Free Myths of the Modern Man by Jacqueline T Lynch Page B

and he at last noticed the gold ring, and remembered, and knew this was his own son. Overcome with deepest grief….”
    Deepest grief, always. You could hear the tears in his baritone voice. Always doomed. Always tragic. Did it make a better story? Did it justify their many losses, their losses of kingdom, of unity, of heritage? Billy O’Malley, who enjoyed singing maudlin songs of the Black and Tans, and the sorrows of a people from whom he was far removed, as if he had suffered them himself…never sang about Vercingetorix. He had no idea who he was. He sang no songs about Boudicca.
    She looked directly at me.
    Cailte sat down, frustrated that he seemed not to entertain her tonight. He glanced in disgust at me. I shrugged like Taliesin.
    She looked directly at me.
    Almost two thousand years later a statue of Cuchulainn, from Cailte’s story, was erected in front of The General Post Office in Dublin, Ireland. It depicts him at the moment of his death, when, mortally wounded by a spear thrown by his enemy, he tied himself to a stone pillar that he might die on his feet, fighting. It is a memorial to those who died in the Easter Uprising of 1916 and all those who died for Irish independence.
    In London, a monument to Boudicca, or Boadicea as they called her, was erected in 1902 facing the Embankment, flanked by the House of Commons and Big Ben. It is a bronze tablet depicting her in her famous chariot and horses, rather like the way Cailte described the mythical Aoifa. Both memorials symbolize the toughness of two modern nations and one ancient people. One of the figures is a myth, and the other was real.
    To the Celt, it is of little difference.
    She looked right at me.
    Goblets of silver, chalices of wood. Long wooden shields covered in bronze plating and blessings of their gods. Some of the shields would be thrown into a nearby river as a votive gesture to those gods. Some would be used in battle. Some would be unearthed in two thousand years and studied by strangers.
    The party lasted long into the night, but Boudicca did not glow with mead or weep with song. She stood resolutely when it was time to go, and the giant Dubh, who had had plenty of beer and song, boisterously yelled what must have been a warning to let the queen pass. Some small semblance of order occurred, but Boudicca did not require absolute silence or total homage. She did not mind stepping over a body or two on her way out. She seemed to accept that her people were human. Nemain and Taliesin followed her.
    She stopped before me. Cailte, red-faced with drink and caught off guard, quickly stumbled to his feet. She looked at him, then tossed a warning glance over her shoulder, with a sharp remark. Her servants escorted her daughters from the hall. Bedtime for them, evidently. Their evening of fun was over. So was Cailte’s, I think.
    Then she looked at me and muttered something meant for Cailte. He nodded and pushed me into the parade. Evidently, where Boudicca, Nemain and Taliesin were going, I was to follow. She told Cailte to remain behind.
    We walked slowly out into the cool, moist breeze of the dark night, across the encampment to a high round hut, a kind of wooden tower, surrounded by a square wooden enclosure. The open door to the hut I knew faced east, a druid temple.
    Most of their high ceremonies took place in forest groves, but they were not above emulating the Romans with similar ritual temple sacrifices to the gods. The Celts, however, were also in the habit of making human sacrifices to the gods.
    I did not feel good about this.
    Like a dark cave inside, the temple stank of blood and death. Taliesin placed the silver torch above a stone altar. Boudicca produced an iron spear that had been purposely bent at the tip, a symbol to represent the failing in battle of their enemies. What enemies? The Romans? As yet no rebellion had started, not really, only the fermenting of resentment. What was she planning, and was she planning it now?
    Nemain