A significant event relegated to insignificance

On another National Holiday tour, our coach stopped at a site where the castle of Fotheringhay had stood.
This was the place where Queen Mary was beheaded but only a small sign on a
weed-covered field marked the spot of that historic event. It seemed as if the
country who kept her prisoner for years had chosen to ignore the fact forever.

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Blurb:

When Mary Queen of Scots is sent to Hafton Castle in the
Midlands, Matilda becomes her waiting-lady. The comely maid loves Jondalar, a
stalwart castle guard who returns her affection but places his greed to succeed
above all else. After Matilda nurses the queen through a fever, she rewards the
maid with a valuable ruby. Jondalar plots with the young lord of the castle to
rid the Crown of the captive queen in return for a promotion in the guard.But
when Matilda learns of the guard's
betrayal of the queen she must chose between loyalty and love.

Excerpt:Matilda shrank back against
the wall, horrified at what she had heard.
She cringed with every sure step taken by the guard as he retreated from
the lord's chamber.

For a time, Matilda was
unable to sort her thoughts. Then she
began to speak aloud, as if the sound of her voice could bring order to the
jumble of conflicting emotions roiling in her mind.

“Jondalar has betrayed
me. And worse still, has betrayed the
Scottish queen. Instead of guarding the
monarch as she traveled, he has made plans to kill her. And Lord Hafton is a party to the devious
crime.”

“How could the valiant guard
who has pledged his devotion and promised to wed me be guilty of such a vile
act? How could he plot against Queen
Mary who holds him in such high esteem that she has left a bag of coins for his
service to her?”

Matilda sank to the floor and
wept bitterly. After a time, when her
tears had subsided, she tried to piece her thoughts together. She could not tell her mistress what she had
learned for the young lord might deny it and send her away. And it was too late to persuade the guard to
stop the murderers, even should he be willing to do so for her sake. As if he might.

The maid sprang to her feet. “There is none to tell save the queen! I must warn Queen Mary of her perilous
plight.”

The Morrigan

Most people don’t think of faeries as frightening beings like vampires or werewolves, but there are many different types of faeries, some good and some evil. One of these more frightening faeries is the Irish faerie The Morrigan, also called Morrigu. Her name means Phantom Queen and she isn’t the typical faerie like the better-known Tinkerbell, gossamer-winged, tiny, benevolent faeries that most people know.

 

The Morrigan is a battle goddess associated with the Irish Tuatha de Danaan, one of the mythical races of ancient Ireland. These are the faeries that J.R.R. Tolkien based his elves on, and they are human size fae. W.B. Yeats writes about them in Celtic Twilight, ‘Tribes of the goddess Danu are indeed tall and noble, and they can take shapes and sizes that are not their true shapes and sizes.’

As a battle goddess, the Morrigan holds the fate of warriors and is sometimes seen as the washerwoman at the ford, a gruesome hag washing the bloody clothes of a warrior about to die in battle. She is also a fertility goddess—a goddess of death as well as renewal. She is often viewed as the destructive aspect of the Triple Goddess, her other forms are Badb and Nemhain. The Morrigan may have been part of a megalithic triad—three goddesses called The Mothers that were similar to the Greek Fates. She is neither good nor evil, but an unpredictable force that is best approached with caution. The Morrigan is associated with the crow and raven, and often appears in those shapes.

In my stories, she is Morrigan, a capricious, shape-shifting deity comparable in temperament to the Norse god Loki. She appears in the aspect of Badb in Winter’s Requiem, the third book in my Dark Goddess trilogy. The Morrigan is my favorite Irish faerie and appears in various forms in four of my books. I think what I like best about her is her unpredictability and how she straddles the line between good and evil.

The Morrigan is a fae/goddess to be wary of, especially since her appearance could foreshadow death.

Three different women, one ancient curse…

http://kelleyheckart.com/winters_requiem.html

 

Kelley Heckart

'Timeless tales of romance, conflict & magic'

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