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.

Lugh went looking for Oatey after the not so honorable Martel Jones had left.  The party was over, but there were still folk cleaning and straightening.  Polite directions and sly smiles followed him as he wandered from server to cook to reveler to chambermaid and at last through passages, dark and narrow, to a low doorway, curtained, and beyond it, a dark chamber.

“Oatey?” He called softly, not wishing to disturb folk behind other curtains in the nearby rooms.  He glanced about for another helpful source of direction, but finding none he pulled aside the curtain and called into the room, “Oatey? Might I speak to you?” There was no answer from the small chamber and no light to reveal it.

A fine fix, he had little enough confidence that he could find his way back out and none that he could find the girl, thought Lugh.  He hovered in the doorway wondering if he should feel around in the dark for a place to sit or a light or just go.  This is my chance to be rid of her and her giant killing.  Martel Jones does have a point about Oatey Moss and Peace being mutually exclusive.

“Its considered rude to hover in doorways, Lugh,” said Oatey Moss. 

He might have jumped, but Oatey didn’t seem to notice.  She slipped past him and reached up inside the doorway for a candle and a chemical match which she struck against stone and brought to the taper.  “Welcome to my home, such as it is.  I went looking for you and heard from a few that the blond youth was asking for me.”  She slipped inside, drawing aside the curtain so he could pass into the cramped space beyond.

The place was small, there was room for a bed and not much else.  The tight quarters were made tighter by stacks and stacks of books that covered nearly everything but the bed and a narrow path that led to it.  “It’s cluttered,” said Oatey, suddenly embarrassed, “here, sit on the bed.”  She slipped by him on the path and found a book stack to perch on.

Lugh sat on the bed and looked at the girl, she was flustered, here in her home, when before leaders, warriors, and giants she was supremely confident.  Lugh wondered how both of those women could be Oatey or indeed which was the real one.  “I didn’t know where you were.  I really don’t know anyone here either, except you.”

She looked up at him in dismay, “Oh my, I didn’t think about that.” 

Before Lugh could recover from the shock of her clear innocent embarrassment Oatey Moss, giant killer, burst into tears. 

She was always doing that, surprising him.

“It is not my custom to let it be known who I might be,” said Lugh, “or who I might not be.  You seem quite certain of yourself.  Let’s assume you are correct and, assuming it, go forward quietly.”

“So you admit. . .”

“If asked, I am Finn, as you can see.  But I will not have it said that Oatey is a liar.  She is guiltless.”

“She is NOT guiltless, nor is she guiless.” Huffed the Norfolk, “What that girl is, beyond doubt, is trouble.”

Lugh laughed at that, and then laughed the louder when the man turned purple with pent anger, “Indeed, it’s good to know that on at least that we agree.”

The man glanced around conspiratorially, “So you see our dilemma.  There is no doubting her power, or her popularity among the young and, might I add, the foolish.  This can only lead to trouble.  Trouble bigger than one fourteen foot giant I should think as well.”

“Are you the girl’s father?” asked Lugh.

“NO!” barked the man, then quieter, “No, her parents are gone, both of them.”

“. . . and you want me to steer the girl.  Away from giants?  Away from here?”

The man seemed to ooze slime as he smiled at Lugh, “You and I are men of the world, Finn, if you like.  Surely one so experienced can guide her away from these troubling matters and leave our folk in peace.”

“What of these giants?  Isn’t this a service she supplies?  I can only imagine what a creature like that monster would have done if she had not lured it to its death.  She claims that these giants can be shrewd, that they have allies.”

“Aye, that she pretends to be one of these Giant wives to lure them, she says.  You know a woman is the wife to one man, but what if this giant was not her mate?  Fine, she lures him to his death.  What if she is the wife of a far worse giant?  Maybe she has roused him already and uses us to kill off his rivals.  What if she betrays us?  The giants sleep until she rouses them.  Let them sleep I say.  Let them sleep and we will all live a more peaceful life.

“I see, I will think on this, but how much I will not say.  Can I take seriously this, whispered in my ear by a man I’ve never before met, nor even know his name?”

“As you say, Finn.” said the Norfolk, ”Then I will tell you, my name is Martel Jones, Chief of the Oakwood Sidhe, and First Speaker of the Conclave of Elders.”

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?

It was a boisterous procession that left the killing ground triumphant.  Lugh shadowed Oatey from a distance.  He did not want to intrude and wasn’t sure he would be welcomed, she was in her glory.  She was the hero of the hour, her Norfolk brothers and sisters whisked her away to feasting and consultations with the leaders of the community.  Lugh, for his part, kept his distance.

Lugh had to smile, the Norfolk marched off into the wood, here a group carrying Oatey on their shoulders, there a group bearing the bloody giant’s head.  Lugh followed, in situations like this he’d found it was best to act as if you knew exactly what you were about and if you did so well enough nobody would question you.

There was a crowd of Norfolk along the way as they neared the sidhe.  Old men, women, and children all cheered.  The whole boisterous lot proceeded into the great under hill hall where blazed a great fire that roasted the meat, gleamed off the polished copper lamps around the hall, and lit the dancers who swirled around it.

Lugh blended in to the celebration, there was food to eat, everyone was in high spirits, he even danced with the young women who asked him, getting better at the steps each turn.  The giant was dead and everyone was feeling expansive and generous.

After a few turns he realized that the basis of this dance was very like the one Oatey had done to wake the giant.  Lugh spent a moment or two wondering which influenced which.  As he danced he took note of Oatey Moss conferring with the community leaders at the head table.  She was deeply engrossed in the conversation and it wounded him a bit that she took no notice of him at all.

As the celebration drew toward a close Lugh sat drinking with a circle of the young men who had charged in to strike off the giants head.  They recognised him as being with Oatey and enjoyed teasing him about his awkward landing and the look they imagined he had as the giant fell into the copper spears.  The camaraderie was easy, unforced, and Lugh began to relax a bit with new friends and alcohol.

Just when Lugh thought he might drift off where he was, deep in his cups, a grey bearded Norfolk with a scale hauberk and the air of authority strode up to his little group.  “Don’t you all have some duty?  I need to speak to the Youth.”  All were a bit slowed by their choice of draught, “Attend them or find a bed, now.”  His new friends scattered dragging the fallen-insensate with them.