The old woman glanced around the hall, as if taking in exactly who was present and what might suit their need for learning. “I will not dwell on the problems of humankind,” said Willow. “I will tell a tale that belongs principally to the realm of the Fair Folk. You know of Mac Dara, the powerful prince of the Tuatha De Danann. I hope it will not shock the young folk here if I tell you that individuals like Mac Dara father children in the human world from time to time. And it’s not just the princes who get up to such antics. The fair ladies of the Tuatha De oft-times have their dalliance with human men and bear the fruits of it. Sometimes they act thus to gain a lever by which they can make mortals such as your fine selves dance to their tunes. Sometimes it’s for love, but such a passion fades all too quickly. What woman wants a lover who’ll be wrinkled and gray and bent while she is still in the fragrant blush of youth? Sometimes it’s for the simplest of reasons. The Fair Folk don’t breed easily among their own kind. The surest way to conceive a child is to couple with a young and healthy mortal.

“This tale deals with such goings-on. It tells of the particular curse that lies over those whose ancestry is both fairy and mortal. Of course, the family of Sevenwaters has some knowledge of that already.”

She must be talking about Ciarán, whose father had been Lord Colum of Sevenwaters, my great-grandfather, and whose mother had been a sorceress descended through a dark line of the Fair Folk. The old woman seemed to know a lot about us.

“We won’t speak of Mac Dara himself,” Willow went on. “He’s too shadowy and troublesome a character by far. Let’s start with a lovely lady, we’ll call her Albha, who had long hankered for a child of her own, a baby to love and nurture and dress up in cobweb and gossamer and swansdown, the sort of garments favored by the folk of the Tuatha De. Now the Fair Folk, as you must well know, are not renowned for their finer feelings. They’ve little capacity for love or forgiveness, loyalty or compassion. They do know desire, jealousy, anger and pride. Should they conceive a will to possess a thing, they pursue it with all their considerable power. Should they lose a prize, they exercise the same single-mindedness. The Tuatha De don’t like to be thwarted. They can’t abide coming out second best.