Week 12, Storytelling:

My name is Oifa and I am an air-demon. My home is a cave where I live in total darkness. I have no shape nor do I make a sound; I cannot communicate with anyone and I have been alone for the last nine hundred years. I have lost everything and the spider is my only friend. I used to be a human with a husband, stepchildren, a family, and a home but I ruined that for myself through jealousy.

My sister, Ove, and King Lir had a good marriage and four beautiful children together. Ove died after having the last one. My father felt sad for Lir and so he offered me to him as a sort of “replacement” wife. At first I loved my stepchildren and was very proud to be raising them for my sister. But, after so long of Lir waking and laying with the kids, who slept at our feet, every morning, I could not stand it anymore. We needed some privacy, but Lir would not hear any of it, so as the days wore on, the more jealous I became. I tried to have them killed. I am not proud of it, but I did. When I was refused this favor, I did the only thing I knew to do. I put a spell on them to turn them into white swans. I left them their voices and that was my undoing. Their father found them and told him what I had done. Lir told my father and he punished me to this form forever.

So, that is how I came to be who I am. A demon with no purpose but ruin. I hide out in this cave for years at a time. I have magic, but I cannot even help myself, only hurt others. What I would give to be able to talk to someone, or to be able to touch anything, to feel the grass under my feet, to smell the flowers blooming in the Spring, to feel a lover’s touch. Over the years no one has come near my cave. I used to go wander the towns that were near by, but every time I caused some sort of unintentional doom. I have noticed a young man that is herding his sheep come by every now and then. I have just now worked up the nerve to try to contact him.  Sometimes when he is taking a break near the entrance of my cave, I walk up behind him, but all he notices is the brief wind I make as I try to speak to him. I hope one day soon he hears me.

Waitomo Cave Entrance by James Shook. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Author’s Note: My story is based off of the short story The Fate of the Children of Lir from the Celtic Fairy Tales II Unit. Oifa, who was the second wife of King Lir, was said to be made into an air-demon as punishment for turning his children into swans. I wondered what happened to her after her part in the story was done. The word/associations of feathers, east, spider, divination, darkness, and Thoth all come from the pagan attributes of the Air element. I figured since air was specifically said, that it probably refers to the four elements from witchcraft, which is Earth, Air, Fire, and Water.

Bibliography: More Celtic Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs, 1895

Week 12, Reading Diary A: Celtic Fairy Tales II

Celtic Fair Tales II

The Fate of the Children of Lir
This story is about the children of King Lir (duh). King Lir marries Ove, who is the eldest child of Oilell. They have four kids and then Ove dies. King Lir then marries Ove's sister, Oifa. Oifa is awesome at first, but then she started becoming jealous of Lir's children. Oifa took the four children on a journey to kill them. She asks someone else to kill the children, but they refuse. Oifa then tells the children to go into the Lake of Oaks to take a bath. As soon as they were in the lake, Oifa put a spell on them to make them 4 swans. She told them that they would stay that way until Lairgnen and Deoch wed. When she returns, King Lir figures out that she has done something with the kids. He goes to the lake and speaks to the swans and they tell him what has happened. For Oifa's punishment, she is turned into what she thinks is the worst shape on the earth, an air-demon. She flew away. I was wondering what happened to her when she left, so I think I may write a story on that little detail. Long story short, they finally become human again and then die. The end.

Dream of Owen O'Mulready
This is a short story about a man who couldn't dream named Owen. He was working one day and told his master that he had never had a dream before. The master then told him to go home and clean out his fireplace and sleep in there and he was sure to dream. His wife, Margaret, slept with him in the chimney. Not long after, there was a knock at the door. There was a letter from the master that was to go to America. He ran from place to place and everyone he met knew who he was. He finally got to the ocean and could go no more. A crane told him to get on her back and she would take him across. Half way over she got tired and told him to get off. He refused! There was a thrasher above them and so he asked the thrasher to let him hang on his flail so he could give the crane a rest. The crane took off and left him hanging there. Luckily a ship came by soon and was trying to get him into the ship. He dropped his shoe to see if the ship was under him so he could fall down and all of a sudden his wife yelled because she had just been hit in the head with a shoe. When he woke up, he was climbing the chimney and was half-way up. He decided he didn't ever want to have another dream.

From the UN-Textbook.