Beornamund’s Prophecy
There was once a metal-smith named Beornamund who lived in
Mercia, one of the seven great kingdoms of Englalond, that land of
mist and mystery that lies on the north-western edge of things.
In his youth he loved his Master’s daughter Imbolc, a name
which in the old language means Spring.
When she was carried away in a flood and drowned he dedicated
his life to making objects in memory of her beauty and their love.
So great were his skills, so profound his understanding of the
mortal spirit, that he was made CraftLord, maker of great things.
Many say he was the greatest of them all.
Two objects above all gave birth to legend.
The first was a flawless sphere of metal and glass he made in
anger the day she died. It was so perfect that when he hurled it
into the sky in defiance of the Gods who he thought had let his
Imbolc die, it stole something of the fires of the Universe and all
the colours of the earthly seasons. Seeing which, the Gods broke it
into a hundred thousand fragments. He found only three of these,
each a flawless gem which carried in itself the essence of a single
season: one for Summer, a second for Autumn and the last for
Winter.
Beornamund was sure that the gem of Spring also lay near his
workshop, but he never found it.
The second great object was linked to the first most strangely.
It was a pendant disc of gold in which he set the three gems he
found in the belief that Spring, the lost one, might one day come
to light.
This pendant was worn down the centuries by Imbolc, whom
the Gods had made Peace-Weaver in recognition of her purity and
goodness and who rode the world of mortals, whether human or
hydden, upon a white horse.
Beornamund prophesied that before the gem of Spring was ever
found those of Summer, Autumn and Winter must fall unseen and
forgotten from the pendant he gave Imbolc. When the last of these,
Winter, was lost, her journey as Peace-Weaver would be over.
Only then could she return to him as Imbolc, his beloved, her duty
done.
But he also warned that so destructive were the greedy hands of
mortals that with Imbolc’s final passing the Earth and Universe
would face extinction. All that could save them was the coming
of her fabled sister, the Shield Maiden, aided by a group of
courageous mortals. Their first task would be to find the lost gem
of Spring. After that and down the years the other gems of the
seasons must be recovered from where they had been scattered
across the Earth during the Peace-Weaver’s wanderings. Only
when that quest was complete might the Sphere Beornamund first
made be recreated, the fires of the Universe rekindled, the earthly
seasons renewed and the Earth and Universe be saved...
The Rider and Her Quest
Shortly before dawn on the first day of Spring the White Horse
and its rider came out of the darkness of winter to pause awhile
on Waseley Hill near Brum in Englalond.
Wraiths of cold mist stirred with the fretting of the horse’s hoofs
and lingered in the hollows and ditches downslope of where it stood,
more fearful of the rising sun than of the rider on its back. For she
was nothing much to look at now and barely more than a wraith
herself.
As she was too old to easily dismount, the White Horse dropped
gently to its knees and let her down. Her hands and fingers were
bent, her eyes rheumy, her white hair thin and her papery face
wrinkled with fifteen hundred years of journeying.
Around her neck was an old pendant disc of gold, worn and
battered, its gems nearly all lost – yet still a thing of beauty.
The rider had seen through all the seasons of her life and with the
coming of Spring she had started to live on borrowed time while she
completed her great task, before returning to the stars. For her quest
was not yet done, and with what little time and energy remained to
her she intended to see it to its end. Her body might be that of a
crone but her eyes shone still with the light of the love she had
received when she was young and beautiful, which she, in return, had
given back to the Earth and mortals ever since.
So now she stood on the wet grass of a hill where she’d once been
held in her lover’s arms and surveyed the still-dark landscape below.
In the fading gloom of the human city she saw that which no human
was able to see, the secret and most fabled city of the Hyddenworld.
Brum, the former capital of Englalond, was now the last stronghold
of liberty and those most subversive of all mortal inclinations, good
humour and individuality.
The rider’s name was Imbolc, or Spring.
Her lover had been Beornamund, greatest CraftLord of them all,
founder of Brum.
Her quest was the last of her great tasks and the hardest. It was to
find her sister and successor, the Shield Maiden.
For there was trouble in the air, not just in Englalond and across
the wider world, but throughout the Universe. The time had come
when the Shield Maiden was needed.
The end of days was threatening and Imbolc the Peace-Weaver,
having prepared the world as best she could for what needed to be
done, knew she must leave the rest to her sister, wherever and
however she might be found.
So now she stood, holding her great steed’s rein for support and
eyeing the cold morning all about, waiting for what would be.
