In a time when the world was young and still greening there lived a powerful sorceress who once composed a drink of such raw magical potential that it would render to the receiver of the drink the reeling, panoramic understanding of the entire cosmos.  She wove this powerful magic for her poor son Avagddu, who was of quite startling ugliness and profound stupidity.  If but three drops of the mystical potion would fall on Avaggdu’s tongue, his profound wisdom and genteel manners would make him quite a desirable dinner guest and more than make up for his hideousness in other regards.

And so it was that such deep magic is not accomplished by waving around a wand and shouting some mumbo jumbo.  No, such an impressive brew would be more like working on a famous painting; lots and lots of tinkering for months and months.  Cerridwen was certainly not going to do all the work herself she had too much shapeshifting to do and prophecies to work out , so she put a servant, Gwion Bach to work stirring the mixture and a blind man, Morda to tend the fire beneath. For a year and a day the two labored over the brew;  Gwion Bach stirring an endless round and Morda kindling the fire, giving it constant attention.  Toward the end of the brewing time an accident happened, maybe because his arm was cramping up from a year of stirring. Three drops of the draught splashed onto Gwion Bach’s thumb.  His automatic response was to put his thumb into his mouth to reduce the sizzling the potion had caused.  At that moment Gwion Bach attained all the knowledge of the cosmos that was meant for Avagddu.  The cauldron split ,and so did Gwion Bach!

He ran and was pursued voraciously by Ceridwen, because of the wisdom gained from the brew, Gwion Bach new how to change his shape.  Over the land and air and sea he and Ceridwen fled, changing shapes the way Hollywood starlets change clothes. The pursuit raged on until in desperation Gwion Bach turned himself into a grain of wheat which was subsequently devoured by the jabbing beak of the chicken Cerridwen.  She became instantly pregnant and nine months later gave birth to the Bard Taliesin.

It is on the task of Morda that I focus.  Though he is in the story for such a short time, there are three important aspects to him.  Firstly we are told that he is blind.  Second, he kindles, or starts the fire.  Third he lovingly tends it with constant attention.

Fire.  Fire in our lives is the passion that gives the energy to work toward our life goals.  Without it we have a set of pretty pictures about where we would like to be, but lack the oomph to take action every day.  How often, when our dreams seem small on the horizon do we sink back onto the couch and turn the TV back on.  How many times have we let the first obstacle on the glorious yellow brick road to our vision send us into the dark caves of all the reasons why we can’t have what we want.

I envision Morda tending to the fire by bringing various woods and laying them gently on the fire.  By using his life’s breath he grows the flames.  Blind to the appearance of the brew, he has to use his intuition about the alchemy happening in the interior of the cauldron.  Most of our distractions are visual, so being blind also allows Morda the luxury of a singular focus.

We each of us need to be our own Morda.  We must blind ourselves to distractions that might eat away our energy for working toward our vision.  This includes outer distractions and inner ones that surface in the form of sloth and fear.  We must, like Morda, be attuned to the inner state of our cauldron, has our vision shifted, deepened?  We must tend the fire constantly.  If we want to realize our dreams we cannot fly on autopilot.  Spend some time with your vision, how will you feel when you accomplish it, what feeds your passion for it today?  What step did you take today, no matter how small toward it?  And like Morda, we we need to tend the visions of our lives lovingly.  Only then can our potion of wisdom brew!

I first encountered her overlooking the sea on the Beara Peninsula near the Church of Kilcatherine in County Cork.  Here she is overlooking the sea, having lived many lifetimes, she sits in peace and stares out to the sea.  She seemed to me to resonate the power of survival.  Old beyond reckoning, she maintains her feminine vigor and outlasts.

The Cailleach sits in peace by the Irish Sea

The Burren in County Clare also resonates with her presence.  Here at the Cliffs of Moher is a stone called the Hag’s Head.  It was at this very spot where the Cailleach had fallen in love with the hero Cu Chulainn.  He did not share her affection and he fled from her.  She had him cornered near the coast when he leapt a mighty leap at the cliffs landing safely and continuing his flight.  The Cailleach tried to follow and lost her footing falling to the sea below, dashed on the rocks.  Throughout her cronehood, she never loses her vitality!

The view of Hag's Head at the Cliffs of Moher.

From the soaring heights of the Cliffs of Moher we explored the Burren, a seemingly desolate limestone landscape.  From a distance the land here seemed grey and dead.  I was less than thrilled to be there after all the dense forests and sweeping seascapes I had seen in my travels.  It wasn’t until I saw the Burren close up that I realized that it was bursting with new life. It gave the appearance of death and desolation , and indeed the limestone that comprises the landscape is the petrified remains of billions of tiny lives.  But what renewal!  Hiding in every jigsaw like gap countless tiny, delicate flowers .  Petra fertilis, the fertile rock.  And how very like the Cailleach, hiding the beautiful seeds of youth in the wrinkles of her advanced age.

The seemingly harsh rock cradles the delicate new life of this flower....

Last post, the concept of the Morrighan as “just” a War Goddess was challenged.  Today I’d like to devote a second day to discussing her by widening out the meaning of war in Celtic myths.

In reading Celtic mythology too often it can seem like a cavalcade of bloody battles.  Indeed the Celts were fierce warriors who fought plenty of battles, however mythically speaking there are some cues that the battles fought in the myths are not simply physical battles, they symbolize far more than this.

Ireland is divided into 5 provinces, and a deeper spiritual meaning is assigned to each.  To the east is Leinster symbolic of prosperity.  To the south is Munster where Music dwells.  In the west Connacht, the seat of knowledge.  To the North lies Ulster the place of battle.  And in the center is Meath where the High King at Tara reigns and we find sovereignty.  When reading an Irish myth, the place the story occurs as well as where the figures in the story come from are clues to what is happening below the surface of events.  It is in these clues where the meaning of the story can be sought.

Battle lies to the North.  But what sort of battle are we talking about, really?  What does it mean to be a warrior?  Battles temper and test us.  In battle we are forced to become more than we thought we were.  Yet caution is needed here because battle is a double edged sword.  On the one edge is blind aggression, the shadow side of battle.  This is battle undertaken in anger, fueled by blind hatred.  Interpersonally, this is the argument meant to belittle and tear down the other.  At the level of countries this is projecting our unwanted qualities onto the other side and seeking to wipe them all out.  Intrapersonally this could be an addiction, seeking to escape or wipe ourselves out from a place of deep self-loathing.  Though it may seem forgotten in the modern world, there is an honorable side to battle.

There is the sort of battle undertaken to defend the weak.  In battles of this nature the goal is not to destroy the enemy for we know that aggression only leads to more aggression.  Rather the battle is to resolve conflict.  To achieve this requires skills of discernment, refinement, and understanding.  There will be times when these will fail and we are left with the option of controlled aggression, but it is minimal and as a last resort.  Interpersonally this battle is the attempt in a conflict to understand one another and resolve differences lovingly.  Intrapersonally, this could range from stopping our addiction, facing ourselves and our choices and achieving greater peace in our hearts.

This sculptural necklace represents the gentler lessons the Morrighan is trying to teach us.

In the two myths we have discussed, the Battles of Moytura and The Cattle Raid of Cooley, there are clues that the Morrighan is a warrior of the more enlightened sort.  Note that both of these stories mention the north.  In fact it is the Ulstermen (north) who raid the cattle of Connacht.  In the Battles of Moytura, the Tuatha de Danann arrive in Ireland in a mist from the north.  The Morrighan is one of the Tuatha, whose race symbolizes peace and balance.   In the Second Battle of Moytura, she and the Tuatha are battling the Fomorians, a race symbolizing chaos and destruction.  So already there are clues that the Morrighan is an enlightened warrior.

This enlightened warriorship becomes more clear when we take a closer look at her relationship with Cu Chulainn in the Cattle Raid of Cooley.  Cu Chulainn is a typical adolescent, albeit with near godlike powers (being the son of Lugh).  His brashness gets him into trouble in almost every tale he is in.  In the Cattle Raid the Morrighan certainly prompts him into the battle by stealing the magical cow that sets off the events of the story.  When she first appears to him in the story he rebuffs her rather dismissingly, but regrets this decision once he finds out who she really was.  She curses him and then when he is fighting Ferdiad, she attacks him three times.  I believe here she is teaching him a bit of a lesson, holding him accountable, and testing him spiritually so that he will grow from his adolescent ways.

It seems then that he has made an enemy of her until he is on his way to the battle that will mean his death.  The Morrighan first appears to him as the Washer at the Ford, an omen of death.  When he does not turn back, she sabotages his chariot in an attempt to keep him from the battle.  And finally, when he is dying she keeps him company in the form of a raven.  Clearly she is attempting to teach Cu Chulainn by tempering his brashness and changing the way he battles.  She has mixed success.

So what have we learned about her.  As the Crow she shrieks, raising a furious din, calling us to battle.  Our own souls make this noise when we encounter a situation requiring a psychological fight.  She foretells battles where things might not go well for us by appearing as the Washer at the Ford, how many warnings do we get when we are battling with aggression or anger that we should make a different choice.  And despite our failings someone is always there with us during painful transitions.  The Morrighan would like to be our ally in battling bravely and honorably, but we so often force her into a much rougher role.

Click here for Part 1 of the Morrighan discussion.

Cliffs of Moher in Ireland the Morrighan's energy radiated from this crow.

This individual felt that the Morrighan was only a warrior, a murderer even.  I certainly did not agree.  This description is too narrow, she is certainly a War Goddess, as she took part in the First Battle of Moytura.   In the Second Battle of Moytura she awakens the God Lugh to the fight, thereby bringing the Tuatha de Danaan the means to victory over the Fomorians.  She then goes on to encounter the Dagdha as she was washing at the river (foreshadowing her later role as the Washer at the Ford), and following a tryst with him, gives vital information about the plans of the Fomorians.  She appears again at the end of the Battle to offer two distinct prophecies about the future of the Tuatha and Ireland.

In the story of The Cattle Raid of Cooley, we again find the Morrigan instigating the battle by committing the act of theft which begins the battle that eventually leads to the death of Cu Chulainn, the most famous hero of the Irish mythic sagas.  The relationship between Cu Chulainn and the Morrighan is complex.  She offers herself to him, he rejects her, she harries and curses him  throughout the story.  Yet, in her guise as the Washer at the Ford, she foretells his death, even attempting to prevent it.  Finally, at the end of the tale as Cu Chulainn is dying, she remains with him and keeps him company in the form of a raven.  So there is both a gentle side to her and a role of guiding souls in transition (psychopomping).   And though she is so often listed in glossaries of Celtic figures as a War Goddess, she is rarely shown actually fighting.

Clearly she is not the one dimensional figure that she can be made out to be.

So for the rest of the week, I will be posting and musing about the Morrighan and her multitude of roles, which will take us on an adventure of the meaning of war in the ancient Celtic cycle, love of rough places in our lives, and the complexity of mentorship.

perlen entrollen by Christian Weiss

I really got lost in the feel of the image.  It distills for me the feeling of suddenly finding yourself beyond the veil between worlds.  You have just stumbled into Faerie.  Disoriented, enchanted, drifting, exposed.  There is beauty.  There is danger.  And the photo captures that dreamlike quality of the Otherworld.

I had no idea if Mr. Weiss intended any Faerie interpretations of his image, but I stepped into his world via the magical web portal and found this illustration:

http://www.weisschristian.com/

So I invite you to get a little lost and wander the in the German Faerie Otherworld.  You can buy prints of Mr. Weiss’ work on deviantart.  Here is the print link to the photograph:  http://www.deviantart.com/print/20921220/?

And please do pay a visit to his website:  www.weisschristian.com

These months have been very strange. Ever since I returned from Ireland and learned my boss had been possessed by the most evil Unseelie ever known, I have been unable to find any goblins. At this rate I’ll never keep them safe and repay my debt to Jatrophae’s family.

“Waltz.”

There’s that word again, heard as if whispered at the very edge of my consciousness. Ugh. I must have drifted off laying here worrying about goblins. I have discovered a new twist to the sheets. And Pippy (my cat) is racing through the house chattering and leaping up on things again.

“Waltz.” CRASH! “Pippin!!!! what have you broke this time??!!”

Irritation this morning proving more of a stimulant than caffeine, I leap from bed and race to the living room where I heard the unmistakable sounds of kitty hyjinx. Holy cow, what a mess! Pippin is not generally a messy cat, but it appears as though he has had one heck of a party out here. My receipts for my taxes are a swirling mass on the floor. Pain shoots up my left foot and i nearly fall over. A tiny hard bit of cat food is sticking to my heel. I look up and the same little bits of cat food are all over the floor. He’s lucky he’s cute.

The day proceeded more or less normally from there, except that once again I could not find my razor, my pen, and one of my earrings. I have been misplacing a lot of stuff lately. Must be stress….or that wormhole at the back of the dryer….the one who steals all the single socks.

Ah sleep, finally after a long day I flop into my bed ready to have a long peaceful night’s rest. Must have been only an hour when I startled awake with one foot in the air and my hands above my head. The word ‘waltz’ echoing in the fading dream. A very odd position to wake up in as though I had been maybe waltzing?

I had no time to further ponder my dancing puzzle because of the resounding crash I heard and Pippin growling and hissing. The sound was coming from my studio door, Pippin had somehow sprouted opposable thumbs and was sneaking in to make art in the night. No way could he be in there, I had not opened that door in days.

I swung the door open to see Pippy with his tail fuzzed to the max growling in the general direction of the back corner.

“Waltz! Waltz!” came a tiny squeaky voice. I have apparently had plenty of nocturnal waltzing for one night. “gggggggrrrrrrrrrllllllll” said Pippin. “WALTZ!!!’ retorted the corner.

I slowly crept toward the corner. As I came closer I notice a pile of junk. My junk! My razor, pen and earrings along with many other things I had searched for at one time or another over the past few weeks. And there in front of that little hoard was a teeny, tiny goblin. He had a pen in his hand and was using it like a lance to fend off the cat. He jabbed and poked up at Pippy, and with each jab squawked “Walt’s!”

Walt, as he was apparently called, was kind of cute. He was a reddish brown with tiny black spots. He had big feet and ears. His best feature by far I thought were his sweeping horns. looking over his tiny shoulder I could see what had upset Pippy so much. Walt had laid claim to his favorite toy.

Walt and I have come to an understanding. He has ceased wandering about the house claiming random objects as “Walt’s”, and I have given him a nice little pile of broken jewelry bits to hoard. He really needs to find a new home soon for the sanity of my cat since Walt continues to be amused by watching Pippy’s reaction when he claims his toys as “Walt’s”.

A very possessive little goblin!

I recently reread a short story that preceded Tolkien’s creation of the Ents, but has much of the same spirit of the Last March of the Ents. “The Coming of the Terror” by Arthur Machen tells a tale of human madness and natural revolt. The story is set in World War I in the English countryside. The new forces of Industrial Revolution and airplanes have made this a war more violent and deadly than any other.

The story begins with the narrator recounting how a pilot was brought down by a huge flock of pigeons flying into his plane. The sheer numbers of them gummed up the propellors and he plummeted to his death. As the story unfolds he hears from townspeople mysterious accounts of families seeming to leap off cliffs, people found suffocated in the woods, and one written account of a family that was besieged by previously docile farm animals who, in their madness would charge and gore or trample any family member who ventured outside the house. But most chilling of all, and most like the Ents, were the previously stationary trees that seemed to move about the landscape with some sort of vengance in their sap:

“..I saw in the depth of it points of fire, and colors in light, all glowing and moving, and the air trembled. I stared out into the night, and the dark tree lifted over the roof of the barn, rose up in the air, and floated toward me. I did not move till it was close to the house; and then I saw what it was, and banged the window down just in time. I had to fight, and I saw the tree that was like a burning cloud rise up in the night and settle over the barn.” -Arthur Machen, The Coming of the Terror.

The families had been chased over cliffs by their own sheep. Those that were found suffocated had hundreds of moths fly into their nose and throats. And the very trees rose on their roots and stalked people over the land. The narrator concludes that the madness and slaughter of the war had driven the world quite literally mad, and the land rose up:

“For long ages [man] has been putting off his royal robe, he has been wiping the balm of consecration from his own breast. He has declared again and again that he is not spiritual, but rational…He has vowed that he is not Orpheus, but Caliban. But the beasts also have within them something which corresponds to the spiritual quality in men; we are content to call it instinct. They perceived that the throne was vacant; not even friendship was possible between them and the self-deposed monarch. If he was not king, he was a sham, an impostor, a thing to be destroyed. Hence, I think, the Terror. They have risen once; they may rise again.” -Arthur Machen, The Coming of the Terror.

I imagine Tolkien, if he read the story, would have found its themes resonant with some of his own attitudes and beliefs both about the war and industrialization. In one of his letters, he laments that engineers are the most malicious aspect of human intelligence since machines and factories are tearing down his beloved forests and the noise pollution of them ruins the enjoyment of nature. In his famous essay “On Fairy Stories” he describes the removal of a willow tree by his home with a deep melancholy: “I do not think it had any friends, or mourners, except myself and a pair of owls.” And perhaps most tantalizing of all for the current discussion, he was once reputed to have remarked to a friend while hearing a chainsaw tearing at trees in the woods “Orcs!”

So it seems clear that there is in much of the Lord of the Rings a tension between what is natural and beautiful and good even timeless in the elves, the ents, the shire, Tom Bombadil, etc. and what is industrial and usurious and in humanity’s more narrow view of time in the races of men, Sauron, Saruman, and the orcs. And as I have begun to read the trilogy once more these themes seem to take on more of a central role than I recall. But I suppose that is the nature of great books, each time they are read, different insights come to light. More this read than any other, I note a poignant and melancholy tone to the work. We learn from the elves that the 3rd age is ending, they are leaving Middle Earth, the Ents are forgetting as their forests dwindle, magic itself is receding making way for the age of Man. Something precious is being lost while uncertainty in the frailties of man are what remain. Humanity is the wild card in LOTR. Sauron and Saruman are the personification of the industrial impulses of Man that threaten the entire world, while the Men of Gondor represent our more noble characteristics. But it is the Ents I think that personify the ecological undertone of LOTR.

There is at once an alien strangeness to the Ents and also a familiarity. They are given partly human features, so we are meant to connect with them, and yet they are utterly alien. They appear unconcerned about the War of the Ring, even though it threatens them as Free Peoples of Middle Earth just as it does Hobbits or Elves. Their difference is revealed most pointedly in their slowness. They exist in a time scale that is more geologic than human (Light, 2003). They are not hasty! To them, even the immortal elves are new on the scene. Their mind is more collective than individual, just as the life of a forest is more than the sum of its trees. Theirs I think is not the business of good and evil and individual events, which must whiz by them like the life of a gnat does to us. Rather their provence is the keeping of balance, of maintaining the forest ecosystem around them. Individual lives and wars play but a small role in this vastness of time.

“They have risen once. They may rise again.” And the Ents marched, the sheer size of Isengard’s crime against the land rouses them from their passivity. The most powerful moment for me in Peter Jackson’s movie adaptation of The Two Towers was when Treebeard first enters the clearing where the industrial machinery of the orcs have slaughtered his friends. The rending of his heart at this decimation was so perfectly portrayed. It echoed my own feelings of seeing waterways and forests I played in, conversed with, and loved as I grew up similarly eradicated for some ugly housing developments. These places made me who I am; I would go so far as to say they were my friends. Certainly as an only child they were often my best non-parental company. And since they were such a part of my growth, it was as if a part of me was eradicated as well. To see them destroyed and cheap developments erected on their bones stirred Treebeard’s anger in me:

“Many of these trees were my friends. Creatures I had known from nut and acorn. They had voices of their own. SARUMAN! A wizard should know better. There is no curse in Elvish, Entish, or the tongues of man for this treachery.” – Treebeard.

Our own forests are being removed at an acre a second, or 86,400 acres per day. As I think about the collective news coverage over time, I wonder if the earth is indeed rising up against us. The volcano in Iceland, Katrina, tsunami’s, mudslides, natural disasters accelerating and the power of storms increasing. Then there are the reports beginning of animals going mad and behaving much differently than they did before. The most notable example is the story “An Elephant Crack Up” by Charles Siebert. Normally peaceful elephants have begun attacking crops and villages seemingly in retaliation from loss of access to their burial grounds, poaching, and other crimes humanity brings upon them.

As Machen says, the king has abdicated his throne. We are living out of balance, destroying all in the illusion of infinite economic growth. If we are on the brink of our own “Coming of the Terror” or March of the Ents, we will likely not win that battle despite our collective illusion that we are the masters of all.

In closing, I’d like to offer a more hopeful story a way to change the narrative. Nina Kiriki Hoffman penned an amazing story of renewal in her short story “Grounded”. In it a young girl moves with her mother into the home of her new step family. Discovering they are a strange lot, and Vernon, her new step father, seems to be a counselor of sorts.

Vernon is revealed to be a sort of Green Man, who reconnects people to the world around them. He takes her hand and:

“It was like music. …I could feel that inside the tree, things flowed, ran, changed, water and sap, light fizzing into green, roots plunging down, flavors of the soil, sense of sun and shadow, breeze and stillness, and the years-years and years and years, one wrapped around the next, weather graven into them, rains and droughts and the fresh embrace of fog, nights and days, summers, winters, under it all Earth, above it all Sky, and the eternal giving of Sun.” -Nina Kiriki Hoffman

And at the end of the story Vernon explains what his clients receive in coming to his forest home:

“People lose touch, …where they spend so much time in little windowless rooms staring at computer screens. Some people are searching for a way to get back in touch, and others can be called back. That’s my work. Give them roots, get them grounded.” -Nina Kiriki Hoffman

Part II on its way….

Bibliography:

Carpenter, Humphrey (2000). “The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien.”

Hoffman, Nina Kiriki. (2002). “Grounded.” in “The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest,” Ellen Datlow and Terry Windling, Eds.

Machen, Arthur. (1916). “The Terror.”

Light, Andrew. (2003). “Tolkien’s Green Time.”

Siebert, Charles (2006). “An elephant Crack Up.” New York Times.

Tolkien, J.R.R. (1939). Essay: “on Fairy Stories.”

His magnificent figures look like they just stepped across the Veil from faerie, and being in the actual presence of them amplified that feeling. Though stationary, they seem to move, as I looked into their eyes, I also felt the gaze returned. His work showed such range from the flowing mystery of the life sized pieces to whimsical little gnome critters with candle holders at their heads. I heard an interview with him a short while ago where he described his work as being the love child of Dr. Seuss and Tolkein. What a perfect description.

The work blends the natural sculpture of nature in the twining, twisting pieces of wood, with the figurative. It speaks to me of a reconnect with the land and with Spirit.

But really I felt a sort of recognition at seeing a photo of the piece below. A long while ago, I had dream. I walked in a twilight wood, I felt like I had no history, or at least I was so completely at one with the woods that I did not have much of a sense of self. I came to a clearing where leaves fell constantly even though it seemed to be spring. And yet, the trees never seemed to diminish in the amount of leaves on them. The ground just ahead of me began to ripple and move and a figure melted upward slowly. He was earth and decay, as he rose from the ground, it was as if the earth were assembling him bit by bit every moment out of single grains of sand, leaves, twigs. He creaked as he grew. Branches sprouted from his head and kept growing, mosses sprang from his beard and kept growing, and all the while mushrooms bloomed and died along his body. He never really stopped growing. He had come for my head, but I did not mind. It was time, and his very being was gentleness.

Please spend some time browsing his gallery: Jamie Brick Studio

It was one of the most vivid dreams I have had, and years later I saw that face again in the Lilac King by Jamie Brick.

By Jamie Brick

It was June when my boss at work began to change. He became less of a douchebag and more, well, evil. I began to sleep poorly. I began to forget things, many things. I forgot all things that did not have to do directly with my day job. I am not so sure I believe this.

“I can’t be burned out by my job? That is certainly a more likely story than the “Nefarious-Dr. Abdelkader-possessed-my-boss yarn.”

“You said it yourself, he changed. And you stopped seeing us even though you have the Sight.” Jatrophae noted. “But you broke the spell!”

I didn’t recall breaking any spells. My magic wand is the plastic Harry Potter wand from the toy store. Not very powerful. My incredulous stare must have been obvious because he continued,

“none of us could reach you, so thick was the spell. So deep was his draining of your soul your entire being dimmed. But you came to the source! In Ireland you began to see the Guardians of the Wood. You listened to the land, let the land heal you and your strength built.”

“Wait.” I retorted. “You mean me quitting my job was some sort of lame counter-spell?” I wondered if I were not under the spell of my friend’s prodigious B.S. capabilities.

“Yup. By standing on your own two feet, his power was broken and we were all behind you. Those who know who they are and live it cannot be easily swayed by others. It is a very deep magic!”

I began to shake uncontrollably as the past few months became real to me. For over 3 months the most evil creature in the Unseelie Court had possession of my boss. I was in daily contact with him. “Why didn’t he just kill me?”

“He can’t. He needs to find the goblins you have placed and in the human world he cannot easily find them. Besides you are under Seelie protection. He can influence you, drain you, but that is the limit of his power.” my friend replied.

“Sad thing is he wasn’t really much different from my real boss. Just a slightly bigger ass than before.” I snickered.

“Well, Abdelkader can really only take over the soul of one who walks in darkness. But enough of this. It will be much harder for him to fool you now that you have cast him off. You must get back to the work. I must go on a journey for the Seelie Queen, I will contact you on my return.”

I waved to my wrinkly friend as he bounded off my window sill and flew off into the night. I wandered into the kitchen for my hot chocolate. Definitely a marshmallow night. I sat in my comfy green chair and just processed the past few months. But neither my thoughts or my hot chocolate were going to be enjoyed tonight.

I heard a squeal down below my window. It sounded like a very high pitched pig. I looked down, but couldn’t make out what was happening. I could see small shadowy forms, 3 or 4 of them darting forward and back taking swipes at something. That something was the source of the squeal.

I grabbed my box of goblin catching stuff and bolted out the door. I had collected a large stick along the creek the week before. Something told me I might be needing that. I raced around the building brandishing my stick.

Redcaps! Nasty little blighters. They had cornered what looked like a tree sapling and were tearing at it. It was terrified, but rooted to the spot and so it could not run anywhere. Crap! the redcaps saw me. Hissing the 4 of them began to sidle up to me.

“Get outta here!” I yelled in my most menacing voice. Not very convincing. They laughed. So I used my golfing skill and whacked the nearest one with my stick. He went sailing through the air and with a plop landed in the creek.

Now his buddies are mad. Their eyes rolled, their tiny teeth gnashed and they rushed me. They were fast. Far faster than I am. One sank it’s teeth into my ankle and began skittering up my pant leg, clawing and biting all the way. Their spit stung. I swung at the other ones with the stick and missed as my back twitched in pain from another red cap bite. I purposefully fell down. I could feel tiny bones snap and a hot rush of slightly caustic blood. I felt bad for killing the thing, but they leave me little choice.

The other 2 fled at seeing me fling broken bits of their companion from under my shirt. They fled, but not before taking bits of their pal, presumably for a midnight snack. I don’t like redcaps.

I looked down and saw tiny leaves trembling. The little sprout was quaking. I knelt down next to it and just began to hum gently. Music soothes terrified fairies just as well as savaged beasts. Once it stopped shaking I said, “You can’t stay here. They’ll be back.” The little critter nodded slowly.

It was obvious I’d have to dig it up since it was quite stationary. I got my trowel out of the truck and popped it into a pot. I saw once I got into the light that it was definitely a she and she was very young, a sprout really. I got the book and turned it clockwise 3 times. The pages fell open to the following entry:

Dryad: Earth elementals. More specifically, the Guardian spirits of groves, forests, trees. They may die at the same time their tree does if they are inside it as it perishes. Unlike hamadryads, dryads can move from tree to tree. They like milk, honey, and oil.

It became clear as I talked to her, that she was far too young to have much information on the Museum. But she told me her name was Meryl and she was 22 years old. She was sprouted in the museum and until now had never been in the wild.

She was far too young to know much about the Museum.