Confessions of a Pagan Nun

by Kate Horsley

  The old man could barely lift his head because his neck had hardened and left him always looking at the ground, but he used great effort to move and see Giannon. Trembling with that effort, he said, “You wish to be killed, Giannon? They are killing druids, those whom you include in your satires. Whom do you spare from your destructive wit?”

  Giannon was bitter even with this weak old man and said, “I am through with stories of religious magic and political crimes. These stories are used to make people afraid and easily told what to do.” I traded glances with the orange haired man and wondered if he would speak. Silence followed as we all looked at the fire. I thought of the gleemen and the monks clearing the land with their big fires. I thought of the monk Giannon had brought home one night. And then Giannon said, “They have made improvements. I have new plants that grow when there is frost. There are better plows and new languages and histories.”

  The woman grabbed the leather strip from which the bronze circle hung and held it in her fist as though she were holding herself back like a horse that might run wild. She said, “They will suffer for it. For each improvement there is a huge cost, as huge as the heavens, as huge as the souls of every person on the earth.”

  Giannon said to her, “You speak like a man reciting a heroic legend.”

  The man with the red beard stood up and came near to Giannon so that they shared each other’s breath. He said, “When did you become our enemy?”

  I did not want to see them wrestle, so I stood up and came between them. I said, “He is not a Christian. Look—there is no cross here.” I was afraid.

  The man spoke again, standing above me so that, though I was between him and Giannon, he could lean forward and touch Giannon’s nose with his own. He said, “If you are not a Christian, then remember that you are a druid. We are gathering, all of us, to make a plan, to use our rituals to renew our powers.”

  Giannon did not answer but sat again. The woman asked me, “You are druid now. What do you say?” I looked to the floor and did not speak.

  Then the woman began to weep and came to the orange bearded man and pounded on his chest. She wailed, leaning back so that the hood fell off and showed in the firelight her bare and welted head. The man could not stop her fit, and she began to scream, “We are lost! We are lost!” And I was chilled with cold bumps on my skin, though Giannon stared into the fire, musing quietly to himself. The old man’s head shook and his eyes were wide as he stared helplessly at the legs of the table.

  Finally the woman quieted and helped the old man to his feet. Slowly they left the dwelling. The bearded man, who was left behind, threw something into the air that looked like dust and all the flames went out, the fire as well as the rush lights. In the darkness I stood as still as a rabbit cornered by a fox, and then I heard Giannon say, “These are tricks for some fair.”

  I knew then, in sorrow and loneliness, that Giannon’s bitterness had become greater than his desire for truth. He had been defeated and our souls separated, though I never understood by what.

  EIGHTH INTERRUPTION

  THERE IS NEWS. There has been mild weather though it is time for winter. The ground is still soft, the frost having penetrated only a little. In such weather, the sisters still tend the garden, hoping to nurture the last cabbages and have them fresh for our meals. And so early this morning, I was laying dried grasses around them to keep them warm in the early morning. The sun had come out and lifted fog from the ground that mingled with my own white breath. I was shivering with cold and stood to stretch my back. A wind blew the fog so that I could see the infant’s grave, and I was afraid of what I saw. For again there was desecration and chaos where the stones had been neatly piled. I walked to where the ruins were and saw that this time there was a hole filled with white fog where the grave had been. I squatted there and breathed into the hole so that the fog floated out. There was no corpse. The infant, which by now must be ruined by worms and dampness, is gone.

  When I rose, Sister Luirrenn was behind me, wringing her hands. I looked toward the lay houses, down the hill. We stood without speaking until she went down on her knees and pulled me beside her, where we prayed, moving our lips against our joined hands. What terror is this? What force of sorrow or evil takes the dead from their graves? I would rather believe that the infant’s soul has formed a new life in a new body, though I know this is heresy. But I would rather believe this, dear Brigit who protects mothers and their babes, than that the tiny boy is tormented in Limbo, feeling its decayed body as an unspeakable pain still tethering it to the terror and pain of its mother. Were its body a thing like a cloak, discarded when it was worn and useless, my horror would be less. I know the stench of a corpse, and it is not the sweet smell of an infant’s skin. Whoever holds a corpse to her aching breasts will go mad. Whatever defiles a corpse is already mad.

  This event has been the unfortunate greeting for a new monk who has been whispered about throughout the convent. For he does not speak even to say the psalms. He has been damaged in some way but works hard making a new garden. He is one of the Christians Giannon used to praise for his knowledge of new seeds and methods. He is an old man but has a straight back. His face is full of a wild gray beard, whereas he has no hair on his head, so he wears a large straw hat as I have seen worn in the south to keep sun and rain from molesting his scalp. He is an odd soul, but he comforts us with his labor and has increased our crops and therefore decreased our hunger. I watched the hard concentration with which he began his task in a patch of earth occupied by stubborn and lazy rocks, stones that have made deep nests for themselves. I wondered at first if this new man had a hand in exhuming the infant, as though it made the ground unclean. I wanted to blame him rather than accuse any we have known and lived with for so long here. But he is innocent, for he was on his knees throughout the night by the abbot’s bedside in order to indicate, without words, his strong desire to join the monks. There is a rumor that his tongue was cut out by druids. But I do not believe this tale, for there is no reason for such cruelty and many rumors about druids are lies.

  I wonder that this place brings to it so many damaged and disturbed souls, such as Sister Aillenn, whom I have two nights this fortnight found wandering naked and welted among the clochans. And now there is this monk who cannot form words in his mouth. If there were not the law of celibacy for monks and nuns, I would encourage these two to become husband and wife and establish a clan of the strangely wounded. I wonder if we are a tribe of men and women searching for the truth, or a tribe of men and women hiding from the truth. When in our appeals to the unseen do we step from devotion to delusion? There are many times when I despise my doubts and desire complete faith in anything. I wish that Christ would touch me with his hand that is stained with blood and blistered from the wood of the cross that he carried to his own sacrifice. Or I wish that the sea god Manannan, whose breath is like cool mist, would kindly bring to me one of his magic pigs, which could be consumed and yet live again the next day. I hunger for both the meat and the comfort of miracles.

  I have not yet heard what the abbot has said about the matter of the infant’s grave. I am afraid of him. I have doubts now that I belong here, for I avoid the abbot’s authority and dread his intervention into the business of the nuns. But I love Brigit and need her protection. I pray that these words I am putting down on these parchments are not conjuring the chaos and evil that besets us. I am small and intend no harm. And sometimes weariness and hunger cause confusion and I wonder why no god, either old or new, gives us direct solace and understanding. The abbot says that only clerics receive direct messages from the new god, who tells him what is true and what is false. But he has a sour mouth and eyes that seem more full of fear than certainty. Perhaps I am not wise enough to understand the word of a god who was made flesh and then cruelly killed. I am simple, and I want, more than even food or Christ, to lie in the arms of Brigit and feel her long fingers stroke my hair as she sings of the lark and the yellow gorse.

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9 ]

  THIS IS THE TIME to record the disappearance of Giannon the Druid, who deserved no punishment. I have told only the truth of his life as I knew it, and though he suffered others to endure his black moods and his satires, he did no evil and told no lies. He gave me knowledge and skills and as much affection as he had. I believe that much of his affection was stolen from him, in circumstances I do not know about, and replaced with bitterness. He should be regarded as similar to the druid who raised Brigit, and she, after all, used her druidic powers for Christian good. I have not seen Giannon for eleven years but still know his face and voice as though he lay beside me every night. He comes to me in dreams, though he does not speak. I see him standing or walking to me, and he kneels before me as though to receive a blessing from me. That is all.

  After the visit from his druid cohorts, Giannon had no words about them. I scolded him once for clothing himself in thorns and letting no one near him. Then I returned to the peace I knew with the scrolls and my days in the woods. The winter was hard, I remember, for we were hungry and cold. I asked the spirits of the woods to provide us with the cauldron of the Daghda, from which no one departs unsatisfied. And though the creatures of the forest, especially the wolf and even the fern frond, were full of kind and silent wisdom, none of them were transformed into great beings who could perform unnatural miracles. I went at that time into a túath as a druid. I told two stories for the chieftain as entertainment for a party of warriors who had taken seven cows from another túath. The feast was great, and I took more of the meat than was paid to me. When I walked home I saw a dead man, frozen and leaning against a tree, his cloak stiff and frosted. I should have seen that this was an omen.

  When the ground began to soften and Giannon was occupied from dawn until sunset with his garden, I traveled more into other túaths. For Giannon grew blooms the color of birds’ wings and grasses like plumes, but he scorned the growing of cabbages and grain. He had no interest in providing food for the stomach. I carried a pack of scrolls and herbs on my back that was almost as large as my own body. I knew some rituals and attended burials when there was no other priest to do so. I knew the fled co-lige1 and led the wailing and clapping of hands. I recited lamentations of sorrow. Never did I participate in the smashing of the death cart without thinking of my mother, and I hoped that the dead were comforted by our grief, though now I think it better to comfort them before they are dead. I stayed away from the Christian túaths, having to alter my old notion that the aes dána could go past any walls. These separations seemed trivial to me, like rules in a game of hurling that are made to enhance the challenge. When I saw other druids, they did not speak to me or share with me secret plans and meetings. I knew that this was so because I lived with Giannon. Once a chieftain told me that Giannon could have been the most powerful druid in Ireland and that, even though he hid himself away, the power of his satires was feared more than disease or battle.

  Giannon did not resent my vocation but resented the people who spoke of him as a dead man who had not been as great as they had thought him to be. He told me that performing tricks had become more important than telling the truth, because the druids, desperate to fight the tricks of the Christians, had become gleemen. I do not know which of his enemies came for Giannon, but I remember each detail of the night they came. I was lying with my hands on Giannon’s chest, my legs woven with his. A terrible sound woke us, and I thought the walls of our dwelling were falling in a raging wind. Giannon sat up and threw the covers away from him and over me. He told me to be still and lie flat. I cannot forget his calm. There were four persons standing in our home, hooded in deep cowls and each holding a rush light. They held their fires out in front of them so as to blind us from seeing their faces. Without words, two pulled Giannon to his feet. I cried out, and he said for me to be quiet. Giannon asked them to allow him to dress warmly, as though he had expected them and knew that he was to go with them. He put on his leggings and tunic as I uncovered myself and pulled at his legs and hands. I said quietly, “Giannon, do not leave me.” He said, with the impatience I had finally come to accept, “I am not leaving. I am being taken.”

  While he dressed, the hooded persons looked about, touching the scrolls and examining the herbs. And I asked Giannon, “Why are they taking you?” He answered, “I do not know, Gwynn. Be calm. It is best not to know. There will be no one to accuse, and I will return.” Though I wore only a thin tunic, I left the bed and pleaded with the persons who stood like soulless things serving a power they would not name. I said, “Tell us what you want. We will give it. Tell us what we have done, and we will publicly renounce it.” Two of the persons took Giannon out, and the others began to smash the jars and platters, spilling seed and oils. They gathered scrolls by the armful and threw them out. I clothed myself and went outside.

  The two pigs we had were squealing in their pen, for a fire had been built near them into which one of the strangers threw scrolls and dried herbs. The smoke from this fire went straight up in a coiled pillar to the constellation of dogs. I spoke, hardly able to catch my breath, as though I had been running. I said, “If you are Christians, teach us. We are ignorant. We have no doctrine.” But they moved like deaf spirits, now pulling up plants in Giannon’s garden and flinging them into the fire. Then Giannon’s legs weakened, and he whispered, “Brother, please.” I went to him but was kicked away by one of the strangers. I called out, “I will go with you. I will not be left behind. We will go together.” Giannon said no. He told me to go away from the dwelling, that he would find me later.

  The intruders then pulled Giannon up to stand and pushed him forward. I ran behind and heard the pigs scream as their fence was knocked down and they were kicked into the woods, where, I was comforted to think, the wolves would swiftly kill them and be sustained by them even if Giannon and I were to starve. The hooded people went to horses they had tethered to trees at the edge of the woods, between our clearing and the túath. My fear of horses seemed trivial, and I pulled at their manes and was knocked to the ground many times when they reared and screamed. One of the strangers was also knocked to the ground when I frightened his horse. He lifted me up and ran with me over his shoulder to the dwelling, where he threw me on the fire, but I ran down the hill with flames on my back to where Giannon and the others were on their horses. I felt the heat on my skin and shed the cloak as the horses galloped away. I stood watching them ride the edge of the woods until it curved and I could not see them. Then I felt the sting on my back where the fire had burned me. I called out Giannon’s name three times, but I heard nothing, not even an owl or wolf.

  The fire they had made now smoldered, and I crouched beside it, holding my legs. Cold air crawled on my bare back. I shivered so hard that I could not stand up, so I lay on the ground, shaking and biting my own tongue. I believed that I was dying and prayed to the earth to warm me and comfort my soul. I wanted then, more than life, a companion to touch me as I died. When morning came and I was not dead, I crawled into the dwelling and lay down on the bedding. My back hurt so that I could not lie on it or even put cloth against it. I thought of every sign concerning Giannon’s abduction. I thought of the anger of the druids whom he had insulted and dismissed. I thought of the stories of monks murdering druids. I thought of the rage of chieftains whom he had ruined with satire. And my mind would not be pulled back from the visions of his death at the hands of druids, who would, according to their rule, drown him, strangle him, and break his skull, all three; or at the hands of monks, who, it was said, would torment their captive with severe pain by means of cutting and burning until he converted and then was blessed and allowed to die; or by the hands of a chieftain, who would do the task forthrightly with sword or club. How horrible to wish for the chieftain’s crude and honest method, whereas the other two pretend that their cruelty is for a noble and righteous purpose.

  And now I think of the abbot. I can imagine a man such as he, who seems cold to suffering, throwing a small woman into a fire. He d
islikes the strength of my stare when he declares who will go to Paradise and who will go to hell. The abbot would know that Giannon is in hell, whereas I know, since I am not fully converted or truly baptized, that Giannon lives in another incarnation, perhaps as a mother, for he needs to practice his embraces. But when I am wiser and believe in hell, I will pray to God to put me there with Giannon, for if in heaven there are men like the abbot, that would be hell to me.

  I will destroy these pages, for they are dangerous and blasphemous, may God forgive me. But now I will lie down, for I tremble too hard.

  NINTH INTERRUPTION

  THESE ARE COLD NIGHTS, though winter has passed and we are near the time of Beltane. This night the wind has blown freezing rain against the clochans so they are coated with a sheen that reflects the stars. The weather mimics the bitter mood that is in our community. I have stayed silent, obedient to Sister Luirrenn, for she is greatly agitated by the abbot’s sermons that insist that the evil omens and occurrences in past months are serious matters. There is doom in his voice. This agitation has also inflicted Sister Aillenn, whom I had to care for through the night. I found her again wandering naked in a veil of frost that the evening air had laid upon her beautiful shoulders like a bride’s cloak. So she would not freeze to death, I took her into my clochan and was an audience to her ranting, which made my own skin colder. It seemed possible that the cold fog that curled around the clochans had been made by her breath. We held each other for warmth as many do on cold nights, so that there are clochans where two sleep and clochans that are empty.

  Sister Aillenn tells black stories, claiming that the dead infant has entered her body. With a knife she has drawn a simple picture of a child on her abdomen as though her skin were a stone on which one carves symbols. This infant lies in bloodstains and old marks of her self-inflicted bruises and scratches. Her body is a field of battle, and I was sick to see it. I bathed her with a damp cloth and cold water, and she did not flinch at the touch, so accustomed was she to discomfort. I rubbed oil upon her skin, the precious oil used to soothe the cracks on our feet. And I found the rosemary, which I had hidden, and put it on her wounds. I clothed her in tunic and cape, and she clung to me as though I were her mother. I combed her hair, so fine to touch when I separated the tangles with my fingers, and my touch brought stories from her mind to my ears.