THE COMPASS OF LADY KESSAIR

The pinnacled Greek King’s pilot tipped crown¹Foretelling the return of the Irish Fir Bolg tribe from Greece (with a crown belonging to the monarch of Thrace) unbeknownst to Lady Kessair’s crew, a jewellery box fell from their vessel. This is an ominous portent. cut the white whipped watered black isles of Inver Sliccigh’s²Sliccigh is the old name for Sligo in medieval texts. Inver is the name of a river basin which is the confluence for three streams. gold palisaded gown as Kessair,³The Book of Invasions details Kessair as the granddaughter of Noah, who before The Deluge, guided the first inhabitants (sourced from all over Europe) to Ireland. the blossomed daughter to the joyful plaited Bith,⁴Bith – the father of Lady Kessair. bright-handed wife to Bochra’s Finntan and sister of the navigator Ladra, the lover, father, son, brought a ship of three thrice fifty maidens to wade Three Rivers’ confluence beyond haunting Knocknarea⁵A remarkable Neolithic scallop-shaped burial mound, known as Miscaun Medb sits at the summit of Knock-na-Rea. It is a visible pilot’s guide upon the open waters of Sligo Bay. to behold her woven triple dreamed incantations.

Helm firm she held this prophesied sleek ship swan to embrace an uninhabited Erin upon its fifteenth dying moon dawn. And behold The Deluge’s ancient paradise set sail these fifty-three well-complexioned glorious horizoned tales.

Now the wandering Mareotic Lake’s⁶The Lakes of Maroe situated in the Kingdom of Kush on the lower Nile. finest fruits found the greenest shores of darkest nut did bathe in Dun na mBarc’s⁷A natural harbour between Drumcliffe Bay and Sligo. enchanted basin.

Clean passed the acacia sealed doors of Noe’s Ark to forsake the harsh omen’s cargo of barbarous law’s roar, Kessair commanded the crisp waves’ against un-navigated rules of patriarchal yore.⁸It was told in Irish lore, as Noah would not permit Kessair on the Ark, she took matters into her own hands when commissioning the vessel and charting the voyage with her crew.

With sound and sturdy squared wide oars they swept from Na Elpa’s⁹The Alps. lofty shores to worship the high shoulders of Espana’s¹⁰Spain. sea-waters wide parlaying for the land where sin was never once espied. Fast guided by the salmon men for peace and reason’s bounty, in forty days strenuous solar ocean flight brought magnificent maidens freighted excellences all without extinctions.

Ireland’s most beautiful women ventured forth now far from noxious beasts the wisest fled the tempest’s transparent raging tide selected high caves and prayed for sacrifice’s sake inside.¹¹Finntan escaped over Lough Dergderc to Tul Tinne before The Deluge.

The Uillpheist¹²The underworld’s demon water serpent. shook the blessed three fruits of Uisneach’s heavy host.¹³A place of religious observance and sacrifice. The Branch of Mughna Mor as Eo Feasa¹⁴The Wisdom of Creation. snapped the lost Staff of the Snowy Ridge’s¹⁵Ireland’s oldest literature, The Stave of the Snowy Ridge (or in Irish the Cin of Drom Sneachta) details the form of Lady Kessair’s story. This famed manuscript was recorded in the medieval Book of Lecan and Book of Ballymote of county Sligo. sorrowful lamentation in its frost.

Ascending stone heaped rivers of fruit furnished exotics now provisioned a propagated doom as this talismanic glittering and bejewelled iron fish¹⁶Ancient navigation was facilitated with basic instrumentation including magnetised needles in the shape of fish floating in a cup of water. In Lady Kessairs time, navigation was by sight, so she was in effect, the iron fish. was devoured in the swift aquatic plume.

The oracle fought a regretful tide of burning tears as within the grasping howls hoisted high from Cree Lake¹⁷Cree Lake, from the Irish for Croí meaning Heart, is referenced by Yeats concerning Heart Lake. Finntan was enwombed for five thousand and five hundred years.¹⁸The story of Finntan details the ancient human living spirit of Ireland. Told in The Book of the Dun Cow the passage was re-inked by the learned ollav of Breifne, Sigraid O’Cuirrnein (whose family members lived on Lough Gill’s islands). It tells of the doctrine of metempsychosis, namely the belief in the transportation of souls, as occurred in the case of Finntan.

Against Adam’s seed a battle costumed deed tore secrets upon the winds’ collapse the tide’s final delivered toil, cracked Kessair’s heart now plunged within the deepest crooked creek¹⁹Kessair’s sharp scream cracked her heart and it fell like a broken nut into a deep lake. Her remains were buried high upon Carn Cesra. above the River Boyle.²⁰This river runs from Lough Gara in county Sligo into Lough Key, county Roscommon and then the River Shannon.

But would those, drenched still in swollen northern waves pursue Kessair’s bright-skinned ship or when at Carn Cesra’s²¹Situated on two hills overlooking the Boyle River. deep tip enthral, if a whispered angels share was now revealed, await its sweet wild Lon Dubh’s²²The call awaited for before The Deluge by the Lon Dubh (the Irish for blackbird). hazeled black call?