Unpublished work © 2007 Celina C Falck-Cook 1

My name is Flor de Maio. It means “May Flower”, because the Beltane or May Festival

is the best feast in our village, where people get married and all. We live in a part of the

land named Galiza. And we belong to the house of Breoghan, our powerful chieftain that

built the tower at Brigantia, from where his son Ith could see the lands that lay to the

north, across the ocean.

The race of Milé, another clan of ours, left the land to avenge Ith’s death by the people of

the land of the Tuatha kings, due to being afraid he had come there to take the land from

them. We have been left with the heritage of Bilé, the god of the Portal.

My dad tells everybody in the village the whole story of Ith every other night. How the

race of Milé, each chieftain with their ship and their family, went to the Thuatha’s land.

How they were hit by the magic of the Thuatha De Dannan and a terrible wind blew the

fleet to the open sea. How Amairgen, the wise man, sang a prayer to the Thuatha’s land

and the wind changed in an auspicious direction. And how, in the battle of Taltiu, the

three kings of the Thuatha perished, and the sons of Milé took Eire for themselves… And

all that had happened because Ith, son of Breoghan, wanted to discover a new land…

We live in Trega, Sacra Mountain near the sea… in houses built according to our

costumes, high among the rocks. The wind whistles through the spaces and crevices

between the crags, singing its own songs. Some of the men, women and children play an

instrument made of tubes and a bag and some holes on the tubes… The wind they make

by blowing into it makes music when they let it out lifting just some of the fingers to

uncover the holes. I always watch entranced when they do that. The druid woman says

music softens Rudra’s winds…

Unpublished work © 2007 Celina C Falck-Cook 2

Beatiful mountain flowers grow above us, on the top of the mountains, and I

would love to pick them up. But I have nobody to whom I would like to give them. I

would give them to mom, but she’s not there any more. Dad won’t hear of me risking my

life to go up the mountain to pick flowers. I’m not a baby any more. What is he thinking?

I am nine summers old. I even help to watch the babies of our Treba. How would a baby

watch other babies? Shame on dad!

Sometimes, when everybody is involved in their daily chores, and I start to think

of mom and crying, another girl comes and tells me I can go, while she watches the

babies. Her name is Brida, and she is my good friend. But she doesn’t call me a baby. She

just tells me to take care, and come back soon, and then I go down to the shore and hunt

crabs and fish some. I make holes in the sand and mountains and caves. I make my own

house, a hole I punch with one finger into a miniature hill made of sand. I make a fire,

cook some crab and fish and have a meal. Then I watch as the sea takes half the meal to

my mom.

This is a ritual of mine, a meal I eat with my mom. I make sculptures of all that

she knew and did in her life with us in our village on the sand. Then the ocean comes and

takes it all with his eager foamy fingers. Maybe one day my mom will receive these

presents from the sea at the place to which the sea carried her.

I wish I could see that land… to where she went, go there, like Ith saw that distant

land of Eire, and be an adventurer like him… find my mom… The sea had taken Ith

where he wanted to go, would it take me?

Unpublished work © 2007 Celina C Falck-Cook 3

I remember her going into the sea… She said she was going to catch some fish

with a net, because my father was away fighting off our enemies the Romans from the

Empire with the men of other Trebas, and we were hungry… Then Rudra, the storm god,

came by and took her, and she did not come back… The wise man said she was with

Gada the Father-God. I think she now lives with Rudra. Did the gods live under water

too? I want to see mom and the gods, but the elders say I cannot try and see my mom

because I am too young to go through the Portal. When I was 3 or 4 summers old, I went

to the beach every day and imagined how I could go through that Portal to her, to bring

her back, or to stay with her. My aunt had to come and drag me back home and I was

crying the whole way.

I have been doing this ever since, and my aunt grew tired of dragging me back

and let me be, when I was old enough to learn how to swim. She said I had to live my

life, have a family, grow old, and only after all that Bilé would accept that I go through.

Yesterday, while the sea fingers took away my mom’s presents again, I looked at the

waves receding, then I understood. It was not about being too young, or old enough. It

was about wanting to go through. My mother must have wanted to go through the portal.

That was what a friend of mine, José, six summers old, did. He was not old enough but he

felt like going through the portal when his dog was taken by the sea. He thought he might

find a way through. He said he could not live without his dog. And he did not come back.

He must have found the place the dog was in.

I think of my father. Is he going to be unhappy forever? Is he going to do what

José did? He is older than her, he can go where she went… But if he does, if he tries and
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never comes back, I will have to go too… I love him too much to live without him… I

don’t care I ‘m not old enough… I decide that if he goes I will go too.

hen I remember: Ith did come back. His companions brought his body back to

Galiza. His adventure was his undoing. But it was not the same that happened to the Milé

race. They had stayed in Eire, and lived there from those times on. Their adventure had

resulted in a conquest. The result of every adventure depends on your luck, or rather,

your attitude. Would we fail or conquer in our life?

Flor de Maio! Come hither, the bonfire is alit. The May Festival is about to start.”

I turn around and see my father standing on a rock, above the shore, with his

broad shoulders, his long dark hair floating in the wind, a wonderful smile in his tanned

face. I also see the 16-summer-old Brida, my friend, by his side, her long golden brown

hair flowing down to her waist. She has a bright smile on her face and a crown of wild

flowers on her head, and looks like a goddess herself. They are holding hands, like my

father used to do with my mother. She waves at me. I feel warm inside.

She is the solution. She is going to make my father happy, she is so sweet and

nice to me. That is an unexpected feeling of happiness I have become unaccustomed to

since my mom has left me…

I run up to them.

“I hope you like the idea of having Brida with us. She makes me almost as happy

as you mom did. I lost your mom to that storm, and I was extremely sad, but Brida made

me feel alive again. Life is reborn every month of May, and so many Mays came and

passed without me wanting to see life is renewed. For me, when your Mom died, the
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whole land went dark. With Brida, now, I can see that life is renewed, all is bright in my

life again, and we can just hope your mom is with the Gada praying for the gods to bless

us.

“Yes, dad. But I just want to see you happy again.”

So, the result of this adventure had been conquest... And now dad won’t pine

after my deceased mom any more. She will miss me and I know I will be still sending

presents to her, but not sad and depressed anymore. I understand mom did not go through

the Portal because she wanted. She had been happy with my dad, because both of them

were always smiling before she went away, walking around hand in hand, and I forgot

they were happy before, because all I could feel was sadness. Then I thought she had

gone because she wanted to.

But now Brida was holding my father’s hand.

Having a new mother after all those years of solitude was a blessing of the gods in

itself. And, praying again that my gifts were put in mom’s hands, wherever she was, I

climb the hill to gather a bunch of fresh flowers at the top of the hill, and father calls me.

I run back down to where my father and Brida are.

Now I have someone to give flowers to again.