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    Bones
    Bones
    Bones
    Ebook74 pages1 hour

    Bones

    By Pat Murphy

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    The Irish Giant – that’s what Londoners called Charlie Bryne, an enormous country lad standing 8 feet tall in his bare feet. He made his fortune by exhibiting himself, but Bryne was far more than a human oddity. He had the magical power of healing, a deep connection to the natural magic of the earth, and the blood of Irish kings in his veins. In 1782, he came to London with a single goal — to bring the Irish home to the island they had left.

    John Hunter was a man of science and insatiable curiosity — a surgeon, a natural philosopher, and a tireless collector of natural oddities. With analysis and dissection, Hunter strove to understand the natural world — and he wanted to add the bones of a giant to his collection.

    This novella, winner of the 1990 World Fantasy Award, examines what happens when the quest for scientific knowledge meets ancient natural magic.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUntreed Reads
    Release dateJun 12, 2012
    ISBN9781611873559
    Bones
    Author

    Pat Murphy

    Eugene R. "Pat" Murphy is the executive director of The Community Solution. He co-wrote and co-produced the award-winning documentary The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil, has initiated four major Peak Oil conferences and has given numerous presentations and workshops on the subject. He has extensive construction experience and developed low energy buildings during the nation's first oil crisis.

    Read more from Pat Murphy

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    Reviews for Bones

    3.5/5

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    • 5/5
      This short story is about Charlie Bryne, an Irish man of unusual size - about eight foot tall. His mother tells him that he is the son of the King of Ireland - also a giant, who she met in the Giant's Boneyard. The Giant's Boneyard is a field that has large boulders which according to legend are said to be the bones of giants. The King tells Charlie's mother that she will bear him a son that will save Ireland.Later on in the story, Charlie visits the boneyard and also meets the King who tells him to go to London and bring the Irish back home to their land. Charlie travels to Dublin and meets Joe Vance who sees Charlie as a way to make a lot of money - unfortunately for Charlie who is a very naive young man. But Charlie sees it as a chance to fulfill his destiny of bringing the Irish home.In London, Charlie meets a lot of interesting characters and touches all their lives. Charlie has a connection with nature and animals seem to be drawn to him - birds land on his shoulders and sing. Some of the lives he touches includes; a humped-back Irish woman who tells people's fortunes, a scientist who is searching for life's secrets who wants to study Charlie, three little boys who search the mud flats of the Thames for things to sell.I thought this story was wonderful! Full of magic like Charlie Bryne who also, according to the story actually existed. The story is both historical but includes touches of the magical - Charlie's animal cohorts, his healing power, his magic touch in people's lives. I definitely recommend.

    Book preview

    Bones - Pat Murphy

    Bones

    By Pat Murphy

    Copyright 2012 by Pat Murphy

    Cover Copyright 2012 by Ginny Glass and Untreed Reads Publishing

    The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

    Previously published in print, 1990.

    This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

    This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.

    http://www.untreedreads.com

    Bones

    By Pat Murphy

    This is a true story, more or less. In the history books, you can find Dr. John Hunter, a noted surgeon and naturalist. London’s Royal College of Surgeons maintains his museum, an amazing collection of eighteenth-century oddities and natural curiosities.

    Charlie Bryne is in the history books, too. He came to London from Ireland in 1782. Advertised as the World’s Tallest Man and the Descendant of Irish Kings, he exhibited himself as a curiosity and a freak.

    The history books tell of their meeting—but now I’m getting ahead of myself. I must start long before that.

    * * *

    On a cold winter evening, when the ground was white with frost, Charlie Bryne sat on a stool by the peat fire. Though the boy was only ten years old, he was already as tall as a grown man. His mother, a youthful widow, sat close by, her shawl pulled up around her shoulders and a glass of whiskey in her hand. The firelight shone on her face, making her cheeks rosy and her eyes bright.

    Tell me the story, Mum, Charlie asked. Tell me how I got to be so big.

    She smiled at him fondly. Ah, you know the tale as well as I do, Charlie. You have no need for me to tell it.

    I’ve forgotten. Tell me again, he pleaded.

    All right—just once more. Fill my glass and we’ll have the story. He refilled her glass from the jug and she settled herself more comfortably in her chair.

    It was a year after a young horse threw my husband and broke his back, she began. I was a widow with a fine farm, and many a bachelor farmer would gladly have had me to wife. But I was happy to be on my lone, and I would have none of them. She pushed back her dark hair with her hand, smiling at the memory. Old Sean Dermot died that autumn, and I went to the wake. As it came about, I stayed too late, and I was walking home after dark. ’Twas a lonesome road I had to travel—and I was tired, so I took a short cut, the path that ran beside the Giant’s Boneyard.

    She shook her head at her own foolishness. The Giant’s Boneyard was a lonely, haunted spot. In a field too rocky for planting, wild grasses grew thick and green around great boulders of unusual shapes. People said that the boulders were the bones of a giant, a king of Ireland, who had died a hundred years before, while fighting to protect his people from invaders. Some said that he had promised, with his dying words, to return if ever Ireland needed him. Some said he walked at night, strolling through the field that held his bones. In any case, most people avoided the place after dark.

    The moon was a sliver in the sky, hanging low and giving just enough light for me to see. I was only halfway across the field when I saw a blue light, a beautiful light, the color of the Blessed Virgin’s robes. I was not foolish enough to go running after fairy lanterns. I kept to the path, hurrying toward home, but the light danced across the field toward me. And then I saw it clearly.

    She clasped her hands before her, and leaned toward Charlie. He caught his breath, watching her. The blue light shone from a golden crown on the head of an enormous man. A powerful man—stronger than the blacksmith in the village, taller than the tallest I had ever seen. He was handsome, but his eyes were dark and fierce. When he looked at me, I froze, bound to the spot and unable to run.

    She fixed her gaze on Charlie, as if to show him how it felt, and he shivered. He spoke to me sweetly, saying that I would bear him a son. His son would have the old blood in his veins, and he would save Ireland. Then he took me by the hand and led me to a spot where the grass was soft. There he lay with me, taking his pleasure as a man does with a woman. In the morning, I woke with the sun in my eyes, beside the boulder they call the Giant’s Skull. She leaned back in her chair. Nine months later, you were born. You were the biggest baby the midwife had ever laid her eyes upon. And you’ve kept growing ever since. You take after your father, sure enough.

    Charlie nodded, gazing into the fire. Have you ever seen my father again?

    That I have not, she murmured. But I know you for his son.

    Then I must save Ireland? When must I do this?

    That I don’t know. When the time comes, surely it will be clear to you.

    Charlie frowned at the fire, his expression fierce. I will do what I must do, he said. If only I can figure out what that is.

    * * *

    Charlie wasn’t his mother’s son, though he sat at her knee and fetched her whiskey. He was

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