From childhood I was taught by the elders in the rituals of the sacred groves, the dreaded incantations of storm and war, the blessing ceremonies of pregnant women and their issue, the lore of leaves and fruit, the songs of unlocking and binding, the secret names by which are invoked the spirits of the rivers and their pools, the forest glades and their denizens, the wells and ancient trees. With my death, the last of the lineage, the lines of the land, the lay of our lives will be dissipated and lost; everything that once emanated will now be inane.
I can make rocks sweat and trees writhe like yarn on a spindle, and snakes assemble and twine around my ankles. I can conjure thunderheads and make water spurt from the earth. I can find underground seas and gold in the roots of trees and the buried eggs of dragons. What is to be is open to me. My power can cause the earth to buck like a Brahma bull and the very oxygen to sequester itself from human lungs so that my enemies die gasping. You can see why I'm a dangerous man, but one dying without legacy.
With my death, the world of power disappears, a world that existed in only in unwritten tradition, in the lays of the bards and in the learning of the hierophants. Despite your injunction on all record other than of memory of mind or muscle, garment or sacred object, for the sake of what is about to evaporate into pitiful innocuity, I must write and so forestall the coming silence of my voice. Many follow the forms but none know the secret words. Without the words, no power. Forgive me, elder ones.
Let me begin with the ritual of twelve steps. First, when the call for peace is issued, the key word is hed_wch. Huh? Well, the making of the ring needs the secret word _ylch. What's going on?
The muse is evoked next but in vain unless the word hawe__u is spoken. This won't do. Have to try harder. Then, for the consecration of the elements, say the word fflwo___ in a loud voice while turning around. Then the invocation of realms with the word co_d spoken three times. No, the complete word. What's happening to the words as I write them?
Then the invocation of the spirits starting with M_bo_ ap _od_on and ending with _yl__ ai_ D__. This is not enough. The spirits won't know themselves from these fragments. They won't come, they won't work.
What about the e___t__df__d? No, no. Might as well throw oak leaves about and hope for trees as expect power from these scattered letters. Is the secret that the secret words refuse the page; may only be spoken--as you, ancient ones, always said? Only in the assembly, in the groves, and from human lungs may they ever be whole and hearty. And the lungs are few, mine are failing fast. Hwyl fawr, oh wonder world, am nawr.
I can make rocks sweat and trees writhe like yarn on a spindle, and snakes assemble and twine around my ankles. I can conjure thunderheads and make water spurt from the earth. I can find underground seas and gold in the roots of trees and the buried eggs of dragons. What is to be is open to me. My power can cause the earth to buck like a Brahma bull and the very oxygen to sequester itself from human lungs so that my enemies die gasping. You can see why I'm a dangerous man, but one dying without legacy.
With my death, the world of power disappears, a world that existed in only in unwritten tradition, in the lays of the bards and in the learning of the hierophants. Despite your injunction on all record other than of memory of mind or muscle, garment or sacred object, for the sake of what is about to evaporate into pitiful innocuity, I must write and so forestall the coming silence of my voice. Many follow the forms but none know the secret words. Without the words, no power. Forgive me, elder ones.
Let me begin with the ritual of twelve steps. First, when the call for peace is issued, the key word is hed_wch. Huh? Well, the making of the ring needs the secret word _ylch. What's going on?
The muse is evoked next but in vain unless the word hawe__u is spoken. This won't do. Have to try harder. Then, for the consecration of the elements, say the word fflwo___ in a loud voice while turning around. Then the invocation of realms with the word co_d spoken three times. No, the complete word. What's happening to the words as I write them?
Then the invocation of the spirits starting with M_bo_ ap _od_on and ending with _yl__ ai_ D__. This is not enough. The spirits won't know themselves from these fragments. They won't come, they won't work.
What about the e___t__df__d? No, no. Might as well throw oak leaves about and hope for trees as expect power from these scattered letters. Is the secret that the secret words refuse the page; may only be spoken--as you, ancient ones, always said? Only in the assembly, in the groves, and from human lungs may they ever be whole and hearty. And the lungs are few, mine are failing fast. Hwyl fawr, oh wonder world, am nawr.
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