A Peek Beneath the Duct Tape: Ethna Redux

I was first introduced to the ancient Irish fairy tale of "Ethna the Bride" through an e-mail conversation that veered from Oscar Wilde to supernatural MC and back to Oscar's fairy-tale-writing mother, Lady Wilde. Her version of the story, for any of you that haven't gotten around to reading it yet, is here.

My first thought, on reading Lady Wilde's version, was, "Wow, those mysterious mid-air voices were almost too helpful, weren't they?" And close behind that came, "I wonder if Ethna was really all that glad to be rescued from a life of ecstatic, immortal slavery."

Then, of course, my authorial gears started turning. It didn't take me long to wonder if there might be some other fairy close to Finvarra - a wife, perhaps - who could take an interest in Ethna and steal her back again, this time for good. So I did some online research; and lo and behold, I discovered that not only did Finvarra have a wife, but she was a goddess! Even better, she had her own separate fairy mound far, far away from her husband's.

At first I thought Oonagh's mound was Knocksheegowna, an actual mountain on the far side of Ireland from Knockma. You can imagine how that tickled me. I even found a lovely panoramic image of the view from the summit here, which I can't resist sharing even now that I know it's not Oonagh's mound, just because it's so lovely. I wrote the first draft of Ethna Redux with Kerovan confronting Oonagh at Knocksheegowna, so it's a good thing I had sara castle to fact-check me (and a good thing I had Lady K to catch another embarassing error). Damn, what a difference a single letter makes! Oonagh's actual mound, Knockshegowna (with one "e") is in Tipperary and is, in fact, only a couple of hundred feet taller than Knockma. But hey, at least it is taller. ;-)

As I said in a previous entry, I modeled Finvarra in large part on Cluracan as depicted by Neil Gaiman in the Sandman series, and also on fetish model Perish. There's also a hint of the Galadriel-Celeborn dynamic in Finvarra's relationship with Oonagh. I've always had the idea, in reading The Lord of the Rings, that Tolkien wanted to give Galadriel a mate who was her equal; but he just couldn't do it. Galadriel is just too glorious to have any equal. Celeborn comes across as a mere hanger-on.

As for Oonagh, details online were scant, but I used everything I could find: the hair, the rainbows, the dewdrop gown - even her reputation for devotion, though I had to pervert that one a bit. ;-) Unfortunately, I couldn't find any images of her that weren't a) inaccurate, b) incredibly cheesy, or c) both; so you'll have to content yourself with the painting of the legendary Celtic queen Medb (a.k.a. Maeve) at left above. I actually did have this image in mind when I wrote the "Bride, meet wife" scene. Medb's attitude here is pretty much what I imagine Oonagh's to have been, and Medb was famously insatiable in bed.

Interestingly enough, Medb is said to be buried atop Finvarra's mound. Funny how these things work out.

And now for Kerovan. First of all, I dredged his name from another, longer version of the Ethna story that I found during my online research. This version is incomplete because it's just excerpts from a book Google is trying to sell you; but if you're interested in having a peek, click here. Anyway, I didn't find anything else in this version that I wanted to use besides the hero's name; the rest of it was just too sappy.

But again, about that hero....Once I really delved into the story, I found myself admiring Kerovan too much to just dump him by the side of the road like I do with most of my other so-called heroes. Kerovan is the real deal. He's very much a product of his time; but he's a good, brave man who will go to any lengths necessary to free Ethna from slavery. He just doesn't understand that slavery is what she really wants.

Oh, and by the way, that's not something I made up for the story just because I liked the idea. You can see Ethna's essential passivity even in Lady Wilde's version of the tale. In fact, she's so passive that I had a hard time making a heroine of her at all, though I did my best. Just as I did with Kerovan. That's why I left his final decision entirely in your hands. Whatever you want for him is what he gets. He deserves it.