The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Coming of Cuculain, by Standish O'Grady This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Coming of Cuculain Author: Standish O'Grady Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5092] This file was first posted on April 24, 2002 Last Updated: November 17, 2016 Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COMING OF CUCULAIN *** Text file produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team HTML file produced by David Widger
“Winds and waters my instructors.”These were O’Grady’s own earliest companions and no man can find better comrades than earth, water, air and sun. I imagine O’Grady’s own youth was not so very different from the youth of Red Hugh before his captivity; that he lived on the wild and rocky western coast, that he rowed in coracles, explored the caves, spoke much with hardy natural people, fishermen and workers on the land, primitive folk, simple in speech, but with that fundamental depth men have who are much in nature in companionship with the elements, the elder brothers of humanity: it must have been out of such a boyhood and such intimacies with natural and unsophisticated people that there came to him the understanding of the heroes of the Red Branch. How pallid, beside the ruddy chivalry who pass huge and fleet and bright through O’Grady’s pages, appear Tennyson’s bloodless Knights of the Round Table, fabricated in the study to be read in the drawing-room, as anaemic as Burne Jones’ lifeless men in armour. The heroes of ancient Irish legend reincarnated in the mind of a man who could breathe into them the fire of life, caught from sun and wind, their ancient deities, and send them, forth to the world to do greater deeds, to act through many men and speak through many voices. What sorcery was in the Irish mind that it has taken so many years to win but a little recognition for this splendid spirit; and that others who came after him, who diluted the pure fiery wine of romance he gave us with literary water, should be as well known or more widely read. For my own part I can only point back to him and say whatever is Irish in me he kindled to life, and I am humble when I read his epic tale, feeling how much greater a thing it is for the soul of a writer to have been the habitation of a demigod than to have had the subtlest intellections. We praise the man who rushes into a burning mansion and brings out its greatest treasure. So ought we to praise this man who rescued from the perishing Gaelic tradition its darling hero and restored him to us, and I think now that Cuculain will not perish, and he will be invisibly present at many a council of youth, and he will be the daring which lifts the will beyond itself and fires it for great causes, and he will also be the courtesy which shall overcome the enemy that nothing else may overcome. I am sure that Standish O’Grady would rather I should speak of his work and its bearing on the spiritual life of Ireland, than about himself, and, because I think so, in this reverie I have followed no set plan but have let my thoughts run as they will. But I would not have any to think that this man was only a writer, or that he could have had the heroes of the past for spiritual companions, without himself being inspired to fight dragons and wizardy. I have sometimes regretted that contemporary politics drew O’Grady away from the work he began so greatly. I have said to myself he might have given us an Oscar, a Diarmuid or a Caoilte, an equal comrade to Cuculain, but he could not, being lit up by the spirit of his hero, be merely the bard and not the fighter, and no man in Ireland intervened in the affairs of his country with a superior nobility of aim. He was the last champion of the Irish aristocracy and still more the voice of conscience for them, and he spoke to them of their duty to the nation as one might imagine some fearless prophet speaking to a council of degenerate princes. When the aristocracy failed Ireland he bade them farewell, and wrote the epitaph of their class in words whose scorn we almost forget because of their sounding melody and beauty. He turned his mind to the problems of democracy and more especially of those workers who are trapped in the city, and he pointed out for them the way of escape and how they might renew life in the green fields close to Earth, their ancient mother and nurse. He used too exalted a language for those to whom he spoke to understand, and it might seem that all these vehement appeals had failed but that we know that what is fine never really fails. When a man is in advance of his age, a generation unborn when he speaks, is born in due time and finds in him its inspiration. O’Grady may have failed in his appeal to the aristocracy of his own time but he may yet create an aristocracy of character and intellect in Ireland. The political and social writings will remain to uplift and inspire and to remind us that the man who wrote the stories of heroes had a bravery of his own and a wisdom of his own. I owe so much to Standish O’Grady that I would like to leave it on record that it was he who made me conscious and proud of my country, and recalled my mind, that might have wandered otherwise over too wide and vague a field of thought, to think of the earth under my feet and the children of our common mother. There hangs in the Municipal Gallery of Dublin the portrait of a man with brooding eyes, and scrawled on the canvas is the subject of his bitter meditation, “The Lost Land.” I hope that O’Grady will find before he goes back to Tir-na-noge that Ireland has found again through him what seemed lost for ever, the law of its own being, and its memories which go back to the beginning of the world.
“There were giants in the earth in those days, the same
were mighty men which were of yore men of renown.”
The Red Branch feasted one night in their great hall at Emain Macha. So
vast was the hall that a man, such as men are now, standing in the centre
and shouting his loudest, would not be heard at the circumference, yet the
low laughter of the King sitting at one end was clearly audible to those
who sat around the Champion at the other. The sons of Dithorba made it,
giants of the elder time, labouring there under the brazen shoutings of
Macha and the roar of her sounding thongs. Its length was a mile and nine
furlongs and a cubit. With her brooch pin she ploughed its outline upon
the plain, and its breadth was not much less. Trees such as the earth
nourished then upheld the massy roof beneath which feasted that heroic
brood, the great-hearted children of Rury, huge offspring of the gods and
giants of the dawn of time. For mighty exceedingly were these men. At the
noise of them running to battle all Ireland shook, and the illimitable Lir
[Footnote: Lir was the sea-god, the Oceanns of the Celt; no doubt the same
as the British Lear, the wild, white-headed old king, who had such
singular daughters; two, monsters of cruelty, and one, exquisitely sweet,
kind, and serene, viz.: Storm, Hurricane, and Calm.] trembled in his
watery halls; the roar of their brazen chariots reverberated from the
solid canopy of heaven, and their war-steeds drank rivers dry.
A vast murmur rose from the assembly, for like distant thunder or the
far-off murmuring of agitated waters was the continuous hum of their
blended conversation and laughter, while, ever and anon, cleaving the
many-tongued confusion, uprose friendly voices, clearer and stronger than
battle-trumpets, when one hero challenged another to drink, wishing him
victory and success, and his words rang round the hollow dome. Innumerable
candles, tall as spears, illuminated the scene. The eyes of the heroes
sparkled, and their faces, white and ruddy, beamed with festal mirth and
mutual affection. Their yellow hair shone. Their banqueting attire, white
and scarlet, glowed against the outer gloom. Their round brooches and
mantle-pins of gold, or silver, or golden bronze, their drinking vessels
and instruments of festivity, flashed and glittered in the light. They
rejoiced in their glory and their might, and in the inviolable amity in
which they were knit together, a host of comrades, a knot of heroic valour
and affection which no strength or cunning, and no power, seen or unseen,
could ever relax or untie.
At one extremity of the vast hall, upon a raised seat, sat their young
king, Concobar Mac Nessa, slender, handsome, and upright. A canopy of
bronze, round as the bent sling of the Sun-god, the long-handed,
far-shooting son of Ethlend, [Footnote: This was the god Lu Lam-fada,
i.e., Lu, the Long-Handed. The rainbow was his sling. Remember that the
rod sling, familiar enough now to Irish boys, was the weapon of the
ancient Irish, and not the sling which is made of two cords.] encircled
his head. At his right hand lay a staff of silver. Far away at the other
end of the hall, on a raised seat, sat the Champion Fergus Mac Roy, like a
colossus. The stars and clouds of night were round his head and shoulders
seen through the wide and high entrance of the dun, whose doors no man had
ever seen closed and barred. Aloft, suspended from the dim rafters, hung
the naked forms of great men clear against the dark dome, having the cords
of their slaughter around their necks and their white limbs splashed with
blood. Kings were they who had murmured against the sovereignty of the Red
Branch. Through the wide doorway out of the night flew a huge bird, black
and grey, unseen, and soaring upwards sat upon the rafters, its eyes like
burning fire. It was the Mor-Reega, [Footnote: There were three war
goddesses:—(1) Badb (pronounced Byve); (2) Macha, already referred
to; (3) The Mor-Rigu or Mor-Reega, who was the greatest of the three.] or
Great Queen, the far-striding terrible daughter of Iarnmas (Iron-Death).
Her voice was like the shouting of ten thousand men. Dear to her were
these heroes. More she rejoiced in them feasting than in the
battle-prowess of the rest.
When supper was ended their bard, in his singing robes and girt around the
temples with a golden fillet, stood up and sang. He sang how once a king
of the Ultonians, having plunged into the sea-depths, there slew a monster
which had wrought much havoc amongst fishers and seafaring men. The heroes
attended to his song, leaning forward with bright eyes. They applauded the
song and the singer, and praised the valour of the heroic man [Footnote:
This was Fergus Mac Leda, Fergus, son of Leda, one of the more ancient
kings of Ulster. His contest with the sea-monster is the theme of a heroic
tale.] who had done that deed. Then the champion struck the table with his
clenched hand, and addressed the assembly. Wrath and sorrow were in his
voice. It resembled the brool of lions heard afar by seafaring men upon
some savage shore on a still night.
“Famous deeds,” he said, “are not wrought now amongst the Red Branch. I
think we are all become women. I grow weary of these huntings in the
morning and mimic exercises of war, and this training of steeds and
careering of brazen chariots stained never with aught but dust and mire,
and these unearned feastings at night and vain applause of the brave deeds
of our forefathers. Come now, let us make an end of this. Let us conquer
Banba [Footnote: One of Ireland’s many names.] wholly in all her green
borders, and let the realms of Lir, which sustain no foot of man, be the
limit of our sovereignty. Let us gather the tributes of all Ireland, after
many battles and much warlike toil. Then more sweetly shall we drink while
the bards chaunt our own prowess. Once I knew a coward who boasted
endlessly about his forefathers, and at last my anger rose, and with a
flat hand I slew him in the middle of his speech, and paid no eric, for he
was nothing. We have the blood of heroes in our veins, and we sit here
nightly boasting about them; about Rury, whose name we bear, being all his
children; and Macha the warrioress, who brought hither bound the sons of
Dithorba and made them rear this mighty dun; and Combat son of Fiontann;
and my namesake Fergus,[Footnote: This was the king already referred to
who slew the sea-monster. The monster had left upon him that mark and
memorial of the struggle.] whose crooked mouth was no dishonour, and the
rest of our hero sires; and we consume the rents and tributes of Ulster
which they by their prowess conquered to us, and which flow hither in
abundance from every corner of the province. Valiant men, too, will one
day come hither and slay us as I slew that boaster, and here in Emain
Macha their bards will praise them. Then in the halls of the dead shall we
say to our sires, ‘All that you got for us by your blood and your sweat
that have we lost, and the glory of the Red Branch is at an end.’”
That speech was pleasing to the Red Branch, and they cried out that Fergus
Mac Roy had spoken well. Then all at once, on a sudden impulse, they sang
the battle-song of the Ultonians, and shouted for the war so that the
building quaked and rocked, and in the hall of the weapons there was a
clangour of falling shields, and men died that night for extreme dread, so
mightily shouted the Ultonians around their king and around Fergus. When
the echoes and reverberations of that shout ceased to sound in the vaulted
roof and in the far recesses and galleries, then there arose somewhere
upon the night a clear chorus of treble voices, singing, too, the
war-chant of the Ultonians, as when rising out of the clangour of brazen
instruments of music there shrills forth the clear sound of fifes. For the
immature scions of the Red Branch, boys and tender youths, awakened out of
slumber, heard them, and from remote dormitories responded to their sires,
and they cried aloud together and shouted. The trees of Ulster shed their
early leaves and buds at that shout, and birds fell dead from the
branches.
Concobar struck the brazen canopy with his silver rod. The smitten brass
rang like a bell, and the Ultonians in silence hearkened for the words of
their clear-voiced king.
“No ruler of men,” he said, “however masterful and imperious, could
withstand this torrent of martial ardour which rolls to-night through the
souls of the children of Rury, still less I, newly come to this high
throne, having been but as it were yesterday your comrade and equal, till
Fergus, to my grief, resigned the sovereignty, and caused me, a boy, to be
made king of Ulla and captain of the Red Branch. But now I say, ere we
consider what province or territory shall first see the embattled Red
Branch cross her borders, let us enquire of Cathvah the Ard-Druid, whether
the omens be propitious, and whether through his art he is able to reveal
to us some rite to be performed or prohibition to be observed.”
That proposal was not pleasing to Fergus, but it pleased the Red Branch,
and they praised the wisdom of their king.
Then Cathvah the Ard-Druid [Footnote: High Druid, or Chief Druid.
Similarly we have Ard-Ri or High King.] spake.
“It hath been foretold,” he said, “long since, that the Ultonians shall
win glory such as never was and never will be, and that their fame shall
endure till the world’s end. But, first, there are prophecies to be
accomplished and predictions to be fulfilled. For ere these things may be
there shall come a child to Emain Macha, attended by clear portents from
the gods; through him shall arise our deathless fame. Also it hath been
foretold that there shall be great divisions and fratricidal strife
amongst the children of Rury, a storm of war which shall strip the Red
Branch nigh bare.”
Fergus was wroth at this, and spoke words of scorn concerning the diviner,
and concerning all omens, prohibitions, and prophecies. Concobar, too, and
all the Red Branch, rebuked the prophet. Yet he stood against them like a
rock warred on by winds which stand immovable, let them rage as they will,
and refused to take back his words. Then said Concobar:
“Many are the prophecies which came wandering down upon the mouths of men,
but they are not all to be trusted alike. Of those which have passed thy
lips, O Cathvah, we utterly reject the last, and think the less of thee
for having reported it. But the former which concerns the child of promise
hath been ever held a sure prophecy, and as such passed down through all
the diviners from the time of Amargin, the son of Milesius, who first
prophesied for the Gael. And now being arch-king of the Ultonians, I
command thee to divine for us when the coming of the child shall be.”
Then Cathvah, the Ard-Druid, put on his divining apparel and took his
divining instruments in his hands, and made his symbols of power upon the
air. And at first he was silent, and, being in a trance, stared out before
him with wide eyes full of wonder and amazement, directing his gaze to the
east. In the end he cried out with a loud voice, and prophesying, sang
this lay:
“Yea, he is coming. He draweth nigh.
Verily It is he whom I behold—
The predicted one—the child of many prophecies—
Chief flower of the Branch that is over all—
The mainstay of Emaiti Macha—the battle-prop of the Ultonians—
The torch of the valour and chivalry of the North—
The star that is to shine for ever upon the forehead of the Gael.
It is he who slumbers upon Slieve Fuad—
The child who is like a star—
Like a star upon Slieve Fuad.
There is a light around him never kindled at the hearth of Lu,
The Grey of Macha keeps watch and ward for him,
[Footnote: Madia’s celebrated grey war-steed. The meaning
of the allusion will be understood presently.]
And the whole mountain is filled with the Tuatha de Danan.”
[Footnote: These were the gods of the pagan Irish.
Tuatha=nations, De=gods, Danan=of Dana. So it means
the god nations sprung from Dana also called Ana. She
is referred to in an ancient Irish Dictionary as Mater
deorurn Hibernensium.]
Then his vision passed from the Druid, he raised up his long white hands
and gave thanks to the high gods of Erin that he had lived to see this
day.
When Cathvah had made an end of speaking there was a great silence in the
hall.
“And dear the school-boy spot
We ne’er forget though there we are forgot.”
BYRON.
“There were his young barbarians all at play.”
BYRON.
In the morning Fergus Mac Roy said to the young king, “What shall we do
this day, O Concobar? Shall we lead forth our sweet-voiced hounds into the
woods and rouse the wild boar from his lair, and chase the swift deer, or
shall we drive afar in our chariots and visit one of our subject kings and
take his tribute as hospitality, which, according to thee, wise youth, is
the best, for it is agreeable to ourselves and not displeasing to the man
that is tributary.”
“Nay,” said Concobar, “let us wait and watch this day. Hast thou forgotten
the words of Cathvah?”
“Truly, in a manner I had,” said Fergus, “for I never much regarded, the
race of seers, or deemed the birds more than pleasant songsters, and the
stars as a fair spectacle, or druidic instruments aught but toys.”
“Let us play at chess on the lawn of the dun,” said the king, “while our
boys exercise themselves at hurling on the green.”
“It is agreeable to me,” said Fergus, “though well thou knowest, dear
foster-son, that I am not thy match at the game.”
What the champion said was true, for in royal wisdom the king far excelled
his foster-father, and that was the reason why Fergus had abdicated the
supreme captainship of the Red Branch in favour of Concobar, for though
his heart was great his understanding was not fine and acute like the
understanding of his foster-son.
The table was set for them upon the lawn before the great painted and
glowing palace, and three-footed stools were put on either side of that
table, and bright cloths flung over them. A knight to whom that was a duty
brought forth and unfolded a chess-board of ivory on which silver squares
alternated with gold, cunningly wrought by some ancient cerd, [Footnote:
Craftsman.] a chief jewel of the realm; another bore in his hand the
man-bag, also a wonder, glistening, made of netted wires of findruiney,
[Footnote: A bright yellow bronze, the secret of making which is now lost.
The metal may be seen in our museums. In beauty it is superior to gold. ]
and took therefrom the men and disposed them in their respective places on
the board, each in the centre of his own square. The gold men were on the
squares of silver, and the silver on the squares of gold. The table was
set under the shadowing branches of a great tree, for it was early summer
and the sun shone in his strength. So Concobar and Fergus, lightly
laughing, affectionate and mirthful, the challenger and the challenged,
came forth through the wide doorway of the dun. Armed youths went with
them. The right arm of Fergus was cast lightly over the shoulder of
Concobar, and his ear was inclined to him as the young king talked, for
their mutual affection was very great and like that of a great boy and a
small boy when such, as often happens, become attached to one another. So
Concobar and Fergus sat down to play, though right seldom did the Champion
win any game from the King. Concobar beckoned to him one of the young
knights. It was Conall Carna, [Footnote: Conall the Victorious. He came
second to Cuculain amongst the Red Branch Knights. He is the theme of many
heroic stories. Once in a duel he broke the right arm of his opponent. He
bade his seconds tie up his own corresponding arm.] son of Amargin,
youngest of the knights of Concobar. “Son of Amargin,” said the king, “do
thou watch over the boys this day in their pastimes. See that nothing is
done unseemly or unjust. Observe narrowly the behaviour and disposition of
the lads, and report all things clearly to me on the morrow.”
So saying, he moved one of the pieces on the board, and Conall Carna
strode away southwards to where the boys were already dividing themselves
into two parties for a match at hurling.
That son of Amargin was the handsomest youth of all the province. White
and ruddy was his beardless countenance. Bright as gold which boils over
the edge of the refiner’s crucible was his hair, which fell curling upon
his broad shoulders and over the circumference of his shield, outshining
its splendour. By his side hung a short sword with a handle of
walrus-tooth; in his left hand he bore two spears tipped with glittering
bronze. Fergus and Concobar watched him as he strode over the grass;
Concobar noted his beauty and grace, but Fergus noted his great strength.
Soon the boys, being divided into two equal bands, began their pastime and
contended, eagerly urging the ball to and fro. The noise of the stricken
ball and the clash of the hurles shod with bronze, the cries of the
captains, and the shouting of the boys, filled all the air.
That good knight stood midway between the goals, eastward from the
players. Ever and anon with a loud clear voice he reproved the youths, and
they hearkening took his rebukes in silence and obeyed his words. Cathvah
came forth that day upon the lawn, and thus spoke one of the boys to
another in some pause of the game, “Yonder, see! the Ard-Druid of the
Province. Wherefore comes he forth from his druidic chambers to-day at
this hour, such not being his wont?” And the other answered lightly,
laughing, and with boyish heedlessness, “I know not wherefore; but well he
knows himself.” And therewith ran to meet the ball which passed that way.
There was yet a third who watched the boys. He stood afar off on the edge
of the plain. He had a little shield strapped on his back, two javelins in
one hand, and a hurle in the other. He was very young and fair. He stood
looking fixedly at the hurlers, and as he looked he wept. It was the child
who had been promised to the Ultonians.
“Very small and beautiful like a star.”
—HOMER.
“I love all that thou lovest,
Spirit of delight;
The fresh earth in new leaves drest,
And the blessed night;
Starry evening and the morn,
When the golden mists are born.”
SHELLEY.
Sualtam of Dun Dalgan on the Eastern Sea, took to wife Dectera, daughter
of Factna the Righteous. She was sister of Concobar Mac Nessa. Sualtam was
the King of Cooalney [Footnote: Now the barony of Cooley, a mountainous
promontory which the County of Louth projects into the Irish Sea.] a land
of woods and mountains, an unproductive headland reaching out into the
Ictian Sea.
Dectera bare a son to Sualtam, and they called him Setanta, That was his
first name. His nurse was Dethcaen, the druidess, daughter of Cathvah the
druid, the mighty wizard and prophet of the Crave Rue. His breast-plate
[Footnote: A poetic spell or incantation. So even the Christian hymn of
St. Patrick was called the lorica or breastplate of Patrick.] of power,
woven of druidic verse, was upon Ulla [Footnote: Ulla is the Gaelic root
of Ulster.] in his time, upon all the children of Rury in their going out
and their coming in, in war and in peace. Dethcaen [Footnote: Dethcaen is
compounded of two words which mean respectively, colour, and slender.]
sang her own songs of protection for the child. His mother gave the child
suck, but the rosy-cheeked, beautiful, sweetly-speaking daughter of
Cathvah nursed him. On her breast and knee she bare him with great love.
Light of foot and slender was Dethcaen; through the wide dun of Sualtam
she went with her nursling, singing songs. She it was that discovered his
first ges, [Footnote: Ges was the Irish equivalent of the tabu.] namely,
that no one should awake him while he slept. He had others, sacred
prohibitions which it was unlawful to transgress, but this was discovered
by Dethcaen. She discovered it while he was yet a babe. With her own hands
Dethcaen washed his garments and bathed his tiny limbs; lightly and
cheerfully she sprang from her couch at night when she heard his voice,
and raised him from the cradle and wrapped him tenderly, and put him into
the hands of his mother. She watched him when he slumbered; there was
great stillness in the palace of Sualtam when the child slept. She
repeated for him many tales and taught him nothing base. When he was three
years old, men came with hounds to hunt the stream which ran past Dun
Dalgan. [Footnote: Now Dundalk, capital of the County of Louth.] Early in
the morning Setanta heard the baying of the hounds and the shouting of the
men. They were hunting a great water-dog which had his abode in this
stream. Setanta leaped from his couch and ran to the river. Well he knew
that stream and all its pools and shallows; he knew where the water-dog
had his den. Thither by circuit he ran and stood before the month of the
same, having a stone in either hand. The hunted water-dog drew nigh.
Maddened with fear and rage he gnashed his teeth and growled, and then
charged at the child. There, O Setanta, with the stroke of one stone thou
didst slay the water-dog! The dog was carried in procession with songs to
the dun of Sualtam, who that night gave a great feast and called many to
rejoice with him, because his only son had done bravely. A prophet who was
there said, “Thou shalt do many feats in thy time, O Setanta, and the last
will resemble the first.”
Setanta played along the sand and by the frothing waves of the sea-shore
under the dun. He had a ball and an ashen hurle shod with bronze; joyfully
he used to drive his ball along the hard sand, shouting among his small
playmates. The captain of the guard gave him a sheaf of toy javelins and
taught him how to cast, and made for him a sword of lath and a painted
shield. They made for him a high chair. In the great hall of the dun, when
supper was served, he used to sit beside the champion of that small realm,
at the south end of the table over against the king. Ever as evening drew
on and the candles were lit, and the instruments of festivity and the
armour and trophies on the walls and pillars shone in the cheerful light,
and the people of Sualtam sat down rejoicing, there too duly appeared
Setanta over against his father by the side of the champion, very fair and
pure, yellow-haired, in his scarlet bratta fastened with a little brooch
of silver, serene and grave beyond his years, shining there like a very
bright star on the edge of a thunder-cloud, so that men often smiled to
see them together.
While Sualtam and his people feasted, the harper harped and trained
singers sang. Every day the floor was strewn with fresh rushes or dried
moss or leaves. Every night at a certain hour the bed-makers went round
spreading couches for the people of Sualtam. Sometimes the king slept with
his people in the great hall. Then one warrior sat awake through the night
at his pillow having his sword drawn, and another warrior sat at his feet
having his sword drawn. The fire-place was in the midst of the hall. In
winter a slave appointed for that purpose from time to time during the
night laid on fresh logs. Rude plenty never failed in the dun of Sualtam.
In such wise were royal households ordered in the age of the heroes. For
the palace, it was of timber staunched with clay and was roofed with
rushes. Without it was white with lime, conspicuous afar to mariners
sailing in the Muirnict. [Footnote: The Irish Sea or St. George’s Channel.
Muirnict means the Ictian Sea.] There was a rampart round the dun and a
moat spanned by a drawbridge. Before it there was a spacious lawn. Down
that lawn there ever ran a stream of sparkling water. Setanta sailed his
boats in the stream and taught it here to be silent, and there to hum in
rapids, or to apparel itself in silver and sing liquid notes, or to blow
its little trumpet from small cataracts.
“For a boy’s way is the wind’s way.”
—LONGFELLOW
And now the daily life of that remote dun no longer pleased the boy, for
the war-spirit within drave him on. Moreover he longed for comrades and
playfellows, for his fearful mother permitted him no longer to associate
with children of that rude realm whose conversation and behaviour she
misliked for her child. She loved him greatly and perceived not how he
changed, or how the new years in their coming and their going both gave
and took away continually.
In summer the boy sat often with the chief bard under the thatched eaves
of the dun, while the crying swallows above came and went, asking many
questions concerning his forefathers back the ascending line up to Rury,
and again downwards through the ramifications of that mighty stem, and
concerning famous marches and forays, and battles and single combats, and
who was worthy and lived and died well, and who not. More than all else he
delighted to hear about Fergus Mac Roy, who seemed to him the greatest and
best of all the Red Branch. In winter, cradled in strong arms, he listened
to the reminiscences and conversation of the men of war as they sat and
talked round the blazing logs in the hall, while the light flickered upon
warlike faces, and those who drew drink went round bearing mead and ale.
Upon his seventh birthday early in the morning he ran to his mother and
cried, “Mother, send me now to Emain Macha, to my uncle.”
Dectera grew pale when she heard that word and her knees smote together
with loving fear. For answer she withdrew him from the society of the men
and kept him by herself in the women’s quarter, which was called grianan.
The grianan was in the north end of the palace behind the king’s throne.
In the hall men could see above them the rafters which upheld the roof and
the joining of the great central pillar with the same. From the upper
storey of the grianan a door opened upon the great hall directly above the
throne of the king, and before that door was a railed gallery.
Thence it was the custom of Dectera to supervise in the morning the
labours of the household thralls and at night to rebuke unseemly revelry,
and at the fit hour to command silence and sleep. Thence too in the
evening, ere he went to his small couch, Setanta would cry out
“good-night” and “good slumber” to his friends in the hall, who laughed
much amongst themselves for the secret of his immurement was not hid.
Moreover, Dectera gave straight commandment to her women, at peril of her
displeasure and of sore bodily chastisement, that they should not speak to
him any word concerning Emain Macha. The boy as yet knew not where lay the
wondrous city, whether in heaven or on earth or beyond the sea. To him it
was still as it were a fairy city or in the land of dreams.
One day he saw afar upon the plain long lines of lowing kine and of laden
garrans wending north-westward. He questioned his mother concerning that
sight. She answered, “It is the high King’s tribute out of Murthemney.”
[Footnote: A territory conterminous with the modern County of Louth.]
“Mother,” he said, “how runs the road hence to the great city?”
“That thou shalt not know,” said his mother, looking narrowly on the boy.
But still the strong spirit from within, irresistible, urged on the lad.
One day while his mother conversed with him, inadvertently she uttered
certain words, and he knew that the road to Emain Macha went past the
mountain of Slieve Fuad. [Footnote: Now the Fews mountain lying on the
direct way between Dundalk and Armagh.] That night he dreamed of Emain
Macha, and he rose up early in the morning and clambered on to the roof of
the palace through a window and gazed long upon the mountain. The next
night too he dreamed of Emain Macha, and heard voices which were
unintelligible, and again the third night he heard the voices and one
voice said, “This our labour is vain, let him alone. He is some changeling
and not of the blood of Rury. He will be a grazier, I think, and buy
cattle and sell them for a profit.” And the other said, “Nay, let us not
leave him yet. Remember how valiantly he faced the fierce water-dog and
slew him at one cast.” When he climbed to the roof, as his manner was, to
gaze at the mountain, he thought that Slieve Fuad nodded to him and
beckoned. He broke fast with his mother and the women that day and ate and
drank silently with bright eyes, and when that meal was ended he donned
his best attire and took his toy weapons and a new ball and his ashen
hurle shod with red bronze.
“Wherefore this holiday attire?” said his mother.
“Because I shall see great people ere I put it off,” he answered.
She kissed him and he went forth as at other times to play upon the lawn
by himself. The king sat upon a stone seat hard by the door of the
grianan. Under the eaves he sat sunning himself and gazing upon the sea.
The boy kneeled and kissed his hand. His father stroked his head and said,
“Win victory and blessings, dear Setanta.” He looked at the lad as if he
would speak further, but restrained himself and leaned back again in his
seat.
Dectera sat in the window of the upper chamber amongst her women. They sat
around her sewing and embroidering. She herself was embroidering a new
mantle for the boy against his next birthday, though that indeed was far
away, but ever while her hands wrought her eyes were on the lawn.
“Mother,” cried Setanta, “watch this stroke.”
He flung his ball into the air and as it fell met it with his hurle,
leaning back and putting his whole force into the blow, and struck it into
the clouds. It was long before the ball fell. It fell at his feet.
“Mother,” he cried again, “watch this stroke.”
He went to the east mearing of the spacious lawn and struck the ball to
the west. It traversed the great lawn ere it touched the earth and bounded
shining above the trees. Truly it was a marvellous stroke for one so
young. As he went for his ball the boy stood still before the window.
“Give me thy blessing, dear mother,” he said.
“Win victory and blessing for ever, O Setanta,” she answered. “Truly thou
art an expert hurler.”
“These feats,” he replied, “are nothing to what I shall yet do in
needlework, O mother, when I am of age to be trusted with my first needle,
and knighted by thy hands, and enrolled amongst the valiant company of thy
sewing-women.”
“What meaneth the boy?” said his mother, for she perceived that he spoke
awry.
“That his childhood is over, O Dectera,” answered one of her women, “and
that thou art living in the past and in dreams. For who can hold back Time
in his career?”
The queen’s heart leaped when she heard that word, and the blood forsook
her face. She bent down her head over her work and her tears fell. After a
space she looked out again upon the lawn to see if the boy had returned,
but he had not.
She bade her women go and fetch him, and afterwards the whole household.
They called aloud, “Setanta, Setanta,” but there was no answer, only
silence and the watching and mocking trees and a sound like low laughter
in the leaves; for Setanta was far away.
The boy came out of that forest on the west side. Soon he struck the great
road which from Ath-a-clia [Footnote: Ath-a-cliah, i.e., the Ford of the
Hurdles. It was the Irish name for Dublin.] ran through Murthemney to
Emain Macha, and saw before him the purple mountain of Slieve Fuad. In his
left hand was his sheaf of toy javelins; in his right the hurle; his
little shield was strapped upon his back. The boy went swiftly, for there
was power upon him that day, and with his ashen hurle shod with red bronze
ever urged his ball forward. So he went driving, his ball before him. At
other times he would cast a javelin far out westward and pursue its
flight. Ever as he went there ever flew beside him a grey-necked crow. “It
is a good omen,” said the boy, for he knew that the bird was sacred to the
Mor-Reega.
He was amazed at his own speed and the elasticity of his limbs. Once when
he rose after having gathered his thrown javelin, a man stood beside him
who had the port and countenance of some ancient hero, and whose attire
was strange. He was taller and nobler than any living man. He bore a
rod-sling in his right hand, and in his left, in a leash of bronze, he led
a hound. The hound was like white fire. Setanta could hardly look in that
man’s face, but he did. The man smiled and said—
“Whither away, my son?”
“To Emain Macha, to my uncle Concobar,” said the boy.
“Dost thou know me, Setanta?” said the man.
“I think thou art Lu Lam-fada Mac Ethlend,” [Footnote: Lu the Long-Handed
son of Ethlenn. This mysterious being, being one of the deities of the
pagan Irish, seems to have been the Sun-god.] answered Setanta.
“I am thy friend,” said the man, “fear nothing, for I shall be with thee
always.”
Then the man and the hound disappeared as if they had been resolved into
the rays of the sun; Setanta saw nothing, only the grey-necked crow
starting for flight. Then a second man in a wide blue mantle specked with
white like flying foam came against him and flung his mantle over Setanta.
There was a sound in his ears like the roaring of the sea. [Footnote: This
man was Mananan son of Lir. He was the Sea-god.] Chariots and horses came
from the east after that. Setanta recognised those who urged on the
steeds, they were his own people. “Surely,” he said, “I shall be taken
now.” The men drave past him. “If I mistake not,” he said, “the man who
flung his mantle over me was Mananan the son of Lir.”
Divers persons, noble and ignoble, passed him on the way, some riding in
chariots, some going on foot. They went as though they saw him not.
In the evening he came to Slieve Fuad. He gathered a bed of dried moss and
heaped moss upon his shield for a pillow. He wrapped himself in his
mantle, and lay down to sleep, and felt neither cold nor hunger. While he
slept a great steed, a stallion, grey to whiteness, came close to him, and
walked all round him, and smelt him, and stayed by him till the morning.
Setanta was awaked by the loud singing of the birds. Light of heart the
boy started from his mossy couch and wondered at that tuneful chorus. The
dawning day trembled through the trees still half-bare, for it was the
month of May.
“Horses have been here in the night,” said the boy, “one horse. What
mighty hoof marks!” He wondered the more seeing how the marks encircled
him. “I too will one day have a chariot and horses, and a deft
charioteer.” He stood musing, “Is it the grey of Macha? [Footnote: The
goddess Macha, already referred to, had a horse which was called the Grey
of Macha—Liath-Macha. He was said to be still alive dwelling
invisibly in Erin.] They say that he haunts this mountain.” He hastened to
the brook, and finding a deep pool, bathed in the clear pure water and
dried himself in his woollen bratta [Footnote: The Gaelic word for
mantle.] of divers colours. Very happy and joyous was Setanta that day.
And he spread out the bratta to dry, and put on his shirt of fine linen
and his woollen tunic that reached to the knees in many plaits. Shoes he
had none; bare and naked were his swift feet.
“This is the mountain of Fuad the son of Brogan,” [Footnote: An ancient
Milesian hero. Brogan was uncle of Milesius.] said he. “I would I knew
where lies his cairn in this great forest that I might pay my
stone-tribute to the hero.” Soon he found it and laid his stone upon the
heap. He climbed to the hill’s brow and looked westward and saw far away
the white shining duns of the marvellous city from which, even now, the
morning smoke went up into the windless air. He trembled, and rejoiced,
and wept. He stood a long time there gazing at Emain Macha. Descending, he
struck again the great road, but he went slowly; he cast not his javelins
and drave not his ball. Again, from a rising ground he saw Emain Macha,
this time near at hand. He remained there a long time filled with awe and
fear. He covered his head with his mantle and wept aloud, and said he
would return to Dun Dalgan, that he dared not set unworthy feet in that
holy place.
Then he heard the cheerful voices of the boys as they brake from the royal
palace and ran down the wide smooth lawn to the hurling-ground. His heart
yearned for their companionship, yet he feared greatly, and his mind
misgave him as to the manner in which they would receive him. He longed to
go to them and say, “I am little Setanta, and my uncle is the king, and I
would be your friend and playfellow.” Hope and love and fear confused his
mind. Yet it came to him that he was urged forwards, by whom he knew not.
Reluctantly, with many pausings, he drew nigh to the players and stood
solitary on the edge of the lawn southwards, for the company that held
that barrier were the weaker. He hoped that some one would call to him and
welcome him, but none called or welcomed. Silently the child wept, and the
front of his mantle was steeped in his tears. Some looked at him, but with
looks of cold surprise, as though they said, “Who is this stranger boy and
what doth he here? Would that he took himself away out of this and went
elsewhere.” The boy thought that he would be welcomed and made much of
because he was a king’s son and nephew of the high King of Ulla, and on
account of his skill in hurling, and because he himself longed so
exceedingly for companions and comrades, and because there were within him
such fountains of affection and loving kindness. And many a time happy
visions had passed before his eyes awake or asleep of the meeting between
himself and his future comrades, but the event itself when it happened was
by no means what he had anticipated. For no one kissed him and bade him
welcome or took him by the right hand and led him in, and no one seemed
glad of his coming and he was here of no account at all. Bitter truly was
thy weeping, dear Setanta.
“Bearing on shoulders immense
Atlantean the weight,
Well nigh not to be borne,
Of the too vast orb of her fate.”
MATTHEW ARNOLD.
One day, in the forenoon, a man came to Emain Macha. He was grim and
swarthy, with great hands and arms. He made no reverence to Concobar or to
any of the Ultonians, but standing stark before them, spake thus, not
fluently:—“My master, Culain, high smith of all Ulster, bids thee to
supper this night, O Concobar; and he wills thee to know that because he
has not wide territories, and flocks, and herds, and tribute-paying
peoples, only the implements of his industry, his anvils and hammers and
tongs, and the slender profits of his labour, he feareth to feast all the
Red Branch, who are by report mighty to eat and to drink; he would not for
all Ireland bring famine upon his own industrious youths, his journeymen
and his apprentices. Come therefore with a choice selection of thy
knights, choosing those who are not great eaters, and drinkers, and you
shall all have a fair welcome, a goodly supper, and a proportionate
quantity of drink.” That speech was a cause of great mirth to the
Ultonians; nevertheless they restrained their laughter, so that the grim
ambassador, who seemed withal to be a very angry man, saw nothing but
grave countenances. Concobar answered him courteously, saying that he
accepted the invitation, and that he would be mindful of the smith’s
wishes. When the man departed the Red Branch gave a loose rein to their
mirth, each man charging the other with being in especial the person whose
presence would be a cause of sorrow to the smith.
Culain was a mighty craftsman in those days. It was he who used to make
weapons, armour, and chariots for the Ultonians, and there was never in
Ireland a better smith than he. In his huge and smoky dun the ringing of
hammers and the husky roar of the bellows seldom ceased; even at night the
red glare of his furnaces painted far and wide the barren moor where he
dwelt. Herdsmen and shepherds who, in quest of estrays, found themselves
unawares in this neighbourhood, fled away praying to their gods, and, as
they ran, murmured incantations.
In the afternoon Concobar, having made as good a selection as he could of
his chief men, set forth to go. As they passed through the lawn he saw
Setanta playing with his comrades. He stopped for a while to look, and
then called the lad, who came at once and stood erect and silent before
the King. He was now full ten years of age, straight and well-made and
with sinews as hard as tempered steel. When he saw the company looking at
him, he blushed, and his blushing became him well.
“Culain the smith,” said Concobar, “hath invited us to a feast. If it is
pleasing to thee, come too.”
“It is pleasing indeed,” replied the boy, for he ardently desired to see
the famous artificer, his people, his furnaces, and his engines. “But let
me first, I pray thee, see this our game brought to an end, for the boys
await my return. After that I will follow quickly, nor can I lose my way
upon the moor, for the road hence to the smith’s dun is well trodden and
scored with wheels, and the sky too at night is red above the city.”
Concobar gave him permission, and Setanta hastened back to his playmates,
who hailed him gladly in his returning, for they feared that the King
might have taken him away from them.
The King and his great men went away eastward after that and they
conversed eagerly by the way, talking sometimes of a certain recent great
rebellion of the non-Irian kings of Ulla, [Footnote: The Ultonians were
descended from Ir, son of Milesius.] and of each other’s prowess and the
prowess of the insurgents, and sometimes of the smith and his strange and
unusual invitation.
“Say no word and do no thing,” said Concobar, “at which even a very angry
and suspicious man might take offence, for as to our host and his
artificers, their ways are not like ours, or their thoughts like our
thoughts, and they are a great and formidable people.”
The Red Branch did not relish that speech, for they thought that under the
measureless canopy of the sky there were no people great or formidable but
themselves.
“How he fell
From heaven, they fabled, thrown by angry Jove
Sheer o’er the crystal battlements; from morn
To noon, from noon to dewy eve,
A Summer’s day, he fell; and with the setting sun
Dropped from the zenith like a falling star,
On Lemnos.”
MILTON.
When Culain saw far away the tall figures of the Ultonians against the
sunset, and the flashing of their weapons and armour, he cried out with a
loud voice to his people to stop working and slack the furnaces and make
themselves ready to receive the Red Branch; and he bade the household
thralls prepare the supper, roast, boiled and stewed, which he had
previously ordered. Then he himself and his journeymen and apprentices
stripped themselves, and in huge keeves of water filled by their slaves
they washed from them the smoke and sweat of their labour and put on clean
clothes. The mirrors at which they dressed themselves were the darkened
waters of their enormous tubs.
Culain sent a party of his men and those who were the best dressed and the
most comely and who were the boldest and most eloquent in the presence of
strangers, to meet the high King of the Ultonians on the moor, but he
himself stood huge in the great doorway just beyond the threshold and in
front of the bridge over which the Red Branch party was to pass. He had on
him over his clothes a clean leathern apron which was not singed or
scored. It was fastened at his shoulders and half covered his enormous
hairy chest, was girt again at his waist and descended below his knees. He
stood with one knee crooked, leaning upon a long ash-handled sledge with a
head of glittering bronze. There he gave a friendly and grave welcome to
the King and to all the knights one by one. It was dusk when Concobar
entered the dun.
“Are all thy people arrived?” said the smith.
“They are,” said Concobar.
Culain bade his people raise the drawbridge which spanned the deep black
moat surrounding the city, and after that, with his own hands he unchained
his one dog. The dog was of great size and fierceness. It was supposed
that there was no man in Ireland whom he could not drag down. He had no
other good quality than that he was faithful to his master and guarded his
property vigilantly at night. He was quick of sight and hearing and only
slept in the daytime. Being let loose he sprang over the moat and three
times careered round the city, baying fearfully. Then he stood stiffly on
the edge of the moat to watch and listen, and growled at intervals when he
heard some noise far away. It was then precisely that Setanta set forth
from Emain Macha. Earth quaked to the growling of that ill beast.
In the meantime the smith went into the dun, and when he had commanded his
people to light the candles throughout the chamber, he slammed to the vast
folding doors with his right hand and his left, and drew forth the massy
bar from its place and shot it into the opposing cavity. There was not a
knight amongst the Red Branch who could shut one of those doors, using
both hands and his whole strength. Of the younger knights, some started to
their feet and laid their hands on their sword hilts when they heard the
bolt shot.
The smith sat down on his high seat over against Concobar, with his dusky
sons and kinsmen around him, and truly they contrasted strangely with the
bravery and beauty of the Ultonians. He called for ale, and holding in his
hands a huge four-cornered mether of the same, rimmed with silver and
furnished with a double silver hand-grip, he pledged the King and bade him
and his a kindly welcome. He swore, too, that no generation of the
children of Rury, and he had wrought for many, had done more credit to his
workmanship than themselves, nor had he ever made the appliances of war
for any of the Gael with equal pleasure. Concobar, on the other hand,
responded discreetly, and praised the smith-work of Culain, praising
chiefly the shield called Ocean [Footnote: Concobar’s shield. When
Concobar was in danger the shield roared. The sea, too, roared
responsive.], which was one of the wonders of the north-west of Europe.
The smith and all his people were well pleased at that speech, and Culain
bade his thralls serve supper, which proved to be a very noble repast.
There was enough and to spare for all the Ultonians. When supper was
ended, the heroes and the artificers pledged each other many times and
drank also to the memory of famous men of yore and their fathers who begat
them, as was right and customary; and they became very friendly and merry
without intoxication, for intoxication was not known in the age of the
heroes.
Then said Concobar: “We have this night toasted many heroes who are gone,
and, as it is not right that we should praise ourselves, I propose that we
drink now to the heroes that are coming, both those unborn, and those who,
still being boys, are under tutors and instructors; and for this toast I
name the name of my nephew Setanta, son of Sualtam, who, if any, will one
day, O Culain, if I mistake not, illustrate in an unexampled manner thy
skill as an artificer of weapons and armour.”
“Is he then a boy of that promise, O Concobar?” said the smith, “for if he
is I am truly rejoiced to hear it.”
“He is all that I say,” answered the King somewhat hotly, “and of a beauty
corresponding. And of that thou shalt be the judge to-night, for he is
coming, and indeed I am momentarily expecting to hear the loud clamour of
his brazen hurle upon the doors of the dun, after his having leapt at one
bound both thy moat and thy rampart.”
The smith started from his high seat uttering a great oath, such as men
used then, and sternly chid Concobar because he had said that all his
people had arrived. “If the boy comes now,” he said, “ere I can chain the
dog, verily he will be torn into small pieces.”
Just then they heard the baying of the dog sounding terribly in the hollow
night, and every face was blanched throughout the vast chamber. Then
without was heard a noise of trampling feet and short furious yells and
sibilant gaspings, as of one who exerts all his strength, after which a
dull sound at which the earth seemed to shake, mingled with a noise of
breaking bones, and after that silence. Ere the people in the dun could do
more than look at each other speechless, they heard a clear but not
clamorous knocking at the doors of the dun. Some of the smith’s young men
back-shot the bolt and opened the doors, and the boy Setanta stepped in
out of the night. He was very pale. His scarlet mantle was in rags and
trailing, and his linen tunic beneath and his white knees red with blood,
which ran down his legs and over his bare feet. He made a reverence, as he
had been taught, to the man of the house and to his people, and went
backwards to the upper end of the chamber. The Ultonians ran to meet him,
but Fergus Mac Roy was the first, and he took Setanta upon his mighty
shoulder and bore him along and set him down at the table between himself
and the King.
“Did the dog come against thee?” said Culain.
“Truly he came against me,” answered the boy.
“And art thou hurt?” cried the smith.
“No, indeed,” answered Setanta, “but I think he is.”
At that moment a party of the smith’s people entered the dun bearing
between them the carcass of the dog from whose mouth and white crooked
fangs the blood was gushing in red torrents; and they showed Culain how
the skull of the dog and his ribs had been broken in pieces by some mighty
blow, and his backbone also in divers places. Also they said: “One of the
great brazen pillars which stand at the bridge head is bent awry, and the
clean bronze denied with blood, and it was at the foot of that pillar we
found the dog.” So saying, they laid the body upon the heather in front of
Culain’s high seat, that it might be full in his eye, and when they did so
and again sat down, there was a great silence in the chamber.
“The swine-herd
[Footnote: One of the minor gods. He resembles Mars
Sylvanus of the Romans to whom swine were sacrificed.]
of Bove Derg, son of the Dagda,
The feasts to which he came used to end in blood.”
GAELIC BARD.
Culain sat silent for a long time looking out before him with eyes like
iron, and when at last he spoke his voice was charged with wrath and
sorrow.
“O Concobar,” he said, “and you, the rest, nobles of the children of Rury.
You are my guests to-night, wherefore it is not lawful that I should take
vengeance upon you for the killing of my brave and faithful hound, who was
a better keeper of my treasures than a company of hired warriors. Truly he
cost me nothing but his daily allowance of meat, and there was not his
equal as a watcher and warder in the world. An eric, therefore, I must
have. Consult now together concerning its amount and let the eric be great
and conspicuous, for, by Orchil [Footnote: The queen of the infernal
regions.] and all the gods who rule beneath the earth, a small eric I will
not accept.”
Concobar answered straight, “Thou shalt not get from me or from the
Ultonians any eric, small or great. My nephew slew the beast in fair
fight, defending his life against an aggressor. But I will say something
else, proud smith, and little it recks me whether it is pleasing to thee
or not. Had thy wolf slain my nephew not one of you would have left this
dun alive, and of your famous city of artificers I would have made a
smoking heap.”
The Ultonians fiercely applauded that speech, declaring that the smiths
should get no eric, great or small, for the death of their monster. The
smiths thereupon armed themselves with their hammers, and tongs, and
fire-poles, and great bars of unwrought brass, and Culain himself seized
an anvil withal to lay waste the ranks of the Red Branch. The Ultonians on
their side ran to the walls and plucked down their spears from the pegs,
and they raised their shields and balanced their long spears, and swords
flashed and screeched as they rushed to light out of the scabbards, and
the vast chamber glittered with shaking bronze and shone with the eyeballs
of angry men, and rang with shouts of defiance and quick fierce words of
command. For the Red Branch embattled themselves on one side of the
chamber and the smiths upon the other, burning with unquenchable wrath,
earth-born. The vast and high dome re-echoing rang with the clear terrible
cries of the Ultonians and the roar of the children of the gloomy Orchil,
and, far away, the magic shield moaned at Emain Macha, and the waves of
the ocean sent forth a cry, for the peril of death and of shortness of
life were around Concobar in that hour. And, though the doors of thick
oak, brass-bound, were shut and barred, there came a man into the
assembly, and he was not seen. He was red all over, both flesh and
raiment, as if he had been plunged in a bath of blood. His countenance was
distraught and his eyes like those of an insane man, and sparks new from
them like sparks from a smith’s stithy when he mightily hammers iron
plucked white from the furnace. Smoke and fire came from his mouth. He
held in his hand a long boar-yard. The likeness of a boar bounded after
him. He traversed the vast chamber with the velocity of lightning, and
with his boar-yard beat such as were not already drunk with wrath and
battle-fury, and shot insane fire into their souls. [Footnote: This was
the demon referred to in the lines at the head of the chapter.]
Then indeed it wanted little, not the space of time during which a man
might count ten, for the beginning of a murder grim and great as any
renowned in the world’s chronicles, and it is the opinion of the learned
that, in spite of all their valour and beautiful weapons, the artificers
would then and there have made a bloody end of the Red Branch had the
battle gone forward. But at this moment, ere the first missile was hurled
on either side, the boy Setanta sprang into the midst, into the middle
space which separated the enraged men, and cried aloud, with a clear high
voice that rang distinct above the tumult—
“O Culain, forbear to hurl, and restrain thy people, and you the
Ultonians, my kinsmen, delay to shoot. To thee, O chief smith, and thy
great-hearted artificers I will myself pay no unworthy eric for the death
of thy brave and faithful hound. For verily I will myself take thy dog’s
place, and nightly guard thy property, sleepless as he was, and I will
continue to do so till a hound as trusty and valiant as the hound whom I
slew is procured for thee to take his place, and to relieve me of that
duty. Truly I slew not thy hound in any wantonness of superior strength,
but only in the defence of my own life, which is not mine but my King’s.
Three times he leaped upon me with white fangs bared and eyes red with
murder, and three times I cast him off, but when the fourth time he rushed
upon me like a storm, and when with great difficulty I had balked him on
that occasion also, then I took him by the throat and by his legs and
flung him against one of the brazen pillars withal to make him stupid. And
truly it was not my intention to kill him and I am sorry that he is dead,
seeing that he was so faithful and so brave, and so dear to thee whom I
have always honoured, even when I was a child at Dun Dalgan, and whom,
with thy marvel-working craftsman, I have for a long time eagerly desired
to see. And I thought that our meeting, whensoever it might be, would be
other than this and more friendly.”
As he went on speaking the fierce brows of the smith relaxed, and first he
regarded the lad with pity, being so young and fair, and then with
admiration for his bravery. Also he thought of his own boyish days, and as
he did so a torrent of kindly affection and love poured from his breast
towards the boy, yea, though he saw him standing before him with the blood
of his faithful hound gilding his linen lena and his white limbs. Yet,
indeed, it was not the hound’s blood which was on the boy, but his own, so
cruelly had the beast torn him with his long and strong and sharp claws.
“That proposal is pleasing to me,” he said, “and I will accept the eric,
which is distinguished and conspicuous and worthy of my greatness and of
my name and reputation amongst the Gael. Why should a man be angry for
ever when he who did the wrong offers due reparation?” Therewith over his
left shoulder he flung the mighty anvil into the dark end of the vast
chamber among the furnaces, at the sound of whose falling the solid earth
shook. On the other hand Concobar rejoiced at this happy termination of
the quarrel, for well he knew the might of those huge children of the
gloomy Orchil. He perceived, too, that he could with safety entrust the
keeping of the lad to those people, for he saw the smith’s countenance
when it changed, and he knew that among those artificers there was no
guile.
“It is pleasing to me, too,” he said, “and I will be myself the lad’s
security for the performance of his promise.”
“Nay, I want no security,” answered the smith. “The word of a scion of the
Red Branch is security enough for me.”
Thereafter all laid aside their weapons and their wrath. The smiths with a
mighty clattering cast their tools into the dark end of the chamber, and
the Ultonians hanged theirs upon the walls, and the feasting and pledging
and making of friendly speeches were resumed. There was no more any anger
anywhere, but a more unobstructed flow of mutual good-will and regard, for
the Ultonians felt no more a secret inclination to laugh at the dusky
artificers, and the smiths no longer regarded with disdain the beauty,
bravery, and splendour of the Ultonians.
In the meantime Setanta had returned to his place between the King and
Fergus Mac Roy. There a faintness came upon him, and a great horror
overshadowed him owing to his battle with the dog, for indeed it was no
common dog, and when he would have fallen, owing to the faintness, they
pushed him behind them so that he lay at full length upon the couch unseen
by the smiths. Concobar nodded to his chief Leech, and he came to him with
his instruments and salves and washes. There unobserved he washed the
cruel gashes cut by the hound’s claws, and applied salves and stitched the
skin over the wounds, and, as he did so, in a low voice he murmured
healing songs of power.
“Where is the boy?” said Culain.
“He is reposing a little,” said Concobar, “after his battle and his
conflict.”
After a space they gave Setanta a draught of mighty ale, and his heart
revived in him and the colour returned to his cheeks wherein before was
the pallor of death, and he sat up again in his place, slender and fair,
between Concobar and Fergus Mac Roy. The smiths cried out a friendly
welcome to him as he sat up, for they held him now to be their foster-son,
and Culain himself stood up in his place holding in both hands a great
mether [Footnote: A four-cornered quadrangular cup.] of ale, and he drank
to all unborn and immature heroes, naming the name of Setanta, son of
Sualtam, now his dear foster-son, and magnified his courage, so that the
boy blushed vehemently and his eyelids trembled and drooped; and all the
artificers stood up too and drank to their foster-son, wishing him victory
and success, and they drained their goblets and dashed them, mouth
downwards, upon the brazen tables, so that the clang reverberated over
Ulla. Setanta thereupon stood up while the smiths roared a welcome to
their foster-son, and he said that it was not he who had gained the
victory, for that someone invisible had assisted him and had charged him
with a strength not his own. Then he faltered in his speech and said again
that he would be a faithful hound in the service of the artificers, and
sat down. The smiths at that time would not have yielded him for all the
hounds in the world.
After that their harpers harped for them and their story tellers related
true stories, provoking laughter and weeping. There was no story told that
was not true in the age of the heroes. Then the smiths sang one of their
songs of labour, though it needed the accompaniment of ringing mettle, a
song wild and strange, and the Ultonians clear and high sang all together
with open mouths a song of battle and triumph and of the marching home to
Emain Macha with victory; and so they spent the night, till Concobar said—
“O Culain, feasting and singing are good, but slumber is good also.
Dismiss us now to our rest and our slumber, for we, the Red Branch, must
rise betimes in the morning, having our own proper work to perform day by
day in Emain Macha, as you yours in your industrious city.”
With difficulty were the smiths persuaded to yield to that request, for
right seldom was there a feast in Dun Culain, and the unusual pleasure and
joyful sense of comradeship and social exaltation were very pleasing to
their hearts.
The Ultonians slept that night in the smiths’ hall upon resplendent
couches which had been prepared for them, and early in the morning, having
taken a friendly leave of the artificers, they departed, leaving the lad
behind them asleep. Setanta remained with the smiths a long time after
that, and Culain and his people loved him greatly and taught him many
things. It was owing to this adventure and what came of it that Setanta
got his second name, viz., the Hound of Culain or Cu-Culain. Under that
name he wrought all his marvellous deeds.
“Sing, O Muse, the destructive wrath of Achilles, son
of Peleus, which brought countless woes upon the Achaeans.”
—Homer.
Concobar Mac Nessa sat one day in his high chair, judging the Ultonians.
His great Council sat before him. In the Champion’s throne sat Fergus Mac
Roy. Before the high King his suitors gave testimony and his brehons
pleaded, and Concobar in each case pronounced judgment, clearly and
intelligently, briefly and concisely, with learning and with equity.
“Right glad am I, O Concobar,” said Fergus, “that thou art in the King’s
throne, and I where I sit. Verily, had I remained in that chair of honour
and distress, long since would these historians and poets and
subtle-minded lawyers have talked and rhymed me into madness, or into my
grave.”
Concobar made answer—“Dear foster-father, the high gods in their
wisdom have fashioned us each man to illustrate some virtue. To thee they
have given strength, courage, and magnanimity above all others; and to me,
in small measure, the vision of justice, and the perception of her
beautiful laws. A man can only excel in what he loves, and verily I love
well the known laws of the Ultonians.”
A great man just then entered the hall. His mantle was black. In the
breast of it, instead of a brooch, he wore an iron pin. He came swiftly
and without making the customary reverences. His face was pale, and his
garments torn, his dark-grey tunic stained with blood. He stood in the
midst and cried—
“O high King of the Ultonians, and you the wise men and sages of the
children of Rury, to all of you there is now need of some prudent
resolution. A great deed has been done in Ulla.”
“What is that?” said the King.
“The abduction of the Beautiful Woman by Naysi, son of Usna. Verily, she
is taken away and may not be recovered, for the Clan Usna came last night
with a great company to the dun and they stormed it in their might and
their valour, and their irresistible fury, and they have taken away
Deirdre in their swift chariots, and have gone eastwards to the Muirnicht
with intent to cross the sea northwards, and abide henceforth with their
prize in the land of the Picts and of the Albanah, beyond the stormy
currents of the Moyle.”
Fergus Mac Roy, when he heard that word, sat up with eyes bright-blazing
in his head. Dearer to him than all the rest were those sons of Usna,
namely—Naysi, Anli, and Ardane, and dearest of the three was Naysi,
who excelled all the youth of his time in beauty, valour, and
accomplishments.
“Bind that man!” cried Concobar. His voice rang terribly through the vast
chamber. Truly it sheared through men’s souls like a dividing sword.
His guards took the man and bound him. “Lead him away now,” said Concobar,
“and stone him with stones even to the parting of body with soul.”
The man was one of Deirdre’s guard.
A great silence fell upon the assembly after that and no man spoke, only
they looked at the King and then again at the Champion, and, as it were,
questioned one another silently with their eyes. It was the silence behind
which run the Fomorh, brazen-throated and clad with storm. Well knew those
wise men that what they long apprehended had come now to pass, namely, the
fierce and truceless antagonism of the King and of the ex-King. Well they
knew that Concobar would not forgive the Clan Usna, and that Fergus Mac
Roy would not permit them to be punished. Therefore, great and mighty as
were the men, yet on this occasion they might be likened only to cattle
who stand aside astonished when two fierce bulls, rending the earth as
they come, advance against each other for the mastery of the herd. In the
high King’s face the angry blood showed as two crimson spots one on either
cheek, and his eyes, harder than steel, sparkled under brows more rigid
than brass. On the other hand, the face of the Champion darkened as the
sea darkens when a black squall descends suddenly upon its sunny and
glittering tides, wrinkling and convulsing all the face of the deep. His
listlessness and amiability alike went out of him, and he sat huge and
erect in his throne. His mighty chest expanded and stood out like a
shield, and the muscles of his neck, stronger than a bull’s, became clear
and distinct, and his gathering ire and stern resolution rushed stormfully
through his nostrils. The King first spoke.
“To the man who has broken our law and abducted the child of ill omen, I
decree death by the sword and burial with the three throws of dishonour,
and if taken alive, then death by burning with the same, and if he escapes
out of Erin, then sentence of perpetual banishment and expatriation.”
“He shall not be slain, and he shall not be burned, and he shall not be
exiled. I say it, even I, Fergus, son of the Red Rossa, Champion of the
North. Let the man who will gainsay me show himself now in Emain Macha.
Let him bring round the buckle of his belt.”
His eyes, as he spoke, were like flames of fire under a forehead dark
crimson, and with his clenched fist he struck the brazen table before his
throne, so that the clang and roar of the quivering bronze sounded through
all the borders of Ulla.
“I will gainsay thee, O Fergus,” cried the King, “I am the guardian and
the executor of the laws of the Ultonians, and those laws shall prevail
over thee and over all men.”
“All laws in restraint of true love and affection are unjust,” said
Fergus, “and the law by which Deirdre was consigned to virginity was the
unrighteous enactment of cold-hearted and unrighteous men.”
“Beautiful the beginning of love,
A man and a woman and the birds of Angus above them.”
GAELIC BARD.
The birth of the child Deirdre, daughter of the chief poet of Ulla, was
attended with a great portent, for the child shrieked from the mother’s
womb. Cathvah and the Druids were consulted concerning that omen. They
addressed themselves to their art of divination, and having consulted
their oracles and gods and familiar spirits, they gave a clear counsel to
the Ultonians.
“This child,” they said, “will become a woman, in beauty surpassing all
the women who have ever been born or will be born. Her union with a man
will be a cause of great sorrow to the Ultonians. Let her, therefore, be
exposed after birth; or, if you would not slay the Arch-Poet’s only child,
let her be sternly immured; let her be reared to womanhood in utter and
complete and inviolable solitude, and live and die in her virginity.”
The Ultonians determined that the child should live and be immured. These
things took place in the reign of Factna the Righteous, father of
Concobar. When the child was born she was called Deirdre. The Ultonians
appointed for her a nurse and tutoress named Levarcam. They built for her
and for the nurse a strong dun in a remote forest and set a ward there,
and they made a solemn law enjoining perpetual virginity on the child of
ill omen, and the Druids shed a zone of terror round the dun.
Concobar Mac Nessa in the wide circuit of his thoughts consulted always
for the inviolability of that law, and the stern maintenance of the
watching and warding.
Unseen and unobserved, forgotten by all save the wise elders of the
Ultonians and by Concobar their King, whose thoughts ranged on all sides
devising good for the Red Branch, the child Deirdre grew to be a maiden.
Though her beauty was extraordinary, yet her mind was as beautiful as her
form, so that the Lady Levarcam loved her exceedingly.
One day when the first flush of early womanhood came upon the maiden, she
said to her tutoress as they sat together and conversed—
“Are all men like those our guards who defend us against savage beasts and
the merciless Fomorians, dear Levarcam?”
“Those our guards are true and brave men,” said Levarcam.
“Surely they are,” said the girl, “and we lack no courtesy and due
attention at their hands, but dear foster-mother, my question is not
answered. Maybe it is not to be answered and that I am curious overmuch.
Are all men grim, grave, and austere, wearing rugged countenances scored
with ancient wounds, and bearing each man upon his shoulders the weight of
some fearful responsibility? Are all men like that, dear Levarcam?”
“Nay, indeed,” said the other, “there are youths too, gracious, and gay,
and beautiful, as well as grave men such as these.”
They sat together in their sunny grianan, [Footnote: A derivative from
Grian, the sun. The grianan was an upper chamber, more elegantly furnished
than the hall, usually with large windows and therefore well lit and
reserved for the use of women.] embroidering while they conversed. It was
early morning and the air was full of the noises and odours of sweet
spring-time.
“I know that now,” said the maiden, “which I only guessed before, for
waking or sleeping I have dreamed of a youth who was as unlike these men
as the rose-tree with its roses is unlike the rugged oak-tree or the
wrinkled pine that has wrestled with a thousand storms. I would wish to
have him for a playfellow and pleasant acquaintance. Of maidens, too, such
as myself I have dreamed, yet they do not appear to me to be so alluring
or so amiable as that youth.”
“Describe him more particularly,” said Levarcam. “Tell me his tokens one
by one that I may know.”
“He is tall and strong but very graceful in all his motions; and of speech
and behaviour both gay and gracious. He is white and ruddy, whiter than
snow and ruddier than the rose or the fox-glove, where the heroic blood
burns bright in his comely cheeks. His eyes are blue-black under fine and
even brows and his hair is a wonder, so dense is it, so lustrous and so
curling, blacker than the crow’s wing, more shining than the bright armour
of the chaffer. His body is broad above and narrow below, strong to
withstand and agile to pursue. His limbs long and beautifully
proportioned; his hands and feet likewise, and his step elastic Smiles
seldom leave his eyes and lips, and his mouth is a fountain of sweet
speech. O that I were acquainted with him and he with me? I think we
should be happy in each other’s company. I think I could love him as well
as I do thee, dear foster-mother.”
As she spoke, Deirdre blushed, and first she stooped down over her work
and then put before her face and eyes her two beautiful hands, rose-white,
with long delicate nails pink-flushed and transparent; and tears, clearer
than dewdrops, gushed between her ringers and fell in bright showers upon
the embroidery. Then she arose and flung her soft white arms around
Levarcam and wept on her bosom.
“There is one youth only amongst the Red Branch,” said Levarcam, “who
answers to that description, namely Naysi, the son of Usna, who is the
battle-prop of the Ultonians and the clear-shining torch of their valour,
and what god or druid or power hath set that vision before thy mind, I
cannot tell.”
“Would that I could see him with eyes and have speech with him,” answered
the girl. “If but once he smiled upon me and I heard the sweet words flow
from his mouth which is beyond price, then gladly would I die!”
“Thou shall both see him and have speech with him, O best, sweetest,
dearest, and loveliest of all maidens. Truly I will bring him to thee and
thee to him, for there is with me power beyond the wont of women.”
Now Levarcam was a mighty Druidess amongst the Ultonians. So the lady in
whom they trusted forgot the ancient prophecies and the stern commands of
the Red Branch and of their King, owing to the great love which she bore
to the maiden and the great compassion which grew upon her day by day, as
she observed the life of the solitary girl and thought of the cruel law to
which all her youth and beauty and wealth of sweet love beyond all the
jewels of the world were thus barbarously sacrificed by the Ultonians in
obedience to soothsayers and Druids.
Naysi, son of Usna, once in a hunting became separated from his
companions. He wandered far in that forest, seeking some one who should
direct him upon his way. Oftentimes he raised his voice, but there was no
answer. Such were his beauty, his grace, and his stature, that he seemed
more like a god than a man, and such another as Angus Ogue, son of Dagda,
[Footnote: Angus Ogue was the god of youth and beauty, son of the Dagda
who seems to have been the genius of earth and its fertility or perhaps
the Zeus of our Gaelic mythology.] whose fairy palace is on the margin of
the Boyne. His head and his feet were bare. His short hunting-cloak was
dark-red with flowery devices along the edge. On his breast he wore a
brooch of gold bronze; carbuncles and precious stones were set in the
bronze, and it was carved all over with many spiral devices. His shirt
below the mantle was coloured like the tassels of the willow trees. His
hair was fastened behind with a clasp and an apple of red gold, and that
apple lay below the blades of his ample shoulders. In one hand he bore a
broken leash of red bronze, and in the other two hunting spears with
blades of flashing findruiney and the hafts were long, slender, and
shining. By his thigh hung a short sword in a sheath of red yew and beside
it the polished and nigh transparent horn of the Urus, suspended in a
baldrick of knitted thread of bronze. The grass stood erect from the
pressure of his light feet. His manly face had not yet known the razor;
only the first soft down of budding manhood was seen there. His
countenance was pure and joyous with bright beaming eyes, and his
complexion red and white and of a brilliancy beyond words. In his heart
was no guile, only indomitable valour and truth and loyalty and sweet
affection. He had never known woman save in the way of courtesy. The very
trees and rocks and stones seemed to watch him as he passed.
Then suddenly and unawares an ice-cold air struck chill into his inmost
being, the bright earth was obscured and the sun grew dark in the heavens
and menacing voices were heard and horrid forms of evil, monstrous, not to
be described, came against him, and they bade him return as he had come or
they would tear him limb from limb in that forest. Yet the son of Usna was
by no means dismayed, only he flushed with wrath and scorn and he drew his
sword and went on against the phantoms. In truth Naysi was at that moment
passing through the zone of terror which the Ultonian Druids had shed
around the dun where Deirdre was immured. The phantoms gave way before him
and Naysi passed beyond the zone. “Surely,” he said, “there is some chief
jewel of the jewels of the world preserved in this place.”
He came to an opening in the forest. Beyond it there was a great space
which was cleared and girt all round by trees. There was a dun in its
midst. Scarlet and white were the walls of that dun. There was a
watch-tower on one side of the dun and a man there sitting in the
watchman’s seat; a grianan on the other with windows of glass. The roof of
the dun was covered all over with feathers of birds of various hues, and
shone with a hundred colours. The doorway was the narrowest which Naysi
had ever seen. The door pillars were of red yew curiously carved, having
feet of bronze and capitals of carved silver, and the lintel above was a
straight bar of pure silver. A knotted band or thickening ran round the
walls of the dun like a variegated zone, for the colours of it were many
and each different from the colours on the walls. In the world there was
no such prison as there was no such captive as that prison held. Armed men
of huge stature and terrible aspect went round the dun. Their habiliments
were black, their weapons without ornament, the pins of their mantles were
of iron. With each company went a slinger having his sling bent, an iron
bolt in the sling, and his thumb in the string-loop, men who never missed
their mark and never struck aught, whether man or beast, that they did not
slay. Great hounds such as were not known amongst the Ultonians went with
those men. They were grey above and tawny beneath, as large as wild oxen
after the growth of one year. They were quick of sight and scent, fiercer
than dragons and swifter than eagles; they were not quick of sight and
scent to-day. The Lady Levarcam had great power. In and around that dun
were three hundred men of war, foreigners, picked men of the great
fighting tribes of Banba. Such was the decree of the Ultonians and their
wise King, so greatly did they fear concerning those prophecies and omens
and concerning the child who in Emain Macha shrieked out of her mother’s
womb. Naysi regarded the dun with wonder and amazement, and with amazement
the astonishing rigour of the watch and ward which were kept there, and
the more he looked the more he wondered. It seemed to the hunter that he
had chanced upon one of the abodes of the enchanted races of Erin, namely
the Tuatha De Dana or the Fomorians, whom the sons of Milesius by their
might had driven into the mountains and unfrequented places and who, now
immortal and invisible, and possessing great druidic power, were
worshipped as gods by the Gael. He knew he was in great peril, but his
stout heart did not fail; he was resolved to see this adventure to an end.
As he was about to step out into the open two women came from the door of
the grianan. One of them was old; she leaned upon her companion and in her
right hand held a long white wand squared save in the middle where it was
rounded for the hand grip, very long, unornamented, and unshod at either
extremity. Naysi paid slight attention to her, though, as she was the
first to come forth, he observed these things. The other was young, tall,
slender, and lissom, her raiment costly and splendid like a high queen’s
on some solemn day, and like a queen’s her behaviour and her pacing over
the flowery lawn. Never had that hunter seen such a form, so proudly
modest and virginal, such sweetness, grace, and majesty of bearing.
Presently, having passed a company of the guards, she flung back the
white, half-transparent veil that concealed her face. Then the sudden
radiance was like the coming unlocked for out of a white cloud of that
very bright star which shines on the edge of night and morning. All things
were transfigured in her light. Before her the grass grew greener and more
glittering and rare flowers started in her way. A silver basket of most
delicate craftsmanship, the work of some cunning cerd, was on her right
arm. It shone clear and sparkling against her mantle which was exceedingly
lustrous, many times folded, darkly crimson, and of substance unknown. She
towered above her aged companion, straight as a pillar of red yew in a
king’s house. So, unwitting, jocund, and innocent, fresh and pure as the
morning, she paced over the green lawn, going in the direction of that
youth, even Naysi, son of Usna the Ultonian. Naysi’s loudly beating heart
fell silent when he saw how she came straight towards him; he retreated
into the forest, so amazing and so confounding was the radiance of that
beauty. A company of those grim warders, silent and watchful, followed
close upon the women. As they went they slipped the muzzles from the
mouths of their dogs and lead them forward leashed. The countenances of
the men shewed displeasure. From the tower the watchman cried aloud words
in an unknown tongue, hoarse, barbaric accents charged with energy and
strong meaning. His voice rang terribly in the hollows of the forest.
There was a counter challenge in the forest repeated many times, the
voices of men mingled with the baying of hounds. There was a ring of
sentinels and dogs far out in the forest. The son of Usna had gone through
the ring. For twice seven years and one that astonishing watch and ward
had been maintained day and night without relaxation or abatement. When
they came to the edge of the forest Levarcam addressed the commander of
that company. She said, “The Lady Deirdre would be alone with me in the
forest for a little space to gather flowers and listen to the music of the
birds and the stream, relieved, if but for one moment, of this watching
and warding.”
The man answered not a word. He was of the Gamanrdians, dwellers by the
Sue, which feeds the great Western River; [Footnote: The Shannon.] his
people were of the Clan Dega in the south, and of the children of Orc
[Footnote: In scriptural language “of the seed of the giants,” huge,
simple-hearted and simple-minded men, who could obey orders and ask no
questions.] from the Isles of Ore in the frozen seas. [Footnote: The
Orkney Islands.] The blood of the Fomoroh was in those men. The women went
on, and that grim company followed, keeping close behind. When they gained
the first cover of the trees Levarcam turned round and stretched over them
her wand. They stood motionless, both men and dogs. Then the women went
forward, and alone.
“Fill thy basket now with forest flowers, O sweetest, and dearest, and
fairest of all foster-children, and listen to the songs of the birds and
the music of the rill. Cull thy flowers, darling girl, and cull the flower
of thy youth, the flower that grows but once for all like thee, the flower
whose glory puts high heaven to shame, and whose odour makes mad the most
wise.”
“Where shall I gather that flower, O gentlest and most amiable of
foster-mothers? Is it in the glade or the thicket, or on the margent of
the rill?
“It is not to be found by seeking, O fairest of all maidens. Gather it
when thou meetest with it in the way. Wear it in thy heart, be the end
what it may. Verily thou wilt not mistake any other flower for that
flower.”
“I know not thy meaning, O wise and many-counselled woman, but there is
fear upon me, and trembling, and my knees quake at thy strange words. Now,
if the whole world were swallowed up I should not be surprised. Surely the
end of the world is very nigh.”
“It is the end of the world and the beginning of the world; and the end of
life and the beginning of life; and death and life in one, and death and
life will soon be the same to thee, O Deirdre!”
“There is amazement upon me, and terror, O my foster-mother, on account of
thy words, and on account of the gathering of this flower. Let us return
to the dun. Terrible to me are the hollow-sounding ways of the unknown
forest.”
“Fear not the unknown forest, O Deirdre. Leave the known and the familiar
now that thy time has come. Go on. Accomplish thy destiny. It is vain to
strive against fate and the pre-ordained designs of the high gods of Erin.
Truly I have failed in my trust. I see great wrath in Emain Macha. I see
the Red Branch tossed in storms, and a mighty riving and rending and
scattering abroad, and dismal conflagrations, and the blood of heroes
falling like rain, and I hear the croaking of Byves. [Footnote: Badb,
pronounced Byve, was primarily the scald-crow or carrion-crow, secondarily
a Battle-Fury.] Truly I have proved a brittle prop to the Ultonians, but
some power beyond my own drives me on.”
“What wild words are these, O wisest of women, and what this rending and
scattering abroad, and showers of blood and croaking of Byves because I
cull a flower in the forest?”
“Nay, it is nothing. Have peace and joy while thou canst, sweet Deirdre.
Thus I lay my wand upon thy bosom and enjoin peace!”
“Thou art weary, dear foster-mother. Rest thee here now a little space,
while I go and gather forest flowers. They are sweeter than those that
grow in my garden. O, right glad am I to be alone in the forest, relieved
from the observation of those grim-visaged sentinels, to stray solitary in
the dim mysterious forest, and to think my own thoughts there, and dream
my dreams, and recall that vision which I have seen. O Naysi, son of Usna,
sweeter than harps is the mere sound of thy name, O Ultonian!”
Deirdre after that went forward alone into the forest.
Naysi, when he had started back into the forest stood still for a long
time in his retreat. It was the hollow of a tall rock beside a falling
stream of water, all flowing snow or transparent crystal. Holly trees and
quicken trees grew from its crest, and long twines of ivy fell down before
like green torrents. Behind them he concealed himself, when he heard the
cries and the challengings and the baying of the hounds. Then he saw the
maiden come along the forest glade by the margent of the stream, her
basket filled and over-flowing with flowers. The sentient stream sang loud
and gay to greet her approaching, with fluent liquid fingers striking more
joyously the chords of his stony lyre. Light beyond the sun was shed
through the glen before her. Birds, the brightest of plumage and sweetest
of note of all the birds of Banba, [Footnote: One of Ireland’s ancient
names.] filled the air with their songs, flying behind her and before her,
and on her right hand and on her left. Through his lattice of trailing ivy
the son of Usna saw her. Her countenance was purer and clearer than
morning-dew upon the rose or the lily, and the rose and lily, nay, the
whiteness of the snow of one night and the redness of the reddest rose,
were there. Her eyes were blue-black under eyebrows black and fine, but
her clustering hair was bright gold, more shining than the gold which
boils over the edge of the refiner’s crucible. Her forehead was free from
all harshness, broad and intelligent, her beautiful smiling lips of the
colour of the berries of the mountain ash, her teeth a shower of lustrous
pearls. Her face and form, her limbs, hands and feet, were such that no
defect, blemish or disproportion could be observed, though one might watch
and observe long, seeking to discover them. In that daughter of the High
Poet and Historian of the Hound-race of the North, [Footnote: The hound
was the type of valour. Though Cuculain was pre-eminently the Hound, the
Gaelic equivalents of this word will be discovered in most of the famous
names of the cycle.] child of valour and true wisdom, the body did not
predominate over the spirit, or the spirit over the body, for as her form
was of matchless, incomparable, and inexpressible beauty, so her mind was
not a whit less well proportioned and refined. Jocund and happy, breathing
innocence and love, she came up the dell. The birds of Angus [Footnote:
Angus Ogue’s kisses became invisible birds whose singing inspired love.]
unseen flew above her and shed upon her unearthly graces and charms from
the waving of their immortal wings. A silver brooch lay on her breast, the
pin of fine bronze ran straight from one shoulder to the other. On her
head was a lustrous tyre or leafy diadem shading her countenance, gold
above and silver below. Her short kirtle was white below the rose-red
mantle, and fringed with gold thread above her perfect and lightly
stepping feet. Shoes she wore shining with brightest wire of findruiney.
As she came up the dell, rejoicing in her freedom and the sweetness of
that sylvan place and the solitude, she contemplated the bright stream,
and sang clear and sweet an unpremeditated song.
Naysi stepped forth from his place, putting aside the ivy with his hands,
and came down the dell to meet her in her coming. She did not scream or
tremble or show any signs of confusion, though she had never before seen
any of the youths of the Gael. She only stood still and straight, and with
wide eyes of wonder watched him as he drew nigh, for she thought at first
that it was the genius of that glen and torrent taking form in reply to
her druidic lay. Then when she recognised the comrade and playfellow of
her vision, she smiled a friendly and affectionate greeting. On the other
hand, Naysi came trembling and blushing. He bowed himself to the earth
before her, and kissed the grass before her feet.
They remained together a long time in the glen and told each other all
they knew and thought and felt, save one feeling untellable, happy beyond
all power of language to express. When Deirdre rose to go, Naysi asked for
some token and symbol of remembrance.
As they went she gathered a rose and gave it to Naysi.
“There is a great meaning in this token amongst the youths and maidens of
the Gael,” said he.
“I know that,” answered Deirdre. Deirdre returned to Levarcam.
“Thou hast gathered the flower,” said Levarcam.
“I have,” she replied, “and death and life are one to me now, dear
foster-mother.”
Naysi went away through the forest and there is nothing related concerning
him till he reached Dun Usna. It was night when he entered the hall. His
brothers were sitting at the central fire. Anli was scouring a shield;
Ardane was singing the while he polished a spear and held it out against
the light to see its straightness and its lustre. They were in no way
alarmed about their brother.
“I have seen Deirdre, the daughter of Felim,” he said.
“Then thou art lost!” they answered; the weapons fell from their hands
upon the floor.
“I am,” he replied.
“What is thy purpose?” they said.
“To storm the guarded dun, even if I go against it alone, To bear away
Deirdre and pass into the land of the Albanagh.” [Footnote: The Albanagh
were the people who inhabited the north and west of Scotland, in fact the
Highlanders. In ancient times they and the Irish were regarded as one
people.]
“Thou shalt not go alone,” they said. “We have shared in thy glory and thy
power, we will share all things with thee.”
They put their right hand into his on that promise. One hundred and fifty
nobles of the nobles of that territory did the same, for with Naysi as
their captain they did not fear to go upon any enterprise. They knew that
expatriation awaited them, but they had rather be with Naysi and his
brothers in a strange land than to live without them in Ireland. So the
Clan Usna with their mighty men stormed the dun and bore off Deirdre and
went away eastward to the Muirnicht. And they crossed the Moyle [Footnote:
The sea between Ireland and Scotland. “Silent, O Moyle, be the roar of thy
waters,”] in ships into the country of the Albanagh, and settled on the
delightful shores of Loch Etive and made swordland of the surrounding
territory. Great, famous, and long remembered were the deeds of the
children of Usna in that land.
“Each spake words of high disdain
And insult to his heart’s best brother,
They parted ne’er to meet again.”
—COLERIDGE
It was on account of this that there arose at first that dissidence and
divergence of opinion in the great Council at Emain Macha between Concobar
Mac Nessa and Fergus Mac Roy, Concobar standing for the law which he had
been sworn to safeguard and to execute, and Fergus casting over the lovers
the shield of his name and fame, his authority and his strength, and the
singular affection with which he was regarded by all the Ultonians.
After Fergus had made that speech in disparagement and contempt of the
solemn enactment and decree in accordance with which Deirdre had been
immured, Concobar did not immediately answer, for he knew that he was
heated both on account of the abduction and on account of the words of
Fergus. Then he said—
“The valour of the Red Branch, whereby we flourish so conspicuously herein
the North, doth not spring out of itself, and doth not come by discipline,
teaching, and example. It has its root in a virtue of which the bards
indeed, for bardic reasons, make little mention though it hold a firm
place in the laws of the Ultonians both ancient and recent. This, our
valour, and the famous kindred virtues through which we are strong and
irresistible, so that the world has today nothing anywhere of equal glory
and power, spring from the chastity of our women, which is conspicuous and
clear-shining, and in the modesty and shamefastness of our young heroes,
and the extreme rarity of lawless relations between men and women in Ulla,
the servile tribes excepted, of whom no man maketh any account. Against
such lawlessness our wise ancestors have decreed terrible punishments.
According to the laws of the Ultonians, those who offend in this respect
are burned alive in the place of the burnings, and over their ashes are
thrown the three throws of dishonour. And well I know that these laws
ofttimes to the unthinking and to those who judge by their affections
merely, seem harsh and unnatural. Yea truly, were I not high King, I could
weep, seeing gentle youths and maidens, and men and women, whom the
singing of Angus Ogue’s birds have made mad, led away by my orders to be
devoured by flame. But so it is best, for without chastity valour faileth
in a nation, and lawlessness in this respect begetteth sure and rapid
decay, and I give not this forth as an opinion but as a thing that I know,
seeing it as clearly with my mind, O Fergus, as I see with my eyes thy
countenance and form and the foldings of thy fuan [Footnote: Mantle.] and
the shape and ornamentation of the wheel-brooch upon thy breast. Without
chastity there is no enduring valour in a nation. And thou, too, O Fergus,
sitting there in the champion’s throne, hast more than once or twice heard
me pronounce the dread sentence without word of protest or dissent. But
now, because it toucheth thee thyself, strongly and fiercely thy voice of
protest is lifted up, and unless I and this Council can over-persuade
thee, this thy rebellious purpose will be thy own undoing or that of the
Red Branch. Are the sons of Usna dear only to thee? I say they are dearer
to me, but the Red Branch is still dearer, and it is the destruction of
the Red Branch which unwittingly thou wouldst Compass. Nor was that law
concerning the inviolable virginity of the child of Felim foolish or
unwise, for it was made solemnly by the Ultonians in obedience to the
united voice of the Druids of Ulla, men who see deeply into the hidden
causes of things and the obscure relations of events, of which we men of
war have no perception.”
So spoke Concobar, not threateningly like a sovereign king, but
pleadingly. On the other hand Fergus Mac Roy, rearing his huge form, stood
upon his feet, and said—
“To answer fine reasonings I have no skill, but I swear by the sun and the
wind and the earth and by my own right hand, which is a stronger oath than
any, that I will bring back the sons of Usna into Ireland, and that they
shall live and flourish in their place and sit honourably in this great
hall of the Clanna Rury, whether it be pleasing to thee or displeasing.
For I take the Clan Usna under my protection from this day forth, and well
I know that there is not in Erin or in Alba a man born of a woman, no nor
the Tuatha De Danan themselves, who will break through that protection!”
“I will break through it,” said the King.
After that Fergus departed from Emain Macha and went away with his people
into the east to his own country. There he debated and considered for a
long time, but at last, so great was his affection for the Clan Usna, that
he went over the Moyle in ships to the country of the Albanagh and brought
home the sons of Usna, and they were slain by Concobar Mac Nessa,
according as he had promised by the word of his mouth. Then Fergus
rebelled against Concobar, drawing after him two-thirds of the Red Branch,
and amongst them Duvac Dael Ulla and Cormac Conlingas, Concobar’s own son,
and many other great men, but the chiefest and best and most renowned of
the Ultonians adhered to the King. The whole province was shaken with war
and there was great shedding of blood, but in the end Concobar prevailed
and drove out Fergus Mac Roy. After that expulsion Fergus and three
thousand of the Red Branch fled across the Shannon and came to Rath
Cruhane, and entered into military service with Meave who was the queen of
all the country west of the Shannon.
There is nothing told about Cuculain in connection with this war. It is
hard to imagine him taking any side in such a war. But, in fact, he was
still a schoolboy under tutors and governors and could not lawfully appear
in arms, seeing that he was not yet knighted. He was either with the
smiths or, having procured a worthy hound to take his place, he had gone
back to the royal school at Emain Macha. But the time when Cuculain should
be knighted, that is to say, invested with arms, and solemnly received
into the Red Branch as man to the high King of all Ulla, now drew on, and
such a knighting as that, and under such signs, omens, and portents, has
never been recorded anywhere in the history of the nations.
In the meantime, Fergus and his exiles served Queen Meave and were
subduing all the rest of Ireland under her authority, so that Meave, Queen
of Connaught, became very great and proud, and in the end meditated the
overthrow of Ulster and the conquest of the Red Branch. Queen Meave and
Fergus leading the joined host of the four remaining provinces, Meath,
Connaught, Munster, and Leinster, certain of success owing to a strange
lethargy which then fell on the Ultonians, did invade Ulster. But as they
drew nigh to the mearings they found the in-gate of the province barred by
one man. It is needless to mention that man’s name. It was Dethcaen’s
nursling, the ex-pupil of Fergus Mac Roy, the little boy Setanta grown
into a terrible and irresistible hero. It was by his defence of Ulster on
that occasion against Fergus and Meave and the four provinces, that
Cuculain acquired his deathless glory and became the chief hero of the
north-west of the world. So these chapters which relate to the abduction
of Deirdre and the rebellion and expulsion of Fergus, are a vital portion
of the whole story of Cuculain. We must now return to the hero’s schoolboy
days which, however, are drawing to a memorable conclusion.
“He dwelt a while among the neat-herds
Of King Admetus, veiling his godhood.”
Greek Mythology.
“At Tailteen I raced my steeds against a woman,
Though great with child she came first to the goal,
Alas, I knew not the auburn-haired Macha,
Thence came affliction upon the Ultonians.”
CONCOBAR MAC NESSA.
Concobar Mac Nessa on a solemn day called Cuculain forth from the ranks of
the boys where they stood in the rear of the assembly and said—
“O Setanta, there is a duty which falls to me by virtue of my kingly
office, and therein I need an assistant. For it is my province to keep
bright and in good running order the chariot of Macha wherein she used to
go forth to war from Emain, and to clean out the corn-troughs of her two
steeds and put there fresh barley perpetually, and fresh hay in their
mangers. Illan the Fair [Footnote: He was one of the sons of Fergus Mac
Roy slain in the great civil war.] was my last helper in this office, till
the recent great rebellion. That ministry is thine now, if it is pleasing
to thee to accept it.”
The boy said that it was pleasing, and the King gave him the key of the
chamber in which were the vessels and implements used in discharging that
sacred function.
Afterwards, on the same day, the King said to him, “Wash thyself now in
pure water and put on new clean raiment and come again to me.”
The boy washed himself and put on new clean raiment. The King himself did
the same.
Concobar said: “Go now to the chamber of which I have given thee the key
and fill with oil the silver oil-can and take a towel of the towels of
fawn-skin which are there and return.” He did so; and Concobar and his
nephew, armed youths following, went to the house of the chariot.
Ere Concobar turned the wards of the lock he heard voices within in the
chariot-house. There, one said to another, “This is he. Our long watch and
ward are near the end.” And the other said, “It is well. Too long have we
been here waiting.”
“Hast thou heard anything, my nephew?” said Concobar.
“I have heard nothing,” said the lad.
Concobar opened the great folding-doors. There was a sound there like glad
voices mingled with a roar of revolving wheels, and then silence. Setanta
drew back in dismay, and even Concobar stood still. “I have not observed
such portents before in the chariot-house,” he said. The King and his
nephew entered the hollow chamber. The chariot was motionless but very
bright. One would have said that the bronze burned. It was of great size
and beauty. By its side were two horse-stalls with racks and mangers, the
bars of the rack were of gold bronze which was called findruiney, and the
mangers of yellow brass. The floor was paved with cut marble, the walls
lined with smooth boards of ash. There were no windows, but there were
nine lamps in the room. “It will be thy duty to feed those lamps,” said
Concobar.
Concobar took the fawn-skin towel from the boy and polished the chariot,
and the wheels, tyres, and boxes, and the wheel-spokes. He oiled the
wheels too, and mightily lifting the great chariot seized the spokes with
his right hand and made the wheels spin.
“Go now to the chamber of which I have given thee the keys,” he said, “and
bring the buckets, and clear out the mangers to the last grain, and empty
the stale barley into the place of the burning, and afterwards take fresh
barley from the bin which is in the chamber and fill the mangers. Empty
the racks also and bring fresh hay. Thou wilt find it stored there too;
clean straw also and litter the horse-stalls.”
The boy did that. In the meantime Concobar polished the pole, and the
yoke, and the chains. From the wall he took the head-gear of the horses
and the long shining reins of interwoven brass and did the same very
carefully till there was not a speck of rust or discolouration to be seen.
“Where are the horses, my Uncle Concobar?” said the boy.
“That I cannot rightly tell,” said Concobar, “but verily they are
somewhere.”
“What are those horses?” said the boy. “How are they called? What their
attributes, and why do I fill their racks and mangers?”
“They are the Liath Macha and Black Shanglan,” said Concobar. “They have
not been seen in Erin for three hundred years, not since Macha dwelt
visibly in Emain as the bride of Kimbaoth, son of Fiontann. In this
chariot she went forth to war, charioteering her warlike groom. But they
are to come again for the promised one and bear him to battle and to
conflict in this chariot, and the time is not known but the King of Emain
is under gesa [Footnote: Terrible druidic obligations.] to keep the
chariot bright and the racks and mangers furnished with fresh hay, and
barley two years old. He is to wait, and watch, and stand prepared under
gesa most terrible.”
“Maybe Kimbaoth will return to us again,” said the boy.
“Nay, it hath not been so prophesied,” answered the King. “He was great,
and stern, and formidable. But our promised one is gentle exceedingly. He
will not know his own greatness, and his nearest comrades will not know
it, and there will be more of love in his heart than war.” So saying
Concobar looked steadfastly upon the boy.
“Conall Carnach is as famous for love as for war,” said Setanta. “He is
peerless in beauty, and his strength and courage are equal to his
comeliness, and his chivalry and battle-splendour to his strength.”
“Nay, lad, it is not Conall Carnach, though the women of Ulla sicken and
droop for the love of him. Verily, it is not Conall Carnach.”
Setanta examined curiously the great war-car.
“Was Kimbaoth assisting his wife,” he asked, “when she took captive the
sons of Dithorba?”
“Nay,” said the King, “she went forth alone and crossed the Shannon with
one step into the land of the Fir-bolgs, and there, one by one, she bound
those builder-giants the sons of Dithorba, and bore them hither in her
might, and truly those five brethren were no small load for the back of
one woman.”
“Has anyone seen her in our time?” asked the lad.
“I have,” said Concobar. “I saw her at the great fair of Tailteen. There
she pronounced a curse upon me and upon the Red Branch. [Footnote: At
Tailteen a man boasted that his wife could outrun Concobar’s victorious
chariot-steeds. Concobar compelled the woman to run against his horses.
She won the race, but died at the goal leaving her curse upon the Red
Branch.] The curse hath not yet fallen, but it will fall in my time, and
the promised one will come in my time and he will redeem us from its
power. Great tribulation will be his. Question me no more, dear Setanta, I
have said more than enough.”
They went forth from the sacred chamber and Concobar locked the doors.
As they crossed the vacant space going to the palace, Concobar said—
“Why art thou sad, dear Setanta?”
“I am not sad,” answered the boy.
“Truly there is no sadness in thy face, or thy lips, in thy voice or thy
behaviour, but it is deep down in thine eyes,” said the King. “I see it
there always.”
Setanta laughed lightly. “I know it not,” he said.
Concobar went his way after that, musing, and Setanta, having replaced the
sacred vessels in their chamber and having locked the door, strode away
into the boys’ hall. There was a great fire in the midst, and the boys sat
round it, for it was cold. Cuculain broke their circle, pushing the boys
asunder, and sat down. They tried to drag him away, but he laughed and
kept his place like a rock. Then they called him “a Fomorian, and no man,”
and perforce made their circle wider.
“On the brink of the night and the morning
My coursers are wont to respire,
But the earth has just whispered a warning,
That their flight must be swifter than fire,
They shall breathe the hot air of desire.”
SHELLEY.
One night when the stars shone brightly, Setanta, as he passed by
Cathvah’s astrological tower, heard him declare to his students that
whoever should be knighted by Concobar on a certain day would be famous to
the world’s end. He was in his coming out of the forest then with a bundle
of young ash trees under his arm. He thought to put them to season and
therewith make slings, for truly he surpassed all others in the use of the
sling. Setanta went his way after that and came into the speckled house.
It was the armoury of the Red Branch and shone with all manner of
war-furniture. A fire burned here always, absorbing the damp of the air
lest the metal should take rust. Setanta flung his trees into the rafters
over the fire very deftly, so that they caught and remained there. He said
they would season best in that place.
As he turned to go a man stood before him in the vast and hollow chamber.
“I know thee,” said the boy. “What wouldst thou now?”
“Thou shalt go forth to-night,” said the man, [Footnote: This man was Lu
the Long-Handed, the same who met him when he was leaving home.] “and take
captive the Liath Macha and Black Shanghlan. Power will be given to thee.
Go out boldly.”
“I am not wont to go out fearfully,” answered the lad. “Great labours are
thrust upon me.”
He went into the supper hall as at other times and took his customary
place there, and ate and drank.
“Thy eyes are very bright,” said Laeg.
“They will be brighter ere the day,” he replied.
“That is an expert juggler,” said Laeg. “How he tosseth the bright balls!”
“Can he toss the stars so?” said Setanta.
“Thou art strange and wild to-night,” said Laeg.
“I will be stranger and wilder ere the morrow,” cried Setanta.
He stood up to go. Laeg caught him by the skirt of his mantle. The piece
came away in his hand.
“Whither art thou going, Setanta?” cried the King from the other end of
the vast hall.
“To seek my horses,” cried the lad. His voice rang round the hollow dome
and down the resounding galleries and long corridors, so that men started
in their seats and looked towards him.
“They are stabled since the setting of the sun,” said the chief groom.
“Thou liest,” answered the boy. “They are in the hills and valleys of
Erin.” His eyes burned like fire and his stature was exalted before their
eyes.
“Great deeds will be done in Erin this night,” said Concobar.
He went forth into the night. There was great power upon him. He crossed
the Plain of the Hurlings and the Plain of the Assemblies and the open
country and the great waste moor, going on to Dun-Culain. Culain’s new
hound cowered low when he saw him. The boy sprang over moat and rampart at
one bound and burst open the doors of the smith’s house, breaking the bar.
The noise of the riven beam was like the brattling of thunder.
“That is an unusual way to enter a man’s house,” said Culain. He and his
people were at supper.
“It is,” said Setanta. “Things more unusual will happen this night. Give
me bridles that will hold the strongest horses.” Culain gave him two
bridles.
“Will they hold the strongest horses?” said the boy.
“Anything less than the Liath Macha they will hold,” said the smith.
The boy snapped the bridles and flung them aside. “I want bridles that
will hold the Liath Macha and Black Shanglan,” said he.
“Fire all the furnaces,” cried Culain. “Handle your tools; show your
might. Work now, men, for your lives. Verily, if he get not the bridles,
soon your dead will be more numerous than your living.”
Culain and his people made the bridles. He gave them to Cuculain. The
smiths stood around in pallid groups. Cuculain took the bridles and went
forth. He went south-westwards to Slieve Fuad, and came to the Grey Lake.
The moon shone and the lake glowed like silver. There was a great horse
feeding by the lake. He raised his head and neighed when he heard
footsteps on the hill. He came on against Cuculain and Cuculain went on
against him. The boy had one bridle knotted round his waist and the other
in his teeth. He leaped upon the steed and caught him by the forelock and
his mouth. The horse reared mightily, but Setanta held him and dragged his
head down to the ground. The grey steed grew greater and more terrible. So
did Cuculain.
“Thou hast met thy master, O Liath Macha, this night,” he cried. “Surely I
will not lose thee. Ascend into the heavens, or, breaking the earth’s
roof, descend to Orchil, [Footnote: A great sorceress who ruled the world
under the earth.] yet even so thou wilt not shake me away.”
Ireland quaked from the centre to the sea. They reeled together, steed and
hero, through the plains of Murthemney. “Make the circuit of Ireland Liath
Macha and I shall be on the neck of thee,” cried Cuculain. The horse went
in reeling circles round Ireland. Cuculain mightily thust the bit into his
mouth and made fast the headstall. The Liath Macha went a second time
round Ireland. The sea retreated from the shore and stood in heaps.
Cuculain sprang upon his back. A third time the horse went round Ireland,
bounding from peak to peak. They seemed a resplendent Fomorian phantom
against the stars. The horse came to a stand. “I think thou art tamed, O
Liath Macha,” said Cuculain. “Go on now to the Dark Valley.” They came to
the Dark Valley. There was night there always. Shapes of Death and Horror,
Fomorian apparitions, guarded the entrance. They came against Cuculain,
and he went against them. A voice from within cried, “Forbear, this is the
promised one. Your watching and warding are at end.” He rode into the Dark
Valley. There was a roaring of unseen rivers in the darkness, of black
cataracts rushing down the steep sides of the Valley. The Liath Macha
neighed loudly. The neigh reverberated through the long Valley. A horse
neighed joyfully in response. There was a noise of iron doors rushing open
somewhere, and a four-footed thunderous trampling on the hollow-sounding
earth. A steed came to the Liath Macha. Cuculain felt for his head in the
dark, and bitted and bridled him ere he was aware. The horse reared and
struggled. The Liath Macha dragged him down the Valley. “Struggle not,
Black Shanglan,” said Cuculain, “I have tamed thy better.” The horse
ceased to struggle. Down and out of the Dark Valley rodest thou, O
peerless one, with thy horses. The Liath Macha was grey to whiteness, the
other horse was black and glistening like the bright mail of the chaffer.
He rode thence to Emain Macha with the two horses like a lord of Day and
Night, and of Life and Death. Truly the might and power of the Long-Handed
and Far-Shooting one was upon him that night. He came to Emain Macha. The
doors of Macha’s stable flew open before him. He rode the horses into the
stable. Macha’s war-car brayed forth a brazen roar of welcome, the Tuatha
De Danan shouted, and the car itself glowed and sparkled. The horses went
to their ancient stalls, the Liath Macha to that which was nearer to the
door. Cuculain took off their bridles and hanged them on the wall. He went
forth into the night. The horses were already eating their barley, but
they looked after him as he went. The doors shut to with a brazen clash.
Cuculain stood alone in the great court under the stars. A druidic storm
was abroad and howled in the forests. He thought all that had taken place
a wild dream. He went to his dormitory and to his couch. Laeg was asleep
with the starlight shining on his white forehead; his red hair was shed
over the pillow. Cuculain kissed him, and sitting on the bed’s edge wept.
Laeg awoke.
“Thou wert not well at supper,” said Laeg, “and now thou hast been
wandering in the damp of the night, and thou with a fever upon thee, for I
hear thy teeth clattering. I sought to hinder thee, and thou wouldst not
be persuaded. Verily, if thou wilt not again obey me, being thy senior,
thou shalt have sore bones at my hands. Undress thyself now and come to
bed without delay.”
Cuculain did so.
“Thou art as cold as ice,” said Laeg.
“Nay, I am hotter than fire,” said Cuculain.
“Thou art ice, I say,” said Laeg, “and thy teeth are clattering like
hailstones on a brazen shield. Ay, and thine eyes shine terribly.”
Laeg started from the couch. He struck flintsparks upon a rag steeped in
nitre, and waved it to a flame, and kindled a lanthorn. He flung his own
mantle upon the bed and went forth in his shirt. The storm raged terribly;
the stars were dancing in high heaven. He came to the house of the Chief
Leech and beat at the door. The Leech was not in bed. All the wise men of
Emain Macha were awake that night, listening to the portents.
“Setanta, son of Sualtam, is sick,” said Laeg.
“What are his symptoms?” said the Leech.
“He is colder than ice, his eyes shine terribly, and his teeth clatter,
but he says that he is hotter than fire.”
The Leech went to Cuculain. “This is not a work for me,” he said, “but for
a seer. Bring hither Cathvah and his Druids.” Cathvah and and his seers
came. They made their symbols of power over the youth and chanted their
incantations and Druid songs. After that Cuculain slept. He slept for
three days and three nights. There was a great stillness while the boy
slept, for it was not lawful at any time for anyone to awake Cuculain when
he slumbered.
On the third morning Cuculain awoke. The bright morning sunshine was all
around, and the birds sang in Emain Macha. He called for Laeg with a loud
voice and bade him order a division of the boys to get ready their horses
and chariots for charioteering exercise and fighting out of their cars.
“Then felt I like a watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken.”
KEATS.
The prophecies concerning the coming of some extraordinary warrior amongst
the Red Branch had been many and ancient, and by certain signs Concobar
believed that his time was now near. Often he contemplated his nephew,
observed his beauty, his strength, and his unusual proficiency in all
martial exercises, and mused deeply considering the omens. But when he saw
him slinging and charioteering amongst the rest, shooting spears and
casting battle-stones at a mark before the palace upon the lawn, and saw
him eating and drinking before him nightly in the hall like another, and
heard his clear voice and laughter amongst the boys, his schoolfellows and
comrades, then the thought or the faint surmise or wish that his nephew
might be that promised one passed out of his mind, for the prophesyings
and the rumours had been very great, and men looked for one who should
resemble Lu the Long-Handed, son of Ethlend, [Footnote: This great deity
resembled the Greek Phoebus Apollo. He led the rebellion of the gods
against the Fomorian giants who had previously reduced them to a condition
of intolerable slavery. Some say that he was Cuculain’s true father. His
favourite weapon was the sling, likened here to the rainbow. It was not a
thong or cord sling, but a pliant rod such as boys in Ireland still make.
The milky way was his chain.] whose sling was like the cloud bow, who
thundered and lightened against the giants of the Fomoroh, who was all
power and all skill, whose chain wherewith he used to confine Tuatha De
Danan and Milesians, spanned the midnight sky. The rumours and prophecies
were indeed exceeding great and Cuculain, though he far surpassed the
rest, was but a boy like others. He stood at the head of Concobar’s horses
when the King ascended his chariot. His shoulder was warm and firm to the
touch when the King lightly laid his hand upon him.
One night there were terrible portents. All Ireland quaked; there was a
druidic storm under bright stars; the buildings rocked; a brazen clangour
sounded from the Tec Brac; there were mighty tramplings and cries and a
four-footed thunder of giant hoofs, and they went round Ireland three
times, only the third time swifter and like a hurricane of sound. Cuculain
was abroad that night. There was deep sleep upon the people of Emain, only
the chiefs were awake and aware. Cuculain was sick after that. The Druids
stood around his bed.
“The world labours with the new birth,” said Concobar. “Maybe my nephew is
the forerunner, the herald and announcer of the coming god!”
One evening, after supper, when the lad came to bid his uncle good-night
as his custom was, he said, “If it be pleasing to thee, my Uncle Concobar,
I would be knighted on the morrow, for I am now of due age, and owing to
the instructions of my tutor, Fergus Mac Roy, and thyself, and my other
teachers and instructors, I am thought to be sufficiently versed in
martial exercises, and able to play a man’s part amongst the Red Branch.”
He was now a man’s full height, but his face was a boy’s face, and his
strength and agility amazed all who observed him in his exercises.
“Has thou heard what Cathvah has predicted concerning the youth who is
knighted on that day?” said the King.
“Yes,” answered the lad.
“That he will be famous and short-lived and unhappy?”
“Truly,” he replied.
“And doth thy purpose still hold?”
“Yes,” he answered, “but whether it be mine I cannot tell.”
Concobar, though unwilling, yielded to that request.
Loegairey, the Victorious, son of Conud, son of Iliach, the second best
knight of the Red Branch and the most devoted to poetry of them all came
that night into the hall while the rest slumbered. The candles were
flickering in their sockets. Darkness invested the rest of the vast
hollow-sounding chamber, but there was light around the throne and couch
of the King, owing to the splendour of the pillars and of the canopy
shining with bronze, white and red, and silver and gold, and glittering
with carbuncles and diamonds, and owing to the light which always
surrounded the King and encircled his regal head like a luminous cloud,
seen by many. He was looking straight out before him with bright eyes,
considering and consulting for the Red Branch while they slept. Two great
men having their swords drawn in their hands, stood behind him, on the
right and on the left, like statues, motionless and silent.
Loegairey drew nigh to the King. Distraction and amazement were in his
face. His dense and lustrous hair was dishevelled and in agitation round
his neck and huge shoulders. He held in his hand two long spears with
rings of walrus tooth where the timber met the shank of the flashing
blades; they trembled in his hand. His lips were dry, his voice very low.
“There are horses in the stable of Macha,” he said.
“I know it,” answered the King.
Concobar called for water, and when he had washed his hands and his face,
he took from its place the chess-board of the realm, arranged the men, and
observed their movements and combinations. He closed the board and put the
men in their net of bronze wire, and restored all to their place.
“Great things will happen on the morrow, O grandson of Iliach,” he said.
“Take candles and go before me to the boys’ dormitory.”
They went to the boys’ dormitory and to the couch of Cuculain. Cuculain
and Laeg were asleep together there. Their faces towards each other and
their hair mingled together. Cuculain’s face was very tranquil, and his
breathing inaudible, like an infant’s.
“O sweet and serene face,” murmured the King, “I see great clouds of
sorrow coming upon you.”
They returned to the hall.
“Go now to thy rest and thy slumber, O Loegairey,” said the King. “When
the curse of Macha descends upon us I know one who will withstand it.”
“Surely it is not that stripling?” said Loegairey. But the King made no
answer.
On the morrow there was a great hosting of the Red Branch on the plain of
the Assemblies. It was May-Day morning and the sun shone brightly, but at
first through radiant showers. The trees were putting forth young buds;
the wet grass sparkled. All the martial pomp and glory of the Ultonians
were exhibited that day. Their chariots and war-horses ringed the plain.
All the horses’ heads were turned towards the centre where were Concobar
Mac Nessa and the chiefs of the Red Branch. The plain flashed with gold,
bronze, and steel, and glowed with the bright mantles of the innumerable
heroes, crimson and scarlet, blue, green, or purple. The huge brooches on
their breasts of gold and silver or gold-like bronze, were like
resplendent wheels. Their long hair, yellow for the most part, was bound
with ornaments of gold. Great, truly, were those men, their like has not
come since upon the earth. They were the heroes and demigods of the heroic
age of Erin, champions who feared nought beneath the sun, mightiest among
the mighty, huge, proud, and unconquerable, and loyal and affectionate
beyond all others; all of the blood of Ir, [Footnote: On account of their
descent from Ir, son of Milesius, the Red Branch were also called the
Irians.] son of Milesius, the Clanna Rury of great renown, rejoicing in
their valour, their splendour, their fame and their peerless king.
Concobar had no crown. A plain circle of beaten gold girt his broad
temples. In the naked glory of his regal manhood he stood there before
them all, but even so a stranger would have swiftly discovered the captain
of the Red Branch, such was his stature, his bearing, such his
slowly-turning, steady-gazing eyes and the majesty of his bearded
countenance. His countenance was long, broad above and narrow below, his
nose eminent, his beard bipartite, curling and auburn in hue, his form
without any blemish or imperfection.
Cuculain came forth from the palace. He wore that day a short mantle of
pale-red silk bordered with white thread and fastened on the breast with a
small brooch like a wheel of silver. The hues upon that silk were never
the same. His tunic of fine linen was girt at the waist with a leathern
zone, stained to the resemblance of the wild-briar rose. It descended to
but did not pass his beautiful knees, falling into many plaits. The tunic
was cut low at the neck, exposing his throat and the knot in the throat
and the cup-shaped indentation above the breast. On his feet were comely
shoes sparkling with bronze plates. They took the colour of everything
which they approached. His hair fell in many curls over the pale-red
mantle, without adornment or confinement. It was the colour of the flower
which is named after the dearest Disciple, but which was called sovarchey
by the Gael. A tinge of red ran through the gold. As to his eyes, no two
men or women could agree concerning their colour, for some said they were
blue, and some grey, and others hazel; and there were those who said that
they were blacker than the blackest night that was ever known. Yet again,
there were those who said that they were of all colours named and
nameless. They were soft and liquid splendours, unfathomable lakes of
light above his full and ruddy cheeks, and beneath his curved and most
tranquil brows. In form he was symmetrical, straight and pliant as a young
fir tree when the sweet spring sap fills its veins. So he came to that
assembly, in the glory of youth, beauty, strength, valour, and beautiful
shame-fastness, yet proud in his humility and glittering like the morning
star. Choice youths, his comrades, attended him. The kings held their
breaths when he drew nigh, moving white knee after white knee over the
green and sparkling grass. When the other rites had been performed and the
due sacrifices and libations made, and after Cuculain had put his right
hand into the right hand of the King and become his man, Concobar gave him
a shield, two spears and a sword, weapons of great price and of thrice
proved excellence—a strong man’s equipment. Cuculain struck the
spears together at right angles and broke them. He clashed the sword
flat-wise on the shield. The sword leaped into small pieces and the shield
was bent inwards and torn.
“These are not good weapons, my King,” said the boy. Then the King gave
him others, larger and stronger and worthy of his best champions. These,
too, the boy broke into pieces in like manner.
“Son of Nessa, these are still worse,” he said, “nor is it well done, O
Captain of the Red Branch, to make me a laughing-stock in the presence of
this great hosting of the Ultonians.”
Concobar Mac Nessa exulted exceedingly when he beheld the amazing strength
and the waywardness of the boy, and beneath delicate brows his eyes
glittered like glittering swords as he glanced proudly round on the crowd
of martial men that surrounded him. Amongst them all he seemed himself a
bright torch of valour and war, more pure and clear than polished steel.
He then beckoned to one of his knights, who hastened away and returned
bringing Concobar’s own shield and spears and sword out of the Tec Brac,
where they were kept, an equipment in reserve. And Cuculain shook them and
bent them and clashed them together, but they held firm.
“These are good arms, O son of Nessa,” said Cuculain.
“Choose now thy charioteer,” said the King, “for I will give thee also
war-horses and a chariot.”
He caused to pass before Cuculain all the boys who in many and severe
tests had proved their proficiency in charioteering, in the management and
tending of steeds, in the care of weapons and steed-harness, and all that
related to charioteering science. Amongst them was Laeg, with a pale face
and dejected, his eyes red and his cheeks stained from much weeping.
Cuculain laughed when he saw him, and called him forth from the rest,
naming him by his name with a loud, clear voice, heard to the utmost limit
of the great host.
“There was fear upon thee,” said Cuculain.
“There is fear upon thyself,” answered Laeg. “It was in thy mind that I
would refuse.”
“Nay, there is no such fear upon me,” said Cuculain.
“Then there is fear upon me,” said Laeg. “A charioteer needs a champion
who is stout and a valiant and faithful. Yea, truly there is fear upon
me,” answered Laeg.
“Verily, dear comrade and bed-fellow,” answered Cuculain, “it is through
me that thou shalt get thy death-wound, and I say not this as a vaunt, but
as a prophecy.”
And that prophecy was fulfilled, for the spear that slew Laeg went through
his master.
After that Laeg stood by Cuculain’s side and held his peace, but his face
shone with excess of joy and pride. He wore a light graceful frock of
deerskin, joined in the front with a twine of bronze wire, and a short,
dark-red cape, secured by a pin of gold with a ring to it. A band of gold
thread confined his auburn hair, rising into a peak behind his head. In
his hands he held a goad of polished red-yew, furnished with a crooked
hand-grip of gold, and pointed with shining bronze, and where the bronze
met the timber there was a circlet of diamond of the diamonds of Banba. He
had also a short-handled scourge with a haft of walrus tooth, and the
rope, cord, and lash of that scourge were made of delicate and
delicately-twisted thread of copper. This equipment was the equipment of a
proved charioteer; the apprentices wore only grey capes with white
fringes, fastened by loops of red cord.
Laeg was one of three brothers, all famous charioteers. Id and Sheeling
were the others. They were all three sons of the King of Gabra, whose
bright dun arose upon a green and sloping hill over against Tara towards
the rising of the sun. Thence sprang the beautiful stream of the Nemnich,
rich in lilies and reeds and bulrushes, which to-day men call the Nanny
Water. Laeg was grey-eyed and freckled.
Then there were led forward by two strong knights a pair of great and
spirited horses and a splendid war-car. The King said, “They are thine,
dear nephew. Well I know that neither thou, nor Laeg, will be a dishonour
to this war equipage.”
Cuculain sprang into the car, and standing with legs apart, he stamped
from side to side and shook the car mightily, till the axle brake, and the
car itself was broken in pieces.
“It is not a good chariot,” said the lad.
Another was led forward, and he broke it in like manner.
“Give me a sound chariot, High Lord of the Clanna Rury, or give me none,”
he said. “No prudent warrior would fight from such brittle foothold.”
He brake in succession nine war chariots, the greatest and strongest in
Emain. When he broke the ninth the horses of Macha neighed from their
stable. Great fear fell upon the host when they heard that unusual noise
and the reverberation of it in the woods and hills.
“Let those horses be harnessed to the Chariot of Macha,” cried Concobar,
“and let Laeg, son of the King of Gabra, drive them hither, for those are
the horses and that the chariot which shall be given this day to
Cuculain.”
Then, son of Sualtam, how in thy guileless breast thy heart leaped, when
thou heardest the thundering of the great war-car and the wild neighing of
the immortal steeds, as they broke from the dark stable into the
clear-shining light of day, and heard behind them the ancient roaring of
the brazen wheels as in the days when they bore forth Macha and her
martial groom against the giants of old, and mightily established in Eiriu
the Red Branch of the Ultonians! Soon they rushed to view from the rear of
Emain, speeding forth impetuously out of the hollow-sounding ways of the
city and the echoing palaces into the open, and behind them in the great
car green and gold, above the many-twinkling wheels, the charioteer, with
floating mantle, girt round the temples with the gold fillet of his
office, leaning backwards and sideways as he laboured to restrain their
fury unrestrainable; a grey long-maned steed, whale-bellied,
broad-chested, with mane like flying foam, under one silver yoke, and a
black lustrous, tufty-maned steed under the other, such steeds as in
power, size, and beauty the earth never produced before and never will
produce again.
Like a hawk swooping along the face of a cliff when the wind is high, or
like the rush of March wind over the smooth plain, or like the fleetness
of the stag roused from his lair by the hounds and covering his first
field, was the rush of those steeds when they had broken through the
restraint of the charioteer, as though they galloped over fiery flags, so
that the earth shook and trembled with the velocity of their motion, and
all the time the great car brayed and shrieked as the wheels of solid and
glittering bronze went round, and strange cries and exclamations were
heard, for they were demons that had their abode in that car.
The charioteer restrained the steeds before the assembly, but nay-the-less
a deep purr, like the purr of a tiger, proceeded from the axle. Then the
whole assembly lifted up their voices and shouted for Cuculain, and he
himself, Cuculain, the son of Sualtam, sprang into his chariot, all armed,
with a cry as of a warrior springing into his chariot in the battle, and
he stood erect and brandished his spears, and the war sprites of the Gael
shouted along with him, for the Bocanahs and Bananahs and the Geniti
Glindi, the wild people of the glens, and the demons of the air, roared
around him, when first the great warrior of the Gael, his battle-arms in
his hands, stood equipped for war in his chariot before all the warriors
of his tribe, the kings of the Clanna Rury and the people of Emain Macha.
Then, too, there sounded from the Tec Brac the boom of shields, and the
clashing of swords and the cries and shouting of the Tuatha De Danan, who
dwelt there perpetually; and Lu the Long-Handed, the slayer of Balor, the
destroyer of the Fomoroh, the immortal, the invisible, the maker and
decorator of the Firmament, whose hound was the sun and whose son the
viewless wind, thundered from heaven and bent his sling five-hued against
the clouds; and the son of the illimitable Lir [Footnote: Mananan mac Lir,
the sea-god.] in his mantle blue and green, foam-fringed passed through
the assembly with a roar of far-off innumerable waters, and the Mor Reega
stood in the midst with a foot on either side of the plain, and shouted
with the shout of a host, so that the Ultonians fell down like reaped
grass with their faces to the earth, on account of the presence of the Mor
Reega, and on account of the omens and great signs.
Cuculain bade Laeg let the steeds go. They went like a storm and three
times encircled Emain Macha. It was the custom of the Ultonians to march
thrice round Emain ere they went forth to war.
Then said Cuculain—“Whither leads the great road yonder?”
“To Ath-na-Forairey and the borders of the Crave Rue.”
“And wherefore is it called the Ford of the Watchings?” said Cuculain.
“Because,” answered Laeg, “there is always one of the King’s knights
there, keeping watch and ward over the gate of the province.”
“Guide thither the horses,” said Cuculain, “for I will not lay aside my
arms till I have first reddened them in the blood of the enemies of my
nation. Who is it that is over the ward there this day?”
“It is Conall Carnach,” said Laeg.
As they drew nigh to the ford, the watchman from his high watch-tower on
the west side of the dun sent forth a loud and clear voice—
“There is a chariot coming to us from Emain Macha,” he said. “The chariot
is of great size; I have not seen its like in all Eiriu. In front of it
are two horses, one black and one white. Great is their trampling and
their glory and the shaking of their heads and necks. I liken their
progress to the fall of water from a high cliff or the sweeping of dust
and beech-tree leaves over a plain, when the March wind blows hard, or to
the rapidity of thunder rattling over the firmament. A man would say that
there were eight legs under each horse, so rapid and indistinguishable is
the motion of their limbs and hoofs. Identify those horses, O Conall, and
that chariot, for to me they are unknown.”
“And to me likewise,” said Conall. “Who are in the chariot? Moderate, O
man, the extravagance of thy language, for thou art not a prophet but a
watchman.”
“There are two beardless youths in the chariot,” answered the watchman,
“but I am unable to identify them on account of the dust and the rapid
motion and the steam of the horses. I think the charioteer is Laeg, the
son of the King of Gabra, for I know his manner of driving. The boy who
sits in front of him and below him on the champion’s seat I do not know,
but he shines like a star in the cloud of dust and steam.” Then a young
man who stood near to Conall Carna, wearing a short, red cloak with a blue
hood to it, and a tassel at the point of the hood, said to Conall—
“If it be my brother that charioteers sure am I that it is Cuculain who is
in the fighter’s seat, for many a time have I heard Laeg utter foul scorn
of the Red Branch, none excepted, when compared with Sualtam’s son. For no
other than him would he deign to charioteer. Truly though he is my own
brother there is not such a boaster in the North.”
Then the watchman cried out again—
“Yea, the charioteer is the son of the King of Gabra, and it is Cuculain,
the son of Sualtam, who sits in the fighter’s seat. He has Concobar’s own
shield on his breast, and his two spears in his hand. Over Bray Ros, over
Brainia, they are coming along the highway, by the foot of the Town of the
Tree; it is gifted with victories.”
“Have done, O talkative man,” cried Conall, “whose words are like the
words of a seer, or the full-voiced intonement of a chief bard.”
When the chariot came to the ford, Conall was amazed at the horses and the
chariot, but he dissembled his amazement before his people, and when he
saw Cuculain armed, he laughed and said,—
“Hath the boy indeed taken arms?”
And Cuculain said, “It is as thou seest, O son of Amargin; and moreover, I
have sworn not to let them back into the Chamber-of-Many-Colours
[Footnote: Tec Brac or Speckled House, the armoury of the Ultonians.]
until I shall have first reddened them in the blood of the enemies of
Ulla.”
Then Conall ceased laughing and said, “Not so, Setanta, for verily thou
shalt not be permitted;” and the great Champion sprang forward to lay his
fearless, never-foiled, and all conquering hands on the bridles of the
horses, but at a nod from Cuculain, Laeg let the steeds go, and Conall
sprang aside out of the way, so terrible was the appearance of the horses
as they reared against him. “Harness my horses and yoke my chariot,” cried
Conall, “for if this mad boy goes into the enemies’ country and meets with
harm there, verily I shall never be forgiven by the Ultonians.”
His horses were harnessed and his chariot yoked,—illustrious too
were those horses, named and famed in many songs—and Conall and Ide
in their chariot dashed through the ford enveloped with rainbow-painted
clouds of foam and spray, and like hawks on the wing they skimmed the
plain, pursuing the boys. Laeg heard the roar and trampling, and looking
back over his shoulder, said,—
“They are after us, dear master, namely the great son of Amargin and my
haughty brother Ide, who hath ever borne himself to me as though I were a
wayward child. They would spoil upon us this our brave foray. But they
will overtake the wind sooner than they will overtake the Liath Macha and
Black Shanglan, whose going truly is like the going of eagles. O
storm-footed steeds, great is my love for you, and inexpressible my pride
in your might and your beauty, your speed and your terror, and sweet
docility and affection.”
“Nevertheless, O Laeg,” said Cuculain, “slacken now their going, for that
Champion will be an impediment to us in our challengings and our
fightings; for when we stop for that purpose he will overtake us, and, be
our feats what they may, his and not ours will be the glory. Slacken the
going of the horses, for we must rid ourselves of the annoyance and the
pursuit of these gadflies.”
Laeg slackened the pace, and as they went Cuculain leaped lightly from his
seat and as lightly bounded back again, holding a great pebble in his
hand, such as a man using all his strength could with difficulty raise
from the ground, and sat still, rejoicing in his purpose, and grasping the
pebble with his five fingers.
Conall and Ide came up to them after that, and Conall, as the senior and
the best man amongst the Ultonians, clamorously called to them to turn
back straightway, or he would hough their horses, or draw the linch-pins
of their wheels, or in some other manner bring their foray to naught.
Cuculain thereupon stood upright in the car, and so standing, with feet
apart to steady him in his throwing and in his aim, dashed the stone upon
the yoke of Conall’s chariot between the heads of the horses and broke the
yoke, so that the pole fell to the ground and the chariot tilted forward
violently. Then the charioteer fell amongst the horses, and Conall Carna,
the beauty of the Ultonians the battle-winning and ever-victorious son of
Amargin, was shot out in front upon the road, and fell there upon his left
shoulder, and his beautiful raiment was defiled with dust; and when he
arose his left hand hung by his side, for the shoulder-bone was driven
from the socket, owing to the violence of the fall.
“I swear by all my gods,” he cried, “that if a step would save thy head
from the hands of the men of Meath, I would not take it.”
Cuculain laughed and replied, “Good, O Conall, and who asked thee to take
it, or craved of thee any succour or countenance? Was it a straight shot?
Are there the materials of a fighter in me at all, dost thou think? Thou
art in my debt now too, O Conall. I have saved thee a broken vow, for it
is one of the oaths of our Order not to enter hostile territory with
brittle chariot-gear!”
Then the boys laughed at him again, and Laeg let go the steeds, and very
soon they were out of sight. Conall returned slowly with his broken
chariot to Ath-na-Forairey and sent for Fingin of Slieve Fuad, who was the
most cunning physician and most expert of bone-setters amongst the
Ultonians. Conall’s messengers experienced no difficulty in finding the
house of the leech, which was very recognisable on account of its shape
and appearance, and because it had wide open doors, four in number,
affording a liberal ingress and free thoroughfare to all the winds. Also a
stream of pure water ran through the house, derived from a well of healing
properties, which sprang from the side of the uninhabited hill. Such were
the signs that showed the house of a leech.
When they drew nigh they heard the voice of one man talking and of another
who laughed. It happened that that day there had been borne thither a
champion, in whose body there was not one small bone unbroken or
uninjured. The man’s bruises and fractures had been dressed and set by
Fingin and his intelligent and deft-handed apprentices, and he lay now in
his bed of healing listening joyfully to the conversation of the leech,
who was beyond all others eloquent and of most agreeable discourse.
When Conall’s messengers related the reason of their coming, Fingin cried
to his young men, “Harness me my horses and yoke my chariot. There are
few,” he said, “in Erin for whom I would leave my own house, but that
youth is one of them. His father Amargin was well known to me. He was a
warrior grim and dour exceedingly, and he ever said concerning the boy,
‘This hound’s whelp that I have gotten is too fine and sleek to hold
bloody gaps or hunt down a noble prey. He will be a women’s playmate and
not a peer amongst Heroes.’ And that fear was ever upon him till the day
when Conall came red out of the Valley of the Thrush, and his track thence
to Rath-Amargin was one straight path of blood, and he with his shield-arm
hacked to the bone, his sword-arm swollen and bursting, and the flame of
his valour burning bright in his splendid eyes. Then, for the first time,
the old man smiled upon him, and he said, ‘That arm, my son, has done a
man’s work to-day.’”
“Say, rushed the bold eagle exultingly forth.
From his home, in the dark rolling clouds of the North?”
CAMPBELL.
As for the boys, they proceeded joyfully after that pleasant skirmish and
friendly encounter, both on account of the discomfiture of him who was
reckoned the prime champion of the Ultonians, and because they were at
large in Erin, with no one to direct them, or to whom they should render
an account; and their happiness, too, was increased by the mettle, power
and gallant action of the steeds, and by the clanking of the harness and
the brazen chains, and the ringing of the weapons of war, and the roar of
the revolving wheels, and owing to the velocity of their motion and the
rushing of the wind upon their temples and through their hair.
Then Cuculain stood up in the chariot, and surveyed the land on all sides,
and said—
“What is that great, firm-based, indestructible mountain upon our left
hand, one of a noble range which, rising from the green plain, runs
eastward. The last peak there is the mountain of which I speak, whose foot
is in the Ictian sea and whose head neighbours the firmament.”
And Laeg said, “Men call it Slieve Modurn, after a giant of the elder
time, when men were mightier and greater than they are now. He was of the
children of Brogan, uncle of Milesius, and his brothers were Fuad and
Eadar and Breagh, and all these being very great men are commemorated in
the names of noble mountains and sea-dividing promontories.”
“Guide thither the horses,” said Cuculain. “It is right that those who
take the road against an enemy should first spy out the land, choosing
judiciously their point of onset, and Slieve Modurn yonder commands a most
brave prospect.”
Laeg did so. There, in a green valley, they unharnessed the horses and
tethered them to graze, and they themselves climbed the mountain and stood
upon the top in the most clear air. Thence Laeg showed him the green plain
of Meath extending far and wide, and the great streams of Meath where they
ran, the Boyne and the Blackwater, the Liffey and the Royal Rye, and his
own stream the Nanny Water, clear and sparkling, which was very dear to
Laeg, because he had snared fish there and erected dams, and had done
divers boyish feats upon its shores.
Cuculain said, “I see a beautiful green hill, shaped like an inverted
ewer, on the south shore of the Boyne. There is a noble palace there. I
see the flashing of its lime-white sides, and the colours of the
variegated roof and around it are other beautiful houses. How is that city
named O Laeg, and who dwells there?”
“That is the hill of Temair,” answered Laeg, “Tara’s high citadel. Well
may that city be beautiful, for the seat of Erin’s high sovereignty is
there. The man who holds it is Arch-king of all Erin.”
“Westward by south,” said Cuculain, “I see another city widely built, and
unenclosed by ramparts and defensive works, and hard by there is a most
smooth plain. At one end of the plain I see a glittering, and also at the
other.”
And Laeg said, “That is the hill of Talteen, so named because the mother
of far-shooting Lu, the Deliverer, is worshipped there, and every year,
when the leaves change their colour, games and contests of skill are
celebrated there in her honour. So it was enjoined on the men of Erin by
her famous son. Chariot races are run there on that smooth plain. The
glittering points on either side of it are the racing pillars of burnished
brass, the starting-post, and that which the charioteers graze with the
glowing axle. Many a noble chariot has been broken, and many a gallant
youth slain at the further of those twain. It was there that Concobar
raced his steeds against the woman with child, concerning which things
there are rumours and prophesyings.”
So Cuculain questioned Laeg concerning the cities of Meath, and concerning
the noble raths and duns where the kings and lords and chief men of Meath
dwelt prosperously, rejoicing in their great wealth. Cuculain said, “None
of these kings and lords and chief men whom thou hast enumerated have at
any time injured my nation, and there is not one upon whom I might rightly
take vengeance. But I see one other splendid dun, and of this thou hast
said no word, though thrice I have questioned thee concerning it.”
Laeg grew pale at these words, and he said,
“What dun is that, my master?”
Cuculain said, “O fox that thou art, right well thou knowest. It is not a
little or mean one, but great, proud, and conspicuous, and vauntingly it
rears its head like a man who has never known defeat, but on the contrary
has caused many widows to lament. Its white sides flashed against the dark
waters of the Boyne, and its bright roofs glitter above the green woods.
There is a stream that runs into the Boyne beside it, and there are
bulwarks around it, and great strong barriers.”
Laeg answered, “That is the dun of the sons of Nectan.”
“Let us now leave Slieve Modurn,” said Cuculain, “and guide thither my
horses, for I shall lay waste that dun, and burn it with fire, after
having slain the men who dwell there.”
Then Laeg clasped his comrade’s knees, and said, “Take the road, dear
master, against the royalest dun in all Meath, but pass by that dun. The
men are not alive to-day who at any time approached it with warlike
intent. Those who dwell there are sorcerers and enchanters, lords of all
the arts of poison and of war.”
Cuculain answered, “I swear by my gods that Dun-Mic-Nectan is the only dun
in all Meath which shall hear my warlike challenge this day. Descend the
hill now, for verily thither shalt thou fare, and that whether thou art
willing or unwilling.”
Now, for the first time, his valour and his destructive wrath were kindled
in the soul of Dethcaen’s nursling. Laeg saw the tokens of it, and feared
and obeyed. Unwillingly he came down the slopes of Slieve Modurn, and
unwillingly harnessed the horses and yoked the chariot, and yoked the
horses. Southwards, then, they fared swiftly through the night, and the
intervening nations heard them as they went. When they arrived at the dun
of the sons of Nectan it was twilight and the dawning of the day. Before
the dun there was a green and spacious lawn in full view of the palace,
and on the lawn a pillar and on the pillar a huge disc of shining bronze.
Cuculain descended and examined the disc, and there was inscribed on it in
ogham a curse upon the man who should enter that lawn and depart again
without battle and single combat with the men of the dun. Cuculain took
the disc from its place and cast it from him southwards. The brazen disc
skimmed low across the plain and then soared on high until it showed to
those who looked a full, bright face, like the moon’s, after which,
pausing one moment, it fell sheer down and sank into the dark waters of
the Boyne, without a sound, or at all disturbing the tranquil surface of
the great stream, and was no more seen.
“That bright lure,” said Cuculain, “shall no more be a cause of death to
brave men. This lawn, O Laeg, is surely the richest of all the lawns in
the world. Close-enwoven and thick is the mantle of short green grass
which it wears, decked all over with red-petalled daisies and bright
flowers more numerous than the stars on a frosty night.”
“That is not surprising,” said Laeg, “for the lawn is enriched and made
fat by the blood that has been shed abundantly now for a long time, the
blood of heroes and valiant men—slain here by the people of the dun.
Very rich too, are the men, both on account of their strippings of the
slain, and on account of the druidic well of magic which is within the
dun. For the people come from far and near to pay their vows at that well,
and they give costly presents to those sorcerers who are priests and
custodians of the same.”
“Noble, indeed, is the dun,” said Cuculain. “But it is yet early, for the
sun is not yet risen from his red-flaming eastern couch, and the people of
the dun, too, are in their heavy slumber. I would repose now for a while
and rest myself before the battles and hard combats which await me this
day. Wherefore, good Laeg, let down the sides and seats of the chariot,
that I may repose myself for a little and take a short sleep.”
For just then precisely an unwonted drowsiness and desire for slumber
possessed Cuculain.
“Witless and devoid of sense art thou,” answered Laeg, “for who but an
idiot would think of sweet sleep and agreeable repose in a hostile
territory, much more in full view of those who look out from a foeman’s
dun, and that dun, Dun-Mic-Nectan?”
“Do as I bid thee,” said Cuculain. “For one day, if for no other, thou
shalt obey my commands.”
Laeg unyoked the chariot and turned the great steeds forth to graze on the
druidic lawn, which was never done before at any time. He let down the
chariot and arranged it as a couch, and his young master laid himself
therein, composing his limbs and pillowing tranquilly his head, and he
closed his immortal eyes. Very soon sweet slumber possessed him. Laeg
meanwhile kept watch and ward, and his great heart in his breast
continually trembled like the leaf of the poplar tree, or like a rush in a
flooded stream. The awakening birds unconscious sang in the trees, the dew
glittered on the grass; hard by the royal Boyne rolled silently. The son
of Sualtam slumbered without sound or motion, and the charioteer stood
beside him upright, like a pillar, his grey bright eyes fixed upon the
house of the sorcerers, the merciless, bloody, and ever-victorious sons of
Nectan, the son of Labrad.
Of the people of the dun, Foil, son of Nectan, was the first to awake. It
was his custom to wander forth by himself early in the morning, devising
snares and stratagems by which he might take and destroy men at his
leisure. He was more cruel than anything. By him the great door of the
dun, bound and rivetted with brass, was flung open. With one hand he
backshot the bar, which rushed into its chamber with a roar and crash as
of a great house when it falls, and with the other he drew back the door.
It grated on its brazen hinges, and on the iron threshold, with a noise
like thunder. Then Foil stood black and huge in the wide doorway of the
dun, and he looked at Laeg and Laeg looked at him. The man was ugly and
fierce of aspect. His hair was thick and black; he was bull-necked and
large-eared. His mantle was black, bordered with dark red; his tunic, a
dirty yellow, was splashed with recent blood. There were great shoes on
his feet soled with wood and iron. In his hand he bore a staff of
quick-beam, as it were a full-grown tree without its branches. He being
thus, strode forward in an ungainly manner to Laeg, and with a surly voice
bade him drive the horses off the lawn.
“Drive them off thyself,” said Laeg.
He sought to do that, but owing to the behaviour of the steeds, he
desisted right soon, and turned again to Laeg.
“Who is the sleeping youth?” said he, “and wherefore hath he come hither
in an evil hour?”
“He is a certain mild and gentle youth of the Ultonians,” replied Laeg,
“who yester morning prosperously assumed his arms of chivalry for the
first time, and hath come hither to prove his valour upon the sons of
Nectan.”
“Many youths of his nation have come hither with the same intent,” said
the giant, “but they did not return.”
“This youth will,” said Laeg, “after having slain the sons of Nectan, and
after having sacked their dun and burned it with fire.”
Foil hearing that word became very angry, and he gripped his great staff
and advanced to make a sudden end of Laeg first, and then of the sleeper,
Laeg, on his side, drew Cuculain’s sword. Hardly and using all his
strength, could he do so and at the same time hold himself in an attitude
of defence and attack, but he succeeded. His aspect, too, was high and
warlike, and his eyes shone menacingly the while his heart trembled, for
he knew too well that he was no match for the man.
“Go back now for thy weapons of war,” he cried, “and all thy
war-furniture, and thy instruments of sorcery and enchantment. Truly thou
art in need of them all.”
When Foil saw how the enormous sword flashed in the lad’s hand, and saw
the fierceness of his visage and heard his menacing words, he returned to
the dun. The people of the dun were now awake, and they clustered like
bees on the slope of the mound, and in the covered ways beneath the eaves
and along the rampart, and they hissed and roared and shouted words of
insult and contumely, lewd and gross, concerning Laeg and concerning that
other youth who slept in such a place and at such a time. But Laeg stood
still and silent, with his eyes fixed on the dun, and with the point of
his sword leaning on the ground, for his right hand was weary on account
of its great weight. Very ardently he longed that his master should awake
out of that unreasonable slumber. Yet he made no attempt to rouse him, for
it was unlawful to awake Cuculain when he slept. Conspicuous amongst the
people of the dun were Foil’s brethren, Tuatha and Fenla, Tuatha vast in
bulk, and Fenla, tall and swift, wearing a mantle of pale blue. Around
Fenla stood the three cup-bearers, who drew water from the magic well,
Flesc, Lesc, and Leam were their names. At the same time that Foil
reappeared in the doorway of the dun, fully armed and equipped for battle,
Cuculain awoke and sat up. At first he was dazed and bewildered, for
divine voices were sounding in his ears, and fleeting visionary presences
were departing from him. Then he heard the people how they shouted and saw
his enemy descending the slope of the dun, sights and sounds indeed
diverse from those his dreams and visions. With a cry he started from his
bed, like a deer starting from his lair, and the people of the dun fell
suddenly silent when they beheld the velocity of his movements, the
splendour of his beauty, and the rapidity with which he armed himself and
stood forth for war.
“That champion is Foil, son of Nectan,” said Laeg, “and there is not one
in the world with whom it is more difficult to contend both in other
respects and chiefly in this, that there is but one weapon wherewith he
may be slain. To all others he is invulnerable. That weapon is an iron
ball having magic properties, and no man knows where to look for it, or
where the man hath hidden it away. And O my dear master, thou goest forth
to certain death going forth against that man.”
“Have no fear on that account,” said Cuculain, “for it has been revealed
to me where he hides it. It is a ges to him to wear it always on his
breast above his armour, but beneath his mantle and tunic. There it is
suspended by a strong chain of brass around his neck. With that ball I
shall slay him in the manner in which I have been directed by those who
visited me while I slept.”
Then they fought, and in the first close so vehement was the onset of
Foil, that Cuculain could do no more than defend himself, and around the
twain sparks flew up in showers as from a smithy where a blacksmith and
his lusty apprentices strongly beat out the red iron. The second was
similar to the first, and equally without results. In the third close
Cuculain, having sheathed his sword, sprang upwards and dashed his shield
into the giant’s face, and at the same time he tore from its place of
concealment the magic ball, rending mightily the brazen chain. And he
leaped backwards, and taking a swift aim, threw. The ball flew from the
young hero’s hand like a bolt from a sling, and it struck the giant in the
middle of the forehead below the rim of his helmet, but above his blazing
eyes, and the ball crashed through the strong frontal bone, and tore its
way through the hinder part of his head, and went forth, carrying the
brains with it in its course, so that there was a free tunnel and
thoroughfare for all the winds of heaven there. With a crash and a
ringing, armour and weapons, the giant fell upon the plain and his blood
poured forth in a torrent there where he himself invulnerable had shed the
blood of so many heroes. Laeg rejoiced greatly at that feat, and with a
loud voice bade the men of the dun bring forth their next champion. This
was Tuatha the second son of Nectan, and the fiercest of the three, he
buffeted his esquires and gillas, while they armed him, so that it was a
sore task for them to clasp and strap and brace his armour upon him that
day, for their faces were bloody from his hands, and the floor of the
armoury was strewn with their teeth. That armour was a marvel and
astonishment to all who saw it, so many thick, hard skins of wild oxen of
the mountains had been stitched together to furnish forth the champion’s
coat of mail. It was strengthened, too, with countless bars and rings of
brass sewed fast to it all over, and it encompassed the whole of his
mighty frame, from his shoulders to his feet. The helmet and neckpiece
were one, wrought in like manner, only stronger. The helmet covered his
face. There was no opening there save breathing slits and two round holes
through which his eyes shone terribly. On his feet were strong shoes bound
with brass. To any other man but himself this armour would have been an
encumbrance, for it was good and sufficient loading for a car drawn by one
yoke of oxen; but so clad, this man was aware of no unusual weight. When
they had clasped him and braced him to his satisfaction, and, indeed, that
was not easy, they put upon him his tunic of dusky grey, and over that his
mantle of dark crimson, and fastened it on his breast with a brooch whose
wheel alone would task one man’s full strength to lift from the ground.
Then Tuatha went forth out of the dun, and when his people saw him they
shouted mightily, for before that they had been greatly dismayed, and cast
down on account of the slaying of Foil, whom till then they had deemed
invincible. They were all males dwelling here together in sorcery and
common lust for blood. No woman brightened their dark assemblies and the
voice of a child was never heard within the dun or around it. So they
rejoiced greatly when they beheld Tuatha and saw him how wrathfully he
came forth, breathing slaughter, and heard his voice; for terribly he
shouted as he strode down from the dun, and he banned and cursed Cuculain
and Laeg, and devoted them to his gloomy gods. Beneath his feet the
massive timbers of the drawbridge bent and creaked.
Said Laeg, “This man, O dear Setanta, is far more terrible than the first,
for he is said to be altogether invulnerable and proof against any weapon
that was ever made.”
“It is not altogether thus,” said Cuculain, “but if the man escapes the
first stroke he is thenceforward invincible, and surely slays his foe.
Therefore give into my hand Concobar’s unendurable and mighty ashen spear,
for I must make an end of him at one cast or not at all.”
Tuatha now rushed upon Cuculain, flinging darts, of which he carried many
in his left hand. Not one of them did Cuculain attempt to take upon his
shield, but altogether eluded them, for now he swerved to one side and now
to another, and now he dropped on one knee and again sprang high in air,
so that the missile hurtled and hissed between his gathered feet. Truly
since the beginning of the world there was not, and to the end of the
world there will not be, a better leaper than thy nursling, daughter of
Cathvah; and behind him all the lawn was as it were sown thick with
spears, and these so buried in the earth that two-thirds of their length
was concealed and a third only projected slantwise from the green and
glittering sward. When the man with all his force, fury, and venom had
discharged his last shaft and seen it, too, shoot screaming beneath the
aerial feet of the hero, he roared so terribly that the shores and waters
of the Boyne and the surrounding woods and groves returned a hollow moan,
and, laying his right hand on the hand-grip of his sword, he rushed upon
Cuculain. At that moment Cuculain poised the broad-bladed spear of
Concobar Mac Nessa and cast it at the man, who was now very near, and came
rushing on like a storm, having his vast sword drawn and flashing. That
cast no one could rightly blame whether as to force or direction, for the
brazen blade caught the son of Nectan full on breast under the left pap
and tore through his thick and strong armour and burst three rib bones,
and fixed itself in his heart, so that he fell first upon his knees,
stumbling forward, and then rolled over on the plain and a torrent of
black blood gushed from his mouth and nostrils.
“That was indeed a brave cast,” said Laeg, “for the coat is the thickness
of seven bulls’ hides, and plated besides, and the rib-bones, through
which Concobar’s great spear impelled by thee hath burst his victorious
way, are stronger than the thigh-bones of a horse; but pluck out the spear
now, for it is beyond my power to do so, and stand well upon thy guard,
for the two combats past will be as child’s play to that which now awaits
thee. Fenla, the third son of Nectan, is preparing himself for battle. He
is called the Swallow, because there is not a man in the world swifter to
retreat, or swifter to pursue. He is more at home in the water than on the
dry land, for through it he dives like a water-dog, and glides like an
eel, and rushes like a salmon when in the spring-time he seeks the upper
pools. Greatly I fear that his challenge and defiance will be to do battle
with him there, where no man born of woman can meet him and live.”
“Say not so, O Laeg,” said Cuculain, “and be not so afraid and cast down,
but still keep a cheerful heart in thy breast and a high and brave
countenance before the people of the dun. For my tutor Fergus paid a good
heed to my education in the whole art of war and especially as to
swimming. He is himself a most noble swimmer and I have profited by his
instructions. Once he put me to the test. It was in the great swimming
bath in the Callan, dug out, it is said, by the Firbolgs in the ancient
days, and the trial was in secret and its issue has not been revealed to
this day. On that occasion I swam round the bath holding two well-grown
boys in my right arm and two in my left, and there was a fifth sitting on
my shoulders with his hands clasped on my forehead, and my back was not
wetted by the Callan. Therefore dismiss thy fear and answer thou their
challenge with a strong voice and a cheerful countenance.”
Laeg did that and he answered their challenge with a voice that rang,
striking fear into the hearts of those who heard him. Forthwith, then,
Fenla, wearing sword and shield, sprang at a bound over the rampart and
foss, and his course thence to the Boyne was like a flash of blue and
white and he plunged into the dark stream like a bright spear, and diving
beneath the flood he emerged a great way off, and cried aloud for his foe.
“I am here,” cried Cuculain, at his side. “Cease thy shouting and look to
thyself, for it is not my custom to take advantage of any man.”
Marvellous and terrible was the battle which then ensued between these
champions. For the spray and the froth and the flying spume of the
convulsed and agitated waters around that warring twain, rose in white
clouds, and owing to the fierceness of the combat and the displacement of
the waters around them, the Boyne on either hand beat her green margin
with sudden and unusual billows, for the divine river was taken with a
great surprise on that occasion. Amid the roar of the waters ever sounded
the dry clash of the meeting swords and the clang of the smitten shields
and the ringing of helmets. Sometimes one champion would dive seeking an
advantage, and the other would dive too, in order to elude or meet the
assault. Then the frothing surface of the stream would clear itself, and
the Boyne run dark as before, though the mounted water showed that the
combat still raged in its depths. The swallows, too, had been scared away,
returning, skimmed the surface, and the bird which is the most beautiful
of all darted a bright streak low across the dark water. Anon the
submerged champions, coming to the surface for breath, renewed their
deadly combat amid foaming waters and clouds of spray. The full
particulars of this combat are not related, only that the wizard-champion
grew weaker, while his vigour and strength continued unabated with the son
of Sualtam, and that in the end he slew the other, and in the sight of all
he cut off his head and flung it from the middle Boyne to the shore, and
that the headless trunk of Fenla, son of Nectan, floated down-stream to
the sea. When the people of the dun saw that, they brake forth west-ward
and fled. Then Cuculain and Laeg invaded the dun, and they burst open the
doors of the strong chambers, and of the dungeons beneath the earth, and
let loose the prisoners and the hostages and the prepared victims, and
they broke the idols and the instruments of sorcery, and filled in the
well. After that they replenished the vacant places of the war-car with
things the most precious and such as were portable, and gave all the rest
to the liberated captives for a prey. Last of all they applied fire to the
vast dun, and quickly the devouring flames shot heavenward, fed with pine
and red yew, and rolled forth a mighty pillar of black smoke, reddened
with rushing sparks and flaming embers. The men of Tara saw it, and the
men of Tlatga, and of Tailteen, and of Ben-Eadar, and they consulted their
prophets and wizards as to what this portent might mean, for it was not a
little smoke that the burning of Dun-Mic-Nectan sent forth that day.
“The golden gates of sleep unbar
When strength and beauty met together
Kindle their image like a star
In a sea of glassy weather.”
SHELLEY.
Then Laeg harnessed the horses and yoked the chariot. To the brazen peaks
of the chariot he fastened the heads of Foil and of Tuatha, with Foil’s on
the left hand and Tuatha’s on the right; and the long-haired head of the
water-wizard he made fast by its own hair to the ornament of silver that
was at the forward extremity of the great chariot pole. When this was
done, and when he had secured his master’s weapons and warlike equipments
in their respective places, the youths ascended the chariot, and Laeg
shook the ringing reins and called to the steeds to go, and they went, and
soon they were on the hard highway straining forward to the north. The
sound of the war-car behind them outroared the roaring of the flames.
Cuculain was a pale red all over, for ere the last combat was at an end
that pool of the Boyne was like one bath of blood. His eyes blazed
terribly in his head, and his face was fearful to look upon. Like a reed
in a river so he quaked and trembled, and there went out from him a
moaning like the moaning of winds through deep woods or desolate glens, or
over the waste places of the earth when darkness is abroad. For the
war-fury which the Northmen named after the Barserkers enwrapped and
inflamed him, body and spirit, owing to those strenuous combats, and owing
to the venom and the poison which exhaled from those children of sorcery,
that spawn of Death and Hell, so that his gentle mind became as it were
the meeting-place of storms and the confluence of shouting seas. A man ran
before him whose bratta on the wind roared like fire, and there was a
sound of voices calling and acclaiming, and a noontide darkness descended
upon him and accompanied him as he went, and all became obscure and
shapeless, and all the ways were murk. And the mind of Laeg, too, was
disturbed and shaken loose from its strong foundations.
“But now,” said Cuculain, “there ran a man before us. Him I do not see,
but what is this herd of monstrous deer, sad-coloured and livid, as with
horns and hoofs of iron? I have not seen such at any time. Lurid fire
plays round them as they flee.”
“No deer of the earth are they,” said Laeg. “They are the enchanted herd
of Slieve Fuad, and from their abode subterrene they have come up late
into the world surrounded by night that they may graze upon Eiriu’s
plains, and it is not lawful even to look upon them.”
“Pursue and run down those deer,” said Cuculain.
“There is fear upon me,” said Laeg.
“Alive or dead thou shalt come with me on this adventure, though it lead
us into the mighty realms of the dead,” cried Cuculain.
Laeg relaxed his hands upon the reins and let the steeds go, and they
chased the enchanted herd of Slieve Fuad. There was no hunting seen like
that before in Erin. So vehement was the chase that a twain of the herd
was run down and they upon their knees and sobbing. Cuculain sprang from
the chariot and he made fast one of the deer to the pole of the chariot to
run before, and on to the hinder part of it to run behind. So they went
northward again with a deer of the herd of Hell running before them and
another following behind.
“What are those birds whiter than snow and more brilliant than stars,”
said then Cuculain, “which are before us upon the plain, as if Heaven with
its astral lights and splendour were outspread before us there?”
“They are the wild geese of the enchanted flocks of Lir,” answered Laeg.
“From his vast and ever-during realms beneath the sea they have come up
through the dim night to feed on Banba’s plains. Have nought to do with
those birds, dear master.”
Cuculain stood up in his chariot with his sling in his hand, and he fitted
thereto small bolts, and slang. He did not make an end before he had
overthrown and laid low three score of the birds of Lir.
“Go bring me those birds,” said he to Laeg. The horses were plunging
terribly when he said that.
“I may not, O my master,” said Laeg. “For even now, and with the reins in
my hand, I am unable to restrain their fury and their madness, to such a
degree have their noble minds been disturbed by the sorcery and the
druidism and the enchantment with which they are surrounded. And I fear
that soon the brazen wheels will fail me, or that the axle-tree will fail
me by reason of their collidings with the rocks and cliffs of the land,
when the horses shall have escaped from my control and shall have rushed
forth like hurricanes over the earth.”
Forthwith Cuculain sprang out in front of the chariot, and seized them by
their mouths and they in their rearing, and with his hands bowed down
their heads to the earth, and they knew their master and stood still while
they quaked. Laeg collected the birds, and Cuculain secured them to the
chariot and to the harness. The birds returned to life and Cuculain cut
the binding cords, so that the birds flew over and on either side of the
chariot, and singing besides.
In that manner, speeding northward, Cuculain and Laeg drew nigh to Emain
Macha. Concobar and the Ultonians happened at that very time to be seeking
a druidic response from the prophetess Lavarcam concerning Cuculain and
concerning Laeg, for their minds misgave them that beyond the mearings of
the Province the lads had come to some hurt, and Lavarcam, answering them,
said:
“Look to yourselves now ye children of Rury,
Your destruction and the end of your career are at hand.
Close all gates, shoot every bar.
For Dethcaen’s nursling, Sualtam’s son, draweth nigh.
“Verily he is not hurt, but he hath wounded.
Champions the mightiest
he hath victoriously overthrown.
Though he come swiftly it is not in flight.
Take good heed now while there is time.
He cometh like night in raiment of darkness,
Starry singing flocks are round his head,
Soon,O Concobar, his unendurable hand will be upon you;
Soon your dead will outnumber your living.”
“Close all the gates of Emain,” cried Concobar, “and treble-bar all with
bars. Look to your weapons ye heroes of the Red Branch. Man the ramparts,
and let every bridge be raised.”
So the high king shouted, and his voice rang through the vast and high dun
and rolled along the galleries and far-stretching corridors, and was heard
by the women of Ulla in their secluded chambers. And at the same time the
watchman from the watch-tower cried out. Then the women held council
together, and they said:
“Moats and ramparts and strong doors will not repel Cuculain. He will
surely o’erleap the moat and burst through the doors and slay many.”
And as they debated together they said that they alone would save the city
and defeat the war-demons who had Cuculain in their power. For they said—“His
virginity is with him, and his beautiful shamefastness, and his humility
and reverence for women, whether they be old or young, and whether they be
comely or not comely. And this was his way always, and now more than
formerly since young love hath descended upon him in the form of Emer,
daughter of Fargal Manach, King of Lusk in the south.”
Then the women of the Ultonians did a great and memorable deed, and such
as was not known to have been done at any time in Erin.
They bade all the men retire into the dun after they had lowered the
bridge; and when that was done three tens of them, such as were the most
illustrious in rank and famous for accomplishments, and they all in the
prime of their youth and beauty, and clad only in the pure raiment of
their womanhood, came forth out of the quarters of the women, and in that
order, in spite of shame they went to meet him. When Cuculain saw them
advancing towards him in lowly wise, with exposed bosom and hands crossed
on their breasts, his weapons fell from his hands and the war-demons fled
out of him, and low in the chariot he bent down his noble head. By them he
was conducted into the dun, into a chamber which they had prepared for
him, and they drew water and filled his kieve, and there Laeg ministered
to him. He was like one fiery glowing mass—like iron plucked red out
of the furnace.
When he had entered his bath the water boiled around him. After he had
bathed and when he became calm and cool Laeg put upon him his beautiful
banqueting attire, and he came into the great hall lowly and blushing. All
were acclaiming and praising him, and he passed up the great hall and made
a reverence to the King, and he sat down at the King’s footstool. All who
saw him marvelled then more at his beauty than at his deeds. He was sick
after that, and came very near to death, but in the end he fell into a
very deep sleep from which he awoke whole and refreshed, though it was the
opinion of many that he would surely die. Cuculain was seventeen years of
age when he did these feats.
End of Project Gutenberg’s The Coming of Cuculain, by Standish O’Grady
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