#barb ireland

[looseygoosey66]

JUNE 2013 COVER STORY – Pearl Jam Guitarist Stone Gossard Making Time for ‘Moonlander’

“We live and we die by time. And we must not commit the sin of losing our track on time.” ~ Chuck Noland: “Cast Away”

Time is an amazing thing. It is precious and it can be fleeting. It seems the older you get, the faster time flies by and your life is measured by what you do with that time.

Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard certainly makes the best of his time. Not only is he in one of the world’s biggest rock bands and constantly touring, but he also has Brad, a side band with his friends Regan Hagar and Shawn Smith. More importantly, Gossard is a father and husband.

“My typical day isn’t always music,” Gossard said from his home in Seattle. “I usually get up, drink way too much coffee, make sure my daughter eats her cereal and I brush her hair before school. Then I take her to school, run some errands, then come home, walk the dog with my wife, then have lunch, pick up my daughter from school and come home and play. Then it’s diner and a movie and off to bed. That is the excitement of my day now. I love it.”

“Then again,” Gossard continued, “the typical day could mean getting up, flying to South America to play some shows, write some music or go to the recording studio.”

Gossard has found the time and the perfect way to merge the love of his family with his music on his sophomore solo album Moonlander. The album will be released on Pearl Jam’s own Monkeywrench Records on June 25. Gossard started releasing singles 10 weeks prior to the official release date.

“We knew we needed some art work to go with the album so we came up with the idea of an original piece of art to go with each single we put out every week. When you have an album and you don’t plan on playing a lot of shows, if any at all, you have to do something special with promoting the album to draw interest and have a destination to generate interest so people can hear it. I don’t know if this idea will work, but it was fun.”

The art work incorporated with the single was provided by Gossard and his daughter.

“My daughter loves to paint and draw and when she would, I would as well. I hope the pieces convey a sense of freedom from formal rules and of playfulness that comes from hanging with your lovely 5-year old.”

The weekly single idea grew when Gossard’s wife found Washington state craft maker, Terri Swinhart at Once Upon a Drawing (http://once-upon-a-drawing.blogspot.com), they sent one of the drawings to the artist and she created a “softie” which goes with each single and which Gossard signed and gave away in weekly contests.

“My wife found Terri Swinhart online and we sent her a drawing my daughter did to see if she could make something for us and when we got it back the softie was dead on. It was mind blowing. She does a great rendition of the art work.”

When working on a solo album time is a luxury Gossard does have. It’s been 12 years since he released his solo debut Bayleaf and the 11 tracks for Moonlander were recorded over an 8-year span, 2003-2011.

“Over the last year, I went through all of my old demos and recordings that weren’t used as Pearl Jam or Brad songs and picked my favorites. With the help of Floyd Reitsma (Studio Litho engineer), Pete Droge (Executive Producer), and Hans Teuber (multi-instrumentalist and long time Hank Khoir collaborator) I went about trying to finish them. There was lots of re-singing tracks, fleshing out and re-editing, adding new instruments…”

As most guitarists do, Gossard would save any guitar riffs to his computer for possible future use. Over eight years of doing this, the hard drive became pretty packed with riffs, songs, or lyrics Gossard had to sift through.

“As a guitar player if you come up with a little something you want to save it just in case, even though about 90 percent of the time you know it won’t be used. But you keep it because…I don’t know. “

As a music veteran of over 25 years and being in some of rock’s seminal bands (Green River, Mother Love Bone, Temple of the Dog), Gossard doesn’t find it time consuming going through all the files when trying to record a song for an album.

“I never had a problem focusing on a project, whether it is Brad or Pearl Jam, you just get in and listen. I don’t find it hard going back through these pieces of music. I make quick decisions to get things done. I had this record done about five years ago, but as I listened to it then, the album wasn’t a good as I wanted it to be. So I put it back in the cooker again to make sure I had everything I wanted before releasing it.”

For the most part putting out a record is about timing but when you are in the position Gossard is in, one doesn’t have to worry about getting a solo record out or putting one out if at all. But when you are an artist who is always creating, you know when the time is right to showcase your work.

“I just had these moments about everything that were recurring where I would think about these songs I was working on. I would always go back and work on them if the studio was available and work on overdubs, guitar parts or just listen until I got what I wanted.”

To get what he wanted, Gossard enlisted an impressive collections of friends/musicians to play on the album. Moonlander features appearances from Matt Cameron (Pearl Jam, Soundgarden), Matt Chamberlain, Regan Hagar (Brad, Malfunkshun, Satchel), Pete Droge, Brandon Harper, Gregg Keplinger, Keith Lowe, Barbara Ireland (The Fags) and Hans Teuber.

“I have been so fortunate. If I’d look back and thought about the people I’ve played with and got to meet. With all the twists and turns I have been through in my life in music, I am so blessed to play with people like Ed [Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder], Josh Homme from Queens of the Stone Age or Shawn Smith [Satchel, Pigeonhead, Brad] and the list goes on and on. I am a little bit numb to it because it just seems natural. I don’t know how to explain it…I am truly blessed…I don’t know what I did exactly, but it has been incredible. “

Gossard has always been one to recognize and use his fortunes to help people, communities and the world. Gossard has supported and/or worked with amazing foundations.

“I’ve always been conscious of philanthropy even before the success. It’s about giving back, creating a better place for everyone. It comes in waves for me with my schedule. It’s very important to me. At the end of the year I do what I can to give back and help those people in need. It’s something I’ve been involved with and do it when I can. I wish I had more time to do it on a more consistent basis.”

With his new album Moonlander and his daughter hand in hand, Gossard continues to give back with his music and time, finding the littlest things in life mean the biggest.

“I think my idea of fun these days is the simplest things. Staying with my daughter, going to the beach to throw rocks in the ocean, teaching her how to fish, watch her play…that’s a big night out for me. Hanging out with the wife and my daughter…when you have a kid you can’t be more in love.”

ALBUM REVIEW

Stone Gossard - Moonlander

(Monkeywrench)

A dozen years after his funky first solo album Bayleaf, Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard returns with Moonlander.

The captivating 11 tracks from the album were recorded from 2003-2011. Scouring through his hard drive of old demos and recordings that weren’t used as Pearl Jam or Brad songs, Gossard compiled enough material for Moonlander.

With the help of musicians/friends – Matt Cameron (Pearl Jam, Soundgarden), Matt Chamberlain, Regan Hagar (Brad, Malfunkshun, Satchel), Pete Droge, Brandon Harper, Gregg Keplinger, Keith Lowe, Barbara Ireland (The Fags) and Hans Teuber – the songs show Gossard stretching his legs as a solo artist, and most notably his confident singing voice. In addition, the songs come to life with the help of Floyd Reitsma (Studio Litho engineer), Pete Droge (Executive Producer), and Hans Teuber (multi-instrumentalist and long time Hank Khoir collaborator).

Gossard stays true to his love for funky riffs on the opener “I Want Something Different,” which contains a blistering soulful guitar lead. The title track is a playful homage to Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust-era complete with the bells and whistles in the sound effects. The first single “Both Live” is so infectious you will be singing the chorus (“I gotta go, I gotta swim, I gotta use my fins”) long after the song is over. “Your Flames” and “Battle Cry” are two gorgeous slow burners finding Gossard’s warm vocals envelope you with his storied lyrics.

“I Don’t Want To Go To Bed” starts off slow with janglely guitar strums then catches on with a soaring chorus while “Remain” is a straight-forward story teller ballad. The sleeper hit of Moonlander is the fun, quirky ass-shaking groove of “Witch Doctor.”

Moonlander is a journey in funky quirkiness, Americana, pop, rock and jazz musicianship all wrapped in Gossard’s unique (and somewhat puzzling) song lyrics. In short, Stone Gossard has hit the mark with this one.

[scholarofgloom]

[maverick-werewolf]

Folklore Fact - Wyverns

Another month, another folklore fact! Wyverns handily won the poll over on my Patreon this month (be sure to take a look if you'd like to vote in the next one or even suggest all new subjects!)...

(nearly all modern dragon designs seen in visual media, especially film and television but now quite often also video games, count as the traditional British heraldic classification of wyverns, really; see my post here for a discussion of that, although I could expand that post today and discuss things like Monster Hunter, etc, which I didn't really know much about at the time, and even further discuss some of the subjects already therein... Anyway, maybe I'll revise that sometime in the future and improve it)

Wyverns are often described as a dragon with two hind legs, two wings, no forelegs, and a barbed tail. There are varieties, of course; some say the wyvern has the head of a dragon, the legs of an eagle, and a barbed "serpent tail" or simply a long tail with no barb. There are many varieties. Traditionally, at least if you ask English heraldry, the requirement to be a wyvern is that it has no forelegs - unlike the dragon, which has four legs in addition to wings. However, this is a technicality that was obviously not always applied elsewhere, including the European mainland. More on that shortly.

The word "wyvern" is not in itself all that old; it originated around 1600, derived from "wyver" from 1300, so the term is not ancient. Like dragon, it essentially means "snake," though in this case it is derived from "viper." As mentioned, "dragon" itself is derived from "drakon" meaning serpent (and/or "giant seafish") [source: again, one of my favorite sites].

Stamp of Clifford, Anne, Countess of Dorset (1590 - 1676) [source], depicting a wyvern.

There was apparently some discussion around the rise of the heraldic wyvern in England, Scotland, and Ireland regarding what exactly classified a wyvern as opposed to a dragon. In 1610, the writings of John Guillim described a wyvern (then "wiverne") thus: "partake[ing] of a Fowle in the Wings and Legs … and doth resemble a Serpent in the Taile," and in 1682, John Gibbon agrees that a wyvern specifically has "but" two legs. It is noteworthy that both men in question were officers of heraldry, and these remarks are quotations from book on coats of arms, and thus it was specifically heraldry they discussed.

"Wyverns" as per monsters of myth and folklore were, for most intents and purposes of their time period, referred to as "dragons" and not thought of as their own sort of beast rather than just a variation of dragon for heraldry specifically or even exclusively. Were there any legends about something called a "wyvern?" I haven't found any in all my extensive research on dragon legends, and most all academic sources agree that a "wyvern" is a heraldic creature rather than something you'd find in a bestiary and/or folktale.

As mentioned, depictions of what we today might think of as "wyverns" were not always called "wyverns," of course, especially throughout a lot of Europe (as opposed to Great Britain). Here we see a depiction of what we would now think of as a "wyvern" referred to as a dragon ("drago"), from a work dated 1691, so during the same time period that heraldic wyverns were already being classified as such.

There are also bestiaries and other things that depict two-legged dragons as "dragons" rather than ever referring to them as "wyverns" specifically, and the creatures depicted therein were in fact meant to simply be "dragons." Older eras lacked the picky categorization that exists more recently, particularly myth and folklore. This is why there are no "categories" of werewolf legends, either, for instance, or different "types" of werewolves - except as put on them retroactively by modern scholars.

A "wyvern" from 1380 in the Chester Cathedral in England; given its hooves and head of a man, it isn't exactly a "standard" wyvern.

So, again, the idea of the wyvern as a unique creature as opposed to another sort of dragon likely stemmed from heraldry - which in itself has a lot of unique creatures and specifics, such as the enfield and bagwyn - and specifically heraldry from Great Britain and Ireland, which meant that such defined notions of a wyvern came about in later centuries. There are certainly depictions of dragons and dragon-like creatures without forelegs from other centuries, such as the 1300s, but these are not explicitly as sourced "wyverns" during their own time period. Rather, they are described as such now by people retroactively applying the wyvern concept onto them. Such a concept became common starting around the 1600s, as mentioned earlier with the heraldic writings of Guillim and Gibbon. There are plenty of examples of "dragons" with two legs and, sometimes, even "wyverns" with four legs floating around out there.

But since modernity also thrives on technicality, categories, and specifics, things like D&D for a while there often referred to a "wyvern" as a two-legged dragon (which I personally find preferable, despite my usual aversion to categorization of mythological things) - at least, until a lot of media is today started changing that ever since Reign of Fire in 2003. These days, outside of a handful of fantasy things, like D&D with their older established rules and a few other fantasy games that originated before this sweeping design change occurred, dragons very often have two legs instead of four. I could say a lot more about that, but I won't get into it...

And that covers a general overview on wyverns! Until next time. For June, expect to see a brand new werewolf fact.

( If you like my blog, be sure to follow me here and sign up for my free newsletter for more folklore and fiction, including books! And plenty of werewolf things.

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[intheholler]

hii

so, i have nothing to do with appalachia or even america cause i come from alllll the way over the sea in this tiny town in england…but reading up on this blog or experiences online // my friends who have moved over here from the states has made me think abt the huge similarities in the gentrification and religious aspects from across the globe (and it’s happening everywhere, but this is just from a UK perspective)

theres lots of rich farmland and wealthy rural areas in england. but the further into the country you get, there are towns/places in deep deep poverty because of the dead industries (that goes into heavy british politics) or facing a severe homelessness crisis because everyone is building holiday villas and country retreats. **

we used to live on an old farm before the land got renovated to make space for two other houses along the road. i would find bricks and planks// wooden posts, barbed wire fences etc around which looked ‘eyesore’ (to quote my neighbour) because of how modern the surrounding area was. literally just grey shiplap. everywhere. there were neighbours who had lived there for decades trying to help out with the land; then upon realising that the only field left for miles was now a jumbo golf course, had to move away or got kicked out by the council cause they couldn’t afford to live there and ‘just weren’t needed anymore’. moving away & meeting others myself has made me realise how many people (esp large families) moved down to the overpriced city because they literally had no other option.

** every city has its surrounding land & when they begin bulldozing a village to make another coffee place, they don’t care about you, the land, the cost crisis, your job or your roots

and that’s just my experience in england, that’s not even to mention the rest of the UK (eg. the scottish highlands, most of wales, northern ireland)

but also the heavy religious aspects, the indoctrination, the isolation, churches being built over and turned into pubs/bars and still so many communities believing that it’s just the consequences of the countries sinners..

(and that’s just Christianity cause we all know how Britain has diluted and stripped so much culture and other religions down to nothing.)

god i love these asks from intl folks who note such similarities to appalachian socioeconomic/religious/political circumstances. i think it really highlights how much rural folks really understand each other in a way urban people just can't, and it gives me a nice sense of global solidarity (as much as the shared pains fucking suck)

this was really interesting to read, thanks so much for sharing and i'm sorry this took so long for me to reply to; it's been a weird few months

take care <33

[vivianleighwishesshewasme]

Saying Grace

Tommy and grace visit her family before the wedding. He gets taught what saying grace at dinner means. Now he has a plan. Don't interreact if under 18. Smut

________________________________________________________

Saying Grace

Every experience Tommy had up until then didn’t fail to make him as nervous as this.

Grace's family had invited him to Galloway for an engagement celebration dinner. They were staying three days.

Charlie fussed most of the ride which hadn’t helped Tommy's nerves. Grace had also mentioned that her brothers had fought in the war.

Calvary. He snorted in disapproval. “Fought, when?” was all he said. She hadn't brought it up again. He remembered how useless they’d been during the Somme and Verdun. “The Calvary as as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike, Grace.” She laughed and lightly punched his arm. The analogy amused him too. He’d have to remember to tell John that one.

Grace, Charlie and Tommy had just gotten settled into the large manor house twice the size as his in the countryside. Grace's mum had burst into the room to hold the baby. She didn’t say two words to Tommy but he could understand her wanting to see her first grandchild from her only daughter.

The day dragged on not getting any less awkward. He tried staying out of the way just enjoying wandering around looking at the family history. He really only cared about one person's background if he was being honest.

He’d loved to see Grace's old dolls, ribbons and various accolades from school. He always knew she was highly intelligent. He loved seeing paintings and portraits of her growing up. His favorite had been her horse pictures. She’d never told him she showed horses and rode. He was so proud to call her his.

And he’d been right. She was a posh girl.

“You haven’t stopped smiling since we got here. Trying to uncover my deepest darkest secrets?” She whispered seductively in his ear and she wrapped her arms around him from behind.

He chuckled and reached behind him holding her closer.

“I love seeing these awards and portraits of your accomplishments. You never tell me these things Grace.” His voice was deep but calm. He was in her personal space. He was at home.

“It's not polite to brag about them and honestly it was so long ago.” she mussed and grinned, rocking them both side to side to only music she could hear. The fact that she’d won a singing competition for all of Ireland was the most impressive accolade in her collection.

“We’ll for what it's worth. I’m proud.” He bent his head to the side and placed a kiss on her temple.

“Thank you.” She blushed and kissed his jaw. A sharp knock at the door and an announcement for dinner pulled them away from each other, at least for now.

____________________________________________________________________

Dinner was interesting. He was getting used to the high life at his manor but he swore some of the Calvary members of her family were going above and beyond to make him uncomfortable.

Little barbs about Birmingham streets, gypsy living and silly things here and there. Nothing Thomas hadn’t ever heard before. It was annoying that they lacked creativity to their insults honestly.

Dinner was served and everyone but him and of course the baby bowed their heads.

“Tommy, we have to pray.” Grace's mother closed her eyes, bowed her head and held her hands out for everyone to join with the person next to them. He raised an eyebrow and closed his eyes while smiling because Grace glared at him.

“Don't know how the gypsies do it but we call it saying Grace.” James, Grace’s annoying little brother who had missed out on the war by a year had to pipe up.

“It's done before every meal.” Her grandmother spoke next. Tommy hoped Grace's eyes were closed. He tried clearing his throat but a laugh escaped instead. She squeezed his hand tighter as a warning.

He laughed out loud and tried not to stifle it but he couldn't help himself. He has to explain why later…or rather show her why it was so funny.

“I’m sorry, go ahead and say Grace.” He cleared his throat again and closed his eyes lost in his thoughts

_____________________________________________________________

“I’m sorry about dinner.” He stood watching her sit on her bed unbuckling her dinner shoes. She tossed them into the closet and sat back grinning at him.

“Tommy, why did you laugh before prayer? I know you aren't a protestant or catholic but…I'm confused.” Her eyes darted around his face trying to understand. It was out of character for him.

“We’ll posh girl, I have an answer to that, but I told you I'd have to show you.” He grinned wickedly at her as she stood before her and spread her legs to stand in between them. He bent down, getting on his knees in front of her.

They both knew what was coming next.

Tommy grabbed her hips and pulled her toward him. She twisted so she could unhook her garters to help him. His strong calloused hands reached up and pulled down her panties. He didn’t need to remove anything else.

He kissed and nipped at her inner thighs to her knees. He was teasing her but he loved to get her worked up. It was worth the rush of pleasure for her. He didn’t care about himself at this point. This was all for her.

“Oh, I forgot.” Tommy pulled back and closed his eyes.

“What are you doing Tommy?” Grace's tone was laced with confusion. Was he praying!?

“I have to say grace right, that's what a proper man does before a meal.” They both chuckled but her eyes danced with desire. She should have known why he laughed at dinner. His humor and quick wit was stunningly quick.

He licked, sucked and ate her thoroughly until she came screaming and panting his name like a prayer.

“Oh God, Tommy.” He pulled back satisfied with his work. His smirk made her wet all over again. She knew they weren’t done for the night.

“Now, that's a prayer I would mean and happily get on my knees for penance.” He laughed and stood, leaning over top of her he bent down and let her taste herself on his tongue.

She eagerly rose up to meet his passionate kiss. Her hands undid the buttons to his vest and slipped it down, tossing it somewhere by the foot of her childhood bed.

He never broke the kiss as he unbuttoned his shirt tossing it where she decided their clothes were going. She quickly stripped him of his pants as he pulled off her dress. He didn’t care if it was ripped. She could afford another one. They were both almost animalistic at this point. Her nails gently drug down his back only to leave harder nips and love bites on his neck and shoulders. She even bit his lip at one point pulling him in closer. He of course had to lean in and deepen the kiss.

His thrusts were building up and getting more erratic. She crested into the orgasm just before he did.

Maybe being here wasn’t such a bad thing he thought as they both rolled over into one another breathing heavily.

Not if he could use her family's words to defile her in her bedroom for the next few days.

_________END_________________________________

[blackswallowtailbutterfly]

So three women, a Scot, an Englishwoman, and an Irishwoman want to go watch the Olympics in person, right? But they don't have tickets, or money for tickets. And they're trying to figure out how to get in and then the Scottswoman has it! She picks up a manhole cover, under her arm, walks straight up to the guard and says "McGregor, Scotland, Discus" and the guard lets her in!

Now the Englishwoman and the Irishwoman can't believe what they've just witnessed and they're scratching their heads but then the Englishwoman has it! She picks up a discarded fishing rod, walks right up to the guard and says "Bentley, England, Pole-Vaulting" and the guard lets her in as well!

Well, the Irishwoman just doesn't know what to make of this, how the guard fell for the ruse and how she's possibly going to get in herself. That is, until she sees a large roll of barbed wire! She's got it! And up to the guard she goes, carrying this massive roll of barbed wire and says, "Murphy, Ireland, Fencing".

[etymology-of-the-emblem]

Failnaught / フェイルノート

Failnaught (JP: フェイルノート; rōmaji: feirunōto) is the Hero's Relic tied to the Crest of Riegan. The name is more modern than you might expect: it was a creation of Hilaire Belloc's 1913 translation of The Romance of Tristan and Iseult, as retold by Joseph Bédier in 1900. In this Arthurian legend, the young knight Tristan defeated Morholt, an Irish warrior sent to King Mark of Cornwall to collect tribute. However, the duel left a poisonous barb in Tristan that was slowly killing him, so he was set in a boat to die at sea. Coincidentally, his craft shored on the beaches of Ireland, and he was saved by the princess Iseult who did not know who he was. He would return to Ireland when his king sought a wife, and would slay a chimerical dragon for the hand of Iseult. Though the princess was able to quickly identify Tristan has the killer of her uncle Morholt, she swiftly forgave him. Before they disembarked to bring King Mark his bride, Iseult's mother gifted her daughter a love potion to be drank by the husband and wife; this would quickly be mistaken as wine by one of the princess's servants, and would be shared with Tristan. Soon, they would elope, and King Mark and the soldiers of Cornwall began their hunt. It is for this premise that Tristan and Iseult is considered the English version of The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne.

It would be in the wood of Morois that Tristan made his bow Failnaught (or Fail-Not in some translations). In the original French, this name was "l'arc qui ne faut"—the bow that does not fail. As the name suggests, arrows launched from Failnaught always hit their target. In older tales that focus on Tristans' time as a Knight of the Round Table, "l'arc qui ne faut" was not the name of a bow, but referred to a trap to capture man or beast and fill them with arrows. Rather befitting the Master Tactician and his ploys, yeah? And whether or not its intentional, the lord less involved in the primary drama of Three Houses' story uses a Hero's Relic not related to a deity, but to a knight that gets involved in foreign affairs.

Despite his actions, King Mark maintained his respect for his nephew and the woman who should be his queen like he would a father to his children. However, both he and the lovers suffered nightmares of a bleak future; eventually they would peacefully convene and agree to let Iseult marry Mark and Tristan would be exiled. He would take a Brittany princess named Iseult for a wife. Some time later, Tristan would once more be poisoned and needs Iseult of Ireland to heal him. In a blatant reference to the Greek story of Theseus, the Brittany-bound ship was to fly white sails if she was on the ship, and black sails if she did not. When Iseult of Brittany lied to her husband that she sees black sails, Tristan died on the spot. The Queen of Cornwall arrived to find her lover dead, and she herself dies.

Failnaught's combat art, Fallen Star, is hard to connect to the story of Tristan. The Japanese name 落星 (rōmaji: rakusei) isn't too much better but there are a few possible interpretations. Like the localized name, it can be interpreted as "Falling Star". This could refer to the downfall of this pair of star-crossed lovers; though the phrase was coined by Shakespeare for Romeo and Juliet, the relationship between Tristan and Iseult is often considered the progenitor of the trope. Their story predates even similar forbidden romances in the Matter of Britain, those likely being modeled after Tristan and Iseult.

However, the kanji 落 is very flexible in meaning. It is most commonly used in the word 落ちる (rōmaji: ochiru), which typically means "to fall; to come down", but also has around twenty other definitions. Most stand-out is "to fall into (a trap); to fall for (a trick)" relating to the original "l'arc qui ne faut". Other definitions relevant to the story of Tristan and Isolde include "to fall (in love, asleep, etc.)" "to leave (a city, castle, etc.) [some Japanese dictionaries specify as moving to rural areas]; to (be defeated and) flee", and "to decline (of morals, character, etc.)". Additionally, the kanji 星 (rōmaji: hoshi) can refer not only to stars, but the bullseye of a target, but considering the bow fires arrows of light, its likely meant to refer to the former.

This was a segment from a larger document reviewing the name of most every weapon and item in Three Houses and Three Hopes. Click Here to read it in full.

[kadavernagh]

TIMING: Current LOCATION: Ireland PARTIES: Regan & Siobhan SUMMARY: Regan and Siobhan arrive in Saol Eile. CONTENT: Domestic abuse allusions

The sooner proof of Regan’s presence was displayed to that toothless hag, the sooner they could part ways. Siobhan could spend her time trying to remember, and Regan could spend hers trying to forget.

Green on green on green on jade blurred through the windows as the Irish moors opened up in front of them. Many humans found them beautiful, enchanting – it was that combination of the low hanging mist and the limitless greenery that made it feel like another world, one that so many poets and artists had their glimpses into over the centuries. There was nothing so poetic about it when you looked beyond the surface. Regan’s stomach pitched up and sank back down with each hill and valley, and twice they needed to stop to let a parade of painted sheep cross the road. The windows were rolled down, of course, and the air was crisp and clean, tinged with the scent of earth and wildflowers. 

For two banshees, they were disgustingly quiet. She had barely said a word since she set foot on the plane and even less when off. Regan huffed. Siobhan told her to get over it. Regan huffed. Regan slung a barb about how Siobhan’s ancient spine must be sore from all that time cramped in Economy. Siobhan called her a microscopic fetus birthed by an ant. The hours blurred and did not matter beyond the amount of remaining gas in the tank. She didn’t know what time it was here, or back h– in Wicked’s Rest.

There was also a remarkable degree of emotion, for two banshees, though they both had the strength necessary to deny it. Siobhan’s grip on the wheel was as tight as a cadaveric spasm, like she’d died clutching it. Her face looked tighter, older. How long had it been since she had seen these hills? Forty one years? Or was it forty two now? Longer than Regan had been alive, though it was a speck in the grand scheme of their lifespan. She didn’t understand the desperation. Siobhan’s training had been a success. What did she have to gain by coming here? It was a question that had swirled around her thoughts for weeks now. When she had asked before, Siobhan supplied that it was home. It was that simple. But she did not look like a woman returning home.

They were close now, Regan could sense it; her skin was ready to fly from her body. Soon they’d pull over and one of them would belt out a scream, and Saol Eile would carve itself from the fog, swallowing both of them up. “Here?” Regan asked her. She wasn’t loud, but her voice sliced through the eerie stillness. “I recognize that cliffside, and those boulders. There are lilies in the valley over there, the lake just next to it, and I found a family of badgers over that way.” It was not nostalgia she was basking in. Her voice was completely flat.  

No need to stop and scream, apparently. Another banshee offered up her scream. Regan had grown used to her own scream, and even Siobhan’s lungs shaking the town. They were familiar. This scream, from some unknown banshee, was not. For all Regan knew, it could have been someone she’d heard a hundred times before, easily forgotten by her ears, but the very fact a third banshee came screaming into her world again, after her growing so used to there being only two, made her knees tremble (not even worthy of my patellae collection, her grandmother would have said of them). She shared a look of uncertainty with Siobhan. Did she feel the same? She had been in exile. Other banshees would have kept their distance from her for decades, no screams reaching her ears. 

And… there it was. Regan’s senses adjusted to the surreal place that shimmered into focus. Saol Eile was charming at first glance, with haphazardly-laid streets not meant for vehicles and dotted with modest white cottages. The longer Regan stared ahead, the longer she felt a million tiny bugs biting her skin – a gift from fae presence. A single sniff filled her lungs with decomposition – there was always something, or many somethings, being appreciated as they decayed around town. An occasional banshee marched proudly by, mostly minding her own business, wings stiff and eyes dark. She did not compare, could not even fake half their pride. Regan looked away in the shame that would need to be burned out of her. 

Her legs wobbled as she climbed out of the car. That thing was not going to be returned to the rental place, was it? The tank was practically empty. It would rot here; nature would take it. Soal Eile would take it, as it did everything. She felt pretty empty, too. And her stomach grumbled. Yes, that must have been it. But the thought of whatever soup her grandmother would inevitably prepare killed her appetite. The slam of the car door rang through her skull like a gunshot in a way that scream had not. Finality. Regan paced to the trunk, ready to pop it open, but the moment she turned around, a shadow moved overhead and snatched her attention away.

A magpie stretched its glossy blue-black and white wings in the air above, cawed, and then promptly plummeted headfirst into the ground by Siobhan’s feet. It bounced a little but still came to rest closer to the other banshee. Regan’s grandmother would have called that a sign of good tidings for Siobhan, saying that one was in Fate’s graces (which was, of course, entirely different from the manmade concept of luck). “I suppose that’s yours,” Regan said bitterly. She would respect where the bird fell, and being here was supposed to strike her covetous nature from her. A banshee should be proud, should stake a claim to what is theirs, but never be jealous. 

She was quiet for a long moment, and abandoned the trunk. Someone would help with that later. Regan wasn’t sure she had anything left to give, right now – no effort, no thoughts, no words. No emotion. She had already been reamed open and drained, she was exhausted from a full day of travel, grieving from being ripped away from Jade, and this place was so full of ghosts that her mind didn’t know how to process their onslaught. So it became cement instead. She became stone. And wasn’t that just what needed to happen?

Regan did manage one small flourish, first, before sealing up. “I hate you.” Again. Like a child. Like Siobhan had dragged her here after all. Like she was allowed to hate. Regan looked away, figuring it was one of the last times she might ever express such a sentiment. At least she got that one in. “So who determined the conditions of your exile? I suppose that’s where we’re headed first, yes?”

------

It’d been forty-two years, in addition to the hours, minutes and seconds. It was her greatest regret that she didn’t know the exact time that she’d been cast out as a bloody mess upon the moors. She remembered that the sky was bright, she remembered the birds above, and she would never forget the green ocean. The true water was far from them—crashing with desperation against the jagged stones of a cliff; Siobhan always thought the ocean was a hungry creature, eating the rocks away—but the green ocean was the moors. When the wind caught the bushes, the branches, the long soft blades of wild grass, it sounded like the lap of water against a shore. What she remembered of Ireland, of Saol Eile—her home—were these moors: the green, the mist, the sour note of salty oceans far away. 

There was poetry here. There was meter, verse, hymn, language that failed and succeeded, there were Siobhan’s own childish words scrawled in the margins of other authors that slipped through Saol Eile’s cracks: she wrote beside Jonathan Swift, in tandem with W.B Yeats, in understanding with Oscar Wilde. There was Iambic pentameter built by the beat of wind; consonance, couplet; pyrrhic flow; Spenserian stanza. There was metaphor and allegory. Here, in these lands, in their home, there was poetry—what sort of person would sit in denial of it? Siobhan closed her eyes, letting the green ocean wash over her, knowing she was in the place she understood better than anything else. Against the world’s motion, Fate breathed in Death—yes, every banshee knew this—but it lived in nature. In the moors. In Ireland.

She didn’t speak, the world spoke for her. She thought she might be eased by her home, but her body tightened like shriveled fruit. When Regan spoke, she responded in the ways that fell most naturally to her. Whatever she said, she didn’t remember. She was home. She was home. She was home. They, though she hated to see Regan as anything more than the annoyance she was, were home. It’d been forty-two years, in addition to the hours and minutes and seconds, and Siobhan had missed it for every moment that passed. Yet, the home hadn’t missed her. The scream that welcomed them back was one she didn’t recognize; it might have been a young banshee, grown in the years apart, it might have been one that aged her scream, it might have been one she didn’t know at all but in that spark of time, she felt herself to be an outsider. 

She stepped out of the car (which would undoubtedly not be returned) and a magpie plummeted to her feet, assuring her that she was no outsider at all—it was fate reminding her who she was. As a little girl, when she’d gone into Dublin with her mother, she was awed by the common magpies hopping about without a care for the humans that stomped around them. They were common creatures, adapted to the environments that had sprouted around them, but Siobhan wasn’t any less fond of them. Once, a stray cat had captured a young magpie, and for the entirety of the day she had listened to their calls of mourning—violent, screeching cawing. Some banshees might have claimed the crow was more like them, or the raven, or a vulture, the barn owl, the vicious shrike, or the Irish Chough, but to Siobhan it was always the magpie. “Only children would seek to lay claim to Death.” She scooped the dead bird in her hands; it looked so small, so much like it was merely asleep. She cradled it like it was.

She was Siobhan Dolan, of the Ó Dúbhláin’s that had been living in this area for years upon years. She had memorized their lineage, she could map the route of their ancestors; this was home. If anyone was an outsider it was the child. The— “Regan,” she said, “there is no one currently alive in these lands, or any other, who hates you more than me.” She was home. Then, she winced. “That would be my mother.” She wasn’t excited to see her, in forty-two years, it hadn’t felt like they were apart for a moment. In the mirror, it was her face more than her own she saw. In her head, it was her words more than her own she thought. No, her hair wasn’t straight enough for her mother. Her clothes weren’t proper enough. She wasn’t ready. “What about your grandmother? Wasn’t it on her request that we came here? Maybe..,” Siobhan’s eyes grew wide and she leaned across the space between them with the grin. “The judge! You mean the judge—yes, we can…” She swallowed, hoping she didn’t appear as happy as felt by her small, substantial loop-hole to Regan’s question. “We can see her. She’s over by the worm statue. If the worm statue is still here, that is.”

------

“Mutual, then.” Regan muttered, bitterness barely hidden. Could she appreciate, even the most miniscule amount, that Siobhan had lowered herself to expressing the same sentiment? So either it had not been childish, or Siobhan was no better. Selfishly, she liked the thought. But what would that mean for banshees who spent too long away from here? Were all of them destined to atrophy, to have their hardened skin crack open with the years as their soft innards poured out? Regan had been taught to be hollow instead, but she had failed at it. For the first time, Regan wondered how similar – if at all – Siobhan had been to her when she was new at this. Did she struggle to carve herself out from her body? Was there anyone there to begin with, or was all of what Regan was a byproduct of her wasted years? And if a banshee who never started with such a humanity inside of them still struggled while not here, what did that mean for her? It meant… she had made the right, the only, decision to come back.

Siobhan breathed in her home with each inhalation, the years that piled on during the ride here seemingly lifting away, and Regan didn’t dare interrupt. Siobhan was always so poised, so glamorous in the most paper thin of ways like a maggot-chewed epidermis, but this place had changed her. The look on Siobhan’s face, one of peace, was universal, and there was true beauty to be found here, she’d admit, even if it was not among the residents. She would allow Siobhan to have it, all of it. 

In fact, she would have liked to leave Siobhan to it as quickly as possible. “My grandmother after this,” Regan reminded her. So perhaps there was a reason not to rush, though she preferred to get the necessary over with. The bubble in her throat, swollen from thinking of her grandmother, was almost too large to swallow. “But you need me present for a few minutes longer. Remember that. You need me.” Regan turned her nose up. She could still relish that a little bit, and it wasn’t like Siobhan was free of all flaws (how many hid under her glamour?). 

Every step they took closer to the center of the Saol Eile brought a new wave of pinpricks all over Regan’s flesh. It had been a year since she had been around this many fae, and it practically burned. To Siobhan, it was probably the equivalent of an embrace after so long. Surely other things were new for her, too. What else had been made or unmade in her time away? Regan decided to just ask. “What looks or feels different to you? Can you tell, or has time made your memory fuzzy, cailleach?” She was truly curious. Nothing had appeared changed in the year Regan had left, but Siobhan was absent for decades, and as slow as the community was to adopt anything new, few things erected here would outlive a banshee. Buildings crumbled, fences were constructed and constantly shifted around to claim dead things on one’s property, a few newly awakened banshees flit about; there was change only the most familiar noticed. “I think the only significant thing that changed in my absence was me.” As easy as it would be to point fingers at the people she had opened her heart to, she knew it had been born only of her failure. “My grandmother would not have been moved by my leaving. She will be exactly the same. I can picture how she might have informed others I had left. ‘We need to put that band-aid dispenser back in the clinic, my granddaughter is an ungrateful fool’.” There was bite in the comment that she tried to swallow back, but she could feel it hover in the air, mingling with the decomposition, even making the stench temporarily unappealing. 

The house by the worm statue was no mystery, though, and Regan started off in that direction. The statue was as unchanging as Cliodhna, precisely how she’d left it. Regan had walked by it daily on the way to the clinic, and, unfortunately, she knew the resident well: Putrecia. “They would never take down the statue for Worm Remembrance Day. That should be coming up soon, if I’m recalling my months correctly.” It didn’t matter. The days always blurred here, each running into the next. 

The statue in question depicted the well-known worm, Talamh-Ithe, who single-non-handedly protected the honor of the whole community. Against what? That part was unclear to Regan. Siobhan probably knew. “But… I do know who lives there. She is an acquaintance of my grandmother. So was it Putrecia who decided your exile, then? What exactly were the terms? You did not tell me very much.” That put a couple of malformed puzzle pieces together though – how Regan had ended up on this list of tasks for Siobhan. An item to check off. An object to reclaim. Or maybe the other banshees just began growing concerned about her blabbing all of their secrets to the humans, the untrained cur she was. 

The doorbell sounded like the caw of a hooded crow, which had to be confusing. Regan hung back. She had learned in her interactions with grieving next of kin when it was best to stay silent and watch something play out, when she had no business interfering. She only needed it to play out quickly. The sooner proof of Regan’s presence was displayed to that toothless hag, the sooner they could part ways. Siobhan could spend her time trying to remember, and Regan could spend hers trying to forget.

------

On a good day, Regan was a bloated fly, slowly filling Siobhan’s ears with her heavy, annoying buzz she mistook for conversation. On a bad day, she was bile; a constant burning hole in her stomach—an ulcer. But in Saol Eile, there was nothing Regan could do or say that tarnished the coat of serenity that Siobhan now wore. She was home; the thought wrapped around her. She was home; the truth bundled her together. She was home; there was the uneven ground, the blue sky, and the twisting pathways emblematic of the fact that no banshee was ever formally trained in urban planning and everyone wanted a good view of Farraige na Buanachta—the world’s best tar pit. Despite Regan’s gift of annoyance, Siobhan moved with the poise of a returning lioness to her den. 

Regan’s voice rang out somewhere far beyond her, despite the other banshee being right at her side. She was small, insignificant. When she said she was needed, Siobhan smiled at her the way she might at a fledgling chirping from its nest. “Time breeds many differences; new signs of erosion, new blades of grass between the cobbles. You’re so young, you can’t understand what it means to exist above the quick cycles of life. Eventually, you learn to see beyond the minutia. It’s the heart of the place that remains the same and this place is the same.” She buzzed with the presence of the other banshees, who were absorbed in their own tasks for the time being, but every new corner turned it seemed one would stare. Siobhan nodded at them, straightening herself out. She’d opted for long sleeves, unsure if it was more embarrassing to glamour her scars away or less than walking around carrying her symbols of banishment. In the end, it was easier to have her clothing create a middle ground. It was all form-fitting, of course; there were some aspects of her beauty that remained undeniable. She welcomed the staring. Regan buzzed beside her again, something about her grandmother and something about the Bandaid dispenser. 

Their stalwart doctor—the dispenser—had been new when Siobhan was a child, replacing the old ‘doctor’ that was the pile of scrap fabrics. Medical care in Saol Eile had always been a lot of shrugging and faith that maybe there wouldn’t be an infection this time. The mothers took care of it, mostly, and one was lucky if their mother learned the right things from her own mother. “What does the dispenser have to do with you?” she asked, and by the time the last syllable slipped from her tongue, she regretted it. Siobhan stopped walking, having fallen behind Regan by several paces, watching her back. When another banshee turned to stare, it was obvious who she was really looking at. In forty-two years, who would really remember another dutiful banshee in their community of dutiful banshees? In one year, who could ever forget Regan? Siobhan continued walking, keeping her pace behind Regan, watching the banshees of Saol Eile turn and whisper and point—not at her; it had never been about her. “You were the doctor,” she mumbled, “you replaced the dispenser.” Which was less effective than the pile of fabric, if she was being honest. 

The Dolans were a family like many others in Saol Eile; proud, orthodox, and with an old lineage that mattered only to them. They kept farm animals, and lived on the outskirts of town to keep them out of the general range of screams that burst from the town proper. It was Dolan dairy that went into cream of bone soup, but anyone could make cream and dairy cows littered rural parts of the human world. How many banshees spent time in medical school? How many of the women staring at Regan now were actually useful to this community? Pieces drifted into Siobhan’s mind like the ash of a pyre: their desperation for Regan wasn’t fondness for a lost daughter. She could see every new crack now; every misplaced addition to someone’s home, every fresh face she didn’t recognize, every new fence, everything that had moved on without her. Even the worm statue was different—much skinnier than its once girthy glory. 

“Putrecia did in a sense, yes.” Siobhan spoke through gritted teeth, crushing the dead magpie into her chest. “My terms were simple: I was to regain honor. To do—” She swallowed as the door creaked open by the width of a dead squirrel. “To do what I was told,” she answered quickly before Putrecia’s cloudy eyes emerged from the dark. One thing, at least, had not changed: the old judge was as miserable as ever. She said nothing as she stuck a finger out of the door, gesturing at Siobhan’s dead magpie. Siobhan said nothing either as she handed it over. Putrecia’s wrinkled hand snatched the bird and snapped back to her tiny body. In the shadows, Putrecia’s toothless grin was a void of black. The door slammed shut again.

“Putrecia has never liked me,” she said, tapping her foot impatiently against the ground. It was fair to say that Putrecia had never really liked anyone. Siobhan believed the job of judge had fallen to her expressly for that reason: she hated every banshee with an almost admirable equality. “And nothing is ever worth her time unless it comes with a bribe,” Siobhan explained, wondering if her history with Putrecia created any kind of superiority in this situation. She certainly didn’t feel superior and now she was in loss of one dead magpie. The door swung open again on its rusted hinges, revealing the inside of Putrecia’s crowded hut. Siobhan stepped inside, ducking her head under the hanging skins of dried stoats; she gestured for Regan to follow behind her. 

Putrecia was hunched over a small table, slowly scratching an ink-stained feather across an old sheet of parchment. She stopped when Regan entered, meeting her gaze with her misty eyes. “Good, good,” Putrecia mumbled in Irish, licking her empty gums. She finished on one sheet of parchment, folding it up. Siobhan’s patience wore thin as she watched the old woman lift a wax crusted spoon above her candle. “This is Regan,” Siobhan said, stumbling as she adjusted into Irish. “I brought her back, like the letter said.” She hadn’t expected Putrecia to be excited to see her, but she had hoped for some manner of welcome. “This is Regan Kavanagh,” she repeated, hoping that would help.

Putrecia poured melted wax over the folded letter, stamping her seal into place. “This is Regan?” Siobhan tried again. “Regan? Like the letter said?” 

Putrecia paused, lifting her head up. She squinted at Siobhan. “I don’t remember sending you a letter, Sadhbh,” Putrecia said. 

Siobhan bristled. “No.” She stiffened. “I’m Siobhan.” This was one of Putrecia’s weird amusements; the story went that she lost all her teeth trying to bite a bone. She’d always been a little strange, everyone always said so. Putrecia hobbled towards them and Siobhan held out her hand, expecting a shake. Putrecia lifted hers and pressed it to Regan’s cheek. 

“Good girl,” she said to her, patting her face. “Go on now, go back home. Tell your grandmother she’s a lucky old crone to have such a darling granddaughter like you. Now we can throw the damn dispenser out again.” 

All Siobhan could do was stand there.

------

Putrecia’s abode held no surprises. Sheets of parchment and rows of quill ink pens, dead weasel skins, paintings of wings in a rainbow of colors and shapes on the walls, and the fetid stench of something stewing in the kitchen while the banshee was hard at work jotting something that seemed to her of grave importance. Regan peered down at what Putrecia had been scrawling as she carefully navigated the clutter and squeezed by the old writing desk. It was in Gaeilge, but her handwriting was poor and difficult to read (and people said doctors were bad). Something about cleaning. Hopefully it was a to-do list; this place was worse than most crime scenes. Putrecia strung the magpie up next to the weasels with a surprising amount of tenderness, and then turned her old eyes over to the two of them, the visitors. She hardly seemed concerned with Siobhan. Regan, though, she held her hazy eyes over, recognition spinning through them. 

Regan stood there through the introduction – the repeated introductions – feeling like a stilt-legged fawn, staring, tethered to a strange place, waiting for the hands to be laid on her flank and for the scream to come turn her to spray.

Regan knew she was not supposed to want. She had come here to fix that, to pull the want out of herself (let Jade have all that she possessed, let it stay in Maine). But right now, she was still a failure, and her foolish, childish stomach curdled at the hag’s gaze, and her useless muscles pinned her. If Putrecia saw her human stains, how deeply fixed they were within the fabric of her being, she made no show of it. If anything, it was Siobhan she was questioning. Siobhan said the old woman didn’t like her, but Regan wasn’t even sure she knew her.

“Siobhan is right.” Ick. Saying those words was more foul than the soppiest of feelings. “She, um, brought me here… with great difficulty, if that counts for anything. She flew Economy.” The Irish felt strange only because it was directed towards another banshee (rather than a pet name for someone who didn’t know Irish, and wouldn’t recognize it), but she was quick to slip back in. For Siobhan it had been much longer. “From the US… she was tasked to bring me, yes? Right? There was a list? I was on it. Please confirm that I was on it.” A well-trained banshee, which Siobhan was, could easily swallow a lie, conjure up a non-existent list for whatever motive suited her, but this was not a matter the other banshee would have lied about. There had to be a list and she had to be on it (because… no, not thinking about that). “Oh, uh, you may have told her my name was Regis?” No, that didn’t ring a bell. It might have made her more confused. Her mouth opened and Regan’s eyes traced the curve of her gums.

Putrecia’s throaty voice was like gravel against stone. Sadhbh? The Grim Reaper? Did the old bat not even remember writing to Siobhan? And… if that was the case, would this all have been for nothing? No, she couldn’t think like that. She was not here to usher Siobhan back in. She was here for herself, her duty (for the two should have been indistinguishable). 

Regan watched them closely, unsure what this meant for Siobhan. Putrecia had retired as the judge since before Regan had arrived here, but any challenges to her previous determinations remained in her cracked, ancient hands. Despite the hag being the picture of perfect stoicism, Regan always found it difficult to picture Putrecia as the judge known for doling out brutality to those who besmirched the community or powers they served. It would have been easier to mistake her for some gentle, senile old woman with eyes as cloudy as her judgement, but Regan had heard enough to know otherwise. What had Siobhan’s full sentence been? Surely not just exile. Not with Putrecia in charge. Whatever it was, it seemed to have continued even now: Regan could think of no worse thing, in Siobhan’s eyes, than being forgotten by the place she could never let go of.

Saol Eile had not yet found a new judge, for Putrecia’s last determination was what would occur after she no longer heard cases. The new arrangement was as chaotic as the most cutting of Putrecia’s rulings. Judges were often picked at random on a literal case-by-case basis, with humans sometimes being dragged into the court to make decisions they did not understand. Exile was funny, the banshees thought, when a human declared it without knowing what sentence they were handing down (or handing up, really, because a human judge was not above even the lowliest of banshees). Regan wasn’t sure if a trial awaited her for fleeing a year ago – it was unlikely. Leanbh were prone to poor decisions at times (really, thinking they could make decisions at all) and the others were apt to leave retribution to her grandmother first.

Regan had never seen a spine go limp so quickly, snapped in the mouth of a crocodile. All of Siobhan’s triumph and pride plummeted like the magpie. And she didn’t even have the bird anymore.

The cold, skeletal hand on her cheek was not unlike that of her grandmother’s, but her grandmother never looked at her the way Putrecia was – like she was something useful. Regan had figured the stares of the other banshees had been reserved for Siobhan, or because she had left here so suddenly and with such shame, but maybe it was more than that. Were they grateful to have their doctor back? Or did they detest her for leaving their wounds to grow putrid and their wings to tear off? Flattery without loathing was a rare thing here and Regan was a born skeptic.

She certainly would not tell her grandmother that. Every one of the old woman’s words made her chest gape open when it should have been sewn up, clamped shut. Speaking to her like a child. The dispenser. Regan turned away from the hand that made her skin slither, feeling fingers drift away from her cheek. Those were not the hands she wished to be there (when she closed her eyes, she could just barely imagine the right ones).

Regan hated herself for looking to Siobhan, asking permission with her eyes, searching to obey, even more than she hated Siobhan herself. But that was a promising start, was it not? Hatred was no more permitted than any other emotion, and Regan tangled with it, success out of reach for now. Her voice was chillier than she would have liked, clipped where it should have been indifferent. “I’m sure she’s busy. Her flowers, you know, the season is right. Or perhaps she’s working on her knees.” Not her own, which were fine, but the shelves upon shelves of patellas collected throughout the centuries. “However, I will leave you and Siobhan.” The name had the slightest edge to it as she spoke it, and she wondered if it might provoke Putrecia into remembering (more likely, she did remember, and merely did not find Siobhan of any importance, not worth straining to recall a name). You need me, Regan had said to the other banshee earlier. And it was truer than she had thought. She looked uneasily at Siobhan, drowning in uncertainty, checking one more time if there were any objections – silent or otherwise – to her leaving now. 

Regan’s breath hissed out from her teeth. There was nothing more for her to do here. “I know when I am being dismissed. You’re right. My grandmother… she knows that I have a lot of catching up to do.” None of it conversational. Regan turned to Putrecia, giving the old hag a nod – respect, acknowledgement, she was not sure – but kept her eyes glued to Siobhan as she backed out the door. It screamed shut on its rusty hinges, and Regan’s stomach sank as if it had been hurled into the tar pit. She realized what she had been looking for in Siobhan, on some level, however interred in her subconscious it was. That had been their last chance to leave together.

------

Siobhan winced at the wailing crash of the hut’s door, swallowing Regan’s body. How strange the new empty space beside her was. How terrible the silence without Regan’s buzzing. Siobhan swallowed; an uneasy boat rocked in her stomach. Banshees possessed no other abilities of foresight beyond Death—she couldn’t tell the weather and she was just as hopeless in predicting the nebulous future as any pathetic human—but she could tell with certainty that she was never going to see Regan again. The insipid doctor had done it: she was adored, she was needed. Wherever she went now, it would be someplace that wanted her. She turned to the door, knowing she was far too late to catch her last glimpse of Regan. She wanted to ask her how she’d done it, how she could have succeeded in so many places that Siobhan had failed—was still failing in. She wanted to say that she was sorry and that she was wrong and that she was grateful that Regan had tried—was trying. Siobhan had no ability to read the threads of Fate outside of Death but she knew that the two of them were not going to the same place. 

How terrible, she’d been hoping to see the clinic. 

“I’m not going back, am I?” Siobhan asked, her voice drowned out by Putrecia’s scratching quill and then tink-tink of her tapping it against the inkwell. How strange that suddenly she was full of objections and there was no one left to give them to. 

She imagined the ceremony that Regan would return to; she imagined her grandmother’s tight embrace and joy she would dare to express for the return of her talented granddaughter. They would call her good and worthy. They would usher her back to her place and easily, as if she’d never left at all, she would fall back into her role. There might have been screams of joy outside, Siobhan could imagine them, but inside Putrecia’s hut, there was only the sound of the quill and the dripping ink. 

[quakerjoe]

A Scotsman, an Englishman and an Irishman want to get into the Olympics but they haven't got tickets. The Scotsman picks up a manhole-cover, tucks it under his arm and walks to the gate. "McTavish, Scotland" he says, "Discus,"and in he walks. The Englishman picks up a length of scaffolding and slings it over his shoulder. "Waddington-Smythe, England," he says, "Pole vault," and in he walks. The Irishman looks around, picks up a roll of barbed wire and tucks it under his arm. "O'Malley, Ireland," he says, "Fencing.

[lunasmusemenagerie]

Name: Atlas Briarwood

Race: human / kelpie hybrid

Type: oc

Fc: leo woodall

Background:

Atlas was born with the weight of his families legacy on his shoulder. The oldest of the two Briarwood siblings, Atlas would take over both their father's large horse breeding operation and the Briarwood family mob, an irish mob well established for generations both in ireland and America. as soon as he could walk, his father had him in the saddle, learning how to ride and care for horses, training him and them for competitions in both show jumping and dressage. their family had a specific bond with horses that seemed unnatural, a skill that dated back generations, yet the siblings seemed to embody it more than anyone.

In between training horses and training himself for the ring, he spent time with his father in his work, learning what he could about both sides of the business. when they were old enough, the siblings came to the agreement with their father that Atlas would head the family for the mob business directly, and Ari would handle the more discreet side wove into their competitions and the horse breeding / training. a double edged sword that would gaurantee a better functioning machine while both siblings still competed in competitions as they saw fit.

when Atlas was 15, he caught one of the trainers making his sister uncomfortable and making unwanted advances. he launched himself at the man but despite having surprise on his side, he was quickly subdued and held to the floor. the trainer struck a deal with him, that he'd focus his attention of Atlas, rather than Ari, and leave her alone completely. or he'd kill Atlas here, blame it on accident and then do as he wanted with his sister. Atlas agreed, and little did he know that a deal of the same kind was made towards his sister. neither spoke of it until much later.

Atlas found himself spending more time alone with one of their family's prized studs, and his competition horse, in the late hours of the night. it was there that a few men broke into the barn and tried to kill him, and the horse. the trainer it seemed, sold them out to the Vitorri family, who sent their own kill squad after the heir. the men beat him, taking a riding crop to his face, back, arms, and hands while another tried to inject something into the stallions neck, however both boy and horse fought enough to create a disturbance at the barn, and the dogs to start howling alerting those that something was wrong. during the small moment of hesitation, Atlas managed to grab a lead rope and strangle one of his attackers as the others fled. his father soon found him covered in blood and sent men after those that ran. unfortunately, they had succeeded in part of their mission, as the stallion did not make it through the night, Atlas feeling a pain sharp in his chest as it breathed its final breath.

it was played off as a riding accident, that the marks now on his body were from a fall into barbed wire, though the only things that scarred was a whip crack on his lower lip, and above his right eye. during his recovery time, he spent more time with his father and in fact headed some business deals on his own, growing more into the role he'd been raised for.

Atlas is older now, wiser, and has come into his own in both competition wise, and his place in the criminal underworld.

Atlas is aged 22-27, bisexual.

[stairnaheireann]

The All-Ireland Football match behind barbed wire, Frongoch Internment Camp, June 1916

It is over a century after a unique All-Ireland football final between Kerry and Louth was played among the men interned in the wake of the 1916 Rising in Frongoch in north Wales. Over 1,800 Irishmen were rounded up and detained without trial under the Defence of the Realm Act at the prisoner of war camp near the Welsh village of Bala, in the rolling hills of Snowdonia from June 1916 onwards. In…

[cloudninetonine]

*walks on tiredly with hair looking like Wild's after a tumble through bushes possessed by the fae because he accidentally proposed to Player, hands you a cup of tea and honey cookies, leaves without elaborating* Hey there, just passing by for now, may existence be treating you better than it is treating me.

Abyss's/Villain First's/First's and Hylia's kinda but not really break up song, also know as Una having enough of Hylia's bs in my Ancient Au after Fia/Seraph lost his arm and Dia/Ganon got corrupted and going off:

https://youtu.be/L8oYplzqdAs

I don't know why but the vibes feel right specially when you look at the story, the female singer is Athena and the male singer is Odysseus from Greek Myth on the Epic Musical by the way. Also, do you have any idea what happened with First in the Villain/Mess Au? Like is the man still trapped or did Hylia straight up obliterate him to try and keep the Chain from getting ideas (which straight up did not work because Abyss is a thing). Also for context: in my Ancient Au, Una/Zelda is straight up a Hylia slanderer, girl is so feral she'd throw hands with her and probably win with Fia/Seraph cheering in the background, specially after what happened with Flora and the entire mess with Player, I can see her also helping Fia/Seraph with the Hero's Shade deal, except instead of giving Player the means to shank Dink she teaches then the best way to suplex and throw hands with him hand to hand (Can you imagine Player straight up sucker punching him in the face and taking his kneecap rights while the Chain tries to pry them off? Fia is straight up howling with laughter and Una has the most smug, vicious smile any Zelda has ever worn), that and she'd probably teach Player how to set up traps midbattle, like Dink is midway through speech or something, closing in on a Link but ends up stepping in a net filled with barbed wire or something and trips on his face, the possibilities are endless, but I'll be back on my Fia/Seraph and Lora headcanon thing on another ask. Also her and Player straight up dragging Hylia through the coals in late night discussions during a break in Fia/Seraph's impromptu bootcamp of Player while Wind, who can most likely see ghosts is just bewildered. That or he joins in. The man himself is just trying not to die again as they get more and more vicious by the second.

Also I heard Fae instincts for Fairytale and my sleep deprived brain immediately latched on due to my latent hyper fixation with Irish myths, so I'll raise y'all this:

-Any Hyrule with a Player who's a Changeling, aka a shapeshifter Fae who has it really rough because they were abandoned by their own kin, most of them being killed via burning or drowning while young and bringing misfortune to those who hurt them in return (like someone puts Hyrule near contact with holly wood, which hurts the fae, and then immediately falls into manure the very next day, or someone speaks ill of Villain Rulie or of his missing wings and then the very next second after Player sends them a dirty look they straight up break their legs, no one knows how it happened but at least someone is side eyeing Player), also, missing/wounded wing solidarity with Villain Hyrule and anyone reacting with mild horror once they notice that Player's own wings are permanently wounded (maybe someone poured molten steel on them, so not only does it burn on a regular basis but they're just straight up permanently welded to their back) or maybe burn scars from where someone tried burning them alive, and a way too used to it Player just shrugs and goes "Humans don't like cursed children" without elaborating. Like they've just been in so much pain it doesn't bother them anymore? I don't know, just a thought, could be interesting.

-Fairies like the sound of bells although they really, really dislike the sound of iron bells (that's why a good chunk of the bells in old Ireland are made of iron, it's to keep the Fae away like how gold scares away Dullahan for a time), so I can see Hyrule getting immediately distracted or calmer around Player if he's uneasy if they have silver or gold bells on their person or, maybe having a bad feeling he could slip up and want their blood or before they get isekaid to another Chain, he gives them a steel chain (since depending on the myth it hurts fairies) filled with iron bells and tells them that, if they ever feel in danger from the Fae to ring it like their life depends on it and use the Chain as a garrote as a last resort, I doubt Player would use it with our Hyrule (heck I can straight up see then wrapping it in cloth so it doesn't ring at all near him, and sabotaging any nearby iron bells they can for good measure), but I also can imagine Yandere Hyrule or Villain Hyrule just straight up shrieking, with ears bleeding and falling down to the ground with the most inhuman sound of pain to ever come from their throat as Player uses the opportunity to run away.

Also the main reason I don't think Four is the original Hero of Men, in spite of Jojo's Lore, is because of the way he reacts to Twili magic, he recognizes it as dark magic (due to his intense trauma with it) but he doesn't recognize it as Twili magic (which is very specific and I feel like the Hero of Men would recognize, because in the opening cutscene of Minish Cap and Hyrule Encyclopedia it shows the hero of men sealed the monsters away with the original Minish Blade, and that around the same time period between Skyward Sword and Minish Cap the Twili/Interlopers were sealed away in the Twili Realm), which I feel he would after dealing with them, plus Four has and forged the Four Sword in Minish Cap, he doesn't have the original Minish Blade and it's established that the Hero of Men didn't have Fi, hence, they can't be the same but much like how Lora is an inflection point for Legend and Hyrule from my point of view The Hero of Men is an inflection point between Sky and Four.

My main headcanon is that he's even more feral than Four in account of living through what was basically a war, extremely snarky, and also has several mixed feelings towards Sky but would be super proud of Four, like him and Fia straight up almost get into fist fights about who has the best descendant (which Lora, ever unhelpful because even as a shy boy he's still a Link and a bard, so obviously he's a little shit, tells them they're both being ridiculous and to stop fighting because clearly Hyrule is the superior descendant, their battles are almost as legendary as Twilight and Fia fighting over Wild's and Calamity's custody). Also Players gets another ghost following them around and, rather than accidentally scare them like how Fia probably did between you know, appearing and the murder fae horse although he redeems himself by giving them a wolf, he just straight up messes with them for the giggles for a bit before Fia straight up smacks him over the head so he'll quit with the shenanigans).

And that's all I have for now, though I'll come back with some excerpts and Ancient au/Lora headcanons later on after my headache passes, I apologize in advance for the full on rant I'll go over my sleep deprived thoughts on possible Link/Zeldasonas because the Ancient era lives in my head rent free due to TOTK, you have been warned.

-Just a Tired Summertime Musician.

HI SUM GOOD TO HERE FROM YOU

Ngl when you mention breakup song all I could think about was Taylor Swift and I was expecting a Swiftie song Idk why

As for Prime (Villain! First) Hylia neither trap him or obliterate him- bro was straight up brainwashed, she used her opportunity when he was broken within his prison to take that shell of a man and mold her hero. Bro is neither thriving nor flourishing he is straight up in a constant state of inner suffer, stuck in mania.

Una and Player deserve to body Hylia, them both just sit over her unconscious body and share some cakes and tea and just go on about how much better they are then here- after all they didn't leave a devoted man to die nor get him trapped in prison for years.

I'm loving the idea of iron bells! Maybe a possibly way for Player to originally get away from the Vils? I dont know but I do likenit!

Listen, all Know about Jojo's Four is that his timeline confuses the fuck outta me JFNQNNSNS

Can't wait for more Lora stuff from you, Sum!

[savage-radio-3way-fm]

Episode 029 - St. Patricks Day aka Punk from Ireland and Northern Ireland

Fun Things - Savage!

Green River - Swallow My Pride Blood Circus - Two Way Street Murder City Devils - Broken Glass

Plain Wrap - Punk Rock Mass Media - Das Jazz Naked Lady Wrestlers - Accidents

Clutch - The Elephant Riders Hellacopters - Geekstreak Hellacopters - Cold Night For Alligators (Roky Erickson) Hellacopters - Get Ready (Smokey Robinson)

Batpiss - Nothing Convict Class - Conspiracy Theory

Nashville Pussy - Nutbush City Limits (Ike & Tina Turner) Motorhead - I'm So Bad (Baby I Don't Care) Buzzcocks - What Do I Get?

The Detonators - Cruisin' Ex Producers - Behind The Door Pretty Boy Floyd & The Gems - Sharon

Rudi - Time To Be Proud Ruefrex - The Perfect Crime Ruefrex - One By One Boomtown Rats - Looking After No. 1

The Undertones - Teenage Kicks Virgin Prunes - Twenty Tens The Radiators From Space - Television Screen Duggie Briggs Band - Poison Ivy

Spider - Dancin' In The Street Androids - Bondage In Belfast Lenny & The Lawbreakers - Me And Bobby McGhee (Kris Kristofferson)

Stiff Little Fingers - Suspect Device Stiff Little Fingers - Barbed Wire Love Stiff Little Fingers - 78 rpm Stiff Little Fingers - Wasted Life (Live)

Stiff Little Fingers - Alternative Ulster

[bonfire-at-the-crossroads]

Jailbreak.

Eamon, Eamon, and Eamon’s cows have figured out that there is, in fact, no barbed wire fence between them and the lush green of the endless salad bar, just across the road. It’s just a matter of a step up, a slow sashay down the tarmac - and into our backyard.

They move in slow motion, there’s no hurry. They are huge. They are shaggy. They have horns. I look up from the rim of my coffee mug to see them parading past the window and into the field.

The Eamon Keaneys have lived along the lake road for at least three hundred years. A series of whitewashed cottages have clustered together over a very long time - some tossed like pebbles farther across the fields or tucked further into the hills - but they are all occupied by Keaneys.

The week we arrived into our cold construction site of a schoolhouse - Eamon pulled his tractor alongside the stone wall by the road, leaned out and asked “Are you my new neighbors?”

“I’m not sure?” sez I. “We’re new to Ireland, and maybe?”

“Ah. I hear that you are both retired police officers from NYC.”

Wow.

“Uhhhh......no?” I say - “but let’s go with that, because it’s SO MUCH MORE INTERESTING than the truth.”

He is hopelessly confused now, and this was my very FIRST experience of that quizzical look that I receive from all Irish folk when I talk to them. (I’m almost used to it now, as they never seem to understand my humor - and gawd knows I don’t understand theirs.)

He tells me he is Eamon Keaney, and lives down the lake road. I reach up to shake his hand, and he is once again utterly confused. Apparently women don’t offer to shake hands when introduced?

A week later a very old man strolls by with his pokey-stick, and introduces himself. “I’m Eamon Keaney”

But wait....I already met Eamon Keaney, and pretty sure he wasn’t you? “That would be my son. Eamon.”

But wait...there’s more. Later that day the first Eamon was passing by on his quad with a lad of about 8 perched on his lap in front of the bike. “This is my son Eamon.”

And so the roster goes...

Eamon the Elder - who is now actually 90

Eamon the Middle - big strapping chunk of a fella, maybe 50?

Eamon the Younger - an average-size 20-something in muddy wellies who drives the quad at crazy speed down the road...

Eamon, Eamon, and Eamon’s cows are at large in the back yard.

[jpriest85-blog]

I've come up with another Scarlet Hollow MC, the infamous Florida Man ™️ cousin Jackson Scarlet. He started out as a joke playthrough, but then I got emotionally attached to the weirdo. I mean, the dude offers everyone that bag of boiled peanuts in greeting, and ironically enough, it is one of the few Scarlets to ever go to prison for a crime he was innocent of. I've included some concept art of Jackson, his roommate Truck the cat.

Name: Jackson Darwin Scarlet 

Gender: male 

Sexuality: Pansexual

Age: 25

Height: 5ft10"/177.8cms

Eye color: gray

Hair: Dark brown, straight, and cut short and messy

Face claim: Tom Hardy 

Home city: Tampa

Notable features: the characteristic Scarlet ™️ cheekbones and deep set eyes. As well as a scar on his right eyebrow, stubble, a slightly crooked nose due to a break that didn't set right, and a few faded stab wounds on his lower abdomen beneath his belly button. Jackson also has several tattoos; a Raven on the right side of his chest, a prison tattoo of barbed wire and pocket watch with no hands on his right bicep, and a Madonna and child tattoo on his left bicep. Almost always seen wearing denim pants or shorts, a white tank top, and tacky tropical shirts in eye searing colors, no matter the weather.

Traits:

Gator wrestler Talks to animals/Powerful

Eloquent Ex-con Powerful/Book smart

Dr. Doolittle Talks to animals/ Book smart

The Birdman of Hardee Correctional Talks to Animals/Street smart

Occupation: student trying to get a degree in Biology

Living situation: shares an apartment with an asshole roommate, Truck the cat.

Romance: has a serious crush on Kaneeka.

Personality: The infamous Florida man™️ cousin. Jackson can be impulsive and reckless to the point most of Peralanne's rumors about him aren't that far from the truth like dragging an alligator out of a neighbor's pool, or getting banned from a local pet store for trying to free the animal when he was a kid, ect. Though he knows it wasn't easy for Vivian to raise him, especially with some of the crazy stuff he put her through, Jackson adored his mother dearly to the point he had a reputation for being a giant Mama's Boy. He was also raised to be a gentleman so Jackson is always very respectful of women and always addresses ladies he meets as ma'am and tips his hat, even if the lady in question is an elderly pug dog.

While he does come across as a reckless dumbass Jackson is actually pretty smart. Since he can talk to animals he developed a fascination with Biology from an early age and takes a huge interest in protecting endangered species. He's also surprisingly well read and is fond of the writings of very diverse authors from William Shakespeare to Toni Morrison. 

Sadly, Jackson had a very difficult time making friends with other children his age. Animals he's fine with, but other kids don't really want to play with the boy who claims he can understand what the class hamster is saying. So when he finally did make friends, he was desperate to keep them, even if they were bad influences. Sadly, Jackson's blind loyalty got him into trouble when he took the blame for his best friend on drug charges. Since the Scarlet family name doesn't have much pull in Florida, Jackson wound up spending 4 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. Thankfully, he did eventually get his name cleared and was on his way to getting his life together, going back to school, attending AA. Things were looking up…until Vivian was diagnosed with cancer. 

Miscellaneous info & Headcanons

Jackson's father was a miner named Teague O'Byrne who came looking for work after fleeing Northern Ireland during The Troubles. Vivian never shared much about Jackson's father other than he loved to share stories with her about all the folklore they both grew up with.

In addition to the Talipo story, Vivian sometimes shared Irish folktales with Jackson she heard from his father. Jackson's favorite was the story about Selkies.

Jackson's middle name, Darwin, is a reference to the famous naturalist and his interests in biology. Also, for the infamous Darwin awards where people wind up dying in very stupid ways, which so far, Jackson has only gotten honorable mentions.

In addition to being able to speak with animals, Jackson is fluent in Spanish.

As a child, he always wanted to be a pirate or sailor so he could marry a mermaid and live out in the ocean with their part fish kids.

Jackson likely has undiagnosed ADD/ADHD, but considering his trouble finding health insurance, it's going to be a while until he can get it treated.

Due to his excessive energy, Vivian tried to get Jackson involved in sports to help him focus. He did pretty well on the high school wrestling team and was eligible for some college scholarships…until his best friend got into trouble with drug possession, and Jackson took the wrap for him.

Due to being able to communicate with animals and how much the Talipo story frightened him as a child, Jackson decided early on he'd become a vegetarian.

Jackson attended Braulio Alonso High School, which had a Raven mascot. He still owns the Navy and gold varsity jacket.

Despite all the unscrupulous and illegal things the Scarlet family has done over the years, Jackson is the only family member to have on record gone to prison, and ironically, it was for a crime he was innocent of.

Growing up, one of Jackson's few friends was a kid named Benny Johnson, who moved to Tampa from Miami in the 3rd grade after his parents divorced. Jackson bonded with him over the fact they're both being raised by single moms, but that's where the similarities end. Benny's mother was a bitter ex-trophy wife that never seemed happy with anything even though she made good money off the alimony from her plastic surgeon ex, and often spoiled her son while being condescending to the people around her.

During his trial, Jackson's best friend, Benny, did testify, but instead of returning the favor for Jackson taking the blame for the drug possession charges, he threw him under the bus.

While Jackson harbor some resentment for Benny betraying him, he didn't try to hurt him or plot to destroy his life. Instead, Jackson convinced a family of skunks to move into his ex-friend's house and taught them how to safely hide and escape from an eventual visit from pest control.

Due to spending 4 years in prison, Jackson missed out on a lot of pop culture references and jokes. Like when Kaneeka's brother Miles compared him to a character from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure because he's into marine biology and spent time in prison, and the reference went completely over his head.

Jackson's favorite TV shows are pro-wrestling programs, The Golden Girls and Magnum PI. He also starts getting into Murder She Wrote when he befriends Stella and Gretchen.

Truck the cat is a main coon cat with a gray striped coat pattern, which is why Jackson's old room gave the cat the name Truck because he's so fucking huge.

I headcanon Truck's first owner was a chef and Jackson's ex-boyfriend. Part of the reason Truck is such a brat to Jackson is because he doesn't spoil him with treats like his "real dad" used to, since Jackson is a vegetarian and worries about Truck's health.

I headcanon Truck the cat was a rescue part of the reason Jackson keeps him after his roommate/ex-boyfriend moves out is he can relate to how hard it is to build a life after being locked up for so long.

Truck the cat has an ongoing rivalry with an alligator that likes to sneak into the neighbor's pool that Jackson affectionately addresses as, Big Edie.

Jackson often used to get into arguments with Truck when the cat would steal his food. They usually devolved into yelling at each other in Cuban Spanish.

In addition to arguments about stealing food and bathroom etiquette, Jackson doesn't like that Truck tends to monopolize the TV. The cat will scream at Jackson for hours if he doesn't get to watch his telenovelas.

Before leaving for Scarlet Hollow Jackson left Truck in the care of an elderly neighbor who he affectionately calls Abi (granny) Marisol.

Jackson often jokes that his cousin Tabitha is like his grumpy parole officer.

In a strange way, Jackson's dynamic with Tabitha mirrors his relationship with Truck the cat but reversed. Jackson would often get into arguments with Truck just for trying to keep the cat alive; like keeping Truck from eating foods that'll make him sick, or trying to stop him from trying to constantly fight Big Edie, the alligator that keeps sneaking into the neighbor's pool. Likewise Tabitha and Jackson often argue about Jackson constantly winding up in dangerous situations, and it's only a matter of time before he comes to the hilarious realization he's basically become the jackass cat to his cousin.

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 1998: The actual result

This year, the BBC put on a big show but shockingly for the BBC this included sponsorship! The big scoreboard has a clear 'Toshiba' logo right across the top. Product placement! On the BBC! Ulrika Jonsson in charge of chivvying along the spokespeople who for the first time are mostly relaying the results of televotes. Some of it gets a little too barbed. UK humour circa 1998 was at the peak of the lad-mag banter years and it showed.

The scoreboard itself was clear if a bit lacking on the design front. There are little score stars to show each country's actual point awards as they're made - a positive development. The graphic design however leaves much to be desired.

This is your regular spoiler warning for a competition that occurred over 25 years ago. If you don't want to know the results, why on Earth did you click on the expand button for this blog?

Boy it's a close finish. Heading into the final few rounds of voting, there are still four countries in contention. As Evgenija Teodosievska announces the results for North Macedonia, the final country to submit their points, Israel, Malta and the UK can all still win. Israel and Malta are tied at the top of the scoreboard with 166 points.

Israel get six points, putting the UK out of contention. Then the UK get the 10 points. All Malta need is the douze and...it goes to Croatia. Israel wins, with the UK pipping Malta to second.

One of the best ever voting sequences in Eurovision history and one in which the hosts were nervous the televoting would cause all manner of technical difficulties alongside the normal failures to communicate. There was one issue with the Spanish votes not being correctly tabulated which changed some scores later, but it did not affect the winner.

That scoreboard (post Spanish correction) in full:

Israel - Dana International - "Diva"

United Kingdom - Imaani - "Where Are You?"

Malta - Chiara - "The One That I Love"

Netherlands - Edsilia Rombley - "Hemel En Aarde"

Croatia - Danijela - "Neka Mi Ne Svane"

Belgium - Mélanie Cohl - "Dis Oui"

Germany - Guildo Horn - "Guildo Hat Euch Lieb"

Norway - Lars A. Fredriksen - "Alltid Sommer"

Ireland - Dawn - "Is Always Over Now?"

Sweden - Jill Johnson - "Kärleken är"

Cyprus - Michael Hajiyanni - "Genesis"

Portugal - Alma Lusa - "Se Eu Te Pudesse Abraçar"

(joint 12th) Estonia -Koit Toome - "Mere Lapsed"

Türkiye - Tüzmen - "Unutamazsin"

Finland - Edea - "Aava"

Spain - Mikel Herzog - "¿Qué Voy A Hacer Sin Ti?"

Poland - Sixteen - "To Takie Proste"

Slovenia - Vili Resnik - "Naj Bogovi Slišijo"

North Macedonia - Vlado Janevski - "Ne Zori, Zoro"

Greece - Dionysia & Thalassa - "Mia Krifi Evaisthissia"

Slovakia - Katarína Hasprová - "Modlitba"

Romania - Malina Olinescu - "Eu Cred"

Hungary - Charlie - "A Holnap Már Ném Lesz Szomorú"

France - Marie-Line - "Où Aller"

Switzerland - Gunvor - "Lass Ihn"