Irish Fairy Tales (17 page)

“On the morning of this self-same and instant sacred day.”

“Tell on,” said the king wrathfully.

But terror gripped with sudden fingers at Becfola's heart.

“Do not tell horrid stories on the Sunday,” she pleaded. “No good can come to any one from such a tale.”

“Nay, this must be told, sweet lady,” said the king.

But the cleric stared at her glumly, forbiddingly, and resumed his story at a gesture.

“Of these eight men, seven were killed.”

“They are in hell,” the king said gloomily.

“In hell they are,” the cleric replied with enthusiasm.

“And the one that was not killed?”

“He is alive,” that cleric responded.

“He would be,” the monarch assented. “Tell your tale.”

“Molasius had those seven miscreants buried, and he took from their unhallowed necks and from their lewd arms and from their unblessed weapons the load of two men in gold and silver treasure.”

“Two men's load!” said Dermod thoughtfully.

“That much,” said the lean cleric. “No more, no less. And he has sent us to find out what part of that hellish treasure belongs to the Brothers of Devenish and how much is the property of the king.”

Becfola again broke in, speaking graciously, regally, hastily: “Let those Brothers have the entire of the treasure, for it is Sunday treasure, and as such it will bring no luck to any one.”

The cleric again looked at her coldly, with a harsh-lidded, small-set, grey-eyed glare, and waited for the king's reply.

Dermod pondered, shaking his head as to an argument on his left side, and then nodding it again as to an argument on his right.

“It shall be done as this sweet queen advises. Let a reliquary be formed with cunning workmanship of that gold and silver, dated with my date and signed with my name, to be in memory of my grandmother who gave birth to a lamb, to a salmon, and then to my father, the Ard-Rí. And, as to the treasure that remains over, a pastoral staff may be beaten from it in honour of Molasius, the pious man.”

“The story is not ended,” said that glum, spike-chinned cleric.

The king moved with jovial impatience.

“If you continue it,” he said, “it will surely come to an end some time. A stone on a stone makes a house, dear heart, and a word on a word tells a tale.”

The cleric wrapped himself into himself, and became lean and menacing. He whispered: “Besides the young man, named Flann, who was not slain, there was another person present at the scene and the combat and the transgression of Sunday.”

“Who was that person?” said the alarmed monarch.

The cleric spiked forward his chin, and then butted forward his brow.

“It was the wife of the king,” he shouted. “It was the woman called Becfola. It was that woman,” he roared, and he extended a lean, inflexible, unending first finger at the queen.

“Dog!” the king stammered, starting up.

“If that be in truth a woman,” the cleric screamed.

“What do you mean?” the king demanded in wrath and terror.

“Either she is a woman of this world to be punished, or she is a woman of the Shí to be banished, but this holy morning she was in the Shí, and her arms were about the neck of Flann.”

The king sank back in his chair stupefied, gazing from one to the other, and then turned an unseeing, fear-dimmed eye towards Becfola.

“Is this true, my pulse?” he murmured.

“It is true,” Becfola replied, and she became suddenly to the king's eye a whiteness and a stare.

He pointed to the door.

“Go to your engagement,” he stammered. “Go to that Flann.”

“He is waiting for me,” said Becfola with proud shame, “and the thought that he should wait wrings my heart.”

She went out from the palace then. She went away from Tara: and in all Ireland and in the world of living men she was not seen again, and she was never heard of again.

Chapter 1

I
think,” said Cairell Whiteskin, “that although judgement was given against Fionn, it was Fionn had the rights of it.”

“He had eleven hundred killed,” said Conán amiably, “and you may call that the rights of it if you like.”

“All the same—” Cairell began argumentatively.

“And it was you that commenced it,” Conán continued.

“Ho! Ho!” Cairell cried. “Why, you are as much to blame as I am.”

“No,” said Conán, “for you hit me first.”

“And if we had not been separated—” the other growled.

“Separated!” said Conán, with a grin that made his beard poke all around his face.

“Yes, separated. If they had not come between us I still think—”

“Don't think out loud, dear heart, for you and I are at peace by law.”

“That is true,” said Cairell, “and a man must stick by a judgement. Come with me, my dear, and let us see how the youngsters are shaping in the school. One of them has rather a way with him as a swordsman.”

“No youngster is any good with a sword,” Conán replied.

“You are right there,” said Cairell. “It takes a good ripe man for that weapon.”

“Boys are good enough with slings,” Conán continued, “but except for eating their fill and running away from a fight, you can't count on boys.”

The two bulky men turned towards the school of the Fianna.

It happened that Fionn mac Uail had summoned the gentlemen of the Fianna and their wives to a banquet. Everybody came, for a banquet given by Fionn was not a thing to be missed. There was Goll mor mac Morna and his people; Fionn's son Oisín and his grandson Oscar. There was Dermod of the Gay Face, Caelte mac Ronán—but indeed there were too many to be told of, for all the pillars of war and battle-torches of the Gael were there.

The banquet began.

Fionn sat in the Chief Captain's seat in the middle of the fort; and facing him, in the place of honour, he placed the mirthful Goll mac Morna; and from these, ranging on either side, the nobles of the Fianna took each the place that fitted his degree and patrimony.

After good eating, good conversation; and after good conversation, sleep—that is the order of a banquet: so when each person had been served with food to the limit of desire the butlers carried in shining and jewelled drinking-horns, each having its tide of smooth, heady liquor. Then the young heroes grew merry and audacious, the ladies became gentle and kind, and the poets became wonders of knowledge and prophecy. Every eye beamed in that assembly, and on Fionn every eye was turned continually in the hope of a glance from the great, mild hero.

Goll spoke to him across the table enthusiastically.

“There is nothing wanting to this banquet, O Chief,” said he.

And Fionn smiled back into that eye which seemed a well of tenderness and friendship.

“Nothing is wanting,” he replied, “but a well-shaped poem.”

A crier stood up then, holding in one hand a length of coarse iron links and in the other a chain of delicate, antique silver. He shook the iron chain so that the servants and followers of the household should be silent, and he shook the silver one so that the nobles and poets should hearken also.

Fergus, called True-Lips, the poet of the Fianna-Finn, then sang of Fionn and his ancestors and their deeds. When he had finished Fionn and Oisín and Oscar and mac Lugac of the Terrible Hand gave him rare and costly presents, so that every person wondered at their munificence, and even the poet, accustomed to the liberality of kings and princes, was astonished at his gifts.

Fergus then turned to the side of Goll mac Morna, and he sang of the Forts, the Destructions, the Raids, and the Wooings of clann-Morna; and as the poems succeeded each other, Goll grew more and more jovial and contented. When the songs were finished Goll turned in his seat.

“Where is my runner?” he cried.

He had a woman runner, a marvel for swiftness and trust. She stepped forward.

“I am here, royal captain.”

“Have you collected my tribute from Denmark?”

“It is here.”

And, with help, she laid beside him the load of three men of doubly refined gold. Out of this treasure, and from the treasure of rings and bracelets and torques that were with him, Goll mac Morna paid Fergus for his songs, and, much as Fionn had given, Goll gave twice as much.

But, as the banquet proceeded, Goll gave, whether it was to harpers or prophets or jugglers, more than any one else gave, so that Fionn became displeased, and as the banquet proceeded he grew stern and silent.

Chapter 2
¹

T
he wonderful gift-giving of Goll continued, and an uneasiness and embarrassment began to creep through the great banqueting hall.

Gentlemen looked at each other questioningly, and then spoke again on indifferent matters, but only with half of their minds. The singers, the harpers, and jugglers submitted to that constraint, so that every person felt awkward and no one knew what should be done or what would happen, and from that doubt dulness came, with silence following on its heels.

There is nothing more terrible than silence. Shame grows in that blank, or anger gathers there, and we must choose which of these is to be our master.

That choice lay before Fionn, who never knew shame.

“Goll,” said he, “how long have you been taking tribute from the people of Lochlann?”

“A long time now,” said Goll.

And he looked into an eye that was stern and unfriendly.

“I thought that my rent was the only one those people had to pay,” Fionn continued.

“Your memory is at fault,” said Goll.

“Let it be so,” said Fionn. “How did your tribute arise?”

“Long ago, Fionn, in the days when your father forced war on me.”

“Ah!” said Fionn.

“When he raised the High King against me and banished me from Ireland.”

“Continue,” said Fionn, and he held Goll's eye under the great beetle of his brow.

“I went into Britain,” said Goll, “and your father followed me there. I went into White Lochlann (Norway) and took it. Your father banished me thence also.”

“I know it,” said Fionn.

“I went into the land of the Saxons and your father chased me out of that land. And then, in Lochlann, at the battle of Cnocha, your father and I met at last, foot to foot, eye to eye, and there, Fionn!”

“And there, Goll?”

“And there I killed your father.”

Fionn sat rigid and unmoving, his face stony and terrible as the face of a monument carved on the side of a cliff.

“Tell all your tale,” said he.

“At that battle I beat the Lochlannachs. I penetrated to the hold of the Danish king, and I took out of his dungeon the men who had lain there for a year and were awaiting their deaths. I liberated fifteen prisoners, and one of them was Fionn.”