The Bean Sidhe

One of the things I wrote which people seemed to moderately like was about the Lenhan Sidhe. To be honest, I like it too, at least to the extent of ever actually like my own work*. This isn’t even trying to be a copy of the style I used with that. I could probably do something very similar, but, well… I don’t really want to. So this is about another little piece of Irish mythology, told in a way that’s a bit similar, except almost certainly worse. I don’t normally do this kind of serious/depressing stuff though. Just put up with it.

*In order that I can continue to do so, I generally attempt to avoid rereading it, at least as much as possible.

The original form of the following manuscript was found next to a rusted iron knife handle, which, unfortunately, could not be preserved. Due to the obscurity of the dialect, even within the now extinct Irish language, and it’s lack of any particular literary merit, it is generally considered to be of little interest beyond the purely academic, and even within such circles, it is far overshadowed by other texts. As such, few translations exist, of which the following must be considered the best

They did not weep for me.

I think that that’s what hurts the most. It shouldn’t, of course. There are so many other things. What he did to me… I shouldn’t even want to think about it. But it seems so far away now, I have a hard time even summoning up an emotion about it now. What happened to my child – my daughter… Nothing. It should have broken me. Maybe it did. Maybe I’m still lying there in that old Galway hut, dreaming the dreams of the race that the gods made mad.

I don’t think it can matter, anyway – the tears, I mean. However hard they cry, the end is the same. A journey alone to troubles that they know not of. There’s no love that can follow them there. I try to follow them, sometimes. As though hell would let me leave. But maybe it is the last mercy. That’s what I dream, sometimes, when it gets too much. As though that would make it better, somehow.

But whatever might await them there, where I cannot go, it is the journey that pains me. What cruelty there is, in being torn from all you know? And what cruelty for those who must remain, to force them to abandon those whom they loved? To know that they too must take alone this journey, and to know not when?

I know, of course. I see when it comes. I see the innocence of youth, and know when it will be snuffed out. I see the dying, who long for release, and I know how long they must linger. And every great statesman, each young maverick who longs for change, I see how short a span they struggle against. I see them burn so bright, but always they must be conquered, until I weep with the crowning of each new king, the heir to a thousand remembered tragedies.

Maybe I could say that that is my purpose in what I do. But that would be a lie. A damnable falsehood, I might say, and though I must suffer here, I have still too much pride to give due cause for my fate. I could say too that I weep for all that none must suffer as I did. That there is one who will mourn you, child of Mil Espáine, no matter how far from all you know you might fall. That would be closer to the truth, I think. It is why I don’t simply walk into the ocean, why I don’t flee from the world, and hide myself away. But in truth, I mourn simply because I can do no other thing. I weep for the ending, for the fear that must come with it. I weep for those who have to be left behind. Even now, even after all these years, I still feel the pain, fresh and new every time, until all that I used to know is numb. I weep because I still care.

Maybe one day I’ll stop.