The High Deeds of Finn MacCool (2 page)

The day after they crossed the Connacht border, they came upon a woman bowed altogether with grief, and keening over the body of a young man outstretched on the stained and trampled grass.

Finn stopped when he saw her, and asked, ‘What ill thing has happened here?'

She looked up at him, and her grief was so terrible that the tears falling from her eyes were great drops of blood. ‘Here is my son Glonda, my only son, dead! Slain by Lia of Luachair and his followers. If you are a warrior as you seem, go now and avenge his death, since I have no other man to avenge it.'

So Finn went after this Lia of Luachair, and found him, and slew him in single combat, the followers of both standing by. And when Lia lay dead, Finn saw that a strange-seeming bag of crane-skin dyed blue and crimson was fastened to his belt. He knelt and untied the belt-thong, and opened the bag. Inside was a spearhead of fine dark blue iron, and a war-cap inlaid with silver, a shield with bronze studs around the rim, and a gold-clasped boar's-hide belt. Finn had no knowledge as to why the man should be carrying these things, but they looked worth keeping, so he put them back in the bag, and tied the thong to his own belt, and he and his companions went on their way.

Beyond the Shannon, in the shadowed depths of the
Connacht forests, he came upon a clearing in the woods, and in the clearing a cluster of branch-woven bothies; and as he looked, out from the low door-holes, one after another came old men, gaunt as wolves in a famine winter, bent and white-haired and half clad in animal skins and rags of old once-brilliant cloth. But each man carried in his hand an ancient sword or spear, for it seemed to them that the strange-comers could only be young warriors of the Clan Morna who had discovered their refuge at last; and they chose to meet their deaths fighting, rather than go down tamely without a blow. And something about their bearing and the way they handled their weapons even now, told Finn that they were the men he had come to seek, and he could have howled like a dead man's dog, thinking of the tall and splendid warriors that they had been on the morning that they stood out to fight at Cnucha.

Then he swallowed the grief in him and cried out to them with joy, ‘You are the Clan Bascna! Which of you is Crimnal the brother of Cool?'

Then one of the old men stepped foward, sword in hand – and he not yet knowing whether or no he faced Clan Morna – and said fearlessly, ‘I am Crimnal the brother of Cool.'

Finn looked in his old tired eyes, and said, ‘I am Finn, the son of Cool.' And he knelt and laid the crane-skin bag at the old man's feet for a gift, since he had nothing else to give.

Crimnal looked at the bag, and cried out in a great voice to come from such a thin and bent old body, ‘The Treasure Bag of the Fianna! Brothers, the time of our waiting is over!'

He opened the bag, and one by one drew out the things that it contained, the old men and the young men standing round to watch. And it seemed to Finn that the eyes of the old men grew brighter and their backs straighter and the grip of their weapon hands stronger with each object that appeared; the spearhead and the war-cap, the shield and the boar's-hide belt.

‘Goll Mac Morna took this from your father's body after the slaying; and for eighteen years it has been lost to us. Now it returns again to Clan Bascna and with it will return also the lordship of the Fianna. Go you and take your father's place for it is yours, Finn Mac Cool.'

‘Keep the Treasure Bag for me, then,' said Finn. ‘My comrades I leave with you, to guard both it and you until I send you word to bring it out to me.'

And again he went his way, alone as at the first time.

But he knew that there was yet one more thing he had to learn before he was fitted to take his father's place; and he went to study poetry and the tales in which lay the ancient wisdom and history of his people with a certain Druid by the name of Finegas, who lived on the banks of the River Boyne.

Seven years Finegas had lived beside the Boyne, and all that while he had been striving by every means that he could think of to catch Fintan the Salmon of Knowledge, who lived in a dark pool of the river, where a great hazel tree bent its branches and dropped nuts of knowledge into the water. Fintan ate the nuts as they fell, and their power passed into him, and whoever ate of Fintan would possess the wisdom of all the ages. In seven years, a man – and he a Druid – may think of many ways to catch a salmon, but
Fintan the Salmon of Knowledge had escaped them all, until Finn came treading lightly through the woods to be the old man's pupil.

Soon after that, Finegas caught the Salmon quite easily, as though it had simply been waiting its own chosen time to be caught.

Finegas gave the Salmon to Finn to cook for him. ‘And look that you eat nothing of the creature, not the smallest mouthful, yourself, but bring it to me as soon as it is ready, for it's wearying I've been for the taste of it, this seven long years past.'

Then he sat down in the doorway of his bothie, and waited. And a long wait it seemed to him. At last Finn brought the Salmon, steaming on a long dish of polished maple wood. But as he set it down, Finegas looked into his face, and saw there was a change in it, and that it was no longer the face of a boy. And he asked, ‘Have you eaten any of the Salmon in spite of my words to you?'

And Finn shook his head. ‘I have not. But when I turned it on the spit I scorched my thumb, and I sucked it to ease the smart. Was there any harm in that, my master?'

Finegas sighed a deep and heavy sigh, and pushed the dish away. ‘Take the rest of the Salmon and eat it, for already in the hot juice on your thumb, you have had all the knowledge and power that was in it. And in you, and not in me as I had hoped, the prophecy is fulfilled. And when you have eaten, go from here, for there is nothing more that I can teach you.'

From that day forward, whenever Finn wished to know how some future thing would turn out, or the meaning of some mystery, or to gain tidings of events
happening at a distance, he had only to put his scorched thumb between his teeth and the knowledge would come to him as though it were the Second Sight.

And another power came to him also at that time, so that he could save the life of any sick or wounded man, no matter how near to death, by giving him a drink of water from his cupped hands.

Now, when he left his Druid master beside the Boyne, Finn knew that the time was fully come for him to be claiming his father's place, and he set out for Tara of the High Kings.

It was Samhein, the time of the great autumn feast, and as he drew nearer, his road, and the four other roads that met at Tara, became more and more densely thronged with chiefs and warriors, on horseback or in chariots decorated with bronze and walrus ivory, with their women in gowns of green and saffron and crimson and heather-dark plaid and the golden apples swinging from the ends of their braided hair, and their tall feather-heeled hounds running alongside. For at Samhein all the kings and chiefs of Erin came together, and all men were free to sit at table in the High King's hall if they could find room – and so long as they left their weapons outside.

So up the Royal Hill and in through the gate, and across the broad forecourt went Finn, amid the incoming throng, and sat himself down with the King's household warriors, ate badger's meat baked with salt and honey, and drank the yellow mead from a silver-bound oxhorn, and watched the High King and the tall scarred man close beside him, who he knew from his lack of an eye must be Goll Mac Morna, and waited
for the King to notice that there was a stranger among his warriors.

And presently the High King did notice him, and sent one of his court officials to bid him come and stand before the High Table.

‘What is your name? And why do you come and seat yourself unannounced among my household warriors?' demanded the King.

And Finn flung up his pale bright head and gave him back stare for stare. ‘I am Finn the son of Cool who was once Captain of all the Fianna of Erin, Cormac High King, and I am come to carry my spear in your service as he did; but for me, I will carry it in the ranks of your household warriors, and not with the Fianna.' This he said because he knew that to join the Fianna he would have to swear faith to Goll Mac Morna, and he was no light faithbreaker.

‘If you are the son of Cool, then you may be proud of your birth,' said the King. ‘Your father was a mighty hero, and his spear I trusted as I would trust my own – and as I will trust yours.'

Then Finn swore faith to Cormac the High King; and Cormac gave him a place among his household warriors, and the feasting went on as it had done before, and the King's harper beat upon his curved harp while the mead horns passed from hand to hand, and the great hounds fought over the bones among the rushes on the floor.

But little by little the drink began to pass more slowly, the laughter grew fitful and the harp-song fell away, and men began to half glance into each other's eyes and break off the glance quickly, as though afraid of what they might see.

And indeed they had good reason.

Every Samhein for the past twenty years, Tara had been weirdly and terribly visited. Fiend or Fairy no one knew what the strange-comer was, only that his name was Aillen of the Flaming Breath, and every Samhein at midnight he came upon them from the Fairy hill close by, and burned the royal dun over their heads. No use for any warrior, however valiant, to try to withstand him, for he carried a silver harp, and as he came he drew from its strings the sweetest and most drowsy music that ever breathed upon the ears of men, and all who heard it drifted into a deep enchanted sleep. So each Samhein it was the same; he came upon Tara with no one left awake to withstand him, and he breathed where he would with a licking breath of fire until thatch and timber blackened and scorched and twisted, and kindled into leaping flame. So every year Tara must be rebuilt, and every year again – and yet again.

When the sounds of feasting had died quite away, and an uneasy hush with little stirrings and little eddies in it held the King's hall, Cormac rose in his High Place, and offered a mighty reward in gold and horses and women slaves to any warrior who could prevail against Aillen of the Flaming Breath, and keep the thatch on Tara till the next day's dawn. He had made the same offer, and his father before him, twenty Samhein nights, and after the first few times, no man, not the boldest of his warriors, had come forward to answer, for they knew that neither courage nor skill nor strength would avail them against the wicked silvery music. So Cormac made the offer, and waited, without hope.

And then Finn rose in his place, and stood to face the troubled King. ‘Cormac Mac Art, High King of Erin, I will forgo the gold and the horses and the women slaves, but if I prevail against this horror of the night, and keep the thatch on Tara till tomorrow's dawn, will you swear before all these in your hall to give me my rightful heritage?'

‘It is a bold man, I'm thinking, who seeks to bargain with the High King,' said Cormac. ‘What heritage is that?'

‘The Captaincy of the Fianna of Erin.'

‘I have given you the place that you asked for among my own warriors,' said Cormac, ‘and is that not good enough for you?'

‘Not if I keep that thatch on Tara,' said Finn.

Then a murmur ran round the hall, and men looked at each other and at Goll Mac Morna, who sat looking straight before him with his one bright falcon's eye.

‘I swear,' said the King, ‘and let all those gathered here, the kings and chiefs of Erin, warriors of my household and of all the Fianna, witness to my swearing. If you overcome Aillen of the Flaming Breath, you will have earned the Captaincy in your own right, and in your own right, as well as by heritage, you shall hold it.'

So Finn left the King's hall, and took up his spear that he had laid by when he entered, and went up to the rampart walk that crested the encircling turf wall. He did not know at all how he should succeed when so many had failed before him, but his faith was in his destiny, and he did not doubt that he would prevail. And while he paced to and fro, waiting and watching, and listening more than all, one of the older warriors
came after him, carrying a spear with its head laced into a leather sheath.

‘Long ago your father saved my life,' said the man ‘and now is the time to be repaying my debt. Take the spear, to aid you in your fight.'

‘I have a good spear of my own,' Finn said.

But the other shook his head. ‘Not such a spear as this, that must be kept hooded like a hawk lest it run wild and drink blood of its own accord. It was forged by Lein, the Smith of the Gods, and he beat into it the fire of the sun and the potency of the moon. When you hear the first breath of the fairy music, lay the blade to your forehead, and the fierceness and the bloodlust in it will drive away all sleep from you. Take it.'

Finn took the spear and loosed the thongs and slipped off the cover. He saw a spearhead of iron as sheeny-blue as the moonlight, and studded with thirty rivets of bright Arabian gold.

‘Take it,' said the man once more.

And Finn hooded the spear again, but left the thongs loose. And carrying it, he returned to his pacing up and down, looking always out over the plains of Mide, white under the moon, and listening, listening until the silence in his own ears sounded loud as the hushing of the sea in a shell.

And then it came, the faintest gossamer shimmer of distant harp-music. Nearer and clearer, even as he checked to listen, clearer and nearer; the fairy music lapped like the first gentle wavelets of sleep about him. It was the light summer wind through the moorland grasses of Slieve Bloom, it was the murmur of bees among the sun-warmed bell heather; it was all the
lullabies that ever his foster mothers had sung to him when he was too young to remember . . .

Finn tore himself free of the enchantment that was weaving itself around him, and with fingers that seemed weak and numb, dragged the leather hood from the spear and pressed the blade to his forehead. Instantly he heard the voice of the spear more clearly than the voice of Aillen's harp; an angry hornet note that drove all sleep away from him. His head cleared, and looking out once more towards the Fairy hill, he saw a thing like a mist-wraith floating towards him along the ground. Nearer and nearer, taking shape and substance as it came, until Finn was looking at the pale airy shape of Aillen of the Flaming Breath, so near and clear now that he could even catch the silver ripple of the harpstrings on which the thing played with long white fingers as he came. Now Aillen had reached the stockade which crowned the turf walls, and a long tongue of greenish flame shot from his mouth and lapped at the timbers.