Early ReviewersG.R. Grove

In this fifth book of the Storyteller series, Gwernin Storyteller and his bardic student Llacheu travel through sixth century southwestern Britain with the famous bard Taliesin Ben Beirdd, visiting ancient sacred sites and learning their lore, before participating in three bardic competitions which may finally allow Gwernin to reach the coveted status of a Master Bard.

Along the way they both meet threats from their past, Gwernin discovers that some of the Old Gods of Britain are still present, and Taliesin shares some of his memories of his time as King Arthur's youngest bard.

Most of these poems are, in one way or another, SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) poems – either poems written for or about people in the two Kingdoms (West and Outlands) where I have so far lived and played, or poems about persons or events in the SCA period (approximately 600-1600 AD). Most of them are written in medieval fixed forms – one of my on-going quests being a search for ways of reproducing the sound and feel of medieval Welsh poetry in modern English. And yet, because the bardic art I practice is a performance art, these are in a larger sense not my poems at all, but merely pale imitations – poems preserved on paper. Until I can come and sing the real poems to you, I hope you will enjoy the substitutes.

"Taliesin sang it, so it must be true. In all the years I knew him, I never heard him lie—though there are ways and ways of dealing with the truth, and a bard must know them all. But he was using none of these on the night when he sang Talhaearn Tad Awen’s death song in Prince Cyndrwyn’s high-roofed wooden hall, with the cold wolf-wind of a bitter winter snuffling round the doors and windows, and frightening the flickering torch-flames which cast his long black shadow, now here, now there, across the smoke-stained walls: across the faces of all of us who listened, and across our lives as well." So begins this fourth book of Gwernin Storyteller's adventures, which will take him and Taliesin to Ireland in a time of conflict between Kings, Christian Saints, and Druids.

In the mid-sixth century, one hundred years after St. Patrick brought Christianity to Ireland, most of the Irish Kings were Christian – at least in name. But Díarmait mac Cerbaill, in his attempt to consolidate his position as High King, had recourse to an older magic. In about 560 A.D., he held the last “Feast of Tara” – the old Pagan sacred wedding of the King with the Goddess of Sovereignty. And at the subsequent battle of Cul Dreimne, the Chronicle of Ireland reports that Fráechán mac Tenusán cast the "druidical fence" over Díarmait’s army. In the event, Díarmait lost that battle due to "the prayers of Colum Cille" (Saint Columba).

But who was Fráechán mac Tenusán, and how did he come to be practicing Druid magic for Díarmait? The King’s Druid is his story.

"Taliesin sang it, so it must be true. In all the years I knew him, I never heard him lie—though there are ways and ways of dealing with the truth, and a bard must know them all. But he was using none of these on the night when he sang Talhaearn Tad Awen’s death song in Prince Cyndrwyn’s high-roofed wooden hall, with the cold wolf-wind of a bitter winter snuffling round the doors and windows, and frightening the flickering torch-flames which cast his long black shadow, now here, now there, across the smoke-stained walls: across the faces of all of us who listened, and across our lives as well." So begins this fourth book of Gwernin Storyteller's adventures, which will take him and Taliesin to Ireland in a time of conflict between Kings, Christian Saints, and Druids.

In the mid-sixth century, one hundred years after St. Patrick brought Christianity to Ireland, most of the Irish Kings were Christian – at least in name. But Díarmait mac Cerbaill, in his attempt to consolidate his position as High King, had recourse to an older magic. In about 560 A.D., he held the last “Feast of Tara” – the old Pagan sacred wedding of the King with the Goddess of Sovereignty. And at the subsequent battle of Cul Dreimne, the Chronicle of Ireland reports that Fráechán mac Tenusán cast the "druidical fence" over Díarmait’s army. In the event, Díarmait lost that battle due to "the prayers of Colum Cille" (Saint Columba).

But who was Fráechán mac Tenusán, and how did he come to be practicing Druid magic for Díarmait? The King’s Druid is his story.