When called upon to speak, Cwen always said things as they came to her. Even for her, it was sometimes hard to tell whether they were utterings from her own mind or direct dictation by the goddess. She absorbed things through her skin, out there on her island. She saw what the birds were up to, watched the fish beneath the water, and when the northern geese arrived too soon, or the gorse flowered late, or lobsters were thrown up on to the shore, she warned the islanders opposite; reminded them what to do.

The goddess has many names now: Bridgit, Mary, Freya. In Cwen’s day, she was Anu. Nowadays, when they are wrapped up together in the warm black womb of the mound, Cwen and the histories are Anu. Before, when the islanders opposite brought offerings, the flowers were for Anu, and the metal was for Spring. But Cwen got the food, and the sheepskin to sleep on. It was only wise to keep the goddess’s mouthpiece warm through the winter.

It was Cwen’s father who taught her how to snare animals and catch birds with a string – the rabbit-breathing, fox-walking, bird-weaving. He taught her the best way to dig a furrow for potatoes, and the only way to make a poultice for milk-fever. How to extract medicines and poisons, which are often the same thing, differently administered. What would grow on the island, and what could be scooped out of its waters. The blue fallen stars, with their long stinging tentacles.

She asked to be taught, along with her brothers, but he would have shown her anyway.

Later, he said, of the islanders opposite, When they come over, you must always give them something. Even if you know they don’t need it. If you aren’t sure which thing, give them both; and never forget the prayers.

He put his new metal divining rods into her hands, before he died, and his piece of amber the size of a hen egg, and all the herbs and roots he had collected for three times as long as she had been alive. He had been taught by his father, who had been taught by his mother, and so on. It was still not clear whom Cwen was to teach. This was the last thing on his mind as he died.

Cwen blows on the water, making the waves erase a bit of her island. The waters creep higher. She feels them. She feels this too: that she is waiting. She is waiting for someone.

This small island in the Britannic Ocean, called Sena, is inhabited by nine virgin prophetesses ... who stir up the seas and the winds by their magic charms ... and know and predict the future.

Pomponius Mela, Description of the World (Latin), AD 43

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Alice