Crannog / No - Crannóg

Crannóg No 7 winter 2004
Close Encounters
Of The Second Kind Brian MacNamara
Don't mind the bars between you and the driver. They're for
your protection, not his.
- Intro to Live And Dangerous. Thin Lizzy Album.
Damn! The light has diminished so badly now that
I am almost upon the figure before I see him. I slam
on my brakes and, as the screech of tyres on the road's
surface cries out eerily into the lonesome landscape, my
vehicle shudders to a halt ... a mere two inches from his
long black cloak. And my engine now splutters and
dies.
Oh! It's The Final Harvester. Although now I can
fathom that this is no ordinary harvester... a Baleful
Hunter more likely.
In dismay I watch as this strange spectre glides
across in front of my motor. And, despite the closeness
of the incident, he remains remarkably unperturbed - in
fact totally oblivious to my presence. Although
manoeuvring crookedly now his frame, if fully
extended, would comfortably reach a height of
more than a dozen feet. With his face obscured
from view inside a dark cowl, this rakely apparition
slowly, methodically, shuffles on his way, carrying a
burden, the carcasses of two donkeys! Effortlessly he
holds them aloft, the hind legs of each grasped by an
osseous hand (there is no flesh!), one beast with it's
throat slashed from ear to ear, the other with its
abdomen slit open, its entrails spilling out, and trailing
along the ground behind ... My eyes follow this hideous
vision as he mounts a style through the ditch and, with
the wind tugging vehemently at his flimsy garments,
vanishes into the descending night.
And I am alone once more, with only the circling
bats and the hooting of owls and, somewhere in the
distance, a lone wolf howling to keep me company ...
A bead of sweat trickles down along the side of
my face, a salty rivulet that enters the corner of
my mouth. I put my hand to my forehead to find -
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