Queen Maeve

Aillinn then stood and began walking away from the murky water of the pond. Although the curlew had gone, she still felt the presence of eyes on her. Uneasy, she brushed off her dress, picked the grass out of her hair, and entered the unwelcoming wood. Walking on for hours, the girl realized that the red sun failed to sink any lower in the sky. She did not feel fatigued and decided to press on, hoping that the scenery would soon change.

After several hours more of trudging through the dense trees, Aillinn heard the voices of a number of men. Wary of who they might be, she crept closer and, when she finally spotted them, crouched down in the bushes to observe them. The men appeared to be members of a royal army troop, bored and bickering over some petty thing. Aillinn then heard someone clearing their throat loudly behind her. It was another soldier, and he called the others over.

“An’ who might you be, miss?” one of the men inquired with a menacing smile.

Refusing to answer his question, Aillinn bravely asked one of her own. “It appears I’ve gotten quite lost. Can any of you good sirs tell me where might I be?”

“An’ ‘where might I be,’ she says. D’you mean where in the Seven Woods are ye, or d’you mean what is this world you’ve unluckily caught yerself in?”

Unsure how to respond, Aillinn decided that she would tell the soldiers that she had to be going, but before she could speak, one of them said, “She’s a pretty one, ye know. I think she’ll do.” The rest of the men grunted in agreement and lifted the youth off of her feet. The troop thrust Aillinn into the back of their wagon where she sat with a repulsed expression and did not attempt to ask anymore questions. She considered her love, Baile, and hoped that he had not found himself in a similar situation.

Expecting the journey to be long, Aillinn was surprised when they arrived at a large set of rusty gates within the hour. The sun’s position in the sky had not budged. Upon entering the gates, the girl beheld a large, gloomy castle that looked as if no one had groomed the grounds in ages. Dead ash and hazel trees lined the walkway to the castle entrance. Once inside, the troop leader shoved Aillinn in front of a tired-looking servant about her age. When the maid saw Aillinn, her sad eyes grew even sadder. Without a word, she gestured for Aillinn to follow her up a winding set of stairs.

                     

Aillinn grew immediately fond of the young maid, as she could tell that the girl had a kind heart. At the top of the stairs, the maid knocked on a set of heavy wooden doors and announced the youth’s presence. She then turned to Aillinn and said in a rushed, low voice, “Whatever you do, don’t stare into Queen Maeve’s candle.” With that, she opened the doors and Aillinn made her way inside.

Aillinn stood in the doorway and observed a poised old woman pacing about the bedroom. Queen Maeve mumbled to herself and did not take notice of Aillinn for a moment. When she finally laid her eyes on Aillinn, the queen grew calm. Eyes gleaming, she said to the girl,  “Ah, they were right to bring you here, they were. Why don’t you join me for a while? I’ll have us some tea brought in, and then perhaps I’ll have a bath drawn for you, dear.”

The young girl had to admit that a bath sounded nice, but she sensed that things in this place weren’t right. Everything around her seemed stale, and she guessed that the queen and her servants had been cooped up inside the castle walls for quite some time. There were cobwebs in various nooks of the room and a thin layer of dust covered the floor. Aillinn caught sight of a white light out of the corner of her eye that was different that the yellow light of the wall lanterns. Assuming this to be said candle, she made sure not to look in that direction.

Seated near Queen Maeve with hot tea that tasted better than she expected, Aillinn noticed a painting of a beautiful and fair young woman hanging above the queen’s bed. The queen noticed this and sighed, “That was me, long ago. I never appreciated how fortunate I was then. But now…” Queen Maeve’s wrinkled face went expressionless and her eyes blank. She then began speaking in a low, ominous tone that startled Aillinn:

And she'd had lucky eyes and a high heart,
And wisdom that caught fire like the dried flax,
At need, and made her beautiful and fierce,
Sudden and laughing...

                               

Coming to, the Queen’s eyes regained some sort of presence. “Now,” she said, “how about that bath?” Aillinn agreed and went into the adjoining room, getting into the tub. Relaxing a bit, her mind began to drift far away. She thought of loving Baile, of their tragic deaths, and of what she could do to be with him again. Staying like this for a good amount of time, she grew panicked once she came back to reality only to find Queen Maeve’s white candle situated directly in her line of sight.

Author’s Note: This week, it was time to write about Aillinn’s adventure after she wakes up in Master Aengus’ land of the dead. I wanted her journey to be completely different than Baile’s. Originally, I had planned for Aillinn to end up at Queen Maeve’s castle so that she could get advice from the wise queen on how to find her lover just as Baile had sought advice from the Red Hanrahan. Queen Maeve is a prominent figure in Irish mythology, and W. B. Yeats included her in his In the Seven Woods compilation. In this particular poem, Queen Maeve is an old woman who had once been able to attract any man she wanted to in her youth. I used her old age in my tale to potentially show how the underworld can turn a strong Gaelic queen into a nervous and jealous one. To read this poem (as it is too long to include in this blog), click here: link. If you would like to view depictions of the queen through various artists’ point of views, click here: link. When I return to Aillinn’s story in a few weeks, I am not sure how I will play out the episode with the candle. I am wanting to include Celtic magick as perhaps a means of stealing Aillinn’s beauty. I chose to use a white candle as they can be used for almost any magickal purpose. To read about Celtic color magic, click here: link.

To read In the Seven Woods, click here: link.

Image of Malahide castle on Flickr
Image of Maeve on Wikimedia