Witch Sight

By Dewi Griffiths and John Washbourne

Since before history, before Mankind ruled the world, older ancient gods roamed the earth. On the east coast of Ireland a warrior creature, The Shannow ruled supreme and was worshipped as a god. But with the coming of the Celtic Saints The Shannow was driven underground to the Otherworld, the realm beneath our own.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Garland Stone Productions
• Release date: Nov 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9781999926380

Book preview

Contents

The Moon

The Hanged Man

Death

The Tower

Justice

The High Priestess

The First

The Devil

Temperance

The Chariot

Wheel of Fortune

The Magician

The Empress

The Hermit

The Emperor

Strength

The Star

The Lovers

The Fool

Witch Sight

A Novel

By

Dewi Griffiths

and

John Washbourne

Modern City: Ancient Vengeance

Garland Stone Productions Ltd

Wales, UK

First Published in 2021

By Garland Stone Productions Ltd, Cardiff, Wales, UK, CF64 4TW

© 2021 Dewi Griffiths & John Washbourne

The rights of Dewi Griffiths and John Washbourne to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.

Copyright Registration is in effect in the UK, US and other territories

including at the Library of Congress, Washington DC.

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book/e-book may be reprinted, or reproduced or utilized in any form, or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Any similarity between characters in this book and any person, living or dead,

is purely coincidental.

Acknowledgements:

Quotations by and from

Oliver Cromwell,

John Milton (Paradise Lost)

St. John the Divine

George Bernard Shaw

The Talmud

are included on the understanding that they are in the Public Domain.

Cover Artwork by Christian Pinchbeck.

© Garland Stone Productions Ltd

www.pinchbeckdesign.com

Identifiers:

ISBN (e-book) 978-1-9999263-8-0

ISBN (Paperback) 978-1-9999263-9-7

Garland Stone Productions Ltd.

www.garlandstone.com

www.facebook.com/garlandstoneproductions

www.dewigriffiths.com

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Dewi Griffiths is a native Welsh speaker from the coast of Pembrokeshire in West Wales, Great Britain.

Pembrokeshire is the setting for many of the stories from the Ancient Celtic Myths written down a thousand years ago in the Mabinogion. This scenery, remoteness, mythology and the supernatural were strong early influences on Dewi.

Combined with a love of storytelling, photography and film making, Dewi entered a career in feature film and high end television drama, working worldwide.

Dewi worked on four continents for such production companies as BBC, S4C, ITV, Sky, Merchant Ivory, and Full Moon.

Dewi was head hunted by senior staff at the AFI and USC Film School to head up Producing at The Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts in Jordan, teaching award winning film makers from across the MENA region.

Dewi runs Garland Stone Productions Ltd, which builds on his connections and experience, to produce horror films, TV and literature: contemporary stories grounded in folklore.

Today Dewi is Senior Lecturer in Film Producing at the University of South Wales’ Film & TV School, Wales.

www.dewigriffiths.com

John Washbourne has been involved with film distribution for over twenty five years and is VP Development at Garland Stone Productions Ltd.

John is also an international fencing champion (modern & historical), & martial artist.

John’s interest in mythology and history has culminated in co-writing

Witch Sight, Black Valley, Blood Eagle, Away Game and numerous other projects for Garland Stone.

www.garlandstone.com

Garland Stone creates Cutting Edge Horror with an Ancient Heritage.

About Witch Sight

Witch Sight is set in the dark heart of contemporary Dublin, the capital city of the Irish Republic, once the second city of the British Empire, and the ancient capital of the Irish Kingdom of Leinster.

Witch Sight is a dark fantasy drawing together the myths and supernatural inheritances of the Celtic nations, which are still alive in this modern metropolis.

Witch Sight began as a feature film project.

Thank you to everyone who helped with what would have been an epic folk horror film with deep Celtic cultural roots.

With thanks to Joan O’Sullivan for her kind help with editing the Dublin dialect and with suggesting locations.

Thanks to Christian Pinchbeck for his work on the cover of the book.

Glossary:

The universe of Witch Sight is based on our Borderland Mythology, underpinning in a number of our projects at Garland Stone, including Borderland, Black Valley and Folk Devil.

The Borderland - A thin place – a place where the border between our world and The Otherworld is very thin and the creatures of the darkness can break through. Dublin is such a thin place.

The Otherworld – ‘Annwn’; the place which lies beneath the world. The subterranean place where all that is no longer welcome in our world goes: the land of the dead, the previous race who Mankind drove underground, and the Old Gods – like The Shannow.

The Shannow – The Shadow Sidhe.

Witch Sight: Modern City – Ancient Vengeance

www.garlandstonepublications.com

1. THE MOON

‘CONSIDER THAT YE May be Wrong’ - Oliver Cromwell.

1649: The County of Leinster, Ireland.

The wind moves through the long bogland grass as their army had moved across this island. Pushing through any resistance, and so they had thought themselves invincible. The words of their General echoing in their ears, as they had done when they fought their brothers, friends and neighbours in the name of Parliament against the King. And now they fought the Papists who had taken control of this island to the west of their own.

A cloud crosses the moon as the three cavalrymen run across this open moor. The moon shining on the grey steel of their helmets as it shines on the sea beyond, the Irish Sea, between them and home. How now they wish they were at home beyond that shining sea. Here the moonlight dies on the black peat bog moor which surrounds them.

Their high cavalry boots sodden from running through this bog which had done for their horses. Or had it? Did their mounts really fall and break their legs in the giving ground, or was there a kind of weapon that brought down their warhorses?

Shadows of the clouds across the moon seem like enemy figures moving out there on the barren bog. It is a hunter’s moon, and they, for the first time in their short lives, are the hunted.

There is a sound carrying on the wind. The sound of a woman’s unsettling laughter echoing across the open country. Behind them? Beside them? Before them? They can’t tell. But it is driving them onwards towards the edge of the high ground that overlooks the old port town below. An ancient town, built by the Vikings to trade slaves, now the largest city on this damned Papist Island.

There is something ahead on the bog. Low. Dark. Like a crouching figure. Immediately in their paths. The clouds clear the moon and it is no longer a stooped figure. It is an ancient standing stone, squat and hunched in the middle of the moor. And there is movement before the stone. Something is huddled at its base, resting on the sodden earth.

The shape prostrate at the foot of the standing stone is a woman dressed in rags, face covered in dirt, laughing madly. Her voice seems to echo all around the three soldiers of The New Model Army who come to a halt and watch her in terror. Seen before them, heard all around them, her laughter surrounding them and encircling them in a noose of fear.

Suddenly her laughter stops. The very ground around her shakes sending ripples across the pool between her and the three soldiers. Something unseen moves past her, its heavy footfalls throwing up splashes of water near the old woman. She looks up, seeing whatever is there; something invisible to the soldiers. She whispers angrily, Kill them all!

The three soldiers stand still in the landscape, their helmets and breastplates shining like beacons, their red coats covered in mud, sweat and tears. Swords and muskets once drawn in defence against a thousand enemies unseen in this land; but here their enemy is truly unseen, raised by witchcraft, the devil himself. As the splashing footfalls move into the pool of water, the hint of a shape is revealed by the water which falls on the giant creature.

The soldiers are frozen in terror, watching as the woman rises to her feet, screaming at them. I’ll see you die! Then they see the shadow, the shape known as The Shannow come between them and the screaming woman.

The soldiers exchange glances and run. Back the way they came across the bog, slipping, knee deep in mud as The Shannow moves behind them like a devilish hound. The very land conspiring in their fate, grabbing at their legs and bogging them down. Making them fight for every foot of progress across the moor. Cavalry men fleeing on foot, small and alone in the expansive landscape with something unseen moving noisily through the heavy ground behind them. Large. Heavy. Pensive. Biding its time.

At the standing stone the woman smiles through her tears. She makes to cross herself, but catches her thought and stops. She sees her blood shining in the moonlight on the rough stone before her. She wipes her tear filled eyes. Patrick... my boy.

Suddenly a mud road appears before the soldiers, bisecting this bog. Two of the soldiers get onto the solid ground and run ahead. The third is hurt from when his horse was felled. Don’t leave me here brothers! In the name of God!

From the roadway his two comrades look back. Breathless from effort, and breathless from terror, they watch a shadow form in the mist that has like another magical act raised up on that part of the moor. The moor which held them down is now hiding them from the outside world. Hiding them from the eyes of those who do not yet believe. Hiding them in readiness for the moment when they will meet their divine fate.

The mist thickens. The lights of the port town below disappear. They are truly alone. Cold air grips them and hides their comrade in the marsh. His disembodied voice is distorted in the mist. Help me! The sound of heavy footfalls in wet ground behind him quicken. The man is whimpering. Please! For the love of God, don’t leave me to die here!

The sergeant pulls at his younger comrade. Come on, leave him. The two soldiers run onwards into the darkness. Their footfalls mercifully on solid ground. The ground begins to dip and beyond there is a small distant light on the horizon. There! Our prayers are answered! Run man!

Behind them, in the mist, stuck knee deep in the bog, their comrade pulls his feet free of the mud and water and tries to make it to the safety of the road which is disappearing from sight before his eyes. The sound of heavy footsteps in the wet ground, squelching nearby. Now behind him. Now beside him. Now in front of him. Reeking of the grave.

A shadowy shape unformed, creating a darkness in the white mist, cutting him off from his friends. Unformed but massive. Taller than a man. Heavier than a man, the same shape as a man. But no man has legs and arms that long. A head so large. The shape stands still as the mist rolls onwards around it.

It’s here! What should be a cry is broken to a whisper. Somewhere behind him the lone soldier hears more laughter dimly carrying across the moor. He looks around into the mist. No one behind him. He turns back around to face the creature. Nothing. It is gone. The lone soldier looks desperately around him; there is nothing to be seen.

Then a splash in a pool nearby and an unearthly growl. Something unseen is circling the lone soldier. The only sign of it is the sound of heavy footfalls in the boggy earth. Moving around and around and around. The soldier swipes out with his sword, making no contact. The creature stops. A sigh. Like a breath of death.

The soldier shakes in his sodden leaden boots. He has never been so afraid, even in those battles in his homeland. The cold and the wet of this cursed land gripping his lungs as the earth grips his feet and bogs him down. He can’t move. Another whisper from the mist. The soldier coughs tears as terror grips him. The smell of a thousand graves, the rot of time fills his lungs and takes away his breath. God help me! The soldier shakes in realisation that his time is over. Come and take me, fiend!

The Shannow looks down on its prey. The prey it has been summoned to kill by the gift of the blood of the wronged. As it has been summoned for centuries. The language of the call is changing but the blood sacrificed remains the same. It is always the blood of those who have lost their own bloodline which calls. A knowledge passed down from the days before The Shannow was cast into the ground by those holy men a thousand years ago. There it rests until called by the sacrifice of blood upon its stone; its answer is to bring the heads of those who have drawn innocent blood to the bereaved mothers of those who died.

The darkness of this night is nothing compared to the darkness beneath the earth where The Shannow was condemned and has been its home for centuries. That Otherworld where it has been banished with all of the others who have no more place in this world; with the older races, the fair folk, the old gods like itself and the dead. The Shannow and the other old Gods are only now welcome back into this world when they appear at a pained soul’s request, to wreak vengeance, before being released back to their underground homes to rest once more in that eternal darkness.

So this night time darkness is no hindrance. This darkness is so bright. The white