Thomas

Fri 16-May-1603 (6-May)

Roma [Chris] volunteered to swallow the cloch caint. After choking it down, he didn't notice anything unusual.

Elrick [Ian], Art [Jeff], Baron [Deacon], the Deacon [Shane] and Tess went out on a fishing trip on the dory, while Ab Siddy [Darryl] and Roma stayed back in Terryhaven.

Art, Baron and the Deacon caught nothing; not even any bait fish.

But Elrick felt a big bite on his line. He reeled it in. There was something large in the water, and it wasn't moving much - certainly not struggling and thrashing like a fish. He pulled it in; it was a barrel, then ... a hand. Some person, was clinging to it. It was a man. They pulled him on board.

Thomas Lichfield [Kevin]

He introduced himself as Thomas Lichfield [Kevin]. He had an English accent, with a beautiful voice, and said he was from Cambridge. They headed back to the beach.

"What are you doing in the water?" asked Elrick.

"I was on a ship, the Witch of Endor, headed for Corke," said Thomas. "But we were attacked by 25 pirates. I killed most of them, but they sunk the ship and I ended in the water. And I clung to this barrel. For three nights, I drifted."

"What about all the English frigates, brigs, and other fighting ships in Cork harbour?" Art asked.

"Oh, well I didn't notice them."

"Why didn't they help against the pirates?"

"Maybe they didn't see them, because ... well, the pirates came in on giant eagles. Hanging from the eagle legs."

"Eagles? You sure?"

"Yes, pirate eagles. That's right."

"Why were you going to Corke?" said Roma.

Flageolet

"I'm one of the greatest flageolet players in all England. I was headed to Corke city to learn from the best flageolet player in the British Isles, Spider Stacey of Corke."

"What's a flageolet?" asked Ab.

Thomas held up a small wooden recorder: "This."

He put it to his lips and gave them a little melody. It was appalling.

After they had calmed down from the unholy din, Elrick said: "Do you know the witch hunter?"

"I've worked for many witch hunters in my life. We have many witches in England."

"The one in Corke."

"Yeah, I know him."

"What's his name."

"Uh... Corkie McCork-face the witchhunter of Corke. He hunts witches, you know."

"We aren't actually looking for him," said Art. "We don't want him near us."

"Oh, ..uh... well, you will be okay. He doesn't think much of me. In fact, I scare him too much."

"Have you heard of Queen Elizabeth?" asked the Deacon.

"Of course! Good Queen Bess. I know her well; well, knew her well. She died this year, you know. She thought I was a great player. The best in the land."

"Do you know the ship called the Golden Hind?"

"Yes, know it well."

"Well, describe it.":

"Uh, it is golden. Like a hind - that's a kind of fish, you know. And the ship, well, it's got sails and stuff, and sailors, and it floats in the sea."

"Do you know the little people?" asked Ab.

"Goodness, yes, we have many of them in London. They sing and dance in the taverns. Some are tossed. Others are dressed as clowns."

"Not dwarfs," snapped Ab. "Little people; magic ones."

"Oh ... ah.. yes, I know them. They do magic, you know. Irish magic."

"London? You said you were from Cambridge," asked Roma.

"I was born Cambridge. I worked in London. Treading the boards."

"An actor too?"

"Yes, I was with the 'Admiral's men'. A performing troupe. I was the head player - First Flageolet. We accompanied the plays of Shakespeare and Marlowe. And Marlowe's musicals."

"Did Marlowe write musicals?"

"Gosh yes! The Lion King, and The Miserables, and Little Dorrit."

"Can you do anything else besides play the flute?"

"The flageolet. Yes, of course. I can fight."

Thomas had a knife. He and Baron faced each other and sparred a little. Surprisingly, Thomas was  not too bad with the knife.

"Can you fire a musket?" asked Art.

"Goodness yes. I'm a crack marksman."

"Bow too?"

"Oh yes, sure."

He didn't have any other weapons on him.

The rest of the day passed peacefully and they retired to the barn for the evening.


Sat 17-May

Second Watch came around, and the wolves returned. This time, Roma tried out the cloch caint powers and found he could understand the growls and scratchings of the wolves; he could converse with them.

The gist was that the wolves had lost two of their number, and had the group seen any sign? Roma didn't admit to them that they had seen a wolf carcass in the satyr caves. But he assured them that he'd keep an eye out.

As soon as it was light, they headed off towards the satyr sacrifice area (where they had first seen Caoilainn). Tomorrow night would be the moon's First Quarter, but the site ought to be clear this eve, so they thought.

The day trip was uneventful and they got to the site just on dark, and set watch.

Sun 18-May, First Quarter

Sure enough, during Second Watch, the satyrs, the glaistig, arrived. There were three or four of them. There was a short arrow battle in woods where Elrick, Roma, Tess and Art were injured. But the party managed to drive the glaistig off. They did realize that during the dark, the glaistig had a considerable advantage, and it was only through the quick thinking of Roma to try to light up them up with torches, that some arrow hits here achieved. Or maybe it was dumb luck. Nevertheless, this was enough to scare the cowardly creatures away.

After light, they made for the Glaistig caves. Elrick, Thomas, Art, Baron went in. The group was last here four day's ago, and since then there were a few changes:

• The larder was empty of its carcasses. 
• The cairn shaft room had an eerie fog on the floor, so they were too scared to enter it. 
• The weapons room was empty of weapons. 
• The torture room had a long-dead skeleton on the cross. The skull had small horns and sharp teeth.
• The cells were all empty. 

When the group of four entered the cell area, they heard a scratchy noise behind them in the tunnel. The skeleton had animated! Poor Thomas was at the back, so he took the brunt of the initial assault. He hurried into the cell room, and that allowed all four to attack it together. It didn't last long under the onslaught, and collapsed into a pile of bones. But, even defeated, the bones kept trying to rejoin to the skull, moving on their own accord. This effect stopped the moment the skull was taken outside the caves. And it was finally put to rest when the Deacon used his Banish Spirits ability. Elrick kept the skull as a souvenir.

Since the area in front of the caves was a clearing in the forest, the plan was to ambush the glaistig tonight as they left the caves. The weather was to be clear, and it was expected that the half moon should provide enough light to take away the dark-sight advantage of the sidhe creatures. So the group got out all their bows and the two matchlocks, and settled down ready for sunset.

For fear of little men

Mon 12-May-1603 (2-May)

At first light, the party (Art [Jeff], Baron [Deacon], the Deacon [Shane], Elrick [Ian], Roma [Chris], and Tess) quietly upped-sticks, said their good-byes to Esther, and left Corke via the North Gate. They picked up Ab Siddy [Darryl], who was guarding the dory, and headed down river and into the great Corke harbour, with Elrick on the tiller. The drizzle had stopped during the night, and it would be a nice day.

They arrived back in Terryhaven (where they had stayed two nights ago) about an hour before dark. They went to the same barn as last time, and the farmers were quite happy to let them; after all, the group paid well. Nourishing stew all around.

When asked about the thick woods to the south, the farmer recited:

"Up the airy mountain,
   Down the rushy glen,
We daren’t go a-hunting
   For fear of little men."

"You don't want to go in there. The wee folk'll get you."

Tue 13-May

Nevertheless, that was exactly where the party was headed. They wanted to go back to the satyr's cave, and explore it. And possibly find that poor girl sacrifice.

They spent the entire day tramping through the wood, and camped in a spot two hours from the cave. This remarkable feat of navigation and dead-reckoning was achieved through the help of Elrick's Never Gets Lost direction sense.

It was a peaceful night.

Wed 14-May

They found the cave. Ab's shamrock was buzzing like mad. Ab's El Gato did not want to enter, so he would be guard. Tess and the Deacon also stayed outside to guard with him [Shane was absent].

"Tis the lair of the devil!" he spluttered indignantly.

The group entered the cave. They had some flaming torches on sticks, plus Elrick had bought a bona fide oil-fuelled lantern when in Corke for eight shillings, which was as bright as a 40 W bulb. They went down a short passage and emerged into a room which had an old brass ship's bell in the centre, mounted on a stone plinth. It had Spanish writing on it "Esta pobre campana será violada por criaturas irlandesas." Roma guessed the bell came off the wreck of one of the Spanish Armada ships. They were worried that it would ring. So, Ab wrapped it in bits of his cloak. This act made it buck and jump, so Art encircled the bell with rope and tied the clapper to stop it moving. The chamber had two exits (plus the way they entered).

They went down one tunnel and came what looked like a meat larder. Various disemboweled carcasses, neatly skinned, were hanging from the ceiling; several humanoid carcasses, but were they human? One had wings; obviously not. One new exit.

The rough passage opened into a large room with the roof open to the sky, in a shaft five storeys deep. In the centre of this large room was a sidhe cairn. Like other cairns of the past, this one had a stone archway, big enough for a stooping man to traverse. Of course, no-one dared to go through there. There was one new exit.

The passage went to a small room. The floor was covered with coins, calf-deep. Mainly copper, but there were a lot of silver coins, and a few gold ones. They didn't dare touch anything. No new exits.

They went back to the Bell room and then to the other exit. This passage opened into a chamber with a rack of 12 bronze scimitars and six iron spears; the "Weapons Room". One exit.

St Andrew cross

Down this tunnel, in the next room was a St Andrew's cross, a primitive wooden rack, and a little spiked cage, made of thorns. Plus boxes of bronze chains and manacles and collars - enough to secure an entire platoon. There was one new exit.

Heading down this passage, Point heard noises and motioned everyone to stop: Loud snores and wheezing. So, the group steeled themselves, weapons all drawn, and rushed into the room, torches ablazing and lantern held high, expecting to fight satyrs. But there were none. Just a bunch of chained prisoners, secured to the walls by bronze collars on a chain. Two of the prisoners, a human man and human woman woke up immediately. The others kept sleeping despite the racket. One was the girl that Ab & Roma had almost rescued four nights ago, plus there were two leprechauns in small wooden cages, and finally a bat-winged humanoid thing, with fangs.

"Vampire!" Roma gasped, pointing at the fanged thing.

The man and woman were a farmer and his wife from a farm near the southern edge of this forest, kidnapped by the satyrs.

The party tried to wake the other creatures, but nothing would rouse them; maybe this was the sidhe penchant for only operating at night. This did prove that the captive girl (of four nights ago), was not human, though she did look it. Roma and Baron checked her several times, especially her breasts and butt, just to make double sure.

All the captives' collars were attached to the wall chain with bronze padlocks of unusual design. Roma managed to pick two of them, but the others were too fiddly for this big thumbs and greasy gypsy hair. So, Baren took to hacking at the chain with his steel sword; it could cut the bronze. And eventually got everyone free.

the "vampire"

Roma was worried the whole time that the vampire would wake up. So he went back to the Weapons room, grabbed one of the spears, cut off its iron head, then sharpened the stake to a point. With this, he placed it on the chest of the vampire thing, and hammered it home using the party mallet. Despite all this, the creature never stirred, but just stopped breathing as a large pool of blood formed under it. And it didn't explode nor turn to dust.

While this was going on, Elrick and Art grabbed an armful of the bronze scimitars from the Weapons room, and took them outside. But no sooner than they had crossed the threshold to the entrance, then the scimitars vanished from their arms, and reappeared back in the armoury. This turned out to be the same with the coins. They filled a bag with coins and lugged it outside; sure enough, the contents vanished.

"Bloody sidhe magic," muttered Art.

The farmer and his wife were happy to walk outside. The two leprechauns, the fae lady, and the body of the vampire thing were all carried outside. None of them vanished. Roma made sure the vampire was put into direct sunlight, expecting it to combust in a ball of flame, but nothing happened. It was just a dead grey winged fanged thing, now in sunlight.

Where were all the satyrs? The theory was that they had passed through that stone archway in the cairn room, and into the sidhe world. And that they'd probably stay through there until nightfall.

The party took all the ex-prisoners (sans the dead one, which was left under some leaves) two hours' clear  of the cave system, and tied the collars of the girl and the leprechaun to trees. And then waited until dark.

The instant the sun set, the creatures woke up. The fae lady opened her eyes and then stretched, as if she was awaking in an expensive boudoir. But not so the leprechauns. They sprung out madly, eyes glazed with hysteria, and bounced madly about, like a leopard held by its tail, like a hyena on a leash, smashing into trees, the ground and each other. They didn't react to pain, nor voice, nor anything. Worried that they'd hurt themselves, the party eventually gave up and cut the ropes. The leprechauns vanished into the forest in a mad dash.

The fae girl seemed amused.

"They'll not be back," she said. "I'm Caoilainn [KAY lin], by the way, and I won't run."

The party freed her and got talking, as they kept walking. She was a nymph, but that wasn't the Irish term. She preferred "leanan sidhe": "The satyrs are called 'glaistig' [glarsh tig], by the way."

Grateful to being rescued, Caoilainn told the group a lot about sidhe culture. This act was normally frowned upon, fae folk were supposed to keep it to themselves, but she was grateful and appreciative.

"Just how appreciative?" asked Baron.

"It is unwise for mortals to ... do it with a leanan sidhe, and you will die," Caoilainn smiled. Then added: "That said, a very happy man; 'very' in capitals and in bold font."

The group didn't mention what Roma had done with the winged thing, but when questioned about that, she said it was a boggan or puca (PEW kuh).

Worried about the satyrs, they walked north as they talked.

Art asked about the cairns and the stone archways.

Caoilainn just smiled and said: "That is an entrance into the world of the Sidhe. Ruled over by the Seelie Court and the Unseelie Court. You'd need to be a brave man indeed to go there."

A bit further on, Caoilainn pointed out some things nearby:

"The pucas haunt this area, a stone's throw to the left."

"And coming up on our right is the area of the leprechauns. The ó Dochartaigh clan ..."

Ab Siddy went to the edge and called out to them, hoping for a reward for freeing the leprechauns.

"Hello noble leprechauns!" he shouted "We freed yer two mates from the glaistig."

"Don't..." cried out Caoilainn.

But it was too late. A large gob of faeces, still warm, landed, smack, in Ab's face. The diet of leprechauns is not very wholesome, so what comes out the other end is not particularly sweet-smelling.

"O'Shaughnessy bastards!" came a cry from the darkness. "O'Shaughnessy brown-nosing bastards" "Who's got a brown nose now?!"

Then there was a whole lot of hooting and baying, and a host more projectiles, most unclean.

"Piss off you O'Shaughnessy-loving pieces of cac. Aiteann. Gabh suas ort féin! Gabh transna ort fhéin, aiteann. Ráicleach!"

Caoilainn directed the retreat. When they were clear of the trouble, she said: "The leprechauns are very territorial and hate other clans. Those leprechauns prisoners in the caves were Ó Seachnasaigh. Their area is off to the west."

Thu 15-May

They did not want to stop, for fear of being overtaken by the satyrs, so they marched most of the night, and arrived back in Terryhaven about four hours before dawn.

"I'll be back at sunset," said Caoilainn. "With a gift for your group."

With that, she re-entered the forest.

It was time for Second Watch, and sure enough something happened. A bunch of wolves entered town. The party did not go out to encounter them, so stayed safely tucked in the barn. The wolves wandered the village a little, then vanished back into the forest.

The day passes uneventfully. The party did some fishing in the bay from their dory.

cloch caint

Just after sunset, as predicted, Caoilainn arrived back. She had a sidhe gift for the group; a small stone, a blue agate, the size of a grape.

"This is called a 'cloch caint' ["loch" with K on front, and "kint" rhymes with "pint"]. Whoever swallows it will be able to converse with non-sidhe animals," she began. "The gift will last until the stone is ... uh ... passed. Then it can be cleaned and re-swallowed. The same person need not be the host each time."

"Is it ... new?" asked Art.

"No," said Caoilainn. "It has been passed down, as it were, for generations."

"Ewww," said Elrick. "Bags not me then."

They thanked Caoilainn for her help, and she said her good-byes, and then she paused on the way out.

"If you intend to revisit the glaistig," continued Caoilainn. "In three more nights [18th] the moon will be first quarter. That is an auspicious time. The glaistig will be out for another ritual."

And she added wryly: "And I'll try to make sure I'm not under the knife."

Corke ho !

Wed 7-May-1603 (27-Apr) continued ...

Elrick [Ian] and Ester, in the new dory christened "The Witches", arrived back at a secluded beach to the west of South Kinsale and met up with the rest of the group (Art [Jeff], the Deacon [Shane], Ab Siddy [Darryl], Roma [Chris], Baron [Deacon], Mrs Siddy, and Tess). They pulled the boat up the beach, and camped the night.

Thu 8-May

It was a quiet night. Just before light, they boarded the dory, and headed out to sea to take the harbour route to Corke. It was overcast and the west wind was strong. There was quite a swell on the sea.

The day passed uneventfully. The weather grew progressively worse and it started to rain. They stopped around dark, near Barry Island, and pulled the dory up on a deserted beach to sleep.

Fri 9-May

It was a peaceful, but wet, night.

They started early. The weather was worse now.

About noon, they rounded a headland, and saw three tall ships, off in the distance, at the entrance to Corke harbour. They suspected the English navy, but didn't really think the authorities would dedicate warships just to catch some runaway witches. Nevertheless, rather than risk sending everyone in the boat past, they decided to drop off half the group to make a land trip over the peninsular [see red line on map], even though it would add a day or two. So Ab, Mrs Siddy, Roma and the Deacon were volunteered. The plan was to meet up with the dory further up Corke harbour, at the first major inlet. They split up Tess and the Deacon, so that would give some useful communication, via the Familiar link, between the two groups.

The rain was heavy now. The land group travelled all day and were forced to enter a large forest which blocked their path. On the plus side, this gave them some shelter from the storm. Ab's shamrock (gift from the leprechauns) was quiet the whole time. After all day of trudging, they made camp and settled for the night, in the pouring rain.

Meanwhile, those on the dory (Elrick, Tess, Art, Esther and Baron) were being tossed, blown and soaked by the storm.  They arrived at the three-kilometre-wide entrance to Cork harbour, and sailed slowly past the three tall ships. These turned out to be English man-o-wars, as predicted: two frigates and a brig. (Using the new naval vernacular, these would be called "6th rate" ships. A year of two before this, they'd be called "small ships".) The warships made no attempt to signal the dory, let alone stop them.

They entered the huge Cork harbour, and got some respite from the storm. A few hours later, they docked in the first inlet on the left at a small village called Terryhaven. It was basically just a few houses and a stone church. They paid some villagers and took up digs in the a barn. The rain was really heavy now, but they were snug and dry. The farmers brought them some bread and stew, and then they settled for the night.

Sat 10-May

Meanwhile, back in the forest, the night had been quiet (but wet!) so far. But during Second Watch, as fate would have it, there were torches seen in the woods. Roma (with Night Vision) went out to check, and reported back: four satyrs! Ab put on his Camouflage and went to check in detail. They had a barely-clad girl tied to a tree. Human? Or was she a nymph?

After conversing with the others, Ab and Roma decided to make an attempt at a rescue. The Deacon stayed back in camp to guard Mrs Siddy - planning to use his Magic Ward in case any sidhe creatures approached.

First Roma used his ventriloquism ability and managed to divert the satyrs enough so that Ab could cut the ropes holding the girl. She bolted. But Satyrs noticed immediately, and rushed off after her. Ab shot an arrow into one, but that didn't prevent them recapturing her. The satyrs obviously decided their camp wasn't safe, so they dragged her off, leashed. Roma was out of his depth, so returned to camp, but Ab put on another Camouflage and followed them. His shamrock was buzzing the whole time, so this was a sidhe area. Ab followed them, surreptitiously as he could, for about 30 minutes. They took her into a cave, still in the forest. Ab wasn't game to enter, so headed back to camp.

In the morning, the rain was just drizzle. Ab took the land group back to the cave, but no-one was brave enough to enter, so they gave up. The Deacon had a chat with Tess (through the familiar link) to update everything, and so they headed for Terryhaven, which would be a long walk in the rain.

The boat group just spent the day fishing in Terryhaven harbour.

The land group arrived in Terryhaven about midnight.

Sun 11-May, New Moon

In the morning, Ab tried convince the rest of the group to return to the satyr cave, but there were no takers. So they headed for Corke, back on the dory.

This trip took almost the whole day. En route there were a couple more navy ships, a brig and a frigate. Entering the tidal Lee river, they passed Blackrock castle on the south bank, then arrived at Corke an hour before dark. Esther had been there before, so she briefed them on the city.

Corke (1603 pop was 4200) was built on several large islands in the middle of the river Lee. It had been entirely walled for hundreds of years. But the walls were beginning to show their age, and what was once superb protection from raiders, now could not stand up to contemporary military technology of cannon fire and mortar bombs. This was made worse by hills on the north and south banks of the Lee which overlooked the city giving any raiders a perfect position to place their guns. Corke had a gate on the north and south walls, and a marine gate on the east. The marine gate was large enough to take full-size ships, and thus the Corke docks were inside the walls.

But the group wasn't brave enough to take the dory in through the marine gate, so they pulled the boat up on the north bank of the Lee. Ab stayed guarding the boat, plus, with  his obvious looks, was too scared to enter the city.

Everyone else went into the city, through the north gate. There were guards a-plenty and the Deacon and Tess, and then Roma were questioned, but it appeared like a run-of-the-mill interrogation rather than awkward Baltimore questions.

Mrs Siddy was safely delivered to her sister's residence; that was one less thing to worry about.

They got rooms in Ye Docks Lookout inn, but had to squash everyone into only two rooms, since it was quite full. There were a lot of troops in town. Rumour had it that there was a Spanish attack  imminent, and Corke, being the largest city in southern Ireland, was a viable place to attack. There was a new fort (called "New Fort") just to the south of the city, where most soldiers were garrisoned, but there were still a lot of soldiers domiciled and billeted in the city proper. Hence accommodation was tight.

Scoping out the docks revealed another navy frigate HMS Barnstable Actual, two merchantmen Swollen Murphy and Rugged Cross, a pilgrim ship Sunflower destined for the New World, and their old friend the Golden Hind.

Esther had no trouble getting a job at the inn, because business was brisk and the inn was down on its diversity quota of buxom wenches. Thus Esther became a valuable source of information for the group as she plied the busy tables and made light conversation with the many guests.

The group maintained a table of their own the whole evening, so Esther could wander over to relay comms.

Someone (Art) did remember to take some food out to poor Ab who was camped in the mud, under the dory, in the drizzling rain, with the Lee mud crabs to keep him company.

Lookout ale

Tess neglected to watch Deacon Father, just for a moment; and the deed was done. He had one pint too many (yeah, one) of Lookout ale, and got spectacularly off his face [-4]. The rest of the group pretended not the know the drunken priest who was staggering about; either shouting streams of invective and blasphemies, or sitting at random tables and hugging or groping random patrons "yer me mate, yer me fuckin mate". It was only when the vomiting started that Tess and Esther stepped in and hauled him outside. Here they begin the messy task of cleaning the vomit off his cassock and out of his hair, changing his urine-soaked robes and scraping up the diarrhoea, which was all up his back and down his legs (using diarrhoea strigils).

Later on in the evening, a group of sailors arrived whom several of the party recognized as from the Golden Hind. They were very drunk, so the party was pretty sure that the sailors wouldn't have noticed them. Esther went over and questioned them. The Golden Hind had been in Corke for two weeks now and was undergoing a refit. The sailors didn't know exactly what was being refitted, but it was in the vicinity of Edward's cabin. Esther was warned not to ask any probing questions about Elizabeth Stuart. Though, they did mention a noble lady and two hand-maidens; obviously one was the Spanish Lucia, but who was the other?