CELTIC MYTHOLOGY: LEGEND OF A SKULL

Once upon a time there was a farmer who had only one son, a boy with a restless and undisciplined character, with whom he was always in conflict. The boy contracted a strange disease and died, and his father, angry with him for being overcome by the disease, did not want to go to his funeral.

After a while, a neighbour and friend of the farmer died too, and the farmer cried at his funeral to pay his respects. After the ceremony, while looking distractedly at a grave, the farmer saw a skull, wondering what the life of the deceased would have been like.

With great surprise, he saw how the skull informed him that he would visit him the next night, if he would commit to spending another night with him, which the man accepted, full of curiosity. On his return, he met a druid and told him what had happened, he told him that it must have been a dream, since the skulls did not speak. Faced with his incredulity, he summoned him to his home for the following night, to witness the strange visit.

During the following night, the farmer and the druid prepared to receive the skull. Sitting next to a table, someone suddenly knocked on the door, the farmer rushed to open it, the skull appeared. The skull climbed up on the table and, after devouring all the delicacies placed on it, it disappeared, while the farmer and the druid remained silent and astonished.

Although he did not speak to him, the farmer decided to keep the word given to the skull and went to the cemetery, where he found a staircase next to the tomb where he had seen the skull for the first time, without thinking too much about it, he decided to go down.

Suddenly he found himself in the middle of a field where many men were fighting with swords, spears and sickles, some when they saw him, they told him that if he was looking for the skull, he should go to the next field. When he got there, what he found was men and women fighting and insulting each other, one of the women told him that if he wanted to find the skull, he had to cross the river and go to the other bank. The farmer obeyed and there he found a big house. In the living room he found a large fire in the fireplace, next to a lady and a maid, the lady walked back and forth, and whenever she came close to the fire to warm herself, the maid would take her away from the fire. The maid told him that to find what he was looking for he had to go through the door on the left.

When he entered the room, he finally found the skull and asked him if he wanted to have dinner, as the farmer was exhausted after so much searching he probably accepted the offer. The skull accompanied him to the kitchen where there were three women, asking one of them to serve him dinner, she took brown bread and a jug of water and served it to the man who, seeing this food, refused to eat. The skull then asked the second woman to serve the dinner, but the second woman offered an even worse dinner than the first, so the man still did not eat. Finally the skull asked the third woman to serve the farmer and she served him a wonderful dinner, with fabulous wines and superb food. When the farmer finished the dinner, the skull decided to explain the meaning of what he had seen. So he told him that the men of the first field were in a perpetual struggle with each other for the boundaries of their land, so they had been punished for fighting all eternity. The couples who fought were marriages that had done the same thing in life, and would continue to do so after they died. As for the lady in one of the rooms, she had behaved so miserably with her maid, that she did not even let her come near the fire on the coldest days, that she would now suffer eternally from cold and hunger. And the three women you see here were once my three wives, when I asked the first to prepare me for dinner gave me only brown bread and water, the second who served me the result was even worse fortunately, my third wife always served a banquet worthy of a king.

Then the skull said to her: "You, on the other hand, can still rectify, you were brought to this place because you did not want to go to the funeral of your son because you were angry with him, while you attended the funeral of a neighbor. To do this, you must go back to your son's grave and plead for his forgiveness, to be saved from eternal suffering".

The farmer did not know what to say. The skull also told him, "Keep in mind that seven hundred years have passed since you left home." As in a dream, the farmer was walking through the cemetery and, despite the passage of time, was still able to locate his son's grave. There he fell to his knees and, melted into tears, begged forgiveness from his son, when he had already lost hope that a hand was coming from the grave, a hand that was taking his own, helping him to reach the sky.