Lugh stalked off into the night.  His mind was a-whirl with thoughts, with memories that he’d shaded with pleasantness only days ago, the pleasure of Von, hopes that she might at least remember him well.  But all such thoughts were ashes.  “They killed her.” Oatie had said and he had seen in her eyes that she even feared the same from him. 

Lugh didn’t even know for sure who “They” might be, but he felt guilt for it.  Guilt for his carelessness if nothing else.  Guilt for not knowing what had become of Von and for what had come of his good intention toward her.  I didn’t think you might be in danger, I only knew that I was.

Lugh heard movement behind him.  He had no desire to talk of it, only to think and be alone with this revelation.  He had long experience with running away, he realized, and so it was no hard thing for him to slip away from Oatie. 

I needed to remember, to sort out my life.  His hand went to the bones on the thong around his neck.  I only wanted good for you, but I did nothing to make it so.  Oh bones of Von, were you ever my friend or only a curse for what I’d done?

The night among the trees was dark, but the sky was full of stars.  Lugh looked to the heavens for answers, but the stars had none.  He walked silently in the night seeking a place to think and await the dawn.  What had he done with the life that Von had given him, it seemed, at the cost of her’s?  Not much to tell.

There had been things to do.  Weyland’s kingdom under the Western Mountains had been endlessly fascinating.  Well, as endlessly fascinating as things got for a god with a short attention span.  I’d quite forgotten that when I fled the Norfolk by the Saffron River, I didn’t stop my running until I reached the Western Mountains and hid myself there.  Weyland had no more love for Lyr than did I, though Lyr wasn’t trying to kill the lord under the mountain.

I’d planned to return to Von, wanted to, expected it, planned that return, but always I put it off until there was no more reason, until Von would have looked more like my mother than a girl like Oatie.  And then, after leaving the mountain halls of Loki, after living among the tribes above the desert south, there was then no chance that she would even be alive at all. 

It wasn’t Lyr that tried to kill me then, no, a daliance in the Gallic south had nearly done for me.  The Cult of the Virgin turned those refugees of the Tuath wars into murderous monsters.  I blame the endless red day and I did not mind leaving all that behind. 

Why am I always blown from one place to another?  Weyland has his mines.  Lyr has claimed the East.  Most of my brothers and sisters live in the misty Islands of the Inner Sea.  Even Bridgit seems to have gone to ground somewhere.  I don’t hear about her moving around like I hear about my old travels.  Strange to hear the tales of your own wandering.

They, whoever They might have been, probably shieldmen of his brother, Lyr, but that was only a guess, They had killed her.  Small comfort, he was not there to defend her, he never went back even to learn that she’d died.  If not for him Von would have lived.  What to do with that realization?

Should he not simply run?  Lugh thought, turning the idea over in his mind much more than he would normally, it was a night for thinking.  Who knew if Lyr would kill him now?  And yet he ran, or at least it seemed for one reason or another, often the same one, he ran and kept running though a trail that Lyr might have followed was now hundreds of years old.  The running began with Lyr, but the habit of it was just that, a habit that had become him, not an action taken for any real reason.

Lugh drifted through a young forest that rose above their camp-site, feeling his way with his feet, arms out to tough the young trees, and eyes that grew ever more accustomed to the starry night. 

This of the Norfolk is good work, he thought, making of a barren land a garden.  Sadness washed over him, If only I had shared this with Von, seen this with her, would she even have come with me?  I wonder.

Lugh came to a prominence, a rocky projection where the land fell away all around him.  He looked up at the blaze of starlight.  Look there is the Stranger, down on the horizon the great dark moon hung.  He gazed at that great hole in the starry host.  Suddenly, Traveller set a glow on the horizon before leaping into the sky, shining in colors of blue and gold and red, as it tumbled into the starry night.  How many times have I seen you, and this time the most surprising of all?  Lugh laughed, where are you going old friend?  Why shouldn’t I come with you?  Oh, that’s right, I can’t fly.

Lugh sat comfortably beneath the spreading oak.  He’d found the perfect spot, between two roots and the moss, soft, but not at all wet.  His oak sat a little rise that overlooked a lovely meadow.  There were wildflowers in profusion, butterflies, and swallows were busy swooping over the tangle.

This was a fine place he had to admit, and he congratulated himself for not believing what he had heard about the North.  “Oh, its all snow and ice, you don’t want to go there. No, no, its full of Giants and pixies with poison darts, you’d be mad to go there, all you will find is dry grass and the herd deer that eat it, both of them brown.”

There had been a time when that was so.  Lugh had seen the great ice wall, he’d known the Norfolk, lived with them when it wasn’t safe for him in the South.  As to giants, it seemed to him that they were fanciful.  No, the plains were beautiful in the Long Summer, and he was happy to be here enjoying it.

A family of herd deer walked into sight.  There was a breeze in his face so Lugh guessed that they wouldn’t catch his scent, he sat quietly in the deep shadow of the tree so he knew they’d not be spooked by the sight of him either.  All the deer, but the young ones had antlers, but the obvious king of the family was a big buck with an amazing spread of a rack that looked about to tip him.  For a moment Lugh thought about trying to take the big animal, but he was far too comfortable and didn’t want to spoil the day with a lot of work.

Suddenly the king put his nose in the air and his ears back.  He bellowed a challenge or a warning and his harem gathered, their noses snuffling for the same scent.  The does and the calves all jogged in Lugh’s direction, but the buck bellowed again and stood stiff legged facing away from Lugh and toward whatever had given him alarm.  The king pawed the earth, tearing up large divots before snorting his displeasure and jogging away after his herd.

Well, if the king was worried, perhaps Lugh ought to be too.  He took the precaution of stringing his bow and loosening the arrows in his quiver.  He stood and tossed his pack up into the lower branches of the tree and planned a good route of climb if that should become necessary.  Precautions taken, Lugh waited to see what might come that had so unsettled the herd deer.

He had to laugh when a small girl with a goat wandered out of the young saplings at the edge of the clearing and strolled nonchalantly into the meadow.  She had bright blond hair and lovely summer browned skin. 

Much like the Deer Riders, the thought that I might do a little vignette has burgeoned into a whole story in my mind.  I thought to do it all in one post, but that isn’t going to happen at all.  Again, this involves the deer riders, the Norfolk, as I’ve named them, but I also introduce another of the long lived humans, this one of the true original “Children of Dana” intended by Dana to be the gods of Tir na Nua.  Oatey Moss, the little Norfolk woman (she looks young for her age) is involved with giants and so there are three major revelations about Tir na Nua in this one story.

LSO

The Book of Invasions lists many groups who came to Irish shores, the first three left only bones. A grand-daughter of Noah, the Parthalonians (sp?), and then the Nemedians.

Now the Nemedians are another matter perhaps, it is claimed that the Nemedians returned as both the Fir Bolg and the Tuatha de Danan and were sons of Nemed from Greece. Also an argument might be made that the Fomorians, seafarers from the north or Africa, or who knows (? (Phonecia?)) may have lived at times on Irish shores, it can also be said that their bones remained as they are reputed to have been involved in several notable battles with various Irish dwelling peoples. I wonder if the Fomor had more to do with things than just popping in to oppress from time to time and also who they might be.

Since Nemedians were the progenators of both the Fir Bolg and the De Danans one might class them as survivors if one accepted that the Milesians only drove them underground into the FaeRig mounds.

Legend and lore often focuses on the kings and their linege. If it is at all possible one might think about who the people were, the ones who carried the water and rounded up cattle and made the food that the champions feasted upon. In particular, without having read the Book of Invasions, the title suggests that someone was there to bear the successive waves of invasion, perhaps someones other than Tuan.

Well that’s a start and I really aught to fill more in, but there is little enough time except to say that Niall of the Nine Hostages (yes yes, I’m back to that) is an excellent illustration of what I’m going on about. Niall, was Irish, well, half so. Niall’s father was Eochaid Mugmedon, but his mother was a Saxon princess. That makes his blood half Saxon. But I would submit that what really made Niall Irish was not his father, but the druid who saved his life and raised him.

Much later Normans would come to conquer Ireland, again the rulers changed, but it is funny. I’ve heard it said that the Norman lords became more Irish than the Irish themselves. Is it because, irrespective of the ruler, the people stay pretty much the same?

“Ah, the good old days.” I’m sure you’ve heard the old saw and perhaps thought the speaker a bit behind the times. Progress right? The dominant view promulgated in every possible way is that things are progressing, evolving, and we know more and better now than we ever did and will know still more in the future. It is almost irksome when old fogies hark back wistfully to those “good old days” because it is just that sort of attitude that delays the next marvelous achievement, the next leap forward.

It is a bias and perhaps unfounded. Though our material society has made material progress (: walking, riding, flying, flying faster, flying higher) I think there is a belief that the progression has been smooth from stone tools to supersonic jets. We think that we sit at-top the pinnacle of the pyramid of progress and do not see the fallen edifices of cultures past.

You see, I do not pick the pyramid as an illustration of progress for no reason. Have you considered how long the pyramids that still exist all over the world have been in place? Do you know their purpose? Did you realize that some of the wonders that molder in forgotten corners are on a scale that we can not yet replicate?

But we sit upon our own pyramid of progress and do not see the hills around us for what they were. What the rounded mountains in the distance may have been.

As we rush forward, building our society on technology that we can not individually replicate, how long do you think it would take for our society to crumble and leave only bare stone bones, or in our case concrete and asphalt? What would remain that our flint napping progeny could hark back to?

It is something to ponder when you wake from difficult dreams in the night.