Who is Macha? Why ever would you ask such a... well never mind. It is as it must be I suppose. Take a seat there and I will tell you.

Oh dear there is so much to tell, I am not rightly sure where to even begin. Let us begin at one of her many beginnings then shall we? Oh yes, she is quite old and so has many beginnings and many endings, as well as many middles to her story. But in all of them, she is The Greatest Grandmother that never was.

See; unlike her sisters The Morrigan and The Great Badb, Masha was never a Mother. Though whether by design or by accident it doesn't rightly matter. But either way she does love her people ever so deeply and harbors a great desire to be loved by us in return. And the desire for love is a very powerful desire indeed, as we all know!

This desire for love manifested in her not as a desire for just any old love, but a true, deep, abiding love. In the end this desire led her to becoming everything she is, everything we love her for... and everything we fear. Both, Great and the Terrible in equal amounts! Which is all quite natural you see.

Her great power comes not through something so simple as Wyrdcraft in the way many of the other gods are want to do. No! In her pursuit of our true love and respect she chose to pursue a more difficult path, the same path we must walk when pursuing such lofty ambitions. For this reason her skills; her POWER, was achieved the same way any of us achieve anything worth doing. Through patience and practice. As good as that sounds this patience and practice is the power that can only be afforded by the gods; due to the time available to them. So she painstakingly garnered, honing her skills through innumerable eons of practice and dedication to craft, true craft that is.

So in pursuit of this love she learned all things great and desired by we mortals. She learned to see the future, reading a mans many destinies at a mere glance. She learned to heal all ails, even old age and death itself. She learned to peer into mans heart to witness his truest of desires; hidden and kept most secret, so deep that even he himself might never know of them.

But most importantly she learned to bake. The baking of sweets and breads and meats and stews of all kinds! A true Grandmotherly soul.

She is The King Maker, The Heroes Guide, Soothsayer and The Slayer of Children and Women alike. Although this last is a rather unfortunate side effect of who she has become... she does not do so out of any malevolence, no she does this out of concern and a very protective nature.

See, love while grand and uplifting, it can also be dark... oh so very dark and grimm in it's jealous application crushing those very same souls whom it was intended to shield from life's... harsher elements.

No, no this is far from everything that is Masha the Grand. But alas our time is over and so perhaps next time we can discuss her more ... peculiar attributes.