Danu tossed beneath the heavy furs. Sleep would not come, no matter how hard she clawed at it.
The sounds of her parents’ coupling came to her over the crackle of the central fire, the slap of flesh on flesh, the husky breathing, her father’s grunt as he spent himself and rolled off her mother.
She pulled the furs up higher, feigning sleep. Danu was no stranger to the games that adults played, although she had never played them herself. The longhouse was small enough that such things had been part of her life for as long as she could remember. But change was coming.
In two days, she would be a woman. The tribe would welcome her into adulthood with the other girls who’d had their first blood and survived the long winter.
The thought both thrilled and frightened her. The ceremony marked the ambiguous boundary between childhood and womanhood.
On one side was the existence she knew: helping her mother with cooking and chores around the home, caring for the pigs, and foraging in the forest. On the other side was the great unknown: marriage, a husband, and maintaining her own home.
The prospect of that life repelled her; the thought of being betrothed to a man she’d never seen from a distant village sat like a stone in her stomach. She longed for something more, even if she could not put the feeling into words.
Eventually, fears about the future faded away, and she slept.
“Danu!” Her mother’s shout woke her. She’d been dreaming of something. It was just there, at the very edge of remembering. She could almost taste it. There had been water, a vast amount of it, and a hollow mountain filled with… what? Then it was gone, and all that was left was the red dawn-light and her mother’s urgent summons.
Blearily, Danu rubbed sleep from her eyes and climbed out of her pallet. The day’s chores would wait for no one, and even if she would be a woman tomorrow, she was still a child today.
“Coming, mam,” she grumbled, dragging her fingers through her tangled hair.
She rushed through the morning chores, frozen earth crunching under her feet until the sun warmed the earth.
“Old Nan says the spring rains are like to be late again this year,” her mother said as Danu rushed by carrying a bucket of acorns and slop. “Ration those acorns. It could be months before we can turn the pigs loose to forage.”
Danu cared not a whit for Old Nan’s predictions. It did not take a witch to look at the land and see that it was suffering. Winter’s snows had been scarce, and the land was already dry to begin with. She prayed that the old woman was wrong. Late rains would mean hard choices for many. But today, she had other things on her mind.
Done with her chores, she set the bucket down and ran toward the rutted road. “I’m done, mam!’ she called as she ran.
“Where are you going?” her mother called after her. “We still need to prepare for tomorrow!”
“I’m just going to see Banona,” Danu shouted back without slowing.
“Be home before dark!”
Danu paid her mother little mind. Dark was hours away, and tomorrow would begin her new life. With the energy of youth, she dashed past other longhouses. Villagers called greetings as she ran, but Danu was possessed of a singular energy and barely waved as she passed. In the distance, the waters of the Iuvarus slid by, a pale reflection of what the river should have been.
Banona’s family lived on the other side of the village, and by the time Danu arrived at her door, she was dirty and red-cheeked.
“Are you done?” Danu called into the longhouse.
“A moment more!” came the reply.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Danu heard Banona’s mother demand.
“Nowhere, mam, just down to the river.”
A dark-headed girl about Danu’s age appeared in the doorway, tugging down her sleeves.
“Fah, you girls will be the death of me. Who’ll help me with your brother this afternoon?”
Banona smiled placatingly. “I’ll be back before he wakes, mam, I promise.”
“Go on then, but mind the daylight!” came the reply. Banona’s mother poked her head out the door then. “Danu, your mam’ll be wanting you back early, too. Both of you must be ready for the morrow, so no dallying.”
“We won’t!” Danu replied, already turning away. Hand in hand, the two girls ran toward the river.
✸✸✸
The stone skipped once, twice, three times, then foundered in a curl of wave, and sank into Iuvarus’s waters.
“What do you think it will be like? After tomorrow, I mean?” Banona asked.
Danu, bent over and searching for another stone to skip, answered, “We’ll be women, won’t we? We can do what we like. We’ll have our own houses and our mams won’t tell us what to do anymore.”
“We won’t have longhouses yet, silly,” Banona chided. “We need husbands first. Unless…?” she trailed off, but Danu took her meaning well enough.
“Of course not!” she denied, but had the good grace to blush as she remembered warm hands and last summer’s honey on eager lips.
“You mean you won’t wed Tam?”
Danu selected a stone. It felt right in her hand, like fate. She pulled back her arm, sensing the stone’s heft, its smoothness, and its connection with Iuvarus and the whole valley.
I have lain here since the time of the old gods, it whispered to her. A fragment of a fragment of a mountain, torn down by great rivers of ice that flowed atop Iuvarus but could not tame her.
Danu brought her arm forward, fast, releasing the stone at just the right moment. It struck and skipped, the river bearing it up, as it danced away out of sight. Danu laughed, delighted.
“That’s the best one yet!” Banona cheered. “But you didn’t answer my question.”
Danu felt her cheeks burn but held her head high, defiant in the face of custom. “Tam won’t ask for my hand. Da says he’s nothing to offer, especially after last season’s drought.”
Banona touched her arm. “Maybe the gods will change your da’s heart.”
“You know my da,” Danu said, picking another stone and throwing it hard. It hit with a splash and sank immediately. Something rose in her throat, choking her. “Don’t you ever want something more, though? I mean, Tam is all well and good, but life is bigger than homesteads and babies and worrying if the harvest will be enough.”
Seeing her friend’s distress, Banona changed the topic. “Are you ready for the ceremony tomorrow?”
Danu shrugged. “Mam wants to fret over me, but I’m as ready as can be.” She smiled a little. “She’s made me new clothes just for the day.”
A thought struck Banona then. “What about the sacrifice? Aren’t you worried?”
Danu shuddered but said, “I’m not afraid of the old woman. Mam says the witch can turn your eyes blind with a spell, but I’ve never seen such. Have you?”
Banona was silent for a moment. “Not blinding, but I did see her wake Abbo after the accident at his forge.”
Danu snorted. “That wasn’t magic, just herbs and a bunch of gibberish.”
“Well, it sounded like magic to me,” Banona said.
Danu looked out across the river. “Besides, if she could do real magic, she would have saved Caturix.” She spat on the ground to ward off bad luck.
Caturix had died driving off strangers from the north. While Old Nan shrieked and danced, the tribe’s warriors fought and died. Her people had won the day, but at what cost? They were bereft now, a tribe without a king. Old Nan had insisted on an offering, and the gods had feasted on the flesh of invaders and defenders alike.
Banona drew in on herself. Danu could tell the other girl was worried. Trying to cheer her up, she said, “What are the odds that one of us will be chosen?”
“The same as any other girl.” Banona eyed Danu darkly. “There are only eight of us, and we must draw lots like the rest!”
“And the one who draws the red stone must go into the gods’ cave to make a sacrifice for our future. I know it as well as you, Banona.”
“Or be the sacrifice if the gods deem her offering unworthy.”
“It will be fine, you’ll see,” Danu said lamely, trying to calm her friend’s nerves. Banona looked dubious, but let the subject drop.
They tried skipping more stones, and when that failed to lift their mood, they sat and talked, but the fun had gone out of the day. They returned to their respective homes well before the allotted time, a fact not missed by their mothers.
✸✸✸
The river beckoned, and Danu flowed with her. Cold and clear ran the waters in her veins, punctuated by the silver flash of rainbow trout and underscored by the lumbering red shadows of huchen. Come, flow south, Iuvarus whispered. South, south, south.
“Danu?” Her mother’s question brought Danu back to the present. She shook her head to clear it. What had she been daydreaming of? Something important, but it was gone now, to the back of her head where it waited like the thrumming of spring, still bound by winter’s chill.
“I’m sorry, mam,” she muttered.
“Tired, I expect. You’ve not slept much these last days,” her mother replied and continued her work. The ceremony was to be held at noon, and there was much to do before then. Danu’s mother tugged at her daughter’s tresses, working them into tight braids, a sign of her newfound maturity. Danu winced as her mother tugged and twisted.
Next, Danu removed her tunic, and her mother helped her don her new clothing. A sleeved wool tunic went under a chiton woven with interlocking horizontal bands of brown, beige, and gray, cinched at the waist with a wide, woven belt. A red embroidered cape would keep her warm.
“I have little to give you, daughter,” her mother said.
Danu objected, but her mother silenced her. She bent and pulled something from beneath her bedding. “I had Abbo the smith craft something for this day.” She held it out like an offering.
Danu’s breath caught in her throat. It was a brooch pin made of bronze, almost the length of her forearm, the head worked to resemble a bear. Unshed tears in her eyes, Danu’s mother pinned her new cape closed at the breast, then took a step back to look her over.
“You look a woman grown,” she said.
Danu felt her cheeks grow warm. She stepped forward and embraced her mother fiercely. “Thank you, mam.”
“Now, let’s not sorrow,” her mother said, releasing Danu before wiping her eyes. “This is a grand day for you and the others. We should go. Your da and the rest of the village will be waiting.”
✸✸✸
A crowd had gathered in the bowl before the cave entrance. Entire tree trunks had been stood on end and planted in the earth to form an unbreachable wall sealing the cave. A single gate pierced that formidable defense, set with a bar of solid oak. A fire burned before the gate, and several torches lay on the ground beside it.
Danu’s mother had been right. She saw that everyone from the village had come. Her da stood near the front, crowded in with the other parents, and her mother went to stand beside him. He gave her a reassuring smile and bobbed his balding head at her, while her mother dabbed tears from the corners of her eyes.
Five figures stood between the onlookers and the cave, girls soon to be women, eager to take up their new roles, all arranged around Old Nan. Banona saw Danu and gave a little wave before turning her attention back to the witch woman. Danu hurried to join the group. Two more, Coria and Leuca, soon completed their number.
“You stand now on the cusp of adulthood,” Old Nan intoned, bones and beads clattering in her hair. “Have you prepared? Are you ready? Do you accept the burdens and freedoms?” Her eyes bored into Danu.
“We have, we are, we do,” the girls answered together.
The witch woman began to dance, swaying from side to side. The bones in her hair and tied to her clothing clacked and rattled; black feathers danced and swung. Her voice, little more than a mumble at first, began to rise, ululating across the gathered crowd, filling the bowl, and pouring into the surrounding forest.
As it rose, so did the hairs on the back of Danu’s neck.
Wordless, the witch woman commanded that which did not speak with words. Empty, she called to the heart of all things.
An echoing call came from inside the cave: alien, harsher, bound by stone and wood.
Old Nan threw her head back to the sky, arms extended behind her, her breath coming in great gasps.
“The gods have answered. They will grant us an augury!”
The girls around the witch woman made no sound, but a sigh of gratitude came from the watchers. A willing augury was a good sign. The gods might smile on this generation.
“Come, come, come!” Old Nan shouted, leaping up with the agility of a lynx. She held a woven sack that bulged with its burden. “Choose a stone, but let none see it, not even yourself!” She held the sack open, a black mouth filled with foreboding.
One by one, the girls reached a hand tentatively into the bag, grasped a stone, and withdrew it. None opened their hands to sneak a look, to see if they held the dreaded red stone. To do so would invite the witch woman’s wrath and perhaps that of the gods she spoke for. Who could take that risk? Even Danu, disdainful of Old Nan’s magic, clutched her stone tight to her chest.
When all had drawn their stones, Old Nan turned to Banona. “Show me!” she cried.
Banona squeezed her eyes shut and thrust out her hand. Her fingers opened, revealing… a smooth, gray river rock.
The witch woman carefully took the stone from Banona and returned it to its sack, then turned to another girl. “Show me!”
The girl, Leuca, opened her hand. A brown river rock. Old Nan took it and tucked it away with Banona’s.
And so it went, brown rock, gray rock, green rock, blue rock, white rock.
And then Old Nan stood before Danu, and all there knew the truth. Slowly, Danu opened her hand. A rock covered in red ochre fell from her palm, striking the earth dully.
The witch woman bent and plucked it from the dirt, cradling it like an egg. “The gods have chosen,” she hissed.
Danu swayed for a moment, the realization of what that dreaded red stone meant echoing in her head. She heard her mother cry out, and her father shushed her. The rest of the village was stone silent.
“Come, woman-child,” Old Nan beckoned and led her toward the cave.
Danu was proud that she did not falter once, even though it felt like her heart was trying to beat out of her chest. The witch woman led her forward, stopping before the door. She waved, and two warriors standing at the edge of the crowd, Kintugnatos and Urus, approached. One handed a brace of rabbits bound with a leather thong to the old woman, then both moved to stand beside the gate.
Old Nan handed the rabbits to Danu. “Do you know what must be done?”
Danu shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.
“Enter the cave and present the sacrifice to the gods. If they accept it, find the bones of the dead, and return with them.”
“And if they do not accept our sacrifice?” Danu whispered.
“Then they will accept our other sacrifice,” Old Nan replied, her voice as unbending as granite.
Questions clawed at Danu’s mind, but the meaning of the witch woman’s last words was clear. There were two sacrifices this day, and the gods would accept one of them.
“Go,” Old Nan whispered. “Stand before the gods. Show them reverence and they may yet save us from this drought.”
The two men opened the gate. A miasma of rot and feces and filth rolled out, like the dark of the cave mouth made palpable.
Old Nan picked up a torch, lit it within the fire, then thrust it into Danu’s empty hand. “Go,” the witch woman urged, before stepping back. The crowd remained hushed. Danu saw her mother, her hand over her mouth with fear. Her father stared hard at her, as if memorizing her face.
They do not believe that I’ll come back, she thought. Maybe the gods will eat me. They will strip the flesh from my bones with their teeth, and Old Nan will cast her augury. I will be a harbinger for my people.
She stepped into the cave, the charnel smell filling her nostrils and seeping into her very pores. As she passed the threshold, the men replaced the gate, plunging her into near darkness.
She held the torch aloft, casting its flickering light over the cave. It was meager light, but enough that she could make out her surroundings. The cave mouth was wide, and the floor was littered with stones and debris. It sloped in and down gently, leading into deeper darkness.
Something moved in the black; the rasp of flesh against stone, then the click-clack of rocks set tumbling. The sound echoed strangely, seeming to come from different directions at the same time. Then silence fell once more.
Danu took a step forward, and something brushed against her leg. She jumped backward, but realized at the last moment what it was: the rabbits dangling from her left hand. That brought her questions back to mind. Present the offering to the gods, the witch woman had said, but where? Was she supposed to follow some ritual? How did she find the gods to present the rabbits in the first place?
“Damn you, old woman,” Danu growled.
Another step forward, then another. Something skittered deep in the cave, the sound both sibilant and harsh. She hesitated, fear welling up in her, bitter and burning as bile.
Another slow step. Rocks rolled beneath her feet, but then she saw it. A large, triangular, flat stone lay on the floor just ahead, with dark stains across its face. Reaching it, she bent low to study them. Blood. Bits of bone littered the ground around the stone, some still with gobbets of rotting flesh attached.
The offering stone.
Danu laid the rabbits across the stone’s surface, noticing that their glazed eyes did not reflect the torchlight. Stepping back, she was struck by how still and small they looked, like things that could never have been alive.
Scrabbling sounds in the dark, as something clawed its way toward the offering stone. Danu stepped back, but not too far, determined to bear witness. Besides, she wanted to see the gods of her people, to mark them with her eye, and to know them.
Something glinted in the darkness; torchlight reflecting from godly eyes. She could just make out the god’s body; it crept across the cave floor on all fours, but the proportions were strange to her. It reached the offering stone and sat back on its heels, wary, watchful of her and her torch, but hungry for rabbit.
The god was other than human; deep-chested, ridge-browed, sunken-eyed, with no chin. Tufts of dark hair clung to its scalp, and from its mouth came a high keening as it reached for the rabbits, then pulled back.
She stared, horrified. This was a god? Then, quick as a trout, it snatched the rabbits and retreated into the shadows amid the sound of clattering stones.
Danu let out a breath she had not realized she was holding. The gods had accepted the sacrifice! A weight lifted from her shoulders. Now she had to find the bones for Old Nan’s augury—the bones of the dead.
Danu did not have to look far.
Four paces from the altar stone, something glinted white-red in the torchlight and shadows. She quickly looked where the god had disappeared, but saw nothing. Slowly, Danu stepped away from the altar. There, lying amidst the dirt and pebbles, were the remains of a hand. She hesitated. Were just any bones sufficient? How many did the witch woman need? Ashamed, she realized she had not paid attention to the auguries enough to know.
Danu bent and scooped up the fingerbones from the cave floor. A femur lay on the floor a little distance away. She stooped to retrieve it, and an immense weight crashed into her from the side. Suddenly, there was dirt in her mouth and something grappled with her, ripping at her clothing and hair. A high, ululating cry reverberated through the cave as the thing tore at her.
It was one of the gods, but not the one who had taken the rabbits. This god was different, younger. Dark hair crowned its misshapen head and hung down around its bulky torso. Sagging breasts slapped dirt-smeared flesh as the god tried to wrench Danu’s life away with calloused fingers. They crashed to the ground, rolling, colliding with a pile of defleshed bones that collapsed with a clatter.
Spots swam in Danu’s vision. Her lungs burned, and panic swelled in her chest. Desperate, she reached for anything that might help and grasped a handful of pebbles. She ground the stones into the god’s face, trying to find any pressure point that would make her stop. Nothing worked.
The torch guttered on the cave floor, a breath from extinction. The god forced Danu’s hand back, shoving it into her chest. Something hard ground under her thumb. The bear pin! Danu ripped the pin from her cape and drove the point forward. It bit and she shoved further, feeling it punch through flesh and sinew. The god’s body went rigid, then shook frantically, before falling across Danu, crushing her to the floor. Something hot and sticky welled out of the god’s face, across Danu’s hand.
The torchlight flickered lower. Soon, Danu would be lost in the darkness. She shoved against the god’s weight, but the corpse was so heavy. She strained, stars flaring in her vision. It moved just the smallest amount.
But it was enough.
Danu rolled out from under the dead god and grabbed the torch. It flared into new life as she raised it off the floor. Jewel-like eyes glinted in the dark to her left, and an alien voice growled words she did not understand.
The outline of the other god loomed large, and Danu swung the torch, catching the thing in its piebald head. It roared in pain and fear and grief and attacked again. A fist cracked against the side of her head, and the world faded to darkness around her.
In that darkness, the sound of flowing water was all-encompassing, but there was more than the gurgle and roar of the river. Deep within the swell and roil was a message. Salvation. Come to me, flow with me, roll over stone and through vale. South. With me.
Her vision swam back into focus, and in the failing light of the torch, Danu saw the old god standing over her, a rock held in both hands as he prepared to bring it down on her head. Danu threw herself sideways, striking the side of the god’s knee with as much force as she could muster. A crack echoed through the cave, and the god cried out, stumbling and dropping his stone.
Danu’s roll carried her away from the god and into the darkness. A red-gold glint caught her eye then, and she reached out to it. A bronze dagger, something worn by the northern attackers, and given as an offering with the dead man’s flesh to the gods. Hers now. She gripped the dagger’s handle, feeling the ridges in the bone. The god limped toward her as the torch guttered, rage in his eyes. She knew what she must do.
✸✸✸
A loud banging on the gate startled the two guards, who looked questioningly at Old Nan. The witch woman cocked her head to the side, but motioned for them to open the gate. They removed the oak bar and tugged the gate open.
Danu stepped out of the darkness. Blood stained her new clothes and was spattered across her face. In each hand, she clutched a round object, and a bronze dagger was thrust through her belt. Murmurs swept through the onlookers.
“Have you brought the bones for the augury?” Old Nan demanded.
Danu tossed down her burdens. Two heads rolled to a stop near the old woman’s feet, ragged flesh and bone a testament to her struggle to sever them with nothing more than a dagger. Old Nan stood stone-still, mouth agape.
“Here’s your augury! We’re done with your gods, old woman,” Danu growled. “They are no more.” She raised her head, taking in the assembled crowd. “We are done with her gods!” she shouted, pulling the dagger free and raising it in the air. Whispers raced through the villagers like fire through dry grass.
Danu left them to ponder the fate of their gods and walked down to the river’s edge. She studied the dagger for a moment, then bowed her head over the blade in silent thanks. Then, suddenly sure of what to do, she hurled it toward the center of the river.
“An offering for Iuvarus!” she cried. The dagger struck the river with a small splash and sank out of sight.
“What will we do now?” someone asked from behind her.
Danu turned to find Banona standing there. The other girl frowned as she stared at where the dagger had disappeared.
“I’m going to go south,” Danu said, purpose filling her. She briefly explained what had happened in the gods’ cave and the voice that had come into her mind. “It was Iuvarus, I’m sure of it. She calls us south. She promises we will find what we need there.”
The fire in Danu’s eyes was so fierce, and her voice so sure, that Banona did not question. “I will go with you,” she said.
Danu grabbed Banona’s hand. “We should take as many as want to come. We’ll follow Iuvarus south. South to the mountains.”
“And what then? What’s there?”
Danu was silent for a moment. She remembered now. “A lake. And above the lake, a mountain filled with white gold. Iuvarus has promised us the future.”
Story Notes
- Date: Roughly 1,200 BCE
- Location: Northern Austria/southeastern Germany.
- Setting: A Bronze Age village along the Iuvarus (one of the oldest names for the Salzach River, which flows south to Salzburg & Hallstatt, Austria).
- Notes:
- Danu is the name of an ancient pan-Celtic goddess. Her name still appears in words like Danube, Dneiper, Danann (Tuatha dé), and plenty more. Danu in the story is the progenitor of the goddess, in much the same way that Morgan Llewellyn’s Epona presaged the horse goddess.
- The Celts believed that many things in nature had spirits of their own, particularly bodies of water, like rivers. Iuvarus (feminine) was the spirit of the Salzach.
- Cannibalism has been attested in several areas across prehistoric Europe.
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