Part 7

All these walls and defenders were there to prevent any man from taking the Yellow King’s daughter; for it had been predicted that the man who would marry the daughter would take the king’s head, and that this man would be Conal, son of Conal Gulban.

The only sleep that the guards at the seven gates had was half an hour before sunrise and half an hour after sunset. During these two half hours, a plover stood on the top of each gate; and if any one came, the bird would scream, and wake all the people in one instant.

The Yellow King’s daughter was in the highest story of the castle, and twelve waiting-maids serving her. She was so closely confined that she looked on herself as a prisoner; so one morning early she said to the twelve maids, “I am confined here as a criminal,—I am never free even to walk in the garden; and I wish in my heart that some powerful young king’s son would come the way to me. I would fly off with him, and no blood would be shed for me.”

It was about this time that young Conal came, and, seeing all asleep, put spurs to his steed, and cleared the walls at a bound. If the birds called out, he had the gates cleared and was in before the champions were roused; and when he was inside, they did not attack him.

He let his horse out to graze near the castle, where he saw three poles, and on each one of two of them a skull.

“These are the heads of two king’s sons who came to win the Yellow King’s daughter,” thought Conal, “and I suppose mine will be the third head; but if I die, I shall have company.”

At this time the twelve waiting-maids cast lots to know who was to walk in the yard, and see if a champion had come who was worthy of the princess. The maid on whom the lot fell came back in a hurry, saying, “I have seen the finest man that I ever laid eyes on. He is beautiful, but slender and young yet. If there is a man born for you, it is that one.”

“Go again,” said the Yellow King’s daughter, “and face him. Do not speak to him for your life till he speaks to you; say then that I sent you, and that he is to come under my window.”

The maid went and crossed Conal’s path three times, but he spoke not; she crossed a fourth time, and he said, “I suppose it is not for good that you cross my path so early?”

(It is thought unlucky to meet a woman first in the morning.)

“My mistress wishes you to go under her window.”

Conal went under the window; and the king’s daughter, looking down, fell deeply in love with him. “I am too high, and you are too low,” said the Yellow King’s daughter. “If we speak, people will hear us all over the castle; but I’ll take some golden cord, and try can I draw you up to me, that we may speak a few words to each other.”

“It would be a poor case for me,” said young Conal, “to wait till you could tie strings together to raise me.” He stuck his sword in the earth then, and, making one bound, went in at the window. The princess embraced him and kissed him; she knew not what to give him to eat or to drink, or what would please him most.

“Have you seen the people at the seven gates?” asked the Yellow King’s daughter.

“I have,” answered Conal.

“They are all awake now, and I will go down and walk through the gates with you; seeing me, the guards will not stop us.”

“I will not do that. It will never be said of young Conal of Erin that he stole his wife from her father. I will win you with strength, or not have you.”

“I’m afraid there is too much against you,” said the Yellow King’s daughter.

These words enraged Conal, and, making one bound through the window, he went to the pole of combat, and struck a blow that roused the old hag in the eastern world, and shook the castle with all the land around it. The Yellow King was sleeping at the time; the shake that he got threw him out of his bed. He fell to the floor with such force that a great lump came out on his forehead; he was so frightened that he said to the old druid who ran in to help him, “Many a year have I lived without hearing the like of that blow. There must be a great champion outside the castle.”

The guard was sent to see if any one was left alive near the castle. “For,” said the king, “such a champion must have killed all the people at the gates.” The guard went, saw no one dead, but every one living, and a champion walking around, sword in hand.

The guard hurried back, and said to the king, “There is a champion in front of the castle, handsome, but slender and young.”

“Go to him,” said the king, “and ask how many men does he want for the combat.” The guard went out and asked.

“I want seven hundred at my right hand, seven hundred at my left, seven hundred behind me, and as many as all these out in front of me. Let them come four deep through the gates: do you take no part in this battle; if I am victorious, I will see you rewarded.”

The guard told the king how many men the champion demanded. Before the king opened the gates for his men, he said to the chief of them, “This youth must be mad, or a very great champion. Before I let my men out, I must see him.”

The king walked out to young Conal, and saluted him. Conal returned the salute. “Are you the champion who ordered out all these men of mine?” asked the king.

“I am,” said young Conal.

“There is not one among them who would not kill a dozen like you,” said the king. “Your bones are soft and young. It is better for you to go out as you came in.”

“You need not mind what will happen me,” answered Conal. “Let out the men; the more the men, the quicker the work. If one man would kill me in a short time, many will do it in less time.”

The men were let out, and Conal went through them as a hawk goes through a flock of birds; and when one man fell before him, he knocked the next man, and had his head off. At sunset every head was cut from its body. Next he made a heap of the bodies, a heap of the heads, and a heap of the weapons. Young Conal then stretched himself on the grass, cut and bruised, his clothes in small pieces from the blows that had struck him.

“It is a hard thing,” said Conal, “for me to have fought such a battle, and to lie here dying without one glimpse of the woman I love; could I see her even once, I would be satisfied.”

Crawling on his hands and knees, he dragged himself to the window to tell her it was for her he was dying. The princess saw him, and told him to lie there till she could draw him up to her and care for him.

“It is a hard thing if I have to wait here till strings and cords are fastened together to raise me,” said he, and, making one bound from where he was lying on the flat of his back, he went up to her window; she snatched at him, and pulled him into the chamber.

There was a magic well in the castle; the Yellow King’s daughter bathed him in the water of it, and he was made whole and sound as before he went to battle. “Now,” said she, “you must fly with me from this castle.”

“I will not go while there is anything that may be cast on my honor in time to come,” answered Conal.

Next day he struck the pole of combat with double the force of the first time, so that the king got a staggering fit from the shock that it gave him.

The Yellow King had no forces now but the deaf, the blind, the cripples, the sensible women, the idiots, and the people of small account. So out went the king in his own person. He and young Conal made the hills, dales, and valleys tremble, and clear spring wells to rise out of hard, gravelly places. Thus they fought for three days and two nights. On the evening of the third day, the king asked Conal for a time to rest and take food and drink.

“I have never begun any work,” said Conal, “without finishing it. Fight to the end, then you can rest as long as you like.”

So they went at it again, and fought seven days and seven nights without food, drink, or rest, and each trying to get the advantage of the other. On the seventh evening, Conal swept the head off the king with one blow.

“’Tis your own skull that will be on the pole in place of mine, and I’ll have the daughter,” said Conal.

The Yellow King’s daughter came down and asked, “Will you go with me now, or will you take the kingdom?”

“I will go,” answered Conal.

“You did not go to the battle?” asked Conal of the guard.

“I did not.”

“Well for you that you did not. Now,” said Conal to the princess, “whomever of the maids you like best, the guard may marry, and they will care for this kingdom till we return.”

The guard and maid were married, and put in charge of the kingdom. The following morning young Conal got his steed ready and set out for home with the princess. As they were riding along near the foot of a mountain, Conal grew very sleepy, and said to the princess, “I’ll go down now and take a sleep.”

The place was lonely,—hardly two houses in twenty miles. The Yellow King’s daughter advised Conal: “Take me to some habitation and sleep there; this place is too wild.”

“I cannot wait,—I’m too drowsy and weary after the long battle; but if I might sleep a little, I could fight for seven days and seven nights again.” He dismounted, and she sat on a green mossy bank. Putting his head on her lap, he fell asleep, and his steed went away on the mountain side grazing.

Conal had slept for three days and two nights with his head in the lap of the Yellow King’s daughter, when on the evening of the third day the princess saw the largest man she had ever set eyes on, walking toward her through the sea and a basket on his back. The sea did not reach to his knees; a shield could not pass between his head and the sky. This was the High King of the World. This big man faced up to where Conal and his bride were; and, taking the tips of her fingers, he kissed her three times. “Bad luck to me,” said the King of the World, “if the young woman I am going for were beyond the ditch there I would not go to her. You are fairer and better than she.”

“Where were you going?” asked the princess. “Don’t mind me, but go on.”

“I was going for the Yellow King’s daughter, but will not go a step further now that I see you.”

“Go your way to her, for she is the finest princess on earth; I am a simple woman, and another man’s wife.”

“Well, pain and torments to me if I go beyond this without taking you with me!”

“If this man here were awake,” said the Yellow King’s daughter, “he would put a stop to you.” She was trying all this time to rouse Conal.

“It is better for him to be as he is,” said the High King; “if he were awake, it’s harm he’d get from me, and that would vex you.”

When she saw that he would take her surely, she bound him not to make her his wife for a day and a year.

“This is the worst promise that ever I have made,” said the High King, “but I will keep it.”

“If this man here were awake, he would stop you,” said the princess.

The High King of the World thrust the tip of his forefinger under the sword-belt of Conal, and hurled him up five miles in the air. When Conal came down, he let out three waves of blood from his mouth.

“Do you think that is enough?” asked the king of the princess.

“Throw him a second time,” said the Yellow King’s daughter.

He threw him still higher, and Conal put out three greater waves. “Is that enough?”

“Try him a third time.” He threw him still higher this time. Conal put out three greater waves, but waked not.

While the High King was throwing up Conal, the princess was writing a letter telling all,—that she knew not whither she was going, that she had bound the High King of the World not to make her his wife for a day and a year, “and,” said she, “I’m sure that you will find me in that time.”

The king took her in his arms, and away he went walking in the sea, throwing fish into his basket as he travelled through the water.

Conal slept a hero’s sleep of seven days and nights, and woke four days after his bride had been stolen. He rubbed his eyes, and, glancing toward the mountain side, saw neither steed nor wife, and said, “No wonder that I cannot see wife nor horse when I’m so sleepy; what am I to do?”

Not far away were some small boys, and they herding cows. The boys began to make sport of Conal for sleeping seven days and nights. “I do not blame you for laughing,” said Conal (ever since, when there is a great sleeper, people say that he sleeps like Conal on the side of Beann Edain), “but have you tidings of my wife and my steed; where are they, or has any man taken them?”

A boy older and wiser than the others said, “Your horse is on the mountain side feeding; and every day he came hither and sniffed you, and you sleeping, and then went away grazing for himself. Four days ago the greatest giant ever seen by the eye of man walked in through the ocean; he tossed you three times in the air. Every time we thought you’d be broken to dust; and the lady you had, wrote something and put it under your belt.”

Conal read the letter, and knew that, in spite of her, the Yellow King’s daughter had been carried away. He then preferred battle to peace, and asked the boys was there a ship that could take him to sea.

“There is no right ship in the place, but there is an old vessel wrecked in a cove there beyond,” said the oldest boy.

The boys went with Conal, and showed him the vessel.

“Put your backs to her now, and help me,” said Conal.

The boys laughed, thinking that two hundred men could not move such a vessel. Conal scowled, and then they were in dread of him, and with one shove they and Conal put the ship in the sea; but the water was going in and out through her. Conal knew not at first what to do, as there was no timber near by, but he killed seven cows, fastened the hides on the ship, and made it proof against water. When the boys saw the cows slaughtered, they began to cry, saying, “How can we go home now, and our cows killed?”

“There is not a cow killed,” said Conal, “but you will get two cows in place of her.” He gave two prices for each cow of the seven, and said to the boys, “Go home now, and tell what has happened.”

Conal sailed away for himself; and when his ship was in the ocean, he let her go with the wind. On the third afternoon, he saw three islands, and on the middle island a fine open strand, with a great crowd of people. He threw out three anchors, two at the ocean side and one at the shore side, so that the ship would not stir, no matter what wind blew, and, planting his sword in the deck, he gave one bound and went out on the strand seven miles distant. He saluted a good-looking man, and asked, “Why are so many people here? What is their business?”

“Where do you live? Of what nation are you that you ask such a question?”

“I am a stranger,” said Conal, “just come to this island.”

The islander showed Conal a man sitting on the beach as large as twelve of the big men of the island. “Do you see him?”

“I do,” said Conal.

“There are three brothers of us on these three islands; that man is our youngest brother, and he has grown so strong and terrible that we are in dread he will drive us from our share of the islands, and that is why we are here to-day. My eldest brother and I have come with what men we have to this middle island, which belongs to our youngest brother. We are to play ball against all his forces; if we beat them, we shall think ourselves safe. Now, which side will you take, young champion?”

“If I go on your side, some may say that I fear your men; and if I go with your younger brother, you and your elder brother may say that I fear your strong brother’s forces. Bring all the men of the three islands. I will play against them.”

“Well,” asked the stranger, “what wager will you lay?”

“I’ll wager,” said Conal, “those two islands out there on the ocean side.”

“They are ours already,” said the man.

“Bad luck to you! Why claim everything?” said Conal. “Well, I’ll lay another wager. If I lose, I’ll stand in the middle of the strand, and every man of the three islands may give me a blow of the hurley; and if I win, I am to have a blow on every man who played against me. But first, I must have my choice of the hurleys; all must be thrown in a heap. I will take the one I like best.”

This was done, and Conal took the largest and strongest hurley he could find. The ball was struck about the middle of the strand; and there was a goal at each end of it, and these goals were fourteen miles apart. Conal took the ball with hurley, hand and foot, and never let it touch ground till he put it through the goal. “Is that a fair inning?” asked he of the other side.

Some said it was foul, for he kept the ball in the air all the time.

“Well, I’ll make a second trial; I will put it through the opposite goal.” He struck the ball in the middle of the strand, and sent it toward the other goal with such force that whoever tipped it never drew breath again, and every man whom it passed was driven sixty feet to one side or the other. Conal was always within a few yards of the ball, and he put it through the goal seven miles distant from the middle of the strand with two blows.

“Is that a fair inning?” asked Conal.

“It would be hard to say that it is not,” said one man, and no man gainsaid him.

“Let all stand now in ranks two deep, till I get my blow on each man of you.”

All the men were arranged two deep; and when Conal came up, the foremost man sprang behind the one in the rear of him, and that one behind the man at his side, and so on throughout. None would stand to receive Conal’s blow.

Away rushed every man, woman, and child, and never stopped till they were inside in their houses. First of all, ran the brothers of the islands.

When they reached the castle, they began to lament because they had insulted the champion, and knew not who he was or whence he had come.

The three brothers had one sister; and when she saw them lamenting and grieving, she asked: “What trouble is on you?”

“We fled from the champion, and the people followed us.”

“None of you invited the champion to the castle,” said the sister; “now he will fall into such a rage on the strand that in one hour he will not leave a person alive on the islands. If I had some one to go with me, I would invite him, and the people would be spared.”

“I will go with you,” said her chief maid.

Away they went, walking toward the strand; and when they had come near, they threw themselves on their knees before Conal. He asked who they were and what brought them.

“My brothers sent me to beg pardon for them, and invite you to the castle.”

“I will go,” said Conal; “and if you had not come, I would not have left a man alive on the three islands.” Conal went with the princess, and saw at the castle a very old and large man; and the old man rose up before him and said, “A hundred thousand welcomes to you, young Conal from Erin.”

“Who are you who know me, and I never before on this island?” asked Conal.

“My name is Donach the Druid, from Erin. I was often in your father’s house, and it was a good place for rich or poor to visit, for they were alike there; and now I hope you will take me home to be buried among my own people. It was God who drove you hither to this island to take me home.”

“And I will do that,” said Conal, “if I go there myself. Tell me now how you came to this place.”

“I was taken,” said Donach, “out on the wild arm of the wind, and was thrown in on this island. I am here ever since. I am old now, and I wish to be home in my own place in Erin.”

Now young Conal, the sister, and three brothers sat down to dinner. When dinner was over, and they had eaten and drunk, they were as happy as if they had lived a thousand years together. The three brothers asked Conal where was he going, and what was his business. Conal did not say that he was in search of his wife, but he said that he was going to his own castle and kingdom. The old druid, two of the brothers, and the sister said, “We will go with you, and serve you till you come to your kingdom.”

They got a boat and took him to the ship. He weighed anchor, and sailed away. For two or three days they saw nothing wonderful. The fourth day they came to a great island; and as they neared it, they saw three champions inside, and the three fighting with swords and spears. Young Conal was surprised to see three fighting at the same time.

“Well,” said he, “it is nothing to see two champions in combat, but ’tis strange to see three. I will go in and see why they are fighting.” He threw out his chains, and made his ship fast; then he made a rush from the stern of the vessel to the bow, and as he ran, he caught Donach the Druid and carried him, and with one leap was in on the strand, seven miles from the ship.

Young Conal faced the champions, and, saluting the one he thought best, asked the cause of their battle. The champion sat down, and began. “I will tell you the reason,” said he. “Seven miles from this place there stands a castle; in that castle is the most beautiful woman that the eye of man has ever seen, and the three of us are in love with her. She says she will take only the best man; and we are striving to know who is best, but no man of us three can get the upper hand of another. We can kill every man who comes to the island, but no man of us can kill another of the three.”

When Conal heard this he sprang up, and told the champions to face him and he would see what they could do. The three faced him, and went at him. Soon he swept the heads off two of them, but the third man was pressing hard on Conal. His name was the Short Dun Champion; but in the end Conal knocked him with a blow, and no sooner had he him knocked than Donach the Druid had him tied with strong cords and strings of enchantment. Then young Conal spoke to Donach the Druid and said, “Come to this champion’s breastbone and split it, take out his heart and his liver, and give them to my young hound to eat;” and turning to the Short Dun Champion, he asked, “Have you ever been so near a fearful death as you are at this moment?”

“’Tis hard for me to answer you,” said he, “for ’tis firmly I am bound by your Druid, bad luck to him.”

“Unbind the champion,” said Conal, “till he tells us at his ease was he ever nearer a fearful death than he is at this moment.”