Emerald Magic_ Great Tales of Irish Fantasy - Andrew M. Greeley [32]
The moon though, as she set, blinked, yellow-blue.
I WAS ON THE TUBE, of course. It was very crowded for a Thursday night.My hands were clean and healed,my throat not raw. The Speir-Bhan was shambling down the carriage, an unsober old hag with dirty hair. She plumped herself beside me and said, in ringing tones that made most of the carriage look up at her, “ ’Ere, luv, tell us when we gets up Holland Park.”
She smelled of port. I explained she was on the wrong tube line.
Philosophically if copiously she swore, and at the next stop, hic-cuping, she left the train.
Months later, not even on a night of full moon, I dreamed I put on the skin of a black fox, and ran over the hills of a vague, perhapsIreland.And though I avoided killing anything be it a sheep or a man, a rabbit or a baby, with my teeth, yet I learned from this dream the lesson of my success, why Colum had not succeeded, maybe why the heroes had. It wasn’t only music, but also the spear and the sword. Not only courage, or honor, but unkindness. Not only talent, but the emptiness with which talent pays for itself. It is, you see, the mirror that reflects best the flaws it is shown in another.
For them, they never came near me again. Nor she, the Speir-Bhan, though I will suppose she’s there, up there in my brain, where they generally sit.
As for Colum’s book, I never read another sentence, not even his leather accounts. I burned it that autumn on a handy neighborhood bonfire. A shame, but there.
For the mortal foxes that steal now and then into the gardens at the back of the flats in Branch Road, I remain one of those that feeds them, dog food and brown bread. Their coats are russet, their eyes the color of whisky, the uisge bheatha,Water of Life.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The legend of Aeritech’s Daughters and the heroes with harp and spear is to be found in Irish myth of the twelfth century and earlier; Colum’s song, and many other references, are based on Irish sources, poetry and prose, between the ninth and sixteenth centuries. The idea of a Speir Bhean, or Aisling, is still current.
I would like to thank Beryl Alltimes for helping to clear the way to this, and the Wolf ’s Head and Vixen Morris for undoubted inspiration, for invaluable guidance, Barbara Levick of St. Hilda’s College, Oxford, and especially, for his insights on the Gaelic, Professor Thomas Charles-Edwards of Jesus College, Oxford. However, all errors, liberties taken, and flights of fancy are mine.
AS IS OBVIOUS from the dedication of this tale, I do indeed have Irish blood (though less than that of the narratrix, just as I am quite a few years older), and am very proud of my Irish connection. That side of the family hails from what I call the Ghost Coast—the west of Ireland—County Clare. After this, of course, fiction parts from fact, but not entirely. You must judge what is true and what fantasy—as so must I.
Tanith Lee 2002
Troubles
BY JANE YOLEN AND ADAM STEMPLE
The pub stood on the corner of a residential neighborhood like a dirty old man in a raincoat. A decrepit yellow sign advertised, IRSH MUIC NIGHTLY, the letters that weren’t missing altogether sagging toward the ground.
I approached the pub cautiously, as I did any new steading, and sniffed the entrance thoroughly before opening the door.
The doorman was old, squat, wrinkled, and toadlike, much as I would appear if I had not taken precautions. He asked me for identification but, as I had none, I waved a hand at him, and we spoke no more of it.
The front door emptied into a well-lit room that had only a long bar and a few pool players mulling about. I didn’t see the One I was supposed to meet. But there was no hurry. My kind have infinite patience.
Stepping past the doorman, I went immediately to the bar. The pub was bigger on the inside than I had suspected. The long mahogany bar split the room into two healthy sections: well lit with billiards and a jukebox on one side, dim