Changing Names: the changeling and the witch

By Ross Howard

'Beith breathed in the cold air, and blew it back out in a cloud. I will bring you to the Morrigan tomorrow. To one of her temples. We'll go together.'
In ancient Ireland the God slaying has begun. Beith Ni Dearg, a witch's foster daughter, is worried for her favourite goddess, the Morrigan, and flees home to save her life. Beith will face kings, princes, changelings, druids, Gods and Goddesses, and her monstrous foster family on her journey. The things she finds will change how she views the world, and eventually how the world views Beith.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ross Howard
• Release date: Nov 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215261941

Book preview

Changing Names: the changeling and the witch

Birdhill..................................................................

Chapter 1: Story Hunting........................................................

Chapter 2: True Names and Cursing Games........................................

Chapter 3: The Rocky Road to the Ringfort........................................

The Ringfort.............................................................

Chapter 4: Fortunes at the Night Market...........................................

Chapter 5: Past the Pook’s fair...................................................

Chapter 6: Return to the Wild....................................................

Chapter 7: You Can’t Go Home...................................................

Chapter 8: Learning Weasel and Shooting Practice.................................

The God Hunt............................................................

Chapter 9: Sealing deals and giving names........................................

Chapter 10: The Hunters’ Harvest................................................

The Ringfort for a fortnight..................................................

Chapter 11: Cloife of the Pooks and the Changeling Demonslayer.....................

Chapter 12: The River whispers..................................................

Chapter 13: The second shrine...................................................

The Throat...............................................................

Chapter 14: Hearing a Godsong..................................................

Chapter 15: A Thin Skim Between The Worlds......................................

Chapter 16: Ghosts.............................................................

The End of this World......................................................

Chapter 17: Reel Shadows......................................................

Chapter 18: Meetings...........................................................

Chapter 19: The God in the River.................................................

It Begins................................................................

Chapter 20: The Gods Sleep, the World Spins......................................

Birdhill

Chapter 1: Story Hunting

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The wind smelt like snow to the man and boy shuffling uphill. It was winter, the forest was dead and every tree was bare and sharp as bone. The branches rattled above them in a winter chorus, like the trees were dreaming of birds they hadn’t seen for months. The man and the boy didn’t dare look up, even when the rattle became deafening in the wind. They were trying not to look at the girl sitting in the branches. She had followed them through the treetops over the last two hills, watching.

‘That girl above us in the trees,’ said the boy.

‘Shh. Quiet,’ said the man.

‘She’s been following us for a couple of hills. I can see her shadow. It’s beside me.’

‘So can I, so what?’ asked the man.

‘It keeps changing. It keeps changing into a bird’s shadow.’

‘You’re going mad with hunger, try not to look at her shadow. Look straight ahead, at the top of the hill. The River King’s Ringfort is only two hills away. We’re already safe.’ It sounded like a lie to the boy. It sounded like a lie to the girl too, who smiled. She loved a good secret, but also a good lie, and memorised any she heard in the forest.

The boy and the man ignored her, and her shadow slipped south and disappeared. The boy and the man both relaxed a little, and hurried uphill.

‘That girl. The one with the shadow-’

‘I know which girl,’ said the man, reaching the hilltop.

‘-what if she was a fairy?’

The wind died. The man froze. Hw turned to the boy slowly.

‘We do not call them that word. We call them the other crowd, or the good folk. Because they are good, really, really good. The best,’ said the man, saying the last part to the bushes and the bare trees, bowing a little. ‘And we should also know that calling them other names is something that they don’t like, so we don’t like.’

The man turned in a circle. There was a leafless valley behind, and a holly and fir filled hollow ahead. He looked into the branches. When nothing happened he sighed in relief, then began walking downhill into the smaller, greener valley.

‘Fool boy. Names are important. Don’t give away your true name, and don’t use names lightly. Especially not for fai- the other crowd,’ said the man.

‘Why don’t the other crowd like being called the ‘f’ word?’ asked the boy.

‘Because they think it’s rude. Names have power, and giving them a human name takes their power and gives it to us.’

The man and boy stopped. The voice was a child’s, thick accented, and coming from just off the path. They turned left to see a girl sitting in a holly tree, almost hidden by leaves.

The boy looked at the girl, afraid and intrigued. The man just looked afraid. She smiled at their fear and slipped from the tree, locking her gaze with the boy. She had thick brown hair, a sharp face and huge grey eyes. Her hair was silver where it touched the moonlight, and her eyes were sunken.

‘Are you hungry? You look hungry,’ said the girl. ‘We could give you bread.’ The boy nodded, but the man grabbed the back of his cloak.

‘Who is ‘we’? You said ‘we’ could give you bread.’

‘We could give you soup. Hot, straight from the pot,’ said the girl.

This was too much for the boy, who hadn’t eaten for two days walking. He pulled free of the man’s grip as the girl turned and skipped down the other side of the hill, over tree roots and thorns. The boy followed, stumbling downhill, a thick ring of holly trees at the bottom of the hollow. Smoke rose from the ring of trees.

‘Don’t you dare lad, stop right now!’ said the man. But the boy went on without turning. ‘Boy?’ The man whimpered, then followed.

The girl reached a gap in the hollies, and looked back. Good. She took a deep sniff, the carrot soup making her mouth water. She hungrily watched the boy and the man stumbling toward her, and the large sacks they carried on their backs.

‘Are they coming, Beith?’ asked her Mistress. The girl winced at the sound of her true first name. Spots appeared in her vision and she got a small headache, like someone had jabbed the back of her head.

‘They are.’

‘How close?’

‘They’re here.’ Beith stepped back, and the boy rushed through the gap into a small, treeless circle. There was a fire under there, with a steaming pot sitting on top.

A woman sat behind it, stirring and watching. Her face was veiled by the steam, but she had a long nose, red and grey hair tied in a bun, and shadows sitting on her eyes.

‘Three witches walked into the valley, hoping to find a baby of the king,’ she said to the boy.

‘What?’ he said.

‘It’s a story. She’ll tell it while you eat. Mistress tells great stories,’ said Beith. She sat on a log and picked a wooden bowl from off the ground. She filled it with steaming soup, passed it to the boy, then took out a loaf of bread. The boy sat on a log, already drinking from the bowl. ‘She used to be a poet for the River King.’

‘I have seen the River King’s poets. I haven’t ever seen one like you.’ The man said this, stepping into the ring of trees. He saw the fire and the old woman and the boy drinking soup straight from the bowl. He took a step back. He was twisting his cracked fingers round each other, shaking from hunger and nerves.

He was weak, and afraid. ‘Bread, sir?’ asked Beith, offering a slice.

‘N-no thank you,’ he replied.

‘With butter?’

The man took the bread slowly, and bit it as he sat down. Mistress Dearg cleared her throat. Her voice was rough as a fox’s tongue, and her teeth were still sharp. The fire flickered.

‘Nine years ago, on Samhain night, when ghosts slip into our world and doors open to the good folk, three witches walked to the river Sionnan, hoping to find a baby of the River King. They needed to plant a curse inside the child, to grow as the key ingredient for a prophecy. They kept the old way of the old gods; herbs, hunting and poems. Old stories and true prophecies. Their favourite prophecy is this

‘‘The king’s child, born in the month of Samhain will die in the month of Samhain. When the child shall die, a dead god shall live.’ This dead god would eat the rest, leaving only them. The witches wanted a dead god back, one of their favourites. They would bring about an age of cold, when men would flee from the Ring Forts to deep caves, candlelight would never shine again, and fear would fall over the whole island of Eire.’ Beith’s mistress smiled a little at the thought, and sighed happily. Beith knew she loved these stories of old witch gods coming back. The boy and the man stared at the woman behind the steam, swallowing their soup.

‘The three witches reached the Ringfort, the chief fortress of the River Kingdom; a circle of raised earth, a ten foot wall of stones on top of that, houses and huts crammed inside, poorer family’s houses spilling outside the walls. Everyone hiding inside, pretending the forest wasn’t just to the east, it’s roots eating into the fort. Pretending the river wasn’t just to the west, both eating away at the fort's foundations. The largest house in the Ringfort was the King’s Hall, a lopsided stone building where the clan leaders of the River Kingdom gathered on holidays.

‘The witches snuck into the King’s Hall (one of the witches knew the fort’s secrets), to the prince’s crib. But, they found it empty,’ sighed Mistress Dearg. ‘The prince had already been traded. Not raised carefully to make a doorway for a great god, but quickly given away as a baby to an otherworld, swapped by that chief ‘druid’ of the king. That fool is barely more than a magician. He swapped a pure blooded prince and queen for a pretend boy and a little monster, to give little people nightmares.’

‘The king’s druid is not a fool, nor a magician, and his creature is not a ‘little monster’,’ replied the man. ‘This land’s part of the River Kingdom, and we’re not far from the Ringfort of the king. Show some respect.’ He looked angry and afraid, and deeply tired. The boy was half asleep already. ‘I was there when the king’s monster appeared. Our home was burnt to the ground in the fire. The monster is ten feet tall, it has a dozen arms, a body covered in thick hair, and it moves like a snake. It’s face has no eyes, but a mouth you could fit a child in. It weighs more than a bull.’

‘You think that’s not little?’ the old woman laughed, and stirred the soup. ‘Oh you wait. You wait. There’s more than boogiemen waiting to enter our world. But I’m getting ahead of myself. So the three witches got to the King’s Hall, and found the queen and prince already thrown into the River Sionnan. The Sionnan is the most potent source of power in the west of the world, and on Samhain night and the next four weeks of Samhain month, the River Sionnan is an important doorway. An important trading point, for those who know how to use it. Royal blood is priceless if offered to the good folk right. The druid didn’t offer it right. He got tricked by the other world, and threw away two royal lives. But worse than that, the three witches had wasted their time. They stood on the edge of the Ringfort, watching the monster rise from the Sionnan, run through the king’s bonfire, steal the fake prince, and escape to the forest, leaving the King’s Hall in flames. They watched people scream, and druids and warriors go mad, and flee into the forest or the river. The three witches warmed their hands on the flames, wondering what to do. Then, they heard a noise. Just under the sound of burning wood and stone, there was a baby crying.

‘The three witches watched as a man ran out of the burning King’s Hall, holding something wrapped in a blanket. As the warrior got closer to them, the baby’s screaming grew louder.

‘He stopped in front of the three witches (who he thought must be three kind old women, looking sad at the king’s house burning), and handed the red haired witch the baby.

‘What is that?’ asked the first witch quietly.

‘That’s a sacrifice for the king,’ said the warrior. ‘The king doesn’t want it, but Lord Druid got one just in case he changed his mind.’

‘That’s a child,’ said the second witch.

‘Yes, but it’s a sacrifice for the king, too.’ The warrior turned back to look at the fort burn. The three women each gave the baby a squeeze, smiling hungrily.

‘So... this would be the king’s child? In a sense?’ asked the red haired witch.

‘She is, so be careful with her. She’s royal property, and he doesn’t need to be losing anything else tonight.’

‘The warrior turned around to find the three women gone. There was neither sight nor sound of the baby. ‘Oh no.’

East of the Ringfort, the witches rushed uphill along the hidden witch’s path. They would have been skipping if they could.

‘It’s a fine solid baby too. All the better for making a nice solid curse,’ said the red haired woman, bouncing the child on her hip.

‘She’s more than we hoped for. A king’s child who almost no one in the world could be looking for? One that probably burned up in the fire and was forgotten? A gift, truly this child is a gift,’ said the first witch, tickling the baby’s chins.

‘Yes, and it seems quite quiet and peaceful. That’ll help you raise it, Mistress D.’ Mistress D, who was the red haired witch, stopped in her tracks.

‘Raise it? Me? You mean you’re raising it,’ said Mistress D, starting to snarl. ‘You’re the one who always raises the curses. My kind are solitary.’

‘Foxes raise pups,’ replied the second witch. ‘And the king’s man handed the curse to you. That’s a sign.’

‘It’s not ideal, but it’s true. You were chosen,’ said the first witch.

Mistress D looked at the baby in her arms. ‘In the deepest darkest underworld I would never raise this child.’

‘Not a child. A curse Sighle,’ said the first witch, and at her name Sighle went rigid and cold as she realised she was having her true name used against her.

‘Don’t do this Oiche!’

‘I wish I didn’t have to. I have never used your name against you before Sighle. But I have yours and you don’t have mine, yet.’

‘But I’m no mother! I’m cold as a stone’s tit, ye know that. Don’t leave a child with me, it won’t survive breakfast,’ said Mistress D.

‘Leave a child with you? Never. But a curse? The most important curse in all the history of Eire’s isle? You might not be a mother, but you are an excellent curse keeper Mistress D,’ said the first witch.

‘Well it might be a bloody important curse, but it’s also a child!’ hissed Mistress Dearg, glancing down to see tears welling in the baby’s eyes. She looked up to find both witches gone, and herself alone on the path except for three stray foxes and one badger. ‘Oh, it’s not so nice when it happens to me.’ She looked back into the baby’s eyes. ‘To us. Oh truly you are a curse girl.’ The curse had a head of brown curls. She began to cry, properly. The foxes and the badger fled.

‘Mistress D took the curse away from the King’s Ringfort and the Sionnan valley, to live on the edge of the River Kingdom, until the curse was mature enough to open the river for a god, and leave everything changed.’

‘And that is the tale of the girl who was a curse, and the fake prince,’ finished Mistress Dearg.

The man and boy shivered. Beith yawned.

‘Don’t yawn child, this is an important story about the child of the king,’ said Mistress Dearg. ‘You should listen. Carefully.’

‘But you’re always going on about some dead, cold bog god, or winter wind goddess. They strip trees from the land and send the birds fleeing our shores. But I like trees. I really like birds,’ said Beith.

‘Disgraceful. No respect for tradition. Do you know this whole forest, this whole island used to be bare? Covered in mosses, deserts, lakes, bogs,’ sighed Mistress Dearg. ‘Just imagine how magical it was.’

‘You don’t talk like a poet of the River King,’ said the man.

‘Well of course I didn’t tell him tales like this! I told him tales about his gods. The Dagda, the Sionnan (and how witches told tales of capturing and binding her), Mac Lir of course -’

‘The Morrigan?’ asked the boy sleepily. The fire dimmed to red embers. The man and Mistress Dearg turned to the boy. Their eyes went from him to the bare branches above, as if expecting something. Beith didn’t know what they were waiting for, so she stared into the treetops too. One name had silenced the chatter. The Morrigan.

After a minute a cloud drifted in front of the moon and darkness fell over the forest. Everyone sighed and relaxed, even Beith who didn’t know why they were worried in the first place. The man smacked the boy on the back of his head, and Mistress Dearg hissed at him.

‘Stupid child. Using Herself’s name in vain like that. Any passing crow or rook could bring that back to her,’ said Mistress Dearg.

Mistress Dearg wasn’t interested in the story anymore, Beith could tell from her eyes. Now she was interested in how much sleeping potion she’d put in the soup, and how long it would take before the man was as sleepy as the boy.

Beith hadn’t been interested in the story either, but had been staring into the fire, thinking about the Morrigan. Something about the name caught in her mind. The boy had seemed to want to talk about it. 

‘I’ve heard about the birth of the king’s monster before, many times,’ said the man. ‘But only ever about Isc McCiuin, the fake prince. I heard that the prince and the queen fell into the river by mistake, and when they came out again, the queen was gone, a monster in her place, and one of the other crowd disguised as the baby prince. I’ve never heard about a cursed girl before.’

‘No, no one knows that part of the story. Everyone looks in the wrong place,’ said Mistress Dearg, poking the fire to keep it lively.

‘When I was above you in the trees, I heard you mention a temple? Was it a temple to Herself? The goddess you won’t name?’ asked Beith. The man went white, looked at his feet, and shook his head ‘no’. But the boy looked up, and sleepily nodded.

‘Up and over the hill from the Silvermines. We had to pass by a hill where a demon clan lived. We were looking for a very special place,’ he said. The man gave him a dirty look, but the boy didn’t notice. ‘A temple to Herself, indeed. You heard of Her before?’

‘No,’ replied Beith, her big eyes widening until her face was almost all eye. She picked up her own soup (sleeping potion and poison free) and drank a bit, leaning forward.

‘Don’t worry your head about Herself, girleen. I don’t say her name, I don’t think her name, even. A more vicious goddess you couldn’t attract the attention of,’ said the man.

‘But what’s she goddess of?’ asked Beith.

‘What did I just say?’ asked the man.

‘Yeah, but I don’t know anything about her,’ replied Beith. ‘I have to find out about her before I can not think about her properly.’

‘That’s a good point,’ replied the boy, ignoring that it was a terrible point. ‘She’s the goddess of battlefields, of rage, of pain, of panic and victory. Of death, and the struggle to live.’

‘Goddess of death and life,’ said Beith slowly.

‘She is,’ said the boy. ‘She foretold the great hero Cu Chulainn’s death, washing clothes at the side of a river. She can make a prince a pauper and a slave an emperor, if she takes her mind to it.’

‘And she can turn living people into bird food as well,’ added Mistress Dearg, not liking how big and impressed Beith’s eyes were becoming.

‘She sounds like she can do so many things,’ said Beith, fishing for more knowledge.

‘Oh, she can. That’s because Herself isn’t really one goddess. She’s actually three; Badbh-’

‘Don’t mention the three names here you idiot!’ said Mistress Dearg, her stirring hand pulling the ladle out of the soup and pointing it threateningly at him.

‘Aye, that’s not a good idea,’ said the man. He would have kicked the boy’s leg, but he felt too tired. He yawned and stretched instead. ‘Especially after what we did to her temple.’

‘What did you do to her temple?’ asked Beith. ‘Did you wreck it?’

‘No, we didn’t wreck it! We weren’t the ones who drove the priestesses out, that was the King’s druid and his monster. We- uh, what did we do?’ asked the man, his eyes drooping as his mouth went slack. ‘Oh yeah, we robbed- we robbed iiiiitt.’ As he finished his sentence, he fell backwards off the log, and landed next to the boy, who was already on the ground, fast asleep.

Mistress Dearg stood up, shuffled around the fire, and poked the boy with her shoe. ‘Hmmph. Good thing the sleeping brew worked eventually. I don’t like how this one throws around Herself’s names like that. Silly thing to do, even with the crows gone from the riverlands.’ She bent and began to search through the men’s bags. ‘And silly thing for you to ask about Herself too. And you yawned during my story? You little prick. Anyway, you wouldn’t want to be in Herself’s sight, Beith. She has six eyes for one thing, and she’s a flighty young thing too. From the latest wave of gods and men; the fifth, I think. Truly a dangerous goddess.’

‘She sounds dangerous alright,’ said Beith admiringly, jumping up and searching through the other man’s bag. She found a cup, heavy and smooth as only a few other things she’d touched in her life were. ‘Ah, silver!’

‘I found some too. I guess they weren’t lying about the temple,’ said Mistress Dearg, holding a silver necklace, the linked chains in the shape of feathers. ‘Risky thing to raid Herself’s temple, even if it was abandoned. But Gods, Herself’s jewellery is always awful nice.’

Beith’s hand found something else which felt awful nice in the first man’s pocket. It was a ring, and Beith could tell it was silver from it’s weight. There were three smooth rocks set into it’s front, and it had ogham script scratched into it.

Beith slipped it into her sleeve, and pulled out the rest of the loot. There were three plates, two cups, a dagger, and another chain.

‘It’s all silver or iron Mistress,’ said Beith, laying the gifts in front of her. The fire had gone out. Mistress Dearg snatched up a cup, holding it up to the moonlight and tapping it with her fingernail.

‘Tis. Mistress Oiche will like this,’ said Mistress Dearg.

‘What?’ asked Beith, her mind still half on the cold ring she’d hidden next to her wrist.

‘Oh, I didn’t tell you,’ Mistress Dearg said, walking away from the men and the fire, the treasure now disappeared inside her cloak. ‘I’m having two friends visit tonight.’

Beith picked up the soup pot and the rest of the fried bread and followed her mistress. They walked south out of the holly trees and between two hills to another little hollow. On each tree they passed there was a spot of reddish brown. Beith knew they were fox ears, pinned to the bark. Beith looked back at the two sleeping men, foxes gathering around them. She turned away and thought about what her mistress had said about visitors.

Having visitors was more than strange for Beith, who had only ever spoken to outsiders while hunting them, to track them and lure them to the fireside. ‘Where are you meeting them?’

‘They’re coming to the house. In fact, I believe the two of them are there right now,’ said Mistress Dearg. Beith had never seen anybody else besides herself and her Mistress within the four walls of their cottage. ‘And be polite Beith. These are my sisters, and your fosterers.’

Beith nodded, though she wasn’t sure what that meant. Were they family then? Beith had always wanted something more like a family, like the local squirrels had. Mistress Dearg was a bit like her mam, or grandmother, so Beith imagined these two women as her aunts.

As they approached the ivy-covered cottage, Beith saw that there was red firelight coming from within. She felt shy so snuck into the house in Mistress Dearg’s shadow, clinging to her cloak. But Beith smiled too as she imagined her two rosy cheeked, kindly aunts.

The two women sat behind a fire, their hoods pulled over their eyes. They had black lines across their cheeks. One held a frog. The other held a knife.

‘Ah. Look at you,’ said the woman holding the frog. Her hood was wolf fur. ‘Just look at you. How you’ve grown.’

‘Mistress Cu, you honour our fireside,’ said Mistress Dearg.

‘Yes, you honour our fireside,’ muttered Beith, wishing she could scooch deeper into the shadows.

‘Come here, you.’ The woman with a knife spoke in a whisper, but the other two women leaned in to hear, so Beith leant forward without thinking. ‘Sit with me.’

Scuttling over to her side, Beith knelt. Beith didn’t realise then how strange it was that she didn’t think about moving, how she was just drawn to the woman’s voice.

‘Mistress Oiche, you honour our fireside,’ said Mistress Dearg.

‘You honour our fireside,’ mumbled Beith.

‘Thank you,’ said Mistress Oiche. Sitting in front of the woman, Beith could now look up into her eyes. They were green and yellow, and glittering. Other, smaller eyes peered from the hair under her hood. ‘Let me read your palm.’ Beith offered her right arm (while tilting her left so that the ring fell down her front). The woman grabbed her right hand and began turning it over, pulling on her fingers and rubbing the lines on her palm. ‘You’re growing well.’

‘I’m almost two foxes long now,’ replied Beith.

‘Well that’s not exactly what I mean, but you are getting nice and tall too,’ said Mistress Oiche.

‘What exactly did you mean?’ asked Beith.

Mistress Oiche took Beith’s left hand and began inspecting that palm. ‘I mean inside. You’re growing well inside. You’re filling up,’ said Mistress Oiche with a smile. ‘And filling out. You’re almost ripe.’

Beith didn’t know what to say to this, so mumbled ‘thank you.’

Mistress Oiche grabbed her left wrist and paused. ‘Hmm. This is strange. And wrong.’ Beith was worried that Mistress Oiche had sensed the ring she’d slipped into her dress. If Beith embarrassed Mistress Dearg in front of her sisters then surely that would mean at least a beating.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Beith, about to admit to keeping the ring.

‘You shouldn’t be sorry child. The person who taught you how to change form should be sorry,’ replied Mistress Oiche. Oiche and Cu both turned to Mistress Dearg, who was chewing on her nails.

‘What? You don’t think I taught her tricks of form do you?’ asked Mistress Dearg, her mouth wide in shock.

‘...did you?’ asked Cu.

‘Ah yeah, I did,’ admitted Mistress Dearg, going back to biting her nails. ‘I had to, so that the foxes would trust her. They don’t like humans who can only stay in human. They wouldn’t stick around if I hadn’t taught Beith the tricks.’

‘It has been named. And its name is... Beith,’ said Mistress Oiche slowly. Her hand squeezed Beith’s wrist.

‘She needed a name Oiche,’ said Mistress Dearg. ‘How was I supposed to call