Stories are sometimes born in fire, but regardless of origin they always live around fires and grow in the telling. If bellies are full and the veins pulse with a flagon or two, why then, all the better for the story. Sometimes, as a Druid, stories are expected of me. People just assume I’m a part-time bard as well.
Oberon said. We were taking a break from training by camping on the Mogollon Rim near Knoll Lake. After cooking fresh trout over our campfire for dinner, we were relaxing with hot cocoa and roasting marshmallows.
“You want a story?” I said aloud. My apprentice couldn’t hear my hound yet; she was still four years away from being bound to the earth and practicing magic. To be polite and include her, I sometimes spoke aloud to Oberon by way of inviting her into the conversation.
“Usually he wants snacks,” Granuaile said. “I’d go for a story, though. It’s a nice night for one.”
Oberon said.
“All right, what are you in the mood for?”
The Dukes of Hazzard
and another man who looks like Hank Williams Jr. who says he’s got a pig in the ground and—>
Granuaile didn’t hear any of that, so she spoke over him and offered her own suggestion: “I want a story where you took part in an historical event—a famous one.”
“All right.” I paused to think and plucked a gooey marshmallow off a steel stake before answering. “How about the quest for the Holy Grail?”
“No way!” my apprentice said. “You weren’t a Knight of the Round Table!”
“No, absolutely not,” I agreed. “But the Grail legends didn’t start out as highly Christianized tales about Arthur and Lancelot and so on. They were based on the adventures of one man—a Druid, as it happens—and then that story got changed, the way stories do, in the telling and retelling of it around hearthfires and campfires like this one.”
Granuaile crossed her arms. “So you not only know the original story of the Grail, you’re telling me you actually found it?”
“Yes. It was my quest.”
She still thought I was bluffing. “Who gave you the quest?”
“Ogma of the Tuatha Dé Danann.”
“All right, fine. And what was the Grail? I mean, it couldn’t have been the cup at the Last Supper or anything, right?”
“No, that whole business with Joseph of Arimathea and the cup of Christ was a later addition. Hell, King Arthur’s story was pulled almost entirely out of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s ass. There were about six hundred fifty years separating the events themselves and the first written account of them that survived to the modern day. Plenty of time to screw everything up and fabricate large portions of it. What the poets eventually called the Grail was Dagda’s Cauldron, one of the Four Treasures of the Tuatha Dé Danann, which could feed an army and never empty—it was an all-you-could-eat forever sort of deal.”
“You went on a quest to steal Dagda’s Cauldron and that got turned into the quest for the Holy Grail?”
“Sort of. Somebody else stole Dagda’s Cauldron. It was my quest to steal it back.”
“So who were you? Lancelot? Galahad?”
“No, stories about those guys got created later. I was the lad who went galloping around the country telling everyone my name was Gawain.”
Granuaile shook her head in disbelief. “Okay, sensei, let’s hear it,” she said.
Oberon added.
dogs in this story, right?>
The Tuatha Dé Danann are loath to put themselves in harm’s way when someone else
“You want a story?” I said aloud. My apprentice couldn’t hear my hound yet; she was still four years away from being bound to the earth and practicing magic. To be polite and include her, I sometimes spoke aloud to Oberon by way of inviting her into the conversation.
“Usually he wants snacks,” Granuaile said. “I’d go for a story, though. It’s a nice night for one.”
“All right, what are you in the mood for?”
The Dukes of Hazzard
and another man who looks like Hank Williams Jr. who says he’s got a pig in the ground and—>
Granuaile didn’t hear any of that, so she spoke over him and offered her own suggestion: “I want a story where you took part in an historical event—a famous one.”
“All right.” I paused to think and plucked a gooey marshmallow off a steel stake before answering. “How about the quest for the Holy Grail?”
“No way!” my apprentice said. “You weren’t a Knight of the Round Table!”
“No, absolutely not,” I agreed. “But the Grail legends didn’t start out as highly Christianized tales about Arthur and Lancelot and so on. They were based on the adventures of one man—a Druid, as it happens—and then that story got changed, the way stories do, in the telling and retelling of it around hearthfires and campfires like this one.”
Granuaile crossed her arms. “So you not only know the original story of the Grail, you’re telling me you actually found it?”
“Yes. It was my quest.”
She still thought I was bluffing. “Who gave you the quest?”
“Ogma of the Tuatha Dé Danann.”
“All right, fine. And what was the Grail? I mean, it couldn’t have been the cup at the Last Supper or anything, right?”
“No, that whole business with Joseph of Arimathea and the cup of Christ was a later addition. Hell, King Arthur’s story was pulled almost entirely out of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s ass. There were about six hundred fifty years separating the events themselves and the first written account of them that survived to the modern day. Plenty of time to screw everything up and fabricate large portions of it. What the poets eventually called the Grail was Dagda’s Cauldron, one of the Four Treasures of the Tuatha Dé Danann, which could feed an army and never empty—it was an all-you-could-eat forever sort of deal.”
“You went on a quest to steal Dagda’s Cauldron and that got turned into the quest for the Holy Grail?”
“Sort of. Somebody else stole Dagda’s Cauldron. It was my quest to steal it back.”
“So who were you? Lancelot? Galahad?”
“No, stories about those guys got created later. I was the lad who went galloping around the country telling everyone my name was Gawain.”
Granuaile shook her head in disbelief. “Okay, sensei, let’s hear it,” she said.
dogs in this story, right?>
The Tuatha Dé Danann are loath to put themselves in harm’s way when someone else
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