The Witches of Slievenamon

Damn it though, she's a blade of grass that says she's a witch. What can witches do? Can she turn me into a toad or make me disappear in a puff of smoke?

"Will you hold my hand, Richard," she says, a faint smile returning to her lovely, innocent-looking face. "I have the healing hands and if we hold hands I could calm your heart beating so wildly and ease your breathing."

Yeah, I guess I must look bug-eyed and terrified.

She holds out both her hands and I respond by grasping them. I instantly feel calmer, my pulse rate slows and I can feel the swollen veins in my temples reduce. I take a deep breath in and breathe out. I wonder if she does have healing hands or that simply human contact with her is enough to soothe me.

I realise that, since Covid struck all those months ago, Caoimhe is really the only little bit of human skin to skin contact that I have had for about 18 months. Everyone else of my acquaintance has been socially distanced and contact reduced to forearm bumps.

"So, Etain, tell me more about this curse, er, Finn McCool, the legendary Irish giant, am I right?"

"Aye, Fionn himself. He was a big man, true, a legendary giant even in his own time, a hero and the King's champion. He was probably six inches taller than ye, Richard, and almost double your width. He was too big to sit ahorse and used a chariot drawn by two huge horses to get around the place, so he did. He was the King's Champion and King Cormack, the King of All Ireland, had it proclaimed around the realm that it was his royal wish that his Champion be married again to sire more giant champions. There were indeed that many requests by maidens and the many, many widows of Ireland, that the King decreed that the bride would be the winner of a race from the foot of Slievenamon Mountain to the peak at the very top, where the prize himself would be found seated to greet the winning maiden or widow."

"Sounds interesting," I am relaxed enough to chuckle, "was there a big turnout of athletic maidens?"

"Thousands, from wee girls like me all the way up to widows older than my Mam, who had herself been widowed seven times. They all turned up on the day of the race and were raring to go."

"Losing seven husbands was bad luck for your Mom," I say in sympathy.

"They were hard times, Richard, every tide brought a new invader who was fiercer, more determined and better armed that the wave before. This wee green jewel of an isle was the envy of the hungry everywhere, the whole country was an army at war on every front."

"And what did you and your sisters do to be cursed forever to your mountain?" I ask, "Did you cheat in the race?"

"No!" Etain snaps, "We did not cheat, but there was cheating going on to be sure. I'll just step back to how we, my two closest sisters and I, set out to take part in the race. You see, as well as being Witches and witches are one of those invaders of Ireland many hundreds of years before, we were also great runners. We worked for the King as messengers."

"Messengers? What, like couriers carrying letters?" I ask.

"Well, we didn't really have much of a written language in Ireland then, there were runes of course but few could read them, and there was Latin from missionaries or Roman traders. No, it was oral messages for us messengers and, in order to remember a message, that might take three days or a week to get to who it was meant to be going to, we had to commit it to memory as rhymes. We were well used to that as witches, as spells and remedies, the ingredients and quantities had to be remembered, so many of the recipes for our potions were remembered as wee poems."

"So what were the messages that the King needed to send out?"

"Oh, orders for men needed for an army, orders for goods, schedules for manor courts, requests for collection of taxes, court rulings on breitheamh law—"

"What law?"

"Brehon law was the law in Ireland of the Celtish and Saxon people, which was the common law throughout the island until the Norman king Henry II introduced the Anglo Norman laws about 850 years ago. As a royal messenger my payment was two cows and one heifer a year. Kaetlynn was four years older than me and married with a child so she was paid five cows."

"Was that good money or pay in kind?"

"Well, in order to take a message I would have to turn it onto verse so that I could remember it and then when I recited the verse I had to interpret it for the recovery of the core of the message, so between two and five cows wasn't much when you consider the King's poet and his harp player were paid 21 cows each."

"Not so good then."

"No, and life was more dangerous for messengers than poets. We carried a bronze token from our master to guarantee our safety, but enemies of our master might trap us, torture us to get the message or kill us."

"I hadn't thought about that," I admit, "so what was the outcome of this bride's race?"

"As we were the best runners in the race, we three sisters were soon out of sight of the others, but as we neared the summit, a girl who was waiting for us, dashed out from cover as fresh as a daisy and ran to Fionn and jumped into his waiting arms.

"We walked up to the couple, knowing that we had been cheated, and by then some of the other runners came up behind us. They recognised the girl as Gráinne, the favourite daughter of King Cormack and another runner told us that Fionn was long sweet on the girl. We looked at the couple, the Princess, no older than I, looking so smug that she had stolen the prize from under our noses, while the giant hero Fionn was old, old enough to be my Mam's Da or Grandpa, with a fat red face, white hair, white beard and a gut so big on him that his chariot would need six oxen to pull him along."

"So, not much of a prize, then?"

"No, not a prize at all. But Bebh and I were single, so not too bothered by the prize, but Kaetlynn was a widow and in sore need of a good husband. It was Kaetlynn who was better at the spells than either Bebh or I, but we put our heads together and recited a spell which would make Gráinne fall in love with the first of Fionn's warriors she met on their wedding morn and elope with him. Immediately we three sisters could see her future, happy with her husband and five children. Meanwhile Fionn was heartbroken and spent years trying to find them, but when he did, he forgave them. So we cast the spell, delivered the curse. But there was no forgiveness to be handed out for we three witch messengers."

"No?"

"No, King Cormack learned of the elopement and some of the runners who knew that we were witches and had heard our curse, so we were tried in King Cormack's court. We were accused and convicted of using witchcraft to ruin the happiness of one of Ireland's greatest heroes, our defensive arguments about Fionn and Gráinne's blatant cheating with King Cormack's connivance, only succeeded in annoying the judge and we were convicted. King Cormack got his wizard to curse us to remain on Slievenamon for ever more. We could leave but we could only rest our heads and sleep on our return to Slievenamon, if we fell asleep anywhere else we would never wake up again and die."

"But you were able to move away? You slept here last night, didn't you?"

"Aye," she smiles, "and only because we live in Slievenamon Road. We stayed every night on that mountain for many years. Family brought us food and drink and we slept on the mountain and danced as the curse said we 'could never sleep anywhere except Slievenamon'. As witches we were always few in number and oft feared and shunned throughout the land, yet we were also needed by every community. For we were expert in preparing protective salves and love potions and poultices, medicines, fortune-telling and midwifery. We could travel to nearby markets, sell our medicines, our potions, Bebh her honey and Kaetlynn her nursing and midwifery skills, but always we had to return to the mountain at night to sleep. Being the swiftest runner, I went much further afield, even stayed out several nights without sleep, using potent herbal draughts to keep sleep at bay, but we were tied firmly to the mountain."

"So Slievenamon was like an open prison."

"Aye, it seemed to us to be," Etain says, "but the mountain was also a magical place, all Irish mountains are and there were two cairns on the mountain quite near the top, I wasn't sure, but I sensed that one of them was a portal to another place, like faerie rings are, but I could not open it. I loved to run and I ran everywhere, kept fit and sharp. But I was young and shy and would avoid people, never engaging, always returning to the mountain where I explored everywhere. I observed the ancient cairns, one of the two in particular I sensed looked like a doorway, a portal into the Otherworld. Then, one night during that first winter on the mountain I found I couldn't sleep and I ran over and around the mountain under the moonlight to get warm and tired enough to sleep. I came upon one of the cairns being used by a faerie that night to enter the Otherworld. I ran so fast that I entered the portal before the faerie could close the door behind him and I easily avoided capture. I sneaked around the place for a few days before sneaking out again, finally driven away by thirst more than tiredness, for 'tis said that if you sleep, eat or drink in the Otherworld you can never leave."

"The Otherworld?"

"When the old peoples of Erin clashed with the new invaders, they fought to a standstill, with neither side winning the day but neither wanting to give way. So they held a truce out of which came a signed treaty, where the new people took the Overground, which meant that the old tribes took to the Otherworld, which could be accessed through holes in the ground, or faerie rings, even some tree trunks etc."

"But wasn't it dark without moonlight in there?"

"Naw, within each portal is a short tunnel, but you come out into the open air with wind, rain, sunshine, it is not an Under World at all but Another World, where Kaetlynn and Bebhinn are perfectly happy, now they can eat, drink and sleep wherever in the Otherworld they want."

"Ah, so it wasn't a Care Home as such and that is why we can't go visit Katie?"

"You can visit, if you want," she grins at me coyly, and laughs, "tell me, Richard, how quick are you on your feet?"

***

We are both tired, Etain with the long breathless telling of her story and me trying to take it all in without blowing my mind. We agree to sleep on it and to renew the conversation over breakfast, which Etain agrees to prepare in the morning.

I cannot sleep, trying to rationalise what a young woman, appearing to be half my age and double the age of my daughter, is telling me about her past history.

It make me recall something Ella once said when we were in a pub in Cork, with lots of other students enjoying the craic, when the group were discussing Irish folklore and the question was asked of us all round the table, 'Do you believe in faeries?'

And I had said 'Of course not!'

And Ella in her turn said, 'I don't believe in faeries either, but they're there just the same,' and everyone, modern young folk all, nodded and murmured their agreement.

I stuck by my original answer, back then. Now I'm not so sure.

Sunlight streams through the window and I wake. I smell the bacon, so I get up and go downstairs, after dressing simply in a tee and shorts.

"Good morning," Etain is cheerful and looking cute in some of the clothing we bought for her on Friday, a lemon tee and white shorts, her bare feet tucked into comfortable slip-ons on the flagstone kitchen floor.

Sitting on the wooden cutting board is one of the hot black cauldrons from next door, a little bacon-flavoured steam coming out in wisps about the cast iron lid.

"Is breakfast nearly ready?" I ask, selfishly thinking that I could easily get used to this.

"Aye, just slices of yesterday's bread yet to toast. Ye have no toasting forks here so I brought some over, there's plenty to go around between the two homes. And I brought a jar of Bebhinn's honey and raspberry jam for the toast, there's a whole stock of it in the cellar."

"You've a cellar?" Caoimhe calls from the doorway, stood there in her pink unicorn-printed PJs rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"Aye, it runs under both parts of the original cottage, but there's only one entrance. There's a load of stuff down there, including a still, I think Piotr Wisniewski made Polish vodka similar to our poitín."

"Ouuu," Caoimhe begs, "I love attics and cellars, can we explore after breakfast?"

"Aye of course," Etain laughs, "and ye Da can come too."

"Not if there're spiders as big as rats, I won't," I say, "I'm a fully paid-up nervous nerd when it comes to attics and cellars."

"Aw, get away with ye, there's nothing to be afeared of."

"Is that where you keep your broomsticks?" I say trying to add a little humor.

"Broomsticks?" Etain queries.

"Broomsticks," Caoimhe says, coming into the kitchen and picking up a toasting fork and a slice of soda bread, "they are associated with witches, and he thinks witches use them to fly on."

"Really?" Etain, "I've never heard of that before."

"So, Caoimhe," I say, "you know the conversation that Etain and I were having last night."

"Well, Dad," she replies, "Etain and me discussed it yesterday. Isn't it amazing that neither Aunt Katie nor Etain can see our future yet they see everyone elses? That's got to mean something, if she hadn't read Mom's future and found she couldn't read yours we'd never have ended up living here in this house."

"You mean that Katie foresaw that Ella would die in childbirth?"

"Duh, of course, that's why she dropped the price so you could afford it as well as your plans to make it a family house, so Aunt Katie spent a lot of time with Mom during her pregnancy and was always willing to babysit, because she discovered that she couldn't read me either and knew that we would be family one day. Only it took her a long time to persuade Etain that she was the one for you."

I am devastated, not only have I just realised that Etain wants to seduce me, not because I am a desirable hot single man but because she can't 'read' me, and that she believes I am destined to be her paramour; and secondly that Katie knew beforehand that Ella would die in childbirth before we even moved to Thurles. If Katie had mentioned this to us at the time, maybe we could have changed our destiny by deciding to be childless or took the adoption route and Ella would still be with us?

"Sorry, you two, but I must go lie down and be left alone to think," I say as I get up and leave the room before the tears become too noticeable to hide.

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Chapter Seven: ELLA

Because I had already tossed and turned all night and still feel unrested, I pull the curtains closed to shut out the daylight and get back into bed. Almost as soon as I lay my head to the pillow, I drift into a fitful sleep, where I dream of my lovely late wife Ella, who was taken from me so cruelly and far too soon in our all-too-brief but blissful marriage.

I am reminded in my daydreams that I first saw my wife-to-be, Ella Bernadette Walsh, in a Cork pub quite close to the University student dorms. It was back in 2004 when I was a 23-year-old post-graduate student fresh from the USA and she was an Irish freshman on a degree course in Cork. Ella was 19, very smart and training to be a chartered accountant; she was beautiful but shy, wore glasses instead of contacts and hid behind a glorious wall of bright red hair. She was acutely conscious of her supposed puppy fat, that she felt she couldn't quite shift. Actually, she was the only one that saw any flaw in her, but nevertheless she didn't really go out much.

She was from a tiny rural place in the south west and so Cork was the most populous place she'd stayed in without her family around her. However, that night we first met she had been persuaded by her new student friends from her freshman dorm to go to a pub near the campus to celebrate getting through their busy first week of lectures.

The bar was crowded and noisily boisterous with young drinkers all getting to know their fellow students at the early part of their first Uni semester. That pub wasn't my favourite bar but I was already a month into my stay here, in a foreign country, far from home, lonely, wondering if coming here to study was as good an idea as I had first thought and I was out looking for company, not necessarily female company.

OK, I probably was looking for opportunities to get laid. Being a post grad I was three or four years older than most of the bar's drinkers and I really felt more than a little out of my comfort zone. Back home in the US they all would have been far too young to drink, yet here many were already seasoned teenage drinkers.

It was Ella's hair that I noticed first as I ordered a solitary pint for my lonely self from the barkeep and looked around the bar as I waited for it to be poured. Ella's hair was very red, it was voluminous too, both curly and frizzy and trailed a long way down her back. It shook and shimmered as she spoke animatedly to her new friends, eight girls altogether sitting around two tables pushed together. That table was the main focus of attention for most of the unattached males in the bar.

All were laughing at what Ella was saying at that moment I espied them. I said she was naturally shy, but she was also bright and brilliantly observant, blessed with a sharp wit, which must have been loosened by more than a few drinks that night.

All the tables in the bar were occupied, so I stayed at the bar, sipping my relatively warm pint of black stuff, which I was starting to get used to the bitter malty taste of by then, and mostly watching her, fascinated by her beauty and vivacity. She tossed her head around and, although her main focus was on her friends at the table, she took time to look around the room too.

Male student visitors to their table were a constant stream. The girls were regularly bought round after round of shots, particularly ones that were set alight before drinking and I was actually on edge, seriously worried about her hair catching fire. Maybe she noticed my concern and the close attention I paid her, as I imagined that she often looked over in my direction during the evening.

She must've said something to her friends because, all of a sudden, all eight girls looked around at me at the same time.

Damn! Now I was the shy nerdy guy who felt embarrassed by the unwanted spotlight.

I realised that I had naturally struck a pose without even realising; I had my back leaning on the bar and, being tall and skinny, I had relaxed with my elbows resting on the bar counter behind me and one heel nestling on a brass foot rest, so my leg was cocked at a comfortable level, but at sitting eye-level could have seemed a provocative angle.

Back then I was a brand new arrival to Ireland, it was early October and cold and wet compared to the relaxed post-college California summer I'd left behind me. I had been used to wearing loose short pants and thin cotton tees back at home at this time in the fall, but here in Ireland I was going through a corduroy jeans period, having discovered how thick and warm they were around my core.

Although I was on a post-grad scholarship, which paid my university tuition fees, while Mom and Dad paid the rent on my tiny apartment as well as stump up the cost of budget air fares, money was still tight. Therefore finding several pairs of snug-fit corduroy jeans in really bright and clearly unpopular colors in a Cork clothing store clearance sale, were purchased out of desperation on my part to keep warm and dry in the late wet summer that Ireland suffers.

That October evening even my shirt was a thick weave cotton and over that I wore a smart leather jacket that my favourite aunt had presented me with for my 21st, and, of course, I wore my comfortable mid-calf western-style boots. I thought that although I looked a little garish color-wise, it was not too out of place in a bar filled with brightly-enveloped young kids, so I was confident that I looked like an OK dude.