Part 26

Away went the giants; and when they were gone, Fin called his eight small men, and hurried to the ship. They hoisted sails, and went. They raised gravel from the bottom of the sea, and put the foam of the waves in the place of the gravel; and with every bound the ship made, she went forward ten leagues. Never before did a ship cross the water so swiftly; and Fin never stopped till he anchored in the Eastern World. He put the fastenings of a day and a year on the ship, though he might not be absent one hour, and went away with his men. They were going on and travelling, and where did they come at last but to the castle of the old King of the Eastern World, the father of the three giants. The old king laughed when he saw Fin and the eight small men with him.

“In what part of the world do such people live, and where are you going?” asked the king. “You would better stay with me till my three sons come home.”

“Where are your sons?” asked Fin.

“They are in Erin. They went to that country to bring me the head of Fin MacCool, and to drown all his forces in the deep ocean.”

“They must be great men,” said Fin, “to go against Fin MacCool, and to think of drowning his forces, and bringing Fin’s head to you. Do you know that no man ever got the better of Fin, or made any hand of the Fenians of Erin?”

“My sons are not like others,” said the king; “but will you stay with me?”

“I will,” said Fin, “and why not?”

The old king was very fond of amusement; and after a while Fin told what a wonderful archer one of his little boys was. The king appointed a day for a trial of skill in archery. All the greatest marksmen in the Eastern World were invited.

“Where does the king keep his sons’ three caps?” asked Fin of Knowing Man.

“There is a secret chamber in the castle; no one here but the king knows where it is. In that chamber are the caps. The king always keeps the key of that chamber in his pocket.”

“You must show the chamber to Thief, to-morrow,” said Fin.

Next day, while the king was looking at the archery, and wondering at the skill of Bowman, who sent an arrow through the two eyes of a bird on the wing, Thief stole the key, and Knowing Man showed the secret chamber.

Thief stole the three caps, and gave them to Fin. Lazy Back ran for Bowman; and all were soon on the ship sailing for Erin as swiftly as they had come.

When the ship was near land in Erin, what should Fin see but all the Fenians coming down from the hilltops, and the three giants behind, driving them toward the water? He went to the top of the mast then, and raised the three caps on three sticks.

The giants looked at the vessel sailing in, and saw their own caps. That moment there was neither strength nor life left in them. They fell to the ground, and turned into three heaps of jelly. Fin had come just in season to rescue his forces; in another half hour, he would not have found a man of the Fenians alive in Erin.

“Oh, but you are here in time!” said Oscar.

“I am,” said Fin; “and it is well for you that I was able to come.”

Fin and the Fenians had a great feast in Rahin, and a joyful night of it; and no wonder, for life is sweet.

Next day the time of the small men was out; and Fin went to the strand with them.

“I will pay you your wages to-day,” said Fin. “To each man five gold-pieces. I am willing and glad to give more; for ye were the good servants to me.”

“We want nothing but our wages,” said the small men.

Fin paid each five gold-pieces. He wanted the ship in which he had sailed to the Eastern World, and kept his eye on it.

“Oh,” said Three Sticks, “don’t mind that ship; look at the one beyond.”

Fin turned in the other direction, and saw nothing but water.

“There is no ship there,” said he, turning to Three Sticks.

But Three Sticks and all his comrades were gone. Fin looked out on the water; the ship was gone too. He was sorry for the ship, and sorry for the small men; he would rather have them than all the Fenians of Erin.

FIN MACCOOL, CEADACH OG, AND THE FISH-HAG.

On a time Fin MacCool and the Fenians were living at Rahonain, a mile distant from Fintra. While Fin and his men were near Fintra, a champion called Ceadach Og, son of the King of Sorach, came to them to learn feats of skill. They received Ceadach with gladness; and after a time he learned all their feats, and departed. Fin and the Fenians were pleased with his company; and Ceadach was grateful to Fin and the Fenians.

At some distance from Fintra, there lived at that time a famed champion, who taught feats of valor and arms, and was surnamed the Knight of Instruction. With this man Ceadach engaged to gain still more knowledge.

The Knight of Instruction had a daughter; and there was with him a second man learning, whose nickname was Red Face.

When the champions had learned all the feats from the knight, the two were in love with his daughter. Not wishing that one of his pupils should envy the other, the knight could not settle which man to choose. He called then his druid, and laid the whole question before him.

“My advice,” said the druid, “is this: Open two opposite doors in your castle; place your daughter half-way between them; and let the two champions pass out, one through one door, and one through the other. Whomever your daughter will follow, let her be the wife of that man.”

The champions had their own compact, that the man whom the young woman would follow should let the other have three casts of a spear at him, and he without right of defence; but if another would defend, he might let him.

The knight brought his daughter to the middle of the chamber, and opened the doors. The young woman went out after Ceadach.

Ceadach and his wife went their way then together; and he feared to stop at any place till he came to a great lonesome forest. He went to the middle of the forest, built a house there, and lived with his wife for a season.

One day as Fin was walking near the water at Fintra, he met a strange creature,—a woman to the waist, from the waist a fish. The human half was like an old hag. When Fin stopped before her, he greeted the hag. She returned the greeting, and asked him to play chess for a sentence.

“I would,” answered Fin, “if I had my own board and chessmen.”

“I have a good board,” said the fish-hag.

“If you have,” said Fin, “we will play; but if you win the first game, I must go for my own board, and you will play the second on that.”

The hag consented. They played on her chessboard, and the hag won that game.

“Well,” said Fin, “I must go for my own board, and do you wait till I bring it.”

“I will,” said the fish-hag.

Fin brought his own board; and they played, and he won.

“Now,” said Fin, “pass your sentence on me, since you won the first game.”

“I will,” said the hag; “and I place you under sentence of weighty druidic spells not to eat two meals off the one table, nor to sleep two nights in the one bed, nor to pass out by the door through which you came in, till you bring me the head of the Red Ox, and an account of what took the eye from the Doleful Knight of the Island, and how he lost speech and laughter. Now pass sentence on me.”

“You will think it too soon when you hear it,” said Fin, “but here it is for you. I place you under bonds of weighty druidic spells to stand on the top of that gable above there, to have a sheaf of oats fixed on the gable beyond you, and to have no earthly food while I’m gone, except what the wind will blow through the eye of a needle fixed in front of you.”

“Hard is your sentence, O Fin,” said the fish-hag. “Forgive me, and I’ll take from your head my sentence.”

“Never,” said Fin. “Go to your place without waiting.”

Before Fin departed, the fish hag had mounted the gable.

The fame of the Red Ox had spread through all lands in the world, and no man could go near him without losing life. The Fenians were greatly unwilling to face the Red Ox, and thought that no man could match him, unless, perhaps, Ceadach.

Though they knew not where Ceadach was living, nor where they were likely to find him, they started in search of that champion. They played with a ball, as they travelled, driving it forward before them, knowing that if Ceadach saw the ball he would give it a blow.

While passing the forest where Ceadach and his wife, the knight’s daughter, were hiding, one of the Fenians gave the ball a great blow; but as he aimed badly, the ball flew to one side, went far away, and fell into the forest.

Ceadach was walking away from his house when the ball fell, and he saw it. He pulled down a tree-branch, and, giving a strong, direct blow, drove the ball high in the air, and out of the forest.

“No one struck that blow,” said the Fenians, “but Ceadach, and he is here surely.” They went then toward the point from which they had seen the ball coming, and there they found Ceadach.

“A thousand welcomes, Fin MacCool,” said Ceadach. “Where are you going?”

“I am under sentence to bring the head of the Red Ox; and ’tis for it that I am going: but I never can bring it unless you assist me. Without you, I cannot lift from my head the sentence that is on it.”

“If it lay with me, I would go with you gladly; but I know that my wife will not let me leave her. But do as I tell you now. When you come to us to eat dinner, taste nothing, and when my wife asks you to eat, say that you will not eat till she grants a request: if she will not grant it, leave the house, and let all the Fenians follow; if she grants you a request, you are to ask that I go with you. I know that she will grant you any request, except to take me in your company; for she is in dread that I may meet Red Face.”

They went to the house; the wife welcomed Fin with the others, and prepared dinner. When meat was placed before Fin, he would not taste it.

“Why not eat, O King of the Fenians?”

“I have a request to make. If you grant it, I will eat; if not, neither I nor my men will taste food.”

“Any request in my power, I will grant,” said she, “except one.”

“What is that?” inquired Fin.

“If you want Ceadach to go with you, I’ll not grant that.”

“’Tis he that I want,” answered Fin.

“You’ll not get him.”

“Well, you may keep him,” said Fin, rising from the table; and all the men followed. Conan Maol, who was with them, thought it hard to leave the dinner untasted, so he took a joint of meat with him.

When Fin and the Fenians had gone, Ceadach said to his wife, “It is a great shame to us that Fin and the Fenians have left our house without tasting food, and this their first visit. Never can I face a man of the Fenians after what has happened this day.” And he talked till the wife consented to let him go with them.

Ceadach then whistled after Fin, who came back with his men; and they raised three shouts of joy when they heard that Ceadach would go with them. They entered the house then; all sat down to dinner, and they needed it badly.

After dinner, all set out together, and went to Ceadach’s father, the King of Sorach, who was very powerful, and had many ships (Fin and the Fenians had no ships at that time). Ceadach’s father had received no account of his son from the time that he left him at first, and was rejoiced at his coming.

Said Fin to the King of Sorach, “I need a ship to bear me to the land where the Red Ox is kept.”

“You may take the best ship I have,” said the king.

Fin chose the best ship, and was going on board with his men when Ceadach’s wife said to him, “When coming back, you are to raise black sails if Ceadach is killed, but white sails if he is living.”

Fin commanded, and the men turned the prow to the sea, and the stern to land; they raised the great sweeping sails, and took their smoothly-polished ship past harbors with gently-sloping shores, and there the ship left behind it pale-green wavelets. Then a mighty wind swept through great flashing waves with such force that not a nail in the ship was left unheated, nor the finger of a man inactive; and the ship raised with its sailing a proud, haughty ridge in the sea. When the wind failed, they sat down with their oars of fragrant beech or white ash, and with every stroke they sent the ship forward three leagues through the water, where fishes, seals, and monsters rose around them, making music and sport, and giving courage to the men; and they never stopped nor cooled till they entered the chief port of the land where the Red Ox was kept.

When all had landed; Ceadach said, “I need the fleetest man of the Fenians to help me against the Red Ox; and now tell me what each of you can do, and how fast he can run.”

“Let out,” said one man, “twelve hares in a field with twelve gaps in it, and I will not let a hare out through any gap of the twelve.”

“Take a sieve full of chaff,” said a second man, “to the top of a mountain; let the chaff go out with the wind; and I will gather all in again before as much as one bit of it comes to the ground.”

“When I run at full speed,” said a third man, “my tread is so light that the dry, withered grass is not crushed underneath me.”

“Now, Dyeermud,” said Ceadach, “I think that you were the swiftest of all when I was the guest of Fin MacCool and the Fenians of Erin; tell me, how swift are you now?”

“I am swifter,” said Dyeermud, “than the thought of a woman when she is thinking of two men.”

“Oh, you will do,” said Ceadach; “you are the fleetest of the Fenians; come with me.”

Fin and the Fenians remained near the ship, while Ceadach and Dyeermud went off to face the Red Ox.

The Red Ox’s resting-place was enclosed by a wall and a hedge; outside was a lofty stone pillar; on this pillar the Red Ox used to rub his two sides. The Ox had but one horn, and that in the middle of his forehead. With that horn, which was four feet in length, he let neither fly, wasp, gnat, nor biting insect come near, and whatever creature came toward him, he sniffed from a distance.

When he sniffed the two champions, he rushed at them. Ceadach bounded toward the pillar.

Dyeermud took shelter at the hedge, and waited to see what would happen.

Ceadach ran round the pillar, and the Red Ox ran after him. Three days and three nights did they run; such was the speed of the two that Dyeermud never caught sight of them during that time, nor did they have sight of each other: the Red Ox followed by scent. Near the close of the third day, when both were growing tired, the Ox, seeing Ceadach, stopped for an instant to run across and pierce him with his horn. Dyeermud got a glimpse of the Ox, then rose in the air like a bird, split the forehead of the Ox with one blow, and stretched him.

“My love on your blow,” said Ceadach; “and it was time for you to give it.”

“Purblindness and blindness to me,” replied Dyeermud, “if I saw the Ox till that instant.”

Both were now joyful; for they had the head to take with them.

“If Fin and his men had this carcass,” said Dyeermud, “it would give them beef for many a day.”

“Well, Dyeermud,” asked Ceadach, “how much of the Ox can you carry?”

“I think I can take one quarter, with the head.”

“If you can do that,” said Ceadach, “I’ll take the rest of the carcass myself.”

Cutting off one quarter, he thrust through it the point of the horn, put the horn on Dyeermud’s shoulder, with the head and quarter before and behind him. Ceadach took the other three quarters himself. Before they had gone half the way to the vessel, Dyeermud was tired, and Ceadach had to take that quarter as well as his own three; the head was as much as Dyeermud could carry.

When the two men appeared at the ship, all rejoiced greatly, and welcomed them. Fin took the borabu then, and sounded it from joy; this sound could be heard through the world. As the report had gone to all regions that Fin was under sentence to kill the Red Ox, when Red Face heard the borabu, he said to himself, “That is Fin; the Red Ox is killed; no one could kill him but Ceadach, and Ceadach is where the borabu is.” Red Face had the power of druidic spells; so he rose in the air, and soon dropped down near the Fenians, and was unseen till he stood there before them.

Said Red Face to Ceadach, “’Tis many a day that I am following you; you must stand your ground now.”

“What you ask is but fair,” answered Ceadach.

Red Face went to the distance of a spear’s cast, and hurled his spear at Ceadach; but Dyeermud sprang up and caught it on his heel. Red Face made a second cast. Goll MacMorna raised his hand to stop the spear; but it went through his hand, and, going farther, pierced Ceadach, and killed him.

Red Face then vanished; and no man knew when he vanished, or to what place he went.

When Ceadach fell, the Fenians raised seven loud cries of grief that drove the badgers from the glens in which they were sleeping.

Said Dyeermud to Fin, “Chew your thumb to know how we can bring Ceadach to life.”

Fin chewed his thumb from the skin to the flesh, from the flesh to the bone, from the bone to the marrow, from the marrow to the juice, and then he knew that there was a sow with three pigs in the Eastern World, and if blood from one of these pigs were put on Ceadach’s wound, he would rise up well and healthy.

Fin took some men, and, leaving others to watch over Ceadach, set sail for the Eastern World, and never stopped till he anchored in a port near the place where the sow and her pigs were.

Fin knew all paths to the lair of the sow; and they went to it straightway. When they came, she was away hunting food; so they took the three pigs, hurried back to the vessel, set sail in all haste, and were soon out at sea. When the sow came back to her lair, it was empty. Then she found the scent of the men, followed it to the sea, and swam after the ship.

When the ship had made one-third of the voyage, the sow came in sight, and was soon near the stern. Fin ordered his men to throw out one pig of the three. The sow took the pig in her mouth, turned back, swam home, and left it in her lair. She turned a second time, followed the ship, and such was her speed and her venom, that little more than one-half of the voyage was over when the sow was in sight again. When near the ship, they threw her the second pig. The mother went back to her lair with the second pig, left it with the first, and rushed after the ship a third time. Land was in sight when they saw the sow raging on after them.

“Oh, we are lost!” cried the Fenians.

Dyeermud then took a bow with an arrow, and, resting the bow on another man’s shoulder, aimed so truly at the widely-opened mouth of the sow, that the arrow, going in through her mouth, pierced her blood veins, and in no long time she turned her back downward and died.

They landed in safety, bled the pig; and when they let some of the blood into Ceadach’s spear-wound, he sprang up alive.

When Ceadach was restored, Fin blew the borabu, and the Fenians raised seven shouts of joy that were heard throughout the whole kingdom. Then they set sail for Sorach.

Ceadach’s wife thought her husband long in coming, and was watching and waiting every day for him. At last she saw the ship with white sails, and was glad.

Fin and his men landed, but left Ceadach on board.

“Where is Ceadach?” asked the wife, running out to meet Fin.

“He is dead on the vessel,” said Fin.

“Why did you not raise black sails as you promised?”

“We were so troubled that we forgot it.”

“It was well for you to forget; for if you had raised black sails, I should have drowned every man of you.”

“Ceadach is living and well; have no fear,” said Fin, and he sounded the borabu.

Ceadach landed. His father and wife were so glad to see him that they feasted Fin and the Fenians for seven days and seven nights.

Fin told Ceadach’s wife of all their adventures, and what struggles they had in bringing her husband to life. She was glad; for the trouble with Red Face was ended.

Ceadach went now with Fin to visit the Doleful Knight of the Island; and they never halted nor stopped till they came to his castle.

Fin found the knight sitting at a great heavy table, his head on his hand, his elbow on the table, into which it had worn a deep hole; a stream of tears was flowing from his eye to the table, and from the table to the floor.

“A hundred thousand welcomes to you, Fin MacCool,” said the knight; and he began to weep more than ever. “I was once in prosperity, and at that time this was a pleasant place for a good man to visit; but now it is different. I have food in plenty, but no one to cook it.”

“If that’s all your trouble,” said Fin, “we can cure it.”

Fin’s men were not slow in preparing a dinner. When the dinner was eaten, the knight turned to Fin and inquired, “Why have you come to my castle, Chief of the Fenians of Erin?”

“I will tell you,” said Fin. Then he related his story, and all his adventures with Ceadach.

“Well,” said the knight, “it will shorten my life by seven years to give the tale of my sufferings; for they will be as fresh to me now, as when first I went through them. But as you are under bonds to know them, I will tell you.

“I was here in wealth and prosperity, myself and my three sons. We used to hunt beasts and birds with our dogs when it pleased us. On a May morning a hare came, and frisked before my hall-door. Myself and my three sons then followed her with dogs, and followed all day till the height of the evening. Then we saw the hare enter an old fairy fort. The opening was wide; we were able to follow. In we rushed, all of us, and the next thing we saw was a fine roomy building. We went in, looked around for the hare, but saw not a sight of her. There was no one within but an old man and woman. We were not long inside till three gruagachs came, each with a wild boar on his shoulders. They threw the wild boars on the floor, and told me to clean them, and cook them for dinner. One of my sons fell to cleaning a boar; but for every hair that he took from him, ten new ones came out, so the sooner he stopped work the better.

“Then one of the old gruagach’s sons placed the boars in a row, the head of the one near the tail of the other, and, taking a reed, blew once, the hair was gone from all three; twice, the three boars were dressed; a third time, all were swept into one caldron.

“When the meal was cooked and ready, a gruagach brought two spits to me, one of dull wood, the other formed of sharp iron. The old man asked, ‘Which will you choose?’

“I chose the sharp iron spit, went to the caldron, and thrust in the spit; but if I did, I raised only a poor, small bit of meat, mostly bone. That was what I and my three sons had for dinner.

“After dinner, the old man said, ‘Your sons may perform now a feat for amusement.’

“In three rooms were three cross-beams, as high from the floor as a man’s throat. In the middle of each beam was a hole. Through this hole passed a chain, with a loop at each end of it. In front of the hole on each side of the beam was a knife, broad and sharp. One loop of each chain was put on the neck of a son of mine, and one on the neck of a gruagach. Then each of the six was striving to save his own throat, and to cut off the head of the other man; but the gruagachs pulled my three sons to the cross-beams, and took the three heads off them.

“Then they dressed them, and boiled them for supper. When that supper was ready, they struggled to force me to eat some, but could not. Next they threw me across the broad table, plucked out one eye from my head, thrust a light in the socket, and made me lie there, and serve as a candlestick. In the morning, I was flung out through the door, while the gruagach cried after me, ‘You’ll not come to this castle a second time!’”

“Have you seen that hare since?” inquired Ceadach.

“I have, for she comes each May morning, and that renews and gives strength to my sorrow.”

“To-morrow will be May day; come with me, and we’ll hunt her,” said Ceadach.

“I will not,” said the Knight of the Island.