A Christmas Fantasia - Short Story by Ed Lyons

 

A Christmas Fantasia

Short Story

By Ed Lyons

On that Christmas day that we spent with her people in Iceland, her cousin Gurthrún þhorsdóttir proposed for us a game, that on St. John’s Day, I would give her a kiss, and that on Holy Name Day I would give her a ring. And that she requite me a year hence in Ireland. And we set to such cheer as could be found in that bleak and galeswept country, while the ghostly lights danced in the sky for most of the hours of the day. And on St. John’s Day I held her by the shoulders and looked deep into her eyes and kissed her chastely on the forehead. And on Holy Name Day I presented her a claddagh wrought from Irish silver. I slipped it on her finger and squeezed her hand once, twice, three times.

At Midsummer a message arrived in Galway from Skagafjord. My love, it read, my brother is outlawed in Iceland and I must go with him to Gardar. I will come to the Strands of Derry before the gales. Await me at the Giant’s Causeway. And so at Hallow’s Tide I rode forth with a company of knights for our meeting in Ulster. For some days we scanned the ocean, until on Christ the King Sunday, the sail appeared and the curved and sculpted prow, and they pulled the boat ashore, beside the Giant’s Causeway, just as she had said. And so we rode with our chivalrous escort back to Galway, and delivered her to the convent where she would lodge during Advent, polishing her Irish with the nuns, for she would need facility with the tongue in the royal court.

I saw her next in the cathedral on Christmas Eve, and we sat together during the Mass, and in the days that followed, all of the nobles of Galway assembled in hall and hunt, and supped with great mirth, and partook of all manner of entertainments, games, and amusements. And on St. John’s Day she threw her arms around me and covered me with ardent kisses. And on Holy Name Day she graced my finger with a golden ring inscribed with runes, and she threw her arms around me and would not let go.

Whereupon, the Queen turned to me before the assembly, and declared, I have noticed how this shieldmaiden from the North has preoccupied your attention. Let me therefore propose a game. From now until Twelfth-Night the twain of you shall not come to hunt nor hall, nor shall you sing with the mummers of Galway. But you will abide in a chamber with hearth and store and good Iberian wine. And she will prepare your meals and care for you. And then come Twelfth-Night, you shall bring her to the great feast, and I shall ask you whether you liked it. And if you answer Yea, the bishop will solemnize the pair of you at once. But if you answer no, I will cut off all your beard in the presence of the knights and nobles.

The chamber had been prepared and we were shut inside, and I found myself alone with my companion of the year before. She poured us each a goblet of wine, and she said to me, I have no desire to be a man. But I had to fight for my family when the King of Norway confiscated our lands, and in Iceland there has to be a battle from time to time to keep the neighbourhood calm. I fight to protect the ones I love. But I long for a man who will understand my feelings, since none ever has and none has ever been so brave as you. Therefore allow me to propose a game. For the days we are sequestered in this chamber, I will cook for you and clean for you and fill your goblet. And I will do all the work. And you will entertain me, and you will do all the work.

Thereupon I sang her a tale of love and war in Ulster, and she began to weep, and I arose and kissed her tears away and comforted her until she fell sound asleep.

The days passed in pleasant dining and dalliance and joking and embracing and song and trying weird herbs that made you feel like you’re dreaming as you tingle warm all over, until the very air crackled with a mysterious force. We both felt it, this inferno that would consume us both. And time stood still. And the wind and the sleet lashed the castle walls with savage fury.

And so when we came to the great feast, the Queen put the question to me. And Yes, I answered, I liked it. I liked it immensely. And a mighty cheer arose from all the knights and nobles of Galway, whereupon a crossbearer, accompanied by two torchbearers and six vergers, appeared to escort us, followed by the entire court of Galway, into the chapel, where the bishop stood ready.

Ed Lyons has been writing and publishing poems for over forty years. He has studied at the University of Florida, where he earned a B.A. in English, and Florida State University, where he earned an M.S. in Instructional Systems. He has studied under poets Lawrence Hetrick, Van Brock, and David Kirby. He is a regular contributor to the Poems from the Heron Clan anthology, which he co-founded, and a frequent contributor to Lothlorien Poetry Journal, which won him a Best of the Net nomination. Ed’s work has also appeared in Albatross, Woodrider, A New Ulster, Án Áitiúil, and North Carolina Bards. Ed has and written hymns for the Moravian Church. The last is the subject of Ed’s 2019 chapbook Wachovia, published by Katherine James Books in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Katherine James also has published Ed’s latest chapbook, From the Notebooks of Joseph Brown. Ed lives in Winston-Salem, also in North Carolina.