“What does any of this have to do with the Deer Riders?” asked the youngest clearly growing impatient even with his grandfather’s plunge into darkness.

“Oh that’s fine. Don’t you care what happened to me?”

The eldest coughed, “well grandfather, it seems you survived.”

“Well enough, but let me ask you.  What does this tent have to do with me?”

All three boys looked confused, still, the youngest was bold enough to venture an opinion, “It’s where you live?”

“True, and couldn’t you learn something about me by where I live?”

” I guess. . .”

“Well, you are learning about the Deer Riders.  Show some respect.”

“I fell into darkness, but I woke in a golden glowing cloud, in flames, on coals of fire, but I was not burned.  The central hearth, where I sat, lit the hall with dancing gold, but it seemed the inhabitants were as bright.  They whirled and leaped to the sound of pipe and drum, their faces were strange to me, their clothes, stranger, full of embroidery and darting, piping and checking and. . . Well I’d never seen the like.

There were gilded partitions and polished copper shields behind oil lamp sconces.  The stonework even seemed to glow from the fires and too, perhaps, from the folk.  I was too startled by it all to move out of the flames.  I sat there like one of the logs that burned underneath me until I realized that there was a girl staring at me and laughing.

That I had not yet died screaming in flames had made me sure that I dreamed if not sure of anything else.  Now I wondered, for here was someone in my vision who saw me.  I moved toward her and she motioned to me as she rose and walked back into a darkened passageway.  I glanced at the bright folk around me in their colors and embroidery.  Now I saw tables laden with a feast and many more folk sitting in compartments watching the dancers and making merry. 

The watchers looked through me, the dancers whirled around and even through me it seemed, and there in the shadows a little girl still laughed at me.  I noticed her again and followed her. “You can see me. . .”

She spoke, but I couldn’t understand her words.  She cocked her head and smiled brightly.  She laughed again as I shook my head.  She motioned to herself, “Jella” she said and then motioned to me.  I told her my name and she spoke it so strangely that I laughed too.  She motioned me to follow and went deeper into the shadows.

She pulled a loose stone from the wall.  It was marked with a carving of a spiral and a creature that I thought might be an otter.  She pulled a little lamp and a bottle of oil from the niche.  She smiled and waited for my full attention. Then she showed me that there was a wick in the bottom of the lamp, she drew it out and set it as it should be to function, looking again for my understanding.

I nodded, “I know what a lamp is.”  She smiled and chuckled, shrugging she unstopped the bottle, filled the lamp, and taking the wick out of its holder she dunked it in the oil and then placed it back in its correct position.  She wiped away the excess oil, closed off the oil reservoir, and then looked at me again.  She showed me a necklace she had around her neck.  It was exotic and decorative, but she took it off and showed me that the pendant held a flint and steel.  She prepared some tinder fluff and placed it where it could catch the wick afire but not the oil reservoir.  A few practiced strikes and the lamp glowed to life.

She set the little lamp on a flat stone that protruded above the hidden niche and reaching in the nook drew out another lamp and oil bottle.  She showed me these and then placed them and the flint and steel necklace back in the niche and stopped it all up with the carved stone.

She watched me until she knew she had my attention and my eyes were locked with hers.  “You will need these when next you come,” I heard her say in my head though my ears heard something else.  This is what I took from what she said though her words did not say that, being gibberish to me. 

She took up her lamp and led me down the narrow sloping passage, “Souterrain,” she said.  She laughed again to see my confusion.  There was a great booming behind us.  She held the lamp between us and her eyes held mine, “They are closing the outer doors for Samhain.  Feel the breeze?”

And so I did or thought I did.  I saw the breeze catch her fine golden hair and set it aflutter around her face.  A breeze was coming from the darkness ahead, cool and rich with strange scents.  The passage was narrow with stores crowding our way both left and right.  We walked a long way it seemed to me.  I recall her humming a song as we went, we descended a long slope and then again I felt that our way turned again upward, particularly toward the end.

I say end and there was one.  Steeper and steeper our way bent.  Then the light of the small lamp struck a wall.  On closer inspection, the layers of the stone wall were set back as they rose, a steep stairway leading to a starry sky. 

I looked once more at the girl.  Her eyes looked golden in the lamp’s flame light and her smile sparkled.  I thought to myself how lovely she was and how strange.  “This will be your way Dream-walker. . .” she said and I knew without knowing her words. “. . .next time you come.  The stars will lead you home.” At that moment the lamp guttered out and I was left in darkness, or very nearly so.  From above, starlight shone and I followed it up and out.

This continues:  Concerning the Deer Riders from the second installment, Deer Riders Continued

It was dim when I woke,  the deep shade of a forest, not of night.  I could see, so, since it was my job to search and seek, that is what I did.  I walked along the path in the dimness, not really knowing what time of day it might be or what direction I was going.

I believed that the water and the valley I had seen was on my left, but I knew little more.  I hoped to come out to where I could see the sky, but I walked longer and then twice longer than I thought I should have.

I was frustrated.  I felt sure I had not missed a turning, but it seemed that I had.  I remembered walking past the steps rising out of the stream-bed and went back, now looking to my right where I expected to see the open vale.

This turning was more secret, but there it was, over grown and laid so that it could easily be missed by someone who didn’t know the way.

Then too, it was overgrown and I had to pick my way through invading brambles.  Slowly and painfully I made my way until fighting through a particularly thick stand of ropey, spine studded, whips I stepped out into a riot of flowers.

I wondered why I had not smelled them, but one moment there was only green leaves and pain, then the next I was beneath the sun, it was past mid-day, and surrounded by wild flowers of so many kinds that I could not ever remember seeing their like.

I looked back along my way and saw only a green wall of bramble-thorn.  I had a queasy feeling, I feared a magic other than that of growing things, but soon enough I found where I had come.  I tore at the brambles and pulled them aside to mark my way.  I looked around a little to get my bearings so that I could find this path again.

The green wall ran off, bending away each way.  Whereas I had come out into flowers, one way seemed blocked, or rather filled in with a riot of big leaves and huge yellow flowers. The other way was walled off with smaller trees and the brambles had made inroads, out from the green wall was a tall grass like plant that was above my head.

I tore out a few of these big stocks with what seemed to be grain pods on the sides instead of at the top like the oats and wheat with which I was familiar.  I placed my uprooted stocks against and holding open my path.  I marked the smaller trees and my hole into the bramble. 

I guessed the water was through the tall stocks and having marked well my exit in my mind I began to make my way through the tall grass.

In truth the going was easy.  So big were these things that they seemed to dominate looked at in depth, but they were not solid like a field of grain.  The big leafy, yellow flowered plants grew around and even climbed upon the stalks and everywhere there were flowers.  There were other plants I knew, rooting plants, and there were pod plants that climbed the big stalks like the yellow flower plants.

All chaos and randomness, but it dawned on me that most or all of these plants might well be good for food.  I looked around me and could see nothing, but the big stalks and slight sign of my passing behind me.  It seemed I was lost in some mad man’s garden.  Not many steps later the the tasseled stalks thinned and I could see ahead to a stacked stone wall.

Beyond the wall was turf, some of the plants I had seen were growing, widely dispersed, in what I guessed were pats of old manure.  And beyond that, cat-tails and then the water.  Now I could see the fall down a rocky tumble of the stream I had navigated.  At the top of the cascade was the grill-work, the first strangeness, I had recognized as such.

I looked along the bank, following the line of cat-tails to where. . .

. . . I gasped, there across a section of lake was the hill I had seen in my dream, my dream flight, my seeing.  I remembered myself, I was in the midst of some one’s place, I knew not who or whether they would want a visitor.  I quickly slipped over the stone fence.

Of course they did not want visitors.  I lay next to the wall thinking hard on my next move.  I had found the watch place above the stream, the cunning back cut trails, the circling, bramble girdled, wood all of these spoke of secrecy, not welcome.  But I had wandered far, I had stumbled around and met no resistance save deception, and the watch place, well that was moldering in long abandoned disuse.

I had given myself a shock.  But this place seemed to me, abandoned, and yet a wonder that needed exploration.  I determined to press on, but more carefully.  If there were jealous defenders, I would try not to arouse them.

I moved back into the mixed planting where I could see the wall but not much else.  Moving along it brought me through into places that seemed even less cultivated and more wild. I found another stand of trees like the ones I had seen at a distance.  These were heavy with fruit, but beneath them there were wasted fruits and a whole forest of seedlings springing from the fallen waste.

Just beyond this the water widened still more, coming right to my wall with no margin, and beyond it was the large central mound.  Right near to me was a smaller mound.  I determined to see if I could find my way into it.  I was nervous being so exposed, but passing around the bulk of the thing I found a stone lined cut with intricately decorated beams bracing them.  Looking closer I saw that the stone wall had carvings as well, here and there, but the wood was completely covered.

The cut was stopped at the back with more carved wood and more dressed stone.  There seemed to be two great doors positioned in the middle of the space, but in one of them was a much smaller portal and this one was ajar, whether the wall was just a wall or in truth a huge gateway, I could not tell.

I stepped into the cool interior, it was dark and I could not see anything but a little of the stone floor lit by the opened door.  The stone was very well dressed, tightly fit, there seemed to be gouge marks that ran from stone to stone as if they had been scoured by the same heavy hand.

Leaving the entrance I examined the walls.  The drawings there were marvelously fascinating.  There were pictographs of things I could make out, salmon, boar, deer, and there was much more that I could not imagine what they might be.  These carvings, all together on the rocks and carved into the heavy beams, meant nothing to me, I could make no sense of any of it, and finally gave it up.

I looked around the small hollow from my vantage at the front of the cut.  Here and their were sections dominated by trees bearing fruit.  The rest seemed strangely random.  Not far from me was the hill.  I gazed about me for signs of habitation I had missed, but finding none I walked toward the hill that I felt must be central to explaining this strange place.

I came on a hedge of sorts, low lying and dense.  I inspected it for thorns and finding none, I pushed through it.  Again I was presented with a variety of plants that looked like food plants I had gathered myself.  Seeing what looked like a sweet root plant, if perhaps a bit larger than the wild ones I knew and loved, I pulled it from the ground and found what I’d expected.  It tasted sweet and earthy and I promised myself I would keep my eyes open for more.

I glanced over at the hedge and was surprised to see clusters of mushrooms at its base, shaded by the hedge.  They looked good to eat, but I left them alone.  Near at hand was a big plant with small white flowers like the eating tuber plants we found when I was younger.  Lately they had not been seen and I confess I missed the lumpy things.  I grabbed hold of the bushy plant and heaved.  I fell, showering myself with dirt, but when I had recovered I examined the plant I had uprooted.  Around the base of it were many small red tubers.  I dug around in the disturbed earth where I’d uprooted the plant and found more and larger tubers. 

If only I had some wild onion, I thought, and there, not many steps away, were spikes of green just like what I sought.  Though young and small they were indeed what I’d hoped to find.  I stowed all the delicacies I found and started thinking about fire and a way to start one.

The day was fading fast in the tree ringed hollow so I made a dash for the top of the hill to have a look before all the light was gone.  On top of  that grassy knoll was a low circle of stones.  I looked around and could only marvel that such plenty seemed abandoned.  I remembered my need for firewood.  The orchard with the spoiled fruit might have something but I crossed the stone circle to see if there might be something even closer that would provide the needed wood for my feast.  I saw how a little stream bent around the hill and where it widened out into another little pond.

I stepped again into the middle to look once more for fallen wood.  I felt the ground give a little.  Sometimes one can find a burrow of coneys in that way and a whole group will erupt from their ruined home.  I stomped down a bit harder, with the intent to cave in what had given but slightly.  I heard a crunching and a dry snap and felt myself falling.  I desperately tried to spread myself to catch at the edge of the cave in I realized I had caused, but it seemed to me that the whole of the top of the hill, at least as far as I could reach, was falling into darkness.  There was a roaring as of a great wind and then I knew nothing for some time.

I guess this isn’t the conclusion yet.  Stay tuned for the Deer Riders, the Conclusion, part 2.

This continues a story titled:  The Deer Riders

“The first time I watched outside myself I put down to a dream, but it was not the last time. Always I saw true, so I think now these are no dreams, but true seeing though it be without eyes.”

The boys looked solumnly attentive, this was an admission of a fact that they knew, that their grandfather was a seer, that he knew things, had seen things that only a seer could have beheld. “What did you do Grandfather?”

“In fact, when I looked down on the wooded vale from the stone knob that morning, I did not see the glitter of water. This reassured me somewhat that I had dreamed, not flown out of my body. Still, there was a hump, a rounded hill, in what appeared to be clear land within the circling wood and though I could not see them, I knew the wood was surrounded by brambles.

I remembered the little stream I’d stumbled into in the dark. Now, if I had known that my dream was true I would have feared to go, but because it seemed a little different my curiosity was fired, not my caution. The stream seemed a likely approach so I decided to see if I could explore the vale and look for food or other material that we could use.

The stream gathered small rivulets as it went and the stream bed sunk into a bit of a gorge. I followed it down the ridge and into and then under the bramble-wood.

The little gorge became a tunnel, roofed over with bramble vines. I was becoming nervous because everything seemed so un-natural. Still, I went on to see what was around the next corner and the next until having waded a broad silty section I rounded a tight turning and found my way barred by something undoubtedly un-natural, a wooden grill-work.

This was no accidental crossing of roots. The grill was of evenly sized and spaced timbers neatly joined, though old and somewhat rotted at the bottom. I edged close enough to peer into the valley. I could see the sky and sunlight and trees in the distance, but nothing of the grill-work’s makers.

The stone work that held the grill was mortared stone, finely worked and solid.  I strung my bow. If not before there was no doubt now, this place was crafted, not a place of nature at all having been shaped by someone’s hand. I did not know them, nor them me, so it seemed prudent at that moment to retreat.

As I recrossed the pool of silty water, I noticed a branching off the way I had come. It may have been that I had not seen it at all, but I could easily have thought it was just one of many jointing of small rivulets along the way. As I drew closer and faced, as I was, to see into it, I saw it for what it was, a path up out of the gorge. Some of the work, stair and wall, looked like the mounting that held the grill.

What to do? I confess I stood for a long time in the muddy pool staring at that passage. When I began to shiver I was moved to action. I decided to get out of the stream and see if the passage presented emediate danger. It did not, to me it seemed abandoned, clogged with old leaves.

I was uncomfortably wet, there was no place in the stream to take off and dry or even reason to do it. I followed the stairs or the side path up and out. The path through the wood split, one way going toward the valley, the other to an old campsite. It was clearly long abandoned, with a fallen shelter against a dressed stone hearth. It could have served as a lookout watching the gorge approach from above, but nobody had stayed here for a very long time. The wood pile, for there was one, was rotted. There was a spring flowing from a pool well dressed and very clean. I tasted and then with confidence filled my water skins. All was overgrown giving me confidence that I  could rest there and let my things dry.

I slept, and longer than I had intended. It was the dark of night when I woke in pitch blackness beneath the trees. I could feel the hard stone beneath me else I would have feared even more. I was sure my things were dry, but I could not navigate blind. I let sleep claim me once more.

This is the end of the second part of “The Deer Riders”

Intro:

It is madness I say, madness, but I’m going to try writing a small story as a post. I feel like this might not be the best format for it, but it is getting me to put something in electronic format that is only written in pencil in a composition book. Since I have the power to edit these posts I am going to exercise that power when I have a title for this little story.

The Deer Riders

The three boys came screaming across the plain, bare back on horses nearly as wild as they. The old man stood watching their antics, shaking his head. As one they turned toward where he stood before his lonely tent isolated on a little rise. They galloped toward him jostling and shoving each other yelling as they came, “Grandfather!”

“OH HO!” He called to them as they halled up before his camp site and piled off their mounts as if spilled from a cup, but never stumbling or falling, “and what demon is at your heels my lads?”

The tallest boy snorted derisively, “Grandfather,” he began in patronizing tone,”we bring you food for your supper. There’s no demon…” The boy shrugged a large bag off his shoulder and over his head and shoved it toward the old man.

He caught the bag by the strap, “No demon?”  The elder rummaged in the bag and came out with an apple.

“No Grandfather” they laughed.

The old man whistled and around the tent plodded a gaunt old mare. “Here then m’lady, a sweet for the sweet.” He patted the mare and she nuzzled him. He dug a hand back into the bag and came out with another treat. “That’s enough, go on.” The horse turned and wandered off. “So lads, where’s the rest?”

The boys glanced at each other, unsure, but the oldest boy was left to answer, “The rest of what Grandfather?”

“Well Gollen, I’ve one sack from you. Surely it doesn’t take three of you to bring one sack? Where are my other sacks? Did you eat my dinner, sack and all Bres?” The old man tickled the smallest, who though short was surely the roundest. He was rewarded with a squeal of delight. “And you too Markoos. nothing for me? I’ll have to get it out of your belly too.”

The other boy shrieked as his Grandfathers fingers tormented him and he had to fling himself on the ground to escape the tickling. “Stop it.”

“No?” the boys grinning shook their heads, “Just the one bag then?” They nodded in unison. The old man tugged at his beard pondering, “What good are three boys then? What could you possibly want?”

Gollen spoke up, “We thought you might tell us…”

“…About the deer riders,” the younger boys supplied.

“Well, I guess I could tell you what little I know. Bres, here lad, give your old Grandfather a hand.” He handed the bag to the shortest boy and held back the flap for his grandsons as they jostled and shoved to be first through the doorway. “Say, that bag seems heavy enough for four dinners. Might you boys want a bite to eat?” The old man grinned at murmured affirmations. Lately he remembered his youth better than the day before and he remembered being hungry most of it.

They were settled around a little fire, bowls full of stew and thick crusted bread. They were well into their food before they noticed that their grandfather wasn’t eating. Markoos spoke up, “Aren’t you going to eat Grandfather.”

“No no, you go ahead, I already had a bit from my pot.” besides, anymore I need my meat well stewed or I can’t chew it. Say, Gollen, be a good lad and hand me that water skin.” He smiled at the boys quick crisp movements, ah to be young, “Thank you.”

He poured a bit of water in the pot, then taking out his knife cut up bits of what was in the bag and added it, stirring the whole of it, before returning to his seat with a flaming taper. He lighted his pipe and puffed on it contemplatively. “Let’s see. What do I know about the Deer Riders?”

The boys nodded, all eyes on their grandfather. “Well, I’ve seen a lot in my day. When I was born there were the Gael who ruled, and then there was us. But in those days we weren’t the folk of Scythia. We mostly walked instead of riding horse…” The boys all gasped, incredulous. “… but then that was way before we ever met and fought the uglies, before all the Gaels but the horse folk were driven back to the great mountain and we alone lived on the plain, and it was before we ever saw a bramble elf.

“A bramble elf?” all three looked puzzled, but it was Bres who had asked, “what’s that?”

“The wee folk, you know, the deer riders. They live in their faery rings mostly, but it is the same folk that ride the deer too.” The man puffed his pipe and the boys quieted. “We weren’t as brave then, not really. It took facing the foul folk and chasing them off the plains to really be brave, but we were braver than most I’d say. The world was young and we saw something new most every week.”

The Gaelic masters, for so they thought of themselves, kept demanding more and more of the other folks near them. We pitied the Browns and the Blacks, the Yellows and the red skinned folk, but our white skin allowed us freedom and we seized on it to live on the fringe. The Gaels that lived near us were decent enough folks who didn’t act on their prejudices, especially when they were poorly defined without a marked difference on the face of it. Still, back then it was always there.

Now we’re all Scythians, we protect the children of Epona, and we are all equal, but it wasn’t always so, and it wasn’t so when I was your age. The folk at the fringe depended on each other, like we do, that was a big leveler. But  soon enough, when life grew less marginal, when you could count on more than yourself and your neighbor, you began to see that they thought they were better, that their lives and their rights were a bit more important than yours.

It is an ugly feeling to be seen as lesser. My folk always fled from it, moving out into the wilds until the civilization of the Gaels that we left behind caught us. Then we’d move off again.

So you see, it seemed that we were brave, but we wouldn’t stand up to the power of the Gael, the Celts, we ran away. Many of the border Celts who drove us ever outward choose to follow us because they despised the rot at the center of their empire and admired our industry, self sufficiency, our bravery. They followed because they didn’t like what so many of their kind had become, but still they had confidence that if a white-trash wildling could make a living on the fringe then by Cernunnos a Celt could too and do better…” The boys looked confused and a bit restless. The old man took a few puffs on his pipe.

“…but you wanted to know about the deer riders.” The man puffed and watched the boys lean back into the fire light, eyes bright. “I mentioned we used to walk instead of ride, and I also told you that my folk were in the habit of running away from the folk that came behind us. Well it was in my fifteenth year that that the running had to end for us. The far north was a hard place to scratch out a living. But it was in this place that we came upon folk who had done so for generations, the deer riders, the bramble elves, the wee folk.”

Our camp was along a wide river. there had been an amazing run of silvery fish. We had feasted on their meat and even taken the roe from the hens. We had dried the flesh, and we would have meat for a very long time. But the key to our lives was never to rest. The men of the village had banded together to hunt the bear who had gathered for the finned feast, and our women were busy curing the hides and smoking that meat too. Never waste an opportunity was our credo.

So it was that I walked northward. I had smoked bear meat and dried fish in my pack. I had a bow and many arrows. The too, I had a mission, to seek out our next opportunity.

The high places always called to me. Many others followed trails and water courses as they are the places that yield most life giving opportunities. I used these common ways too, of course, but the mountain tops afforded perspectives and allowed a foresight that one never gets in the valleys. So it was that I saw the Faery circles before I ever saw one of the little people.

I had been laboring toward just such a high place as my day was drawing to a close. Along an otherwise uniform ridgeline stood a rounded knob of bare stone. It was easy to mark when the sun was low, it fairly glowed, and so I toiled toward it up the ridge.

Pretty soon I knew that the ridge was far from regular. There were copses of short dense trees in rocky valleys, and brambles everywhere. The brambles did not fail to push me off my approach, time and again, until I actually lost sight of the rocky knob.

A coney darted out from my path, too quick for me to do aught but ready my hunting stick in case I got another shot. As the sun sank I got a couple of them and my mood improved as I roasted fresh meat over a roaring bramble and scrub wood fire.

In the morning my concern returned. My camp site was fairly clear, but all around the brush confined my vision if not my way. I considered turning back, but resolved to toil a little more up hill in the hope I might site my goal or failing that get a good look at which way I might return.

It was not far to a crest and as I topped it I was relieved to see the rocky knot, now much closer, but well off to my left. the unforgiving flora, the brambles, had driven me well off my course.

I turned to see the way I had come, and in truth my nemesis, the brambles. They were not hard to see against the trees. Oddly, it seemed the trees were not very deep, but rose again in the distance. There was nothing to be gained staring back, so I decided to continue on to the knob.

My way steepened and became precarious. the sun slipped below the crest and the wind came up, chilling the sweat of the climb on my skin. I stumbled into a small stream bed. Falling to my knees, my hand fell into wet. A short stumbling, toe subbing climb brount me out onto the top of the knob.

The stars were out in profusion, a glittery riot in the sky. I lay down, happy to be on the hard rock of the knob. I watched the traveller rise quickly and then the Mother brightened the night. I thought about the bramble walled forest below and would have risen to see it in her light, but the day had taken its toll and I found myself asleep.

It is odd to say it. I was asleep and somehow I rolled inside myself  and rose, though my body lay there. I saw me asleep upon the stone. The flesh of me more tired than the spirit who would look. There was a moon lit gem in a ring of dark wood. I saw a mound near it. It was then in fear I realized I was not upon the knoll, but instead I hung below the moon and could not even see now where my body lay. I had a panicked thought that I had died, was the Mother taking me? I looked up at her shiny face and breathed again.

This is the end of the first installment of The Deer Riders.

The Deer Riders continued