Read Online The Pirate Queen by Barbara Sjoholm - Free Book Online Page A

This is something I could imagine the real Irish sea queen Grace O’Malley doing. In fact, there’s a story about Grace that has her asking for hospitality at Howth Castle north of Dublin. Turned away at the gate, she retaliated by kidnapping the owner’s grandson, whom she encountered on the beach. She took the boy back with her to Clew Bay, refusing to return him to his frantic relatives unless a single condition was met: No one should ever be turned away from Howth Castle again. For four hundred years this tradition has been observed. The gate to Howth Castle is always open now, and a place laid at the table.
    The Cailleach and Muileartach faced no opposition in their line of work; they were omnipotent forces, unchallenged in a world where the violence of wind and waves could only be worshipped and revered, never controlled. But as the later stories of the Cailleach as a beautiful girl who turns into a hag attest, that ancient power flagged over the centuries. The storm goddess, who did her washing in the whirlpool of Corryvreckan and lashed her frothy sheep and goats into a tempest of white wool,became a worn-out old woman. Prevented from drinking at the stream where she traditionally renewed her energy, she gave up, and withered to nothing.
    The northern waters have another sea goddess, the benign sea deity and summer spirit, the Mither o’ the Sea, often invoked by fishermen in Orkney and Scotland. She brought warmth to the ocean and stilled its storms; she filled the waters with fish. Her enemy was the winter spirit, Teran, and each March, around the vernal equinox, they fought each other. It was Teran’s voice in the howl of the March gales and the thunder of the waves. When the storms subsided, the fishing folk knew the Mither o’ the Sea had defeated Teran, wrapped him tight as a baby in swaddling clothes and thrown him to the bottom of the ocean. Sooner or later, in autumn, Teran escaped again and fought the Sea Mither in a series of shrieking storms known as the gore vellye, or “autumn tumult.” In winter he was victorious and she was bound and banished. In this story it was the male who created storms, and the female who stilled them, quite the opposite of the Cailleach, whose calendar corresponded to Teran’s. In some tales the Cailleach turned to stone April 30 and came alive again October 31. This year she seemed to have missed her deadlines, for it was May and she was still kicking the waters into a froth and bringing the fury of the clouds down upon us.
    M IDAFTERNOON I went out again, braving the howling winds coming at me over the esplanade. I made another phone call to the small cruise company, left another message. There was a library across the street from my guesthouse, a tiny one upstairs in a municipal building. I went in to ask about usingtheir computer to access my email, and met the first of many librarians who would answer my question, “Do you have anything on women and the sea?” with complete aplomb. This one had a sense of humor. I had titled my email message “From Bonnie Wet Scotland.” Passing by, he remarked, “May I call you Bonnie?” He helped me find some books of folklore with stories of the Cailleach. The library was a busy place, not exactly with individuals reading books, but with people crowding in to exchange gossip. In a room off the corridor opposite, a screech of little girls in school uniforms practiced the violin for a coming concert.
    Later I wandered around Oban, dipping into shops to get out of the persistent downpour. On a summer’s day the shops advertising ice lollies and shellfood (winkles and cockles) would be doing a brilliant trade. Today people were huddled inside teashops or bakeries, eating, if the signs in the windows were any indication, delicacies like Jap Fancies and Chelsea buns. Tartan-vending establishments were selling everything from thimbles to throw rugs in the family clan motif. One shop