1) Grainne, Raudh and the Morrigan
Grainne of the Gentle-heart as she was called in her humble home in the mountains of western Connacht, is the only daughter of a comely beauty named Darine the Red of clan UI’ Maine, the daughter to Maine Athramail Fedlimid, one of the seven Maines, and the son of Connacht’s King Ailill and Queen Medb. Grainne’s father died early in her life over a clan dispute. Fintaan son of the mountain was of the Fir Domnann, descended from Genand son of Dil, son of Loch, of the tribe of the sons of Dark of the night country.
After the death of her husband, Darine became a priestess of the Order of Kelles, a cult of females sworn to the goddess Kele-De. Grainne was growing up to be a very beautiful, high-spirited young girl, with skin as white as the swan of a wave, with wild twisted tresses of flaming red hair framing her mesmerizing green eyes. With the appearance of her first menses, Grainne was ritually invited into the cult order of the Kelles, and from that day on, she wandered the countryside with her free-spirited sisters. From the quaint fishing villages of Munster to the rugged villages of the Cruthni tribes in Ulster, Grainne has visited all the villages and farmsteads that were possible to visit.
As the years past, the young daughter of Connacht’s western mountains grew into a radiant young lady with a lithe form with beauteous features fit for a queen of Erin and a voice as sweet as honey. Grainne possessed the six gifts that many men of Erin desired in a young woman, the gift of youthful beauty, gift of sweet speech, gift of wisdom, gift of womanly strength, gift of pure heart and the gift of chastity.
Many suitors called upon the beautiful red-haired girl only to be turned away. Grainne would only give herself to a man who could give an account of himself and his daring feats in battle. She also required that the men have no jealousy, fear or stinginess, because she had a geis, a sacred taboo placed upon her at birth against marrying a man with those qualities.
While attending the great Triennial Festival in the beautiful kingdom of Leinster at the Rath na Riogh, the Fort of Kings on the breathtaking hilltop of Tara, Grainne’s sensuous beauty caught the unwanted attention of a much older man, by the name of Raudh the Dark, a chieftain of the northern Kingdom of Ulster bordering the Kingdom of the Cruthni tribes.
Repeatedly, Grainne spurned the elderly Ulsterman’s sexual advances, even going as far as insulting the chieftain in front of his peers by stating she would rather mate with the wild boars of Leinster’s forest, than lay on her back for one minute with a foul smelling Ulsterman, At least with the boar, the stench would not be so over powering and she would be able to reach sexual satisfaction.
On a cloudy night of Lughnasadh, when the Moon of Abundance hid behind the immense grey clouds, Grainne found herself walking alone through the Plains of Tremain. Taking a secluded path that led through the High King’s sprawling grove of apple trees, Grainne was attacked by a group of men who had been laying in wait for the red-haired girl.
Thrown bound into a chariot, Grainne’s senses were assaulted by the strong pungent smell of sour wine, urine and the sulfuric waif of vomit. Looking menacing, a drunken Raudh lustfully gaze upon his bound prisoner, through clenched teeth he promised that on this night she would pay for her verbal insult, and that she would also get her wish. Her trashing about on the chariot floor only resulted in opening her clothing, exposing her fair skin and feminine goods to the grinning chieftain’s delight.
In a wooded area by the Shannon River, far away from the crowds of the Triennial Festival, Grainne was stripped and forced to lie over a large fallen tree. One by one, Raudh and his men brutally raped the young girl. Each man repeatedly took their turn, forcing their sweaty unwashed man-meat into her tender feminine opening. Her screams for mercy went unheeded and seemed to only drive the drunken men into a higher state of arousal.
A screaming, crying Grainne twisted and turned against her bounds when she heard Raudh give the command to his men to drag the captured boar from the wood’s edge. With little effort, the men were able to bring the animal to a heighten state of arousal and have it mount the naked girl. Sweet blackness finally over takes the now hoarse Grainne as the boar’s blood-engorged organ tears into her already raw bleeding womanhood.
Regaining consciousness, Grainne was surprised and relieved to find herself still in the land of the living, sprawled upon the top of a grassy mound sacred to the Tuatha De’ Danann, the People of the Goddess of Danu. Bleeding from a number of wounds, Grainne curls her body into the fetal position with tears streaming down her dirt covered face; she closed her eyes and begins to slow her mind which is reeling with the shameful emotional torture that she had just received at the hands of Raudh and his Ulstermen.
With little effort, Grainne places herself into an altered state of consciousness as she begins the process of calling the spirit energy of the Morrigan, the Danann Phantom Queen into herself uniting their life-force.
Her pain was soon replaced with a rage, a deep dark rage which filled her every waking moment with the thoughts of vengeance and retaliation against the men who brutally violated her and brought shame upon her.
Answering her cry for revenge, the great Phantom Queen of the Dananns appeared to her, taking her pain and healing her torn body as only a Danann can. The Morrigan instilled in the red-haired girl incredible warrior skills that men of proper birth spent a lifetime learning.
Making her way back to the Hill of Tara, Grainne had three large ravens to keep her company, continuously filling her thoughts with revenge, for the ravens never stopped their constant talk of vengeance. The rage in Grainne grew and grew, to the point she felt she would be consumed by her own hatred of the men who had their way with her. Each night the Morrigan would comfort the young, speaking so softly to her as a lover would do. Grainne would lie in the Morrigan’s pale arms in sexual bliss as the Danann mistress would caress her body, touching her body as a lover would touch a love’s body. Each night the Morrigan would return for more Sapphic loving and while Grainne eagerly suckled on her bosom, the Morrigan would whisper in her ears their revenge plan and the whereabouts of Raudh and his men.
On an exceptionally dark starless night, at a well known hostel in Tara filled with festive revelers, Grainne confronted the first of her attackers. With supernatural speed and strength, she descended upon the startled wide-eyed Ulsterman. The ravens that had accompanied Grainne on her journey caused much confusion in the hostel.
Grainne’s grim guise caused many to freeze with fear. Women fainted, men lost their courage and nerve at the fearsome sight of the vengeful girl who resembled the Morrigan. A black and grey mantle of feathers draped her nude body, her skin was dyed a bright crimson red. Her beautiful red mane was thickened with a lime solution, so that it would bristle like the tail of a horse. Her green eyes burned with an unnatural fire as she glared at the man who brought so much pain into her life.
Grainne lopped-off the head of the Ulsterman as he stood frozen in place, the color drained from his face. With a laugh, Grainne shook the bloody-trophy before the startled patrons, sending droplets of blood everywhere.
As quick as she had appeared, she was gone disappearing into the night, leaving behind one headless corpse. The attacks were repeated in Leinster and Ulster as one by one, Grainne would descend upon the men of Raudh, collecting their heads as bloody trophies.
The heads were always found impaled on a cut sapling of red yew wood. On the poles of red yew, written in ogham, would always be this inscription;
This man of Ulster has wronged and violated an innocent child of Connacht; the Red Girl has righted that wrong.
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