Emily’s Diary: March 6, 1913
I HEARD THEM AGAIN last night, I’m sure I did—the Hounds of the Gods, out there among the trees. I heard them give tongue, like the baying of dire wolves it was, as they caught the scent of their quarry. I heard the cries of their faery master. Like the songs of nightingales they were, sweet and lovely. Rathfarnham Woods rang with their song. I imagined the woodland creatures fleeing from their footsteps: Make way, make way, make way, for the Wild Hunt of the Ever-Living Ones! But what could have been their quarry, out there in the rain-lashed wood? What was the scent the hounds tasted that set them baying so? Surely nothing so ignoble as the vulgar fox or badger that O’Byrne sometimes shoots when they raid the school chicken runs, nothing as common as that. Perhaps the noble stag. That would be quarry worthy of the Riders of the Sidhe. Maybe one of Lord Palmerstown’s herds, or, is it possible? a faery stag from the pages of legend and story, the stag that is hunted and killed each night by the Wild Hunt only to rise again with the morning sun? Or, most romantic of all, one of their own kind, a manhunt, a faery warrior fleet-footed and daring, laughing as he slips tirelessly between the trees of Rathfarnham, making sport of the hounds and the spearmen dogging his footsteps. Charlotte in the next bed asked what did I think I was doing, sitting up all hours of the night looking out the window, didn’t I know that I’d get in trouble if Sister Therese caught me? And just what, she asked, was I looking for out there in the pitch-blackness anyway?
“The hunt of the Ever-Living Ones, chasing a golden-antlered stag through the forest of the night with their red-eared hounds. Listen! Can you hear them, baying out there in the night? Can you hear the jingle of the silver bells on their horses’ harnesses?”
Charlotte scrambled out of the sheets and knelt beside me on my bed. We looked out through the barred window and listened as hard as we could. I was certain I heard the call of a hound, very far off, as if the Night Hunt had passed by and moved onward. I asked Charlotte if she had heard anything.
“I think so,” she said. “Yes, I think I heard something, too.”
March 12, 1913
The Royal Irish Astronomical Society
Dunsink Observatory
County Dublin
My Dear Dr. Desmond,
A few lines of admiration and appreciation (and, I must admit, envy) on your success concerning the periodicity of Bell’s Comet. For once the quixotic climate of that wretched county of yours has done you a service: interest having waned while you languished beneath your blanket of Celtic mist, yours was indeed the sole eyepiece in the United Kingdom to be trained on the comet at the precise moment it began to display its unique behaviour. Some gossoon from some wretched little city-state university in Germany has lodged a counterclaim; quite frankly, I suspect it is purest jealousy. These Huns will attempt anything to outdo His Britannic Majesty. So, the claim is yours, indisputably and unequivocally, and as a result, all those telescopes that turned away in search of celestial pastures new are turning back with wonderful haste to Bell’s Comet. Alas, your name will not be joined with that of the comet’s discoverer, but your fame, I think, will be the more enduring for having disclosed an unprecedented astronomical phenomenon. A flashing comet! Quite remarkable!
I have checked your calculations of rotation, angular momentum, velocity, and periodicity against my own observations (forgive my presumption in so doing), and have found that my figures correspond with yours to a high degree of accuracy. However, I am at a loss to furnish some hypothesis which might account for a rotational period of twenty-eight minutes but a maximum luminosity period of only two and three-eighths seconds. In our orderly universe, as strictly controlled and timetabled as Great Southern Railways, such paradoxical behaviour is deeply offensive to we gentlemen of astronomy. Any hypothesis you might provide to explain this phenomenon would find wide general appreciation, and, should such a time arrive when you might wish to make it public, the lecture theatre at the Society is at your disposal. For the meantime I once again congratulate you on your achievement and encourage you to return to your studies.
Yours Sincerely,
Sir Greville Adams