Smighean

In the early days of the British Isles, the witches and warlocks of legend could be found in every village from John O' Groats to Landsend, as healers, court viziers, soothe-sayers and local wisdom keepers. These druids of the ancient world were well respected and honourable, but like all people, and the gods of pagan pantheons, they were selfish and fickle in nature; Prone to bouts of passion and fury if their loyalties and boundaries were ever betrayed. Smighean was a healer and prophetic priestess of the warmer climes in the South of Great Britain. An olive skinned black-haired maid borne from the union between a traveling Mediterranean potion-master and a Cornish white witch. Her affinity with the Sidhe and Fae's magic realms was exceptional, even when the veil between worlds was entirely unthinned by the celestial cycles. Having been raised entirely by her Mother, schooled in the magic arts since she could draw runes, she had no time for grand ideas and lived a very humble life, despite her obviously exceptional abilities, in a shelter woven from the myrtle plants of the forest itself, by a forgotten ancestor of her matrilineal line.

Returning from conquest in lands far to the south of what would one day be Britain, the sons of a North-Western clan chief lay dying from festering wounds aboard a ship come to dock on the coast, a week's ride from Smighean's local market-place. Many infestations and poisons lay in their wounds. While Domhnall, the eldest, and his brothers Matain and Angus, had found victory and glory in the battles of this recent campaign. They had fallen victim to their hubris and the cunning of their enemies; who'd laced their weapons with curses and poisons that now threatened the lives and the succession of their clan. As the crew began bringing the wealth of treasures from foreign lands and the dying men ashore, riders would already be bringing Smighean and other local healers from the surrounding villages; having been summoned to do so by the boys' father. The clan chief having sent ravens ahead of the ships' landfall. It was late Spring and the healers would work tirelessly the whole summer to mend and dispel the horrible fates in store for these clan princes. All under the guidance of Smighean as her prowess with the energies of the craft became quickly apparent to the other healers.

As the men began to mend and their faculties returned, as is often the case with warriors who glimpse the gentle grace of a powerful healer, Smighean and Domhnall began to develop affections for each other. Matain and Angus too would be smitten with some of her sisters in the arts. However, some particularly potent curses could not be lightly undone from the men by the magic of the transient Coven. In a fateful misfortune, Catherine, who was smitten by Angus's charms, was outmatched by the ritual they performed to draw the curse out of the boy and into herself. There its veracity would be diminished and it could then be extinguished. Smighean had wanted to be the vessel herself but Cathrine had insisted it could only be her that saved the life of her love. Her arrogance on this would be her end. They all wept but had little time to mourn as this was by far the end of that gruelling summer and there was far more work to be done to heal the lads. When the summer was over Smighean was betrothed to Domhnall and she moved Northwards to the clan castle to be with her new husband.

33 years later at the approach of Beltane, the clan chief, now exceptionally old, lay at deaths door, after a full life, kept virile and healthy far beyond his years by Smighean, Ciri and Shonagh, the later 2 now the wives of Matain and Angus. They had also been healers during that fateful Summer. However Angus had never truly gotten over Catherine's death, he blamed Smighean, convinced she had somehow orchestreted the failure of the ritual, to cement her authority in the coven. Meanwhile Matain wasn't the faithful husband Ciri's loved ones would have wanted for her, siring many bastards with many other women. The locals never really took to these Southerners granted high stations among their people. Insidious gossip mocking the Sassenach women was rife among the local clans-folk. As their father had lay dying, Angus and Matain conspired to remove Domhnall from the line of succession and get rid of the witch that killed Catherine. Using knowledge they learned from their wives, they had been poisoning their Father and orchestrating the framing of Domhnall and Smighean along the way. Until the night of his death, when they revealed the fanciful betrayal as the clan gathered to mourn. The younger brothers however, underestimated the callousness and cunning of Domhnall.

Since the night she first lay with Domhnall, Smighean had never conceived a child. But she had conceived of terrifying dreams, omens and portents she'd either been unable, or unwilling, to decipher all these years. In a dream she relived every full moon, three roots, from a grove of mighty Oaks, rose from the rock around her, lifting stones from the earth. The largest of the three rocks had the likeness of Domhnall, the other 2 were turned to face away from her, gazes fixed on the Oak grove. As the rock with the likeness of her husbands face turned towards the grove also, three shoots of myrtle were thrown forth surrounding her as the ground around them became arid and lifeless, cracking. As the ground gave way, in a cocoon of myrtle, she fell towards a shaman of an old world, chanting around a fire in an ancient tongue she could make out but not understand. As his chanting continued the fire rose, bent around the cocoon, and began to char the Oaks bark; gnawing away at it with flames in the form of tiny insects, as she fell, in the cocoon of myrtle, into the shaman's hearth, she awoke.

With wit and guile Domhnall managed to redirect the mourn-filled rage of the clan members, taking pity on his brothers, he found common cause with them. With a duplicitous outburst of theatrical politicking he began blaming the 3 witches for poisoning their minds. There was only one way that it all could end. As their impromptu sham trial drew to a close, the 3 Women were shackled and entombed in a pyre, as the kith and kin of the deceased clan chief, possessed by a vengeful blood-lust, set it ablaze and jeered. Ciri and Shonagh struggled, panicked and pleaded through their imprisonment. Smighean however remained calm and whispered in some arcane tongue under her breath as she was shackled, caged and burnt. She now understood her powers of prophecy were preparing her for this, for their final moments.

Domhnall shed no tears, showed no remorse, for tossing her to the wolves to save his own skin and title. The brothers didn't hesitate to go along with their loyal brothers scheme and rid themselves of their unloved wives. Smighean continued to repeat the chant of the ancient shaman who had visited her in the dreams, she reached out a comforting embrace to her sisters. As the flames began to lick them, as their lives ended in a blood-curdling scream, the ashes carried up in the smoke would release a plague on the land. The ashes and embers thrown up by the murderous fire would transform into the many biting insects that harass the British Isles, midges, ticks and cleggs. To this day they still feast delightedly on those whose veins run thick with the blood of that murderous clan of marauders and bandits; and anyone else who sets foot in their lands. From the ashes that littered the ground beneath the fire, which had been lit atop a soggy moorland, after it dulled, a plant of bog-myrtle would spring, the leaves of which could be used as a balm to ward off the insects bites. A small act of grace for those who knew the healer's craft to counter the insects' harassment of these lands.