Acallam na Senórach (The Tale of Ancients)
Posted: Sun Jun 10, 2012 9:49 pm
Reading the remarkable Zorg Chronicles: Lightning, I had the thought that it could prove interesting - and, at the very least, a source of some personal amusement at least for me - for me to compose in the format of installments an ongoing chronicle of my own. This would relate far less to various exploits by this Emporer, Nuada the Silverhand, in the Standard Universe, than with his history, how his empire came into being, his ambitions, his drives, in short his character development. This is, naturally, not the historic Tale of Ancients, a treasured tome of Celtic myth, but an extrapolation of the conceit of naming your character after a Celtic deity.
So it begins...
Nuada, his Ard Rí's silver hand at the reigns, had been weeks stalking his prey, preparing himself and his empire for the terrible and explosive moment of the ride of the Dullahan. The bean sídhe wailed a caoineadh as the cu sídhe howled, and then as if from all quarters and yet none might one spy beyond the cu sídhe's glowing charcoal eyes illuminating their green sheen a headless horseman holding a ghastly skull, eyesockets crawling with worms as it laughed maniacally.
The Tuatha Dé Danann have from beyond Tir na nOg returned, the daoine sídhe, the aos sí, beings of myth no more, riding their furious fiery chariots in the sky to set forth from the pit of Din Scaith with serpents the legendary smoke, the mist of faeth fiadha.The Dullahan cracked a whip clearly made of someone's spine, the chariot he rode was made of bones, and then at last when the moment was right he named his opponent and the haunting caoineadh sounded.
Our day shall come again. Tiocfaidh ár lá.
So it begins...
Nuada, his Ard Rí's silver hand at the reigns, had been weeks stalking his prey, preparing himself and his empire for the terrible and explosive moment of the ride of the Dullahan. The bean sídhe wailed a caoineadh as the cu sídhe howled, and then as if from all quarters and yet none might one spy beyond the cu sídhe's glowing charcoal eyes illuminating their green sheen a headless horseman holding a ghastly skull, eyesockets crawling with worms as it laughed maniacally.
The Tuatha Dé Danann have from beyond Tir na nOg returned, the daoine sídhe, the aos sí, beings of myth no more, riding their furious fiery chariots in the sky to set forth from the pit of Din Scaith with serpents the legendary smoke, the mist of faeth fiadha.The Dullahan cracked a whip clearly made of someone's spine, the chariot he rode was made of bones, and then at last when the moment was right he named his opponent and the haunting caoineadh sounded.
Our day shall come again. Tiocfaidh ár lá.
Call it a teaser. Certainly, more to come before long.
I am a Phelan from the side of my paternal grandmother. Vital records lost in a fire have made determining precisely where from Éire her family has roots a challenge, although Contae Phort Láirge seems likely. My Gaeilge is frankly terrible, with the grammar particularly difficult for me, but I am indeed having myself some fun learning!