The Willow and the West,




The Marsh Alliance

Mile for mile, the Willow probably occupied the largest territory of the Wood. Yet they were not a numerous or aggressive people. What kept the other Clans, especially their neighbors, the Oak, at bay was terror. The Willow and the Alder were cannibals. Neither were cannibals for sport; the Alder ate only their own clients, the Ravens, and those people only under the specific conditions of the Raven Dance. The Willow were also ceremonial cannibals, yet stories abounded in the Wood of "getting turned into the skin on a Willow drum." This was exaggerated, but not unfounded, yet the prejudices that surrounded these ancient people were profound and not easily shaken. Almost everyone agrees that the first step toward "civilization" is to cease eating the dead. Yet this taboo persisted on Earth for a long, long time and gradually turned into a Mystery, and so I tried to approach much of the Wood Clans Mysteries as the roots of Human Mysteries.

I tried to retain this attitude even toward the more hostile and mysterious of the Clans. The Thorn King, for example, clearly had his own agenda and was a master of illusion, often disconcerting and frightening his human clients with shapeshifting illusions. The Holly were shunned and feared even among the other Clans, yet, once understood, were easy for some of us to interact with. This also was true for the Ash, who might have had the most opposite social system from the Holly one could imagine, yet were as rule-bound in their own way. Bob Gallanis, Peter and the other Classicists were convinced that very little law and order could exist without the more familiar side of civilization: paper and centralized authority. I saw differently.

Among the more feared of the Clans were those we called the Marsh People, or the Riasclaigh which literally means "swamp dwellers." This group, headed up by the Major Clan of the Willow, was the most hostile toward humans, multi-shapers and other signs of change and intermix that occur over time. They were conservative and often so set in their ways that they lashed out strongly against anything that seemed like change. The Alder were perhaps the closest to the other Clans, but strange and ritual-bound in their own culture. They did not attend any of the conventions at An Doras. They were most famous for their interaction with the Raven people in an ancient ritual that involved eating the loser of a challenge, but was surprisingly similar to the king rituals among the Horse People. A champion was chosen to represent the group's bad luck, or bad karma, and through a battle of wits and strength either overcame this fortune or was killed by it. The climax of this ritual was called the Raven Dance, where a champion was chosen, not by being the strongest, but often by being the first to "fall" out of the dance.

The River Birch, mentioned in the article on the Birch, were the most conservative of the Riasclaigh. They also saw themselves as the judges and promotors of morals among all the Wood. I found them to be obnoxious and interfering, yet many people respected so their judgements that they appealed to them at the conventions at An Doras where the Birch set up their own camps on the outskirts of the chaos of Clans. The Rowan did something similar with foretelling, and the Elder as well with healing. The Convention was most like a fair where certain areas were marked off for different trades.

The Willow were not as shy as the Alder or as interfering as the Birch, but the very mention of them caused such terror among the humans as to make them more feared even than the Oak or the Ash, both Clans of whom were fond of human hunting. I respected the Willow and, perhaps, even understood them. They were ritual bound and cannibalistic, but only in certain circumstances and not generally so, as has been the case among humans of Earth. They were a powerful people who felt that the entire world of Anieth was a mask, the duty of each of them being to break that mask, or wake up. This attitude was almost common among the Rowan and the greater magi, like the Thorn King. I found it more than intriguing and talked often to the Willow about my own experiments. They were not interested in "breaking" the world as I was, but interested in becoming aware of the false nature of the mind and life itself. They had bone white hair and grayish skin, but not as sallow as the Ash until they were quite old. They covered themselves in blue tattoos.

The Willow lived as comfortably as anyone could in the marsh, traveling mostly by coracle and building wicker cities on great piles and ramparts. Although humans shunned the Willow, it was for a simple reason that they were hunted. The one good that the Willow had was access to sea salt, which they traded in great quantities for high prices. The Anu, who lived around Dumona on the River Bras, could get rich fast on salt trade and often dared the journey downriver to the coast for salt. It was dangerous and if caught, they were killed without mercy.

Almost as dark of skin as the Elder and a bit darker than the Blackthorn, the Alder were the "Rom"s of the Wood. They did not live in communities or even in individual houses, but built temporary "nests" wherever they happened to be for a while with the exception of the dancing grounds deep in the fen country south of the Avena River. They roamed throughout Anieth, but favored the marshes and fens where their ancestors had taken root. One knew the Trees by their ring of skulls and all avoided them except the Ravens who thought it amusing to next in their branches and taunt those who had gone to root. The Raven People felt that they had nothing to lose by it since they were bound to the Alder and would sacrifice one of their own if they did not win the Dance. They had little in the way of law, but they did have strict traditions which involved complex riddle games and a strict code of ethics about the game. My father, being of the Raven People, joined in their dances every summer and was enamored of their Queen, Fuilteach, which means, "bloody" for the tree, when cut, exudes a bright red sap. Fuilteach was not evil, but a bit malicious and enjoyed her trickery. She was fond of dancing and also of smoking. She smoked large cigars of mugwort leaves, which are said to induce prophetic dreams. She, like most of the Alder, dressed in bright colors, especially reds, and wore more bone jewelry than I have ever seen in my life.

The Alder had no leaders and no political organization, however they did seem to follow a very traditional life where there was little deviance from age-old patterns. They were very magical, even for shape shifters, and often were to be found half-in and half-out of fens and copses of trees, in shapes no Tree would take. Old, rotten stumps of trees, or half branches and half finger bones. They seemed to enjoy posing in shapes that the other Clansmen found strange and unsettling. They delighted in tricking anyone they encountered into impossible bargains. The Ash also did this, but the Alder were whimsical and bizarre where the Ash seemed to want to test people more than torment them. Being a Raven myself, I understood them best when I was in that shape. I understood that they were tricksters because they were bored in part and also deeply involved with the threads of Anieth that were below the surface, like the waters flowing beneath many of the grounds that they frequented. I this, they were like the Willow, yet suspicious and tricky rather than duty-bound and religious.

They were little fond of costume, but extremely fond of any kind of jewelry and body markings. Their hair, like that of the Thorn, was thick, curly and not only to be found in dreads, but also weaving about them as if having a life of its own. They also smoked, heavily, and I can say this because I am Russian and Russians invented heavy smoking. They threw every kind of herb onto their fires, and their tents were more like smoke filled saunas.

They smoked cigars of mugwort and poppy and hemp, and also drank any number of brews that fall into the "barf and see god" category of drugs for me. They did all this to stretch the mind, but also to jerk the player of the game of life into "going underwater" as they called it, or taking a dive into the Mystery. In this they were very like the drug takers of the 50's and 60's of Earth who were trying to "break on through to the other side." An encounter with the Alder was turning your mind inside out and hoping to stay sane and keep your brain inside of your skull!"

Three generations of us competed in the Summer Dance. This dance lasted for a day and a night at mid-summer, where the Raven People danced for twenty-four hours straight. Anyone who fell or passed out was eaten. I believe that they were eaten as birds, for Fuilteach sported her favorites in her necklace and head band.

I know very little of the Rush, who were a very minor people. They were the size of children, with white hair and dark brown skin. They all looked very similar, dressing alike, with no facial hair. They hunted with darts and trapped with nets and hazel rod fish traps. They hated humans, multi-shapers, most trees, and lived, I believe, to torment anyone they could catch. Few had any respect for them and treated them like midge flies.