#tsrf2019

From Thisby by Skald of Skarmouth

Let me send a postcard from Thisby

An elegy to the Mare Goddess’s Memory

A story recorded on island sands

Marked by the tracks of mare and man

a winner will rise, high as the tide

designed by @skaldofskarmouth

Official dates for the 2019 Scorpio Races Festival! Take this time to prepare before water horses and tourists alike start coming ashore this November.

Catching a Capaill Uisce 

moodboard I made for my characters in this year's running of @thescorpioracesfestival

Rising up to my full height and holding the hot, salty blood in my mouth, I take the final few steps up to the top of the rock. And then I turn, even as the woman reaches for my hand to slice my finger, and I spit that mouthful of blood onto the red-spattered stone below with as much force as I can muster.

I was born on this island and I’ll die on it. 

Today, the possibility of death seems more potent than usual. It might have something to do with the ominous gray clouds that sit low and heavy in the sky, whipping the ocean to madness. More likely, it has to do with the blue roan capall that watches me with her sly eye, her lip peeled back in a morbid smile. I flick a length of red leather tied to a hawthorn switch at her and she rears her head back, offended. 

She is hot and lathered and I have not even convinced her to wear a saddle yet. We are high on the cliff tops, though I do not think it does much to muffle the song of the sea. Not with the clouds as low as they are. Not with November crouched mere weeks before us, hungry and eager. 

The wind tears at us as it races over the cliffs and my capall picks up her feet, trotting in place, restless for speed. A wild, dangerous part of me wants to slip onto her back, no saddle between us, and chase the wind across the cliff tops. I think of my mother disappearing into the waves on the back of the grey stallion. I do not think that race would end well for me. 

I twist the three iron beads I wear on a length of red thread wound around my wrist. I twist them seven times, though it is more out of habit than true superstition. My father was there when they pulled Columba from the ocean, looking as though he only slept and not at all like he’d been swallowed by the sea months ago. Ever since then, my father had sworn off the old ways, but I never understood all the fuss over a man even the sea didn’t want. My mother felt the same. She’d always tell us bairns the old stories when our father was out on the boat. Giants and fairies and capaill uisce pulled from the tide. 

I eye my capall. She is sleek and slippery as the rocks at low tide. I can’t imagine how I will ever be able to ride her. I hear Connan’s voice telling me I am a fool for pursuing this endeavor, but it is drowned out by the ocean beating against the sand far below us. 

It sounds unnervingly like hoofbeats. 

I remember my mother telling me that names have power. In all her stories, the fairies kept them secret because knowing their true name gave you power over them. I watch my restless mare paw the ground and toss her head to the wind. Her slender legs are nimble and blacker than sin. I turn my mother’s stories over and over again. I do not know this capall’s true name, but perhaps if I give her one of my own, she’ll be less inclined to drown me. 

I listen to the whistle of the howling wind through the cliff grass. The name slips easily from my tongue.

“Nimm.”

Kaf

Jay paints a skull on the face of Kaf because a rider would have to be pretty confident in their skills to let their hands stay that close to a water horses face.