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Title: The Laughter of Peterkin
       A retelling of old tales of the Celtic Wonderworld

Author: Fiona Macleod

Illustrator: Sunderland Rollinson

Release Date: October 23, 2015 [EBook #50292]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

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THE LAUGHTER OF PETERKIN




[Illustration: The king saw a fountain of exceeding beauty.

  _Frontis._]
]




THE LAUGHTER OF PETERKIN.

  “A RETELLING OF OLD TALES OF
  THE CELTIC WONDERWORLD.” by

  ⋅ FIONA MACLEOD ⋅

  [Illustration]

  ⋅DRAWINGS⋯BY⋯SUNDERLAND⋯ROLLINSON⋅§⋅

  ⋅LONDON⋅
  ⋅ARCHIBALD⋅CONSTABLE⋅&⋅CO⋅
  ⋅1897⋅




      TO
        ISLA,
          EILIDH,
            FIONA,
              AND
                IVOR


[Illustration]




CONTENTS


                                                  PAGE
  _PROLOGUE._ THE LAUGHTER OF PETERKIN               9

  THE FOUR WHITE SWANS                              33

  THE FATE OF THE SONS OF TURENN                   117

  DARTHOOL AND THE SONS OF USNA                    177

  _NOTES_                                          281




ILLUSTRATIONS

BY SUNDERLAND ROLLINSON


  THE KING SAW A FOUNTAIN OF EXCEEDING
    BEAUTY                                  _Frontispiece_

  AS SHE TOUCHED FIONULA, LIR’S FAIR YOUNG
    DAUGHTER BECAME A BEAUTIFUL SNOW-WHITE
    SWAN                            _To face page_      33

  TURENN INTERCEDING FOR HIS SONS         "            117

  A GREAT RAVEN, GLOSSY BLACK, AND BURNISHED
    IN THE SUN RAYS                 _To face page_     177




[Illustration]


The Laughter of Peterkin


[Illustration]




The Laughter of Peterkin


At the rising of the moon, Peterkin awoke, and laughed. He was in his
little white bed near the open window, so that when a moonbeam wavered
from amid the branches of the great poplar, falling suddenly upon his
tangled curls and yellowing them with a ripple of pale gold, it was as
though a living thing stole in out of the June night.

He had not awaked at first. The moonbeam seemed caught in a tangle:
then it glanced along a crescent tress on the pillow: sprang back like
a startled bird: flickered hither and thither above the little sleeping
face: and at last played idly on the closed eyelids with their long
dark eyelashes. It was then that Peterkin awoke.

When he opened his eyes he sat up, and so the moonbeam fell into the
two white cups of his tiny hands. He held it, but like a yellow eel it
wriggled away, and danced mockingly upon the counterpane.

With a sleepy smile he turned and looked out of the window. How dark
it was out there! That white moth which wavered to and fro made the
twilight like a shadowy wall. Then upon this wall Peterkin saw a
great fantastic shape. It grew and grew, and spread out huge arms and
innumerable little hands: and in its shadow-face it had seven shining
eyes. Peterkin stared, awe-struck. Then there was a dance of moonshine,
a cascade of trickling, rippling yellow, and he saw that the shape
in the night was the familiar poplar, and that its arms were the
big boughs and branches where the spotted mavis and the black merle
sang each morning, and that the innumerable little hands were the
ever-tremulous, ever-dancing, round little leaves, and that the seven
glittering eyes were only seven stars that had caught among the topmost
twigs.


II

Peterkin was very sleepy, but before his head sank back to the pillow
he saw something which caused him to hold his breath, and made his
eyes grow so round and large that they were like the little pools one
sees on the hill-side.

Every here and there he saw tiny yellow and green lives slipping and
sliding along and in and out of the branches of the poplar. Sometimes
they were all pale yellow, like gold; sometimes of a shimmering green;
sometimes so dusky that only by their shining eyes were they visible.
At first he could not clearly distinguish these unfamiliar denizens of
the great poplar. The vast green pyramid seemed innumerously alive.
Then gradually he saw that each delicate shape was like a human being:
little men and women, but smaller than the smallest children, smaller
even than dolls. They were all laughing and chasing each other to and
fro. Some slid swiftly down an outspread branch, and then dropped on to
a green leafy billow or plunged into an inscrutable maze: others swung
by the little crook at the end of each leaf, and laughed as they were
blown this way and that by puffs of air: and a few daring ones climbed
to the topmost sprays of the topmost boughs and held up tiny white
hands like daisies. These wished to clasp the moonshine. As well might
a fish try to catch the moon-dazzle on the water! No wonder Peterkin
laughed.

Ever and again a delicate sweet singing came from the moonshine-folk.
Peterkin listened, but could hear no words he knew. Perhaps there were
no words at all, or mayhap he himself knew too few. But the singing was
strangely familiar. Sometimes when mother sang, surely he had heard it:
as far back, farther back, than memory could take him, he had heard
some echo of it. Cradle-sweet it was, that dim snatch of a fugitive
strain. And, too, had he not heard something of it in the wind, when
that went whispering through the grass and in and out of the wild-rose
thicket, or when it lifted and waved a great wing and fanned the trees
into vast swaying flames of green? Yes, even in the fire he had heard
it. When the orange and red flames flickered among the coals, or caught
the sap in the pine-logs and grew into yellow and blue with hearts of
purple, he had heard a faint far-off music.

Peterkin gave a little gasp when a sudden wave of shadow, trailed
across the poplar by a long slow-travelling cloud, swept from bough
to bough. It was as though all the singing, laughing, dancing folk had
been drowned.

He stared through the darkness, but there was nothing to be seen.
He shivered. It was lonely out there. Again he heard a sound as of
a remote singing. As before, he could not hear what the words were.
But, once more, it was not all unfamiliar. It was sadder than anything
that dimly he remembered, save the long mournful crooning of a Gaelic
cradle-song, sadder than any flame-whisper in a waning fire, or than
any cadence of the wind in the grass, or among the thickets of wild
rose.


III

Next night Peterkin lay awake a long time, hoping to see the
moonshine-folk again. He had spoken of them, but was told that there
were no little people in the poplar. At first this was the more strange
to him, for had he not seen them? Then, after he had scrupulously
examined the branches from beneath as well as at a distance, he
comforted himself with the thought that, while there might be no
little people actually living in the poplar, they came into the tree
on the flood of the moonshine.

But that night there was no moon-flood. A south wind had arisen at
sundown, and had shepherded from beyond the hills a medley of strayed
clouds: these, intricately interwoven, now spread from horizon to
horizon, obliterating the stars and obscuring even the radiance of the
new-risen moon.

If there were no moonlight, and therefore no little yellow and
green lives with bright shining eyes, there was a strange exquisite
whispering that grew into music sweeter than any which Peterkin had
ever heard.

He rose and crept stealthily from his bed to the door. It was ajar, and
he looked, half-fearfully, half-wonderingly, into the open passage.
How long and dark it was, and haunted by unfamiliar shadows: but,
clasping the skirts of his nightgown close to him, he ran swiftly to
the balustrade at the far end.

There the stair lamp shed a comfortable glow. Peterkin looked warily
down the stairs, into the hall, along the closed or opened rooms. There
was no one stirring. The front door too was open, for the night was
warm, or perhaps some one had strayed without.

The child stood awhile, hesitating. Then he slipped down the stairway
like a swift moonbeam. For the first time he realized he was only a
little child, when he passed the great antlered stag’s-head in the
hall, and the high stand hung with coats and hats, the raiment of
giants as they seemed, and mysteriously life-like.

But once in the open air he lost all fear. True, a great mass of
rhododendrons ran close to the avenue to the right, and through this
the path meandered to the gardens behind the house: but there was
nothing unfamiliar about their gloom, for Peterkin loved their green
shadowy depths at noon, and their fragrant dusk when the long shadows
on the lawn slept longer and bluer, till they sank invisibly into the
grass.

Old Donal McDonal the gardener, on his way through the shrubberies,
rubbed his eyes: for he thought he saw a sprite. He could have sworn,
he said to Mairgred Cameron the cook, after he entered the house, that
he had seen a small white ghost flitting from bush to bush. Both shook
their heads, and wondered if the White Lady were come again, that
apparition which legend averred was to be seen by mortal eyes once in
every generation, and always before some tragic event or death itself.

But as for Peterkin he had no thought of such things. He was now in the
garden, eager in his quest of the little people who hide among leaves
and grass, and love the dusk and the moonlit dark.

He had no fear as he ran to and fro along the grassy ways. Why should
he be afraid of the dark? There was nothing there to frighten him, or
any child.

For a time he ran to and fro, or crept warily among the lilac bushes.
His little white figure drifted hither and thither like a moth. Once
he was still, when he stood, shimmering white, among the lilies of the
valley, which clustered among their green sheaths at the far end of the
garden. Here, a few days ago, he had buried a dead bird he had found
under a net. It was a thrush, the gardener had told him, puzzled at
the slow tears which welled from the eyes of the little lad. And now
Peterkin wondered if the bird were awake.

He had gone to Ian Mor, who was staying with his father and mother, and
told him about the buried bird: and Ian had comforted him with this
tale:--

“Long ago there was a great king. He had the wisdom of wisdom, as the
saying is. One day the plague came to his kingdom, and he lost the
three lives which were dearest to him in all the world. These were his
mother, his wife, and his little son.

“This king was a poet and dreamer, as well as a great warrior and
prince, and he had ever been wont to have communion with the powers and
sweet influences which are behind the innumerable veils of the world.
Through these he had come to know the mystery of the Spirit of Life.

“With this Eternal Spirit he held communion in his deep sorrow. It was
then that he learned how what is beautiful cannot pass, for beauty
is like life that is mortal, but whose essence does not perish. In
fragrance, in colour, in sweet sound, somehow and somewhere, that which
is beautiful is transmuted when suddenly changed or slain.

“So he prayed to the Spirit of Life that his dear ones might not pass
from him utterly.

“On the morrow, when he rose and went into his favourite place in the
royal gardens, a secret hollow in a glade of ilex and pine, he saw a
fountain of exceeding beauty. The spray rose dazzling white against
the sombre green of the old trees, and seemed to be alive with a myriad
rainbow-spirits, who ceaselessly flashed their wings as they darted
hither and thither. The king was looking upon this, entranced by its
sunny loveliness, when he noticed a white dove flying round the high
sunlit fount, and at the hither margin of the water a cream-white
dappled fawn, which stooped its graceful neck and drank.

“The king marvelled; for not only had there never been any fountain in
that place, but he knew that no wild fawn could wander there from the
distant forests, and no dove had he ever seen so snowy white and with
wings radiant as though stained by the rainbow-hues of the flying spray.

“Suddenly it was as though a mist fell from his eyes. He saw and
understood. His old mother, his wife, his little son, had not passed
away, although they were dead. His mother had been fair and beautiful
even in her white-hair years; and of the beauty of his wife, whom he
loved so passing well, the poets had sung from one end of the land to
another; while his little son had been held to be so perfect that there
was none like him.

“And now the king saw that the beauty of his mother had passed into a
living fount of waters, whose spray cooled the air and made a sound of
aerial music and a laughing radiance everywhere; and that the beauty
of the woman whom he had loved so passing well was transmuted into the
wild fawn which drank at the water’s edge; and that the beauty of his
little son was now the white dove which beat its wings in the rainbow
spray.

“The king rejoiced therein with a great joy. Many of his people thought
him mad, but he smiled at that saying, and with grave eyes prayed that
that madness would come to all true and noble souls in his kingdom.

“For a year and a day this joy was his. Then the fountain ceased to
rise, and the dove to beat its pinions in the spray, and the wild fawn
to drink at the water’s edge. The rumour went from mouth to mouth that
this was because the plague had come again. The king was heavy with
sorrow, for he had taken his deepest happiness in the beauty of these
three lovely things, as, of yore, in the beauty of his aged mother,
and in the beauty of the woman whom he loved, and in the beauty of his
little son. So once again he remembered how he had been helped. With
shame at his heart he upbraided himself because he had lived too much
to the things of the moment and so had lost touch with those which
were of the enduring life. That night he spent in unspoken prayer and
prolonged meditation; and at dawn on the morrow he went slowly and
sadly forth, hoping against hope that his life might be gladdened again.

“The sun rose as he crossed the glade of ilex and pine. There was no
fountain, as he well knew; but where the fountain had been he saw a
garth of wild hyacinths, of a blue so wonderful that no Maytide sky was
ever more delicately wrought of azure and purple. And above this were
two little brown birds, which sang with so sweet voice and bewildered
rapture that his heart melted within him.

“Then he knew that in these new joys he had found again the beauty he
had lost.

“When, in the change of the days, the hyacinths spilt their blue wave
into the rising green of the fern, and the birds ceased singing their
lovely aerial songs, the king no longer grieved, for now he knew that
what was beautiful would not perish but drift from change to change.

“And so it was. For when, weary of his pain, he went forth one night
to the lovely glade of ilex and pine, he saw the ground white with the
little blooms we call Stars of Bethlehem, and among these a glow-worm
lay and glowed like a lamp in a white wilderness, and from an ancient
ilex came the voice of a nightingale.

“Thus the king was comforted.

“And so you too, Peterkin,” added Ian Mor, “need not sorrow too much
for your little dead bird. It will live again mayhap in the fragrance
of a lily or in the beauty of a rose. It will rise again, Peterkin.”

This tale had sunk deeply into the child’s mind, and perhaps all the
more so because the words, and the meaning behind the words, were
sometimes beyond him. But he understood well the drift of what Ian Mor
had told him.

He was prepared for any miracle. If his little bird should rise through
the brown earth and ascend singing towards the stars; or if he should
hear a song and see no bird; or if a fount should well from where its
body lay; or if a rare bloom should spring from the earth; or if a
fragrance, new and sweet, should reach him--if one of these things
should happen, or anything akin, it would be no surprise to him.

But while he was still wondering, he heard voices.

“Peterkin! Peterkin!”

He did not answer, but laughing low to himself, crept in among the
lilies-of-the-valley, and lay there, himself like a white bloom. The
voices came near, nearer, and passed by. Peterkin’s heart smote him,
for he heard the pain in the calling voices; but it was so cool and
quiet there among the lilies, and it was so sweet to be out of sight of
every one and lost, that he could not break the spell.

What if he were to be found by the elfin-folk and led into fairyland?
He thrilled both with fear and eager delight at the thought. Surely
even now he heard the delicate music of the lily-bells?

Peterkin did not know that he had a neighbour. Suddenly, he heard a
faint rustle. Ah, it was one of the Shee--one of the little people!
Mayhap it was the green Harper, of whom Ian Mor had told him, or one of
the seven star-crowned queens, or the haughty Midir, with a peacock’s
feather in his moon-gold hair, or Fand, who walked in fairy dew,
or--or----

And then Peterkin saw who his neighbour was. From under a stone, beset
by lily-sheaths, a small toad crawled. Its strange bright eyes were
fixed upon the staring child, whom, however, it did not seem to heed
after it had once examined this strange white creature who lay among
the lilies.

Suddenly Peterkin began to laugh. The toad sat still, solemnly
regarding him. Peterkin laughed the more. Once the toad gave a short
jump, though this was not from fear, or even from lack of interest in
his unfamiliar neighbour, but because a gnat had come temptingly almost
within reach of his long, thin, serpentine tongue.

“Tell me, toad,” Peterkin said at last, “why are you so funny?”

Whether it was because the toad was not given to gaiety, or whether his
disappointment about the gnat had soured him, he did not respond save
by an unwinking stare. After a while it shot out its tongue, as though
it were speculating as to Peterkin’s flavour as a pleasant morsel, or
perhaps only to find if he were within reach.

This was too much for Peterkin, who rolled back among the lilies,
crushing the little white bells into a floating fragrance. But, alas,
that betraying laughter!

Peterkin was still in its throes when he heard a voice falling upon him
as though out of the skies.

“Ah, there you are, you little rascal! How you frightened us all, and
what a hunt we have had!”

Almost before he recognised the voice of Ian Mor, Peterkin was seized
and lifted high into the air.

“Don’t be angry, Ian,” the child whispered. “I came out to see the
fairies. And then I ran on here to see if the little dead bird had come
out of the earth again.”

“And have you seen a fairy, Peterkin?”

“I don’t know. I saw a toad.”

“What did the toad do?”

“It looked at me till I laughed. Then it put out its tongue, and I
laughed and laughed and laughed.”

“I’m thinking that toad must have been a fairy in disguise, Peterkin.
But now come: I am going to carry you back to your bed.”

And whether it was because of Peterkin’s escape into the garden, or
what vaguely came to him there, or what Ian Mor told him as he carried
him homeward in his arms, he did hear the horns of elf-land that night,
and did see the gathering of the Shee in the moonshine. But it was in
a drowsy hollow in the dim wood of sleep, wherein the birds were white
soft-pinioned dreams, and the moon waxed and waned like the lily that
sinks and rises in dark pools.


IV

In those first fragments of Peterkin’s experiences, all his life was
foreshadowed. Wonder, delight, longing, laughter--the four winds of
childhood--these blew for him through his first few years, through
childhood and boyhood and youth. He is a man now; but though the
laughter is rarer and the longing deeper and more constant, there still
blow through the dark glens and wide sunlit moors of his mind the four
winds of Laughter, Longing, Wonder, and Delight.

As year after year went by, his mind became a storehouse of all that
was most beautiful and marvellous in the Celtic wonder-world. It is
no wonder this, since he had for story-teller Ian Mor, and Eilidh whom
Ian loved; and knew every shepherd on the hillsides of Strachurmore,
and every fisherman on the shores of Loch Fyne. The old ballads, the
old romances, the strange fragments of the Ossianic tales, the lore of
fairydom, fantastic folk-lore, craft of the woodlands, all of the outer
and inner life grew into and became interwrought with the fibre of his
most intimate being.

I am not here telling the story of Peterkin himself. He stands, indeed,
for many children rather than for one, for many lives and not an
individual merely.

In a sense, therefore, Peterkin is not merely a little child, a boy,
a youth, who went through his years gladly laughing, mysteriously
wondering, wrought to pain and joy, to suffering and delight, by all he
saw and heard and inwardly learned; but a type of the Wonder-Child, and
so a brother to all children, to poets, and dreamers.

Of the many tales of old times which Peterkin loved, none did he dwell
upon with so much delight as those three which are familiar throughout
Ireland and Gaelic Scotland as “The Three Sorrows of Story-Telling.”
In “The Children of Lir,” in “Deirdre and the Sons of Usna,” in “The
Children of Turenn,” he found pre-eminently the haunting charm and
sad exquisite beauty which are the colour and fragrance of the Celtic
genius. And though in his manhood he turned with deeper emotion to
tales such as “Dermid and Grainne,” or “The Amadan Mor,” it was of
these early favourites that he loved to think, that he loved to
re-read, to hear again, to re-tell.

That is why, therefore, I have chosen to make this book essentially
a re-telling of the beautiful old tales of “The Three Sorrows,” so
familiar once to our Gaelic ancestors, and still, in however crude a
form, the most popular of all the tales of the Gael. They are sad,
it is true, because all the old beautiful tales are sad; but it is a
sadness which is a fragrance about an exquisite bloom, and that bloom
wrought of joy and keen delight. They were not sad, they who lived the
old, joyous, heroic life; in some poignant vicissitude, some sudden
slaying, some passing of a bright flame into a melancholy wane, we
see a sad gleam about the end of their days, and, seeing thus the
fortuitous coming and going of life and death, read into the old
chronicles a melancholy which often is not there.

Of course, a tale such as “The Fate of the Children of Lir”--probably
the story known above all others among the children of Western Scotland
and Ireland--is sad with another sadness, that of prolonged and
unmerited suffering. But to the Gaelic mind, at least, this is redeemed
by the sense of heroic endurance, of the deep unselfish devotion of a
lovely womanly type such as is represented by Fionula, and perhaps,
above all, by the music and beauty which were the sweet doom of Fionula
and her brothers.

But to me not one of them is sad, save with beauty. For through all I
hear the sound of Peterkin’s laughter. Sometimes it was aroused by an
episode; sometimes it leapt like a hound along the trail of vagrant
thoughts; sometimes it came and went as an eddying wind, none knowing
whence or whither.

This laughter of Peterkin has become for me one of the sweet wonderful
voices of nature--the four winds of Childhood: Wonder, Delight,
Longing, and Laughter. Ah, children, children, to one and all I wish
the golden fortune of Peterkin.


V

When Peterkin was still a child he was familiar with tales of the old
world which now-a-days we keep from children, because they are not old
enough to understand. That, I fear, is more because we ourselves do not
understand, or are out of sympathy. Is a child more likely to be hurt,
or to be nobly attuned to the chant-royal of life, by acquaintance with
stories of vivid and beautiful human love such as that of Nathos and
Darthool, or Dermid and Grainne? Surely, what is beautiful is not a
thing to be feared; and though, alas! so many of us do now indeed dread
beauty and feel toward it a strange baffled aversion, there are others
who know it to be the profoundest and most exquisite mystery in life.

To Peterkin at any rate there was never anything but what was stirring
and heroic and full of charm and beauty in these old tales: and through
all his days their atmosphere was in his mind, so that he made life
fairer for himself and others.

Few stories delighted him more than the wild folk-lore tales which he
heard from the shepherds and fishermen, or than those which he was told
on Iona. It was to that island he was taken when he was still a child,
at a time when the shadow of death darkened his young life. But there,
staying with Ian Mor and with Eilidh, his wife, he lived the happiest
months of his early years, and came closer to the beauty of the past
and to the beauty of the present than ever before or after.

It was on Iona that he first heard the “Three Sorrows of
Story-Telling,” though that of Nathos and Darthool--or of “The Sons of
Usna,” as it is generally called--was rather overheard by him as Ian
related it to Eilidh, than told to him direct.

Throughout the first months of his stay in Iona, Peterkin was told
something daily by Ian Mor, so that, child as he was, he became
familiar with strange names and peoples of the past, as well as with
all the wonders of the living world. True, there was thus in his mind
a jumble of the past and the present, and Columba was more real to him
than McCailin Mor himself, and Finn and Cuchulain, Ossian and Oscar and
Dermid as vivid and actual as any fisherman of Iona.

When he was old enough to follow aright, Ian Mor told him, anew and in
his own way, the three famous tales which follow.




  The Tale of the Four
  White Swans




    “The cold and cruel fate that overtook
     The children of the great De Danann, Lir,
     Is of the Sorrow-stories of our isle.
     This sorrow-tale indeed is old and young;
     Old, for so many hundred years have gone
     Since last beneath the midnight shimmering star
     Was heard the music of the birds of snow:
     Young, for amid the bright-eyed tuneful Gael
     The sorrows of the snowy-breasted four
     Are told again to-day, and shall be told
     Long as the children of Milesius last
     To people Banba’s hills and pleasant vales.”

       _The Three Sorrows of Story-Telling_:
                       “The Children of Lir,”
                           _trs. by Dr. Douglas Hyde_.




[Illustration: As she touched Fionula, Lir’s fair young daughter became
a beautiful snow-white swan.

  _To face p. 33._]
]




  The Tale of the Four
  White Swans


The story that I will tell you now is one of the most famous among all
the peoples of the Gael. It is called sometimes “The Tale of the Four
White Swans,” sometimes “The Fate of the Children of Lir,” sometimes
simply “Fionula,”[1] because of the beauty and tenderness of Lir’s
daughter.

The tale is of the old far-off days. It was old when Ossian was a
youth, and Fionn heard it as a child from the lips of grey-beards.
Often I have spoken to you, Peterkin, of the Danann folk, the
Tuatha-De-Danann who lived in the lands of our race before the foreign
peoples came and drove the ancient dwellers in Ireland and Scotland
to the hills and remote places. When men allude to them now in this
late day, they speak of the Dedannans (as they are often called) as the
Hidden Folk, the Quiet People, the Hill Folk, and even as the Fairies.
It is natural, therefore, that years are as dust in the chronicles of
this lost race. They live for hundreds of years where we live for ten;
and so it is that the foam of time is white against the brief wave of
our life, when against the mighty and long reach of theirs it is but
flying spray.

You have heard Eilidh singing the song of the Four White Swans. It is a
music that hundreds of tired ears have heard. It is so sweet, Peterkin,
that old men grow young, and old women are girls again, and weary
hearts ache no more, and dreams and hopes become real, and peace puts
out her white healing hand.

“Have you heard that singing, Ian?”

“Yes, my boykin, often. And you, too, shall often hear it. It is
in lonely places, in lonely hours, that you shall hear it. It is a
beautiful strange sound, and so old and so wonderful that in it you
will hear the beating of the heart of the world thousands of years
ago. But first I will tell you the story of the Four Swans, and then
we can speak again of the strange singing I have heard at times, and
that you often shall hear.”

The Dedannans were the most wonderful and happy people in the world
till they became discontented with what the unknown and beautiful
gods had given them. Then they split into sections, and some sought
one vain thing and some another, and in the end all found weariness.
Their wise men knew that as long as they were at one no enemy could
prevail against them; but it has never been the way of the unquiet
to believe in the old wisdom, and so feuds arose, and the Fairy Host
itself--as the great array of the warriors of the Tuatha-De-Danann was
called--ceased to be invincible, because the banners blew to the four
winds.

Not all their ancestral sojournings in the dim lands of the East, nor
in the ages of their migration to the country of fjords which has its
whole length in the sea, nor in Alba, that is now Scotland, nor Eiré,
that is now Ireland, not all they had learned in their remote past
helped them against the undoing of their own folly.

It has been said that the Dedannans never fought against men till the
Milesians, the warriors of Miled out of some land in the south--the
land, mayhap, we know as Spain--came against them upon the banks of a
river then as now called the Blackwater, in the heart of Meath.

But before the Dedannans themselves ever saw it, the Green Isle was
held by the Firbolgs, a terrible, heroic race, but allied to the dark
powers. Some say they became demons, after they were defeated in many
battles by the Tuatha-De-Danann, and at last wholly conquered. But so
old is this ancient tired world, that long before the Dedannans and the
Firbolg people fought for sovereignty, the Firbolg had striven with
and overcome an earlier race--the Nemedians--which had come to Ireland
under a mysterious king, Nemed. None knows who Nemed was, though he may
have been a god, seeing that he overcame that most ancient people who
were the first to set foot in the Isle of Destiny, under Partholan, a
son of him who was called the Most High God.

Whether it be true or not that the overlordship of the world was meant
for man, certain it is that man has thought so. Therefore are all
stories of his cosmic strife coloured by this destiny. Terrible and
mighty were the Firbolgs, fierce and terrible and beautiful were the
Dedannans, but now there is no rumour of either, save in the wail of
the wind, or in the stirring of swift, stealthy feet in the moonshine.

But now, Peterkin, I will tell you about the children of Lir, who was
one of the great princes of the Dedannans.

The first great battle between the Milesians and the Dedannans had been
fought, and the ancient people, for all their secret powers of wonders
and enchantment, had been defeated. Throughout all Erin--for Ireland at
that time was called either Eiré (Erin), or Fola, or Banba, after three
great queens--there was a rumour of lamentation. It was the beginning
of the end, though few save the wisest Druids foresaw it.

But the people knew that their dissensions were the cause of their
sorrow. They clamoured for one king to be overlord, so that the whole
Dedannan race might be united.

There were five great princes who claimed to be king by right. Of these
two were greater than the others--Bove Derg, son of Dagda, one of the
divine race (and some say a mighty god), and Lir of Shee Finnaha.
In the end Bove Derg was elected Ardree, or High King. Even Midir
the Haughty acquiesced in this judgment of the people, but Lir was
wroth and held aloof. All the princes and warriors were fierce with
Lir because he had left the assembly in anger, paying heed to no one,
and scornfully ignoring the majesty of the king. A hundred swords of
proven heroes leapt before Bove Derg, for all were eager to follow Lir
and destroy him and his, because of the insult to the king and to the
voice and freewill of the people. But Bove Derg was a wise and generous
prince, and forbore. This was well. For in time a great sorrow came
upon Lir. When the rumour of this sorrow reached Bove Derg, he saw how
he might win over Lir.

“In my house,” he said, “are my three foster-children, the daughters
of Aileel of Ara. Each is beautiful, all are wise and sweet and noble.
Let messengers go to Lir, and tell him that my friendship is his if he
will have it. Surely now he will submit to the will of the people. And
he can have to wife whomsoever of the three daughters of Aileel he may
choose, if so be that she will gladly and freely go with him.”

Lir was glad at this message. He called his warriors together, and in
fifty chariots he and they set forth. They rested not till they came
to the palace of Bove Derg, by the Great Lake, nigh to the place now
called Killaloe. Great were the rejoicings, and again at the alliance
which after many days was made between the king and Lir.

When Lir saw the three daughters of Aileel, he could not say who was
the most beautiful.

“Each is alike beautiful, O king,” he said; “and I cannot tell which is
best. But surely the eldest must be the noblest of the three, and so I
will choose her, if so be that she gladly and freely come with me as my
wife.”

And so it was. When Lir returned to his own place, he took with him
as his wife the beautiful Aev, who was the eldest of the daughters of
Aileel of Ara, and was foster-child of Bove Derg the king. From that
day, too, a deep and true friendship lived between Bove Derg and Lir.

In the course of time Aev bore him twin children, a son and a daughter.
The daughter was named Fionula, because of her lovely whiteness, and
the son was named Aed, for that his eyes, and the mind behind his
eyes, were bright and wonderful as a flame of fire.

And at the end of the second year Aev again bore twin children. Both
were sons, and they were named Fiachra and Conn. But in giving them
life she lost her own.

Lir was in bitter distress because of her death, and for the reason
that his four little children were now motherless. He was comforted by
Bove Derg, who not only gave him friendship and kingly aid and counsel,
but said that he should not be left alone to mourn, and that his little
ones should not go motherless.

Thus it was that Aeifa, the second of the daughters of Aileel of Ara
and foster-child of Bove Derg the king, came to Shee Finnaha and
espoused Lir.

For some years all went well. Aeifa nursed the children, and tended
them. They were so fair and beautiful that the poets sang of them
far and wide. Even Bove Derg loved them as though they were his own.
As for Lir, so great was his love, that he could not bear to be long
apart from them. His sleeping-room was separated from them only by a
deerskin, and this often he pulled aside at dawn, so that he might see
his dear ones, and perchance go to them to talk lightly and happily, or
to caress them with loving laughter and joy.

Lir was never sad save when the four children went south to the Great
Lake to stay awhile with Bove Derg, who in his turn was filled with
melancholy when the time came for them to go home again. Nor was Lir
ever so proud as when, at the Feast of Age, whenever that festival came
to be held at Shee Finnaha, the king and the nobles and the warriors
delighted in the beauty and marvellous sweet charm of Fionula and Aed
and Fiachra and Conn. Thus it was that the saying grew: “Fair as the
four children of Lir.”

But there was a deep shadow behind all this joy. This shadow came out
of the heart of Aeifa. In love there is sometimes a poisonous mist. It
is what we call Jealousy. At first Aeifa truly loved her step-children.
But as the years lapsed, and when Fionula was passing from girlhood
into maidenhood, the wife of Lir was filled with anger against the four
children. She was bitter at heart because their father loved them with
so great a tenderness, and that even the king himself cared for them
above all else, and because all the Dedannans had joy of them.

The time came when this dull smouldering fire, which she might have
overcome had she loved nobly and not ignobly, burst into flame. This
flame withered her heart, and rose thence till it obscured her mind.

She had something of the old druidical wisdom, but she feared the
counter-spells of others wiser than herself. Nevertheless she set
herself to learn one or other of the ancient incantations against which
even the gods are powerless to avert evil from men and women.

While she was brooding thus--and for weeks and even months she lay in
the house of Lir as one stricken with some terrible ill--her rage grew
till she could no longer endure the sight of her husband or of her
step-children.

One day she arose and ordered the horses to be yoked to her chariot,
and bade a small chosen company to be ready to go with her and the
four children to the Great Lake: for, she said, she wished to see
Bove Derg, her foster-father, and to take the children to gladden
his heart. Lir was sad, and sadder still when he saw the tears in
Fionula’s eyes. In vain he asked her why this drifting dew was there
instead of the sun-bright laughing glancings he joyed so much to see.
She would not answer: for all she could have said was that in a dream
she had fore-knowledge of the evil desire of Aeifa to kill her and
her brothers. Perhaps, she thought, it was but a dream. She loved
honour, too, and would not put her father against his wife because of a
visionary thing that came to her in the night.

It was when they were in a deep gorge of the hills that Aeifa was
overcome by her hatred. Turning to her attendants, she offered them
wealth and whatsoever they desired if only they would slay the four
children of Lir then and there, inasmuch as these had come between her
and her husband, and had therein and in all else made her life a burden
to her.

The attendants listened with horror. Not one there would lift a hand
against Lir’s children. What was wealth, or any fruit of desire,
compared with so foul a treachery, so terrible a crime! The oldest
among them even warned Lir’s wife that the very thought of such evil
would surely work a dreadful punishment against her.

At this, Aeifa laughed wildly. Then, seizing a sword, she strove to
wield it herself against the defenceless children. The three boys
stood, wondering. In the blue eyes of Fionula there was something the
wife of Lir dreaded more than the wrath of husband or king. Dashing
the sword to the ground, she cried to the chariot-driver to make haste
onward.

No word was spoken among them till they reached the hither end of the
Lake of Darvra.[2] There Aeifa called a halt, and the horses were
unyoked for rest. It was a fair and warm day, so when she bade the
children undress and go into the water, they did so gladly.

While their white sunlit bodies were splashing in the lake, she took
from beneath the rim of the chariot, where she had secreted it, a
druidical fairy wand. This had been given her by a Dedannan druid, and
was a dreadful thing to possess, for its power was of the black magic,
against which nothing might prevail. Going to the side of the clear
water, she struck lightly with the wand the shoulder of each of the
four children; and, as she touched Fionula, Lir’s fair young daughter
became a beautiful snow-white swan, and as she touched Aed and Fiachra
and Conn, Lir’s three young sons were changed like unto Fionula.

A cry of lamentation arose from the witnesses of this deed, though none
guessed that the ill was so dreadful and beyond the reach of druidic
skill, nor did the children know at first what evil had befallen them,
but swam to and fro laughing in their hearts, and rejoicing in their
white feathers and in their swift joy in the water. But when Fionula
heard the lamentation, and looked upon the evil face of Aeifa her
stepmother, she knew that the hour of doom had come.

Then Aeifa stretched out her arms, and chanted these words:

    “Lost far and wide on Darvra’s gloomy water,
       With other lonely birds tost far and wide.
     For nevermore shall Lir behold his daughter,
       And never shall his sons lie by his side.”

Then while all on the shore stood in deep grief, Fionula swam close,
and looked up into the white face of Aeifa, which was whiter then than
the whitest breast-feathers of these poor bewildered swans.

“This is an evil deed thou hast done, O Aeifa,” she said. “Out of a
bitter heart thou hast wrought this cruel wrong upon us who love thee,
and have never done or wished thee ill. Nevertheless it is not our
ill that shall endure for ever, but thine own evil. There shall be an
avenging terrible for thee, whensoever it come.”

It was then that Fionula for the first time sang as a swan, and even
then the marvellous sweet singing brought both gladness and tears into
the hearts of those who heard.

    “In the years long ago, long ago now, long ago,
     We were loved by her who dooms us to this evil cruel woe:
           Who with magic wand and words
           Hath changed us into birds--
     Snow-white swans to drift and drift for evermore
     Homeless, weary, tempest-baffled hence from shore to shore.”

A silence followed this melancholy singing. Then at last Fionula spoke
again.

“Tell us, O Aeifa, how long this doom is to be upon us, so that we may
know when death shall come to take away our suffering?”

Then because in that day it was not honourable to refuse the truth when
asked, Aeifa did as Fionula prayed of her.

“Better would it be for thee and thy brothers to know nothing and to
hope much. But since thou hast asked this thing I will tell it:

“Three hundred years shall ye, Fionula, and Aed and Fiachra and Conn,
who are now four white swans, abide here on this great lonely, desolate
lake of Darvra. For three hundred years thereafter shall ye inhabit the
wild sea of Moyle, which lies between the Stairway of the Giants, and
the bleak shores of the great headland of Alba.[3] And for yet another
three hundred years ye shall drift to and fro among the storm-swept
seas off the rocky isles to the west of Erin.

“Furthermore, ye shall be idle sport for the storms until Lairgnen, a
great prince of the north, has union with Decca, in the south: until
the Taillkenn,[4] the new prophet, shall come to Erin and preach a new
faith that shall chase away the old gods: and until ye shall be filled
with fear and wonder at a strange sound, that shall be the ringing of
the first Christian bell. All this I tell ye because of the prophetic
sight I have, and that has come to me through the druidic wand
wherewith I have changed ye into four wild white swans. And this too, I
say unto ye, Fionula and Aed and Fiachra and Conn, that neither by your
own power nor by your prayers, nor by mine, nor by the power of Lir and
Bove Derg, nor by that of all kings and princes and druids whatsoever;
no, nor by any god, nor by any power in heaven or earth, can ye be
freed from this spell I have put upon ye, until the times and events I
have spoken of shall be fulfilled.”

When Aeifa had ceased speaking, there was no sound to be heard, save
the lap-lapping of the lake-water upon the shore. Of the company of
those with her none spake a word, each dreading the evil that was sure
to come. At last a faint sobbing came from amid the sedges, where the
young brothers nestled by the side of Fionula, who had already begun to
mother these dear ones whom she loved.

When she heard these sobs, Aeifa’s heart smote her. Even if she would,
she could not now undo the age-long spell she had set upon the children
of Lir. But one thing was left to her that she might do with the fairy
wand, which could be moved once again if stirred by the breath of her
will.

“Hearken, O children of Lir,” she cried, “for I have yet one thing
to say: and that out of the sorrow in my heart because of the doom I
have put upon ye. Although ye are turned into wild swans, ye shall not
become as the desert birds, and have no speech but the savage screams
and cries of the wilderness. Ye shall keep for ever your own sweet
Gaelic speech, and so be able to talk each with the other, and with
any of the human kind whom ye may meet. And more than this, ye shall
be able to sing the most sweet, plaintive songs, and the most wild,
haunting music that ever man has heard; so that all whose ears list
shall be lulled into deep sleep, or into a peace sweeter than slumber
itself. Nor shall the law of the soulless brutes be upon you, but ye
shall be Fionula and Aed and Fiachra and Conn, the children of Lir.”

Having said these words, Aeifa raised her arms and chanted this song:

    “Speed hence, speed hence, O lone white swans,
       Across the wind-sprent foam;
     The wave shall be your father now,
     And the wind alone shall kiss your brow,
       And the waste be your home.

     Speed hence, speed hence, O lone white swans,
       Your age-long quest to make;
     Three hundred years on Moyle’s wild breast,
     Three hundred years on the wilder west,
       Three hundred on this lake.

     Speed hence, speed hence, O lone white swans,
       And Lir shall call in vain;
     For all his aching heart and tears,
     For all the weariness of his years,
       Ye shall not come again.

     Speed hence, speed hence, O lone white swans,
       Till the ringing of Christ’s bell;
     Then at the last ye shall have rest,
     And Death shall take ye to his breast
       At the ringing of Christ’s bell.”

Having sung this farewell song, Aeifa ordered the horses to be yoked
again to her chariot.

This done, she drove away westward, nor was there a single heart in
those who accompanied her but was filled with sorrow and foreboding.

When the lake was no longer visible, and the gloom of the mountains
came down upon the pass which led towards the westlands where Bove Derg
dwelled, a faint wild aerial singing was heard, delicate as tinkling
cowbells on far hill-pastures.

Before Aeifa drew near to the great dun of Bove Derg, she put each of
her company under a solemn bond of silence as to what she had meant to
do and not done, and as to what later she had done; and because of the
lealty of the bond to a woman, and also because of the fear of each
towards the druidical fairy wand that she still carried, the oath was
taken by one and all.

Therefore it was easy for Aeifa to mislead Bove Derg as to the reason
why she had not brought the children of Lir with her. Nevertheless he
doubted greatly that his foster-daughter deceived him, for he could not
think that Lir his friend would so mistrust him as to refuse to let
Fionula and her brothers accompany their stepmother.

So, secretly, he sent a swift messenger across the hills and straths to
the dun of Lir.

Lir was at once wroth and filled with fear when he heard that Aeifa
had reached the dun of Bove Derg without the children. Some treachery
surely had been done, he cried.

Then, calling together a company, he set forth with all speed. Towards
sundown, the cavalcade came upon the wide desolate shores of the great
lake of Darvra.

“What is that sound?” cried Lir.

“It is the wind in the reeds, O Lir,” answered a spearman by his side.

“The wind in the reeds is a sweet sound to hear, Coran, but never have
I heard any wind that could make so sweet a music.”

“It is the little gentle lapping of the wavelets by the west wind, O
Lir.”

“It is no gentle lapping of the wavelets by the west wind, Coran, nor
yet is it the wind in the reeds; but that is the voice of Fionula
singing.”

And as the sound grew clearer, all heard it, and soon the words were
audible:

    “Behold the Danann host is on the shore,
     Seeking for those now lost for evermore;
     But let us haste towards that proud array
     And tell the tidings of this fatal day.”

And while the song was still in the ears of all there, Lir gave a great
cry and pointed to where above the midmost of the lake four wild swans
were winging swiftly towards the eastern shore.

When he heard from Fionula--and he knew her voice, which was sweeter
than any other he had ever heard--of all that had happened, and of
the strange and dreadful doom that was put upon her and her brothers,
he fell sobbing to the ground. From all his company the keening of a
bitter lamentation arose.

Alas, as he knew well, not even the great length of years which the
Dedannan folk lived--and a score of years is to them what one year
is to us--would enable him to see his dear ones again. Three hundred
years on Darvra, these he might mayhap live to see; but not the three
hundred years on the bleak and wild region of the Moyle, nor the three
hundred on the wild tempestuous western seas, nor the far-off day when
a prophet called Taillken would come to Erin with a new faith, and in
the glens and across the plains would be heard the strange chiming of
Christ’s bell.

Yet was he comforted when he heard that his children were to keep their
Gaelic speech, and to be human in all things save only in their outward
shape. And glad he was that they were to be able to chant music so
wild and sweet that all who should hear it would be filled with joy
and peace. For music is the most beautiful and wonderful thing in the
world, and is the oldest, as it will be the latest speech.

“Remain with us this night, here by the lake,” said Fionula, “and we
shall sing to you our fairy music.”

So all abode there, and so sweet was the song of the children of Lir,
that he himself and all his company fell into a deep, restful slumber.
All night long they sang their sweet sad song, and were glad because of
the quiet dark figures by the lake-side lying drowned in shadow. Slowly
the moon sank behind the hills. Then the stars glistened whitelier and
smaller, and a soft rosy flush came over the mountain crest in the
east. Then Lir awoke, and Fionula and Aed and Fiachra and Conn ceased
their singing, and spread out their white pinions to the light of a
new day, and ruffled their snowy breasts against the frothing that the
dawn-wind made upon the lake.

Lir took a harp from one of his followers, and sang a song of farewell
to his children. At that singing all awoke, and the heart of each man
was heavy because of the doom that had fallen upon the children of Lir.

He sang of the fateful hour when he had taken Aeifa to wife, and of the
cruel hardness of her heart, that thus out of jealous rage she could
work so great and unmerited evil. And what rest could there be for him,
he chanted, since whenever he lay down in the dark he would see his
loved ones pictured plain before him: Fionula, his pride and joy; Aed,
so agile and adventurous; the laughing Fiachra; and little Conn, with
his curls of gold.

Then with a heavy heart indeed Lir went on his way. Before he and his
company entered the great pass at the western end of Lough Darvra, he
looked back longingly. In the blue space of heaven he saw four white
cloudlets drifting idly in a slow circling flight.

“O Fionula,” he cried, “O Aed, O Fiachra, O Conn, farewell, my little
ones! Well do I know that you have risen thus in high flight so that my
eyes may have this last glimpse of you. Nevertheless I will come again
soon.”

It was a weary journey thence to the dun of Bove Derg, but all
weariness was forgotten in wrath against Aeifa.

No sooner had Lir spoken to the king, no sooner had the king looked at
the face of Aeifa as she heard the accusation, than Bove Derg knew that
the truth had been told, and that Aeifa was guilty of this cruel wrong.
Turning to his foster-daughter, he exclaimed, in the hearing of all:

“This ill deed that thou hast wrought, Aeifa, will be worse for thee
than all thou hast put upon the children of Lir. For in the end they
shall know joy and peace, while as long as the world lasts thou shalt
know what it is to be lonely and accursed and abhorred.” Then for a
brief time Bove Derg brooded. There was naught in all the world so
dreaded in the dim ancient days as the demons of the air, and no doom
could be more dreadful than to be transformed into one of those dark
and lonely and desperate spirits that make night and desolate places so
full of terror. At last the king rose. Taking his druidical magic wand,
he struck Aeifa with it, and therewith turned her into a demon of the
air. A great cry went up from the whole assemblage as they saw Aeifa
spread out gaunt shadowy wings, and struggle as in a sudden anguish of
new birth. The next moment she gave a terrible scream, and flew upward
like a swirling eagle, and disappeared among the dark lowering clouds
which hung over the land that day.

Thus was it that Aeifa became a demon o the air. Even now her screaming
voice may be heard among the wild hills of her own land, on dark windy
nights, when tempests break, or in disastrous hours.

But out of a wrong done the gods may work good. So was it with the
Dedannans.

For not only Lir, and all his people, but Bove Derg and a great part of
the nation assembled by the shores of Lake Darvra, and there pitched
their tents, which afterwards grew into a vast rath, wherein the king
builded a mighty dun.

For Lir and Bove Derg had vowed that henceforth they would live their
years by the shores of Darvra, where they might converse with their
dear ones, and where they might listen to the sweet oblivious songs
which Fionula and her brothers sang to the easing of the heart, and the
silence of all pain and weariness.

But so great was the rumour of this marvel that all Erin heard of it.
The Milesians in the south agreed to a long truce of three hundred
years; and came and dwelt in amity with the Dedannans, for they too
loved the sweet and wonderful music of the white swans that were the
children of Lir.

“Three hundred years yet may we live,” said Bove Derg to Lir, “and as
I am a king, I swear never to leave the lough of Darvra while the four
swans that are thy sons and daughter inhabit it. The heavy years shall
pass for us, listening to their beautiful sweet singing; and therein we
shall know peace and joy.”

“So be it,” said Lir, and he spoke the truth, for in that day the
Dedannans lived to a great age; some say to three hundred, some to
five, some to seven hundred years.

The years went by, one after the other, and by tens and by scores, and
still Lir and Bove Derg and the Dedannans and Milesians dwelled by the
shores of Lake Darvra. For never in the world’s history has there been
chronicle of so sweet a singing as that of the four children of Lir.
All day the swans discoursed lovingly with their father and Bove Derg,
and their kith and kin, and all who sought them; and each night they
sang their slow, sweet, fairy music--a music so wonderful and passing
sweet, that all who listed to it forgot weariness and pain and bitter
memories and the burden of years, and fell into a deep restful slumber,
whence they awoke each morrow as though they had drunken overnight of
the Fountain of Youth.

The hair of Lir and Bove Derg was long and white, and almost had the
Dedannans and the Milesians forgotten their ancient enmity, when a day
of the days came whereon Fionula called aside her three brothers.

“Dear brothers,” she said, as she looked sadly at the three beautiful
white swans, and at the four drifting shadow-swans in the depths of
the lake, “dear brothers, do you know that the time has come when we
must put away our happiness as a dream that has been dreamed? For now
the three hundred years of our sojourn here are at an end, and at dawn
to-morrow we must arise and wing our sad flight across the dear lands
of Erin, till we come to the wild and stormy waters of the sea-stream
of the Moyle.”

Aed and Fiachra and Conn made so loud and bitter lamentation at this
that all heard, and soon the whole host that was encamped there filled
the region with long keening cries of grief, and a sorrowful mourning
strain as of the melancholy wind among the hills.

But once more all were soothed that night into deep slumber and happy
peace, because of the slow, sweet, fairy music of the chanting swans.

At dawn, the four swans arose, and with their white pinions circled
high above the lake, glittering as they soared into the sunflood as it
swept across the summits of the eastern hills.

“Farewell! farewell! farewell!” they chanted, and at that sad sound all
the Dedannan host and all the Milesians, headed by Lir and Bove Derg,
kneeled along the lake pastures and amid the reeds and sedges.

Then Fionula, as she and her brothers slowly descended in wide-sweeping
curves, sang this song:

    “Farewell! Farewell! Farewell!
     Far hence we lost ones go:
       Hearken our knell,
       Hearken our woe!

     Farewell! Farewell! Farewell!
     With breaking hearts we flee:
       For none can tell
       Our wild home on the sea.

     For ages on the Moyle,
     In loneliness and pain,
       Our feet shall tread no soil,
       Wild wave, wild wind, wild rain.

     For ages in the west,
     Fierce storms and fiercer cold
       Shall be alone our rest,
       While ye grow old.

     Let not our memories pass,
     O ye who stay behind--
       Who are as the grass
       And we the wind.

     Farewell! Farewell! Farewell!
     Far hence we lost ones go:
       Hearken our knell,
       Hearken our woe!”

As Fionula ceased this song, she and her brothers swept so close to
the water’s edge that their white wings made a little dazzle of spray.
Then with swift pinions they rose again, and soared in great spirals
of flight, till they gleamed against the morning blue like four white
banners adrift before a skiey wind.

Then for a brief while they suspended on outspread wings, and looked
longingly down upon the dear ones and all their kith and kin, who on
their part could scarce see the four white swans for the mist of tears
that was before all faces.

Suddenly they swung hither and thither, like foam tossed by a tidal
wind, and then flew straight to the northward. Soon they were but white
specks; then the blue closed in upon them, as the wastes of the sea
close at last behind the hulls of drifting ships.

Before the torch of a stormy sun sank that night amid the tossed green
billows of the Moyle, there where the sea flows to and fro betwixt Erin
and Alba, the children of Lir drooped their weary wings. Their home
now was the running wave. In darkness and loneliness and sorrow, they
floated close to each other, waiting for the dawn to steal into that
first night of bitter exile.

From that day they were severed from those who loved them. Of a truth,
there was keening and lamentation and sorrow by the shores of the
lough of Darvra. At the last, as the snow melts, the great host of the
Dedannans and Milesians passed away: to the westward, some; others, to
the south.

As for Bove Derg and Lir, their white hairs and the grey ashes of
their lives were the mournful refrain of many a song on the lips of
wandering bards.

       *       *       *       *       *

There were tears in the eyes of Peterkin when Ian Mor ceased speaking.
His heart was sore because of Fionula and Aed and Fiachra and Conn.

Nevertheless, he too would be glad to be a swan for a time, if only so
as to be able to soar into the blue spaces of the sky, and to spread
white wings over the dancing waters, and to move through them swifter
than any boat. With what joy he had once climbed on to the fan of an
old windmill, and slowly revolved through the hot August air, which
winnowed around him a coolness like the flowing of wind over the summit
of a hill.

A bright shining came into his eyes, then laughter bubbled to his lips.

Eilidh looked at him, half in mock reproof, half rejoicingly.

“Peterkin, why do you laugh?”

“Oh, for sure, dear, it’s not laughing I am at the poor swans, but
at the face of Old Nanny, my nurse, when she came out of the cottage
in the glen and saw me lying flat and holding on to the fan of the
windmill, with my hair all blown back, and both my legs hanging in the
air.”

“Some day you will kill yourself, Peterkin,” said Eilidh gravely.

“Then I’ll be a swan! and I’ll fly round and round Iona, and whenever
you or Ian want to go to the mainland, I’ll take you on my back.”

Suddenly Peterkin sprang to his feet, and jumped to and fro, clapping
his hands.

“Ah, how I would love it!” he exclaimed.

“Love what, dearie?”

“Love to see Ian fall off my back and go plump in among the herrings in
the Sound! _What_ a splash he would make!”

“And poor Ian---- Why, he might be drowned, Peterkin!”

“Oh, no; I would swoop down the way a gannet does when it sees a fish,
and would scoop him up with my bill.”

The picture was too much for Peterkin. The thought of grabbing the
dripping half-drowned Ian in his bill, and of soaring away with him to
the white dry sands, was better than any dream of the fairies he had
ever had, even than that when he rode a fairy horse in the guise of a
white mouse, with grasshoppers for hounds, and a great bumble-bee as
a wild boar for the occasion. He threw himself on the floor in front
of the hearth, and rolled over and over, contorting his small body
into alarming convulsions, clapping his hands, and laughing, laughing,
laughing.

Eilidh, too, let the laughter take her, and then Ian found it sweet;
and soon the little room was full of joyous laughter upon laughter, and
of the leaping flame-light from the blazing log on the peats, and of
the dancing of the shadow-men in the corners and up and down the walls.

“The swans! The swans!” cried Peterkin suddenly, as he grabbed wildly
at some shadowy shapes which slid along the floor. But these swans
proved as tantalising as the wind-shadows on the grass which so often
he chased, and suddenly in a flash they disappeared altogether. They
seemed to spring right into Ian Mor; at any rate it was in his arms
that Peterkin found himself.

“Where are the shadows? Where are the shadows, Ian?” he cried: “I
believe you are hiding them inside yourself! Where are they? Where are
they?”

“Why, you boykin, where could they be?”

“They are in your heart, Ian! I know they are! I see them! I see them!”

Ian glanced at Eilidh. Then, putting his arm round Peterkin, he laid
his lips against his downy cheek and whispered:

“Yes, my little lad, you’ve guessed right.”

“Then why don’t you chase them out, Ian?”

Again Ian Mor glanced at Eilidh.

“They live there, lennavan-mo. They jumped out because of your
laughter, but they are back now.”

“Then I’ll be laughing often, Ian dear, and some day I’ll catch them
and drive them out into the sunshine, and then they’ll melt--ay, ay,
they’ll melt for sure, Ian, and what will you be after doing then?”

“Well, like Fionula and the wild swans, Peterkin, I’ll rise up and soar
away on the great flood of the sun across the sea till I come to Hy
Brásil, the Isle of Youth far away in the West.”

“Yes, I know,” Peterkin said gravely: “Hy Brásil: Eilidh told me that
is where she and you are going to live. Will you take me there too?”

“Yes, you will come there too, mochree, some day.”

“But with you -- when you and Eilidh go?”

“Perhaps we’ll not be going there together, Peterkin. But we won’t be
forgetting our dear little Peterkin. We’ll be on the shore looking out
for you when you come.”

“Why are your eyes wet, Ian, and Eilidh’s too?”

“Why, you unfeeling little wretch, it’s because we have left the poor
swans, Fionula, and Aed, and Fiachra, and Conn, alone on the rough seas
of the Moyle all this while.”

“Tell me, tell me now about the children of Lir. Did they see any one
up there? Were they ever happy?”

“Eilidh knows the rest of the story as well as I do, Peterkin, so go
and sit in her lap while she tells it to you and to me.”

With that, Ian Mor rose and put another log on the red peats. A shower
of sparks shot up into the dark hollow of the chimney. Peterkin laughed.

“Hush!” whispered Eilidh, with smiling eyes: and then in her sweet,
low voice resumed the tale of the Children of Lir, from where Ian had
stopped.

It was at the edge of winter when Fionula and her brothers reached the
wild bleak seas of the Moyle.

At first there was no too bitter cold or too fierce tempestuousness
to make their evil lot still more hard to bear; but sad indeed were
their hearts as day after day they saw nothing but the same grey skies,
the same grey wastes and dark sullen waves, the same bleak, rocky
coasts inhabited only by the cormorant and the sea-mew. Never to see a
familiar face, never to hear a familiar voice: to dwell from morning
dusk till evening dark in loneliness and sorrow--that, indeed, was a
hard fate upon the four children of Lir. From hunger and cold, too,
they suffered much. No longer could they be cheered as they were on
Lough Darvra, and often and often they lamented that their doom could
not have permitted them to remain as swans indeed, but as swans on that
now dear and home-sweet inland sea of Darvra.

Day after day passed, but while their misery and want did not grow less
they were not yet tortured by wintry storms and bitter frosts.

But one forlorn afternoon a terrible congregation of clouds, black and
heavy and flanked with livid gleams, appeared above the horizon and
slowly invaded the whole west, and then all the sky northward and all
southward.

Fionula saw that a great tempest was nigh, so she called Aed, and
Fiachra, and Conn, to come to her side.

“Dear brothers,” she exclaimed, “the storm that will soon be upon us
will be worse than any we have yet known. Hardly can we hope not to
be driven far apart. Let us agree, therefore, to meet somewhere, if
so be that we are not utterly destroyed. For though Aeifa, our cruel
stepmother, doomed us to these long ages of suffering, it may well be
that even her potent spell is not strong enough against death: and
death may come to us through famine, or cold, or in the drowning wave.”

At first the brothers could answer nothing. Then Aed spoke. “Thou
art wise, dear Fionula. Let us, then, fix upon the rocky isle of
Carrick-na-ron, as that place is well known to each of us, and can be
descried from a great way off.”

Thus it was that Carrick-na-ron was made their place of meeting, if so
be that in the blind fury and confusion of the tempest they should be
driven the one from the other.

This was well: for that night, with the darkening of the night into a
hollow of starless blackness, a terrible tempest swept over the seas,
and lashed them into foam and into vast heaving, rolling, swaying
billows. Amid the noise of the waves, and behind the screaming of the
wind, the four weary rain-drenched bewildered swans could hear the
crashing of the thunder and see the wild fitful blue glare of savage
lightnings.

Before midnight they were whirled this way and that by the fierce paws
of the gale. Soon they were separated, and with despairing cries,
each swept solitary through the night. In the heart of each of the
children of Lir there was little hope of any morrow. All nearly died of
weariness and despair. Nevertheless dawn broke at last, and with the
first coming of light the tempest passed away.

When the sun rose the waters were almost smooth again. A sparkling came
into the crest of every wave. The sea blued.

Fionula was the first to descry the rocky isle of Carrick-na-ron, and
gladly she swam towards it, for she was now too weary to fly. Eagerly
she hoped to find her brothers there, safe-havened. Alas, there was not
a sign of any, not even when she flew to the summit of the highest
rock and looked far and wide across the wilderness of waters.

Great sorrow was hers, for sure, when she beheld nothing but wave upon
wave, wave upon wave, till on the far horizon the long low line of sea
climbed into the sky.

A song of mourning broke from Fionula, so sad and sweet and despairing
that the gannets and sea-mews and dark fierce cormorants wheeled around
Carrick-na-ron, wondering at the marvel of this wild swan, with the
strange remote voice of the human kind. It was a song of farewell.

When Fionula ceased her lament she looked once more across the wastes
of the sea. Suddenly she uttered a glad cry, for she descried Conn
swimming slowly towards the rocky isle, slowly, and with drooping head,
for he was drenched with the salt brine, and so weary that he could
scarce move.

Hardly had she welcomed him with joy, and helped him to reach a flat
ledge of rock whereon the sunlight poured with healing warmth, than she
saw Fiachra desperately striving to make his way towards them, but so
far spent that it seemed as though death would overtake him before he
reached the foam-edged rocks. Fionula sprang into the running wave,
and soon was beside Fiachra, aiding him to her utmost. With difficulty
she helped him to the ledge where Conn crouched in the sun, but so weak
was he that when he was spoken to he could utter no word in reply.
Fionula looked with pity upon her two young brothers. It was hard for
her to see their unmothered pain and weariness. So she spread out
her broad white pinions, and gave the warmth of her body to the two
drenched and shivering swans.

“Ah!” she exclaimed, as she crouched on the ledge, with Fiachra
nestling by her right side and Conn by her left; “ah! if only Aed were
here too, all might yet be well. And even if it be death, sweeter
far that we might all perish together.” It was as though her loving
prayer were answered, for before long she descried Aed swimming swiftly
through the sunny foam-splashed seas. He, at least, she saw with joy,
had not suffered as his younger brothers had done, for he came on with
head erect and his white plumage all unruffled and dazzlingly ashine.

Nevertheless, Aed, too, was glad to rest in the sunshine, so Fionula
placed him under her breast.

Noon found them thus: Fionula with sad eyes staring out across the
wastes of windy seas; under the warm feathers of her breast, Aed; and
close nestled to the warm down of her sides, Fiachra and Conn. She
heard their low breathing as they slept, and that they might sleep the
deeper and longer she sang her low, sweet, fairy music:

    Sleep, sleep, brothers dear, sleep and dream,
      Nothing so sweet lies hid in all your years.
            Life is a storm-swept gleam
            In a rain of tears:
    Why wake to a bitter hour, to sigh, to weep?
      How better far to sleep----
            To sleep and dream.

    To sleep and dream, ah, that is well indeed:
      Better than sighs, better than tears;
    Ye can have nothing better for your meed
            In all the years.
    Why wake to a bitter hour, to sigh, to weep?
            How better far to sleep----
    To sleep and dream, ah, that is well indeed!

This and other songs Fionula chanted low throughout the day, till at
last she too was overcome by her weariness; and she slept.

At the rising of the moon, all awoke. Full glad were Aed and Fiachra
and Conn that their tribulation was over; only Fionula knew that the
doom which Aeifa had put upon them held worse things, and many, in
store for them.

For some days thereafter there was peace. Then a snow-whisper came, and
the inland hills and the peaked summits of the isles were white. The
cold grew deeper day by day; at each dawn the frost bit with a keener
grip. The bitter hardships of the children of Lir were now more almost
than they could bear. Nevertheless, they had a yet more dreadful trial
to endure: for at mid-winter there came a tempest of whirling snow and
icy wind so fierce and terrible, that for a day and a night the waves
were strewn with the dead bodies of sea-mews and terns. Nothing the
four swans had ever suffered was like unto what they suffered at this
time.

But when Fionula had again found and sheltered her dear ones, and
mothered them with her great love, she knew that whatever their
sufferings they would now surely endure until the end. Had they been
subject to the mortal law, they could not have survived that dreadful
day, and still more awful night.

And so another year passed. The worst sorrow of the children of Lir was
their great loneliness, a thing more bitter than hunger or thirst or
any privation. They longed for their kind as the first white flowers of
the year long for the sun. When mid-winter came again a terrible frost
arose. All the north isles were like black bosses in a gleaming shield,
for sheets of ice covered the seas, and each island was gripped as in
an iron vice. Day by day the cold grew more terrible. On the morrow of
the ninth day the four children of Lir thought that the end of their
misery was at hand. The whole sea was one solid floor of ice; the isle
of Carrick-na-ron, where they were, was like a black iceberg; into ice
lapsed each faint failing breath that they drew with ever greater pain.

Each morning they had waked to find their feet frozen to the rock,
and even the edges of their wings; and a bitter thing it was to tear
themselves free, and to leave clinging to the rock the soft feathers of
their breasts and the outer quills of their wings and the skin of their
feet.

How fain each was of death! How gladly they would have passed away
from the world of the living, though in exile, and longing with aching
hearts to see once more their own dear land and the faces of those whom
they loved! But their doom was on them, and they could not leave the
sea of Moyle, nor could they win death.

The brave heart of Fionula knew this. She knew too what cruel pain it
would give her and her brothers to swim through the salt seas with
their bleeding wounds, for the brine would enter them and cause agony.
Nevertheless, she led them forth towards the coast of the mainland.
There they found a fjord and a haven amid the pine-clad shores, and
before long their wounds were healed, and the feathers on their wings
and breasts grew again.

But of what avail to tell the tale of all their years? Fionula saw that
while they must ever return each night to the sea of Moyle till the
three hundred years were over and done, they might fly as far and wide
as they could between dawn and dusk. Mighty and strong were they now
upon the wing, and fit to endure the slashing of rains, the buffetings
of wild winds, the whirling briny sleet of the seas, and the cold of
the high forlorn spaces of the lonely sky.

Far and wide therefore they roamed, sometimes along the foam-swept
headlands of Alba, sometimes by the stormy coasts of Erin, sometimes
for leagues and leagues out into the vast dim wilderness, wherein, so
men said, Hy Brásil lay--Hy Brásil, the Isle of Rest, the Isle of Joy,
the Isle of Youth Eternal.

One day, far in the oblivion of these selfsame years, they chanced to
be flying past the mouth of the Bann, on the north coast of Erin: and
Aed gave a cry of joy, and bade Fionula and his brothers look inland,
for there, coming out of the south-west, was a stately cavalcade, the
horsemen mounted on white steeds, beautifully apparelled, and with
weapons gleaming in the sun.

How joyous it was to see their own kind again! All gave a cry of
rapture, their hearts aching the while that they could not set foot
upon the land, as that was forbidden to them, though they might
adventure to the shore.

Long and earnestly Fionula looked, but she could not tell who the
strangers were.

“Keen are your eyes, Aed,” she said; “can you discern who the men of
yonder cavalcade are?”

“I know them not as men: but it seems to me that they are a troop of
our own Dedannan folk, or perchance they may be of the Milesians.”

But while they were still wondering and discussing, the cavalcade drew
nearer, and the men of it saw the four swans, and, recognising them as
the children of Lir, made signs to Fionula and her brothers to alight
on the shore.

With joy the Dedannans, for so they were, hailed the poor exiles, for
whom indeed they had long been seeking along the north coasts of Erin.
As for the children of Lir they could scarce speak, so great was their
happiness to hear their dear familiar speech once more and to see the
faces of their own people.

Again and again they were embraced by the two chiefs of the Fairy
Host, as the Dedannan warriors were called--Aed the keen-witted,
and Fergus the chess-player, the two sons of Bove Derg, king of the
Tuatha-De-Danann.

With joy the children of Lir learned that their father was still alive,
and was even then celebrating at his house at Shee Finnaha, along with
Bove Derg and the chiefs of the Dedannans, the Feast of Age. As for Aed
and Fergus and all their following, they wept when they heard the tale
of the misery of these lost years, when Fionula and Aed and Fiachra
and Conn were the sport of the winds.

While eagerly and lovingly they were conversing, none noticed that the
sun was sinking upon the low wavering line of the ultimate wave. But
when at last Fionula saw this, she uttered a sad cry of warning to her
brothers, and all four rose on their white wings and made ready to fly
back to the bleak and desolate sea of Moyle. And sad, sadder than ever,
was the heart of Fionula, for she knew that they could not be there
till nightfall, and that the penalty of this would be that they should
not again see the face of their kind, either on the shores of Erin or
Alba, until the end of the three hundred years on the wastes of the
Moyle.

As they circled in the air, she sang this song, the last of the
swan-songs heard of any of the Dedannans who were in that company:

    Happy our father Lir afar,
    With mead, and songs of love and war:
    The salt brine, and the white foam,
    With these his children have their home.

    In the sweet days of long ago
    Soft-clad we wandered to and fro:
    But now cold winds of dawn and night
    Pierce deep our feathers thin and light.

    The hazel mead in cups of gold
    We feasted from in days of old:
    The sea-weed now our food, our wine
    The salt, keen, bitter, barren brine.

    On soft warm couches once we pressed
    While harpers lulled us to our rest:
    Our beds are now where the sea raves,
    Our lullaby the clash of waves.

    Alas! the fair sweet days are gone
    When love was ours from dawn to dawn:
    Our sole companion now is pain,
    Through frost and snow, through storm and rain.

    Beneath my wings my brothers lie
    When fierce the ice-winds hurtle by:
    On either side and ’neath my breast
    Lir’s sons have known no other rest.

    Ah, kisses we shall no more know,
    Ah, love so dear exchanged for woe,
    All that is sweet for us is o’er,
    Homeless for aye from shore to shore.

A great lamentation went up from the cavalcade of the Fairy Host
when Fionula ended this song, and she and her brothers flew swiftly
northward athwart the waves, red and wild because of the stormy setting
of the sun.

Sad was the tale the Dedannans had to relate when they returned to Shee
Finnaha.

Nevertheless, Bove Derg, the aged king, and white-haired Lir himself,
took comfort in this, that Fionula and her brothers were still alive.
Moreover, they knew that in the end the spell of Aeifa would be broken
and that the exiles would be freed from their sufferings.

But often, often, they thought with tears, as the slow revolving
seasons lapsed one into the other, of the children of Lir upon the
desolate far seas of the Moyle.

       *       *       *       *       *

Here Eilidh’s voice lapsed into silence. Then, looking no longer at
Peterkin, but staring into the red heart of the peats, she sang a
Gaelic song, called the Sorrow of the Grey Hairs of Lir.

Peterkin never loved Eilidh so well as when she sang; but he was
sorrowful to-night when he saw that the song brought tears into her
eyes.

“Eilidh,” he whispered.

“Yes, Peterkin, dear.”

“Wouldn’t you be liking to kiss Ian?”

Eilidh laughed low, a faint flush coming and going upon her face.

“For why, boykin?”

“Oh, I know that whenever you have tears in your eyes Ian can chase
them away. I have seen him kiss you when you are tired.”

At this Ian Mor rose and lifted Peterkin in his arms.

“Eilidh is thinking of something sad, Peterkin; that is all. See, she
is smiling now, and laughing too by the same token.” The boy tossed his
curls, and with a roguish smile added:

“Ah, that is just because I said she wanted to kiss you.”

“You’re much too wise, Peterkin. But there, down with you! Now run to
the door, and tell me if it is still raining.”

Peterkin never could go straight anywhere, for his progress was ever
like that of a kid or lambkin, a series of jumps and little sudden
runs. No sooner was he gone, than Ian turned to Eilidh, and took her in
his arms.

“Sweetheart,” he whispered, “that little burst o’ sunshine is right. A
kiss from your lips is the best thing to chase away the tears. But why
are you sad, mochree?”

“I was thinking of the sorrow of old Lir; and how little it matters
whether one live fifty years or five hundred, as these old Dedannans
did. Then suddenly the thought flashed across me that some day soon we
should lose Peterkin: he too will become a wild swan, and it will be we
who shall hear the far-off singing of his laughing childhood.”

“Perhaps he will take his childhood with him into manhood, dear. Let
him look often into your beautiful eyes, Eilidh, and the little one
will learn much without knowing that he is learning. And then, too,
to be near you: why, that is to be a child always deep down, and to
have sunshine in the heart and mind--for have you forgotten your name,
‘Sunshine’?”

As he spoke, Ian Mor leaned and kissed her. Puzzled at the sudden
radiant smile on her face, he looked round. There was Peterkin, sitting
squatted on the hearth, with an impish smile in his blue eyes. He had
crawled behind the hanging curtain at the door, and unseen and unheard
gained the fireside.

With a joyous laugh he sprang to his feet.

“Ah, Ian, you and your rain! Is it not hearing you are? It’s on the
window as if the brownies were throwing little wee stones. It was not
the rain you were wanting, but only a kiss from Eilidh! Now, Eilidh,
tell me true?”

“Tell you true, Blumpits. Why----”

But here Peterkin, overcome by some sudden memory suggested by the pet
name which Eilidh sometimes gave him, went dancing round the room,
laughing and chuckling by turns, and once and again clapping his hands
in elfin glee.

“Eilidh, Eilidh,” he cried, “do tell me again that story of Blumpits
and the Bunnywig.”

Ian looked puzzled.

“What’s a bunnywig, Blumpits?”

“A bunnywig--you’re not for knowing what a bunnywig is--and you, Ian
Mor, too! A bunnywig is a _kunak_.”[5]

“And what did Blumpits do?”

“He got on the bunnywig, in the green fern, and rode on it into
fairyland, and no one saw him go but a squirrel. But no, Eilidh, I am
not wanting to hear about that now; and don’t be looking at my bed
there, for I haven’t got the sleep upon me yet. Tell me the rest of
the tale about Fionula and Aed and Fiachra and Conn.”

“I wonder, now, if that’s because you really want to hear, or if it’s
because you don’t want to be sent to bed?”

Peterkin had kicked aside his shoes, and taken off his socks, and was
warming his feet at the fire. His body was bent nearly double, as he
looked round, clutching the while his big toe in the hollow of his tiny
fist.

“O Eilidh,” he said reproachfully, but with a light of such mischief in
his eyes that Eilidh laughed. Then stooping, she took him on her lap,
and after a few seconds, when all three looked idly and dreamily into
the red fanwave in the heart of the peats, her lips moved again to the
sorrowful sweet tale of the Children of Lir.

       *       *       *       *       *

Year after year passed for the four swans that were the children of
Lir. On that bleak and lonely sea of the Moyle they saw none of their
own kind from year’s end to year’s end: only the sea-mew and the
cormorant, the gannet and the tern, the slow droves of the pollack, the
travelling schools of mackerel and herring, the swift seals migrating
from isle to isle. With each Spring they saw the great solanders and
wild swans flying northward towards the polar seas: thence, at the
first days of winter, they saw them again flying southward, athirst for
the thin blue wine of unfrozen seas.

There was no change save the changefulness of the seasons; the
grey-black wave of winter lapsed into the grey-blue wave of spring, and
out of the dark-blue wave of summer grew the grey-green wave of autumn.

Cold and hunger and weariness: these only did not vary.

But at last the long weary exile on the Sea of Moyle came to an end.
One day Fionula told her brothers that on the morrow they would have to
fly far westward, for the three hundred years on the sea-stream of the
Moyle were over, and now they had to begin their long and mayhap still
more bitter, bleak, and mournful exile on the wild western ocean beyond
Erin.

“We must fly straight to the bleak headland of Irros Domnann,” she
said, “and then must remain on the wild and desolate seas off the isle
of Glora, the island that is farthest away from the mainland of our
beloved Erin.”

Thither, accordingly, the four swans flew on the morrow. It was with
joy that they left the sea of the Moyle, where they had known so much
privation and misery; but little cause had they for joy, for not less
bleak were the skies, not less desolate the coasts, not less wild the
storm-lashed, rain-swept seas, off the lifeless, barren isle of Glora.
The great waves of the shoreless western ocean beat upon it for ever,
and their thunder often filled the darkness for countless leagues with
a sound most dreadful to hear.

But after many years it chanced that a young man, named Ebric, the son
of a Dedannan lord, came to farm a tract of land lying along the shore
of Irros Domnann. This youth, who was a poet, and loved all beautiful
things, soon cared more for the sweet, wonderful singing of the four
swans, which often he heard, and to see their white bodies glistening
in the sun, than to till his land.

One day Fionula and her brothers descried him. Flying to the shore,
they called, and great was his wonder to hear the dear familiar Gaelic
speech in the mouths of wild swans.

From that time he walked daily down to the extreme rocks on the shore,
that he might converse with the children of Lir, and hear all they had
to tell of their sad story; though he, on his part, could relate little
to them of what had happened, or was happening further inland in Erin,
though they heard from him with sorrow that the Milesians were now
mightier than the Dedannans, and that the Fairy Host was no longer able
to withstand the might of these enemies who long since had come out of
the south.

“For,” he said, “it is the way of what is beautiful and wonderful; that
the wonder passes and the beauty fades.”

That night he heard Fionula singing, and knew that the burden of her
song was no other than the saying he had uttered:

    Dim face of Beauty haunting all the world,
    Fair face of Beauty all too fair to see,
    Where the lost stars adown the heavens are hurled,
            There, there alone for thee
            May white peace be.

    For here where all the dreams of men are whirled
    Like sere torn leaves of autumn to and fro,
    There is no place for thee in all the world,
            Who driftest as a star,
            Beyond, afar.

    Beauty, sad face of Beauty, Mystery, Wonder,
    What are these dreams to foolish babbling men --
    Who cry with little noises ’neath the thunder
            Of ages ground to sand,
            To a little sand.

Ebric moved homeward through the moonlight wondering much at that song
of Fionula. But because he was a poet, he understood.

From him the people of the hills, and the valleys round about Irros
Domnann, heard the story of the speaking swans; and soon the wonder of
it, and the whole sorrowful tale of the Children of Lir became as well
known in that region as, long, long ago, to the Dedannans and Milesians
on the shores of Lough Darvra, when they encamped by its shores because
of the slow, sweet, fairy music of the four swans.

Then once again it chanced that the four children of Lir unwittingly
transgressed their doom, and so had to leave the shores where they
could converse with the people who loved them. But Ebric, to whom they
had told everything, was a poet, and wrought of their story a tale so
sweet and marvellous that it has lasted all these ages, and is heard to
this day on the lips of peasants in the west of Erin.

From that time onward the sufferings of Fionula and her brothers were
no less than they had been on the sea of the Moyle. Yet even the
worst they had there known was surpassed midway in the heart of a
terrible winter, a winter when cattle died in covered sheds, and men
and women in their houses, and the wild creatures of the forest under
their branches, and the storm-inured seabirds in the hollows of their
ocean-fronting cliffs.

On that day the whole surface of the sea from Irros Domnann to Achill
was frozen into one solid mass of ice. Across this a polar wind drove
sheets of hail and sleet. By nightfall, Aed and Fiachra and Conn were
so far spent that they despaired of any morrow; and at the last Fionula
herself, who had striven to comfort them, was herself in so pitiful a
misery that she could only lament with them that death was so long in
coming.

But in the full horror of midnight, while they clung nigh-frozen to
the rock of Glora, Fionula had a vision. It was of that God, that new
faith, that great wonder and beauty which was even then coming towards
Erin, though St. Patrick had not yet set foot upon its shores.

“Brothers,” she cried, “take heart. I have had a vision. Of a truth
our ancient gods are but the children of a greater than they. Aed, dear
Aed and Fiachra and Conn, believe now in this great and loving God, the
most splendid God of the living truth: for it is He who has made all
things, the pleasant, fruitful land and the wild barren sea; and it has
been revealed to me that if we put our trust in Him, He will comfort us
and send us help.”

“That we now do, O Fionula!” cried Aed and Fiachra and Conn.

Thereupon they fell into a deep slumber. When they awoke the sun was
shining; the fierce wind no longer blew; the waves danced joyously,
tossing little sheets of spray from one to another. The bitter cold was
gone, and they rejoiced exceedingly.

“It is Spring!” Aed cried, with joy.

“It is the answer of God,” said Fionula gravely.

From that hour they had peace. Thenceforth they suffered no more from
cold or hunger. When the savage frosts of winter, or the wild rains of
autumn, came over the western sea, the four swans alighted on Innis
Glora, and sang their wild, sweet, beautiful music, and then fell
asleep, nestling side by side, till they awoke to warmth and joy.

So was it till the end of the three hundred years. Three hundred years
on the lough of Darvra; three hundred on the sea-stream of the Moyle;
three hundred on the sea of Glora, to the west of Erin. All these ages
had they endured, and now their exile was at an end.

“On the morrow, dear brothers,” Fionula sang rejoicingly, “on the
morrow we shall wing our way inland; for our hearts ache to see again
our own country and our kindred, and the faces of Lir our father, and
Bove Derg the king, and all whom we love. Great shall be the joy at
Shee Finnaha when they behold us once more; but not more joyous shall
their delight be than it will be for us to see the smoke rising from
the fires of our people, and to see the greatness and beauty of Shee
Finnaha.”

They could not sleep that night for eagerness. At dawn they rose on
white wings, circling through the wide blue spaces of the air. When the
yellow stream of the sun poured westward out of the mountain-ridges of
Achill, they chanted a farewell song, and then stretched their wide
pinions and flew homeward with beating hearts.

Sweet it was to see below them the green grass instead of the cold,
running wave; and the hollows of the meadows, how much dearer were they
than the troughs of the drowning billows!

When they came to the great hill above Shee Finnaha, their wings were
seized with so great a trembling that scarcely could they reach into
view of Lir’s high shining house.

Descending, therefore, they alit on a rock and rested awhile. A deep
sadness oppressed Fionula. There was so great a silence on every rock,
on every tree. Moreover, she had seen a stag stand staring inland with
idle eyes, and had seen the hill-fox and the wolf prowling in the glen
where as a child she had often played.

“What is the fear that is in your eyes, Fionula?” asked one of her
brothers with sudden dread.

“Alas! Aed, if Lir and the Dedannans were still here, would a stag
stand staring inland, where Shee Finnaha is, with heedless eyes and no
hoof lifted, and nostrils idly sniffing the unfrequented wind?”

“Of a surety no, Fionula.”

“Yet that have I seen, Aed. And if in Shee Finnaha still dwelled our
Dedannan folk, would the hill-fox and the wolf prowl in the Glen of the
White Water, there where we were wont to play and bathe, we and all the
little children?”

“Of a surety no, Fionula.”

“Yet that have I seen, O Aed and Fiachra and Conn. Come! we are rested
now. Let us hasten homeward to Shee Finnaha, that we have longed for
all these years, and to our father Lir, who awaiteth us.”

Onward they flew.

But just as they soared over the shoulder of Knoc-na-Shee, Fionula
uttered a piercing cry.

There indeed was the valley where Lir long, long ago had made his home.
But now there was not a single wreath of smoke rising to the sky, not a
single cow lowed in the pastures, neither man nor woman nor child moved
to and fro. Nay, there were not even any houses. All had gone. Amid the
desolate place rose the gaunt, dishevelled ruins of Lir’s great dun;
its halls empty and roofless, or tenanted only by the rank grass and
tall companies of nettles.

“Alas!” cried Aed, “for the omen of the stag staring idly on Shee
Finnaha, and for that of the hill-fox and the wolf prowling in the Glen
of the White Water.”

But Fionula could speak no word, for her heart was breaking.

For long they crouched silent amid the desolation of that ruined place.
Thrice three hundred years had passed since they had played in front of
the house of Lir: beneath yonder ruined wooden arch they had set forth
with Aeifa on that ill-fated journey.

The dusk came. Still the four children of Lir crouched silent amid the
ruined desolation which was all that remained of lordly Shee Finnaha.

The wolf prowled near, but turned away the flame of his yellow eyes,
for he feared those who crouched there and had the voices of the human
kind. The bats and owls alone paid no heed.

When the stars glistened in the sky, and the moon rose, and on the
night wind there was not the lowing of a cow or the barking of a
dog, or any sound whatsoever, save from the rustling forest and the
murmuring stream, Fionula and Aed and Fiachra and Conn fell into a
bitter sobbing and a long, mournful keen, that rose into the hills
with plaintive echoes.

When the day broke, each told the other that they could no longer stay
in Shee Finnaha. That desolation was now to them more bitter than
the wilderness of the bleak seas of the Moyle. While they were still
speaking thus sorrowfully, Conn descried an old man--so old and worn
that his hair hung about his wrinkled face like thistledown, so white
and bleached was it. He carried a small harp, but in his eyes was the
look of one who saw only far into the mind and never from the mind
outward.

“Who art thou, O stranger?” Conn asked.

The man looked at the swan that spoke to him in human speech, and in
the sweet, familiar tongue of the Gael.

“I have heard strange things,” he muttered, “and in my madness have
come to learn of the beasts. Have not the hawks and eagles of Shee
Finnaha told me bitter tidings, and has not the hill-fox barked to me
of the graves of dead hopes, and has not the she-wolf whined to me in
the dusk of the sorrows that flit through the woods--the old ancient
sorrows of the wise and the beautiful and the brave that are now no
more? Why then should not a wild swan speak? Have I forgotten that,
ages ago, the children of Lir were changed into swans, and that they
spoke with the human tongue, and sang songs so passing sweet that life
and death became as the selfsame dream? Ah! that dream of dreams:
fragrant it was as the breath of Moy Mell, the honey-sweet plain of
Heaven; restful as the sound of the waves beating on the shores of
Tir-fa-Tonn, where the dead dwell in youth and joy; strange and wild as
the noise of invisible wings over the blessed isle that is Hy Brásil in
the west.”

Conn spake again:

“Art thou a Dedannan, old man?”

“A Dedannan I am, O Swan, that speakest with the tongue of man; yea, a
Dedannan I am, if a sere and fallen leaf can be called a child of the
green tree. Say, rather, a Dedannan I was.”

“Dost thou know aught of Bove Derg, the King of the Dedannans, or of
Lir, the lord of Shee Finnaha?”

The stranger sighed, and by the veiling of his eyes Conn knew that the
old harper was with the past.

“Ay,” he muttered at last, “but who can note the passage of the years
when one is old and broken and sick unto death? A hundred years have
trodden the red leaves again, or it may be thrice a hundred, since I
chanted the death-song of Bove Derg, the King of the Dedannans; since
I looked on the white face of Lir, as he lay grey and ashy among the
ashy-grey thistles.”

Conn uttered a cry of sorrow, and a bitter keen of lament came from his
two brothers and from Fionula.

“Then these also speak,” muttered the old harper: “almost can I
persuade myself that I look on the wild swans that are the four
children of Lir--Fionula and Aed and Fiachra and Conn. Ages ago I
thought they had lapsed in death. All are gone now, save only Aeifa,
who is a demon of the air, and wails among the hills and in desolate
places.”

All this time Fionula had been looking earnestly at the old man. Now
she spoke.

“Tell me, art thou not Irbir the Harper?”

“It is Irbir the Harper I am, the chief harper of Bove Derg, that
was King of the Dedannans before the Fairy Host faded away from the
meadows and pastures of Erin. And if indeed ye be the children of Lir,
know I am that Irbir who sang the birth-song at the birthing of ye,
Fionula and Aed, and at the birthing of ye, Fiachra and Conn.”

Thereupon the old harper embraced the four swans, tears running down
his face the while.

While he was yet embracing them, his wildered mind began to wander, and
he talked idly of vain things.

Nevertheless, they learned from him that more than a hundred years
back, and maybe thrice a hundred, the Tuatha-De-Danann had fought a
last great battle with the Milesians and had been utterly defeated.
They were now a dispersed and hidden people, some deathless, others
living to the thousand and one years of the old-world folk, and some
with a new and terrible mortality upon them. As for Bove Derg and all
the Fairy Host, the wild thistle waved over their nameless graves. Lir
lay beneath the grass outside his great dun of Shee Finnaha. His last
words had been: “I hear the beating of wings. O wild swans, I hear the
beating of thy wings.”

Thereafter Irbir the Harper moved aimlessly away, and with him passed
the shadow of the greatness that was gone.

The children of Lir now spoke wearily among themselves of what they
should do. At the last they decided to go back to the Isle of Glora,
and there await the fulfilment of their doom.

One more night they spent at Shee Finnaha, mourning over the grey
sorrow of Lir, and over the desolation of that noble place, and over
the ruin of the Dedannan folk. So wild and mournful was their singing
that night that the beasts of the forest congregated round the ruined
dun, and from the crags of the hills thronged the cliff-hawks and the
eagles. In the heart of the woods Irbir, the old harper, died, dreaming
that he was in Tir-nan-Og, the Land of Youth, and was listening again
to the voices of Love.

On the morrow the children of Lir flew sorrowfully away from Shee
Finnaha and returned to Innis Glora. They alit at a small lake in the
heart of that isle, and there began once more to sing their slow,
sweet, fairy music.

So wonderful was their singing, with all its added pain and the mystery
of years, that the birds of all the regions round were wont to collect
daily, and gather in flocks round about the singing swans. Thus it was
that the little lake came to be called the Lake of the Bird Flocks.

At sunrise these innumerable birds would disperse far and wide; some
seaward, some inland, some northward to Achill, some as far south as
the three rocks known as Donn’s Sea-Rest, some to Inniskea--to this
day called the Isle of the Lonely Crane, for there dwells, and has
dwelled since the beginning of the world, and shall dwell till the day
of flame, a solitary brooding crane. But at night every bird returned
to Innis Glora, to hear the slow, sweet, fairy music of the children of
Lir.

In this way the years went past.

On a day of the days Fionula called her brothers to listen to her,
because of a dream that she had dreamed.

“The Taillkenn[6] has come at last,” she said. “I saw a strange light
in the East at midnight. A star rose out of it, and travelled through
the gulfs of the sky, and rested over Erin, and sank slowly over this
our dear land. Then I heard a smoke of voices rising to the stars, and
thence, too, came a chiming sweeter than any chants we have sung in all
these thrice three hundred years.”

On the eve of that day a man came forth from the mainland in a coracle.
He came to Innis Glora, and alighted there, and kneeled in a strange
fashion, and supplicated some god.

It was St. Kemoc.

After nightfall the wild swans were silent, for all were heavy with the
strangeness of this man, who was not like unto any Dedannan or even a
Milesian, and who prayed on his knees, and supplicated a god set beyond
the stars.

In the grey dawn they awoke, trembling. Trembling still, they started
and ran bewilderedly to and fro, for strange and dreadful to them was
the sound that they heard. It was but a little sound, and faint and
afar; but it was the chiming of a bell, and in all the thrice three
hundred years and more they had lived they had heard nought like it.
The bell was the matin-bell of St. Kemoc, but they knew it not, nor
what it meant. Aed and Fiachra and Conn ran wildly and far, but at
last when the bell ceased, they returned to Fionula.

“Do you know what this sound is, this faint, fearful sound that has
terrified us, dear brothers?”

“No, we have heard the faint, fearful voice, but know not what it is.
Is it the voice of the strange man who has come among us, and is he a
god?”

“No,” answered Fionula, with grave joy, “but it is the voice of the
Christians’ bell. Soon we shall be free of our spell; soon we shall
have peace. It is the bell we have dreamed of for so many years.”

All were glad at that. Kemoc had again begun to ring his matin-bell,
and the four swans crouched low, listening to its strange music. When
it ceased, Fionula spoke:

“Let us now sing our music.”

Therewith they sang their slow, sweet, fairy music.

Kemoc rose in his place, amazed with great wonder. At first he thought
it was the voices of the angels singing in Paradise. Then suddenly it
was revealed to him that it was the slow, sweet, fairy music of the
children of Lir, whereat he rejoiced exceedingly, for he had fared
westward in the hope to find and save Fionula and Aed and Fiachra and
Conn, of whom he had heard soon after he came to Erin with tidings of
Christ and the Christian faith.

So when his prayers were done, and sunrise put a shine of gold upon the
sea, Kemoc rose and went to the lake, and hailed the four white swans.
And when they answered and told him who they were, he gave thanks to
God.

“Come now to land,” he added, “and sojourn with me, for it is in this
place that ye are destined to be freed from your enchantment.”

Filled with a great joy on hearing the words of the Christian saint,
they came ashore, and went with him to where he had builded his cell
against the forefront of a cave.

Three days later a skilled craftsman for whom he had sent came to Innis
Glora, and wrought two slender shining chains of silver. These St.
Kemoc put upon Fionula and Aed and upon Fiachra and Conn, to show that
they were now bondagers to Christ, for all that they were still swans
and under the doom of the spell of Aeifa.

Thereafter the time passed with joy and peace. Kemoc taught them the
holy faith, and came to love them with his whole heart. As for the
children of Lir they were glad with so great a gladness that they
remembered no more their long misery, and even loved better to hear
the hymns and litanies of St. Kemoc than the lifesweet war-chants and
love-songs they had heard in their childhood from Irbir and other bards
and minstrels.

But at that time[7] there was a queen in Erin who above all other
things desired the glory of having these marvellous singing swans as
her own. In the olden days men and women were wont to hold the decrees
of the gods and of fate in reverence; and more thought was taken of
the inner meanings of dreams, marvels, and the strange vicissitudes
of life. Has not a wise poet declared that the smaller the soul the
greater the tyranny? This queen was Decca, daughter of Finghin, king of
Munster, and wife of Lairgnen, the king of Connaught.

It was of these two that Aeifa, long, long ago, had spoken
prophetically, but none remembered this save only Fionula, in whose
mind dreams and memories floated as water-blooms on a mountain
lake--the blooms that float and sink and rise as though a breath
sustained or swayed them, the breath out of still, pellucid depths.

At last the desire of Decca overmastered her. She begged Lairgnen to
fare westward to Kemoc, and obtain the swans from the saint and bring
them to her. But this the king feared to do, nor held it a kingly act.
Then Decca gave way to her anger, and left the great house of the king
and vowed that she would not sleep there another night till Lairgnen
brought her the singing swans.

So the woman fled southward into Munster, her father’s realm.

Lairgnen the Connaught king loved his wife to weakness. He was the
slave of her dark eyes and her smiling lips and her selfish heart and
her poor will: so he came to evil then, and later. For according as a
man’s love is, and as he loves to strength, so shall his life be abased
or uplifted.

So Lairgnen sent messengers after Decca, and sought her in the south.
Thus was the prophecy fulfilled.

The woman returned, but put a bond upon the king. He was weak, and she
made a sport of him as women do who are loved to weakness and not to
strength: as with men also, when women love them ignobly, and not as
high mate with high mate.

Thus it came about that Lairgnen gave the word to St. Kemoc that
he desired the four swans to be sent to him at his royal house in
Connaught. Kemoc, however, refused. He served the King of kings, not
the king of Connaught.

Full of wrath, Lairgnen set out for the western coast, and at last
reached Innis Glora. When he asked Kemoc if he had indeed refused to
give up the swans at his command, and was told that this was so, he
swore the old pagan oath by the sun and the moon and the wind, and
vowed that he would not leave that place without them.

“Doom must be fulfilled, O king,” said Kemoc, “but woe unto that man by
whom the evil of a day of the days is wrought.”

Lairgnen laughed, and followed the saint into the little chapel where
the four swans stood before the altar, singing a sweet wonderful song
that was a hymn of peace and joy. Seizing the silver chain of Fionula
and Aed in one hand, and that of Fiachra and Conn in the other, he
forced them to follow him.

“Do not do this thing, Lairgnen, son of Colman,” said St. Kemoc.

“And for why not?” asked the king, smiling grimly, as he neared the
door of the wattle-church. “Am I not the king, and can I not do as I
will in mine own lands?”

“There is another King. If thou doest a wrong against Him, thou shalt
have neither the desire of thine heart nor yet go free of the penalty
of lifelong sorrow and a bitter end.”

For a moment Lairgnen quailed. The angry voice of a cleric was a
perilous omen in those days. Then he strode forward, dragging after him
the four swans.

Suddenly a wild, strange cry resounded over the church. All stood
silent, appalled. To Fionula only was it revealed that it was neither
the screaming of the wind, nor the thin shrewd wail of the sea, nor the
savage cry of a sea-mew--but that it was the voice of Aeifa, that lost
forlorn demon of the air for whom there might be no rest now till the
day of the flame of which St. Kemoc spoke.

“Come!” said Lairgnen, with a great effort.

But when he strove with the chains, lo! a strange thing happened.
These fell apart, and at the same moment the great wings of the swans
contracted, and the white feathers that were the beauty of their bodies
shrivelled. A mist of blown feathers was about them: and when Lairgnen
and Kemoc looked through this as it settled upon the ground like dust,
they beheld a wonderful and a terrible thing.

For as the feathers fell away from the children of Lir, Fionula and
her brothers once more regained their human shape. But now they were
no longer fair and sweet and young, as they were when Aeifa put her
enchantment upon them. They stood there, worn with intolerable age.
Grey and ashy were their bodies, and long and sere and white their
thin, blanched hair: and they were tremulous as reeds, and their wan
hands were as the shaking wan leaves of the poplar when autumn is dead.

The children of Lir looked one upon the other with dim, forlorn eyes.
It was a bitter thing to live so many ages only to find that their own
kith and kin were as dust, and that their habitation was a wilderness,
and that their very race had passed away: to see each other in human
form again, but Fionula an aged ancient woman, grey as old hanging moss
and wrinkled as the wave-rippled sand, and tall Aed and swift Fiachra
and laughing Conn as three feeble old men, wavering as their own
shadows.

When Lairgnen saw this he was overcome with dread. He uttered a strange
cry, and, averting his face, fled from the little chapel, nor looked
back once upon Innis Glora; and feared the following flight of his own
shadow till once more he reached his great house in Connaught, over
which he heard a demon of the air wailing and laughing, and knew that
it was Aeifa, and that the terror of this banshee would be with him and
his for ever.

As he fled, he heard the bitter execrations of St. Kemoc, but these he
heeded less than the thin, inarticulate murmur of the voices of the
children of Lir, like the hum of gnats in a well.

Nevertheless Kemoc himself was able to hear the whisper of Fionula. So
one may hear the faint rustle of leaves in the heart of a forest where
there is no wind.

“Be swift, holy one, and give us baptism, here before the altar. We
have but a brief while wherein to draw breath. Great is thy sorrow at
this parting, but not more great than is ours. Nevertheless the end
is always in the beginning, and we are but the dry thistledown of the
young sprays of green. For thee, too, O Kemoc, the vial of silence
shall be broken, but not until thy hair is like the foam of the sea,
and thine eyes dim as the light beneath a wave.”

Thereupon St. Kemoc led them slowly towards the altar, and bade
farewell to each, for he saw that the shadow of death had covered them
from the soles of the feet to the chin of the head, and was rising to
the eyes.

Once more Fionula spoke.

“Farewell, dear brothers,” she said. “We are so old that we have
forgotten age. Very weary should we be were it not for sweet death. We
go far hence, and it may well be that we visit Hy Brásil before we see
the shining of the gates of Paradise. There we shall greet our father
Lir, and he shall come with us. And if he come not, we shall abide with
him, for love is stronger than death.”

“Even so,” whispered Aed and Fiachra and Conn.

“And to thee, Kemoc, thou holy one,” she murmured, “I have this thing
for the saying. We are of our people, and would fain be in the darkness
as our ancient forgotten dead before us. It is not fitting that we lie
in the earth who are of the old race, and have the blood of kings, and
have lived in no dishonour, and die as we have lived.”

“Speak, Fionula.”

“When we fail utterly and perish, as we shall do within this hour that
is upon us, O Kemoc, remember that as in life I so often sheltered my
brothers against my breast and sides when we were swans, we must not be
apart in death. Therefore bury us on this spot and in one grave.[8] And
in that grave let Conn stand near me at my right side, and Fiachra at
my left, and let Aed my twin-brother be before my face.”

With that she sighed. So sighs a wan, drifting leaf wind-slidden over
sere grass.

Then Kemoc baptized Fionula and Aed and Fiachra and Conn: and when he
had given them eternity and the company of saints, they died. They did
not fall, but wavered as dry reeds, and were suddenly at one with
their own shadows, and were no more.

When the saint rose from his knees, he put the tears from his face and
stared into the deeps of heaven. Then he had the joy of a glad vision.
Overhead he beheld four children with light silver-shining wings, their
faces radiant: yet knew not whether they were little ones or were
youthful with new life, for the glory dazzled him. A moment, as the
foam-bells on a falling wave, they were there: then they vanished, and
passed westward, and were in Hy Brásil with Lir and their own people
even while Kemoc bent lamenting over the frail ancient bodies that had
been the children of Lir.

So in that place a grave was digged, and Fionula was placed standing
therein: and by her right side, Conn; and by her left, Fiachra; and
before her face, Aed. Over this grave Kemoc raised a mound, and put a
great stone upon it. Then he made a lament over the dead.

When all the people were gone, there remained only Kemoc, and a young
poet and cleric named Ebric the son of Ebric, the son of Ebric of Irros
Domnann. And when St. Kemoc went to his cell, and knew the dark hour,
because of his sorrow, Ebric stood by the great stone at the mound and
graved in Ogham the names of Fionula and Aed and Fiachra and Conn.

The salt grasses wave out of the dust, the dust of the powder of that
stone which Ebric graved with cunning hand: but out of the hearts
of men who shall take the sorrowful tale of the Children of Lir, or
against it shall prevail what frost of age, what breath of time?

The stone perisheth, but the winged word on the breath of the lips
endureth for ever.

[Illustration]




  The Fate of
  the Sons of Turenn




[Illustration: Turenn interceding for his sons.

  _To face p. 117._]
]




  The Fate of
  the Sons of Turenn


I will tell you now the old heroic saga of the Fate of the Sons
of Turenn: how they paid the great eric laid upon them by Lu the
Long-Handed, called the Ildanna because of his great wisdom in all
magic craft and Dedannan lore; and how at the last their dauntless
bravery was as sand before the wind, as mist before the sun, as dew
upon the grass.

It is one of the most ancient of tales. Brian, Ur, and Urba, the sons
of Turenn, did their great wrong upon Kian, the father of Lu of the
Long Hand, and paid their unheard-of and heroic eric, when Bove Derg,
the last king of the Dedannans, was still a youth--and that was long
before the Children of Lir were changed into four white swans.

No Milesian had been seen in Erin in those days. Nevertheless the
power of the Dedannans was already broken, though they were still
foremost in green Banba, as the bards loved to call Erin, after a great
queen who had reigned there, when the Fairy Host was supreme: for the
fierce Fomorian pirates of the north had descended upon them again and
again like a devastating plague, and at last their High King, the King
of Lochlin, Balor of the Evil Eye, had subdued them into bondage.

Year by year, and that for the fourth part of a year, Balor sent
his emissaries to collect tribute. The men were of the greatest
and fiercest of the black Fomorians, so called because they were
black-haired and black-bearded, with fells as coarse and thick as
those of wild boars. These men were dreaded by the Dedannans, for they
appeared to be beyond all reach of magic spells, and to have more
terrible arms and an invincible power in warfare.

At that time Nuadh of the Silver Hand was High King of Erin. He was
the most prudent of all the Dedannan kings, but there were many of
the wisest druids and bards even in his own day who lamented that he
was over-prudent, and that it would be wiser to risk all in order
to regain honour and freedom than to lose all for the sake of an
inglorious peace. Nevertheless, so great was the love of life among the
people at large, and so keen was their desire to be left at peace by
the Fomorians, that Nuadh of the Silver Hand put aside his kinglihood,
and agreed to pay both tribute and homage.

The yearly tax laid by Balor of the Evil Eye upon Nuadh of the Silver
Hand and all the Dedannan folk, was this: a tax separately upon
querns, kneading-troughs, and baking-flags, the three things which
every Dedannan had to use. Besides this, there was a tax of one gold
ounce for every man and woman of the Tuatha-De-Danann. Every year the
people had to assemble at the Hill of Tara, where the High King had
his palace, and there submit their tribute with many obeisances to the
dark, scowling emissaries of Balor of the Evil Eye.

In one year of the years this happened as before. But after Nuadh of
the Silver Hand and all his nobles and druids and all the Dedannans had
made humble obeisance before the Fomorians, and while the tribute was
being put together, a strange sight was descried.

Coming from the east was a company of lordly men, splendidly arrayed in
white with gleaming helmets and shields, and riding tall white horses.
These were headed by a youthful champion of so great a stature and so
warlike a mien, that all men knew he could be none other than Lu the
Long-Handed, son of Kian the Noble. All the northlands and eastlands of
Erin were aware of the rumour of his great valour and worth, and there
was at that day no champion so feared between the two seas.

Lu, son of Kian, was also of the Dedannans, but he was of the older
and rarer branch, and he and his claimed that the Fairy Host, of
which they formed the chief ornament, rose or fell by their support.
Among the splendid company were the sons of Manannan, son of Lir, the
lord of the sea, and other chieftains and brave knights. Yet, as they
approached, it was Lu of the Long Hand who held all eyes. Upon his head
was a golden helmet, wherefrom gleamed two great shining stones--the
eyes of strange gods they seemed to the people. His body was covered
with shining armour that was no other than the famous coat of armour of
Manannan, through which no weapon might pierce; and by his side hung
the terrible sword, the “Answerer,” which had but one answer for every
one against whom it was raised--death. The horse, too, that Lu rode was
the far-famed stallion of Manannan, so swift that the March wind could
not overtake him, nor could water, air, or land offer any obstacles to
his progress.

A great shout welcomed these champions of the Fairy Host as they
drew near, but this shout came from the assemblage outside of Tara;
and neither the king nor his lords rose at their approach. The
Fomorians scowled and stood apart, and then scornfully resumed their
tax-gathering.

When they had finished their task the Fomorians rose and together
approached the place where the king sat high among his people.

As they drew near, Nuadh of the Silver Hand and all his lords rose and
made humble obeisance.

At this, Lu the Ildanna frowned, and when Lu of the Long Hand frowned
his company knew that evil was like to come.

“Tell me, O King,” he said haughtily: “why do you make obeisance to
these rude, ungainly folk, and did none to us when we approached, to us
who are of the old Dedannan race?”

Thereupon Nuadh of the Silver Hand spake the bitterness of truth, and
how it was that in order to save the land from devastation, and his
people from rapine and outrage, he submitted to the Fomorian yoke. And
for the same reason he had not ventured to pay homage to Lu and the
Fairy Host, for the Fomorians would have taken this as an insult to
Balor of the Evil Eye, and some great evil would have ensued.

Lu smiled scornfully.

“And at the worst, O Nuadh of the Silver Hand, there is a disastrous
end and death. What then? Is not death the sure end of all men, and is
not disaster the lot of many a hero as well as of many a slave?”

“That is so, Ildanna.”

“Then why evade that shadow, and all because of fear of these dark
pirates out of the north. Is not honour better than safety, and is not
shame a worse death than to be slain?”

“Even so, Ildanna. Nevertheless, I wish to avoid vain bloodshed. There
can be but one end. Why should I ruin my people?”

“Ruin is not a sure thing, O King: but if it were, better ruin than
dishonour.”

“Dost thou speak as a lord of high birth, or as one of the common
people?”

“I speak as the son of Kian the Noble.”

“Even so; but for each noble in my kingdom there are a thousand
Dedannans of no rank. I am their king. I speak for them.”

For a time thereafter Lu sat brooding. His silence was worse than his
scornful words. Nuadh the King saw what was in his mind, and dreaded
that he would go forth in his wrath. Thrice he half rose as though to
lay hands upon Lu to restrain him, and thrice he sat back uncertain
what to do.

Then suddenly Lu rose, and in the eyes of all men drew slowly from its
sheath his great white sword. At sight of the “Answerer,” there was
a shiver among the Dedannans, so great was the terrible fame of this
sword, but still more because the drawing of it there and then by Lu of
the Long Hand meant that the flame was in his blood.

“Beware!” cried the king.

But Lu laughed a grim laugh. Then, lifting the “Answerer” on high,
and knitting his brows into a heavy frown, he sprang in among the
Fomorians.

It was like the leap of lightning among wild cattle, that. Hither
and thither the “Answerer” flashed, and at each blow a Fomorian head
whirled to the ground; yea, as a sharp prow will divide the wave-crest
from the wave, so the great sword severed the head from the shoulders
of each Fomorian, shoring through helmet or thick fell of hair as
through water.

It was not till a whirlwind of swords flashed and circled around Lu
that those about him woke from their stupor. Then with a loud shout the
sons of Manannan and others of the Fairy Host leaped forward and joined
in the fray.

The Fomorians fought with fury, being wrought to madness by the thought
that they were as chaff before these newcomers, in the face of the
whole Dedannan nation--for so great was their scorn of the people they
held in bondage that death at their hands seemed doubly accursed.

But before Lu of the Long Hand and his Fairy Host there was no
withstaying. By tens and scores the Fomorians fell, as swaying grain
before the reaper. Everywhere, flashing like a meteor, the white gleam
of the Answerer rose and fell, the pulse of death.

At last only nine of the Fomorian pirates survived, and these clustered
upon a low rising, and fought desperately to the end. Suddenly the
tides of battle ceased, and this was because of the voice of Lu Ildanna.

He looked scornfully at the remnant of the proud Fomorians. These were
now sullenly at bay, foreseeing death only, and not unwillingly now
that the despised Dedannans had brought them to so sore a pass.

“Let these dogs go!” exclaimed Lu.

At the bitter words, the emissaries of King Balor of Lochlin gripped
their swords anew, and ground their teeth in impotent rage. More they
could not do, for even in their brief breathing space they saw that
they were beset by a hedge of spears.

“Let these dogs go!” Lu said again. Then, addressing them, he added:

“Look ye, ye carrion wolves, we spare your lives only that ye may fare
back to your dens in the north, and tell that unkingly king, Balor of
the Evil Eye, that which we have done unto your company. And say this
also, that if he come hither, we shall do unto him and his, that which
we have done unto these dead men who were once your fellows.” With that
the nine Fomorians departed, scowling fiercely and below their breath
muttering imprecations and menaces.

That night the beacons of joy flared out across valley and plain, from
the hill of Tara, and great were the rejoicings throughout the land.
Only Nuadh of the Silver Hand dreamed uneasily for that and many other
nights; knowing well that Balor of the Evil Eye would not let pass
the slight which had been put upon him. And after all, it was but a
handful of the Fomorian host which had been slain on the Plains of
Tara. Nevertheless, the king hoped that he might be spared the wrath of
Balor, for none of the Dedannans whom he ruled had taken part in the
fray, but only those who were of the company of Lu of the Long Hand.

Bitter, indeed, was the wrath of Balor, when he heard what had been
done to his Fomorian emissaries.

“The Dedannans shall soon be but a memory,” he exclaimed; “their kings
and nobles shall utterly perish, and of all their race none shall
survive save those who shall be slaves for ever to my people. Their
very land, that green Eri they are so fain of, shall be no more than an
unregarded province of Lochlin.”

Thereafter, Balor sent word throughout all Lochlin, from the Cape of
the Midnight Sun to the Narrow Seas,[9] and bade all the peoples who
owned him king to assemble speedily for war; and in every haven he bade
the sea-galleys to be got ready.

This took many weeks, and thereafter was the slow waiting for the
coming of spring. But at last all was ready, and then Bras, the son
of Balor, led forth the mightiest host which had ever sailed from the
shores of Lochlin.

This vast concourse of galleys sailed northward before favouring winds,
and then westward along the storm-swept coasts of Alba, and at last
southward again by the Hebrid Isles. Thence, with fresh provisions and
replenished water-barrels, they sailed towards and round the northern
headlands of Eri, and like a great flock of sea-vultures settled upon
the coasts of Connaught.

With laughter and fierce disdain the Fomorians spread far and wide,
and at once began to despoil the country, and lay waste the tilled
lands. In the ears of all rang the arrogant parting words of Balor of
the Evil Eye: “And when at the last ye have cut off for me the head of
that man Lu, called the Ildanna, then put a mighty cable around this
troublesome Isle of Erin, and tow it back with your ships, and lay it
alongside the north coasts of our Lochlin.”

But meanwhile all the realms of the Tuatha-De-Danann were smitten with
fear. None dared await the dreaded Fomorians, and everywhere were
flying hordes of men and women and children, chariots, horses, and
cattle.

The king of Connaught in that day was Bove Derg, son of the Dagda,
he who afterwards became the last Dedannan king. Straightway he sent
word to Lu Ildanna, begging him to raise a host and succour the men of
Connaught, as otherwise not a man would be left to stay the advance of
the Fomorians.

Lu of the Long Hand was sorrowful that by his action he had brought
this curse upon the lands of Erin, yet he knew that it was better than
the old shame. By the Sun and Moon and Wind he swore that he would do
all he could to raise a host, and himself give battle to Bras and his
Fomorians.

With all speed he hasted to Dunree, and was glad indeed when he saw the
Hill of Tara rise from the plain. For of a surety he held that Nuadh
of the Silver Hand would join with the princes of Erin and fight the
invader.

That surety was in vain. Nuadh refused to go into battle.

“When Bras leads his Fomorians towards the Hill of Tara,” he said,
“that will be time for me to raise the banner against him.”

“Listen, Nuadh of the Silver Hand, art thou not High King?” exclaimed
Lu.

“Even so, Ildanna.”

“And is not thy first duty to lead the princes of Erin against the
invader? If we are all as one, we can laugh at Balor of the Evil Eye
and all the host he sends against us. If we are divided we shall surely
fall.”

But for all the pleadings of Lu Ildanna, Nuadh refused to take the
field. He had one answer to all pleas.

“Bras and his Fomorian host do no more than lay waste the lands of
Connaught. Let then the king of Connaught see to his own. I have sent
friendly messages to Balor, and in order to keep the peace have offered
alliance and even to pay tribute again. But till war is declared
against me I will do nothing.”

Furious against Nuadh of the Silver Hand, Lu Ildanna rode away.

“Dust upon thy home,” he muttered, “were it not for the ruin upon all
Erin. Nevertheless, I have but one thing to do.”

Lu had not ridden far, when his heart rejoiced because of three strong
warriors he saw approaching.

These were his father, Kian, and the two brothers of his father, Ald
and Art. In that day the seven fairest champions in the northlands of
Erin were Lu himself, Kian and his two brothers, and Brian, Ur, and
Urba, the sons of Turenn. Each of these was a host in himself, both
because of his own valour and for the great influence that each had
upon the clansmen of the north.

In a brief while Lu told all, and begged the aid of these three chiefs
for Bove Derg, and not for Bove Derg only, but for the honour and
safety of Erin.

Kian and Ald and Art were wroth with the high king.

“The first duty of a king is kinglihood,” said Kian.

“And without deathless courage a king is dead,” said Ald.

“And without sleepless eyes a king is a sluggard,” said Art.

“A king should be to all men what each man would fain be to himself,”
said Lu. “My father Kian says well: the first duty of a king is
kinglihood. But since Nuadh of the Silver Hand is fain to rest at ease
in his dun, under the safe shadow of Tara, so let him rest. We are men,
and must act.”

Therewith all took counsel, and while Lu rode westward, to raise
all whom he could to succour the men of Connaught, Ald and Art rode
southward.

“I shall go north,” said Kian.

“Why so?” asked Lu, knowing that it would be best for his father to go
eastward.

“The wind bloweth that way,” answered Kian lightly. But truly enough
none knew that in that answer and in that riding northward, was the
beginning of the long and dreadful tragedy of which, for generations
thereafter, the bards sang as The Fate of the Sons of Turenn.

       *       *       *       *       *

At this point Peterkin rose from where he kneeled beside Eilidh, and
went over to Ian Mor and took his hand and looked long at him.

“These words I have heard you say again and again, Ian--_Ma tha sin an
Dan_, if it be Destiny--what do they mean?”

“I cannot tell you, Peterkin; for to me they mean everything.”

“But must Kian come to sorrow because he followed the way of the wind?”

“I cannot tell you, Peterkin. But of this you may be sure, that no
man needs to do this or that thing because of the way of the wind or
anything else. Only, behind all doings of men there is a wind that
blows. That is the wind of Destiny. That is what I meant when I said
that Kian, choosing lightly to go the way of the wind, and by his own
choice, yet went the way of Fate.”

“And is Fate a man?”

“No.”

“Have you ever seen it?”

“No.”

“Has any one ever seen it?”

“No.”

Peterkin laughed below his breath.

“Ivor Maclean the boatman, told me that ‘an Dan’ was only a shadow
before and behind, and that none need trouble about a shadow.”

“And what do _you_ think, Peterkin?”

“I think that ‘an Dan’ is only a shadow before and behind; and I laugh
to see my shadow, but I do not fear it. It is only a shadow.”

“Peterkin is right, Ian,” said Eilidh, in a low voice. “And do you
remember what was said long ago about wisdom coming out of the mouths
of little children?”

“Yes,” Ian answered slowly and gravely, “Peterkin is right.”

But Peterkin only laughed merrily, as suddenly he sprang up.

“See,” he exclaimed, “my shadow has leapt from beside me, till now it
is fading along the wall. When I laughed it leapt away.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Well, resumed Ian Mor, Kian was not many miles forth upon the great
pastures to the north of Tara, when he saw three lordly men riding
towards him.

They were still a great way off, but Kian the Noble was noted far
and wide for his keen sight, and he knew who the mailed and shining
ones were. They were Dedannans, but they were of a clan at bitter feud
with his own; and his heart quailed as he saw that in that lonely
place he would have to meet face to face with Brian, Ur, and Urba, the
sons of Turenn. Far better would it have been for him to ride forward
fearlessly, and call upon the sons of Turenn to put all enmity aside
in the face of the bitter danger to Erin because of Bras and his
Fomorians. But a man born under a dark star must soon or late ride into
the shadow of that star.

So when Kian had realized that the foes of him and his house were fast
approaching, he cast about for some way to delude the sons of Turenn.
Already they had seen the stranger, though they had not recognised him.

In common with all the lords of the Dedannans, Kian carried with him
a magic wand. With this he could at any time transform himself into
some living creature. And so it happened that, while he was still
pondering, he caught sight of a vast herd of swine feeding upon the
thistle-pastures to the left; and no sooner had he done so than he took
his wand and changed himself into a boar. His horse, too, he changed;
and then both, grazing often, joined the great herd, and were soon at
one with it.

Kian laughed to himself at how he had outwitted the sons of Turenn,
but oversoon did he laugh. After all he was sorrowful; for it was not
seemly for a man to change himself into a pig, lest death or some
disaster came upon him in that guise: for, according as a man’s doom
came to him, so would he have to bear it.

Meanwhile the three sons of Turenn rode across the plain. Fair to see
were they, these three comely lords: Brian, the eldest and strongest;
Ur, the tallest and fairest; and Urba the swift. They had seen Kian
riding slowly towards them, but had not thought more than that he was
an emissary from Dunree, where Nuadh of the Silver Hand was. When,
however, they missed him suddenly, Brian frowned and drew rein.

“Tell me, my brothers,” he exclaimed, “where is he whom a brief while
ago we saw riding toward us?”

“He is no longer to be seen,” Urba answered. “Yet there is no
hiding-place that we wot of. If he were lying on the grass, we should
descry him and his horse from where we now are.”

“They are not on the grass,” said Ur; “for I could see a slim greyhound
were it lying there.”

Brian pondered awhile. Then he spoke again.

“As ye know well, war is all about us now, and it befits us to be wary.
It is clear that the man we saw was no friend to us, or why has he
hidden himself? But I think I know his secret: with a magic wand he has
turned himself into a pig, and is now among that great herd of swine
that we see yonder.”

“Then he has escaped us, Brian?”

“Not so, Ur. I too have my magic wand with me; with it I shall now turn
my two brothers into swift hounds. Ye shall then speed in among these
swine and see if ye can root out this man, who is surely an enemy.”

And with that Brian took his wand, and changed his brothers into
hounds; and they raced away with the speed of the wind, while he rode
swiftly towards a belt of forest which skirted the plain to the rear of
the herd.

When the baying of the hounds was heard, a panic seized upon the
swine. Like a great swaying mass of seaweed in the trough of the waves,
the herd swung to and fro; ever becoming more and more densely packed,
and squealing and grunting in terror and bewilderment as the two gaunt
hounds sprang against their heaving masses or dashed to and fro in
their midst.

At the east they were so driven in upon themselves, that they became
as one solid mass, close-wedged. Among these dense hundreds it seemed
impossible for Ur and Urba to find the enchanted man; but while they
were still running to and fro in their eager quest, Brian saw a pig
leap from the rear of the herd and run swiftly towards the belt of
forest.

Brian put his horse upon the wind, as the saying is; and it was a race
then between the mounted man and the enchanted boar: but just as the
first undergrowth was nigh Brian came up with the fleeing animal, and
drove his hunting-spear in betwixt its shoulders.

With a terrible scream the flying boar rolled over; then, with a wild
human crying and speech, begged for pity.

“Oh, son of Turenn,” it cried, “have pity upon me! Sure it is an evil
deed to slay me thus, well knowing who I am!”

“I know that thy voice is the voice of a man,” answered Brian, “but I
know not who thou art. I am Brian, eldest of the sons of Turenn. Tell
me thy name.”

“He who implores thy mercy, O Brian of the Oak Shaft, is Kian, the
father of thy comrade in years and arms, Lu of the Long Hand.”

By this time Ur and Urba were beside the victor and the victim, and now
resumed their human shape. When they heard the pleadings of Kian they
interceded for him, notwithstanding the deadly feud between the clans
of Turenn and Kian. But Brian would not listen to their counsel, not
even when Ur pleaded that great evil might come out of the slaying of
Kian, nor when Urba urged that this was not the day and the hour for
such a deed, when Erin needed every man to fight against the Fomorians.
And, of a truth, that has ever been the sad way of the Gael, who will
think of the private wrong first, than of the general weal, and so will
fall as a single tree will fall where a forest would be steadfast.

When Kian saw that his fate was come upon him, and heard Brian swear by
a sacred oath that he would not spare him though he returned thrice to
life, or seven times changed his form, he made one last supplication.

“At the least, as ye are honourable men, save me this dishonour. Let
me not die as a pig, but as a man. I have dropped my magic wand;
therefore, O Brian, I pray of thee to take thine, and with it restore
me to mine own form.”

“That shall be done,” said the chief, adding scornfully, “for sure it
is an easier thing for me to kill a man than a pig.”

But no sooner was Kian a man again than he laughed mockingly.

“Why do you laugh thus?” asked Ur.

“I laugh because I have outwitted ye at the last, ye sons of Turenn.
What is death to me who have a dust of grey hairs over my once black
locks, or is death indeed a thing at any time to fear overmuch? Ill as
it would befit me to die as a pig, still more ill would it be because
of that which follows death.”

“Speak,” said Ur, though in his heart both he and his brothers knew
what Kian was about to say.

“I have outwitted ye, as I have said; for if as a pig I had been slain
by Brian of the Oak Shaft, then ye would have had no other eric to pay
for me than the eric of a pig, but now ye shall have to pay the eric
of a man, and upon that the eric of a father of grown sons, and upon
that the fatherhood eric of each son, and upon that the eric of a great
lord, and upon that the eric of the broken honour of my son Lu of the
Long Hand. And I tell ye this, that never has there been, nor ever will
be, so great an eric as that which ye shall have to pay for this deed
of thine, so that in the years to come men shall speak of the eric of
the sons of Turenn as the most difficult and the worst that was ever
paid in Erin.”

“That may be,” said Brian sullenly, “but we shall slay thee here, in
this waste place, and none shall know when death came to thee, or where
thou liest, and for all that thy son Lu is Lu the Ildanna, he shall
seek in vain to know where the worms make merry upon thee.”

“In the shadow of death I see clearly, and I see that death will not
put his silence upon me till Lu has learned the evil deed that has been
done.”

“Spare him,” urged Urba, “for of a surety he is already sore wounded,
and he did no more than seek to escape us. It would be well, Brian, not
to have this man’s blood upon us.”

“Spare him,” pleaded Ur, “for innocent blood is an ill thing to spill.
This man did not come upon us with lifted spear or sword, but, seeing
that we were three and he one only, sought to escape. It is not a
knightly deed to take the life of a stricken man, and of one who asks
for mercy.”

“We will slay him,” said Brian sullenly.

“Remember this,” pleaded Ur, “that if we slay him, Urba and I must pay
the penalty along with thee, and that it is a hard thing upon us who
would fain spare this man.”

Brian laughed.

“If ye and Urba fear the eric, ye may go hence at once. I will do my
own slaying. But ye forget that the sons of Turenn are under _geas_ to
have no quarrel that is not the quarrel of each, and to fight no fight
wherein each doth not front it in the same hour and place.”

“We do not forget,” answered Ur and Urba; and each added: “Do as thou
wilt, Brian, our elder brother.”

So Brian turned to where Kian lay upon the stony thistle-strewn grass.

“Hast thou aught more to say?”

“This only, that no eric ever paid shall be counted as near unto that
which ye shall have to pay, and that the weapons wherewith ye slay me
shall cry out to Lu my son, and tell him what ye three have done unto
me.”

Again Brian laughed.

“Thou who fled before us as a pig shalt die as a trapped beast. We
shall not give thee the honour of death by the clean sword or the deft
spear.”

With that he stooped and raised on high a huge angular slab of stone,
grey below, and mossed and lichened above, and, swaying with the
weight, hurled it down upon the head of Kian. Then Ur and Urba lifted
other great stones, and did likewise, because of their bond. And this
was how death came to Kian the Noble.

When the old chief lay still and white at last, the three sons of
Turenn made haste to hide his body from sight; so they dug a great hole
in the sandy grass, and buried the slain man.

There was a strange trembling in the earth that day, a trembling felt
throughout Erin from sea to sea, and men marvelled and feared.

But none so much marvelled as Brian and Ur and Urba, for when they had
buried the bruised body of Kian they saw with horror that the shaking
earth threw it back again. Nevertheless, once more they buried it, and
deeper, and put heavy stones upon the trodden sods. Then, to their
still greater horror and amaze, the earth again trembled and again
threw back the murdered dead.

At that Ur and Urba wished to ride away at once from the accursed
place, but Brian would not.

“Fate is made by men, as well as that Fate rules men,” he said. “I
shall not rest content till the earth holds at last the body of Kian,
son of Kian the White.”

Yet it was not until the seventh time that the earth trembled no more,
and held within it, beneath a cairn of boulders, the slain body of Kian
the Noble.

Thereafter the three sons of Turenn rode swiftly away, and that night
were among the host which had been assembled by Lu of the Long Hand.

On the morrow, on the vast plains of Moytura, the great and terrible
Battle of the Kites was fought. It was so called because after a day
of dreadful slaughter the kites and hawks assembled in multitudes, and
were satiated with the feast of the dead. In that battle the fiercest
strife was on the part of four heroes: Lu the Ildanna, and the three
sons of Turenn. For hours the swaying and whirling of spears, the rush
of javelins, the flashing of swords, the trampling of horses and crash
of war-chariots, made the plain of Moytura a place of savage din and
fury. For long it seemed as though the great might and numbers of the
Fomorians would give the day to Bras, son of Balor of the Evil Eye; but
so great was the prowess of the Dedannan host, that the Fomorians were
mowed down as ripe grain.

In the wane of the afternoon, Bras and Lu met at last. The tides of
war ceased, for all men wished to see the battle-meeting of these two
champions.

But already Bras had seen that the day had gone against the glory of
Lochlin, and he knew that an hour hence his great army would be utterly
routed, and that all who did not straightway escape to the shores of
Connaught and gain the Fomorian galleys would be tracked and cut down
like flying wolves.

So he lowered his great spear, and threw his shield upon the ground,
and thereafter asked Lu to stay the tides of battle, and agreed that
the day should be accounted as a final victory to the men of Erin.
And the son of the king of Lochlin further agreed, that if Lu and the
leaders of the Dedannans would do this, he would give a solemn bond
to withdraw all the Fomorians from Erin, to cancel for ever the bond
put upon the Tuatha-De-Danann by Balor of the Evil Eye, and never to
return again in enmity, neither he nor any Fomorian of the north nor
southlander of lower Lochlin.

And thus it was that the great battle of Moytura, the Battle of the
Kites, came to an end. A year thereafter the grass was not yet green,
and the plain was covered with the white bones of the innumerous dead.

When all was over, and Bras and his defeated army were hasting towards
the distant Connaught shores, Lu threw from him his blood-stained
armour and the weapons he was almost too weary to bear. All day he
had fought, as only the mightiest heroes fight, and many strong and
valorous men had marvelled at his dauntless courage and at the prowess
that failed not for one moment.

Glad was Lu of the Long Hand to see Ald and Art, but when he asked how
his father had fared in the battle, and heard that he had not been
there, and had been seen of no man that day, he knew that Kian the
Noble was no longer alive.

“For,” he said, “if my father were alive he would have been with me
this day, or, if peradventure that were not possible, would have sent
me a sign. Howsoever this may be, something within me tells that my
father is no longer among the living. And now, ye who hear me, listen,
for by the Sun and the Moon and the Wind I swear that I shall not slake
this bitter thirst of mine, nor rest this over-weary head, until I have
found how and where and when an evil fate came upon my father, whom I
loved as I have loved and love none other.”

That night Lu Ildanna, with a hundred chosen men, rode swiftly to Tara,
but there found no word of Kian.

On the morrow he set forth at dawn, alone; for in a dream it had come
to him that his father lay moaning beneath the thistle-strewn grass
on the stony plain of Moy Murhenna. And there, in truth, Lu came upon
the end of his quest; for as he rode slowly and sadly across the plain,
whereon he could not discern a living being save a vast herd of swine,
he heard, as one may hear in a shell, a plaintive sighing.

“What is that sighing?” he cried. “Is it the death-sigh of thee, Kian
my father?”

There was no answer save the strange sighing, that was not of the
wind or any moving thing, but seemed now to come from above, now from
around, now from beneath. But at the third asking, a voice answered,
thin and feeble:

“It is the death-sighing of me, Kian thy father, O Lu my son.”

“And who put death upon thee, thou who liest there in the darkness of
the shadow of death?”

“The three sons of Turenn slew me here in this waste place. And because
that they slew me in no fair strife, and because that they finished
their slaying by crushing me with great stones till there was not left
of me one bone alive, I cry to thee, O Lu my son, whom men now call Lu
the Ildanna, because of thy craft and wisdom, to see that a greater
eric be exacted for me than has ever yet been exacted in Erin for any
slain man. And in the end see that thou sparest not, for otherwise
there shall be a greater bloodshed still; and ill it befits us, who are
noble, that we should bring a tide of blood over Erin, for no worthier
cause than the wiping out of that which lies between the clan of Kian
and the clan of Turenn.”

“As thou sayest, O Kian my father, so shall it be, and even unto the
end. And this I swear by the Sun and by the Moon and by the Wind.”

Nevertheless, Lu showed no grief till he saw his father’s bruised body
before him, and then he bewailed bitterly that he had not been nigh
when the sons of Turenn drove Kian the Noble to his fate; and bitterly
he lamented that one of the noble Dedannan race should be slain by
Dedannans; and bitterly he swore that an eric should be exacted such as
never before had been heard of in Erin, and that in the end, even were
it fulfilled, he should not spare, because of what Kian had foreseen.

At noon Lu returned from Tara, whither he had gone after he had viewed
the speechless dead body of his father, with ten chosen men whom he had
bound to silence.

So once more Kian the Noble was placed in his grave, but now standing,
as befits a hero. And above the grave they raised a cairn, and midway
in this cairn was a great slab of smooth stone, whereon Lu Ildanna
graved in Ogam the name and ancestry and great fame of Kian, son of
Kian, son of Kian the Thunder-Smith.

But when that night Lu entered Tara again, the whole of the king’s
town was lit with torches, and resounded with joyous shouts and cries
because of the great victory of the Dedannans over the Fomorians; nor
was any name so often named as that of Lu Lamfada, Lu the Long-Handed.

When Lu entered the palace of the king, he was received with a mighty
shout of welcome, and Nuadh of the Silver Hand himself came to greet
him, with fair loving words of praise and gratitude. Right glad was the
king to see Lu come to him thus, for he had feared that the Ildanna
bore him a bitter grudge because of his having refused his aid to drive
forth Bras and his Fomorians. Therefore it was that he paid honour
to Lu Ildanna above all other men, and led him to a seat at his right
hand, placing him above the whole assemblage of princes and great lords.

But Lu neither smiled nor made any sign of pleasure. His eyes wandered
round the concourse of the Dedannan chivalry. Suddenly his gaze became
intent and fixed, for upon three golden-studded seats of honour he
beheld the three sons of Turenn.

The high king of Erin was about to speak to his chiefs on the great
matter of rejoicing and counsel which had brought them all together,
when Lu arose. All stared in amaze, for only some unforeseen emergency
could justify a noble speaking before the high king had said what he
had to say.

“O King of Erin,” said Lu slowly, and in a low voice, yet so clear and
cold and vibrant that it was heard of every man in that vast concourse:
“O King of Erin, order the chain of silence to be brought hither, and
let its soft, delicate music be shaken from it, for I have that to say
that must be heard of all men, and not in their ears only but in their
hearts and in their minds.”

Therewith the Chain of Silence was brought, and was shaken slowly and
delicately by the young druid whose charge it was. The sweet low sound
rose into the air like fragrance, and passed through all the halls in
Tara, and filled the ears of every man, and the mind of each, and the
soul of each. There was not a sound in all that place, not a whisper,
not a sigh.

In that great silence Lu moved forward till he stood beside the king
and faced the whole assemblage.

“Chiefs and warriors of the Tuatha-De-Danann, I have that to ask ye to
which I need an answer this day. Tell me this: What would ye do unto
one who wittingly, and not in battle but shamefully, slew your father,
and he innocent, even such a man, say, as Kian the Noble?”

There was no whisper of answer. All sat there amazed, marvelling at the
strange question. But at last Nuadh the King spoke.

“What meaning lives in thy words, Ildanna? For we know that thy father
Kian is not slain, for he was not in the Great Battle.”

“Nevertheless he is slain, and here in this royal place my eyes behold
them who slew him.”

When Lu of the Long Hand had spoken these words, every man looked from
neighbour to neighbour in amaze. But all waited for the king to speak.

“What sayest thou, Nuadh of the Silver Hand, Ardree of Erin?”

“I have this to say, that if a man wittingly, and without the just
cause of war, slew my father, and he innocent, I would not be content
with exacting death, but would rather lop him limb from limb daily till
he died.”

“And what say ye, chiefs and nobles of the Dedannan race?”

“We say as the Ardree says,” cried one and all, save the three who sat
on golden-knobbed seats near the high king, though these too bowed
their heads in acquiescence.

“And what say ye, ye sons of Turenn?”

At this all turned and looked upon Brian and Ur and Urba, who sat pale
and stern. Brian answered for himself and his brothers.

“We say as the high king says.”

“Nuadh of the Silver Hand, Ardree of Erin, and all ye chieftains and
chiefs and nobles of the Dedannan race, I call ye to witness that this
man who has spoken slew my father, and that he and his brothers are
jointly guilty of that foul deed.”

For more than the furthest singing of an arrow, there was silence.
Neither the king nor any man spoke, but all looked to the sons of
Turenn to say Yea or Nay. But Brian and Ur and Urba sat in a frozen
stillness, and moved neither their hands nor their lips, and stared
only with unwavering eyes upon the white accusing face of the son of
the murdered Kian.

Then Lu spoke again.

“Behold the men who slew my father. And now, O king, I say not whether
there were good cause for this slaying: all men know that there was a
feud between the clans of Kian and Turenn. Nor do I wish to bring evil
into this house and town of thine. Because one man is dead, there is no
need that others must die who have nought to do with his death. I have
come in peace: I would go in peace. But this only I say: I go not hence
till I have won from the sons of Turenn the vow of my eric.”

“That is right and wise,” answered the king, “and for myself I would
be well content if, being guilty, I could evade death by paying any
eric whatsoever.”

At this Brian rose.

“Lu, son of Kian, has spoken inadvisedly, O king. He has accused us of
a crime, he knowing nothing of when or how that deed was done, and in
what circumstances, and how made inevitable. Nor, again, have we ever
admitted that we are guilty of this deed of murder.”

“It is enough. Kian, father of Lu Ildanna, came to his death through ye
three sons of Turenn. Whatsoever eric Lu may exact, that eric ye shall
have to pay. Otherwise the lives that ye hold so dear, being your own,
will no longer have the shelter of this royal place; and as no man’s
hand can be raised to aid thee, ye shall be at the mercy of Lu of the
Long Hand, and of whomsoever he may bring against thee.”

For a brief while Brian talked low with his brothers; then he turned
and addressed Nuadh the king and Lu Lamfada.

“We are for peace, not strife. We say not we are guilty, but we will
pay the eric that Lu, son of Kian, may demand, save only that it be
not against the life of Turenn our father.”

“That is well said,” exclaimed Nuadh of the Silver Hand.

“I accept the troth,” said Lu, “and now call upon all here to witness
that the sons of Turenn have made a solemn pledge.”

There were few there who did not wonder what the eric would be, for all
knew that Lu was a stern man, and would not rest till he had done his
utmost to make the sons of Turenn expiate their deed.

Great was their amazement, therefore, when Lu gave forth the eric that
he demanded.

“The eric I demand is this,” he said: “that ye bring me three apples, a
certain skin, a spear, two horses and a chariot, seven swine, a hound,
and a roasting spit. And further, that ye shout three shouts upon a
hill. Yet, if ye will,” Lu added scornfully, “I shall remit a portion
of this eric if ye find it too heavy for ye.”

“It is neither heavy nor great,” answered Brian, “if there be no hidden
evil behind. For by the Sun and Wind I swear that I would not count
too heavy an eric, three hundreds of thousands of apples, or thrice a
hundred skins, or many score horses and chariots, spears and hounds, or
a shouting a hundred times upon a hundred hills.”

“Nevertheless, I do not account it small,” answered Lu gravely. “But
give me now security that ye shall fulfil this eric to the uttermost.”

“We give ourselves as security.”

“Not so,” exclaimed Lu scornfully. “I will not have the security of
thyselves.”

“Then I call upon Bove Derg, son of the Dagda, and upon Nuadh of the
Silver Hand, Ardree of Erin, and upon the score I shall name of the
foremost chiefs of the Dedannan race, to be our pledge and warranty.”

And after Brian had named the score, all they, and Nuadh the king, and
Bove Derg, the son of the Dagda, gave the pledge, so that thenceforth
the sons of Turenn were under solemn _geas_ to fulfil the eric, or die
in the effort to fulfil that eric, or otherwise bring dishonour upon
all these noble and great lords, each of whom moreover would be bound
to seek the lives of Brian and Ur and Urba.

“And now tell us if that is all, O Lu Ildanna, for much I misdoubt me
if thou hast no evil thought for us behind thy fair-seeming words.”

Thereat all leaned forward and listened eagerly, for each man knew that
Lu was not vainly called the Ildanna, for there was no one in all Erin
who had so much knowledge, or whose craft was so greatly to be feared.
When he had uttered the eric that he demanded, all were at first
amazed. Then some had thought that he was under _geas_ never to exact
a great eric, but always the smallest that he might make; but most
were troubled, for behind these slight exactions they knew that he had
arrowy intentions.

“Yes, ye sons of Turenn,” Lu Lamfada began slowly, “I shall tell ye now
what my eric is. I do not think ye shall find it over easy.”

Brian and Ur and Urba rose, but all the host otherwise remained seated.
The three sons of Turenn leaned upon their spears, and tall and goodly
warriors they seemed, and worthy of their great fame as three of the
seven chief champions of Erin.

“First, then, there is this. The skin I demand of ye is one that
belongs to the king of Greece in the far eastern lands. It is the
skin of healing. No man need die of wounds who has that skin; and cold
water, too, it will make into wine. I do not think ye will come easily
by that skin.

“Second, there is this. The spear I demand of ye is the spear called
Aradvar, the dreadful spear of Pisarr, Prince of Persia, whose point is
for ever kept cooling in a cauldron of water, so terrible is its fiery
thirst, and that thirst for blood. I do not think ye will find the
spear of Pisarr easy to obtain.

“Third, there is this. The chariot and two horses that I demand of ye
belong to Dobar, the king of Sicily. They heed neither the rough ways
of the land nor the rough ways of the sea, but travel equally and at
the will of him who drives. I do not think ye will find it easy to
obtain that chariot and its two horses.

“Further, there is this. Far to the south there is a great lord, Asol
of the Golden Pillars. It is he who owns the seven swine I ask of ye.
Ye may slay the seven and yet all will remain. They know not death,
though ye may slay them and feed upon them. There is no death upon
them. I do not think ye will find it easy to obtain these swine.

“Fifth, there is this. In a further land still, that is called Irrua,
there is a great and terrible hound named Falinnish. So fierce is he
that whatever beast comes within sight of him falls in helpless fear. I
do not think ye will find that hound very easy to obtain, or bring with
ye from far-off Irrua.

“Sixth, there is this. In the remote seas is an isle called Fiancarya.
It is there that the sea-women dwell. In caverns beneath the waves they
roast their food. It is their roasting spit I ask of ye. I do not think
ye will find it easy to obtain that thing.

“Seventh, there is this. The three apples I ask of ye are of gold,
and are in an ancient garden in Isberna. That ancient close is well
guarded, O Sons of Turenn, so that ye may not find it easy even to see
the wind-waved summits of the trees. I do not think ye will bring back
these apples.[10]

“And lastly, there is this. In the remotest north of remote Lochlin
there is a hill called Mekween. It is so called from a man of that
name who lives there. He is a great and powerful man, and none others
equal him save only his two sons. So terrible are they that no man dare
venture into that wild place where they live, save in amity. It was
with them that my father learned his great craft with the sword; and so
great will their wrath be that ye have slain him, that even were I to
forgive ye, they would not. Moreover, Mekween and his sons are under
_geas_ not to allow a shout to be shouted upon that hill. I do not
think ye will find it easy to pass the sons of Mekween, nor to shout
three shouts upon that hill.”

With that, Lu the Ildanna bowed before the king, and sat upon his
golden chair again.

All men looked with sorrow upon the sons of Turenn. Any of the seven
_geasan_ of this eric that Lu put upon them was more than enough
for any hero: how then would they survive till the last, or, having
survived, how would they bring back with them these things, and how
escape the wrath of Mekween and his sons?

Nevertheless, the sons of Turenn were now under bond, and they had no
choice but to do what they could to fulfil their eric.

With sad hearts they left the great beauty and wonder of Tara, and with
sadder hearts still reached their own land. Here with sorrow they bade
farewell to Turenn their father and to dark-eyed Enya their sister,
whom they loved so passing well, and to all their kindred and folk.
Thereafter they set forth on their long and ever more and more perilous
quest.

It would have been easy for the sons of Turenn to have passed over into
Alba, and sought service with the king of that country; or to have gone
among the Kymri in the inland highlands beyond the isle where Manannan
had his home: or southward to Lyonesse or into Armorica. But honour
is a better thing than ease, and it would ill have befit heroes such
as Brian and Ur and Urba to have evaded their solemn troth. A bitter
wrong they had done, because of the hereditary feud betwixt the clans
of Turenn and Kian: but now there was one thing only to do, and that
to fulfil the eric put upon them by Lu, son of Kian. Moreover, Nuadh
the Ardree and Bove Derg, son of the Dagda, and a score of the noblest
lords in Erin were their warranty that they would do this thing.

So, one day of the days, they set forth from Erin: and sad indeed were
they when across the foam they took their last look at Dun Turenn and
at the dear familiar hill of Ben Edar.

       *       *       *       *       *

For that night Peterkin heard no more of the story of the Fate of the
Sons of Turenn; but all the next evening, and the next again, he sat
entranced by the strange moving tale of how Brian and Ur and Urba one
by one fulfilled the hard and perilous conditions of their eric, and
this until the sixth was done.

But here, now, this tale cannot be told in full. To tell it aright
would need a volume not less than this is.

It must suffice that after innumerable hardships, after fierce cold
and fiercer heat, after hunger and thirst and daily perils by land
or sea, and strange and frightful encounters, and hazardous fights
with monsters and wild men and kings and princes, the sons of Turenn
found themselves sailing towards the remote north of Lochlin, having
accomplished the six seeming impossible conditions.

That nigh-impossible task, indeed, had been made possible by the magic
boat of Manannan, called the Sweeper of the Waves, which they had won
from Lu by unlooked-for wile. For before they had left Tara they had
played a game of chess with Lu Ildanna, well knowing that Lu was under
_geas_ never to refuse to play at chess when asked by any Dedannan, or
to pay the hazard that was decided upon, whatsoever it might be. There
was no player in all Erin to surpass Ur, though few knew this, for he
was little given to talk, and still less of his own doings.

First Urba had offered to play with Lu, and the hazard of that play
was to be the life of Lu Ildanna. “I will play that hazard,” he said,
“if thou wilt pay the like penalty if thou dost lose.” But when
Urba refused, he could play no more, because he had declined the
counter-hazard.

Then Brian had offered to play, and the hazard of that play was to be
Daurya, the beautiful daughter of a great lord, whom Lu loved. “I will
play that hazard,” he said, “if, in return, thou wilt pledge me Enya of
the Dark Eyes, thy sister.” But when Brian refused this hazard, he too
could play no more with Lu until Lu asked him.

Then Ur played, and the hazard of that play was the “Sweeper of the
Waves,” Manannan’s magic boat. “I will play that hazard,” Lu said, “if
in return thou wilt sail in it, and affront Manannan to his face.” To
that Ur agreed, and they played, and Ur won.

This magic boat would sail swiftly and safely in any sea whether calm
or tempest-wrought, and at a word would make for any coast or haven;
more like a great bird it was, or some creature of the air and sea.

“White shall be thy foamy track,” cried Lu as they sailed away; “but
red everywhere shall be the wake behind ye.”

And so it was. For death and the bitterness of the sword were ever in
their way and in their wake. Nevertheless, they unceasingly rejoiced in
their possession of the Sweeper of the Waves, and when their eric-quest
took them into far eastern lands beyond the reach of great rivers, they
hid their precious vessel, or bade it lie till it heard their summoning
voice.

And so at the last it happened that the sons of Turenn won the three
golden apples out of the guarded close in Isberna; and by craft and
daring carried away from Sicily the famous chariot and two steeds
which had no peer in all the world; and from Asol of the Golden
Pillars, who gave them in ransom for his life, they took the seven
deathless swine; and from its cauldron in the heart of a hostile city
they snatched the terrible spear of Pisarr; and the far-famed skin of
healing they brought away from the palace of Toosh, king of Greece,
whose head they left idly rolling upon his marble floor; and in far
Irrua they put captivity upon the terrible hound Falinnish; and in the
wild seas of Fiancarya they dared the sea-women in their caverns under
the waves, and took from them the roasting spit that Lu had demanded.

All this they did, and much else in the doing of these wonders. And now
nothing remained but to shout three shouts upon the hill of Mekween;
and to this end they sailed blithely and swiftly towards the far north
of Lochlin.

But meanwhile, in far-away Erin, Lu Ildanna became aware, by his
subtle magic and knowledge, that the sons of Turenn had one by one
accomplished all but the last of the bitter tasks of the eric he
had set upon them. He had not deemed this fulfilment possible, but
while greatly he marvelled that courage and endurance could so bring
impossible things to pass, he dreaded lest the sons of Turenn should
prevail in the last task also. For if they came back to Erin with
all that great eric fulfilled, then would there be a blood-shedding
terrible indeed.

Moreover, Lu Ildanna, who saw far ahead of the things of the moment,
was even now preparing for that second great battle upon the Plain of
Moytura which he knew would come again; and a battle mightier and more
desperate than the last, or than ever was seen in Erin before. Great
warrior as he was, and lordly as was the war-host of the Dedannans, he
feared this final battle unless he had at least half of the eric he had
set upon the sons of Turenn--and, above all, the Spear of Pisarr, the
Skin of Healing, and the War-chariot of the Sicilian king. Therefore he
longed for the return of his foes, the sons of Turenn; yet feared that
they should come back having accomplished all.

So on a day of the days he made a deep and potent spell, and sent this
spell forth to work its noiseless and invisible way across land and sea
and under the flaming sun and the white glister of the stars, till it
should find the Sweeper of the Waves.

So forth that subtle spell went, and when it reached at last the
Sweeper of the Waves it crawled stealthily into the great boat, and
wound itself about the weary bodies of Brian and Ur and Urba, and moved
into their brains, filled as they were with dreams of Erin and of home.

The spell was the spell of oblivion, but they knew it not.

And so it chanced that they could no longer understand why it was they
sailed northward, nor had they any memory of the last obligation of the
eric, and thought neither of Mekween and his sons, nor of the doom put
upon them by Lu, nor of the vanity of all their long quest and brave
endurance if they returned with the eric unfulfilled in the least part.

It was with joy that they set their prow for green Erin; and with joy
that they saw again its green grassy hills above its white shores; and
with joy that they recognised Ben Edar and Dun Turenn; and with joy
that they kissed once more Turenn their father and Enya of the Dark
Eyes, their sister, and knew themselves back at last from all their
weary wandering and endless peril and strife.

Great was the marvelling at what they brought back, and the oldest
druids admitted that never in the history of Erin had so great a wonder
been done.

Alas! theirs was but a brief joy.

Lu Ildanna said nothing till he had put away all the treasures of that
eric. Then he said gravely:

“All is accomplished save one thing. Have ye shouted three shouts upon
the hill of Mekween?”

And as he spoke he broke the spell, so that suddenly Brian and Ur and
Urba remembered, and with shame and grief had to say that this last
thing they had not done.

In vain did Turenn supplicate for his sons, in vain even was the
pleading of the king. Lu had but one answer. “All else is as nought if
they have not done this thing--to shout three shouts upon the hill of
Mekween.”

So once more the sore-tried heroes set forth, but with dim
presentiments of woe; for now they had neither the Skin of Healing nor
the Sweeper of the Waves, for these had been taken away by Lu, and he
would not give them again.

Nevertheless, they reached their goal. A great and terrible fight
was theirs with Mekween and his sons Conn and Corc and Ae--the most
terrible fight, the old bards say, which was ever fought between six
men--for at the beginning the sons of Turenn slew Mekween.

At dusk on that disastrous day six gashed and mutilated men lay in the
swoon of death. Out of that swoon, three men never waked, and these
were Conn and Corc and Ae: and two had not strength to move even when
they waked, and these were Ur and Urba; and Brian alone staggered to
his feet, and stared through a mist of blood.

When at last the eldest of the sons of Turenn looked upon his brothers,
and saw their glassy eyes staring idly at the sunrise, he feared that
they too were dead. Then he saw that the pulse of life still flickered.
Weak as he was, he took first Ur upon his shoulders, and bore him up
the rocky slope to the ridge of the hill of Mekween; and then returned
and bore Urba thither also.

Then it was that three thin, faint shouts went forth upon the hill,
so thin and faint that the browsing stags on the uplands did not lift
their heads.

Thus was it that the Great Eric was fulfilled.

But, alas! the piteous tale of their return. None could tell aright
that woe-stricken, death-weary voyage of three dying men, upborne by
one hope only--that they might free their name and clan from the eric
put upon them, and lay their accusing deaths at the feet of Lu Ildanna.

Yet hardly might they do even this. For as they drew nigh the coasts of
Erin once more, Ur and Urba spoke to Brian and supplicated him to raise
their heads, so that, before they died, they might see again the green
hills of their beloved Banba, and high Ben Edar, and their home Dun
Turenn.

But to this Brian made answer:

“Dear brothers, too great is my weakness, for I am now even as ye are.
Lo! through my gaping wounds one of these birds that skim above us
might fly, and be not snared within me.”

After that, they spake no word till the galley grided against the sands
of Erin.

Soon all in Dun Turenn and in all the lands of Edar knew that Brian,
Ur, and Urba were come again; but sorrowful were they indeed to see,
instead of the three proud heroes, only three wasted men like unto
shadows. Neither Ur nor Urba could speak, but Brian’s voice could rise
to a thin whisper.

With halting breath he bade his father hasten to Tara, and tell Lu
Lamfada that now all the eric was paid at last; and then beseech him,
by his honour and fair name, and for the glory of the old Dedannan
faith, and by the invocation of the Sun and Moon and Wind, to lend to
the three perishing sons of Turenn, the Skin of Healing, so that their
lives might not flicker out as the flame of spent torches.

But, alas! Lu would not yield to that prayer, not even when the grey
hairs of Turenn were at his feet. Then once more Brian besought his
father; and now it was that he bade his father put him upon a litter,
and bear him gently, because of his open wounds, and lay him at the
feet of Lu.

And when he was there, Brian said this thing:

“Behold, O Lu Ildanna, son of Kian, we have fulfilled the heaviest eric
ever exacted of any man since the world was made. And now we ask this
one thing alone: one hour only of the Healing Skin that we ourselves
brought unto thee. Yet not for myself I ask this, if thou desirest my
life, since it was I who slew thy father, but for my brothers Ur and
Urba. And if not for them--though they are guiltless of this ill, and
are with me in this dire plight because they would not forsake me,
but made my fortune their fortune--then for the sake of the old hero
Turenn, who was comrade in arms with thy father Kian when both were
youths. And by the Sun, and by the Moon, and by the Wind, and by thine
honour, I cry to thee to be merciful, and to do this thing.”

But Lu smiled a bitter, evil smile. Half that smile was from the cruel
revengefulness in his breast, and half because he feared that if Brian
and Ur and Urba lived, there would be an end of the Dedannan race, for
the fierce internecine wars which would be in Erin.

“I would not give thee the Skin, Brian, though all thy race, nay, not
though every man and woman in the eastlands were to perish with thee.
Go hence, and in the shadow of death remember the eric unto death of
Lu the Long-Handed.”

So Brian went forth upon his litter, with the death-sweat already upon
him.

That night a long and bitter lamentation went up from Dun Turenn, and
the Beacons of Death flared upon Ben Edar. For, at the setting of the
sun, Brian and Ur and Urba breathed out their souls into the light, and
these moved swift to Flathinnis, the holy island where are gathered all
the souls of heroes.

Yet on their way to join the innumerous deathless dead, they halted
once, for they heard a thin voice crying upon the wind. It was the
voice of Turenn their father.

In one great grave before the mighty dun, the four were buried, erect,
and sword in hand. And on a slab midway in the vast cairn of stones
that was erected thereon, was writ in branching Ogam the names and
glory of Turenn and his three sons. For three days the people wept.
Then, as the wont was, Enya of the Dark Eyes decreed the funeral games.

And so these heroes died, and with them went the third part of the
perishing glory of the Tuatha-De-Danann.

For in the end, that which is to be, is. There is no gainsaying the
slow, sure word of Fate. And, too, there is this thing to be said. The
wind in the grass outlasts the branching Ogam graven in granite, and
the granite cenotaph itself, and the powdered dust of that granite.

[Illustration]




  Darthool and the
  Sons of Usna




            “the story this
    Of her, the morning star of loveliness,
    Unhappy Helen of a western land.”

          _“Deirdrê.” Trs. by Dr. Douglas Hyde._




[Illustration: A great raven, glossy black, and burnished in the sun
rays.

  _To face p. 177._]
]




  Darthool and the
  Sons of Usna


The story I will tell you now, Peterkin, is more beautiful, though not
so old.

In all the regions of the Gael throughout Scotland, and in every isle,
from Arran and Islay in the south, to Iona in the west, and Tiree in
mid-sea, and the Outer Hebrides, there is no story of the old far-off
days so well known as that of Darthool.

She it is who in Ireland is called Deirthrê or Deirdrê; and in Ireland
to this day there is not a cowherd who has not heard of Deirdrê.

Her beauty filled the old world of the Gael with a sweet, wonderful,
and abiding rumour. The name of Deirdrê has been as a lamp to a
thousand poets. In a land of heroes and brave and beautiful women,
how shall one name survive? Yet to this day and for ever, men will
remember Deirdrê, the torch of men’s thoughts, and Grainne whom Diarmid
loved and died for, and Maev who ruled mightily, and Fand whose white
feet trod faery dew, and many another. For beauty is the most excellent
sweet thing in all the world, and though of it a few perish, and a
myriad die from knowing nothing of it, beneath it the nations of men
move forward as their one imperishable star. Therefore he who adds
to the beauty of the world is of the sons of God. He who destroys or
debases beauty is of the darkness, and shall have darkness for his
reward.

The day will come, Peterkin, when you will find a rare and haunting
music in these names. They will bring you a lost music, a lost world,
and imperishable beauty. You will dwell with them, till you love
Deirdrê as did the sons of Usna, and would die for her, or live to
see her starry eyes; till you look longingly upon the Grainne of your
dreams, and cry as Diarmid did, when he asked her, as death menaced
them, if even yet she would go back, and she answered that she would
not: “Then go forward, O Grainne!”

Many poets and shennachies have related this tale. I have heard it
given now this way, and now that; sometimes with new names and scenes,
sometimes with other beginnings and endings; but at heart it is ever
the same. Nor does it matter whether the father of Deirdrê be Felim,
the warrior bard of the Ultonians, or Malcolm the Harper, or any other,
or whether the fair and sweet beauty of the world be called Deirdrê or
Darthool. But as here in our own land she is called Darthool, that I
will call her.

I will tell the story as it is told in the old chronicles, and to
this day, and if I add aught to it, that shall only be what I myself
heard when I was young, and had from the lips of an old woman, Barabal
Mac-Aodh, who was my nurse. She came out of Tiree or Coll, I forget
which.

       *       *       *       *       *

Well, in the ancient dim days when Emania was the capital of the
Ultonians, the fair and wonderful capital of the kingdom of Ulster,
and before Maev, the queen of the south, had buried the chivalry of
the north in dust and blood, there came into the realm of Concobar the
Ultonian king, whom some call Conor and some Connachar, three of the
noblest and fairest of the youths of the world. These are they who
then bore, and in all the years since have borne, the name of the Sons
of Usna, who was himself, some say, a feudal king, in Alba.[11]

It is because of these three heroes that this story I am relating is
often called the story of the Sons of Usna. But first, I have that to
tell you which precedes the time when Nathos,[12] and Ailne, and Ardan,
stood in the house of Concobar the high king.

This Concobar was a great prince. He was known as Concobar MacNessa,
for though he was the son of Fatna the Wise, son of Ross the Red, son
of Rory, Nessa his mother was a famous queen, and had indeed by her
beauty and her wiles brought Concobar to the overlordship of Uladh[13]
when he was yet a youth.

In many of the tales of the old far-off days, you will hear the rumour
of the splendour and wonder of the city of Emania. In Concobar’s
time it was called Emain Macha, for it had been built by a great and
beautiful queen--Macha Mongruay, Macha of the Ruddy Hair. A thousand
times have poets chanted of Emain Macha, and in the ancient days the
bards loved to sing also of Macha herself. Here is an old far-off lay:

    “O ’tis a good house, and a palace fair, the dun of Macha,
    And happy with a great household is Macha there;
    Druids she had, and bards, minstrels, harpers, knights,
    Hosts of servants she had, and wonders beautiful and rare,
    But nought so wonderful and sweet as her face, queenly fair,
                O Macha of the Ruddy Hair!

    The colour of her great dun is the shining whiteness of lime,
    And within it are floors strewn with green rushes and couches white,
    Soft wondrous silks and blue gold-claspt mantles and furs
    Are there, and jewelled golden cups for revelry by night:
    Thy grianan of gold and glass is filled with sunshine-light,
                O Macha, queen by day, queen by night!

    Beyond the green portals, and the brown and red thatch of wings
    Striped orderly, the wings of innumerous stricken birds,
    A wide shining floor reaches from wall to wall, wondrously carven
    Out of a sheet of silver, whereon are graven swords
    Intricately ablaze; mistress of many hoards
                Art thou, Macha of few words!

    Fair indeed is thy couch, but fairer still is thy throne,
    A chair it is, all of a blaze of wonderful yellow gold:
    There thou sittest, and watchest the women going to and fro,
    Each in garments fair and with long locks twisted fold in fold:
    With the joy that is in thy house men would not grow old,
                O Macha, proud, austere, cold.

    Of a surety there is much joy to be had of thee and thine,
    There in the song-sweet sunlit bowers in that place:
    Wounded men might sink in sleep and be well content
    So to sleep, and to dream perchance, and know no other grace
    Than to wake and look betimes on thy proud queenly face,
                O Macha of the Proud Face!

    And if there be any here who wish to know more of this wonder,
    Go, you will find all as I have shown, as I have said:
    From beneath its portico thatched with wings of birds blue and
        yellow
    Reaches a green lawn, where a fount is fed
    From crystal and gems: of crystal and gold each bed
                In the house of Macha of the Ruddy Head.

    In that great house where Macha the queen has her pleasaunce
    There is everything in the whole world that a man might desire.
    God is my witness that if I say little it is for this,
    That I am grown faint with wonder, and can no more admire,
    But say this only, that I live and die in the fire
                Of thine eyes, O Macha, my desire,
                With thine eyes of fire!”[14]

It was in this wonderful forefront of Ulster that Concobar reigned.
The fame of Emain Macha was throughout Gaeldom; and there was no man
or woman who, as the days went by, did not hear of the greatness of
Concobar.

On a day of the days, the king went with his chief lords on a visit to
the dun of Felim, a warrior and harper whom he loved. There was to be
great feasting, and all men were glad. Felim himself rejoiced, though
he would fain have had the king come to him a few days later, for his
wife was heavy with child, and looked for her hour that very day or the
next.

In the midmost of the feast, Concobar saw that Cathba, an aged Druid
who had accompanied him, was staring into the other world that is about
us.

“Speak, Cathba,” he said. “There is no man in all Erin who has wisdom
like unto thine. What is it that thou seest, with the inner sight that
I perceive well is now upon thee?”

“Old as I am with the heavy burden of years and sorrow, O Concobar,
did I not beg that I might come with thee to this festival at the dun
of Felim? And that was not because I wearied to hear strange harping
and singing, good and fine and better than our own as this harping is
here, in the house of Felim; for I am old and weary, and care more to
listen to the wind in the grass, or to the sighing upon the hill, than
to any music of war or love.”

“Then what was it that was in thy mind, Cathba?”

“This, O king. I saw a shadow arise whenever I thought of our Ultonian
realm, and I felt within me the burden of a new prophecy. Nevertheless,
I was moved by naught till I entered the dun of Felim, and now I know.”

“Speak,” said the king; while all there listened with awe as well as
eagerness, for Cathba was the wisest of the Druids, and knew many
mysteries, and what he had foretold had ever come to pass. Slowly, the
white-haired Druid looked around the faces of all seated there. Then he
looked at the king. Then he looked at Felim.

“To thee, O Felim, shall be born this night a sting, a sword, a
battering-ram, and a flame.”

Felim the Harper stared with intent gaze, but said nothing. Of what
avail to say aught against the decrees of the gods?

“This night shall that which I have said be born unto thee, O Felim.
The sting will sting to madness him who is king of the Ultonians; the
sword will sever from Uladh the chief of her glories, the proud Red
Branch for which Concobar and all his chivalry shall perish; the ram
shall batter down the proud splendour of Emain Macha; the flame shall
pass from dun to dun, from forest to forest, from hill to hill, from
the isles of Ara on the west to the shores of the sea-stream of the
Moyle on the north, and to those of the sea of Manannan in the east.”

Still Felim answered nothing. Then the king spoke:

“Thy words come in dust, like wind-whirled autumn leaves. We have not
thy further sight, Cathba, and understand thee not.”

Then once more Cathba spake out of the dream that was upon him:

“Two stars I see shining in a web of dusk; and, in the shadow of that
dusk, a low tower of ivory and white pearls I see, and a strange
crimson fruit; and through all and over all I hear the low, sweet
vibration of the strings of a harp, a harp such as the Dedannan folk
play upon in the moonshine in lonely places, but sweeter still, sweeter
and more wonderful.”

“Is this thy second vision one and the same with thy first, O Cathba?”
asked the king.

“Even so. For the shining stars are her eyes, and the web of dusk is
the flower-fragrant maze of her hair, that low tower of ivory is her
fair, white, wonderful neck, and her white teeth are these pearls, and
that strange crimson fruit is no other than her smiling mouth--a little
smiling mouth with life and death upon it because of its laughter and
grave stillness. As for that harp-playing, it is her voice I hear--a
voice more soft and sweet and tender than the love-music of Angus Ogue
himself. O shining eyes, O strange crimson fruit that is a little
smiling mouth, O sweet voice that is more excellent to hear than the
wild music of the Hidden People of the hills--it is of ye, of ye that I
speak, and of thee, O tender, delicate fawn, in all thy loveliness.”

None spake, but all stared at the Druid. For dream was upon them at
these words, and each man imagined his desire, and was wrought by it,
and was rapt in strange longing.

It was Concobar who broke the silence.

“Of whomsoever thou speakest, Cathba, she is surely of the divine folk.
That exceeding loveliness is for the joy or the sorrow of the world.”

Only Felim the Harper was troubled, for now he knew well that the
ancient Druid spoke of the unborn child with whom even then his wife
was in travail. But no sooner had Concobar ceased than Cathba rose,
with his great dark eyes aflame beneath his white eye-brows. His voice
was loud and terrible.

“Behold, I see this thing; behold the vision of Cathba the Druid, who
is old and nigh unto death. And what is before mine eyes is a sea, a
sea of flowing crimson, a sea of blood. Foaming it rises, and wells
forth, and overflows, and drowns great straths and valleys, and laves
the flanks of high hills, and from the summits of mountains pours down
upon the lands of the Gael in a thundering flood, blood-red to the
blood-red sea.”

But now the spell of silence was broken. All leaped to their feet, and
many put their hands upon their swords. There was not one who did not
fear the prophesying of Cathba the wise Druid. That deluge of blood,
was it not a terror, a great ruin to avert?

“If this child that the wife of Felim the Harper is to bear this
night be a blood-bringer so terrible,” they cried, “let us slay her
at birth. For surely it is better to kill a child than to destroy a
nation.”

So spake they out of their ignorance that they thought wisdom. For they
did not know that there is no thought, no power, no spell, no craft,
wherewith to turn aside the feet of Destiny. What has to be, will be,
and no man living can say or do aught that is of avail against the
inevitable tides of Fate.

For the first time since Cathba had prophesied, Felim uttered word.

“Listen, my kinsmen and fellow-knights of the Red Branch. A sore pity
is it for my wife Elva to bear a daughter that shall be a sting to
sting the king to madness, and a sword to sever the Red Branch from
Uladh, our fair heritage, and a ram to break down the walls of Emania,
and a flame to consume the land from shore to shore. And as for that
sea of blood, let it not be upon my head. For I, the father of the
child of Elva, that Cathba says is to be a woman-child and of a beauty
wonderful to see, say unto ye: That which ye would fain do, do. If it
seems good unto ye, O Concobar, and ye of the Red Branch, let this
child perish, so that the doom foretold by Cathba may be averted.”

At that all were glad save Concobar. Two men was he, this king: a man
who recked little of aught save his desire, and a man who had wisdom.
Out of his wisdom he knew that Felim and the Red Branch lords spoke
madness, for if it was ordained that the child of Elva should bring
doom, that doom would surely come. Out of his longing he loved the
beauty of which Cathba had spoken, and desired it against the years to
come, and for the solace of his years when he had loved much and at the
last was fain only of that which was the crown of life. So he spoke to
those before him, and prevailed with them. Not vainly was he called
Concobar of the Honeymouth.

“I will speak first to thee, Felim, son of Dall, my bard. It is not
good to put death upon the fruit of one’s loins. Thine own child should
not see death through thee. But even were it so, it is not meet for me
or for any one to bring the shame and pain of death to the house of a
friend. Therefore, do not speak of putting silence and darkness upon
the child of Elva.”

Having spoken thus, the king turned to the lords of the Red Branch. As
the wont was, at the royal festivals there were five and three score
over three hundred of the Red Branch there and then.[15]

“And to ye, Ultonians, I say this thing also. Do not bring blood into
the hospitable home of Felim; that would be a stain upon him, upon
ye yourselves, and upon me the king. But this is my counsel. Let the
child live. There is no good in idle blood, and if ye stain yourselves
with it, there shall be greater loss and sorrow to follow. Ye are all
grown men, and not boys who do not know our laws. Ye know the Law of
the Eric. Well, I will free ye of all doom, for upon my head be it.
To myself I will take this fair child, and upon me, and not upon the
Ultonians, nor upon the Red Branch, nor upon any other whomsoever save
Concobar MacNessa, the high king, be the penalty, if penalty there be.”

At that a son of a king arose.

“That is well, O Concobar. But what of Cathba’s prophecy? We do not
wish to see the sting that shall sting thee to madness, and if the
child live shall we not see that sting?”

“Of that I have thought, that I have foreseen, Congal, son of Rossa of
the Lakes. For I shall send the child into a lonely place, and there
in a solitary rath shall she dwell and grow in years, and no man shall
look upon her save I myself, and that only in the fulness of time. She
shall be solitary and apart as the Crane of Innisbea, that has dwelt
upon its isle since the world was made, and is seen of none.”

“Tell us once more, Concobar MacNessa; dost thou take this child, and
the doom of this child unto thee, and to thee alone?”

“I have sworn. She shall grow in years, and be wife to me when the time
is come. And if sorrow come with her, that sorrow shall be my sorrow.
Not upon Uladh be it, but upon me. I have spoken.”

“And as for thee, Felim?”

“It would be better to slay the child than to drown the land in blood.”

“And as for thee, Cathba?”

“There is but one law: that which has to come, cometh.” But while they
were thus debating, the loud chanting voices of women were heard,
and soon a messenger came, crying loudly that a child had been born
to Elva, wife of Felim, and that it was a woman-child, and exceeding
comely, and strong, and white as milk.

Once more Cathba the Druid spoke.

“She shall be called Darthool,[16] this woman whose beauty shall be a
flame, and whose eyes shall be as stars.”

And so it was. The child was spared, and that night Elva slept in
peace, and for many nights.

When the days of the feasting were over, Concobar left the dun of
Felim, and returned with all his company to Emania. With him he took
the little child Darthool, and Elva came with him for a month and a day.

The month and the day soon passed, and then Elva went back to her own
place. It was the will of the high king and of Felim, her husband;
nevertheless, she sorrowed to part with her little child, who, even as
a breast-babe, had eyes of so great a beauty that it was a joy to look
into them.

Before the year was over--for, according to what Cathba the wise Druid
said, the child must either be slain or hidden away before the first
year of her life were past--Concobar sent Darthool with the nursing
woman to whom he entrusted her, to a small _lios_, or fort, deep in the
heart of the royal forest. A ban was upon that forest that none might
hunt or even stray there without the king’s will; and now that ban was
made absolute, and it was known that death would be the portion of any
man who went under these branches. None was to enter that woodland save
Concobar, or whosoever might be of his chosen company, or whom the king
might thither lead.

Concobar himself saw that food and milk was sent in plenty to the lios,
and once in every seven days he went thither himself. As year after
year passed the secret of the hiding-place of Darthool went out of
men’s minds, and none knew of the lios save the king, and the sister
of the nursing woman, who was his own foster-child and under _geas_ or
bond to him. This woman was named Lavarcam (_Leabharcham_), and was
fair to see, and whom Concobar held to be discreet and trustworthy
beyond any other of his own people. She was of the royal household,
and of the women trained as chroniclers and relaters.[17]

The little starry-eyed babe grew to a child, and from a child to a fawn
of a girl, fair to see, and from a young girl to a maid, of a beauty so
great that Concobar knew when she came to full womanhood she would be
indeed as Cathba the Druid had prophesied.

Darthool saw no one but her nurse, and the tutor whom the king had sent
to teach her all that could be taught, and not only in learning, but in
courtesy and nobility; and Lavarcam, who alone went to and fro. From
the time that Darthool passed out of her first girlhood the king saw
little of her, but twice in each year--at the Festival of the Sun in
the time of the greening, and at the Festival of end Summer at the fall
of the leaf; and this because of a warning that had been given him by
Cathba the ancient Druid.

How can the beauty of so fair and sweet a woman be revealed? Her
loveliness was even as Cathba had foretold. It was a surpassing
loveliness, and the three women who saw her often marvelled at it,
and wondered no more that Darthool should be kept apart, for of a
surety she would be a torch to put flame into the hearts of men, and
to set great duns and raths and towered capitals and warring nations
ablaze. The poets have sung of her, and no man has sung but out of
his deep desire. Her great sad eyes, so full of dream, were blue as
are the hill-tarns at noon, and often dusky as they when passing
clouds put purple into their depths; and like a golden web her hair
was, sprayed out with shining light, wonderful, glorious; and her
rowan-red lips were indeed that strange crimson fruit which Cathba
had foreseen--rowan-red against the cream-white softness of her skin.
Cream-white her body was, and her neck like a tower of ivory; slim and
graceful was she as a fawn, and fleet of foot as the wild roes on the
hills, and when she moved in the sunlight or the shadow she was so
beautiful that tears came at times to the eyes of the women in that
lonely place. Yet even more wonderful was her voice--low and sweet and
with music in it, like the whisper of the wind among the reeds, or the
ripple of green leaves, or the murmuring of a brook.

But now and from this time forth Concobar did not see her. For a year
and a day after she attained womanhood, Cathba had warned the king it
would mean death to him if he saw her. Nevertheless, he often heard of
Darthool from Lavarcam, who in her going to and fro had ever one thing
to say--that never had there been any woman so beautiful.

The rumour of this great loveliness spread from lip to lip. Yet no man
ventured to seek out the hidden place where Darthool dwelled, for to
all it was known that Concobar kept her there against the time when he
would make her his queen, and all feared the long arm and the heavy
hand of Concobar Mac Nessa. None might even question the king.

It was in this year that the shadows of the feet of Fate came into that
place.

One day when Lavarcam told the king that Darthool grew fairer and
fairer, so that even the wild creatures of the forest rejoiced in her,
he all but yielded to his desire. Nevertheless, fearing the prophetic
voice, he refrained, but cried: “When the snow time has passed, and the
first greening is over, and the wild rose runs like a flame throughout
the land, then will I go to Darthool.”

But before the greening was lost in the tides of summer, and before
the wild rose had begun to run like a windy flame throughout the land,
Concobar had learned that Destiny waits on no man.

One dawn the first snows came over the hills of the north and fell upon
the forest. At the rising of the sun they ceased, but every branch was
a white plume, and every glade was smooth and white as was the breast
of Darthool herself. There was no wind in the deep blue sky, but the
air was sharp and sweet because of the frost. For joy Darthool clapped
her hands, as she stood upon the wall of the lios.

Then, glancing downward, she beheld the woman who was her attendant
standing beside a calf that had been slain for the provisioning of
those within the fort. The red blood streamed over the snow, and was as
the crimson cloak of an Ultonian chief there, till the red grew mottled
as it sank through the frozen whiteness.

Darthool’s eyes ever saddened at the sight of blood, but after a brief
while she knew that there was no harm in that shedding, and that no
omen of further bloodspilling lay therein. While she was still looking
thereon, a great raven, glossy black and burnished in the sun rays,
came gliding swift across the snow, and alit by the slain calf, and
drank of the warm bright blood.

Of a sudden Darthool laughed low. It was a sweet shy laugh, and
Lavarcam, who had come to her side, asked her why there was such
sweet low laughter upon her. Mayhap she knew; mayhap she guessed that
Darthool dreamed dreams of love, because her womanhood was now come,
and because of the old heroic tales she took so great a pleasure in,
and because of the vision that every woman has in her heart.

“I was thinking, Lavarcam,” she said.

“And what was that thought, Darthool?”

“It was this: that if there be anywhere a youth whose skin is white as
that whiteness there, and whose locks are as dark and glossy as the
plumage of that raven, and in whose cheek is a crimson as red as that
blood that is upon the snow, then of a surety him could I love, and
that gladly.”

For a moment Lavarcam said nought; then the power of Destiny moved her.

“There is one man who is more beautiful than all others I have ever
seen. He is young, and his hair is dark and glossy as that raven’s
wing, and in his cheek the ruddy flame is as that crimson blood, and
his skin is as white as any sunlit whiteness, or as thine own breast,
Darthool.”

“And what will be the name of that man, Lavarcam, and whence is he and
where, and what is his decree?”

“He is called Nathos, and is the son of Usna, who is a great lord in
Alba. But he is now in Emania, among the company of the king; and with
him are his brothers, both fair to see, and princes among men because
of their beauty and valour, yet neither so surpassing all men as
Nathos. They are called Ailne and Ardan.”[18]

That was a fatal saying of Lavarcam, for it sank into the mind of
Darthool as moonlight into dark water.

Day by day thereafter she thought of nothing but of meeting this proud
son of beauty; night by night she dreamed of Nathos and of his love.

At the last, Lavarcam was filled with fear, for she saw that her words
had awakened the flaming lion that lies hid in the heart. And truly it
was not long till Darthool spoke to her of her longing and deep desire,
and how that without Nathos she did not care to live.

For a time Lavarcam smiled; but when she saw that the king’s beautiful
ward was ever growing more and more wrought, her heart smote her.

One day, as she was returning from Emain Macha, she met a swineherd,
clad roughly in the fell of a deer, and with him were two men, rude,
dishevelled hillmen, bondagers to the Ultonians.

These, notwithstanding the law of Concobar, she took with her into the
forest, and bade them await at a well that was there, until they heard
the cry of a jay and the bark of a hill-fox, when they were to move
slowly on their way, but to speak to no one whom they might meet, and
above all to be silent after they left the shadow of the wood.

Having done this, she entered the lios, and asked Darthool to come
forth with her into the woods.

When they drew near to the well, Lavarcam moved aside to look for some
rare herb, as she said. Soon the cry of the jay and the bark of the
hill-fox were in the air.

“That is a strange thing,” Darthool said to her, when she was by her
side again; “for that cry of the jay was the cry it gives in April, at
the nesting time, and the bark of that hill-fox was the bark it gives
in the season of the rut, many months agone.”

“Hush,” said Lavarcam, “and look.”

They stood still, as they saw the swineherd and the two hillmen rise
from near the well, and move slowly across the glade.

“Who are these, Lavarcam?” asked Darthool, with wonder in her eyes.

“These are men, daughter of Felim.”

“They are younger than those I have seen from the outskirts of the
forest, but they are wild in dress and mien, and are not of high
degree, and my eyes have no pleasure in looking upon them.”

“Nevertheless,” answered Lavarcam, “these are the three sons of
Usna--Nathos and Ailne and Ardan.”

For a brief while Darthool looked upon them. Then she spoke.

“The truth flew past thy lips, Lavarcam. Yonder man whom ye name Nathos
has neither raven hair nor white skin, nor the comely red in his face;
and the two others are like the slaves I saw that day I beheld the
foster-brothers of Concobar driving back from battle, in a chariot
dragged by wild rough men in bondage. I remember the day, for it was
then that thou bade me know that death was the portion of any man who
sought me. That, too, I fear was no true word. Howsoever, as to these
men, they may go. And yet---- wait.”

And with that Darthool moved swiftly forward, and, coming upon the
three men by a by-path through the fern, confronted them.

They stood amazed at her exceeding great beauty. Nothing like it was in
the whole world; so, little wonder that these boors stood as though the
face of death was bare to them; for beauty is strange and terrible to
most men, and they are prone to stand in dread of it.

None spake. Darthool looked at each, a slow smile of mocking in her
lips, a blue flame of scorn in her eyes.

“Are ye the sons of Usna?”

They made no answer, but stared unwaveringly upon her, as do the dull
cattle in the fields.

“What brave courtesy!” she cried, mocking with her sweet voice, “how
swift in courtesy! Tell me, Nathos, son of Usna, is it the wont of thy
people in Alba to stand by agape when a woman speaks? Who is Usna, or
what? If he is a king, is he overlord of swineherds? If it is a place,
is it the rough bogs of the hills where sword-clad men do not go, but
only a poor folk clad rudely in skins?”

Still they answered nothing.

“Were ye whipt into silence when ye were young, ye that stand there
wordless as dogs? If indeed ye be the sons of Usna, then truly Concobar
MacNessa must be in sore want of men at Emain Macha!”

At that the swineherd could no longer hold to his bond.

“By thy great exceeding beauty I know that thou art no other than
Darthool, whom the king hides in this place. But do not mock us, who
would rather worship thee. We are no nobles, but a swineherd, and two
hillmen who are bondagers to Cairbre of the Three Duns.”

At that Darthool laughed gently.

“That I knew full well, swineherd, for all that I dwell here apart and
see none of my kind, save Maev my nurse and Aeifa my tutor and Lavarcam
the friend of the king. Those I have seen otherwise have been beheld a
great way off, from where I laid hid in the woods. But now, wilt thou
do one thing for me?”

“I will give thee my life.”

Darthool smiled into the man’s eyes, and what was only the swineherd
died, and a strong heroic soul arose in him.

“I would fain see Nathos, the eldest of the sons of Usna.”

“That is against the law of Concobar: and long is the arm and heavy the
hand of Concobar MacNessa the high king. But what is death to me, since
thou willest me to do this thing for thee, Darthool of the beautiful
eyes? Nay, I swear this thing: that rather would I die by torture, and
please thee, than live out my life and refuse thee of what thou art
fain. For thy beauty is upon me like the light of the moon at the full
on the dark moorland. I am thine.”

Darthool looked at the man. Suddenly she stooped and kissed him on the
wind-furrowed brow. Great fortune was his, and he was well repaid for
his death by blunt spear-shafts, when Concobar knew all. For what is
death, when a man has reached beyond the limit of his desire?

“Then go this night to Nathos, and tell him that I, Darthool, dream of
him by day and by night, and that if he is in anywise fain of me, let
him come to me to-morrow, an hour before the setting of the sun, at
this well.”

With that she turned and walked slowly back to where Lavarcam awaited
her. As they moved homeward through the wood, Lavarcam saw that the
dream in the eyes of Darthool had deepened. It was in vain then, or
later, that she sought to know what the fair, beautiful girl had said
to the swineherd. She feared, however, that Darthool no longer trusted
her because of the lie that she had told, and that mayhap the girl had
plotted somewhat with the swineherd.

All the morrow Lavarcam watched Darthool closely, but she seemed rapt
in vision, and cared neither to chase the fawns, nor to fish, nor even
to wander idly through the woods. No speech would she have with any
one, and said only that she wished to lie under the boughs of the
great oak in front of the lios, and sleep.

“How can that be, when there is snow upon the ground?” Lavarcam asked.

“Is there snow upon the ground?” answered Darthool dreamily. “Then I
will lie upon my deerskins, and Aeifa can play to me and sing me songs
till dusk.”

Hearing that, Lavarcam was glad, for now she could leave the lios with
a mind at rest.

So, in the wane of the day, she passed through the forest and came out
upon the great plain in front of Emain Macha, and went to seek the king
to take counsel with him.

Nevertheless, Lavarcam was sore wrought by Darthool, and would fain
have given her her heart’s desire. Piteous indeed had her plaints been.
With tears and reproaches and sweet beseechings nigh intolerable,
Darthool had begged her to bring Nathos to her, if for once only, so
that she might at least see him, and know what her heart’s desire was
like. Moreover, was it not a bitter thing for her to be kept there in
that lonely place, and neither to see nor converse with her own kind,
and to be kept away from all the joys of youth, and to pass from spring
to summer, and from summer to autumn, and from autumn to winter, yea
and from year to year, and be exiled there, to hear no young voices, no
young laughter? When she pleaded thus, Lavarcam was sorrowful indeed,
for she had the heart of a woman, and knew the beauty and the wonder
and the mystery of love.

Thinking of these things, her heart smote her as she fared towards
Emain Macha, and at the last she decided to say no word to the king as
to what she feared Darthool may have told the swineherd. Furthermore,
she muttered, what was death to her who had known all that life had to
give her? At the worst, Concobar could put death upon her. Had she not
lived and known love, and now was weary?

When she drew nigh to Emain Macha she saw three ravens and three
hoodie-crows and three kites arise from some carrion hidden in the long
grass that waved there.

When she came upon it, she saw that it was the body of the swineherd,
loose with the gaping wounds of blunt spear-shafts. In thus-wise she
knew that Concobar had in some way heard of what the man had done.

Yet she had no fear from that. The swineherd was still now. Neither
king nor raven, neither man nor hoodie-crow, neither spear-shaft nor
kite could now hurt him. It was better to be alive than to be dead, but
it was well to be dead.

So Lavarcam turned, and went over to the camp in Emain Macha where
the sons of Usna were. There she saw Nathos, and told him privily
that Darthool longed to see him, and that the forest was open to the
stealthy flight of the owl as well as to the soaring hawk.

Nathos was indeed fair to see, and looking upon him Lavarcam knew in
her heart that Darthool would love him, and he her. He listened, and
she saw his eyes deepen, and a flush come and go upon his face. For
sure there was a beating swift of his pulse in that hour.

Nevertheless, he could not come straightway, for Concobar knew that
the swineherd had spoken to him of Darthool, and it was for this, and
having seen and spoken with the girl, that the king had put the man to
death--though for that, added Nathos, little did the swineherd care,
for he died laughing and mocking, and, when he lay still, there was a
smile upon his face.

“And that was because Darthool had looked into his eyes, Nathos, son of
Usna.”

“Truly, he died well. I know a prince among men who also would die
gladly if Darthool would look into his eyes with love.”

“Then come soon and hunt the deer in the solitudes to the north of
the forest: and there, amid the woods, or in some glen, or on the
hill-slopes, surely thou shalt meet with Darthool--and yet none know of
it.”

So Lavarcam and Nathos made a bond between them, and parted.

Thereafter days passed. On the morrow of the seventh day Darthool was
wandering among the glades and thickets of the uplands far away from
the lios, rejoicing in her new freedom and hoping that one day her eyes
might look upon Nathos. She was dreaming her dream, when she started at
a strange sound, the like of which she had never heard.

That far-off baying of hounds she knew, for oftentimes of old Concobar
had ridden to the forest with his deerhounds: but that strange, wild,
blazoning sound---- Was it the voice of the flying creature the hounds
pursued?

Then the thought came to her that it was the hunting horn she had often
heard of in the songs and war-ballads which Lavarcam and Aeifa were
wont to sing to her.

But after that blast the horn no more tore the silence of the deep
woods, and the hounds were still: for Nathos had left the chase of
the deer and was now moving listless through the green glooms of the
forest. Night and day since Lavarcam and the swineherd had told him
of Darthool he had dreamed of the beautiful daughter of Felim the
Harper. Remembering the last chant of Cathba the Druid, he recalled how
Darthool had been named the Beauty of the World, and because he was
himself a poet and a dreamer the vision had become part of his life,
so that neither by night nor by day was there any hour wherein he did
not see in his mind the tall, white-robed figure of Darthool, and the
beauty of her eyes, and her face as the sweet wild face of a dream.

And so dreaming he stood at the edge of a glade, his swift eyes
watching a fawn dispart a thicket that was close by. Yet it was no fawn
as he thought: but rather was it as though a sudden flood of sunshine
burst forth in that place. For a woman came from the thicket more
beautiful than any dream he had ever dreamed. She was clad in a saffron
robe over white that was like the shining of the sun on foam of the
sea, and this was claspt with great bands of yellow gold, and over her
shoulders was the golden rippling flood of her hair, the sprays of
which lightened into delicate fire, and made a mist before him, in the
which he could see her eyes like two blue pools wherein purple shadows
dreamed.

So exceeding great was her beauty that Nathos did not think of her as
Darthool or as any mortal woman, but rather as a daughter of the elder
gods, or of that bright divine race of the Tuatha-De-Danann, whose
beauty surpassed that of human beings as the beauty of the primrose
bank that of the brown sod. He looked upon her amazed, and in a silent
worship. If she were indeed of the Dedannan folk, she might disappear
at any moment as a shadow goes, that now is here asleep upon the grass
and in the twinkling of an eye is among the things of oblivion.

At last speech rose to his lips.

“O fair and wonderful one, whom I see well art of the old sacred race
of the Tuatha-De-Danann, may I have word with thee? It may well be
that thou art no other than the wife of Midir himself, she who lives
in a fair shining grianan in the hollow of a hill, and lives upon the
beauty and fragrance of flowers.” Darthool looked at him, and her heart
beat. He was in truth fair to see: fairer even than him whom she had
imaged in her dreams, or him of whom Lavarcam had spoken.

“Speak. What wouldst thou?”

“I am faring idly through this lonely land, and I know not where I am.
Yonder, in the valley behind the oak-glade, is a high-walled rath. Is
it a place of the Shee, and so forbidden? or who dwells there, and
shall a spear or welcome greet me if I enter?”

“Indeed, thou mayst enter there, and a welcome awaits thee, O Nathos,
son of Usna.”

“Thou knowest my name, O fair one; then, indeed, thou art of the old
wondrous race, who know swifter than our thought, and whose sight is
further and deeper than our sight.”

“I am no queen, Nathos, nor am I of the Tuatha-De-Danann, but am a
woman as other women are. If I am beautiful in thine eyes, of that I
am right glad, for thou art fairer to me than any man I have seen or
dreamed of, and my pulse leaps when thine eyes look into mine. I am
Darthool, the daughter of Felim the Harper; yet am I no better than a
slave, for here am I bound to stay, and see no one save Lavarcam and
my two women, and here I shall die for loneliness and longing.”

Nathos heard her sweet low voice with delight, and it was with joy at
his heart he knew she was no strange Dedannan but a woman of his own
race, and that she was Darthool. Love rose suddenly within him like a
flame: a red flame was it that was in his heart, and a white flame in
his mind, and out of these two flames is wrought the love of love and
the passion of passion and the dream of dreams.

“Art thou, indeed, Darthool?” he whispered; “art thou that Darthool
of whom I have dreamed? Strange is the strangeness of this meeting, O
white daughter of Felim. For so great is thy beauty that I was fain to
believe I saw before me one of the queens of the Tuatha-De-Danann. But
is this thing true, that against thine own will Concobar the high king
keeps thee here like a trapped bird among these woods?”

“True it is, and more: for it is not even by Concobar’s will that I
roam the woodlands. He was fain that I should never leave the rath save
with Lavarcam, and that I should spend most of my days within the stone
walls of the dreary lios where he has doomed me to dwell.”

“Darthool, my heart is filled with a rising tide. That tide is love.
Thou hast not seen the sea: but there, when the tide flows, there is
nothing, there is no one, in all the world, which can say it nay. So
is my love for thee, that now rises; and, once thine, will be thine
evermore. Yet I would not put this upon thee; and if thy words and
looks come out of thy frank, sweet courtesy and open maidenly heart,
and mean no more than that thou carest for me as a brother, it is thy
brother I will be, Darthool, to serve thee and succour thee and love
thee evermore, and in that way only.”

For a brief while she looked at him. Then the noon-blue of her eyes
deepened, and a flush drifted through her face and waned into the
deeper red of her parted lips.

“Nathos,” she said in a low voice, which trembled as a reed in the
wind, “I, too, love. It is thee I love. If it be wrong for me, a
maiden, to speak thus, forgive me, for I have grown wilding here, and
am more akin to the fawns of the forest than to women kind of mine
own age or estate. But I love thee, Nathos: as of old, in the far-off
Dedannan days, Dectura the queen loved the Green Harper, and went
forth with him and was seen no more of her own people.”

“If thou indeed wilt have it so, Darthool, be thou my Dectura, and let
me be thy Green Harper. For beyond the reach of life or death is the
greatness of the love I feel for thee, even now in this first hour of
our meeting.”

“Thy words are in my heart, Nathos; and because that this is so, I
now put _geas_ upon thee. Let thy sword be as my sword, and be thou
to me as brother and friend and the holder of my leal love; and to
this end, lo! I throw this yellow thistle against thy cheek, to raise
a mark of shame there if thou dost not fulfil the bond, and there to
be seen of all men as a sign and witness of thy disgrace; yea, even
thus I put _geas_ upon thee, to succour me in my ill fate, to take me
unto thyself, to give thyself unto me, and to let us go forth together
heedless of Fate.”

Nathos looked at her with proud eyes.

“Of a surety, Darthool, there is no hero of the Red Branch who hath a
courage greater than thine, even though it may be that thou speakest
the more freely from knowing little of what may befall.”

“What can befall save death, and dost thou fear death, son of Usna?”

Nathos smiled out of grave eyes.

“If I feared death, Darthool, I would not now be speaking with thee
here. It is swift silence upon any who in this forbidden land speaks
with the daughter of Felim the Harper. Concobar MacNessa has the ears
of a hare and the eyes of a hawk and the swoop of an eagle. Dost thou
remember the swineherd to whom thou gavest word privily? Well, that
night he lay in the grass tended only by the raven and the wolf, for he
was done to death with blunt spear-shafts.”

“For that I have deep grief,” said Darthool, with tears drifting like a
rainy mist athwart the blue of her eyes.

“Nevertheless, he died with a smile, Darthool. Thou hadst looked into
his eyes and kissed him. Even so, and for less now, would I too die.”

“That thou shalt not do, Nathos;” and even as she spoke Darthool moved
forward and put her honeysweet lips against the mouth of Nathos, and
made his blood leap, and a flame come into his eyes, and a trembling
come into his limbs.

Then, as though with that kiss she had become as a wild rose, she stood
swaying lightly, her fair face delicately aflame. Nathos put his arms
about her, and kissed her on the brow and on the lips.

“That kiss on the brow is for service,” he said, “because from this
hour thou art my queen; and that kiss on the lips is for love, for from
this hour I shall love no woman save thee thyself, but shall be thine
and thine only in life or death.”

Nevertheless, though Nathos accepted the _geas_ put upon him by
Darthool, he was troubled at the thought of the anger of Concobar
the high king. It would be a swift and bitter death for him, and for
Darthool too it might be death or worse.

The thought in his mind swam into his eyes, and Darthool saw it. She
shrank from him, and stood hesitating and as though about to flee at
his first word of doubt. When he looked at her again his last fear went.

“Fair wonderful one, thou art as a fawn there in the fern where thou
standest; Darthool, do not doubt the truth of my words. I am thine to
love and to serve, and am under _geas_ to thee. But my thought was
this: if we two go hence and are waylaid, it will be death, and if we
go hence and are not waylaid forthwith, it will still be death; for
long is the arm, and heavy the hand, and tireless the quest of Concobar
MacNessa. And this, too: that if we cross the Moyle and go to Alba, it
may still be death; yea, though for a year or for a brood of years we
elude the undying wrath and vengeance of the king.”

“He will forget when once the bird is flown. Neither the bird nor the
wind leaves any track, so let our flight be as that of the bird and our
way be as that of the wind.”

“The king forgetteth not. If so be that we might escape him many years,
he will yet have his will of us in the end; and this though thou
wert old, Darthool, and wert no longer his desire, and though I were
outlawed and broken and no more in his sight than a wolf of the hills,
good to slay if come upon, but not worthy of chase.”

“Concobar is not a king in Alba?”

“No.”

“Then let us go to thine own land. He can do no more than send
emissaries after us, and with these thou canst deal swiftly, Nathos.”

At that, Nathos lightly laughed.

“Truly, I am seeing Concobar as a man sees his own shadow in the water.
He is a great king in Uladh, but he is no more in Alba than any hero
of the Red Branch. Come, Darthool; across the Moyle are the pine-green
shores of Alba. It is a fair, beautiful land. The sea-lochs reach far
among pine-clad hills, and green pastures are on the slopes of the
great mountains and around the shadowy, inland waters. The forests
are full of deer and wild birds, the rivers and lochs of fish, the
pastures of cattle and sheep and swift brown mares. Thou shalt have
milk to drink, and the red flesh of the salmon, and the brown flesh
of the deer, and the white flesh of the badger. Thou shalt lack for
nothing, who art my queen; and thou shalt have love till the sun grows
a lordlier fire and the stars leap in their slow dance from dusk to
dawn.”

“I will come,” Darthool whispered, with glad eyes.

“Only thou must not delay. Thy coming must be now. Thou must not even
enter the rath again. Otherwise it is never the waters of the Moyle
that we shall see, but only the red flame in the eyes of Concobar.”

Even while Nathos spoke his eyes grew hard, and his hands slipped to
the javelin he had by his side. While Darthool watched him in amaze,
he swung the iron-pointed shaft at a place where a bent bracken hung
listless in the air.

“Is it a wolf?” cried Darthool, in sudden affright.

“It is worse than a wolf,” answered Nathos; “for if thou wilt go to
that place thou wilt see either a slain man, or the form of a man, in
the grass beneath the bracken.”

Swiftly Darthool ran to the spot wherein the javelin had swung singing.
There was no one there, but, where the javelin still quivered slightly,
she saw the still warm shape of a crouching man, and discerned, by the
bending of the bracken, what course he must have twisted away.

Nathos followed and stood beside her. As he stooped to pluck the
javelin from the ground, he descried a wooden-hilted knife.

“It is as I thought,” he said gravely. “Concobar has set a spy upon me.
No Ultonian carries a knife such as this. It belongs to the hillmen of
the north-west, of whom a few years agone we made slaves. Mayhap one
of these men who were with the swineherd has been told to follow me
secretly wheresoever I go.”

Darthool turned and looked at Nathos with eyes filled with a new fear,
because of her love of him.

He took her hand in his.

“There is yet time, Darthool. Wilt thou go back to the rath, and stay
there till Concobar wills thee to be his wife?”

“I cannot go back.”

“Then come, O Darthool.”

And with that the twain turned and moved swiftly northward through the
forest, by the way Nathos had already passed.

“By dawn we may reach the dun where my two brothers now are, and for
that day and that night we may rest in safety,” whispered Nathos, as
Darthool turned and looked for the last time upon the place where she
had lived all these years.

“But thereafter, O love that I have won, the wind must be in our hair
and the dead leaves be upon the soles of our feet, for there can be
no resting for us till we are away from this land: no, and not for us
only, but also for Ailne and Ardan. Concobar will not rest content
with bitter wrath, and, if he cannot track the stag, will slay the
fawns.”

Soon thereafter they drew near the place where Nathos had left his
hounds and his huntsmen. Bidding Darthool hide among the bracken and
undergrowth, he went forward alone and told the men to go back to the
dun of the sons of Usna, but not till the third day, and by circuitous
ways. Thus he hoped that he might the longer elude Concobar, whose
emissaries would follow the track of his hounds.

Thereafter Nathos and Darthool fared swiftly hand in hand through the
sombre ways of the forest. While it was still light they emerged upon
a great moor, which they crossed, and then ascended the gorges of the
hills. There the night fell, as though a wind-drifted darkness suddenly
suspended and then swiftly enshrouded everything. They dreaded to rest,
and yet so deep was the darkness that they could fare no farther.

But while they were still whispering the one to the other, Darthool
descried a soft, silver shining, like a dewy gossamer. It was the
little group of seven stars that we call the Pleiades.

“See,” she whispered, “An Grioglachan! When they shine, others will
soon be seen.” And so it was.

All through the night the fugitives hastened onward by the light of the
stars, ever keeping close to each other, for the mountain solitudes
were full of dreadful noises, and in the black tarns among the peaty
moss they could hear the moaning of the kelpie, or on the shores of the
hill-lochs the shrill neighing of the water-horses, terrible creatures
of the darkness.

For the last hour of the dark they rested a brief while, lying close
hid among the bracken, in a sheltered place on a rocky mountain slope.
Darthool heeded little now the weariness and fears of that perilous
faring by night, for she was with Nathos; and Nathos now was glad,
and no longer cared whether death was sure or not. He fell asleep
there under the morning stars, among the winter-brown bracken, with
Darthool’s head upon his breast; and his last thought was, that if the
swineherd had died smiling because Darthool’s eyes had looked into his,
how well might he too die content if his hour came suddenly upon him.

The dawn wavered among the hills, but still they slept.

A wolf tracking a wounded doe howled, and the howling wailed from
corrie to corrie. Darthool stirred, but slept again. An eagle screamed
as it rose and wheeled against the broadening light, but its wild voice
was drowned in silence. Then came the first sun-rays rippling, dancing,
leaping, from amid the crested heights and peaks to the eastward, and
Nathos awoke.

For some moments he lay breathless with wonder. Darthool, in all
her radiant beauty, was by his side, her golden hair ablaze in the
sunlight, and her fair face like a flower amid the bracken. It was too
great a wonder. Then he knew that Concobar’s hounds might any hour now
be upon them, and so he put his dream away from him, and stooped and
kissed Darthool upon the lips. With a cry she woke, and put her arms
about him. Hard it was for him to add to her weariness; but she rose
at once, and seemed, indeed, in his eyes, as fresh as any fawn of the
hill-side. She went to a little tarn close by and drank of the cool,
sweet water.

As she drank Nathos looked at her, and again wondered if she were not
one of the divine race of old, the mysterious Tuatha-De-Danann, whom,
ages before, the Milesians had driven to the hills and remote places.
So fair was she that his heart ached. Then a swift pulse of joy leaped
within him, and he was glad with a great gladness.

Thereafter they sped swiftly onward, and now Nathos exulted, for he
recognised the peaks and the trend of the valleys. Within an hour from
the rising of the sun he saw the grey walls of the dun of the sons of
Usna.

His long cry--that of the heron thrice repeated--brought Ailne and
Ardan forth. Darthool looked at them wondering, for they, too, were
taller and nobler than other men, and only less beautiful in her eyes
than Nathos himself.

But if she wondered, much more did they marvel at what they saw. Never
had they beheld any woman so beautiful, and their first thought was
that of Nathos, that Darthool was of the fair divine race who were now
so seldom seen of men.

But when Nathos had told them all, and that she who was now his bride
was no other than that Darthool whom Concobar the high king had set
aside to become his queen, they were filled with sorrow. Well they knew
that Concobar MacNessa would not lightly relinquish the fair maid whom
he had so long secreted in the forest-lios, and that blood would flow
because of this thing.

“Moreover,” said Ailne, “hast thou forgotten the prophecy? There is
the saying of Cathba the Druid, of which we have all heard: that from
the daughter of Felim the Harper would come sorrow to the king, and
severance of the Red Branch from the lost kingdom of Uladh, and rivers
of blood.”

“That may be, Ailne, my brother,” Nathos answered; “but I ask none to
go with me into this doom, if that doom indeed must be, though mayhap
the dark hour of it is passed. For Darthool and I shall now fare
forward, with some of our following, and with horses and food, and
haply we may reach the coast and find our great galley in the Creek
of the Willows, where we secreted it, and so gain the shores of Alba
before Concobar can overtake us.”

But while Ailne pondered, Ardan spoke.

“That shall not be, Nathos. Listen! By the Sun and the Wind I swear
that where thou goest I will go, and that I will never desert thee nor
Darthool, who is now our sister. If the doom must come, let it come.
What is death, that it should put a paleness into the face of love? Are
we not close-kin, children of one mother, and is not Darthool thy wife
now and our sister, and are we not henceforth as one? Speak, Ailne, is
it not so?”

“It is so. Ardan has spoken for me. But I say nothing, for I feel upon
us the shadow of that doom of which, as we have heard, Cathba the Druid
spoke.”

But here Darthool moved forward.

“Listen, Nathos, and ye, Ailne and Ardan, my brothers: it is not for me
to bring sorrow upon the king and upon the Red Branch and upon Uladh,
and still less upon ye, my brothers, and upon thee, Nathos. Therefore,
let me now go back to the lios, and tell Lavarcam, who will tell the
king, that I have no will to stray, and that I will abide in that place
till I die, or till Concobar dare put his face against Fate and take me
thence.”

At that Nathos smiled only. There was no word to say; in his eyes was
all his answer to Darthool.

But Ardan answered for himself and Ailne:

“Though the stars fall, beautiful daughter of Felim, who art now
Darthool, our sister, we shall not leave thee, nor suffer thee to go
from us save by thine own free will, and that in no fear for what may
befall us. Nathos and Ailne and Ardan are the three sons of Usna, upon
whom long ago _geas_ was set, that each would abide by each until
death.”

Thereupon all kissed each other, and took the deep vow of fealty. The
sons of Usna knew well that it would be a madness to withstand Concobar
in their dun, strong as it was; for in time he would take the place,
as dogs hunt out the badger from its lair, and at the best would still
starve them into surrender or death.

So with all speed they summoned those of their following who were under
the sword-bond, and put together food and raiment, and then mounted and
rode swiftly away.

As they passed the highest ridge to the eastward that night they looked
back. A red light flared in a valley far to the west. It was their
dun, a torch amid the darkness. A single column of flame rose above
it, and wavered to and fro. And by that sign they knew that the long
arm and the heavy hand of Concobar MacNessa had already reached out
towards them. Three times fifty men went with them, and so swift was
their flight and so sure their way that before long they came to the
coast-lands. There, in the Creek of the Willows, the long black galley
was found; and swiftly all embarked.

It was with glad eyes that Darthool and the sons of Usna saw the
dancing waves of the sea, and felt its free breath break upon them.
From three great tiers, fifty score men to each, the vassals thrust
out their long oars, and with their blades threshed the waters into a
yeast of foam. In the dazzle of the sea Darthool rejoiced, and made the
hearts of all there to swell because of an exceeding sweet song she
sang.

Nathos and Ailne and Ardan sat beside her, and could scarce take from
her face their dreaming eyes.

Towards noon the wind shifted, and slid out of the north towards the
west. Then the great sail was hoisted, and bellied out to the steady
breeze, and the oars were shipped. The black galley now flew along
the waters like a cormorant. Darthool laughed with joy at this new
beautiful world of the sea, and never tired of trailing her hands in
the swift lapsing wave, or in the send of the following billow.

In the afternoon they came close to the shores of Alba, and made
northward, past many isles and through narrow straits and fjords. In
one and all Darthool took pleasure, and was glad indeed that the land
of Nathos was so beautiful.

At sundown they reached the eastern shores of the great island of Mull,
and there the wind failed them, so the galley was put into a bay that
is now the bay of Aros.

There the sons of Usna debated long as to what course to follow. Nathos
and Ailne thought it best to move inland, and to gain the protection of
the high king of Alba; but Darthool feared this because of a dream she
had thrice dreamed, wherein she saw a strange king and a strange folk
laughing over the slain body of Nathos, while she stood by crowned but
a captive. As for Ardan, he said only that the sons of Usna should go
to where their father’s dun had been, before the last king of Alba had
destroyed it.

That night a galley came to them from the long island of Lismore. In
it were a score of men, commanded by a lord of Appin, named Fergus of
the Three Duns. With him was a stranger, clad in a rich robe of fur, so
claspt across the throat with gold that the hood he wore fell about and
covered his face. While Fergus spake with the sons of Usna, and told
them how they had been seen by men of his in a swift war-galley, off
the south coast of Mull, and urged them also to go inland to meet the
king, the stranger looked steadfastly upon Darthool.

When at last he had to speak to the brothers he addressed them
courteously, but in a Gaelic strange to their ears. He bade them come
with him to his high-walled dun, a brief way inland: to come alone, as
his guests, and to bring Darthool with them.

“It is not well to go to a man’s dun, and not be knowing that man’s
name,” said Nathos courteously.

The stranger hesitated, and looked at Fergus.

“They call me Angus Mudartach,” he said. But at that Darthool asked him
to let her look upon his face.

“For it is not meet,” she added, “that we should go to a man’s dun and
not have seen his face.”

Angus of Moidart drew back his hood.

Darthool’s lips grew pale. Then she smiled.

“Let us rest here for to-night, Angus Mudartach,” she said, “and, if
thou wilt come again on the morrow after to-morrow, thou canst take us
with thee to thy great dun. But meanwhile we have travelled far and
swiftly, and would fain rest: and, as thou seest, the skies are clear,
and we want for nothing.”

Once more Angus pleaded to the sons of Usna.

“Ye are brave men, and can laugh at weariness or danger. But if the
island be swept by a great storm to-night, or if the followers of
Concobar, king of the northlands of Erin, come upon ye, or if other
misadventure befall, shall ye wantonly expose this fair young princess?
Nay, rather, let her come with me, and she shall not only be safe in my
great rath of Dunchraig, but there my wife and her maidens shall make
much of her, and give her white robes and golden torques and garments
of delicate furs. This maid whom ye call Darthool is too young to be
thrown thus idly before the feet of the evil powers who are for ever
clamouring for death.”

But, at a sign from Darthool, Nathos refused; saying, with gracious
words and courteous mien, that it would rejoice them all to visit Angus
Mudartach later, but not then.

So Angus of Moidart turned, frowning, and went back to his galley with
Fergus of the Three Duns. And as he went he asked mutteringly how many
men the sons of Usna had with them. When he learned that there were
thrice fifty, and that Fergus had but a score and ten men with him, he
said no more.

When the strangers had gone, Nathos turned to Darthool and asked why
she had not shown more graciousness to one who was surely a great lord
among the Alban Gaels, and why she would not go with him.

“Because, Nathos, that man who called himself Angus Mudartach is no
other than the King of Alba. He it is whom I saw in my dreams, laughing
over your slain body, and beside whom I stood crowned and yet a
captive. And by that token I warn ye of this thing: that the Alban king
desireth me, and would fain slay ye all, or deliver ye into the hands
of Concobar MacNessa.”

Nathos stood brooding, but Ardan stepped forward.

“Darthool is right. And wise she was, too, to bid this Angus of Moidart
come on the morrow after to-morrow. Nevertheless, I know well by
hearsay of his vassal, Fergus of the Three Duns, and that the man is
called Fergus the Wily. He will not wait, but at dawn will be about us,
with thrice fifty and thrice fifty again.”

“Ardan has spoken well,” added Nathos. “There is but one thing to be
done. Weary we are, but we must go hence at once.”

And so it was. The dusk was heavy upon sea and land that night, and a
sea-mist came up and obscured the skies, so that not a star was visible.

Soundlessly they launched the great galley again, and once more set
sail. The night-wind was from the south-east, whereat they rejoiced,
for thus there was no need of the oars, and so no betraying thresh
would be heard.

When they were well north of Lismore they put out the long oars and
swung the galley northwards. It was with relief that the sons of Usna
passed the Appin lands, and before dawn rowed into a great sea-loch.

There, however, they learned that the King of Alba, he who had called
himself Angus Mudartach, was in the westlands only for a brief while,
and would have to haste to Dunedin straightway, as runners had come
with tidings of a great rising. He had no rath of Dunchraig, and no dun
there; and so in truth the sons of Usna knew that the king had lied to
them, and that Darthool was right. As for Fergus of the Three Duns, he
was no longer a great lord, but had been despoiled, and at the most
could summon two score and ten men.

So the sons of Usna greatly rejoiced, for now they could go to their
own land in safety, which lay beyond the region held by Fergus of the
Duns.

For seven days they stayed by the shores of that sea-loch, under the
shadow of mighty mountains. Ardan, with a scanty following, went
through the hill-passes, and returned saying that the King of Alba had
gone to his own country and that all the great lords of the region had
departed with him, including Fergus.

So on the eighth day the galley sailed a short way southward once more,
and entered into the Bay of Selma. There, on a rocky eminence, were
the walls of their great dun, which Usna their father had built among
the ruins of the chief stronghold of the Cruithne, the ancient people
of Alba.[19]

It was with joy that the sons of Usna saw once more the house of their
childhood, and with still greater joy that they found the people of the
neighbouring glens and straths still loyal to them. Their father Usna
had ever been at war with the King of Alba, and after many battles (the
bards sang of the beauty of Usna’s wife as the torch that lit those
wars) he had conquered all this region. But at his death, by treachery
the king had overcome the stronghold and destroyed it.

But now again the sons of Usna had their home in their own eyrie. They
knew not how long they might abide there in peace, for either the King
of Alba, or Fergus of the Duns as his leader of men, would come again
when once peace in the eastlands was secured.

There Nathos wished to dwell alone with Darthool and a few followers,
but Ailne and Ardan once more refused to leave him then or ever. But
glad were the thrice fifty vassals to return to their own land, and
without regret the sons of Usna saw them set sail for Erin. They were
men who cared little for aught save strife, and when not wielding sword
or spear were haughty and bitter with all other men save those of the
Red Branch, and so were only a danger and a weariness in that place.

Throughout that winter they lived there in peace, hunting and fishing.
So great was the love of each for Darthool that every day was full of
peace and content wherein they saw her. Nathos moved in a dream, and
knew the extreme of joy. At night, before the fire, Darthool sang to
them old-world airs of a sweet plaintive music, so sweet and plaintive
that men said she must be no other than Fionula, she of the children of
Lir who were turned into wild swans, and lived a thousand years in the
old, old days.

But when spring came again--a spring so fair and sweet that it was as
though May had come hand in hand with February--a rumour reached them
that the King of Alba, though he could not penetrate the highlands of
the west, intended, with the help of Fergus of the Duns and other
chieftains, to proceed once more against the Dun of Usna. Moreover, he
had sworn to raze it to the ground, and to slay Nathos, and to take
Darthool to be his wife.

Nathos laughed at this, for he knew well that the King of Alba would
never take him alive, nor yet Darthool. But after long colloquy with
Ailne and Ardan, all decided to set forth and pass northward to the
land whence their mother had come, a land of endless mountains and
narrow lochs, beautiful beyond any other, grander than any Darthool had
seen, and remote beyond the reach of any Alban king.

So thither they set forth, and took with them in their great galley
two score and ten men of their own clan. After long sailing up narrow
lochs, the sons of Usna reached the mountain land whence their mother
had come. Her father was dead, but the great dun he had built upon the
summit of one of the hills overlooking the Black Loch had been left
unharmed, and was tenanted only by wandering shepherds. Here Nathos and
Darthool made their home, and in that beautiful land and in the glory
of spring, knew the full joy and richness of life.[20]

For a brief while all the people of the mountain lands round about
gave in their adherence to Nathos, so that he became as a king in that
region. So great was the fear in which the three sons of Usna were
held, and so strong were they in their mountain home, that none dared
to approach them with the flaming brand.

Thus three years passed, and in all the wide reaches of the world
there was no man so happy as Nathos and no woman so happy as Darthool;
and after these there were none so happy as Ailne and Ardan, who were
well content to live so that they might be near the beautiful wife of
Nathos, their sister, Darthool, fairest of all women in the world.

The King of Alba, whom they had feared, was now dead, and the king who
reigned in his place was well disposed towards the sons of Usna and
sought their alliance. So this was done, and the name and fame of the
three brothers spread throughout the land; while from the wild west to
the populous east the poets sang of the beauty of Darthool.

In the summer months they abode at the high fort of Darthool, for so
they named it, on the heights above the Black Loch, or Loch Ness as
we now call it; and from the first frosts till the cuckoo’s song had
ceased they lived at Dunuisneachan, their father’s ancient stronghold
by the shores of Loch Etive. Thence often they wandered far afoot, or
sailed southward and eastward among the sea-lochs and narrow kyles.
They hunted in Glenorchy and fished under the mountain-shadows on Loch
Awe; or followed the deer through the woods of Glenlaidhe. When it was
pleasant to be upon the waters, they sailed down the long fjord of Loch
Fyne, and rested awhile at the Haven of the Foray, and watched the
coming and going of the rainbows on the rocky headlands which guard
that place; then they would cross to the Cowal, and enter the narrow
Kyles of Bute, where on the little isle we call the Burnt Island they
built a vitrified fort. Thence they followed past the Hills of Ruel
to Glendaruay (Glendaruel), and so to the head of Loch Striven and
up Glenmassan, and thence down by the sweet inland waters of Loch
Eck, and waterward again by the bay we now call the Holy Loch. Thence
up the long, narrow fjord of Loch Long they sailed, till among the
mountains they crossed the short pass to Loch Lomond, and perhaps met
the soldiery of the King of Alba at the inland lakes, or came upon the
great fort of Dumbarton on the Clyde; or they may have crossed the
hill to the Gareloch, and so returned westward once more by the blue
frith of Clyde, past the precipitous isle of Arran, and so up Loch Fyne
again; or seaward by the Mull of Cantire, and thence northward past the
isles to their own place, and could once more watch the salmon leaping
through the Falls of Lora or chase the deer on the hills of Etive.

But during all this time Concobar, the high king of the Ultonians,
nursed his bitter thoughts. He had heard of the great fame and
happiness of the sons of Usna, and more than ever he yearned after
Darthool, his wrath at his loss being the greater because that all the
old prophecies about the beautiful daughter of Felim were unfulfilled.

One day the high king made a great festival in Emain Macha, and never
in Erin was seen one more royal and magnificent. The princes and
nobles from all the regions in the sway of Concobar were there, and all
the musicians, singers, and poets in Uladh.

In the midst of the festival Concobar asked those present at his board
if now, in the height of the glory of the Red Branch, they wanted for
anything; but they answered as with one voice that they were content.

“And that is what I am not,” he answered.

“And wherefore, O king and lord?”

“Because that the three greatest of ye are absent from us. I speak
of the three Torches of the Valour of the Gael: Nathos and Ailne and
Ardan, the sons of Usna, the son of Congal Claringnech. For now I the
king say this: that it is not fitting these three heroes, the pride of
our chivalry, should be in exile, and this only because of a woman. By
the Sun and Wind, there is no woman alive who is worthy to be the cause
of this. Far better were it that the sons of Usna were once more in
our midst. Even now they hold half the lands of Alba under the shadow
of their sword. Truly they are heroes, and if dark days come upon us,
as the soothsayers foretell, then indeed we shall be in sore need of
them.”

All there were rejoiced at that. There was not one who had not lamented
the fierce anger of Concobar, and who was not fain to have the sons
of Usna again among the chivalry of the Red Branch. Only fear had not
allowed them to speak, for the high king had slain a man who had said
that Nathos was too great a lord to be exiled.

“And since ye are so glad at this thing,” Concobar added, “and would
fain have these heroes among us, to be the chief pride, glory and
defence of Uladh against all other kingdoms and provinces of Erin, I
say to ye: Go and bring hence again from Alba the three sons of Usna.”

“That is well,” their spokesman answered; “but who is to prevail with
Nathos and his brothers? We are willing to go, but we cannot bring
Nathos against his will. Moreover, is he not under _geas_ not to put
foot again in Erin?”

“Not so. I know that Nathos is under _geas_ not to return to Erin
unless it be in the company of Fergus, the son of Lossa the Red, or
Conall Cernach, or Cuchulain. And look you, each of these is now here,
so that I shall well know who most loves me.”

So, when the feast was over, Concobar first drew Conall Cernach aside.

“Tell me, O warrior lord,” he said, “what wouldst thou say or do if I
should send thee for the sons of Usna, and that at my secret command
they should be slain privily--a thing, nevertheless, Conall, which I do
not purpose to do.”

“That could not be done, O king and lord, without a bitter and wrongful
bloodshedding, for I could not do otherwise than put death upon each
and all of the Ultonians who might be with me on that day.”

“That may be so, Conall Cernach. So now, go.”

Thereafter the king sent for Cuchulain. The young champion came to him
fearlessly, for the whole heart of the warrior prince was noble and
courageous.

Concobar asked him the same question as he had asked Conall Cernach.

“What would I do, O lord and king?” answered Cuchulain with proud
disdain. “This thing I would do, and my troth to it: that if thou
through me brought about the death of the sons of Usna, thou mightst
flee eastward to Innia Iarrtharaigh[21] itself, and yet not be safe
from perishing by my hand because of thy deed.”

Concobar smiled grimly.

“I knew well, Cuchulain, that ye bore me no love,” he said; and bade
the hero begone.

Thereafter the king sent for Fergus, the son of Rossa, and to him he
put the same question as to Conall Cernach and to Cuchulain.

“This much I say,” said Fergus, “that never would I raise hand or
weapon against thee: nevertheless, there is not one Ultonian who might
fare forth on that errand who would not get the shortness of life and
sorrow of death from me.”

“It is thou, Fergus, son of Rossa, who dost truly love thy king. It is
to thee I entrust this thing, who shalt be greater in Erin than any son
of Usna. Go forth on the morrow, and remember thy name of old--Fergus
Honeymouth. Of a surety Nathos, with Darthool, and Ailne and Ardan,
shall come from Alba with thee. When thou art again in Erin, go at
once to the house of Borrach, the son of Cainte; and when thou art
there stay, because of one of thy _geasa_ never to refuse a feast, and
beforehand I shall warn Borrach of this thing. Then send forward at
once, and without covenant, and without protection, to Emain Macha, the
three sons of Usna.”

So on the morrow Fergus went forth, taking none with him save his two
sons, Illann the Fair, and Buine of the Red Locks, and a man Cullen to
steer the sea-barge wherewith he would set sail.

It was a fair voyage, and soon the black barge of Fergus sailed past
the isles and headlands of Alba, and came to Loch Etive and the Bay of
Selma, where the great fort of Dun Usneachain lay black against the
ivy-clad heights beyond.

This was in the first heats of summer, and Nathos and Darthool, with
Ailne and Ardan, had left the fort and were among the rocky declivities
of the woodland near the sea. There they had three hunting booths: one
for Nathos and Darthool, one for Ailne and Ardan, and one wherein to
have their eating and drinking. In front of one of these booths Nathos
and Darthool sat, on that day of the days, playing on the _Cemrcaem_
(the chessboard), the very chessboard which had belonged to Concobar,
but which the king had left in the dun of Ailne and Ardan when hunting
near by, on the day before that on which they fled with Nathos. It
was all of ivory, and the chessmen were of wrought gold and in the
likeness of strange kings and priests and fantastic animals wrought in
immemorial years in the Orient.

And while they were playing a great shout was heard, coming upon them
from a branch-hid hollow of the sea.

“That is the voice of a man of Erin,” said Nathos, holding in the air a
golden knight.

“Not so,” answered Darthool; “it is the voice of a Gael of Alba.” Yet
well she knew that Nathos had guessed aright, and that even now were
the footsteps of fate drawing close. For none can prevail against
destiny.

Once more a loud cry was heard, and a voice called upon Nathos and the
sons of Usna.

“Of a surety, that is the voice of a man of Erin,” said Nathos eagerly,
for his heart was fain to see an Ultonian again, and to hear of the Red
Branch and of the fate of Uladh, and as to whether Concobar reigned
still.

“Indeed, it is not so,” answered Darthool, and turning the great glory
and beauty of her eyes upon Nathos she bade him play on. Then a third
cry, nearer and clearer, was heard; and now all knew that it was the
voice of a man of Erin.

“And if there be no cloud upon me,” said Nathos, “that is the voice of
no other than Fergus, the son of Rossa the Red, whom I knew well of
old, and for whom my heart is fain. Ardan, do ye go down at once to the
haven, and bid Fergus welcome, and all who may be with him. It is a
good day this for us, when once more we may hear the voices of the Red
Branch.”

While Ardan went to the haven, Darthool told Nathos she had known from
the first that the newcomer was a man out of Erin, and moreover, that
he came from Concobar, and that his coming boded no good.

“And how will you be knowing the one and the other, Darthool?”

“From a dream that I had: to wit, that three birds flew hither from
Emain Macha, and brought with them three sips of rare honey, and then
that they left us with that honey but took away instead three sips of
our blood.”

“Tell me, my queen, what is the reading you put upon that dream?”

“That Fergus comes to us with the honey-words of peace, but that behind
them lies the shedding of blood, and that blood ours.”

Meanwhile Ardan welcomed Fergus, and brought him and his companions
to where Nathos sat playing with Darthool upon the ivory and gold
chessboard of Concobar the king. As the fair-smiling Ultonian drew
near, he smiled a grimmer smile behind his beard, to see Nathos there
with the two chiefest treasures of the king’s heart--the woman he
wished to make his queen, and the chessboard that had come to him from
some great king’s palace in the dim remote Indies of which the poets
sang.

Great was the rejoicing, and Nathos and his brothers and Darthool
embraced Fergus and his sons, and eagerly questioned them for tidings.

“The best tidings I have,” Fergus answered, “is that I have come to ye
with messages of loving peace from Concobar, whose heart is smitten
by your long absence, and who would fain see in Erin again the three
noblest lords in his or any other realm. Moreover, he has sent me to
you with covenants and guarantees of loving good faith. He has pledged
his kingly word, and I, too, have pledged mine, and ye know well, ye
sons of Usna, that Fergus MacRossa Rua is not a man of light word.
So come back to Erin with me, Nathos and Ailne and Ardan, and I pray
of thee, come thou too, Darthool, wife of Nathos. Great shall be the
welcome given to ye all, and sure it is a good thing to end a feud, and
to put an unwaking sleep upon the sword and the spear.”

“That is a good word,” said Nathos, who was well pleased; but a sob was
in the heart of Darthool, and her lips quivered as she spoke.

“Surely,” she said, “Concobar MacNessa forgets. The sons of Usna are no
tributaries. Nathos is overlord now of a country greater in extent than
all the province of Uladh over which Concobar is king. It ill befits a
king of an isle to go as a forgiven guest to the lord of a rock.”

“That is true,” said Fergus quickly, “Darthool has justice for what
she says. But there is truth in what I say also, and it is a truth
which the sons of Usna know, and will act by, that a man longs to see
the land which is his own land or the land of his adoption. And were
not Nathos and Ailne and Ardan among us as children and as boys and as
youths, and are they not heroes of the Red Branch? Surely, it is a good
thing for a man to see his own land each day, and to rejoice therein?”

“We have two lands,” interrupted Ardan, “we who are of both Alba and
Erin. Nevertheless, it would ill befit us not to look upon ourselves
of the Red Branch first and foremost. So if Nathos is ready to go with
thee, so also are Ailne and I myself.”

“I am ready,” said Nathos, though he kept his eyes away from those of
Darthool.

“And ye know that my guaranty is sure?” added Fergus.

“It is sure,” said Nathos.

That night all were full of joyous pleasure, save only Darthool, who
in her heart knew that the shadowy feet of Fate were all about them,
and that she at least and perhaps none other there would ever again see
Alba.

On the morrow all set sail. As they left the beautiful shores, than
which for sure there are none more beautiful in all the realms of the
Gael, Darthool took her harp and sat back among the deerskins in the
stern of the galley and sang:

    “_Ionmhuin tir, an tir ud shoir--
     Alba go na h’-iongantaibh;
     Nocha ttiocfainn aiste ale,
     Muna ttagainn le Naoise_,”

and for eight other verses in the old ancient Gaelic that has lived in
her lament till this day:[22]

  Dear is this land to me, dear is this land:
  O Alba of the lochs!
  Sure I would not be sailing sad from thy foam-white sand
  Were I not sailing with Nathos for the Irish strand.
  Dear is the Forest Fort and high Dunfin,
  And Dun Sween, and Innis Drayno--
  Often with Nathos have I striven to win
  To the wooded heights of these--and now we go
  Far hence, and to me it is a parting of woe.

  O woods of Coona, I can hear the singing
  Of the west wind among the branches green
  And the leaping and laughing of cool waters springing,
  And my heart aches for all that has been,
  For all that has been, my Home, all that has been!

  Fain would I be once more in the woods of Glen Cain,
  Fain would I sleep on the fern in that place:
  Of the fish, venison, and white badger’s flesh I am fain
  That plentifully we had there, or wherever our trail
  Carried us, yea, I am fain of that place.

  Glenmassan! O Glenmassan!
  High the sorrel there, and the sweet fragrant grasses:
  It would be well if I were listening now to where
  In Glenmassan the sun shines and the cool west wind passes,
  Glenmassan of the grasses!

  Loch Etive, O fair Loch Etive, that was my first home,
  I think of thee now when on the grey-green sea--
  And beneath the mist in my eyes and the flying foam
  I look back wearily,
  I look back wearily to thee!

  Glen Orchy, O Glen Orchy, fair sweet glen,
  Was ever I more happy than in thy shade?
  Was not Nathos there the happiest of men?
  O may thy beauty never fade,
  Most fair and sweet and beautiful glade.

  Glen of the Roes, Glen of the Roes,
  In thee I have dreamed to the full my happy dream:
  O that where the shallow bickering Ruel flows,
  I might hear again, o’er its flashing gleam,
  The cuckoos calling by the murmuring stream.

  Ah, well I remember the Isle of the Thorn
  In dark and beautiful Loch Awe afar:
  Ah, from these I am now like a flower uptorn,
  Who shall soon be more lost than a falling star,
  And am now as a blown flame in the front of war!

Nathos was sad when he heard this lament from the mouth of Darthool,
and Ailne and Ardan looked at each other and whispered that it was
the beginning of the end. Nevertheless, they did not fear to confront
the days to come, for whatsoever the decrees of Fate may be a brave
man does not draw back, but goes forward upon the way set before him.
But Nathos was in a dream, and so heeded little, content too to chide
Darthool because that she laid so much stress on vain imaginings.

The voyage was a swift and good one, and even Darthool’s heart beat the
quicker when once more she stood on the soil of Erin, her own land. In
three days thereafter they came within sight of the Dun of Borrach, and
Fergus MacRossa was glad, for soon he would be able to see Concobar the
king, and tell him how great was his success.

It is a strange thing that a man such as Fergus Honeymouth could be so
blind. Yet had he ever believed in the kinglihood of Concobar, and it
was not till he reached the house of the son of Cainte that he knew in
truth how the high king meant to play him false, and mayhap to deal
treacherously with the sons of Usna. For after Borrach had greeted them
all with affection and heartsome pleasure, he told them that word had
come from Concobar that they were to press forward without delay, so
great was the king’s longing to see them again, and so deep was his
love for three of the noblest of the knights of the Red Branch. “But
upon thee, Fergus MacRossa, I have a feast made ready, a festival of
weeks, and thou knowest it is _geas_ upon thee not to refuse any feast
made for thee: and so as thou wouldst avoid putting shame upon me and
deep disgrace upon thyself, thou must abide here with me.”

At that, Fergus flushed a deep red,[23] and was filled with anger. Yet
could he not refuse, for his _geas_ was sacred: and no man of that age
dared break that bond.

So he turned to those with him, and asked what was now to be done.

“Let this be done,” said Darthool: “either forsake the sons of Usna, or
keep to thy feast-bond.”

“My feast-bond I must keep, Darthool, yet will I not forsake the sons
of Usna. My guaranty is known for sure: but over and above that I will
send with them, and with thee, my two sons, Illann the Fair and Buine
the Fiery, as further warranty.”

But at these words Nathos turned away with a scornful smile.

“It is not at thee or thy feast-bond I smile, O Fergus,” he said, “but
at thy protection, good though thy sons be. For, by the Sun and Wind,
I have never yet had need of any man to protect me, and go now, as
ever before, confident in my own valour and might: and this I say not
boastingly, but openly, so that Concobar and all Uladh may know it.”

Thereafter Darthool and the sons of Usna left the house of Borrach,
and fared southward, with Illann the Fair and Buine in their company.
As for Fergus, he cursed his bond, but nevertheless assured himself,
for, as he said over and over, if the whole five provinces of Erin
were assembled on one spot, they would not be able to break the solemn
pledge of his guaranty.

But on the way Darthool urged advice upon Nathos and his brothers.

“Let us go,” she said, “to the isle of Cullen, between Erin and Alba,
and there await the day when Fergus will fulfil his bond. In that way
he shall still keep the obligation of his _geas_, and yet we shall
escape the evil that I know well awaiteth us.”

“That we cannot do,” answered the sons of Usna, “for we are in honour
bound now to the king. Moreover, we have the guaranty of Fergus
MacRossa.”

“It was an ill day when we came here trusting to that word,” Darthool
replied: but said no more then.

At dusk they reached the White Cairn on Sliav-Fuad, and it was not till
after they had left the watch-tower behind them that Nathos saw that
Darthool was no longer of their company. So he retraced his way, and
came upon her sleeping a deep sleep, though she awoke suddenly as he
drew near.

“Is sleep so heavy upon thee, fair queen?” he asked, when he saw her
startled eyes and pale face.

“I was weary, Nathos. Yet it is not weariness that has done this, but a
dream. I dreamed a terrifying and dreadful thing. I saw thee and Ailne
and Ardan and Illann the Fair, but on not one of these was the head
remaining, but only on Buine the Fiery.”

“And what will be the meaning of that, Darthool?”

“That Buine will leave ye ere death comes, and that a bloody death will
be upon each. Nathos, I pray of thee that thou wilt go straightway to
Dun Delgan, where the great and noble lord Cuchulain is, and abide with
him for a while. There we shall be safe. Listen, I pray thee: I see
thine own shadow creeping up thee, and a dark cloud overhead, and a
cloud of clotted blood it is by the same token.”

“Fair woman, there is some guile upon thy delicate thin lips. Why
shouldst thou see evil everywhere? Be assured that neither I nor Ailne
nor Ardan will turn aside from our quest of Concobar the king.”

Darthool sighed, and remembered some old wisdom she had heard from
Lavarcam: that if misfortune will not come to a man swiftly, he will
seek it and take it by the great boar-fangs and compel it to come
against him.

But on the morrow, as they came within sight of Emain Macha, once more
she gave counsel.

“Ye know well, Nathos and Ailne and Ardan, that in Emain Macha are
three fair great houses of the king: that in one he himself is, with
the nobles of Uladh who are his own following, and that in another are
the wayfarers of the Red Branch, and that in a third are the women. Now
I warn ye of this thing: that if Concobar welcome us into his own house
and among the nobles of Uladh, all will be well: but that if he send
us to the house of the Red Branch, that will mean a disastrous end to
thee and to me.”

They said nothing to that, and when they came late into Emain Macha
they knocked at the gates of Concobar’s house.

The messengers told the king that the sons of Usna, and Darthool, and
the two sons of Fergus MacRossa, were without: whereupon he asked of
those about him in what state of provision and comfort was the house
of the Red Branch, and on hearing that there was abundance of food
and drink and comfort, he bade the messengers return and conduct the
newcomers to that place.

When that message was given, Darthool again gave counsel: but Illann
the Fair was wroth thereat, and the others yielded. As for Nathos, he
said only:

“Great is thy love, Darthool, queen of women: but great also is thy
fearfulness.”

At that Darthool smiled gravely, but said no more. Only in her heart
she remembered what Lavarcam, in bitter irony, had told her once, that
when a man foresaw evil and fore-fended it he was wise and strong in
his courage, but that if a woman did the same she was timorous and
whim-borne.

In the house of the Red Branch the strangers were rendered all honour.
Generous and pleasant foods and bitter cheering drinks were supplied to
them, so that the whole company was joyful and merry, save the sons of
Usna, and Darthool, who were weary with their journeying.[24]

Thus after they had eaten and drunken, Nathos and Darthool lay down
upon high couches of white and dappled fawn-skins, and played upon the
gold and ivory chessboard.

It was at this time that a secret messenger came from Concobar to tell
him if Darthool were as beautiful as when she fled from Erin. This
messenger was no other than Lavarcam. The woman embraced Darthool
tenderly, and kissed the hands and brow of Nathos. Then, looking upon
them through her tears, she said:

“Of a surety it is not well for ye twain to be playing thus upon the
second dearest thing in all the world to Concobar, Darthool being the
dearest, and ye having taken both from him, Nathos, and now ye twain
being in his house and in his power. And this I tell you now, that I am
sent hither by Concobar to see if Darthool has her form and beauty as
it was of old. Thy beauty then was a flame before his eyes, Darthool,
and now it will be as a torch at his heart.”

Suddenly Darthool thrust the chessboard from her.

“I have the sight upon me,” she said in a strange voice with a sob in
it.

“And what is that sight, my queen?” asked Nathos.

“I see three torches quenched this night. And these three torches
are the three Torches of Valour among the Gael, and their names are
the names of the sons of Usna. And more bitter still is this sorrow,
because that the Red Branch shall ultimately perish through it, and
Uladh itself be overthrown, and blood fall this way and that as the
whirled rains of winter.”

Then taking the small harp by her side, she struck the strings and sang:


    A bitter, bitter deed shall be done in Emain to-night,
    And for ages men will speak of the fratricidal fight;
      And because of the evil done, and the troth unsaid,
    Emain of dust and ashes shall cover Emain the White.

    Of a surety a bitter thing it is thus to be led
    Into the Red Branch house, there to be rested and fed,
      And then to be feasted with blood and drunken with flame,
    And left on the threshold of peace silent and cold and dead.

    The three best, fairest, and noblest of any name,
    Are they all to be slain because of a woman’s fame?
      Alas! it were better far there were dust upon my head,
    And that I, and I only, bore the heavy crown of shame.


At that Nathos was silent awhile. He knew now that Darthool was right.
He looked at his brothers: Ailne frowned against the floor, Ardan
stared at the door, with a proud and perilous smile. He looked at
Illann the Fair and at Buine the Fiery: Buine drank heavily from a horn
of ale, with sidelong eyes, Illann muttered between his set teeth.

“This only I will say, Darthool,” Nathos uttered at last, “that it were
better to die for thee, because of thy deathless beauty, than to live
for aught else. As for what else may betide, what has to be will be.”

“I will go now,” said Lavarcam, “for Concobar awaits me. But, sons of
Usna and sons of Fergus, see ye that the doors and windows be closed,
and if Concobar come against ye treacherously may ye win victory, and
that with life to ye all.”

With that Lavarcam left. Swiftly she sought Concobar, and told the
king that it was for joy she knew now that the three heroes, the sons
of Usna, had come back to Erin to dwell in fellowship with the Ardree
and the Red Branch, but that it was for sorrow she had to tell that
Darthool the Beautiful was no longer fair and comely in form and face,
but had lost her exceeding loveliness, and was now no more than any
other woman.

At first Concobar laughed at that; then as his jealousy waned he
thought with sorrow of the loss of so great beauty; and then again his
spirit was perturbed. So he sent yet another messenger on the same
errand.

This was a man named Treandhorn. Before Concobar sent him to the house
of the Red Branch he said:

“Treandhorn, who was it that slew thy father and thy brother?”

“Thou knowest, O King, that it was Nathos, son of Usna, who slew them.”

Concobar smiled. “Now,” he said, “go and do my behest.”

When Treandhorn reached the house, he found all the doors and windows
closed and barred. Then fear seized him, for he knew that the sons of
Usna were on guard, and would have wrath upon them.

Nevertheless, still more did he fear to go back to Concobar with nought
to tell him.

So the man, descrying a narrow window at one side, climbed to it
from an unyoked chariot that was near, and looked in. He saw Nathos
and Darthool talking each to each in low voices, where they lay upon
the white and dappled fawn-skins, with the gold and ivory chessboard
between them. He smiled grimly, when he saw how great and noble and
kingly Nathos seemed, and how more wonderful and beautiful than ever
were the wonder and beauty of the eyes and face and form of Darthool.

It was the last time he smiled. At that moment Nathos glanced upward.
Swift as thought he lifted a spiked and barbed chessman and hurled it
at the man’s eye. Treandhorn fell backward, but rose at once and fled,
with his right eye torn and blind for evermore.

When he came to the king and told his tale, and how Nathos was like
a king indeed, and Darthool more beautiful by far than she had been
of old, Concobar sprang to his feet. A red light came into his eyes,
and he threw back his head and laughed; and at that laughing every
man there knew that his madness was come upon him, and that the
blood-thirst was already sweating upon many swords.

“Ultonians,” he cried, “will ye do the will of your king?”

“That will we!” they answered with a great shout.

“Then come ye, and all your followers and vassals, and surround the
house of the Red Branch, and set it in a forest of red flames, and if
any run from out thereof put them to the sword.” As all ran swiftly
from the king’s fort, a high terrible voice was heard. It was that of
the dying Cathba the ancient Druid, and what he cried thrice was: “The
Red Branch perisheth! Uladh passeth! Uladh passeth!”

But none heard him or paid heed, save only Lavarcam, who in that bitter
crying knew well that the end was come.

In a brief while thrice three hundred men surrounded the fort of the
Red Branch, and set red flames about it; and thrice three hundred more
made haste to join them.

There was a mighty onset at the first led by Buine the Fiery, who slew
many, and quenched the fires, and threw the Ultonians into confusion.

“Who is the hero who has done this?” cried Concobar.

“It is I, Buine Borbruay, the son of Fergus MacRossa.”

“I will give thee great bribes, Buine, if thou wilt forsake these
robbers of my wife that was to be.”

“What are thy bribes?”

“I will give thee a cantred of land at thine own choice, and I will
make thee my chosen comrade, and thou shalt be as next to the king.”

Then Buine the Faithless laughed and said: “Better the honours of a
king than the thanks of dead men,” and with that, for all the pledged
guaranty of Fergus and the troth of his own word, he went over unto
Concobar.

But when Illann the Fair heard of this he was wroth. He saw the bitter
smile on the lips of Darthool, and he swore that he would not desert
those upon whom lay the protection of his father’s guaranty.

Meanwhile Ardan lay, dreaming with a proud smile against the fire; and,
upon the deerskins near the couch of Darthool, Ailne and Nathos played
at chess, for little did they care to heed the treacherous valour of
the Ultonians. They knew, too, that their hour was come; and being
kingly, gave no thought to that little thing.

But Illann called the troops together and fared forth, and made so
deadly an onslaught that he slew three hundred of Concobar’s men. Then
he quenched the fires, and went back to the fort and to where Ailne and
Ardan were playing together.

“Is that rain that is making a noise without?” said Ailne to Nathos.

“No; it is a humming of gnats,” answered Nathos. “Let us play on.”

“My fate is heavy upon me, Nathos and Ailne,” said Illann the Fair. “I
have done well by thee, but I feel the heavy hand of fate is against
me, and who can withstand fate?”

“No one,” Nathos answered later, when he had thought upon his play. At
that Illann the Fair drank a drink,[25] and went out again. The fires
had been quenched, and there was a deep darkness. So he bade each man
take a torch, and then all set furiously again upon the Ultonians.

It was then that Concobar bethought him of his son Fiacha the Fair, who
was born on the same night as Illann the Fair. There was life to the
life, or death to the death, in that.

So he called Fiacha, and bade him strive with Illann, and gave him the
three famous weapons of the royalty of Uladh--the moaning Orchaoin, and
the terrible Corrthach, and the Notched-Bow.

But for all his enchanted weapons Fiacha did not prevail, and after a
great and wonderful fight, which was girt about by a strange sighing,
the sighing being the breath of the pulses of the watching host, Illann
drove him to the ground where he crouched behind the shelter of his
shield. Easily then he might have slain him but for this:--

The moaning Orchaoin made so great and terrible a voice that it was
heard afar off. The Three Ceaseless Waves of Erin heard it, and roared
responsive, so that all the coasts shook with their thunder: the Wave
of Toth (_Tuaithe_), the Wave of Clidna (_Cliodhna_), and the Wave of
Rudhraya (_Rudhraighe_). There was a great dun on these coasts, named
Dun Tobairce, and there Conall Cernach the son of Amergin lived: and
when he heard the roaring of the Three Waves of Erin, he knew that
Concobar was in dire distress.

And that moaning of Orchaoin brought Conall Cernach on his magic steed
that could fly through the night. He had with him his great sword “Blue
Blade,” and when he came to the place of the strife he moved swiftly
up behind Illann the Fair, and plunged “Blue Blade” into the back, and
through the heart, and out at the breast of the hero.

But when Conall Cernach heard from Illann’s own lips what he had done,
he was filled with wrath and grief.

“Thy faithless summons shall avail nought,” he cried into the torchlit
darkness where Concobar was; and with that he took his sword, and
severed from its body the head of Fiacha the son of Concobar, and
tossed it towards the king. Then, turning his back upon the host, he
departed as he had come.

With the death of Illann the Fair, the Ultonians once more took heart.
They surrounded the Red Branch fort, and again set red flames leaping
against it.

Then Ardan came forth: laughing lightly, and with a proud joy.

The Ultonians saw then what it was to perish as mown grass. And when he
had slain five times fifty, his arms grew weary.

“How many did Illann the Fair slay in that onslaught of his?” he asked.

“Thrice five score,” he was told.

So Ardan slew two score and ten more, and then another score, for it
did not befit so great a hero to slay less than an Ultonian champion,
noble as Illann the Fair was.

When he was tired, he went into the fort, and told Ailne that there was
still fresh carrion enough for a wild-hawk to glut its thirst with.

So Ailne rose from the chessboard and drank a drink, and went out, and
did among the Ultonians even as Ardan had done, although he slew a
score more, for he was older than Ardan, and so it did not befit him to
put the stiffness and the silence upon fewer men.

Two-thirds of the night were now gone, yet Concobar did not withstay
his wrath. For now the whole host of the Ultonians was gathered
together, and he thought to have victory at the last.

But at their great shouting and the higher leaping of the flames Nathos
rose. He kissed Darthool, then he drank a drink, and went out against
the Ultonians.

In that hour thrice three hundred men grew cold and stiff.

Then he slew five score more.

“Go to Concobar,” he said to a man, “and tell him that he has lost a
thousand men over and above the hundreds slain by Illann the Fair and
Ailne and Ardan. And now let him come to me himself.”

But when Concobar heard that, he sent a messenger to Lavarcam to ask if
Cathba the Druid were yet dead; and when he heard that he was not, he
bade that the old man should be brought to him on a litter.

When Cathba was brought, he asked if the king meant death to the sons.

“I swear I mean no death,” said Concobar; “but only honourably to
subdue them and to obtain Darthool. And so I pray of thee to put an
enchantment upon them, otherwise they will slay every Ultonian in the
land.”

So Cathba raised himself, and put an enchantment between the sons of
Usna and the host of the Ultonians. That enchantment was a hedge of
spears, taller than the tallest spear-reach, and more thickset than
thorns on a bramble-bush.

But Nathos and Ailne and Ardan put their shields about Darthool, and
came forth from the blazing house, and cleft a way through the hedge of
spears, and, laughing loud, garnered a red harvest among the swaying
corn of the Ultonian host.

Then there was a strange roaring heard, and a vast and terrible flood
came pouring from the hills. The Ultonians fled to the high ground, but
Darthool and the sons of Usna were cut off by the rushing waters.

Soon the flood rose to their waists, but then it ceased rising.

“The wind will soon blow,” whispered Darthool, “and then the flood will
rise, and we shall be drowned.”

Nathos answered nothing, but raised her in his arms, and kissed her
thrice upon the lips. Then he put her upon his left shoulder, where she
sat with her white arms round his neck.

There was a smile in the blue eyes of Nathos.

The flood now subsided, but the sons of Usna could not move, for their
feet were in a morass. On a dry spit of land close to them a man
walked. This man was Maine of the Red Hand, a man of Lochlin,[26] in
the train of Concobar.

Concobar had bidden some hero go forth and slay the sons of Usna. But
none would stir. A deep shame burned in all. But Maine’s father and two
brothers had been slain by Nathos, and he said he would do likewise
unto the sons of Usna.

When he drew near, Ardan spoke.

“Slay me first,” he said, “for I am the youngest of the sons of Usna:
and it may be that with my death the tides of fortune may flow again.”

“That cannot be,” said Nathos. “Here is the sword which Manannan,
the son of Lir, gave me, and that cannot leave any remains of blow
or stroke. Let this man Maine take it, and strike at us at one and
the same time, so that not one of us may have the shame and sorrow of
seeing the other beheaded.”

And so it was. But while the man reached for the sword, Darthool sprang
from the shoulder of Nathos, and strove to kill Maine of the Red Hand.
With a blow he reeled her aside, and then whirled the great sword of
Manannan on high.

There was a flash in the air, and then the heads of the three fairest
and noblest heroes of Alba fell. There was a long and terrible silence,
till suddenly the whole host of Uladh broke into lamentation. Only
Concobar stood leaning on his sword, and stared at the stillness that
was now fallen upon the House of Usna.

But already afar off Darthool had descried the champion Cuchulain, and
she fled towards him.

“Thou shalt be safe with me, beautiful one,” he said. “Tell me what
thou wantest me to do.”

“I do not wish to live, but I wish to live yet a brief hour, and not to
be taken in shameful life before the eyes of Concobar.” So the twain
returned to where the dead lay. Darthool fell upon her knees, and
spread out the glory of her hair, and put her lips to the blood-wet
lips of Nathos.

Then she rose, and looking upon the silent Ultonians, chanted this
chant:

    Is it honour that ye love, brave and chivalrous Ultonians?
    Or is the word of a base king better than noble truth?
    Of a surety ye must be glad, who have basely slain honour
    In slaying the three noblest and best of your brotherhood.

    Ardan the Proud, where now lies his yellow hair?
    Ailne the Comely, where now stare his sightless eyes?
    Nathos, the king of men, where now is his might, his glory?
    Where are the sons of Usna whom ye swore to honour?

    Let now my beauty that set all this warring aflame,
    Let now my beauty be quenched as a torch that is spent--
    For here shall I quench it, here, where my loved one lies,
    A torch shall it be for him still through the darkness of death.

And with that Darthool stooped, and lifted the head of Nathos, and
cleaned it of blood and foam, and the sweats of death, and kissed the
eyes and the lips, and put her love upon the dear face, and her sorrow
upon it, and her grief upon it, and put it to her white breast, and to
her lips again, and gave it again her grief and her love.

Then at the bidding of Cuchulain three graves were digged. In each
grave a son of Usna was placed, and as each stood there his head was
placed upon his shoulders.

But the grave of Nathos was made wider. Darthool stood therein and
held his hands in hers, and put her lips often to his lips, and often
whispered to him.

One other death there was in that hour, and in that place.

Cathba the Druid died there: and again he cried: “The Red Branch
perisheth! Uladh passeth! Uladh passeth!”

And so it was. On the morrow Emain Macha fell before a great host, and
was thenceforth a place of ruin and wind-eddied dust. The Red Branch
became as scattered leaves, and were no more. And Uladh was given over
to blood and rapine, and Concobar died in a madness of grief, and
throughout Erin for many years the tides of death rose and fell.

But the sons of Usna slept, and the world dreams still of the beauty of
Darthool.




Notes


I

IN my renderings of the three famous ancient Gaelic tales, collectively
known as “The Three Sorrows of Story-Telling” (_Tri Thruaighe na
Scéalaigheachta_), I have followed Professor Eugene O’Curry (_In
Atlantis_, _Manners and Customs_, and _MS. Materials_); Dr. Douglas
Hyde (_The Three Sorrows of Story-Telling_, translated into English
verse); Dr. Joyce (_Old Celtic Romances_); Dr. Cameron (_Reliquiæ
Celticæ_); Alexander Carmichael (_Trs. Gael. Socy. of Inverness_); Dr.
Angus Smith (_Loch Etive and the Sons of Uisnach_).

These tales have often been retold in prose and verse; and particular
intention should be made of the metrical versions of Dr. Douglas Hyde,
Dr. Robert Joyce (_Deirdre_), and, I believe, of Dr. John Todhunter.

In “The Children of Lir” I have closely followed the version of the
original, as translated by Dr. P. W. Joyce (_Old Celtic Romances_),
and in “The Sons of Usna” the literal prose rendering by Dr. Cameron
and the metrical translation of Dr. Douglas Hyde. These two stories
are told more completely than that of “The Sons of Turenn,” which in
the original extends to great length, as there the narrative of the
world-wide quest of the Sons of Turenn is given with great detail.

Naturally in these retold ancient tales I have often followed the
Scoto-Gaelic variants, both because of familiarity and by preference,
and this particularly in the tale of “Darthool and the Sons of Usna.”

Much the most ancient of the “Three Sorrows” is the tale of the Sons
of Turenn. Professor O’Curry’s version in _Atlantis_ is the basis
of all other modern renderings. The period of this tale belongs to
mythological times. “The Children of Lir” may be taken as a connecting
link between the mythological and prehistoric and Christian periods.
The tale of “Deirdre,” or “Darthool,” is by far the best known in
Gaelic Scotland, and is still the favourite ancient tale throughout all
Gaeldom.

The reader who wishes further information should consult in particular
Professor Eugene O’Curry; Dr. Cameron, in _Reliquiæ Celticæ_; Dr.
Joyce, in _Old Celtic Romances_; and Dr. Douglas Hyde, in his
delightful and deservedly popular little volume.


II

The quatrains and other metrical pieces interpolated here, and those
in the text of the first and third of these tales, are generally free
renderings of the originals. Occasionally they are almost literal.
But, both in the matter of selection and rejection, I have taken
certain slight advisable liberties with the original versions. It
may be as well to add, although already explained in the footnote at
page 122, that the “Song to Macha” is here adapted from another poem
known as “Crede’s Lament” (_vide Silva Godelica_, Professor Sullivan’s
translation, etc.).


III

“Darthool and the Sons of Usna.” Readers familiar only with the Irish
versions of this beautiful old tale should also consult the important
variants given by Dr. Cameron and Mr. Alexander Carmichael. Dr. Angus
Smith also gives a good digest, and readers interested in the Scottish
wayfarings of Darthool and Nathos will find the details given there
more or less specifically.


IV

In the story of “The Sons of Turenn” it is possible that some injustice
has been done to the character of Lugh, the foremost personage in it,
best known in all the Gaelic chronicles as Lu-Lamfada--Lugh of the Long
Hand. In this version he is represented uniformly as sternly cruel; but
it must be borne in mind that his inveterate hostility to the Sons of
Turenn was not due to insatiable revenge alone, but to his belief (as
prophesied by his father) that any clemency in the fulfilment of the
great eric demanded would result in terrible disaster to Erin itself.
Throughout this ancient tale, indeed, we recognise Lu-Lamfada as an
impersonation of Destiny or Nemesis. It may at the same time be added
that in the story of “Darthool” Fergus is shown more obviously culpable
than the old chronicles indicate, where he appears rather as a too
innocent and trustful tool of King Concobar.


V

A few notes as to the less familiar of the Gaelic names introduced in
the foregoing pages may aptly be given here, and the more conveniently
in alphabetical order.

AÉ. Pronounced as rhyming to day: equivalent to Hugh.

AILNE. The older forms are _Ailna_ and _Ainlé_. The latter (pronounced
Anlă) is probably the right name. It is said to signify beauty.

ALBA. The Gaelic for Scotland. The genitive of this word is Alban,
whence the familiar English word for Scotland, Albyn.

BANBA. This was one of the three ancient names of Ireland--Banba, Fola,
and Eiré--the names of three famous queens of antiquity. It is from the
last that Ireland derives its best known Gaelic name.

BOVE DERG (_Bodbh Dearg_). This semi-mythical king was one of the old
Dedannan race, and stands, as it were, midway between the elder gods
and the historic heroes. His name in Ireland is commonly pronounced
Bove-d’Yarrag; and in Scotland as Bove Derg.

CONOR (_Connachar_). The oldest form of this famous Gaelic name, so
common in Ireland, is Concubair, or Concobar. Dr. Hyde says that
Concubair is properly pronounced Cunnhoor, but doubtless Concobar is
closer to the ancient usage.

CUCHULAIN. The oldest form of the name of this great Gaelic hero
is Cuchulaind. The name is pronounced Coo-hoolin, whether spelled
according to any of the Irish-Gaelic variants or as to the Scottish
Cuthullin--but sometimes, as in Skye, Coolin. It is not the real name
of the hero in question. The word signifies the hound of Culainn, and
innumerable references to Cuchulain are found throughout early Irish
literature simply as The Hound. He was a native prince of Ulster,
and lord of the district of Muirthemne, lying between and including
the present towns of Dundalk and Drogheda, now called the County of
Louth, where his chief residence was named Dun Delga (Dundalk). This
celebrated hero, the champion of the knights of the great order of
Gaelic chivalry, known as the Red Branch, was the son of Soalte, or
Sualtam, and of Decteré, sister of the celebrated Irish king, Concobar
mac Nessa (a contemporary of Christ). His name was Setanta, but he
was commonly known as Cu-Culainn, the Hound of Culaan, who was his
instructor and war-smith to King Concobar. The most famous of the
Knights of the Red Branch at this time were the heroes known as Fergus
mac Róigh, Conall Cearnach, Fergus mac Leité, Curoi mac Dairé, and
Cuchulain mac Soalte.

DAGDA, or THE DAGDA. This is a purely mythical personage, and is one of
the ancient Gaelic divinities, among whom he occupies a place somewhat
akin to that of Jupiter in the Latin Pantheon.

DEDANNAN. Pronounced Day-Donnan. This is the colloquial form of the
Tuatha-De-Danann; that is, the elder semi-divine inhabitants of
Ireland, mostly mythical, and in some cases euhemerised. They became
the Hidden People, or People of the Hills, of ancient Gaelic legend,
and later the Fairies of popular tradition, though now the drift
of poetic thought is towards a restoration of the Tuatha-De-Danann
to their old spiritual significance and empery. The term signifies
the Divine Progeny of Ana, a mysterious and perhaps supreme ancient
goddess. The Dedannans were also called The Deena-Shee (Daoine-Sidhe),
or Fairy Folk; the Aes-She, or People of the Hills; the Marcra-Shee, or
Fairy Cavalcade; and the Sloo-She (Sluagh-Sidhe), or Fairy Host.

DUN. This word is properly pronounced Doon, though in Gaelic Scotland
generally Dun. It signifies a fortress or great fortified dwelling or
encampment, and should not be confused with Rath, which is more what
we would call the homestead, hamlet, village, or township, according
to circumstances; or, with Lis, or Lios, a smaller fort probably
corresponding to what we call a keep.

EILIDH. The name Eilidh is pronounced Eily (_Isle-ih_), and is said to
be the Gaelic equivalent of Helen.

EMANIA. This is simply the Latinized form of _Emhain_, or _Emain_, the
capital of North Ireland in the ancient days. The name is variously
pronounced as Emain, Avvin, and Yew-an or Yow-an.

ERIC. Originally eiric, pronounced ay-ric. Signifies literally a fine
or blood-money, and is perhaps best rendered in English by the word
ransom.

FELIM. This name is more familiar as Phelim. The modern Gaelic is
Phelimy, and the older, Pedlimid.

GEASA. Pronounced Gassa. It is the plural of _geis_ (often written
_geas_), and signifies oath-bound injunctions or undertakings. In the
old days for a man to be under _geasa_ meant that he was solemnly bound
to do such and such a thing, or, as it might be, to refrain; and the
bond once taken could not be broken without loss of honour.

ILDANNA. The old Irish word is best represented by Il-danach, that is,
the Master of Craft, or Master of the Many Arts, and is a name which is
specifically given to Lugh Lamfada, Lugh the Long-Handed.

ILLANN. This frequent name of Illann, or Illan, is identical with
Ullin, so familiar in Scotland through the famous poem of “Lord Ullin’s
Daughter.”

LIR. Pronounced sometimes Lirr, but generally Lear.

LOCHLANN. A general name for the whole of Scandinavia, including, of
course, Denmark, and not, as sometimes stated, of Norway only.

LUGH. This name is pronounced Lu, or Loo, and I have so given it in the
text.

MANANNAN. Pronounced Mon-on-awn. He is the Neptune of Gaelic mythology,
but holds a more mysterious and more potent position in the Gaelic
Pantheon than his classical congener.

MAEV. The name of this most famous queen of antiquity is variously
spelt. The original is Meadb, or Medbh, and is properly pronounced Mave
(rhyming with wave).

MURHEMNE. The original of this is Magh Muirteimne, pronounced
Moy-mwir-hev-na. It is the plain from the Boyne to near Carlingford.

MOYLE. This is the commonest pronunciation of the old Gaelic Maol,
though the word is best known in Scotland as Mull (from the Mull of
Cantyre). It is applied to the sea between Cantyre and Ulster.

MEKWEEN. The original of this difficult name is Miodcaoin. I do not
know what it means.

NATHOS. Originally Naisi; later Naoise; and commonly pronounced Neeshă.

NUADH. Pronounced Noo-ă.

OGAM, or OGHAM. The ancient Cryptic method of writing, like the
Northern Runes, chiefly graven on funeral stones or monuments. The word
is sometimes pronounced _Oo-am_, or _oom_, but Ogam is probably right
according to ancient usage.

SHEE FINNAHA. The old Gaelic is Fhionncaid, and is properly pronounced
Sheeh-Innăchee.

TAILKENN, or TAILCINN. This name for St. Patrick signifies Adze-Head
(probably from his monkish tonsure).

TURENN. The old form is Tuireann, and is pronounced Tirran or Toorenn.

ULAD, or ULADH. The old name of Ulster, of which Ultonia is the
Latinized form. Ulad is properly pronounced Ulla.

UR. This name is pronounced _oo-ar_ (Gaelic, Uar). The name in its old
form is Iuchar, as that of his brother is Iucharba, which I have given
as Urba. It is probable, however, that Ur is the modern equivalent of
Iucharba, and Yukar, or Yooch-ar (which I have given as Urba), of the
third of the Sons of Turenn. There is great confusion and diversity in
these old names.


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FOOTNOTES:

[1] In Gaelic, the name of Lir’s daughter is _Fionnghuala_, and is
variously given in English as Fionula, Fionnuola, Finoola, and Finola.

[2] Now Loch Derravaragh, in West Meath.

[3] That is, between the north-east of Ireland (the Giant’s Causeway)
and the south-west of the Scottish Highlands (the Mull of Cantire).

[4] The Tailcen: a name given by the early Irish to St. Patrick.

[5] Coineag, Gaelic for “rabbit.” The common English equivalent, Bunny,
is a Gaelic derivative, from _Bun_, a stump or tail.

[6] St. Patrick. (Druidic name.)

[7] With the advent of St. Kemoc, the story comes within historical
times. Lairgnen and Finghin were kings of Connaught and Munster, who
flourished in the seventh century A.D.

[8] It was the wont among the early Celtic peoples to bury their dead
erect, particularly in the case of kings, and great warriors, and sons
and daughters of kings.

[9] _i.e._, from the north of Norway to the coasts of Denmark.

[10] Probably Isberna is Hispania (Spain), and the apples the golden
apples of the Hesperides.

[11] _Alba._ That is, Gaelic Scotland, and in particular Argyll.

[12] _Naois_ in the old Irish Gaelic.

[13] Ulster.

[14] This song, adapted to Macha, is founded upon a portion of the poem
by Coel O’Neamhain, in honour of a beautiful queen named Crede, as
translated by Professor Sullivan and others.

[15] Given as in the Gaelic: _ciugear agus tri fichead agus tri chead_.
Large numbers are in Gaelic invariably built up thus (instead of, for
example, as here, four hundred and sixty). In an old Irish-Gaelic
version the particular number here is given as “five and three score
above six hundred and one thousand” (_i.e._, 1,760).

[16] In old Irish Gaelic, _Derdriu_, then _Deirdrê_, sometimes
_Darethra_. In Scotland, _Dearduil_ (pronounced Dart’weel, Darth-uil,
or “Darthool,” whence Macpherson’s “Darthula,” who rather loosely says
the name is _Dart’huile_, a woman of beautiful eyes). The oldest name
is said to signify alarm.

[17] The Gaelic original is _Beanchaointeach (Banchainte) Conchubhar
fein_, etc., and means literally Concobar’s Conversation-woman, which
perhaps might be rendered as “gossip.”

[18] I have adopted here, as more euphonious, the name given to the
eldest of the sons of Usna (Uisneach) by Macpherson in “Darthula.” The
old spelling is _Naoise_. _Ainnle_ (Ailne, Ailthos) means “beautiful,”
and _Ardan_, “pride.”

[19] The Cruithne, or Picts, had their chief stronghold at Beregonium,
overlooking the Bay of Selma, not far from the mouth of Loch Etive,
below the Falls of Lora, in West Argyll.

[20] To this day, the Highlander of Western Argyll and of
Inverness-shire is familiar with the Fort of the Sons of Usna, above
one of the lochs which constitute what is now known as the Caledonian
Canal.

[21] Western India.

[22] This is a free paraphrase of the original as given by Dr. Cameron
in the _Reliquiæ Celticæ_. The original consists of nine short
quatrains. In the second, the names mentioned are Dun Fiodha, Dun
Fionn, Innis Droighin, and Dun Suibhne. In the following quatrains the
old and modern names are practically identical. The modern Glendaruel
was formerly Glendaruay (Gleann da Ruadh), the Glen of the Two Roes, or
Glennaruay (Gleann na Ruadh), the Glen of the Roes. Innis Droighin is
again alluded to in the last verse. It is now called Innis Draighneach,
meaning the Island of Thorns, and is situate in Loch Awe.

[23] Literally “O d’chuala Feargus sin, do rinneadh rothnuall corcra
dhe O bhonn go bathas.” (When Fergus heard this, he became a crimson
mass from the foot-sole to the face.)

[24] This sentence is literal after the old Gaelic as translated by Dr.
Cameron. Apropos of the mention of the chessboard in the next sentence
(as once before), it may be added that the ancient Celtic kings and
lords had a passion for chess.

[25] _Agus d’ibh deoch, agus tainigh amach aris_, etc., “and he drank a
drink,” etc.

[26] Scandinavia.




TRANSCRIBER NOTES:

There are a number of blank pages in the original text of this book.
To conserve space, especially for handheld devices, blank pages have
been left out of this ebook.

This book contains Scoto-Gaelic variants. To retain the intended flavor
of the book, spelling and punctuation in dialect text have not been
altered.

Spelling of non-dialect wording in the text was made consistent when
a predominant preference was found in this book; if no predominant
preference was found, or if there is only one occurrence of the word,
spelling was not changed, unless noted below.

Single, oddly spelled words that could not be confirmed as
typographical errors were left unchanged. On page 159, “slao” was
considered to be a typographical error and changed to “slay”, which
fits the context.

Original punctuation has been retained.

Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved
with the following exception: Page 247 -- chess-board was changed to
chessboard. All seven other occurrences of the word chessboard that
were not end-of-line hyphens did not have a hyphen.

The name “Ae” is used twice and “Aé” used once within the text. The
name “Taillken” was used once in the text and “Taillkenn” used twice.
No change was made in either because it could not be confirmed that they
were typographical errors.





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