Celebrantë - Part Two

After a long pause and a profound sigh, Ghena resumed her tale. “Words were then all unknown to me and thus we communicated by means of the art of love. Aphrodite held out her hands as though in supplication or requirement and encouraged me by gesture, to remove her diaphanous robes. Then she made love to me on the soft grass.

Oh, Zena, the joy of her first touch. The feel of her lips on my lips, and then on my breasts and nipples. The bliss she brought to my insides with her tongue and supple fingers.”

Ghena was now enveloped in her memories but her words had aroused me and the tenderness I felt for her made me yearn to enact the part of her very first lover. As she described to me the delights to which the Goddess had introduced her, I strove to duplicate them. I know that my efforts were probably a poor imitation but I induced in my lover a series of orgasms that had her writhing with pleasure. Perhaps, I now reflect with hindsight, it was the power of her imagination that was the main stimulus. Yet, at the time I was immodest enough to feel elated when she pulled my face to her groin and that she gasped as I began to use my tongue on her sweetness. As she came, again and again, I exulted in her moans of delight.
After a while – too soon for me, Ghena released herself from my embraces and kissed me tenderly. “That was wonderful, my darling,” she said but there was a hint of grief or pain in her lovely face. “No-one has been able to make me come for too long. That you can only causes me to regret your so much delayed arrival in my life.”

The sigh that she breathed was redolent of such loss that it nearly broke my heart. But she immediately pressed on with her story as though she were trying to distract her mind from her sorrow.

“It was only much later,” Ghena continued, “after Aphrodite had taught me to speak and understand the speech of men, that she told me that she had been surprised to find her secret garden occupied. She also made my heart sing by saying that my presence graced and enhanced its charm for her.

Seven years we spent in bliss until one night, after we had enjoyed each other’s bodies to the full, she gave me tidings that wrenched my soul. She told me that the great Zeus had learned of my existence and sought to seduce me. I had been told of his terrible power and enormous lust and Aphrodite admitted that she would not long be able to deny him access to me. ‘He desires to father another of his bastard children upon you, but that I can at least prevent.’ Then she bade me drink of a potion she had made and, as I trusted her, I complied. It was only later I realised that this pungent brew rendered me forever barren.

For the remainder of the night, she left me alone. I cried bitter tears for the loss of my innocence but in the early hours, I found a new strength deep inside me. I vowed that never would the lord Zeus lay a finger on me and that, from then on, I would find ways to protect myself.

I never reproached Aphrodite for her duplicity nor ever wholly stopped loving her but I realised that the Gods were cruel and selfish and regarded mortals as little more than pets. I had been Aphrodite’s pet, and though I understood that she had done all that she felt she could to protect me, she had, in truth, failed me. I never fully trusted …, any person or being that has held command or significant authority, ever again.
And so, I stole away as dawn broke, determined to live in future, by my own wits and using my own resources. Unhappily for me, I could never again find that garden though I have searched for it over millennia.

Of course, at that time, I had no idea that I was myself not mortal as other men and women. Over the long years, I learned some wisdom and came to understand the burden of immortality that the Gods bore a little better, but I still regard their haughty disdain to be an abomination and their self-gratification entirely unworthy of beings who wielded such power. Seduction, however, I had literally learned at the lap of the Gods and using it became my means of survival.

And so my twenty year idyll had ended and I had to make my own way in the world. Suffering many travails and adventures, I made my way, always north and west, seeking to flee from the domain of the Gods of Greece. As it grew colder I wore heavier clothing until my looks were cloaked from all save those who earned my approval.

It was more than two centuries before I felt confident enough to return to Greece. But even so, I needed to find a place away from the gaze of Zeus. Therefore I avoided Olympia and travelled instead to Mount Helicon and sought out that group of sisters who were later called the Muses. Though they were daughters of Zeus, by Mnemosyne, they had no love for their sire or the other Olympians (save Apollo only, who had taught them) and they gladly agreed to hide me among their number.

I spent a happy century in their company, being instructed in all their lore until I was able, almost, to match them in their chosen fields. I knew the love of each of them during this time, but Terpsichore was the one I most often bedded. She used to dance for me and knew best how to inflame my desire.

After I left that mountain retreat, for perhaps a thousand years, I travelled extensively throughout the world as known by the Hellenes and sometimes beyond. Always though, every generation or so, I returned to what I then thought of as my homeland of Greece and sought out a lover whose life I could enrich for a while. Most often it was a woman but not always for I’d discovered that some men are gentle and kind and worthy of my attention. I never tarried long however, for I would not deny them the chance of finding a companion who might be able to give them the son or daughter that I could not.

For several decades, I abided in Egypt, watching, at times, the building of Khufu’s great pyramid and admiring the celebrated statue of the reclining lion that was nearby. I returned there a century later to see that the lion’s head had been re-carved into a representation of the great Pharaoh at the behest of Khafra, Khufu’s son.

Perhaps seven hundred years after my awakening in Greece, I heard tell of a misty but fertile land to the far north and west. Its location seemed known only to a few traders from far eastern countries and I conceived a strong fancy to see what no Greek had ever seen.

After I had travelled nearly five hundred weary leagues, I came to what seemed like the ends of the earth. I then knew little of maps or navigation and assumed that I had been misled, for the grey, stormy sea that I beheld was surely impassable to mortal man. However, local fisherman knew the place I sought and one, bravest and perhaps most foolish among them, offered to bear me hence. His price was that I should sleep with him.

Ordinarily I would have killed him for his insolence but his daring amused me and I agreed. I fear that he spent the remainder of his life being disappointed for I gave to him pleasures such that he would never find again among the generous but homely women of his tribe. While his men sailed, and between his sessions of ecstasy, he told me what he knew of our destination.

The country was a large island, he said, with many smaller islands scattered all about. It was a land of mists and ancient mysteries where there were strange legends of an older race of men or fairy-people, who still occasionally appeared. The current inhabitants, he told me, were distantly related to his own people and their language was similar. For the most part they were farmers and generally friendly but they were fierce fighters when it came to defending their land. He said that there were many tribes but all called the land Pretan, or something similar.

The skill of the fishermen in the violent sea was greater than anything I thought a Greek capable of and I was conveyed safely to land. Thus did I first arrive in what was to become known as Britain. Later it became the green and pleasant land that you know but at that time it was heavily forested and game was plentiful. As soon as I stepped ashore, I discerned an eerie ancientness in the air, such as I had never encountered before or since. I confess that the atmosphere intrigued me from the first and, over the millennia, I visited Britain more often than any other place, including even my original home of Greece. By the time the Romans arrived, I was living here on a semi-permanent basis although I continued to travel for long periods. But I am getting ahead of myself.

My escorts left me on a deserted beach on a grey morning with a few meagre provisions. They would have accompanied me further but I was anxious to explore alone. It was on the very first night of my sojourn, as I made a bed of dry leaves in a spinney, that I was visited by one of the older race. I suspect that some aura or impression of otherness that I possess attracted her to me. I certainly can recognise that quality in others and she exuded an air of the …, I know not what to call it …, perhaps primeval comes closest.

She was waif-like, at least a foot and a half shorter than me, with penetrating grey eyes and long, straight, dark hair, swept behind small ears that narrowed at the top, almost to a point. Her face was sharply pretty but somehow sorrowful. She wore nothing on her feet and her short tunic of green and brown was entirely inappropriate and inadequate given the damp chill of the night. She bowed low to me and said in a piping voice, ‘Welcome, my Lady Celebrantë. Your arrival has been long foretold and your presence in this place was perceived by the Wise of our people. You stand on the border of the realm of Aelfamar, the last abode of the Elfin peoples in the circles of the world. I am Florindel. Come! My Queen greatly desires to speak with you.”

Her words perplexed me and I would have questioned her as to their meaning but refusing any delay, she led me forward towards a willow tree. As we reached it, the curtain of leaves seemed to shimmer and we walked through into a different world.

I will tell you another time all that befell me on the occasions I entered the lands of Faerie, but for now you must be content with this brief word. The people were not numerous but differences could be discerned among them. Most had dark hair and grey eyes but a few were red-headed and a smaller number had hair of a golden hue. The Queen was one of those. She was also far taller than the majority of her kindred though not quite my height. Her eyes were also grey but such age-old wisdom rested in their depths that I immediately lowered my head and genuflected with deep respect. I had not felt half so surpassed by the Gods and Demi-Gods of Greece.

The Queen rose from her crude wooden seat (she disdained anything ostentatious) and taking my hands in her slim fingers she lifted me gently to my feet. Laughing gaily she said, “Thou need’st bow to none, Celebrantë Mytherille! Pray sit beside me, cousin; there is much to be said between us.”

I was astonished by what she had called me but it is a complicated tale and that too will have to keep for another day.

Wine and food was brought to us and we talked while we ate. “Seven centuries of man have I waited,” she said, “And now the day comes at last. I would be sad at this sure sign that my time here is hurrying to its close if I were not so glad to behold thy face.”

Here Ghena sighed and ran a hand through my hair. “I will say no more of the words we exchanged at this time, my Zena,” she said, “Though you must learn of the import of it soon. Suffice to say that many purposes are wrapped up in the matter, including my own and …, perhaps yours too.”

I spent several years being instructed in all manner of things by the Queen and her gracious people. Lorellinthë she was called in those fading years though the tale of her names and titles is as long as the memory of her kind and pre-dates any human knowledge. Her husband, Edelwindir, had departed several centuries before and she was lonely. I comforted her during this all too brief time and learned from her much that has benefitted me. The greatest gifts she bestowed however were the beginnings of true wisdom and the courage to bear whatever the future held.

After this all too brief spell, I left and I never saw her again. At times I came across small groups of her people but the frequency decreased until single encounters were all I had and now, those too have ceased. My last conversation with one of those ancient folk took place in a wooded glade in Anglesey, the year after the Normans came.

You see, Zena,” she said, “Even when I first met Lorellinthë, they were already a diminished people and the days of their glory were long over. Their task had been to clear the world of the primordial terrors that stalked the land and seas, in order that the later race, humans, might inherit without fear. Unfortunately, some cruel powers remained undefeated and through them, mortal men learned to create terrors for themselves and many men, past and present, have become adept at terrorising their fellow humans. The Elder folk knew this and shunned contact but they believed that their effort was not all in vain. They observed that there were many noble men and women; that honour and goodness existed in humans and would blossom if nurtured with care. The wise of Elfinesse thus considered that their long labour to prepare the way had been vindicated and they accepted their slow decline into myth and legend. Despite what I have seen of the inhumanity of many toward their fellows, I too believe that cruelty and brutality is not a part of human nature but a corruption of it that can be healed.

But now my story must move on.
Whilst I was with her, something that Lorellinthë had said piqued my interest. She spoke of the beliefs of the native people and said that they had conceived of a great task for themselves as a way of honouring their ancestors. I decided that I wished to see somewhat of this enterprise and I made my way to where I was told that the journey began. Thus it was that I was aboard the ship that transported the last few of the blue stones from the Preseli Mountains across the Bristol Channel. I saw them put into their original places on Salisbury Plain. I was also there three hundred years later when the last of the sarsen stone trilithons and lintels were put in place.

By then, the original blue stones had been moved and now formed an inner circle within the Great Henge itself. Over the three hundred years, I had been a regular visitor to Britain and had learned to love the land and its people. There were no Kings, for such formal hierarchies found no favour with the people, but a Circle of Elders who judged disputes and co-ordinated any co-operative endeavours on behalf of all. Such an enterprise of course, was the building of the Great Henge. I had become an honoured member of the Circle because my re-appearance at whiles and over many years had been remarked upon and considered a great mystery. I was thus welcomed and respected as a person of power and wisdom. They called me by a name which meant ‘The Merlin’ in their tongue.”

Ghena laughed at my sharp intake of breath. “No, Zena. Not that Merlin. The name was originally but a title but perhaps it was resurrected in memory of me. I know not for certain. But I must not digress further for the night wears on. In short, it was I who suggested the repositioning of the Preseli blue stones into an inner circle. These ancient Britons readily agreed that the older stones should stand in honour of the elder folk, the Faerie people who had made the land safe and then departed to allow mortal men to enjoy the fruits of their labour.”