Samhain’s
Eve Song
Prose Fiction Short Story
By
Greg Patrick
“Last night she came to me, my young love came in.
So softly she entered, that her feet made no din.
And she came close beside me And this she did say,
"It will not be long love till our wedding day.”- Padraic Colum
They were a people of songs. It was how they
remembered the great and the tragic. It was how they rallied laughter from the
reforged shards of broken hearts. It was always their way since bards would
appear against a background of lightning and rain at the threshold of halls of
great chieftains and their court. It was how monks of the storm-swept isles
found solace in chant to light pages with illuminated wonder. A song for the
harvest gathering, for the moments when all seemed lost in battle and love.
Connemara 19th century
The vigil flame was lit in the church yard. His breath
steamed in the chill air where old wounds pulsed, as he lifted the calming
bottle to his lips. He envisioned her then, eyes that were silence set to
music, a smile that was like a song that one could not get out of his head, so
that of an eve without her the night sang. He remembered her lilting voice.
“Liam. It’s time. We should go. It’s
a long journey we have ahead of us. Off to America then?”
“Aye. Nothing left for me here then.”
“Ye should come along then.”
“Just a moment longer…” He lingers, oblivious to the
cold.
Autumn leaves fell as if hailing him in the debris of red dreams falling. The flame sputtered in the rain and through it, the way her red hair did when they met by the old ruins overlooking the lake. The rain fell then but since the warmth of their embrace the rain never fell colder. He remembered it then, laughing in the rain. Finding shelter from it in the old ruins. But wasn’t that always the way of it? Who else had found shelter amid the old broken stones, awaiting like an old friend at the station when all others have left. They walked hand in hand, laughter in their hearts and songs in their souls. The way a bard loves his muse. They stop as they watch the starving stagger by in grey haunted procession. The almost skeletal hands reach out, eyes imploring, burning with hunger. She pulls away in fright and regrets it.
“Easy there lass,” Liam soothed.
He dug into his pockets.
“It’s all I have.”
She does the same enfolding it in the cold hand.
“Bless ye son and daughter.”
“Aye.”
They pass on and the two watch, hands joined before
they turn to face each other and like the banned songs of the Gael.
“Where do they go then?”
“To the manor houses to beg,” he replied.
He placed his arm around her reassuringly as the
keening of the bereaved haunted the air.
The story is the same, the ancient oaths of
hospitality died with the last chieftains of the Gael.
They appear at the elegant Autumn harvest gatherings. There
is a collective gasp. The lady of the manor shields her face from the sight of
sunken cheeked babes in emaciated arms and ribs exposed through torn
shirts…Cover her eyes from the pains and ordeals of hunger and poverty
intruding into her insulated world of grand balls and fine wine.
Banquo’s ghost at the feast. They are “shown out”
roughly. The gentil music begins again to soothe the disturbed guests. The
bells of the steeple toll.
“What eve is it then? So darkly on my way home I’ve
not seen its like.”
“All Hallow’s Eve.”
Liam turns at last, the bottle shatters, the blood
mingles with the rain and sod. He searches for elusive words for a song. His
art was to find isolation in the throng and people with figures of legend and
past in the remote wilds where he sought solitude to compose a new song.
He turns as he did in an age-old dance by the bonfires
of May eve. He remembers her. A vision of beauty behind green eyes. Engarlanded
in wildflowers. Her auburn cascade of hair seemed as one with the flames. They
laugh and feel immortal then. He turns for the long walk through the rain. He
knows the way back like songs by heart. He stopped by the old ruin where they
dared laugh in the rain. Disembodied song seems to haunt the place. He poses
his hands at his harp. He stopped by the old ruin where they dared laugh in the
rain.
It appeared like a dark shrine unveiled by the mist. He
begins to strum at the harp, searchingly, eyes haunted and introspective, delving
into his soul. First searching then lost then in the music it enveloped him in
a dark phantasmal intoxication and embrace as if the chords forged dark armour
to protect him from the pain of bereavement.
The music possessed him then suddenly as if swept away
by dark wings of night. In that rapture he played eyes cast in Orphean
valediction as the interplay of shadows mingling with moonbeams seemed granted
for and face. Perhaps some trick of the spectral moonbeams as he played but the
grandeur burnt from the ruins by some marauding army, revisited and ethereally
gowned the cannon-shattered walls with an illusionist's veil of its former
robbed grandeur. Shadows seemed to revel at his beckoning. Legends seanced from
ancient exile. One last dance...?
He envisioned gowned beauties waltzing by the moon
under flourishing banners. He looks for one face in the crowd of dancers. Midnight
approaches. Where is she? His search grows more frenzied.
"Liam? Liam lad..."
His friend was sent to look for him. The spell fades
as his hands cease at the strings and the echoes fade. He opens his eyes to
ruins. Perhaps some trick of the spectral moonbeams as he played but the
grandeur burnt from the ruins by some marauding army, revisited and gowned the
cannon-shattered walls with an illusionist's veil of its former robbed
grandeur. Shadows seemed to revel at his beckoning. Legends seanced from
ancient exile. One last dance?
He envisioned gowned beauties waltzing by the moon
under flourishing banners. He looks for one face in the crowd of dancers. Midnight
approaches. Where is she? His search grows more frenzied.
"Liam? Liam lad..."
His friend was sent to look for him.
The spell fades as his hands cease at the strings and
the echoes fade. He opens his eyes to ruins.
“Where are the lads tonight?”
The lit windows of the pub beckon.
“Will ye be singing a song then?”
The brooding face looked over the rim of the cup,
answering.
“Ah go on then.”
In what was an ancient gesture he reached for his harp.
He closed his eyes as if into a slow dance, a waltz amid the ruins, echoing
with laughter. The room of the old pub, with its raucous laughter and jests
went silent in spellbound rapture at the music, maddening and soul caressing
that drew at the sinews of their heart.
“If ever ye came back to me it would be as a song.
Aye.”
Harpsong like a bonfire’s flame held the voracious
dark at bay. He cast eyes over the harp, the hungry eyes that had the far-cast
haunted stare of and exile across the wake, back to the dark horizon. In the
streets of the new shore, in the grey labyrinth of the city he plays in a dance
and duet with echoes. A song like an offering to the night.
“I have to go Liam. It’s late.”
“One more song lass…Our song.”
His hands caress the harp with a conjuring touch, eyes
distant, haunted.
“Aye one more song and farewell…till we see one
another in another shore.”
What eve is it?
All Hallows Eve…
Samhain
The monks of the new faith denounced the old ways of the druids, condemned the rites of sacrifice, but the ancestors who plucked the passions of the heart from the strings of harp in lordly halls understood that by snow and rain, sacrifice was the defining force that drove the women and men of the island…a force of nature like the great storms that swept the roads of the bards…
An emaciated hand extending with the very last morsel
of bread to a sunken-cheeked babe…
The dismissal of an offer for surrender and of the
magistrate’s promise of leniency to the besieged rebel…
“If ever ye came back to me it would be as a song.
Aye.”
He packs up his harp for the long walk back in the
night by gaslight, his coat pulled over
his blue uniform.
“Leaving with Meagher’s brigade
tomorrow. I’m coming lass.”
Known for being a musician he is placed at the vanguard. They march to the songs of the old country under their banners of green. The artillery shells from the cannon’s ranks scream like the banshee bemoaning the clans of old Eire. The blood of other men coats him as he walks like a somnambulist through the smoke. Disoriented, deafened by the rifle volleys. He envisions as if through clearing mist and the sensation of falling, the panoramic sweep of the vales of the greenest shore. He hears a familiar brogued voice as dulcet as song itself.
“Aye. Told you I’d see ye again.”
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment