For lo, I worship thee, Ioua; and if you can give my message to Neis,—
Neis the helot out of Aoidû, who is in Iona, bondman to Colum,—
Tell him I hail you as Bandia, as god-queen and mighty,
And that he had the wisdom and I was a fool with trickling ears of moss.
But grant me this, O goddess, a bitter moon-drinking for Colum!
May he have the moonsong in his brain, and in his heart the moonfire:
Flame burn him in heart of flame, and may he wane as wax at the furnace,
And his soul drown in tears, and his body be a nothingness upon the sands!
[5] Ioua was one of the early Celtic names of the moon. The allusion (in the fourth line) to the sun, in the feminine, is in accordance with ancient usage.
The watchers looked at each other, but said no word. On the pale face of each was fear and awe. What if this new god-teaching were false, and if Cathal was right, and the old gods were the lords of life and death? The moonlight fell upon them, and they saw doubt in the eyes of each other. Neither looked at the white fire. Out of the radiance, cold eyes might stare upon them: and at that, sure they would leap to the woods, laughing wild, and be as the beasts of the forest.
While it was still dark, an hour before the dawn, one of the twain awoke from a brief slumber. His gaze wandered from vague tree to tree. Thrice he thought he saw dim shapes glide from bole to bole or from thicket to thicket. Suddenly he discerned a tall figure, silent as a shadow, standing at the verge of the glade.
His low cry aroused his companion.
“What is it, Mûrta?” the young man asked in a whisper.
“A woman.”
When they looked again she was gone.
“It was one of the Hidden People,” said Mûrta, with restless eyes roaming from dusk to dusk.