Edie
It was April 30th, and the first raindrop of the day fell from my eyelashes onto my cheek as Frank moved out of my peripheral vision, rapidly snapping pictures of the latest stones we were visiting. They were on the western coast of Ireland, in a little town in Donegal, atop a hill with views of the surrounding landscape as far as the Atlantic Ocean. They were called the Beltany stones because they were used for the Beltane fires: sixty-four standing stones that surrounded what may have been an ancient neolithic tomb location. The setting was perfect for a megalithic tomb, I thought, overlooking the landscape the way it did. Whoever was buried here had long been turned to dust, and the stones that might have housed the tomb were scattered across farmsteads now and had been walls or fences for hundreds of years.
“Do you ever feel like someone’s watching you when you come to these places?” Frank asked between snaps.
“You mean like one of my disapproving former archaeology professors?” I asked with a smile. He didn’t look up at me but stared off beyond the standing stones into the horizon.
“No. It just—it gives me a chill down my nape. It’s like we’re here with the ghosts of everyone who was once here to worship or perform rituals, and there’s no sense of time. I mean, look around us.” He spun, his hands out, gesturing. “There’s no sign of modern life anywhere, if you don’t crest the hill to see the cars parked below.”
I looked around us and up at the clouds gathering. “There will be signs of modern life tomorrow when people have left a bunch of beer cans and remnants of half-burned objects after the Beltane fires,” I surmised.
“Why all the pyromania on Beltane?” Frank asked.
“You mean besides the etymology?” I replied.
He squinted his eyes, thinking for a moment. “Bel- Taine’ — Oh, I see—‘bright fire,’” he said slowly and in a Gaelic accent.
“Well, Cormac’s ninth century glossary spells it B-e-l-l-t-a-i-n-e, so it may also refer to the radiance of May because Aine was the ancient Celtic goddess of radiance.”
“So what kind of stuff will Michael and the locals get into at the bonfire tonight?” Frank asked. “This is the research I’m really here for,” he added.
I smiled bashfully. “Traditionally, there are two great fires, and all the village cattle and kine are passed between them for protection. You also make sure that your home hearth is put out before the Beltane fires, and you return home at night with the communal fire to relight the home hearth.”
“I’m going to have to chain-smoke the whole drive home if we want to get our hearth lit by this fire,” Frank said, and I giggled.
“The archaeological record is not definite about this being the kerbstone remains of a passage tomb or a stone circle, so I’m going to compare my measurements and alignments against the other stone circles that are used for the equinoxes and solstices to get a better idea.”
Frank sat against one of the stones and began to peel an orange. “These people sure were good with math and geometry for having no written language,” he said.
“I suppose that’s why I find it all so enchanting,” I said.
“Indeed!” Frank had that light-bulb look again. “Enchant,” he said, “means both to make magic and to sing out. That’s exactly what they did here and exactly what this place is for: enchanting!”
I scribbled that into my notebook so I wouldn’t forget it in my draft of the final chapters later.
Unable to shake the feeling, Frank continued, “No wonder they say the fairies are out and about more on Beltane and Samhain. Today just feels especially eerie, like we could just as easily be the people who were enchanting at these stones or the cave people from Lascaux.”
I sighed, pretending to be irritated. “Yes, I think some old ladies still leave gifts out for the fairies on Beltane and Samhain. But you do know they didn’t live in the Lascaux caves—they just hid their art there—right?”
“Disapproving professors, you say? I thought you were the prize pupil?” Frank asked, returning to the former subject to avoid another lecture on cave art.
“Mmmm, I was Sully’s favorite. Not anyone else’s—that’s for sure,” I replied.
Frank smiled and set his camera down. “So you have some controversial theories?” he asked.
“You could say that,” I replied coyly, rechecking my measurements one last time for precision.
“Why would you want to hide it? Isn’t the point of art to share it?”
“Hide what—oh, the cave art?” I looked up from the numbers I’d been scrawling with a ballpoint pen that had started to run as the rain picked up. I closed the legal pad and stuffed it under my jacket and pulled up my hood. Good old dependable Irish weather, I thought. “If it’s part of a sacred ritual, you probably don’t want it out in the open. Part of the ritual may have, in fact, been processing to the back of the cave toward the art, sort of like what you see in the passage tombs in Britain. It’s almost like they were trying to replicate the caves from mainland Europe and create man-made caves here to preserve the ritual of processing through the darkness. This spot would have been the perfect place for one, which is why I’m thinking these are kerbstones and not a stone circle.” I paused. “It’s time to get out of here. The rain is picking up.”
I looked up and over the ridge behind us at the dark grey skies rolling in from the Atlantic Ocean. The islands of the North and Irish Seas were unpredictable when it came to weather, but the Wild Atlantic Way in the west was another beast altogether. Even seasoned outdoor adventurers like us had trouble knowing exactly when it would start and how long it would last. At least we could count on the internet weather predictions to be dependably wrong.
We made the trek back to Frank’s blue Mini Cooper, which stood out nicely like a bluebird egg against the smoke-colored sky and perennially spring-green grass. As we walked toward the car park, I couldn’t help but think of what Frank had said about the feeling around the stones at this time of year and the pervasive eeriness that the change of seasons brought forth at standing stones and generally, in any cultural landscape. Precisely what was the power that we were witnessing? The vibration of intensity that one felt in such places, which folklore attributes to the fairies. Was that magnetic resonance? Or were the ghosts of our ancestors more present as the veil thinned? I laughed at myself and shook my head. Clearly my superstitious friend was getting to me.
We jumped in the car, lucky not to be forced to depend on ferry timetables this time. We had a bit of a drive across the northern coast, but I was hoping the timing would work out nicely, considering we still had hours before sunset.
“Speaking of man-made caves, don’t you have a free ticket for the winter solstice festivities at Newgrange this year?” Frank asked.
“I do,” I chirped. “And what’s more, I have a plus-one.” I looked over at him out of the corner of my eye to gauge his excitement.
“I know a cute Irish bartender who just so happens to be an ancient history buff; I think you should ask him,” he teased.
“Oh, come on. It won’t be that boring for you! Come with me, please,” I insisted.
“I don’t think it will be boring at all,” he protested. “What are the odds that the sun shines brightly enough to illuminate a thirty-foot-long passage tomb on an early December morning in Ireland?”
I smirked. “You’ll have to check the line in Vegas; I’m not sure, but those stones we just saw have the same alignment, and they’re usually well-lit by 9:04 a.m. when Newgrange is supposed to align.”
“I’m not getting up that early,” Frank said, deadpan.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m starting to find some links between all the local circles we’ve been checking out. Everything is within a 300-mile radius, and the stones align. The 300 is significant because that’s the average mileage that hunter-gatherers would travel within a lifetime. So it seems that as they transitioned from that lifestyle to the village farming lifestyle we know today, that 300-mile distance might have been a holdover.”
I was thinking about how some people must have traveled farther than that and how their culture would have known them as adventurers and explorers, necessary to the fabric of civilization, since they were the ones most likely to spread and trade resources and ideas. “Orkney, for example, was a religious center of the Neolithic in Britain. Several ideas seem to have originated there, like grooved pottery and the neolithic temple complex.”
“But it’s so freakin’ far away.” Frank added.
“Exactly. But it’s only 300 miles away from the Outer Hebrides. They probably went there.” I looked behind me in the rearview at the stones we had just left and the landscape they were stamped on. They were just yards from the sea cliffs, in a wide-sweeping open valley, like so many of the standing stones we had visited: the ones of Orkney and the Hebrides. Unlike the caves of Lascaux, they would have been easy to find and would have made a statement to any unexpected visitors. A chill ran down my spine, and the hairs prickled on my “nape,” as Frank had called it. Maybe it was just the chill of the icy wind coming in through the window, or maybe Frank was right—we were in a thin place at a thin time.
Frank sat in the driver’s seat, overhearing me whisper the last part to myself. “Is that what your book says? That it’s a thin time?” He gestured to the book on ley lines I had sitting on my lap.
“No, not that book, but I do remember reading somewhere that All Hallows’ Eve falls on the day of the year when souls feel closest to Earth because there’s something about the light that makes us feel the veil between this world and the next is lifted a bit,” I answered.
“Sounds like Poe to me,” Frank said.
I smiled and agreed. “Beltane, as we said, is the same type of festival as Samhain—the midpoint between the solstice and the equinox. We’re onto something,” I told him. “I can feel it—the precipice of knowing.”
“Quite literally the precipice,” Frank said, looking down at the jagged cliffs that dropped into the sea below us as we drove west.
I was glad we had left when we did. The Mini Cooper chugged around the tight mountain bend, and the windshield wipers danced frantically in the heavy April rain. Frank pulled over at the first pub we saw.
“So other than visitation of souls that have already transitioned, what can happen in a thin time?” he asked as he turned off the car, the swish of the wipers stopped, and the rain pounded down on the windshield.
“The energetic vibrations become clearer. I think some people actually feel the shift in the earth, and I think our connection to people, whether they’re ancient, passed on, or right in front of us, is clarified and strengthened. Like you said, it happens on Samhain too, which is why Halloween is all about communion with the dead and spirits. But it can happen any time, really, as energies shift or important moments occur. Have you ever seen a baby stare right past you, intent on something not there, knowingly smiling into oblivion? Or do you ever have déjà vu and know with every fiber of your being that you’ve lived or dreamt the moment you’re experiencing before? Sometimes when I’m doing field work over a ley line or in a spiritual place, I feel…a certain presence. I can’t explain it, but I think you’re supposed to feel what you felt at the stones, that knowing and feeling of coexistence with the people from before…and the people to come after.”
I reached out and turned up the Celtic flautist on the radio to form a trinity of ultrarelaxing sounds: the rain, the sound of cars on the road behind us, and the thin whine of the wooden flute.
“I like the sound of that. The fire tonight is going to clarify some connections, I believe,” Frank said mischievously. He turned his whole body in the tiny seat to look at me—or to read my reaction perhaps.
I took a deep breath, focused my gaze forward, and, squinting into the cascading water, silently agreed to the unfolding scheme. “Maybe, but what are the chances that the rain stops and Michael actually turns up?” I asked.
“Pretty good, I think,” Frank responded, gleefully.
Just then, a rap at the passenger-side window, which I was leaning against, startled me out of my skin. I think I screamed a little. Frank jumped out of the car and ran over to Michael, embracing him. They ran into the pub together, and I gathered my books and notepads into my pack. I pulled the mirror down from the visor, applied some Carmex to my lips, smoothed my wet eyebrows into submission, and tightened my long, dark ponytail. I was practical. My clothes were, my face was, and so was I.
“Time to live a little, in the name of research,” a small voice said inside of me. So I pulled my Wellies back on and ran inside.
“You must be seriously blind if you don’t go for this guy, Edie. He is gorgeous,” Frank whispered to me as we watched him procure our pints and pub grub from a female bartender he clearly knew. He walked over, expertly balancing the triune pints before setting them down on the table, and I greeted him with a handshake and a small smile of apology. Frank covered his face with his hands at my awkwardness.
“Sorry about the rain. I hope it’s not canceled.” My introvert heart lurched at the possibility of not having to go to my first fire festival in years, but that suggestion solicited a hearty laugh from our host for the evening festivities.
“No need to apologize for the Irish weather, love. You’ll likely find it will only encourage our Beltane celebrators.” Except he said it in the truly Gaelic way: “Be-all-tee-nay.” “They’re not deterred by much, especially weather.” He smiled and held his hands up to the sky, where distant thunder could be heard offshore.
“We went to the site and saw that the woodpiles ready to burn were covered, so that’s good at least,” Frank said.
Michael took my hand in his and brushed my fingertips, smiling with mystery behind his eyes, “I knew ye’s been playing in the dirt.”
I pulled my hand away, despite the butterflies I felt in my chest. “You must be some barfly,” I insisted. “We’ve hardly seen you anywhere else but the pubs dotting the northern countryside.”
“You could say that.” He nodded as our food was delivered.
We ate, saying little other than remarking on what to expect from the evening’s festivities, waiting for the rain to let up. It did finally. And I dragged the last of my mushy peas through some tartar sauce. Michael’s description of the festivities had made it seem less magical than Frank and I were dreaming it would be and more practical, like a mundane village activity. I was feeling a little crestfallen as we followed him up the hill to the muddy parking area by the stones, and then I saw it. The warm light of a huge fire and hundreds of torches began to take shape in the distance as my eyes adjusted to the dark. We jumped out of the car and started the ascent like moths to a porch light. A flutter of excitement bubbled up in my chest, and Frank clasped his hand around mine as we approached. Michael waved to some locals and procured our very own torch—a real one, not a flashlight.
Frank pulled me to him and whispered, “It’s Be-al-tee-nay,” the way Michael had said it. “Connections are clarified and strengthened, like you said.” He winked at me and held his cigarette between his lips to light it. Before he could ignite his Zippo in the weak drizzle that the rain had eased into, Michael reached over with a lit match.
“Yes, they are, in this world and beyond, loves!” he added with a grin. I felt my cheeks burn; he handed me the torch and grabbed my free hand. “Now, let’s dance!”