F 1.14. Erius The_Harp_of_Erin’,_oil_on_canvas_painting_by_Thomas_Buchanan_

F 2.14. The wild Hunt

F 3.14 Unlucky Jackalope

Harp Song (F1.14 Erius The Harp of Ireland)

Clear notes race aloft,
caught in stormy updraft –
tumultuous song disorders the sky
and draws the ocean high
to sing at the fair goddess’ feet

Her fingers glide across the strings
Plucking, stroking, teasing,
easing them into song
that sings the land alive.
A paeon to Ireland.

Her sacred harp
croons Carrauntoohil in minor key,
trills sweet heather scent, soprano notes
warbling in the key of summer breeze.
Below the tune, in endless hum, she thrums
the bass line of ocean,
offering a ceaseless pounding, sounding chorus.
Symphonic, harmonic song of Ireland.

Jacqueline Dempsey-Cohen @boscoedempsey

Fionn mac Cumhaill remembers Sadhbh

Some storm skies fill with hunting clouds,
the snarling and baying of men and hounds
through the dark of winter nights,

gods who gallop with faces of war,
cold as corpses, booted, spurred,
spear in hand and death in their throats,

while the poor folk cower beneath the hail
of hoofbeats across the flimsy roof. Death comes
to those who dare look on those wild faces.

Another sky, restless, carries an old king
on the clamour of his warriors, his dogs and horses,
his sad, solemn face raised to peer through the night,

through the eternal forest, watery eyes straining
for a glimpse of his lost love, yearning for those days,
happy perhaps, careless certainly,

before her deer hooves skittered away,
and his life lost its way in bitter blood,
and the darkness of her enchantment.

-Merril D Smith

Riders in the Clouds (Inspired by image 2.14, The Wild Hunt)

Now the hooves,
how they clip clappity clap,
thunder boom and
snap the clouds of black and grey
in half across the sky,

the gods astride the massive beasts,
with swords and pikes, they thrust, and ride,
wide-eyed and hair whip-blowing
sparking arcs
of light across the sky.

We have made them in our image,
full of jealousy, anger, and passion,
and in our carelessness, we’ve given them
too much might.

Tempests, dark nights of the soul,
the sun chariot skyward glides,
gilded horses with glittering manes
life that bursts and wanes
endless cycles and fate—
fatiguing and familiar—

we carry the dust of stars
without their power,

we are hunters and hunted,
this paradox, ours.

Wild Hunt
—- they ride the skies searching for lost souls to take back

It was a wet Wednesday
early morning, when my love got lost
I stumbled onto the street, shiny
with shock, the walls fell, the road’s a sinkhole,
my legs, my arms, my voice
I swayed in the rain,
where was home, where was warm or dry?

I heard the hounds first, baying
the view-halloo
I saw them riding over the trees and treetops
circling, coming for me!
I was lost, for sure, I had nothing to say but,
“Can I go home?”
“Sure, what address?”

I rested
there was another dawn, another life, another
love.

—- they ride the skies searching for lost souls to take back

It was a wet Wednesday
early morning, when my love got lost
I stumbled onto the street, shiny
with shock, the walls fell, the road’s a sinkhole,
my legs, my arms, my voice
I swayed in the rain,
where was home, where was warm or dry?

I heard the hounds first, baying
the view-halloo
I saw them riding over the trees and treetops
circling, coming for me!
I was lost, for sure, I had nothing to say but,
“Can I go home?”
“Sure, what address?”

I rested
there was another dawn, another life, another
love.

-Dave Garbutt

You first heard the Wild Hunt in 1987

The belly of the clouds marked up
and you sleep with a ground edge—
silver and light
in the palm.

We keep telling each other nothing
is ruptured behind. That the pressure
is about holding a drastic answer
and not using it.

Thirty years of treading up
from the depths, ever closer
to midnight. Five minutes,
four. Now you wake at 11:58:20

stabbing at air. The sky quivers
its old bulge of haemorrhage. Thin
skin, music of blood beating;
hunting horns needling through,

tick-tick tumbrel, and you
still waiting
for the gout of light
that means a skin is done.

-Ankh Spice – 14/10/22

*F WORD WARNING*

THE WILD HUNT (F 2.14. The Wild Hunt La_caza_salvaje_de_Odín,_por_Peter_Nicolai_Arbo.jpg)

Cruise missiles are striking all over Ukraine,
leveling homes and grids in an art
far short of what Furies scream with heart.
That roaring you hear: You might gloze it
a Teuton’s late-modern wind had cordite
loftier sear with the dead. It’s autumn,
you see, the leaves in Kyiv falling golden red,
mistier and more fragrant than yesterday’s
miasmal blast plumes. Pooty ol’ Putin
should have been better read; Wild Hunts
soar higher than any Muskovite runes.
Save rapine for Yule’s cod of a freeze
when corpses stay bent and worship whole,
flowering where they fell in scarlet diastole.
By then, half of his army will be strewn
where singular ambition played neck
with Azovstav steel, bleeding out in ice
balloons burbling Mama, Oh Fuck & Can’t Feel.
Then we may hear the pure fury of the Hunt,
Odin blowing his wut-trumpet astride
the blastwork of prehistory’s gale,
wolfhounds braying, black eagles
screaming, prying loose the stale fingers
of ambition and upyank in skyward noose.
The Hunt rouses Syrians from their sand graves,
joined by locals heaped in Babi Yar and Bucha
& the three virgins their Devil fucked too much.
Night upon night heaps on every vale
a thundering herd of merciless waves
drowning Christmastide with stiffs past pale.
They’ll show the Russian boys a real Holocaust—
a sky’s troop to Valhalla on breaths of pure frost.
A Wild Hunt indeed, as far as roaring may go
auguring victory for The Horned One’s silver beau,
the queen who plumps her bed with reddening snow.

-David Cohea

Bios and Links

-David Cohea

is a retired newspaperman who lives in Central Florida USA. He publishes poetry on his blog Oran’s Well (blueoran.wordpress.com) under the screen name of Brendan. He also runs earthweal.com, an online forum for eco-poets. His self-published collections include The God in the Tree, Letters to a Dead Shaman and The Beached Wings of Heaven.

-Jane Dougherty

lives and works in southwest France. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her poems and stories have been published in magazines and journals including Ogham Stone, the Ekphrastic Review, Black Bough Poetry, ink sweat and tears, Gleam, Nightingale & Sparrow, Green Ink and Brilliant Flash Fiction. She blogs at https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/ Her poetry chapbooks, thicker than water and birds and other feathers were published in October and November 2020.

-Eryn McConnell

is a poet originally from the UK who now lives in South Germany with their family. They have been writing poetry since their teens and is currently working on their second collection of poems.

-Spriha Kant

developed an interest in reading and writing poetries at a very tender age. Her poetry “The Seashell” was first published online in the “Imaginary Land Stories” on August 8, 2020, by Sunmeet Singh. She has been a part of Stuart Matthew’s anthology “Sing, Do the birds of Spring” in the fourth series of books from #InstantEternal poetry prompts. She has been featured in the Bob Dylan-inspired anthology “Hard Rain Poetry: Forever Dylan” by the founder and editor of the website “Fevers of the Mind Poetry and Art” David L O’ Nan. Her poetries have been published in the anthology “Bare Bones Writing Issue 1: Fevers of the Mind”. Paul Brookes has featured her poetry, “A Monstrous Shadow”, based on a photograph clicked by herself, as the “Seventh Synergy” in “SYNERGY: CALLING ALL WRITERS WHO ARE PHOTOGRAPHERS” on his blog “The Wombwell Rainbow”. She has been featured in the “Quick-9 interview” on feversofthemind.com by David L’O Nan. She has reviewed the poetry book “Silence From The Shadows” by Stuart Matthews. Her acrostic poetry “A Rainstorm” has been published in the Poetic Form Challenge on the blog “TheWombwell Rainbow” owned by Paul Brookes. She also joined the movement “World Suicide Prevention Day” by contributing her poetry “Giving Up The Smooch” on the blog “The Wombwell Rainbow”, an initiative taken by Paul Brookes.

-Gaynor Kane

from Belfast in Northern Ireland, had no idea that when she started a degree with the OU at forty it would be life changing.  It magically turned her into a writer and now she has a few collections of poetry published, all by The Hedgehog Poetry Press Recently, she has been a judge for The North Carolina Poetry Society and guest sub-editor for the inaugural issue of The Storms: A journal of prose, poetry and visual art. Her new chapbook, Eight Types of Love, was released in July. Follow her on Twitter @gaynorkane or read more at www.gaynorkane.com

-Dave Garbutt

has been writing poems since he was 17 and has still not learned to give up. His poems have been published in The Brown Envelope Anthology, and magazines (Horizon, Writers & Readers) most recently on XRcreative and forthcoming in the Deronda review. His poem ‘ripped’ was long listed in the Rialto Nature & Place competition 2021. In August 2021 he took part in the Postcard Poetry Festival and the chap book that came from that is available at the postcard festival website. https://ppf.cascadiapoeticslab.org/2021/11/08/dave-garbutt-interview/.

He was born less than a mile from where Keats lived in N London and sometimes describes himself as ‘a failed biologist, like Keats’, in the 70’s he moved to Reading until till moving to Switzerland (in 1994), where he still lives. He has found the time since the pandemic very productive as many workshops and groups opened up to non-locals as they moved to Zoom. 

Dave retired from the science and IT world in 2016 and he is active on Twitter, FaceBook, Medium.com, Flickr (he had a solo exhibition of his photographs in March 2017). He leads monthly bird walks around the Birs river in NW Switzerland. His tag is @DavGar51.

-Merril D. Smith

lives in southern New Jersey near the Delaware River. Her poetry has been published in several poetry journals and anthologies, including Black Bough Poetry, Anti-Heroin Chic,  Fevers of the Mind, and Nightingale and Sparrow. Her first full-length poetry collection, River Ghosts, is forthcoming from Nightingale & Sparrow Press.  Twitter: @merril_mds  Instagram: mdsmithnj  Website/blog: merrildsmith.com

-Jacqueline Dempsey-Cohen,

a retired teacher and children’s library specialist, considers herself an adventurer. She has meandered the country in an old Chevy van and flown along on midnight runs in a smoky old Convair 440 to deliver the Wall Street Journal. She is a licensed pilot, coffee house lingerer, and finds her inspiration and solace in nature in all its glorious diversity. Loving wife and mother, she makes her home in the wilds of Portland OR. www.MudAndInkPoetry.art 

-Kyla Houbolt’s

first two chapbooks, Dawn’s Fool (Ice Floe Press) and Tuned (CCCP Chapbooks), were published in 2020. Tuned is also available as an ebook. Her work has appeared in Hobart, Had, Barren, Juke Joint, Moist, Trouvaille Review, and elsewhere. Find her work at her linktree: https://linktr.ee/luaz_poet. She is on Twitter @luaz_poet.

F 1.13. Selkies 220px-Faroese_stamp_585_the_seal_woman

F 2.13. Blood Carriage. Death Coach

F 3.13. Sin-eater

THE SELKIE OF POEMS

My tongue has been too long from water
so forgive me if this song sounds barren.
Mother salt is the skin hidden from me
these days of wicker brogue—brambled
and scorched as an old abbot’s tongue.

One forgets the abyss when chained to hours
linked by the copyist’s shallow course.
Years have kept me far inland with only
this wet fetch of tears for a grievous sea.
No splash of laughter, no crashed ceruleans,
no curve to goddess into volupt swells.

Just acres of cracked homestead, harnessed
to a plow the quill harrows in furrows
seeded to gloss tinsel from manuring vowel.
If I have powertail, it drives an empty hearse;
if slick sides slide, flush walls double the curse
of vespers droned over the whispering dead.

So forgive me if there’s no water, no sea to shore,
no dark eyes looming in a wave’s hallowed roar.
Sight in such conditions of long servitude
can only fade to dried white margins,
the desert’s abyssally hollow plain
stretching as far as verses can go.

Still at night I linger in this chained stall
peering through a whisker of wall crack.
With just that much of the wet night’s vowel
I sing to cold seas I’m coming black.
I’ll connive back the seal’s sable cloak
and fade every page with silent downstroke.

Note
Selkies are from Hebrides folklore, seal-folk who become human by shedding their skin. In folklore of the Faroe Islands, silkies are humans who have drowned. Once a year on Three Kings (Epiphany), the selkies come out of the sea to dance for one night. One year all of them jumped back in the sea but one, a seal woman whose skin had been hidden by a man. She is forced to live with him as husband and wife, and they have children. She manages to get her skin back and returns to the sea with her children, but years later the man kills them in a hunt. She curses the village of Mikladur, saying they all will end up drowned in the sea.

-David Cohea

Selkie Ashore

I left the sea
For the love of a man
The joy I have had
Is a handful of sand

Let me lie on the shore
Till the sea eats my bones
Though I yearn for the deeps
I can never go home.

Selkie

I lie dreaming in deep places.
I see your face,
my lady of the seashore.
When the moon changes
I’ll return to you.

-Yvonne Marjot

Sin-eater

Stone-round loaf. Rolled aside
and the notch of clavicle more empty
cup than cave. Your ferment poured
forth three days gone and nothing
walks from any opening. I break
the crust: this caul, this placenta,
leavened by task. Protection. Filter
to sop the sharpness that sustains
a life. Some bread is iron, blood-wit
to the tongue and some burns craters
of salt. The heat of regret raises
all dough and none escape it. I eat
and somewhere, a soul swallows.

-Ankh Spice – 13/10/22

Sin-eater seeks Apprentice

It’s a job, the food is simple
but regular, more in winter
as you’d need. Stay thin
keep quiet, they leave me alone, it suits me.
I worry though, there must be successor
or I’m done, keep sins between us
out of the balance, keep them alive,
with the living, unconfessed. Are they heavy?

No, but there’s slowness, a shunning of light
and a hollow in the stomach, wait
for an angel’s knock in the night.

-Dave Garbutt

Sin Eater’s Repast (F3.13 Sin-Eater)
It was a grubby and unpleasant meal,
his wide-eyed gusto disgusting.
He slurped and sucked and slobbered,
gulping gobbling shoveling
each bite into his toothless gob.

Old Henry’s corpse moldered beside him.
A bag of bones and rancid gristle, fetid.
Splattered with grease and sauce,
it dripped gravy and cream
in a parody of pleasure.

But such a meal!
Tumescent sausage bursting hot juice
Stewed tomatoes, wet and glistening
Potatoes leaking salt and butter
Rounded mounds of warm bread
steaming….

Smacking sunken lips,
The eater consumes Henry’s sin,
spewing it forth in noisy slaver.
He screams with gluttony
chortles with greed.
cries tears of lust
and spits hot seeds of wrath.

With a belch and foul wind,
the sin-eater puts down his bowl at last
and grins a greenish grin.
Evil ingested, sin digested.
Sated.

Jacqueline Dempsey-Cohen

Selkie (Image, 1.13, Selkies, Faroese Stamp)

She shed her skin,
to walk on sand.

He took the skin,
then took her hand.

She bore him children,
but could not withstand

the call of sea,
the waves’ command

to find her skin,
to leave the land—

and then one night, she found it,
my mother walked across the strand,

abandoned us and father’s plans
for true heart’s call, left cold northland.

Now in every seal we see her,
her eyes set in sleek selkie fur

My heart seemed without a beat
like a frozen drum

yet now it stirs and feels complete
as the sea-wind whispers, “come.”

-Merril D Smitn

Sin-eaters and Selkies

Among the sins that they ate, would there have been
the sins of freedom and otherness, the imbrication
of animal and human, the sin of water-wisdom?

Would they have spat out the pagan bones
with the soft fur, the fish scales that shone in dark places,
tenderness, the glow of skin touched in love,

the entwining of bodies, forbidden handclasps?
Would they have swallowed seal-call and grimaced,
salt seawater and the taste of raw fish?

Perhaps, if those things of another age,
before the sinful darkness fell, had ever asked
forgiveness for their wild magic.

-Jane Dougherty

Bios and Links

-David Cohea

is a retired newspaperman who lives in Central Florida USA. He publishes poetry on his blog Oran’s Well (blueoran.wordpress.com) under the screen name of Brendan. He also runs earthweal.com, an online forum for eco-poets. His self-published poetry collections include The God in the Tree, Letters to a Dead Shaman, The Beached Wings of Heaven, Allegiance, Over Here: Poems of War in Peace and a three-volume collection of selected poetry titled Seahorse, Waves and Shores.  

-Yvonne Marjot

is a lost kiwi living on the Isle of Mull. Poet, author, librarian and escaped botanist: her poems are intimate and personal, and often link the natural world with mythological themes. She is especially fond of selkies.

-Jane Dougherty

lives and works in southwest France. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her poems and stories have been published in magazines and journals including Ogham Stone, the Ekphrastic Review, Black Bough Poetry, ink sweat and tears, Gleam, Nightingale & Sparrow, Green Ink and Brilliant Flash Fiction. She blogs at https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/ Her poetry chapbooks, thicker than water and birds and other feathers were published in October and November 2020.

-Eryn McConnell

is a poet originally from the UK who now lives in South Germany with their family. They have been writing poetry since their teens and is currently working on their second collection of poems.

-Spriha Kant

developed an interest in reading and writing poetries at a very tender age. Her poetry “The Seashell” was first published online in the “Imaginary Land Stories” on August 8, 2020, by Sunmeet Singh. She has been a part of Stuart Matthew’s anthology “Sing, Do the birds of Spring” in the fourth series of books from #InstantEternal poetry prompts. She has been featured in the Bob Dylan-inspired anthology “Hard Rain Poetry: Forever Dylan” by the founder and editor of the website “Fevers of the Mind Poetry and Art” David L O’ Nan. Her poetries have been published in the anthology “Bare Bones Writing Issue 1: Fevers of the Mind”. Paul Brookes has featured her poetry, “A Monstrous Shadow”, based on a photograph clicked by herself, as the “Seventh Synergy” in “SYNERGY: CALLING ALL WRITERS WHO ARE PHOTOGRAPHERS” on his blog “The Wombwell Rainbow”. She has been featured in the “Quick-9 interview” on feversofthemind.com by David L’O Nan. She has reviewed the poetry book “Silence From The Shadows” by Stuart Matthews. Her acrostic poetry “A Rainstorm” has been published in the Poetic Form Challenge on the blog “TheWombwell Rainbow” owned by Paul Brookes. She also joined the movement “World Suicide Prevention Day” by contributing her poetry “Giving Up The Smooch” on the blog “The Wombwell Rainbow”, an initiative taken by Paul Brookes.

-Gaynor Kane

from Belfast in Northern Ireland, had no idea that when she started a degree with the OU at forty it would be life changing.  It magically turned her into a writer and now she has a few collections of poetry published, all by The Hedgehog Poetry Press Recently, she has been a judge for The North Carolina Poetry Society and guest sub-editor for the inaugural issue of The Storms: A journal of prose, poetry and visual art. Her new chapbook, Eight Types of Love, was released in July. Follow her on Twitter @gaynorkane or read more at www.gaynorkane.com

-Dave Garbutt

has been writing poems since he was 17 and has still not learned to give up. His poems have been published in The Brown Envelope Anthology, and magazines (Horizon, Writers & Readers) most recently on XRcreative and forthcoming in the Deronda review. His poem ‘ripped’ was long listed in the Rialto Nature & Place competition 2021. In August 2021 he took part in the Postcard Poetry Festival and the chap book that came from that is available at the postcard festival website. https://ppf.cascadiapoeticslab.org/2021/11/08/dave-garbutt-interview/.

He was born less than a mile from where Keats lived in N London and sometimes describes himself as ‘a failed biologist, like Keats’, in the 70’s he moved to Reading until till moving to Switzerland (in 1994), where he still lives. He has found the time since the pandemic very productive as many workshops and groups opened up to non-locals as they moved to Zoom. 

Dave retired from the science and IT world in 2016 and he is active on Twitter, FaceBook, Medium.com, Flickr (he had a solo exhibition of his photographs in March 2017). He leads monthly bird walks around the Birs river in NW Switzerland. His tag is @DavGar51.

-Merril D. Smith

lives in southern New Jersey near the Delaware River. Her poetry has been published in several poetry journals and anthologies, including Black Bough Poetry, Anti-Heroin Chic,  Fevers of the Mind, and Nightingale and Sparrow. Her first full-length poetry collection, River Ghosts, is forthcoming from Nightingale & Sparrow Press.  Twitter: @merril_mds  Instagram: mdsmithnj  Website/blog: merrildsmith.com

-Jacqueline Dempsey-Cohen,

a retired teacher and children’s library specialist, considers herself an adventurer. She has meandered the country in an old Chevy van and flown along on midnight runs in a smoky old Convair 440 to deliver the Wall Street Journal. She is a licensed pilot, coffee house lingerer, and finds her inspiration and solace in nature in all its glorious diversity. Loving wife and mother, she makes her home in the wilds of Portland OR. www.MudAndInkPoetry.art 

-Kyla Houbolt’s

first two chapbooks, Dawn’s Fool (Ice Floe Press) and Tuned (CCCP Chapbooks), were published in 2020. Tuned is also available as an ebook. Her work has appeared in Hobart, Had, Barren, Juke Joint, Moist, Trouvaille Review, and elsewhere. Find her work at her linktree: https://linktr.ee/luaz_poet. She is on Twitter @luaz_poet.

F 1.12. Faoladh Werewolves of Ossory

F  2.12. Changeling

F 3.12 Moll Dyer Leonardtown,Maryland_

bestial

burned as a changeling burned as a fetch burned as a witch and left in a ditch burned like an offering burned for her wise burned right in front of her children’s eyes burned as a temptress burned as a snake burned for a secret they couldn’t take burned as a demoness burned for a sin burned for the marks he left on her skin burned for her tongue or burned for her silence burned for her quiet lack of compliance and how we tell stories is a kind of a weapon and how we tell stories is a kind of an unveiling and how we tell stories is how we’re still failing and how we keep doing this and telling it slant and she’s always a monster and we always aren’t and here is the story where we just call it murder and here is the story where every six minutes

a woman

sparks to myth—

-Ankh Spice

Weep for Moll Dyer: A Scottish Habbie Poem (F3.12 Moll Dyer)

Unholy rock, this shrine should weep
for poor Moll Dyer whose restless sleep
Shall torment guilty men who reap
bedevilment
upon all who preach and teach and keep
wild merriment.

Little roses – unfurl, bloom, arise
Strew waves of glory, scent the skies
with praise for witches, good and wise
oppressed, abused
just like poor Moll, as heaven cries.
Hounded, misused.

Bedeck this grave in scared light.
Invite the larks to pause their flight
to perch and warble tunes ’til night
to soothe her soul
and bring relief, the sweet delight
her neighbors stole.

-Jacqueline Dempsey-Cohen

Changeling
“some grow up and forget they are changelings”

I knew my parents!
what is your eaarliest memory of them?

Oh at five when I learned to write runes
from a book and my little sister died in her cot.

What did you write in runes?
Messages to my imaginary parents.

What did you do with the messages?
I made them into boats, floated them down a stream
or I wrote them on bark and hid them in the firewood.

Did you ever get a message back?
Once a piece of bark was under my pillow.

What did it say?
Sorry about your sister. She’s in a better place.

Where did you think that was?
Oh i asked my warm mum, she said it was heaven,
but I always wondered how she knew.
She said I musn’t go there, or keep looking.
I didn’t, but one day I heard her calling
over the garden wall, “Come! Play ball”.
But I didn’t go, she sounded cold.

-Dave Garbutt

Give and Take (Inspired by F1. 12 and F2.12)

Do they approach on battlefield, or appear
in rooms in darkest night?

Do they take, or do we give,
then glibly fib and flitter, cry “no,”
or ask why?

Does it matter when or how?
Werewolf, beast, fairy, or something else that bides
to pull our children from our sides—

we shut our eyes and let them go,

a sacrifice for king, country, gods–
a barter for food or fortune,
peace sans grace.

-Merril D. Smith

The King of Ossory and the wolf scam

One time, during the reign of Donnchad mac Gilla Pátraic, a pack of wolves took up residence in the Kingdom of Ossory. Bishop Fogartaig of Kilkenny claimed they were not ordinary wolves but the suitors of Donnchad’s daughter Órlaigh, turned into animals by her womanish magic. He placed Donnchad under an obligation to hand over Órlaigh, as only by her death could the hapless young nobles be released from their enchantment.

Now Donnchadh had a deal of affection for his eldest daughter, who, to his certain knowledge, had not been pestered by half the eligible young men of the province asking to marry her, as the bishop suggested. She had, in fact, already chosen Ruaidhrí, the son of Cearbhall mac Domnall, king of the smaller part of Ossory.
The marriage was opposed by the High King, as it would make Ossory one of the most powerful kingdoms in the land. Donnchad had designs on Leinster, and had already won significant battles there. Leinster was the High King’s strongest ally, and Bishop Fogartaig was the High King’s brother.

Donnchadh called Órlaigh to him. “I see what the old fox is after. The disputes within the family keep Ossory divided and that suits the High King just fine. A marriage between you and Cearbhall’s son would seal a pact.”
“And I’d marry Ruaidhrí,” Órlaigh said, “even if I hadn’t given him my heart, just to see the High King’s long nose put out of joint.”

So Donnchad organised a hunt and captured the wolves as they were eying up a flock of sheep, without killing a single one of them. He had the wolves taken back to his fort at Kilkenny and had one of his nephews, a certain Fergal, have a look at them.
Fergal was the prior at St. Canice’s monastery, and Donnchad had a mind to make him the next abbot, and perhaps, once all of Ossory was in his power, the next bishop.

Fergal studied the beasts as they huddled together in the back of their pen and asked to have the gate opened to let him in. Archers, one for each of the wolves, stood at the ready to intervene should Fergal’s guess prove wrong. The wolves eyed him suspiciously, fearful as he knew them to be of all men, and waited to see what he would do. First of all he spoke to them.
“If you are truly men, I have a gift for you, to pay for the harm done to you by King Donnchad’s daughter.”
He tossed a purse full of gold towards the wolves and watched as they crept towards it, sniffed, and slunk back in disgust.
“But if you are truly wolves, I have something else.”
From another purse at his belt, Fergal took something round and held it up for the wolves to see, for the breeze to carry its strong scent. The wolves pricked their ears and sniffed the air. Fergal waved the treat about then tossed it to the nearest wolf who snapped it up and licked his lips. Fergal took another treat out of his bag and held it up. The pack stepped forward in unison.
“Sit!” Fergal commanded. The wolves sat. He approached one of the wolves and said, “Paw!”
The wolf held up a front paw and Fergal tossed him the treat. He went to the next wolf. “Paw!”
The wolf held up a paw and Fergal tossed him the treat. The third time, Fergal took a gold coin from the purse and held it out. “Paw!”
The wolf obeyed, sniffed and slowly lowered his paw in disappointment. Fergal turned to Donnchad. “Órlaigh is guilty of no crime. There’s not a man among them; they are dog to the bone.”
“And I have a pack of wolves that I will have to slaughter,” Donnchad replied.
“I have a better idea, Father,” Órlaigh said. “The bishopric has rich pastures. Why not take this fine band of young nobles to sniff around Fortaig’s fat sheep. I’d like to see how Bishop Fogartaig welcomes them.”
“If he agrees that they are wolves and not men, he will be able to kill them to defend his flocks,” Fergal said. “On the other hand, if he insists they are royal scions, he will be bound to give them hospitality.”
Needless to say, Bishop Fogartaig swallowed his holy principles and set his men upon the wolf pack, Órlaigh’s reputation was cleared, she married the pulse of her heart, Fergal was appointed Bishop of Kilkenny when Fogartaig fell out of the High King’s favour, and Donnchad mac Gilla Pátraic became the scourge of Leinster until a more ruthless chieftain united the kingdoms of Leinster and drove him out.

In the dark,
all cats are grey,
all dogs are wolves,
and it takes a laughing monk
with kindness in his hands
to call them brothers,
sisters, even in the lean times.

-Jane Dougherty

Bios and Links

-Jane Dougherty

lives and works in southwest France. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her poems and stories have been published in magazines and journals including Ogham Stone, the Ekphrastic Review, Black Bough Poetry, ink sweat and tears, Gleam, Nightingale & Sparrow, Green Ink and Brilliant Flash Fiction. She blogs at https://janedougherty.wordpress.com/ Her poetry chapbooks, thicker than water and birds and other feathers were published in October and November 2020.

-Eryn McConnell

is a poet originally from the UK who now lives in South Germany with their family. They have been writing poetry since their teens and is currently working on their second collection of poems.

-Spriha Kant

developed an interest in reading and writing poetries at a very tender age. Her poetry “The Seashell” was first published online in the “Imaginary Land Stories” on August 8, 2020, by Sunmeet Singh. She has been a part of Stuart Matthew’s anthology “Sing, Do the birds of Spring” in the fourth series of books from #InstantEternal poetry prompts. She has been featured in the Bob Dylan-inspired anthology “Hard Rain Poetry: Forever Dylan” by the founder and editor of the website “Fevers of the Mind Poetry and Art” David L O’ Nan. Her poetries have been published in the anthology “Bare Bones Writing Issue 1: Fevers of the Mind”. Paul Brookes has featured her poetry, “A Monstrous Shadow”, based on a photograph clicked by herself, as the “Seventh Synergy” in “SYNERGY: CALLING ALL WRITERS WHO ARE PHOTOGRAPHERS” on his blog “The Wombwell Rainbow”. She has been featured in the “Quick-9 interview” on feversofthemind.com by David L’O Nan. She has reviewed the poetry book “Silence From The Shadows” by Stuart Matthews. Her acrostic poetry “A Rainstorm” has been published in the Poetic Form Challenge on the blog “TheWombwell Rainbow” owned by Paul Brookes. She also joined the movement “World Suicide Prevention Day” by contributing her poetry “Giving Up The Smooch” on the blog “The Wombwell Rainbow”, an initiative taken by Paul Brookes.

-Gaynor Kane

from Belfast in Northern Ireland, had no idea that when she started a degree with the OU at forty it would be life changing.  It magically turned her into a writer and now she has a few collections of poetry published, all by The Hedgehog Poetry Press Recently, she has been a judge for The North Carolina Poetry Society and guest sub-editor for the inaugural issue of The Storms: A journal of prose, poetry and visual art. Her new chapbook, Eight Types of Love, was released in July. Follow her on Twitter @gaynorkane or read more at www.gaynorkane.com

-Dave Garbutt

has been writing poems since he was 17 and has still not learned to give up. His poems have been published in The Brown Envelope Anthology, and magazines (Horizon, Writers & Readers) most recently on XRcreative and forthcoming in the Deronda review. His poem ‘ripped’ was long listed in the Rialto Nature & Place competition 2021. In August 2021 he took part in the Postcard Poetry Festival and the chap book that came from that is available at the postcard festival website. https://ppf.cascadiapoeticslab.org/2021/11/08/dave-garbutt-interview/.

He was born less than a mile from where Keats lived in N London and sometimes describes himself as ‘a failed biologist, like Keats’, in the 70’s he moved to Reading until till moving to Switzerland (in 1994), where he still lives. He has found the time since the pandemic very productive as many workshops and groups opened up to non-locals as they moved to Zoom. 

Dave retired from the science and IT world in 2016 and he is active on Twitter, FaceBook, Medium.com, Flickr (he had a solo exhibition of his photographs in March 2017). He leads monthly bird walks around the Birs river in NW Switzerland. His tag is @DavGar51.

-Merril D. Smith

lives in southern New Jersey near the Delaware River. Her poetry has been published in several poetry journals and anthologies, including Black Bough Poetry, Anti-Heroin Chic,  Fevers of the Mind, and Nightingale and Sparrow. Her first full-length poetry collection, River Ghosts, is forthcoming from Nightingale & Sparrow Press.  Twitter: @merril_mds  Instagram: mdsmithnj  Website/blog: merrildsmith.com

-Jacqueline Dempsey-Cohen,

a retired teacher and children’s library specialist, considers herself an adventurer. She has meandered the country in an old Chevy van and flown along on midnight runs in a smoky old Convair 440 to deliver the Wall Street Journal. She is a licensed pilot, coffee house lingerer, and finds her inspiration and solace in nature in all its glorious diversity. Loving wife and mother, she makes her home in the wilds of Portland OR. www.MudAndInkPoetry.art 

-Kyla Houbolt’s

first two chapbooks, Dawn’s Fool (Ice Floe Press) and Tuned (CCCP Chapbooks), were published in 2020. Tuned is also available as an ebook. Her work has appeared in Hobart, Had, Barren, Juke Joint, Moist, Trouvaille Review, and elsewhere. Find her work at her linktree: https://linktr.ee/luaz_poet. She is on Twitter @luaz_poet.