When they had finished their meal, Oatie began to gather the pots and leavings from their meal, but Lugh took them from her hands.  “You did the cooking, the least I can do is wash up afterward.”  He was rewarded with a lovely smile and felt good about it as he washed the pots and spoons with water and sand from the little stream.

The fire had died down to almost nothing.  Camp was laid, with Oatie already in her bed and another bed, on the other side of the fire, laid out for him.  It had been a long day, but Lugh didn’t quite feel like sleep.  After stowing the gear, he took some firewood from the pile and added it to their camp fire, stirring up the flames in the process.  Lugh laid down and looked over at Oatie where she lay.  He was surprised to see her eyes shining in the dancing fire light, he’d thought she was already asleep.

“I’m sorry if I woke you by stirring up the fire.  I thought maybe you were already asleep.”

“No,” she said, Lugh thought a bit sadly, “I was thinking.”

“Thinking what?”

“Everything and nothing,” she said.  Oatie rolled on her back and looked up at the stars. ”Thanks for cleaning the pots, by the by.  That was good of you.”

“Thanks for cooking and making camp.  Was thanks for cleaning the pots what you were thinking?  Because I find that hard to believe.”

Oatie pondered the question and said nothing at first, but Lugh could she was now looking at him, her eyes, bright and avid, in the fire-light’s glow. “I suppose I was thinking you were not what I expected is all,” she finally said after a long silence.

“Why would you expect anything? Did you know I was coming?”

“Not really, I was surprised to find you sitting on my giant, but I knew you, Lugh of the Long Journeys.  What Norfolk would not?”

“Really? It has been a long time since I’ve been with your folk, and still you know me?”

“Hard not to remember. . .” Oatie’s voice trailed off in the night.

Lugh was annoyed by what seemed a riddle.   Oatie was hinting around something and it angered him for a reason on which he could not put his finger.  “And why is that?” he prodded. “It seems you have a bad image of me and are surprised, as bad as I am, that I’m not worse.”

“I meant no offense, only thanks for the help.”

“. . .because I’m such an ogre that no Norfolk would expect common decency from me?” Lugh sat up, too agitated now to calmly lie beside the fire. “What is all this?”

“We need to sleep, Lugh, please.” Oatie snuggled deeper in her bed roll, but her eyes still shone through her long eye-lashes.

“Then tell me and have done.”

“I don’t think this is the time to talk of such things.  We should sleep.”

“Should we, truly?  Then put my mind at ease and answer, what are we even talking about?  It seems I’ve done some wrong that every Norfolk knows.  It can’t be a great secret, tell me then what I’ve done or how could I possibly sleep?”

“How could you not know it?”

“How could I if you don’t tell me?  I swear I have no idea what it is you are saying so much not to say.”

“It is a hard thing.” She seemed about to say something important but instead she began in a rush, “This is not the time to speak of it.  Honestly, I don’t know why I would believe anything my people say.  We are both outcast and I prefer it so.  It is nothing, idle chatter from a tired head.  Go to sleep Lugh, we will need our strength for the morrow.”  Oatie turned her back and disappeared into her bedding roll.

Lugh had had enough deflection.  He threw off blankets, moved to Oatie’s side, and, reaching out, pulled her shoulder to turn her back toward him, “Tell me this hard thing.  You must. . .”

“Don’t touch me!” Oatie shrieked and flinched away.

Lugh had no intention of harming her and Oatie’s reaction, seeming to suggest that he could, enraged him.  Lugh grabbed her shoulders and shook her, “Tell me! Is this about Von?”  The terror in her eyes made him know that it was. “What about Von? She warned me of my brother and I fled. What happened to Von?”

“You’re hurting me,” she cried.

“Tell me what happened to Von.” He hissed and shook her again, more violently than he intended.  Cloth tore, but Lugh did not release her.

“They killed her,” Oatie managed and Lugh froze, stunned. Oatie’s eyes were wide with terror, “Are you going to kill me Lugh?” she asked, but Lugh had already dropped her and wandered into the lonely night.

WHERE DO I FIND THE REST OF THIS STORY?

I’ve noticed that little stories I intend to wrap up in a post or two often blow up into epics that never seem to end.  This is a character flaw, I know, and it is one that I don’t know how to begin to remedy. 

For now I think I’m going to have to accept my propensity to elaboration in the present and try to offer remediation, or organization outside of my normal tendency.

To that end, I offer these links to guide you through my most current efforts.

Child of Moss began with a character, Lugh of the long journeys (imagined  as a recurring character in many novels) sitting on a hill beneath a tree.  Now many posts later I’ve added characters and ideas so that it is clear that some organization is desperately needed:

1. Why did Lugh need to go North?  The first pre-post
2. Von’s gift helps get Lugh under that tree.  The second pre-post
3. Lugh under the tree.  The original first post of Child of Moss
4. Introducing Oatey Moss.  Introducing Oatey Moss
5. Who is Lugh and what Oatey does.  Lugh Follows Oatey
6. Lugh, Oatey, and a dead goat.  The old 4th post
7. Oatey Moss, giant fighter.  Oatey kills a giant
8. The celebration after the fight.  Lugh in the corner 
9. Lugh meets the man.  Another character crops up
10. Martel Jones of the Norfolk.  The brewhaha continues
11. Lugh lost in the sidhe.  A little more about miss Moss
12. Thinking about Oatey.  Child of Moss (old part 10) part 12
13. Breakfast in bed. More character development
14. Through the Sidhe.  Child of Moss part 12 (14)
15. Oatey’s pain.  What Lugh sees on Oatey’s face.

There is more Child of Moss to come.  I’ve plotted at least two more giant hunts and a visit to a truly ancient place that is the closest thing Oatey has to a real home.

The Deer Riders

The Deer Riders was the first of my stories to really go off the rails.  I had an idea about a people group on Tir na Nua, people I called the Norfolk or Bramblewood Elves, but my point of view character ended up stealing the show.  Okay, confession, I don’t even know what his name is.

1. Why do I need to start a story by introducing four characters who really have nothing to do with the actual Deer Riders? Concerning the Deer Riders
2. Dream-Walker and how he found a way past the brambles. Deer Riders Continued
3. Dream-Walker in the sidhe.  Deer Riders Conclusion (when I began the post I thought it might be. Boy, was I wrong.)
4. How Dream-Walker’s gift and a Deer Rider shows a way out.  Deer Riders Ending part 1
5. And he can travel through time.  Deer Riders Ending part 2
6. Dream-walker learns that there are worse things than being stuck in the sidhe.  Deer Riders Ending part 3
7. As this little stories ending lurches on into the absurd, I, LSO, end it. Deer Riders Ending part 4

Having created an interesting character, the Dream-Walker (I still don’t have a name for him yet) I made another little story that started to get out of control again so I cut it off.  I may follow some of the rabbit trails I imagined at a later date.

1. Dream-Walker takes his youngest grand-son fishing and a story breaks out. Dream-Walker and the Giant
2. The conversation turns to Giants. Dream-Walker Tells Bres The Story of the Dagda

1. The Red Son of Concubar 
2. the Coming of CuRuada the Red Son of Concubar
3. The Red Son of Concubar Meets His Father
4. Cathbad discusses the Red Son of Concubar
5. The Naming of the Red Son of Concubar
6. Fergus and Concubar Discuss the King’s Red Son
7. Cathbad’s Caution
8. CuRuada meets Emer (oops, I forgot they hadn’t met before)
9. The Games of Macha
10. Cathbad’s Oracle at the Games of Macha (this introduces the practice and sets up the Consumption Vision Quest).

A few things, my readers: 

First, though it comes late, I think this bit about how Lugh came to be beneath that tree comes before.  I feel that you need to know a bit more about Lugh as he is your point of view and this story reveals the child of Moss, Oatey. 

Second, I plan to make this, of Lugh and Oatey, my first polished stone, a story that I’ve at least tried to revise and so hope to have made better than THIS first rough draft.  I began it imagining Lugh on his hill and all that followed surprised me.  Now I’m thinking in terms of the story as a whole, I had a good middle of the beginning, I’ve imagined what I think is a pretty good end, so with the expansions and many discoveries already I give you this first of two (I hope) that came before the first moments there on the little hill.  So I beg your pardon, now HERE, begins

Child of Moss

Lugh of the Long Journeys trudged through the swirling cloud of midges and flies that found the swamp comfortable.   Lugh far Reacher, Lugh woman despoiler, Lugh who runs away, He thought, Lugh of the slough.  He laughed, “That’s who I am,” Lugh said and immediately regretted it.  Now there were wee flies in his mouth to add to his misery.  Did he really deserve this exile?  How was this betrayal of Findabair and Gormflaith unlike so many others?  Worse or better?

Lugh mulled his sad fall from their graces.  It was the story of his life, it was his nature, it was the rutted path he could never seem to leave.  When Findabair had learned of Gormflaith and in turn Gormflaith had learned of Findabair he had been forced from his cozy arrangement. 

Maybe no worse or no better but Lugh was haunted, Findabair’s face, white as snow at all times, was a mask that hid the great pain she felt when learning of his infidelity.  The disappointment of the innocent.  That gentle soul would not take revenge for the shambles he had made of her honor.  Not so her brothers.  They pursued him, ejecting him as surely as the hurt in Findabair’s eyes, and more so.  They would not let him live if they caught him.  And Lugh, for his part, would not be caught.

He should have known the jig was up and fled where he would or where his bones might lead, instead he’d fled to another lover.  He chuckled ruefully, Gormflaith had been another matter.  She was not one for holding her pain behind her eyes, nor one to leave revenge to another.  Lugh ached, but not from loss, Gormflaith had taken what revenge she could, at the moment of knowledge, with a foot to the offending member.

“Ah me, the girl has fire,” He said to himself, “Red was her mane, flame her desire, Hot was her rage, now my self is on fire.” Not really flame anymore, now more like the ache that he imagined Findabair felt in her heart, now for him, between his thighs.

So he fled, but at a walk and in disguise.  Findabair’s Maines were looking for a dashing rogue who’d stolen their fair sister’s heart, her innocence, and her honor.  They would not find such, for Lugh was a man of many talents, I am a poet, I am a sacrificer, I am a brehon. Judge me.He strode (at what speed he could make considering Gormflaith’s revenge) along the way in the robe of a druid, head deep in his cowl, and person safe against violence by taboo.  It had been a long long time since he’d been to the North.  It was as likely a time as any to return to the land of the Norfolk, to the land of Von.

Aah pretty Von.  It may be that she is the only lover I left who still wished me well at my going,  thought Lugh, Since that time I fled Llyr to save my life, my goings most often involved a father, a brother, or a husband.  Ah but I remember my Von of the wavy brown hair and the sun brown skin.

Llyr had not yet gotten over Lugh’s elopement with Brigid.  Von had not known that he found himself in the North because of what he’d done with Brigid in the South.  Mayhaps she would have wished him dead then instead of well, but she hadn’t known and so Lugh could cling to one woman’s love.  One woman who may have learned of his true nature, his roguishness, and hated him for it for all he knew, one woman who was dead now for 300 years and more. 

Oh maybe she hated him one day but still, that night she had come to him, with tears in her brown eyes, to warn him of his brother’s men, she’d given him warning, some food, and these bones around his neck.Lugh clutched the divination bones he wore on a thong around his neck for all these many days, so many years of days, he knew them by feel. 

It was vexing.  Druidry was a bit tame for him.  Truth to tell, he’d wished he could stay the rogue.  It was his core.  The Maines denighed him his fine horses and his hidden things and Gormflaith had denied him a place of safety for his offense.  Lugh smiled, Well, she’d cast him out for the offense she knew. Why must ill news travel so fast, faster than feet and faster than fine horses?

Why must these sad endings drive me out just when things are going so well?“Ah, my fine fine horses.”  Lugh sighed, “enjoy those lovely mares I brought you, Chara Dubh.  Consider yourself free, free to make a herd of such beauties.”  Perhaps that little hidden valley would hold a great herd of horse when he returned to find Findabair a memory and all the Maines long dead.  Then his loss would be an investment.  Best to think positively.

So the man went North and farther North from his lovers, Lugh of the long journeys, whistling and wondering what adventure would find him next.  He was a brehon until he could buy a lyre, a bard until he could find no Gael to listen to his songs, and a hunter when that was the only way to fill his belly. 

When he no longer feared the Maines, he began to think more of his future, what should he do next and where?  Fleeing North, it occured to the him, I should go to the Norfolk and see what has come of them these hundreds of years.  I do doubt anyone would remember Lugh who left sweet Von in a hurry, that time with his brother Llyr in pursuit.  “Yet I should take no chance, I’ll name myself for my light hair, and call myself Fionn.”

And so he did.  When he passed through a border town and looked to buy provisions for a journey still further North, he was Fionn to the old woman who sold dried fish and jerked buffalo.  He bought a fine bow from the Umircen bowyer and to that man he was Fionn.  From a tanner’s wife he bought a fine skin bag, some water skins, and a good pair of boots and a wool lined leather cloak, to her he was Fionn and Sweet and Love.  Ah the tanner’s wife, he didn’t really remember her, and too, it had been dark, but stolen fruit was sweet, he thought.

So it was that Fionn must needs go North or West or East but not South as he marched into the trackless wastes in search of the Bramblewood Elven, the Norfolk, and he went as quick as he could go, lest the tanner come on him.  And he suffered, suffered his memories, suffered from the heat of the Summer, but most of all he suffered from the clouds of insects that whirled around him in a hungry cloud.

Lugh splashed through a creek like so many others on the marshy plain.  He trudged through the tepid water and into the brush on the other side, miserable, he thought as he waved his hands before his face in hopes of frightening away the midges that kept him grieving his condition, but saying nothing for fear that the flying pests that haloed his head would invade his mouth at their first opportunity.

Hot, miserable, sweaty, miserable, besieged by vile insects, miserable.  “Aaah!” Lugh howled in pain and slapped at the black fly that had found his neck exposed. Midges invaded as he feared they would and he sputtered and spit to be free of them, miserable, he thought.

Oh sweet Von of the Norfolk, where have your people gone?  He thought.  He was in a stand of close spaced little trees that provided some shade, so Lugh took off his pack and his hide strung bones, he pulled out a skin tarp and hid beneath it with his divination bones between his palms and let his mind grow calm.  “Sweet Von of the Norfolk, where have your people gone?  Where can I find your folk in this my time of need?  Shall I turn to the left or the right?”  Lugh cast the bones.  He felt for them.  “Two and three and one.  The bones are ambivalent.” 

Lugh scooped up the bones and whispered to them “Tell me true, my beauties, tell me.  Shall I go to the right? ” He cast and felt for the marks again.  One mark, and one mark, and three.  “So, not to the right.”

Lugh rubbed the bones between his palms, “Shall I go left then?  Shall I turn away to the left?  The bones came to rest on the skin bag.  “Three marks, and three, and again three!” So definitely not to the left either.

Forward then?  Shall I go straight as I am to find those elves of the brambles, those folk of the north, the people of Von, YeVon Mendez, who cared for me? “Shall I continue on as I was then?” Lugh cast the bones and felt for his answer.  One mark there is, and three on the other, and TWO. Yes then it seems.  “Tell me true bones, shall I find the folk of Von ahead, neither turning to the left nor the right?”  Lugh cast and counted.  Two and Two and Two, no stronger augre could there be, straight ahead for sure.

Being, for a short while, free of the bugs had quite renewed his spirits, that or using the gift of divination bones that Von had given him or both.  Lugh had quite forgotten how fun was this little game of chance.  Having restrung them, repacked his things, shouldered the load, and alas, recollected his cloud of midges Lugh trudged on. 

The man found his path leave the soggy marsh and enter an older section of forest.  The trees were magnificent, stately and shady.  The insects would not relent, but they were tolerable in the shade of the trees.  Everywhere beneath the mighty trees were ferns and moss.  Even the light seemed green in it.  Then, like a vision, the old trees fell away and a sapphire jewel was revealed, a lake of deep water, cooler even than the shady old forest.

Laughing, Lugh threw off his clothing and his fine boots and packed all but what was too long to fit, his bow and a sword, into the skin bag with a strong puff of air as well.  Thus protected he took to the water, after kissing the bones, “Neither left nor right and see you’ve brought me to this lovely lake.  I can only go through and bless you for it.”  He ran naked through the rushes and into the lake.  Soon he was swimming upon his side, towing his bag of possessions behind.

Welcome to another tale of the Dream-Walker.  These stories grew out of an idea for a people who live to the north of the Gaellic Plain of Tir na Nua called Deer Riders, the Norfolk, or by some Bramblewood Elves.  The Dream-Walker is a wild seer, not a shaman or a holy man of any sort, but a man who can slip his body and walk time and space, see things nobody else could see, and return to his time and his own place on the those Gaellic Plains among the Scythians.  He has kept his journeys secret for most of his life, but now he is elderly and he shares his stories with his grandsons.  You can read the first story (which got totally out of hand) it begins with Concerning the Deer Riders.

Dream-Walker and the Giant

“Is this really the best way to catch a fish?” Asked the young plains rider, skeptically.

“Well, if you’re old like me young fellow, this is not only the best way, it’s the only way to catch a fish.”  The man chuckled.

“Catching a fish is boring, if you ask me.” said the boy.

“As I remember, you asked me, Bres,” said the old man. ”Catching a fish isn’t boring, its waiting to catch a fish that wears on a body.  You’ll see, when you catch one yourself.”

The man tipped his head back, sun warming his bald head, and let himself slip out of his shell, just a bit.  They called him Dream-walker, at least the Norfolk had, but he didn’t need to dream to do it.  Any moment of quiet contemplation could serve.  His dream self slipped into the pond and with eyes sharper than human and much sharper than his withered human shell, he looked for a fish worth the name and a memory for his grandson.

With a gasp and a snort he came back to himself.  The boy eyed him accusingly.  “See?  Boring Grandfather, you went to sleep.  Tell me that isn’t boring,” said the boy, but returned to contemplating the spot where his line disappeared into the still water of the pond.

“Well Bres, my boy, the secret to finding a fish is thinking like a fish.”

“How do I do that?” said the boy, exasperated but interested.

“Well, if you were a fish, what would you want?”

The boy pondered that awhile, his plump cheeks puffed out and his eyes squinting, “I guess I’d want food.”

Bres was the youngest and always the hungriest of his grandsons so the old man was ready for his answer, “Sure you’re right, a fish wants food, but for a big fish, for a fish that lives past being a fry, such a fish wants protection first.  There is always a heron or an eagle looking for a meal too.  The fish wants to eat, but if he has lived long enough to be worthy of catching he has always wanted NOT to be eaten still more.

“I never thought of that,” said Bres.

“And you’ve caught no fish,” said the old man.

The boy looked over at his grandfather and his smile turned sly,”but grandfather, you haven’t caught a fish either.”

“Oh ho,” laughed the man, and he reached over to tickle the boy, “do you think I don’t know where the fish are?  I’ve caught more fish than you’ve eaten. I just didn’t want to make you feel bad.”

The plump little boy squealed with delight, “oh grandfather.”

“Let me help you boy.  Why I know where the Bass of Knowledge lies right over there in the pond.”

“The Bass of Knowledge?” Bres asked skeptically.

“Why it’s the biggest meanest fish anywhere around here.  It has lived for a hundred years at least and all that time it has listened to the whispering of the wind and the murmur of the land and it has rested in this pond near the Dagda, so it has heard all his dreams too.”

“The Dagda?  What is the Dagda?” asked Bres, fishing and the Bass of Knowledge forgotten for the moment. 

Bres was the man’s favorite grandson, though he knew he shouldn’t have favorites, and the man was no doubt Bres’ favorite grandfather too.  The man always took pride in how he had a nose for a story.

“Bres my boy, let’s give the Bass of Knowledge a little more time to listen to the wind and to the land and to the giant’s dreams. Let’s you and I have a walk and a stretch and I’ll tell you about the Dagda.”  They pulled in their lines and set them aside, then hand in hand they walked up the hill that held the little pond in its embrace.

The man watched as his young friends fled.  Lugh found a drink un-spilled in his hand and decided that a sign.  He drank, draining the rest of it in one long pull.  Even that time was not enough for the man, he stood, back toward Lugh, watching as the young men fled.  Lugh began to grow concerned, was this the girl’s father?

“Are you the one we call the Youth?”

“Well, how would I know. . .”

“Do not toy with me.  Are you one of the unatural children of the goddess Dana?  Lugh of the long journeys some call you.”  The man turned, his eyes bore into Lugh’s, “But when you came to us before, some 300 years gone, we called you the Youth.  At least that is what we called you after you left us.”

“I am called Finn . . .”

“You call yourself that, Oatey calls you Lugh, Lugh Lamfada, the far reacher, the one of the long journeys.  You have white hair, so you are Finn, well and good.  Anyone can see that.  Do you deny you are the creature Lugh Lamfada then?  Is that how you came to the Norfolk when we sheltered you from your brother?”

“. . . the creature. . .”

The Norfolk barked a humorless laugh.  “Really, you would bridle at being called creature, when you are hundreds of years old, when you look no older now then when you left us and brought on us the wrath of Baelor and all this of the giants.  Really, creature is not to your liking?  How about demon then, how about monster?”

“How about man?”

“How can that be, Finn?  Man?  I don’t know what you are, but man does not describe you.”

“Did I say I was this Lugh creature?”

“No, you deny it.  You call yourself Finn and doing so you call Oatey Moss a liar.”  The Norfolk grinned, but there was nothing of laughter in it.

Lugh ground his teeth.  Who was this pompous prosecutor?  Lugh regretted the beer and the evening.  He might even have regretted Oatey and the giant hunt, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to that.  “You have me at a disadvantage, you accuse me, but I don’t even know your name or by what rite you question.  You seem ready to hang me for this thing of Baelor of which I know nothing.  And I thought the Norfolk a civil folk, but is this how you treat a guest?  This is what passes for hospitality in the North?