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make a tale worth telling. Farewell then, Maeve of Tir na mBan, daughter of the Shining Isles.”
    With that Queen Maeve of Connacht walked off towards the rise, growing larger with each step until the wild, limed hair, and massive woad-blue limbs took up the whole sky. Then she disappeared, and I was alone again, watching the morning mist rise from Lake Queen-Maeve-Takes-a-Leak.
    â€œLittle Bright One. Little Bright One.” I recognized my mothers’ voices, though I could not see them, the mist had grown so thick.
    â€œMy name.” I moved my lips and sounded my voice with effort. “My name is Maeve.”

    As soon as I said the word, I found myself looking up into the anxious faces of my mothers. Beyond them, I saw the fruit-laden, blossoming branches of the orchard.
    â€œWhat did you say?”
    For a moment I could not remember anything.
    â€œWhat’s that blue smudge on your cheek?” Fand fingered it. “It looks like woad.”
    Then it all came back. “My name is Maeve,” I told them again. “Queen Maeve of Connacht herself has named me.”
    Maeve. Maeve is my name. How do you say it? Only remember: it rhymes with wave. It rhymes with cave. It rhymes with brave.

CHAPTER FIVE
    THE FIRE OF THE STARS
    C URIOUSLY, THE COMING OF my name affected my mothers more than the advent of my menarche had. I was no longer their Little Bright One but a brazen young hussy named Maeve after a hot-headed, not to mention hot-to-trot, warrior queen. They must have sensed I would soon be completely beyond control. I suppose they viewed it as their responsibility to see to it that I could conduct a cattle war of my own should the need arise. So they set about getting in their last licks, and maternal indulgence became a thing of the past. From dawn to dusk it was drill, drill, drill.
    â€œHep, two, three, four! Haul that lazy carcass off the heather!” Imagine a sergeant-private ratio of eight to one. I didn’t stand a chance. “What do you think this is? A beauty spa? It’s time for target practice.”
    Target practice meant spear casting. My mothers took turns providing a moving target, carefully shielding themselves, of course. None of the exercises was new to me, but before, each was just another game that I could quit when I was bored or tired. Now I constantly had to stretch the limits of my endurance. When I had been Little Bright One, I could do no wrong. All my efforts had met with a stream of praise from a seemingly endless source. Now my mothers hurled insults with more vigor than I hurled the laigen.
    â€œCome on, Maeve! A pig that’s been turning on the spit all day has more life in its limbs than that!”
    â€œOch, lass! You bring shame on your mothers’ heads. For who could believe that the daughter of Manannan Mac Lir would have such lousy aim!”
    â€œI swear, girl, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were turtle spawn.”
    Their taunts had the desired effect. I was furious, and I learned to direct that fury through my arms into a lightning strike. Not only did I become adept at hitting a moving target, I could also cast a spear with some degree of accuracy while standing in a careening battle chariot. Swordplay was even more complicated, involving not only good hand-eye coordination but an encounter with another intelligence. There’s a
great deal of thought involved in single combat, but the trick is to think with the whole body. The beginning swordswoman, like someone learning a language, is hindered by a tendency to translate. My mothers kept at it, pushing and pushing till the barrier between my mind and muscles broke down.
    And I persisted, partly because my mothers gave me no choice, and partly because I wanted to be like Queen Maeve, despite her proviso that I might not necessarily become a warrior. She was an older woman who was not my mother, and I’d encountered her magically. Ergo, I hero-worshipped