When Lugh Sun rose again, the evil tallfolk spirit lay dead, and in the last strength of her fury, bleeding from a dozen wounds, Mabh hurled the body onto the altar, cut out the heart, and held it high to Mother and Lugh.

"Will this satisfy thee? I have slain the spirit of the tallfolk. I have put down their strongest magic and offer its heart to thee. Have I not proved my love, and will not Prydn be hunted for it? We must go from here. Rouse thy selves from bickering and tell us where."

Mother was truly touched by the desperate gift and the courage of her daughter. "Dost love me so much?"

"That we be shown Tir-Nan-Og," Mabh beseeched.

"Then follow the reindeer north beyond the great salt marsh," said Mother.

Mabh began to fear Mother made a cruel joke or was gone soft-witted with age, for no fhain hunted or grazed

beyond the salt marsh. They'd seen the white chalk cliffs on the other side and, just beyond, the edge of the great ice blanket.

"Follow the reindeer," Mother said. "I will break my silence with your father. It is time to forget our differences and think of our children. But lest you grow careless like your father, I give you this law. Each year at spring fire, you will take this tallfolk spirit in whatever form you find it and put it on the stone for me that I know I am not forgotten of Prydn."

In the days of the cold spring, Mabh's fhain collected their ponies and half-wild sheep, child-wealth, and herd dogs and started north in the wake of the reindeer, wondering what they would find. Already they saw that Mother and Lugh ended their quarrel and were together again, for the ice had receded much farther than any hunter remembered.

Now, Mabh's first husband was named Cruaddan even as Dorelei's, only fitting since the name means "first child," and even as wise. When the Prydn wanted to hunt Reindeer for meat, Cruaddan forbade it. Reindeer was not stupid like cattle; to hunt him would be to scatter his herd from the trail they followed. So fhain hunted elsewhere but left Reindeer to point them north. This was a shrewd decision, since tallfolk hunters tracked Reindeer as well. All their conjured demons ran with them, hot on the track of Mabh to punish her for their slain brother-spirit. Not enough they were moving from their hunting grounds, Prydn had to fight and run, fight and run all the way to the great salt marsh.

In those days were parts of Mother half land that wanted to be all sea, and since women are noted for the changing of mind, Mother pushed some into the water and raised some up, but about the salt marsh she could never make up her mind. This caused Prydn a great deal of trouble, sometimes wading and more often floundering and losing sheep until they made rafts and poled their way across the stupid marsh that would not be either land or sea. So undecided a place was it (as Dorelei

had the tale from Gawse) that fish were growing feet as well as fins to be ready for whatever came. But Reindeer swam on toward the chalk cliffs that loomed up and up on the far side.

From the first, Prydn knew they'd come to a land of promise and magic. In the chalk cliffs, to be had with a few strokes of an antler pick, were flints of the finest kind, barely flawed or not at all, to yield a wealth of tools and arrowheads. Oh, and up above—sudden as sunlight through cloud—were meadow downs green as when Mother first imagined the color, all aswirl with new flowers and bees busily making the most of it. There were fresh streams bursting their banks from the ice Lugh Sun melted in his renewed love for Mother, and game running so thick they tripped over one another.

But when Mabh's people looked back, they saw their pursuers, too, were rafting across the marsh. Their spirits flew over the rafts darkening the sky with their evil like festering in a wound. Mabh knew they'd come to a place of promise but trouble as well. Nothing was changed. The tallfolk would push them out of the good lands. She ran out on the cliff edge, holding up her flint knife to Mother and Lugh.

"Now decide," she called on them. "Is this Tir-Nan-Og as we were promised?"

"It is a good place," Lugh grumbled, "better than most. The ice is melting. Must you have everything at once? Speak to your mother about it. I'm busy."

Night was falling and the tallfolk rafts were coming closer. Mabh dug furiously for moonstones. She scattered them in respect, and Mother opened her mooneye.

"What does Mabh want now? Your father and I are loving again. You are becoming a nuisance. Give us a little rest from your needs."

"The tallfolk are on us. Look thee where they have almost crossed the marsh. Do something!"

"That marsh has always troubled me," Mother admitted. "Land wants it, sea wants it. I just can't decide."

"If you do not and quickly, you will have no children to honor you," Mabh reminded her, too beset for good manners. "I will decide. Let it be now and always sea."

Now, Mother was not above haggling herself and in a very good position for it now. "Will you honor me and turn to no tallfolk ways or gods so long as Prydn endure?"

"We will," Mabh promised. "We do."

1 'Will you honor the reindeer who led thee here, wear their mark in remembrance, raise up the stones to measure your seasons by your father's path? Will you give me each year a spirit of the tallfolk on my stone?"

"We will do it," said Mabh—anxiously, for the tallfolk were about to land, their angry spirits howling for her blood. "We will keep apart. Hurry, Mother. Give us the sea. Part us from the old forever!"

In her passion Mabh raised her knife and brought it down as if to cut the earth with the very force of her will. When her knife came down, a great roar filled the world. The seas to the north and south of the marsh reared like stallions in heat and rolled in high waves toward each other until they met with the sound of thunder, swallowing tallfolk hunters, women, children, animals, spirits, all. When Lugh Sun turned his eye on his children again, the land was an island. None could ever agree on what happened, but they saw Mabh's knife slash across earth and sky, and Mother's will was no stronger than Mabh's in her need. One cannot say, but it is known that gerns have great magic, so from the first the island was known as Pretannia, which only later and ignorant men call Britain.

Mabh lived many years as gern and kept the promise to her Parents. She marked her cheeks as Reindeer, laid out the stone circles, and once a year took a child from the tallfolk cradles for sacrifice. Growing older her heart softened, and she often kept the children she borrowed, especially if there were few bairn in the crannog, as in the manner of Guenloie's mother. Now and then in a lean year Mabh ignored the promise altogether and left

Prydn wealth among tallfolk so that they might not know hunger. Do not judge; this is not easy for a woman to do. Truly children are to be prized above all other wealth and worth any sacrifice of the heart.

In the long years of Mabh's rule, Prydn became strong, even arrogant. When newcomers came with bronze to break their flint, Prydn borrowed the magic and made even better tools and weapons with it, as they do to this day. And one day Mother opened her eye on the old gern.

"Mabh," she said, "we are both old women and need not lie to each other. You are like these others who have forgotten me. You are my first children and I love you the best, but you need a lesson/'

Mother meant her words. Times had changed and Lugh with them, being worshiped himself as a god now by the tallfolk who had the foolish notion he managed it all by himself. Like a man he enjoyed being made much of and allowed tallfolk a new magic to break bronze and flint. And although Prydn tried, they could never pierce the hard magic of Blackbar. A bitter lesson, but the Parents gave this promise to Mabh: Tir-Nan-Og still waited if Prydn kept to the old way. The land of the young was to be theirs alone in a place beyond tail-folk, beyond world's edge. Mother and Lugh had their faults but never broke a promise once given.

When Mabh died at last, her body was placed in the barrow with a hole at each end so her spirit could escape to watch over her people. A long barrow it was, not the round sort of the newcomers, and much better hidden. Tallfolk tried to find it but never did, being too blind in most cases to find their own feet. Mabh sleeps undisturbed, and her gern-spirit rides before Dorelei's pony.

The crannog was warm and dark, the light from the firepit a dull red glow that lent flickering life to the animal figures pocked into the walls. Dorelei finished her tale and leaned to stroke Cru's cheek. There was a general rustle of movement about the fire.

Padrec knew they were tired. They needed rest after a two-day ride with only a rough camp to break it. He truly wished to preach to them about the errors of their marriage ways, yet as he listened to the story of Mabh, plainer and nearer truths crowded in on him. They were wintering in sparse pasture among hostile strangers. Their meeting with Reindeer fhain was anything but hopeful. Mabh's story was one of magic and celestial intercession for faithful children, of a queen leading her folk to a promised land, of courage and triumph. Dorelei was wise to choose it. She made a sign to gather their attention.

"Now let Padrec speak of the magic of a's Father-God."

Later for marriage, when we're all rested. Not much holy thunder left in me tonight "Gern-y-fhain, I would speak of the magic and of children like fhain who received it."

Dorelei's eyes widened slightly in understanding. "Good, Padrec."

The ritual attitude for tale-speaking was not yet comfortable to Padrec, very tiring on the back, which must be held erect with the legs crossed. His ankles were still tender, but he tried to ignore the discomfort.