The
ceremony had started a full hour before midnight, initiated by HênDdu and the
golden crown of the Old Druid Kings sat well on his head above his expanse of
shining brow and those glittering, gimlet-eyes. This ancient and somewhat
misshapen crown was utterly basic and simply made from four cold-beaten straps
of gold, but it had been Leir’s crown, so it was a vital piece in the nine true treasures of Prydein. So too were
the ancient silver cauldron and the black flint dagger, which awaited this
fraught ceremony on the Druid’s altar. Only worn on the most sacred occasions,
the Brif-Druid’s crude golden helm had been made centuries ago for the
legendary King Leir ap Bladud Fawr, who was PenDdraig and Ard-Rhi y Derwydd, the all-powerful High-King of the Druids and
Ruler of all Prydein, long years ago. A broad, looped bar of beaten gold made
the rim of this ancient crown, whilst the three remaining straps curved up from
this headband, to meet at the crown to make the dome. A simple disc of gold
sealed this crown and it was topped by a solid gold acorn.
There had
been almost an hour of ritual and much prayer, when just before midnight the
traitorous King of a minor Galliad tribe was brought forward through the crowd
surrounding this glade. This much-reduced, erstwhile ruler looked anything but
regal this night, as his hair was tied into a knot to one side of his head and
he had also suffered the worst of insults to a combrogi; he had been made
‘beardless’. His once proudly worn bushy beard and drooping moustaches had been
hurriedly cut off and his chin rudely scraped almost clean, leaving incongruous
tufts of hair protruding here and there. This once proud and pompous King now
wore the goatskin cap and kilt of a condemned man, and a noose of plaited hemp
rope hung around this bedraggled unfortunate’s neck, also confirming his
tenuous grip on this world.
This
condemned man looked about himself in a daze from his bitter bellyful of
mistletoe and sloe berries, his drawn face pale and his eyes glazed. Found
counting his ill-gotten Roman coin, this weak King of the Ambiani Tribe who
were a powerful people until they submitted to the yoke of the Roman General, had lost all his power. It was only two years since his fatal capitulation but
when captured, Samaro would have struggled to raise ten good warriors, in stark
and withering contrast to the 10,000 seasoned fighters his father had
commanded. Samaro had been destined to burn at the stake for his treason, but
urgent messages had been sent and received by the Ambiani’s Brythonic cousins and
so King Samaro had been unceremoniously shipped to Prydein for his
star-studded, midnight appearance and his last pageant in this world.
Arch-Druid
Einion took the large silver cauldron from the altar with great care and reverence,
placing it on the ground in front of Samaro, whilst Guron forced the condemned
King to his knees, who had come to know his fate for some time and seemed
resigned to it now, as his head bowed to the inevitable. HênDdu then held his
arms open again, as did his three assistants and in his eerie, vibrating voice,
AurArian Aruchel spoke the ancient words of cunning magic and sacred royal
sacrifice. Holding his arms aloft in revered supplication to Cornonnyn; he who
guides dead Kings to the Dark Lord and ensures a good King is born somewhere in
Prydein when the time comes, HênDdu poured out his adoration.
“God of the green, Lord of the forest, I humbly
offer you my sacrifice and ask you for your blessing here today. You are the
man in the trees, the green man of the woods who brings life to the dawning
spring. You are the deer in rut mighty horned one, he who roams the autumn
woods and you are the great hunter circling around the oak. Your crown is the antler of the wild king-stag and yours is the
lifeblood that spills upon the ground each season. God of the green, Lord of
the forest, I humbly offer you my sacrifice and ask you for your blessing this
day, that you may aid us in our impending defence of your realm.”
The prayer to the Hunt Lord complete,
HênDdu picked-up the obsidian
dagger from the altar and held this high, speaking the final words of power as
Guron and Drem stepped to each side of the condemned man, taking a firm hold of
his arms. Einion then stepped forwards purposefully and with a stout pastwn of sacred holly, he cracked the
kneeling King smartly across his right temple, sending him sprawling to the
ground with a groan, symbolically killing him. Drem had relinquished his grip
on the prisoner’s arm as he dropped to the ground and then the Druid fell on
him, throttling him with the rope noose and tying it off neatly. Samaro was
choking and gurgling and his legs were thrashing out wildly, as he was killed
for the second symbolic time. Still coughing and spluttering with his face
bloated and full of blood, this suffering creature was dragged back up to his
knees to await the pleasure of the Brif-Druid of Prydein.
When HênDdu had finished his long
and unnerving incantation he turned, bent purposely to the kneeling man and
casually drew the blade of stone across his throat, cutting it wide open to the
bone. The fluted, razor edge of HênDdu’s black sacrificial knife transcended
all symbolism, killing the Galliad King for the third and final time.
HênDdu’s assistants
held the man tight as he struggled, ensuring that the last twisted roar of agonised
breath and the gout of blood that followed it from his torn throat, splashed hot
and loud into the waiting cauldron. A brazen and playful moon then sailed into
view from behind a black night-cloud and threw-down its bold yellow light on
the proceedings, at exactly the right moment. The attendant priests all sighed
in pleasure at the wonderful omen, as the man thrashed in his death throes on
the ground at their feet and his life-blood splashed noisily into the silver
bowl before him. The dying King watched blearily as his steaming gore gushed
into the bowl before him and whilst his bare legs and feet drummed the wet
grass uncontrollably behind him, Samaro shook himself across the bridge of
swords to meet his fate.
As soon as his spirit had
departed to the Underworld, Einion stepped forward with a sharp curving knife,
stooped and gripped the knot of dead man’s hair in his left hand. He then continued
his master’s work and quickly cut the head off the body, in four much-practised
cuts. Then Einion lifted the severed head and showed it to everyone, before
handing it to HênDdu amid loud cheering and applause. The other two Arch-Druids
had then hefted the torso by the armpits and ankles, as Einion wrapped a heavy
iron chain around its waist, securing it with an open link. Einion, Guron and
Drem, then all dragged the weighted carcass to the mere together, where they
waded out some way, shattering the moon and starlight upon it. They deposited
the weighted body it in the silt before wading back, with the blood spatters on
their white robes soaked, and which now ran pink down the pleats of their
stained linen.
Samaro’s leather capped head had
then taken pride of place on the stone altar, where it dripped its emptying
contents to the scarred, chipped and deeply stained granite. The look of utter
horror had been frozen on the features, with the glazed and terrified eyes wide
open. HênDdu was splashed red like an abattoir worker from his efforts but he was
clearly delighted, not just with the successful ceremony, but also for the
expression he had managed to capture on this King’s face when he’d slashed his
throat to the spine. Pleased too that his artistry could be appreciated by
these nobles. The Prime Druid of all Prydein had then led them through the more
onerous part of this ceremony; the continuing fast and prayers throughout the
long dark vigil, until Bel would bring them into the light of a new day.
As the Lord of night finally retired, the pale rays of a
breaking sunrise pierced the gloom, suddenly illuminating the eastern heavens
in a glorious mimosa fan against the dying, stygian purple. This warm new light
picked-out the tall shapes of trees, and large stands of alder, willow, oak and
birch were gradually revealed, which all fringed and guarded this broad and
marshy mere. This was a secluded idyll, where the Druids and nobles had
gathered hours ago for a primordial and crucial procedure and were long-gone
now, entirely missing this spectacular moment on this brand-new and misty
morning. As the thudding tempo of the last horse’s hooves faded, the silence
which descended on this beautiful hollow had lasted but a moment, before the
air was filled with the sounds of awakening nature once more.
A long timber pier stretched out into this marsh but vanished
into the low mist which still clung to its surface and around the rows of dark
timber legs. Ghostly tendrils swirled around these stout supports and the tall
slender stalks of the surrounding reeds and bulrushes, gave the small lake a
spiritual aspect which could not be overlooked. These stands of bulrushes were
supported by grass tussocks and flanked by tall defensive growths of the spiky
stemmed milk thistle, crowned with their round and full purple flowers. A chorus of lively frogs put out a barrage of
competitive croaking across the reed beds, whilst a large and lazy carp slapped
the surface somewhere with a broad tail. It scattered the extended family of
skating water-boatmen with a subtle splash, issuing soft rings of concentric
expanding circles, unseen under the clinging mist.
This rickety, age-weathered pier looked positively ancient
and had clearly undergone many repairs over the years, fresh timber showing
bright where the latest of these repairs had been made, mostly on the walkway
underfoot as its planks were always the quickest to rot away. This long and
narrow Sarn had been thronged with people a little over six hours previously
for their votive offerings, when the night sky above them had been awash with a
billion brilliant stars, but now its ancient timbers were softened and draped
with Bel’s warming rays.
Nature’s mist had rolled back this last hour but still clung
to the dappled surface of the water, which sheltered behind these protective
tussocks of grass and reeds. A truly ancient bank and ditch divided the eastern
approach to this mere and the low shadows among them began to evaporate as this small, bog-shrouded lake materialised and took form in Bel’s growing light. The
long grassy bank behind the ancient, rounded ditches along with all the
surrounding humps and bumps were festooned in a profusion of flaming colour,
from the fiery red catkins of bog myrtle which the healers love for their oil,
to the vivid purple blades of the early autumn crocuses. These grew everywhere
alongside prodigious banks of sunshine yellow broom, which competed gamely with
colourful gatherings of spearwort and bedstraw, all of which loved the moisture
laden ground here and grew everywhere with a wild abandon. Here and there
peeked the shocking pink petals of ragged robin, which caught the eye and were
in their prime compared to the declining, spiky-white flowers of the bean bog, which were almost done for this summer. Glasswort had sprouted short clusters
of bright green fingers amongst the fading bean bog and the air was redolent
with a fragrant cocktail of heady aromas, piqued by an effusive bog myrtle.
This was pleasingly infused with an enticing scent from the nearby apple-mint,
which surrounded these squat bushes of red goosefoot with their tiny flowers of
flame. All of which elevated this
quietly awakening glade into an earthly paradise, blessed too now with the
first glorious birdsong.
A very light westerly
breeze arrived with this dawn, ghosting across the waters of this mere and
animating the mist which still clung to the sacred boundary between the living
and the dead. Abruptly, the rising sun beamed down obliquely from a low blue
patch of clear eastern sky, illuminating the sacred Druid’s circle marked out with
crystalline white quartz stones, which sparkled now in tribute to Bel. This
Druid’s circle had been drawn a few reeds back from the beginning of the pier
and commanding the crown of this holy ground but the spiritual porthole at its
heart was now closed, as the ancient stone altar of the Druids was gone, along
with all the people.
Now last night’s prayers, sacrifice
and the long vigil had ended and the Druids and their guests had recovered and
departed, the Gods seemed pleased, as Bel rose in a graceful arc into the
beautiful blue heavens above. His warmth prompted another joyful chorus from
the delighted frogs and the flat expanse of still water now clear of the
clinging mist, reflected the blue tranquillity of this morning’s sky above it. Only
the Gods knew whether the sacrifice and the hundreds of votive offerings had
pleased them enough to intervene, and to bring the storm these Prydeinig people
so desperately needed again to destroy the approaching Roman fleet. Only they
knew if this delightful mere in Southern Prydein, sanctified and blessed this day
in their names would still be so untouched and pleasing to the eye in a few weeks’
time, or be consumed by the destructive wrath of Julius Caesar in the coming
war.
Tollund Man (Thought to be a sacrificed King)
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