Morrigan

Macha Mong Ruad ("Raven with the Red Mane" Macha=Raven, Mong=Mane, Ruad=Red), daughter of Áed Rúad. She married Cimbáeth, with whom she shared the kingship. Macha ruled together with Cimbáeth for seven years, until he died of plague at Emain Macha, and then a further fourteen years on her own, until she was killed by Rechtaid Rígderg (Who was himself later killed by her foster-son).

I walk the battlefield at dawn.

She is generally thought of as one aspect of the death Goddess the Mórrígan ("Great Queen" or "Phantom Queen"), Macha "Raven," Badb "Scald Crow" Macha is associated with both horses and crows.

The Mórrígan is both a sex and battle Goddess, and Her personality is usually described as both war-like and alluring. She is commonly shown washing bloody clothes at a river ford. Like the bean sidhe banshee, whom She is believed related to, She is an omen of death.

She is defeated in battle, her horse killed. She is captured as the spoils of victory and is sacrificed, cut, hung, and thrown into a bog, along with her steed. She is later resurrected by The Crow and when she needs her steed, it is resurrected by The Sparkle Horse. The king who deposed her, at seeing her resurrected, he realises she is The Morrigan (The Phantom Queen) of legend.

She is beautiful, dressed in red and green, and has long dishevelled red hair with orange and yellow highlights which make it shimmer like wild fire.

She is a peat bog tanned brownish-black, wrinkled, scoliosis-hunched, partly decayed hag.

Rechtaid Rígderg ("red king"), son of Lugaid Laigdech, was, according to medieval Irish legend and historical tradition, a High King of Ireland. He took power after killing Macha Mong Ruad, daughter of his father's killer, Áed Rúad. He ruled for twenty years, until he was killed by Úgaine Mór, foster-son of Macha and her husband Cimbáeth.

Úgaine Mór was the foster-son of Cimbáeth and Macha Mong Ruad and he took power by killing his predecessor (and his foster-mother's killer) Rechtaid Rígderg.

Plot:

      Jack Danya Kemplin

Writing:

                Jack Danya Kemplin

Artist:

(artist)

Lettering:

             (letterer)

Edited by:

Jack Danya Kemplin

The Crow™ © 2016 James O’Barr (under exclusive license to Top Dollar Comics, Inc and Crowvision, Inc.) The Crow™ and “THE CROW”, The Original Motion Picture © 1994 Crowvision, Inc. All rights reserved.

Any similarities between characters, names, and/or institutions, living or dead (or undead) is purely coincidental, but for instances of satire, and should not be inferred. This is a work of fanfiction, no part of it may ever be printed or sold without permission of Crowvision, Inc.

PAGE 1

Panel 1

Long landscape across the moorlands, they are empty, picturesque, but the sky is ominous, as if stained in spreading blood.

Caption

Iron Age, Ireland

Panel 2

As The Crow circles overhead, armies gather on either side of the moor, one lead by a queen, the other by a man who desires to be king.

Captian

Since time immemorial, The Crow has been associated with the battlefield

Panel 3

The male leader gives the signal to attack.

Panel 4

The queen does likewise.

Panel 5

The queen’s steed races towards the action, followed by her men.

PAGE 2 & 3

Double page spread:

The two armies clash violently, the men cutting each other down, the queen and male leader locked in combat.

PAGE 4

Panel 1

The Crow, perched atop the head of a dead warrior, holds in its beak the warrior’s plucked out of eye.

Captian

The Crow, the carrion eater who consumes the fallen dead.

Panel 2

A warrior cuts down another with his blood soaked sword.

Panel 3

The warrior licks the blood off of his weapon.

Captian

Many ancient peoples consumed the blood and bodies of their enemies, believing that in doing so they would gain their enemies’ strength, their powers.

Panel 4

Another has come from behind and stabbed him through! The victor has become the defeated.

Panel 5

His body falls as the man who stabs him now licks his own blade.

Panel 6

The Crow now sits atop him, its beak pulling the man’s tongue from his mouth.

Captian

This makes The Crow the most powerful of all, as it consumes countless warriors over the centuries.

PAGE 5

Panel 1

The Crow has flown into the air, but the dead, tongueless man continues to lie amidst the battle, as the ground is littered with more and more corpses.

Caption

Everyone dies eventually

Panel 2

Bird's eye view: The crow circles overhead as the battle rages on, the field like a slaughter house.

Caption

 And when they do, The Crow is there.

Panel 3

Same as Panel 2, but close up on The Crow, the light shimmering off it's feathers like as if on water.

Caption

Like Charon ferrying people across the river Styx, The Crow too carries the dead over the bridge between the land of the living and the land of the dead.

Panel 4

Rechtaid Rígderg, the man who wishes to be king,  signals to his archers

Panel 5

they pull back their bows

PAGE 6

Panel 1

Macha's horse reels back as several arrows enter into its chest

Panel 2

Macha falls from the horse

Panel 3

The horse falling down next to her

PAGE 7

Panel 1

Rechtaid Rígderg signals to his men to get Macha.

Rechtaid Rígderg

Take her captive!

Panel 2

The men grab hold of Macha, rising her to her knees, placing a rope around her neck, and bounding her hands.

Rechtaid Rígderg (Off)

I want her alive

Panel 3

Close up on Rechtaid Rígderg's face, looking sinister.

Rechtaid Rígderg

...for now.

Panel 4

The men, having pulled her by the rope around her neck, have brought Macha before Rechtaid, she looks at him without fear as he stands above her glaring and gloating.

Macha

You will never take the throne

Rechtaid

It looks like I just did

Panel 5

Macha spits in his face.

Macha

My people will continue to fight for me

Panel 6

Bird's eye view: the battlefield is still and runs with blood and carnage; Macha, Rechtaid, and his men standing on a nearby hill, The Crow circling overhead.

Rechtaid Rígderg

Not if there is no one left to fight

PAGE 8

Panel 1

It is dark now, and Rechtaid and his men, with torches in hand, have marched Macha to the Celtic knot carved stone marking her husband, Cimbáeth's grave.

Macha

Why have you brought me to my husband's grave?

Rechtaid

What better place to end your reign?

Panel 2

More of Rechtaid's men come from all around, their swords pointed in front of them at villagers, leading them to watch the spectacle about to take place. Macha looks at her people with great sorrow on her face, as if asking them for forgiveness for failing them.

Rechtaid

Oh look, our guests have arrived, to see their precious queen humbled and laid low.

Panel 3

The men who marched with Rechtaid and Macha, tie the other end of the rope that is around Macha's neck, and the other end of the rope around her wrists, around the gravestone.

Rechtaid

Tie her to Cimbáeth's grave, and have your way with her

Panel 4

Macha, tied to her husband's grave, lays on the ground in terror as the shadows of the men, projected on her by the light of the torches, enclose in on her.

Rechtaid

...And do take your time and be as brutal as you wish, it isn't every day that a man gets to ravish a queen

PAGE 9

Panel 1

The men tear at her green and red dress, squeeze her breasts, and kiss her cheek and pull her hair as she struggles.

Rechtaid (Off)

Your father, Áed Rúad, stole this land from my family when he killed my father, Lugaid Laigdech, and now I, at long last, am taking it back!

Panel 2

Young children look on in horror as their parents try to cover their eyes, Rechtaid's men holding the parents' hands back.

Panel 3

Close up on Macha's face, tears running down it,  as she winces in pain and gazes upon her husband's gravestone in order to block out what is happening to her, as the men continue to have their way with her.

Macha

Cimbáeth, my beloved…

Rechtaid (Off)

It was I who was meant to rule, not you and Cimbáeth!

Parts Not Written Yet:

As Macha is being ravaged, we enter her thoughts while she gazes at the gravestone.

We see her in love with her dear husband, Cimbáeth, them both enthroned.

Their foster-son enters and warns them that Rechtaid's men are approuching.

Cimbáeth says that he must gather the men and fight.

Macha warns him that she forsees death.

He tells her to hope that it is Rechtaid's then.

Cimbáeth goes to battle with Rechtaid

Cimbáeth is struck down in battle

Macha rushes out

holds her beloved's body and wails!

Rechtaid's horses are spooked by the peircing sound

She cries out for her men to fight for their fallen king

They do so, and Rechtaid flees to fight another day

Macha washes Cimbáeth's bloody armour and linens in the river

She places them back on his body

and they bury him

placing that stone on the hill

We return to the current events, Rechtaid's men are now taking out their daggers and mutilating Macha as well as ravaging her

Macha

I join you my beloved

The children again look on in terror

Rechtaid now gestures towards a young man whom his men also hold bound, Ugaine Mor

Rechtaid

And look, Macha, at your beloved foster-son, the one whom you and Cimbaeth expected to rule after you; well he shall be my slave!

The young man looks upon his mother with deep sadness

she looks back with a look of apology

We go back into her memories

Cimbaeth lovingly holds her as she is pregnant with their children

He now holds her hand as the midwives assist with the birth

She gives birth to twins

they are both overjoyed

but then the babies both die in front of them, and they are sorrowed

Some time later they get word that Cimbaeth's sister has died in childbirth, but the child lives

So they take on her child as their own, he is Ugaine Mor.

They raise him with love and joy,

and he is trained by Cimbaeth for battle, to fight off the constant attacks from Rechtaid.

Back to current events, the men are still carving up and ravaging Macha

She is now gazing at Cimbaeth's gravestone again

Macha

At least I die near my people, my son, and my beloved...

Rechtaid

Throw her into the bog!

His men remove the loops of rope from the stone

and toss her twitching body

it landing with a splashing thud in the peat bog below.

Rechtaid

and toss the horse in with her, they shall be a sacrifice in thanksgiving to The Morrigan, in thanksgiving for our victory in battle

They throw down the horse

It landing in the bog next to her

them both sinking into its depths

until the bog has covered all trace of them

Rechtaid now turns to the townspeople

as his men place a diadem over his head

Rechtaid

Now I, the rightful heir, Rechtaid Rigderg, am king!

20 years later

The Crow perches on Cimbaech's gravestone

It looks down at the bog

Macha begins to rise from the bog, life returning to her

She eventually raises her horse as well

And rescues her foster-son from slavery

him killing Rechtaid

She decides to stay behind, to protect her foster-son's kingdom