Book: Irish Fairy Tales

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"I did taste it by chance," Fionn laughed, "for while the fish
was roasting a great blister rose on its skin. I did not like the
look of that blister, and I pressed it down with my thumb. That
burned my thumb, so I popped it in my mouth to heal the smart. If
your salmon tastes as nice as my thumb did," he laughed, "it will
taste very nice."

"What did you say your name was, dear heart?" the poet asked.

"I said my name was Deimne."

"Your name is not Deimne," said the mild man, "your name is
Fionn."

"That is true," the boy answered, "but I do not know how you know
it."

"Even if I have not eaten the Salmon of Knowledge I have some
small science of my own."

"It is very clever to know things as you know them," Fionn
replied wonderingly. "What more do you know of me, dear master?"

"I know that I did not tell you the truth," said the
heavy-hearted man.

"What did you tell me instead of it?"

"I told you a lie."

"It is not a good thing to do," Fionn admitted. "What sort of a
lie was the lie, master?" "I told you that the Salmon of
Knowledge was to be caught by me, according to the prophecy."

"Yes."

"That was true indeed, and I have caught the fish. But I did not
tell you that the salmon was not to be eaten by me, although that
also was in the prophecy, and that omission was the lie."

"It is not a great lie," said Fionn soothingly.

"It must not become a greater one," the poet replied sternly.

"Who was the fish given to?" his companion wondered.

"It was given to you," Finegas answered. "It was given to Fionn,
the son of Uail, the son of Baiscne, and it will be given to
him."

"You shall have a half of the fish," cried Fionn.

"I will not eat a piece of its skin that is as small as the point
of its smallest bone," said the resolute and trembling bard. "Let
you now eat up the fish, and I shall watch you and give praise to
the gods of the Underworld and of the Elements.''

Fionn then ate the Salmon of Knowledge, and when it had
disappeared a great jollity and tranquillity and exuberance
returned to the poet.

"Ah," said he, "I had a great combat with that fish."

"Did it fight for its life?" Fionn inquired.

"It did, but that was not the fight I meant."

"You shall eat a Salmon of Knowledge too," Fionn assured him.

"You have eaten one," cried the blithe poet, "and if you make
such a promise it will be because you know."

"I promise it and know it," said Fionn, "you shall eat a Salmon
of Knowledge yet."



CHAPTER XI

He had received all that he could get from Finegas. His education
was finished and the time had come to test it, and to try all
else that he had of mind and body. He bade farewell to the gentle
poet, and set out for Tara of the Kings.

It was Samhain-tide, and the feast of Tara was being held, at
which all that was wise or skilful or well-born in Ireland were
gathered together.

This is how Tara was when Tara was. There was the High King's
palace with its fortification; without it was another
fortification enclosing the four minor palaces, each of which was
maintained by one of the four provincial kings; without that
again was the great banqueting hall, and around it and enclosing
all of the sacred hill in its gigantic bound ran the main outer
ramparts of Tara. From it, the centre of Ireland, four great
roads went, north, south, east, and west, and along these roads,
from the top and the bottom and the two sides of Ireland, there
moved for weeks before Samhain an endless stream of passengers.

Here a gay band went carrying rich treasure to decorate the
pavilion of a Munster lord. On another road a vat of seasoned
yew, monstrous as a house on wheels and drawn by an hundred
laborious oxen, came bumping and joggling the ale that thirsty
Connaught princes would drink. On a road again the learned men of
Leinster, each with an idea in his head that would discomfit a
northern ollav and make a southern one gape and fidget, would be
marching solemnly, each by a horse that was piled high on the
back and widely at the sides with clean-peeled willow or oaken
wands, that were carved from the top to the bottom with the ogham
signs; the first lines of poems (for it was an offence against
wisdom to commit more than initial lines to writing), the names
and dates of kings, the procession of laws of Tara and of the
sub-kingdoms, the names of places and their meanings. On the
brown stallion ambling peacefully yonder there might go the
warring of the gods for two or ten thousand years; this mare with
the dainty pace and the vicious eye might be sidling under a load
of oaken odes in honour of her owner's family, with a few bundles
of tales of wonder added in case they might be useful; and
perhaps the restive piebald was backing the history of Ireland
into a ditch.

On such a journey all people spoke together, for all were
friends, and no person regarded the weapon in another man's hand
other than as an implement to poke a reluctant cow with, or to
pacify with loud wallops some hoof-proud colt.

Into this teem and profusion of jolly humanity Fionn slipped, and
if his mood had been as bellicose as a wounded boar he would yet
have found no man to quarrel with, and if his eye had been as
sharp as a jealous husband's he would have found no eye to meet
it with calculation or menace or fear; for the Peace of Ireland
was in being, and for six weeks man was neighbour to man, and the
nation was the guest of the High King. Fionn went in with the
notables.

His arrival had been timed for the opening day and the great
feast of welcome. He may have marvelled, looking on the bright
city, with its pillars of gleaming bronze and the roofs that were
painted in many colours, so that each house seemed to be covered
by the spreading wings of some gigantic and gorgeous bird. And
the palaces themselves, mellow with red oak, polished within and
without by the wear and the care of a thousand years, and carved
with the patient skill of unending generations of the most famous
artists of the most artistic country of the western world, would
have given him much to marvel at also. It must have seemed like a
city of dream, a city to catch the heart, when, coming over the
great plain, Fionn saw Tara of the Kings held on its hill as in a
hand to gather all the gold of the falling sun, and to restore a
brightness as mellow and tender as that universal largess.

In the great banqueting hall everything was in order for the
feast. The nobles of Ireland with their winsome consorts, the
learned and artistic professions represented by the pick of their
time were in place. The Ard-Ri, Corm of the Hundred Battles, had
taken his place on the raised dais which commanded the whole of
that vast hall. At his Right hand his son Art, to be afterwards
as famous as his famous father, took his seat, and on his left
Goll mor mac Morna, chief of the Fianna of Ireland, had the seat
of honour. As the High King took his place he could see every
person who was noted in the land for any reason. He would know
every one who was present, for the fame of all men is sealed at
Tara, and behind his chair a herald stood to tell anything the
king might not know or had forgotten.

Conn gave the signal and his guests seated themselves.

The time had come for the squires to take their stations behind
their masters and mistresses. But, for the moment, the great room
was seated, and the doors were held to allow a moment of respect
to pass before the servers and squires came in.

Looking over his guests, Conn observed that a young man was yet
standing.

"There is a gentleman," he murmured, "for whom no seat has been
found."

We may be sure that the Master of the Banquet blushed at that.

"And," the king continued, "I do not seem to know the young man."

Nor did his herald, nor did the unfortunate Master, nor did
anybody; for the eyes of all were now turned where the king's
went.

"Give me my horn," said the gracious monarch.

The horn of state was put to his hand.

"Young gentleman," he called to the stranger, "I wish to drink to
your health and to welcome you to Tara."

The young man came forward then, greater-shouldered than any
mighty man of that gathering, longer and cleaner limbed, with his
fair curls dancing about his beardless face. The king put the
great horn into his hand.

"Tell me your name," he commanded gently.

"I am Fionn, the son of Uail, the son of Baiscne," said the
youth.

And at that saying a touch as of lightning went through the
gathering so that each person quivered, and the son of the
great, murdered captain looked by the king's shoulder into the
twinkling eye of Goll. But no word was uttered, no movement made
except the movement and the utterance of the Ard-Ri'.

"You are the son of a friend," said the great-hearted monarch.
"You shall have the seat of a friend."

He placed Fionn at the right hand of his own son Art.



CHAPTER XII

It is to be known that on the night of the Feast of Samhain the
doors separating this world and the next one are opened, and the
inhabitants of either world can leave their respective spheres
and appear in the world of the other beings.

Now there was a grandson to the Dagda Mor, the Lord of the
Underworld, and he was named Aillen mac Midna, out of Shi'
Finnachy, and this Aillen bore an implacable enmity to Tara and
the Ard-Ri'.

As well as being monarch of Ireland her High King was chief of
the people learned in magic, and it is possible that at some time
Conn had adventured into Tir na n-Og, the Land of the Young, and
had done some deed or misdeed in Aillen's lordship or in his
family. It must have been an ill deed in truth, for it was in a
very rage of revenge that Aillen came yearly at the permitted
time to ravage Tara.

Nine times he had come on this mission of revenge, but it is not
to be supposed that he could actually destroy the holy city: the
Ard-Ri' and magicians could prevent that, but he could yet do a
damage so considerable that it was worth Conn's while to take
special extra precautions against him, including the precaution
of chance.

Therefore, when the feast was over and the banquet had commenced,
the Hundred Fighter stood from his throne and looked over his
assembled people.

The Chain of Silence was shaken by the attendant whose duty and
honour was the Silver Chain, and at that delicate chime the halt
went silent, and a general wonder ensued as to what matter the
High King would submit to his people.

"Friends and heroes," said Conn, "Aillen, the son of Midna, will
come to-night from Slieve Fuaid with occult, terrible fire
against our city. Is there among you one who loves Tara and the
king, and who will undertake our defence against that being?"

He spoke in silence, and when he had finished he listened to the
same silence, but it was now deep, ominous, agonized. Each man
glanced uneasily on his neighbour and then stared at his wine-cup
or his fingers. The hearts of young men went hot for a gallant
moment and were chilled in the succeeding one, for they had all
heard of Aillen out of Shl Finnachy in the north. The lesser
gentlemen looked under their brows at the greater champions, and
these peered furtively at the greatest of all. Art og mac Morna
of the Hard Strokes fell to biting his fingers, Cona'n the
Swearer and Garra mac Morna grumbled irritably to each other and
at their neighbours, even Caelte, the son of Rona'n, looked down
into his own lap, and Goll Mor sipped at his wine without any
twinkle in his eye. A horrid embarrassment came into the great
hall, and as the High King stood in that palpitating silence his
noble face changed from kindly to grave and from that to a
terrible sternness. In another moment, to the undying shame of
every person present, he would have been compelled to lift his
own challenge and declare himself the champion of Tara for that
night, but the shame that was on the faces of his people would
remain in the heart of their king. Goll's merry mind would help
him to forget, but even his heart would be wrung by a memory that
he would not dare to face. It was at that terrible moment that
Fionn stood up.

"What," said he, "will be given to the man who undertakes this
defence?"

"All that can be rightly asked will be royally bestowed," was the
king's answer.

"Who are the sureties?" said Fionn.

"The kings of Ireland, and Red Cith with his magicians."

"I will undertake the defence," said Fionn. And on that, the
kings and magicians who were present bound themselves to the
fulfilment of the bargain.

Fionn marched from the banqueting hall, and as he went, all who
were present of nobles and retainers and servants acclaimed him
and wished him luck. But in their hearts they were bidding him
good-bye, for all were assured that the lad was marching to a
death so unescapeable that he might already be counted as a dead
man.

It is likely that Fionn looked for help to the people of the Shi'
themselves, for, through his mother, he belonged to the tribes of
Dana, although, on the father's side, his blood was well
compounded with mortal clay. It may be, too, that he knew how
events would turn, for he had eaten the Salmon of Knowledge. Yet
it is not recorded that on this occasion he invoked any magical
art as he did on other adventures.

Fionn's way of discovering whatever was happening and hidden was
always the same and is many times referred to. A shallow, oblong
dish of pure, pale gold was brought to him. This dish was filled
with clear water. Then Fionn would bend his head and stare into
the water, and as he stared he would place his thumb in his mouth
under his "Tooth of Knowledge," his "wisdom tooth."

Knowledge, may it be said, is higher than magic and is more to be
sought. It is quite possible to see what is happening and yet not
know what is forward, for while seeing is believing it does not
follow that either seeing or believing is knowing. Many a person
can see a thing and believe a thing and know just as little about
it as the person who does neither. But Fionn would see and know,
or he would under-stand a decent ratio of his visions. That he
was versed in magic is true, for he was ever known as the
Knowledgeable man, and later he had two magicians in his
household named Dirim and mac-Reith to do the rough work of
knowledge for their busy master.

It was not from the Shi', however, that assistance came to Fionn.



CHAPTER XIII

He marched through the successive fortifications until he came to
the outer, great wall, the boundary of the city, and when he had
passed this he was on the wide plain of Tara.

Other than himself no person was abroad, for on the night of the
Feast of Samhain none but a madman would quit the shelter of a
house even if it were on fire; for whatever disasters might be
within a house would be as nothing to the calamities without it.

The noise of the banquet was not now audible to Fionn--it is
possible, however, that there was a shamefaced silence in the
great hall--and the lights of the city were hidden by the
successive great ramparts. The sky was over him; the earth under
him; and than these there was nothing, or there was but the
darkness and the wind.

But darkness was not a thing to terrify him, bred in the
nightness of a wood and the very fosterling of gloom; nor could
the wind afflict his ear or his heart. There was no note in its
orchestra that he had not brooded on and become, which becoming
is magic. The long-drawn moan of it; the thrilling whisper and
hush; the shrill, sweet whistle, so thin it can scarcely be
heard, and is taken more by the nerves than by the ear; the
screech, sudden as a devil's yell and loud as ten thunders; the
cry as of one who flies with backward look to the shelter of
leaves and darkness; and the sob as of one stricken with an
age-long misery, only at times remembered, but remembered then
with what a pang! His ear knew by what successions they arrived,
and by what stages they grew and diminished. Listening in the
dark to the bundle of noises which make a noise he could
disentangle them and assign a place and a reason to each
gradation of sound that formed the chorus: there was the patter
of a rabbit, and there the scurrying of a hare; a bush rustled
yonder, but that brief rustle was a bird; that pressure was a
wolf, and this hesitation a fox; the scraping yonder was but a
rough leaf against bark, and the scratching beyond it was a
ferret's claw.

Fear cannot be where knowledge is, and Fionn was not fearful.

His mind, quietly busy on all sides, picked up one sound and
dwelt on it. "A man," said Fionn, and he listened in that
direction, back towards the city.

A man it was, almost as skilled in darkness as Fionn himself
"This is no enemy," Fionn thought; "his walking is open."

"Who comes?" he called.

"A friend," said the newcomer.

"Give a friend's name," said Fionn.

"Fiacuil mac Cona," was the answer.

"Ah, my pulse and heart!" cried Fionn, and he strode a few paces
to meet the great robber who had fostered him among the marshes.

"So you are not afraid," he said joyfully.

"I am afraid in good truth," Fiacuil whispered, "and the minute
my business with you is finished I will trot back as quick as
legs will carry me. May the gods protect my going as they
protected my coming," said the robber piously.

"Amen," said Fionn, "and now, tell me what you have come for?"

"Have you any plan against this lord of the Shf?" Fiacuil
whispered.

"I will attack him," said Fionn.

"That is not a plan," the other groaned, "we do not plan to
deliver an attack hut to win a victory."

"Is this a very terrible person?" Fionn asked.

"Terrible indeed. No one can get near him or away from him. He
comes out of the Shi' playing sweet, low music on a timpan and a
pipe, and all who hear this music fall asleep."

"I will not fall asleep," said Fionn.

"You will indeed, for everybody does."

"What happens then?" Fionn asked.

"When all are asleep Aillen mac Midna blows a dart of fire out of
his mouth, and everything that is touched by that fire is
destroyed, and he can blow his fire to an incredible distance and
to any direction."

"You are very brave to come to help me," Fionn murmured,
"especially when you are not able to help me at all."

"I can help," Fiacuil replied, "but I must be paid."

"What payment?"

"A third of all you earn and a seat at your council."

"I grant that," said Fionn, "and now, tell me your plan?"

"You remember my spear with the thirty rivets of Arabian gold in
its socket?"

"The one," Fionn queried, "that had its head wrapped in a blanket
and was stuck in a bucket of water and was chained to a wall as
well--the venomous Birgha?" "That one," Fiacuil replied.

"It is Aillen mac Midna's own spear," he continued, "and it was
taken out of his Shi' by your father."

"Well?" said Fionn, wondering nevertheless where Fiacuil got the
spear, but too generous to ask.

"When you hear the great man of the Shi' coming, take the
wrappings off the head of the spear and bend your face over it;
the heat of the spear, the stench of it, all its pernicious and
acrid qualities will prevent you from going to sleep."

"Are you sure of that?" said Fionn.

"You couldn't go to sleep close to that stench; nobody could,"
Fiacuil replied decidedly.

He continued: "Aillen mac Midna will be off his guard when he
stops playing and begins to blow his fire; he will think
everybody is asleep; then you can deliver the attack you were
speaking of, and all good luck go with it."

"I will give him back his spear," said Fionn.

"Here it is," said Fiacuil, taking the Birgha from under his
cloak. "But be as careful of it, my pulse, be as frightened of it
as you are of the man of Dana."

"I will be frightened of nothing," said Fionn, "and the only
person I will be sorry for is that Aillen mac Midna, who is going
to get his own spear back."

"I will go away now," his companion whispered, "for it is growing
darker where you would have thought there was no more room for
darkness, and there is an eerie feeling abroad which I do not
like. That man from the Shi' may come any minute, and if I catch
one sound of his music I am done for."

The robber went away and again Fionn was alone.



CHAPTER XIV

He listened to the retreating footsteps until they could be heard
no more, and the one sound that came to his tense ears was the
beating of his own heart.

Even the wind had ceased, and there seemed to be nothing in the
world but the darkness and himself. In that gigantic blackness,
in that unseen quietude and vacancy, the mind could cease to be
personal to itself. It could be overwhelmed and merged in space,
so that consciousness would be transferred or dissipated, and one
might sleep standing; for the mind fears loneliness more than all
else, and will escape to the moon rather than be driven inwards
on its own being.

But Fionn was not lonely, and he was not afraid when the son of
Midna came.

A long stretch of the silent night had gone by, minute following
minute in a slow sequence, wherein as there was no change there
was no time; wherein there was no past and no future, but a
stupefying, endless present which is almost the annihilation of
consciousness. A change came then, for the clouds had also been
moving and the moon at last was sensed behind them--not as a
radiance, but as a percolation of light, a gleam that was
strained through matter after matter and was less than the very
wraith or remembrance of itself; a thing seen so narrowly, so
sparsely, that the eye could doubt if it was or was not seeing,
and might conceive that its own memory was re-creating that which
was still absent.

But Fionn's eye was the eye of a wild creature that spies on
darkness and moves there wittingly. He saw, then, not a thing but
a movement; something that was darker than the darkness it loomed
on; not a being but a presence, and, as it were, impending
pressure. And in a little he heard the deliberate pace of that
great being.

Fionn bent to his spear and unloosed its coverings.

Then from the darkness there came another sound; a low, sweet
sound; thrillingly joyous, thrillingly low; so low the ear could
scarcely note it, so sweet the ear wished to catch nothing else
and would strive to hear it rather than all sounds that may be
heard by man: the music of another world! the unearthly, dear
melody of the Shi'! So sweet it was that the sense strained to
it, and having reached must follow drowsily in its wake, and
would merge in it, and could not return again to its own place
until that strange harmony was finished and the ear restored to
freedom.

But Fionn had taken the covering from his spear, and with his
brow pressed close to it he kept his mind and all his senses
engaged on that sizzling, murderous point.

The music ceased and Aillen hissed a fierce blue flame from his
mouth, and it was as though he hissed lightning.

Here it would seem that Fionn used magic, for spreading out his
fringed mantle he caught the flame. Rather he stopped it, for it
slid from the mantle and sped down into the earth to the depth of
twenty-six spans; from which that slope is still called the Glen
of the Mantle, and the rise on which Aillen stood is known as the
Ard of Fire.

One can imagine the surprise of Aillen mac Midna, seeing his fire
caught and quenched by an invisible hand. And one can imagine
that at this check he might be frightened, for who would be more
terrified than a magician who sees his magic fail, and who,
knowing of power, will guess at powers of which he has no
conception and may well dread.

Everything had been done by him as it should be done. His pipe
had been played and his timpan, all who heard that music should
be asleep, and yet his fire was caught in full course and was
quenched.

Aillen, with all the terrific strength of which he was master,
blew again, and the great jet of blue flame came roaring and
whistling from him and was caught and disappeared.

Panic swirled into the man from Faery; he turned from that
terrible spot and fled, not knowing what might be behind, but
dreading it as he had never before dreaded anything, and the
unknown pursued him; that terrible defence became offence and
hung to his heel as a wolf pads by the flank of a bull.

And Aillen was not in his own world! He was in the world of men,
where movement is not easy and the very air a burden. In his own
sphere, in his own element, he might have outrun Fionn, but this
was Fionn's world, Fionn's element, and the flying god was not
gross enough to outstrip him. Yet what a race he gave, for it was
but at the entrance to his own Shi' that the pursuer got close
enough. Fionn put a finger into the thong of the great spear, and
at that cast night fell on Aillen mac Midna. His eyes went black,
his mind whirled and ceased, there came nothingness where he had
been, and as the Birgha whistled into his shoulder-blades he
withered away, he tumbled emptily and was dead. Fionn took his
lovely head from its shoulders and went back through the night to
Tara.

Triumphant Fionn, who had dealt death to a god, and to whom death
would be dealt, and who is now dead!

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