By Jess Áine Barry
“When the time is right,
Fruit hangs low and ripe,
Reap now what you have sown,
Harvest what you have grown.”
Apollonia crawled through the scrub, singing a verse from the Harvest Song softly under her breath. She remembered the last time she’d sung it. Her lips next to the brown belly of her wife Fenestra the Autumn. She had sung and in her wife’s womb had sprung, by magic, their daughter Demeter.
“Poor thing,” Apollonia muttered to herself. “A Witchling born into a world that hates us.” She stopped when she heard the baying of hunting hounds. “Overmarch Garnor is out witch hunting, his favourite sport. And it’s sport I’ll give him.”
She waited until the pack came closer, she could see the grizzled Garnor on his bay mare. He wore the ridiculous black spiked armour of the king’s Knights Exemplar, an elite force of witch hunters. A strange quality hung about his pox-scarred face, an almost silver glow.
“Come gather all around,
Gather what grows abound.”
She sang the harvest words to arouse the field hares. Hundreds of lean wild hares surged, dazzling the noses of Garnor’s Witch Hounds.
“Stay! We seek no meat!” The Overmarch spluttered too late. His hounds could not contain themselves and were lost chasing the lightning fast streak of hares.
Apollonia leaned back and retrieved her long wooden pipe, a gift from her mother. It bore the carvings of a Harvest Witch, a sun, haystack, beehive and tree laden with ripe fruit. The same carvings adorned her oak staff. She raised the pipe to her lips. It came alive without a match for Apollonia, like her mother, had the power of the sun, and that means fire.
“Futura!” She called between puffs on her pipe. A raven flew to her shoulder. “You know what to do.”
Futura flew from her shoulder turning to ash out of which rose a black mare. Apollonia mounted and trotted calmly towards Overmarch Garnor, puffing her pipe nonchalantly.
“Who goes there?” He demanded imperiously.
“I’d have thought a Witch Hunter would know his quarry.”
“You? A witch? I think not,” Garnor said, squinting at her. She discerned it again, a hint of silver, around his eyes.
“Don’t be fooled by my finery or the meat on my bones.”
“Witches run scared, lean and ragged. None would dare open combat.”
“I dare. My mother was the Oversee of Harst. Before King Crusius had her murdered. That surprises you! Remember when the land was ruled by wise women? Not stuffed suits of armour.”
“Golden Harst is no more! These are the Barrendowns,”
“Aye they’re barren. Where once there was plenty there is now scorched earth. But you rule up on high. From Silveridge. The last bountiful pocket. Indeed, I espy silver about you.”
“There is no silver in my veins!” Garnor laughed. “Protected from witches my fiefdom flourishes. But you. Cocksure and telling tales of witchery. You intrigued me. Stoneridge as we call it now, is bountiful but dull as dishwater. I invite you to Harstfest, faux-witch. Let’s see if you can stir some interest.”
“Harstfest! Still you feast at harvest in these wastelands?” Apollonia stalled. She had heard of Garnor running down maidens on his horse and burning witches in the town square. He was dangerous. She closed her eyes and considered the signs of Harst Return.
“Once the plenty withers, three signs will bring the return of Harst. The nattering fly, a banquet and stone turned to silver,” her mother had said.
“I accept your invitation,” Apollonia replied, gazing at the hares running back towards them with Garnor’s hounds in chase. “And get some better dogs, Overmarch. It’s embarrassing to see Witch Hounds salivating over hare,” she spurred Futura onwards, ignoring the sound of Garnor’s laugh like silver coins jangling.
***
“Mad dogs and Englishmen, I do declare Mr Beauregard. You are my hero!”
Apollonia opened her eyes. She’d been dreaming. She saw herself, a blonde child crying for her mother as the Knights Exemplar dragged her away. She’d seen her mother burn. The horror of the dream stung like foul fumes engulfing her, she felt the familiar pain of the girl she had been, screaming, “Mother!” She must not let the same happen to Demeter. But what had awoken her? She listened for a sound in the still forest.
“Revenge is a dish best served cold. No more wire hangers!”
A Bardicfly.
“Get rid of it, I don’t know why it’s here, I wasn’t even singing,” she sighed.
A raven once more, Futura swooped down from her perch snapping at the violet velvety wings of what looked like a butterfly.
“Mercy me! I come bearing good news. News? They like dirty laundry.”
“Don’t waste your pearls of nonsense on me fly. I am no bard,” Apollonia said, in some amusement, watching her raven chase the fluttering-espouser-of-garbled-quips.
“Not yet a bard. Girl, you’ll be a woman soon. He has it. He has the golden lyre of the Morrígan of Summer.”
Now he had her attention. Bardicflies were drawn to song and spoke nothing but nonsense. But the old lore said they were bringers of wisdom.
“What do you know of the Morrígan of Summer?”
“Strawberries, cherries and an angel’s kiss in spring. They took it from your mother long ago. She could only sing for the harvest. But you! I will give to you summer wine.”
“Stop talking nonsense! I’m also a Harvest Witch. I know my limits.”
“Nutbush city limits. You are the Morrígan of Summer. Find the other two and in Threeness you’ll be whole. But first the lyre. He has it. And he has your cloak. You suspected and now you know. Knowing me, knowing you, there is nothing we can do.”
“What does Garnor know of the Morrígan?”
“He’s just a poor boy from a poor family. Ask him. Silver is in his veins, not stone! He knows. Take back what is yours. Back. Welcome back. Your dreams were your ticket out.”
“Chase him off Futura,” Apollonia pinched the bridge of her nose in consternation. “So I’m a Morrígan as well as a witch. Life just keeps getting better.” She picked herself up off the forest floor and gestured to her raven. Futura turned into ashes and a horse once more.
The violet-winged Bardicfly chirruped from afar, leaving Apollonia with one last quip as she mounted her horse, “my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!”
***
Even the hardened eyes of Stoneridge folk softened to see Apollonia ride through the town’s stone hewn entrance on her coal black mare. She wore a kirtle, made by her wife Fenestra, imbued with the essence of autumn, it appeared the many rusty shades of falling leaves. It complimented her hair like spun gold, normally worn in two braids, it cascaded loose for Harstfest. Her deep brown eyes and dark brown skin shone with health like rosehips in the sun. On her head was a bright red hood, tied under her chin, its gold decorative trim bore the signs of a Harvest Witch.
“Barley in the sun,
Work now till day is done,
Hands raw, backs ache,
Hard work to take.”
As Apollonia sang, the townsfolk parted to let her through. Never before had they been evoked to work. They were daunted, for there was no work to be done in Stoneridge. It was bountiful without effort. At one time the gated city, below the king’s castle, belonged to the Silverwitch, a place of quiet beauty and fountains of silvery water overlooking the fertile valley of Harst. Where Stoneridge had been silver, Harst was gold with the colour of ripe corn and swathes of wheat. But then King Crusius came to power and ordered the execution of every witch because of two prophecies. The first foretold that three witches, the Morrígan, would unseat him. The second foresaw that a child of Stoneridge would topple his castle and end his life. Without wise women, Oversees of the Seven Kingdoms, the land withered. Harst became the Barrendowns and the king watched for witches like a hawk hunts for sparrows, waiting.
“You call for work my good lady, but Stoneridge folk know not how!” Came the booming voice of Overmarch Garnor emerging to greet her.
“That much is evident,” Apollonia said, alighting her horse who discreetly trotted out of sight.
“I did not know that people still sang for the harvest!” Garnor said, taking her arm. “A rustic tradition.”
“Yes, we witches still sing, Overmarch.”
“Good lady, your beauty and power are not that of a mere witch. It’s something more that I glean in you. Now to Harstfest!” Garnor cried as they entered the banqueting hall.
“Oh!” Apollonia breathed. Futura, a raven now, landed on her shoulder. “Dear bird, what have I gotten us into?” She whispered, ruffling her feathers for comfort.
The walls of the banqueting hall were lined with portraits of dead witches. Their murders detailed in oil paint. Garnor’s hunting trophies.
“Take your seat, next to Raydos, the Overmarch of Mernland,” Garnor said, gesturing to a man wearing sleeves of black spiked armour.
“Fair lady, join us!” Raydos said, standing while Apollonia took her seat.
He wasn’t the only man to stand, there were five more. A full complement of the king’s Overmarches.
“I see no fair lady here,” said Apollonia, taking her seat. “I am a witch,” she smiled.
Raydos choked on his wine.
“You’re a what?” Laughed an Overmarch in silver armour.
“Not a what. A witch. Like those in the charming portraits you see on the walls. Only I’m not burnt, drowned, hanged or beheaded. Yet.”
“Don’t mind Apollonia, Boris, she’s teasing. That’s why I invited her, we could do with stirring up!” Garnor laughed. He sat at the head of their long table in a silver chair carved with many symbols. Apollonia studied them, a moon, stars, swirls of wind, waves of water, this was the very throne that generations of Silverwitches had ruled from.
“You sit lightly on so weighty a throne,” she snapped, taking up her silver goblet to swig wine. If she was going to die at Harstfest, she’d enjoy it first.
“The Silverseat! You know your old lore. And why shouldn’t I sit on it? I have more than earned it. Look at all the witches I’ve ridded this place of,” Garnor gestured to the portraits.
She did look. Until then she’d been trying not to. Witches were painted being burned at the stake, drowned in water or with their decapitated heads lying near their feet. The portrait behind Garnor was particularly horrifying. A witch hung limp in her noose while her young son cried for her. Apollonia imagined Demeter crying. In that moment she felt both anguish at the past and the fire to forge a better future. The scent of long abandoned healing herbs wafted through the nearest window fortifying her spirit as she drank her wine.
“You are perfectly content, seven Overmarches throwing bones to the Witch Hounds under the table while the meekest of cup maidens wait upon your every whim. Do you really desire me to stir you?” She asked.
“Yes! Tis’ so dull in these parts! They say the last Oversee of Silveridge, a Silverwitch, laid a curse upon it when she was hanged. But what that may be, the king only knows. There are no children, but everything else grows easily in abundance, so the days drift, one the same as the next,” Raydos answered.
“No children?” Apollonia inquired.
“Aye,” replied Boris. “Raydos, in his ignorance, does not see the curse for what it is. ‘Tis not a lack of plenty that hardens the folks of Stoneridge. Nor do they grow dull with the ease of life. They’re too scared to have children. The King will have em’ killed, owing to the prophecy that a child of this town will bring about his death. Stoneridge is a fossil, slowly decaying.”
“If folk believe in the curse, do they believe in the nonsense of the Morrígan?” Apollonia looked pointedly at Garnor, studying his reaction. She saw a flash of silver across his eyes. It was time.
She rose from her seat, banging a silver spoon on the side of her goblet to indicate a speech while Raydos muttered, “a woman holding court ahead of the Overmarch of Stoneridge, unheard of,” into his wine.
“This Harstfest, it startles me to learn that men no longer know what they are looking at. How many of these women lining your walls were witches at all? For I am a witch, unseen by you and glad of it. I can sing a baby into being. I can bring on the harvest. I can make long buried secrets pour out like honeymead into a glass. Listen to the Harvest Song all yee gathered! Let us see if I can’t make the stone in Garnor’s veins turn to silver,
Come gather all around,
Gather what grows abound,
When the time is right,
Fruit hangs low and ripe,
Reap now what you have sown,
Harvest what you have grown,
Barley in the sun,
Work now till day is done,
Hands raw, backs ache,
Hard work to take,
All that we need,
Grown from mere seed,
Work now till shadows fall,
Work now village all.”
At the words of the Harvest Song, fire kindled in the banquet hall’s empty hearth. It seemed that a golden magic emanated from it, dusting all in attendance with renewed energy. The cup maidens dropped their trays of silver goblets and walked out to the sunlight. The folk of Stoneridge shuffled like those awoken from long sleep. Through the stone archway they carried shovels, buckets, hay forks, ladders, wicker baskets to fill with plenty and led carts for hay. They would never come back to their fearful home of plenty. Instead they tilled the earth of the Barrendowns until it came back to life and had as many children as they wished out of sight of the king.
“What is an Overmarch without people to cower beneath him?” Apollonia asked, retaking her seat while smoking her pipe.
Garnor did not answer.
“What kind of Witch Hunter invites a witch to Harstfest?” She blew smoke rings in Garnor’s direction. One burst right in his face.
He sprung from the Silverseat as though stung, drawing his sword.
“A witch hiding in plain sight!” he yelled, jumping on the table at a run. Marching toward her he crushed plates laden with ripe fruit, sun kissed grapes and fresh bread.
“At last I’ve stirred the stone man! I was never hiding!” Apollonia said, rising to draw her staff.
“She’s right, damn well told us she was a witch, several times in fact,” Raydos said as his Witch Hounds drew in around Apollonia.
“Finally you scent me!” She sneered at the black hounds, the folds in their long droopy jowls frothing with foam.
“How did you fool them?” Garnor asked.
His sword rang as Apollonia defended his blow with her stout oaken staff.
“Because I’m not any old witch. I’m the Morrígan of Summer.”
Garnor’s eyes, straining so close to her own as she held him off, strayed to Futura, who had flown to perch on the back of the Silverseat.
“Your bird. It’s a raven. But you can’t be–my mother said there is no Morrígan!”
“You have mummy issues too! Delightful!” Apollonia said, pushing him away from her and swinging her staff to smite him. As she did, one of the Witch Hounds leapt to his defence. She would not hurt an animal. Even one bred to hunt her. She stayed her blow.
“I do not! I–I,” Garnor froze behind the snarling hound. His eyes changed colour, from the darkest of black they were suddenly flooded grey-blue like mist. His hair changed next, from brown to silver. Then his pockmarks turned to silvery, shimmering freckles. “I had to survive in a world that killed my mother. Don’t you see?” He asked, lowering his sword.
“Yes, I see. Now it’s time for you to give back to me, something you have stolen,” Apollonia lowered her own sword.
Garnor hung his head and nodded.
“Don’t take it personally, Garnor, but this feast is a bit of a flop! Nevermind, there’s always the next Harstfest,” Raydos interrupted gingerly while Boris and the others backed towards the door.
“Cowards!” Garnor shouted at their retreating backs.
***
“These are yours,” Garnor handed Apollonia a red cloak and a golden box emblazoned with the familiar symbols of a sun, haystack, beehive and tree laden with ripe fruit.
“Did you kill my mother?” Apollonia asked.
“And you accused me of having mother issues!” Garnor laughed grimly. “No. I was a baby when King Crusius ordered the burning of your mother, the Oversee of Harst. My mother ordered the safekeeping of her belongings. She told me the Morrígan would never come again, with so many witches dead. I was older when they murdered her, they hung her on the stone anvil in the middle of the town.”
“I know. There’s a portrait of it behind the Silverseat. How did you sit in front of it all these years? How did you run down maidens and witches for sport?”
“I didn’t.” Garnor hung his head.
“But I heard–”
“Rumours are cheap to start and reputations are built on them. Did I hunt you when I came across you in my fields?”
“What of the portraits in your hall? Witches murdered.”
“Not by me. Raydos, Boris and the others did that evil work. You’re right. Many of the poor women were not witches. The Knights Exemplar are too stupid to know it. I, a Silver Wizard, walked among them unsuspected.”
“They may have known you. Wizards have weak magic, they’re tolerated lest they rebel.”
“But I was more than tolerated. I sat on the Silverseat. I drew a curtain over the hideous reminder of my mother’s murder. I sat as stone. I did nothing while everything around me went to ruin. Weak as Wizard’s magic is, I can detect my mother’s curse on Stoneridge. In this place, I forgot the silver magic in my veins and let evil prosper.”
Apollonia scowled, “sure, blame your mother.”
“Ha! No. I blame myself. A stronger man would not have stayed cursed. But now my heart is light with hope. Knowing the Morrígan of Summer has her tools.
Apollonia threw her red velvet cloak around her shoulders, reunited with its hood at last she buttoned them together. Then she took her pipe and puffed smoke into the keyhole of the gold box. The lid sprung open revealing a golden stringed instrument snuggled in a red velvet lining.
“My mother’s lyre!” Apollonia plucked its strings, humming.
Before them unfolded a vision of three witches each with a magic raven. The Morrígan, a triple deity, reborn in every generation. Unstoppable like the seasons. Spring, summer, autumn, winter. Green, blue, red cloaked witches. Past, present, future Seers. Wielding a magic sword, arrow and song.
“Do you see purpose in this vision?” Garnor asked.
“Yes, Silver Wizard, I must take your leave.” Apollonia looked to Furtura who turned to ashes before morphing into a black horse.
“That’s neat magic,” Garnor noted.
“Don’t forget your own again! Too many women died while stone ran in your veins, wizard.”
***
Later as she rode, singing softly and strumming her lyre to better See the path she should take, Apollonia discerned a patch of violet fluttering in the wind.
“Tirra lirra by the river. The nattering fly, a banquet and stone turned to silver.”
“You’re back Bardicfly but still I am no bard.”
“No bard am I! The Walrus said. Happy Harst Return!”
At these words, Apollonia remembered the scent of healing herbs penetrating the deep stone of Garnor’s castle and smiled. “Harst never left, fly,” she said.
Staying her lyre to retrieve her pipe, she blew smoke rings for the Bardicfly to flutter through. The playful lark reminded her of Demeter and Fenestra. “I have a king to slay,” she sang with renewed vigour between puffs of her pipe.
The Bardicfly was strangely quiet, he fluttered in silent admiration of her warm power. It was that which had first drawn him to her. A moth to the flame. A Bardicfly to Apollonia, the Morrígan of Summer.
# End #
Jess Áine Barry is a visual artist and writer living in Melbourne, Australia. She is a Leo sun, Scorpio moon and Sagittarius rising. She is also a triplet and was born on the same day as Dua Lipa. She vibes with her rising sign, enjoying the outdoors, stargazing and reading, as any good centaur would. She draws inspiration from folk stories, nature and the power of women. She works to bring forth pieces that evoke nature and a sense of hope for the future.
A Curious Moon 