Part 8

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.

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._

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.”