The High Deeds of Finn MacCool (9 page)

He took it between his trembling hands and drank, and instantly sprang from the litter, young and strong and proud as ever he had been, only that his hair was silver grey, as the seed silk of the willow herb.

‘Drink again,' said she, ‘and your hair also will be as it was before.'

Finn half held out his hand, then drew it back. ‘My thanks to you that you have freed me from your sister's
spell-binding. But for the rest, I will keep my hair grey, Ainé; for I'm not minded to be husband of yours.'

Ainé snatched back the cup, and was gone, and nothing left but the grass-grown mound with a ragged hole in its side.

Then Finn and the Fianna whistled up their dogs and turned back towards Almu of the White Walls.

And Finn's hair continued silver to the end of his days.

The years went by and the years went by, and Finn Mac Cool took a second wife, Manissa, daughter of Garad of the Black Knee, and had other sons beside Oisĩn, but none that he loved so well. And he did not hold back from his hunting to remain beside Manissa as he had done to be always at Saba's side.

One summer Finn and the Fianna hunted the broad runs of Munster. They hunted over Kenn-Aurat and Slieve Keen and Coill-na-Drua, and across the rich lands of Fermore, and south among the lakes of Killarney; all the length of the great plain of Firmin they hunted and up over the speckled crest of Slieve Namon. All through East Munster and West Munster, from Balla-Gavran to Limerick of the blue waters.

And while they were hunting the Plain of Cliach, Finn caused the hunting camp to be pitched on the level top of the hill that overlooked it, and went up there himself to rest, and to watch the Fianna hunting the lower ground. Several of his closest companions were up there with him, among them Goll Mac Morna of the Mighty Deeds, and Conan of the ram's fleece and the bitter tongue, and Fergus Finvel his wisest councillor, and Oisĩn his own son, together with Dearmid O'Dyna, both of them very young warriors, new come to the Fianna.

When the Fian Captain and his companions had
taken their places on the hill, the hunters unleashed their hounds and the summer morning grew full of the sounds that Finn loved best to hear; the baying music of the hounds and the cries and calls of the hunters encouraging them on, and the notes of the hunting horn echoing through the glens.

But presently, as he watched the movements of the hunt, Finn saw coming up the hillside through the woods that fleeced the lower slopes, a man leading a horse. But surely the strangest and ugliest man leading the strangest and ugliest horse that any of the watching chiefs and champions had ever seen.

To begin with, both were of giant size, and the man had a thick clumsy body set on bowed and twisted legs, his feet broad and flat and his arms of gigantic strength, his lips thick and his teeth crooked, and himself the hairiest man that ever was seen. In his right hand he held an iron-bound club which he dragged behind him, and it tearing up the ground in a track as broad as the furrow that a farmer ploughs behind a team of oxen. And his horse – as they drew nearer, Finn saw that it was an aged mare – was fit mount for such a master. She was covered all over with a tangle of rusty black hair as unkempt as an old furze bush, her ribs and the knobbled ends of every bone showed through her hide, her legs, like the man's, were crooked, her neck twisted and her ugly head far too big even for her enormous body. There was a halter round her neck by which her master seemed to be dragging her along by main force. Every now and then the mare would dig in all four hooves and refuse to move another step; then her master would bang her in the ribs with the iron-bound club, and drag so hard
at the halter that it was a wonder her head didn't part company with her body. And every now and then she would give such a backward tug on the halter that it was as much of a wonder that the man's arm did not come out by the roots.

With all this pulling and hauling and jerking and banging, he could make but slow travelling, and it was a while before he reached the hill top where Finn and his companions stood watching. But when he did reach them, he bowed his head and bent his knee respectfully enough.

Finn asked him who he was and what he wanted, according to the usual custom.

‘As to who I am, how should I know, for I never knew who my father and mother were either, but men call me the Giolla Dacker, the Hard Ghilli. As to what I want, Captain of the Fianna, I am a wanderer in many lands, selling my services to anyone who will pay and feed me. Often in my travels I have heard your name spoken, and your strength and wisdom and open-handedness praised, and therefore I am come to seek service with you for one year.'

‘What wages do you ask?' said Finn.

‘At the year's end, I will fix my own wages,' said the stranger.

‘Will you so?' said Finn, amused at the giant's audacity.

‘Aye, if you will have me. But first I must tell you that my name was not given me without good cause, for I am indeed a hard ghilli. Hard to move, hard to manage, hard to get along with. There never was a worse or lazier servant nor one that grumbled more at having to do the simplest job of work.'

‘It's not a very pretty account that you give of yourself,' said Finn, ‘but I never yet refused service and wages to any man who came seeking them, and I will not refuse you now.'

The Giolla Dacker grinned as though mightily pleased with himself, and took the halter off his miserable bony nag and turned her loose among the horses of Finn and his companions.

And then it appeared that the mare was even harder to get along with than her master, for no sooner was she among the other horses than she cocked her ugly head, stuck out her long rough tail stiff as a spear shaft behind her, and began to kick out at them in all directions. The Fianna ran, shouting, to put a stop to her ugly game, but she saw them coming, and with a shake of her head and a harsh defiant neigh, set off for the place close by where Conan Maol's horses were grazing by themselves.

Conan, seeing this, bellowed to the Hard Ghilli to catch his accursed horse before she could make any more mischief.

But for answer, the Hard Ghilli tossed him the halter, saying with a cavernous yawn, ‘I'm tired. If you're wanting her fetched off from your precious beasts, go you and do it yourself.'

Conan in a spitting rage had no time to argue and use his familiar weapon of barbed words. He snatched up the halter and ran so fast that he came up with the ill-tempered mare just before she reached his horses, and flinging the halter over her head, tried to drag her round and lead her back to the others. But instantly the mare became as immovable as though she had turned into a tree and taken root. And though Conan
hauled and heaved and tugged until he was purple in the face, he could not budge her one finger's breadth.

Meanwhile, the rest of Finn's companions who had followed, stood round holding their sides with laughter. Fergus Finvel said, snatching at his breath, ‘I never thought to see our fat Conan playing horse boy to any man – and not over successfuly at that! Why are you not getting up on her back and showing her who's master, Conan Maol?'

Conan, stung by their jeers and laughter, scrambled on to the mare's back and began to kick her in the ribs and hammer his fists between her laid-back ears, to make her go. But the mare only drew back her lips as though she too were laughing, and remained immovable as ever.

‘Och now, I know what the trouble is,' said Fergus Finvel. ‘She has been used to the Giolla Dacker on her back, and him a giant no less, and fat as you are, like enough she cannot feel your weight, and is not even knowing she's a rider up there at all!'

‘Well, that's a thing can be easily set right,' said Coil Croda the Battle-Victor, and he sprang up behind Conan. But still the mare never stirred. Then Dara Donn mounted behind Coil, and Angus Mac Airt behind
him
, and so on until there were fourteen of the Fianna sitting on the back of the Giolla Dacker's horse and belabouring her to make her move. And she not seeming to feel them there at all for the notice she took of them.

Then the Giolla Dacker flew into a great state of indignation, and turned on Finn shouting, ‘I see now how much all these fine accounts of you are worth! Your men are pleased to make a mock of my horse
and therefore of me, and you do nothing to stop them! I'll not stand it, I'm telling you! Pay me my money and let me go from your service!'

‘That was a short service!' said Finn, bending over the laughter pain in his belly. ‘The agreement was that you should claim your wages after a year.'

‘On second thoughts,' said the Giolla Dacker, ‘I'd not be accepting wages from such as you! And now I'm away to find a better master.'

And so saying, he turned and began to stroll slowly away in the direction of the coast of Kerry.

The mare seeing this, pricked up her lop ears and ambled quietly after him, the fourteen still on her back, and the rest of the Fianna still doubled up with laughter to see them so. But before they had covered three times the lenght of their own morning shadows, the Giolla Dacker checked and looked back to make sure the horse was following him, then tucked up his kilt and went on again. But now he went with the speed of a swallow darting through the blue air, as a stone whirled from the sling; he went so fast that his bow legs were only a blur under him, and the mare neighed three times and quickened into a flying gallop to keep up with him. Now the fourteen on her back strove to
fling themselves off, but they were held fast and could not tear themselves free.

Then their comrades, seeing that they were now really in trouble, stopped laughing, and gave chase all the way to the coast. When they reached the seashore they thought that surely the Giolla Dacker and his demon mare must stop, but he ran straight on out to sea, and the mare after him, plunging into the water without an instant's slackening of her speed. Ligan Lumina who could run almost as fast as Keelta Mac Ronan and jump further than any other man of the Fianna, had outdistanced the rest in the chase, and making one mighty leap, he actually caught the mare by the tail, just as she took to the water. But he might have had no more weight than a cockle-burr, for all the hindrance that he was to her, and as she plunged on through the shallows and into the deeps, towing him behind her, he found that his hands were stuck fast to her tail and he could no more let go than the fourteen riders could free themselves from her back.

Standing on the beach, spent and panting from their long and desperate chase, Finn and the rest saw their comrades carried out of sight. And wasting no time on exclaiming and lamenting, they set themselves to decide what was best to do. They determined to make for the coast below Ben Eader, where a ship was always kept fitted and ready for sea in case of need, and sail westward in search of their lost comrades. So Finn chose out fifteen of his best and bravest men to go with him, including old Goll Mac Morna and young Dearmid O'Dyna. But Oisĩn he left behind, because he was his eldest son and must captain the Fianna while he was away.

They set out for Ben Eader, and went on board the waiting ship, and sailed south and then west round the coast of Erin, then out into the bright western sea. They raised the square sail and the rowers bent to the oars, and the ship sped westward like a live and willing creature, until the green shores and the white sands of Erin were lost behind them.

Many days went by: and at last they saw ahead of them an island rising sheer out of the water as though to hit the clouds, and seemingly no way up the sheer cliffs at all.

They sailed and rowed right round the island, and still they found no way up, not so much as a mountain cat could climb. But they came to a place where Faltlaba, the best tracker among them, sniffed three times and said that both the Giolla Dacker and his horse had landed here. And since there was no sign of them at the foot of the cliff, it was clear that they must somehow have climbed it to the top.

Now all of them understood that at the back of these happenings there was enchantment of some kind, and that they had to do with the Lordly People, and of them all, the best fitted to go forward on an adventure of this kind was Dearmid O'Dyna, for he had been foster-reared in Brugh-Na-Boyna, by Angus Ōg himself, one of the greatest of the Danann Princes, though that is a story for telling at a later time.

So Dearmid rose in the ship, and put on his war gear, and slung his sword over his shoulder, and took his two long spears one in either hand, and the warrior's battle-fury came upon him so that the air glowed all about him and the clouds gathered over his head, and his beauty grew terrible to look upon. Then
he crouched and made himself taut like a strung bow, and springing upward on the butts of his spears he made a great bound, and landed on a rock ledge far up the sheer face of the cliff. From there, using his spears and his hands and his feet, he leapt and swung from ledge to ledge and from cranny to cranny, working his way ever upward, while his comrades craned their necks to stare up at him from far and further below. And at last he gained the cliff top, and had green grass under his feet again.