the ancient one

Connaught, the namesake and King of the lands of Connaught, wed Aife, the famed warrior queen, and in due course of time, she bore him the red-haired prince Connla, the strength of his manly prime. But once Connla's face began to show its first blush of beard, he was bewitch'd by a sparkling, emerald sprite.

When this same faery gifted him a magik apple that was restor'd each time it was eaten, his heart burned with desire to mate man with fae, what ne'er could be in this earthbound realm. So, she invited him to board her crystal ship, a thousand gossamer sails stretching far and wide as eyes could see, and together, man and fae, they soared into the deep blue firmament of day and winged further into the celestial depths of night than any man had afore or since.

But time means nothing in the otherworld where her ship gracefully alighted, a day likened to a thousand ages of men. And there he forever remains, or so my Máthair told me when brushing the carrot red hair from my eyes and kissin' my brow to bid me sleep.

Connor am I, named for the same adventurous Connla, but as I grew to manhood, I was known neither for boldness nor adventure, though in my heart, I desired both above all things. My red hair did not last for long either, turning dark as Irish peat.

Máthair told me many a tale of the faery folk. She left them offerin's every evening after dinner on the kitchen windowsill. This galled my athair, but he ne'er did more about it than roll his broodin’ eyes. When morning dawn'd the offerings were always consum'd and I believ'd in the faeries long after.

When I enter'd my eighth spring, athair began to teach me the goodly secrets of the apple, the same fruit that open'd the eyes of the first of us, and with-it banishment from God's faultless garden. He was a tactiturn man in our little home, but in the orchard his eyes were always lit with fire. He lov'd those trees like a máthair loves the babe at her breast and called everyone of them by name save for the ancient one.

A strong breeze did blow on that first morning, petals with the fresh blush of pinks and pearly whites spinning lazily in the wind, the trees awakenin' from winter's frosty slumber. Athair smiled broadly, exclaiming, The workers have come, Connor. But seeing no one, I gazed at him with confusion.

The bees, me boy, the bees! Gesturing at the trees surrounding us I saw what my gaze had missed in breathless petal snowfall. Thousands of the little fellas flittin' from flower to flower, their rear legs orange with tiny cakes of pollen.

The bees work with the master of the orchard hand and glove, he reverently whisper'd, they grace our orchard when it blooms to make apple blossom honey for their queen and her brood, and we grow the finest dinner and cider apples on all the isle of Ireland.

We watch'd the bees go about their single mind'd business with our hands in our pockets to ward off the morning chill till I began to think that apple growin' was a lark rather than honest labor. I was slow to realize that athair was sharing a private joy, the one task that only the tiny bee could do. There were plenty others as I soon learned.

I'll learn thee to feed the loam where the best apples grow, he finally persist'd, when and how to prune and thin and most importantly how to divert the waters o' the Shannon into the orchard.

He smiled again and rubbed my hair, the happiest I ever saw him sober. Apples need the bees, Connor, they need good loam, they need the sun and they need lots of water. Take any one of these away and the autumn harvest will be lean.

When thou hast mastered all the orchard requires, thou will join your Mathair and I with our neighbors Wassailin' in the orchard as a man.

In those days I still believed that adventure lay in my future, oft dreamin' that if I prov'd myself worthy, I would meet a faery princess bearing an apple superior to any athair would ever grow. Not all sons want to follow in their athair's footsteps.

But I was a good son, and werk'd hard to shew myself approved. In my thirteenth winter, athair gripp'd my shoulders solemnly and told me I was ready for my first wassailin'. Though I still longed for Connla's faery adventures, that night was the proudest of my young life. Even without a manly beard, he introduc'd me to our neighbors as a man, not a boy, and my hand was clapp'd and shook heartily all 'round till my fingers ach'd from a dozen vicelike grips.

The week before, he led me to the oldest tree in the orchard. At fifteen paces, he bid me stay, and approach'd the tree alone. I had oft witness'd him patting the other trees when caring for them and speaking soft words of encouragement and friendship. But before the ancient one, he did not touch but bow'd low. He treated the earth surrounding it as if it were sacred.

That night in the light o' a full moon, he and máthair pour'd the mull'd cider from the wassail bowl together at the old one's roots and everyone lustily cheer'd. My athair believed in the magik of the orchard even if not in faeries and the other fae. He, like all our neighbors believed and depend'd on it for a goodly harvest. In those days we enjoy'd more that were fat than were lean.

But the followin' summer, athair fell off his ladder when thinnin' the apples and broke his back. That's when I enter'd my true manhood, and our family depend'd for the first time upon my mastery of the orchard.

With máthair nursing of athair, when my fourteenth winter came, I alone pour'd the wassail bowl at the ancient one's roots. That year, it was a moonless night, and feelin' the eyes o' a silent watch'r, I was sore afraid.

I turn'd with the torch in my hand and wav'd it back and forth in the blackness, but only darkness answer'd back. When I finally fac'd the ancient one again in the poor light o' my torch I finally beheld the old man imprison'd in the tree that I had ne'er afore seen by the light o' day.

Beginnin' to tremble all over, I felt the sensation of something from the otherworld atop my head that crept ever so slowly down my neck and my broad back, as if anointin' me with an exotic oil or an act o' divine unction.

I do not know what happen'd next for I awoke in the morning at the base of the ancient one as if only dreamin'. A flicker of the distant moment passed me by as if struck dumb, too gossamer to remember, its emotion teasin' me where I lay. For a long time after I believ'd that Connla himself was trapp'd within that tree, the magik apple that he once ate the true secret to our orchard's bounty.

Athair died the next summer, and the care o' the orchard was now truly mine. Máthair passed five years later and my wife and I, her belly swellin' with our first bairn, planted a seedlin' tween her and athair's markers at the orchard's northern edge. They had done the same when his athair and máthair died just as his parent's had once done for theirs. And as the orchard increas'd their bodies would feed the loam as all of their ancestors had done going back more generations than I can count.

Connor Connaught am I, named for Connla the bold. Tho' no adventure have I sought, unexpect'd adventure found me in the wassailin' when I thought I beheld Connla imprison'd within the oldest of the orchard's trees. Though I never witnessed him again, still I bow to the ancient one in reverence in the lean years and the fat, and in both the dark nights and the bright my wife and I sate him from the wassail bowl on the twelfth night just as generations of Connaughts did afore us.

...

Though I am old with wandering/Through hollow lands and hilly lands, /I will find out where she has gone,/And kiss her lips and take her hands;/ And walk among long dappled grass,/ And pluck till time and tides are done,/ The silver apples of the moon, The golden apples of the sun. From The Song of Wandering Aengus - WB Yeats