LEABHAR LIATH NA HAIMIDE : PART ONE – THE FORGE

29 March 2020

Thus begins Leabhar Liath na hAimide, the Grey Book of the Witch-Fool. I am living in the Forge now, among the ruins of the Once-Château in Aquitaine: the Lost Domaine. The Plague has struck, and we have fled to this refuge. In this house, in this place where the Blacksmith plied his trade, in this Demesne, I keep my little family, our hand forced by Fate to make the move that we had often considered but might never have had the courage to effect. Is this merely a blessed parenthesis before a return to some semblance of normal? I somehow doubt it; life cannot go on as before, neither for our family nor for the world. I hope we will build something better out of this strange crisis of contagion and isolation : that this will have been an initiatory period of withdrawal for our whole society, our whole civilization. Certainly for me, that is what’s happening.

I am in the Forge.

I have come home. For twelve years or thirteen now I have been coming here; for most of that time, I have been walking the Land, walking the Old Boundaries, working the sacred and ritual landscape. Visiting the sacred sites, turning tuathalach around the Wheel, making ritual in them, casting spells, communing with the Spirits of the Land. I have learned, I have worked, made offerings, encountered the denizens, danced ecstatically, writhed orgasmically, spilled blood, tears, sweat, seed. I have been acolyte, postulant, I have been servant. I petition now for stewardship; one day, mastery.

This was the tale that was told in the Leabhar Draíocht. It was in learning this Land that I became an Adept; it was in communion with this Land that I began the Path of Druidry. I have made progress, but in the formal course I’m not very far along. Some lessons take longer than others, and this last year has been filled with lessons: hard ones, necessary ones. Sweet ones too. Profound ones. I still have not quite embraced the identity of Druid, because there’s more to what I want. The Druids wear white. They are of the Light, these days at least. But I am of the Light, the Dark, and the Half-Light. I shall wear grey. Draoí Liath. There is a Warlock in me trying to get out. At the Dark of the Moon just past, I began my pupillage with my Dear Teacher. I wrote out my Covenant of the Dark Moon, that I would take his instruction until the Thirteenth Full Moon, or a Year and a Day. We will follow the course of study as set out in the Book. I have undertaken this, and all other conditions as are most fitting. And this first Moon, I must try to Believe. How can I be sure I am not deluded or mad? Do I truly believe? I’m working on it. And so I started my list in my little leatherbound notebook, where I wrote out my Covenant. I will elucidate it here.

This week I have done that, and I have done a Working at this very table. I made and charged and burned a Sigil. A Sigil of Homecoming. I am Come Home. I have always known, every since I first set eyes on the place. And the one time I was permitted to see the Lady of the House this time, to have tea with her at a safe distance, she said it to me, speaking of the House: “I shall entrust it to you, of course.” It is my dream. It has moved closer to the Waking World.

After two weeks of bright Spring sunshine, today was overcast, chilly, windy. I went out in the late afternoon to Walk the Wheel. Black coat and swirling scarf, tweed cap, beech baton de pelerin. Its steel-shod butt striking the ground as I walked the Bounds. First down the potsherd path to the Menhir. The flowers I offered there with the children for Comhnocht an t-Earraigh were still there, stuck in one of the holes. I gently took them out and I embraced the stone, hands against it, head to it, lips to it. More intimately than I ever have. I walked round tuathalach three times and intoned Awen. I looked through one of the holes and saw the green shoot tremble: the other way, and there was a hazy thing with green wings coalescing in the branches of a tree. I called upon the Spirits of the Land. Next I walked the Sunken Path and found the feathers of a Crow, killed by fox or falcon. Just what I needed. “Blessings be upon you Crow, you who died so I might grow.”

Then I walked to the Witch Pond, murky and secret, and tried to test its depth with my staff. This is where I shall wash when I Step Out at Midsummer. It gives me shivers of eerie delight just thinking about it. I went to the Lonely Oak, hard by, and walked around him and placed my hand in a knot upon him. I crossed through the vines and walked alongside the Madman’s Wood. Gathered Oakleaves, put them in my pocket with the feathers. Came upon two walkers ahead with a dog. They both carried batons like mine. Then around to the East, and circled round the Ruined Tower, the Moulin des Rois Mages. I climbed the bank, through Oak and Thorn, and stepped in through the door, and down into the interior. There I cast a circle, with the Celtic Cross in each Quarter, the Four Fathers. I felt the current through me. I blessed, entreated, and petitioned the Spirits. I looked up at the circle of pale grey sky tangled about with branches. I swayed with the current and swirled it down in a spiral with my knife in right hand, staff in left.

I went back out and round to the worn away plaque. I cannot read the words except the year, 1581 (surely not 1381?) and the name, DE LA RIGAULDE. The crest: is it three sheaves of wheat upon that shield? I put my hand on it and spoke to the Old Lord, said I would be his servant, his steward, his successor, his heir. Back through the vines and back to that Breach I found in the Hedge, with a bit of dry-stone wall, back into the Lost Domaine. That is where I will Step Out. And through the Grove, and down to the Altar. And there I doffed my hat and cast my Circle again, singing the names of Bel, Crom, Lír, Dis. I called on all my Lords and Ladies and Companions and asked them to intercede with the Good Folk of the Land, the Spirits here. For I must realise that is what they are. I have reread that Book of which I spoke, today. The Sídhe, the Fae – they are the key to everything. That is how to be a Witch. And as I look back over my life through that lens, I see what he sees: the Witch Mark is strong. The Fae-Touch is strong. The Changeling ways. I am still processing all of that. But I was marked with Death from the start, and grew into an eerie and fey child. When I invoked them at the Altar I felt the rushing and I swayed back with the force of it. Each time I did today, the wind rose and rushed around me in the trees. I felt that chill, that tingling shiver I’ve been feeling. I’ve invited Them in, to be with me in Dream. We have all been weird and tired and drained today. The wind keeps opening the door to the garden. A bird flew against it, rattling it. But I felt the strength and quiet power. And I found the Room in the Ruins. I will go there now, in the Witching Hour.

To be continued in Part II of the

Leabhar Liath na hAimide :

The Ruins

[read part two here : https://thehollowbehindthehearthstone.com/leabhar-liath-na-haimide-part-two-the-ruins/ ]

MALACHAS IVERNUS

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