the price.”
Cerin shook his head. “What was broken can be mended,” he said.
He sat on the floor beside her and took Telynros upon his lap. Music spilled from the roseharp’s strings, a soft, healing music. Meran grew more solid and colour returned to her cheeks. The two halves of the flute joined and the wood knitted until, by the time the tune was finished, there was no sign that there had ever been a break. As Cerin took his hands from the roseharp’s strings, the flute shimmered and Wee Jack lay there in Meran’s lap.
“I…I think I fell,” he said.
“You did,” Meran told him with a smile that was warm with relief.
“I was in such a cold place. Did you catch me?”
Meran shook her head. “Cerin did.”
Wee Jack looked around at the circle of faces peering down at them. Yocky John had a broad grin that almost split his face in two.
“Did I miss the spree?” Wee Jack asked.
“Is that why you came?” the landlord asked. “Because you wanted a bit of craic? Well, you’re welcome to stay the night—you and all your friends.”
So Cerin joined the other musicians and Meran joined him, playing the flute that the landlord had offered her earlier so that Wee Jack could caper and dance with the others. The jigs and reels sprang from their instruments until the rafters were ringing. Liane drank cider and giggled a great deal. The bodachs and Peadin stamped about the wooden floors with human partners. Furey sat in a corner with the landlord, drinking ale, swapping tales and playing endless games of sticks-a-penny. When they finally left, dawn was cracking in the eastern skies.
“You’re welcome back, whenever you’re by,” the landlord told them, and he spoke the words from the pleasure he’d had with their company, rather than out of fear because they were kowrie folk.
“Watch what you promise bodachs,” Cerin said before he spelled the roseharp and took them all home the way he’d come—on the strains of his music.
Meran held a sleepy Wee Jack in her arms. “Oh, they mean well,” she said.
Behind her, Yocky John and the others laughed to hear her change her tune.
Merlin Dreams in the Mondream Wood
mondream — an Anglo-Saxon word
which means the dream of life
among men
I am Merlin
Who follow the Gleam
—Tennyson, from “Merlin and the Gleam”
In the heart of the house lay a garden.
In the heart of the garden stood a tree.
In the heart of the tree lived an old man who wore the shape of a red-haired boy with crackernut eyes that seemed as bright as salmon tails glinting up the water.
His was a riddling wisdom, older by far than the ancient oak that housed his body. The green sap was his blood and leaves grew in his hair. In the winter, he slept. In the spring, the moon harped a windsong against his antler tines as the oak’s boughs stretched its green buds awake. In the summer, the air was thick with the droning of bees and the scent of the wildflowers that grew in stormy profusion where the fat brown bole became root.
And in the autumn, when the tree loosed its bounty to the ground below, there were hazelnuts lying in among the acorns.
The secrets of a Green Man.
* * *
“When I was a kid, I thought it was a forest,” Sara said.
She was sitting on the end of her bed, looking out the window over the garden, her guitar on her lap, the quilt bunched up under her knees. Up by the headboard, Julie Simms leaned forward from its carved wood to look over Sara’s shoulder at what could be seen of the garden from their vantage point.
“It sure looks big enough,” she said.
Sara nodded. Her eyes had taken on a dreamy look.
It was 1969 and they had decided to form a folk band—Sara on guitar, Julie playing recorder, both of them singing. They wanted to change the world with music because that was what was happening. In San Francisco. In London. In Vancouver. So why not in Ottawa?
With their faded bell bottom jeans and tie-dyed shirts, they looked just like any of
Cerin shook his head. “What was broken can be mended,” he said.
He sat on the floor beside her and took Telynros upon his lap. Music spilled from the roseharp’s strings, a soft, healing music. Meran grew more solid and colour returned to her cheeks. The two halves of the flute joined and the wood knitted until, by the time the tune was finished, there was no sign that there had ever been a break. As Cerin took his hands from the roseharp’s strings, the flute shimmered and Wee Jack lay there in Meran’s lap.
“I…I think I fell,” he said.
“You did,” Meran told him with a smile that was warm with relief.
“I was in such a cold place. Did you catch me?”
Meran shook her head. “Cerin did.”
Wee Jack looked around at the circle of faces peering down at them. Yocky John had a broad grin that almost split his face in two.
“Did I miss the spree?” Wee Jack asked.
“Is that why you came?” the landlord asked. “Because you wanted a bit of craic? Well, you’re welcome to stay the night—you and all your friends.”
So Cerin joined the other musicians and Meran joined him, playing the flute that the landlord had offered her earlier so that Wee Jack could caper and dance with the others. The jigs and reels sprang from their instruments until the rafters were ringing. Liane drank cider and giggled a great deal. The bodachs and Peadin stamped about the wooden floors with human partners. Furey sat in a corner with the landlord, drinking ale, swapping tales and playing endless games of sticks-a-penny. When they finally left, dawn was cracking in the eastern skies.
“You’re welcome back, whenever you’re by,” the landlord told them, and he spoke the words from the pleasure he’d had with their company, rather than out of fear because they were kowrie folk.
“Watch what you promise bodachs,” Cerin said before he spelled the roseharp and took them all home the way he’d come—on the strains of his music.
Meran held a sleepy Wee Jack in her arms. “Oh, they mean well,” she said.
Behind her, Yocky John and the others laughed to hear her change her tune.
Merlin Dreams in the Mondream Wood
mondream — an Anglo-Saxon word
which means the dream of life
among men
I am Merlin
Who follow the Gleam
—Tennyson, from “Merlin and the Gleam”
In the heart of the house lay a garden.
In the heart of the garden stood a tree.
In the heart of the tree lived an old man who wore the shape of a red-haired boy with crackernut eyes that seemed as bright as salmon tails glinting up the water.
His was a riddling wisdom, older by far than the ancient oak that housed his body. The green sap was his blood and leaves grew in his hair. In the winter, he slept. In the spring, the moon harped a windsong against his antler tines as the oak’s boughs stretched its green buds awake. In the summer, the air was thick with the droning of bees and the scent of the wildflowers that grew in stormy profusion where the fat brown bole became root.
And in the autumn, when the tree loosed its bounty to the ground below, there were hazelnuts lying in among the acorns.
The secrets of a Green Man.
* * *
“When I was a kid, I thought it was a forest,” Sara said.
She was sitting on the end of her bed, looking out the window over the garden, her guitar on her lap, the quilt bunched up under her knees. Up by the headboard, Julie Simms leaned forward from its carved wood to look over Sara’s shoulder at what could be seen of the garden from their vantage point.
“It sure looks big enough,” she said.
Sara nodded. Her eyes had taken on a dreamy look.
It was 1969 and they had decided to form a folk band—Sara on guitar, Julie playing recorder, both of them singing. They wanted to change the world with music because that was what was happening. In San Francisco. In London. In Vancouver. So why not in Ottawa?
With their faded bell bottom jeans and tie-dyed shirts, they looked just like any of
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