#fertility goddesses

[bustybounty]

Whoever said making a 'hyperfertile anonimous' support group was a bad idea, didn't know what they they were talking about. I'm surrounded by beautiful goddesses of fertility every session who talk about their sexual frustration while traversing a world unready for their offspring. When one of the girls started talking about her doctor saying that having sex with other hyperfetiles could lead to infinipelts (think triplets but infinite) and destroy reality, I only had to say one thing that sent the entire group into a horny frenzy: "who says we shouldn't?"

Of course I'd know what infiniplets are~ And soon everyone else would too. Why stop just because these doctors are telling you to? The universe might not be able to handle them, but that's not their problem~

They needed to release their pent up fertility one way or another, sooner or later, and thanks to your brave suggestion, they wasted no time and got right on it. Immediately their breeding rampage started destroying everything surrounding them, first the room, then the building, as not only were all their thrusts and sexual activies so damn powerful, especially thanks to their size, but they were actively growing too - either churning with even more unending fertility/virility or swelling more curvaceous as their bodies adapted to the rapid pregnancies they were all experiencing~

It was practically instant, the moment they started the orgy, they all were impregnated, which started the process that the doctors had warned them about, the growth of the infiniplets inside them. They were minutes into their pregnancy and they had already grown bigger bellies than their own bodies, without counting the rest of the expansion they experienced~

If the world wasn't ready for just one of them getting infinitely massively pregnant...what if ALL of the hyper fertility goddess there got pregnant, all at once, in that same world?

I doubt reality itself would stand a chance~ <3

[marsprincess889]

Hey

I want to participate in your game. Tbh I found it interesting so I want to join in too. My initials are cmps. I am she/her. Below is my Vedic chart.

Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Have a good day ahead

Hello, thanks for participating 🤍

Your divine archetype:

🍓🌿🍇🍋Bringer and protector of abundance, fertility, beauty and growth 🍒🫒☀️🌙

Your goddesses:

There a few Norse goddesses who all, in one way or another, relate to you moon nakshatra_ Purva Phalguni. Archetypically they're similar. Your Sun and Ascendant nakshatras_ Mrigashira and Pushya also relate to growth. Pushya relates to abundance, luck and nurturing, Mrigashira relates to plants and weaving, connected to the element of Earth and reaching fulfillment.

Gefjun_ Norse goddess of fertility, plowing, agriculture, abundance and growth.

Her name means "the generous one" or "the giver".

Besides the association to your moon in fertile Purva Phalguni, your Ascendant nakshatra_ Pushya's ruling god is Brihispati(Jupiter), making this nakshatra connected to luck, hard work, prosperity and growth.

There are many sources on Gefjun, and they can be contradictory. In Norse mythology, information on Gods and Goddesses can be gained from Poetic Edda and Prose Edda. One of these mentions that Gefjun is a virgin, the accounts of the other make that impossible.

One myth about her is how she turned her for sons into oxen. She was also said to disguise herself as a beggar and walk in Sweden.

Pushya's planetary lord_ Saturn, is associated with hardships and poverty, but also to perfection, cleanliness, endurance and long-term results, which, if one is resilient, eventually and inevitably includes rewards. The nakshatra of Pushya itself is the abundant Saturn nakshatra, associated with luck despite it being the birth of Saturn. "Push" means nourishment, this nakshatra's symbol is a cow udder, its yoni animal is a goat and it can be heavily connected to milk.

Mrigashira, your Sun and Venus nakshatra(that conjunction also amplifies the Venusian influence on you), has associations with plants and animals. It's a gentle nakshatra, but one that is also associated with determination, curiosity and bravery, due to its endless search for fulfillment.

Moon, your chart ruler and atmakaraka, is placed in a nakshatra that is also quite determined to get what it desires, adding its fiery and fierce nature to that wandering personality. Gefjun is undoubtedly fit for your chart and possibly, most obviously, Purva Phalguni, it is debated that she is really another Norse goddess, who fits that nakshatra(and tbh your chart overall) nearly perfectly.

I have talked about this goddess so many times in this game😭 but I can't help it, so many Bharanis and Purva Phalgunis decided to participate.

Freya_ Norse goddess of fate, love, sex, desire, magic and fertility has an epithet_ Gefn, meaning "giver", another name for Gefjun. Like Gefjun, she has a connection to oxen, pigs and boars. She is said to ride a boar names Hildisvini when in battle. She comes from a tribe of gods called The Vanir, who are peaceful gods associated with agriculture. Freya and Gefjun have another common myth_ being accused of sleeping around to obtain an extremely precious jewelery. Freya's necklace, "Brisingamen", is a famous association of hers.

Rahu-Ketu axis in your chart in Punarvasu and Uttara Ashadha amplifies the earthy and the luck associations in your chart. Uttara Ashadha is the most independent nakshatra, in your case, it's activated in the Capricorn portion, in your 7th house. Punarvasu_Cancer as your Rahu adds to the nurture, growth and luck(Punarvasu is the first Jupiterean nakshatra) coorelation. Rahu is in the first house, meaning that you have a natural understanding of partnerships, agreements and connection with "the other". You can also function independently and with integrity within them perfectly well(Ketu in Uttara Ashadha). Your destiny points towards self-development and empowerment, nurtured from the natural ability to be a self-governed indivual with others. The pressure is on the Cancer rashi of emotions, foundation, the safe space and the psyche. In additulion, your noded are Vargottama(same sign in D1 and D9), which amplifies all of this and places extra emphasis on your life path from independence to personal nurture. Nodes in any angular houses are important, but especially in thr first and seventh.

Freya's brother_ Freyr, is the deity that I most associate with your moon nakshatra. This next goddess is another Norse deity that is also connected to her.

Gerdr_ wife of Freyr, a Jotun giantess who was made a part of Vanir by marriage, connected to abundance, luck and fertility.

The story goes that Freyr saw her while he was sitting at Odin's throne. Immediately struck by her beauty, he decided to make her his wife.

Jotuns and Gods have not been on the best terms but this marriage was a point of peace and reconciliation, paving way for prosperity and abundance.

Gerdr is not a goddess in the classical sense of the word, but she can be considered as one.

All of these goddesses are similar and I would suggest you to look into goddesses of abundance, fertility, growth and luck if you want to investigate this yourself. I decided to talk about one or two myself.

Tyche_ Greek goddess of luck, chance and fate.

Besides Pushya-luck association, Purva Phalguni has been described as "the lucky one", representing ease and low effort.

Interesting thing about Tyche is that if people found no cause behind major natural catastrophies/phenomenons, they were attributed to her.

The Hindu goddess that is frequently talked about with Purva Phalguni is Lalita Tripura Sundari_ the 16 year old Goddess, "the most beautiful in three worlds". Her name "Lalita" means "she who plays", calling to mind Tyche's rule over whims of fate, like how Lalita watches over everything, as all of it is for her entertainment.

But Tyche is the watcher is the sense of needing to regulate human lives. It was said by ancient Greeks that every city or a place had "its own Tyche" that was responsible for and closely connected to its welfare.

Tyche can also be connected to Bharani, so apply your discernment here, but the "Tyche of each city" aspect is reminiscent if your Ketu nakshatra_ Uttara Ashadha, since that lunar mansion is connected to the government in general.

Tyche's Roman counterpart is Fortuna.

Felicitas_ Roman goddess of good luck(distinctive from Fortuna, who can be both good or bad luck). Her name comes from the latin word felix meaning "fruitful, blessed, happy, lucky", all of which are closely connected to Purva Phalguni.

There's also a Gaulic goddess named Vesunna who was likely considered a giver of prosperity, good fortune and abundance. She has been depicted as carrying the cornucopia(horn of plenty).

As an addition, two goddesses who I found connected to Pushya, who did not contradict your chart and who actually can "fit" it are Roman Rumina and Egyptian Hesat. Rumina was said to protect breastfeeding mothers. Hesat is a cow goddess who was said to provide humanity with milk ("the beer of Hesat), and to have had pharaohs and several Egyptian bull gods suckle her.

The last goddess I wish to talk about who ties all of these themes together is the Thai goddess Phosop.

Phosop was the goddess of abundance, prosperity, also known as Mae Khwan Khao_ "Mother of Rice Prosperity".

She has never been a goddess from a structured, mainstream religion, but she's related to ancient Thai folklore.

Pushya's nourishment and abundance(this is also a nakshatra of mothers/milk, as you have noticed), along with Purva Phalguni's fruitful and prosperous nature and Mrigashira's connection to growing plants all make her an embodyment of the themes in your chart.

...

Ik these are not lengthy descriptions but the info that I found on most of these goddesses was repetitive or sparse. I wanted to explain my choices and leave some space for you to research more yourself, in case you want to(which I encourage). I am glad that I listen many of them and I hope it's not confusing. As always, respect deities while researching them and trust your inner guidance to discern whether they resonate with you or not.

Please leave some feedback in the asks after reading🤍

[local-virgin-slut]

I really enjoy lore Olympus well enough. It’s fun and the art is neat. I have my gripes with a few things like how some colors or designs could be better. And I could get more into that later but mostly the one thing that REALLY bugs me right now is the whole fertility goddess plot line.

I know it’s probably not a BIG thing but it’s started to bug me so I’m gonna whine to the void of my tumblr.

So fertility goddess are supposed to be this big deal and they’re made out to be like rare or something. But if that’s the case what the fuck are Demeter and Aphrodite? Is it that Persephone is “new” and therefore not as established/more vulnerable. But she isn’t? Like she’s got a support network. I’m sure Aphrodite didn’t have that when she first appeared and she’s VERY protective of her place. Like she bites so maybe that’s why. And as for Demeter I could understand her fear for Persephone if she herself was a fertility goddess in the story and it’s from a “I don’t want what happened to me to happen to my baby” angle. Mind you original story Demeter did nothing wrong, no helicopter parent abusive bull and I was DESPERATE for her to SNAP in the main story and Zeus to be powerless to do anything to stop her since she canonically controls the growth in the mortal realm. Maybe that’s why she’s also not viable to get one’s hands on. But it doesn’t seem like they’ll be doing anything with that. So either Demeter is like nerfed? Or we just have yet to see her go sicko mode. But essentially Aphrodite and especially Demeter are like THE fertility goddesses in Greek mythology. Yeah there are minor others but those are the BIG two. There’s one myth that points out how Demeter is like so fertile the goddess of starvation and her literally cannot be in the same place. So why is it such a big deal that Persephone is and why is everyone making a big deal of it when there are two other ones who are arguably greater just older and more established sitting right there?? Is that it??? That she’s just young?

It just bothers me personally cause it’s not even remarked on by others?? In story. NO ONE is pointing out how ares and Aphrodite who for a while seem to be a solid couple could be super powerful? If ares wants a fertility goddess he already has one. Which is another thing that annoys me. Ares flirting with Persephone is just WEIRD I dunno why it’s there. Admittedly yes it’s remarked that ares tried to woo her alongside Hermes, Apollo and Hephaestus before she married hades but that Demeter rejected them all and his her away from the gods but like. Lots of stuff has been cut out from myth for the comic. I feel like the ares and Persephone thing could have as well especially since ares and Aphrodite are more well known together and very few know about that tidbit. Ares is the most drinks respect women juice male god outside of maybe hades as far as I’m aware. I don’t think people would have minded and after the timeskip ares and Aphrodite are done anyway. If you really want to have an ares flirting with Persephone scene do it then in a like “I’m hurting and single. You’re hurting and single. Rebound?” Kind of way. She can say no. He can say fair.

I guess this is just a “what’s the deal with x” rant. Anyway. Yeah.

[zenosanalytic]

American Gods Ep. 8: Come to Jesus

Well that was a mess |:/

The quality of this first season has just been really spotty. The earlier eps, and Shadow’s characterization in them, were pretty good and consistent, but the longer the season went on the worse episodes got and Ep 8 just... annoyed me.

And not just the filmmaking and storytelling, but the treatment of religious themes, particularly sacrifice and belief. I’m certainly not a scholar on the subject, but everything I’ve ever read has pointed to human sacrifice being for the most part rare, particularly by the Classical Era or Iron Age, in religions of the Med and Fertile Crescent. Even among the Gaels, who did continue practicing it in a regular way, it was much less prevalent than the Romans, and later sources have continued to, make it out: if it weren’t the bogs of Europe would be choked with corpses rather than each discovery being a major find in itself. And, while I know much less of practices in other areas, from what I do know I get the impression that religions like that of the Mexica, where tens of thousands of human sacrifices could be expected to be made in a single event, were very rare; in fact, that’s the only example I can think of for which there is evidence of human sacrifice being practiced on that sort of scale. Yet this series treats it as the most basic, the only so far, form of sacrifice worth anything to Old Gods.

And associating mass human sacrifice with Bilquis, who this ep establishes explicitly as a Goddess of fertility and sexuality, is particularly annoying to me as I can’t think of a single instance I’ve ever read anywhere of fertility, marriage, and sex goddesses being associated with human sacrifice. Not even Artemis -a goddess tied to the early phases of a woman’s life, wild animals, and hunting- has any major center or rite that I can think of tied to human sacrifice. I could be forgetting something or maybe I just don’t know about it, but the focus on human sacrifice has just really started to rankle me. And it casts what Bilquis was doing with her worshipers in a totally different light. If Odin can just call a lightning bolt down from the sky and kill a bunch of non-believing constructs “in the name of Eostre”, no belief required on their part, then why does Bilquis need her sacrifices to worship her? why does she need them to come to her and go into her willingly? Why, for that matter, aren’t Old Gods just going around murdering people left and right if they feel so abandoned and can take “belief” from self-sacrificed, non-believing victims? The writers did not think this through. It seems like AG is just going to do what pretty much every bit of pop-culture dealing with the old religions our society produces does; present them as bloodthirsty and monstrous.

Anyway I’m going to stop there. I hope the second season is better, and particularly sees better writing and direction for Shadow, because as it stands I’m much less interested in following this show than I was before it started.

[bustybounty]

Day 8…

Humanity’s age is near its end. We didn’t notice her until it was too late. A woman, altered by a meteorite and driven to consume and grow to feed her endless offspring. She grows every day at a rapid rate, and as she eats more and more, she gives birth to countless drones, ready to help in her feeding frenzy.

As of now, scientists are estimating her to be at least three hundred feet tall. Only buildings can satiate her hunger. Thankfully, scientists have injected a drug into her to prevent her from growing upward any further, but that hasn’t prevented her from growing fatter.

*THUMP!* *THUMP!*

Well, that’s it. She’s finally here. My time is at an end. Humanity’s only hope is if science can produce a person around her size, either to act as a mate to distract her endless hunger, or to fight her and hopefully result in a double knockout.

If only…

If only humanity had such an hero...another giant, another being of colossal hunger, fertility and/or virility, with divine capabilities, somehow able to sate her hunger, or even battle with her to stop her inevitable, endless rampage for more food, more nourishment, more breeding...

Though that sounds like the ideal, utopian solution, it really wasn't. The best one could hope, would probably be sending her away into a pocket dimension, and then doing the same for Earth and its surroundings.. though obviously that's far too advanced scientifically for what they had in that moment, and for what they could do in a week.

So they tried to produce a giant mate for her. Someone who wasn't as tall, curvy, or potent as her, but still had powerful pheromones and an eager intent to breed and participate in sating her - potentially breeding her, incapacitating her after an intense sexual session, and putting an end to this rampage for once, or letting others take care of her after.

Unfortunately, what ended up happening, was too crazy giants having destructive, hunger driven sex all over the city, which in turn made them grow even larger, and now that they both had a partner who was soooo much like them in their own divinity, they decided... "Fuck it, we need to grow, to expand, to nourish OUR young..." the idea of incapacitating the fertility goddess was long gone, and now only love resided on their mind whenever they thought of her or looked at her. It was inevitable they'd be making out on their spare time - as their usual schedule involved eating everything, fucking mindlessly, and breeding and growing even beyond what seemed possible, at greater speeds.

Their pheromones fueled each other, and in a last hope attempt at saving themselves, a leap of faith, humanity just accelerated its downfall... or did they?

No one had been registered as anything except 'missing' so far. Nothing gruesome had happened, relating to life at least, compared to the destruction of buildings, monuments, and even landmasses.

That's because their life essences were instead transported into the giant, divine eggs of the new fertility and life goddess, who carried the lives of soon to be every being on Earth inside of her, in a form that while shapeless, contained every single bit of information about them and their older bodies, minds. With her ascension beyond planetary prowesses, she'd eventually create, perhaps within herself, a brand new world where they could all live, some form of an Earth 2, but inside her womb, like a fertile paradise with blossoming life... all while the fun with her new partner continued~

Humanity was never in danger, after all. This wasn't the End, but a new Beginning. <3

[bustybounty]

I had a fun lil’ idea for a continuation of the A Happy Ending ask from a lil’ while back, so I’m gonna drop it here!

Entry #931F — Questions, Thoughts, and Fantasies

“So. I found some recordings. I don’t know where they came from, but after looking into it, it seems like they… might be true? Okay, ‘might’ might be an understatement. The proof is overwhelming, even if it seems… odd…? Um. I assume I’m not the last person to receive research about this from the loops before, so to whoever’s in the next… existence… Hi? How are you doing? I hope it’s all good over there. Um. I’m sorry, I’m kinda nervous, haha. Okay, so, like, most of the recordings, the tapes, and discs, and data crystals, which were SO HARD to decipher by the way, all had a bunch of different voices and names and stuff. Like, different planets, different scientists, all of that. Except, like… The very first one… or at least the one that seems to be first… is me, I think? She sounds exactly like me, just, um. A little more confident and, like, not insecure and stuff? So now I’m jealous of another me, which is… fun, I guess. I mean, we’re both scientists, so we’re not that different! And we both have hyper kinks! Which… does make it seem like those are intrinsic attributes of me, compared to my personality, which seems fluid between me’s… Is my whole being just ‘a scientist who’s into big ladies’? The idea that my only core traits are my kinks and career is, um. A little disheartening… But two isn’t a good sample size! Besides, at least I have the apocalypse to look forward to! Being smothered by all of that warm, soft, plush……… Oh! I started, like, trailing off and stuff, hehe. Not important! Sorry! What IS important is girls! Who are really big! So, other me was kinda right. Since the universe keeps being destroyed and remade, time is kind of a loop, but since it happens in a sequence of events, each following the prior and leading to the next, that also means it’s kind of a straight line too? Which is very useful because that means, in theory, I could travel back to previous loops, if I had the technology to go back in time! Which I think I do! I mean, I haven’t fully tested it yet, and it’ll honestly probably break something, whether that’s me, itself, or the universe. Still, those would all get smushed soon enough anyways, so I’m gonna try it anyways! Oh, right, hehe! I forgot to say my plan! Okay, so I’m going to study the way these ladies start to grow, and then I think—… I think I wanna go fuck myself? Like, um. I wanna try to enlarge my other me by doing all of the methods of growth… at once? Which will, theoretically, make her… exponentially larger than… every other Mother… and possibly, even if it might not be likely… larger than them combined… Which will be… a lot… Still! It’ll be fine I’m sure! And even better than fine, it’ll be hot! So, I just have to search through dozens, or hundreds, or thousands of instances of women growing astronomically enormous and watch the slowly expanding, softening curves fill up and smother every inch of the universe they’re in until all that’s left is their body and the next universe starting to form in them… Mnh… I’m flustering myself just thinking about it! So, like, after all that… very scientific studying, I just need to do all of that to my other me, feeding, and pumping, and filling, and fucking, and growing, and growing, and growing her! Tits, ass, belly, dick, balls, thighs, every last bit of her! I’m sure the multiverse, and omniverse, and reality as a concept can handle it, probably! They’ve dealt with so much so far, one large lady couldn’t break them!”

(The post this is referring to)

Thankfully, she was quick enough and not too distracted by lust, and managed to build a time machine to go back in time with a simple activation of the system, almost like a single button press, making it really easy to go back and forth without losing too much time and ending up completely smothered like the universes she's going to visit.

Being able to see so many different women, so many gigantic all Mothers growing in different yet similar, pattern following ways that she could track down and experiment with... all just to follow her own glorious path of going back to the first ever All Mother, and making her grow to the maximum...

Her main assumption for this capability to work, was something she actually hadn't explored yet - it was just an hypothesis, and there was really no way of testing it by herself. She might have found slight evidence for it in other tapes, but otherwise, nothing. That assumption was...while she could assert that the universes weren't completely destroyed as things like the recordings were able to be passed on through dimensions, she had to guess that the loop event - the ending of a universe and almost instant start of another 'timeline', one right after the other, must have had some form of timer to be activated. After a certain level of growth, or 'universal damage', the loop would trigger.

Her hypothesis was, that if she could really power up the growth in a much faster, more efficient way that'd grow the first version of herself into an All Mother bigger than all others combined, she'd be able to beat the loop. She'd grow so fast, so much, that she'd reach enormous, impossible hyper sizes, allowing her smaller, time traveler self to enjoy the utter bliss that would be feeling her own All Mother version growing far more than anything in the hyperverse should be able to handle!... If the hypothesis was wrong, the universe would likely auto-loop once a critical size was reached, so it'd just be a very pleasurable but way too fast trip.

Thankfully her hypothesis was correct, and as she went back, deploying all her growth science she was able to acquire over countless journeys to the past, she was able to finally enjoy this one last spurt - that was really just the beginning.

This broke the loop in unimaginable ways. First, the version of herself that just wanted to see girls grow, even if twas herself growing in this case, technically, was starting to swell too, almost as if that was a side effect of being so close to the extremely powerful, true All Mother Goddess, she was starting to become one herself.

This might also have been due to time being crunched by the sheer size of said Goddess, who had overtaken every other All Mother combined for a while now, and hadn't just outgrown the universe, or multiverse, or omniverse, but was stretching reality. Since they were considered the same person, perhaps they started growing like one, too, even if one of them had a big advantage, to grossly understate it~

However, the ripples the ginormous, first All Mother caused through the reality and hyperverse developed into something else. A cycle of more powerful All Mothers was born. The timeline was changed, but through all obstacles, remained somewhat intact. Every scientist would send the same messages, at least up until Entry #931F, and every All Mother from their universes would swell up - but far, far more than before, due to influence from the Original Mother Goddess.

They'd grow to sizes that would not just break the universe's barrier, but a special dimensional barrier, that'd transport them to a glorious new dimension - the All Mothers' Dimension, where the original Mother Goddess, her loving future self, and all other subsequent All Mothers would live in, free to grow without constraints, all while enjoying the company of others like themselves.

This new dimension was pure, and didn't contain matter or particles like the normal omniverses did, instead it was something different. Something that would be hard to even comprehend, let alone study. Though one thing was for sure, the name 'All Mother' wasn't for show, as she had essentially birthed a new dimension, with help from the growth blessings of her future alternate self~ <3

[seancecafe]

Danu

[tjathurman]

Epona

Jennifer opened the oven to check on the bread, nodded, and closed the door.  She looked up at her neighbour, stood up again, and smiled, wiping her hands on her apron as she continued talking.  "But we rescued the dragon after all.  And then there was the time I was trapped in the library tower.  All those recipe books and nothing to eat!" "You seem to have a taste for adventures," said Carmen.  "It's good that you're with Maria, really.  You're both the adventurous type." "Everyone seems to think that," said Jennifer, "but when you get to know her, Maria's just as happy sitting alone with her books as she'd be on some quest or other.  Not like me.  I'd go crazy living a settled life." Carmen had first met Jennifer and Maria when they had moved in to their new house, only the week before, but what she knew of them did not seem to match with Jennifer's words.  "How are you finding life with Simon, then?" Jennifer laughed.  "Well, motherhood is an adventure all of its own.  I really did think I would go mad for the first few months after he was born, with Maria finishing her thesis and me stuck at home all day.  But you know, he learned to smile, and he learned to talk, and he's never really stopped.  And..." she stopped to think, and continued.  "I suppose for someone like Simon, there's an adventure every day.  I think he gets that from me.  And even if I'm at home looking after him, I live the adventures through him." "Do you think you might take him along on some quests when he's a bit older?" asked Carmen, but before Jennifer could reply, the door burst open and a pudgy dark-haired child of perhaps three burst into the kitchen.  His hair was full of grass, his clothes were spotted with mud, and his smile extended well beyond the end of his face.  In one hand he clutched a cardboard shield with an indeterminate animal drawn on it in blue crayon. "Mummy Jenfer, I met a strange man in the field," he said breathlessly.  "He wants to get some babies, and a pony." Jennifer's sunshiny expression was replaced by clouds of concern.  "What have I told you about talking to strangers?" The child's face fell.  "I sorry," he said. "Show me where you met him," said Jennifer sternly, and excusing herself to Carmen she left with Simon for the field which ran along the bottom of the garden of both houses.  She was back within five minutes.  "There's nobody there," she said to Carmen, and to Simon she said, "You must play in the house now." "I'm a knight," said Simon proudly, and at the top of his lungs he added, "With a sword!" "Oh dear," said Jennifer, and ran her hand through her hair.  "You mustn't disturb Mama Maria.  She's got to finish this paper." "I could look after him?" offered Carmen.  "If that would be OK?" Jennifer smiled again.  "Oh, would you?  I don't mind him playing out in the field, but I'd rather someone was looking after him if there was anyone nasty about.  Simon, Carmen is here, she's going to look after you." "Hello, Carmen," said Simon, giving her another of his room-filling smiles.  "I like horsies." Carmen looked puzzled and then remembered the green and white abstract pony design on her shirt.  "I like horses too, Simon.  Knights used to ride them." "Yes.  I'm a knight," repeated Simon.  "Come and see." Out in the field and the sunshine again, Simon gave Carmen a long lecture on the rules of knighthood as only a three-year-old can understand them.  Carmen nodded patiently and walked along beside him for a few minutes, until Simon stopped prattling, dived down into the grass, and seized something lying there. "My sword!" "Good grief," said Carmen.  Simon was dragging a fairly solid-looking sword covered in runes after him. "Where did that come from?" "I found it in Mama Maria's room," said Simon proudly, "but I losted it.  It's my sword.  I'm a knight." "May I have a look?" asked Carmen, and when Simon assented, she picked it up and began examining the lettering which covered it.  The sword was damp from the rain and the blade was dull, which was to be expected, but more oddly it seemed to be humming. Carmen looked up.  A man stood before them, with a long face, a white robe, and a golden necklace.  He began to intone a phrase, over and over, staring beyond them into the middle distance. "I seek the good corn, and many babies," he chanted.  "I seek Epona." "This man wants a pony," said Simon helpfully.  "And babies." Carmen coughed to attract the man's attention.  He ceased his chanting.  "Excuse me," she said.  "Who are you?" The man's eyes focused on Simon, and then on Carmen, and then on the sword.  He fell to his knees.  "Is that iron?  My god, take it away from me!" Carmen did not loosen her grip on the hilt.  "Who are you and what do you want?" "I am the sacrifice.  I died that we might have the good corn, and many babies." "You... died?" "My god," began the man, and with some shock she realised that he was addressing her.  "I died for the good corn, and many babies.  I died so that Epona might bring us fortune.  I greet you, Epona." Carmen was a great reader, but none of her books had prepared her for what to do if mistaken for a fertility goddess.  Either this man was insane and possibly dangerous, in which case she should humour him until some kind of backup arrived, or he really was the ghost of a Bronze Age sacrifice.  Either way... She stretched out her hand.  "Good corn there will be.  There will be many babies.  Be at peace." The man fell forward on his face and was gone. "Can we play knights now?" asked Simon.  He picked a buttercup and made a theatrical display of smelling its scent. "Let me give this sword back to your Mama, and then of course we can." Simon sneezed explosively. "Bless you," said Carmen. And caught her breath.