{"product_id":"the-greener-shore-isbn-9780345477675","title":"The Greener Shore","description":"\u003cb\u003eAt last, the haunting sequel to Morgan Llywelyn’s phenomenal epic \u003ci\u003eDruids\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003ci\u003eThe Greener  Shore \u003c\/i\u003eunfurls the story of a brave and mystical people who learned to manipulate  the forces of nature—in order to control magic. \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e As druids in Celtic Gaul, they  had been the harmonious soul of their tribe, the Carnutes. But when Julius Caesar  and his army invaded and conquered their homeland, the great druid Ainvar and his  clan fled for their lives, taking with them the ancient knowledge. Guided by a strange  destiny, they found themselves drawn to a green island at the very rim of the world:  Hibernia, home of the Gael.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Here they would depend for survival on an embittered  man who had lost his faith—and a remarkable woman who would find hers. Burning with  hatred of the Romans, Ainvar can no longer command his magic. But his mantle falls  on unexpected shoulders. In a beautiful, war-torn land of numerous kingdoms and belligerent  tribes, Ainvar and his beloved wife, Briga, struggle toward an uncertain future.  Their companions include the volatile Onuava, widow of their fallen chieftain; Lakutu,  Ainvar’s dark and mysterious second wife; Ainvar’s son, Dara, who seems more drawn  to poetry than to combat; and the “Red Wolf,” the young warrior who is as close as  kin and is determined to find Ainvar’s missing daughter.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Other forces are at work  in Hibernia as well—the spirits that haunt the island, forces older than even the  magic of the druids. Through them Ainvar seeks his redemption . . . as Briga seeks  her rendezvous with history. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Filled with the deep feeling, stunning detail, and  rich characters that made \u003ci\u003eDruids\u003c\/i\u003e a masterwork, \u003ci\u003eThe Greener Shore \u003c\/i\u003eis a superb saga  of an amazing world and its wondrous ways—a much-awaited novel that will delight  all the devotees of this admired author.“\u003ci\u003eThe Greener Shore \u003c\/i\u003emay well be Morgan Llywelyn’s masterpiece. A shimmering tale of ancient Ireland and the coming to its shores  of a small band of Gallic Celts fleeing Caesar’s destruction of Gaul, it is a seamless  blend of history, myth, fantasy, and imagination. One almost believes that Ms. Llywelyn  was there at the time, a druid woman who was part of that peaceful immigration. Welsh  in origin, American by birth and early life, and Irish by adoption, she is surely  one of the great Celtic storytellers of her time.”\u003cb\u003e—Andrew M. Greeley\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “A tale full  of adventure and excitement; of magic, romance, and spiritual longing–a quest for  identity. It is a brilliant sequel to the acclaimed novel Druids. Brilliant? There  is no other adjective for the much admired work of Morgan Llywelyn.”\u003cb\u003e—Peter Tremayne,  author of the Sister Fidelma series\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e Acclaim for \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eDruids\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “A masterpiece . . . From  page one, the fires of your imagination will burn with a white heat. . . . Beware  the druids! Unless you have twenty-four hours of nonstop reading time, don’t touch  it!”\u003cb\u003e—Tulsa World\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Splendid and compelling.”\u003cb\u003e—Anne McCaffrey\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e “Llywelyn imaginatively  and vividly portrays the druid rituals and their close ties to nature, and authentically  depicts daily life among the Celts as well.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eMorgan Llywelyn is the New York Times bestselling author of Lion of Ireland and many other novels chronicling the Celts and Ireland, from the earliest times to the present day. She has won numerous literary awards, was named Exceptional Celtic Woman of the Year, is a founding member of the Irish Writers Centre, and is past chairman of the Irish Writers’ Union. Her critically acclaimed novels of both history and mythology have been translated into many languages. She is an Irish citizen and lives in Dublin.Chapter I\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The sun is the symbol of the great fire of life, created by the Source of  All Being. I remind myself of this whenever the glare of the sun makes me  squint.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I, Ainvar, salute the Source of All Being.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The Source of All Troubles is Caesar the Reprehensible. I should have  recognized that from the beginning. I keep going over and over events as  if by tumbling them in my hands like pebbles I can change their shape. I  cannot. Even a chief druid cannot redraw the Pattern.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    But I can see it. Oh yes. Looking back, I can see it so clearly. At some  crucial point the tribes of Gaul must have disrupted the harmony of the  Pattern, thus precipitating catastrophe. Which means that at some crucial  point the druids failed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I failed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    At first the Gauls had welcomed traders from the tribes of Latium as they  had welcomed the Hellenes before them. The Latin language was not  beautiful to the Celtic ear, being hard and abrupt rather than musical,  but we shared the vocabulary of trade: a nod, a grunt, a slap of hands. In  this manner arrangements were concluded and goods exchanged. Gaul offered  salt and iron and grain; the speakers of Latin brought wine and olive oil  and   luxury goods from the Mid-Earth Sea. Traders from each side were able to  provide enough to satisfy the other side. Everyone benefited. For a while.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Then one tribe, the Romans, proved they did not understand the concept of  Enough; they wanted More. Their traders brought warriors to stand at their  shoulders while they made unreasonable demands. The Gauls swatted the more  importunate traders away as one swats a fly. The Romans kept coming.  Tendrils of a poisonous weed, they extended their reach until at last we  realized their true and deadly intent. Led by someone called Gaius Julius  Caesar—a figure of walking excrement that needs three names to make it  feel like a man—the Romans meant to steal everything from us, even the  land on which we lived. Our sacred Mother Earth.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    If I close my eyes I can still see the glorious victories we won; the  desperate battles we lost. And then the final battle. And the subsequent  destruction of all we held dear.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The destruction of the Great Grove of the Carnutes blew us away like chaff  on the wind.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I chew on my memories as if they were food, but receive no nourishment  from them. When I dream, I dream of the lost skies of Gaul.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Free Gaul, which bled to death to fatten Caesar’s purse.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e      my wives refuse to talk about the past. following briga’s lead, the other  two keep their faces turned to the west and their eyes on the future.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Onuava is a tall, strong woman, with a lion’s mane of fair hair. Her first  husband was Vercingetorix, chief of the Arverni. His name meant “King of  the World.” Such a man is not born once in ten generations. The tribes of  Gaul made him their leader when they needed him most, and lost him to  merciless Caesar when they needed him even more. Onuava was carrying his  first son in her womb when they dragged Vercingetorix away.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    After Keryth the prognosticator foresaw the death of Vercingetorix at the  hands of his captors, I made Onuava my third wife. Although we were as  different as fire and water, Rix and I were, are, and always shall be,  soul friends. I was obligated to offer my fullest protection to his  family. Since then I have even learned to love Onuava, at least as much as  her proud and prickly nature will allow.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    My second wife is Onuava’s opposite. Lakutu is small and dark, docile by  nature and Egyptian by birth. She was already past her prime when I first  saw her. Lakutu is old now, yet from time to time a mischievous child  peeks out of her black eyes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    There are intriguing rumors concerning certain mysterious rites practiced  in her homeland. Although Lakutu has learned our language, she  conveniently forgets it whenever I question her about those rites. Egypt’s  child keeps Egypt’s secrets. In her head my second wife holds knowledge to  which I cannot gain access, and that is her power over me. Druids love a  mystery.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Briga is the youngest of my three wives in age, but senior to them in  rank. The daughter of a prince of the Sequani tribe, she was the first  woman with whom I celebrated the marriage ritual. According to our custom  Briga had to give permission for me to marry Lakutu, and then she and  Lakutu had   to give permission for me to marry Onuava. Such permissions usually are  granted, because each additional wife serves the wife who is senior to her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    In practice, Onuava serves no one, but that was to be expected.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    My Briga is a small, sturdy person with hair like dark flax. Her most  interesting feature is her voice, as soft and hoarse as the purring of a  cat. Her speech still bears the musical lilt of her native tribe. The  Sequani are Gaulish Celts like ourselves but they speak a different  dialect, one that they share with remnants of our race who have never left  the Blue Mountains. I love the sound of it on Briga’s lips; the exotic  echo of an older time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Many women are more beautiful, yet from the beginning Briga drew me like  no other. I did not know the body but I recognized the spirit within. It  spoke to me through her blue eyes, as clear as those of a child. Her  spirit was a member of the tender network that surrounds me through all my  lives. Each of us has such a network, stretching from the distant past  into the far future, making us Part of the Whole.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Briga knows me better than I know myself. And loves me anyway.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The first time I lay with her I knew what the Source of All Being  experienced at the moment of creation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Because Celtic law allows a man of high rank to have more than one wife,  the Romans called us savages. Yet who is the savage? A chieftain—or a  druid—can offer the status and protection of marriage to as many women as  he can support. I have traveled in the land of the Romans and seen how  they live. The depraved men of Rome have only one wife at a time, but use  any number of concubines and prostitutes. These poor creatures must suffer  whatever indignities are heaped upon them. When their sexual attraction  fades, they are discarded.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    By purchasing Lakutu I had saved her from such a fate. When Vercingetorix  and I came upon her, quite by accident, in a Roman slave market, she was  already well-used goods. After another year or two the Romans would have  had her cleaning out latrines. They would have thrown away a truly   exceptional spirit.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    All my women are exceptional.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    While she was married to Vercingetorix, Onuava and I had worked powerful  sex magic together. To assure her husband’s election as commander-in-chief  of the united armies of Gaul she had opened her body to mine. The power of  the ancient ritual pleaded for Rix in the Otherworld and enabled him to  fulfill his Pattern.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    No other man in Gaul could have formed the Arverni, Bituriges, Ruteni,  Nitiobriges, Gabali, Senones, Sequani, Parisii, and Carnutes into a  confederacy to defeat Caesar. And he almost succeeded. That knowledge  torments my dreams and miseries my days. With the splendid and shining  Vercingetorix leading the united tribes of Free Gaul, we defied the  despicable Caesar and his army of clanking dwarfs and very nearly won.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Clanking dwarfs. A perfect description that illustrates one of the  differences between Celts and Romans. Our warriors were taller than the  invaders by the length of a man’s forearm. In battle they did not hinder  their bodies with armor or imprison their heads in iron. Free and  unencumbered, the warriors of Gaul faced whatever the day brought. They  were celebrated for their courage, which resulted from the teaching of  their druids.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    No person who understands that an immortal spirit inhabits the mortal body  need fear death.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    In my youth Menua, our chief druid, who had been trained in the greatest  of all druid schools, told me, “Dying means only a change of direction in  a long life, Ainvar. Death is not the last thing but the least thing, a  cobweb we brush through.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Death brings us back to the dawn of life so we may start afresh without  the burden of memory. Examples of this may be observed in nature, where  nothing is wasted. Living spirits, sparks of the Great Fire of Life, move  from one existence to another as butterflies burst from the husks of dead  caterpillars. The butterfly does not remember its life crawling on the  ground. It knows only the freedom of the air.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The warped Romans do not study nature; only the works of men. This leads  them to make the incredible assumption that when a human body ceases to  breathe, life ceases to exist. What arrogance!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Vercingetorix and I sometimes spoke of these things, when the rest of the  camp was asleep and we were lying on our backs staring up into the sky.  Rix loved the night sky more than anyone I ever knew. Together we wandered  the pathless stars and explored the womb of worlds.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Rix contained a warrior spirit, and warriors are not inclined to   philosophy—the word the Greeks use to describe the speculations of druids.  But he also possessed a degree of curiosity not often found in fighting  men. Warriors need to follow orders without asking questions. Thinking is  for druids. Thinking, and curiosity.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    As a small child I had asked my grandmother, who was the wisest person I  knew, “Why do we fall down and not up?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “No one knows,” she replied. “It’s magic.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    That was the first time I heard of magic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    When Rix asked questions I did my best to answer them, and prayed to That  Which Watches that I might always give him good advice. For the most part,  I did.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Except, except . . . Briga says I dwell too much on the past. Perhaps she  is right, though I shall never tell her so. A man who has three wives  learns what not to admit.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    On the day we stepped off the edge of the world and into this boat, Briga  laughed. The sound shocked me, I had not heard it for so long.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Not since Alesia.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Shortly after that disastrous defeat we had heard rumors that Caesar, not  content with waging war for Gaul, also had sent his troops to the land of  the Britons, wherever that was. I trembled for them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    While the wheel of the seasons turned and winters followed one another in  grim succession, my small band of survivors fled into the trackless  forest. During what the vile Caesar called “the pacification of Hairy  Gaul,” the Romans spent summer after summer scarring our homeland with  roads and military fortifications. They did not find us, however. We had  buried ourselves so deep in the wilderness we never heard a word of Latin.  For us, everything beyond the forest ceased to exist. We knew nothing of  Rome and Romans, but lived an inward life whose boundaries were the trees.  Still, we did not feel safe. We were as quiet as birds pressing themselves  against the earth as the hawk flies over. We never laughed aloud.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Our children lost their childhood while Rome was raping Gaul.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    When the land was sufficiently “cleansed” of rebellious natives, settlers  began to arrive. They started cutting down the great forest that sheltered  us.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Then Keryth dreamed a dream in which she spoke with the handful of other  druids who still survived. They were able to confirm her prophecy:  Vercingetorix had been murdered in Rome. They told her every grisly detail  which she then related, with great pain, to me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Druids know the truth when they hear it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    As far as I was concerned it signaled the end of the world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Yet now my Briga could laugh. She spread her arms wide as if she would  embrace the sea, and laughed aloud with joy. “We will begin a new life,  Ainvar!” My Briga crinkles her nose when she laughs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The Celtic figure of the Two-Faced One possesses one set of features  looking in one direction and another set looking the opposite way. It is  open to many interpretations: life and death, summer and winter, nobility  and debasement. If men look toward death, women look toward life. How wise  was the Source to create such balance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    It is a pity the Source did not create boats. Boats are not natural, but  man-made, so I have misgivings. It is difficult for me to accept that a  vessel filled with people can float on top of the water. A stone weighing  much less than a boat would sink immediately. Sometimes my head ponders on  this.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    We obtained these boats in the land of Armorica, from a trader who  belonged to the tribe of the Veneti. They inhabit the westernmost shores  and claim to know what lies beyond the sunset. I hope they do. Our future  may depend on it.New York Times bestselling author [quote]--Andrew M. Greeley","brand":"Del Rey","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304434192613,"sku":"NP9780345477675","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780345477675.jpg?v=1767739670","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-greener-shore-isbn-9780345477675","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}