Supper arrived and quickly went along with the local and national news. You set to work and audio edited scenes eleven through fifteen of chapter two. You wonder on scene fifteen which deals with the three weird sisters and you automatically think of all those years teaching MacBeth. And, little known to you all those years, you find a direct genealogical line, albeit female and male, unbroken to those murdered in life, at least supposedly by the real MacBeth.
Yes, it is fresh in mind as I was updating the family tree to include young grandson Owen, so that he may see, on day, that it is possible our bloodline is real. And, if it comes to pass that it is found as full of fiction as I am, the humor of the gallows abides either way.
Show here, those last few names you have listed. The first, of course, is Orndorff, then Hubbell, and on to the de Lucy’s, then to William Fitz Duncan (MacCrinan) who married Alicia de Romelly in the mid-eleven-hundreds. From here to the last on your list:
*Duncan II & Ethelreda of Dunbar*
1060-1094 – Monthecin, Scotland – c1065-c1125
King of Scotland, 1094; earlier captured & held captive by Wm.t.Conqueror
*Afterwards known as Athelreda of Northumberland
I
*Malcolm III & Ingeborg Finn*
1031-1093 – Scotland – c1040-1069
*King of Scotland (1058-1093) killed at Alnwick fighting Normans;
Malcolm’s Name is Mael Coluim mac Donnchada
*Queen of Scotland (c1065-c1070)
I
*Duncan I MacCrinan & Sibyl Fitziward*
c1003-1040 – Scotland – c1000-c1060
*Also, King of Alba. Known as “the Gracious”
He was killed by MacBeth at Bothnagowan (Pitgaveny)
*Sibyl was his cousin & descendant of King Duff, reunited two royal lines;
married in 1030
I
*Crinan Mormaer & Princess Bethoc MacKenneth*
C0960-1045 – Dunkeld, Scotland – c0983-1040
*Governor of Scots Islands; Killed by MacBeth in battle
*Murdered by MacBeth
I
*Malcolm II MacKenneth & Unknown of Scotland
C0954-1034 – Glamis Castle, Scotland – c0955-c1015
*Strong ambitious ruler; expanded & consolidated his kingdom
I
*Kenneth II & Unknown of Ireland
c0935-0995 – Finella’s Castle, Fettercairn – c0935-c0995
*Edgar with other Celts confirmed Kenneth’s right to Lothian (Scottish realm)
I
*Malcolm I
c0895-0954 – Moray, Scotland
*King of Scotland (0943-0954)
*King Edmund of Wessex gave Malcolm Cumbria on basis that he
would support Edmund defending northern borders from Vikings.
***
What an enchantment in life, I think. All those years, all my passion for English literature and the teaching of the British canon, and to think I may be blood connected to a fact or two in English and Scottish history.
You see right in front of you how your romantic imagination sways you one direction and your neo-classic sense and sensibility sways you another. Many hundreds of thousands mix the bloodlines. Let’s conclude this with fact of DNA alone before posting today’s completed scenes.
Here are the results of the paternal ancestral DNA testing I had done which allowed me to imagine I, an American from Ohio, might write a story about the famous Merlyn of old.
My Y-Line signature (inherited from my father and from more distant paternal ancestors) has been digitalized to: 12-12-23-11-13-13-11-16-12-12.
I requested the Viking Ancestry Test because it focuses on thousands of Y-chromosomes from Britain, Ireland, and Scandinavia and from Orkney, Shetland, the Outer Hebrides and Iceland that arrived in Britain with the Norse Viking settlers. The Y-chromosome is found commonly in Norway and is seen rarely in parts of Britain that were not settled by the Vikings.
In the Oxford database none of my Y-chromosome are Northern Viking in origin. My (our) paternal ancestor belonged to one of the ancient Celtic tribes that lived in Britain before the Vikings arrived at the end of the eighth century AD. On the balance of probability my (our) paternal ancestor was one of the original Celtic people who had already settled the British Isles at the time the Romans invaded. This is almost certain if we can trace our ancestry to Wales, Scotland or Ireland. If our origins are in southern or eastern England, then there is a very small probability that the ancestry is Anglo-Saxon. [The origins as Aunt Floy and I have traced are in the western British Isles, at least back to the Hubbell’s in Warwickshire (not too far from Shakespeare's traditional birthplace) in 1066.]
We were hunter-gatherers who moved up from Southern Europe about 9,000 years ago (after the last Ice Age). About 3,000 years ago, during the late Bronze Age and Iron Age the Celtic artifacts (weapons and jewels) began appearing in Britain. This involved relatively few people.
There are intriguing genetic connections between Y-chromosomes such as ours and those found in the Iberian Peninsula, especially among the Basques. This hints at the existence of vigorous connections between Ireland, western Britain and the Atlantic seaboard of France and Spain, which archaeologists have long suspected. This connection began with the pre-farming hunters and fishermen and continued with the peoples who built the large stone monuments, the megaliths, which also connect these western sites from Spain to Scotland. The paper from Oxford Ancestors continues to say that though we [Orndorffs] have no Viking paternal ancestor, that our ancestors have been in Britain for a great deal longer.
***
And, you find it strange you have been wearing a black Basque beret since your college days.
You are embarrassing me, Amorella. It is true, I do find such small matters as the beret as somewhat irregular and untoward in my life from time to time. Imagination carries me far too far. My rock is reason first. I have no choice with such faery-like thoughts jumping out of my head at times. It is difficult being shown here, so naked in mind, but it is my own mind and I think and write out of my inner passions first. I am charged to write my mind out, it is a necessity, a reason, if you will, to keep my mind intact. At least that is my hope.
Scene 11
Morning, the fourth day.
As the sky turned a light blue in the low eastern sky, a first pre-chosen assembly of the Dead began to rise and in a systematic planned manner arrived at Stone Hill and picked up a few stones and wheeled or carried them back to Eleusis Street and set them down along the side walkways. Another preferred group began carrying the stones down Eleusis to near the shore of the Styx River.
This operation was continually carried on during the day. The conversations among the Dead were general or personal but no one even in a whisper gave a reason for this silent maneuvering. Others carried on their daily habits for reasonable comfort. Each appeared to know what they were to do and from above the entire process looked like a nest of ants on a mission of food gathering, however, in this case they are the nearby Dead gathering food for thought.
The Dead understand the air of Elysium is as their genetic Eve Mother’s eyes. She is the at the heart of the heartsansoulsanminds of the elected ten thousand. Orders are few and far between, but when deeply heartfelt by Mother commands are intuitively understood. Most children of all ages understand this process, though it is more easily communicated among the Dead.
With the elected ten thousand this is more easily grasped, and intuition runs deep. All Eve’s children recognize a truth when they feel it from the inside out. Feeling is not declaring however, and in here, true translation from one sense to another is not so easily accomplished no matter how heartfelt it may be. Elected, as used in these books, means favored, all who enter Elysium are favorite sons and daughters, it does not mean that the other children are not cared for or loved, but some are or become favorites. Parents who claim they love all their children equally deny a truth of nature within.
To absolve a few questions between the two social terms, the elite and the proletariat, for instance, I’ll say each individual is judged equally, but how the person lived is, in part, up to how the person chose to live her-or-his common life under the circumstances she-or-he lived. Souls are all-common in these books. Hearts are distinct as are minds. Recent Dead who have a problem with this. and come Here, will find there is an awakening of higher consciousness. Otherwise, why would the person be Here in the first place.
The only roost one rules is her-or-his own. This sharpens the sense of Free Will. People have no fear of other people Here. Control is genetic, in that the two common elements of living are a birth and a death date. Beyond that, is the natural growth of heart and of mind. Necessity provides the few rules, nature abides.
Scene 12
This is the Supervisor. While I watch individual heartsansoulsanminds their souls experience the fact they are being observed. This causes a possible imbalance, a teeter-totter of heart and mind in the deepest of unconscious levels. This is how it is. A rule. Mix this with Free Will and the heart and mind resort to a very intimate pairing. Subtle changes in behavior may eventually result.
I know this Place like it is the back of my hand, which it isn’t. The Dead will continue to grow. Are they going to build a bridge across the River Styx? I do not know. The Dead don’t know themselves, and the Living know even less.
Traditionally, in the later Medieval Age the Virtues and Vices were simplified and separated into four-teen qualities. This story and the next two include them as it is necessary for the reader to discern the subtle differences. This is not an easy task but it raises the bar for those who are curious about the eventual outcome. These are those traditional four-teen in alphabetical order: the Virtues: Abstinence, Chastity, Diligence, Humility, Kindness, Liberality and Patience. The Vices are as follows: Avarice, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Pride, Sloth and Wrath.
Now, let’s return to the humans and watch these qualities sparkle from time to time as they run from heart to mind and back again. This species is not to be toyed with, or any other that is similar in heart-an-soul-an-mind. It is interesting to observe growth under such circumstances when you are a timeless being such as myself. I wish all such species well.
Scene 13
Kassandra is sitting in the privacy walls of her childhood friend, Agathia. Here is the heart of their discussion.
“I am on the taskforce to inspect the bridge once we settle on a design,” said Agathia. “We have no choice but wood and stone.”
“I am just glad we are doing something," replied Kassandra, "I don’t know why I hadn’t thought it before.”
“Some of us have,” replied Agathia, “Bridge building does not appear practical. For one reason we don’t know how deep the River is. Nor how wide. This is a symbolic venture, that is what Mother likes, and we are a part of it. The gods may think us crazy, but there is a chance, like Mother says, that they do not know who we are any more than we do.” She smiled her petite and warm smile. “This is what makes it such gorgeous fun.”
She is ridiculous, thought Kassandra. Even the stone and wood here in Elysium is not real like the Earth was. Elysium is no more real than we are. We are not crazy and neither are the gods as far as I can see.
“What is on your mind, Kassandra?”
“What the River is made of. We talk about how deep and how wide, but what of its composition.”
Agathia noted, “We know the water is drinkable and has no salty taste but wood does not float on it.”
“I know," said Kassandra, "but how do we swim through it coming here?”
“I don’t know, Kassie. People say we arrive as skull and backbone to the tailbone. No one knows for sure. We just arrive.”
“Does this not bother you, Agathia?”
“You are the only one who calls me that. Even mother doesn’t call me that any more.”
Kassandra smiled and said, “I was your first friend.”
“And I likewise.” Why aren’t we content, thought Agathia. People dreamed of an afterlife with their friends. What more would anyone want? It turns out we want to go home to at least listen to our great, great, grandchildren making it through the living world.
Scene 14
Mario, Thales and Salaman stand above the shoreline staring down at the vast river-sea, watching piles of stone and wood being placed along the edge and back toward the city where Eleusis Street ends at the Styx nearly splitting the beautifully crescent-shaped beach in half. Seven hundred yards of beach east, and five hundred yards of beach west, each ending with rocky tower-like precipice.
The east rocky crag sets about a thousand feet high, two thousand feet out into the Styx, and the west river cliff measures fifteen hundred feet high, but it only extends out a thousand feet. Natural gate towers that would welcome hordes of ships, their sailors and cargo on Earth, set desolate, waiting for the eventual incoming. Instead the selected Dead arrive at the inlet community pools just north of the river’s muddy sands, rather than entering from the center of the Styx to the south.
“It is up to us to make this deception work,” asserted Mario whose ruggedly manly Greek face shows signs of both resoluteness and glumness at once.
“Who’s deception, that’s the point?” declared Salaman in a shovel face of inner irony. I would say we are building our own grave, he considered, but then where would we be?
Thales alone said nothing and shook his somber head sideways then towards the eerie leeward side of the hill above the town. Such is the breeze that blows to our west, passed Stone Hill and supposedly on to the pit of Tartarus beyond, the place where the rebel gods were thrown by mighty Zeus for nine years, or so it is rumored. Never have we heard a word from them.
Who knows what nine years is to a god? thought Thales. One god year may last more earth years than the stars in the heavens can count. O to have bones again, and muscle for their working. I could, on a good day kill a hundred men in battle and that would be the end of it. But Here we move against the gods, and doom the very race of our Mother, who is in ultimate charge. We are as Demeter might be, if she were walking Persephone to Hades himself.
So sad will we be when this rebellion is completed, continued Thales's contemplation. This Place of the Dead will become the winter of minds and hearts. Our very souls will shiver endlessly. And, I am mad to have such a desire to built a real bridge not this sham. We should walk down into the greatest of rivers, Styx and build from the base up a mighty stone and wood path all the way Home. Stone and wood and even green grass for our very feet to walk on along the way to the delight of earth fresh real air, that even within the bounds of hope we can never breath again. How to live with dignity while Dead, that is the question, but I cannot bring myself to ask it even among my closest friends.
Scene 15
In another Place (neither on Olympus, Elysium or Earth) stood the three bearded ones, witch-hags all, and three-in-one also. The three are as a ragged bikini or loincloth for this youthful adult, this fair-measured and naked Necessity in this story. Following the line of ancient Greek theology, the three are named Clotho, the spinner; Lacheis, the measurer; and Atropos, the cutter of the thread.
Some say this trinity are the daughters of Zeus and Themis, but not I, the Supervisor.
They are dressings as powerless as even I in this event as it is driven by the growing or, if you will, maturing of civilization within the thread of humanity in the heartsansoulsanminds of Mother and the first Ten Thousand. Being alive or dead makes little difference, the growth inwardly and outwardly continues, charging through the whole of the species.
Young Necessity is the Container of All Things and Beyond. She-or-he is an adult personification of a rugged Beauty and/or Handsomeness of either sexual preference. Imagine Necessity, if you will, stalwart and Olympic-like, animatedly stretching her-or-his naked arms out and back as if to perform a grand high dive into and through the very mystery of the Styx itself.
Clotho, Lacheis and Atropos sit on solid stumps of Oak around a genuine though small rock ring in whose exceptional center floats the pristine pinnacle of Olympus. The top, last gold crowning inch of the Greek gods spiritual mountain, which, alas, has been encircled by the seeming ordinarily exploited stones picked up by the bearded weird sisters and casually tossed into a manifestly vibrant ring that surrounds the golden pyramidal inch.
“I have no flax to spin,” stated Clotho as she glared at that Olympic inch floating and appearing encased by a common ring of casual stones a fist or two in size.
Atropos pointing with long and bony finger appealed, “Take the gold fiber from that thimble.”
“Make it invisibly thin and as long as Destiny,” suggested Lacheis with a wink and cackle while watching Atropos’ delight turn glower.
With sudden curiosity Clotho asked, “Who’s life is this for?”
“That bumbling. nature made species, that lives in two conditions at once.”
“You cut their threads, Atropos and yet stationed they are in Elysium between Olympus and Earth.”
“How is that?”
“And now they rebel against the gods and themselves,” suggested Lacheis.
“Why is that?”
“No one knows,” lamented the three as one.
“Mystery has no bounds when it comes to these peculiar souls.”
“Can they actually build a bridge?”
“Why? Why return to their graves when those dreadful crypts have been conquered?”
“To watch over their children,” declared Clotho. “That is the secret. They rebel the gods to serve the Living from beyond the grave.”
“Such a noble hubris,” suggested Lacheis in faeried bewilderment. “It is no wonder that I commanded to make this thread so long and thin.”
“I say this was not a command at all,” added Atropos the cutter. “Be it done, Clotho, thin and long.”
“The threading of souls, by silent unknowable will.”
“Not even, will, in a capital puffed.”
“Quietness Unbound.”
“And all around,” whispered the uncannied sisters in unison.
***
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