Magic and Myth Read online

  ALSO BY MICHAEL SCOTT

  The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series

  The Alchemyst

  The Magician

  The Sorceress

  The Necromancer

  The Warlock

  The Enchantress

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2021 by Michael Scott

  Cover art copyright © 2021 by Shane Rebenschied

  The Alchemyst excerpt text copyright © 2007 by Michael Scott. Cover art copyright © 2019 by Sam Spratt.

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us on the Web! rhcbooks.com

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 9780593381717 (trade) — ISBN 9780593381748 (lib. bdg.) — ebook ISBN 9780593381755

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  ANOTHER BOOK FOR COURTNEY

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Michael Scott

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Introduction

  A Magical Midnight Dance

  The Fairy-Horses

  The King’s Secret

  The Changeling’s Song

  The Leprechaun’s Trick

  The Shoemaker and the Devil Himself

  Facing the Giants

  Revenge of the Sidhe

  The Crow Goddess Returns

  The Legend of the Floating Island

  Into the Otherworld

  Acknowledgments

  Excerpt from The Alchemyst

  About the Author

  Introduction

  Ireland is a land of stories, and those stories are still very much a part of the culture. Long ago, storytellers were at the heart of every Irish village and town. They kept alive the history of the place, they knew the genealogies of the people, and they knew the myths and legends associated with every hill and stream. These storytellers, the seanchaí, were part of a tradition stretching back thousands of years.

  Ireland was never invaded by the Greeks or the Romans, so the Irish myths remained untouched and unchanged by those outside influences. There are stories told today that would be instantly recognizable to listeners from five thousand years ago.

  The stories were never fixed and unalterable, however. The seanchaí would change elements according to the audience, which kept the stories alive and vibrant. They were rarely written down. They were meant to be spoken aloud, and the traveling storytellers and poets had incredible memories.

  Because the stories were passed by word of mouth, however, many were forgotten and lost. Starting in 1937, every schoolchild in the country was asked to talk to their parents and grandparents—indeed, anyone who had a story to tell—and write down their stories. Writing in Irish and English in thousands of school copybooks, these children recorded an extraordinary collection of stories. The schoolbooks still exist today, and each page, written in fading pencil or blotchy ink, is a tiny treasure. The entire collection is known as the Schools’ Folklore Collection and is part of the National Folklore Collection.

  Inspired by this work, I spent years traveling across Ireland collecting stories, fragments of legends, traces of myths. Some of the old men and women I spoke to were the same children who had written down stories they heard from their parents and grandparents, and were now passing them on to me so I could pass them on to the next generation.

  I’ve collected many hundreds of stories over the years; here are a few of my favorites.

  A Magical Midnight Dance

  Time is different in the Otherworld, in fairy-land: what may seem like only hours there could be years in our human world. It is also said that, once you dance with the fairies, you hear their music forever more. Beware the enchantments of that magical land…

  Paul sat up in bed. He could hear music coming from outside. He knew it was late because the house was very, very quiet, and the moonlight, which slanted in through his window when he went to bed, was now spilling in through the glass pane on the other side of the room.

  He got out of bed, tiptoed over to the window, and peered out. The full moon lit everything in a ghostly silver-white light and somehow made the shadows seem even darker.

  But he could see no one.

  He listened hard, trying to pinpoint the direction of the noise. It was thin and high, like a pipe or flute, or maybe even the delicate sound of a harp—and it seemed to be coming from the little clump of trees that lay at the bottom of the field.

  Paul shivered, not with the cold but with excitement. He crept back to his bed and pulled on his shirt and trousers, grabbing his cardigan as he slipped from the room.

  In the next room, his big sister Brona tossed and turned in her sleep. She was dreaming about a waterfall and the musical sound it made as it splashed into the pool beneath. And then she dreamt that she was standing on a plank of wood that was being tossed around on a stormy sea. Suddenly the wood tilted and she fell off—and woke up. Paul was shaking her.

  “Wake up, wake up,” he whispered.

  “What’s wrong?” she mumbled.

  “Music,” he said excitedly. “I can hear music outside.”

  “What time is it?” she demanded, realizing how dark the room was.

  “Oh, it’s very late. Everyone’s gone to bed, and the moon is beginning to sink.”

  “It must be three in the morning,” Brona said angrily, pushing herself up into a sitting position. She was a year older than her brother, ten years old to his nine years, and liked to consider herself more grown-up.

  “That doesn’t matter,” Paul said. “Someone is playing music outside.”

  “At three o’clock in the morning?” Brona said in amazement. “You’re dreaming!”

  “Listen,” he said. “Just listen.”

  Brona listened. And she too heard the music.

  She hopped out of bed, and she and Paul stood on either side of the window, peering out from behind the curtains.

  “I think it’s coming from over there,” Paul said, pointing down toward the trees.

  His sister nodded. “I think so too.”

  “Let’s go look,” Paul said.

  “But it’s late…,” his sister began.

  “Tomorrow’s Saturday—we don’t have to be up for school, and no one will know. We’ll just creep out by the back door and have a look. It might be a caravan,” he added excitedly.

  “Or the
Fairy-Host,” Brona whispered.

  “Fairy-Host!” Paul laughed quietly. He didn’t believe in fairies. He wasn’t so sure about ghosts, though.

  * * *

  —

  Brother and sister crept down the garden path, staying close to the bushes and making for the wooden gate. The music was louder now, and they thought they heard distant voices and laughter.

  They slipped through the gate and headed down the path toward the music. It was louder and clearer now, and the voices were much clearer, too. Paul and Brona stopped and listened. They weren’t speaking English—it sounded something like Irish, though Paul and Brona weren’t able to make out what was being said.

  “It sounds…almost familiar,” Brona said, looking over at her brother, her eyes shining silver in the moonlight. “It’s almost as if we should know it.”

  Paul nodded. There was something about the language…

  They crept through the bushes and along the banks of a stream that ran past the foot of their garden. There were three broad, flat stones that they used as stepping-stones, and once over these, they were into the fringes of the little forest. Long, thin beams of moonlight slanted in through the branches of the trees, speckling the ground with patches of deep shadow, making it almost impossible for them to see where they were going.

  Suddenly Brona laid her hand on Paul’s arm. He jumped and bit his lip in fright.

  “What’s that?” she whispered. He could just make out the shape of her arm pointing straight ahead.

  Paul squinted. For a moment he could see nothing. Then he saw a light—more of a dim glow, really—between the trees. A cloud slid across the face of the moon, and the forest went completely black. But they suddenly found that they could see the glow all the more clearly. At the same time, the music and laughter seemed to increase.

  Holding each other’s hands, they crept toward the glow.

  There was a sudden blare of trumpets, and the forest lit up like a firework, with streamers of colored light darting and slipping through the trees and into the heavens. There were red and green and blue sparks cartwheeling and spinning along the forest floor, and ribbons of what looked like fire—although they didn’t seem to burn—snaked along the pathways.

  The young boy and girl were suddenly very frightened. Paul tugged on his sister’s hand. “Come on—let’s go,” he hissed.

  She shook her head and pulled her hand free. “No, listen!”

  “I can’t hear anything…,” he whined, but she squeezed his hand tight, and he shut up. He listened again. And then he heard it, faint and distant but becoming clearer—the brittle sound of horses’ hooves. He and Brona crouched into the bushes and huddled together.

  There was a flash of movement down along the path, and then the bushes parted and two creatures marched into the clearing. They were small, stout men, dressed in bright red waistcoats, with long, heavy green coats over them. They wore old-fashioned three-cornered hats, green tights, and beautifully made shoes with huge silver buckles.

  “Leprechauns!” Brona whispered in astonishment.

  The two leprechauns held back the bushes as a dozen tiny winged creatures hurried past them. The creatures fluttered up into the low branches of the trees that lined the path.

  And then the horses and their riders came into the clearing.

  There were two of them. Both horses were tall and thin, with narrow angular features and long pointed ears. Their eyes were huge and glowed brightly.

  Their riders were equally strange. The man was very tall, with a sharp, pointed face and snow-white hair. His clothes were old-fashioned but beautifully made from rich fabrics, and there was a sword with a blade of what looked like glass tied to his high saddle.

  He was followed by a woman, a small, delicate woman who looked no older than Brona—except for her eyes, which were very old indeed. Her cheekbones were high and her eyes almost catlike. Her hair was silver-white and flowed down her back in a long, shimmering wave. Like the man, she was dressed in the fashion of another age, in a long, trailing gown of green silk that was decorated along the hem and about the neck and sleeves with an ancient Celtic design.

  “Who…who are they?” Paul whispered into his sister’s ear.

  Brona sucked in a breath. “They are the Shining Folk, the Sidhe, the Tuatha De Danann,” she murmured, almost as much to herself as to her brother.

  “Fairies?”

  Brona nodded. “Fairies. That must be their king and queen.”

  “But what are they doing here?” Paul asked.

  His sister shrugged. “I don’t know. It must be one of their gatherings, when all the fairy-folk come together to sing and dance through the night. You know,” Brona continued, “you often see the rings of pale grass in the mornings, or circles of mushrooms that have sprung up overnight.”

  Paul nodded. “I’ve seen them.”

  Brona grinned excitedly. “That’s where they have danced.”

  The fairy-king and fairy-queen rode slowly past the bushes that hid the boy and girl. Brona thought she saw the lady glance down as she passed and smile at their hiding place. The two leprechauns hurried forward and once again held back the bushes to allow the royals to ride into the wide glowing circle.

  Paul and Brona caught a glimpse of the gathering before the leprechauns stepped through and the bushes dropped back into place. In that instant, they saw a huge party of creatures and beings: there were not only leprechauns, but cluricauns, fir dearg, fir bolg, and tall, wild-haired women with sorrowful eyes that they guessed must be the dreaded banshee. There were animals, too: huge dogs, long-horned cows, bright-eyed hares and rabbits, and a wild-maned, savage-looking creature that they knew must be the terrible Phooka, the demon-horse.

  When the bushes closed on the scene, the music began once again—a thin, high, delicate sound. Other musical instruments joined in and soon the tiny forest was alive with sound.

  Paul tugged on his sister’s arm. “Come on, let’s go.”

  She pulled away. “Not yet. Let’s get closer.”

  Paul shook his head. “Don’t be silly. We’re lucky they didn’t spot us when they rode past. What do you think would happen if they caught us here?”

  Someone began to sing in the clearing, and the shouting and laughter died down as the haunting voice drifted out over the land. It was so beautiful that Brona shivered with the sound of it.

  “Brona…please,” Paul said. “Can we go?”

  “I wonder who’s singing,” his sister said softly. “I bet it’s the fairy-queen…”

  She got up on her hands and knees and began to creep toward the clearing.

  “Brona, don’t!” Paul hissed, but she just ignored him and continued crawling toward the light and sound.

  She was nearly there when the song finished, and the fairies cried aloud in their strange language, applauding the singer. Then someone began to beat a drum, and an instrument that sounded like bagpipes started up, and then trumpets joined in, and soon the whole company was singing and clapping to the dance music.

  Paul felt his heart begin to pound in time to the music, and he pressed his hands to his ears to try to shut out the sounds. But he could still feel the music throbbing up through the ground.

  It made him want to dance…

  Brona! He looked for his sister. He could just about make out her shape outlined against the bushes ahead of him. She was swaying in time to the music. As he watched, she began to part the bushes that hid her from the creatures…

  “No!” he shouted, but he couldn’t be heard above the throbbing of the music. He scrambled forward, but he was too late. Brona had joined in the fairy-dance.

  And then the whole clearing lit up with a ghostly colored fire. Paul fell back, covering his stinging eyes. When he could see again, the Fairy-Host and his sister were gone.

  * * *


  —

  There was a seemingly endless search for Brona, but she was never found.

  No one believed Paul’s story. He had been dreaming, they said. Eventually his family moved away from the village and settled in Dublin, where the fairy-folk were spoken of only with a smile. Paul grew up and moved away from Ireland, traveling all over the world, but always promising to one day return.

  * * *

  —

  An old, white-haired man made his way down the path that led to the stream. In sixty years it hadn’t changed much—except that it seemed much smaller now than it had once seemed to a nine-year-old boy. He stopped and looked back; the house was still there, of course. It was boarded up now, with tiles missing from the roof and paint peeling off the walls. But it was more or less as he remembered it. He turned his back and continued on down the path.

  The old man paused by the edge of the little stream. The stepping-stones were still there, and he crossed quickly to the far side. The forest hadn’t changed at all. It still looked as dark and forbidding as it always had.

  He shrugged and followed the winding animal trail that led through the trees. The afternoon was quiet and warm, and he loosened his collar. He was glad he hadn’t brought an umbrella. Once he stepped away from the stream, the sound of water disappeared and he could only hear the distant trilling of a thrush.

  And then it stopped, and the afternoon was silent.

  He heard a strange sound then. He stopped and listened, tilting his head from side to side and squinting into the bushes. He had just about given up when he heard it again.

  It was the sound of a child crying.

  The old man pushed his way through the bushes and came out into a clearing—and found himself face-to-face with a young girl. She had her head buried in her hands and was weeping bitterly, but he would have recognized the bright red hair anywhere.