A Flavour of The Learn

“What is Fire Keeper?” She looks at me for a few moments, saying nothing, then starts a Chant, singing; the voice is beautiful, a range high and deep, mead flowing warm, many words I do not understand, but she sings of fire, of her lore, her love, she-he has been taught and oathed to keep fire through winter and summer, never to let the fires die; people come to her for fire if glowing embers in their dwell darken, are lost, she feeds the fire spirits, keeps warmth, singing the Chants. She, or is it he, sings to me now of cold winters when water hardened in the seas, when the great waterfall became rock, when people died, many dwell came to an end fell down and were lost in the wind; she Chants of Druidii ancestors who made Fire Keepers, never to lose fire, to be there for all, to be shared.

Stopping and waiting, she calmly takes her breath into herself, slowing its efforts; she asks that if I pass this way again, I make an offering of gathering wood, then tells me tales having fire to light fire, when peoples of the hills lost theirs in storms or when angry spirits drove water and wind into their dwell. She finishes becoming quiet, we sit and listen to the place; after time, she starts to Chant again singing of charcoal, how to make it from wood in the earth, what trees to choose, how charcoal is used to make Druid’s Fire, hot fire that lets metal come from stone. Taking my hand, hers rough and black grey, leading me up the steep hill behind into trees she shows me a great stone