by Rab Fulton
Jack Mhor made to step into the room. He was suddenly filled with an aching hunger for food and the company of this lovely woman. But the fairy held him back. ‘Wait a moment.’
As they watched, the woman stopped moving. All the kitchen was filled with stillness. Even the steam rising off the golden potatoes became still. It was as if the scene had become some great painting. But then the picture began to change. The plain clothes on the woman began to fill out and brighten until she was wearing a great silk gown trimmed with gold lace and glints of sapphire. Upon the woman’s head there appeared a silver crown that glittered and sparkled as a great light began to fill the room. The light grew brighter and brighter, swallowing the table, the pot, the stove and then the woman herself. Jack Mhor cried out as in pain and struggled against the fairy’s iron grip. But the creature simply closed the door and Jack Mhor slumped down.
‘The third spouse,’ explained the fairy, ‘lived in great poverty. But she found happiness and joy where she could, and shared that joy and happiness with all around her. And when she died she was clothed in fine apparel and jewels and taken to reside in the great happiness of the world beyond this.’
The magical being touched the door as if he too yearned to step through. But the door vanished and all that was left was a slight indent in the dark soil.
The fairy turned to Jack Mhor. ‘Let’s go,’ he said wistfully. ‘I have a terrible hunger on me.’
They made their way back up the stairs, but when he stepped out into the night, Jack discovered they were no longer in a darkened graveyard. He stood instead on the soft neatly trimmed lawn of a great garden. Above him the sky was filled with the blaze of a million sparkling stars. By their illumination he could see that the garden was bordered on three sides by woods. On the fourth side of the garden stood a magnificent mansion with turrets on the roof and a columned portico leading to its front door. The windows of the magnificent house were filled with the movement of golden light and sable shadow as if a great throng of people were moving within, and the sound of laughter was clearly audible.
‘We are just in time,’ said the fairy noble. ‘My guests have arrived. Shall we go in?’
Jack Mhor had no doubt now that he was in the company of one of the most powerful of the immortal beings. A mistake now and he would never return to his home and friends and family. Yet what to do? He must not attend the party, but likewise he must not offend the fairy.
‘Thank you, sir,’ he said politely. ‘It is very gracious of you to invite me in. But before I do so, may I have a moment to myself? I feel I need to think on what you kindly showed me in the graveyard.’
‘Of course,’ smiled the fairy and with great elegance he sat himself upon the grass. Jack sat down beside him. ‘There is no hurry,’ explained the fairy. ‘We have all the time in the world. But would you mind if I ordered some food, as I have a terrible hunger on me.’
Before Jack replied, the being snapped his fingers and two servants appeared, each carrying a great tray heavy with foods and drink. The figures bowed to the fairy then knelt down. They unfolded a silken cloth, and placed on it many foodstuffs. There were meats and sauces, cooked vegetables and bowls of fruit, freshly baked loaves and pastries. Jack turned his gaze from the feast, but his stomach gurgled and his mouth watered as he breathed in scents of garlic and basil, of cinnamon and freshly baked bread.
‘Eat,’ whispered the fairy. ‘You know you want to.’
‘I would,’ spluttered poor Jack, ‘but the food is too rich for me.’
‘Then try something simple,’ said the fairy, and offered Jack a great green and shiny apple. The fairy stretched out on the grass and looked up at the great candelabra of stars overhead. ‘Bring music,’ he ordered the servants, then closed his eyes.
Jack looked at the globe in his hand and thought how delicious it looked. Yet he managed to force himself not to bite the fruit and instead thrust it into his jacket pocket. Then he heard the sound of a violin being plucked. Looking up he saw musicians sitting on chairs beneath the nearby trees.
The music began, soft as a whisper spoken by a mother to a sleeping child. Soft and gentle and soothing it was, and Jack Mhor, for all his fears and caution, could not resist the beauty and the sorrow of the melody. He closed his eyes and sank deep into the ever-changing mood of the music as it rose and fell, dipped, curtsied, skipped and paused, reflected, then ran on laughing. As he drifted in the great tonal currents he heard beyond the song of the instruments snatches of older and vaster music; the electric pulsing hiss of planets, the crackle of asteroids spinning in the vast void of the cosmos. Beyond these titan tunes he glimpsed a rose, white and pure and limitless.
He awoke with a gasp, one hand gripping his pain-spiked chest, his vision blurred with tears. Jack Mhor took a deep breath, and wiped the tears from his eyes. He was cold and his clothes damp from the mist-thin rain. It was morning and he was sitting in a field that held no mansion or musicians or magical beings. His only company was a couple of curious cows who looked at him with great brown eyes.
‘It was all a dream, my dears,’ said Jack Mhor sadly to the two cows. ‘A dream and nothing more.’ He pushed himself up, and as he did so something fell from his pocket. There it lay in the mud; a beautiful golden apple. And, oh, what a hunger and a sorrow filled the mud-splattered Jack Mhor. But he shook himself hard and tugged at the hair on his head, then, breaking free of the spell, walked out of the field and found that he was only a few yards away from the church and the graveyard. He gave a nod of thanks to any fairies that might be around and a quick grateful prayer to God for his salvation, then made his way home.
As for the cows, they left the golden apple well alone, and from what I hear it is there still.
Notes from the Author
I was brought up by stories. My extended family were great at spinning yarns: my parents, uncles, aunts, grandmothers and cousins. Everybody had something to say. Some tales were quirky family history, some were more strange accounts of ghosts and curious coincidences and, of course, the devil himself made the occasional appearance.
Some of these stories were told indoors at family gatherings, where the adults all yarned and us little ones listened to it all. But the best stories were told outside. Some of these tales were about the place we were walking through and about how my family fitted into that landscape – who had lived where, done what and when and what strange things had happened to them. All these stories were coloured and shaped by the surrounding landscape, for a story told on a dark woodland path is a lot different to a story told on a beach or on a city street. That love of telling stories is still very alive in my family. My nieces and nephews and my own children can all tell a yarn at the flip of a hat (even our dogs tell stories!).
Books were and are a big part of my life. Long before I could read, I loved books. Both my mother and father took time to read to me and my siblings; the memory of those quieter moments remain with me. My father, licking his finger before turning a page; my mother’s warm voice reading The Owl and the Pussy Cat. I love books and I love places filled with books. I am the person you see wandering around a bookshop or library with eyes wide with wonder.
My advice, then, for anybody interested in collecting or writing stories is to listen, walk and read. Oh yes, and remember the best creativity apps you can access are your parents, grandparents and guardians. Feel free to ask them about what life was like when they were your age. What was school like? What was their favourite holiday? What about their first visit to the doctor? How did they celebrate the big festivals that mark the year – Easter, Ramadan, Samhain, Diwali, Hanukkah, or Christmas? And, of course, what stories were they told as a child? Where was the story told? Who told it? Who else was there? What food and drink, and scents and sounds surrounded that telling?
And what about the fairies – do any of your elders have stories about them? They may do or they may not, but here is a curious fact: the good people, na daoine mhaithe, the immortals – what
ever you want to call them – love stories. When you listen to a story it is very possible that a fairy – invisible or in disguise – will be right beside you listening intently …