The villagers of Saint-Suliac tolerated her presence because of their need for the healing potions which she concocted here in the hut. They also depended upon the wool shorn from her sheep, which was essential for their blankets, cloaks, clothing, and hats. Each week, Ylva hauled her small wooden wagon into town and bartered her natural medicines and precious wool for the commodities she required, such as grain for her hens, beeswax and honey, candles, flint, bread, oats, and salt.
I’m grateful that Maman taught me how to clean and comb wool. How to harvest shellfish in the bay. And I thank the Goddess every day that she trained me to be a guérisseuse celtique—a Celtic healer with her knowledge of curative herbs.
Because the same healing skills so widely revered in the village also shielded Ylva from harm. No one dared come near the cottage of a trained Breton priestess, leery of curses, evil enchantment, and malevolent magic.
For her mother, Lova, had once studied with the Druids atop Mont Garrot, in the heart of the rowan forest, at the fountain of the sacred spring.
Before the Vikings seized the village and converted Saint-Suliac into a harbor for their dreaded drakkar warships.
Ylva brushed off her woolen gown, remembering the tales she had been told of the turbulent past.
Before the Viking invasion, her mother had been renowned throughout the village for her unparalleled skills as a Celtic healer. But when the Norsemen conquered Saint-Suliac, their chieftain,Rikard Vilhjálmsson, drove the Druids from the sacred ground on Mont Garrot, slaughtered the Celtic people struggling in vain to defend their homes, captured concubines and slaves, and transformed the quaint Breton village into a burgeoning Viking seaport and stronghold.
With her long black hair, pale complexion, and emerald green eyes, Lova’s unique beauty had attracted the unwanted attention of the powerfulJarl Rikardwhocommanded the fearsome Viking fleet.
Conqueror of the Celtic village, Richard had claimed Lova as hismore danico– wife according to Viking pagan laws. For years, he and his Norse warriors had ruled the Breton coast from the thriving port of Saint-Suliac. But when Richard became the regal Duke of Normandy, he put aside his pagan wife to marry Emma, daughter of the Count of Paris, in an official wedding ceremony recognized and sanctioned by the Christian Church.
Abandoning hismore danicoLova, his young daughter Ylva, and the thriving seaport of Saint-Suliac, Richard had led his Viking legion eastward to Rouen, consolidating his power in the dukedom of Normandy as sworn vassal to the Frankish King.
Ylva sighed with sorrow. Hardened and scarred by pain and loss, her wounded heart had never fully healed.
She still had vivid memories of her Viking father.
His towering height and massive bulk. His long blond hair and braided beard. His deep, guttural laugh, like the bellow of a bear.
The magnificent sword he’d given her to train with—which she still kept, sheathed in the scabbard studded with gems. A bittersweet reminder of the father she had once adored. Whose paternal love and parental protection she had naively believed eternal.
The loss of which had been unexpected, abrupt, and devastating.
When the Viking fleet abandoned the village and Richard the Fearless repudiated his pagan wife and illegitimate daughter, Lova and Ylva had been ostracized by the Breton people who scorned her mother’s disgraceful liaison with the enemy and Ylva’s abhorrent Nordic blood. They’d been forced from the lavish Viking longhouse ofJarl Rikardto live on the outskirts of the village—in a stone cottage on the cliff which had once belonged to a sheep farmer.
It had been ten years since her Viking father’s abandonment. Six months since her mother had succumbed to a raging fever and consumptive cough. Ylva swallowed an enormous lump of pain, her throat constricted by loss. Not only did she miss her mother terribly, she now lived in isolated solitude and relentless fear.
The Norse conquerors left behind vestiges of their ruthless, ruinous domination.
Stigmas of shame.
Like me.
Shaking off her sorrow to refocus on her awaiting chores, Ylva grabbed a tin wash basin from a corner of the hut and headed outdoors. She relished the crisp saline aroma of the sea and the warmth of the late spring sun upon her upturned face. Setting the bin down on a grassy area near the edge of the woods, she went back into the hut to fetch a wooden bucket, which she filled with water from the nearby stream.
Ylva lugged the bucket of water, placed it on the grass beside the tin basin, and retrieved from the cottage the pile of shorn fleece which needed washing. She tossed it into the bin, poured water over the wool, and added a bar of lye to soak out the impurities and separate the lanolin from the fleece. Wiping the sweat from her brow with the sleeve of her woolen frock, she glanced across the field of wildflowers where her sheep were grazing to the exposed mudflats at the base of the cliff.
Low tide. I have time to go down to the cave while the wool soaks.
Verifying that her sheep and hens were safe, she grabbed a bucket for clams and carefully descended the beaten path which led from the plateau of heathered moor at the top of the cliff to the sandy shore of a secluded inlet far below.
After an hour of digging in the mudflat exposed by low tide, she had harvested two dozen clams.I’ll roast them slowly over the coals—just until their shells crack open. Melt some sheep milk butter, with garlic and herbs. Add a few sprigs of fresh rosemary and vegetables from the garden. Delicious!
Within the curved, protective wall of the solid granite bluff which sheltered the cove, Ylva had discovered a hidden sea cave, accessible only at low tide when the receding waters of the bay exposed the open mouth. Every day since her fortuitous find, she’d come to this covert, otherworldly domain.
As she now left the bucket of clams on the shoreline and selected a large pink scallopshell from the edge of the sandy beach, Ylva walked across the mudflat of the estuary and entered the hidden cave.
Inside the luminous cavern, a roaring waterfall cascaded down the back wall of the grotto, splashing into a deep, freshwater pool. The liquid chute tumbled over the glowing limestone rock, painting a palette of vivid colors like a collection of rare, precious gems.
Within this majestic aquatic realm, Ylva worshipped Divona.
The Celtic Goddess of Sacred Springs.
