The Homecoming

At the Midsommar’s dawning, the sun sparkled atop the sea’s silvery surface like watery stars,

The sky echoing with the raucous cries of gulls chasing fishing boats tacking out into the cove.

Fortuna stood motionless on the gray shores, staring unmoving at the ocean deep,

Ignorant of the fishermen as they cast their nets and the gulls soaring greedily high above.

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Neither shifting nor stooping to rest, he ignored the waves rolling and crashing

Around him as if he was no more than a wooden post driven into the soil.

Slowly, slowly the halberd slipped from his fingers to splash unnoticed in the rising surf.

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Pulling off his tunic and pants, walked he naked into the cresting waves,

Their buffeting sometimes pushing him back a few steps before pressing again forward.

Farther and farther out walked he till only his head appeared above the rolling seas.

Disappearing briefly beneath the tall waves, bobbed up his head and began he to swim with rhythmic strokes.

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But when little more than a speck on the far horizon, my vision blurred and saw him I no more.

No one the name his father gave him knew, nor the woman who once nourished him as a babe upon her breast.

Claimed him not, no tribe nor nation, wandered he from town to town calling no place home.

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His halberd, bright and sharp, cleaved many a Saxon helm on Briton’s fields of bloody strife.

But the storyteller’s lip’s trembling, he grew silent, staring forlornly into his ale.

Feared I without gentle coaxing he might again never speak.

Never met I any soldier who did not claim close bonds with the most fortunate one.

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Surely Fortuna had more bonny friends than any man in all the isles of Briton.

But in the eyes of the old man, saw I the truth in his sad gaze.

This was more than mere friendly bond. This man had loved and followed him to the end.

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He had watched him walk into the sea and tarried long enough to know return he never would.

How did you meet? finally asked I.

We caught him as a mute boy stealing grain from our farm and Childless

My woman and I welcomed and raised him our own.

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But when he came of manhood, disappeared he as mysteriously as once

He appeared and broke our poor loving hearts. Never knew we how or why.

Breathing with strong emotion, rubbed he with the back of his hand his poor eyes.

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Many claim to have fought at Ayelsford, said he, but I was there and saw it truly.

In retreat surrendered we the field to the Saxon, King Vortimer,

Pierced cruelly by arrows sharpe and greatly weakened, knelt among the fallen, both friend and foe.

But our good King reviving, his voice boomed ‘FORTOONA!’ above the lusty cries of the foe.

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My lost son charged with deadly halberd raised, in my fury and terror, I yelled, ‘Rally good fellows! Rally to the king!’

‘FORTOONA’ shouted we as one and charged bravely into the hopeless fray.

Saxon arrows flying thickly, many in our host pierced by their cruel darts. But Fortuna was alone unbloodied and uncut.

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When the Saxon King Horsa fell under the stout blows of the king, Vortimer

Cried out ‘FORTOONA’ once more, and the Saxon beaten did retreat.

We bore the good king injured mortal from the field to his barrow long and narrow

To rest him among his ancestor's bones upon sacred Midsommar morn.

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Fortuna would not leave him, weeping goodly tears at his king’s mortal plight,

The dawning piercing the hammer-stone and filling the barrow with healing light.

The king opened his eyes and gazed in surprise at our grief stricken faces before calling weakly for water.

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The priestess shooed all but Fortuna away, as we wondered greatly at the good king’s renewed vigor.

Later upon Midsommar’s eve, a sign appeared in the vast firmament of the starry host,

A long tailed star sailed slowly across the twilight blue.

The fortunate one stared at the wonder in the skies till the priestess left the barrow.

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She began to chant a prayer to its bright visitation. But when I heard her whisper Deus Fortuna,

I realized she wasn’t praying to the star at all, but to our divinely blessed son.

The light in the storyteller’s eyes faded with memories dark returning,

Sweeping away the remembered glory at Aylesford and king’s fortunate healing.

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My heart going out to his grief, I gripped his shoulder tightly, but slow was he to revive and once again speak freely.

But when Fortuna once more abandoned, said he, the Saxon drove us from our land and enslaved our women and young.

Many dying in the hard years following, some of starvation and others under cruel Saxon beatings.

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But however much I longed to hear more, I dared not in his vast grief cheer him.

And sat we together silent, my thoughts bent on Fortuna’s watery fate.

I long knew, whispered he, our son was more than just a man. I knew him when into the rolling seas he strode.

Returned he at last to his godly father Llyr, diving down into its briny deeps for his divine reward.