Winner of The Letter Review Prize for Short Fiction
A panting wolfhound.
A lovers’ parting kiss.
A giant’s severed head.
The drifting clouds above the fairies’ hawthorn sprang to life in his mind’s eye.
“Get up, ye lazy sod!” Ned’s raven-haired mam planted her boot squarely on his backside and Ned tumbled down the mound, over the hawthorn’s gnarled roots. “Half the day’s work is behind us and here ye are, lazy as a lark at sundown. ‘Twould serve ye right if the fairies sprouted donkey’s ears on yer foolish head.”
She yanked his pitchfork off the ground and dropped it across Ned’s soft belly. The force of it jerked him upright. “Ah Mam, I’m not so bad as that.”
Across their field towered massive haystacks—proof of his brothers’ labors—while not so much as a meager heap lounged near Ned. He stood up with the pitchfork and tossed three scoops of hay into a pile, then gave his mam a winking nod in the faint hope his charm could mollify her wrath.
“Lord bless us and save us,” she scowled. “Twenty years of age and ye’re still as worthless a lump as ever the Good Lord made. Aoife was a right clever girl to laugh at yer proposal. Yer daydreaming won’t put food on her table or a roof over her head, ye daft thing ye.”
“Sorry Mam, but I’ve weighty thoughts on me mind. I’m not meant t’be trudging about in the fields. If I had me druthers, I’d be a man of learning, an ollave. A man of worth.”
“Ye think yer brothers aren’t men of worth because they’ll come home covered in sweat and muck tonight? They earn an honest living, help their neighbors, and give what little coin they can spare to the church coffers. Go be a man of learning if ye wish, but don’t ye dare look down yer nose at the likes of us.”
“I didn’t mean to…ah sure, I’d go if I could, but ye know how it is with me terrible pains. ‘Tis woeful altogether.” He tossed another scoop onto his pile, only to have a traitorous gust of wind scatter it away. His mouth curled into a pout and he leaned his arm across the top of the pitchfork’s handle.
“Terrible pains, me arse.” His mam threw her hands up in exasperation. “There’s not a thing wrong with ye, but laziness and dreaming. Don’t step foot in the house, nor beg a scrap from me table, until ye’ve made yerself useful. And don’t go asking yer brothers for help. They’ve done enough for ye to last three lifetimes.” She stormed off in a right lather.
Ned opened his gob to call after her, but her shawl’s angry swish made him think better of it. He pursed his lips to whistle a cheerful ditty instead. For a short while, the song lifted his spirits and he made decent headway in his work, if only to prove his mam wrong. As the sun kissed the horizon, a russet-brown feathered wren appeared in the clear sky. She swooped low enough to make Ned duck in surprise, then alighted on a low branch of the fairies’ hawthorn and chirped her own merry tune.
“Come to shame me as Mam does, little ‘un?” Ned asked. “She needn’t have poured salt in the wound, speaking of Aoife so. ‘Twas a cold shoulder the lass turned on me, and for what? I’ve no property or prospects or—well—she needn’t have thrown that in me face, is all I’m saying.”
The wren tilted her head and let out a mocking chirp.
“I’d’ve wooed her proper if she’d let me,” Ned said defensively. “I’d’ve given her things.
Wildflowers, fresh robins eggs…maybe not honey for her morning bread as she’d like, but if she’d accepted me hand, I’d’ve convinced me stingy brothers to buy a hive, so’s to please her.”
The wren pecked at a passing spider who met with a swift and tragic end.
“Now there’s an inkling, little ‘un. I could give her what she wants if I’m willing to take it. O’Cleary’s hives aren’t but two miles down the road and the oul fella has heaps of bees making him honey. He wouldn’t miss a wee hunk of honeycomb pilfered in the name of love, surely.”
A cold wind swept across the fairy mound and rose gooseflesh on Ned’s skin beneath his thin tunic. “Ach, two miles there, then as long back again in the dark. Arrah sure, ‘tis too much these women ask of me. They must think I’m made of work.” Ned’s shoulders slumped. He dropped the pitchfork and sat down with his back against the tree trunk.
The chatty wren shook her striped tail feathers, then disappeared among the hawthorn’s rustling leaves. Suddenly, Ned felt a warm liquid plop on his forehead and trickle down his nose.
“Have ye shat on me, now? Ye’re as cruel a mistress as those women.” Ned wiped away the goo with his sleeve, but instead of the sour stink he expected, the sweet smell of honey tickled his nostrils. Ned looked up to where the wren peeked at him from a high branch, laden with three long honeycombs he was certain hadn’t been there before.
“Now there’s a turn of luck. Bless ye, good wren.” Ned leapt nimbly to his feet and grabbed hold of the hawthorn’s branches. He planted his feet on the trunk, climbed toward the honeycombs, and paid no mind to the hard-working bees who buzzed in anger at his intrusion. “Aoife will have honeyed bread in the morning and see me in a new light, surely.”
Ned pulled out the iron dirk tucked in his belt and reached up to cut a hunk of honeycomb. As his blade found its mark, Ned’s right arm became a battleground for the angered bees. They swarmed and stung him from knuckles to elbow. He jerked his arm away and the tree limb beneath his feet snapped. Branches tore at his tunic and pierced his freckled flesh on the way down as he crashed to the ground.
He held his injured arm to his chest and yowled in pain. Spittle jumped through his gritted teeth and frothed between his lips.
“Serves ye right,” said an unfamiliar voice above him. A shockingly wee woman perched on the lowest branch. Her woolen shawl draped down over her brown, striped dress. She shook her head and tsked, then spread out her arms like wings as she leapt down and landed on Ned’s chest. He barely felt the weight of her.
“Mistress, forgive me for a damned fool,” Ned sputtered. “I meant no disrespect to the Good People. Sure, I thought ‘twas the fairies’ gift for me sweetheart.”
“Do ye think us fools? Ye lounge beneath our shade as if ‘tis there for the likes of ye? Ye break our branches and steal our honey.” The wee woman dug her heel into Ned’s chest.
“Never.” Ned’s breath came quick and shallow as the sweat of fear sprang up on his forehead. “How can I make it right with ye? I’d give me eye teeth not to have a fairy’s wrath upon me pitiful soul.”
“Oh, ye’re in me debt now, young Ned, and I’ve plans for ye. Yer mam is a fine woman who knows to respect the Good People, so I’ll take ye off her hands and teach ye a thing or two.”
“Ye’ll not make an end of me?” Ned breathed easier. “Thank ye, mistress. God bless ye.”
“Keep yer blessings and yer thanks. I’ve no use for the first and ye’ll regret the second when ye see what I’ve in store for ye.” She sucked air sharply between her teeth and hopped down off Ned’s chest.
Ned cradled his swollen arm as he struggled to his feet. “Can ye heal me of these beestings?”
“Ye’ll have to earn their forgiveness first.”
“Whose forgiveness?”
“Sure, the bees, of course. Ye’ve offended their queen with yer greed and destruction. ‘Tis herself who demands I teach ye a lesson before ye’re set free.”
“Herself…the queen bee…demands what exactly?” Ned furrowed his brow.
“To begin with, ye’re to head to O’Cleary’s farm. The great oak on his land has grown too large.”
“I can’t cut down an oak tree all on me lonesome. The strain of it’d kill me stone dead, surely. Have mercy!”
“Whist yerself.”
“Ye baited me!”
“By the gods, ye’re thick as bog water. Get to walking, quick as ye can. ‘Twouldn’t be wise to keep me waiting.”
The wee woman’s shawl and dress sprouted feathers. She bent over and transformed into the spritely wren, then off she flew toward O’Cleary’s farm.
Slack-jawed, Ned dared not dawdle and took off after her at a nervous trot. The side of his soft belly stitched in protest, unused as it was to strained exertions, but Ned hurried on and the mighty oak appeared on the horizon soon after. As he came under its shade, Mistress Wren appeared in her womanly form and stared up at him with an impatient frown.
“Please mistress, if I’m not meant to cut down the tree, what punishment will the queen heap upon me head?”
“The oak has grown so grand that its leaves shade her hives even on long summer days. Ye’re to move her home to a better spot.” She pointed to three domed beehives shrouded in shadows. The bees flew about, busy at their work.
Ned instinctively shielded his blistering forearm. “Sure, why can’t the oul man move them himself as their keeper?”
“No one keeps the bees. They love O’Cleary and grant him the pleasure of their company and their bounty. Ye know well enough, he’s an oul fella, stooped and struggling through his final years. Besides, ye owe him.”
“I owe no man nothing.” Ned puffed up his chest.
“Ye were fixing to steal from him.”
“But I didn’t,” Ned argued.
“Only out of laziness. A good deed may cleanse yer murky soul of such selfishness. The queen would see ye do right by him, as well as herself. Ye’ve not far to go, only over to that hill she’s picked as the perfect spot. There’s the wheelbarrow to aid ye.”
Ned knew better than to argue with the Good People so he set his mind to the work and took hold of the barrow’s rough handles. The worn-out wheel proved a frustrating workmate with a mind of its own that pulled the barrow hither and thither as Ned navigated through the grass. He cursed under his breath, but not so loud as to incur the fairy’s ire.
Mistress Wren set to work assembling a daisy chain, but kept a keen eye on Ned, as though he might leg it like a petulant child if she let down her guard. One by one, he hoisted the hives, wrangled them in the barrow across the field, and set them down again.
“There, ‘tis done,” Ned huffed and rolled his shoulders to relieve the strain. “I’ve more than made up for stealing no honey at all, at all.”
The wee woman laid her daisy chain atop the queen’s tallest hive, then leapt high in the air and landed gracefully on Ned’s left shoulder. “Start running and don’t stop until I tells ye.” She untied a coiled reed from her belted waist, let it unfurl, and lashed Ned across his back with a stinging blow.
“Christ almighty!” Ned wailed. With no notion where he was going, he took off at a trot that soon grew to an unnatural sprint only a fairy could command of mortal legs. He sweated through his tunic from sheer panic as he raced through his neighbors’ fields.
Every so often, the wee woman tugged at his ear to change his direction and by nightfall she’d led him to a moonlit forest path.
“Now young Ned, we’ve a ways to go still and ‘tis high time I remedy another of yer nasty habits. Those so-called fairy stories ye dream up are woeful nonsense altogether. Before I set ye free, ye’ll learn every tale of our isle, starting with the Tuatha De Danaan’s journey to Éire through the mists. Once ye can weave a tale as fine as gold filigree, ye can tell them to anyone who’ll listen so’s the stories of our isle never die. In exchange, ye’ll never starve a day in yer life, nor have to lift a finger in hard labor.”
With that, the wee woman recited tales of gods and heroes fighting side by side; tales of bloody battles, noble deaths, epic loves, and heart-wrenching suffering. Ned’s eyes grew wide with wonder and his ears burned crimson as Mistress Wren’s stories poured in. Her tales put to shame Ned’s own bungled stories, as the River Shannon would a piss puddle.
As dawn’s first blush warmed the wooly clouds overhead, Mistress Wren grabbed a fistful of Ned’s sweat-drenched locks and yanked hard, as though pulling reins, to stop him at the edge of the forest.
Just ahead, a stone dolmen stretched its shadow toward them in welcome. Four tall, craggy rocks held aloft their massive capstone at a jaunty angle. The heroes’ table hummed with ancient memories of feasts and music and roaring laughter that long ago echoed through the hillside.
“Here we are now.” Mistress Wren smoothed her rumpled dress.
Ned collapsed against a tree. He laid his uninjured arm across his face to block out the sunlight and moaned, “Christ, will ye come down off the cross and let me up for a rest? What’ve I done to deserve such cruelty?”
“Ye deserve nothing yet, but ye wanted to be a man of learning and amn’t I here teaching ye?” Mistress Wren drew her whip aloft and struck a lash across his shins.
“Jayz,” he yowled. “Haven’t I delivered ye where ye wished? Can’t I rest after me labors?”
“Yer labors have just begun,” the wee fairy scoffed. “This ancient table is sacred, set by giants for their griddle in the days before man walked the isle. The wear of time has toppled its protective wall, so ye’re here to fortify it.”
“Ye said I’d never have to do hard labor in me life,” Ned whined, but got quickly to his feet as a swarm of bees buzzed around him. He huffed and circled the dolmen’s toppled fairy wall where hundreds of loose stones lay tangled in the yellow-green grasses.
Ned grumbled at the bees who pursued him, “Get away with yous.”
“They’ll go nowhere until they’re satisfied. While ye’re hauling rocks, see what ye can make of the stories I whispered to ye.”
“Ye’re coddin’ me.”
“If ye can tell our tales proper and set our ancient wall to rights before the sun sets on the far horizon, then they may let ye rest awhile.”
Ned’s shoulders sagged in defeat as he picked up two stones. He placed them with a sharp clack atop the remains of the ancient wall where they settled in place among their brothers. Next, he hoisted a large stone up to his chest and found it a sturdy perch, then let out a sigh and bent down again.
An impatient bee left off buzzing in Ned’s ear and jabbed a stinger in his neck.
“Ah, go ‘way.” Tears sprang up in Ned’s eyes as he swatted around his head and dropped a stone woeful close to his toes.
“I told ye, weave them a tale,” Mistress Wren scolded. “Ye thought ye could take from them and give nothing in return.”
“But I—”
“Bees go wild for a morsel of good gossip, ye know. They want to hear about all the births, marriages, deaths and the like, that touch the lives of those whom they gift with their honey. Since ye’ve no gossip to speak of, share the tales I taught ye and they’ll be happy as a pup with a marrow bone.” Without another word, the wee woman marched between the dolmen’s standing stones and disappeared, as though through a doorway to another world.
What else could he do but as he was told? All day long he stacked stones at a steady pace and all the while he wove together the threads of Mistress Wren’s tales for the delighted bees. By midday, the stingers in his forearm ceased to bother him. His back did not pinch and his throat did not parch as the words flowed out.
When the sun disappeared behind the towering forest to the west, the fortified fairies’ wall circled the dolmen once more. A smile spread across Ned’s face as he set the final stone.
“Now ye see, don’t ye?” Mistress Wren’s voice startled Ned. He spun around to see her perched on the dolmen beside a wide-rimmed goblet.
“See what?” Ned’s own voice croaked from sudden dryness.
The wee woman nodded toward the drinking cup and Ned gulped down the cool mead with heady joy. He set the empty goblet back down on the dolmen’s capstone and leaned against the sun-warmed rock.
“Ye see what it is to take pride in yer work; in what ye can accomplish with determination and yer own two hands. The pride yer brothers have when they come in from their fields.”
Ned flinched at her stern, moral tone, so like his disapproving mother’s. “There’s a simple pleasure to seeing a task done, surely, but there’s more to life than back-breaking labor, day in and day out until Death himself darkens yer doorstep. I’d surely perish from suffering within a week, what with me terrible aches and pains.”
He peered into the empty goblet and it magically replenished. Delighted, Ned raised the cup again, but just as the mead touched his lips, it disappeared in a puff of smoke that whooshed into his nostrils and set him coughing. Before he could compose himself, Mistress Wren leapt on his shoulder and cracked her reed whip across his back.
“Ye’ve learned nothing so,” she whispered sharply and grabbed his ear. “Get on with ye.”
She whipped Ned’s back again and his legs took off at an alarming pace. He ran around the curved wall and his eyes stung with regret as he saw no rest coming. The sun set at his back as he charged onward and Mistress Wren whispered tales of treacherous wives and lecherous husbands.
Ned ran on, but hung on her every word, until he sensed a shift in the dampening air. The wind tasted of salt as Mistress Wren whispered a tale of children banished to the icy seas. The green fields gave way to a stone meadow, stitched together by grass threads. Ned’s worn-thin shoes slapped the ground in rhythm with a distant, rolling roar.
When Mistress Wren came to her tale’s sorrowful end, she yanked Ned’s hair and forced him to a sudden stop. He looked down to where his toes kissed the edge of a cliff and the thunderous roar of crashing waves rattled his bones something fierce. “Look there now,” Mistress Wren peered down the cliffside.
Ned followed her gaze and gasped, “Bless us and save us. What divilry is this?”
“A terrible cruelty. Man’s greed and jealousy knows no bounds.”
Far below, on jagged rocks, lay the broken bodies of a flock of sheep. Blood stained their creamy wool and their necks were twisted at gruesome angles.
“A jealous neighbor drove them over the cliff’s edge.”
“Why would he do such a thing?” Ned backed away from the windy cliff and closed his eyes, but the shadow of death clung to his eyelids. The salty air seasoned the rising bile on his tongue. “Why’ve ye brought me here? I can do nothing for the poor creatures.”
“Nor I.” She pointed inland where flickering candlelight illuminated a cottage window.
With the wee woman still perched on his shoulder, Ned walked carefully over the uneven stones. Through a sooty window, they spied the man of the house on bended knees beside the straw beds where his wife and children slumbered. The miserable man gripped a small wooden cross between his folded hands and held it to his lips as he prayed.
“Without their flock, they’ve nothing,” Mistress Wren tutted. “Oh, they’ll try to survive on nettle soup and whatever else they can scrounge up, but it won’t last. The wee ones will starve first and their mammy will follow soon after.”
“And himself?”
“When he’s carried their bodies across these cold stones and found a soft place to lay them to rest, he’ll walk to the very spot where his pitiable fate was sealed.”
“The cliffs, ye mean?”
“The cliffs, I mean. He’ll look down where those poor beasties met their cruel end, though the waves will have washed the sin away, and with nothing more to tether him to this mortal world, he’ll follow his flock and his family into the next life.”
“Ah God, ‘tis too much to bear. Can ye do nothing?”
“What would ye have me do? Won’t his God answer his prayers?”
“He might. But so might you. If ye’ll not help, why’d ye bring me here?”
“Perhaps I wished to show ye real suffering so’s ye’d stop whinging about yer terrible aches and pains.”
“Arrah go on, ‘tis beyond the pale. What can ye do? Punish the jealous neighbor?”
“That wouldn’t help these wretched souls.”
“Then steal his flock for them in recompense.”
“And have the bastard seek vengeance on the family or get the law to lock up this poor man and leave his family to starve still?”
“Why did ye bring me here? Ye’re not a cruel woman. Ye’ve a lesson to teach me, I know it. Just tell me what I can do for them. I’ll do it without complaint, hand to God.”
“Enough with yer God. Look, the poor man’s cheeks are soaked with tears from unanswered prayers. But see here?”
On the windowsill sat a plate with a slice of barley bread, a slab of sheep’s cheese, and a cup of ale.
“An offering for the Good People,” Mistress Wren said. “The family know they’ll soon have nothing to eat, yet still they set a plate for us at their western window.”
“What does that matter?”
“‘Tis why we’ve come. And now that ye’ve the sense to offer aid instead of expecting it, we’ll help them together.”
“We will?”
“Of course, we will. But first, put out yer hands.”
Ned obeyed and the food disappeared from the windowsill and reappeared on his open palms.
Famished, Ned took a massive bite and the tang of the earthy cheese delighted his tongue.
He swallowed quickly and chomped another bite, then took a swig of ale to wash down the crumbly bread. Before he stuffed the last piece in his mouth, Ned paused. His stomach rumbled, but he turned his gaze toward the fairy woman on his shoulder and offered her the rest.
Mistress Wren tore off a hunk and popped it in her gob, then let out a cheeky belch that nearly tipped her backward off her perch.
Ned savored the last bite. “So, what’s t’be done?”
“There’s someone waiting for us in the barn.”
Ned headed toward the small, stonewalled barn where a glow of firelight lit up the slits in the wooden doors. He pulled them open and found a knee-high fairy man with a shock of white hair and an exquisitely trimmed beard that came to a point beneath his chin.
“Fintan, me good fellow, how’re ye keeping?” Mistress Wren beamed at the leprechaun. “Right as rain. I’ve brought what ye asked for. They’re just about ready fer yous.”
“Lovely. We’ll breathe new life into this place.”
Bleats from a dark corner drew all their attention to a pair of wooly ewes walking toward Fintan’s torchlight. Their hooves clacked on the stone ground until they stood on either side of the wee man and turned their black heads toward him in unison.
“Here we are, me beauties,” Fintan said as he scratched behind their ears. “Settle yerselves down here and we’ll help with yer labors.”
“Their labors? What work have they—” Ned stopped short when the ewes lowered themselves down to lie on their sides and revealed their protruding bellies. “Their labors…they’ve lambs coming?”
Fintan removed his cloak and rolled up the billowing sleeves of his forest green tunic. “Come now, young Ned. Roll up yer sleeves or ye’ll be left looking a fine mess.”
Ned gawked, “Sure, I don’t know how to help with the births.”
Mistress Wren chuckled, “Ye’ll know well enough by sunup. These beautiful ladies have two lambs a piece waiting to join the world. They’re the Good People’s gift for the family to start anew. Ye wanted to help, so here we go.”
One of the ewes let out a sharp bleat of pain that startled Ned into action. He pulled his tunic sleeves up above his elbows and knelt down beside the fairies. “What can I do?”
“Four lambs will be a great many to deliver,” Fintan followed his words with a whistle. “I’ll help the ladies. Yer task is to clear out the babbies’ noses with a piece of straw so’s they can breathe, then give their whole bodies a straw rubdown to dry them.
“Help them breathe and keep them dry,” Ned repeated to calm his nerves.
Mistress Wren patted Ned’s knee and he marveled at the tiny hand that had justly lashed him for his selfishness. ‘Twas a comfort to think he’d earned her kindness too.
Another wailing bleat told them ‘twas time. Fintan placed one hand on the ewe’s hip to steady her and reached his bare arm inside to aid the lamb. Wide-eyed, Ned grabbed fistfuls of scattered straw and held them in front of him, looking a right eejit, frozen with anticipation. A few fretful and exciting moments later, Fintan guided the first lamb into the world. He lay the gangly creature before Ned, who stared in awe.
“Quickly now, lad,” Mistress Wren coaxed him out of his stupor.
Ned bent close and dropped all but one piece of straw. As careful as if ‘twas his own newborn babe, Ned cradled the lamb’s head in his hands and gently swirled the straw in its nostrils to clear them. The lamb took a deep breath and kicked its legs merrily about. Ned grabbed a fistful of straw and brushed its creamy wool dry.
“Here’s his sister,” Fintan beamed with pleasure and set another lamb beside Ned.
When all the excitement was done, while the fairies tended to the exhausted mothers, Ned sat cross-legged with four little lambs nestled in his lap. He stared down at them, not daring to move for fear he’d break the spell of that perfect moment. He braided together a triumphant tale in his mind’s eye and whispered it lovingly in the lambs’ silky ears.
One by one, the lambs tested their shaky front legs on the hard ground beside Ned’s lap, then hoisted their haunches up and took the first steps toward their waiting mammies. They wobbled and toppled, but stood up again. Ned’s heart soared when each of them made the long journey and nuzzled into their mammies’ bellies for a hard-earned breakfast.
“I’ve been a right ass, so’s I have.” Ned pursed his lips. “I’m ashamed of meself.”
Mistress Wren smiled up at him from where she sat beside the mothers. “Ye were a hard nut to crack, young Ned, but ye’ve earned yer freedom, truly.”
“Have I? I’d forgotten ‘twas a punishment to bring me here.” Ned looked at his bare forearm and realized the hundred stingers were gone. His body ached all over, but ‘twas a good kind of ache that reminded him he’d done something worth doing. “What happens now?”
“’Tis a few hours until dawn.” Mistress Wren looked at the barn’s eastern wall as though she could see right through it. “We’ll leave these beauties for the family to cherish. But first, take yer rest and Fintan will stitch new soles on yer shoes while ye sleep. Ye’ll be needing them for the road home.”
“But, what of the wicked neighbor? Will he live out his days without punishment?”
“Haven’t ye faith that he’ll face yer God’s judgement?” Mistress Wren teased. “God will see justice done, surely, but is that all?”
Fintan gave him a winking nod, “Ah now, the Good People may have sped things along.”
Ned mulled over the news. “Then God be merciful on his wicked soul.”
“Will ye go home to yer family, now ye’re free?” Fintan asked.
“I don’t imagine so.”
“Why’s that?”
“They’re better off without me, though it stings to admit they’d agree with the notion.” Ned bowed his head toward Mistress Wren. “Yer stories sing in me head. Not even the proper ollaves, with their years of study, can weave so rich a tapestry of tales as the ones ye gifted me. Thank ye kindly, Honorable Mistress Wren.”
“Tis a fine gift ye have now, t’be sure,” she said. “Yer clever mind already weaves the stories of our isle lovelier than I could. The more ye share yer gift with those who need it, the brighter it’ll shine. If ye’ll not turn yer heels toward home, then what is to become of ye?”
“I’ll do as ye said. I’ll take these miraculous tales and travel the road, telling them to all who’ll listen until me oul legs give out, then I’ll stay put and keep telling them until me soul is carried into the next life where I’ll find the souls of Éire’s people gone before me and weave our tales anew for them until the end of days.”
With a light heart and sturdy new soles, the fairies’ finest storyteller did just that.
Vienna Folliard is an Irish-born, American writer currently working on a series of novels rooted in Irish folklore and modern themes. She teaches English literature and creative writing in Minnesota, where she lives with her husband and their two children.