If you ride just far enough from the Holt (29.07) that milady feels restless – but not yet bored – you will find the Rockery. For miles there lie stones of all sizes and shapes, and not a trace of verdure.
Here you can sit in the sun, hold a pleasant conversation or slip under the Hanging Rock for a more intimate engagement.
According to legend, a storm giant once became enchanted by the music of the elves and sat each night by the gate of the Holt to listen to their merry-making. She forgot about her husband weeping by the Ocean of Bitter Regrets, though it had another name in those days. The elves rode around the giant when they issued from the Holt, laughing and joking with her in a tongue she could not understand.
But when the moon shone full in the night, the Wild Hunt gripped them and the elves pursued the giant through the woods, stinging her with arrow and spear. When she fell, the hounds chewed out her eyes.
Her husband searched across the land for her, and finally found her bones in the grove. He gathered rocks from across the world to make her cairn, and swore that each year he would lay another stone above her eyes. So when the King of Salt and Brine (00.06) shakes off his leathery skin, he coughs up the most precious jewel he swallowed that year and walks to his lover’s rest.
But he never makes it before the sun reaches the midpoint of the sky and he must turn back. Each time he strikes a bargain with a mortal, to take the stone the rest of the way.
The night the storm giantess fell was the last ride of the Wild Hunt. In the centuries that followed the Unseelie Court has not been heard from again, neither their haunting music or the sounds of their hunting horns. All that remains of them are motes of purplish light that emerge from the trees after the sun falls away to the west.
Since then, humans have begun to encroach upon the Kingswood at night, knowing that the Bloodied King remains bound by the treaty signed with the Prince of Men (see 29.07.02) and would not bring forth the hosts of the Seelie Court from their Holt except for when the sun is in the sky. Some men grew too bold, like the Verlimes (18.07), and were struck down but other men encroach nightly into the forest of the elves.
Hooks:
- What is the deal that the King strikes?
- Was the King’s lover buried with her jewelry?
- Which married elf prince might you spy sporting with a handsome young hunter?
The Hollow-Hearted Elf
Those who carry the annual jewel to the Rockery are met atop the great cairn by the empty-hearted elf and told that he will hunt and kill anyone whose name they care to speak.
