“I am sick, old, and tired,” said Anuniaq, “honor me now by putting me on a great ice mountain and letting me go to sea. I would see the ocean again before I die.”

“Oh NO! honored one!” cried the Others, “Do not say such things.  We never tire of your wisdom.  Do not deprive your family of your knowledge.”

“Phah,” said Anuniaq, disgusted, “I have told those stories so many times that I have forgotten to believe them myself.  Your young poets correct me when I exaggerate and remind me when I forget.  Let me walk the white road as my fathers did before me.”

“Father Anuniaq, may it never be,” said the Others, “From you we learned to sail, we learned the ways of the sea and the waters great and small.  We would not know how to make the simplest coracle but for your teaching.  Do not leave us without your knowledge.”

Anuniaq replied, “If that were so, perhaps I would have to suffer on, but it is not!  Why the youngest among you can make for themselves any number of craft better than anything I could ever make.  Would you have me suffer for no reason?  Let me at least be a man on the last day of my life.”

The argument went on and on, but though the Others had surpassed Anuniaq in wisdom and knowledge and craft and hunting and wind knowing and wave reading none could surpass him in stubbornness.  So it was that Anuniaq sat upon the great back of a sea going ice mountain.

For days they had given him gifts which lay piled around him and they kept bothering him, pestering him with questions they knew the answers to and begging him to stay with them.  His guts hurt more now then ever they had before and he guessed his time was short.

“It is well,” thought Anuniaq, “I have lived a good life, At last I can die in peace as my ancestors did.”  He sat and watched the clouds slide by overhead, but this was fairly boring, he had to admit it.  He imagined that there aught to me something more to this going to sea for the last time.

“Phah!” he said to the world in general, “They spoiled it with all their gift giving, and “oh don’t go Grandfathering”, and their goings on have made a mess of what should have been a meaningful and dignified end.

Instead of dead he was just cold.  They had made him an ice seat so he wouldn’t have to lie down where he couldn’t see the world go by.  But just like them, all it was giving him was a cold pain in the ass.  Pretty soon Anuniaq was shivering.

He sighed heavily. “There must be a cancer in my gut, the way it twisted at me, Oh, to be done with that pain.” Anuniaq thought, “Indeed, why would you torment an old man with feasting who’s guts were ruined with cancer? Oh they didn’t care about him, just the idea of him.”

“It wasn’t their fault really. He had enjoyed the feasting and a bit too much to tell the truth. It was just that this dying thing would be a lot more dignified if he didn’t have to get up and go purge his canker riddled bowels again.” He staggered to his feet, not just cold, but he was wet now. “Would the humiliation ever end?” He tottered off to find a new place to empty himself.

On his way back he dug through the gifts and found a fine seal skin to wrap around himself while his breeches dried. In his explorations he also found more of the wonderful stuffed leaves boiled in sauce and so full of wonderful goodness he could not resist eating them until they were gone. They were his favorite, even cold. Well fed he returned to his ice throne.

He could see now where the wetness had come from. His body, sitting as it had for so long and on such a remarkably warm day, had melted the seat of his throne. Well, there were wraps and gifts of embroidery and this and that enough so that he piled up a fine lot of them and had many more to cover himself while he watched the sun descend into the sea.

“Perhaps this moment is much more the sort of thing one ought to see before he goes.”  Thought Anuniaq.  He watched the sun die in fire, setting the whole of the sky alight with red and gold.  He was well pleased to see the stars come out after that and He watched the moons rise as well before nodding off to sleep.

He awoke in sweat and agony.  “Oh mercy, why could he not have died with that marvelous sunset.” He ran off a ways and spilled his bowels, glad that he wore a skin around his waist and not his breeches. After that he felt a bit better.

*  *  *

“Surely he was cursed.  He had been stranded on the damn ice-flow for a week now.  The blue skies and fluffy clouds had been boring that first whole day alone, but that was as nothing to day after day of nothing but sun and his chair.  Worse, now, he had eaten anything even remotely edible among his gifts days ago.  He was going to die and there was nothing he could do about it,” Anuniaq thought.

Anuniaq pondered, “Would it be better to starve or freeze?” For the hundredth time he rummaged through the things strewn around his ice chair, though there were hides aplenty there was not enough other material to form a frame. Even if there was he had nothing to grease the joinings. “And nothing, nothing, nothing to eat,” fussed Anuniaq.

 Defeated, Anuniaq slumped in his skin covered ice throne.  He gazed out over the sea, quiet and boring really, it was nearly still from his ice flow to the horizon beneath the clear blue of the sky. “There were very slight whispy clouds far off, perhaps some interesting weather would come his way.  Likely rain to add misery to his bordum.  There was also something else at the very horizon. 

“That’s a sail!” shouted Annuniaq, leaping to his feet on his ice throne.  And surely as he could feel a slight breeze pressing against his face, low on the horizon rose a boat, sails full of that whisper of a breeze. 

It’s approach seemed interminable, but at last a very fine sloop rigged wooden boat drew up and hailed him.  When Annuniaq shouted who he was there was a great furor aboard, a row boat was put out, and rowed to get him.

“What are you doing out on the ice Grandfather?” asked the Others. Annuniaq noticed that this group of his “children” avoided calling him “wise one”

 ”Oh, my people often do this,” lied Annuniaq. ”Haven’t I told you tales of great wandering by my folk on these mountains of ice?”

They all shook their heads, honest to a fault, “No. Never.”

“Ah, well you must have missed that night’s storytelling, because it is a good way to think and so common among my old people, the Ice-folk. Haven’t you wondered why we are called that? Surely you don’t think we are made of frozen water.” Annuniaq commented reproachfully. Slightly disturbed murmerings followed, drowned out by a loud rumbling from the region of Annuniaq’s empty stomach.

“Well none of that matters now,” said Annuniaq as he was hauled aboard the sloop. ”Do you have anything to eat?”

“Oh yes grandfather! We will bring you refreshment,” said the Others.

“That is well, then I can relate to you my thinkings and the way of my people, the Ice-folk… ” And so it was that a new tradition of the ice-folk was created that none of them, save Anuniaq, was aware, “  …say would you have some of those leaves stuffed with…”

“Humble apologies Grandfather”  

“ No? Well that’s probably for the best, come to think on it.”

This is not the first tale about Annuniaq (formerly Mamute) that could be told.  I will see if I can find some of what is already imagined to add to what is known about this character who figures into the westward expansion of the UiUilsen and their transformation into the folk called Wanderers whether they were found on the waters or on land as in the story of “The Man Who Forgot Himself.”

 In the story I will need a few Inuit names: The hero of the story (formerly Mamute) / Amak – tag (play), Annakpok – free (not caught), Anuniaq – one who hunts for food or knowledge, Illiivat — a person young or old who is learning something, Ipiktok – keen, sharp, Pakak — one that gets into everything,

Father’s Friend / Ataninnuaq– one who counsels/one who has lived and knows things, Illiivat – a person young or old who is learning something, Itigiaq — weasel, Nagojut — friendly, Oogrooq – bearded Seal, one who has a long life,

Hero’s remembered first love / Anana – beautiful, Iyaroak – apple of the eye, Buniq – sweet daughter, Nigaq – rainbow, Yuralria– dancing one

I’m sure you remember the immortal William Wallace (as portrayed by Mad Max) “FREEEEEEDOOOM” and then the British hung, drew and quartered, burned and dragged the pieces of old Bill around London.

Sometimes freedom is like that.

LSO

This is my story page, but I thought I’d post it too.

Fiction can be truer than real life. The lives of mere characters, literary constructs, can clarify and instruct a reader, helping them to gain perspective, inspiration, and fortitude for their real life situations. Their own problems and opportunities are much more complex to be sure, but sometimes the perspective of fiction is a perfect catalyst for positive change. . .

. . . or just a very entertaining read!

I have several stories, novels, that I am working on. I will gather research material, scene drafts, character development studies, back stories and perhaps short stories that contribute to each of them.

Currently I am focusing on a novel set in an island archipelago, the Losterlies, that is effectively on the opposite side of the world from where humanity was first established on what I am calling the Planet of the All Mind and from where it diffused around that globe. The working title for this novel is “The Man Who Forgot Himself.”

People groups converge on the Losterlies and one of the cultures that has great impact are the Inuit peoples who leave with the Russians and are later enslaved by them. I want to develop a tale about one of these people, a whale talker, who’s people are annihilated by the iron Rus and who in turn gets revenge and then must rebuild a life afterward. Working title is “The Poet and the Ice Princess”. I plan to reference characters and events from the this story in “The Man Who Forgot Himself.”

A tale potentially coming to this web-site is the story of the original human settlers of the Losterlies, Captain Seabrook and his crew of Umircen adventurers and the Rus and Inuit people who settle the Losterlies before the Biblios Abbey and the Celtic overlords add their distinctives to the archipelago before the events of “The Man Who Forgot Himself” occur.

I have a few stories developing in an area of the world, Northern Umircea, that involves or evolved the Ribbon Wood Elves or UiUilsen as they are known. “the Lost Prince”, “the Elopement of Sasha and Faolan”, and a trilogy of stories, “the UiUilsen Cycle” will develop and expand both the peoples of this part of Umircea, and the land beyond the Western Mountains of the Gaelish Central Plain.

I love the movie “a Knights Tale” and would like to write my take on the idea of nobility. I also like the idea of warfare as sport presented in that story and think it has application, especially in the gaming community of today, but also to the Celtic lifestyle that is so much a part of my perception of what the Gaelic people were about. I want to set my knights tale in Umircea, but I may move the setting to the cities of the disputed lands and Northern trans-wall Scotia, though nobility is much less a factor in that wild land.

An important part of the development of my fantasy world are figures who make a huge impact by virtue of their many talents and even more because of their longevity. The children of Dana Bailey are intended by Dana herself to be a Celtic Pantheon. These genetically altered super Celts make contributions both by virtue of their leadership, and also in just being a tie and a memory to a technological past that is being lost and replaced by new progress informed by the past but not dependant on it.

Among the character’s stories will touch on: Balor, originally Lir, who was first born and most willing to serve Dana Baily’s purposes, but came to work hardest against those goals as the leader of the Fomorians; Lugh of the long reach, a wanderer and a philanderer at first, godlike in his self-absorption, his many talents are at last turned to good when he learns responsibility; Bridget, maternal in truth and in temperament, she must learn how to be good at her role; Epona, but more her most impressive daughter, Scythia, who’s leadership gives the freedom loving horse folk of the Gaellic plain a name, an identity, and a mother; Loki the miner and technical genius who’s folk live under the mountains, and there will be many more, names that reference Celtic lore and legend, and lives that mirror or echo those legends, slightly altered sense.

At some point I plan to take the background material I have developed and tell the story of Dana Bailey herself, how she came to leave her home on Earth, and seek a new place to live, as a Celt, among the stars.

In the Disputed Lands life is cheap. Warlords carve out kingdoms among the fortified city states of the broken and war torn landscape of a section of the northern continent east of the Safron River that drains much of the Great Gaellic plain, north of Scotia and the fortified wall that splits off the Scots Highlands from the rest, west of the Great Sea that has become dominated by the Fomor, and South of the lands of the Sinoese and most notably the Darklings. Several stories will be set or will touch this volitile region. Among them are “Icarus Flight”, “Kitsuniko”, “Led from the Dark or the Blind Deaf Mute and the Idiot” (a story about overcoming disability, frustrated revenge, and simple peace), “Fitch in His Majesties Service,” and perhaps “the Many Sons of Balor.”

The story I have worked on the longest is a series of stories about Niall, patterned after Niall Noigillach. I think my Niall is going to be very different than either the mythical king or even his historical basis, but certainly a hero. From its genesis it has evolved in my mind so that I’m afraid my first draft can largely find its fit resting place in the dumper but I have the most pages at least begun of this tale in ink and electrons.

I will try to expand on this list, but first I should start transfering some of what I’ve already written onto this format. I’ll try to work at it from both ends and hopefully have success somewhere in the middle.

LSO

What do you mean by Free Celtic Fiction?

Ah, I’m glad you asked.  Is this fiction from Ireland or Scotland or Wales?  No.  The title of my pages, this “blog”, was L. Stephen O’Neill.  Sadly, not so many folks were searching for me by name, so being advised to be more descriptive I came up with descriptive words that I felt would be popular searches as well as descriptive. 

Being at least partly Scots I am personally drawn to the word FREE.  I consider myself a celt, live in Oregon, like bagpipes, tartan, woolens, potatos, I’m CELTIC.  and I’m constructing a FICTIONal, Roman Empire Free, world to let the Celts have another go at world domination.  I think its high time, read about that below.

I am trying to focus my efforts on a few primary storylines.  Because the posts are not always in order I’ve started to organize the storylines on which I’m working on a novel progress page for the Abbott and the Djinn, and a Current Primary Storylines page for Child of Moss, the Deer Riders, and the Red Son of Concubar.

Philosophy of Fiction

Fiction can be truer than real life.  The lives of mere characters, literary constructs, can clarify and instruct a reader, helping them to gain perspective, inspiration, and fortitude for their real life situations.  Their own problems and opportunities are much more complex to be sure, but sometimes the perspective of fiction is a perfect catalyst for positive change. . .

. . . or just a very entertaining read!

These are the stories that I have begun to commit to ones and zeroes to this point:

The Abbott and the Djinn my first draft online novel.

The Red Son of Concubar is an attempt to tell a truely Celtic story, drawing elements from some of the most loved Irish legends.

I’ve found a fragment of a planned novel (actually trilogy) That introduces the point of view character of the UiUilsen Saga.  Meet Hunter Wilde.  I had not planned on sharing things I actually planned to one day publish, but I wanted to introduce you to Hunter.

An Anuniaq Tale about an Inuit who meets the mysterious Others, folk of the Ui Uilsen.

The Deer Riders in the far North of the Gaellic plain

Information regarding the Losterlies is background material for the setting of a planned novel, The Man Who Forgot Himself.

Kitsuniko Awakes in the land of the Sinoese, but among these people she is a mystery, even to her self.

the Red Hand of Courage

 The Annals of the Tuatha de Dana

Tir na Nua

I have several stories, novels, that I am in the process of writing.  Most if not all are set in the world of Tir na Nua.  This new world is a world apart from the Earth that we know and has been, there are names and situations that may seem familiar, but though they echo the world we know they are not from that world at all.  For stories specific to Tir na Nua but not included elsewhere you could explore that blog topic: Tir na Nua

Here I plan to gather research material, scene drafts, character development studies, back stories and perhaps short stories that contribute to each of them or at least flesh out this new land, Tir na Nua.

Currently I am focusing on a novel set in a island archipelago, the Losterlies, that is effectively on the opposite side of the world from where humanity was first established and from where it diffused. The working title for this novel is “The Man Who Forgot Himself.”

On the Losterlies are a people known as wanderers or gypsies who are decendants of a particular Inuit by the name of Anuniaq.  “Anuniaq Goes to Sea… …Again” is a tale from his life as is Anuniaq and the Storm Tossed Sea.

People groups converge on the Losterlies and one of the cultures that has great impact are the Inuit peoples, known by the Rus as the Icefolk,  who leave with the Russians and are later enslaved by them.  I want to develop a tale about one of these people, a whale talker, who’s people are annihilated by the iron Rus and who in turn gets revenge and then must rebuild a life afterward.  The working title for this novel is “The Poet and the Ice Princess”.

I have a few stories developing in an area of the world, Northern Umircea, that involves or evolved the Ribbon Wood Elves or UiUilsen as they are known. “the Lost Prince”, “Sasha and Faolan”, and a trilogy of stories, “the UiUilsen Cycle” will develop and expand both the peoples of this part of Umircea, the land beyond the Western Mountains of the Gaelish Central Plain.

I love the movie “a Knights Tale” and would like to write my take on the idea of nobility. I also like the idea of warfare as sport presented in that story (I’m an American Football fan) and think it has application, especially in the gaming community of today, but also to the Celtic lifestyle or my perception of what the Gaelic people were about.  I want to set my knights tale in Umircea, but I may move the setting to the cities of the Disputed Lands though nobility is much less a factor in that wild land.

An important part of the development of my fantasy world are figures who make a huge impact by virtue of their many talents and even more because of their longevity. The children of Dana Bailey are intended by Dana herself to be a Celtic Pantheon. These genetically altered super Celts make contributions both by virtue of their leadership, and also in just being a tie and a memory to a technological past that is being lost and replaced by new progress informed by the past but not dependant on it.  Among the characters stories will touch on: Balor, originally Llyr, who was first born and most willing to serve Dana Baily’s purposes, but came to work hardest against those goals as the leader of the Fomorians; Lugh of the long reach, a wanderer and a philanderer at first, godlike in his self-absorption, his many talents are at last turned to good when he learns responsibility; Bridget, maternal in truth and in temperament, she must learn how to be good at her role; Epona, but more her most impressive daughter, Scythia, who’s leadership gives the freedom loving horse folk of the Gaellic plain a name, an identity, and a mother; Loki the miner and technical genius who’s folk live under the mountains, and many more.

In the Disputed Lands life is cheap.  Warlords carve out kingdoms among the fortified city states of the broken and war torn landscape in a section of the northern continent east of the Safron River that drains much of the Great Gaellic plain, north of Scotia and the fortified wall that splits off the Scots Highlands from the rest, west of the Great Sea that has become dominated by the Fomor, and South of the lands of the Sinoese and most notably the Darklings.  Several stories will be set or will touch this volitile region.  Among them are “Icarus Flight”, “Kitsuniko“, “Led from the Dark or the Blind Deaf Mute and the Idiot” (a story about overcoming disability, frustrated revenge, and simple peace), “Fitch in His Majesties Service”

Stay tuned.  I have been adding material as quickly as I can.

Enjoy,

LSO