From The
Courting of Eileen
Source: Jenny made it from braeside wool
Significance: It marked
Sean as a braeside laddie which he was, sort of.
~~~~~
Braesider men often wore
kilts as a nod to their connection with Scotland. Sean McTavish felt himself to
be in an anomalous position. He was a braeman by family; the fourth son of
“Skirling” Lachlan McTavish and his wife Janet “Sweet Jenny” McTavish. His brothers
were all big brawling redheads with heathered eyes but Sean was dark and
green-eyed, with a pale complexion that had a tinge of green. To the braefolk
he looked like a leprechaun and in his teens he manifested Shamus, who was
indeed a leprechaun, as his second self. Lachlan explained Sean’s unusual looks
to his brothers by telling them about Padraig, his great-grandfather, whose
leprechaun blood had persisted to come out in Sean. Although loved and accepted
by his family, Sean felt odd among the braesiders, who, with their love of
nicknames, called him Leprechaun Sean. He
liked the leprechauns of the green way, but the colleens there called him Highland Sean. Wearing the kilt was his
way of reinforcing his family identity.
His three brothers were happily
settled with forevers. Alister and
Glengarry had braefolk wives, and Hamish had found a human, but Sean had
problems. As he put it, when Eileen o’ the Mist said he didn’t look like a
leprechaun;
“Then I’ll be away home to the brae, where the lassies say I’m no’ braeside and the court ladies canna make out what I am, and know only that
I’m not for them.”
Eileen stopped him. She had
problems of a similar nature, being far taller than her sisters and the other
colleens in the green way. Like Sean she had an ancestor of different blood.
After a bit of skirmishing, they decided they liked one another.
The first time they met,
Sean was wearing his kilt.
Someone moved up to stand
beside her, and a voice said calmly, “Top
of the noon to ye, Eileen o’ the Mist.”
This
greeting suggested Eileen’s visitor was a leprechaun.
Eileen’s
hands went on drawing down the milk in rhythmic spurts, but she tilted her head
to the side to see a pair of sturdy legs and the hem of a kilt. She followed
her gaze on up. That was not her brother. The man was bigger than any
leprechaun she’d ever seen. He was bigger than most humans.
“Top
o’ the noon to ye, laddie,” Eileen said.
The kilt, added to the
size, made Eileen greet him as a braesider.
Her
impression of size had been right. He
stood a head taller than she, with broad shoulders and narrow hips. Instead of
the traditional britches and tunic of the gossoon, he wore a kilt in a
startling red plaid with a teal-blue shirt.
He
had black hair, luminous eyes and skin as
pale as hers. He looked like a braefolk man to her, but the eyes were
leprechaun green.
Eileen’s cow Cushy was a
bit taken by the kilt.
“Best
let her out. She’s putting me to the blush. Looks to me she wants a mouthful of
my kilt.”
“She
already had a mouthful of my skirts.” Eileen indicated the damp patch, streaked
with chewed grass.
Later, Sean and Eileen
arranged to go to a céilí,
and Sean pondered what to wear.
“Are
you wearing your kilt?” she asked Sean.
“That
depends, lovie. Do you want to be seen wid an outsized gossoon with skin like a
colleen or a braefolk laddie widout heathering who’s strayed into Shamrock parts?”
“Wear
what you please. I will be proud to dance with you whatever you choose.”
“Then
I’ll take the kilt,” he said and in a
moment, he was clad.
“You
changed your shirt,” Eileen said, running her fingers along the ruffled white
lawn that replaced his blue one.
He
took her hand. “This is my dress shirt. Away to the céili.”
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