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GLASTONBURY: The Novel of Christian England

By Donna Fletcher Crow

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Prologue
The star amed in the sky. Even as they watched from atop their high green pinnacle, it ared brighter yet. Balan, the newly elected druid Deon in his long white robe, consulted his charts and checked his peeled-willow divining sticks.
“For three phases of the moon past it is increasing steadily in brightness, and in that time it has moved across the sky twenty-seven degrees to the westward. It is seeming there can be no mistake. And yet it does not coincide with any other calculations ever made.”
His four assistants moved forward into the circle atop the Tor to inspect Balan’s astronomical charts by the light of their aring torches.
“Nothing like it have we seen before—it is a message from the gods.”
“A sign of such wonder can be coming only from the high god Lugh.”
“But what is its meaning? Does it portend good or evil?”
“There is nothing in our wisdom to deal with this. But surely the gods would use a heavenly body of such magnitude only to announce a marvelous event—the birthing of a king of great power.”
“But are you knowing it is a birth, Master? If a aming star portends death, as we know, couldn’t this be meaning a momentous death?”
Balan had studied at the great druid college at Mon for twenty years, learning especially the divining of heavenly bodies. And for nearly a year he had been chief of the druid center above the lake village on the Glass Isle, judging in local disputes, pronouncing the proper time for planting and harvesting and the mating of cattle, and leading worship of the deities. But nothing in all his learning could answer these questions about the great star.
For more than thirty years he had no answers. Then stranger events occurred. On an early spring day Balan was meditating at his favorite seat atop the Tor, when suddenly a heavy, deep darkness descended. He rose and began to grope his way down the hill, but then the earth trembled beneath his feet. He fell to his knees, feeling the same inexplicable excitement that had come with the mysterious star so many years before—and the same longing to know what it meant gripped his heart.
Now he was an old man, wise in the ways of the oak, with many young students hanging on his every word. He must not fail them; he must not let them see his confusion; he must
nd the answers.
At last the earth stilled, and the darkness lifted as if at dawn. Balan made his way slowly down the Tor to the sacred oak grove where his pupils awaited him with their endless questions.
“If the telling of such an event is not in our wisdom, then we must read the entrails—perhaps of a night creature since the shaking came with darkness,” suggested Atadoc, the most promising of the young druids.
“No!” Tarana, an excitable lad with
ery red hair, almost shouted. “It must be a human sacri
ce. The gods are angry because it has been many, many years since an oblation of human blood was made. This was a warning. If we are not giving them what they demand, the next shaking will bring the Tor down on our heads.”
Murmurs of agreement spread through the nine long-robed students.
“Lugh, the all-father, is angry.”
“Only by the shedding of blood may we assuage him—the shedding of human blood.”
“Renew the old ways!” Tarana cried.
Balan stood, light glinting from the three rays of the gold tiara he wore. He grasped the ceremonial bronze sword on the altar, holding it by its point to symbolize his willingness to suffer for the truth. The murmurs quieted. “Three things are required of man—to worship the gods, to do no evil, and to maintain manly behavior. Such fear as I hear in your voices is betraying a lack of the valor that lives at the heart of our wisdom.”
Now all was silent in the grove. “There are three things the all-god alone can do—endure the eternities of in
nity, participate in all being without changing, renew everything without annihilating it. Lugh of the Long Hand may shake the earth without bringing annihilation or requiring the shedding of human blood.”
The druids turned from outcries to consideration. Indeed, it had been many years since human blood had been shed in the sacred grove to placate the high god. Among many druid cors, the custom now was to execute only criminals. But would not the all-power be more pleased with a pure sacri
ce? The debate at Ynis Witrin reected the larger controversy stirring the great cors on the Isle of Mon and other places, but today Balan spoke words from the oldest of druid wisdom: “Someday there will be one sacri
ce that will be satisfying the gods for all times, and there will be no more human sacri
ce.”
A stunned silence met his words. Atadoc was the
rst to speak. “How is it possible that one life could be worth so much?”
Balan shook his gray head. “I am not knowing. It must be that he will be a great king.”
“Sacrice a king?” Tarana shouted. “Unthinkable!”

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