Legends! Beasts and Monsters (4 page)

‘She’s already gone to the cave,’ the minister for the interior explained. ‘In fact, I’m afraid she’ll already have been devoured.’

‘My only child!’ the king wept. And for the first time he understood some of the suffering of his people. ‘My princess . . . !’

George realized that there was no time to waste. He left the palace without even introducing himself, leaped on to his horse and rode out of the town in the direction of the lagoon. It
wasn’t difficult to find. The stench from the stagnant water was so strong that he could literally follow his nose.

The sound of weeping told him that he had found the cave and that, contrary to what the minister had said, he was not too late. The dragon had overslept that day and the princess was still
alive, sitting on the ground with her hands tied behind her back. George got off his horse and walked over to her, but he hadn’t taken more than a few steps when there was a sudden rumble
from inside the cave and the dragon appeared.

It was actually much smaller than George had expected – not a lot larger than his horse. It was bright green in colour, with a peculiar, misshapen body. Its wings, for example, were far
too small to allow it to fly. On one wing there was a pink ring and on the other a red one. It had two rather squat legs and claws and a long, serpentlike neck. But the only really menacing thing
about it was its teeth, which were white and very sharp.
¹

When the princess saw the dragon, she closed her eyes and waited for the end. But George wasn’t afraid. ‘Oh dragon!’ he exclaimed. ‘I see you have dined well over the
years. But maybe so many free meals have clouded your judgement. Do you really mean to eat this young girl?’

The dragon growled uncertainly. The girl opened her eyes.

‘God did not create people to be served up for the pleasure of wild animals,’ George continued. ‘And as a creature of God, you should be ashamed of yourself. It’s only
because you were created by Him that I don’t take out my sword and cut off your head right now. But even animals should be given a chance to repent.’

Smoke trickled out of the dragon’s nostrils and formed a question mark over its head.

‘Enough of this foolishness!’ George untied the girl and helped her to her feet. Then he took a ribbon from her dress and tied it round the dragon’s neck. ‘Let us go back
to Silene and talk this over.’ He bowed to the princess. ‘It seems to me, my lady,’ he continued, ‘that you will make a much wiser and kinder ruler than your father. Your
actions have shown that much already.’

There was a tremendous uproar in Silene when George returned. First of all, the people saw the princess walking next to him. Everyone had assumed she was dead. Her obituary had already appeared
in several celebrity magazines. But even more astonishing was the sight of the dragon itself, waddling timidly behind at the end of a ribbon. Was this what they had been afraid of for so many
years? How could they have listened to the king and the councillors who had in some ways been as bad as the dragon itself, feeding so easily on their fears?

From that day on, nothing in Silene was the same. Indeed, by the end of the week, the entire town had converted to Christianity.

And so, in fact, had the dragon.

Shortly after that, the king retired from the throne and his daughter became queen. All the ministers and councillors were sacked and, although a couple of them stayed behind to write their
autobiographies and a couple more were invited to join the board of the local bank, the rest of them left town. None of them were missed.

The princess married a local prince and the two of them ruled well and wisely for many years. As for the dragon, it ended its days in the palace gardens, a friend and playmate of the
queen’s children. It also became a confirmed vegetarian.

In the hours before a battle, a great peace descends upon the men who may be about to die. Those who live will remember it long afterwards. Of course they are afraid. As the
sun sinks in the sky, a certain darkness creeps not just across the hillside, but into their very souls. They see the blades of imaginary swords biting into their flesh.They feel the pain of their
limbs being severed, the bone being cut in two, and wonder what it will be like to lie there in the long grass, watching their lifeblood spread all around them. Or perhaps it will be an arrow,
striking them down without warning – in the throat, in the chest. How much will it hurt? How long will they suffer before they are released into the comfort of death? They know that many of
the men they see around them, friends they have travelled with for years, may never see the sun set again. Here they are, drinking wine, scowling, warming themselves by the fire. They are human.
They are alive. Tomorrow they may be nothing. Even the thoughts they are thinking may become nothing, just blackness, in a few hours’ time.

So it was on the evening before the Battle of Gabhra. Gabhra today is known as Garristown in north-west County Dublin, but this was almost two thousand years ago, when Ireland was young and
strange creatures, witches and demons still walked among men. Many of the
fianna
had no idea why this battle was about to take place. Nor did they care. They were here and nobody could stop
what was about to happen. That was all that mattered.

The
fianna
was a warrior band. Some called them mercenaries – others had names that were worse than that. True, there were robbers and bandits who rode with them, but there were
also aristocrats: young noblemen still waiting to inherit their fathers’ estates. Like the ancient samurai in Japan or Robin Hood’s merry men in medieval England, they would fight for
their country when they were needed. And they liked to think of themselves as poets. In order to join the
fianna
, you actually had to learn twelve books of poetry off by heart! Wasn’t
that proof enough?

There were other, more physical tests. A would-be
fénnid
, as the recruits were called, would have to prove that he could walk over dead branches and leaves without making a sound.
He would have to pull a vicious thorn out of his own foot while he was running – without stopping or even slowing down. But the most dangerous ordeal involved a pit dug in the ground. The
recruit would climb down so that he stood waist-deep and would be given a shield and a hazel stick. Nine men with spears would surround the pit and, at a given signal, the test would begin. A fight
. . . sometimes to the death. The
fénnid
would weave and dive between the spear thrusts. If he was wounded even once, he would be considered to have failed.

In fact, at sunrise the
fianna
would be fighting against the forces of the High King of Ireland, a man called Cairbre Lifechair. The king’s daughter had recently got married and it
was the custom at the time to pay a tribute to the
fianna
on the day of the wedding. The High King had refused. In return, the
fianna
had killed one of the king’s servants. How
easily a simple argument had turned into a full-scale war! Lifechair had summoned up his army and both sides had assembled at the damp, foggy swampland around Gabhra. At dawn they would settle
their differences once and for all.

The men had eaten their supper. Soon they would sleep. But now they were talking. Whatever they might be thinking, there wasn’t a single one of them who wasn’t glad to be there. For
they were in the company of one of the great heroes of the
fianna
, a man known all over Ireland. His name was Oscar, and although he was still in his twenties there were already epic poems
and songs that had been inspired by his exploits. His father was Oisín, another legendary fighter, and he was also there although, unlike his son, Oisín liked to keep himself out of
sight.

It was often said that when Oscar was young, in his early teens, he had been so clumsy and unreliable that none of the older warriors had wanted to ride with him. But by the time he was twenty,
all that had changed. He was Oscar the Brave, Oscar the Victorious, Oscar who had never lost in battle or hand-to-hand combat. He still looked younger than his true age, with long fair hair
tumbling over his shoulders, a thin, chiselled face and very bright blue eyes. He was famous for his laughter and his carefree attitude to the dangers that lay ahead.

And yet tonight he was unusually quiet. It was as if he was lost in thought, and when someone proposed a song, Oscar shook his head slowly and crept away to sit in the darkness. Some of the men
were disturbed by this, but another warrior, a man called Dáire, scowled at them. ‘He’s just preserving his strength for tomorrow. And if you had any sense, you’d do the
same. We need to sleep. Unless you want to fall asleep, perhaps permanently, on the field.’