I was watching Casualty the other night (don't laugh my imaginary followers) BTW why does no-one want to follow me? Why does no-one want to read my book. I was told that I had to have an author's platform - so - I got one - and still no-one knows that I exist. How does one get noticed in this world of anonymity??
Anyway, back to Casualty - little Tess getting crapped on by management and workers getting uptight and staging protests and implicit messages in the scripted dialogue that management DON"T know better than the frontline practitioners. God I love it - are we seeing the beginning of the end of Thatcherism or Snatcherism?? I hate -isms - along with religion they cause all the wars and suffering and stuff like that.
Can we get back to a world that doesn't find care and compassion sins?
Get these greedy bankers to give up some of their dosh - might as well ask the Pope to become an atheist. I am glad that I am in my autumn years as I don't think I like the world anymore except for walking my dog on the windswept coast of the Isle of Man.
I apologise for burdening my imaginary followers with the first part of my book. What was I thinking? (Note to self - stop being a knobhead!)
So my vast invisible hordes of followers, think on this...
Monday, May 30, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
So What's this about being a writer, eh?
As I stated earlier I will stick the first chapter of my book on here for people to look at and, hopefully, comment on. so here it is.
Read and enjoy.
I will stick a synopsis of the whole thing on at a later date.
The Path -Volume one: ‘Out of the Maelstrom’
Part 1:Chianyn
Chapter 1
300BCE
The screams rent the smoky air of the large round hut in the forest clearing. ‘There, there, my lady; it will soon be over. The child is fighting to stay where it’s warm, but the gods want it out here. Just a few more moments, my lady,’ whispered the old wife in a soothing voice.
The women who were around the birth-bed cast anxious looks at each other. This was proving to be a difficult birth and this was the one birth that had to be right. The young woman was the wife of the chief, the king, of this corner of the Middle Island, and the line of succession had to hold. Only the gods knew what would happen if things went wrong.
The old midwife, Muira, watched the sweat run in streams down the young woman’s face, mixing with her tears of pain and fear. She pitied the young woman as the powerful spasms of another contraction drove through her body.
And then it was done. The baby came. The old woman swept into action, cutting the cord with her bronze birthing knife, clipping the protruding appendage, then cleaning the blood and mucus from the tiny creature and wrapping it in soft linen.
The young queen strained her head to see if everything was well. The silence, after her screams, was deafening. Fear swept over her again, but this time it was fear for the baby’s life. The silence grew and then, as she was about to shout out her apprehension, the baby cried. And she burst into tears again, but this time they were tears of happiness.
‘My Lady, you have a beautiful, perfect baby girl,’ said the old midwife.
‘Not a boy?’ whispered the young woman, ‘What will Coll say?’
Muira exchanged worried looks with the other women and it was plain to see that all feared the chief’s reaction. Her eyes rested on the youngest and, with a nod of her head, despatched the girl to tell the chief the news of his daughter.
A few moments later the chief burst in to the hut followed by his druid and a few warriors. He rushed to the side of his lady and held her hand tenderly. The old woman turned away but kept her ears open.
‘My queen,’ she heard the king whisper, ‘are you well?’
‘I’ve failed you, my Lord. I have birthed a girl-child,’ sobbed Fearn.
‘Hush, hush, my lady. No life is a failure. She brings her own love and magic. She will be loved and cared for. She is Coll of the West’s daughter,’ gently murmured Coll. He stood up and turned to all present.
‘Let it be known that Coll of the West has a daughter princess and her name shall be Chianyn’.
He began to walk from the round house. The druid stood aside and let the king pass. Muira the midwife watched the king go as the druid turned to the bed where the queen lay, slipping into sleep. He rummaged in his pouch and brought out a small bunch of leaves and handed them to Muira as she stood there.
‘Steep these in hot water and let her drink it. It will help with the pain and allow her to rest. When she goes to sleep, sew her wounds. Tomorrow when she wakes, tell her that her daughter is well and is named Chianyn, She-of-the-glade, by order of the king.’
Muira nodded and carried on with the important tasks of looking after the mother and baby. What men did was no concern of hers. She spent her time helping the women survive what their men had done to them.
The druid left the house and walked to where the king stood looking over the valley out to the sea. He stopped a few paces from Coll and waited patiently for him to speak. As he waited his thoughts wandered over his relationship with Coll. They were both rulers, both responsible for the safety of this small kingdom in the north-western corner of the Middle Island. The druid was responsible for the good fortune of the clan and the king, in reality a war chief, was responsible for the safety of the clan. This was an age-old custom from some time in the distant past. Ffion, the druid, stood silently until the king turned to face him, the lines of worry, fear and self-pity etched deep into his face.
‘Well, druid, what do we do now?’ the king asked, with a bitter edge to his question.
‘What we always have done. We live, we die, we eat, we sleep and we struggle.’
‘Don’t toy with me, druid. You know what I mean. How do we protect the clan in the future? I needed a man-child to be king after me. You have your acolytes. I need my prince!’
‘And you will have, my king. You shall have your son, but this child had to be born now. It is her time to enter our world,’ his hand reached out to grasp the shoulder of the chief, ‘Hear me, my lord; this child’s name will live on forever. How is not given to me to understand. But I know she has a part to play in our world’s tale, in our Island’s story.’
‘You and your prophecies, Ffion, will be the death of me yet. Come. Let’s go and eat and drink for I have a daughter to welcome.’
The two rulers and friends walked back into the main area of the camp. Smiling warriors and women, all eager to congratulate their lord and his queen joined them. And so Chianyn, She-of-the-glade, came to the Middle Island.
*
The young girl walked through the trees. Her dark hair shone in the sun, which was also reflected in her sparkling green eyes. She was a child of beauty, her young body like a fawn’s, lithe and graceful, her face a joy to behold. She came to the stream’s edge and sat on a large boulder that glistened with drops of water and pyrites. It was her favourite place in the woods and when she needed to be alone this was the place she came to. And she needed to be alone now. Her mother and father had been talking in the roundhouse last night and, thinking she was asleep, didn’t lower their voices. She had heard her father talk of how the young girl would have to be well placed in her future, of how they must make the best marriage for the clan by getting her betrothed to a ruler with power and prestige. This was confusing for the young maiden, Chianyn, who had thought that she would spend all her days in the family that she loved. She had a brave father, a beautiful mother and a mischievous younger brother as well as the friendship of Ffion, the tribe’s druid, who loved nothing better than sharing his love and knowledge of the world around them with her.
As she sat staring at the stream, thinking these thoughts, that same younger brother was sneaking towards her through the undergrowth, a smile playing on his lips. He came up behind her and, with a powerful push, propelled her into the stream. She screamed and sputtered and shouted curses and threats that a young Celtic princess should not have known.
‘You little turd!’ she shouted, ‘I’ll rip your head off your puny shoulders and use it for dog food!! Come here you misbegotten lump of shite!’
Laughing, the boy ran off with Chianyn in hot, but sodden, pursuit, still screaming obscenities and curses. The chase took them into the forest and on a downhill course that weaved and slipped between trees, over rises, through tangles of undergrowth and under boughs of oak and ash and elm. Birds rose, startled, and tiny mammals scurried off in panic and fear. The boy turned into a narrow, almost hidden track, lost his footing and slid down a bank, tumbling into a swift flowing stream. Chianyn watched and laughed with glee as he rose, spluttering and stuttering.
‘Serves you right, you little beast.’ Chianyn shouted down to him, still laughing.
Then she stopped as she became aware of her surroundings. Trees arched over the stream and their boughs formed a natural canopy giving the impression of being in a chief’s hall. The water tumbled down a sheer cliff to form a fall of beauty that sang and sparkled into a pool of deep crystal water. Silken fronds framed the stream’s banks. Birds softly sang in the canopy of trees and insects hummed through the air. She stood, awe-struck and transfixed by this scene of beauty and natural perfection. A feeling of calm and reverence overcame her young mind; a feeling that she had never had before, and she felt as if the entire world of mystery and beauty that Ffion had introduced her to was encompassed in this glade.
‘Don’t stand there dreaming! Help me up!’
She came back to the reality of the moment and clambered down the bank to help her brother out of the stream and up the slope to the track.
‘Father will be angry now. He told me not to wander off too far and now I’m all wet,’ moaned her brother.
‘So am I, you little lump of mischief. My dress is ruined and Mother spent days on it.’
Together they set off up the track, but then Chianyn stopped and turned around to gaze once more on the waterfall. The magic of the place drew her. She was reluctant to leave it behind and return to the roundhouse of her father. Her brother made the choice for her by starting to shiver and complain of the cold.
‘Come on, weasel-turd, let’s go home.’ she said.
*
Chianyn loved her young brother Collam with a fierce protective sibling love. She remembered their early childhood and the games they had played in the dust and rushes of the roundhouse floor and the tales of heroes and the Old Ones that Ffion told them in the cold months of winter when they rarely went out, except for brief periods of play and work, helping with the wood for the fire.
Their settlement consisted of three roundhouses surrounded by a stockade of stout pointed stakes to keep out wolves and unwanted visitors. There were other little settlements in the valley along both sides of the river that ran down to the sea, but none as grand as Coll’s. He was, after all, the king of the West. They farmed and fished and hunted and husbanded animals. They had cattle and rough fleeced sheep and grew oats and barley. They kept bees for their honey for sweetening food and making mead. Life was good for the people of the west of the island. Coll was a fair ruler who saw that each man, woman and child had his or her due and no one went cold or hungry. Life was good for Chianyn and her brother.
They arrived back at the settlement and were greeted with affection by the women and warriors that were around. Some eyes were widened at the state that they were in, bedraggled and sodden and amusing remarks accompanied them to their father’s dwelling.
They entered and were immediately seen by their mother who came running over and told them to get out of those wet clothes and make themselves ready to meet a very important chief who had travelled from across the island to visit their father, and he couldn’t very well be greeted by two sodden savages who looked as though they had spent their lives with the sprites of the rivers and pools. Giggling, the two went into the private centre of the house and dried themselves with soft wool and changed their clothes.
They returned to their mother who led them straight to Coll, the man they called ‘Father’. He was sitting by the fire next to a large man in wool and furs who looked very fierce and warlike to the shining eyes of Collam. The man had removed his sword, still in its scabbard, and laid it across his knees in the gesture of friendship. At his side sat a young man of about fifteen summers with the trappings and garb of a warrior who sat stern and still; behind them stood two warriors, who silently surveyed the roundhouse.
‘Ah, here she is,’ said Coll, looking at up at his daughter with a smile, ‘Come and join us, girl; and you too, Collam. It is time that you started to see what the world is like and how it works.’
‘I already know, Father. Ffion has taught me well,’ replied Chianyn.
‘I mean the real world, child. Not the realms of make-believe that Ffion fills your head with. Come and sit. There is someone I wish you to meet.’
He gestured to the seat by him. Chianyn walked forward, keeping her eyes on the pair sat with her father. She had a feeling that something was about to happen that would affect her whole life. She sat with grace and, looking around, was pleased to see that Ffion was there, at the back of the group, behind her father. He smiled at her and she smiled back, nervously.
‘She’s young! Too young!’ said the young man. ‘She’s no more than a child!’
‘She’ll grow soon enough,’ replied her father, ‘She is over eleven summers now. In another few years she will be old enough. And by that time you will be a man.’
The older stranger gave a huge belly-laugh but the younger one scowled and said, ‘My name is Fiachyn and I have earned the right to be called a man. My sword has tasted the blood of the Scotii and the Brythanii. I have raided their lands and brought back plunder and coin and precious stones. I am not a child! Not like her!’
Chianyn watched as Coll raised his eyebrows and shrugged at the older stranger. ‘It seems that our tribes will not join, after all, Brachyn the Bold. Pity, we could have united the north.’
‘Don’t be too hasty now, Coll. Why don’t we just see what happens. Your daughter has got some growing to do and Fiachyn, my son, has some hot vapours to get rid of. We could say that they are betrothed and then see if they are ready in, what, three years? What do you say?’
Coll turned to Chianyn, who had sat silent through all this with a look of disbelief on her face, and asked, ‘What do you think, Chia my child? Do you want to marry a prince of the North?’
‘If he can improve his manners, I might consider it,’ she replied, using her quick tongue to disguise her discomfort at being called a child by a callow and boastful youth.
Everyone laughed except Fiachyn and Ffion. One looked angry and the other worried. Coll shouted for food and mead and soon everyone who lived in the roundhouse was joining in the feast. Chianyn stood up and walked outside to the approaching dusk to see Sol set over the sea. Ffion followed her.
He saw her climb the mound by the oak trees and gave her a few minutes to be alone with her thoughts. Then he approached her softly but making enough of a rustle so as not to alarm her.
‘The gods’ greetings to you, Ffion,’ she said softly.
‘The Goddess’s greetings to you, my child,’ replied the druid, ‘You don’t have to do this, you know. You can refuse if you wish. There is a darkness in that young man that worries me.’
Chianyn smiled wistfully and turned her head towards the sea.
‘Yes I do have to do it, Ffion. It is what my father wishes and needs to do for the sake of the tribe. I am his firstborn but I cannot rule here. Collam will be king. That is his duty. Mine is to marry for the sake of the tribe, to make its future secure.’
Ffion laid his hand on her shoulder and said, ‘You have wisdom far beyond your years, my child. There are people twice your age who still do not recognise their duty.’
She turned back to him and gave him a sweet smile. ‘Ffion my friend and teacher, I still have a couple of years of my childhood left. We must use it wisely. You must teach me all there is to know.’
Ffion gave a chuckle and replied, ‘I don’t know all there is to know, girl. But what I do know I will gladly teach you. Now let us join your betrothal feast.’
And they wandered back to the roundhouse.
Read and enjoy.
I will stick a synopsis of the whole thing on at a later date.
The Path -Volume one: ‘Out of the Maelstrom’
Part 1:Chianyn
Chapter 1
300BCE
The screams rent the smoky air of the large round hut in the forest clearing. ‘There, there, my lady; it will soon be over. The child is fighting to stay where it’s warm, but the gods want it out here. Just a few more moments, my lady,’ whispered the old wife in a soothing voice.
The women who were around the birth-bed cast anxious looks at each other. This was proving to be a difficult birth and this was the one birth that had to be right. The young woman was the wife of the chief, the king, of this corner of the Middle Island, and the line of succession had to hold. Only the gods knew what would happen if things went wrong.
The old midwife, Muira, watched the sweat run in streams down the young woman’s face, mixing with her tears of pain and fear. She pitied the young woman as the powerful spasms of another contraction drove through her body.
And then it was done. The baby came. The old woman swept into action, cutting the cord with her bronze birthing knife, clipping the protruding appendage, then cleaning the blood and mucus from the tiny creature and wrapping it in soft linen.
The young queen strained her head to see if everything was well. The silence, after her screams, was deafening. Fear swept over her again, but this time it was fear for the baby’s life. The silence grew and then, as she was about to shout out her apprehension, the baby cried. And she burst into tears again, but this time they were tears of happiness.
‘My Lady, you have a beautiful, perfect baby girl,’ said the old midwife.
‘Not a boy?’ whispered the young woman, ‘What will Coll say?’
Muira exchanged worried looks with the other women and it was plain to see that all feared the chief’s reaction. Her eyes rested on the youngest and, with a nod of her head, despatched the girl to tell the chief the news of his daughter.
A few moments later the chief burst in to the hut followed by his druid and a few warriors. He rushed to the side of his lady and held her hand tenderly. The old woman turned away but kept her ears open.
‘My queen,’ she heard the king whisper, ‘are you well?’
‘I’ve failed you, my Lord. I have birthed a girl-child,’ sobbed Fearn.
‘Hush, hush, my lady. No life is a failure. She brings her own love and magic. She will be loved and cared for. She is Coll of the West’s daughter,’ gently murmured Coll. He stood up and turned to all present.
‘Let it be known that Coll of the West has a daughter princess and her name shall be Chianyn’.
He began to walk from the round house. The druid stood aside and let the king pass. Muira the midwife watched the king go as the druid turned to the bed where the queen lay, slipping into sleep. He rummaged in his pouch and brought out a small bunch of leaves and handed them to Muira as she stood there.
‘Steep these in hot water and let her drink it. It will help with the pain and allow her to rest. When she goes to sleep, sew her wounds. Tomorrow when she wakes, tell her that her daughter is well and is named Chianyn, She-of-the-glade, by order of the king.’
Muira nodded and carried on with the important tasks of looking after the mother and baby. What men did was no concern of hers. She spent her time helping the women survive what their men had done to them.
The druid left the house and walked to where the king stood looking over the valley out to the sea. He stopped a few paces from Coll and waited patiently for him to speak. As he waited his thoughts wandered over his relationship with Coll. They were both rulers, both responsible for the safety of this small kingdom in the north-western corner of the Middle Island. The druid was responsible for the good fortune of the clan and the king, in reality a war chief, was responsible for the safety of the clan. This was an age-old custom from some time in the distant past. Ffion, the druid, stood silently until the king turned to face him, the lines of worry, fear and self-pity etched deep into his face.
‘Well, druid, what do we do now?’ the king asked, with a bitter edge to his question.
‘What we always have done. We live, we die, we eat, we sleep and we struggle.’
‘Don’t toy with me, druid. You know what I mean. How do we protect the clan in the future? I needed a man-child to be king after me. You have your acolytes. I need my prince!’
‘And you will have, my king. You shall have your son, but this child had to be born now. It is her time to enter our world,’ his hand reached out to grasp the shoulder of the chief, ‘Hear me, my lord; this child’s name will live on forever. How is not given to me to understand. But I know she has a part to play in our world’s tale, in our Island’s story.’
‘You and your prophecies, Ffion, will be the death of me yet. Come. Let’s go and eat and drink for I have a daughter to welcome.’
The two rulers and friends walked back into the main area of the camp. Smiling warriors and women, all eager to congratulate their lord and his queen joined them. And so Chianyn, She-of-the-glade, came to the Middle Island.
*
The young girl walked through the trees. Her dark hair shone in the sun, which was also reflected in her sparkling green eyes. She was a child of beauty, her young body like a fawn’s, lithe and graceful, her face a joy to behold. She came to the stream’s edge and sat on a large boulder that glistened with drops of water and pyrites. It was her favourite place in the woods and when she needed to be alone this was the place she came to. And she needed to be alone now. Her mother and father had been talking in the roundhouse last night and, thinking she was asleep, didn’t lower their voices. She had heard her father talk of how the young girl would have to be well placed in her future, of how they must make the best marriage for the clan by getting her betrothed to a ruler with power and prestige. This was confusing for the young maiden, Chianyn, who had thought that she would spend all her days in the family that she loved. She had a brave father, a beautiful mother and a mischievous younger brother as well as the friendship of Ffion, the tribe’s druid, who loved nothing better than sharing his love and knowledge of the world around them with her.
As she sat staring at the stream, thinking these thoughts, that same younger brother was sneaking towards her through the undergrowth, a smile playing on his lips. He came up behind her and, with a powerful push, propelled her into the stream. She screamed and sputtered and shouted curses and threats that a young Celtic princess should not have known.
‘You little turd!’ she shouted, ‘I’ll rip your head off your puny shoulders and use it for dog food!! Come here you misbegotten lump of shite!’
Laughing, the boy ran off with Chianyn in hot, but sodden, pursuit, still screaming obscenities and curses. The chase took them into the forest and on a downhill course that weaved and slipped between trees, over rises, through tangles of undergrowth and under boughs of oak and ash and elm. Birds rose, startled, and tiny mammals scurried off in panic and fear. The boy turned into a narrow, almost hidden track, lost his footing and slid down a bank, tumbling into a swift flowing stream. Chianyn watched and laughed with glee as he rose, spluttering and stuttering.
‘Serves you right, you little beast.’ Chianyn shouted down to him, still laughing.
Then she stopped as she became aware of her surroundings. Trees arched over the stream and their boughs formed a natural canopy giving the impression of being in a chief’s hall. The water tumbled down a sheer cliff to form a fall of beauty that sang and sparkled into a pool of deep crystal water. Silken fronds framed the stream’s banks. Birds softly sang in the canopy of trees and insects hummed through the air. She stood, awe-struck and transfixed by this scene of beauty and natural perfection. A feeling of calm and reverence overcame her young mind; a feeling that she had never had before, and she felt as if the entire world of mystery and beauty that Ffion had introduced her to was encompassed in this glade.
‘Don’t stand there dreaming! Help me up!’
She came back to the reality of the moment and clambered down the bank to help her brother out of the stream and up the slope to the track.
‘Father will be angry now. He told me not to wander off too far and now I’m all wet,’ moaned her brother.
‘So am I, you little lump of mischief. My dress is ruined and Mother spent days on it.’
Together they set off up the track, but then Chianyn stopped and turned around to gaze once more on the waterfall. The magic of the place drew her. She was reluctant to leave it behind and return to the roundhouse of her father. Her brother made the choice for her by starting to shiver and complain of the cold.
‘Come on, weasel-turd, let’s go home.’ she said.
*
Chianyn loved her young brother Collam with a fierce protective sibling love. She remembered their early childhood and the games they had played in the dust and rushes of the roundhouse floor and the tales of heroes and the Old Ones that Ffion told them in the cold months of winter when they rarely went out, except for brief periods of play and work, helping with the wood for the fire.
Their settlement consisted of three roundhouses surrounded by a stockade of stout pointed stakes to keep out wolves and unwanted visitors. There were other little settlements in the valley along both sides of the river that ran down to the sea, but none as grand as Coll’s. He was, after all, the king of the West. They farmed and fished and hunted and husbanded animals. They had cattle and rough fleeced sheep and grew oats and barley. They kept bees for their honey for sweetening food and making mead. Life was good for the people of the west of the island. Coll was a fair ruler who saw that each man, woman and child had his or her due and no one went cold or hungry. Life was good for Chianyn and her brother.
They arrived back at the settlement and were greeted with affection by the women and warriors that were around. Some eyes were widened at the state that they were in, bedraggled and sodden and amusing remarks accompanied them to their father’s dwelling.
They entered and were immediately seen by their mother who came running over and told them to get out of those wet clothes and make themselves ready to meet a very important chief who had travelled from across the island to visit their father, and he couldn’t very well be greeted by two sodden savages who looked as though they had spent their lives with the sprites of the rivers and pools. Giggling, the two went into the private centre of the house and dried themselves with soft wool and changed their clothes.
They returned to their mother who led them straight to Coll, the man they called ‘Father’. He was sitting by the fire next to a large man in wool and furs who looked very fierce and warlike to the shining eyes of Collam. The man had removed his sword, still in its scabbard, and laid it across his knees in the gesture of friendship. At his side sat a young man of about fifteen summers with the trappings and garb of a warrior who sat stern and still; behind them stood two warriors, who silently surveyed the roundhouse.
‘Ah, here she is,’ said Coll, looking at up at his daughter with a smile, ‘Come and join us, girl; and you too, Collam. It is time that you started to see what the world is like and how it works.’
‘I already know, Father. Ffion has taught me well,’ replied Chianyn.
‘I mean the real world, child. Not the realms of make-believe that Ffion fills your head with. Come and sit. There is someone I wish you to meet.’
He gestured to the seat by him. Chianyn walked forward, keeping her eyes on the pair sat with her father. She had a feeling that something was about to happen that would affect her whole life. She sat with grace and, looking around, was pleased to see that Ffion was there, at the back of the group, behind her father. He smiled at her and she smiled back, nervously.
‘She’s young! Too young!’ said the young man. ‘She’s no more than a child!’
‘She’ll grow soon enough,’ replied her father, ‘She is over eleven summers now. In another few years she will be old enough. And by that time you will be a man.’
The older stranger gave a huge belly-laugh but the younger one scowled and said, ‘My name is Fiachyn and I have earned the right to be called a man. My sword has tasted the blood of the Scotii and the Brythanii. I have raided their lands and brought back plunder and coin and precious stones. I am not a child! Not like her!’
Chianyn watched as Coll raised his eyebrows and shrugged at the older stranger. ‘It seems that our tribes will not join, after all, Brachyn the Bold. Pity, we could have united the north.’
‘Don’t be too hasty now, Coll. Why don’t we just see what happens. Your daughter has got some growing to do and Fiachyn, my son, has some hot vapours to get rid of. We could say that they are betrothed and then see if they are ready in, what, three years? What do you say?’
Coll turned to Chianyn, who had sat silent through all this with a look of disbelief on her face, and asked, ‘What do you think, Chia my child? Do you want to marry a prince of the North?’
‘If he can improve his manners, I might consider it,’ she replied, using her quick tongue to disguise her discomfort at being called a child by a callow and boastful youth.
Everyone laughed except Fiachyn and Ffion. One looked angry and the other worried. Coll shouted for food and mead and soon everyone who lived in the roundhouse was joining in the feast. Chianyn stood up and walked outside to the approaching dusk to see Sol set over the sea. Ffion followed her.
He saw her climb the mound by the oak trees and gave her a few minutes to be alone with her thoughts. Then he approached her softly but making enough of a rustle so as not to alarm her.
‘The gods’ greetings to you, Ffion,’ she said softly.
‘The Goddess’s greetings to you, my child,’ replied the druid, ‘You don’t have to do this, you know. You can refuse if you wish. There is a darkness in that young man that worries me.’
Chianyn smiled wistfully and turned her head towards the sea.
‘Yes I do have to do it, Ffion. It is what my father wishes and needs to do for the sake of the tribe. I am his firstborn but I cannot rule here. Collam will be king. That is his duty. Mine is to marry for the sake of the tribe, to make its future secure.’
Ffion laid his hand on her shoulder and said, ‘You have wisdom far beyond your years, my child. There are people twice your age who still do not recognise their duty.’
She turned back to him and gave him a sweet smile. ‘Ffion my friend and teacher, I still have a couple of years of my childhood left. We must use it wisely. You must teach me all there is to know.’
Ffion gave a chuckle and replied, ‘I don’t know all there is to know, girl. But what I do know I will gladly teach you. Now let us join your betrothal feast.’
And they wandered back to the roundhouse.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Well! Here We Go Again!
So 2011 arrived with all the usual fireworks, resolutions and domestics. Once again we turn to the future with hope. When will we ever learn? (As Pete Seeger once sang - "Who the **** is Pete Seeger" - He was a guy who was once a radical but like all good radicals became one of the Establishment when he tried to shut Bob Dylan up at Newport in 1965.) Anyway, as he once sang, when will we learn? Africans are being raped and killed within sight of Israel, soldiers are dying in Afghanistan, people are dying all over the world and the Pope blesses us all while singers, actors and political nest-liners get honoured by the Queen although she hasn't a clue who the hell they are!
Homeless people die on the streets of London - funny how this year we haven't heard any statistics on how many old people have died in the cold. Does that only happen under Labour governments?
Anyway, I joined in with wishing everyone I know happy new year and I sincerely hope we all get one, but I ain't holding my breath.
Happy New Year to you all.
Homeless people die on the streets of London - funny how this year we haven't heard any statistics on how many old people have died in the cold. Does that only happen under Labour governments?
Anyway, I joined in with wishing everyone I know happy new year and I sincerely hope we all get one, but I ain't holding my breath.
Happy New Year to you all.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Snow day
The Isle of Man is gently lapped by the Gulf stream and enjoys mild winters. I was told this just before I moved here 20 years ago. So either the Gulf stream has moved or the Island has. The Arctic has arrived on the shores of Mannanan's Sacred Isle. The kids are all building snowmen and the grown-ups are all crashing cars. DON"T GO OUT said the Police but everyone does!
Right, let's get this sorted. If you don't have to drive, then don't!!! Nuff said!
The social life has hit a block, but salvation in the guise of drinks around at my son's tonight has arrived. Cath is wondering what to wear and I'm wondering whether to get drunk or not.
Roll on new Year's Eve when I can stop working for M&S and have a rest.
If anyone reads this please follow it.
Right, let's get this sorted. If you don't have to drive, then don't!!! Nuff said!
The social life has hit a block, but salvation in the guise of drinks around at my son's tonight has arrived. Cath is wondering what to wear and I'm wondering whether to get drunk or not.
Roll on new Year's Eve when I can stop working for M&S and have a rest.
If anyone reads this please follow it.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
How do you do it?
I thought to myself as I sat by the old keill ruins near Spooyt Vane "If someone wrote a story about all the people who have walked down this path, it would be a grand tale."
So I did.
But even though I've sweated blood and sat up at nights extricating people from situations of fear, danger and sorrow and people have said, "Cor! That's a cracking read." (or words to that effect), no-one wants to publish it.
Various reasons have been given such as "Who wants to read about the Isle of Man?" and "Maybe if you switched the location to London...?" but I still think the story of the Isle of Man seen through the eyes of various characters throughout history is a worthy tale.
All the protagonists and antagonists are fictitious, only the real are real (if you see what I mean?)
Anyway, if anyone is interested I may publish the first part on this blog a chapter at a time. Worked for Dickens!
So I did.
But even though I've sweated blood and sat up at nights extricating people from situations of fear, danger and sorrow and people have said, "Cor! That's a cracking read." (or words to that effect), no-one wants to publish it.
Various reasons have been given such as "Who wants to read about the Isle of Man?" and "Maybe if you switched the location to London...?" but I still think the story of the Isle of Man seen through the eyes of various characters throughout history is a worthy tale.
All the protagonists and antagonists are fictitious, only the real are real (if you see what I mean?)
Anyway, if anyone is interested I may publish the first part on this blog a chapter at a time. Worked for Dickens!
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