Each year as I write my Halloween stories, I depend upon the pixies to bring me inspiration for one with an Irish/Celtic theme. This year they led me to the myths and legends surrounding the last of the great Celtic queens. Some of this story is factual. Some is Celtic/Irish legend. And some is created just for this story. I leave it to you to determine which is which.
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WARNING! All of my writing is intended for adults over the age of 18 ONLY. Stories may contain strong or even extreme sexual content. All people and events depicted are fictional and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Actions, situations, and responses are fictional ONLY and should not be attempted in real life.
If you are under the age or 18 or do not understand the difference between fantasy and reality or if you reside in any state, province, nation, or tribal territory that prohibits the reading of acts depicted in these stories, please stop reading immediately and move to somewhere that exists in the twenty-first century.
Archiving and reposting of this story is permitted, but only if acknowledgment of copyright and statement of limitation of use is included with the article. This story is copyright (c) 2015 by The Technician.
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I was in Ireland in mid-October because I'm an Italian-American author whose book, "Tracing My Italian Bloodline" sold enough copies to put me into that very select club of people who could actually make a living from what they wrote.
"Then shouldn't you be in Italy?" you are probably asking. And the answer to that is, "I was."
For over a decade, I spent a bunch of my own money and several years of my vacation time in Italy tracing my family bloodline as far back as I could. Actually, I already had some pretty complete records. The oral tradition of my family-- backed up with some old journals-- traced things all the way back to around 775 AUC. That's "ab urbe condita" which means "from the founding of the city." The city, of course, is Rome. In our modern system of dating that is somewhere around 20 AD/CE.
The family story claimed that I was a lineal descendant of the famous Gaius Suetonius. Once I started investigating it, the details of that oral tradition corresponded amazingly well to actual extant records including origins of modern family names and all of that.
The only problem, or in my case, perhaps I should say the great blessing, was that the family oral tradition disagreed as to which famous Gaius Suetonius it was from whom I was descended. One branch of the story claimed Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, who was a historian that wrote a bunch of books about the life and times of the Roman Empire in the first century-- including one that is still around that chronicles the life of Julius Caesar.
The other Gaius Suetonius wasn't quite so tranquil. Gaius Suetonius Paulinus was a bad-ass Roman general who is primarily known for being a bloodthirsty son of a bitch and for ruthlessly putting down the last of the great Celtic rebellions against Roman rule in the British Isles.
To my amazement, and to my eventual publishers' great joy, it turned out that both sides were apparently right. These two guys weren't at all related to each other, but I was related to both of them. That plot twist was evidently really great stuff to the genealogy crowd and my book sold a gazillion copies.
OK, not quite a gazillion, but enough to crack into the bottom of the best selling non-fiction lists and enough to give me a very precious "take this job and shove it" moment with an asshole of a boss I once worked for.
The problem now was that my publisher wanted a sequel-- a sequel that would appeal to the same audience. A sequel might not be too difficult for a fiction writer, but I had sort of exhausted my family tree in the first book. Luckily, my wife wasn't Mediterranean-Irish, she was Irish-Irish with the flaming red hair, blue eyes, and temper to prove it.
So as the wet and cold fall weather of the Emerald Isle became wetter and colder, Katie and I were traipsing all over central Ireland attempting to track down her bloodline. The big problem was that she did not have a strong oral tradition backed up with parish records giving her family tree. The only ancestral story in her family was that they were Celtic royalty and if the Celts ever rose again, she could claim the throne as a rightful queen. I soon learned that this same story was the basic stock and trade of almost every family in Ireland.
To quote my publisher, "Don't put too much stock in stories like that. Everyone says they came over on the Mayflower but neglect to tell you that
Mayflower
was the name of a broken down cattle boat hauling refugees from the extreme poverty of Europe in the late 1800's."
So far, we had traced parish records back to the mid-1700's and were still dealing mostly with ordinary Irish farmers and peasants. It was slow, tedious work that often involved a lot of begging and pleading just to be able to look at the ancient records.
I wasn't complaining about being on the oulde sod, though. The Irish countryside seemed to be having a marvelous effect on Katie. She was bubbling and happy and energetic, and perhaps most surprising, as horny as a nymphomaniac on Spanish fly.
The longer we stayed in Ireland, the more wanton she became and the more wild our nightly-- with occasional morning and afternoon-- sex became. I wasn't quite to the point of seeking out a source for some little blue pills, but I was starting to wonder how long I could keep this up without medical assistance.
Then it happened.
We were in a quaint little bed and breakfast, taking advantage of the fact that everyone was eating breakfast in the dining area at the other end of the house when, just as I was reaching orgasm, Katie changed. I don't mean that her face got all red-- which it normally did as she approached orgasm, or that her eyes rolled back slightly-- which they normally did, or that she began to quiver and shake so hard that she almost threw me off the bed-- which she only did when she was going really, really high. She physically changed!
Her hair got darker-- more like a red-bronze than her normal carrot top. Her skin got paler-- if that was possible. And her eyes became a much more intense blue. Then she said in a heavily accented voice, "Dark Night is coming soon. That is when it will happen. Make sure that you are at Dersingham Heath on Dark Night and be sure that you are making love at midnight when the veil is thinnest."
Once or twice in my life, I've had things happen that caused me to "deflate" when I wanted my little soldier at full attention, but I'd never before lost an erection in the middle of ejaculating. I ended up against the wall at the end of the bed, standing on my knees between Katie's legs. She was back to normal and was looking at me really weirdly.
"What's wrong?" she asked in a slightly frightened voice, and I explained what I had just seen and heard.
I expected her to freak out, but instead she went all travel guide on me. "You know she was referring to Halloween, don't you?" she asked. And then without waiting for an answer she continued, "Halloween is really a Celtic festival, but you Italians screwed it all up when you took it back to Italy and combined it with a harvest festival. For some reason, the church ended up using your wrong Italian date."
