A Light Inside the Mountain

by Jason Kirkey

There is a glen in Ireland. The entrance is difficult to find—you have to know what you’re looking for. As you walk the path, steep cliffs carved by a glacier into the bedrock rise up gradually around you until they tower above you like walls. Upon entering the glen, you might feel as though you are entering into a folktale, as though if you linger too long at dusk then you might never be seen or heard from again—until years later you emerge, young as the day you disappeared. When you step out of the glen, you cannot be sure that the folktale won’t follow you.

There is a mountain in Ireland. The mountain is called Knocknarea, a lone summit in County Sligo that is topped with a 5,000-year-old cairn said to be the tomb of the goddess Méabh. I emerged out of the glen, a folktale following behind me, to see my friend Frank clambering up the steep slope of Knocknarea. I followed him through brambles and shrubs as he pointed out to me a crack in the side of the mountain. The crack was narrow…