Book: Irish Fairy Tales

J >> James Stephens >> Irish Fairy Tales




As she stood within the doorway, smiling, and shy as a flower,
beautifully timid as a fawn, the Chief communed with his heart.

"She is the Sky-woman of the Dawn," he said. "She is the light on
the foam. She is white and odorous as an apple-blossom. She
smells of spice and honey. She is my beloved beyond the women of
the world. She shall never be taken from me."

And that thought was delight and anguish to him: delight because
of such sweet prospect, anguish because it was not yet realised,
and might not be.

As the dogs had looked at him on the chase with a look that he
did not understand, so she looked at him, and in her regard there
was a question that baffled him and a statement which he could
not follow.

He spoke to her then, mastering his heart to do it.

"I do not seem to know you," he said.

"You do not know me indeed," she replied.

"It is the more wonderful," he continued gently, "for I should
know every person that is here. What do you require from me?"

"I beg your protection, royal captain."

"I give that to all," he answered. "Against whom do you desire
protection?"

"I am in terror of the Fear Doirche."

"The Dark Man of the Shi?"

"He is my enemy," she said.

"He is mine now," said Fionn. "Tell me your story."

"My name is Saeve, and I am a woman of Faery," she commenced. "In
the Shi' many men gave me their love, but I gave my love to no
man of my country."

"That was not reasonable," the other chided with a blithe heart.

"I was contented," she replied, "and what we do not want we do
not lack. But if my love went anywhere it went to a mortal, a man
of the men of Ireland."

"By my hand," said Fionn in mortal distress, "I marvel who that
man can be!"

"He is known to you," she murmured. "I lived thus in the peace of
Faery, hearing often of my mortal champion, for the rumour of his
great deeds had gone through the Shi', until a day came when the
Black Magician of the Men of God put his eye on me, and, after
that day, in whatever direction I looked I saw his eye."

She stopped at that, and the terror that was in her heart was on
her face.  "He is everywhere," she whispered. "He is in the bushes, and on
the hill. He looked up at me from the water, and he stared down
on me from the sky. His voice commands out of the spaces, and it
demands secretly in the heart. He is not here or there, he is in
all places at all times. I cannot escape from him," she said,
"and I am afraid," and at that she wept noiselessly and stared on
Fionn.

"He is my enemy," Fionn growled. "I name him as my enemy."

"You will protect me," she implored.

"Where I am let him not come," said Fionn. "I also have
knowledge. I am Fionn, the son of Uail, the son of Baiscne, a man
among men and a god where the gods are."

"He asked me in marriage," she continued, "but my mind was full
of my own dear hero, and I refused the Dark Man."

"That was your right, and I swear by my hand that if the man you
desire is alive and unmarried he shall marry you or he will
answer to me for the refusal."

"He is not married," said Saeve, "and you have small control over
him." The Chief frowned thoughtfully. "Except the High King and
the kings I have authority in this land."

"What man has authority over himself?" said Saeve.

"Do you mean that I am the man you seek?" said Fionn.

"It is to yourself I gave my love," she replied. "This is good
news," Fionn cried joyfully, "for the moment you came through the
door I loved and desired you, and the thought that you wished for
another man went into my heart like a sword." Indeed, Fionn loved Saeve as he had not loved a woman before and
would never love one again. He loved her as he had never loved
anything before. He could not bear to be away from her. When he
saw her he did not see the world, and when he saw the world
without her it was as though he saw nothing, or as if he looked
on a prospect that was bleak and depressing. The belling of a
stag had been music to Fionn, but when Saeve spoke that was sound
enough for him. He had loved to hear the cuckoo calling in the
spring from the tree that is highest in the hedge, or the
blackbird's jolly whistle in an autumn bush, or the thin, sweet
enchantment that comes to the mind when a lark thrills out of
sight in the air and the hushed fields listen to the song. But
his wife's voice was sweeter to Fionn than the singing of a lark.
She filled him with wonder and surmise. There was magic in the
tips of her fingers. Her thin palm ravished him. Her slender foot
set his heart beating; and whatever way her head moved there came
a new shape of beauty to her face.

"She is always new," said Fionn. "She is always better than any
other woman; she is always better than herself."

He attended no more to the Fianna. He ceased to hunt. He did not
listen to the songs of poets or the curious sayings of magicians,
for all of these were in his wife, and something that was beyond
these was in her also.

"She is this world and the next one; she is completion," said
Fionn.



CHAPTER III

It happened that the men of Lochlann came on an expedition
against Ireland. A monstrous fleet rounded the bluffs of Ben
Edair, and the Danes landed there, to prepare an attack which
would render them masters of the country. Fionn and the
Fianna-Finn marched against them. He did not like the men of
Lochlann at any time, but this time he moved against them in
wrath, for not only were they attacking Ireland, but they had
come between him and the deepest joy his life had known.

It was a hard fight, but a short one. The Lochlannachs were
driven back to their ships, and within a week the only Danes
remaining in Ireland were those that had been buried there.

That finished, he left the victorious Fianna and returned swiftly
to the plain of Allen, for he could not bear to be one
unnecessary day parted from Saeve.

"You are not leaving us!" exclaimed Goll mac Morna.

"I must go," Fionn replied.

"You will not desert the victory feast," Conan reproached him.

"Stay with us, Chief," Caelte begged.

"What is a feast without Fionn?" they complained.

But he would not stay.

"By my hand," he cried, "I must go. She will be looking for me
from the window."

"That will happen indeed," Goll admitted.

"That will happen," cried Fionn. "And when she sees me far out on
the plain, she will run through the great gate to meet me."

"It would be the queer wife would neglect that run," Cona'n
growled.

"I shall hold her hand again," Fionn entrusted to Caelte's ear.

"You will do that, surely."

"I shall look into her face," his lord insisted. But he saw that
not even beloved Caelte understood the meaning of that, and he
knew sadly and yet proudly that what he meant could not be
explained by any one and could not be comprehended by any one.

"You are in love, dear heart," said Caelte.

"In love he is," Cona'n grumbled. "A cordial for women, a disease
for men, a state of wretchedness."

"Wretched in truth," the Chief murmured. "Love makes us poor We
have not eyes enough to see all that is to be seen, nor hands
enough to seize the tenth of all we want. When I look in her eyes
I am tormented because I am not looking at her lips, and when I
see her lips my soul cries out, 'Look at her eyes, look at her
eyes.'"

"That is how it happens," said Goll rememberingly.

"That way and no other," Caelte agreed.

And the champions looked backwards in time on these lips and
those, and knew their Chief would go.

When Fionn came in sight of the great keep his blood and his feet
quickened, and now and again he waved a spear in the air.

"She does not see me yet," he thought mournfully.

"She cannot see me yet," he amended, reproaching himself.

But his mind was troubled, for he thought also, or he felt
without thinking, that had the positions been changed he would
have seen her at twice the distance.

"She thinks I have been unable to get away from the battle, or
that I was forced to remain for the feast."

And, without thinking it, he thought that had the positions been
changed he would have known that nothing could retain the one
that was absent.

"Women," he said, "are shamefaced, they do not like to appear
eager when others are observing them."

But he knew that he would not have known if others were observing
him, and that he would not have cared about it if he had known.
And he knew that his Saeve would not have seen, and would not
have cared for any eyes than his.

He gripped his spear on that reflection, and ran as he had not
run in his life, so that it was a panting, dishevelled man that
raced heavily through the gates of the great Dun.

Within the Dun there was disorder. Servants were shouting to one
another, and women were running to and fro aimlessly, wringing
their hands and screaming; and, when they saw the Champion, those
nearest to him ran away, and there was a general effort on the
part of every person to get behind every other person. But Fionn
caught the eye of his butler, Gariv Crona'n, the Rough Buzzer,
and held it.

"Come you here," he said.

And the Rough Buzzer came to him without a single buzz in his
body.

"Where is the Flower of Allen?" his master demanded.

"I do not know, master," the terrified servant replied.

"You do not know!" said Fionn. "Tell what you do know."

And the man told him this story.



CHAPTER IV

"When you had been away for a day the guards were surprised. They
were looking from the heights of the Dun, and the Flower of Allen
was with them. She, for she had a quest's eye, called out that
the master of the Fianna was coming over the ridges to the Dun,
and she ran from the keep to meet you."

"It was not I," said Fionn.

"It bore your shape," replied Gariv Cronan. "It had your armour
and your face, and the dogs, Bran and Sceo'lan, were with it."

"They were with me," said Fionn.

"They seemed to be with it," said the servant humbly

"Tell us this tale," cried Fionn.

"We were distrustful," the servant continued. "We had never known
Fionn to return from a combat before it had been fought, and we
knew you could not have reached Ben Edar or encountered the
Lochlannachs. So we urged our lady to let us go out to meet you,
but to remain herself in the Dun."

"It was good urging," Fionn assented.

"She would not be advised," the servant wailed. "She cried
to us, 'Let me go to meet my love'."

"Alas!" said Fionn.

"She cried on us, 'Let me go to meet my husband, the father of
the child that is not born.'"

"Alas!" groaned deep-wounded Fionn. "She ran towards your
appearance that had your arms stretched out to her."

At that wise Fionn put his hand before his eyes, seeing all that
happened.

"Tell on your tale," said he.

"She ran to those arms, and when she reached them the figure
lifted its hand. It touched her with a hazel rod, and, while we
looked, she disappeared, and where she had been there was a fawn
standing and shivering. The fawn turned and bounded towards the
gate of the Dun, but the hounds that were by flew after her."

Fionn stared on him like a lost man.

"They took her by the throat--"the shivering servant whispered.

"Ah!" cried Fionn in a terrible voice.

"And they dragged her back to the figure that seemed to be Fionn.
Three times she broke away and came bounding to us, and three
times the dogs took her by the throat and dragged her back."

"You stood to look!" the Chief snarled.

"No, master, we ran, but she vanished as we got to her; the great
hounds vanished away, and that being that seemed to be Fionn
disappeared with them. We were left in the rough grass, staring
about us and at each other, and listening to the moan of the wind
and the terror of our hearts."

"Forgive us, dear master," the servant cried. But the great
captain made him no answer. He stood as though he were dumb and
blind, and now and again he beat terribly on his breast with his
closed fist, as though he would kill that within him which should
be dead and could not die. He went so, beating on his breast, to
his inner room in the Dun, and he was not seen again for the rest
of that day, nor until the sun rose over Moy Life' in the
morning.



CHAPTER V

For many years after that time, when he was not fighting against
the enemies of Ireland, Fionn was searching and hunting through
the length and breadth of the country in the hope that he might
again chance on his lovely lady from the Shi'. Through all that
time he slept in misery each night and he rose each day to grief.
Whenever he hunted he brought only the hounds that he trusted,
Bran and Sceo'lan, Lomaire, Brod, and Lomlu; for if a fawn was
chased each of these five great dogs would know if that was a
fawn to be killed or one to be protected, and so there was small
danger to Saeve and a small hope of finding her.

Once, when seven years had passed in fruitless search, Fionn and
the chief nobles of the Fianna were hunting Ben Gulbain. All the
hounds of the Fianna were out, for Fionn had now given up hope of
encountering the Flower of Allen. As the hunt swept along the
sides of the hill there arose a great outcry of hounds from a
narrow place high on the slope and, over all that uproar there
came the savage baying of Fionn's own dogs.

"What is this for?" said Fionn, and with his companions he
pressed to the spot whence the noise came.

"They are fighting all the hounds of the Fianna," cried a
champion.

And they were. The five wise hounds were in a circle and were
giving battle to an hundred dogs at once. They were bristling and
terrible, and each bite from those great, keen jaws was woe to
the beast that received it. Nor did they fight in silence as was
their custom and training, but between each onslaught the great
heads were uplifted, and they pealed loudly, mournfully,
urgently, for their master.

"They are calling on me," he roared.

And with that he ran, as he had only once before run, and the men
who were nigh to him went racing as they would not have run for
their lives. They came to the narrow place on the slope of the
mountain, and they saw the five great hounds in a circle keeping
off the other dogs, and in the middle of the ring a little boy
was standing. He had long, beautiful hair, and he was naked. He
was not daunted by the terrible combat and clamour of the hounds.
He did not look at the hounds, but he stared like a young prince
at Fionn and the champions as they rushed towards him scattering
the pack with the butts of their spears. When the fight was over,
Bran and Sceo'lan ran whining to the little boy and licked his
hands.

"They do that to no one," said a bystander. "What new master is
this they have found?"

Fionn bent to the boy. "Tell me, my little prince and pulse, what
your name is, and how you have come into the middle of a
hunting-pack, and why you are naked?"

But the boy did not understand the language of the men of
Ireland. He put bis hand into Fionn's, and the Chief felt as if
that little hand had been put into his heart. He lifted the lad
to his great shoulder.

"We have caught something on this hunt," said he to Caelte mac
Rongn. "We must bring this treasure home. You shall be one of the
Fianna-Finn, my darling," he called upwards.

The boy looked down on him, and in the noble trust and
fearlessness of that regard Fionn's heart melted away.

"My little fawn!" he said.

And he remembered that other fawn. He set the boy between his
knees and stared at him earnestly and long.

"There is surely the same look," he said to his wakening heart;
"that is the very eye of Saeve."

The grief flooded out of his heart as at a stroke, and joy foamed
into it in one great tide. He marched back singing to the
encampment, and men saw once more the merry Chief they had almost
forgotten.



CHAPTER VI

Just as at one time he could not be parted from Saeve, so now he
could not be separated from this boy. He had a thousand names for
him, each one more tender than the last: "My Fawn, My Pulse, My
Secret Little Treasure," or he would call him "My Music, My
Blossoming Branch, My Store in the Heart, My Soul." And the dogs
were as wild for the boy as Fionn was. He could sit in safety
among a pack that would have torn any man to pieces, and the
reason was that Bran and Sceo'lan, with their three whelps,
followed him about like shadows. When he was with the pack these
five were with him, and woeful indeed was the eye they turned on
their comrades when these pushed too closely or were not properly
humble. They thrashed the pack severally and collectively until
every hound in Fionn's kennels knew that the little lad was their
master, and that there was nothing in the world so sacred as he
was.

In no long time the five wise hounds could have given over their
guardianship, so complete was the recognition of their young
lord. But they did not so give over, for it was not love they
gave the lad but adoration.

Fionn even may have been embarrassed by their too close
attendance. If he had been able to do so he might have spoken
harshly to his dogs, but he could not; it was unthinkable that he
should; and the boy might have spoken harshly to him if he had
dared to do it. For this was the order of Fionn's affection:
first there was the boy; next, Bran and Sceo'lan with their three
whelps; then Caelte mac Rona'n, and from him down through the
champions. He loved them all, but it was along that precedence
his affections ran. The thorn that went into Bran's foot ran into
Fionn's also. The world knew it, and there was not a champion but
admitted sorrowfully that there was reason for his love.

Little by little the boy came to understand their speech and to
speak it himself, and at last he was able to tell his story to
Fionn.

There were many blanks in the tale, for a young child does not
remember very well. Deeds grow old in a day and are buried in a
night. New memories come crowding on old ones, and one must learn
to forget as well as to remember. A whole new life had come on
this boy, a life that was instant and memorable, so that his
present memories blended into and obscured the past, and he could
not be quite sure if that which he told of had happened in this
world or in the world he had left.



CHAPTER VII

"I used to live," he said, "in a wide, beautiful place. There
were hills and valleys there, and woods and streams, but in
whatever direction I went I came always to a cliff, so tall it
seemed to lean against the sky, and so straight that even a goat
would not have imagined to climb it."

"I do not know of any such place," Fionn mused.

"There is no such place in Ireland," said Caelte, "but in the
Shi' there is such a place."

"There is in truth," said Fionn.

"I used to eat fruits and roots in the summer," the boy
continued, "but in the winter food was left for me in a cave."

"Was there no one with you?" Fionn asked.

"No one but a deer that loved me, and that I loved."

"Ah me!" cried Fionn in anguish, "tell me your tale, my son."

"A dark stern man came often after us, and he used to speak with
the deer. Sometimes he talked gently and softly and coaxingly,
but at times again he would shout loudly and in a harsh, angry
voice. But whatever way he talked the deer would draw away from
him in dread, and he always left her at last furiously."

"It is the Dark Magician of the Men of God," cried Fionn
despairingly.

"It is indeed, my soul," said Caelte.

"The last time I saw the deer," the child continued, "the dark
man was speaking to her. He spoke for a long time. He spoke
gently and angrily, and gently and angrily, so that I thought he
would never stop talking, but in the end he struck her with a
hazel rod, so that she was forced to follow him when he went
away. She was looking back at me all the time and she was crying
so bitterly that any one would pity her. I tried to follow her
also, but I could not move, and I cried after her too, with rage
and grief, until I could see her no more and hear her no more.
Then I fell on the grass, my senses went away from me, and when I
awoke I was on the hill in the middle of the hounds where you
found me."

That was the boy whom the Fianna called Oisi'n, or the Little
Fawn. He grew to be a great fighter afterwards, and he was the
chief maker of poems in the world. But he was not yet finished
with the Shi. He was to go back into Faery when the time came,
and to come thence again to tell these tales, for it was by him
these tales were told.




THE WOOING OF BECFOLA



CHAPTER I

We do not know where Becfola came from. Nor do we know for
certain where she went to. We do not even know her real name, for
the name Becfola, "Dowerless" or "Small-dowered," was given to
her as a nickname. This only is certain, that she disappeared
from the world we know of, and that she went to a realm where
even conjecture may not follow her.

It happened in the days when Dermod, son of the famous Ae of
Slane, was monarch of all Ireland. He was unmarried, but he had
many foster-sons, princes from the Four Provinces, who were sent
by their fathers as tokens of loyalty and affection to the
Ard-Ri, and his duties as a foster-father were righteously
acquitted. Among the young princes of his household there was
one, Crimthann, son of Ae, King of Leinster, whom the High King
preferred to the others over whom he held fatherly sway. Nor was
this wonderful, for the lad loved him also, and was as eager and
intelligent and modest as becomes a prince.

The High King and Crimthann would often set out from Tara to hunt
and hawk, sometimes unaccompanied even by a servant; and on these
excursions the king imparted to his foster-son his own wide
knowledge of forest craft, and advised him generally as to the
bearing and duties of a prince, the conduct of a court, and the
care of a people.

Dermod mac Ae delighted in these solitary adventures, and when he
could steal a day from policy and affairs he would send word
privily to Crimthann. The boy, having donned his hunting gear,
would join the king at a place arranged between them, and then
they ranged abroad as chance might direct.

On one of these adventures, as they searched a flooded river to
find the ford, they saw a solitary woman in a chariot driving
from the west.

"I wonder what that means?" the king exclaimed thoughtfully.

"Why should you wonder at a woman in a chariot?" his companion
inquired, for Crimthann loved and would have knowledge.

"Good, my Treasure," Dermod answered, "our minds are astonished
when we see a woman able to drive a cow to pasture, for it has
always seemed to us that they do not drive well."

Crimthann absorbed instruction like a sponge and digested it as
rapidly.

"I think that is justly said," he agreed.

"But," Dermod continued, "when we see a woman driving a chariot
of two horses, then we are amazed indeed."

When the machinery of anything is explained to us we grow
interested, and Crimthann became, by instruction, as astonished
as the king was.

"In good truth," said he, "the woman is driving two horses."

"Had you not observed it before?" his master asked with kindly
malice.

"I had observed but not noticed," the young man admitted.

"Further," said the king, "surmise is aroused in us when we
discover a woman far from a house; for you will have both
observed and noticed that women are home-dwellers, and that a
house without a woman or a woman without a house are imperfect
objects, and although they be but half observed, they are noticed
on the double."

"There is no doubting it," the prince answered from a knitted and
thought-tormented brow.

"We shall ask this woman for information about herself," said the
king decidedly.

"Let us do so," his ward agreed

"The king's majesty uses the words 'we' and 'us' when referring
to the king's majesty," said Dermod, "but princes who do not yet
rule territories must use another form of speech when referring
to themselves."

"I am very thoughtless, said Crimthann humbly.

The king kissed him on both cheeks.

"Indeed, my dear heart and my son, we are not scolding you, but
you must try not to look so terribly thoughtful when you think.
It is part of the art of a ruler."

"I shall never master that hard art," lamented his fosterling.

"We must all master it," Dermod replied. "We may think with our
minds and with our tongues, but we should never think with our
noses and with our eyebrows,"

The woman in the chariot had drawn nigh to the ford by which they
were standing, and, without pause, she swung her steeds into the
shallows and came across the river in a tumult of foam and spray.

"Does she not drive well?" cried Crimthann admiringly.

"When you are older," the king counselled him, "you will admire
that which is truly admirable, for although the driving is good
the lady is better."

He continued with enthusiasm.

"She is in truth a wonder of the world and an endless delight to
the eye."

She was all that and more, and, as she took the horses through
the river and lifted them up the bank, her flying hair and parted
lips and all the young strength and grace of her body went into
the king's eye and could not easily come out again.

Nevertheless, it was upon his ward that the lady's gaze rested,
and if the king could scarcely look away from her, she could, but
only with an equal effort, look away from Crimthann.

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.