Clodagh The Barren

Clodagh The Barren

Once upon a time, in an extinct land, the giant Clodagh clung to a wind-whipped tor and surveyed the undulating tapestry of blue-greens and greys of the sea beneath her; a daily ritual since her banishment to the arid and far off Isle of Rathlin. Just a glimmer of the towers of Kenbane, her home, would be rich reward indeed. But she was granted no clemency; such was her husband's wrath. An heir to the Giant King's throne was anticipated — no — expected not too long after their nuptials were celebrated across the kingdom. But no heir came.

            Clodagh The Barren was cast out as a deceiver and a cheat, but not before her entire line was put to death at the feet of her husband.

           

Centuries passed. She laid eyes on no-one, least of all her own kind; her only companions in her exile, discordant puffins, and glassy-eyed lapwings with their incessant peewit, peewit.

            Over the years, her tears had turned the western gorse and powdery sands to a lush mosaic of wetlands — legend had it that within a giant's tears were the elements of rebirth. She'd once hoped that if she shed enough, that one day, she too would be reborn, but hope was a torment she could no longer bear, such was the agony of her disappointment.

            She'd wander the fens gathering dog violets, supping their nectar before weaving them into her hair with sweet vernals and purple moor grasses, and as the sun sank over the tip of the peninsula, Clodagh would sing herself to sleep on a fragrant pillow of flowers, her tears carving channels to the west and the east, forming lagoon-like lakes either side of the island.

She awoke one dew-tipped morn to a faint hum all around her — a familiar sound to her ear, but she could not place it; so deeply was it buried in her memory. Then she saw them. Black and yellow, heavy wee things, bumbling drowsily from heather to heather across the heath. Clodagh could not help but smile at how the buzzing of the bees accompanied the gentle percussion of the ebb and flow of the spring tide over the shingle on the coast. The caws of a blackbird and the screech of seagulls harmonised and the island was no longer the shrill cacophony of noise it had once been, but a melodic delight that often brought joy to her heart, not that she would ever admit to such an indulgence.

           

A rumbling roar from the south coast had her up and running, the entire island shuddering underfoot. She stood at the cliff edge. Beneath her feet, her beautiful island crumbled and tumbled and crashed into the sea.

            Rock by rock she rebuilt that cliff; love, tears and sweat, her cement.

            When her work was done, she clung to the tor once again and surveyed her living, orchestral gift to the earth, and then, at one with her creation, Clodagh The Barren breathed no more.