Confessions of a Pagan Nun by Kate Horsley EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Author: Kate Horsley
- Genre: Religious Science Fiction & Fantasy, Religious Mysteries, Medieval Historical Fiction
- Publish Date: 10 September 2002
- Size: 2 MB
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Status: Avail for Download
- Price: Free
My túath
1 was Tarbfhlaith, where I was born to my mother, Murrynn, and my
father, Clebd. I can say little of their ancestors, they having been mostly
unrenowned in battle, except for my mother’s father and his sister. Some
have heard of them as Connacht and Flaev. He was a finna
2
to the High King
Loeguire, the chieftain who refused baptism when Patrick offered it.
Connacht and his sister Flaev were two of the lean warriors who died during
the five hungry years. My aunt, it is said, stood before her brother to protect
him and was cut in the legs and fell.
Connacht, revealed behind her, received
an ax blow to the mouth, which severed his head at the jaw. Flaev lived for
several days while the cruel hatred of her enemies, which had entered her
through the wound in her leg, reached her heart and smothered it. The heroic
deeds of Connacht and Flaev were woven into the songs our men sang at
feasts while they beat the table with their fists.
I loved the look of the men’s fists and the roar of their voices. I loved how
the women at these feasts tore their robes and revealed their breasts in
celebration of sacrifice and lust. For many years, I perched on my elbows
beneath the feast table to hear the names of my grandfather and my aunt
sung. But the lines of the songs were repeated so often that they became as
common as straw. After traveling to other places, I learned how small my
túath was.
The chieftain’s hall, in fact, was no more than a hut longer than
the scores of huts that seemed to have tumbled into a mud clearing beside the
lake called Oille. I could not be so loyal and devoted a member of the túath
of Tarbfhlaith as others, who were content to sing one song their whole lives
and speak often of pigs and oats. Since I was a child, I have wandered far
from my túath and even became fortúatha.
3
I still have a place in my eyes for
the strong oak and pine that embraced my túath and a place in my nose for
the smell of the soft grass beside the furrowed fields. But my attachment to
the people of Tarbfhlaith flowed from me slowly and steadily like water from
a cracked vessel.
Many feasts became contests between those who drank too
much ale and accused their neighbors of pig killing or stealing, for our meat
and bread were precious and not sure to sustain our lives, though a man or
woman worked from pink light to gray light to provide one meal. Few were
like my mother, who raised her face up from her food bowl to look at the
stars or hear the lark go deeper and deeper into the forest.
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