He pulled the iron slab out from the forge with his tongs and laid it across his anvil. The orange-yellow glow of the hot metal dimly illuminated the dark room he worked in, and he could feel the fresh heat it gave off on his skin. The smell of the metal and the burning hearth filled his nostrils.

His hammer descended upon the heated metal, ringing loudly in his ears. Again and again, he brought the hammer down as he wrought it into shape, and after the metal began naturally cooling to a dull red, he returned the slab to the forge to re-heat. The cycle then repeated - the sharp smells, the heat on his sweat-soaked skin, the loud clamouring of metal on metal.

Finally satisfied with its shape, he thrust the freshly shaped metal into the quenching bucket. It would rapidly cool the metal to make it hard but also brittle. To strengthen it, he would need to temper the metal by heating it again to temperatures suited to the tool's intended use; Lower temperatures for tools with higher hardness and higher temperatures for tools requiring higher toughness. After adjusting the airflow into the forge, he placed the work and a small collection of identical others back into the heat. He maintained the right airflow and fuel going into the hearth and watched them as they heated.

It was hours later when he noticed the light around the gaps in the wooden door of the smithy beginning to fade. The end of the day was approaching. He removed the ironworks from the forge and set them up on racks to cool in the air. Tomorrow he would continue on them: adding handles, filing down the pits on the metal, then sharpening their double-edged sides to a mirror's edge. They were to be swords of fine quality.

Wiping his dirty hands and face with a cloth, he gathered his pack and exited the smithy. Outside, the air was much cooler, and a shiver ran through him from the sudden change. When he turned his face skyward, he saw that stars had already appeared, and the dark of the night approached. Compared to the heat of the flames, peering up at the great expanse felt like a cold cloth against his face, and he sighed deeply in relief.

"Farren! Ye swords coming along?" asked a voice to his right.

"They're coming. Be ready come fullmoon sure."

"Cheers then. A cool night upon us. Stay safe. Take care."

He returned the farewell and began the walk back to his dwelling. It was a straightforward path, but he opted to take a more meandering route through the patches of trees that still stood. The forest had been mighty once, tall and wide its trees had been. Many had been felled to build the village, and he knew many more were to fall. He breathed deeply from the scents it still harboured as he walked through, savouring the cool, earthly smells after breathing fumes at the forge all day.

As he moved deeper into the woods, the birds did not fly away from him. One of them, totally unafraid, landed on his arm. This had happened before, and when he first came to this place, he had found it wonderful. It was now met with mixed feelings; man's place in the natural world was changing, and so were their attitudes. He often brushed them away, but this time he looked at it carefully, partly because its fragility brought to mind his losses and partly because he missed those days of the past.

Gingerly he raised an arm, bringing it closer to his eyes. He could smell its dusty smell and see its mites running along its feathers. The little creature was so delicate that it brought to mind another, older reality with different laws of life and more fragile meanings. He watched its tiny, sparkling eyes turn this way and that. And suddenly, as it had come, the bird flitted away and was gone.

Silent and now alone, he continued trudging. In the range behind the trees, he could glimpse the lights from not-so-distant houses, their warmth beaconing him from across nightfall's dark and chilly ground.

He opened the door to his home and entered.

"Ah, is it yourself, love?" he heard her say.

"It is."

His wife appeared to him, and like all beautiful, short-lived things, he could still not help but stop and stare. Her hair was unlike most he had seen; it was an earthly auburn hue that, when struck by the revolving sun after spending the summer season lightning in its rare splendour, became the colour of copper. Presently braided in an intricate pattern, they coiled like skillfully laid metal around her head. Her eyes were of a clear blue that reminded him of the titanic glaciers that still covered parts of the world. So deep and filled with emotion, he found them. Freckles dotted her nose like fading stars in a morning sky, and the crescent scar on her face was like the waning moon. She was tall for a woman, strong and brave. She had put down the shield and spear after they settled, but the fiery spirit in her had not abated, and she still insisted on the right to hunt. Much like those made by her people, her tunic and belt were as colourful as her love for her kin.

"Da!" came the shouts of children rushing towards him. One was a light-haired girl, the other a dark-haired boy. They had adopted the girl after her parents were slain in a raid as an infant. She was a bright girl, only in her fifth year, yet possessed a voracious appetite for the raw world, much like her adopted mother. The boy was approaching ten, the son of a local chieftain they had agreed to foster to learn both trade and the land. Meeker than his live-sister, he instead was fascinated by the principles of governance. Studious as he was, he had also been learning to fight, as was expected.

He kissed their heads warmly.

"Come ye, wash up. Food is ready," his wife reminded them.

The smell of the cooking was fully apparent to him, and his stomach gave an audible grumble. "What have you made?" he asked.

"Honey'd salmon. I brang fish from stream earlier."

"Ah, praise thee, woman!" He turned to the children. "Listen to your ma. There we go now," he said, herding them to the water basin to wash their hands.

"But why do we wash, da? Animals eat with hands unwashed and food uncooked," asked the girl.

"Important it is to us. Sicknesses befall ye if ye don't, with all manner of malady. Go now."

He rubbed rough sand and clay over his hands to remove any residue from the earlier work in the smithy, then washed them thoroughly in the prepared water and soap. He was drying them when he heard a loud knocking at their door.

He opened it, and before the threshold stood a familiar bearded and aging druid clad in a long white robe, looking more than a little inebriated. Ballar was the druid's name, a possessor of great knowledge of the land and its people. This was not the first time the druid had found himself in a stupor on the doorstep of their home.

"Ballar! Welcome. Are you hungry? Come in."

"Farren!" the druid exclaimed a little too loudly as he stumbled into the home. "We are, we are. There is a bellyache in us; simple gruel is enough."

"We've salmon uneaten, are you sure?

"Please, simple porridge is all we need," the druid insisted, but a call was made out to the clan to prepare an extra plate.

As he slowly guided the swaying druid to the table, he noticed that the children had quickly set it with their good tableware, much to his relief. His wife, too, had reappeared in quick fashion, wearing adornments around her toned arms and an elegant golden torc necklace, once bestowed upon her for extraordinary courage. The children waited till the druid sat before sitting.

"Accept my excuse," Ballar told them assembled, "we have had a long day, and we felt the warmth of your home over the hills call to us, it did. This abode never fails warming our old bones…" He must have had too much to drink, for he trailed off slightly, then asked in a hushed tone as if remembering something, "do you have mead at all at all?"

"We do. Let me fetch it."

"He has drink in him," he whispered to his wife while she readied the plates, "I'll fetch the mead."

He fetched a tank of the mead from the shed outdoors and returned. The tank was cold from the outside air in his hands; it was to be a satisfying draught within the warm room. When he returned, he had caught the druid in the middle of recounting an amusing story for the children, and Ballar uttered a slurred thanks before continuing. "-look over here, says he. Look where? says I. Here in my hand, says he…."

He helped his wife set the rest of the food on the table before sitting last. All famished, they dug in. A glaze of honey had been mixed with garlic, vinegar and fish sauce and then added to the fatty-rich salmon. Root vegetables had been roasted and mixed with some wild nuts and fresh berries. It was an exquisite meal, and they all ate in near silence, too preoccupied with enjoying the food to talk.

"That's fine so," the druid nearly purred, glad to fill his stomach with something of great substance.

"Isn't she superb at it?" he remarked, winking to his wife. She smiled radiantly and nodded back to him appreciatively.

After the meal was over and bellies were full, the children excused themselves, and his wife cleared the table, leaving Ballar and himself alone. The druid had come to talk.

"They have bright eyes on them, full of good health, they are," Ballar said in a hushed tone, watching them retreat from the table. "We travelled from the Nèill's on this day, we did. They've laid their daughter and mother into the ground since the new moon," the druid said, sorrowful. "We delivered the mother herself when we were a novice. Returned to the earth too soon, they have." He shook his head. "But that's not why we are here. We have a dream undelivered. Came to us after the last moonless sky; We've come to tell it. Let us sit by the fire," he said to him, and the two of them moved to sit nearer.

He suspected Ballar was quickly growing sober in his company, as he often did, and the lines on his aging face grew deeper despite the fresh mead. The druid pulled out a long pipe from somewhere in his cloak and a small pouch of some strong-smelling dried herb. After he packed the bowl with the leaves, he lit a small piece of bark in the roaring hearth and used it to light the bowl. With a few deep breaths, Ballar pulled the essence out of the leaves and through the pipe. Great clouds of thick, white smoke billowed from his nose and bearded mouth as he exhaled slowly, enveloping him in its strong-smelling cloud. The druid closed his eyes for a moment, settled into himself, and then stared again into the flames as he recounted with perfect clarity the dream he had while the night sky shone with no face.

"First, there appeared the life-giving waters, then hallowed land merged. All the multitudes of animals and plants of the world rose from them, each in their rightful place. Every mountain, river, spring, marsh, and tree was inspirited as they were, proper and giving, forever turning on the spoked wheel. We were a mighty bíle tree at the center of the sacred wheel, thrust outside the vision of creatures on its edge but seeing all, unfelled and remaining unfelled forevermore. Our roots reached down to the core of the hub, and our tops to the limits of the sky where even birds reached not. With each passing season, we observed the movement of the creatures over and under, rising with life from the spokes and falling back in their due times.

"Men after on the spokes did they appear. They gathered themselves tribewise and settled in the green around us, they did. We saw the sky through our branches revolve in continuous motion, the sun, moon and stars tied in their eternal dance as we spun, from day to night and back again. During the day, we watched men rise from the ground and build great houses up around us, and at night they fell, and their bones with the wheel rejoined. This cycle repeated each day with each turn, like breathing never ceasing.

"One morning, we saw you in a broken currach on the shores. Arrived, you did, lonesome, you were. We watched you cross the green land and join the men building the great houses. But, after the moon's shadow passed darkly, you remained unrejoined and alone, and at nightfall repeated, alone you remained. You may think this an omen ill, but tell you I must: I saw this clan one season as they are now. The shadow passed over them, leaving you lonesome as in all other turns. I could not leave the center of the wheel; my sight could only extend between horizons such as I was, and it was with a strange and unfamiliar lament that I mourned your unnatural suffering, such as it was unending, unlike all others born from the wheel."

Startled by the words, he looked over and saw tears and confusion at the recollection in the old druid's eyes. There was tenderness in the dream not expressed with words but read from his face as he spoke. The druid had lost the profound understanding of the dreaming world while recounting it in the waking one but could still recall the feelings it generated.

"You remained, unmoved as you were, building the great houses of man. The houses grew taller daily, and after seasons blurred, they reached up to touch our furthest branches. The sky breached, we saw it - a mighty vessel arrived upon the wheel's shores waiting: not of wood but of iron, having no sails or oars. You joined it and departed; It moved through the waveless sea into the dark waters and finally disappeared over the horizon out of our view. We awoke."

The pipe had run empty, but the druid didn't move to refill it or empty its ash. The wind whistled outside, and the hearth's fire crackled the shared silence. Both sat thinking about the dream, pondering the significance and the hidden truths it revealed.

"It's time I departed, sure," Ballar broke, finally rising. "Our thanks for the warmth and the sumptuous repast." And with eyes both clear and blind, the druid reached over to him, clasped his arm and imparted: "May your heart be strong."

He bid a warm farewell to the rest of the clan before standing at the threshold to give his blessing. Once he was done, Ballar turned and departed into the dark night just as abrupt as he had come.

His wife, having observed the ominous exchange, asked about him. "I heard Ballar mumbling a while. What says he?"

"Just a dream," he replied, but he could not shake the unsettlement, and he rose and stepped outside into the brisk night air to think. Around the rear of the house was a bench he had fashioned, which faced the fields behind their home. He sat on the bench and stared into the dusky fields faintly illuminated by the full moon. They had planted barley and farro this year; the yield had been good. The animals had multiplied and grown well. The vegetables were plenty. They were held in esteem within the community, affording them additional privileges such as respect provided. They had another year of good health and wanted for little.

All was well, and he was happy.

Yet in the middle of the field sat a large, pale, heavy boulder, taller than him and as wide as a small house. Under it were buried possessions of his from a different age. He looked up at the stars, and the druid's dream returned to him all of what lay behind and beyond. As he continued to think, he felt himself spiralling ever downward; his thoughts squeezed in tighter and tighter circles between the exhaustion of all that he had passed and the paralyzing uncertainty of what was yet to happen.

Unable to break free from the direful whorl of his thoughts, he got up from the bench and went back inside. He found mother and daughter weaving at the loom jointly, each passing the loom's shuttle betwixt, each exchange slowly creating a colourful tapestry of patterns. Son was near, too, twisting the double threads for the warp. They sang together as they worked, and their chorus in his ears seemed sweeter than all the honey the wheel could offer.

"Join us, love?"

"Da?" the girl asked, extending the shuttle to him.

With these offers, his thoughts shifted, and he broke free from the spiral. For all its worth, the druid's dream had not ended in calamity - only foretelling the end of his time upon this wheel. He was a part of it as much as any other; whether dispersed by its wind and water or gathered upon hewn wood and rock to build their great houses, he would sojourn alongside through all its felicity and woe until the divine enabled his release.

He took the shuttle from his daughter's outstretched hand and joined his clan at the loom.