The Keltoi
by Cally Phillips
Genre: Historical
Swearwords: None.
Description: A glimpse of life in the Galloway hills of Scotland in the 6th Century BC.
_____________________________________________________________________
I run, I run. Upstream along the banks of the swiftly flowing river, past fish which leap in the dancing water, I run. Above is the fiery sun, burning in the evening sky; the sky a bright cloudless blue. Under my feet is the green, green grass. Lush and verdant, wild grasses blowing their life-giving pollen in the gentle breeze, clinging to my clothing as I brush them in my passing.
Ever on, upstream, running, running. Knowing as I reach the turn in the bend what I will see. Who will be waiting for me. I stand for a moment at the head of the river, looking at my home; our home. Knowing they will be waiting for me. That nothing will start without me.
Unobserved they go about their business. Through the branches of the trees I view them, see their life as it is without me. Knowing they will welcome my return, my news, my stories. There is Maedbh, my woman. She blows the glass well, making beautiful shapes, vessels of pure blue and green, vessels for the feasting and for trading. Her quick skill is evident even from a distance. Her love of working the glass shines through in her eyes. She sings as she works.
My eyes turn to Donnan; master of bronze. He strikes the brooch fair and true. He watches the pattern take shape. He stands beside a pile of brooches. Behind him grows a pile of unacceptable work - good only for melting down when we have a big fire. He accepts only perfection in his craft. The stalls of my village, the bustle and the life. Everywhere is colour. Everywhere is sound.
My heart beats fast in my chest. It is there I want to be. Back with my people, talking, drinking, laughing and loving. It is to them I run after my time by the sea; my time waiting for signs of the sailors return.
Through the village I walk. Greetings on all sides. I am home. The children and dogs gather round me, crying out for news of the departed ones. It will be a great night at the feasting, in three nights from now, I say. When the sailors return. The children clamour to know what the sailors will bring back with them. Silk, I say. Perhaps silk and we will all have new clothes for the winter. Skins they will bring - treated skins from the land beyond the foam. What will our brooches and pottery bring, they ask? What will be our reward for the hours we spent gathering wood for fires and keeping out of the way of the workmen? Toys, I say. Dolls from far away. Strange looking dolls, which the people of the lands over the foam prize most highly. We shall give them to our children, for their amusement. And what else, they beg me? What else will the sailors bring? They will bring stories, I say. Stories of strange lands, of strange people and of things beyond your imagination. Of lives unlike ours and of people who do not live in great round houses like us. Of people who do not wear fine linen clothing. Of people who carry swords and are fierce and who worry of things which do not exist. People who have to have a name for everything under the sun. Who call us the Keltoi. The children laugh. Why do they name us, they ask? Why the Keltoi? Why a name for us? We know who we are.
I tell them that in the world beyond the foam - and even maybe in this land, beyond the forest and the high mountains, people live a different life, less peaceful, less happy. These people have to give names to everything. Give everything a name and a place in the world. From highest to lowest. The children laugh. The sun is highest they say - except in the winter. I also laugh. Yes, the sun is a god for many of them; because they think it is the highest not only in the sky. And also in winter, they ask? How can the sun be a god? What is a god? Why do these people need a god?
I have no answer to that question. I do not know these people. Once only I have travelled in the boat, over the sea, through the pounding foam to the lands beyond. Once when I was little more than a boy - a boy trying to be a man. Limbs were strong but somehow the inside of my being revolted against travelling and all I remember is the swell of the sea, making me sick. My inside being, telling me not to travel. To stay at home and to find my stories from the rocks and the rivers of my homeland. So I have no answer. The sailors have no answer. None of us can understand why these people need a god. A being to look up to. To explain things and to worship and to blame. We laugh, me and the children. Perhaps, I say, it is because they are not happy, like us. They need a god to make them happy.
How will a god make them happy? The children ask and I have no answer. Maybe, I say, they need to feel that they understand everything. What is to understand, they ask? Why the sun is higher in the summer time, why the snow falls in the bitter cold of winter. Why people die and fall in love and where do we go when we leave our bodies behind in old age. One boy, a tall boy and fair - next year's sailor- standing a head above the rest, looks me clear in the eye. How will such knowledge make them happy? I shrug my shoulders. I do not know. Caeradh speaks. She is a slender girl, but strong. She will be a great woman one day soon. She says that such knowledge is impossible. And that thinking about such things will only make these people unhappy, not happy. Why question the sun? she says. Why ask meaning of the snow? What does it matter where our bodies lie in the future. We feel in the present. We exist in the present. We are here, among love and laughter. What more can make us happy?
I leave the children and I am happy with the thoughts of the future. Long after I lie in the ground, after I no more run beside the river, they will be here, talking and laughing and wondering about the world. ‘Who can question the wind?’ Caeradh calls after me. ‘It goes where it will, in us and round us and through us. It is unseen power. But this is not a god. This is the wind. It is free. It does not belong to us. We do not have to give it a name for it to exist. It will blow on our valleys long after we have moved from this place. It blew across our forest before we came here, before we were cut from our mothers flesh. If we give the wind a name it is wind. Not god’.
Her voice carries to me on the very air she speaks of. She is going to be a wise woman one day, that Caeradh. I reach Maedbh. She is Caeradh's sister and they share a feeling for the world and the way things are. A way beyond understanding. Maedbh is beautiful to me. She is the one I knew it would be worth giving of myself for. And soon I will plant a seed in her. A seed which will grow into a fine girl or boy- a fine example of the truth of our love. Soon I will work for her, giving of myself until I can do no more. And we will see if that is enough. If I can match her. For now, she blows the glass. She smiles at me and shows me her work. Will the people of the land beyond the foam like this glass, she asks me? I pick it up, feeling its smooth shape, looking through its opaqueness. They will like it, I say. They will wonder who is the skilful craftsman who made this. And they will think it is a man? She laughs. They do not think a woman can blow glass, across the foam? Women across the foam may not do such tasks, I say. In the lands where the people who need gods live, everything must be done in a pattern unlike ours. It is not who is best, but what is proper that matters to them.
But what is proper, she asks? How can they know what is proper to do? Only to do what you can must be proper. They live by names not by doing, she says. That must be why they want our vessels. We breathe life into the glass and let it form a shape. We do not give it a name and ask it to be a certain way. We make it as it wants to be. And that is proper to us.
As the sun falls behind the trees, we prepare for the evening. Tonight we will all meet in the large round house, to share our food, to talk of the return of the sailors. To imagine what they will bring back with them. To speak of the work we have done in preparation for next season's trading. Of where we will store our glass and our gold through the long winter months so that it will be ready for the sailors when they leave in the spring. But most of all we will be waiting with our hearts, for them, our loved ones, to return. Then we will have a feasting. Tonight we will decide how to prepare this feasting. Who will go after the boar? Who will make the bread? Who will decorate the walls?
Already as I enter the hall, it is splendid. Rich cloth from earlier tradings, and beautiful patterns made by our own weavers, hang from the walls. Inside this hall is our own world. Our creation as a mirror to the world outside, created of nature. If Nature were a god, then here in our own hall, we too would be gods. But we have no need of gods. We have family. We have each other. We have no need of names and of explanations. It is enough that we are here.
The fire burns fiercely in the hall. Many children have gathered wood for this blaze. It will stay alight now until the return of our sailors. We will feed it day and night because we want to welcome them home, to let them know we have been thinking of them, missing them, wanting their return. They will return to our brightness, from the variance of the world over the wild waves. They will find that we are unchanged. Despite the strange things they have encountered, they will know that here, all is as it was. Here is home. Here they are not strangers, but welcome, our family. Here they are not the Keltoi - here they are part of us.
I rest by the fire. Tomorrow, I will be part of the hunting party. We will chase the boar through the forest until we catch him. We will catch many boars and we will bring them home to roast. The air will hang sweet with the smell of their cooking. Others will catch fish, yet others will stay at home and cook, preparing our feasting. Grain and leaf and bird and beast. All things from our land will be used in the feasting. All things we can eat and drink will be there. Gathered, hunted, garnered - it will be the big feasting before the sun goes low in the sky and the days become shorter. We will fill our bellies for days - with food and drink and laughter. And then we will prepare for the oncoming of the snow. I know I am happy. I have no answers to the past and no questions for the future, I am of my time and I am complete.
Swearwords: None.
Description: A glimpse of life in the Galloway hills of Scotland in the 6th Century BC.
_____________________________________________________________________
I run, I run. Upstream along the banks of the swiftly flowing river, past fish which leap in the dancing water, I run. Above is the fiery sun, burning in the evening sky; the sky a bright cloudless blue. Under my feet is the green, green grass. Lush and verdant, wild grasses blowing their life-giving pollen in the gentle breeze, clinging to my clothing as I brush them in my passing.
Ever on, upstream, running, running. Knowing as I reach the turn in the bend what I will see. Who will be waiting for me. I stand for a moment at the head of the river, looking at my home; our home. Knowing they will be waiting for me. That nothing will start without me.
Unobserved they go about their business. Through the branches of the trees I view them, see their life as it is without me. Knowing they will welcome my return, my news, my stories. There is Maedbh, my woman. She blows the glass well, making beautiful shapes, vessels of pure blue and green, vessels for the feasting and for trading. Her quick skill is evident even from a distance. Her love of working the glass shines through in her eyes. She sings as she works.
My eyes turn to Donnan; master of bronze. He strikes the brooch fair and true. He watches the pattern take shape. He stands beside a pile of brooches. Behind him grows a pile of unacceptable work - good only for melting down when we have a big fire. He accepts only perfection in his craft. The stalls of my village, the bustle and the life. Everywhere is colour. Everywhere is sound.
My heart beats fast in my chest. It is there I want to be. Back with my people, talking, drinking, laughing and loving. It is to them I run after my time by the sea; my time waiting for signs of the sailors return.
Through the village I walk. Greetings on all sides. I am home. The children and dogs gather round me, crying out for news of the departed ones. It will be a great night at the feasting, in three nights from now, I say. When the sailors return. The children clamour to know what the sailors will bring back with them. Silk, I say. Perhaps silk and we will all have new clothes for the winter. Skins they will bring - treated skins from the land beyond the foam. What will our brooches and pottery bring, they ask? What will be our reward for the hours we spent gathering wood for fires and keeping out of the way of the workmen? Toys, I say. Dolls from far away. Strange looking dolls, which the people of the lands over the foam prize most highly. We shall give them to our children, for their amusement. And what else, they beg me? What else will the sailors bring? They will bring stories, I say. Stories of strange lands, of strange people and of things beyond your imagination. Of lives unlike ours and of people who do not live in great round houses like us. Of people who do not wear fine linen clothing. Of people who carry swords and are fierce and who worry of things which do not exist. People who have to have a name for everything under the sun. Who call us the Keltoi. The children laugh. Why do they name us, they ask? Why the Keltoi? Why a name for us? We know who we are.
I tell them that in the world beyond the foam - and even maybe in this land, beyond the forest and the high mountains, people live a different life, less peaceful, less happy. These people have to give names to everything. Give everything a name and a place in the world. From highest to lowest. The children laugh. The sun is highest they say - except in the winter. I also laugh. Yes, the sun is a god for many of them; because they think it is the highest not only in the sky. And also in winter, they ask? How can the sun be a god? What is a god? Why do these people need a god?
I have no answer to that question. I do not know these people. Once only I have travelled in the boat, over the sea, through the pounding foam to the lands beyond. Once when I was little more than a boy - a boy trying to be a man. Limbs were strong but somehow the inside of my being revolted against travelling and all I remember is the swell of the sea, making me sick. My inside being, telling me not to travel. To stay at home and to find my stories from the rocks and the rivers of my homeland. So I have no answer. The sailors have no answer. None of us can understand why these people need a god. A being to look up to. To explain things and to worship and to blame. We laugh, me and the children. Perhaps, I say, it is because they are not happy, like us. They need a god to make them happy.
How will a god make them happy? The children ask and I have no answer. Maybe, I say, they need to feel that they understand everything. What is to understand, they ask? Why the sun is higher in the summer time, why the snow falls in the bitter cold of winter. Why people die and fall in love and where do we go when we leave our bodies behind in old age. One boy, a tall boy and fair - next year's sailor- standing a head above the rest, looks me clear in the eye. How will such knowledge make them happy? I shrug my shoulders. I do not know. Caeradh speaks. She is a slender girl, but strong. She will be a great woman one day soon. She says that such knowledge is impossible. And that thinking about such things will only make these people unhappy, not happy. Why question the sun? she says. Why ask meaning of the snow? What does it matter where our bodies lie in the future. We feel in the present. We exist in the present. We are here, among love and laughter. What more can make us happy?
I leave the children and I am happy with the thoughts of the future. Long after I lie in the ground, after I no more run beside the river, they will be here, talking and laughing and wondering about the world. ‘Who can question the wind?’ Caeradh calls after me. ‘It goes where it will, in us and round us and through us. It is unseen power. But this is not a god. This is the wind. It is free. It does not belong to us. We do not have to give it a name for it to exist. It will blow on our valleys long after we have moved from this place. It blew across our forest before we came here, before we were cut from our mothers flesh. If we give the wind a name it is wind. Not god’.
Her voice carries to me on the very air she speaks of. She is going to be a wise woman one day, that Caeradh. I reach Maedbh. She is Caeradh's sister and they share a feeling for the world and the way things are. A way beyond understanding. Maedbh is beautiful to me. She is the one I knew it would be worth giving of myself for. And soon I will plant a seed in her. A seed which will grow into a fine girl or boy- a fine example of the truth of our love. Soon I will work for her, giving of myself until I can do no more. And we will see if that is enough. If I can match her. For now, she blows the glass. She smiles at me and shows me her work. Will the people of the land beyond the foam like this glass, she asks me? I pick it up, feeling its smooth shape, looking through its opaqueness. They will like it, I say. They will wonder who is the skilful craftsman who made this. And they will think it is a man? She laughs. They do not think a woman can blow glass, across the foam? Women across the foam may not do such tasks, I say. In the lands where the people who need gods live, everything must be done in a pattern unlike ours. It is not who is best, but what is proper that matters to them.
But what is proper, she asks? How can they know what is proper to do? Only to do what you can must be proper. They live by names not by doing, she says. That must be why they want our vessels. We breathe life into the glass and let it form a shape. We do not give it a name and ask it to be a certain way. We make it as it wants to be. And that is proper to us.
As the sun falls behind the trees, we prepare for the evening. Tonight we will all meet in the large round house, to share our food, to talk of the return of the sailors. To imagine what they will bring back with them. To speak of the work we have done in preparation for next season's trading. Of where we will store our glass and our gold through the long winter months so that it will be ready for the sailors when they leave in the spring. But most of all we will be waiting with our hearts, for them, our loved ones, to return. Then we will have a feasting. Tonight we will decide how to prepare this feasting. Who will go after the boar? Who will make the bread? Who will decorate the walls?
Already as I enter the hall, it is splendid. Rich cloth from earlier tradings, and beautiful patterns made by our own weavers, hang from the walls. Inside this hall is our own world. Our creation as a mirror to the world outside, created of nature. If Nature were a god, then here in our own hall, we too would be gods. But we have no need of gods. We have family. We have each other. We have no need of names and of explanations. It is enough that we are here.
The fire burns fiercely in the hall. Many children have gathered wood for this blaze. It will stay alight now until the return of our sailors. We will feed it day and night because we want to welcome them home, to let them know we have been thinking of them, missing them, wanting their return. They will return to our brightness, from the variance of the world over the wild waves. They will find that we are unchanged. Despite the strange things they have encountered, they will know that here, all is as it was. Here is home. Here they are not strangers, but welcome, our family. Here they are not the Keltoi - here they are part of us.
I rest by the fire. Tomorrow, I will be part of the hunting party. We will chase the boar through the forest until we catch him. We will catch many boars and we will bring them home to roast. The air will hang sweet with the smell of their cooking. Others will catch fish, yet others will stay at home and cook, preparing our feasting. Grain and leaf and bird and beast. All things from our land will be used in the feasting. All things we can eat and drink will be there. Gathered, hunted, garnered - it will be the big feasting before the sun goes low in the sky and the days become shorter. We will fill our bellies for days - with food and drink and laughter. And then we will prepare for the oncoming of the snow. I know I am happy. I have no answers to the past and no questions for the future, I am of my time and I am complete.
About the Author
Cally Phillips was born in England of Scottish
parentage. Now in Turriff, she has lived most of her life in various
parts of Scotland, urban and rural.
Cally works for Ayton Publishing as series editor and also promotes the work of “Scotland’s Forgotten Bestseller” S. R. Crockett through his online literary society, The Galloway Raiders www.gallowayraiders.co.uk
Cally works for Ayton Publishing as series editor and also promotes the work of “Scotland’s Forgotten Bestseller” S. R. Crockett through his online literary society, The Galloway Raiders www.gallowayraiders.co.uk