First brother backs up onto the shore, checking his feet to make sure they haven’t turned into trotters or something worse. Waits with his heart in his mouth. Nobody’s told him this will work. It’s just the only thing he can think of to set this right. You can’t eat your own brother for the midwinter feast.

Long wait. He’s thinking they’ve both drowned, and he’ll get charged with murder, when there’s a thrashing and a splashing out there and ah! There’s the boar swimming back to shore and oh! There’s the second brother coming after, gasping out, Morrigan’s curse, it’s freezing in here!

The boar gets out first, shakes himself, rolls around in the dirt a bit, snuffles and grunts as pigs do. The brother comes next, and the first thing he does is hug his brother and say Thank you, Brother, thank you! Oh gods, I’m never setting foot in this place again as long as I live!

First brother gets out the rest of the cheese from his pocket and gives it to the boar, and they all walk home. He doesn’t put the boar back in the fattening sty, but out in the field with the sows, who greet him like a long lost hero. By the next day, that boar’s doing what he’s supposed to do with the ladies, and folk start talking about roasting a sheep for the midwinter feast. As for the second brother’s sudden return to himself, everyone welcomes it, but nobody talks about it. The brothers don’t tell the whole story to many. Only the local wise woman, and their mother, and later their wives. But after that day, folk go carefully in Dreamer’s Wood. And they make sure they never set foot – or trotter – in the water of Dreamer’s Pool.

It’s a good tale, if odd, and the old lady tells it well. Has to stop and cough now and then, and folk wait for her to take a drink and collect herself. Sounds too poorly to be out of bed. But it’s plain she wants to be here by the fire, family all around, sharing the story. Comes to me that if I was dying, this is how I’d like to go. Love, music, family, tales. Not much chance of that.

Blackthorn’s been looking at me on and off during the story, and me at her, both of us trying to work out if it’s any help to us. Later on, when the travelling folk are abed and the fire’s died down, we talk about it. They’ve moved things around to make space for us in a cart. Given us blankets. Rain’s come at last, so we can’t sleep beside the fire.