, but it was enough.
Very soon I was polishing the shield that weighted into my hands. The princess shield worked its magick into me.
There were only two people now who could bear that magick without
falling. Its very metalwork
something divine, with intricate knots of a hound chasing a hare.
It was fine gold and bronze among the leather backing.
Its appearance deceiving as a simple shield of one among the ranks of
any other, and that was the biggest secret.
When I held it I felt the strength poor into my limbs, but also a
dangerous sureness of mind with it. I
would hold it and sing a song from my land, a song of the smiths and polish
it. It liked my kindness and so
the shield keeper I became. Were
any outside of the group to understand the shields power over them, they would
surely have made it the target and not the man behind it.
I searched for names of myself other than this, names as a warrior as a
person but those memories were washed away in those terrifying moments the sea
took me. There was the song I
remembered and vague faces swimming in the darkness of night and then there
was the call of the sand on the beach of my homeland. I searched for truth among the memories all and the roles
that were being played out within the hoarding dragons feasting on the lands
others had made prosperous. Boy
was all I was called. No
ceremony, no promise, only the hard love that I earned with the sweat rolling
off my back.
Then
surely as I came into their presence it was lifted from me with a great
choice. I had a dream of the wild hunt, a rabbit running
through the glen with a hawk above and a wolf behind.
Into the brambles ran the rabbit and into the flashing sunlight, heart
pounding with every stride that lengthened the stride of the wolf; zigzagging
and cornering to throw more time in the chase. Waking from the dream it became clear that something
would happen very soon to change the course of my bearing. Then as winter threatened and we met with a former ally, upon
the lands that were raided once before lay the barrier to all Longtooth had
ever wanted. From his own village
came a man large of stature laying in wait for him.
Clashing upon the infamous grounds where blood had been spilt, he
challenged Longtooth in battle. My
master danced on the field like a gypsy whirling and spinning away from the
heavy arms of his challenger. He
thrust his broadsword into his chest with an evil grin. His smile broadened as his fury mounted with every move for
the blood that flowed through in his challenger’s veins. It sang for war.
In
my head I could hear this song, and it pounded loudly in my ears.
I could not drown out the gift echoing the violence reaping upon the
fields in my sight. I hear this
song when my weapons sing. I
heard it in the man on the field who lusted for the battle and held the magic
of the moment. It came as a flood…
Low
begotten war,
For
gold is the object of my weapons of war,
And
the blood spilling feeds the powers of war,
Mighty
thunder growing in the eyes of the wolf,
Ravens
cawing in their thirst,
Smelling
the land over for the winds of war,
Powers
singing war, war, war.
I
could not understand this song, as I lay sleeping in a tavern many miles away.
I woke from the dreams that had tormented me all night.
I felt the powers building and I ran to meet the men across the fields.
I ran like the rabbit zigzagging and jumping over the obstacles, I flew
like the hawk watching. I called
to my side the mighty ravens thirsting over the powers.
I heard the song of metal of the shield beginning.
My tears cleaving to my hot red cheeks, surely death would come to the
challenger but what more than that I could not guess. I crested a hill of speckled white; winter’s snow had
already touched the field that lay before me.
My eyes falling to the swords flashing, the ravens cackling with
they’re tongues clicking. I
squinted and looked closely for Longtooth.
Spying the tell tale sign of his moves I began to tumble down the hill
as fast as I could, drawing my sword to cut down any who would bar me from
reaching him. As I neared the
scene, I saw the mighty thrust into the belly of the man in my vision.
He uttered in the heavy tongue of his land and brought his heavy
stature into one swift move. I
heard the shield cry and I fumbled. My
vision blurred as Longtooth’s enemy brought up his mighty axe as he plunged
with all his remaining strength into the shield dying with the heave.
The shield tore in two, cracked and broken.
I felt a deadly silence, the song stopped.
Men left standing looked to Longtooth.
His eyes glinted with fury, and his rage became deadly.
He screamed a howl to the winds of these mountains cascading in an echo
of haunting shrills. He slashed
again at the head of his fallen enemy. Pulled
the carved head to eyelevel and screamed a curse, I felt the power draining of
the dead man into him. Feeding
the darkness that was building. I
looked at the man with disgust, as I saw from his belly an open gash lay.
He chucked the head far, rolling in a mass of hair and blood.
Then taking up the shield with a broken reverence.
Some piece of him glimmered like a banner on the fires of eternity and
he looked directly at me. The
eyes on this man were still hungry, and hard as he searched for his remaining
weapon. Then he saw me upon the
field teetering yet from the loosened furies invading my sight.
Screaming for my blood if I did not do as he wished he bolstered toward
me. “You have brought this, you
and your magick! Has the Gods
forsaken you, or have your allegiances changed like this man! See what comes of such treachery!” A low growl ushered from his teeth bared at me, and he threw
the pieces of the broken shield at me. “Fix
it with all the strength you have or your head will be on the pole that man
deserves. Fill it with the magick
of your soul or I will do so by your life.
You have until the spring when the ice gates are open.”
Then he stood up and began walking towards the rest of his men still
struggling with the onslaught. His
fury wielding the remaining tendrils of power left from the shield.
When
the snows came again off the false warmth of spring coming, I was deeply
weary. There were no answers
coming, no visions to lead me. I
sat with a mug of ale as my company in the shadows of a smoke-filled room and
hushed stories of the new comers. When
a thump came on my table I looked up to see a man staring at me.
Had I not known better I thought I had known him somewhere before.
He looked at me with interest, even though I was shrouded by shadows.
He looked into my eyes with the keen interest of the hawk circling. I felt as if I was being hunted by the powers now.
It was a cruel game to play; sent by the mysteries of the beyond, and
also dangerous game to play. The
man began speaking, “Long ago my family came this way on a trade route.
There are not so many of us now as you see, but it is not trade we are
after. We are looking for stories
of a boy who was swallowed by the sea. One
would think him dead except the rumors of another man that came to us in the
very waters we were fleeing when the storm hit us.”
I felt the fire growing in my heart, trying to shake it with an
impossibility of what I was mounting at the back of my mind.
Somehow it seemed to reveal that the answers I had been asking for and
had lain frozen by the winter were melting.
I wanted to speak but didn’t know what to do, I looked for the door.
Six paces would take me away from it, that is all, six paces.
Yet I remained frozen somehow captured to the story.
“I am not looking for the danger of meeting the man Longtooth face to
face only that he give me back my blood.
He is of our clan, I believe, and he has made a name for himself as a
man although he carries none.” I
thought before answering this ridiculous assumption. “What do you think I know of any man? Even the one you ask of.”
He looked at me with indifference somehow not so sure any longer.
I was cold to this person; the winter walks entering my heart.
He sipped his ale and waved over a barmaid.
“Bring me and this man another, as well as some food.”
I eyed him; he wasn’t so easily pushed away. We sat in silence until the food came and he tossed some
coins at the woman serving us. For
a time we just ate and mused at our own thoughts sizing each other up.
Then he spoke again content with what he had to say, “You look a lot
like someone I once knew. Maybe that’s why I asked you.
Not only that,” he began to bite his lip testing his words slowly,
“this is the last known place of the man we are looking for.
I was told he frequents this area.
Not many people around here who look so much like our clan you know.”
Then with some hope he said what he had been meaning to since he came
to the table, “I believe you are him.”
Damn those bold words! I
got up and walked out the door, it was time to leave I could not let the hawk
have me either.
I
let the cold winter billow around me as I went towards the crone’s cabin far
into the hills. I needed her to
tell me the truth, what she saw. I
had never asked for her to tell me what she saw for I had my own gifts, I only
asked for her teachings. Now
I needed her true talent, now I had felt the need as some veil had drawn
itself across my mind so that I could not penetrate the walls blocking my
sight. As I walked I felt
shadowed by the conversation and by the men who were in the inn.
I stopped and looked at one directly and said, “Do not follow me,
otherwise it is your throat I will slit.”
They froze in their footsteps, not realizing I had sensed them.
I was serious and somehow I was thrown again to the fates dancing.
Something would not let me escape so easily, and it was then that I
felt the first stirrings. I heard a whisper from the concealed pieces of the wood,
leather, and metal. They spoke in
a little riddle of old languages,
The
hunt calls from the greenwood hart of Seven Tines,
The
prize is hidden in the center of the beasts fire,
By
the inferno circles the eagle of empowering…
I
listened for the trailing voice to continue to lead me to the place of
healing. I locked the words into
my soul with understanding that this was the way to make the shield strong
again; to bring about its rebirth. I
collapsed with that knowledge into the snows crying for the forgotten past.
I was sick and weary of all of it and the hunt meant sacrificing both
worlds for saving the pieces that were left of my soul.
The men who followed me wanted to rush to me, wanted to be my family
again. I was no longer the weird
child that left of the protective shores of my mother, but the man my father
died trying to save. I let them
circle me with fear and love, as they watched my memories surge forward like a
marching army. I drew up my knees
and put my head to them. Then a
man came through the woods and snow. He
walked with many years under him, I had not seen him in the inn but he must
have just come for surely it would take him longer to reach it.
He came to me and put his hand on my shoulder saying only the word,
“son.” It wasn’t with
the stern commanding love that Longtooth had given me as a companion but
something more innocent, more laden with the earliest forgings of a life
together. I got up and embraced
my father, as I knew him from hidden memories now revealed.
I felt his muscles and tears combining in the strength that led him
here dissipating. It was a long
search for a dead son and a dead father.
My family cautiously approaching with open gestures to do the same, so
that we were again a clan united through the Powers that had separated us.
Over
the course of the remaining winter my father had traveled back home.
His health was ailing and my brothers had to see to the clan with my
uncles. The raids had taken many
of the people and the remaining warriors were hard to spare.
I had never been allowed to visit the shores of my home, but Longtooth
had been there. He had known all
along where I came from, and still treated me like a boy without ties to a
world beyond war and magick. I
was a spoil like the women fleeing their madness.
I was the rabbit being chased in a game, but I had the power to break
it and he alone knew it when he took me in.
I knew it then too. The
roles in the chase had changed surely as the knots on the shield. As long cold nights pressed into warmer days, the ice began
thawing. My uncles had planned an
attack on Longtooth. They wanted
me to take part in it, but I refused. They
could not understand why, but asked me over and over again to help them for I
had been one of them. Any
weakness he had, I would know. I
then left on the eve of the full moon before the Spring Equinox. The shield had given me answers and permission to do what I
must. I came to the crone’s
grove of trees. Their branches
dipping in the silent revelry of the task I had.
I came into the middle of the trees led by a large buck, the guardian
appearing on the trail before the house of the clicking raven. I built a large bonfire and watched it simmer into
coals as I sang every song I had ever heard whispered from the old woman.
I stripped myself of any clothes and began to dance the around the
fire, calling into me the spirit of the eagle as I circled the ground.
When the clouds of night parted and the stars appeared I summoned the
Powers. Of the Earth, Wind, Fire,
Water, as that above and below they came, watching outside my ring with the
tree spirits. It seemed as if all
were listening, as I began the tale you are hearing.
I let it all go, and then finally I sang the shields riddle.
And took the shield up facing each direction and Power as called.
I sang,
By
the ethereal lights of the north –
Mother
bring me strength,
By
the warm summer storms of the south –
Mother
bring me strength,
By
the rising sun chasing the darkness in the east –
Mother
bring me strength,
By
the moon mother’s journey to the west,
Mother
bring me strength,
See
to me Powers above and below –
Calling
to myself healing the shield of the hunters’ mysteries,
Binding
magick of the firelight hammers Brigit’s forge –
To
the blood of the one who’s calling it came.
Then
as the pieces were set, I let the blood of my veins open to the shields
cracked halves. One drop fell and I heard the riddle flow into my mind.
And in the singing, came the still the hymns of the anvil and
metalworkers. It would never be
the same, it would be my own now and no longer would the power of the shield
be separated from me. Longtooth
no longer held the magick of the beautiful princess’ grace.
The story no longer the same, and I walked home four days later holding
it as a whole again. No longer hidden the strange song of his bearing, it had
changed the forging mixing my blood with that of the wolf’s. And I walked into the House of the Griffin to see my uncle
there with his warriors ready. He
said only one thing to me, “Longtooth is coming.”
The
men prepared that night for the reclaiming of the shield I so strangely bore
now on my return. They watched me
with a prickle of fear that whispered like ghosts on their skin.
But in dawn light while I slept they walked out to the very same
battlefield that had cleaved the shield and my bond in two.
I came with them and I whispered to my uncle distantly as I watched,
the secrets that would let him near enough to capture him.
Longtooth came to the inn, but found no one.
I had left him one thing to tell him I been there and was waiting; a
small little carved rabbit that he tucked into his pocket.
He walked to the hills that hid everyone laying in wait.
I came up behind him. He
must have heard me although I made no large sounds.
He whispered, “Where are we going?”
He was hot to get the shield for he sensed the danger.
“I know your people are here, why not give me my shield?
Surely you must have it, and made it whole again so that we can be
together as family again. I
slipped away before he turned to look at me.
I let the shield dip and flash as he let his anger slip and he pounded
after me. I led him into the
trap. My father’s people
overtook him with desperate cries for his shield to me.
I felt guilty, I had loved him and I had led him to this.
Why not let him live and find his own fate in another land played on my
thoughts. But the shield had its
ways in me, it was part of me and as long as I had it he would come for me and
use me as his weapon. I was my
own man and fate had seen to what must be done.
My people were safe from him but not the hoards that came onto our
fertile lands; there would be another and another all bearing this shield if I
had let it slip back into his blood. All
with the power to consume my homeland because I had given it my soul and the
knowledge there in of my blood. I
came to him and let the ocean take him in my place.
The clan taking the hoards from the fields that were once bloodied a
year before. Longtooth turned to
rally as my uncle once wounded by the shield and Longtooth’s hunger, slipped
behind him and slit his gurgling throat.
His dead glare came to me and I wept.
I wept for that man as I still sometimes do.
And then I walked on past the field towards the ocean.
I journeyed for a while, but soon came back home. My father had died and it was my place now. I watched over the seas that carried the men to me, I had the shield gleaming with its secrets bound neatly again in strength. It was never the same land I remembered as a child who played, the innocence had been taken on that first voyage in stormy seas. And now I wait for the time when the shield’s song is to be remembered again. Where it lies forgotten with those old memories that were swallowed by the sea, once belonging to a man’s name swallowed by the hunt.
Celtic Hunt
Searching
for the names,
The
truths,
The
roles.
The
hunt in itself was the dream and the desire to understand it,
Dreams
of being on a hunt in the wild and looking for that one prize,
They
are my mysteries.
I
live deeply in my dreams and I hunt them,
They
are my precious flowers to connectivity,
And
they are real which manifests into my life
I
look for the man named Longtooth.
Yet
was never achieved,
His
prize is the shield in my keeping,
The
shield represents my own walls and barriers on the struggle.
There
is a rabbit and a hound,
Which
is which? Who is who?
The
wolf desires the shield,
It
hungers for it in his warring soul,
Because
I claimed it,
When
it was broken,
I
had the magick to fix it.
And
in turn, his power was broken
As
he knew when his magick was taken,
It
was the end.
The
strong Viking Longtooth,
To
the Scottish born one,
From
the seas with deep magick,
It
is the dream.
He
died in the fount of my knowledge,
For
I found reunion with my ancestors,
And
gave the man that had loved me over to them.
It
is the past the serves the memory so deeply.
The
fresh snows reminds of the last moments I knew his eyes,
I
was reborn with the knowledge of the shield in hand.
A
princess of the wind gave it to him,
I
have not seen its equal fall into time.
He
was given it in allegiances to his raiding ways.
And
from a princess of beauty came the savage haze.
But
a great axe split that shield like lightening to oak,
And
during the quite of winter he gave it to me to mend with fires stoked.
With
the deepest trust I heard the thunder roll in threat.
I
was the only one, who had carried with them the power of the magick forge,
I
met my family at an inn as he went to his new lands and wives,
To
rest and build his new communities,
Brought
out of the wars he rung upon the shores of my clan.
It
was a hard love from him,
But
the shield meant me to fill his place in kind with the bonds of broken ties,
And
by his side be the warrior to his equal,
The
shield’s power was halved and his life dangled on that thread of enchantment.
Unwillingly
in the last snows of Eoster my clan overtook his,
And
by giving me the shield I wielded his power over him,
For
I was the only one who could hold it,
And
heal the shield I did,
It
was not easy for me but I did it regardless,
He
never saw it again,
And
it walked with me into my clan,
And
I never saw him again.
Only
on his death did he understand that I was that face,
I
was death he harbored in the midst of protection.
The
ravens circled on the field of slaughter,
Hunters
chasing the dog with their voices,
And
rabbits fleeing from the cunning dog’s senses,
Bear
now the eagle on high and witness it from the sky,
As
the chase continues the prey become the hunted.
Now
as I wake to the daughter of the shield,
I
see the reclaiming of the story and tell it round,
Looking
for the man whose call resounds,
I
have heard people utter familiar it sounds,
The
name and the legend -
The
likeness rests far beyond in the veil,
But
I hear it like the war drums
Because
the story is my own pieces of soul,
Floating
on the winds of memory’s attachment.
And
now when the wind stirs and the calling comes,
I
tell the story of the hunt to the faces of future warriors in blood,
With
the circling raven at my back clicking the calls of the crone,
And
the dog stirring for the chase of the bone,
The
wolf still hungers on its return for the rabbit’s home
And
though the feast is not enough,
The
shield is spiraling on and on in longevity,
For the dream is waking to be retold
And serve the shield I must as the princess of the wind,
Born on high to see all the intricate loops the chase has taken,
So that someday understanding will rekindle,
And the mind will know the truth of the story of old,
The ancestors will smile and sing the story with me,
For in their blood runs the hare and the hound,
Chasing ever in circles around,
For the hunt is never ended in the minds of humankind,
We must go on and bear what we have found,
Sing now the praise of the warriors glory,
Sing low the death of one for the other,
The mystery weaves it magick in the still of the beating heart,
For when the shield calls its name it will be won,
And the new bearer will reveal his cause,
Just and might with the protection of the shield bearing light,
Call on me now and witness the spectacle,
For inner strength has persevered over the simple hatred fueled by fear,
Time draws its own margins of the chase,
The boundaries have become fences and through them leapt time's hand,
The lines emerge to form a new bearer who will stand,
And call the hunt they must for in it runs the blood,
Offering a voice of magick to a field of men,
Awe gazed youths can now speak truths,
And the knowledge that has been gained will go on,
For now calls the shield to the field,
Where
battles are lost and won.
