David Barnett Quotes

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.

preserved in the amber of his memory for ever,

Whatever humanity I had has been fucked out of me with a giant heavenly dildo.” The man gave Dew a wink. “But I guess you’d know about that, right?” “Don’t

Never forget that God is the One Who must empower His servants. Nothing done apart from Him will last, for only what is connected to the Lord can have any eternal value.

Our goal, as lovers of God and students of His word, is to embrace the truth of the whole counsel of God recognizing that the truth is always more glorious than error. 

Reactions. That’s what Major Tom said. Science is all about reactions. Chemistry is about reactions – potassium in water. Physics is about reactions – how a light comes on when you flip a switch. Even biology is about reactions – how Ellie said one thing with her mouth when he asked if Delil was her boyfriend, but the subtle physiological changes, the reddening of her cheeks, the momentary dilation of her pupils, said another. Reactions.

there is no such thing as closure. There is only denial, and grief, and eventual grudging acceptance. And perhaps the odd, nagging feeling that if the miracle of life can be snatched away in a heartbeat, perhaps it can also be gifted back,

I know I’ll be happy with Martin. He lets my light shine as brightly as his own.

Sometimes you have to take a step back to see things properly,

Take control of your life. Steer your own course. Shine your own light through the darkness.

Belief in the Divinity of Haile Selassie Chevannes (1998a) observed that the most important belief of the Rastafari is that Haile Selassie, the late Emperor of Ethiopia, is God, thus leading to the Rastafari claim that God is Black. In the same vein, Henry observed that the foundation of Rastafari theology is the mystical knowledge of the divinity of Haile Selassie (1997, 160). However, there appears to be divergent views among Rastafari regarding the divinity of Haile Selassie. Thus, Barnett (2005) claims that the original Twelve Tribes of Israel teachings hold that Jesus Christ was manifested in his second coming in the person of Haile Selassie; the Bobo Shanti hold that Haile Selassie is the father of Jesus Christ (who is Prince Emmanuel, the founder of the house, so far as the Bobo Shanti are concerned); and the Nyahbinghi Order holds that Haile Selaisse is the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost). The Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church (a mansion that occupies a marginal status in the movement) does not accept the divinity of Haile Selassie I, although they still believe that he is of the Solomonic dynasty, thereby linking him with King David and therefore to Christ (Barnett 2005).

to leave it to Eva to tell his daughter that David has gone, and will not be coming back. The anger will come, Eva knows – she is already dimly aware of it, but from a distance, as if viewed from the wrong end of a telescope. For now, there is only this deadening sense of calm.

I’ve been thinking about Plato’s cave, about that terrible idea that most of us spend our lives with our backs to the light, watching shadows on the wall. What if my life with David is just that? Suppose it’s simply not the real thing?

It means that the history of a god is mainly moulded by two great factors, the growth of the people's spiritual experience and the character of its religious teachers.

In the beginning the gods were mortal.

It has already divided the life of the orthodox man into three stages, or [ramas, studentship, the condition of the married householder, and thirdly the life of the hermit, or vnaprastha, to which the householder should retire after he has left a son to maintain his household;

Nearly 450,000 distinct phishing attacks were identified in 2013, resulting in a total estimated financial loss of almost US $6 billion (RSA, 2014).

In the same year, it was estimated that around 31 per cent of these phishing attacks targeted financial institutions, with just 25 distinct international banking organizations accounting for almost 60 per cent of banking phishing attacks. Over 22 per cent of all attacks were found to make use of fake banking websites (Kaspersky Lab, 2014).

Of the phishing sites identified in the second half of 2014, more than half were found to have remained active for more than 10 hours, with a mean uptime of almost 30 hours.

Of the phishing sites identified in the second half of 2014, more than half were found to have remained active for more than 10 hours, with a mean uptime of almost 30 hours. In total, 569 distinct institutions were found to have been targeted by phishing attacks during this period (APWG, 2015).

We're not trapped by mistakes, Thomas, whether they're ours or other people's. We learn from them.

As an example of the scale of this issue, a 2015 study found that over 27,000 domain names had been most probably registered specifically by fraudsters for use in phishing attacks, in the second half of 2014 alone (APWG, 2015).

But people only remember the very good times, and the very bad times.

She'd say never let anyone you love out of your sight if you've had a row.

All happy families are alike, but all bug-fuck stupid dysfunctional families are bug-fuck stupid dysfunctional in their own way.

What problem can science solve for you? What one thing would make your life better, right now? Think of a problem, then solve it like nobody else has thought about solving it. What would make your life better?

Hope deferred makes the heart sick.

The thing is, I only remembered the bad stuff. It blotted out the good stuff to the point where I didn't even know it had happened. There was good in everything. In everybody. I just chose not to see it.

In the mid-1950s, Governor Luther Hodges cited Aycock’s “march of progress” in his defense of Jim Crow as a system that both ensured political tranquility and enabled racial uplift. His successor in the state house, Terry Sanford, noted that Aycock famously proclaimed “as a white man, I am afraid of but one thing for my race and that is we shall become afraid to give the Negro a fair chance. The white man in the South can never attain to his fullest growth until he does absolute justice to the Negro race.” This framing enabled Hodges, Sanford, and, later, Governor Dan Moore to define the “North Carolina way” in sharp contrast with the racially charged massive resistance rhetoric that defined the approaches of Alabama under George Wallace and Mississippi under Ross Barnett. This moderate course caused early observers like V. O. Key to view the state as “an inspiring exception to southern racism.” Crucially, it operated hand-in-hand with North Carolina’s anti-labor stance to advance the state’s economic interests. Hodges, Sanford, and Moore approached racial policy by emphasizing tranquility, and thus an intolerance for political contention. These officials placed a high value on law and order, condemning as “extremists” those who threatened North Carolina’s “harmonious” race relations by advocating either civil rights or staunch segregation. While racial distinctions could not be elided in the Jim Crow South, where the social fabric was shot through with racial disparity, an Aycock-style progressivist stance emphasized the maintenance of racial separation alongside white elites’ moral and civic interest in the well-being of black residents. This interest generally took the form of a pronounced paternalism, which typically enabled powerful white residents to serve as benefactors to their black neighbors, in a sort of patron-client relationship. “It was white people doing something for blacks—not with them,” explained Charlotte-based Reverend Colemon William Kerry Jr. While often framed as gestures of beneficence and closeness, such acts reproduced inequity and distance. More broadly, this racial order served dominant economic and political interests, as it preserved segregation with a progressive sheen that favored industrial expansion.12

Cornish dialect word for ants.

There was something about the idea of the whole sea being one big, flowing mass, and so full of life. Life which, if you didn’t want to eat it, probably wanted to eat you.

She knows how to walk through the woods now. You need permission to be there, which is not obtained through asking. It is granted for purity of thought and stoutness of heart, for honesty and peace. You can never be part of the woods, never be of the woods, but you can be in the woods, for a brief moment in time, like a lover inside another.

Nothing really dies. Not really. Everything is linked. Connected. There is a… force that moves through all of us.

Don’t think of it as killing a person. Think of it as redistributing the force that winds through us all. Using it for the greater good, rather than having it stoppered up in a sad, vicious little man.

What are you?’ asks the farmer. ‘Boggart? Fairy? Sprite?’ Owd Hob looks back at Catherine, then says, ‘All of these things and none of them. I am of the land and the land is of me.

Neither is Gladys expected to get her hands dirty. She has a threefold role in Withered Hill, just like her mother before her, and her grandmother, and goodness knows how many generations back. She teaches at the school, she travels to the outside, and she takes care of people like Margaret. Doubtless, Gladys will take a husband soon – she is twenty-three, after all – or at least have one of Withered Hill’s strong young men father her a child. And she will have a daughter, as her line always does, and that daughter will do the same jobs, and so it will go on. Forever, expects Margaret.

In many ways, Faunalia is the most important of Withered Hill’s festivals,’ he says. Sophie hands him back the book. ‘Are you sure you read this properly? It’s quite important. The festival is in honour of Faunus, the Roman god who dwelt in the woods and was worshipped by farmers in return for bountiful harvests. But it is not just the fertility of our land and animals that we ask for at Faunalia. Do you know when the most popular month for birthdays is in Withered Hill?

As I were going up Withered Hill With night-time coming soon I met a man under the trees Whiter than the moon He smiled at me and stroked my hair I were frit for my life He showed his teeth and smiled and said, ‘Owd Hob wants a wife

It is Lammas, and we give thanks,’ says Noah gruffly into the microphone. ‘Thanks for the harvest we hope to receive, thanks for the land that looks after us, and those that are the earth and are of the earth. Aye, you all know who I mean.

Things grow well in Withered Hill, given that it is in the heart of the Lancashire countryside. Crops are bountiful, livestock is fat, villagers are healthy and strong. Fecund, thinks Sophie. That is a good word for it.

She knows how to walk through the woods now. You need permission to be there, which is not obtained through asking. It is granted for purity of thought and stoutness of heart, for honesty and peace. You can never be part of the woods, never be of the woods, but you can be in the woods, for a brief moment in time, like a lover inside another. It is a bargain, a compact, a tryst. To partake of what it offers, you must leave something of yourself behind. Few people know that, thinks Sophie, as her hand trails over the wych elm in the shadows of the trees. It can be a memory of childhood, or a trinket given by a long-forgotten suitor. A baby’s shoe, or a cat’s claw. A secret whispered into a hole in the ground and covered over with leaves. A drop of blood.

If I get drunk, don’t let me forget to put a bowl of milk outside the front door before I go to bed.’ ‘What for?’ asks Sophie. Catherine laughs as she pours two big glasses of wine. ‘You really do have a lot to learn about Withered Hill.

And then she sees them. They are as though carved from the bark, figures bound like twigs with twine, but huge, sometimes as big as a man, sometimes smaller, sometimes with far more dark, gathered mass. They are feathers and fur and beaks and teeth and yellow, raptor eyes. They are skin and bone and rags and shadows, sprouting from the land and hanging from the trees. They are the fruit of the woods and the heartbeat of the earth and the devils in the details of the rough, hard-hewn land on which Sophie stands like an alien entity that does not belong there. They chitter and chatter and sing like birds, squeal like mice, grunt like pigs, and together they are the most terrifying thing Sophie hopes ever to see in her life.

She doesn’t want to leave. She can’t wait to leave. She says out loud, her voice hoarse and strangled, ‘I must be mad. Or I wouldn’t have come here.

They know the song though they never learned it. They were born with it in them, like their hearts that beat and their lungs that breathe. And before they were here, before any like them were here, the song would be sung by squirrels or rabbits, whistled by birds and hummed by bees. And before even they were here, the song was sung by beasts long since disappeared from the earth. And before even them, when the world was silent, save for the roaring of water and the burning of fire and the rushing of air and the grinding of the earth’s plates and joints as it settled into itself, the song was sung by the wind in the trees.

Who is this Owd Hob anyway? What right does he have?’ ‘He has the natural right conferred to him by the earth he tends, and which tends him,’ hisses Sophie fiercely. ‘He is both the land, and of the land. He is the air, and of the air. He is the water, and of the water. He is the fire, and of the fire.

Sung for me, and those like me, precious few that we are now. And that is not the fault of the wind in the trees, nor the beasts that no longer roam, nor the bees, nor the birds, nor the squirrels, nor the rabbits. They knew me and my brothers and sisters for what we were, what we are: guardians, curators, servants, masters. It is the fault of the men that came, who worshipped us, then feared us, then forgot us, then spread like a pox across the face of the world, not living in harmony with it but shaping it and raping it and bending it to their will. Consuming it and choking it and taking, taking, taking and giving nothing back. It was the fault of the men that came and starved us of belief and gave their fickle fealty to other gods: progress and commerce and selfishness and war. It was the fault of the men that came and buried my brothers and sisters beneath concrete and steel, burned them in their forges and mills, suffocated us with their chimneys. And once they’d seen off my brothers and sisters, and forced those few of us into retreat and hiding, in places like this, they staked their claims on the land, and divided it up, and killed each other for ownership of that which can never be owned, for it is not for sale.

Owd Hob, they call me. And Owd Hob I shall be. They called me many names before I struck the compact with them long, long ago that made the men and women of this place loyal to me, not to their new gods. The agreement that I would give them the bounty of this earth if they would honour me and procure for me a wife. For the plan, the grand design. The rewilding. Boggart, they called me. Goblin and elf. The Good Folk, the Fair Folk, the People of Peace, they called me and my kin. As they grew bolder, they tried to diminish me, make me a tale for naughty children. They called me fairy, pixie, sprite. Fallen angel, demon, devil, they said as they rallied ’neath the shadow of a wooden cross. Owd Hob, they call me now, as they bring me up through the worms and the dead things. I gather flesh and bone and eyes and hair and a tongue and teeth and fingernails and a cloak to cover me, all formed from the raw material of the earth. Which I am, and which I am of.

He is there, seated on a hillock, elbows on his knees, scratching his chin with thin, claw-like fingers. His face is hooked and gnarled like the tree branches, but as white as the moon beneath his tatterdemalion cloak and ragged hood. It is as though he has been carved from pale, young wood and clothed in the oldest night there ever was, as though he has grown there, like a living statue, his eyes shining like fireflies framed against the blackness of the hour of the wolf. He looks simultaneously ancient and yet vital and full of life. He speaks of spring and autumn, of new growth and burnt death, like the unholy progeny of the summer and winter solstices made some kind of flesh. He is the turning of the seasons, his scent is musk and soil and sweet lavender.

He, who sits in front of her, pinprick eyes piercing her soul. He, who is known to her, whatever cellular memory she has from her time outside suddenly plucking at her nerves like violin strings and sending his name shimmering along every sinew. He, who is the master of this place and, she now knows for certain, the master of her. Owd Hob.

I am both the land, and of the land,’ he says. ‘I am the air, and of the air. I am the water, and of the water.’ His black eyes seem to glow. ‘I am the fire, and of the fire.’ Owd Hob sweeps his hand and the bare, dead trees seem to shudder, and then burst into life, buds and then leaves sprouting from their dry branches, insects crawling along their moistening bark, birds singing in the exaggerated colours of their foliage. ‘I am all of that, and all of that is me,’ says Owd Hob. ‘I was here before anything, and after everything here, I shall be.

Folk like you? There are more of you?’ whispers Sophie. ‘We are legion,’ says Owd Hob. ‘Or, we were. When this land was covered by the great forest, when all that lived did so by the whim of us, when the world was in balance. Now…’ Owd Hob holds out his long, skeletal finger and a brilliant blue butterfly alights upon it. ‘Now, these places are crushed, defiled, poisoned, withered.’ Sophie gasps as Owd Hob’s other hand darts out and closes around the butterfly, squeezing tight. ‘This is what man does, to all that is beautiful, all that is under Owd Hob’s auspices, and the auspices of the dwindling numbers of those like him.’ He holds out his white hand, the butterfly crushed and broken in his palm. Sophie feels so sad that she might cry. ‘This is what man does,’ he says again. ‘But it is not irreversible.’ The broken butterfly shimmers, and then is whole again, and it flutters from his hand into the dazzlingly bright leaves of the trees. Sophie now feels like weeping tears of joy. ‘Why am I here?’ she says in a barely audible whisper. ‘To help me,’ says Owd Hob. ‘To help me undo the damage.

This is Samhain. The night when the walls between worlds are paper-thin. They bring them to us. Just for a few hours. Those we have lost. They escort them over the divide, across the black river, and we spend time together. We never know who will come, or if anyone will come at all. But mostly, they come.’ ‘Why?’ asks Sophie. Catherine shrugs. ‘It’s always been the way in Withered Hill. Perhaps as a thank you for our service. For our belief.

The school where Catherine teaches is called St Michael’s, and that is a nod to the Christian faith, but only because, as Thaddeus Obermann once told her, Michael was the patron saint of fairies and intervened with God on their behalf, and saved them from destruction so long as they inhabited dark, out-of-the-way places.

She’s named for a saint, so some say, but that’s not the case. The saint was named for her, because she’s older than the saints, older than the people, older than the land, for did not the seas come first when the world was created…? And when man fails to understand something, or wishes it to not exist, he takes its name and gives that name to some other thing, something he has created, something he can manage and control and which is not as fearsome as the thing whose name he has stolen. But she cannot be managed, nor controlled, she can only be honoured,

And once he believed, once he had seen for himself that his daddy was not lying, nor raving with illness, he was approached by Reverend Bligh and Lizzie Moon and inducted into the other life of Scuttler’s Cove, and the skin of what he had always considered normal life was peeled back, and he was shown the secrets and horrors that swarmed beneath.

It’s why we have the Fish Festival, in part,’ said Janet. ‘The story goes that Avallen was the lord of the orchard, and Endellion the lady of the sea. They were in love, but Avallen spurned her. She was furious and vowed to destroy Scuttler’s Cove, which was the domain of Avallen, and which he brought prosperity to. The Fish Festival every year is held to appease Endellion and to thank her for the bounty of the sea. In olden times everyone would have an Eye of Avallen in their window during the Festival, to ward off the vengeance of Endellion.’ ‘So why paint it on one of the incomer’s doors? In blood?’ wondered Mary. ‘Why try to scare them off with that?’ ‘Maybe it’s not a threat,’ said Janet. ‘Maybe it’s a warning.

Avallen, lord of the vale, who dwells beneath the apple tree, we have seen your sign. The seed has been planted and the flower will bloom, just as your fruit grows on the bough. As is the tradition of our people, to ensure the future vitality of our town, we bring to you the offering that you demand.

For a moment,’ she admits, ‘I felt… part of something.’ She drains her glass. ‘I felt connected.’ ‘And not just to Withered Hill,’ says Catherine, pouring Sophie another whisky. ‘To everything.’ She sits back and watches Sophie for a while. ‘Nothing really dies. Not really. Everything is linked. Connected. There is a… force that moves through all of us. It is the wind through the trees and the heat of a sun-warmed stone and the beating of our hearts. It is within us and everywhere around us. And that is the essence of life in Withered Hill. That nothing ends, that there is a continuous cycle of life and death and rebirth. It used to be the way of things the world over, but gradually people forgot this. Out there, they live in the moment, forgetting the past and ignoring the future. They have forgotten that they are part of a much broader canvas, that spools out in front of them and behind them into infinity.

They are the gods of our wondrous sun-rises and sunsets. The sea; our sea, gives up to us her gods and goddesses … the gods of our own wild storms; the gods of our bleak moors, of our hills and dales, of our fertile fields; the gods of our bubbling springs, of our babbling brooks and placid rivers; the gods of rowan and the British oak.’ Cornwall: The Land of the Gods, T.F.G. Dexter (1932)

Single to Truro,’ he announced unnecessarily. He had a West Country accent. The carriage rocked in the darkness, the lights above her buzzing. ‘Holiday, is it?’ ‘No,’ said Merrin. ‘I’ve just been in London too long.’ ‘Five minutes is too long in London, if you ask me.’ He didn’t make to move on. ‘Still, we all have our sacrifices to make.

Lizzie had cursed them all, then wept, and hugged her baby. She hadn’t wanted that for Merrin, no mother would. But in the end, she had accepted it. Lizzie Moon was who she was, and now so was Merrin. A Daughter of the Soil, her path set.

Taran laughed. ‘No. It’s Endellion.’ ‘Endellion?’ ‘The Lady of the Sea,’ said Taran.

ANSERGHEK KERNOW said the graffiti, the letters running with still-wet paint. ‘Independent Cornwall,’ said a voice behind her.

The Fish Festival was one of those things you got all over Cornwall, like the ’Obby ’Oss festival in Padstow, its origins lost in the mists of time, something fun but also slightly creepy. There was a procession and an offering to the sea and then everyone got very, very drunk. It attracted a few tourists, but was really something for the locals.

We need a TV,’ he’d said as they sized up the house. ‘What about this 98-inch screen?’ ‘We won’t be watching TV,’ said Jen happily. ‘We’ll be walking along the cliffs and having picnics on the beach and drinking in the Star and Anchor and surfing and—’ ‘What about when it rains, though?’ ‘Then we’ll sit in front of the log burner and make love and watch storms rolling in from the sea,’ said Jen. ‘The 98-inch,’ Justin had said firmly, hitting the buy button.

The high priestess and the sacrificial victim. Both of them in the same place, probably for the first time. Taran knew, of course, who one was, but not yet the other. And neither of the women concerned had any idea at all. Not yet, at any rate.

No, you shouldn’t kill spiders,’ she said softly. ‘Gizo wouldn’t like it.’ Maggie sipped at her latte then said, ‘Gizo? Was he the landlord of the pub last night?’ ‘That was Clemmo,’ said Jen. She looked at Adaku. ‘Who is Gizo?’ ‘Trickster spider god,’ said Adaku, still staring at the place on the worktop where the spider had been squished. Jen noticed she was scratching idly at her wrist again. Speaking almost absently, Adaku said, ‘Once, long ago in my country, there was a very bad drought and a long summer and the worst famine anyone could remember. Everyone was hungry, even the gods. Even Gizo. But Gizo had a plan.’ Maggie opened her mouth to say something but then seemed to think better of it, and listened. Adaku went on, ‘Gizo went to the elephant, and said many flattering things to him, that he was the master of all the land. And that the hippopotamus, who was the master of all the waters, deferred to the elephant and wished to give him a gift. He would give a horse to the elephant, but the elephant had to give a gift to the hippopotamus in return.’ Jen could almost see the cogs turning in Maggie’s mind, wondering what use an elephant had for a horse, but the other woman kept silent. Adaku said, ‘The elephant agreed to give a hundred baskets of grain to the hippopotamus, in thanks for the kind gift that was forthcoming. ‘Then Gizo went to the hippopotamus, and said the elephant wished to give a gift of a fine horse in deference to hippopotamus’s mastery of the water, but would like a gift of a hundred baskets of fish in return. Of course, neither the grain nor the fish reached their intended recipients. And Gizo’s belly was full while everyone else starved.

My maister Avallen, neb a les dhe’n aval dy ha diwetda genevys dh’y gila! Lord Avallen, who sleeps beneath the apple tree, it is time for you to awaken!

As she gazed up at it from her window, she remembered something she’d read years and years ago, that if you slept with the moon shining on you it was a sure way to go mad.

the warm sea breeze playing over her, the grass damp beneath her feet. She saw clouds scudding across the moon and the white crests of waves out on the dark sea. Somewhere in the far-off distance a whale sang, and night-birds chattered, and the trees whispered.

They took my love away from me, because we dared to not give them the bounty they had become used to. They did not understand, or chose not to understand, that to keep giving, the land and the sea must be allowed to renew, to lie fallow for a time, to replenish. They just wanted more and more, and gave no thought to where it might come from, or what effect their hungers might have.

It was to my sweet Avallen, lord of the land, god of the orchard, that they directed their offerings. Because he was a man, in their eyes, and that meant they could understand his hungers, and lusts, and they could give him what they believed he desired. They remade him in their image, which is what men do with their gods. All the better to understand them, and thus own and control them.

Those apples are amazing,’ said Bobby casually. ‘The things they can let you do.’ Taran felt his legs turn to jelly. ‘Nans-Avallen apples? You’ve been eating them? Bobby. No. You’re lying.’ Bobby flexed his bicep. ‘I feel incredible. Why has nobody ever eaten them before?’ ‘Because they’re his apples, you fucking idiot,’ hissed Taran. ‘They contain his essence. And now, so do you.

Aye, the hubris he might have once proudly worn himself, like a badge of honour. Back when he believed he could do anything, and nobody could stop him. Back in the days when, if he saw something he wanted, he took it, and the devil take anyone who tried to stop him. The devil take anyone who tried to stop him, he thought, as he stood as near to the edge of Nans-Avallen as he dared, gazing down on the town below, lit up with life. That was him, once, abandoned and free and raising a glass to anyone and everyone. But then that night happened, and it was, in fact, him who the devil took.

Jen said, ‘Avallen?’ ‘Avallen is the god of the orchard, the spirit of the land,’ said Taran. ‘He sleeps beneath the apple tree, and every generation or so he awakens. And then we must serve him, and in return he brings prosperity to Scuttler’s Cove.

Long ago, men respected the land and the sea in equal measure, and it was a more harmonious time. The world was full of gods, the gods of wild rivers and bleak moors, and in the land dwelt the god of the orchard, Avallen, who lived beneath a lone apple tree on a wood-ringed hill that came to bear his name, Nans-Avallen. On the beach below Nans-Avallen the waves crashed onto the shore, ebbing and flowing when called by the moon, and in those waves lived Endellion, the lady of the sea. Men paid fealty to both Avallen and Endellion, and she filled their nets with fish while he caused their crops to grow and their livestock to become fat.

The land and the sea are opposites, and yet the two halves of which the world is made, and so it was for Avallen and Endellion. When the thunder and lightning rumbled around the bay men would nod sagely and say that Avallen and Endellion were a-bed, their love ferocious and pure. When the rains fed the crops in the field, they would say that Endellion sent the gift of water to her love, and when the fish rose from the depths to be hypnotised by the full moon, and fall easily into fishermen’s nets, they would say that Avallen had coaxed her to provide.

But the old ways…’ said Bligh. Taran smiled. ‘This is an older way. A way that things once were, and should always have been.

It's the way of things in Withered Hill.