“Ruaridh Ua Birlinn, what can you tell me about him?” asked Iamerge.

Jim took a swig of his ale and then thumped it down on the bar, “Ruaridh is a fine fellow.  As it turns out he’s a better trader than his father.  He runs his business tight like he used to run the ships for his Da.”  Jim picked up his ale and looked at Iamerge as he took another drink.

“Just that?  A better trader than his father?  Runs a tight ship?  You aren’t telling me much, what about the man.  What’s he like?

Cooper chuckled, “Well, I knew his Da, Rod Ua Birlinn.  Let’s just say that Ruaridh is no Roderick, but that might be age.  Might be, but I think it is more like that he takes after his mother.”

“So, its a debt I’ve come to claim.  A deal was struck a long time gone and with the father.  What are my chances, collecting from the son?  If I’m to have aught to pay back your kindness it will come from that.”

“Oh you’ll likely have no trouble.  And as to my fee, I told you, I like to know what’s what, if you’ll tell me what I don’t, I’m more than grateful.  Right now, I’ve told you that Ruaridh ain’t Rod, and that the worst of him might come from Mongfind, the mother.  A boy always wants to live up to the the father and Ruaridh is no exception, he’s a good Celt, open-handed.”

“So avoid Mongfind.  Fair enough.”

“Avoid letting the woman into the business end.”  Cooper shivered and looked back to his ale, “So that’s what I know, now tell me what I don’t know my good friend Iamerge, who looks like a monk but isn’t.  I can tell there’s a story and I’ll hear it.” Jim winked and nursed his ale.

These fragments of the lore of Tir na Nua are presented raw, first draft, and unedited. I apologize for their original condition. However, my first priority is to capture sketches, so to speak, of the people and places of Tir na Nua. I have promised Free Celtic Fiction and before I can shape these sketches into more polished works I need to write these drafts. I share them, as they are, while I try to find the time to improve them. — LSO

 Read the beginning of this story: the Red Son of Concubar

the Coming of CuRuada the Red Son of Concubar

Nine days after Concubar’s tryst with the deer woman of the wood, the king was feasting in his great hall with his Red Branch warriors.  They would not leave off asking him about the woman and what was said between them.  Some of his men felt that it was good fortune and some were worried it was ill, but Concubar wished only that he could find the woman again.  How can I, Concubar thought, when I don’t even know her name?

Cathbad the, chief druid of Ulster, came into the hall in distress, “My lord Concubar, there is trouble on the hurley pitch.  The boys troop has cornered another boy and are beating him to death.”

Concubar sighed, “Boys will be boys, must I truly drag them from their prey?  What is this other boy to me?  Perhaps the troop has good cause.  Did you think of that Cathbad?”

“As to who the boy is, I can not say, but his cloak marks him as a prince and the broach upon it says he is the son of a king,”  said Cathbad, “And if you would know who he might be to you you’d best stop them soon or there will be no finding it out until the king, who is his father comes looking for his son.  I doubt he will be pleased.”

So the king rose from his couch and went to the hurley pitch with haste, all his warriors with him.  Now a king among the Gael must rule by right of a choosing.  He must be strong in body, perfect, and strong in voice so that his commands will be heard and obeyed. 

Concubar was without peer and his commands were always followed, so powerful was his voice.  So Concubar shouted with his commanding voice, “See here, stop beating that boy,”  said Concubar.

Even his command would not stop the boys.  So shocking was this that Concubar said not another word, but began to pull the boys off one at a time and throw them to his warriors, who’s sons they were.  When Concubar reached the bottom of the scrum he found Donall, the son of the champion, Cormac, and a little fellow with hair like flame of fire.

“Leave off you two! What is the meaning of this?”  shouted Concubar, and finally the boys stopped their struggles.  “What mischief are you all up to Donall?”

Donal answered, “This little fellow came and said that he wanted to play at hurley with us.  Nobody can play with the boy’s troop unless he be worthy, so we asked his name, but this little fellow would not say it, he claimed he was bound by his gesa not to give his name except to the king.”

Another boy piped up, “He wouldn’t say, so we told him he couldn’t play.  Then he stole our sliotar and carried it off to the goal.”

“Liar, I stole nothing, I only wanted to play.” said the little fellow.

“. . . so when he put the sliotar in the goal we confronted him.  Without permission and giving his name he should not play at hurley with the boys troop.” said Donall

“I have as much right as anyone here.” shouted the little fellow.

All the boys started to yell at that and curse him. “After that he attacked us.” said Donall

“Another lie! You pushed me down first.” howled the little red-haired boy.

“This one little boy attacked you?  All of you?” Asked the king.

“He is a demon or worse! He broke Felmid’s arm and who knows what else?” said Donall.

“This little fellow?” asked Concubar again, and the boys troop was shamed to silence.

Concubar set the two boys down.  He looked around at the boys, many of which had woundings and some who sat on the ground nursing broken bones, and the king wondered, who could this child be?

Concubar turned to the little fellow. “So boy, what is your name?”  he asked not unkindly.  He looked sternly in the boys face, but he found no fear there at all.

“I told them and I’ll tell you or anyone else, I can tell my name to none but the king, it is a gesa on me.”  Then it was that Concubar saw that the cloak he wore was outsized for one so small for it was a man’s cloak, a king’s cloak, indeed Concubar saw that it was his cloak pinned with his broach and on the childs hand was his ring.

These fragments of the lore of Tir na Nua are presented raw, first draft, and unedited.  I apologize for their original condition.  However, my first priority is to capture sketches, so to speak, of the people and places of Tir na Nua.  I have promised Free Celtic Fiction and before I can shape these sketches into more polished works I need to write these drafts.  I share them, as they are, while I try to find the time to improve them. –  LSO

The great mountain became the center of the Gaellic world on Tir na Nua.  Around Sliebe na Gael, close on the slopes of that mountain, on the rocky hills were the Connachta on the South and West to the sea, Mumah folk to the East along the coast, the Laigin North and East to the river and that land was fair, and North and West were the Uliad.  That is, these were the divisions when Dana and Lyr and his shieldmen took Sliebe na Gael, when they were driven from the plain by ice, when Wyland delved out the secret forbidden ways, when Bridgit and Lugh eloped and brought on the Rage of Lyr.   The folk were in these four divisions, the Four fourths of the Tuatha de Dana.

The folk of the Uliad prospered and divided into many clans who dispersed to the north until there came to be a land named by her people, Ulster, and a king of that Tuath named Concubar.  This was the time before the Gobli swept the plain with fire and the people were driven back into the Four Fourths.  Concubar was a great king, a proud warrior, and a hunter of great renown.

One day he was hunting with his friends, the warriors of the Red Branch in the new forests that covered the plain.  All the trees in that place were of one height being planted in one season by the Fae Gardeners, the Norfolk, scattered by their life giving forest spheres.

For this reason, in imitation, the Red Branch warriors made brain balls, weapons made from the vanquished.  Many lives were taken by those balls of brain and bone dust and lime, so the Red Branch warriors became known for there making and the feat of their use in battle.

Concubar was swifter than the red stag he stalked, much faster than his warriors.  The blood of his prey was in his nostrils and he left his brothers behind.  He followed the stag into a valley where the trees grew tall, ancient, moss hung, and magical.

A beautiful woman stepped out of this magical forest.  Her skin was pale as a swan, her lips as red as blood, and her hair like burnished copper, was red as well.  Concubar imagined she must be of the Sidhe, he would have left her there, for it is rarely wise for men to mix in the matters of gods, but desiring him she put aside her mantle and Concubar loved her.

Concubar took from his shoulders his cloak to make a bower for them.  In all the time they lay together she spoke no word, nor did the man until she rose and made to go, “Who are you, my lady?” Concubar asked the fairy woman.

“I am the mother of your son, my lord,” said the woman, “I am the daughter of the over King of the Northmost land, I am the watcher who has loved you.”

“Have I known you before my lady?  How can that be?  For surely I would remember you.”

“Never before tonight have I known you, but I have watched you and I know that I love you.  I will send your son to you, my lord.”  And the woman stepped away toward the deep woods.”

“Wait!  How will I know him?” Asked the man.

The woman had no answer, but Concubar could see this worried her and she stopped.  So Concubar took up his cloak and going to the woman he lay it across her shoulders, “By this my people will know him to be a prince,” said the king, “And by this all will know that his father is a king,” he said, pinning on her his broach, “And by this I will know he is my son,” said Concubar and he took his own ring from his finger and gave it into the woman’s hand.

At this the woman smiled and she kissed Concubar and said, “And for this I knew, watching you, that I loved you.”  There arose about her a mist.

“But what is your name?” the King asked her.

“Our son will tell you,” She said.  A mist of fog hid her from Concubar’s sight, and he knew she was gone.

A cool breeze took away the fog and there, not far away, was a red deer doe.  He heard the calls of his warriors and the doe bounded away with the mist.  At this the king went to them.

A Story that Grows in the Telling

Everything that happens, if it involves more than one person, will have two or more opinions about what actually happened.  The truth, if there is such a thing, will be somewhere among the opinions.  I think a legend at its base is a story that grows in the telling, resonating more and more with the audience, while it grows less and less true to its origin. 

A legend, to a storyteller, is too good to pass up.  In fact it is opportunity after opportunity to tell it plain, but instead, the bard, or skald, or elder decides to tell it so they see eyes grow wide, eyes that are rivetted on the storyteller. 

Fables provide lessons (and often talking animals), Myths explain gods and their interactions with people, Epics follow a series of critical events.  Epic Fable?  Mythological Epic?  Lore applies to the collected stories of a people, perhaps it is their stories that make them a people.  All these names for stories are words to describe stories of different flavors, but all of them, in someway, provide cultural cohesion.  Don’t you think?

J. R. R. Tolkien set out to provide what he felt his people lacked, a mythos for the British people.  It was Epic, it was Mythical, it spoke to me and continues to, as a reader, I hated to see it end.  Really, I hated the end, it seemed to me that Grey Havens was one of the sadest personal tragedies that I’ve endured.  Fine for Frodo and Bilbo, I’m sure Merry and Pippin and of course Sam all got on fine, but for me that world just ended.  There is a hole.

The nearest thing to the feeling of exploration and discovery that I got with LOTR is the discovery of Irish Mythology.  It is not in a neat package like LOTR.  It doesn’t have just one imaginer.  But it is an exciting and involving subject.  The hole is partly filled.

But I want more.  Sometimes you have to supply your own needs, like almost all the time you do so, I am in the process of writing several novels, but on the way to that I offer these thoughts, insights, resources, and diversions of interest to me and, I hope, to you.  Here I hope to gather legends and lore, notes on antiquity, and present day reality.

For now, welcome and please tell me what you like or you don’t.  I value your insights; I value your eyes, riveted, grown wide.

A Story Told (and told and told)

I’m a man with a story.  Even my name, O’Neill, has tales attached to it (like this one of the Hand Gules that is prominent in our heraldry,) but don’t we all?  I love old tales, tales of heroes, tales of real people in strange times and strange people in real times.  I have wanted to write such tales and, prodded by my friend, Jeffery, I have. 

I’ve just completed the first draft of a short story.  In the end Concerning The Deer Riders wandered a bit farther than I had anticipated.  Legendary wanderings?  You can read Concerning the Deer Riders yourself and see what you think.

I’ve begun a novel.  I am offering my unedited first draft as I write it.  When Jeffery first convinced me to try this format I realized that the first job was to get some content up and quick.  As such, my first use has been something of an artist’s sketchbook, an author’s notepad.  I do believe there is value in this.  Eventually it may be of use to other struggling writers to see the story of my struggle and see process as positive or negative example or even to provide encouragement by comparison.

Dear reader, I am a new novelist and at present I believe that my best chance of developing is getting something out there.  If you disagree please tell me, perhaps I will progress on several tracks. putting out raw very rough drafts and going back through past stories to sharpen and polish them.  Here is the novel beginnings: Intro to and  Beginning of The Abbot and the Djinn. Follow my progress HERE.

Of late I feel that I’ve put quite a bit of ore on these pages.  It is probably time to refine, to polish, to hammer some of these tales into something better than they were.  So now, we begin the  “. . . and told and told and told” part of the writers craft.  Find my polished stones here.

Tir na Nua

I have imagined a world apart.  A land out of time.  Now, on Earth, there is little doubt about some things which have happened, have passed into history.  These things are written.  Before and between the stone of what is written are legends of things not written, but perhaps true none-the-less. 

Tir na Nua is neither and both.  Have you wished that there was a land where the Celtic world did not fall beneath the Roman?  Have you wondered what that world might have been?  Such things have happened in the new land and we have word of it, remembered by bards, lineage by rote, History in mind and on their lips.  I bring these stories.

At one time folk we identify now as Celtic dominated much of Europe. Except for ruins, and votive offerings, and the words of enemies, and a very few scratchings on stones we have nothing left of these people.  To imagine a Celtic world like insular Ireland one must imagine the real, because there is little enough to instruct us as to what that real, Earthly world was like.  Enter the legend maker, the storyteller, the bard. 

I have had an interest in the real Celts, Gauls, Britons, Welsh, all the diverse tribes of a people who shared a way of life and an asthetic sense and language if not blood.  I want to gather material, post what I find, and get your reactions to topics of Antiquity, Celts in general, Insular Ireland, and of course my stories.

Sometimes I wish I dwelled in Tir na Nua, but instead I live in a much less misty, more pedestrian, and I would say, far less noble world.  Some things that come to my attention must not pass without comment.  I will comment on current events. (sorry if this is a buzz kill, please feel free to ignore all political rants of the author and return to escapist literature.) 

Content

I am working to put some of my scratchings, secreted away in numerous notebooks, into a form more conducive to your perusal and consumption.  These first draft stories and bits of back story are available at blog topics.

Here is a bit of that ever expanding effort? work? uh, drekk? Hopefully fascinating fiction.

I have in mind to collect many things here, but I want to produce for you stories of places outside of your experience (or anyones) and yet true and recognizable. You are welcome to browse as it accretes (I think this may be another Steveism. I should really look for it in some authoritative Dictionary.*) I will update metatags and such to reflect the sites altered state. It will never be done…

I pray I have not taxed your resources too much. Enjoy! Comment! Dispute! Encourage! Correct! Guide! Request!

Welcome to this,

LSO

PS. * ac·crete (-krt)

2. To grow or increase gradually, as by addition.

source

Little enough of what I’ve been able to assemble on these pages so far has any basis in the reality of Earth.  I have bent my will and my efforts toward Tir na Nua. 

That is not to say that there are no mythic figures worth looking into.  In Ireland the line between myth and reality is as thin as the line between the living and dead at Samhain.  There are figures, men and women, who bridge the gap between the real and the fantastic.  Whether they approached such legendary status in life is open to debate, but some few have attained it in memory, in lore.

One such real figure is Niall of the Nine Hostages (Noigiallach).  If nothing else, this particular Niall’s story had much to do with my later fascination with things Celtic.  Niall, it appears, was a king and so fixed in memory and genetics that many count him among their progenitors and as many as twenty-five percent of folk in the North of Ireland, and their descendants whether they know it or not, seem marked by his genetics, True Story.

You can read a little more about The Niall Nine Hostages That Was and a little less about me.

I discovered my association on the back of a clan tie at a highland games in Gresham Oregon.  Again, true story.  I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned how I first came across bagpipe music in a small high-school radio station in North Dakota.  I played “Mul of Kintyre“, by Paul McCartney and the Wings every day for the rest of that semester.  But I discovered IT again on a summer day in Oregon when it came through my window and lured me into another world.

Certainly it was different from the run-of-the-mill day in Gresham Oregon, different than North Dakota too.  But the music drew me to the event and the event led me to a small blurb on the back of a MacNeill clan tie.  There I first read anything at all about Niall Noigiallach. 

With only a very few little words on a bit of paper the writer chose to mention this fellow, Niall of the Nine Hostages, High King of Ireland.  Obviously, it was effective marketing, I bought the tie along with some bagpipe music and a banger. 

Truth to tell, though the O’Neills and the MacNeills both have Niall Noigiallach as a progenitor, they are really named after Niall Glundub (Black Knee).  Still, selling ties is easier with Noigiallach than the closer relative Glundub.  I’ve got to forgive the inaccuracy for its impact.

But that is not even near the end of the story.  No dear reader, looking into Niall exposed me to such wonders as a genealogy that stretched back (thanks to dutiful monk scribes) past Noah to Adam himself.  I learned that legend names a grand-daughter of Noah as the leader of the first settlement on the Emerald Isle.  I ran across names like Nuada Silver Hand, and Finn MacCool, and Conn of the Hundred Battles. 

Recently I found links through geneologies back to those three notables in Legend to my heritage (fictional or not).  Isn’t that a wonder?  All this found through Niall Noigiallach.  True Story.

LSO