This story begins many, many years ago, in a small Scottish town called Pitempton, near the village of Dundee.
Back then, magick was still a very real part of daily life. Faeries roamed the gardens, mermaids frolicked in the seas, and dragons pushed their limits by attempting to rule both the sky and the earth.
Magick wasn’t considered out of the ordinary, and therefore wasn’t a concern for the widowed farmer from Dundee. Besides, he was too preoccupied with tending to the land and raising his nine daughters. The farmer and his daughters lived a modest life, but a happy one. They spent nearly every day together in the garden, tending to plants, and sharing that bounty with their beloved community.
But Celtic tales rarely have happy endings…
And so, one evening, after a particularly long day of back-breaking labor, the farmer asked his eldest daughter to fetch some water from a nearby well. He would normally do this chore himself (especially since the sun was just about to set), but he was overcome with exhaustion and wanted nothing more than to rest for a few minutes before supper.
Even in the waning light, the walk to the well and back should have taken no more than a few minutes. As each second ticked by, the father became increasingly thirsty. Eventually, asked his second eldest daughter to fetch her sister and see what was taking so long. When neither girl returned, he sent his next daughter to the well. Surely she would be able to help her sisters bring back a fresh pale of water. By the time he sent his fourth daughter after the older girls, he was so parched that he could barely speak. Delirious from thirst and unable to sense the danger lurking in his midst, one by one, the farmer sent his daughters to the well, Before long, there was nobody left but him.
With all his daughters missing, the farmer’s only choice was to go to the well himself. By now, the sky was dark, and he began to feel that something wasn’t right. After a brief struggle getting to his feet, he used what little energy he had left to make the short walk to the well.
What he saw next would haunt him for the remainder of his days. He did find all nine of his daughters, but they were dead—the unfortunate victims of a serpent-like dragon that was coiling tighter and tighter around their lifeless bodies.
At that very moment, the farmer’s heart shattered into pieces, and he forgot his thirst. He ran like his life depended on it (because it did), away from the well, and into the center of town. He roused his neighbors, business owners, and the bravest people in the community and asked that they follow him to the well to avenge his daughters’ death. Led by Martin, the local blacksmith, and lover of one of the fallen maidens, the angry mob chased the dragon into the next town over. When Martin came face to face with the hissing dragon, he used a club fueled by his broken heart, to take down the monster. As the dragon took its final breath, the crowd (which had finally caught up with them at this point), yelled, “Strike, Martin!” and with one final blow, Martin slayed the creature, putting an end to the dragon’s reign upon Dundee.
Today, a stone engraved with archaic markings sits just to the north of Dundee at Strathmartine, a village named after the townsfolk’s last words on that fateful night. Legend says that the snake-like etchings on Martin’s Stone not only tell the story of Dundee’s legendary dragon slayer and the nine lost maidens, but it also marks the final resting place of the serpent-headed dragon, the last of its kind to roam the earth
Celtic Myth & Magick // Edain McCoy
$ 29.99
Tap into the mythic power of the Celtic goddesses, gods, heroes, and heroines to aid your spiritual quests and magickal goals. Human and divine energies complement each other; when joined, they become a potent catalyst for true magick and change. Celtic… read more
