Like a Sandcastle in the Waves.
Legend of the Selkie
"A mermaid found a swimming lad, Picked him up
for her own, Pressed her body to his body, Laughed; and plunging down Forgot in
cruel happiness That even lovers drown."-W B Yeats
Arran Isles Monastery, in the aftermath of Norse raid
The monastery broodingly overlooked
the heaving tumult of Celtic sea from its
windswept heights, under cauldrenous sea and sky. It
coronated the dark crag-like bastion of
bird-swarmed rock formations, eternally besieged by
the unrelenting sea and lashed by rain and
hail, pointing an accusing finger at the heavens...
By the dwindling light of a candle he
would set the page before him aglow with radiant
images rendered by a conjuring hand. A
gifted scribe he toiled sleeplessly over the illuminated
manuscript till it was closed and bound between
bejewelled pages to be reopened like a portal to
heaven's visions by king and bishop. On windswept
Hibernian island nights when torrents of rain
and hail flagellated their stone walls, ever besieged
by the harsh elements, the monastery by the
sea was the young monk’s world, a universe of four
walls...
The murmur of the Celtic
sea was his only constancy after his monastic world of daily
ritual was shattered by axe blows and haven became
prison. The hours of toil over tilling the
barren soil and painstaking artistry of illuminated
manuscripts seemed as distant the words of
bardic sagas...
He closed his eyes, chanting the
sacred words known by ever monk by heart...before the
weather-eroded shrine overlooking the crushing brink
of sea...to keep himself centred...to keep
himself detached...yet the red visions of his brother
monks being brutally slaughtered by
Norsemen intruded....
He sought to banish the visions by
recitation of chants as if exorcising ghosts yet his
mind strayed back to the recurring nightmare of
them...Like a revelling of ghosts haunting ruins...
He opened his grey eyes to the sea and their haunted
betrayed that the words would not suffice....
There was no true solace here...the mortal wounds of
his brothers were inflicted upon his mind
and soul...
Before seeking shelter, he lingered
by the sea...listening to their incessant murmur...like a
ghostly choir...As he did so it seemed a disembodied
song could be heard, rising from the dark
fathoms with an enticing limerence. It was an eldritch
song.... wordless at first...yet he heard
lyrics that softly became incantation...He crossed
himself and rose...He shuddered under his
monk's habit drawing his cowl closer over his
tonsured head.... Surely the supply boat from the
isle would arrive soon, and they would see his
plight...yet a succession of long dark nights
darkened the crimson horizon and none came in the
fiery wave of the Viking drakkars...
Would the Norsemen return then ere long? To
salvage the cached golden horde they buried?
He pondered how to kindle a fire without drawing
unwanted attention from the sea
and betraying his presence to the Norsemen. He had
salvaged the bard's harp that the brothers
had confiscated as a "vanity." He played by
the seashore, eyes closed to the world, immersed into
the song...yet solace eluded him. He buried his
brethren under cover of darkness reciting last
rites.
Painfully famished, he attempted to scale the sheers
jagged cliffs for sea bird eggs...Yet it
was too precarious...the sea birds seemed to mock him
with avian laughter. Harried by birds he
tried to loot their nests, he was dislodged
and fell into the cold cauldrenous surf...He emerged
shivering violently and sputtering. He sighted seals
basking in a sheltered cove and gripped a
sharp stone, yet staid his hand...
She suddenly shed the seal pelt in
graceful metamorphosis, spilling a cascade of raven
hair onto the sand and shapely limbs beckoning. He
recoiled and made the sign of the cross.
She laughed at him...melodiously. Her startlingly
impossibly green eyes cast their spell like
silence set to music and incantation. He brandished a crucifix
at her as she laughed
intoxicatingly, her lilting voice maddeningly sweet…She
seemed everything he was taught to
hate and fear…
a human girl.
“Vex me not temptress,”
he sobbed.
Yet her beauty haunted him like an exotic
fever writhing throes. He cursed himself for the
heretical desire she kindled. His mind strayed back…
He remembered the Norseman's raucous merrymaking in
their plundered monastery.
"Skoll!" they
toasted their chieftain over a hoard of bloodied treasures and
corpses.
He had been overlooked amid the
plunder and slaughter and he remained so till they
left for the sea again.... He had fallen asleep at the
scribe's pen to dream-haunted sleep in the
scriptorium. His hooded head bowed over his magnum
opus, the dwindling ration of candlelight
played over the page of illuminated wonder before
extinguishing. He was shaken awake
suddenly...
“Have I overslept mass
again...forgive me!”
“Rise brother and hasten. You must
hide!”
“What is amiss?”
“Vikings! They are upon us!”
“Abbot Josephus…”
“He is slain! We can do no more.”
Warhorns
sounded then like a banshee portending doom…He hastily scrolled his pages
and
scurried down the hallway. There was a hellish sound
of battle cries, shattering objects, gloating
laughter and the anguished cries of men butchered
alive. He ran through past that sound of shrine
turned abattoir, almost colliding with a bloodied monk
who staggered into his path.
“Brother! Art thou wounded?”
He recoiled as the monk fell with a spear in his back,
shuddering spasmodically.
As he tucked the scrolls under his arm, he dropped one
and raced the tread of advancing boots to
retrieve it. He hid in the reliquary, under the floorboards,
closing his ears at the nightmarish
sound of his brothers being interrogated and tortured
into betraying the cache of treasures they
had come for...
He clutched the scrolled pages against his furiously
beating heart, closed his eyes, chanting
soundlessly...The last cries of his brothers ceased,
and he heard the Norsemen make merry over
their amassed plunder...
“Skol! Skol!” they toasted, gulping
sacred wine from silver chalices.
He heard the clash of swords as
warriors duelled over disputed looted objects as their
fellow Norsemen cheered them on. He cowered as he
heard the agonised cries of the Bishop as
they flayed and ritually tortured him with the “blood
eagle.”
Stifling sobs, he clenched his cross
so tightly blood seeped between his fingers. He
lingered for an eternity till he heard the distant
horn signalling the cast off of the Norse ships.
Avoiding their sightless eyes and pale faces he looked
for any of his brethren who drew breath.
All were slain...He recoiled as he discovered a
solitary Norseman remained there. He had been
entrusted to guard the remaining spoils. He was
unresponsive...having overindulged in mead...
Acting instinctively, he grasped the
heavy gold-adorned ceremonial staff of the Bishop
and with a wild animal cry of rage brought it down on
the Norseman's head again and again, till
the skull was shattered and brain matter and
blood trickled down the walls…He dipped his
fingers into the blood of his slain enemy and that of
his brethren and traced it on his forehead and
cheeks like a war paint of red tears…He saw himself
mirrored in the helm of the Norseman.
He wept then uncontrollably.... No
he did not...
He felt nothing...a soulless stranger inhabiting his
old body...
He staggered away.
He took up the slain Norseman's
sword, yet it felt alien to his touch...He tried practicing
without any reference. It felt unwieldy as he
shadow-duelled, he paused panting as the twilight
shimmered crimson on the blade and he saw
himself mirrored on its surface.
Who was he now?
The Norsemen had cached their loot in
a sea grotto to inevitably return for it. It was
beyond his strength to salvage. He could not salvage
it but flooded it....
by dislodging rocks.
His only companion in that maddening
solitude was an albino seal, like a pale apparition
haunting the waves as his hooded and robed figure
haunted the night shore. He had grown
haggard and dishevelled, a ghost-like figure. The seal
watched him curiously and intently....
The disembodied chanting of his brethren seemed to haunt
the air of his lonely nights…
When prayer seemed talking to air…yet the night would
answer his yearnings in unexpected
ways.
One eve, the Norsemen returned for
their plunder and he was captured
He saw a dark cowled face spectral pallor of a face
leaning towards him as he slept huddled by
ancient weather-eroded shrine. Eyes dark with urgency
looked into his
“Arise brother! The enemy is upon
us!”
It was then he saw the
hideous axe wound on his brother’s temple.
He awoke with a stifled scream. He saw the nightmarish
silhouette of a dragon-prowed ship and
the dark forms of returning
Norsemen lumbering ashore. Moonlight gleamed on helm, axe and
sword. He was roughly bound in chains and dragged
onboard.
Shimmering
dark eyes watched from across the dark waves, across the drakkar's wake,
before submerging. Suddenly the wind subsided
and the drakkar's advance across the
dark waves slowed and halted…wave and wind
subsided and the drakkar merely floated
under the brooding sky.
"Sacrifice
one of the thralls to the sea!” their warlord commanded.
The monk was
roughly brought forward. Suddenly a choir of voices, soprano rose from the
wave, like vapours from a cauldron. A Norseman looked
down at the dark surface and saw pale
enchantingly beautiful faces, smiling seductively as
she beckoned. Her pale arm rose languidly
from the waves slowly ensnaring him, followed by
others. He looked entranced into their eyes.
Suddenly she bared fangs, her eyes smoldering emberously.
The seductive song became shrill
hungry cries, as the selkies swarmed them, dragging
them beneath the waves. Sinking corpses
trailing blood and red bubbles rose to the surface. The
drakkar's sail swayed like a fallen
banner. He saw her face then, hovering before
him...felt her lips breathe air back into them...
She as magnificent to behold, against a background of
sinking gold and bioluminous
particles.
He resurfaced gasping, a ship with
cross-emblazoned sail was within hailing distance…
yet he wavered as he found himself looking into
startlingly impossibly green eyes like the
Celtic sea in summer…and he allowed himself to
be drawn down into the dark fathoms,
embracing oblivion…
A dual citizen of Ireland and the states, Greg Patrick is an Irish/Armenian traveller poet and the son of a Navy enlisted man. He is also a former Humanitarian aid worker who worked
with great horses for years and loves the wilds of Connemara and Galway in the rain where he's written many stories. Greg spent his youth in the South Pacific and
Europe and currently resides in Galway, Ireland and sometimes the states.
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