Book: Irish Fairy Tales

J >> James Stephens >> Irish Fairy Tales




At the end of a year Art returned to Tara. His father delivered
to him the sceptre of Ireland, and he set out on a journey to
find the son of a sinless couple such as he had been told of.



CHAPTER V

The High King did not know where exactly he should look for such
a saviour, but he was well educated and knew how to look for
whatever was lacking. This knowledge will he useful to those upon
whom a similar duty should ever devolve.

He went to Ben Edair. He stepped into a coracle and pushed out to
the deep, and he permitted the coracle to go as the winds and the
waves directed it.

In such a way he voyaged among the small islands of the sea until
he lost all knowledge of his course and was adrift far out in
ocean. He was under the guidance of the stars and the great
luminaries.

He saw black seals that stared and barked and dived dancingly,
with the round turn of a bow and the forward onset of an arrow.
Great whales came heaving from the green-hued void, blowing a
wave of the sea high into the air from their noses and smacking
their wide flat tails thunder-ously on the water. Porpoises went
snorting past in bands and clans. Small fish came sliding and
flickering, and all the outlandish creatures of the deep rose by
his bobbing craft and swirled and sped away.

Wild storms howled by him so that the boat climbed painfully to
the sky on a mile-high wave, balanced for a tense moment on its
level top, and sped down the glassy side as a stone goes
furiously from a sling.

Or, again, caught in the chop of a broken sea, it stayed
shuddering and backing, while above his head there was only a low
sad sky, and around him the lap and wash of grey waves that were
never the same and were never different.

After long staring on the hungry nothingness of air and water he
would stare on the skin-stretched fabric of his boat as on a
strangeness, or he would examine his hands and the texture of his
skin and the stiff black hairs that grew behind his knuckles and
sprouted around his ring, and he found in these things newness
and wonder.

Then, when days of storm had passed, the low grey clouds shivered
and cracked in a thousand places, each grim islet went scudding
to the horizon as though terrified by some great breadth, and
when they had passed he stared into vast after vast of blue
infinity, in the depths of which his eyes stayed and could not
pierce, and wherefrom they could scarcely be withdrawn. A sun
beamed thence that filled the air with sparkle and the sea with a
thousand lights, and looking on these he was reminded of his home
at Tara: of the columns of white and yellow bronze that blazed
out sunnily on the sun, and the red and white and yellow painted
roofs that beamed at and astonished the eye.

Sailing thus, lost in a succession of days and nights, of winds
and calms, he came at last to an island.

His back was turned to it, and long before he saw it he smelled
it and wondered; for he had been sitting as in a daze, musing on
a change that had seemed to come in his changeless world; and for
a long time he could not tell what that was which made a
difference on the salt-whipped wind or why he should be excited.
For suddenly he had become excited and his heart leaped in
violent expectation.

"It is an October smell," he said.

"It is apples that I smell."

He turned then and saw the island, fragrant with apple trees,
sweet with wells of wine; and, hearkening towards the shore, his
ears, dulled yet with the unending rhythms of the sea,
distinguished and were filled with song; for the isle was, as it
were, a nest of birds, and they sang joyously, sweetly,
triumphantly.

He landed on that lovely island, and went forward under the
darting birds, under the apple boughs, skirting fragrant lakes
about which were woods of the sacred hazel and into which the
nuts of knowledge fell and swam; and he blessed the gods of his
people because of the ground that did not shiver and because of
the deeply rooted trees that could not gad or budge.



CHAPTER VI

Having gone some distance by these pleasant ways he saw a shapely
house dozing in the sunlight.

It was thatched with the wings of birds, blue wings and yellow
and white wings, and in the centre of the house there was a door
of crystal set in posts of bronze.

The queen of this island lived there, Rigru (Large-eyed), the
daughter of Lodan, and wife of Daire Degamra. She was seated on a
crystal throne with her son Segda by her side, and they welcomed
the High King courteously.

There were no servants in this palace; nor was there need for
them. The High King found that his hands had washed themselves,
and when later on he noticed that food had been placed before him
he noticed also that it had come without the assistance of
servile hands. A cloak was laid gently about his shoulders, and
he was glad of it, for his own was soiled by exposure to sun and
wind and water, and was not worthy of a lady's eye.

Then he was invited to eat.

He noticed, however, that food had been set for no one but
himself, and this did not please him, for to eat alone was
contrary to the hospitable usage of a king, and was contrary also
to his contract with the gods.

"Good, my hosts," he remonstrated, "it is geasa (taboo) for me to
eat alone."

"But we never eat together," the queen replied.

"I cannot violate my geasa," said the High King.

"I will eat with you," said Segda (Sweet Speech), "and thus,
while you are our guest you will not do violence to your vows."

"Indeed," said Conn, "that will be a great satisfaction, for I
have already all the trouble that I can cope with and have no
wish to add to it by offending the gods."

"What is your trouble?" the gentle queen asked. "During a year,"
Conn replied, "there has been neither corn nor milk in Ireland.
The land is parched, the trees are withered, the birds do not
sing in Ireland, and the bees do not make honey."

"You are certainly in trouble," the queen assented.

"But," she continued, "for what purpose have you come to our
island?"

"I have come to ask for the loan of your son."

"A loan of my son!"

"I have been informed," Conn explained, "that if the son of a
sinless couple is brought to Tara and is bathed in the waters of
Ireland the land will be delivered from those ills."

The king of this island, Daire, had not hitherto spoken, but he
now did so with astonishment and emphasis.

"We would not lend our son to any one, not even to gain the
kingship of the world," said he.

But Segda, observing that the guest's countenance was
discomposed, broke in:

"It is not kind to refuse a thing that the Ard-Ri' of Ireland
asks for, and I will go with him."

"Do not go, my pulse," his father advised.

"Do not go, my one treasure," his mother pleaded.

"I must go indeed," the boy replied, "for it is to do good I am
required, and no person may shirk such a requirement."

"Go then," said his father, "but I will place you under the
protection of the High King and of the Four Provincial Kings of
Ireland, and under the protection of Art, the son of Conn, and of
Fionn, the son of Uail, and under the protection of the magicians
and poets and the men of art in Ireland." And he thereupon bound
these protections and safeguards on the Ard-Ri' with an oath.

"I will answer for these protections," said Conn.

He departed then from the island with Segda and in three days
they reached Ireland, and in due time they arrived at Tara.



CHAPTER VII

On reaching the palace Conn called his magicians and poets to a
council and informed them that he had found the boy they
sought--the son of a virgin. These learned people consulted
together, and they stated that the young man must be killed, and
that his blood should be mixed with the earth of Tara and
sprinkled under the withered trees.

When Segda heard this he was astonished and defiant; then, seeing
that he was alone and without prospect of succour, he grew
downcast and was in great fear for his life. But remembering the
safeguards under which he had been placed, he enumerated these to
the assembly, and called on the High King to grant him the
protections that were his due.

Conn was greatly perturbed, but, as in duty bound, he placed the
boy under the various protections that were in his oath, and,
with the courage of one who has no more to gain or lose, he
placed Segda, furthermore, under the protection of all the men of
Ireland.

But the men of Ireland refused to accept that bond, saying that
although the Ard-Ri' was acting justly towards the boy he was not
acting justly towards Ireland.

"We do not wish to slay this prince for our pleasure," they
argued, "but for the safety of Ireland he must be killed."

Angry parties were formed. Art, and Fionn the son of Uail, and
the princes of the land were outraged at the idea that one who
had been placed under their protection should be hurt by any
hand. But the men of Ireland and the magicians stated that the
king had gone to Faery for a special purpose, and that his acts
outside or contrary to that purpose were illegal, and committed
no person to obedience.

There were debates in the Council Hall, in the market-place, in
the streets of Tara, some holding that national honour dissolved
and absolved all personal honour, and others protesting that no
man had aught but his personal honour, and that above it not the
gods, not even Ireland, could be placed--for it is to be known
that Ireland is a god.

Such a debate was in course, and Segda, to whom both sides
addressed gentle and courteous arguments, grew more and more
disconsolate.

"You shall die for Ireland, dear heart," said one of them, and he
gave Segda three kisses on each cheek.

"Indeed," said Segda, returning those kisses, "indeed I had not
bargained to die for Ireland, but only to bathe in her waters and
to remove her pestilence."

"But dear child and prince," said another, kissing him likewise,
"if any one of us could save Ireland by dying for her how
cheerfully we would die."

And Segda, returning his three kisses, agreed that the death was
noble, but that it was not in his undertaking.

Then, observing the stricken countenances about him, and the
faces of men and women hewn thin by hunger, his resolution melted
away, and he said:

"I think I must die for you," and then he said:

"I will die for you"

And when he had said that, all the people present touched his
cheek with their lips, and the love and peace of Ireland entered
into his soul, so that he was tranquil and proud and happy.

The executioner drew his wide, thin blade and all those present
covered their eyes with their cloaks, when a wailing voice called
on the executioner to delay yet a moment. The High King uncovered
his eyes and saw that a woman had approached driving a cow before
her.

"Why are you killing the boy?" she demanded.

The reason for this slaying was explained to her.

"Are you sure," she asked, "that the poets and magicians really
know everything?"

"Do they not?" the king inquired.

"Do they?" she insisted.

And then turning to the magicians:

"Let one magician of the magicians tell me what is hidden in the
bags that are lying across the back of my cow."

But no magician could tell it, nor did they try to.

"Questions are not answered thus," they said. "There is formulae,
and the calling up of spirits, and lengthy complicated
preparations in our art."

"I am not badly learned in these arts," said the woman, "and I
say that if you slay this cow the effect will be the same as if
you had killed the boy."

"We would prefer to kill a cow or a thousand cows rather than
harm this young prince," said Conn, "but if we spare the boy will
these evils return?"

"They will not be banished until you have banished their cause."

"And what is their cause?"

"Becuma is the cause, and she must be banished."

"If you must tell me what to do," said Conn, "tell me at least to
do something that I can do."

"I will tell you certainly. You can keep Becuma and your ills as
long as you want to. It does not matter to me. Come, my son," she
said to Segda, for it was Segda's mother who had come to save
him; and then that sinless queen and her son went back to their
home of enchantment, leaving the king and Fionn and the magicians
and nobles of Ireland astonished and ashamed.



CHAPTER VIII

There are good and evil people in this and in every other world,
and the person who goes hence will go to the good or the evil
that is native to him, while those who return come as surely to
their due. The trouble which had fallen on Becuma did not leave
her repentant, and the sweet lady began to do wrong as instantly
and innocently as a flower begins to grow. It was she who was
responsible for the ills which had come on Ireland, and we may
wonder why she brought these plagues and droughts to what was now
her own country.

Under all wrong-doing lies personal vanity or the feeling that we
are endowed and privileged beyond our fellows. It is probable
that, however courageously she had accepted fate, Becuma had been
sharply stricken in her pride; in the sense of personal strength,
aloofness, and identity, in which the mind likens itself to god
and will resist every domination but its own. She had been
punished, that is, she had submitted to control, and her sense of
freedom, of privilege, of very being, was outraged. The mind
flinches even from the control of natural law, and how much more
from the despotism of its own separated likenesses, for if
another can control me that other has usurped me, has become me,
and how terribly I seem diminished by the seeming addition!

This sense of separateness is vanity, and is the bed of all
wrong-doing. For we are not freedom, we are control, and we must
submit to our own function ere we can exercise it. Even
unconsciously we accept the rights of others to all that we have,
and if we will not share our good with them, it is because we
cannot, having none; but we will yet give what we have, although
that be evil. To insist on other people sharing in our personal
torment is the first step towards insisting that they shall share
in our joy, as we shall insist when we get it.

Becuma considered that if she must suffer all else she met should
suffer also. She raged, therefore, against Ireland, and in
particular she raged against young Art, her husband's son, and
she left undone nothing that could afflict Ireland or the prince.
She may have felt that she could not make them suffer, and that
is a maddening thought to any woman. Or perhaps she had really
desired the son instead of the father, and her thwarted desire
had perpetuated itself as hate. But it is true that Art regarded
his mother's successor with intense dislike, and it is true that
she actively returned it.

One day Becuma came on the lawn before the palace, and seeing
that Art was at chess with Cromdes she walked to the table on
which the match was being played and for some time regarded the
game. But the young prince did not take any notice of her while
she stood by the board, for he knew that this girl was the enemy
of Ireland, and he could not bring himself even to look at her.

Becuma, looking down on his beautiful head, smiled as much in
rage as in disdain.

"O son of a king," said she, "I demand a game with you for
stakes."

Art then raised his head and stood up courteously, but he did not
look at her.

"Whatever the queen demands I will do," said he.

"Am I not your mother also?" she replied mockingly, as she took
the seat which the chief magician leaped from.

The game was set then, and her play was so skilful that Art was
hard put to counter her moves. But at a point of the game Becuma
grew thoughtful, and, as by a lapse of memory, she made a move
which gave the victory to her opponent. But she had intended
that. She sat then, biting on her lip with her white small teeth
and staring angrily at Art.

"What do you demand from me?" she asked.

"I bind you to eat no food in Ireland until you find the wand of
Curoi, son of Dare'."

Becuma then put a cloak about her and she went from Tara
northward and eastward until she came to the dewy, sparkling
Brugh of Angus mac an Og in Ulster, but she was not admitted
there. She went thence to the Shi' ruled over by Eogabal, and
although this lord would not admit her, his daughter Aine', who
was her foster-sister, let her into Faery.

She made inquiries and was informed where the dun of Curoi mac
Dare' was, and when she had received this intelligence she set
out for Sliev Mis. By what arts she coaxed Curoi to give up his
wand it matters not, enough that she was able to return in
triumph to Tara. When she handed the wand to Art, she said:

"I claim my game of revenge."

"It is due to you," said Art, and they sat on the lawn before the
palace and played.

A hard game that was, and at times each of the combatants sat for
an hour staring on the board before the next move was made, and
at times they looked from the board and for hours stared on the
sky seeking as though in heaven for advice. But Becuma's
foster-sister, Aine', came from the Shi', and, unseen by any, she
interfered with Art's play, so that, suddenly, when he looked
again on the board, his face went pale, for he saw that the game
was lost.

"I didn't move that piece," said he sternly.

"Nor did I," Becuma replied, and she called on the onlookers to
confirm that statement.

She was smiling to herself secretly, for she had seen what the
mortal eyes around could not see.

"I think the game is mine," she insisted softly.

"I think that your friends in Faery have cheated," he replied,
"but the game is yours if you are content to win it that way."

"I bind you," said Becuma, "to eat no food in Ireland until you
have found Delvcaem, the daughter of Morgan."

"Where do I look for her?" said Art in despair.

"She is in one of the islands of the sea," Becuma replied, "that
is all I will tell you," and she looked at him maliciously,
joyously, contentedly, for she thought he would never return from
that journey, and that Morgan would see to it.



CHAPTER IX

Art, as his father had done before him, set out for the
Many-Coloured Land, but it was from Inver Colpa he embarked and
not from Ben Edair.

At a certain time he passed from the rough green ridges of the
sea to enchanted waters, and he roamed from island to island
asking all people how he might come to Delvcaem, the daughter of
Morgan. But he got no news from any one, until he reached an
island that was fragrant with wild apples, gay with flowers, and
joyous with the song of birds and the deep mellow drumming of the
bees. In this island he was met by a lady, Crede', the Truly
Beautiful, and when they had exchanged kisses, he told her who he
was and on what errand he was bent.

"We have been expecting you," said Crede', "but alas, poor soul,
it is a hard, and a long, bad way that you must go; for there is
sea and land, danger and difficulty between you and the daughter
of Morgan."

"Yet I must go there," he answered.

"There is a wild dark ocean to be crossed. There is a dense wood
where every thorn on every tree is sharp as a spear-point and is
curved and clutching. There is a deep gulf to be gone through,"
she said, "a place of silence and terror, full of dumb, venomous
monsters. There is an immense oak forest--dark, dense, thorny, a
place to be strayed in, a place to be utterly bewildered and lost
in. There is a vast dark wilderness, and therein is a dark house,
lonely and full of echoes, and in it there are seven gloomy hags,
who are warned already of your coming and are waiting to plunge
you in a bath of molten lead."

"It is not a choice journey," said Art, "but I have no choice and
must go."

"Should you pass those hags," she continued, "and no one has yet
passed them, you must meet Ailill of the Black Teeth, the son of
Mongan Tender Blossom, and who could pass that gigantic and
terrible fighter?"

"It is not easy to find the daughter of Morgan," said Art in a
melancholy voice.

"It is not easy," Crede' replied eagerly, "and if you will take
my advice-- "

"Advise me," he broke in, "for in truth there is no man standing
in such need of counsel as I do."

"I would advise you," said Crede' in a low voice, "to seek no
more for the sweet daughter of Morgan, but to stay in this place
where all that is lovely is at your service."

"But, but-- "cried Art in astonishment.

"Am I not as sweet as the daughter of Morgan?" she demanded, and
she stood before him queenly and pleadingly, and her eyes took
his with imperious tenderness.

"By my hand," he answered, "you are sweeter and lovelier than any
being under the sun, but-- "

"And with me," she said, "you will forget Ireland."

"I am under bonds," cried Art, "I have passed my word, and I
would not forget Ireland or cut myself from it for all the
kingdoms of the Many-Coloured Land."

Crede' urged no more at that time, but as they were parting she
whispered, "There are two girls, sisters of my own, in Morgan's
palace. They will come to you with a cup in either hand; one cup
will be filled with wine and one with poison. Drink from the
right-hand cup, O my dear."

Art stepped into his coracle, and then, wringing her hands, she
made yet an attempt to dissuade him from that drear journey.

"Do not leave me," she urged. "Do not affront these dangers.
Around the palace of Morgan there is a palisade of copper spikes,
and on the top of each spike the head of a man grins and
shrivels. There is one spike only which bears no head, and it is
for your head that spike is waiting. Do not go there, my love."

"I must go indeed," said. Art earnestly.

"There is yet a danger," she called. "Beware of Delvcaem's
mother, Dog Head, daughter of the King of the Dog Heads. Beware
of her."

"Indeed," said Art to himself, "there is so much to beware of
that I will beware of nothing. I will go about my business," he
said to the waves, "and I will let those beings and monsters and
the people of the Dog Heads go about their business."



CHAPTER X

He went forward in his light bark, and at some moment found that
he had parted from those seas and was adrift on vaster and more
turbulent billows. From those dark-green surges there gaped at
him monstrous and cavernous jaws; and round, wicked, red-rimmed,
bulging eyes stared fixedly at the boat. A ridge of inky water
rushed foaming mountainously on his board, and behind that ridge
came a vast warty head that gurgled and groaned. But at these
vile creatures he thrust with his lengthy spear or stabbed at
closer reach with a dagger.

He was not spared one of the terrors which had been foretold.
Thus, in the dark thick oak forest he slew the seven hags and
buried them in the molten lead which they had heated for him. He
climbed an icy mountain, the cold breath of which seemed to slip
into his body and chip off inside of his bones, and there, until
he mastered the sort of climbing on ice, for each step that he
took upwards he slipped back ten steps. Almost his heart gave way
before he learned to climb that venomous hill. In a forked glen
into which he slipped at night-fall he was surrounded by giant
toads, who spat poison, and were icy as the land they lived in,
and were cold and foul and savage. At Sliav Saev he encountered
the long-maned lions who lie in wait for the beasts of the
world, growling woefully as they squat above their prey and
crunch those terrified bones. He came on Ailill of the Black
Teeth sitting on the bridge that spanned a torrent, and the grim
giant was grinding his teeth on a pillar stone. Art drew nigh
unobserved and brought him low.

It was not for nothing that these difficulties and dangers were
in his path. These things and creatures were the invention of Dog
Head, the wife of Morgan, for it had become known to her that she
would die on the day her daughter was wooed. Therefore none of
the dangers encountered by Art were real, but were magical
chimeras conjured against him by the great witch.

Affronting all, conquering all, he came in time to Morgan's dun,
a place so lovely that after the miseries through which he had
struggled he almost wept to see beauty again.

Delvcaem knew that he was coming. She was waiting for him,
yearning for him. To her mind Art was not only love, he was
freedom, for the poor girl was a captive in her father's home. A
great pillar an hundred feet high had been built on the roof of
Morgan's palace, and on the top of this pillar a tiny room had
been constructed, and in this room Delvcaem was a prisoner.

She was lovelier in shape than any other princess of the
Many-Coloured Land. She was wiser than all the other women of
that land, and she was skilful in music, embroidery, and
chastity, and in all else that pertained to the knowledge of a
queen.

Although Delvcaem's mother wished nothing but ill to Art, she yet
treated him with the courtesy proper in a queen on the one hand
and fitting towards the son of the King of Ireland on the other.
Therefore, when Art entered the palace he was met and kissed, and
he was bathed and clothed and fed. Two young girls came to him
then, having a cup in each of their hands, and presented him with
the kingly drink, but, remembering the warning which Credl had
given him, he drank only from the right-hand cup and escaped the
poison. Next he was visited by Delvcaem's mother, Dog Head,
daughter of the King of the Dog Heads, and Morgan's queen. She
was dressed in full armour, and she challenged Art to fight with
her.

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