Well E'now...I shall tell thee of my own self.I am the only child of my mother and my father,though I have been told my father did sire a few more than just one girl-child.
Let me explain...My parents did not marry for love ,though I think my father did love my mother and greatly after a time.They married on a promise from my grandfather ,my mother's father.My father's name was Eamon and he was called the Sionnaigh in the irish for his cleaverness and skill for surviving anything...the english just called him the fox,which is what sionnaigh means in their toungue,but their words have none of the grace of ours.
Any road,my da and grand da were fighting in some fierce battle together,though truth to tell I never did hear which one, for they did fight often together.Well grand da fell in front of several warriors who were intent upon his painful death, when along comes my da ,Eamon running up like a wave on the ocean with the devils own fury in his eyes and a gale wind blowin up his back just as if he were one of the Tuatha De Danann come up from his mound to lead those enimies unto their deaths.He faught those warriors whilst standing over grand da and held them off too with his fierce way until more men could come to their aid.My da was sorely wounded in the fray as well as grand da.He and grand da were long in the same house recouperating
My grand da would hear of nothing but that the man who saved him should be tended by grand da's own family.
My grand da was so grateful that he offered my da several cows as reward.My da on the other hand wanted a diffrent prize...My ma. He refused the cattle on the grounds that his raiding skills had made him rich in cattle ,but that he had no sons to help him with the raisin' and the tendin' to them.He then asked ,knowing full well that grand da had no suitable sons to offer, if he might foster one or more of grand da's sons , just so he could get the help mind - just til he could make the sons for himself on some pretty girl like Fiona,who was my ma....
Well grand da was no fool and saw what Eamon was after and without so much as a will you,nil you to my ma he gave her hand in marrage to Eamon.Da was so happy to have made a good match of her and grand da was so happy for to have gotten such a rich and feirce man to wed his daughter,that no one ever thought to ask Fiona how she felt on the subject,but she did not complain and wed Eamon as soon as he was well enough.
Within two years of having wed him though she had not been able to give him any sons that would live past birth,though she had been pregnant five times.The closest she ever came to a living son was the babe who cried out one time before he left this cold world for the warmth of the summerlands.
Then there was me.In the third year of their marriage to each other,I was born all lusty and screaming into the world.My grand da said that my dad came storming in thinking the midwife,who was my auntie Deirdre, had set up a mournig keen for ma.So in he comes, and theres me in Deirdre's arms screaming like a heard of viking norsemen all by myself.Da's eyes got all misty,as men do not cry according to grand da,misty must be the word for it.He was so glad to see ma AND the babe, that was me, alive that he misted enough to drown me ,or so says my auntie...
Then a strange thing happened...my auntie told him I was a girl-child just as my ma looked up at my da and saw his tears.She said a single thing and turned her face to the wall and died right there..I was not told until I was fully a woman what it was that my ma had said upon her passing,though the rest of the story was well known to me.What my ma said was "since I cannot give my husband a son and can only cheat his fate with a girl child and dead sons....let him marry another,better woman." My auntie says that she loved my father so much that she let herself die without ever knowing that his tears were not because she had failed to give him a son,but were from joy that she and I had lived.That he did not care that I was a daughter and not a son.
My da leapt to her bedside ,but his oaths of love were not enough to call her back from that summerland to which she had fled.
My auntie says that there is a doorway between life and death through which every woman must look when she brings forth a child,and that my mother lept through that door ,to take my place and to keep me here to care for my da.That she loved him so much that if he wanted a son that she could not give him,then she would remove herself from him so he could find another wife who could.She loved him feircly even if she did not when they were first wed.
so ends the story of my birth,I shall tell you more another time...
