Beyond

And so I reached the spot in the hills where the peak of carn ingli was to my left, and I could look down into the grassy ravine that started from where I sat, high up in the untamed, unbordered slopes, leading down to the patchworked lands, then across to the sea. And by fortune, coincidence, fate, I had arrived at that one time of year, or maybe once every ten, or a hundred, when, far behind and beyond the known peaks, another higher ridge appears, a dark line of misty blue across the lighter sky-blue, a border to a land no longer talked about in the lowlands, round the fires in local inns, where piped music and TV screens have filled the space and usurped the tale telling. One has to dig deep, to excavate tales hidden in other tales, legends wrapped in better known myths, where a hero leaves his loved one for the last time, to climb those blue-misted heights and pass over to the other side. But on this windy, clouded afternoon, I too saw the ridge, the other land, and in the time it took to write this account it had receded, fading back into legend, and I stilled my pen hand.