Synopsis of the first Crowthistle book, THE IRON TREE  
The Well of Tears is the second book in the CROWTHISTLE CHRONICLES.
Book 1: The Iron Tree, told of Jarred, a young man who lived in a village in the desert kingdom of Ashqalêth, and possessed an amulet that apparently made him invulnerable. He and his comrades decided to travel to seek their fortunes in distant realms. On the way, they visited a town built amongst the intricate waterways of the Great Marsh of Slievmordhu, where Jarred fell in love with a Marsh-daughter named Lilith.

Slievmordhu is a kingdom situated in the southwest of Tir, a continent throughout which grows a disliked but beautiful common weed called ‘crowthistle’. Eldritch wights dwell in the Marsh but seldom harm the marsh-folk, who understand them and their ways. An urisk, a seelie wight like a dwarfish man with the legs of a goat, often loitered near Lilith’s cottage, where she lived with her mother Liadan, her step-father Earnán, Earnán’s son Eoin and Earnán’s mother Eolacha, a wise carlin. Nearby lived Old Man Connick, a demented and elderly man who was the father of Liadan. Unknown to her family, Lilith’s mother Liadan kept imagining she could hear footsteps invisibly following her, and privately sensed that she was falling prey to a mysterious madness.

When Jarred and Lilith fell in love, Lilith’s step-brother, Eoin, became jealous. Jarred and his comrades departed from the Marsh and continued on their travels, but Jarred could not stop thinking about Lilith. Back at the Marsh, Lilith’s mother Liadan tried to flee from her growing madness, but instead was accidentally drowned. Jarred made excuses to his friends and returned to the Marsh to settle. His arrival helped Lilith endure her grief over the apparently inexplicable death of her mother.

Jarred learned the ways of the Marsh-dwellers and began to court Lilith. Around his neck he still wore the protective amulet. Rivalry grew between him and Eoin, who was resentful of Lilith’s affection for Jarred, and who guessed the power of the amulet.

During celebrations of the traditional Festival of Rushbearing, Lilith became lost and injured. The urisk, usually surly but in this case benevolent, helped Jarred find her. Upon her rescue the two lovers plighted their troth. Jarred gave his bride-to-be a ring, and his amulet.
Their happiness, however, was short-lived. After Old Man Connick died, completely insane, the carlin Eolacha and young Lilith realised that there was some kind of curse on Lilith’s bloodline.  Lilith declared she must never marry and beget another doomed generation.  Jarred swore he would find the cause of the curse, and break it.

Lilith and other members of her household travelled to the Autumn Fair at the capital city of Slievmordhu, Cathair Rua. There they saw druids of the Sanctorum, who are the official ‘intermediaries’ between the people of Tir and the ‘Four Fates’.  In the city, Jarred sought to learn the history of Old Man Connick. He visited apothecaries and made enquiries, but to no avail. Eventually a yellow-haired street-urchin called Fionnbar Aonarán led Jarred to the hovel of half-senile Ruairc McGabhann. The old man related the decades-old history of the brave youth Tierney A’Connacht, who, wielding the golden sword Fallowblade, rescued beautiful Álainna Machnamh from Janus Jaravhor, the long-dead sorcerer of the (now sealed and abandoned) Dome of Strang in Orielthir.

Jaravhor, powerful and malign, then cursed the heirs of Tierney A’Connacht and Álainna Machnamh with madness and death. Old Man Connick, his daughter Liadan and her daughter Lilith, were all descended from the cursed couple. This tale of the past explained the nature of the malediction, but not how to break it. Jarred returned to his friends and sweetheart and told them what he had learned. The news cast a pall of gloom upon them all.

On a subsequent visit to the city Fionnbar made a second appearance, and guided Jarred back to Ruairc’s hovel.  On the way he led Jarred near a strange indestructible tree that grew in the city.  Enclosed inaccessibly within the Iron Tree’s fretwork of thorny boughs was an extraordinary, sparkling jewel. Jarred was tricked into retrieving the jewel - a feat no man had been able to achieve before - thus inadvertently proving he was the grandson of the sorcerer. It was further revealed that Jarred’s amulet had no power. The talisman was a decoy employed by Jarred’s father, to disguise the fact that Jarred himself was immune to harm because the sorcerer had left an enchantment of invulnerability on all descendants of his own bloodline. Despising his malicious grandfather, Jarred flung the jewel back into the Iron Tree and vowed to have nothing more to do with the sorcerer of Strang.

Joyfully, Jarred and Lilith returned to the Marsh. They believed that they could now safely marry: the benison on Jarred’s blood would surely cancel the curse on Lilith’s.  Eoin was not so happy, despite the fact that recently he had happened to do a good turn for some eldritch wights who, as a reward, granted him good fortune.  His jealousy festered. He became wealthy, and built himself a floating house, while Jarred remained in poverty.

A year after her marriage to Jarred, Lilith gave birth to a daughter. They named her ‘Jewel’. Despite his earlier misgivings, Eoin discovered he adored the child.
Lilith and Jarred enjoyed twelve years of happiness together.  They were convinced the curse had been broken. Unwilling to compromise their daughter’s happiness, they concealed from her the curse and its history. Furthermore, Jewel had no inkling of her own innate invulnerability. However, Eolacha the old carlin eventually died and, as if her grief were a trigger, Lilith began to fall prey to the ancestral paranoia. She heard the first, distant footsteps of madness.

Desperate to save his wife from a gruesome fate, Jarred travelled to Cathair Rua in search of a druid called Adiuvo Constanto Clementer, who was reputed to be a healer of lunatics. In order to pay the healer, Jarred once again retrieved the jewel from the Iron Tree, but a passer-by spied him doing the deed. Soon, word of the jewel-taker came to the ears of King Maolmórdha and his profoundly flawed family, including the conniving eldest son, Crown Prince Uabhar. The executant of this deed would necessarily be of the sorcerer’s blood, and they suspected that only a descendent of the sorcerer would have the power to open the sealed Dome revealing the reputed treasures hidden within.  Uabhar convinced his weak father that it was in the Crown’s interests to capture this ‘jewel-thief’ and make him unlock the Dome of Castle Strang.

Ruairc McGabhann’s niece, the drudge Fionnuala Aonarán (half-sister to Fionnbar), came in haste to Jarred, whom she loved.  She informed him that the king’s men were hunting a man of his description, and also seeking any offspring he may have. Jarred wished to have nothing to do with the mysterious Dome. Besides, he knew Maolmórdha was untrustworthy and in all likelihood would harm him. Fervently he hoped that the king was not aware he had a daughter. Fionnuala and Fionnbar helped Jarred to escape, but only after they had forced Jarred to promise he would later leave his family and go with them to unlock the secrets of the Dome. 
Eoin, also visiting the city, witnessed a strange funeral, conducted by eldritch wights. When he looked into the coffin he saw a corpse with his own face and understood, to his horror, that he had witnessed an omen of his own impending death.

With Maolmórdha’s cavalry hot on his heels, Jarred hurried back to the Marsh. On the road he encountered Eoin, who eventually admitted that his jealousy had led him to betray Jarred to the king. When Eoin realised that in betraying his rival he would also be bringing danger to Lilith’s daughter Jewel he became utterly distraught, and filled with self-loathing.

At the Marsh Jarred angrily bade Eoin help him, and told Lilith and young Jewel to make ready to journey in secret to the safe haven of Narngalis. But before they had a chance to leave the Marsh the madness came upon Lilith again, triggered by the fear of pursuit. Running in terror, Lilith tumbled over a cliff and was mortally injured.  Jarred, trying to retrieve her broken body, slipped and fell a short distance.  By ill-chance his heart was pierced by a branch of mistletoe sprouting from a tree leaning out from the cliff part-way down. Mistletoe was the only thing in the world (besides old age) from which the Sorcerer’s enchantment could not protect him.

Jewel’s parents were now both dead, and Eoin, racked by the agony of remorse, was determined to save the child on his own. They set out together in their boat - just in time; the king's cavalry arrived at the Marsh soon after they had left. Towards the close of the book the following words are written:

On the lightless staithe of the Mosswell cottage Cuiva and Odhrán Rushford stood together, the moon-pale and the sun-browned.  Their faces were folded in on themselves, creased and wet with crying, and they leaned upon each other’s shoulders.
They could hear the king’s men crashing and splashing through the marsh. Frogs twanged. Stars had fallen into the water, or perhaps they were dying blossoms.
“So,” said Odhrán, “in the end the sorcerer wreaked his full measure of vengeance.”
They stared out in the direction Eoin and Jewel had taken, and after a while Cuiva said, “I wonder what will become of them.”
Towards morning, Jewel and Eoin reached a north-western edge of the marsh.  They came ashore and set the canoe adrift.  Shouldering their bundles, they disappeared into the grey woods, like trows hastening to depart the haunts of mortal men before sunrise.

Jarred and Lilith had perished, but their child lived on. In later days it was said that the wraiths of the doomed lovers could be seen walking joyfully, hand-in-hand, through the Marsh twilight.

The Well of Tears Chapter 1