Legends of the Bard: Tale of the Mollaphi Crann

part I

Come hither, birds of a feather! Lovers in your adolescence lend an ear, or maybe two, if your attention span of the ever changing wind permits it. Now gathered round a lunch ye rant and rave, of the escapade failed yesterday. The two pairs of eyes belonging to your life givers seem to have multiplied by two thousand; spying from here to there. Not a moment alone, nor the restrictions laid by their heavy hands can you be spared.

But, dam the flood ladies and gents! For after this tale be told, may you appreciate how facile and trivial your burden of secracy be carried. Aye, this be a lover's tale, one that happened not after too many turns of a clock, maybe about five thousand years ago. The bond consecrated here is between an unlikely pair; a witch and one of many sons of our Deer Lord Cernonnus, a foraoiserac' or a forest elf.      

Twas way yonder in the highlands, where a school of renowned healers resided. These witches were the descendants of an ancient crone, who has celebrated 1000 Winter Solstices and will live to see 100 more! Her devotion to Airmid, the great Celtic Goddess of herbalism, won favor with the Sidhe* and thus, she was invited to study with the Tuatha De Danann, which is one of the most powerful races of the Sidhe. Upon accepting this high honor, she was granted efficacious powers in magic and was able to hone her skills as a physician. With her profound abilities, the Crone managed to extend her life span way beyond than what the Fates decreed. 

As with all the experienced practitioners of her trade, the healers ancient eyes have seen many lands, healed many people, and have seen entire kingdoms rise and fall. With her old age and knowledge, the Crone possessed the timeless attribute that the elderly to this day still carry, stagnant wisdom. Upon establishing her school, the Temple of the Wrapped Rose, she professed to have mastered medicine and even all the mysteries of Life. One such enigma was Love and all its procreative pleasure, which she deemed evil. To her, sex was a threat to one's sanity and health. For it was in one tribe where her medicine was dealt that this enlightenment was lit. Here, the sentients shared the most passionate of sentience with each every other as a sign of kinship. And for many seasons, the folk celebrated its love making with the peace and joy of a dove's twittling tune, and the heated energy of a star. Unfortunately, their heat blazed a fire  much too hot and gluttonous. With their unchecked practices came the wrath of unseen diseases that afflicted seven of their generations. Eventually, the tribe was reduced to ashes and kingdom of glory and splendor was blown away by the Winter Winds. 

Upon seeing their downfall, the Crone was struck with fear of the destructive inferno that sex fueled and thus, forbade her students from enjoying the rite. Every witch of Temple of the Wrapped Rose was bound to a strict pledge of abstinence and the punishment of breaking such a code was the searing of the lover's sex closed with a hot coal. For it is as the Wise Crone says, "It is better that ye taste the pain of purity, than to be consumed by the flames of thy desires."

And so this doctrine held true to the hearts of the healers for many moons, as their influence spread throughout the forest of which they resided and the neighboring tribes of whom they served. But, as the rain comes to wash away the rock deeply imbedded in the Earth, so will mortal minds be cleansed of absolution.

In one of the villages an insidious epidemic attacked the newlywed wives and made them infertile.  The afflicted pleaded with the Crone, "Oh wise healer, we have followed your laws faithfully and maintained our purity, but even still we are plagued. Please have mercy on us! The future of our tribe depends on it!"

The Crone replied, "May your souls not fear, for this is not your fault. The land around us is dying for reasons unknown. I am sending a team of sisters into the Wild to investigate. Pertaining to your ailment, there is a rare flower in the forest, whose nectar can resurrect the driest desert. I know of women who have aged well past their season and still bless their clan with seven healthy generations."  

Then she turned to her youngest pupil Mollaphi, "While the more experienced handle the urgencies at hand, venture into the eye of the storm and bring back the wind that will chase it to back to the underworld. Take Theya and Fuan along, they will guide and protect you as search for the flower." 

 And so off went the three virgins into the dying forest, whose dwellers live to kill. It's groves and knolls are overrun with carnivorous fungi and horned deamons whose prey are the green and warm-blooded. Its trees are but charred shadows, sorched from the frosted fire of end  less blizzards. Their branches of black shroud the forest with a soffocating blanket that blocks out Loving rays of our Father Sun. It was so dark that not even the brightest torch could light the way, even when Sun sits on his throne of High Noon.

Thus the navigators of these lands, Fuan and Theya had sight beyond their two eyes. It was their feet from which they could see and their faith in Mother Earth Danu that would light the pathway, but that day, Danu did not shine her light and the witches lost their way.

"Theya, what insolence have you commited against the ground this time," scolded Fuan.

"Twas not I who spat on our Queens crown, but your incompetance. I should have never allowed an Earth-blind butterfly like you take the lead," accused Theya.

Just as the two sisters grabbed each other's cloak and drew back their fist, Mollaphi intersected them and said, "Dear sisters, let us not fight, for we have all been faithful servants to-" A ferocious roar shook the air.  Out of the shadows, a raging horned beast charged the three witches.

"Fuan you twit! You tracked the Guatchit wrong," Theya exclaimed.

"Aye, I couldn't sniff out the deamon over your revolting body stench Theya."

"Shut up!"

"No you shut up!"

"Both of you shut up. Now let's run!!!" shouted Mollaphi.

Blindly through the shadows they did flee and become disbanded, this group of three. Mollaphi tripped over a root and rolled down a ravine, while Theya and Fuan climbed  a tree. In one way or another every witch avoided impalement.