Early Celts enjoyed the dark side of life. They embraced war like a lover, rushing naked into battle, singing magnificent songs of boastfulness. They were fearless in the face of death, which their belief in reincarnation turned into "..., the middle of a long life". It was normal for a person to lend money and agree to repay it in a future life. Their day began at sunset, and New Year- on Saun, a holiday known to us as Halloween. Darkness was associated with new beginnings, the potential of the seed hidden underground.

In Celtic mythology and folklore, the wisdom of darkness is often personified by majestic images of goddesses. Their role in a natural, cultural or individual context is to change the personality with the power of darkness, to lead the hero through death into a new life.

A dark nature goddess particularly well known in Scotland is Calech, whose name means "Old Wife" but which literally means "The Hidden One" - an epithet often applied to those who belonged to other worlds. Another name is often added to this name - Ber - which means “sharp” or “piercing”, since it personifies cold winds and severity northern winter. She was also known as the daughter of Grianan, the "little sun" which in the old Scottish calendar shines upon the people from Hallowmas to Candlemas, preceding the birth of the "great sun" of the summer months.

She looks terrible:

There were two thin battle spears

On the other side of Karlen

Her face was blue-black, with a coal sheen,

And her teeth looked like rotten bones.

On her face there was only one deep eye, like a pool,

And he was faster than the winter star.

Over her head there is twisted brushwood,

Claw-like old wood aspen roots.

Her one eye is characteristic of those supernatural beings who are able to see beyond the world of opposites. Dressed in a taupe plaid wrapped around her shoulders, Kaleh Ber jumped from mountain to mountain through sea ​​bays. When the extraordinary began strong storm, people said to each other: "Kaleh is going to shake out his blankets tonight." At the end of summer she rinsed her cloak in Corryvreckan, a whirlpool off the west coast, and when she shook it, the hills turned white with snow. In his right hand she held a magic rod or hammer with which she beat the grass, turning it into ice blades. Early spring she could not bear the grass and the sun, and, flaring up, threw her staff at the roots of the holly, and then disappeared into a boiling cloud, "......and that is why no grass grows under holly."

Some sources say that at the end of winter, Kaleh turns into a gray boulder until the warm days end. The boulder is believed to have been "always wet" because it contained "essence of life". But at the same time, many stories say that at this time she turns into a beautiful young woman. The second image of Calech is Bride, a goddess and modern Scottish saint whose special day, February 1st, marks the return of light. On the eve of his transformation, Kaleh goes to a magical island, where the amazing Well of Youth stands in the forest. At the first rays of dawn, she drinks the water that bubbles in the cracks of the rock, and turns into Bride, the fair maiden, whose white rod turns the bare earth green.

On a cultural level, the Dark Goddess appears in many guises, and her role is typically to assist Celtic society during difficult times of transition, such as war or the choice of a king. In Ireland, Morrigan, whose name means Queen of Ghosts, represents the fury of battle. Together with Badb (Crow) and Maha, they form a terrifying triad, which, with the help of their spells, unleashes mists, clouds of darkness and showers of fire and blood on their enemies. Their threatening howls make the blood run cold; the warriors who heard these sounds flee in horror from the battlefield. Any aspect of this triune goddess could appear among the opposing armies in the form of crows or ravens, the sinister black birds of death. Or warriors might see a skinny, agile witch soaring above the battle, leaping on the spears and shields of the army about to win.

Another aspect of her is the Washerwoman at the Stream, an old woman who washes the clothes of a soldier who is about to die in battle. Seeing her, the warrior knew that he would soon cross the river separating life and death. Yet for the Celts, blood and carnage on the battlefield were a symbol of fertilization and replenishment of the earth. War and death gave way to life and fertile land, and Morrigan, who contained this secret, was also the goddess of fertility and sexuality, sometimes appearing to people as a beautiful young woman. She was identified directly with the earth, in the guise of the Supreme Power, the goddess entered into a ritual marriage with the one who was to become the king of Ireland.

The Supreme Power also appears in legends as an ugly old woman. In a story called "The Adventures of the Sons of Eochaid Magmedin", five brothers go hunting in the forest to prove their courage. They head off the road and set up camp to light a fire and cook the game they have just harvested. One of the brothers goes in search drinking water and meets a terrible black witch guarding the well. She says she will give him water only in exchange for a kiss. He returns to the camp empty-handed, as do the rest of the brothers, who take turns going to the well. Everyone fails except Neill, who embraces the old woman in a heartfelt embrace. When he looks at her again, she turns out to be the most beautiful woman in the world, with lips "like the dark red moss of the rocks of Leinster... her eyes... like the buttercups of Bregon."

"Who are you?" - asked the boy. “King of Tara, I am the High Power,” she replies, “and your seed will be in every clan of Ireland.”

Appearing in its most repulsive aspect, the Supreme Power can test the king, who should not be fooled by these tricks, who knows the value of the treasure hidden in the dark. He postpones his reward until later and submits to unpleasant demands out of compassion. Kissing or making love (which is more clearly expressed in other legends) with the Dark One, he learns the secrets of life and death, that they are only two sides of the same coin, and the wisdom of the Other World will accompany him throughout his reign.

The Embrace of the Dark Goddess, as an act of sacrifice for the sake of gaining knowledge, is also the theme of the Arthurian legend of Sir Gawain and Lady Ragnell, where the handsome Gawain promises to marry "disgusting lady" to save King Arthur's life. The court is filled with horror upon learning of what Gawain has promised to do, so evil and disgusting is his future bride, but when he kisses her on her wedding night, she turns into a beautiful young maiden of unsurpassed beauty.

Initiation through the Dark Goddess occurs in many Celtic stories, where the hero is changed through contact with her. In this aspect, she often appears as a fairy maiden who initiates the hero into the secrets of the Other World. Nowhere is this theme more clearly explored than in Thomas Rymer's Scottish ballad, The History of Thomas Earleston, a poet who actually lived in the 13th century. At the beginning of the story, which has many alternative versions, we see Thomas sitting under a hawthorn bush on fairy hill. The tree that stands between earth and sky is often found at the border of worlds, and the hawthorn is a plant especially sacred to the fairies. Thomas plays on musical instrument, and since music in all cultures serves as a bridge connecting worlds, its melodies attract the beautiful Earth Queen of Faerie, who rides up to the hill on her white horse. She challenges Thomas:

Play the harp and argue, Thomas, she said

Play the harp and argue with me

And if you dare to kiss my lips

I will forever own your body

Thomas answers the challenge fearlessly:

Will goodness befall me or will sorrow befall me?

Evil will never take hold of me

And he kissed her pink lips

At the roots of the Tree

At this point, the queen's beauty fades and she becomes a dirty and disgusting old woman. Now Thomas, bound by obligation, must follow her and serve the Faerie Queen forever. She bids him farewell to the sun, moon and green leaves of earth's summer, and leads him into the darkness of the hill, into the world under the roots of the tree. Thomas must endure the trials of the lower world:

Forty days and forty nights

He made his way through a stream of red blood,

reaching up to his knees,

And he saw neither the sun nor the moon,

But I heard the roar of the sea.

Thomas survives the test, but when he reaches the other shore, he dies of starvation. He and the queen are traveling through beautiful garden, but the Queen warns him that if he eats any of the fruit, his soul will burn in "hell fire." She prudently took with her food that was safe for humans - a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine. The thing is that they are inside the Tree of Life, which stands at the center of the Celtic Other World, and eating its fruit means never returning to the mortal world. They drive to where the road splits into three paths. The Queen explains that the narrow path covered with thorns and thorny bushes is the Path of Justice, and it leads to heaven; the wide, smooth road leads to Hell, and the third "beautiful road" will lead them to the "wonderful Land of Faerie", their goal in the Other World.

Thomas finds himself in a wonderful fairy castle, where music is playing and there is a feast. The queen again becomes a beautiful maiden, and Thomas lives with her there, as it seems to him, for three days. At the end of the third day, the Queen informs him that he must leave, because three years have passed on earth and today the Devil arrives in the land of the fairies to take his tribute or “narration of Hell” from her land, and the Queen is afraid that he will choose Thomas. Before the poet leaves, she gives him a green fairy robe and gifts him with the gift of prophecy and "a tongue that can never lie", because of which Thomas will be called "True Thomas" in Scotland for six centuries.

Seeking to merge with his Beloved, who has otherworldly powers, Thomas falls into the arms of his Shadow, the Guardian of the Threshold, the inevitable first step on the path to His Truth, which is bestowed upon him by the dual goddess. Thomas has succumbed to the seductive promise of love and beauty, but first he must face everything that is ugly, unresolved and unprocessed within himself before he can move into the spiritual life.

However, accepting his shadow is only the first part of Thomas's dedication. Now he enters the dark night of the soul in the perilous setting of the underworld, a typical mythical journey directly into the body of the goddess - the Earth Mother - who opens her womb/grave to claim the dead body for herself. The British Isles and Ireland are covered with similar hills and mounds, which are believed to be entrances to unseen worlds, many of which are described as the earthly manifestation of the Goddess. Newgrange in Ireland, for example, is in some legends called the womb of the goddess Bondd, who gave her name to the River Boyne, which flows nearby. Thomas's journey into death and his transformation through the chthonic kingdom is an ancient rite of passage leading to more high level existence, which is found in many cultures around the world, often as a "voyage on the night sea."

He has no choice, he can only trust the Queen and in the end she really protects him, warning him about those actions that could forever lock the hero in fairyland, and saves him from the clutches of the Devil. Her return to her former charming appearance confirms Thomas's transition to the earthly paradise of faerie. But he has not come here to enjoy the wonders of this country forever: he has a worldly job to do, so that when the Queen rewards him with "a tongue that will never speak a word of lies." At this moment, Thomas's ego rises sharply and he tries to refuse such a seemingly useless gift:

“My tongue is good enough as it is,” said Truthful Thomas;

"You are giving me a remarkable gift!

I dare not buy or sell goods at a fair, nor go on a date."

Thomas is not allowed to give up his spiritual achievement. Returning to Scotland, he discovers that he has acquired the skills of a bard who "sees the present, the past and the future", a gift that he will share with his people. Upon entering Eldon Hill, Thomas's old self died, and he himself acquired the characteristics of a "twice-born". He receives the gift of prophecy as he consciously goes to the Otherworld Initiation before dying and obeys the Queen's laws, proving that he is worthy to gain hidden knowledge by returning to the mortal world. Entering the endless realms, he gains the power to change time and see the future. He could never again be the Thomas who knew only one world, and as his life in our world came to an end, according to legend, two white stags, the Queen's messengers, approached Earlston to take Thomas back to the land where he reigned. Dark Goddess.

Terence Hanbury White

Queen of Air and Darkness

When will death finally let me go?

All the evil that father did?

And how soon will it be under the gravestone?

Will the mother's curse find peace?

INOIPIT LIBER SECUNDUS

There was a tower in the light, and a weather vane stuck out above the tower. The weather vane was a crow with an arrow in its beak to indicate the wind.

Under the very roof of the tower there was a round room that was rare in its inconvenience. In its eastern part there was a closet with a hole in the floor. The hole looked at the outer doors of the tower, of which there were two, through which stones could be thrown down in case of a siege. Unfortunately, the wind also used it - it entered it and flowed out through unglazed windows or into the fireplace chimney, unless it blew in the opposite direction, flying from top to bottom. It turned out something like a wind tunnel. The second problem was that the room was filled with smoke from burning peat - from a fire lit not in it, but in the room below. Complex system drafts sucked smoke from the fireplace chimney. In wet weather stone walls the rooms were steaming up. And the furniture in it was not very comfortable. The only furniture was piles of stones suitable for throwing through the hole, several rusty Genoese crossbows with arrows and a pile of peat for the unlit hearth. The four children did not have a bed. If the room had been square, they could have built bunks, but they had to sleep on the floor, covering themselves, as best they could, with straw and blankets.

The children built a kind of tent over their heads from blankets and now lay under it, huddled closely together and telling a story. They could hear their mother feeding the fire in the lower room, and they whispered, fearing that she might hear them too. It’s not that they were afraid that their mother would come up to them and kill them. They adored her silently and thoughtlessly, because her character was stronger. And it wasn’t that they were forbidden to talk after they went to bed. The point was, perhaps, that their mother raised them - whether out of indifference, laziness, or a kind of cruelty of an undivided owner - with a crippled sense of good and bad. It was as if they never knew exactly whether they were doing good or bad.

They whispered in Gaelic. Or rather, they were whispering in a strange mixture of Gaelic and the ancient language of chivalry, which they had been taught because they would need it when they grew up. They hardly knew English. Subsequently, having become famous knights at the court of the great king, they involuntarily learned to speak English fluently - all except Gawain, who, as the head of the clan, deliberately clung to the Scottish accent, wanting to show that he was not ashamed of his origin.

Gawain narrated the story, since he was the eldest. They lay side by side, looking like skinny, strange, stealthy frogs - their well-cut bodies were ready to get stronger as soon as they could be properly nourished. Everyone had blond hair. Gawain was brightly red, and Gareth was as white as hay. Their ages ranged from ten to fourteen years, with Gareth being the youngest. Gaheris was a strong man. Agravain, the eldest after Gawain, was V the family's main brawler - quirky, easy to cry and afraid of pain. This is because he had a rich imagination, and he worked with his head more than anyone else.

Once upon a time, O my heroes,” said Gawain, “even before we were born or even conceived, our beautiful grandmother lived in this world and her name was Igraine.

"Countess of Cornwall," said Agravaine.

Our grandmother is the Countess of Cornwall,” Gawain agreed, “and the bloody King of England fell in love with her.”

Named Uther Pendragon,” said Agravaine.

Who's telling the story? - Gareth asked angrily. - Shut your mouth.

And King Uther Pendragon,” continued Gawain, “sent for the Earl and Countess of Cornwall...

Our grandparents,” Gaheris said.

- ... and announced that they should stay with him in his house in the Tower of London. And so, while they remained there with him, he asked our grandmother to become his wife instead of continuing to live with our grandfather. But the virtuous and beautiful Countess of Cornwall...

Grandmother,” Gaheris interjected. Gareth exclaimed:

What a devil! Will you give me peace or not? Muffled bickering followed, laced with squeals, slaps and plaintive reproaches.

The virtuous and beautiful Countess of Cornwall, - Gawain resumed his story, - rejected the encroachments of King Uther Pendragon and told our grandfather about them. She said: “Apparently they sent for us to dishonor me. Therefore, my husband, let’s leave here this very hour, then we will have time to gallop to our castle overnight.” And they left in the middle of the night.

At midnight,” Gareth corrected.

- ... from the royal fortress, when everyone in the house was asleep, and saddled their proud, fire-eyed, fleet-footed, proportionate, big-lipped, small-headed, zealous horses in the light of the night boat and galloped to Cornwall as quickly as they could.

It was a terrible ride,” said Gareth.

And the horses fell under them,” said Agravaine.

Well, no, that didn’t happen,” said Gareth. - Our grandparents would not have driven horses to death.

So did they fall or did they not fall? - Gaheris asked.

No, they didn’t fall,” Gawain answered after thinking. - But they were not far from it.

And he continued the story.

When King Uther Pendragon learned about what had happened in the morning, he was terribly angry.

Crazy,” said Gareth.

“Terrible,” said Gawain. “King Uther Pendragon was terribly angry.” He said: “How holy is God, they will bring me the head of this Earl of Cornwall on a pie plate!” And he sent a letter to our grandfather, in which he ordered him to prepare and equip himself, for not even forty days would pass before he would reach him, even in the strongest of his castles!

“And he had two castles,” Agravaine said, laughing. - Called Tintagil Castle and Terrabil Castle.

And so the Earl of Cornwall placed our grandmother in Tintagil, and he himself went to Terrabil, and King Uther Pendragon came up to invest them both.

And then,” cried Gareth, no longer able to restrain himself, “the king pitched many tents, and great battles took place between the two sides, and many people were killed!”

Thousand? - Gaheris suggested.

“No less than two,” said Agravain. “We Gaels couldn’t put in less than two thousand.” In truth, maybe a million died there.

And so, when our grandparents began to gain the upper hand and it seemed that King Uther was in for complete defeat, an evil wizard called Merlin appeared there...

Negromancer,” said Gareth.

And that negromancer, would you believe it, through his infernal art, succeeded in transporting the traitor Uther Pendragon to our grandmother’s castle. Grandfather immediately launched a sortie from Terrabil, but was killed in battle...

Treacherously.

And the unfortunate Countess of Cornwall...

Virtuous and beautiful Igraine...

Our grandmother...

- ... became the captive of an evil Englishwoman, the treacherous Dragon King, and then, despite the fact that she already had three beautiful daughters ...

Lovely Cornish Sisters.

Aunt Elaine.

Aunt Morgana.

And mommy.

And even having these beautiful daughters, she had to involuntarily marry the King of England - the man who killed her husband!

In silence they reflected on the great English depravity, stunned by its denouement. It was their mother's favorite story - on the rare occasions when she deigned to tell them something - and they learned it by heart. Finally Agravain quoted a Gaelic proverb that she had taught them.

Terence Hanbury White

Queen of Air and Darkness

When will death finally let me go?

All the evil that father did?

And how soon will it be under the gravestone?

Will the mother's curse find peace?

INOIPIT LIBER SECUNDUS

There was a tower in the light, and a weather vane stuck out above the tower. The weather vane was a crow with an arrow in its beak to indicate the wind.

Under the very roof of the tower there was a round room that was rare in its inconvenience. In its eastern part there was a closet with a hole in the floor. The hole looked at the outer doors of the tower, of which there were two, through which stones could be thrown down in case of a siege. Unfortunately, the wind also used it - it entered it and flowed out through unglazed windows or into the fireplace chimney, unless it blew in the opposite direction, flying from top to bottom. It turned out something like a wind tunnel. The second problem was that the room was filled with smoke from burning peat - from a fire lit not in it, but in the room below. A complex system of drafts sucked smoke from the fireplace chimney. In damp weather, the stone walls of the room fogged up. And the furniture in it was not very comfortable. The only furniture was piles of stones suitable for throwing through the hole, several rusty Genoese crossbows with arrows and a pile of peat for the unlit hearth. The four children did not have a bed. If the room had been square, they could have built bunks, but they had to sleep on the floor, covering themselves, as best they could, with straw and blankets.

The children built a kind of tent over their heads from blankets and now lay under it, huddled closely together and telling a story. They could hear their mother feeding the fire in the lower room, and they whispered, fearing that she might hear them too. It’s not that they were afraid that their mother would come up to them and kill them. They adored her silently and thoughtlessly, because her character was stronger. And it wasn’t that they were forbidden to talk after they went to bed. The point was, perhaps, that their mother raised them - whether out of indifference, laziness, or a kind of cruelty of an undivided owner - with a crippled sense of good and bad. It was as if they never knew exactly whether they were doing good or bad.

They whispered in Gaelic. Or rather, they were whispering in a strange mixture of Gaelic and the ancient language of chivalry, which they had been taught because they would need it when they grew up. They hardly knew English. Subsequently, having become famous knights at the court of the great king, they involuntarily learned to speak English fluently - all except Gawain, who, as the head of the clan, deliberately clung to the Scottish accent, wanting to show that he was not ashamed of his origin.

Gawain narrated the story, since he was the eldest. They lay side by side, looking like skinny, strange, stealthy frogs - their well-cut bodies were ready to get stronger as soon as they could be properly nourished. Everyone had blond hair. Gawain was brightly red, and Gareth was as white as hay. Their ages ranged from ten to fourteen years, with Gareth being the youngest. Gaheris was a strong man. Agravain, the eldest after Gawain, was V the family's main brawler - quirky, easy to cry and afraid of pain. This is because he had a rich imagination, and he worked with his head more than anyone else.

Once upon a time, O my heroes,” said Gawain, “even before we were born or even conceived, our beautiful grandmother lived in this world and her name was Igraine.

"Countess of Cornwall," said Agravaine.

Our grandmother is the Countess of Cornwall,” Gawain agreed, “and the bloody King of England fell in love with her.”

Named Uther Pendragon,” said Agravaine.

Who's telling the story? - Gareth asked angrily. - Shut your mouth.

And King Uther Pendragon,” continued Gawain, “sent for the Earl and Countess of Cornwall...

Our grandparents,” Gaheris said.

- ... and announced that they should stay with him in his house in the Tower of London. And so, while they remained there with him, he asked our grandmother to become his wife instead of continuing to live with our grandfather. But the virtuous and beautiful Countess of Cornwall...

Grandmother,” Gaheris interjected. Gareth exclaimed:

What a devil! Will you give me peace or not? Muffled bickering followed, laced with squeals, slaps and plaintive reproaches.

I've noticed some confusion in my posting schedule, which kind of makes sense because it's kind of hard to talk about right now! Below are short descriptions to make it clearer what projects I have and when they will be released.

"Ghosts of the Twilight Market":

This is a series short stories, dedicated to Jem/Brother Zechariah. They will be published monthly, one at a time, in e-book format from April to November 2018. Just like The Chronicles of Bane and Tales of the Shadowhunter Academy, these short stories are the result of my collaboration with a group of talented writers. IN in this case this is Sarah Reese Brennan, Maureen Johnson, Robin Wasserman and Callie Link!

[All of Ghosts of the Twilight Market will be collected along with two bonus stories in a print edition, likely to be released in the summer of 2019].

List of stories included in the collection:

"Son of Dawn"[April 2018, co-authored with Sarah Rees Brennan]: The events of the story take place in 2000. Jace meets the Lightwoods!

"Casting Long Shadows" [May 2018, co-authored with Sarah Rees Brennan]: The events of the story take place in 1901. A visit to the Twilight Market changes Matthew Fairchild's life forever.

"Every Exquisite Thing"[June 2018, co-authored with Maureen Johnson]: The story takes place in the early 1900s. Anna Lightwood's first love story!

"Learn about losses" [July 2018, co-written with Kelly Link]: The story takes place in the 1930s. Brother Zechariah visits a dark carnival and summons a demon.

"Deep Love"[August 2018, co-authored with Maureen Johnson]: The story takes place in the 1940s. Tessa Gray and Katherine Loss become nurses to help suffering mundane people during World War II.

"Satan" [September 2018, co-authored with Robin Wasserma n]: The events of the story take place in 1989-90. Celine Montclair meets Valentin Morgenstern for the first time.

"The Land I Lost" [October 2018, co-authored with Sarah Rees Brennan]: The events of the story take place in 2012. Alec Lightwood and Lily Chen travel to Buenos Aires to help rebuild after the Dark War, and Alec meets an orphaned Shadowhunter child.

"Through Blood, Through Fire"[November 2018, co-authored with Robin Wasserman]: The events of the story take place in 2012. A terrible threat looms over the Shadow Market child, and Jem Carstairs and Tessa Gray may be the only ones who can save him.

"Golden Tower"["Magisterium-5"]:

September 11, 2018.
It's her! The final book in the series! Callum Hunt's fate is sealed.

"Queen of Air and Darkness"["Dark Arts 3"]:

December 4, 2018.
The final book of the trilogy sets in motion events that will change the world of Shadowhunters forever.

"Red Magic Scrolls"[“Ancient Curses-1”]:

March 2019.
Magnus and Alec had planned to go on a nice, peaceful holiday after the Dark War, and had no intention of having to deal with stolen memories. terrible secrets, vicious demons and deadly cultists. Suddenly their European tour feels a lot more like work, but they're both still determined to enjoy it!

Print edition of Ghosts of the Twilight Market:

Exact date There is no release yet, most likely it will be summer 2019.

"Golden Chain"["Last Hours-1"]:

There is no exact release date yet, most likely it will happen between September and November 2019.
This is the beginning of a new Shadowhunter trilogy set in the Edwardian era. The children of Tessa, Will and other characters from The Infernal Devices have grown into much more quiet time than their parents. But problems arise amid their boat parties and balls. Revenge, prejudice and obsession lurk beneath the surface of their world, and a mysterious disease has begun to strike the Shadowhunters...

"The Lost White Book"["Ancient Curses-2"]:

Probably March 2020.
Magnus and Alec decided that the adventures of their too-eventful vacation were long ago in the past, but old friends and old enemies did not sink into oblivion, and the story continues...

"Iron Chain"["Last Hours-2"]:

Probably to be released in autumn [September-November] 2020.
The story of James, Lucy, Cordelia and their friends continues.

After this, things get a little fuzzy. There are no publications scheduled for 2021, but we still have “The Last Hours 3,” “The Ancient Curses 3,” and “Sword Catcher”* on the horizon.

*Information about this new series Cassandra Clare will be published soon.

The translation was made specifically for the site www..com/twilightrussiavk. When copying material, be sure to include an active link to the site, group and author of the translation.

Cassandra Clare talks about her publication schedule