She is wrapped in a hooded cloak, crouched beside a stream, her visage obscured. She has paused, her washing set aside in a heap beside her, and leans forward, like a beast, to lap from the stream and then, perhaps, to study her image, which is constant in the moving water.
He comes forth from the wood, from behind, his phallus, as it must be, inflamed with the sight. He lifts and enters the cloak, enters her. He is enfolded by her. He leaves himself in her.
She bears him and then, perforce, bears him. She wastes with passing days and yet grows swollen. She is skeletal, yet bursting with life.
Her time grows near. Always she bears a knife, keen and double-edged. She is death and she must now die and yet she must be delivered of her burden.
She retires to her cave, a dark opening in the earth. With her own blade in the moment of her passing, she opens herself, her own midwife, above a tarnished cauldron, and delivers him to the world again. He squalls and he beams and he grows in her arms and the waters of his birth fill the cauldron, swirling, for another year.
Return to Nemeton index
Return to my Homepage