The Lough Allua.
The child glanced up at his mother, who was biting her lip.
“Are we there yet, Ma?”
“Yes, my sweet. It’s over there.”
The boy gauged the distance which separated them from the islet. Fifty fathoms at the most, though beneath its placid shimmer the River Lee often concealed erratic courses.
“How are we gonna do it, say?”
“There must be a rowboat in those bushes. Come on!”
Seen from the lake, the small strip of land appeared inaccessible. It vanished under a thorny bulwark, dotted with trees bearing slender trunks that regular winds bent sideways.
Silently, the child allowed himself to be rocked by the soft rhythm of the craft. With a few rowing movements already known by her, the boat slid on a mossy carpet, a delicate border between land and water. The boy let his feet sink into the ground, then watched his mother disappear through a gap in the bushes overlooking a partially denuded area sheltering a hut made of clustered bulrushes. A huge pig lazed on the doorstep, visibly oblivious to the discordant sounds which came from the house. The pig opened a gloomy eye towards the intruders; the other remained shut.
“Fergus! My dearest Fergus!”
The animal grunted pleasurably beneath the young woman’s caresses. A man simultaneously burst out of the hut; he was holding a bundle of thin string high in one of his hands, like a gift fallen from the sky. Dumbfounded, the child wondered if instead the grunts didn’t come from this disturbed being whose mouth vanished under a thick white beard, a kind of mane, which over time had flowed down from his bald and outsized head. The boy instinctively stepped back as a grimace traced itself on the old man’s face, by way of a welcome.
“I would have recognized your voice among all. It’s been ages since Fergus and I have had a visitor here on the crannog.”
“Pardon me, Cogan,” replied the young woman. “I should have come more often, but the spinning mill takes up all my time.”
“How beautiful you are,” the hermit gaped, already forgiving her. Then he looked carefully at his visitor’s clothing. “You’ve become a lady.”
A silence seeped in between the two adults. Yet the child had the impression that his mother and the old man were communicating, nevertheless, by glances, filled with shared memories.
“I’ve missed you,” Cogan finally confessed.
The young woman immediately threw herself in his arms. Her son calmly watched the raw yellow flannel, the latest fashion from the great Dunmanway factory wrinkle against the stranger’s grey cloth tunic. He was now entangled with his thin strings.
“I was in the process of repairing my harp,” he confessed with a silly looking smile. “I haven’t used it since…” He turned his face towards the boy without finishing his sentence. “By Dagda, he really looks like him!” Tears formed in his eagle eyes. “It must well be…”
“Ten years today.”
“Ten years already…”
“I feared you wouldn’t be here, Cogan. Because of Lughnasadh…”
“I’ve refused all invitations this year. A premonition…”
The child saw his mother lower her eyes, crease her lips. He became anxious that she might awaken secrets unknown to him.
“Some… Something happened to him last night, during his sleep. He thinks… that he saw Him,” she blurted out before expelling the huge tension from her chest. The child nevertheless felt her soft hands on his shoulders. “We took the stagecoach from Inchigeelach straight away. No one… I’ve said nothing,” she abruptly finished.
Cogan began scrupulously observing the child, then bent down to place himself at his level.
“Do you know who I am?”
“Yes…”
“In that case, do you want to tell me your dream, like you did this morning to your ma? I’d also like to share it with you.”
The kid stared wide-eyed at Cogan. His fear had disappeared with the soothing tone of the old man’s voice.
“Ma said that you were a druid. Is that true?”
“Hmm… Well, what do you think, lad? Do I seem like a druid?”
“No!”
The hermit had a movement of eyebrows which made him lose his circumstantial smile.
“And what makes you think that?”
“Otherwise, you would already know my story.”
“Ha ha! Bravo, my lad. You’re a smart one. Continue that way and you yourself will become a fine druid indeed! And now that we both know that I’m not familiar with your dream, would you please tell it to me?”
“No!”
“Oh dear! Does this dream hide such a big secret?”
“It wasn’t a dream! For true that I saw my daddy!”
Cogan got up, doubtful. The kid’s self-confidence troubled him.
“Tell me, how do you know it was your dad? You had never seen him before, had you?”
“Cogan!” the young woman interjected, embarrassed. “You must tell him. Maybe this apparition… I think it’s the right time!”
* * * *
The child, indifferent to the nostalgic discussions of the two adults, amused himself by throwing to the pig, scraps of meat left over from their meal. Every now and then, he let the animal languish, to hear it grunt a fake annoyance, but it was already a game between them which soon attracted Cogan’s attention. The kid unconsciously tried concealing the bloody remains he was holding in his hand. His mother had so often insisted on not playing with food. But the old man still smiled as if it did not matter to him.
“When he was your age, your father used to have fun as you do with our dear Fergus.”
The piece of meat fell on the floor, under the pig’s stupefied gaze.
“You knew my dad?” asked the child excitedly.
“Yes, very well. That’s why your mother brought you here to see me. She even asked me to tell you his story. And you know, this story is extraordinary…”
“Oh, tell it to me!” begged the child. “Please, I so much want to know who my dad was.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll know soon enough.”
The hermit noticed that the young woman had joined them.
“I’ve given a careful thought about it. I’ll take him up there, for Lughnasadh… Do you want to come with us?” he asked without conviction.
“No,” she replied in a resigned voice. She stroked her son’s hair, and kissed his cheek tenderly. “I’ll wait for you here.”
The child listened, placidly, to these words void of meaning. He let himself be guided by Cogan’s hand and sat next to him on a fallen tree trunk whose tip was submerged in the still lake. The old man’s gaze was lost in the Shehy Mountains whose arid peaks reflected in the midday waters.
“Up there, an incredible place is hidden… It was once called the
Realm of the Gods. It’s the kingdom of fairies of our old Ireland.” Cogan’s eyes were lit up with excitement. “Do you want to go with me?”
“Is it far?”
“In the middle of the mountains, over there,” the old man replied, with a gesture of the head that was meant to be precise. “Are you brave enough to walk until nightfall?”
The boy scowled.
“Will you tell me the story of my dad?”
“Yes, of course. That’s why we…”
“Alright, let’s depart right away,” the child interrupted him, running off towards the hut. “Ma, I’m going to go see the Gods. You’ll wait for me here, right?”
His mother gave a faint smile, hiding an anxiety that Cogan detected at once.
“He’s right. It’s best that we leave immediately. We’ll be back tomorrow evening. Will you be alright?”
The young woman looked at the mountains with a grin on her face announcing the first signs of a slow agony, and then replied:
“I’ll be alright…”
* * * *
It only took a touch of innocence to realize that the Shehy Mountains were endowed with astounding munificence by Mother Nature. Grass and stone grew there in such anarchy that it was no longer clear which of the other came first. From the start, the child had faithfully followed Cogan’s footsteps, but all it took was a detour towards a cave stifling under botanic assault or of a few monoliths displaying their ogham secrets since the dawn of time for self-confidence to encourage him to venture off the beaten track with this impatience which the old man’s steady steps no longer betrayed.
The sun’s rays had long stretched towards the horizon when Cogan ended their march. With a circular look, his young companion scoped out what seemed like a clearing. It gave off an atmosphere which immediately enchanted him.
He showed the same expression of happiness when he sat by the fire that Cogan was preparing to stave off the evening chill. But bit by bit, the old man’s slow gestures awakened the tension that he had been able to repress until then.
“So, when are you going to tell me my story?” he finally asked, imploringly.
“First, we have to eat!” replied Cogan, his head plunged into his haversack. He pulled out a yellow metal box which gave out a nauseating odor. “Here,” he said, showing the child a dumpling of uncertain origin.
“Yeech! What is that? It doesn’t smell good.”
“Eat! It will help you to… better understand the story of your dad.”
The child stared warily at him, then swallowed a mouthful, grimacing. “And why aren’t you having any?”
“I’d rather have a light stomach. The night will be long. Here, drink a bit of this beverage, it will help with the taste,” added the hermit, holding out a green colored flask. “Drink slowly, it’s potent!” Then he nonchalantly added a bit more wood to the fire.
“It’s said that fire has the power to stoke the imagination here.” Already the kid yawned loudly by his side. Cogan smiled tenderly at him. “I think it’s time for you to discover the legend of Aenghus Cork…
“My dad… had the same name… as me?” murmured the boy in an otherworldly voice.
“Yes. Your mother wanted it thus.”
The child was now lying on the ground. Within a few minutes, his body started convulsing.
“Aenghus Cork…” Cogan whispered to himself, here comes the time of Lughnasadh and awakened dreams. Will you still be able to read the messages from Heaven and revive, over the centuries, the virtues of the immortal Celts?
A wandering wind made the flames of the fire flicker. Cogan’s hand firmly stoked the orange embers with an ash tree branch. Under the effect of this sibylline blow of air, the child mastered the effects of his trance. His mouth was still soiled with a thin trickle of drool, but his eyes wide open cast towards the starry firmament seemed to have bound a reason to the illusory visions flowing through his mind. Everything had begun with a murmur, like the soft chant of a passive eternity then suddenly sucked up by a swirling wave, a threatening vortex drifting towards the abstruse promise of a dreadful shock. Purgative explosion of ethereal limbo. Procession of subliminal images. Sensory childbirth. Matrix memory spreading out… Yes… to expulse the aqueous reminiscence… Oh yes… up to the deep wail of the luminous memory. I see… I feel… I remember so many journeys on the paths losing themselves to the west of the Land of Erin…
