Eilan said, "Because I love music, and I cannot sing.”
"Your voice is soft but sweet, for I have heard it.”
"Grandfather says that next to Dieda, I croak like a frog,” Eilan said bitterly. "In our house it was always left to her to sing.”
"I think he is mistaken; but this time I will not argue, for even I must admit that he is one of our greatest bards. Dieda has a very beautiful voice, perhaps from him. Next to such a voice as your kinswoman’s we are all frogs croaking, child, so do not grieve. You can learn the stories of the gods, even if you cannot sing them as well as she; I think you will have no trouble becoming a spell singer anyway. We cannot all have the finest voices, even among the bards.”
And, indeed, Eilan was taught to sing many of the spells she had to memorize, and a few of the simpler Words of Power were confided to her, even that first year.
One day when she was being instructed in spells by Caillean, the older woman asked, "Do you remember that night after Mairi’s child was born, when I frightened away the raiders by throwing fire at them?”
"I will never forget it,” Eilan said.
"Remember I told you that you could learn to do it, if you had the proper teaching?”
Eilan nodded, her heart beginning to pound, whether with excitement or fear, she did not know.
"Well, I will teach you now. The important thing to remember is that the fire cannot harm you; you have seen me handle it, and so you know within yourself that it can be done.” She picked up the girl’s slender white fingers in her own cool ones and breathed on the palm of Eilan’s hand.
"Now,” she said, "the important thing is to trust yourself. Reach quickly into the fire, and pick up a handful of live coals; the fire can only harm you because you believe it is in the nature of fire to burn; once you know its true spiritual nature, you can handle it as you would a handful of dry leaves. Fire burns within you as it burns on the hearth. How can one flame harm another? Let the spark of life within you welcome fire!”
Eilan quailed, but it was true that she had seen Caillean do this trick; and she trusted the older woman completely. She reached towards the brazier of live coals; heat touched her face, but Caillean said firmly, "Do not hesitate—do it quickly!” And Eilan thrust her hand into the flames.
On her cheeks she could still feel heat, but to her astonishment, the coals felt like a handful of winter snow. Caillean, watching her wondering face, said, "Drop it, quickly now.” Eilan opened her fingers against a sudden blast of heat and the coals rolled on to the hearthstone. She stared at her hands in wonder.
"Did I really do that?”
"You did,” Caillean said. The coal had reached a cloth lying in the hearth, which began to smolder. A strong stink of burning cloth rose suddenly from the singed edges as Caillean picked it up and blew it out.
Eilan stared at her in astonishment. "How did you know that in another moment it was going to burn?”
Caillean said, "I could feel you beginning to think and wonder and doubt. Doubt is the enemy of magic. We are taught to do things like this to astonish the common people with wonders and marvels, or to guard ourselves in danger. But you must learn,” she cautioned, "that it is not right to do miracles for the sake of merely astonishing the once-born. Even to preserve yourself against danger, you must be wary of doing what may seem miracles. It may not have been altogether wise to use it that night in Mairi’s house; but done is done. Now that you know it is possible, you shall learn when it is right to use such things, and when it is not.”
As the year’s passage was marked by the festivals, the girls received not only the lore of the gods each festival honored but the meaning behind the tales, many of which, true in symbol, were not true in fact. They argued about the virginity of the goddess Arianrhod, and the fate of the bright son she so unwillingly bore; they analyzed the transformations of Gwion who tasted the brew in the cauldron of wisdom. They learned the secret lore of the Sacred King and the Lady of Sovereignty. And in the darkest days of winter, they contemplated the mysteries of the shadowy goddesses whose bloody faces and withered flesh were the embodiment of men’s fears.