Priestess of the Fire Temple

same spot, facing the same direction the cat had faced. Much to my surprise I could feel intense activity all around me, even though there were no people or animals to be seen. When I closed my eyes and then reopened them just a bit, I clearly saw four golden pathways stretching in front, behind, and to the sides of me. I sensed that I was sitting at the crossroads of a busy fairy highway, and I could even see the evidence of tiny footsteps in the grass. Yet when I opened my eyes wide and focused on the grass, there was nothing there.

There was a whole other class of creature that lived inside of our roundhouses and barns. The dairy maids were forever weaving little wreaths of milkwort, butterwort, dandelion, or marigold, and binding them with a cord of ivy or red thread, placing them under the milk pails to prevent the milk from being stolen by the fairies or charmed away by evil spirits. And they never failed to pour a bit of each day’s first milking onto the brownie stone near the barn. It was well known that the failure to make the milk offering would result in sickness for the cattle.

In the kitchens the cooks would bank and smoor the fires at night and then leave the bread dough to rise on the warm stones of the hearth. Usually the dough would have risen by morning, but if it didn’t they would blame the fairies. Sometimes things in the kitchen kept disappearing and then reappearing in the most unlikely places. Then the cooks would have to make offerings at their own fairy altar, a small wooden affair hidden in a corner of the kitchen, to placate the house spirits.

I hope that I do not bore you when I tell you these things. Because they are the same things that everyone learns about the spirit realm— part of every person’s basic education.

Mainly I was taught by the Druid to have great respect for the land spirits and the fairies, to develop my relationship with them and to do everything in my power to keep them happy. But I would never mention them in the presence of the Cristaidi for fear of causing offense. In Cristaidi times the fairies were not to be spoken of, as if they no longer existed. But everyone knew they were still there.

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