Carolingia, we have received word of your desires. Agatha has told us of your wish to honor us with a great feast. It is good and right to honor mighty Bheithir. We have also been told that you would have us eat and drink our fill. Have a care, for this is a dangerous offer. The least of us will eat a cow in one bite, and each of our aurochs horns can hold the river Boyne. And we are many. No sheep, goat, cow, fish or keg of mead would be left in all your land.

Samhain is upon us. The days grow short and the wind grows cold. Herne the Hunter will soon ride. He will pay the winter little mind as he travels Annwn, toward battle with Arawn. But folk such as you should be tending your hearths and chimneys in preparation for the coming winter. We see your minds are elsewhere.

You issue a challenge for Beltain. Does the return of the Young God make you bold? Meeting and inevitably failing this test, you will not be born with new life. Your bodies will fall to the dirt and not have, but give life on this day of fertility. Your name will not be Jack, but John, feeding fields sewn with barley and corn.

You ask if we are bold? What would you know of boldness? Speak not on that of which you know naught. Speak of Bheithir only with a tongue guided by awe, reverence, or wiser still, fear.

We see envy consumes you. The weak always envy the strong. If we were to swat at every fly that buzzes at our ears, how would we have time to perform the weighty work of heroes?

Our deeds are sung in epics for Bards to sing at hearths and around cook fires till time and earth are gone. The last poem ever to be heard in Eire, carried by the final breath of the last Bard, spoken to kin all long dead just before the sky falls and the world crumbles to dust will sing of mighty Bheithir. Its last note will echo in the void after all else is gone. Every day from this day to that, warriors will raise their horns in praise of mighty Bheithir.

Do not draw our attention. If we were to take note of you, we would surely laugh at your deeds as the antics of children.

In living memory there is a tale of a great war far to the west. Many worthy Clans traveled far from kith and kin, over sea and burren from the ends of the world to do honorable battle upon the Pitch. What terrible price was paid by all who opposed Bheithir that day.

But where were the warriors of Carolingia? Their boasts and challenges still rung fresh in the ears of heroes upon the Pitch, but the fianchluiche was not to happen.

What obstacle could have come before Carolingia to prevent their appearance? Could they have started the journey, ignorant of their assured doom, only to become lost along the way? Would any but children lose their path on the way to battle?

Heroes do not bother with children, unless it is to teach them lessons. What clan wishes to seek favor with Bheithir? Does Carolingia wish to send Agatha and its other children to us for instruction? Perhaps you could be useful rather than a buzzing nuisance. Fetch us water to quench our thirst, keep our Camans oiled with linseed, tighten the stitches of our sliotars and in time we may take note of you. There are many that seek our favor, but if you are diligent in our service, perhaps, though unlikely, you will gain it.

Or perhaps it is fear? Could your legs have been frozen in place, though there was no snow or ice? Nay, not ice to catch and hold a foot. No surer thing will stay a child than fear. Was it fear? Did you for but a moment contemplate your fate in this endeavor? And did you shake and tremble? Did you run and hide and seek safety under the protection of your betters?

We too celebrate Beltain, in the proper way, with a hero’s Quest. Such great deeds are done that the like of them has not been seen in the world since the wresting of Gog-Mac-Og by Bran or the ripping of the Giants Causeway from the womb of the earth with naught but Fionn MacCumhail’s bare hands. During this Quest we are merry and more amiable to witless peasants who would seek us.

Perhaps you will desire to be awed by Quest and you will not lose your way or become crippled with fear. Would you set foot upon the Hurling field? No god or man will have remembered such a rout. We will descend upon the Pitch, defeat and scatter your raw and untested Carolingians like yearling bucks before the King Stag.

Visit your seers and receive the inevitable prognostication of doom if you continue upon this path of recklessness and folly. Hear these words Carolingia and despair.