The Lion and the Cross by Joan Lesley Hamilton

Author:Joan Lesley Hamilton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media

16

The Mountain of Mists sheltered me. I ate as the wild beasts, feeding upon summer’s fallen bounty, upon ripe berries and herbs and those roots and plants which Dubh and Leborchom had shown me to be edible. It was not difficult for me to avoid the parties of men which came out from the ring fortress in search of me. Slemish had been my home for three years. I knew the mountain as a child knows its own mother. The Ri’s men were strangers here. The mountain did not welcome them, nor did it share its secrets with them.

When did the legend begin to grow up around me? I know only that among the Gael there has long been a belief in a certain myth: that some men, upon witnessing the violence of their fellows, succumb to a magical madness which causes them to flee into the depths of the forests where they dwell forevermore as mystic spirits. It is believed that feathers sprout out of their shoulders and arms, enabling them to fly upon the air as though they were birds. It is believed that they run across the tops of trees and feed upon the clouds.

There was nothing magical or mystical about my life within the forests of Slemish. If I flew, it was only with the fleetness of foot which was born in me, and out of panic when I found myself being spied upon by shepherds or farmers or hunters who might betray my presence to the Ri’s men. Once, when a young cowherd saw me bent within the mists of an early morning, I might well have seemed to be grazing upon the ground fog. Had he looked closely, he would have seen that I was merely straddling a freshet and was gathering the good, green, spicy cress which grew within it.

I did not venture near Leborchom’s flock. I had no wish to endanger the old man, even though, as the days passed, I longed for his company. I was an outcast. A hunted man. I lived by my wits. I found solace in my prayers. I had no doubt that God was with me and that, through His intervention, my life had been saved. The knowledge of this softened the pain of my confusion. Yet, often in the long nights, I would lie awake, raising my voice to Him, not in prayer, but in question.

“For what purpose, Lord? The years and the miles … the dreams and the visions … for what purpose …?”

As summer yielded fully to autumn, with the trees around me succumbing to the season, a golden rainfall began to descend around me. One morning, I awoke shivering beneath my blanket of leaves. I lay deep in prayer, looking up toward Heaven through a latticework of bare branches. My prayer ceased. It was as though God had spoken to me. I knew, with sudden clarity of thought and purpose, that now that the forest was becoming sparse of leaf, only the evergreens would be able to offer me shelter.

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