Magdalen Rising (48 page)

I can't tell you how many days and nights I survived in that boat. I suppose I could have made notches with my knife, but it didn't occur to me to keep count while I still had my wits, and later I was delirious. At first it wasn't so bad. I was well fed and watered before I left. I even slept comfortably that first, mild night. In my dreams I saw women, women everywhere, women I knew, and women I didn't know, keeping watch: My mothers grouped on the beach at Tir na mBan, the Cailleach bending over the pool between Bride's breasts. The Crows watching from the crags of Holy Island, Branwen and Viviane with them. Dwynwyn standing on the tip of her island. Then I saw others: women on the top of a tall promontory that rose abruptly from flat land, women on shores and islands I'd never seen. All watching, eyes trained on some distant point.

In the last dream that first night, I saw a woman on a marshy shore. She was pacing back and forth with a bright-haired baby in her arms, singing softly:
Jewel of the night, thou new moon.
I somehow knew that the baby was my daughter, and that the woman loved her. In that
knowledge, my pain did not lessen, exactly, but it loosened, holding me gently as the woman held my child.

Day after night after day I rode the billows, which seemed to me like the strong, rippling muscles of my father's arm. Manannán Mac Lir, Lovernios lost to the wave, they were the same being now. And I woke every morning to Grainne's touch on my face. I did not struggle to survive. I surrendered to survive. Orphaned, exiled, the sea and the sky became my mother and father. I drank the rain, and I milked my own breasts with one hand, licking the drops that fell on the other. Often my boat was surrounded by dolphins. They sang and talked to me, and I had no difficulty understanding their language or they mine. I chanted —word perfect!—all the stories I had learned laboring under the stone. I told them my mothers' stories, too. I told them the story of Maeve and Esus, which they liked best of all. Once or twice a day the dolphins tossed fish into my boat, which I cleaned with my knife and ate raw.

Then—and this is my last distinct memory of the voyage—I heard a voice: the Cailleach's, Dwynwyn's, my mothers', Moira's. In different ways, the voice belonged to all of them.

“Lie down, Maeve Rhuad, Little Bright One. Cleave to the bottom of the boat. We've got to step up the pace a little. There's going to be some weather, honey, but you'll be all right. Lie on your back. Trust us.”

Then the storm began. Day and night were lost in each other as the sky was lost in the huge, black waves that towered over my boat. If I had lost consciousness face down, I would surely have drowned. As it was, I kept my nose above water and merely lost what was left of my mind. And a good thing, too. A mind is no asset under such circumstances.

Then everything stopped. The whole world lay still as if it had died. At some level of myself, I registered that stillness like a shock, even though I was inert and unconscious. When the warmth came, I felt that, too. Something hard and muscled and rich with scent lifted me and gathered me to itself. The world moved again, plodding steadily. That went on for a long, long time.

At last I was lowered onto something soft. I felt the tickle of many breaths close to my face. Someone touched my lips with something. Instinctively, I put out my tongue and tasted. I remembered the word. Honey. Women's voices began to speak in a dialect I did not know. Yet I understood what they were saying. It was simple.

“She will live.”

When I began research for
Magdalen Rising,
my knowledge of things Celtic was limited to an amateur appreciation of Celtic music, art and the writings of W.B. Yeats and James Stephens. When the idea came to me that Mary Magdalen was a Celt, I thought, What fun! Then I began to read scholarly works about the ancient Celts' reverence for severed heads. I learned that the Celts ended up in the misty, magical British Isles after sweeping across Europe in warrior hordes, sacking cities as they went, leaving the odd sacrificial body in the bog here and there. Are you sure you want to be a Celt? I asked the Magdalen. She was.

I studied the Celts for months before I began to write and continued to do research through first draft and revisions—a period of about five years. I learned about the Roman and Greek accounts of the Celts from traditional scholars like T.G.E. Powell, Anne Ross and Stuart Piggot. I was most affected by Tacitus's description of the Roman general Suetonius's hair-raising crossing of the Menai Straits to the sacred Druid Isle of Mona where his troops were met and temporarily halted by the sight—and sound!—of shrieking, black-robed priestesses. From Robert Graves's classic,
The White Goddess,
I gleaned knowledge of the ogham alphabet and its wealth of meanings. Jean Markale's
Women of the Celts
was helpful in deepening my knowledge of Celtic myth and literature, its recurring images and themes, as were Alwyn and Brinley Ree's
Celtic Heritage
and the many books by John and Caitlin Matthews. And of course I read the famous
Tain Bo Cuailnge
(
The Cattle Raid of Cooley
) starring Maeve/Magdalen's infamous namesake, Queen Medb of Connacht. For an understanding of Celtic religion and ritual, I am particularly indebted to lectures and articles by Alexei Kondratiev, Tom Cowan's
Fire in the Head: Shamanism and the Celtic Spirit,
John Sharkey's
Celtic Mysteries,
and Anne Ross and Don Robin's
Life and Death of a Druid Prince.
Peter Berresford Ellis's
Dictionary of Celtic Mythology
was a great resource. I continue to keep
Carmina Gadelica, Hymns and Incantations collected in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland in the Last Century
by Alexander Carmichael close at hand.

Part way through the first draft, I took a trip to the Hebrides and Anglesey (Mona) Wales. Although you will not find Tir na mBan (The Land of Women) on a map, the Hebrides seemed the nearest thing to those mythic isles. I wanted to get a feel for the contours of the land, of its air and light. I did much more specific research on Anglesey. Using
an Ordinance Survey Map and mindful of Tacitus's account of the Roman attack, I chose a site for the Druid college. Caer Leb, Caer Idris, and Bryn Celli Ddu are all real sites along the Afon Braint within walking distance of each other, the Menai Straits, and the two standing stones (still standing) described in the book. I also explored Holy Island, where I imagine the priestesses to have lived, and the environs of Llyn Cerrig Bach, now an airstrip, once a shallow lake chock full of votive offerings. I asked local inhabitants where first century boats might have safely landed. The most exciting discovery on that trip was a tiny tidal island called Llanddwyn, home of Dwynwyn, a fifth century hermit-saint whose oracular eels could predict a maiden's fortune in love. As many saints have pre-Christian roots, I did not think Dwynwyn would mind having an earlier incarnation. She gave the book a climax that surprised me as much as it did our Maeve.

As for researching Maeve's cosmic counterpart, Esus/Jesus, I refreshed myself about his background by reading Harry M. Orlinsky's
Ancient Israel
as well as large chunks of
The Jerusalem Bible.
Stories of Jesus's childhood come from
The Apocrypha.
For information about the Temple of Jerusalem, which appears in Maeve's dream, I consulted The Rev. Bruce Chilton of Bard College as well as reading his book,
The Temple of Jesus, His Sacrificial Program within a Cultural History of Sacrifice.
I also thank The Rev. Chilton for directing me to
The Mishnayoth.

I often despaired of my ability to retain information, so I wrote amidst a sea of books, gradually absorbing a worldview. Head hunters or not, it is hard not to love the Celts, a flamboyant people who loved to hear themselves talk and who revered the power and magic of the spoken word.

“MAEVE.
MAEVE
IS MY NAME.

HOW DO YOU SAY IT?

JUST REMEMBER: IT RHYMES WITH WAVE. IT RHYMES WIT CAVE.

IT RHYMES WITH BRAVE.

 

 

Praise for
MAGDALEN RISING
“THIS AMAZING BOOK COULD WELL BECOME
A CLASSIC OF WOMEN'S LITERATURE.” - BOOKLIST

 

 

Praise for
THE PASSION OF MARY MAGDALEN
“THE PASSION OF MARY MAGDALEN explodes off the page with its tales of love,
hope, power, and redemption, making it a great read for a wide variety of peoples
book clubs looking for a great discussion, take note.”
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“THE BOOK BECOMES A GOSPEL IN ITSELF...ANYONE WHO READS IT
WILL NEVER APPROACH THE CANON THE SAME WAY AGAIN.
THE PASSION OF MARY MAGDALEN IS A TOUR DE FORCE.”

'EPISCOPAL LIFE MAGAZINE
SASSY, SALTY, SEXY—THOSE WITHOUT AN IRREVERENT SENSE OF
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