The High Deeds of Finn MacCool (5 page)

‘Well, indeed,' said Finn. ‘Now it is the turn of the Thief. But you must go up again, carrying him on your back, for no one save yourself could climb these sheer walls and a roof as slippery as moonshine.'

So the Climber went up again, carrying the Thief on his back, and it was more than once they went, and brought away everything that was in the chamber; the boys with their golden shiny sticks and silver ball, the wolfhound pups from their mother's flank, the silk coverlid and even the satin sheet on which the giant lay and the new-born babe from the hollow of his right hand. Everything except the wolfhound bitch and the giant still sleeping on his stripped bed.

Finn wrapped the babe in the coverlid, and laid him in the hollow of the ship, with the hound pups on either side for warmth; and the rowers bent to their oars; and so they drew off from the giant's tower, making all speed on their homeward way.

Now the Listener had stationed himself in the stern, beside Finn at the steering oar, and they had not gone far when he said, ‘I hear the gaint waking, for he is cold without his bedclothes. He is looking for the babe and the other things, but chiefly he is looking for the babe; and he is angry. He is very angry. Now he is sending the wolfhound after us. Row as hard as ever you can, for she too is angry!'

The rowers bent to their oars with redoubled effort, and the ship leapt through the water like a sea-swallow that outruns the waves, but before long they saw the wolfhound coming after them, swimming so fast that
red sparks sprang from her muzzle and flanks, and streamed away in her wake.

‘If she so much as brushes alongside us she'll set the planking alight,' said Finn. ‘Throw out one of the pups, and maybe she will be turning aside to save the creature and take it back.'

So they flung overboard the grey pup, and sure enough the mother lost all interest in the boat, and seizing the floundering puppy by the scruff of its neck, she turned about and swam back the way she had come, growing smaller and smaller until she disappeared into the distance and the first light of morning.

Finn's men rowed till their hearts were like to burst, but after a while the Listener, standing beside Finn in the stern, said, ‘The hound bitch has got back to the tower. The giant is very angry. He is ordering her to come after us again; I can hear how he rages at her, but she will not come; she will not leave the pup she saved. She is telling him so, as a hound speaks with its ears laid back and teeth bare. Now he has given up trying to send her. And now – now he is coming after us himself!'

‘Row as you never rowed before!' said Finn. And the rowers sent the ship whistling over the wavetops more swiftly than the west wind itself, but before long they saw the giant coming, and the western waters reaching only midway up his thighs, and the waves boiling into whirlpools all about him at every step. On he came, striding in their wake, and for all their desperate struggling at the oars, his stride brought him closer and closer yet.

Then Finn put his thumb between his teeth, the thumb which he had burned when he was cooking
Fintan the Salmon of Knowledge, and instantly it came to him that the giant was charmed against all weapon wounds save in one place, and that place a mole on the palm of his one remaining hand. And only through the mole could he be slain.

Finn told the Marksman this, and Marksman said, ‘If I can catch but a single glimpse of that mole, he is a dead giant.'

Then the giant reached the stern of the ship, and towering over it like a crag, he reached out to grasp the masthead.

As he opened his hand to do so, the mole on the palm of it showed for one instant, and in that instant the Marksman notched an arrow to his bow, and drew and loosed. The arrow sped true to its mark, and with a yell that echoed from the sea to the sky and back again the giant fell dead.

The crash of his fall was like a mountain falling into the sea, and the ship rocked wildly, plunging under them like a startled horse, then righted itself and rode clear.

‘That was a near thing,' said Finn, ‘and that was a fine shot. Now we will be turning about and heading back to the giant's tower, for it is not in my mind to leave a good hound or a strong pup masterless in such a place.'

So they brought the ship about, and they rowed and sailed back to the giant's tower, and took the grey pup again, and with him his dam, who seemed now to be no more savage than any other hunting dog. And then for the last time they pulled away from the tower and set the galley's head toward the Young Hero's landing-beach and the Glen of the Hazel Woods. They
rowed more slowly now, for they were very weary and there was no longer any pursuit to fear, and it was dawn of the next day when they came to the landing-beach.

They ran the boat up the shingle to its place beside the Young Hero's galley, and went on up the glen towards the house, Finn walking ahead with the babe still wrapped in the silken coverlid, the strange crew following with the other two boys, the hound bitch and her puppies, the satin sheet and the golden shinty sticks and the silver ball.

The Young Hero saw them at a distance and came to meet them. And when he saw not only the babe tucked under Finn's arm, but the two boys, he wept for the joy of finding all his sons again, when he had hoped only for the return of the last born. He knelt to Finn as though he were Cormac the High King, and begged to know what would seem to the Fian Captain a fitting reward, for all that he owned was Finn's for the asking.

‘Give me my choice of the two hound pups,' said Finn, ‘for truly I never saw any that showed better promise.'

Then they all went into the Young Hero's hall, where a great feast was made ready for them. And they remained with the Young Hero for a year and a day, hunting or trying their prowess at shinty and in all manner of sports and pastimes by day, and feasting royally by night. And if the last night's feasting was not the best of all, it was assuredly not the worst, even though the shadow of parting lay over it.

And when they sailed for Erin the next day, Finn took with him the brindled and white-breasted hound,
now full grown, while the dam and the other yearling remained with the Young Hero who had named him Skolawn, which means Grey Dog.

Finn called the brindled hound Bran, and he was the first of his two favourite hunting dogs.

The months went by and the months went by, and again Finn and his companions went hunting. They had made their kill and were on the point of turning home by Almu of the White Walls when a stranger came to them.

This was a tall youth with hair as barley-pale as Finn's own, and eyes the colour of winter seas. ‘You will be Finn Mac Cool, Captain of the Fianna of Erin?' said he, singling out Finn from his fellows, as most people could do easily enough by his great height and his air of having the very sun at his feet for a shinty ball.

‘I am so,' said Finn, ‘and who are you? And where from? And what bring's you seeking Finn Mac Cool?'

‘As to the first, my name would mean nothing to you,' said the boy. ‘As to the second, I am from the East and from the West; your name is known in both places. As to the third, I am wanting a master to serve for a year and a day.'

‘And if I take you into my service, what reward will you demand at the end of the year and a day.'

‘Only that you come and feast with me in the royal palace at Lochlan,' said the boy.

Now Lochlan was the homeland of the Vikings, the sea raiders, and the chief war-task of the Fianna was to keep the coasts of Erin safe from their raids and
harryings. So Finn knew that this bidding to feast in the royal palace of Lochlan was like to be a trap. But there was always the chance that it was a holding out of the hand of friendship, and if that were so, a sore thing it would be to refuse. And Finn was never one to turn from a thing just because it smelled of danger. So he said, ‘That seems a small enough wage. Serve me well, and I will pay it gladly.'

So the boy became one of Finn's household, and served him faithfully for a year and a day. And at the end of that time he came to Finn on the level green before the walls of Almu. ‘The year is finished and the day is finished. Have I served you well?'

‘You have indeed,' said Finn.

‘Then now I claim my wages. Come with me to the royal palace of Lochlan.'

‘Surely I will come,' said Finn, but to his own men he said, ‘Fian Brothers, if I am not back among you within a year and a day, whet your spears and furbish your war-bows to avenge me on the shores of Lochlan.'

Then he went into the house-place to make ready for the journey. His druth, his jester, sat by the fire, and the tears ran down his long crooked nose and hissed as they fell into the hot ashes. ‘Ach now, a fine sort of jester you are,' said Finn, thumping him lightly on the shoulder in passing. ‘You should be making some fine jest to cheer me on my journey.'

‘It is not I that am feeling like making jests,' said the little man, rubbing his shoulder.

‘Are you sorry that I am going to Lochlan?'

‘I am sorry. But though I cannot think of a jest to make you laugh at the outset of your journey, I can
give you a piece of good advice to carry if you can find room for it.'

‘And what is that?' said Finn.

‘Take with you Bran's golden chain.'

‘That seems very strange advice, but I will take it,' said Finn. And so when he set out, following the Lochlan boy, Bran's golden chain was bound like a rich belt about his waist. The Lochlan boy led the way, and so swiftly did he cover the ground that for all Finn's long legs, the Fian Captain could never overtake him, nor even come nearer to him than to see him always just disappearing over the next hill. So it was when he came to the coast, to a sheltered bay that he never remembered having seen before, and found a Lochlan galley waiting for him. The boy had gone ahead in another galley and was already far out to sea.

For many days they sailed and rowed until they came to the shores of Lochlan, and then to the royal palace. And when Finn reached the forecourt with the crew of the ship that had brought him there all about him, the boy was already sitting at the High Table in the King's hall, with the King his father. The King's hall was fine and proud to see, both inside and out. Gilded stag's horns crowned the roof that towered above the lesser roofs of the palace, and within the walls were hung with fine stuffs to keep out the draughts, and enriched with gold and enamel and walrus ivory, the harvest of many raids. Long tables of polished wood, already crowded with the sea-warriors and their women, were loaded with food and drink for a feast.

Finn entered the hall, still with the galley's crew about him. And since no one came to him with the
guest cup, nor bade him come up to the High Table, he sat himself quietly down on a bench among them, and looked about him warily, and waited for what might happen next.

At the High Table the Lochlan lords had gathered together. They spoke low-voiced among themselves, glancing often in the direction of Finn. And Finn did not need to put his thumb between his teeth to know that whatever they said, it boded no good to himself. And he thought. ‘So I have indeed walked into a trap. And now I must get out of it as best I may.'

But the door was shut behind him, and the galley's crew ringed him round.

‘Hang him,' said one noble.

‘Ach no,' said another. ‘We should have to get a rope and bring it in, while all the while, here is the hearth fire all ready to our hands. Let us burn him and be done with it.'

‘Die he must,' said a third, an old man with skin burned by sun and spindrift and eyes narrowed by gazing into the distances of many seas, ‘but let it be by water; drowning is a death for a man.'

And at that moment there rose far off a mournful sound that might have been the cry of a wolf or the howl of a savage and despairing dog. And the Viking lords looked at each other and smiled in their yellow beards.

‘Grey Dog shall do the killing for us.'

‘And most willingly, too.'

‘Aye. It has been death to any man to go near him since we captured him in that raid on the Glen of the Hazel Woods and brought him to Lochlan. Let us just
take the man Finn to Glen More and leave him there. Grey Dog will see to the rest.'

Then one of them made a signal to the seamen surrounding Finn and they caught his arms and twisted them behind him. And struggle as he would, he could not win free, for they were too many for him, though each one by himself he could have broken like a dead stick across his knee. So at last he ceased to struggle and stood quiet, saving himself for a later time.

And in the distance, the dog howled again.

‘Now, take him to Glen More and leave him there,' said the King of Lochlan.

The young Prince said, ‘I will come too. It was my year and a day of service that won him here from Erin.'

And he looked at Finn with pleasure, as a hunter looks at his kill which other men have hunted in vain.