She was asleep on the ground.  Around her were arrayed bags and travois, bales of hide and smaller lumps, like a play fort you might make.  At first it seemed she slept there alone.  I only had eyes for my friend.  I knew her face, but there was something quite different about it, longer and with sharper angles.  “Jella?”

She gasped and sat up, “Dream-walker?”  A couple of the lumps around her stirred and one sat up.  Oddly, this one looked almost as much like the Jella I remembered as did the one I had first identified as my friend.  Eerily this younger Jella pointed at me and laughed.  The little one spoke her strange tongue and was answered by my friend and yet not my friend. 

Jella threw back her covering of sleeping skins and rose.  I was not so young that I couldn’t tell that this was now not the girl I had first seen, but a woman.  She quickly covered the shift she slept in with buckskin and colorful woolens.

She looked me in the eye, and a smile twitched the corner of her mouth. Her generous lips did not move more than that, but I heard in my head, “You haven’t changed in all these years, I wasn’t sure I’d see you again.”

I’m fairly certain I frowned, because I saw one reflected on her smooth adult face, “Ah, are you still in the sidhe?  But I left you the lamp and the flint. . .” I suspect my frown turned to a blush, because her smile returned and she said, “did you forget?”  She tsked, and I was uncomfortably reminded of my own mother, ” It should be right there at the beginning of the souterrain.”

“The tunnel thing?  I forgot that too.” I felt heat on my face and neck and was sure now that if I wasn’t blushing before I was now.  “It is so dark.”

“Well, the sun should be rising.  It may not light your way much, but it should help you find the center.  At mid-day the light should point you toward the souterrain as it is due north.”

I mumbled thanks.  She smiled.  Her hair was much longer than before.  It was braided in thick ropes with bits of bright bead and bright cloth or leather, I wasn’t sure.  I thought her very lovely.

“Dream-walker, meet my children.”  She reached over and roused the lump on the other side from the little Jella who stared at me with big blue eyes.  A tossle-haired boy sat up.  “My children, Oren and Joy.”

“How is it that you have lived your life and I am still in this hole?” I thought to her.

“I can’t say,” She looked puzzled, “Perhaps you can walk through time as well as through. . .” She shrugged.  “. . .You would know better than I.  Mostly I see the dead, you were the first living spirit I ever saw.  And until now the last as well.”

“You see the spirits of the dead?” I asked her as if I had not just heard her say so.  I blushed again.

She nodded, but otherwise took no notice of the question, “If you were outside of your time when first we met I wonder what time you are in now?  We have not lived in a sidhe in a six-year and more.  I think that one has been sealed for eleven years since I saw you that night.  There may have been another clan that took refuge, but we have avoided the old secret places, riding with the deer, to keep them safe and ourselves free.”

“To keep yourself free?  What threatens you?”

Her face was pale from sleep, but she paled still more, “Could you possibly have not met the foul ones, the devourers?” Jella frowned not in anger but with concern.  “Why are you alone in the sidhe, why haven’t your people come for you Dream-Walker?”

“I’m a scout, a searcher, I seek out new places for my people.  We have been at a great river to the south.”

“Are you saying that your people are not in the secret place?  They are still at the River?  In the open?”

“My people always live in the open. . .”

“No no, they must not.  The hordes of foul ones will kill and feed.  You should not have come into the north.  It has not been safe since before the giants came, and they are the worst of all.

“I can see you live on the land.  Why can you do it but my folk can not?”

“You do not know.  We track them, we watch.  We herd the deer away to the far north.  Dream-Walker, your folk must be warned.  There is a great gathering of the foul ones.  They are on the march.  It is all we can do to keep the herds from them, to stay alive and free from them.  If they find you they will gather and kill you all.  They are made to destroy man, we are food to them.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“We have gone into the far north.  That as much as any reason is why we left the sidhe that sheltered us during the long winters.  This new plague of monsters and giants is worse than that of ice.  You must warn your people, Dream-walker, you must warn everyone that the dark hordes will come and they must flee or die.” Jella’s face hardened, “Go to your people Dream-Walker.  It may be too late already. . .”

And as if her words had the power I was snatched away.  My friend and her family shrunk to a tan blotch among the smaller blotches of the herd and then they were gone. As I rose I saw the great whiteness of the frozen wastes beyond.  I flew across mountains, watching the white, ice-locked peaks dwindle.  I saw below me the stony knob and the hidden place in the bramble wood with its sidhe where I guessed I lay, but I did not stop nor slow though I drew near the ground. 

Along the river I saw a man.  He strode along the banks and suddenly I saw that he was immense.  He dwarfed the trees.  The giant man had hair of red and he looked at me as if he saw me.  I rushed along the river, there were creatures among the trees.  I saw an army of them, armored, and armed for battle. 

Then I was in our camp.  The creatures, foul ones Jella had called them, were all throughout it.  The morning sun cast evil glints off their cruel looking weapons dazzling my eyes.  My people were gone.  I looked to the sun.

What do you mean by Free Celtic Fiction?

Ah, I’m glad you asked.  Is this fiction from Ireland or Scotland or Wales?  No.  The title of my pages, this “blog”, was L. Stephen O’Neill.  Sadly, not so many folks were searching for me by name, so being advised to be more descriptive I came up with descriptive words that I felt would be popular searches as well as descriptive. 

Being at least partly Scots I am personally drawn to the word FREE.  I consider myself a celt, live in Oregon, like bagpipes, tartan, woolens, potatos, I’m CELTIC.  and I’m constructing a FICTIONal, Roman Empire Free, world to let the Celts have another go at world domination.  I think its high time, read about that below.

I am trying to focus my efforts on a few primary storylines.  Because the posts are not always in order I’ve started to organize the storylines on which I’m working on a novel progress page for the Abbott and the Djinn, and a Current Primary Storylines page for Child of Moss, the Deer Riders, and the Red Son of Concubar.

Philosophy of Fiction

Fiction can be truer than real life.  The lives of mere characters, literary constructs, can clarify and instruct a reader, helping them to gain perspective, inspiration, and fortitude for their real life situations.  Their own problems and opportunities are much more complex to be sure, but sometimes the perspective of fiction is a perfect catalyst for positive change. . .

. . . or just a very entertaining read!

These are the stories that I have begun to commit to ones and zeroes to this point:

The Abbott and the Djinn my first draft online novel.

The Red Son of Concubar is an attempt to tell a truely Celtic story, drawing elements from some of the most loved Irish legends.

I’ve found a fragment of a planned novel (actually trilogy) That introduces the point of view character of the UiUilsen Saga.  Meet Hunter Wilde.  I had not planned on sharing things I actually planned to one day publish, but I wanted to introduce you to Hunter.

An Anuniaq Tale about an Inuit who meets the mysterious Others, folk of the Ui Uilsen.

The Deer Riders in the far North of the Gaellic plain

Information regarding the Losterlies is background material for the setting of a planned novel, The Man Who Forgot Himself.

Kitsuniko Awakes in the land of the Sinoese, but among these people she is a mystery, even to her self.

the Red Hand of Courage

 The Annals of the Tuatha de Dana

Tir na Nua

I have several stories, novels, that I am in the process of writing.  Most if not all are set in the world of Tir na Nua.  This new world is a world apart from the Earth that we know and has been, there are names and situations that may seem familiar, but though they echo the world we know they are not from that world at all.  For stories specific to Tir na Nua but not included elsewhere you could explore that blog topic: Tir na Nua

Here I plan to gather research material, scene drafts, character development studies, back stories and perhaps short stories that contribute to each of them or at least flesh out this new land, Tir na Nua.

Currently I am focusing on a novel set in a island archipelago, the Losterlies, that is effectively on the opposite side of the world from where humanity was first established and from where it diffused. The working title for this novel is “The Man Who Forgot Himself.”

On the Losterlies are a people known as wanderers or gypsies who are decendants of a particular Inuit by the name of Anuniaq.  “Anuniaq Goes to Sea… …Again” is a tale from his life as is Anuniaq and the Storm Tossed Sea.

People groups converge on the Losterlies and one of the cultures that has great impact are the Inuit peoples, known by the Rus as the Icefolk,  who leave with the Russians and are later enslaved by them.  I want to develop a tale about one of these people, a whale talker, who’s people are annihilated by the iron Rus and who in turn gets revenge and then must rebuild a life afterward.  The working title for this novel is “The Poet and the Ice Princess”.

I have a few stories developing in an area of the world, Northern Umircea, that involves or evolved the Ribbon Wood Elves or UiUilsen as they are known. “the Lost Prince”, “Sasha and Faolan”, and a trilogy of stories, “the UiUilsen Cycle” will develop and expand both the peoples of this part of Umircea, the land beyond the Western Mountains of the Gaelish Central Plain.

I love the movie “a Knights Tale” and would like to write my take on the idea of nobility. I also like the idea of warfare as sport presented in that story (I’m an American Football fan) and think it has application, especially in the gaming community of today, but also to the Celtic lifestyle or my perception of what the Gaelic people were about.  I want to set my knights tale in Umircea, but I may move the setting to the cities of the Disputed Lands though nobility is much less a factor in that wild land.

An important part of the development of my fantasy world are figures who make a huge impact by virtue of their many talents and even more because of their longevity. The children of Dana Bailey are intended by Dana herself to be a Celtic Pantheon. These genetically altered super Celts make contributions both by virtue of their leadership, and also in just being a tie and a memory to a technological past that is being lost and replaced by new progress informed by the past but not dependant on it.  Among the characters stories will touch on: Balor, originally Llyr, who was first born and most willing to serve Dana Baily’s purposes, but came to work hardest against those goals as the leader of the Fomorians; Lugh of the long reach, a wanderer and a philanderer at first, godlike in his self-absorption, his many talents are at last turned to good when he learns responsibility; Bridget, maternal in truth and in temperament, she must learn how to be good at her role; Epona, but more her most impressive daughter, Scythia, who’s leadership gives the freedom loving horse folk of the Gaellic plain a name, an identity, and a mother; Loki the miner and technical genius who’s folk live under the mountains, and many more.

In the Disputed Lands life is cheap.  Warlords carve out kingdoms among the fortified city states of the broken and war torn landscape in a section of the northern continent east of the Safron River that drains much of the Great Gaellic plain, north of Scotia and the fortified wall that splits off the Scots Highlands from the rest, west of the Great Sea that has become dominated by the Fomor, and South of the lands of the Sinoese and most notably the Darklings.  Several stories will be set or will touch this volitile region.  Among them are “Icarus Flight”, “Kitsuniko“, “Led from the Dark or the Blind Deaf Mute and the Idiot” (a story about overcoming disability, frustrated revenge, and simple peace), “Fitch in His Majesties Service”

Stay tuned.  I have been adding material as quickly as I can.

Enjoy,

LSO