Mythology Abroad

by Jody Lynn Nye

  After the remoteness of the Hebrides, Ireland was almost unbearably noisy and crowded. Backed by the smooth hills, which were clad in a brighter green than those of Scotland, children clad in school uniforms raced their bicycles alongside the train, shouting happily to each other. Dogs, running through yards facing the railway cut and barked as they rumbled past. Dozens of slender-hocked horses, nearly absent in northwest Scotland, grazed calmly in their paddocks. Men in flat woven caps chatted on the street corners, and women in skirts and knitted sweaters went about their business among the shops or hung up washing on the lines in their gardens.

  “Sort of the national uniform,” Keith observed. “But it’s nice and homey.”

  Just outside of Dublin, Diane poked his arm and cried, “Look!”

  High on the side of the railway cut was a billboard. In bright letters two feet high it advertised the Doyle Hotels. Within a hundred yards, they could see signs on shop fronts for Doyle’s Estate Agency, The Doyle Bookstore, and Doyle’s Grocery.

  “Enterprising family I’ve got,” Keith said proudly. “Wouldn’t you say we’re in the right place?”

  In Dublin’s Connolly Station, they left the train, and checked their bags in Left Luggage. Keith had unearthed from his suitcase the pages of notes on his family tree, and was eager to get started on his research. “I’m going down to the Genealogical Office. I’ve got all the facts my grandparents could remember from their parents, and some other stuff that’s been handed down. Would anyone like to come with me?” he asked the others.

  “Not a chance!” Diane said. “I didn’t expect to be coming over, but as long as I’m here, I’m going to go do tourist things for a while. There might be a tour leaving from one of the hotels.”

  Keith looked hopefully at the other two.

  “Not I, Keith Doyle,” Holl said. “I want to walk in the sunshine. I’m not taking a Roman holiday with dusty books and tomes. I live in a library.”

  “He puts it vell,” agreed the Elf Master, amused.

  “Whatever,” Keith said, somewhat crestfallen because no one wanted to join him. “Look, we’ll meet for lunch at noon.” They agreed on a meeting point, and Keith mounted the steps into the building.

  The Genealogical Office offered help to people looking for their family lines on a per hour basis with one of their researchers. Keith was assigned to a slender, fair-haired man named Mr. Dukes, who looked at Keith’s records and made some notes on a yellow pad.

  “You’ve got more than some and less than others,” Dukes said. “Pity you couldn’t have thought of bringing the family Bible.”

  “My dad has it,” Keith admitted, “but he didn’t want me to take it with me. If anything happened to it, he’d be furious. I wrote out everything it said though, all the births, deaths, and marriages.”

  “Good, good,” said Dukes. “Let’s see, now.”

  “The father of my ancestor who came to America was a landowner. We have a couple of his letters,” Keith said, showing the fragile slips of paper to Mr. Dukes, “and it sounds like he never got over being upset that his eldest son left the country, not keeping his skills as a doctor where his own people could benefit from them.”

  “Well, let’s see what can be done with what is here.” Dukes twisted his chair to face a computer terminal, and glancing at Keith’s notes and sometimes to his own, brought up reference numbers, which he jotted down. “Some of this you’ll have to look up at the Archives, but I think we may have a lot of what you need right here.”

  Typing expertly on the keyboard, Dukes requested cross-references to the data Keith had provided. He turned back to chat with Keith while the computer was digesting the information.

  “So, are you enjoying Ireland?” he asked.

  “For the few hours we’ve been here, yeah,” Keith said cheerfully. “It’s beautiful. We took the train down from Larne.”

  “Well, that’s only the north you’ve seen,” Mr. Dukes chided him deprecatingly. “Wait, here we are.” The printer next to the workstation began to clatter, and ejected several sheets of paper. Mr. Dukes tore them off and separated them. He ran down the data with a pencil. “Good, this is what you’ll want. We’ve got a match on several of your entries. Don’t go away. I’ll be right back with you. There’s coffee over the way.” The researcher left through a door at the other end of the room.

  Keith waited at the desk, idly pushing his notes around, and reading the other papers upside down that lay on Mr. Dukes’ desk. Soon, the researcher returned, pushing a library cart on which were stacked gigantic leather-bound books.

  “The parish records for those entries we have,” Dukes explained. “All the births, baptisms, deaths, and marriages are recorded there, up to the present records, which are still in the parishes. We get them when they’re through.”

  “How old are these?” Keith asked, touching one of the big books reverently.

  Mr. Dukes turned to a page, and passed his finger down it carefully. “Some of these go back to 1800. These are the original documents, you understand. I can’t let you take them out of the building, but I will give you copies of the entries, or you may write them down.” He stopped at one line. “These are all in Latin, but this is the marriage record of a Fionn O’Doyle who married a woman named Emer O’Murphy on the fourteenth of June, 1818.”

  Several pages further on, he came across a baptism record for her firstborn, a boy named Emerson, born in 1820. Keith scribbled down the dates and names.

  “Gee, that’s creative,” he observed. “Emer, Emerson. Wait! Aha, it’s a family name. And I thought it was all rock and roll. I saw it in the family Bible, and it never dawned on me.”

  “A good match?”

  “One I didn’t expect,” Keith said, pointing. “That’s my middle name. This has to be the right family.”

  Mr. Dukes marked it with a tacky-backed tab for copying. “There’s no death registered with that same name, so it looks like Emerson O’Doyle was the one who left.”

  “That’s right. Grandpa said that he was a doctor,” Keith added, referring to his notes.

  “Possibly, but the birth register won’t say so,” the man said impishly, “and it’s all we have to go on.”

  “You mean they didn’t know at birth?” Keith innocently carried on the joke. “I thought second sight was run of the mill here.”

  The man ran through the file once more. “It seems he married a Miss Butler. Yes, this entry does note him as a Dr. O’Doyle. Well done. Now we can trace back through to see the rest of your lines. The Butlers and the O’Doyles are both from just north of Arklow near the coast, but more O’Doyles and the O’Murphys come from the north end of County Wexford above Gorey.”

  Keith soon had a pile of photocopies with a list of addresses of the parish churches. Mr. Dukes directed him to a nearby Ordnance Survey bookstore for maps of the area south of Dublin. “I hope you find what you’re looking for. The best of luck to you,” said Dukes, shaking his hand. “If you’ve any questions, come back again.”

  “Top of the morning to you,” Keith said cheerfully, gathering his papers under one arm. “And thanks a lot.”

  Keith emerged from the Genealogical Office and found his way to the rendezvous point where the others were waiting. Diane steered them to a place that was serving lunch. As soon as they had given their orders to the waiter, Diane pointed at the pile of photocopies under Keith’s elbow.

  “Is all that from the Genealogy Office?” Diane asked.

  “Yup. I have a few starting places,” Keith said, patting the sheaf of papers. “I’ve got a list of parish churches and an abbey which might have records of my ancestors that can fill in holes in the stuff we’ve already found. The rest of this is copies of the birth and death registers for a lot of my multiple-great-grandparents and their children. If we take the train south from here to Bray or Arklow, we can start looking around there locally.”

  “It’s still the season for wildflowers,” Holl said meaningfully. “If there
’s no trouble involved, I’d like to keep a close watch out for the bellflowers. It is the reason I came here, after all.”

  “Of course,” Keith assured him. “I think it’ll have to be on bicycles, though, and that will take a lot of time, not to mention muscle power. I’m too young to rent a car over here. They want you to be twenty-five.”

  “Ah,” said the Master. “I can solf that problem.”

  “You’ll really be the first couple married in Illinois?” Diane asked Holl sentimentally.

  “Yes, indeed, as well as the first ones to be born there. Because we’re beginning a new page in our history, it’s important to us to have a touch of the old ways about it. Maura and I have had a bond between us all our lives, and I want it to be a permanent one. I love her,” he ended fiercely, looking off out of the restaurant window. No interloper will have her, he promised himself. I will win her back.

  The Elf Master took off his spectacles and polished them with a pocket handkerchief. For the first time Keith had ever seen him so, the Master looked distressed.

  “What’s the matter, sir?” he asked.

  “Ach, nothing. Both of my children are thinking of marriage. They grow so qvickly. I hardly think ve haf had enough time to enjoy them.”

  “Enoch is talking about getting married, too?” Keith asked, astonished. “Is he still dating Marcy?” Marcy Collier was a Big Person. She had been the object of Keith’s affections for most of a school year. He had stopped chasing her when she had revealed a preference for one of the Little Folk. Keith knew about her and Enoch, and applauded it, but the idea of matrimony between them amazed him somewhat.

  “Yes, he is,” the Master confirmed.

  “You’re just going through empty-nest syndrome,” Keith said, thinking out loud. “Maybe you should have some more kids.”

  The Master glanced at him, looking for evidence of flippancy, and found none.

  “You’re younger than Holl’s folks, and they have a three-year-old,” Keith pressed.

  The Master shrugged. “Perhaps ve vill consider it. But I do not think that is the answer, vith so much vork left to be done on our new home.”

  Keith thought then that it would be politic to change the subject. Holl was still staring off into space. He tried to catch the Little Person’s eye, and decided to let him come back to Earth at his own pace. “So, what did you see in Dublin?”

  “Trinity College is walking distance from here. I had a look around. That’s where they keep the Book of Kells. It’s kind of a pity,” Diane complained. “The book is shut up in a glass case in a fairly dark library. You only get to see whatever page the curator decided to show off on a day. I mean, I didn’t expect to get to handle it, but it would have been nice if they had someone up there who could answer questions. I think he was having his tea.”

  “It is a mastervork,” the Elf Master put in. “This vas a splendid opportunity for me. There were other illuminated manuscripts on display, vhich I examined closely. I haf purchased a complete reproduction of the Book of Kells itself for class study on medieval art.”

  “I thought you might say that,” Holl groaned. “So that is what made you put in an Interlibrary Loan request for works by the Master of Sarum.”

  “That is true,” the Master said complacently. “I alvays seek new subjects to explore. Research is the backbone of knowledge.”

  Leaving the restaurant, the Master took the lead. He guided them along the street, into the next block, and over the threshold of a glass-fronted showroom on the corner. The sign over their heads read Ath Cliatha Auto Rentals. Keith caught his arm.

  “Where are you going?” he yelped. “The train station is the other way.”

  “Solfing the problem of transportation. You can drive vun of these autos?” the Master asked calmly.

  “I think so,” Keith said, involuntarily glancing at the traffic. “It’s on the wrong side of the road, but it looks pretty straightforward.”

  “Gut. Then come vith me and choose. I am certainly old enough to sign the contract.”

  Thunderstruck, Keith followed the small teacher into the agency. Holl and Diane tagged along behind. A slim woman with dark brown hair and dusty green eyes stood up as they entered.

  “Back again, Professor?” the woman greeted him cheerfully, putting out a hand for his. The Master clasped it. “We have two four-passenger vehicles on the lot now.” She named two manufacturers. The Master looked back at Keith.

  “Uh, either one, I guess,” he said, and then watched as the young woman filled out the contract.

  “May I have your driving license, please?” she asked the Master. Without murmur or hesitation, he duly produced a small card with a photograph in one corner. She turned to Keith. “If you’re driving as well, I’ll need to take your details, too.” Keith handed his wallet card to her and waited while she copied down his name and address.

  He said nothing until the woman went for the keys to the car, and then leaned over the Master’s head. “I’m going to tell the Department of Transportation on you.”

  The Master glanced up at him with a conspiratorial wink. Keith was delighted.

  “Here you are,” the young woman said, leading them outside to a small blue two-door compact. She put the keys in Keith’s hands and opened the door for him. Keith slipped into the driver’s seat and looked for the rearview mirror. It was on the wrong side. So was the left view mirror. It was on the right. Panicking, he looked up at the young woman for help. She smiled, crinkled lines gathering at the corners of her eyes.

  “Let me go over the controls with you. There’s a full tank of petrol. The rest is fairly easy to understand….”

  ***

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Keith’s first few miles driving the car were as tentative as the first flight of any baby bird from a nest which was surrounded by asphalt and wild birds zooming by at top speed within inches of his wings. He made his way cautiously into the lane of traffic to the tune of racing engines and screeching brakes. The Dublin drivers didn’t give an inch among themselves, and the roads seemed unaccountably narrow from his point of view on the wrong side of the car. Diane, navigating in the front passenger seat, was huddled as close to the center of the vehicle as she could be without obstructing the rear view mirror. Shortly, as Keith began to relax, his driving improved, but his passengers took some time to lose the white around their eyes.

  “Who says the Irish don’t believe in magic?” Keith demanded, once they were out of the city and onto the smaller southbound roads. “Look at that. This road is almost as narrow as my bed. They paint a yellow stripe down the middle and presto! Two lanes.”

  He glanced in the rearview mirror. His back seat passengers were not impressed by his levity. His jaw set, Holl was clutching the rubber loop hanging from the ceiling, and the Master simply sat looking pale. “Do you want me to stop and pick up some four leaf clovers?”

  “No,” the Master said. “Drive more slowly.”

  “Okay,” said Keith imperturbably, without turning his head. “So where do we go?”

  Diane handed the map into the back seat, and the Master opened it up. “I do not know,” he admitted after examining it closely. “It has been a long time, and the names have changed somewhat. Mere lines on paper mean nothing to me. I think I may haf to see landmarks to be certain.”

  “You didn’t see anything familiar on the train ride south into Dublin, did you?”

  “Of that I am certain, no. I do remember Dublin, and it vas most definitely to the north of vhere ve lived.”

  “That’s okay,” Keith assured him, following a fork in the road to the left. “I’ll just head toward where I’m going, and if you have a place you want to stop on the way, then tell me, and we’ll check it out.”

  With Diane directing him from the map, Keith drove through County Wicklow. The land changed gradually as they left Dublin. On the west side of the road, low mountains began to appear over the tops of the trees. They were not the dramatic bl
ack and gold peaks of Scotland. Instead, they were more gently rounded, with bright green grass and darker green trees covering their expanse. A high, nearly conical mountain passed by to their right, casting a long shadow across the road. At times they emerged into flattened valleys where the road was edged with trees. Or wound along through small villages with signs written half in English and half in Gaelic. The iron mailboxes, which in Scotland had been red, were painted bright green.

  “This is where you leave the Arklow road,” Diane said, reading from the map as they came to a sharp intersection to the right. Cutting across the right lane swiftly while there was no traffic, Keith turned inland, and started looking for the way to the first parish church on his list.

  The road narrowed immediately to an unstriped lane between high hedges. Cautiously, Keith hugged the shrubbery on the left side. Though the road was frighteningly straitened, there always seemed to be enough room for two vehicles to pass one another. After one panicked moment when he had to dive into a blackberry thicket to avoid a farm vehicle and an old woman on a bicycle, their progress was much more calm.

  “Hey, I’m getting the hang of this,” he said happily, and then glanced at his passengers, who were hanging on in silence. “Hey, don’t you all applaud at once.”

  Through the brush bounding the road, they could see farmhouses and manor houses, and well-trimmed fields with sheep or cows placidly grazing. A cluster of small cottages emerged among a stand of trees. “Look, Holl, it’s your house,” Keith said, cocking his head toward the roadside. A tiny white cottage with a high-peaked roof of red slates lay nestled amid a wreath of rosebushes. Ivy climbed one wall and twined around the base of the chimney. A sheepdog lying in the middle of the drive regarded them with professional disinterest.

  “It’s amazingly similar,” Holl said, staring as they passed the cottage.

  “But old,” Diane commented. “Really old.”

  “Vhere function does not change significantly, form rarely alters,” the Master said enigmatically.