Folktales

This is excerpt three of a novel in progress, The Book of Invasions, inspired by Lebor Gabála Érenn. You can find part one here: “The Sea.”

Warning: The following depicts bodily harm.

The Gathering was special. For three nights at the start of the cold season, my people would meet in the center of our huts around a pyre. The boys of our village worked all day to build the wooden monument. The fire was meant to last the night and drive away bad dreams, allowing us to better celebrate our summer haul and a moment of rest for the coming season’s work. It was a celebration of our journey into the light — into freedom.

I watched in the fading daylight as boys my age stacked wood across wood in the patterns of stories. The story that night was our escape from Nemed the Tyrant. It was a favorite of the boy’s to tell, full of battle and pride. This was the story reserved for the last night of celebration. We were once Nemedians but the king was cruel and lashed us to the plow or forced us into labor camps. But we escaped. Found ourselves. Found the sea.

Once the wood was gathered, the boys built the shame of our people around the base of the pyre. They carved hunched little men with bundles on their backs and monstrous-looking men towering over them, pointing at yet more soil to be moved. While they were not done with this first part when I approached, I knew how the story went. We would break our bonds, rescue our women, and make for the north of the world.

Eventually, my boyhood companions would lay out the spiraling trail that wrapped around the pyre all the way to the top, and each boy would carve a figure of himself, free, and place his effigy as high up on that spiral as he could reach.

“You never join in.” A teasing voice lilted over my shoulder. My mother.

“I’m too big for that nonsense, Mater,” I replied. Wrinkling my nose, I continued, “Those stories aren’t scary, anyway.”

I turned to look at her, but she was already some distance away, her form swaying under the weight of the platter she carried.

I knew wherever my mother wandered, my father was nearby, tethered to her smile. And I found him near Bacor and Uncle Partholón. They sat perched in the place of honor. A sacred plank carved with our stories for the occasion. The women stained the carved monsters and the armor of the heroic figures with bright plant dyes each year in preparation for the Gathering. My uncle sat above them on a fresh pile of animal furs. My father and Bacor flanked him, sitting on stumps.

This year these men looked far older to me, with the grey stripping their temples and beards. They represented the wisdom of our people, and they sat boyishly waiting at the foot of the pyre for the festivities to begin.

I walked to my father and put a hand on his shoulder.

“There’s my boy. Bacor keeping you busy? Even today?” He looked around the back of my uncle’s head at Bacor.

“I’ve no need of him today,” Bacor said begrudgingly.

My father turned his unblinking eyes back to me.

“What were you up to?” He asked flatly.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, but this question caught me off guard. He noted my hesitation and looked me over.

“The water.” His exasperation was palpable as he eyed the dampness still clinging to my hair.

Before I could defend myself, Bacor coughed.

“Aye. Forgot about that,” he said. “I might have sent him to fetch me a thing or two.” Looking my father in the eye he continued, “Apologies, Merbán.”

My father relaxed. There were few my father trusted more than Bacor. But I was shaken Bacor would lie for me. I had gone to the water again.

Returning to the conversation I interrupted, Uncle Partholón made wide sweeping gestures toward the women at the cooking hearths and the children set to their chores.

“We will have the greatest celebration tonight, heh, Merbán?” he said.

My father’s eye followed the path of Uncle’s hand until his eyes met my mother’s. The pull of her smile was private between them, and my father was distracted.

Uncle noticed, saying nothing. He shook his head with pity for my father. Bacor, if he noticed, remained expressionless.

I was watching my father watching my mother when the first cries went out. Mother’s face grew grave. She waved women toward water vats and called for dry cloth.

I turned toward what disturbed her. There was a group returning, a body slung between two men. A boy. Just a bit older than me.

I didn’t know him. He was one of the more athletic among us and developed tracking skills early with help from his older brothers. It wasn’t his first season of hunting, either. It was hard to imagine much in the surrounding lands that could fell one of our tested hunters. But he hung, lifeless, between his brothers.

His mother’s voice was sharp against the murmurs. She ran to him from the hearth, pursued by my own mother and many other women. The hunter’s body was met with a flood of care in the form of bandages and poultices. Once he lay near a kitchen hearth, a younger sister cradled his head in her lap. The mothers shouted orders, and the men stepped aside to make room for their ministrations.

The boy’s mother stripped away his boots, his coat. Everything was soaked with water and blood. She marveled a moment at the gash through his tunic and hastily ripped that away too.

“Oh, Feda!” she called to my mother, who brought a bowl of boiled water and set to work shredding cloth for bandages.

“Who did this!” Partholón bellowed to the hunting party as they stood watch over their brother.

No answer came.

Frustrated at their mum, he wheeled on the mothers, “What made these wounds?”

The boy’s mother, needle in hand, replied, “Something long and serrated and sharp. The wounds are jagged.” She paused a moment to sob, then turned a hard look on my uncle. “Pray I do not miss any nicks. He will bleed out in my hands.”

She turned to her work, pulling another young woman with a basin closer.

After we retreated back to the pyre, my mother left her place by the hunter’s side and approached my uncle.

“We shouldn’t light the fire tonight, Partholón. Don’t draw whatever this creature was here.” Her voice was pleading, but her face remained stony.

I had seen my father wilt under that expression, but I was shocked to see my uncle wither for only a moment before he matched her glare.

“We will light it, Feda. The tale must be told.” His spine straightened, and he loomed over her. My mother didn’t budge. A collective breath was held. None moved until my mother glanced at the boy and his mother at her stitching.

“Then tell it. We women will pray,” was all Mater said before returning to the boy’s side and setting to sewing.