Chapter 4

Donnie was awake at his usual time, 05:00. It was Sunday and that meant that his parents would expect him to join them at the Parish Church as always. Before then though, there was plenty to do on a working farm.

Dragging himself out of bed, he snagged his towel and headed to the bathroom to wash and brush his teeth. Beira's 'brand' reflected back at him from the mirror once more, and he realised that the stinging pain was gone. Donnie ran his fingers over the mark and found that it wasn't at all sensitive. He was still wondering why the goddess had done such a thing.

The Church service began at 10:30, but before then Donnie had quite a bit to do. He needed to take some feed out to the sheep, break any ice that had formed in their drinking trough so they had water and also recover the quad bike so that he and his father could try to fix it.

The bike was too heavy to push up onto a trailer, so he would need to take the tractor that had a winch that would do the job.

A quick breakfast of cereal and a hot cup of coffee was soon polished off and Donnie wrapped up well before heading for the barn to get the sheep that he had healed. Rory of course was right at his heel and Donnie murmured a prayer of thanks to the goddess for the miracle that had allowed him to repair the Collie's heart.

"Come on, boy. Keep up!" Donnie teased.

Inside the barn, Donnie wasted no time in wrestling the sheep to the floor so that he could wrap it up again in the old blanket. That would stop it injuring itself in the trailer as he took it back to the lower pasture on Bochastle Hill.

"Here, Rory. You two have a lot in common. You've both been treated by my own fair hands. How was my bedside manner?"

The silly attempt at a joke was just illustrative of the extremely happy mood Donnie was in. Being able to save Rory was perhaps the best thing that had ever happened to him in his short life.

"Up boy," he urged, ordering the dog into the trailer beside the sheep.

When he made it out onto the public highway he could see that there hadn't been any fresh snow overnight. Out here in the 'sticks' though there hadn't been a plough through to clear the road and there was therefore still enough snow covering to make the going extremely treacherous.

After dropping the sheep off with the rest of the flock, he recovered the quad bike and took it back to the farm.

"Are you going to help me work on it?" his father asked.

"Not yet, I thought Rory and I would hook up the snow plough and clear the roads through the village," Donnie replied.

"Good idea. We probably won't see one of those council snow ploughs before February!" his father laughed.

Once Donnie had cleared the main road into and out of the village, he returned to the farm and fed Rory. He sat down to his own second, more substantial, breakfast. Mairi McGregor wouldn't admit it, but she was spoiling her youngest son after the fright she had had the night before. She put a huge plate of bacon, eggs, potato scones and fried haggis down in front of him and then fussed around the kitchen while she watched him eat.

"Well, there's certainly nothing wrong with your appetite, young man," she observed.

"Mom, I told you. I'm fine," Donnie replied.

Once his second breakfast was finished and he had washed up afterwards, Donnie washed himself again and dressed in his 'Sunday best' in readiness for Church.

The family piled in to the old Range-Rover for the journey into Kilmahog and Donnie hung around awkwardly as his parents greeted friends and neighbours before the service. Donnie smiled shyly at Heather MacAuley, a girl in his year at school. While he liked her a lot, he didn't have the nerve to go over to speak to her.

During the service itself Donnie began to wonder about attending a Christian Church after having agreed to serve one of the old Scots' Goddesses. He squirmed a little when it came time to recite the Lord's Prayer, until his conscience was eased by a voice in his head.

"There is nothing to worry about, Dòmhnall. This god and his son are not incompatible with me and my kind. We happily co-exist and I am not a jealous god, but make no mistake – you do now serve me!"

Donnie could have sworn he heard a faint chuckle after Beira's words, but he felt re-assured nonetheless.

After Church, Donnie got changed once more and then helped his father try to find out what was wrong with the quad bike. The problem proved to be relatively minor, although they would need to buy some parts before it would be ready for use again. Father and son rubbed their hands with thick swarfega gel to clean the worst of the oil and grime off, then used the outside tap to finish washing.

"Okay, I guess I should give you a few hours off to do any school work you've got," said Donnie's father.

Donnie grinned to himself. Although his parents knew he was intelligent and that he did well at school, they didn't fully realise just how academically gifted he was. Most of his assignments were completed in class and he rarely needed to do school work at home. Not sharing this information with his parents ensured that Donnie had an hour or two each night for himself. That time was normally used to happily surf the web, play his PC games or chat online with friends.

Today though, Donnie had a burning need to do some research on the web and he knew this was his opportunity. Once his PC had booted up, he typed in his first Google search of the afternoon.

Wikipedia And Beira

The first 'hit' took him to a page that listed a range of Wikipedia entries for 'Beira'. The first one was for:

Beira (mythology), the mother to all the gods and goddesses in the Celtic mythology of Scotland

Donnie's excitement grew as he clicked on the link to take him to this more specific wiki entry. It was something of a disappointment though when he saw that this further page was only a single paragraph and it didn't tell him much. He did notice that there was a further link under 'See Also' and the name Cailleach was listed.

Thinking back to his first conversation with Beira, he was sure she had used this name while referring to the face that was her 'winter' face. Donnie clicked on the link. His eyes lit up as this time there was quite a bit of information and he immediately began to read. One particular passage caught his eye.

In Scotland, where she is also known as Beira, Queen of Winter, she is credited with making numerous mountains and large hills, which are said to have been formed when she was striding across the land and accidentally dropped rocks from her apron. In other cases she is said to have built the mountains intentionally, to serve as her stepping stones. She carries a hammer for shaping the hills and valleys, and is said to be the mother of all the goddesses and gods.

The Cailleach displays several traits befitting the personification of Winter: she herds deer, she fights Spring, and her staff freezes the ground. In partnership with the goddess Brighde, the Cailleach is seen as a seasonal deity or spirit, ruling the winter months between Samhainn (November 1) and Bealltainn (May 1), while Brìghde rules the summer months between Bealltainn and Samhainn. Some interpretations have the Cailleach and Brìghde as two faces of the same goddess.

The significance of the brand on his shoulder now made more sense for Donnie. The mountain and crossed hammer were undoubtedly Beira's symbols and he was certain that she had branded him as being one of her servants.

"Does this mean that there are others who carry her mark? Is this maybe some way for her servants to recognise each other?" he asked himself.

Further reading led to Donnie discovering that there was a Glen Cailleach not far away from the farmhouse – that was surely no co-incidence? He quickly scanned what the article had to say about the place.

This area is famous for a pagan ritual which according to legend is associated to the Cailleach. There is a small Sheiling in the Glen, known as either Tigh nan Cailleach (House of Cailleach) or Tigh nam Bodach (House of Bodach), which houses a series of carved stones. These stones, according to local legend, represent the Cailleach, her husband the Bodach and their children.

The local legend suggests that the Cailleach and her family were given shelter in the glen by the locals and while they stayed there the glen was always fertile and prosperous. When they left they gave the stones to the locals with the promise that as long as the stones were put out to look over the glen at Beltane and put back into the shelter and made secure for the winter at Samhain then the glen would continue to be fertile. This ritual is still carried out to this day.

"Maybe I should make the effort to go and see this Glen Cailleach. Maybe I should go and see Cailleach's house and the stones for myself," he thought.

When he found a reference to Beira's connection to Argyll and in particular Loch Awe and the great mountain, Cruachan, Donnie had to smile. He had visited this area a number of times and it was one of his favourite parts of Scotland. He liked the idea that the goddess was known to frequent mighty Ben Cruachan.

Further searches told him a little about Tailtui, but the closest he could get to Sironaidh was a goddess called Sirona. What he read agreed with what he knew however – Tailtui was an earth-goddess and Sirona was a healer.

When he was finished, he realised he knew a little more, but not much. None of his research gave him any clues as to why Beira had chosen him or what challenges were to come. Still, it was a start.

There was only one further search that Donnie could think of to pursue. He returned to the Google home page and typed in Gregorach before hitting the enter key. Beira had referred to him as 'Gregorach' a number of times, and he was keen to try to find out what it meant.

This time his search didn't return very much of value other than a clue from an old song – Highland Justice: Call of the Claymore/Assize of the Gregorach. It seemed that 'Gregorach' was a collective term for the members of the McGregor clan.

Intrigued by this, Donnie searched for 'wikipedia and clan McGregor' This time he found a lot of information, including the fact that the McGregor's claimed to be direct descendents from Kenneth mac Alpin, the very first King of Scots. Indeed, the clan motto was given as 'S Rioghal Mo Dhream, which was translated as Royal is my Race.

Before he could read all that there was on the McGregor's, he heard his mother calling that his lunch was ready. Donnie bookmarked the page, knowing he would return to it as soon as possible.

From that day forward Donnie grew used to Beira's voice suddenly saying something inside his head. There were no more physical challenges to contend with, but he was becoming familiar with the goddesses challenging his thinking or challenging him to do better in aspects of his day to day life.

The remainder of January proved to be colder than Scotland normally experienced, with record low temperatures and record snow-falls. The TV news seemed to be full of reports of roads being closed, traffic chaos and shortages of salt and grit to treat the highways.

The harsh winter was a topic that manifested itself in a number of Donnie's classes at school. In Geography, they studied historical weather patterns and discussed whether the current record low temperatures were somehow evidence of the impact of global warming. There was one particular lesson that caught Donnie's interest, as he could immediately see the significant implications of what the teacher was getting at.

"So, let's look at this again. The United Kingdom has historically benefited from the Gulf Stream. It originates off of the coast of Florida. Here you can see it flows East, bringing the warm currents that have ensured more temperate conditions than we might expect given our latitude.

"Now, we have looked at the effect that the North Atlantic Deep Water Mass from the Labrador Sea has in pulling the Gulf Stream Northwards. The extremely cold, very heavy, salt water sinks deep towards the bottom of the ocean and this displacement pulls the warmer and lighter water of the Gulf Stream North. That raises the average temperature around the UK and we are warmer than we have a right to expect. Now, what happens as the Arctic ice-flows melt? That releases fresh water to dilute the salt water. What do you think will happen?" asked the Geography teacher.

Donnie understood that the salt was part of making the water heavier so that if it was diluted by fresh water, it wouldn't be so heavy. Logic suggested that would mean it was less likely to sink and in turn that would mean there would be no 'displacement' to pull the gulf stream North.

"Wouldn't that mean the United Kingdom would become much colder?" Donnie mused.

"Mr McGregor, you look deep in thought. Would you like to share your thoughts with the rest of the class?"

Donnie explained the logical reasoning he had just gone through.