The Living Cave E-Book

alastair macleod

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Four stories; In "The Living Cave," Sgithac, the legendary warrior priestess, trains young men on the Isle of Skye in the arts of war and also in the arts of life. Feargal faces one last challenge before he joins the warrior band; it is to do with his own fears and the mystery of life and of women. Will he emerge intact? In "The Serpent Queen," we see more clearly what once was. "Dust Devils," relates what happens when we lose our knowledge and reverence for the earth. In "The Silver Chanter" , a young man from the Isle of Skye finds himself under a fairy spell .

Leseprobe

Alastair Macleod

The Living Cave

or Uamh An Oir

to folktale, that links us through deep time to our ancestors, to the earth which is our mother and to the caves where once we sought shelter. To the Aos Sí and our meetings with them.BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

The Living Cave or Uamh Oir,

This curious story was passed to me orally by my grandfather, Hector Maclean Macleod, whose father John Budge Macleod lived at Borneskitaig as a boy and young man.

I have set it in the Celtic heroic age, the time of Cu Chulainn. Yet I feel this story is very old, from deep time, perhaps from the Neolithic era. And to my mind the story, the way it was passed, was always a fragment, perhaps of a greater epic. I have kept the bare bones of the original and added a little.

Feargal’s final skill to learn as a warrior, after months of training in Skye in the twenty nine warrior feats and the eleven ways of dying, was to enter the Living Cave, the Uamh Oir.

Guarded by a hairy wolf, this sea cave lay a little way back from the shore at Borneskitaig, near the point.

Feargal was instructed by Sgithach as to how he should proceed. He was to take with him his magic pipes and his little dog.

First he was to charm the wolf by feeding it then petting and stroking it then letting his own little dog get to know it.

The wolf, Sgithach said, would respond and become calm and let the little dog lick it.

Then the living cave, at first closed, would slowly open as the wolf became calmer and calmer. This took some time, but at last after much stroking of the wolf, the cave began to open.

Soon the cave was wide enough for Feargal to enter.

Then he was to strike up a tune.

Sgithach said the choice of tune was crucial. The warrior must choose his tune. Many had chosen and failed, never to return. Feargal asked what tunes they had played. Sgithach said some had played marches, some had played reels. Feargall thought long and hard on this. He decided to play a pibroch, and he made his way, playing, into the darkness lit only by the glow from his magic pipes. The sides of the cave glistened with moisture, the sound reverberating back and forth within the confines of the stone walls.

Twice he lost his courage and retraced his steps almost to the cave mouth but each time he turned and drove himself back. All the while he continued to play. The pibroch quickened to the doubling as he made his way further in. Then the wall seemed to come alive, first closing in on him then releasing. At last he burst forth into an inner chamber. Here the air was warm, moist. He could hear water trickling. His pibroch reached its climax just as he stumbled and fell into the pool in the chamber. Clutching his pipes, he struggles ashore.

As he raises his eyes for a moment he thinks he sees animals running across the cave wall before him. Then the light shifts and they are gone.

When the music stopped the little dog had taken fright and raced back to the entrance.

Sgithach and the other warriors watched as the little dog appeared but something was strange; the dog was completely hairless.

Feargal, now not playing, panicked and groped for the way out in the semi darkness; the cave seemed to be closing in, pulsing. He squeezed himself down the narrow passage, water drenched his clothes, it was hard to breath.