Slogging up the hillside, tired and hungry, was a trial indeed.  Yet he felt strangely optimistic of the day ahead.  That was a good puke!  He was careful not to dwell on it.  The landscape was undulating, with thorn thickets in the hollows, and rocky outcrops.  All he could do was to head west by the sun.  At length, he had to stop, gather brushwood for a fire, and replenish his stomach.
Chewing on a hot oatcake, he considered his situation.  The warm glow in his belly seemed to connect him to earth.  The man he sought was not so very far away, somewhere on the same earth as him.  He realised that since his meeting with the tree, he was in some sort of connection with his goal, however tenuous.  An owl glided overhead in a more northerly direction. Owls don’t venture out by day.  That was good enough for him, he quickly broke camp and hurried on.
  The afternoon saw him arrive at a hamlet of a few run down cottages and barns.  He would ask after the old man, and perhaps find a little basic hospitality.  Nothing could be further from the case.  Knocking at the first door, his enquiry was met with a stupefied stare from a toothless grandmother.  She then shouted out in a dialect he scarce understood, and he was hounded out of the hamlet by a motley band of inhabitants and barking dogs.
Diving off the track at the first opportunity, and avoiding their fields, he was soon lost in a thorny wood, and could only follow goat paths, tired, thirsty and dejected.  At last, he could see ahead a sunlit glade, where he would stop and sleep, no matter what.
Things were getting worse.  The glade was in a hollow, the thick rime of last night’s frost only just beginning to steam in the brief glimpse of sun.  So washing down a few dry biscuits with the last of his water, he huddled in his blanket and lapsed into a fitful sleep.

Cold and stiffness invaded his body, tugging at his mind.  Restless sleep returned.  It was dark when he woke to a glowing heat firing his body.  He hadn’t opened his eyes, yet before him was the one whom he sought, standing in his mind’s eye.

He surrendered his thoughts, drifting through lands and spheres of the underworld, timeless.  Coming to, he knew there was no way back, he had been drawn into the realm of shamans and seers, and it was real.
With the glimmer of dawn, he hurried on, knowing the thread he was following would lead him to food and shelter – however long it might take.  The morning wore on, his body still warm, in spite of hunger, till the doorway stood open before him.

He had seen these before, in the uplands nearer home.  They were of time before memory, avoided by all but the unwary, haunted by tormented souls.  But none of that mattered now.  He slithered in and just about managed to sit in a hunched position.
It seemed obvious.  In his mind he started down the stone stairs, winding ever to the left, the spiral taking him ever deeper into Her.  She washed through his guts, and told him the hunger didn’t matter, his body was strong.  She planted her roots within him and sent him back up.  Snow flakes began to fall..
 
This was getting serious now.  Why wasn’t there any habitation, was he being led in circles?  A lake gradually came into view, with what looked like a ruined castle above the shores.  He remembered old tales of the battle and burning of a castle in the tribal days.  If there were people anywhere, a lake was as likely place as any.

Climbing the broken walls, he scanned the shores against the black, snow laden sky.  There seemed to be a hint of a light on the far side, and as the afternoon got prematurely dark, a second flickered into life.  He hurried on before it got too dark to see, trudging relentlessly along the gravelly shore.

Then she appeared, walking purposefully toward him, as if he were expected. 
‘I see you are in dire need of shelter’ she said, ‘You must come with me.’     
  He laboured to keep up with her, always lagging a pace or two behind.  She spoke at times in a dialect he only half understood, but his mind seemed to know the rest.

At length, where a small stream whispered into the lake, they reached a scattering of low houses .  The chief of these was a longhouse.  As they crossed the threshold into a passage, the intoxicating smell of a few cattle in the byre to his left, filled him with familiar warmth.  They turned though a door  to the right,  and into the home.

Several children fidgeted and whispered.  The couple by the fire drew a bench forward and motioned him to warm himself, before retiring to the shadows along the low wall.  No meal before, had tasted like that hot bread, coarse sausage, and milk.  She told him not to explain himself, they would talk in the morning.  Back out in the passage, she showed him up the ladder to the hay loft above the animals.  The door closed and bolted behind him, as he sank into hay scented oblivion.

For him, the next day dawned late.  A cold sun shafted in through the unglazed windows below him.  He knocked at the door below and was bidden inside.  She knew his purpose of course, but seemed to avoid referring to it directly.  Eventually, she cleared his bowl and cup, clasped his hands together in her own, and spoke directly to his heart. 

She told him of the man he sought.  He was her father, they had buried him two years ago.  She herself had fulfilled his role as best she could since then, but as a woman, folk seemed to fear her.  He allowed himself a smile, to him she was mother, lover, and guide, in one woman. 
‘I will take you to the high top, around the lake.  You have come far already, you will return a very different man.  But today you must rest’.  She followed him into the loft, and they fucked, hard and long.

Next morning they set off round the lake, He, well provisioned, she in perfect peace.  When they reached the foot of the ridge at the lake’s end, she directed him to walk north and before sundown he would not miss the beech trees on the ‘top’.  There he must spend the night.  They parted and set their faces, each on their own path.
The day wore on uneventfully, his heart was light.  Sure enough, the top hove into sight, by the end of the day, the prematurely leafless trees, stripped by gales, stark against the sky, protected from the grazing animals by a low wall.  The power of the place was unmistakable, he could feel the long lost presence of a previous tribe, and their reverence for it.

After eating, he sat with his back against the wall, before a tiny fire, wrapping himself in his blanket. The twilight shimmered, the ground seemed porous, as he felt his legs stretching far below him.  The base of his spine reverberated, and he knew the spirit of the rock below.  It told him he would need the strength he was drawing forth, for men would persecute him for his words and deeds.  Sleep claimed him where he sat, but he woke at dawn, loose limbed and fresh.
 
Surveying the land before him, he decided to skirt round the farmsteads, and head for the forest, keeping to the margins to avoid being hopelessly lost.  Towards midday, following a stream he came upon an overgrown path, entering the forest by a decrepit bridge.  After a moment’s hesitation, he crossed over.  It must lead somewhere.

The path wandered awhile, till the trees thinned out, where it led to the foot of a once mighty oak, and no further.  Geraint stood before it, rooted to the spot.  The meaning of the path and bridge was clear, and only one man would have made it.  He sat down a few paces away, to eat some bread and cheese.
  
 
The tree spoke in his mind, he wasn’t surprised by anything now. 

Yes indeed, the one you sought came here, as did those before him.  And now it is you. 
 
You have much yet to learn, but you are already the one, you have been seeking.

       Go back to her.          I will always be here.