The Kelpie's Prophecy

The numerous legends of the kelpie - a Scottish water-creature - are, for the most part, really creepy.  This is one of the less-creepy ones.

In the northern part of the country, flows the Conan, a beautiful river with many sunny spots and shaded nooks on its banks.  There are trout a plenty, and mussels in its fords.  Many children have long-passed their days on the banks of the Conan - their days, but not their nights.  For while it may be pleasant during the day, at night, there are many fearful places to be found along the course of the Conan. 

One of the most frightful places can be found amongst the woods of the Conan House, where a swampy meadow lies in the midst of rushes, and, rising out of the middle of the river, is a willow-covered hillock.  On either side of the river, the woods grow thick and dark, and the waters swirl around the moss-covered rocks in dark, fearsome eddies.  On top of the island lie the ruins of an old church and its graveyard. 

About two-hundred years ago, farmers were busy about the church, harvesting the corn from the field that grew adjacent.  Around about midday, the workers heard a voice from the river proclaim:  "The hour but not the man has come."  Looking about, they spotted a ford near the church, where one might cross the river quite easily.  Standing in the middle of the ford was a kelpie, who repeated her phrase before disappearing beneath the waters.  As they stood, bewildered and scratching their heads, a man on horseback appeared, making for the ford.

Well, they understood the kelpie's words, and tried to dissuade the man from fording the river.  He would not listen, so the stoutest of them dragged him from his horse and locked him away in the dungeon of the church - for safe keeping, you see.  After the hour had passed, they unlocked the door of the cellar and called out to the man, but they received no answer.  Again they cried, and again their cries were met with silence, so they descended into the cell.  There, they found the man face down in a stone trough of water, drowned to death.  So, though they had tried to save the man, the kelpie's words rang true.  

This wrestles with the age-old question:  can we change the future?  Obviously, according to this story, no.  Try as they may, the men could not save the lone rider's life - indeed, it was their very attempt to save him that took his life.  While the many aspects of the future are, indeed, set in stone, how they get to that point may very well change depending on people's actions.  If, for example, the men in the story had not captured the man on horseback, would he have drowned trying to cross the river?  Perhaps.  His "destiny," therefore, was set, but how it was fulfilled could have changed. 

Bear in mind, I'm not making a philosophical statement of certainty here, just offering up a possibility to the aforementioned question, because I really don't know, nor is there any way to know whether or not the future could have turned out differently.  In the end, I suppose it's really a moot point.  Either we can alter and influence the future, or we cannot, and none of us have any way of knowing whether or not we are. It sounds like maybe instead of worrying about tomorrow, we should deal with today, first.