Why help? What's in it for you?
I was at the great oak Bleobheris when it was raided. The Seat of Friendship, the druids called it. Where every free thinker was welcome, no matter their race, their creed. They come for the elves, Yennefer. They'll come for the dwarves. And sooner or later, they will come for everyone. Anyone that they deem the “other,” so eventually no artist is safe...
Seanchaí: I need you to sing a story back to life. We're related, you and I. You're a bard. I am a storyteller. Of a sort.
Jaskier: I beg to differ. You- ~you~ are a time-stopping, shape-shifting, probably-gonna-eat-me-without-salt at-some-point sort of storyteller. I... I'm just... I'm just a man, with an admittedly... fun hat. We're not the same. You're...
Seanchaí: I slip between worlds and times, collecting forgotten stories. I bring them back to life when the world needs them.
Jaskier: Are you sure you've got the right man for this?
Seanchaí: Of course I am. You're the Sandpiper... blah blah blah...
Jaskier internally: Alright Jask, don't disagree with that crazy, shapeshifting lady, do whatever she wants and get out of here. You can do it. Melitele's tits, why is it always sorceresses?!
Have my own entry for the first prompt, Hunger! I really enjoyed writing it -v-
All the “tales” I’ll write for Qeltober will be narrated by Seanchaí! For those who don’t know her or don’t remember her, you can find more about her in the masterpost linked in my description.
Enjoy~
Welcome to the listening folks and the passing wind - would you like a story? Come sit by the bonfire, it is warm. We are nearing Mid Autumn, the weather is not kind; but I assure you, you will not feel the cold here.
I am Seanchaí, storyteller and wanderer, at your service. I go where I need to: have you found yourself here, or have I found you? I can only assume you are one for music and a good story, so take place, I thought I would have guests tonight.
Do you know about the Binge-Eater?
Unless you are not from our dear Qelt, your parents have surely told you about him, when you were a babe, telling you he would come from Enheji to eat you if you were misbehaving. Oh, a century has passed ever since he has laid his fangs on human flesh, and he is but a legend, now; but he is still feared in Enheji. It is common knowledge, there, that if you hear music in the middle of the mountain, you should not follow: the prettiest of melodies might lead you straight to the Binge-Eater’s open jaws.
Storytellers love to talk about the Binge-Eater during Mid Autumn, the nicest time for tales about monsters and all the scary of Qelt. I shall do so myself. There are blankets to your left, and food cooking above the fire - make yourself comfortable, do not be cold nor hungry. When you are all well, let me tell you a story.
Let me tell you about the birth of the Binge-Eater.
Long and long ago, lived a poor traveling singer. They had lost their wife during the cold of Midwinter, a few years ago - had no home nor children nor family left, only the roads and their voice, and the rags on their skin; and the hunger, that dear old friend, that could never be fully satiated.
The singer walked from cities to cities, and sung in the streets. It was hard time, long and long ago, before our good Rulers worked hard to even the wealth and rid poverty off our dear Qelt, and passersby threw only enough coins keep them alive one more day.
Naught is said about their voice, beside the terrible, terrible despair it held. The singer had to leave each city after two days, when word got around they were here, and there was no one left with a heart brave enough to dare cross the streets where they were singing.
Voice with such despair - that frightened people. It was long before the Old War, after all, when Fæs were still Qelt’s whimsical deities, and people thought the singer, maybe, had been cursed by a Fæ, and that listening to them would spread out the curse.
A curse it was not; but the cry of someone who has lost everything and has only hunger left as a companion. Some whisper it was magic, for the foolish singer had sung above their wife’s tomb at Midwinter praying the Fæs to give her back - and that a Fæ, with cruelty and pity alike, had granted them a voice that would forever hold the pain of their loss in exchange.
Curse or the power of their mourning - no one knows.
Magic would come to the singer soon, however. The poor fool sung about hunger near a færie ring, where the Fæs might not be, but magic remains strong. Their shadow, stirred by magic, woke up, and welcomed in the hunger that accompanied them.
It started to grow hungry.
As the singer went onto the roads again, carrying their shadow like a newborn, they sung; and music blended with hunger, which blended in their shadow. They went by months and months like this, until it was Midwinter again, the season in which all dies and the cold does not forgive the desperate ones.
It is not said where the singer last stopped - was it a street, or was it the roads, and the street they saw was but a trick of mind? Whichever it was, they stopped, and they did not walk again. They were tired and cold and hungry, but they sung, as usual, and it is not said either if anyone heard them.
Their shadow did, however.
And it was so hungry it finally decided to eat.
Every note, every word, every intonation of the singer’s voice - the shadow ate it. It ate the music, the lyrics, the despair; but the song went on and on, as the singer, frozen by cold and exhaustion, could do naught but what they had always done.
It did nothing to satiate the shadow. On the contrary, the shadow grew hungrier, like an infant at birth, and asked for more. Then the singer - perhaps they were delirious already, half-dead in the cold, or perhaps, simply, they knew all along about their hungry shadow, and what was bound to happen - twisted their song into a conversation.
“What do you want?” the singer said.
“I’m hungry,” the shadow replied.
“You take my words, take my music, take my life. What more do you want?” they asked.
“I’m hungry,” the shadow replied once more.
“Then eat my despair with you,” the singer said. “When I die and rot alone, you shall take my skull and bones, too. What more do you want?”
“All those things I eat,” the shadow said, “I can always want more of them. It can never fulfill me.”
“Then you shall always be hungry,” the singer answered. “Until one day you find something that will be enough.”
“Nothing,” the shadow thought aloud, “could ever be enough.”
The singer smiled.. That smile, filled with kindness, too foreign yet, was the only thing the shadow did not eat.
“Perhaps when you have nothing,” the singer said. “But when you will need, and when you will lose, you will learn that some things suffice as they are.”
When the sun rose up, and the singer died, the shadow ate their death and the first rays of sun.
And then, it waited.
It waited for the singer’s flesh to rot away until they were but bones - to eat the bones and taste black tears on the singer’s skull.
“I’m hungry,” the shadow said.
It waited for the wild beasts who came seeking for remnants, for the harsh wind that blows and bites at Midwinter, and it ate them all.
“I’m hungry,” it said.
It waited, and waited, until the Færie Queen - blessed be Her name -, as she was still roaming around Qelt so long ago, came for it following a silver butterfly.
“I’m hungry,” the shadow told her.
“I know,” the Færie Queen said. “Rise, nameless child. You ought to be a proper Fæ.”
She whispered a name, real and secret for no one else to know, and the shadow rose from the ground - body of black smoke and darkness in the vague shape of a beast, a mask made of skull for the face, with black tears painted under the eyes, and if it opened its mouth, the sharpest fangs of all Qelt.
“I’m hungry,” the new Fæ repeated. “Always so hungry. When will I not be? What can be enough?”
“This is an answer you will need to find yourself,” the Færie Queen replied. “Go on your way, now, young one. The world is far wider than the shadow of a human.”
And thus went the Fæ born the shadow of a famished singer, always hungry, never satiated - the one humans would later call the Binge-Eater, and who still roams our lands, hidden and forgotten under the shape of a myth.
First part is correct (although the pronunciation might vary depending on the region/speakers, because I’ve also seen people saying they pronounced it as “shan”)! Second part isn’t :D
Also you can try to guess how to pronounce “Ceol” (which might be a bit easier)!
This is bothering me so much. I remember visiting Dublin, Ireland, in maybe 2016 or so, in the pub we were staying at, there was a Seanchaí telling a story.
The details are faded to me now, but what I remember is: a story about a person who goes late at night to see light in the forest. (Maybe the bushes?) and hears the faefolk singing something related to the days of the week? Idk it’s been so long. What I remember is the song went like: (I’m going off of memory so it’s probably not the correct spelling) “De Lunday matay lunday matay lunday matay” and the person chimes in with something. I vaguely remember… “saaaays” or “seey” I don’t remember. The fae look confused at first, but incorporate it into the song and being happy about the inclusion.
If anyone can help me find the story this actually is. I’d be very grateful! It’s been bugging me ever since I remembered it.
