In Slievmordhu’s Lake District a young apothecary with a half-smoked pipe growing cold in his hand sat slumped in a chair beside his hearth, sleeping soundly. Somewhere beneath a mountain, in the sunless cold, a rock fell from a cavern wall, dislodged by unusual vibrations along a mineral seam.
And amongst the ruined stones of the Dome in Orielthir the accursed weed crowthistle thrust a new green spear.
On the surface the world seemed serene enough, but beneath the impassive cliffs of stone and the silent expanses of lakes; behind the facades of political protocol and the veneers of civilization; within the domes of human skulls and the hearts of schemers there rampaged various activities and machinations that would soon—before Astăriel’s twenty-first birthday—irrevocably change the four kingdoms of Tir. It was impossible for the daughter of Jewel and Arran to foresee, but that extraordinarily spine-tingling reflection briefly glimpsed in the polished back of the hairbrush, that disturbingly handsome face, was perhaps the most significant portent of her future.
The child could know nothing of these events. She had lately come from the glass-walled chamber where her mother lay like a finely modeled figurine amongst the flowers, and thoughts of the loss of both her parents had cast her into a doleful, yearning mood. A broken line of birds passed swiftly and noiselessly overhead, the last swallows migrating south before the season of the Winter Hag laid its chill grip upon soil, stone, and leaf. Yet Astăriel’s father had set out in the opposite direction, and as she gazed northward, a terrible wistfulness seized her heart. She longed to take wing, to fly from her perch out across the misty landscape to the northern mountains and beyond.
“Your sorrowfulness is irksome,” commented the urisk.
She replied, “If you do not like it, you need not stay.”
“Be of good cheer.”
“I will not.”
They reverted to silence and sat beneath the pink-streaked sky, watching the sun melt in a glorious pyre behind the mountains. Soon it would give way to the solemn majesty of the stars.
“If you choose melancholy,” said the urisk, “then, the more fool you.”
She said, “It is easy for you to say those words, ignorant immortal creature. You cannot know what it is to forever lose someone you love.”
The wight, a being that was unable to lie, who had existed for many lives of men and accumulated more knowledge in those lifetimes than could ever be measured, said pityingly, “It is you, not I, who is ignorant. You fail to understand. Loss may be reversed. Even death is not the story’s end.”
Here ends
The Crowthistle Chronicles, Book 2: The Well of Tears
The story commenced in
The Crowthistle Chronicles, Book 1: The Iron Tree
and continues in
The Crowthistle Chronicles, Book 3: Weatherwitch
and
The Crowthistle Chronicles, Book 4: Fallowblade
NOTES
A beautiful, interactive, 3D fantasy world.
A free CD accompanies this book, depicting scenes from Book 1: The Iron Tree and this book. It is planned that the next in the Crowthistle series, Book 3: Weatherwitch, will also be associated with a CD, letting you walk through the windows of imagination into the kingdoms of Tir. The existing scenes will be extended, and others will be added.
In answer to readers’ requests, Book 4: Fallowblade tells much more about the face glimpsed in the pool at the marsh, the same face also seen in the reflection on the silver hair-brush. And for readers of the Bitterbynde trilogy, as I have promised, there will indeed be a character who resembles Morragan.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THE BROWN MAN OF THE MUIRS: Inspired by an event said to have occurred in 1641, and recorded in Notes on the Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders, by William Henderson, London, 1866.
THE BRAG: Inspired by “The Picktree Brag,” from Notes on the Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders, by William Henderson, London, 1866.
THE BLUE-EYED DAMSEL: Inspired by “The Phantom of the Fell,” from Goblin Tales of Lancashire, by James Bowker, London, 1883.
THE DOOM OF EOIN: Inspired by “Uter Bosence and the Piskie,” from Traditional and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall, by William Bottrell, Penzance, 1870. “. . . like a black buck-goat, with horns a yard long, flaming eyes, and a long, twirling tail” is directly quoted from this source.
THE TRAVELING TREE: Inspired by “The Travelling Tree,” in Forgotten Folk-Tales of the English Counties, by Ruth L. Tongue, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1970. “ ‘I don’t know about you,’ said the tree, ‘but I’m getting soaked through. I’m off home to a nice fire.’ And it went” is paraphrased from this source.
THE BROWNIE AND THE MIDWIFE: Inspired by a) “The Brownie of Dalswinton,” in The Fairy Mythology, by Thomas Keightley, new edition, London, 1850, p. 357, and b) “The Brownie and the Midwife,” in Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, by Sir Walter Scott, Volume 1, Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh, 1932, p. 149. “ ‘Do not ride by the Auld Pool! We might meet the brownie!’ [And he replied:] ‘Have no fear, Goodwife. . . . You’ve met all the . . . brownies you’re likely to meet!’ With that, he plunged the horse into the water and [bore me] safely to the other shore” is quoted directly from the text of “The Brownie of Dalswinton.”
THE TROWS AND BLOSTMA: Inspired by and partially quoted from “Sandy Harg’s Wife,” in Remains of Galloway and Nithsdale Song, by R. H. Cromek London, 1810, p. 305.
THE BROWNIE DRIVEN FROM THE MILL: Inspired by “Brownie-Clod,” in Popular Superstitions of the Highlanders of Scotland, by Grant Stewart, Archibald Constable, London, 1823, pp. 142–143. “[Robin] has got a cowl and coat, and never more will work a jot!” is quoted directly from this source.
THE SHIOFRA BATHE IN THE CIRCULAR BASINS: Inspired by Northumberland, examples of printed folklore concerning Northumberland. Mrs. and Thomas Balfour, Country Folk-Lore IV, N.W. London, 1903.
THE SHIOFRA IN THE STOREROOMS: Inspired by and partially quoted from “Fairy Thefts,” in The Fairy Mythology, Illustrative of the Romance and Tradition of Various Countries, by Thomas Keightley, new edition, Bohn Library, London, 1850, pp. 305–306.
THE SHIOFRA IN THE KILN-HOUSE: Inspired by and partially quoted from “Rothley Mill,” in Northumberland, examples of printed folklore concerning Northumberland. Mrs. and Thomas Balfour, County Folk-Lore IV, N.W. London, 1903, p. 16. “Burnt and scalded! Burnt and scalded! The sell of the mill has done it!” is quoted directly from this source.
THE BROKEN SHOVEL: Inspired by “The Broken Ped,” an ancient legend retold in several versions. The version I discovered can be found in A Dictionary of British Folk-tales in the English Language, by K. M. Briggs, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1970.
THE HAUNTED MILL BENEATH THE LAKE: Inspired by a tale in Folklore and Legends, Scotland. W. W. Gibbings, London, 1889.
TORNADOES CAN PROVIDE TRANSPORTATION: This has been documented. In western China, on May 29, 1986, a tornado sucked up twelve schoolchildren. It deposited them on a sand dunes twelve miles away, without harming them at all.
THE ROYAL CARVER’S CHANT: Inspired and partially quoted from John Lydgate’s poem “The Hors the Shepe and the Goos” (1498) and Wynkyn de Worde’s “Boke of Kervynge” (1508, 1513), from Early English Meals and Manners, ed. F. J. Furnivall. London: N. Trubner, 1868, reprinted in The Rituals of Dinner, by Margaret Visser, Penguin, 1992.
THE TWO STRANGE HOUNDS: Inspired by a note about the cu-sith, the fairy hound, in Carmina Gadelica, 4 vols., A. Carmichael, Edinburgh, 1928. From this source is quoted the chant:
“Slender-fay, slender-fay!
Mountain-traveler, mountain-traveler!
Black-fairy, black-fairy!
Lucky-treasure, lucky-treasure!
Grey-hound, grey-hound!
Seek-beyond, seek-beyond!”
THE FAYNES’ MARKET: Inspired by “Fairy Merchandise,” in Folk-Tales of England, ed. K. M. Briggs and R. L.
Tongue, University of Chicago Press, 1965. Heard in summer 1906 from haymakers at Galmington, near Taunton, Somerset, England.
THE PIXY FAIR: Inspired by a tale of the same name in Somerset Folklore, by Ruth Tongue, County Folk-Lore VIII, Folk-Lore Society, 1965.
MISTLETOE AS BANE: The concept of being invulnerable to all things except mistletoe springs from an ancient Norse legend.
THE BOGGART: Inspired by “The Boggart” in The World Guide to Gnomes, Fairies, Elves and Other Little People, by Thomas Keightley, Avenel Books, 1978, originally published in 1880 by G. Bell, London, as The Fairy Mythology.
THE KORRED: The description of the korred is derived and partially quoted from Thomas Keightley’s description in The World Guide to Gnomes, Fairies, Elves and Other Little People, Avenel Books, 1978, originally published in 1880 by G. Bell, London, as The Fairy Mythology. The korred are a race of small, troll-like supernatural beings whose folklore originated in Brittany.
“MY MOTHER SAID I NEVER SHOULD . . .”: This is an old schoolyard chant I learned years ago. It really does belong with a hand-clapping game.
THE BLACK DOG OF GIBBET CORNER: Inspired by “The Black Dog of Tring,” in The Ghost World, by T. F. Thistleton Dyer, London, 1893, p. 107: “[the strange dog] disappeared, seeming to vanish like a shadow, or to sink into the ground” was quoted from this source.
THE BOY ASKING FOR ALE: Inspired by the story “The Laird o’ Co,” recorded in Personnel of Fairyland, by K. M. Briggs, Alden Press, Oxford, 1953.
THE EIGHT WINDS: The weathermaster names for the eight winds are based on personifications originally invented by the ancient Greeks:
The north wind: Boreas
The northeast wind: Kaikias
The east wind: Apheliotes
The southeast wind: Euros
The south wind: Notos
The southwest wind: Lips
The west wind: Zephyros
The northwest wind: Skiron
Source: The Wonders of Weather, by Bob Crowder, Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
THE WEDDING TOAST:
Long may they live—happy may they be,
Sained in contentment and from misfortune free!
During the annual celebration of May Day, this rhyme (with the word “sained” replaced by “blessed”) is traditionally repeated outside the homes of the “May Queen” and her courtiers in Knutsford, Cheshire, England.
SPINNING STRAW INTO GOLD: Inspired by and partially quoted from the well-known story Tom Tit Tot: An Essay on Savage Philosophy, by Edward Clodd, Duckworth, London, 1898.
FRIDAYWEED: My lost copy of A Dictionary of Names indicates that “Friday-weed” is a spelling corruption of the Old English “Frideweard.” It is a name too enchanting to overlook.
WEATHERMASTERY: I am sincerely grateful to the knowledgeable and imaginative meteorologist John, who helpfully donated his advice when I was doing the background research on weathermastery. My advisor cannot be named because his profession is concerned with serious science; in his own words, “Clearly this is outside our normal line. Despite what some people might say about us, we try to steer away from fantasy as far as possible.” I can only hope that any meteorologists, geologists, or fulgurite experts reading this book will not be too scandalized by the spurious nature of the weather-mastery phenomena described. This is, after all, a work of fiction!
AVALLOC’S EULOGY TO WATER was partly inspired by episodes in the excellent six-part CPTV documentary Water: The Drop of Life.
BRIAR ROSES GROWING AROUND THE CUPOLA: Readers of fairy tales will recognize this motif from the wonderful story “The Sleeping Beauty,” which inspired it.
MY SINCERE THANKS to the Irish people for having such a wonderful language. The words of Irish Gaelic sound so musical, and look so beautiful when written down, that I could not resist borrowing some, although I am the first to admit that my knowledge of Irish grammar is nonexistent.
The Well of Tears: Book Two of The Crowthistle Chronicles Page 65
