Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Come Away, O Human Child

Illusion, magic, seduction ... a tangled knot of obedience and betrayal, loss and a desire for vengeance give rise to Isolt's enchantment.

Ahead, an enormous marble palace seemed to rise from the ground. Its polished turrets pierced a darkening sky. Isolt dropped Tarquin’s hand. Her elegant feet refused to take another step.  She wrapped her arms around herself to quell the uncontrollable shivering that possessed her. Tarquin faced her. His face swirled in a spiral. Isolt rubbed her eyes. All this marching. She was exhausted.

He held a key forged from a luminous dark metal in his palm. She let her gaze rise. His shock of blond hair and familiar broad shoulders shushed the foreboding within.

“This is our home,” he said. “Use the key to unlock the door. Please, so we can live here forever.”

With one hand cradling her belly, Isolt reached with the other. The metal was so smooth. So mesmerizing. Clutching the mysterious key, she walked slowly to the palace door. The key practically slipped itself into the lock. As she turned it, she looked back to smile at her beloved king.

He waved her on as she pushed opened the door.

A malignant force gripped her and yanked her within. The air reverberated. The walls of the palace disintegrated.

No one heard her cries.

Her first thought was of her son. There was no way to save him.—Isolt's Enchantment.

Loreena Mckennit sings about faery's and the seduction of a nameless human child in Stolen Child:

 

Stolen Child lyrics:

Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water-rats
There we've hid our faery vats
Full of berries
And of reddest stolen cherries

[Chorus:]
Come away, O human child
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand
For the world's more full of weeping
Than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim grey sands with light
By far off furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles
Whilst the world is full of troubles
And is anxious in its sleep.

[Chorus]

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams

[Chorus]

Away with us he's going
The solemn-eyed
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.

[Chorus]

For he comes, the human child
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand
For the world's more full of weeping
Than you can understand.
Isolt of the Waters is an ancient water elemental whose betrayal and enchantment has forever changed the Whole. When a young scholar in Idonne discovers her story, along with tales of dwarf magic and the birth of Umbra—a malevolent entity dwelling in the Void—he dreams of a life filled with adventure and heroism.
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