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.

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

Much was forgotten and much hidden by the priests to give them power over the people.  How else to make them erect temples to far off gods?  This is why my family, a family of scribes, passed knowledge of the ancients by story and poem, passed by memory.

We know what a star is and that we live on a planet and that the planet we live upon that is near there stars is not the planet from which our forefathers came.  We know that our folk came to this place in a great ship and that they slept in a deep chill to preserve them in their long journey.  Perhaps this is why the priest leave young children, tightly bound, in icy mountain top retreats, some perverted memory of our arrival here or perhaps it is just that they love death more than anything.

We write their words and copy their proclamations, we record the annals and publish their oracles.  We know their desires and they are not even to their gods, but rather, they lust for blood, for death, always for death.

The Corn King’s people they call us. It would be truer to say we are the Corn King’s Priest’s slaves if we live and the priest’s victims if we don’t.