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“I have been combing through the folklore of County Leane, from which we have most of our tales of the Silva Lupi,” I said. “It took some time, but I believe I have come across a tale that describes a situation similar to our own. From what I have been able to glean, it was first recorded in 1480 by a theologian named Geoffrey Molloy—this was before the invention of dryadology as a discipline, as you know, and thus many of our sources are from the Church.”[*5]

I handed Farris the book, and he opened it to the page I had marked. “The only problem,” I continued, “is that Molloy was recording from the oral tradition, and many such tales are fragmentary. Including this one.”

“ ‘Kinge Macan’s Bees,’ ” Farris read. “I’m not familiar with it.”

“Few are, I suspect. But I must try to track down the complete version; perhaps more fragments have been preserved by another theologian.”

“Hm!” Farris said. He adjusted his glasses on his nose and peered at the book. Ariadne read over his shoulder. There followed a few moments of quiet, the only sounds coming from Shadow snoring by the fire and the boards creaking overhead as another lodger walked about. I restrained myself from tapping my foot in impatience.

“Interesting,” Farris said at last. He handed Ariadne the book so that she could continue reading. “I see why it caught your interest. The curse, the former monarch being chased out by a new one, etcetera—it certainly follows the pattern of current events. Then you think it might provide you with some clue for locating Queen Arna?”

“That is the hope,” I said. “You know the importance of stories to the Folk.”

He murmured assent. “Well! We shall see if we can’t find the rest of it.”

“I should—you need not—” I began, stumbling to a stop. At last I said simply, “Thank you.”

“Thank yourself!” Farris said, smiling. “Our foray into the Alps has advanced our understanding of Faerie by a decade or more; I should be pleading with you to allow me to help. I am beginning to feel, Emily, that simply following you about from place to place would afford me enough scientific discoveries to make my career all over again. Well, Russell-Brown and Eliades had their hangers-on, did they not?”[*6]

I affected interest in stirring my tea. Certainly I am proud of my achievements, but I am no Russell-Brown or Eliades, and the idea that Farris placed me in the category of those luminaries was overwhelming. I decided to assume, for my own comfort, that he was flattering me.

Ariadne had been watching both of us. She had not touched her tea and was wringing her hands in her lap. I looked at her, waiting. Finally, she burst out, “But you must tell us about the Silva Lupi!”

I laughed, surprised. “You have seen it yourself, Ari!”

“I know,” she said, laughing sheepishly along with us. “But—I only saw it from a distance, if you understand me.”

“I do.” I took up one of the biscuits on the tea tray and tapped it absently against my cup. “Where shall I begin?”

Skip Notes

*1 William Blake (a distant cousin of the poet of the same name) was a Scottish dryadologist born in 1655. Dryadology was in its infancy then, particularly in this corner of the world, and little was known about the Scottish faerie kingdoms, at least eleven of which have been documented today. In 1690, Blake had the misfortune to stumble into the darkest of these, the Oram Pluvia, which to this day has been so little studied that some scholars argue its existence remains in question. There the mad queen took a fancy to him and made him her consort, forcing him to share her throne. From his letters to his sister Jane, also a dryadologist, which he managed somehow to smuggle out of Faerie, Blake seems to have initially viewed his capture as a triumph for scholarship. As the years passed, however, he attempted escape multiple times, sometimes with the assistance of the mortals of the region, finally succeeding in 1699. He spent a year travelling much of Europe, speaking of his experience at the most august institutions. His health, however—both mental and physical—had declined to such an extent that it is difficult to know how much of his account is truth, for he often contradicted himself, weaving elaborate tales of both revelry and torment that he would later disown. Against the urgings of his friends and family, Blake returned to Orkney in 1700 to collect faerie stories from the locals, likely in the hopes of refuting his critics. He spent a comfortable night at an inn on Orkney Mainland and departed the following morn for a “short stroll” in the countryside, from which he never returned.

*2 The building’s construction was predicated on an old belief that the Folk dislike stairs, which likely arose from the fact that many household brownies in Ireland sleep in the walls adjacent to the hearth, which is generally found on the ground floor.

*3 First edition: Cambridge University Press, 1741.

*4 Both tales are commonly told throughout Ireland, though “The Winter Gardener” is thought to be a French import. In “The Shoemaker and His Lost Queen,” a humble but talented shoemaker is abducted into Faerie by boglelike creatures before being rescued by the queen of the realm, initially out of admiration for his craft, though they eventually fall in love and are married. The queen’s realm is dying, however, for in her youth the queen had denied hospitality to a travelling peddler, who later revealed himself as a powerful and ancient member of the courtly fae and placed her realm under a curse. Initially, the queen’s kindness towards the shoemaker seems to lift the curse, but eventually the queen tires of him for shallow reasons and casts him out. At this point, she learns that the shoemaker was only another guise for the vengeful traveller, who had returned to see if the queen had improved her character. He informs the queen that only her death can lift the curse now, and so the queen takes her own life, which heals the realm.

“The Winter Gardener” is a similar tale, with the titular gardener replacing the shoemaker, but in this story, the gardener is merely a mortal woman who does not possess a secret identity. After the queen sacrifices herself to save her realm, the gardener plants a snowdrop over her grave, which grows as large as a tree and scatters its seeds across the realm; the tale is often used as an explanation for the perceived advantages of Irish snowdrops over those of other countries.

*5 Due to the medieval belief that the Folk are rebel angels who managed to escape from Hell.

*6 Robert Russell-Brown (1832–1880) proposed the classification system for the Folk that is still in use today, took the first photographs of a faerie market, and stole a goblet from one of the kings of Yorkshire, among other exploits, though today some argue his contribution to scholarship has been exaggerated due to contemporary admiration for his derring-do. Nikos Eliades (1551–1610), considered by many to be the father of dryadology, was the first scholar to establish a working relationship with one of the Folk, a dryad named Lani, who gave him several faerie stones and a poem written in Faie, among other enchanted trinkets, all of which are currently housed in Athens’s Museum of Faeries.

11th January

Well! I have poured myself a glass of wine to celebrate, for I have completed my work here, and sooner than I thought I would, thanks in large part to Farris and Ariadne. A light rain, mixed with sleet, is falling beyond the window, but I have not drawn the curtains, for my view of the lantern-lit campus is charming in the winter night’s gloom. I must be concise, for my train departs Dublin early on the morrow. I would return to Faerie tonight if I could, but the trains do not line up, and I would just end up spending the night in Limerick.

Ariadne and I spent most of the last two days in the library, while Farris came and went; he was of more use in leveraging his connections among the Trinity dryadologists, of which he has a fair few.

From one Professor O’Connell he managed to obtain a rare book so obscure there is no record of it in any academic library, an authorless volume of folklore from Counties Leane and Clare, likely dating to the early eighteenth century, which is merely called Village Tales. It contains another version of “King Macan’s Bees,” overly concise (Village Tales seems to have been written for children) but more complete than other iterations.

Farris even succeeded in identifying several scholars who are familiar with the tale, or have heard similar versions of it. The celebrated Professor Malik, who has been active in the field of Irish dryadology for the last half-century and is now semi-retired, was particularly helpful. Despite her age, her memory is impeccable, and she informed Farris that she had heard the tale some decades ago from an aged grandmother in a little village called Fenrow on the Leane coast. She had recorded it at the time, having thought perhaps to include it in one of her books, but the tale being so obscure—and, she suspected, invented by the grandmother in question, who according to her children had a habit of such things—she had culled it. Malik was able to provide Farris with the journal in which she had written the tale as it had been told to her by that now long-dead matriarch.

Ariadne, meanwhile, managed to win over the obstreperous head librarian with her unique combination of unconscious charm and youthful enthusiasm. Not only did he inform her that several relevant volumes of Irish tales were in the process of being re-bound, but he allowed her to peruse these at her leisure, provided she was careful to wear gloves and put everything back where she had found it (this last statement being delivered with a pointed look in my direction). In one of those volumes, we found another version of “King Macan’s Bees,” enigmatically titled “The King’s Revenge.”

And thus, in fits and starts, and after having been met with various dead ends and false signposts, we have managed to stitch the tale together, to the extent possible. Missing pieces remain: What motivated Macan’s wife to betray him? Was she mistreated, as mortals in Faerie so often are? What is the nature of the bees, and are they symbolic of anything in particular?