Bay’s Story Time – Legend of the Druid Princess

Welcome (back) to the blog! It’s been a while since we’ve done a blog post, so here’s a doozy for you – the stories of Sorcha, the druid Princess.
Keep this post bookmarked and check back every now and again, we’re going to keep updating this post with links to the newest pieces of the story, because we want to keep the Druid Legends all in one place, easy to find. Read on to find out…

The Gift of Old Ireland

The legends of old Ireland sound like fantasy, like something you would expect to see in a medieval movie full of queens and kings and knights and wizards. But I assure you, unlike the tall tales of your childhood, these legends are true.
Come now, take a seat by the fire and let me tell you of the druids and the gift of old Ireland. When Ireland was much younger, there were two peoples who shared the country. Those kings and queens of old and their subjects and those known as the druids.
Druids were in some parts of Ireland and other countries feared for their power. Hunted and killed if they allowed themselves to be known.
Among the villages of Ireland, the druids weren’t feared. Instead, they were revered. Stories were told and songs sung about the power of the druids and the healing they shared with those in need.
The legends say that some of the druids chose to start families with the clansmen and that the women born of such a bond were born with a special gift, known to us as the Irish sense or the gift of old Ireland. It wasn’t full on druid magic, but more a fractured part of the druid magic that passed on to their children.
Over time, they would find that different family lines manifested different versions of this gift.
The most common is the soul healer. A soul healer has the power to feel true soul pain. The ache of a loss or a broken heart, perhaps. And with her gift, she can form a healer’s bond with a pained soul long enough to mend the torn fabric, ease the pain and heal the wounds.
Next is the bond weaver. A bond weaver can tie two souls together in a bond no distance can break. Just as easily, she can untie two bonded souls from one another almost painlessly. She can weave the broken bond back into the soul to protect it from further damage.
The rarest and most precious of all is the mind soother. A mind soother holds within her the ability to calm one’s mind. To heal the damage caused when one has been manipulated, ease the anguish caused by a wounded soul, settle the anxious thoughts that will drive one mad.
Alone, each of these gifts is wonderful. But together, they are more powerful and far more effective.
When the clansmen went to battle, these three would band together. The bond weaver would strengthen the soul healers’ and mind soothers’ bonds with those who were going to war. From a distance, the soul healers and mind soothers could tend to the soul pain and mental anguish of warriors who had been injured and lost friends. At home, the soul healers and mind soothers could help the women who instinctively knew or felt through a bond that something had happened to a loved one and the bond weavers would unravel and heal bonds torn by the death of a warrior in battle.
These women never stepped foot on the battlefield, but they fought as hard as the warriors every bit. When the enemy would come toward the villages, these women who held the precious gifts would scatter to the wind, meeting again on the islands of myth, Avalon and Skye. Both islands, you see, are protected by druid magic to this day. There, women with the sense were protected.
These gifts are not without downside though, for a soul healer who does not have the strength to control her gift can easily become a soul destroyer. She can tear the soul’s fabric as easily as she can fix it if she isn’t careful.
A bond weaver becomes a bond breaker when her gift becomes too much to bear and she begins ripping at the bonds she’s created to try to free herself, separating herself from those she loves and losing sight of which bonds belong to her.
And the most dangerous of all, a mind soother harms first herself. She becomes a mind wrecker, unable to prevent herself from getting lost in the mental anguish of others and suffering their pain, putting the pain she feels onto those she cares most for. A mind wrecker soon finds herself alone and in pain, her gift now a curse.
These instances are so rare, most even with the sense think of it only as ancient lore and legend, as mythological as King Arthur pulling a magicked sword from a stone. Amusing to those who know that both stories are true. Arthur did pull that sword from the stone and the gifts of old Ireland can backfire spectacularly.
And this, a leanbh, is why those lucky men and women who are born with the sense are trained so thoroughly from birth to control and use their gifts properly.

Posted In: Bay's Story Time • Legends of the Druids