Rayetta on The Adventures of Etain

Well Red. You are certainly entitled to your opinion. But I happen to know that Fuamnach is presently rotting and will continue rotting for as long as it takes the WG to determine if Fuamnach is actually sorry and not merely pretending to be sorry like so many in Fuamnach's situation would be, pretending. Crocodile tears! Easy those to espy!

Now here's something that really drives me nuts.

That night Etain was serving the chieftains, for serving drink was a special talent of hers.

Surely you can see why this kind of shenanigan is so aggravating, to me. Yes, I know that the Goddess is supposed to always be helping out the slack jawed and the drunks, and that this is one way to propagandize to the ignorant and vulgar, but for Goddess Sake, why is the heroine in this particular story always waiting tables. Couldn't she be planting vegetables or studying the cows. Oh well.

But how can we elaborate even more on Etain's waitressing skills? Let's have Mider come to visit Etain at her castle where she now lives with her husband King Echu, the "another worthless Irishman" of Red's commentary. In contradiction to Red, yet again, on this occasion Mider shows some gumption in that he comes alone into an armed camp, waltzes into the dining hall, grabs Etain right in front of the besotted king and the king's besotted chieftains and then, lo and behold, floats up through the skylight in the roof of the dining hall, and is not seen again in those parts for a good while.

But the next day, when everyone is sobered up, maybe, Echu and his chieftains realize their serving wench is absconded with by the Banshee King, which is what Mider was (is), and the thought of not having Etain around to serve drinks, plus temporary sobriety, rouses them to action. So they all troop off and attack a Banshee fortress, but, of course, it is the wrong Banshee fortress, not Mider's Banshee fortress, but a totally unrelated Banshee fortress. So it goes and the wheel turns and we all take a spin. Eventually, Echu and his armies do sufficient damage to a variety of Banshee fortresses so that Mider is compelled to sue for peace. Echu demands the return of Etain.

What happens next is really too much! At the third hour of the following day 50 women identical in appearance and dress to Etain and one old hag (Cerridwen) enter Echu's courtyard. The old hag foretells "We are fixin' to go home fer we be much awearied of these parts and ye get to pick whichever of these ones ye would posess, other than myself, and the one ye pick out will stay hyer, but the balance of us is splittin'."

Upon hearing this, all the Irishmen go even more slack jawed than before, many indulging in displacement behaviors such as scratching. But Echu is not the king for nothing so he foretells, "We shall have a serving contest between the women, excusing the old hag, and from the serving characteristics of the 50, I Echu will detect which of the serving women is Etain."

See! This is really just too much, fer me!
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The Adventures of Etain
to be continued