“Eastward, breadthwise, over Erin straightway travell'd forth the twain,Till with many days' wayfaring Murgen fainted by Loch Ein:[pg 235]‘Dear my brother, thou art weary: I for present aid am flown:Thou for my returning tarry here beside this Standing Stone.’“Shone the sunset red and solemn: Murgen,where he leant,observedDown the corners of the column letter-strokes of Ogham carved.‘'Tis, belike, a burial pillar,’ said he, ‘and these shallow linesHold some warrior's name of valour, could I rightly spell the signs.’“Letter then by letter tracing, soft he breathed the sound of each;Sound and sound then interlacing, lo, the signs took form of speech;And with joy and wonder mainly thrilling, part a-thrill with fear,Murgen read the legend plainly,‘FERGUS SON OF ROY IS HERE.’”Murgen then, though he knew the penalty, appealed to Fergus to pity a son's distress, and vowed, for the sake of the recovery of the“Tain,”to give his life, and abandon his kin and friends and the maiden he loves, so that his father might no more be shamed. But Fergus gave no sign, and Murgen tried another plea:“Still he stirs not. Love of women thou regard'st not, Fergus, now:Love of children, instincts human, care for these no more hast thou:Wider comprehension, deeper insights to the dead belong:—Since for Love thou wak'st not, Sleeper, yet awake for sake of Song.“‘Thou, the first in rhythmic cadence dressing life's discordant tale,Wars of chiefs and loves of maidens, gavest the Poem to the Gael;Now they've lost their noblest measure, and in dark days hard at hand,Song shall be the only treasure left them in their native land.’“Fergus rose. A mist ascended with him, and a flash was seenAs of brazen sandals blended with a mantle's wafture green;But so thick the cloud closed o'er him, Eimena, return'd at last,Found not on the field before him but a mist-heap grey and vast.“Thrice to pierce the hoar recesses faithful Eimena essay'd;Thrice through foggy wildernesses back to open air he stray'd;Till a deep voice through the vapours fill'd the twilight far and nearAnd the Night her starry tapers kindling, stoop'd from heaven to hear.[pg 236]“Seem'd as though the skiey Shepherd back to earth had cast the fleeceEnvying gods of old caught upward from the darkening shrines of Greece;So the white mists curl'd and glisten'd, to from heaven's expanses bare,Stars enlarging lean'd and listen'd down the emptied depths of air.“All night long by mists surrounded Murgen lay in vapoury bars;All night long the deep voice sounded 'neath the keen, enlarging stars:But when, on the orient verges, stars grew dim and mists retired,Rising by the stone of Fergus, Murgen stood a man inspired.“‘Back to Sanchan!—Father, hasten, ere the hour of power be past,Ask not how obtain'd but listen to the lost lay found at last!’‘Yea, these words have tramp of heroes in them; and the marching rhymeRolls the voices of the eras down the echoing steeps of Time.’“Not till all was thrice related, thrice recital full essay'd,Sad and shamefaced, worn and faded, Murgen sought the faithful maid.‘Ah, so haggard; ah, so altered; thou in life and love so strong!’‘Dearly purchased,’ Murgen falter'd, ‘life and love I've sold for song!’“‘Woe is me, the losing bargain! what can song the dead avail?’‘Fame immortal,’ murmur'd Murgen, ‘long as lay delights the Gael.’‘Fame, alas! the price thou chargest not repays one virgin tear.’‘Yet the proud revenge I've purchased for my sire, I deem not dear.’“‘So,again to Gort the splendid, when the drinking boards were spread,Sanchan, as of old attended, came and sat at table-head.‘Bear the cup to Sanchan Torpest: twin gold goblets, Bard, are thine,If with voice and string thou harpest,Tain-Bo-Cuailgne, line for line.’“‘Yea, with voice and string I'll chant it.Murgen to his father's kneeSet the harp: no prelude wanted, Sanchan struck the master key,And, as bursts the brimful river all at once from caves of Cong,Forth at once, and once for ever, leap'd the torrent of the song.[pg 237]“Floating on a brimful torrent, men go down and banks go by:Caught adown the lyric current, Guary, captured, ear and eye,Heard no more the courtiers jeering, saw no more the walls of Gort,Creeve Roe's166meads instead appearing, and Emania's royal fort.“Vision chasing splendid vision, Sanchan roll'd the rhythmic scene;They that mock'd in lewd derision now, at gaze, with wondering mienSate, and, as the glorying master sway'd the tightening reins of song,Felt emotion's pulses faster—fancies faster bound along.“Pity dawn'd on savage faces, when for love of captive Crunn,Macha, in the ransom-races, girt her gravid loins, to run'Gainst the fleet Ultonian horses; and, when Deirdra on the roadHeadlong dash'd her 'mid the corses, brimming eyelids overflow'd.“Light of manhood's generous ardour, under brows relaxing shone,When, mid-ford, on Uladh's border, young Cuchullin stood alone,Maev and all her hosts withstanding:— ‘Now, for love of knightly play,Yield the youth his soul's demanding; let the hosts their marchings stay,“'Till the death he craves be given; and, upon his burial stoneChampion-praises duly graven, make his name and glory known;For, in speech-containing token, age to ages never gaveSalutation better spoken, than,“Behold a hero's grave.”’“What, another and another, and he still or combat calls?Ah, the lot on thee, his brother sworn in arms, Ferdia, falls;And the hall with wild applauses sobb'd like woman ere they wist,When the champions in the pauses of the deadly combat kiss'd.“Now, for love of land and cattle, while Cuchullin in the fordsStays the march of Connaught's battle, ride and rouse the Northern Lords;Swift as angry eagles wing them toward the plunder'd eyrie's call,Thronging from Dun Dealga bring them, bring them from the Red Branch hall![pg 238]“Heard ye not the tramp of armies? Hark! amid the sudden gloom,'Twas the stroke of Conall's war-mace sounded through the startled room;And, while still the hall grew darker, king and courtier chill'd with dread,Heard the rattling of the war-car of Cuchullin overhead.“Half in wonder, half in terror, loth to stay and loth to fly,Seem'd to each beglamour'd hearer shades of kings went thronging by:But the troubled joy of wonder merged at last in mastering fear,As they heard through pealing thunder, ‘Fergus son of Roy is here!’“Brazen-sandall'd, vapour-shrouded, moving in an icy blast,Through the doorway terror-crowded, up the tables Fergus pass'd:—‘Stay thy hand, oh harper, pardon! cease the wild unearthly lay!Murgen, bear thy sire his guerdon.’ Murgen sat, a shape of clay.“‘Bear him on his bier beside me: never more in halls of GortShall a niggard king deride me: slaves, of Sanchan make their sport!But because the maiden's yearnings needs must also be condoled,Hers shall be the dear-bought earnings, hers the twin-bright cups of gold.’“‘Cups,’she cried,‘of bitter drinking, fling them far as arm can throw!’Let them in the ocean sinking, out of sight and memory go!Let the joinings of the rhythm, let the links of sense and soundOf theTain-Boperish with them, lost as though they'd ne'er been found!’“So it comes, the lay, recover'd once at such a deadly cost,Ere one full recital suffer'd, once again is all but lost:For, the maiden's malediction still with many a blemish-stainClings in coarser garb of fiction round the fragments that remain.”The Phantom Chariot of CuchulainCuchulain, however, makes an impressive reappearance in a much later legend of Christian origin, found in the twelfth-century“Book of the Dun Cow.”He was summoned from Hell, we are told, by St. Patrick to prove[pg 239]the truths of Christianity and the horrors of damnation to the pagan monarch, Laery mac Neill, King of Ireland. Laery, with St. Benen, a companion of Patrick, are standing on the Plain of mac Indoc when a blast of icy wind nearly takes them off their feet. It is the wind of Hell, Benen explains, after its opening before Cuchulain. Then a dense mist covers the plain, and anon a huge phantom chariot with galloping horses, a grey and a black, loom up through the mist. Within it are the famous two, Cuchulain and his charioteer, giant figures, armed with all the splendour of the Gaelic warrior.Cuchulain then talks to Laery, and urges him to“believe in God and in holy Patrick, for it is not a demon that has come to thee, but Cuchulain son of Sualtam.”To prove his identity he recounts his famous deeds of arms, and ends by a piteous description of his present state:“What I suffered of trouble,O Laery, by sea and land—Yet more severe was a single nightWhen the demon was wrathful!Great as was my heroism,Hard as was my sword,The devil crushed me with one fingerInto the red charcoal!”He ends by beseeching Patrick that heaven may be granted to him, and the legend tells that the prayer was granted and that Laery believed.Death of Conor mac NessaChristian ideas have also gathered round the end of Cuchulain's lord, King Conor of Ulster. The manner of his death was as follows: An unjust and cruel attack had been made by him on Mesgedra, King of Leinster,[pg 240]in which that monarch met his death at the hand of Conall of the Victories.167Conall took out the brains of the dead king and mingled them with lime to make a sling-stone—such“brain balls,”as they were called, being accounted the most deadly of missiles. This ball was laid up in the king's treasure-house at Emain Macha, where the Connacht champion, Ket son of Maga, found it one day when prowling in disguise through Ulster. Ket took it away and kept it always by him. Not long thereafter the Connacht men took a spoil of cattle from Ulster, and the Ulster men, under Conor, overtook them at a river-ford still called Athnurchar (The Ford of the Sling-cast), in Westmeath. A battle was imminent, and many of the ladies of Connacht came to their side of the river to view the famous Ultonian warriors, and especially Conor, the stateliest man of his time. Conor was willing to show himself, and seeing none but women on the other bank he drew near them; but Ket, who was lurking in ambush, now rose and slung the brain-ball at Conor, striking him full in the forehead. Conor fell, and was carried off by his routed followers. When they got him home, still living, to Emain Macha, his physician, Fingen, pronounced that if the ball were extracted from his head he must die; it was accordingly sewn up with golden thread, and the king was bidden to keep himself from horse-riding and from all vehement passion and exertion, and he would do well.Seven years afterwards Conor saw the sun darken at noonday, and he summoned his Druid to tell him the cause of the portent. The Druid, in a magic trance, tells him of a hill in a distant land on which stand three crosses with a human form nailed to each of them, and one of them is like the Immortals.“Is he a[pg 241]malefactor?”then asks Conor.“Nay,”says the Druid,“but the Son of the living God,”and he relates to the king the story of the death of Christ. Conor breaks out in fury, and drawing his sword he hacks at the oak-trees in the sacred grove, crying,“Thus would I deal with his enemies,”when with the excitement and exertion the brain-ball bursts from his head, and he falls dead. And thus was the vengeance of Mesgedra fulfilled. With Conor and with Cuchulain the glory of the Red Branch and the dominance of Ulster passed away. The next, or Ossianic, cycle of Irish legend brings upon the scene different characters, different physical surroundings, and altogether different ideals of life.Ket and the Boar of mac DathoThe Connacht champion Ket, whose main exploit was the wounding of King Conor at Ardnurchar, figures also in a very dramatic tale entitled“The Carving of mac Datho's Boar.”The story runs as follows:Once upon a time there dwelt in the province of Leinster a wealthy hospitable lord named Mesroda, son of Datho. Two possessions had he; namely, a hound which could outrun every other hound and every wild beast in Erin, and a boar which was the finest and greatest in size that man had ever beheld.Now the fame of this hound was noised all about the land, and many were the princes and lords who longed to possess it. And it came to pass that Conor King of Ulster and Maev Queen of Connacht sent messengers to mac Datho to ask him to sell them the hound for a price, and both the messengers arrived at the dūn of mac Datho on the same day. Said the Connacht messenger:“We will give thee in exchange for the hound six hundred milch cows, and a chariot with two horses, the best that are to be found in Connacht, and at the end[pg 242]of a year thou shalt have as much again.”And the messenger of King Conor said:“We will give no less than Connacht, and the friendship and alliance of Ulster, and that will be better for thee than the friendship of Connacht.”Then Mesroda mac Datho fell silent, and for three days he would not eat or drink, nor could he sleep o' nights, but tossed restlessly on his bed. His wife observed his condition, and said to him:“Thy fast hath been long, Mesroda, though good food is by thee in plenty; and at night thou turnest thy face to the wall, and well I know thou dost not sleep. What is the cause of thy trouble?”“There is a saying,”replied Mac Datho,“'Trust not a thrall with money, nor a woman with a secret.'”“When should a man talk to a woman,”said his wife,“but when something were amiss? What thy mind cannot solve perchance another's may.”Then mac Datho told his wife of the request for his hound both from Ulster and from Connacht at one and the same time.“And whichever of them I deny,”he said,“they will harry my cattle and slay my people.”“Then hear my counsel,”said the woman.“Give it to both of them, and bid them come and fetch it; and if there be any harrying to be done, let them even harry each other; but in no way mayest thou keep the hound.”Mac Datho followed this wise counsel, and bade both Ulster and Connacht to a great feast on the same day, saying to each of them that they could have the hound afterwards.So on the appointed day Conor of Ulster, and Maev, and their retinues of princes and mighty men assembled at the dūn of mac Datho. There they found a great feast set forth, and to provide the chief dish mac Datho[pg 243]had killed his famous boar, a beast of enormous size. The question now arose as to who should have the honourable task of carving it, and Bricriu of the Poisoned Tongue characteristically, for the sake of the strife which he loved, suggested that the warriors of Ulster and Connacht should compare their principal deeds of arms, and give the carving of the boar to him who seemed to have done best in the border-fighting which was always going on between the provinces. After much bandying of words and of taunts Ket son of Maga arises and stands over the boar, knife in hand, challenging each of the Ulster lords to match his deeds of valour. One after another they arise, Cuscrid son of Conor, Keltchar, Moonremur, Laery the Triumphant, and others—Cuchulain is not introduced in this story—and in each case Ket has some biting tale to tell of an encounter in which he has come off better than they, and one by one they sit down shamed and silenced. At last a shout of welcome is heard at the door of the hall and the Ulstermen grow jubilant: Conall of the Victories has appeared on the scene. He strides up to the boar, and Ket and he greet each other with chivalrous courtesy:“And now welcome to thee, O Conall, thou of the iron heart and fiery blood; keen as the glitter of ice, ever-victorious chieftain; hail, mighty son of Finnchoom!”said Ket.And Conall said:“Hail to thee, Ket, flower of heroes, lord of chariots, a raging sea in battle; a strong, majestic bull; hail, son of Maga!”“And now,”went on Conall,“rise up from the boar and give me place.”“Why so?”replied Ket.“Dost thou seek a contest from me?”said Conall.“Verily thou shalt have it. By the gods of my nation I swear that since I first took weapons in my hand I[pg 244]have never passed one day that I did not slay a Connacht man, nor one night that I did not make a foray on them, nor have I ever slept but I had the head of a Connacht man under my knee.”“I confess,”then said Ket,“that thou art a better man than I, and I yield thee the boar. But if Anluan my brother were here, he would match thee deed for deed, and sorrow and shame it is that he is not.”“Anluan is here,”shouted Conall, and with that he drew from his girdle the head of Anluan and dashed it in the face of Ket.Then all sprang to their feet and a wild shouting and tumult arose, and the swords flew out of themselves, and battle raged in the hall of mac Datho. Soon the hosts burst out through the doors of the dūn and smote and slew each other in the open field, until the Connacht host were put to flight. The hound of mac Datho pursued the chariot of King Ailell of Connacht till the charioteer smote off its head, and so the cause of contention was won by neither party, and mac Datho lost his hound, but saved his lands and life.The Death of KetThe death of Ket is told in Keating's“History of Ireland.”Returning from a foray in Ulster, he was overtaken by Conall at the place called the Ford of Ket, and they fought long and desperately. At last Ket was slain, but Conall of the Victories was in little better case, and lay bleeding to death when another Connacht champion named Beälcu168found him.“Kill me,”said Conall to him,“that it be not said I fell at the hand ofoneConnacht man.”But Beälcu said:“I will not slay a man at the point of death, but I will bring thee home and heal thee, and when thy strength is come again[pg 245]thou shalt fight with me in single combat.”Then Beälcu put Conall on a litter and brought him home, and had him tended till his wounds were healed.The three sons of Beälcu, however, when they saw what the Ulster champion was like in all his might, resolved to assassinate him before the combat should take place. By a stratagem Conall contrived that they slew their own father instead; and then, taking the heads of the three sons, he went back, victoriously as he was wont, to Ulster.The Death of MaevThe tale of the death of Queen Maev is also preserved by Keating. Fergus mac Roy having been slain by Ailell with a cast of a spear as he bathed in a lake with Maev, and Ailell having been slain by Conall, Maev retired to an island169on Loch Ryve, where she was wont to bathe early every morning in a pool near to the landing-place. Forbay son of Conor mac Nessa, having discovered this habit of the queen's, found means one day to go unperceived to the pool and to measure the distance from it to the shore of the mainland. Then he went back to Emania, where he measured out the distance thus obtained, and placing an apple on a pole at one end he shot at it continually with a sling until he grew so good a marksman at that distance that he never missed his aim. Then one day, watching his opportunity by the shores of Loch Ryve, he saw Maev enter the water, and putting a bullet in his sling he shot at her with so good an aim that he smote her in the centre of the forehead and she fell dead.The great warrior-queen had reigned in Connacht, it was said, for eighty-eight years. She is a signal example[pg 246]of the kind of women whom the Gaelic bards delighted to portray. Gentleness and modesty were by no means their usual characteristics, but rather a fierce overflowing life. Women-warriors like Skatha and Aifa are frequently met with, and one is reminded of the Gaulish women, with their mighty snow-white arms, so dangerous to provoke, of whom classical writers tell us. The Gaelic bards, who in so many ways anticipated the ideas of chivalric romance, did not do so in setting women in a place apart from men. Women were judged and treated like men, neither as drudges nor as goddesses, and we know that well into historic times they went with men into battle, a practice only ended in the sixth century.Fergus mac Leda and the Wee FolkOf the stories of the Ultonian Cycle which do not centre on the figure of Cuchulain, one of the most interesting is that of Fergus mac Leda and the King of the Wee Folk. In this tale Fergus appears as King of Ulster, but as he was contemporary with Conor mac Nessa, and in the Cattle Raid of Quelgny is represented as following him to war, we must conclude that he was really a sub-king, like Cuchulain or Owen of Ferney.The tale opens in Faylinn, or the Land of the Wee Folk, a race of elves presenting an amusing parody of human institutions on a reduced scale, but endowed (like dwarfish people generally in the literature of primitive races) with magical powers. Iubdan,170the King of Faylinn, when flushed with wine at a feast, is bragging of the greatness of his power and the invincibility of his armed forces—have they not the strong man Glower, who with his axe has been known to hew down a thistle at a stroke? But the king's bard,[pg 247]Eisirt, has heard something of a giant race oversea in a land called Ulster, one man of whom would annihilate a whole battalion of the Wee Folk, and he incautiously allows himself to hint as much to the boastful monarch. He is immediately clapped into prison for his audacity, and only gets free by promising to go immediately to the land of the mighty men, and bring back evidence of the truth of his incredible story.So off he goes; and one fine day King Fergus and his lords find at the gate of their Dūn a tiny little fellow magnificently clad in the robes of a royal bard, who demands entrance. He is borne in upon the hand of Æda, the king's dwarf and bard, and after charming the court by his wise and witty sayings, and receiving a noble largesse, which he at once distributes among the poets and other court attendants of Ulster, he goes off home, taking with him as a guest the dwarf Æda, before whom the Wee Folk fly as a“Fomorian giant,”although, as Eisirt explains, the average man of Ulster can carry him like a child. Iubdan is now convinced, but Eisirt puts him undergeise, the bond of chivalry which no Irish chieftain can repudiate without being shamed, to go himself, as Eisirt has done, to the palace of Fergus and taste the king's porridge. Iubdan, after he has seen Æda, is much dismayed, but he prepares to go, and bids Bebo, his wife, accompany him.“You did an ill deed,”she says,“when you condemned Eisirt to prison; but surely there is no man under the sun that can make thee hear reason.”So off they go, and Iubdan's fairy steed bears them over the sea till they reach Ulster, and by midnight they stand before the king's palace.“Let us taste the porridge as we were bound,”says Bebo,“and make off before daybreak.”They steal in and find the[pg 248]porridge-pot, to the rim of which Iubdan can only reach by standing on his horse's back. In straining downwards to get at the porridge he overbalances himself and falls in. There in the thick porridge he sticks fast, and there Fergus's scullions find him at the break of day, with the faithful Bebo lamenting. They bear him off to Fergus, who is amazed at finding another wee man, with a woman too, in his palace. He treats them hospitably, but refuses all appeals to let them go. The story now recounts in a spirit of broad humour several Rabelaisian adventures in which Bebo is concerned, and gives a charming poem supposed to have been uttered by Iubdan in the form of advice to Fergus's fire-gillie as to the merits for burning of different kinds of timber. The following are extracts:“Burn not the sweet apple-tree of drooping branches, of the white blossoms, to whose gracious head each man puts forth his hand.”“Burn not the noble willow, the unfailing ornament of poems; bees drink from its blossoms, all delight in the graceful tent.”“The delicate, airy tree of the Druids, the rowan with its berries, this burn; but avoid the weak tree, burn not the slender hazel.”“The ash-tree of the black buds burn not—timber that speeds the wheel, that yields the rider his switch; the ashen spear is the scale-beam of battle.”At last the Wee Folk come in a great multitude to beg the release of Iubdan. On the king's refusal they visit the country with various plagues, snipping off the ears of corn, letting the calves suck all the cows dry, defiling the wells, and so forth; but Fergus is obdurate. In their quality as earth-gods,dei terreni, they promise to make the plains before the palace of Fergus stand thick with corn every year without ploughing or sowing,[pg 249]but all is vain. At last, however, Fergus agrees to ransom Iubdan against the best of his fairy treasures, so Iubdan recounts them—the cauldron that can never be emptied, the harp that plays of itself; and finally he mentions a pair of water-shoes, wearing which a man can go over or under water as freely as on dry land. Fergus accepts the shoes, and Iubdan is released.The Blemish of FergusBut it is hard for a mortal to get the better of Fairyland—a touch of hidden malice lurks in magical gifts, and so it proved now. Fergus was never tired of exploring the depths of the lakes and rivers of Ireland; but one day, in Loch Rury, he met with a hideous monster, theMuirdris, or river-horse, which inhabited that lake, and from which he barely saved himself by flying to the shore. With the terror of this encounter his face was twisted awry; but since a blemished man could not hold rule in Ireland, his queen and nobles took pains, on some pretext, to banish all mirrors from the palace, and kept the knowledge of his condition from him. One day, however, he smote a bondmaid with a switch, for some negligence, and the maid, indignant, cried out:“It were better for thee, Fergus, to avenge thyself on the river-horse that hath twisted thy face than to do brave deeds on women!”Fergus bade fetch him a mirror, and looked in it.“It is true,”he said;“the river-horse of Loch Rury has done this thing.”Death of FergusThe conclusion may be given in the words of Sir Samuel Ferguson's fine poem on this theme. Fergus[pg 250]donned the magic shoes, took sword in hand, and went to Loch Rury:“For a day and nightBeneath the waves he rested out of sight,But all the Ultonians on the bank who stoodSaw the loch boil and redden with his blood.When next at sunrise skies grew also redHe rose—and in his hand theMuirdris' head.Gone was the blemish! On his goodly faceEach trait symmetric had resumed its place:And they who saw him marked in all his mienA king's composure, ample and serene.He smiled; he cast his trophy to the bank,Said, 'I, survivor, Ulstermen!' and sank."This fine tale has been published in full from an Egerton MS., by Mr. Standish Hayes O'Grady, in his“Silva Gadelica.”The humorous treatment of the fairy element in the story would mark it as belonging to a late period of Irish legend, but the tragic and noble conclusion unmistakably signs it as belonging to the Ulster bardic literature, and it falls within the same order of ideas, if it were not composed within the same period, as the tales of Cuchulain.Significance of Irish Place-NamesBefore leaving this great cycle of legendary literature let us notice what has already, perhaps, attracted the attention of some readers—the extent to which its chief characters and episodes have been commemorated in the still surviving place-names of the country.171This is true of Irish legend in general—it is especially so of the Ultonian Cycle. Faithfully indeed, through many a century of darkness and forgetting, have these names pointed to the hidden treasures of heroic romance[pg 251]which the labours of our own day are now restoring to light. The name of the little town of Ardee, as we have seen,172commemorates the tragic death of Ferdia at the hand of his“heart companion,”the noblest hero of the Gael. The ruins of Dūn Baruch, where Fergus was bidden to the treacherous feast, still look over the waters of Moyle, across which Naisi and Deirdre sailed to their doom. Ardnurchar, the Hill of the Sling-cast, in Westmeath,173brings to mind the story of the stately monarch, the crowd of gazing women, and the crouching enemy with the deadly missile which bore the vengeance of Mesgedra. The name of Armagh, or Ard Macha, the Hill of Macha, enshrines the memory of the Fairy Bride and her heroic sacrifice, while the grassy rampart can still be traced where the war-goddess in the earlier legend drew its outline with the pin of her brooch when she founded the royal fortress of Ulster. Many pages might be filled with these instances. Perhaps no modern country has place-names so charged with legendary associations as are those of Ireland. Poetry and myth are there still closely wedded to the very soil of the land—a fact in which there lies ready to hand an agency for education, for inspiration, of the noblest kind, if we only had the insight to see it and the art to make use of it.
“Eastward, breadthwise, over Erin straightway travell'd forth the twain,Till with many days' wayfaring Murgen fainted by Loch Ein:[pg 235]‘Dear my brother, thou art weary: I for present aid am flown:Thou for my returning tarry here beside this Standing Stone.’“Shone the sunset red and solemn: Murgen,where he leant,observedDown the corners of the column letter-strokes of Ogham carved.‘'Tis, belike, a burial pillar,’ said he, ‘and these shallow linesHold some warrior's name of valour, could I rightly spell the signs.’“Letter then by letter tracing, soft he breathed the sound of each;Sound and sound then interlacing, lo, the signs took form of speech;And with joy and wonder mainly thrilling, part a-thrill with fear,Murgen read the legend plainly,‘FERGUS SON OF ROY IS HERE.’”Murgen then, though he knew the penalty, appealed to Fergus to pity a son's distress, and vowed, for the sake of the recovery of the“Tain,”to give his life, and abandon his kin and friends and the maiden he loves, so that his father might no more be shamed. But Fergus gave no sign, and Murgen tried another plea:“Still he stirs not. Love of women thou regard'st not, Fergus, now:Love of children, instincts human, care for these no more hast thou:Wider comprehension, deeper insights to the dead belong:—Since for Love thou wak'st not, Sleeper, yet awake for sake of Song.“‘Thou, the first in rhythmic cadence dressing life's discordant tale,Wars of chiefs and loves of maidens, gavest the Poem to the Gael;Now they've lost their noblest measure, and in dark days hard at hand,Song shall be the only treasure left them in their native land.’“Fergus rose. A mist ascended with him, and a flash was seenAs of brazen sandals blended with a mantle's wafture green;But so thick the cloud closed o'er him, Eimena, return'd at last,Found not on the field before him but a mist-heap grey and vast.“Thrice to pierce the hoar recesses faithful Eimena essay'd;Thrice through foggy wildernesses back to open air he stray'd;Till a deep voice through the vapours fill'd the twilight far and nearAnd the Night her starry tapers kindling, stoop'd from heaven to hear.[pg 236]“Seem'd as though the skiey Shepherd back to earth had cast the fleeceEnvying gods of old caught upward from the darkening shrines of Greece;So the white mists curl'd and glisten'd, to from heaven's expanses bare,Stars enlarging lean'd and listen'd down the emptied depths of air.“All night long by mists surrounded Murgen lay in vapoury bars;All night long the deep voice sounded 'neath the keen, enlarging stars:But when, on the orient verges, stars grew dim and mists retired,Rising by the stone of Fergus, Murgen stood a man inspired.“‘Back to Sanchan!—Father, hasten, ere the hour of power be past,Ask not how obtain'd but listen to the lost lay found at last!’‘Yea, these words have tramp of heroes in them; and the marching rhymeRolls the voices of the eras down the echoing steeps of Time.’“Not till all was thrice related, thrice recital full essay'd,Sad and shamefaced, worn and faded, Murgen sought the faithful maid.‘Ah, so haggard; ah, so altered; thou in life and love so strong!’‘Dearly purchased,’ Murgen falter'd, ‘life and love I've sold for song!’“‘Woe is me, the losing bargain! what can song the dead avail?’‘Fame immortal,’ murmur'd Murgen, ‘long as lay delights the Gael.’‘Fame, alas! the price thou chargest not repays one virgin tear.’‘Yet the proud revenge I've purchased for my sire, I deem not dear.’“‘So,again to Gort the splendid, when the drinking boards were spread,Sanchan, as of old attended, came and sat at table-head.‘Bear the cup to Sanchan Torpest: twin gold goblets, Bard, are thine,If with voice and string thou harpest,Tain-Bo-Cuailgne, line for line.’“‘Yea, with voice and string I'll chant it.Murgen to his father's kneeSet the harp: no prelude wanted, Sanchan struck the master key,And, as bursts the brimful river all at once from caves of Cong,Forth at once, and once for ever, leap'd the torrent of the song.[pg 237]“Floating on a brimful torrent, men go down and banks go by:Caught adown the lyric current, Guary, captured, ear and eye,Heard no more the courtiers jeering, saw no more the walls of Gort,Creeve Roe's166meads instead appearing, and Emania's royal fort.“Vision chasing splendid vision, Sanchan roll'd the rhythmic scene;They that mock'd in lewd derision now, at gaze, with wondering mienSate, and, as the glorying master sway'd the tightening reins of song,Felt emotion's pulses faster—fancies faster bound along.“Pity dawn'd on savage faces, when for love of captive Crunn,Macha, in the ransom-races, girt her gravid loins, to run'Gainst the fleet Ultonian horses; and, when Deirdra on the roadHeadlong dash'd her 'mid the corses, brimming eyelids overflow'd.“Light of manhood's generous ardour, under brows relaxing shone,When, mid-ford, on Uladh's border, young Cuchullin stood alone,Maev and all her hosts withstanding:— ‘Now, for love of knightly play,Yield the youth his soul's demanding; let the hosts their marchings stay,“'Till the death he craves be given; and, upon his burial stoneChampion-praises duly graven, make his name and glory known;For, in speech-containing token, age to ages never gaveSalutation better spoken, than,“Behold a hero's grave.”’“What, another and another, and he still or combat calls?Ah, the lot on thee, his brother sworn in arms, Ferdia, falls;And the hall with wild applauses sobb'd like woman ere they wist,When the champions in the pauses of the deadly combat kiss'd.“Now, for love of land and cattle, while Cuchullin in the fordsStays the march of Connaught's battle, ride and rouse the Northern Lords;Swift as angry eagles wing them toward the plunder'd eyrie's call,Thronging from Dun Dealga bring them, bring them from the Red Branch hall![pg 238]“Heard ye not the tramp of armies? Hark! amid the sudden gloom,'Twas the stroke of Conall's war-mace sounded through the startled room;And, while still the hall grew darker, king and courtier chill'd with dread,Heard the rattling of the war-car of Cuchullin overhead.“Half in wonder, half in terror, loth to stay and loth to fly,Seem'd to each beglamour'd hearer shades of kings went thronging by:But the troubled joy of wonder merged at last in mastering fear,As they heard through pealing thunder, ‘Fergus son of Roy is here!’“Brazen-sandall'd, vapour-shrouded, moving in an icy blast,Through the doorway terror-crowded, up the tables Fergus pass'd:—‘Stay thy hand, oh harper, pardon! cease the wild unearthly lay!Murgen, bear thy sire his guerdon.’ Murgen sat, a shape of clay.“‘Bear him on his bier beside me: never more in halls of GortShall a niggard king deride me: slaves, of Sanchan make their sport!But because the maiden's yearnings needs must also be condoled,Hers shall be the dear-bought earnings, hers the twin-bright cups of gold.’“‘Cups,’she cried,‘of bitter drinking, fling them far as arm can throw!’Let them in the ocean sinking, out of sight and memory go!Let the joinings of the rhythm, let the links of sense and soundOf theTain-Boperish with them, lost as though they'd ne'er been found!’“So it comes, the lay, recover'd once at such a deadly cost,Ere one full recital suffer'd, once again is all but lost:For, the maiden's malediction still with many a blemish-stainClings in coarser garb of fiction round the fragments that remain.”The Phantom Chariot of CuchulainCuchulain, however, makes an impressive reappearance in a much later legend of Christian origin, found in the twelfth-century“Book of the Dun Cow.”He was summoned from Hell, we are told, by St. Patrick to prove[pg 239]the truths of Christianity and the horrors of damnation to the pagan monarch, Laery mac Neill, King of Ireland. Laery, with St. Benen, a companion of Patrick, are standing on the Plain of mac Indoc when a blast of icy wind nearly takes them off their feet. It is the wind of Hell, Benen explains, after its opening before Cuchulain. Then a dense mist covers the plain, and anon a huge phantom chariot with galloping horses, a grey and a black, loom up through the mist. Within it are the famous two, Cuchulain and his charioteer, giant figures, armed with all the splendour of the Gaelic warrior.Cuchulain then talks to Laery, and urges him to“believe in God and in holy Patrick, for it is not a demon that has come to thee, but Cuchulain son of Sualtam.”To prove his identity he recounts his famous deeds of arms, and ends by a piteous description of his present state:“What I suffered of trouble,O Laery, by sea and land—Yet more severe was a single nightWhen the demon was wrathful!Great as was my heroism,Hard as was my sword,The devil crushed me with one fingerInto the red charcoal!”He ends by beseeching Patrick that heaven may be granted to him, and the legend tells that the prayer was granted and that Laery believed.Death of Conor mac NessaChristian ideas have also gathered round the end of Cuchulain's lord, King Conor of Ulster. The manner of his death was as follows: An unjust and cruel attack had been made by him on Mesgedra, King of Leinster,[pg 240]in which that monarch met his death at the hand of Conall of the Victories.167Conall took out the brains of the dead king and mingled them with lime to make a sling-stone—such“brain balls,”as they were called, being accounted the most deadly of missiles. This ball was laid up in the king's treasure-house at Emain Macha, where the Connacht champion, Ket son of Maga, found it one day when prowling in disguise through Ulster. Ket took it away and kept it always by him. Not long thereafter the Connacht men took a spoil of cattle from Ulster, and the Ulster men, under Conor, overtook them at a river-ford still called Athnurchar (The Ford of the Sling-cast), in Westmeath. A battle was imminent, and many of the ladies of Connacht came to their side of the river to view the famous Ultonian warriors, and especially Conor, the stateliest man of his time. Conor was willing to show himself, and seeing none but women on the other bank he drew near them; but Ket, who was lurking in ambush, now rose and slung the brain-ball at Conor, striking him full in the forehead. Conor fell, and was carried off by his routed followers. When they got him home, still living, to Emain Macha, his physician, Fingen, pronounced that if the ball were extracted from his head he must die; it was accordingly sewn up with golden thread, and the king was bidden to keep himself from horse-riding and from all vehement passion and exertion, and he would do well.Seven years afterwards Conor saw the sun darken at noonday, and he summoned his Druid to tell him the cause of the portent. The Druid, in a magic trance, tells him of a hill in a distant land on which stand three crosses with a human form nailed to each of them, and one of them is like the Immortals.“Is he a[pg 241]malefactor?”then asks Conor.“Nay,”says the Druid,“but the Son of the living God,”and he relates to the king the story of the death of Christ. Conor breaks out in fury, and drawing his sword he hacks at the oak-trees in the sacred grove, crying,“Thus would I deal with his enemies,”when with the excitement and exertion the brain-ball bursts from his head, and he falls dead. And thus was the vengeance of Mesgedra fulfilled. With Conor and with Cuchulain the glory of the Red Branch and the dominance of Ulster passed away. The next, or Ossianic, cycle of Irish legend brings upon the scene different characters, different physical surroundings, and altogether different ideals of life.Ket and the Boar of mac DathoThe Connacht champion Ket, whose main exploit was the wounding of King Conor at Ardnurchar, figures also in a very dramatic tale entitled“The Carving of mac Datho's Boar.”The story runs as follows:Once upon a time there dwelt in the province of Leinster a wealthy hospitable lord named Mesroda, son of Datho. Two possessions had he; namely, a hound which could outrun every other hound and every wild beast in Erin, and a boar which was the finest and greatest in size that man had ever beheld.Now the fame of this hound was noised all about the land, and many were the princes and lords who longed to possess it. And it came to pass that Conor King of Ulster and Maev Queen of Connacht sent messengers to mac Datho to ask him to sell them the hound for a price, and both the messengers arrived at the dūn of mac Datho on the same day. Said the Connacht messenger:“We will give thee in exchange for the hound six hundred milch cows, and a chariot with two horses, the best that are to be found in Connacht, and at the end[pg 242]of a year thou shalt have as much again.”And the messenger of King Conor said:“We will give no less than Connacht, and the friendship and alliance of Ulster, and that will be better for thee than the friendship of Connacht.”Then Mesroda mac Datho fell silent, and for three days he would not eat or drink, nor could he sleep o' nights, but tossed restlessly on his bed. His wife observed his condition, and said to him:“Thy fast hath been long, Mesroda, though good food is by thee in plenty; and at night thou turnest thy face to the wall, and well I know thou dost not sleep. What is the cause of thy trouble?”“There is a saying,”replied Mac Datho,“'Trust not a thrall with money, nor a woman with a secret.'”“When should a man talk to a woman,”said his wife,“but when something were amiss? What thy mind cannot solve perchance another's may.”Then mac Datho told his wife of the request for his hound both from Ulster and from Connacht at one and the same time.“And whichever of them I deny,”he said,“they will harry my cattle and slay my people.”“Then hear my counsel,”said the woman.“Give it to both of them, and bid them come and fetch it; and if there be any harrying to be done, let them even harry each other; but in no way mayest thou keep the hound.”Mac Datho followed this wise counsel, and bade both Ulster and Connacht to a great feast on the same day, saying to each of them that they could have the hound afterwards.So on the appointed day Conor of Ulster, and Maev, and their retinues of princes and mighty men assembled at the dūn of mac Datho. There they found a great feast set forth, and to provide the chief dish mac Datho[pg 243]had killed his famous boar, a beast of enormous size. The question now arose as to who should have the honourable task of carving it, and Bricriu of the Poisoned Tongue characteristically, for the sake of the strife which he loved, suggested that the warriors of Ulster and Connacht should compare their principal deeds of arms, and give the carving of the boar to him who seemed to have done best in the border-fighting which was always going on between the provinces. After much bandying of words and of taunts Ket son of Maga arises and stands over the boar, knife in hand, challenging each of the Ulster lords to match his deeds of valour. One after another they arise, Cuscrid son of Conor, Keltchar, Moonremur, Laery the Triumphant, and others—Cuchulain is not introduced in this story—and in each case Ket has some biting tale to tell of an encounter in which he has come off better than they, and one by one they sit down shamed and silenced. At last a shout of welcome is heard at the door of the hall and the Ulstermen grow jubilant: Conall of the Victories has appeared on the scene. He strides up to the boar, and Ket and he greet each other with chivalrous courtesy:“And now welcome to thee, O Conall, thou of the iron heart and fiery blood; keen as the glitter of ice, ever-victorious chieftain; hail, mighty son of Finnchoom!”said Ket.And Conall said:“Hail to thee, Ket, flower of heroes, lord of chariots, a raging sea in battle; a strong, majestic bull; hail, son of Maga!”“And now,”went on Conall,“rise up from the boar and give me place.”“Why so?”replied Ket.“Dost thou seek a contest from me?”said Conall.“Verily thou shalt have it. By the gods of my nation I swear that since I first took weapons in my hand I[pg 244]have never passed one day that I did not slay a Connacht man, nor one night that I did not make a foray on them, nor have I ever slept but I had the head of a Connacht man under my knee.”“I confess,”then said Ket,“that thou art a better man than I, and I yield thee the boar. But if Anluan my brother were here, he would match thee deed for deed, and sorrow and shame it is that he is not.”“Anluan is here,”shouted Conall, and with that he drew from his girdle the head of Anluan and dashed it in the face of Ket.Then all sprang to their feet and a wild shouting and tumult arose, and the swords flew out of themselves, and battle raged in the hall of mac Datho. Soon the hosts burst out through the doors of the dūn and smote and slew each other in the open field, until the Connacht host were put to flight. The hound of mac Datho pursued the chariot of King Ailell of Connacht till the charioteer smote off its head, and so the cause of contention was won by neither party, and mac Datho lost his hound, but saved his lands and life.The Death of KetThe death of Ket is told in Keating's“History of Ireland.”Returning from a foray in Ulster, he was overtaken by Conall at the place called the Ford of Ket, and they fought long and desperately. At last Ket was slain, but Conall of the Victories was in little better case, and lay bleeding to death when another Connacht champion named Beälcu168found him.“Kill me,”said Conall to him,“that it be not said I fell at the hand ofoneConnacht man.”But Beälcu said:“I will not slay a man at the point of death, but I will bring thee home and heal thee, and when thy strength is come again[pg 245]thou shalt fight with me in single combat.”Then Beälcu put Conall on a litter and brought him home, and had him tended till his wounds were healed.The three sons of Beälcu, however, when they saw what the Ulster champion was like in all his might, resolved to assassinate him before the combat should take place. By a stratagem Conall contrived that they slew their own father instead; and then, taking the heads of the three sons, he went back, victoriously as he was wont, to Ulster.The Death of MaevThe tale of the death of Queen Maev is also preserved by Keating. Fergus mac Roy having been slain by Ailell with a cast of a spear as he bathed in a lake with Maev, and Ailell having been slain by Conall, Maev retired to an island169on Loch Ryve, where she was wont to bathe early every morning in a pool near to the landing-place. Forbay son of Conor mac Nessa, having discovered this habit of the queen's, found means one day to go unperceived to the pool and to measure the distance from it to the shore of the mainland. Then he went back to Emania, where he measured out the distance thus obtained, and placing an apple on a pole at one end he shot at it continually with a sling until he grew so good a marksman at that distance that he never missed his aim. Then one day, watching his opportunity by the shores of Loch Ryve, he saw Maev enter the water, and putting a bullet in his sling he shot at her with so good an aim that he smote her in the centre of the forehead and she fell dead.The great warrior-queen had reigned in Connacht, it was said, for eighty-eight years. She is a signal example[pg 246]of the kind of women whom the Gaelic bards delighted to portray. Gentleness and modesty were by no means their usual characteristics, but rather a fierce overflowing life. Women-warriors like Skatha and Aifa are frequently met with, and one is reminded of the Gaulish women, with their mighty snow-white arms, so dangerous to provoke, of whom classical writers tell us. The Gaelic bards, who in so many ways anticipated the ideas of chivalric romance, did not do so in setting women in a place apart from men. Women were judged and treated like men, neither as drudges nor as goddesses, and we know that well into historic times they went with men into battle, a practice only ended in the sixth century.Fergus mac Leda and the Wee FolkOf the stories of the Ultonian Cycle which do not centre on the figure of Cuchulain, one of the most interesting is that of Fergus mac Leda and the King of the Wee Folk. In this tale Fergus appears as King of Ulster, but as he was contemporary with Conor mac Nessa, and in the Cattle Raid of Quelgny is represented as following him to war, we must conclude that he was really a sub-king, like Cuchulain or Owen of Ferney.The tale opens in Faylinn, or the Land of the Wee Folk, a race of elves presenting an amusing parody of human institutions on a reduced scale, but endowed (like dwarfish people generally in the literature of primitive races) with magical powers. Iubdan,170the King of Faylinn, when flushed with wine at a feast, is bragging of the greatness of his power and the invincibility of his armed forces—have they not the strong man Glower, who with his axe has been known to hew down a thistle at a stroke? But the king's bard,[pg 247]Eisirt, has heard something of a giant race oversea in a land called Ulster, one man of whom would annihilate a whole battalion of the Wee Folk, and he incautiously allows himself to hint as much to the boastful monarch. He is immediately clapped into prison for his audacity, and only gets free by promising to go immediately to the land of the mighty men, and bring back evidence of the truth of his incredible story.So off he goes; and one fine day King Fergus and his lords find at the gate of their Dūn a tiny little fellow magnificently clad in the robes of a royal bard, who demands entrance. He is borne in upon the hand of Æda, the king's dwarf and bard, and after charming the court by his wise and witty sayings, and receiving a noble largesse, which he at once distributes among the poets and other court attendants of Ulster, he goes off home, taking with him as a guest the dwarf Æda, before whom the Wee Folk fly as a“Fomorian giant,”although, as Eisirt explains, the average man of Ulster can carry him like a child. Iubdan is now convinced, but Eisirt puts him undergeise, the bond of chivalry which no Irish chieftain can repudiate without being shamed, to go himself, as Eisirt has done, to the palace of Fergus and taste the king's porridge. Iubdan, after he has seen Æda, is much dismayed, but he prepares to go, and bids Bebo, his wife, accompany him.“You did an ill deed,”she says,“when you condemned Eisirt to prison; but surely there is no man under the sun that can make thee hear reason.”So off they go, and Iubdan's fairy steed bears them over the sea till they reach Ulster, and by midnight they stand before the king's palace.“Let us taste the porridge as we were bound,”says Bebo,“and make off before daybreak.”They steal in and find the[pg 248]porridge-pot, to the rim of which Iubdan can only reach by standing on his horse's back. In straining downwards to get at the porridge he overbalances himself and falls in. There in the thick porridge he sticks fast, and there Fergus's scullions find him at the break of day, with the faithful Bebo lamenting. They bear him off to Fergus, who is amazed at finding another wee man, with a woman too, in his palace. He treats them hospitably, but refuses all appeals to let them go. The story now recounts in a spirit of broad humour several Rabelaisian adventures in which Bebo is concerned, and gives a charming poem supposed to have been uttered by Iubdan in the form of advice to Fergus's fire-gillie as to the merits for burning of different kinds of timber. The following are extracts:“Burn not the sweet apple-tree of drooping branches, of the white blossoms, to whose gracious head each man puts forth his hand.”“Burn not the noble willow, the unfailing ornament of poems; bees drink from its blossoms, all delight in the graceful tent.”“The delicate, airy tree of the Druids, the rowan with its berries, this burn; but avoid the weak tree, burn not the slender hazel.”“The ash-tree of the black buds burn not—timber that speeds the wheel, that yields the rider his switch; the ashen spear is the scale-beam of battle.”At last the Wee Folk come in a great multitude to beg the release of Iubdan. On the king's refusal they visit the country with various plagues, snipping off the ears of corn, letting the calves suck all the cows dry, defiling the wells, and so forth; but Fergus is obdurate. In their quality as earth-gods,dei terreni, they promise to make the plains before the palace of Fergus stand thick with corn every year without ploughing or sowing,[pg 249]but all is vain. At last, however, Fergus agrees to ransom Iubdan against the best of his fairy treasures, so Iubdan recounts them—the cauldron that can never be emptied, the harp that plays of itself; and finally he mentions a pair of water-shoes, wearing which a man can go over or under water as freely as on dry land. Fergus accepts the shoes, and Iubdan is released.The Blemish of FergusBut it is hard for a mortal to get the better of Fairyland—a touch of hidden malice lurks in magical gifts, and so it proved now. Fergus was never tired of exploring the depths of the lakes and rivers of Ireland; but one day, in Loch Rury, he met with a hideous monster, theMuirdris, or river-horse, which inhabited that lake, and from which he barely saved himself by flying to the shore. With the terror of this encounter his face was twisted awry; but since a blemished man could not hold rule in Ireland, his queen and nobles took pains, on some pretext, to banish all mirrors from the palace, and kept the knowledge of his condition from him. One day, however, he smote a bondmaid with a switch, for some negligence, and the maid, indignant, cried out:“It were better for thee, Fergus, to avenge thyself on the river-horse that hath twisted thy face than to do brave deeds on women!”Fergus bade fetch him a mirror, and looked in it.“It is true,”he said;“the river-horse of Loch Rury has done this thing.”Death of FergusThe conclusion may be given in the words of Sir Samuel Ferguson's fine poem on this theme. Fergus[pg 250]donned the magic shoes, took sword in hand, and went to Loch Rury:“For a day and nightBeneath the waves he rested out of sight,But all the Ultonians on the bank who stoodSaw the loch boil and redden with his blood.When next at sunrise skies grew also redHe rose—and in his hand theMuirdris' head.Gone was the blemish! On his goodly faceEach trait symmetric had resumed its place:And they who saw him marked in all his mienA king's composure, ample and serene.He smiled; he cast his trophy to the bank,Said, 'I, survivor, Ulstermen!' and sank."This fine tale has been published in full from an Egerton MS., by Mr. Standish Hayes O'Grady, in his“Silva Gadelica.”The humorous treatment of the fairy element in the story would mark it as belonging to a late period of Irish legend, but the tragic and noble conclusion unmistakably signs it as belonging to the Ulster bardic literature, and it falls within the same order of ideas, if it were not composed within the same period, as the tales of Cuchulain.Significance of Irish Place-NamesBefore leaving this great cycle of legendary literature let us notice what has already, perhaps, attracted the attention of some readers—the extent to which its chief characters and episodes have been commemorated in the still surviving place-names of the country.171This is true of Irish legend in general—it is especially so of the Ultonian Cycle. Faithfully indeed, through many a century of darkness and forgetting, have these names pointed to the hidden treasures of heroic romance[pg 251]which the labours of our own day are now restoring to light. The name of the little town of Ardee, as we have seen,172commemorates the tragic death of Ferdia at the hand of his“heart companion,”the noblest hero of the Gael. The ruins of Dūn Baruch, where Fergus was bidden to the treacherous feast, still look over the waters of Moyle, across which Naisi and Deirdre sailed to their doom. Ardnurchar, the Hill of the Sling-cast, in Westmeath,173brings to mind the story of the stately monarch, the crowd of gazing women, and the crouching enemy with the deadly missile which bore the vengeance of Mesgedra. The name of Armagh, or Ard Macha, the Hill of Macha, enshrines the memory of the Fairy Bride and her heroic sacrifice, while the grassy rampart can still be traced where the war-goddess in the earlier legend drew its outline with the pin of her brooch when she founded the royal fortress of Ulster. Many pages might be filled with these instances. Perhaps no modern country has place-names so charged with legendary associations as are those of Ireland. Poetry and myth are there still closely wedded to the very soil of the land—a fact in which there lies ready to hand an agency for education, for inspiration, of the noblest kind, if we only had the insight to see it and the art to make use of it.
“Eastward, breadthwise, over Erin straightway travell'd forth the twain,Till with many days' wayfaring Murgen fainted by Loch Ein:[pg 235]‘Dear my brother, thou art weary: I for present aid am flown:Thou for my returning tarry here beside this Standing Stone.’“Shone the sunset red and solemn: Murgen,where he leant,observedDown the corners of the column letter-strokes of Ogham carved.‘'Tis, belike, a burial pillar,’ said he, ‘and these shallow linesHold some warrior's name of valour, could I rightly spell the signs.’“Letter then by letter tracing, soft he breathed the sound of each;Sound and sound then interlacing, lo, the signs took form of speech;And with joy and wonder mainly thrilling, part a-thrill with fear,Murgen read the legend plainly,‘FERGUS SON OF ROY IS HERE.’”Murgen then, though he knew the penalty, appealed to Fergus to pity a son's distress, and vowed, for the sake of the recovery of the“Tain,”to give his life, and abandon his kin and friends and the maiden he loves, so that his father might no more be shamed. But Fergus gave no sign, and Murgen tried another plea:“Still he stirs not. Love of women thou regard'st not, Fergus, now:Love of children, instincts human, care for these no more hast thou:Wider comprehension, deeper insights to the dead belong:—Since for Love thou wak'st not, Sleeper, yet awake for sake of Song.“‘Thou, the first in rhythmic cadence dressing life's discordant tale,Wars of chiefs and loves of maidens, gavest the Poem to the Gael;Now they've lost their noblest measure, and in dark days hard at hand,Song shall be the only treasure left them in their native land.’“Fergus rose. A mist ascended with him, and a flash was seenAs of brazen sandals blended with a mantle's wafture green;But so thick the cloud closed o'er him, Eimena, return'd at last,Found not on the field before him but a mist-heap grey and vast.“Thrice to pierce the hoar recesses faithful Eimena essay'd;Thrice through foggy wildernesses back to open air he stray'd;Till a deep voice through the vapours fill'd the twilight far and nearAnd the Night her starry tapers kindling, stoop'd from heaven to hear.[pg 236]“Seem'd as though the skiey Shepherd back to earth had cast the fleeceEnvying gods of old caught upward from the darkening shrines of Greece;So the white mists curl'd and glisten'd, to from heaven's expanses bare,Stars enlarging lean'd and listen'd down the emptied depths of air.“All night long by mists surrounded Murgen lay in vapoury bars;All night long the deep voice sounded 'neath the keen, enlarging stars:But when, on the orient verges, stars grew dim and mists retired,Rising by the stone of Fergus, Murgen stood a man inspired.“‘Back to Sanchan!—Father, hasten, ere the hour of power be past,Ask not how obtain'd but listen to the lost lay found at last!’‘Yea, these words have tramp of heroes in them; and the marching rhymeRolls the voices of the eras down the echoing steeps of Time.’“Not till all was thrice related, thrice recital full essay'd,Sad and shamefaced, worn and faded, Murgen sought the faithful maid.‘Ah, so haggard; ah, so altered; thou in life and love so strong!’‘Dearly purchased,’ Murgen falter'd, ‘life and love I've sold for song!’“‘Woe is me, the losing bargain! what can song the dead avail?’‘Fame immortal,’ murmur'd Murgen, ‘long as lay delights the Gael.’‘Fame, alas! the price thou chargest not repays one virgin tear.’‘Yet the proud revenge I've purchased for my sire, I deem not dear.’“‘So,again to Gort the splendid, when the drinking boards were spread,Sanchan, as of old attended, came and sat at table-head.‘Bear the cup to Sanchan Torpest: twin gold goblets, Bard, are thine,If with voice and string thou harpest,Tain-Bo-Cuailgne, line for line.’“‘Yea, with voice and string I'll chant it.Murgen to his father's kneeSet the harp: no prelude wanted, Sanchan struck the master key,And, as bursts the brimful river all at once from caves of Cong,Forth at once, and once for ever, leap'd the torrent of the song.[pg 237]“Floating on a brimful torrent, men go down and banks go by:Caught adown the lyric current, Guary, captured, ear and eye,Heard no more the courtiers jeering, saw no more the walls of Gort,Creeve Roe's166meads instead appearing, and Emania's royal fort.“Vision chasing splendid vision, Sanchan roll'd the rhythmic scene;They that mock'd in lewd derision now, at gaze, with wondering mienSate, and, as the glorying master sway'd the tightening reins of song,Felt emotion's pulses faster—fancies faster bound along.“Pity dawn'd on savage faces, when for love of captive Crunn,Macha, in the ransom-races, girt her gravid loins, to run'Gainst the fleet Ultonian horses; and, when Deirdra on the roadHeadlong dash'd her 'mid the corses, brimming eyelids overflow'd.“Light of manhood's generous ardour, under brows relaxing shone,When, mid-ford, on Uladh's border, young Cuchullin stood alone,Maev and all her hosts withstanding:— ‘Now, for love of knightly play,Yield the youth his soul's demanding; let the hosts their marchings stay,“'Till the death he craves be given; and, upon his burial stoneChampion-praises duly graven, make his name and glory known;For, in speech-containing token, age to ages never gaveSalutation better spoken, than,“Behold a hero's grave.”’“What, another and another, and he still or combat calls?Ah, the lot on thee, his brother sworn in arms, Ferdia, falls;And the hall with wild applauses sobb'd like woman ere they wist,When the champions in the pauses of the deadly combat kiss'd.“Now, for love of land and cattle, while Cuchullin in the fordsStays the march of Connaught's battle, ride and rouse the Northern Lords;Swift as angry eagles wing them toward the plunder'd eyrie's call,Thronging from Dun Dealga bring them, bring them from the Red Branch hall![pg 238]“Heard ye not the tramp of armies? Hark! amid the sudden gloom,'Twas the stroke of Conall's war-mace sounded through the startled room;And, while still the hall grew darker, king and courtier chill'd with dread,Heard the rattling of the war-car of Cuchullin overhead.“Half in wonder, half in terror, loth to stay and loth to fly,Seem'd to each beglamour'd hearer shades of kings went thronging by:But the troubled joy of wonder merged at last in mastering fear,As they heard through pealing thunder, ‘Fergus son of Roy is here!’“Brazen-sandall'd, vapour-shrouded, moving in an icy blast,Through the doorway terror-crowded, up the tables Fergus pass'd:—‘Stay thy hand, oh harper, pardon! cease the wild unearthly lay!Murgen, bear thy sire his guerdon.’ Murgen sat, a shape of clay.“‘Bear him on his bier beside me: never more in halls of GortShall a niggard king deride me: slaves, of Sanchan make their sport!But because the maiden's yearnings needs must also be condoled,Hers shall be the dear-bought earnings, hers the twin-bright cups of gold.’“‘Cups,’she cried,‘of bitter drinking, fling them far as arm can throw!’Let them in the ocean sinking, out of sight and memory go!Let the joinings of the rhythm, let the links of sense and soundOf theTain-Boperish with them, lost as though they'd ne'er been found!’“So it comes, the lay, recover'd once at such a deadly cost,Ere one full recital suffer'd, once again is all but lost:For, the maiden's malediction still with many a blemish-stainClings in coarser garb of fiction round the fragments that remain.”The Phantom Chariot of CuchulainCuchulain, however, makes an impressive reappearance in a much later legend of Christian origin, found in the twelfth-century“Book of the Dun Cow.”He was summoned from Hell, we are told, by St. Patrick to prove[pg 239]the truths of Christianity and the horrors of damnation to the pagan monarch, Laery mac Neill, King of Ireland. Laery, with St. Benen, a companion of Patrick, are standing on the Plain of mac Indoc when a blast of icy wind nearly takes them off their feet. It is the wind of Hell, Benen explains, after its opening before Cuchulain. Then a dense mist covers the plain, and anon a huge phantom chariot with galloping horses, a grey and a black, loom up through the mist. Within it are the famous two, Cuchulain and his charioteer, giant figures, armed with all the splendour of the Gaelic warrior.Cuchulain then talks to Laery, and urges him to“believe in God and in holy Patrick, for it is not a demon that has come to thee, but Cuchulain son of Sualtam.”To prove his identity he recounts his famous deeds of arms, and ends by a piteous description of his present state:“What I suffered of trouble,O Laery, by sea and land—Yet more severe was a single nightWhen the demon was wrathful!Great as was my heroism,Hard as was my sword,The devil crushed me with one fingerInto the red charcoal!”He ends by beseeching Patrick that heaven may be granted to him, and the legend tells that the prayer was granted and that Laery believed.Death of Conor mac NessaChristian ideas have also gathered round the end of Cuchulain's lord, King Conor of Ulster. The manner of his death was as follows: An unjust and cruel attack had been made by him on Mesgedra, King of Leinster,[pg 240]in which that monarch met his death at the hand of Conall of the Victories.167Conall took out the brains of the dead king and mingled them with lime to make a sling-stone—such“brain balls,”as they were called, being accounted the most deadly of missiles. This ball was laid up in the king's treasure-house at Emain Macha, where the Connacht champion, Ket son of Maga, found it one day when prowling in disguise through Ulster. Ket took it away and kept it always by him. Not long thereafter the Connacht men took a spoil of cattle from Ulster, and the Ulster men, under Conor, overtook them at a river-ford still called Athnurchar (The Ford of the Sling-cast), in Westmeath. A battle was imminent, and many of the ladies of Connacht came to their side of the river to view the famous Ultonian warriors, and especially Conor, the stateliest man of his time. Conor was willing to show himself, and seeing none but women on the other bank he drew near them; but Ket, who was lurking in ambush, now rose and slung the brain-ball at Conor, striking him full in the forehead. Conor fell, and was carried off by his routed followers. When they got him home, still living, to Emain Macha, his physician, Fingen, pronounced that if the ball were extracted from his head he must die; it was accordingly sewn up with golden thread, and the king was bidden to keep himself from horse-riding and from all vehement passion and exertion, and he would do well.Seven years afterwards Conor saw the sun darken at noonday, and he summoned his Druid to tell him the cause of the portent. The Druid, in a magic trance, tells him of a hill in a distant land on which stand three crosses with a human form nailed to each of them, and one of them is like the Immortals.“Is he a[pg 241]malefactor?”then asks Conor.“Nay,”says the Druid,“but the Son of the living God,”and he relates to the king the story of the death of Christ. Conor breaks out in fury, and drawing his sword he hacks at the oak-trees in the sacred grove, crying,“Thus would I deal with his enemies,”when with the excitement and exertion the brain-ball bursts from his head, and he falls dead. And thus was the vengeance of Mesgedra fulfilled. With Conor and with Cuchulain the glory of the Red Branch and the dominance of Ulster passed away. The next, or Ossianic, cycle of Irish legend brings upon the scene different characters, different physical surroundings, and altogether different ideals of life.Ket and the Boar of mac DathoThe Connacht champion Ket, whose main exploit was the wounding of King Conor at Ardnurchar, figures also in a very dramatic tale entitled“The Carving of mac Datho's Boar.”The story runs as follows:Once upon a time there dwelt in the province of Leinster a wealthy hospitable lord named Mesroda, son of Datho. Two possessions had he; namely, a hound which could outrun every other hound and every wild beast in Erin, and a boar which was the finest and greatest in size that man had ever beheld.Now the fame of this hound was noised all about the land, and many were the princes and lords who longed to possess it. And it came to pass that Conor King of Ulster and Maev Queen of Connacht sent messengers to mac Datho to ask him to sell them the hound for a price, and both the messengers arrived at the dūn of mac Datho on the same day. Said the Connacht messenger:“We will give thee in exchange for the hound six hundred milch cows, and a chariot with two horses, the best that are to be found in Connacht, and at the end[pg 242]of a year thou shalt have as much again.”And the messenger of King Conor said:“We will give no less than Connacht, and the friendship and alliance of Ulster, and that will be better for thee than the friendship of Connacht.”Then Mesroda mac Datho fell silent, and for three days he would not eat or drink, nor could he sleep o' nights, but tossed restlessly on his bed. His wife observed his condition, and said to him:“Thy fast hath been long, Mesroda, though good food is by thee in plenty; and at night thou turnest thy face to the wall, and well I know thou dost not sleep. What is the cause of thy trouble?”“There is a saying,”replied Mac Datho,“'Trust not a thrall with money, nor a woman with a secret.'”“When should a man talk to a woman,”said his wife,“but when something were amiss? What thy mind cannot solve perchance another's may.”Then mac Datho told his wife of the request for his hound both from Ulster and from Connacht at one and the same time.“And whichever of them I deny,”he said,“they will harry my cattle and slay my people.”“Then hear my counsel,”said the woman.“Give it to both of them, and bid them come and fetch it; and if there be any harrying to be done, let them even harry each other; but in no way mayest thou keep the hound.”Mac Datho followed this wise counsel, and bade both Ulster and Connacht to a great feast on the same day, saying to each of them that they could have the hound afterwards.So on the appointed day Conor of Ulster, and Maev, and their retinues of princes and mighty men assembled at the dūn of mac Datho. There they found a great feast set forth, and to provide the chief dish mac Datho[pg 243]had killed his famous boar, a beast of enormous size. The question now arose as to who should have the honourable task of carving it, and Bricriu of the Poisoned Tongue characteristically, for the sake of the strife which he loved, suggested that the warriors of Ulster and Connacht should compare their principal deeds of arms, and give the carving of the boar to him who seemed to have done best in the border-fighting which was always going on between the provinces. After much bandying of words and of taunts Ket son of Maga arises and stands over the boar, knife in hand, challenging each of the Ulster lords to match his deeds of valour. One after another they arise, Cuscrid son of Conor, Keltchar, Moonremur, Laery the Triumphant, and others—Cuchulain is not introduced in this story—and in each case Ket has some biting tale to tell of an encounter in which he has come off better than they, and one by one they sit down shamed and silenced. At last a shout of welcome is heard at the door of the hall and the Ulstermen grow jubilant: Conall of the Victories has appeared on the scene. He strides up to the boar, and Ket and he greet each other with chivalrous courtesy:“And now welcome to thee, O Conall, thou of the iron heart and fiery blood; keen as the glitter of ice, ever-victorious chieftain; hail, mighty son of Finnchoom!”said Ket.And Conall said:“Hail to thee, Ket, flower of heroes, lord of chariots, a raging sea in battle; a strong, majestic bull; hail, son of Maga!”“And now,”went on Conall,“rise up from the boar and give me place.”“Why so?”replied Ket.“Dost thou seek a contest from me?”said Conall.“Verily thou shalt have it. By the gods of my nation I swear that since I first took weapons in my hand I[pg 244]have never passed one day that I did not slay a Connacht man, nor one night that I did not make a foray on them, nor have I ever slept but I had the head of a Connacht man under my knee.”“I confess,”then said Ket,“that thou art a better man than I, and I yield thee the boar. But if Anluan my brother were here, he would match thee deed for deed, and sorrow and shame it is that he is not.”“Anluan is here,”shouted Conall, and with that he drew from his girdle the head of Anluan and dashed it in the face of Ket.Then all sprang to their feet and a wild shouting and tumult arose, and the swords flew out of themselves, and battle raged in the hall of mac Datho. Soon the hosts burst out through the doors of the dūn and smote and slew each other in the open field, until the Connacht host were put to flight. The hound of mac Datho pursued the chariot of King Ailell of Connacht till the charioteer smote off its head, and so the cause of contention was won by neither party, and mac Datho lost his hound, but saved his lands and life.The Death of KetThe death of Ket is told in Keating's“History of Ireland.”Returning from a foray in Ulster, he was overtaken by Conall at the place called the Ford of Ket, and they fought long and desperately. At last Ket was slain, but Conall of the Victories was in little better case, and lay bleeding to death when another Connacht champion named Beälcu168found him.“Kill me,”said Conall to him,“that it be not said I fell at the hand ofoneConnacht man.”But Beälcu said:“I will not slay a man at the point of death, but I will bring thee home and heal thee, and when thy strength is come again[pg 245]thou shalt fight with me in single combat.”Then Beälcu put Conall on a litter and brought him home, and had him tended till his wounds were healed.The three sons of Beälcu, however, when they saw what the Ulster champion was like in all his might, resolved to assassinate him before the combat should take place. By a stratagem Conall contrived that they slew their own father instead; and then, taking the heads of the three sons, he went back, victoriously as he was wont, to Ulster.The Death of MaevThe tale of the death of Queen Maev is also preserved by Keating. Fergus mac Roy having been slain by Ailell with a cast of a spear as he bathed in a lake with Maev, and Ailell having been slain by Conall, Maev retired to an island169on Loch Ryve, where she was wont to bathe early every morning in a pool near to the landing-place. Forbay son of Conor mac Nessa, having discovered this habit of the queen's, found means one day to go unperceived to the pool and to measure the distance from it to the shore of the mainland. Then he went back to Emania, where he measured out the distance thus obtained, and placing an apple on a pole at one end he shot at it continually with a sling until he grew so good a marksman at that distance that he never missed his aim. Then one day, watching his opportunity by the shores of Loch Ryve, he saw Maev enter the water, and putting a bullet in his sling he shot at her with so good an aim that he smote her in the centre of the forehead and she fell dead.The great warrior-queen had reigned in Connacht, it was said, for eighty-eight years. She is a signal example[pg 246]of the kind of women whom the Gaelic bards delighted to portray. Gentleness and modesty were by no means their usual characteristics, but rather a fierce overflowing life. Women-warriors like Skatha and Aifa are frequently met with, and one is reminded of the Gaulish women, with their mighty snow-white arms, so dangerous to provoke, of whom classical writers tell us. The Gaelic bards, who in so many ways anticipated the ideas of chivalric romance, did not do so in setting women in a place apart from men. Women were judged and treated like men, neither as drudges nor as goddesses, and we know that well into historic times they went with men into battle, a practice only ended in the sixth century.Fergus mac Leda and the Wee FolkOf the stories of the Ultonian Cycle which do not centre on the figure of Cuchulain, one of the most interesting is that of Fergus mac Leda and the King of the Wee Folk. In this tale Fergus appears as King of Ulster, but as he was contemporary with Conor mac Nessa, and in the Cattle Raid of Quelgny is represented as following him to war, we must conclude that he was really a sub-king, like Cuchulain or Owen of Ferney.The tale opens in Faylinn, or the Land of the Wee Folk, a race of elves presenting an amusing parody of human institutions on a reduced scale, but endowed (like dwarfish people generally in the literature of primitive races) with magical powers. Iubdan,170the King of Faylinn, when flushed with wine at a feast, is bragging of the greatness of his power and the invincibility of his armed forces—have they not the strong man Glower, who with his axe has been known to hew down a thistle at a stroke? But the king's bard,[pg 247]Eisirt, has heard something of a giant race oversea in a land called Ulster, one man of whom would annihilate a whole battalion of the Wee Folk, and he incautiously allows himself to hint as much to the boastful monarch. He is immediately clapped into prison for his audacity, and only gets free by promising to go immediately to the land of the mighty men, and bring back evidence of the truth of his incredible story.So off he goes; and one fine day King Fergus and his lords find at the gate of their Dūn a tiny little fellow magnificently clad in the robes of a royal bard, who demands entrance. He is borne in upon the hand of Æda, the king's dwarf and bard, and after charming the court by his wise and witty sayings, and receiving a noble largesse, which he at once distributes among the poets and other court attendants of Ulster, he goes off home, taking with him as a guest the dwarf Æda, before whom the Wee Folk fly as a“Fomorian giant,”although, as Eisirt explains, the average man of Ulster can carry him like a child. Iubdan is now convinced, but Eisirt puts him undergeise, the bond of chivalry which no Irish chieftain can repudiate without being shamed, to go himself, as Eisirt has done, to the palace of Fergus and taste the king's porridge. Iubdan, after he has seen Æda, is much dismayed, but he prepares to go, and bids Bebo, his wife, accompany him.“You did an ill deed,”she says,“when you condemned Eisirt to prison; but surely there is no man under the sun that can make thee hear reason.”So off they go, and Iubdan's fairy steed bears them over the sea till they reach Ulster, and by midnight they stand before the king's palace.“Let us taste the porridge as we were bound,”says Bebo,“and make off before daybreak.”They steal in and find the[pg 248]porridge-pot, to the rim of which Iubdan can only reach by standing on his horse's back. In straining downwards to get at the porridge he overbalances himself and falls in. There in the thick porridge he sticks fast, and there Fergus's scullions find him at the break of day, with the faithful Bebo lamenting. They bear him off to Fergus, who is amazed at finding another wee man, with a woman too, in his palace. He treats them hospitably, but refuses all appeals to let them go. The story now recounts in a spirit of broad humour several Rabelaisian adventures in which Bebo is concerned, and gives a charming poem supposed to have been uttered by Iubdan in the form of advice to Fergus's fire-gillie as to the merits for burning of different kinds of timber. The following are extracts:“Burn not the sweet apple-tree of drooping branches, of the white blossoms, to whose gracious head each man puts forth his hand.”“Burn not the noble willow, the unfailing ornament of poems; bees drink from its blossoms, all delight in the graceful tent.”“The delicate, airy tree of the Druids, the rowan with its berries, this burn; but avoid the weak tree, burn not the slender hazel.”“The ash-tree of the black buds burn not—timber that speeds the wheel, that yields the rider his switch; the ashen spear is the scale-beam of battle.”At last the Wee Folk come in a great multitude to beg the release of Iubdan. On the king's refusal they visit the country with various plagues, snipping off the ears of corn, letting the calves suck all the cows dry, defiling the wells, and so forth; but Fergus is obdurate. In their quality as earth-gods,dei terreni, they promise to make the plains before the palace of Fergus stand thick with corn every year without ploughing or sowing,[pg 249]but all is vain. At last, however, Fergus agrees to ransom Iubdan against the best of his fairy treasures, so Iubdan recounts them—the cauldron that can never be emptied, the harp that plays of itself; and finally he mentions a pair of water-shoes, wearing which a man can go over or under water as freely as on dry land. Fergus accepts the shoes, and Iubdan is released.The Blemish of FergusBut it is hard for a mortal to get the better of Fairyland—a touch of hidden malice lurks in magical gifts, and so it proved now. Fergus was never tired of exploring the depths of the lakes and rivers of Ireland; but one day, in Loch Rury, he met with a hideous monster, theMuirdris, or river-horse, which inhabited that lake, and from which he barely saved himself by flying to the shore. With the terror of this encounter his face was twisted awry; but since a blemished man could not hold rule in Ireland, his queen and nobles took pains, on some pretext, to banish all mirrors from the palace, and kept the knowledge of his condition from him. One day, however, he smote a bondmaid with a switch, for some negligence, and the maid, indignant, cried out:“It were better for thee, Fergus, to avenge thyself on the river-horse that hath twisted thy face than to do brave deeds on women!”Fergus bade fetch him a mirror, and looked in it.“It is true,”he said;“the river-horse of Loch Rury has done this thing.”Death of FergusThe conclusion may be given in the words of Sir Samuel Ferguson's fine poem on this theme. Fergus[pg 250]donned the magic shoes, took sword in hand, and went to Loch Rury:“For a day and nightBeneath the waves he rested out of sight,But all the Ultonians on the bank who stoodSaw the loch boil and redden with his blood.When next at sunrise skies grew also redHe rose—and in his hand theMuirdris' head.Gone was the blemish! On his goodly faceEach trait symmetric had resumed its place:And they who saw him marked in all his mienA king's composure, ample and serene.He smiled; he cast his trophy to the bank,Said, 'I, survivor, Ulstermen!' and sank."This fine tale has been published in full from an Egerton MS., by Mr. Standish Hayes O'Grady, in his“Silva Gadelica.”The humorous treatment of the fairy element in the story would mark it as belonging to a late period of Irish legend, but the tragic and noble conclusion unmistakably signs it as belonging to the Ulster bardic literature, and it falls within the same order of ideas, if it were not composed within the same period, as the tales of Cuchulain.Significance of Irish Place-NamesBefore leaving this great cycle of legendary literature let us notice what has already, perhaps, attracted the attention of some readers—the extent to which its chief characters and episodes have been commemorated in the still surviving place-names of the country.171This is true of Irish legend in general—it is especially so of the Ultonian Cycle. Faithfully indeed, through many a century of darkness and forgetting, have these names pointed to the hidden treasures of heroic romance[pg 251]which the labours of our own day are now restoring to light. The name of the little town of Ardee, as we have seen,172commemorates the tragic death of Ferdia at the hand of his“heart companion,”the noblest hero of the Gael. The ruins of Dūn Baruch, where Fergus was bidden to the treacherous feast, still look over the waters of Moyle, across which Naisi and Deirdre sailed to their doom. Ardnurchar, the Hill of the Sling-cast, in Westmeath,173brings to mind the story of the stately monarch, the crowd of gazing women, and the crouching enemy with the deadly missile which bore the vengeance of Mesgedra. The name of Armagh, or Ard Macha, the Hill of Macha, enshrines the memory of the Fairy Bride and her heroic sacrifice, while the grassy rampart can still be traced where the war-goddess in the earlier legend drew its outline with the pin of her brooch when she founded the royal fortress of Ulster. Many pages might be filled with these instances. Perhaps no modern country has place-names so charged with legendary associations as are those of Ireland. Poetry and myth are there still closely wedded to the very soil of the land—a fact in which there lies ready to hand an agency for education, for inspiration, of the noblest kind, if we only had the insight to see it and the art to make use of it.
“Eastward, breadthwise, over Erin straightway travell'd forth the twain,Till with many days' wayfaring Murgen fainted by Loch Ein:
“Eastward, breadthwise, over Erin straightway travell'd forth the twain,
Till with many days' wayfaring Murgen fainted by Loch Ein:
‘Dear my brother, thou art weary: I for present aid am flown:Thou for my returning tarry here beside this Standing Stone.’
‘Dear my brother, thou art weary: I for present aid am flown:
Thou for my returning tarry here beside this Standing Stone.’
“Shone the sunset red and solemn: Murgen,where he leant,observedDown the corners of the column letter-strokes of Ogham carved.‘'Tis, belike, a burial pillar,’ said he, ‘and these shallow linesHold some warrior's name of valour, could I rightly spell the signs.’
“Shone the sunset red and solemn: Murgen,where he leant,observed
Down the corners of the column letter-strokes of Ogham carved.
‘'Tis, belike, a burial pillar,’ said he, ‘and these shallow lines
Hold some warrior's name of valour, could I rightly spell the signs.’
“Letter then by letter tracing, soft he breathed the sound of each;Sound and sound then interlacing, lo, the signs took form of speech;And with joy and wonder mainly thrilling, part a-thrill with fear,Murgen read the legend plainly,‘FERGUS SON OF ROY IS HERE.’”
“Letter then by letter tracing, soft he breathed the sound of each;
Sound and sound then interlacing, lo, the signs took form of speech;
And with joy and wonder mainly thrilling, part a-thrill with fear,
Murgen read the legend plainly,‘FERGUS SON OF ROY IS HERE.’”
Murgen then, though he knew the penalty, appealed to Fergus to pity a son's distress, and vowed, for the sake of the recovery of the“Tain,”to give his life, and abandon his kin and friends and the maiden he loves, so that his father might no more be shamed. But Fergus gave no sign, and Murgen tried another plea:
“Still he stirs not. Love of women thou regard'st not, Fergus, now:Love of children, instincts human, care for these no more hast thou:Wider comprehension, deeper insights to the dead belong:—Since for Love thou wak'st not, Sleeper, yet awake for sake of Song.
“Still he stirs not. Love of women thou regard'st not, Fergus, now:
Love of children, instincts human, care for these no more hast thou:
Wider comprehension, deeper insights to the dead belong:—
Since for Love thou wak'st not, Sleeper, yet awake for sake of Song.
“‘Thou, the first in rhythmic cadence dressing life's discordant tale,Wars of chiefs and loves of maidens, gavest the Poem to the Gael;Now they've lost their noblest measure, and in dark days hard at hand,Song shall be the only treasure left them in their native land.’
“‘Thou, the first in rhythmic cadence dressing life's discordant tale,
Wars of chiefs and loves of maidens, gavest the Poem to the Gael;
Now they've lost their noblest measure, and in dark days hard at hand,
Song shall be the only treasure left them in their native land.’
“Fergus rose. A mist ascended with him, and a flash was seenAs of brazen sandals blended with a mantle's wafture green;But so thick the cloud closed o'er him, Eimena, return'd at last,Found not on the field before him but a mist-heap grey and vast.
“Fergus rose. A mist ascended with him, and a flash was seen
As of brazen sandals blended with a mantle's wafture green;
But so thick the cloud closed o'er him, Eimena, return'd at last,
Found not on the field before him but a mist-heap grey and vast.
“Thrice to pierce the hoar recesses faithful Eimena essay'd;Thrice through foggy wildernesses back to open air he stray'd;Till a deep voice through the vapours fill'd the twilight far and nearAnd the Night her starry tapers kindling, stoop'd from heaven to hear.
“Thrice to pierce the hoar recesses faithful Eimena essay'd;
Thrice through foggy wildernesses back to open air he stray'd;
Till a deep voice through the vapours fill'd the twilight far and near
And the Night her starry tapers kindling, stoop'd from heaven to hear.
“Seem'd as though the skiey Shepherd back to earth had cast the fleeceEnvying gods of old caught upward from the darkening shrines of Greece;So the white mists curl'd and glisten'd, to from heaven's expanses bare,Stars enlarging lean'd and listen'd down the emptied depths of air.
“Seem'd as though the skiey Shepherd back to earth had cast the fleece
Envying gods of old caught upward from the darkening shrines of Greece;
So the white mists curl'd and glisten'd, to from heaven's expanses bare,
Stars enlarging lean'd and listen'd down the emptied depths of air.
“All night long by mists surrounded Murgen lay in vapoury bars;All night long the deep voice sounded 'neath the keen, enlarging stars:But when, on the orient verges, stars grew dim and mists retired,Rising by the stone of Fergus, Murgen stood a man inspired.
“All night long by mists surrounded Murgen lay in vapoury bars;
All night long the deep voice sounded 'neath the keen, enlarging stars:
But when, on the orient verges, stars grew dim and mists retired,
Rising by the stone of Fergus, Murgen stood a man inspired.
“‘Back to Sanchan!—Father, hasten, ere the hour of power be past,Ask not how obtain'd but listen to the lost lay found at last!’‘Yea, these words have tramp of heroes in them; and the marching rhymeRolls the voices of the eras down the echoing steeps of Time.’
“‘Back to Sanchan!—Father, hasten, ere the hour of power be past,
Ask not how obtain'd but listen to the lost lay found at last!’
‘Yea, these words have tramp of heroes in them; and the marching rhyme
Rolls the voices of the eras down the echoing steeps of Time.’
“Not till all was thrice related, thrice recital full essay'd,Sad and shamefaced, worn and faded, Murgen sought the faithful maid.‘Ah, so haggard; ah, so altered; thou in life and love so strong!’‘Dearly purchased,’ Murgen falter'd, ‘life and love I've sold for song!’
“Not till all was thrice related, thrice recital full essay'd,
Sad and shamefaced, worn and faded, Murgen sought the faithful maid.
‘Ah, so haggard; ah, so altered; thou in life and love so strong!’
‘Dearly purchased,’ Murgen falter'd, ‘life and love I've sold for song!’
“‘Woe is me, the losing bargain! what can song the dead avail?’‘Fame immortal,’ murmur'd Murgen, ‘long as lay delights the Gael.’‘Fame, alas! the price thou chargest not repays one virgin tear.’‘Yet the proud revenge I've purchased for my sire, I deem not dear.’
“‘Woe is me, the losing bargain! what can song the dead avail?’
‘Fame immortal,’ murmur'd Murgen, ‘long as lay delights the Gael.’
‘Fame, alas! the price thou chargest not repays one virgin tear.’
‘Yet the proud revenge I've purchased for my sire, I deem not dear.’
“‘So,again to Gort the splendid, when the drinking boards were spread,Sanchan, as of old attended, came and sat at table-head.‘Bear the cup to Sanchan Torpest: twin gold goblets, Bard, are thine,If with voice and string thou harpest,Tain-Bo-Cuailgne, line for line.’
“‘So,again to Gort the splendid, when the drinking boards were spread,
Sanchan, as of old attended, came and sat at table-head.
‘Bear the cup to Sanchan Torpest: twin gold goblets, Bard, are thine,
If with voice and string thou harpest,Tain-Bo-Cuailgne, line for line.’
“‘Yea, with voice and string I'll chant it.Murgen to his father's kneeSet the harp: no prelude wanted, Sanchan struck the master key,And, as bursts the brimful river all at once from caves of Cong,Forth at once, and once for ever, leap'd the torrent of the song.
“‘Yea, with voice and string I'll chant it.Murgen to his father's knee
Set the harp: no prelude wanted, Sanchan struck the master key,
And, as bursts the brimful river all at once from caves of Cong,
Forth at once, and once for ever, leap'd the torrent of the song.
“Floating on a brimful torrent, men go down and banks go by:Caught adown the lyric current, Guary, captured, ear and eye,Heard no more the courtiers jeering, saw no more the walls of Gort,Creeve Roe's166meads instead appearing, and Emania's royal fort.
“Floating on a brimful torrent, men go down and banks go by:
Caught adown the lyric current, Guary, captured, ear and eye,
Heard no more the courtiers jeering, saw no more the walls of Gort,
Creeve Roe's166meads instead appearing, and Emania's royal fort.
“Vision chasing splendid vision, Sanchan roll'd the rhythmic scene;They that mock'd in lewd derision now, at gaze, with wondering mienSate, and, as the glorying master sway'd the tightening reins of song,Felt emotion's pulses faster—fancies faster bound along.
“Vision chasing splendid vision, Sanchan roll'd the rhythmic scene;
They that mock'd in lewd derision now, at gaze, with wondering mien
Sate, and, as the glorying master sway'd the tightening reins of song,
Felt emotion's pulses faster—fancies faster bound along.
“Pity dawn'd on savage faces, when for love of captive Crunn,Macha, in the ransom-races, girt her gravid loins, to run'Gainst the fleet Ultonian horses; and, when Deirdra on the roadHeadlong dash'd her 'mid the corses, brimming eyelids overflow'd.
“Pity dawn'd on savage faces, when for love of captive Crunn,
Macha, in the ransom-races, girt her gravid loins, to run
'Gainst the fleet Ultonian horses; and, when Deirdra on the road
Headlong dash'd her 'mid the corses, brimming eyelids overflow'd.
“Light of manhood's generous ardour, under brows relaxing shone,When, mid-ford, on Uladh's border, young Cuchullin stood alone,Maev and all her hosts withstanding:— ‘Now, for love of knightly play,Yield the youth his soul's demanding; let the hosts their marchings stay,
“Light of manhood's generous ardour, under brows relaxing shone,
When, mid-ford, on Uladh's border, young Cuchullin stood alone,
Maev and all her hosts withstanding:— ‘Now, for love of knightly play,
Yield the youth his soul's demanding; let the hosts their marchings stay,
“'Till the death he craves be given; and, upon his burial stoneChampion-praises duly graven, make his name and glory known;For, in speech-containing token, age to ages never gaveSalutation better spoken, than,“Behold a hero's grave.”’
“'Till the death he craves be given; and, upon his burial stone
Champion-praises duly graven, make his name and glory known;
For, in speech-containing token, age to ages never gave
Salutation better spoken, than,“Behold a hero's grave.”’
“What, another and another, and he still or combat calls?Ah, the lot on thee, his brother sworn in arms, Ferdia, falls;And the hall with wild applauses sobb'd like woman ere they wist,When the champions in the pauses of the deadly combat kiss'd.
“What, another and another, and he still or combat calls?
Ah, the lot on thee, his brother sworn in arms, Ferdia, falls;
And the hall with wild applauses sobb'd like woman ere they wist,
When the champions in the pauses of the deadly combat kiss'd.
“Now, for love of land and cattle, while Cuchullin in the fordsStays the march of Connaught's battle, ride and rouse the Northern Lords;Swift as angry eagles wing them toward the plunder'd eyrie's call,Thronging from Dun Dealga bring them, bring them from the Red Branch hall!
“Now, for love of land and cattle, while Cuchullin in the fords
Stays the march of Connaught's battle, ride and rouse the Northern Lords;
Swift as angry eagles wing them toward the plunder'd eyrie's call,
Thronging from Dun Dealga bring them, bring them from the Red Branch hall!
“Heard ye not the tramp of armies? Hark! amid the sudden gloom,'Twas the stroke of Conall's war-mace sounded through the startled room;And, while still the hall grew darker, king and courtier chill'd with dread,Heard the rattling of the war-car of Cuchullin overhead.
“Heard ye not the tramp of armies? Hark! amid the sudden gloom,
'Twas the stroke of Conall's war-mace sounded through the startled room;
And, while still the hall grew darker, king and courtier chill'd with dread,
Heard the rattling of the war-car of Cuchullin overhead.
“Half in wonder, half in terror, loth to stay and loth to fly,Seem'd to each beglamour'd hearer shades of kings went thronging by:But the troubled joy of wonder merged at last in mastering fear,As they heard through pealing thunder, ‘Fergus son of Roy is here!’
“Half in wonder, half in terror, loth to stay and loth to fly,
Seem'd to each beglamour'd hearer shades of kings went thronging by:
But the troubled joy of wonder merged at last in mastering fear,
As they heard through pealing thunder, ‘Fergus son of Roy is here!’
“Brazen-sandall'd, vapour-shrouded, moving in an icy blast,Through the doorway terror-crowded, up the tables Fergus pass'd:—‘Stay thy hand, oh harper, pardon! cease the wild unearthly lay!Murgen, bear thy sire his guerdon.’ Murgen sat, a shape of clay.
“Brazen-sandall'd, vapour-shrouded, moving in an icy blast,
Through the doorway terror-crowded, up the tables Fergus pass'd:—
‘Stay thy hand, oh harper, pardon! cease the wild unearthly lay!
Murgen, bear thy sire his guerdon.’ Murgen sat, a shape of clay.
“‘Bear him on his bier beside me: never more in halls of GortShall a niggard king deride me: slaves, of Sanchan make their sport!But because the maiden's yearnings needs must also be condoled,Hers shall be the dear-bought earnings, hers the twin-bright cups of gold.’
“‘Bear him on his bier beside me: never more in halls of Gort
Shall a niggard king deride me: slaves, of Sanchan make their sport!
But because the maiden's yearnings needs must also be condoled,
Hers shall be the dear-bought earnings, hers the twin-bright cups of gold.’
“‘Cups,’she cried,‘of bitter drinking, fling them far as arm can throw!’Let them in the ocean sinking, out of sight and memory go!Let the joinings of the rhythm, let the links of sense and soundOf theTain-Boperish with them, lost as though they'd ne'er been found!’
“‘Cups,’she cried,‘of bitter drinking, fling them far as arm can throw!’
Let them in the ocean sinking, out of sight and memory go!
Let the joinings of the rhythm, let the links of sense and sound
Of theTain-Boperish with them, lost as though they'd ne'er been found!’
“So it comes, the lay, recover'd once at such a deadly cost,Ere one full recital suffer'd, once again is all but lost:For, the maiden's malediction still with many a blemish-stainClings in coarser garb of fiction round the fragments that remain.”
“So it comes, the lay, recover'd once at such a deadly cost,
Ere one full recital suffer'd, once again is all but lost:
For, the maiden's malediction still with many a blemish-stain
Clings in coarser garb of fiction round the fragments that remain.”
The Phantom Chariot of Cuchulain
Cuchulain, however, makes an impressive reappearance in a much later legend of Christian origin, found in the twelfth-century“Book of the Dun Cow.”He was summoned from Hell, we are told, by St. Patrick to prove[pg 239]the truths of Christianity and the horrors of damnation to the pagan monarch, Laery mac Neill, King of Ireland. Laery, with St. Benen, a companion of Patrick, are standing on the Plain of mac Indoc when a blast of icy wind nearly takes them off their feet. It is the wind of Hell, Benen explains, after its opening before Cuchulain. Then a dense mist covers the plain, and anon a huge phantom chariot with galloping horses, a grey and a black, loom up through the mist. Within it are the famous two, Cuchulain and his charioteer, giant figures, armed with all the splendour of the Gaelic warrior.
Cuchulain then talks to Laery, and urges him to“believe in God and in holy Patrick, for it is not a demon that has come to thee, but Cuchulain son of Sualtam.”To prove his identity he recounts his famous deeds of arms, and ends by a piteous description of his present state:
“What I suffered of trouble,O Laery, by sea and land—Yet more severe was a single nightWhen the demon was wrathful!Great as was my heroism,Hard as was my sword,The devil crushed me with one fingerInto the red charcoal!”
“What I suffered of trouble,
O Laery, by sea and land—
Yet more severe was a single night
When the demon was wrathful!
Great as was my heroism,
Hard as was my sword,
The devil crushed me with one finger
Into the red charcoal!”
He ends by beseeching Patrick that heaven may be granted to him, and the legend tells that the prayer was granted and that Laery believed.
Death of Conor mac Nessa
Christian ideas have also gathered round the end of Cuchulain's lord, King Conor of Ulster. The manner of his death was as follows: An unjust and cruel attack had been made by him on Mesgedra, King of Leinster,[pg 240]in which that monarch met his death at the hand of Conall of the Victories.167Conall took out the brains of the dead king and mingled them with lime to make a sling-stone—such“brain balls,”as they were called, being accounted the most deadly of missiles. This ball was laid up in the king's treasure-house at Emain Macha, where the Connacht champion, Ket son of Maga, found it one day when prowling in disguise through Ulster. Ket took it away and kept it always by him. Not long thereafter the Connacht men took a spoil of cattle from Ulster, and the Ulster men, under Conor, overtook them at a river-ford still called Athnurchar (The Ford of the Sling-cast), in Westmeath. A battle was imminent, and many of the ladies of Connacht came to their side of the river to view the famous Ultonian warriors, and especially Conor, the stateliest man of his time. Conor was willing to show himself, and seeing none but women on the other bank he drew near them; but Ket, who was lurking in ambush, now rose and slung the brain-ball at Conor, striking him full in the forehead. Conor fell, and was carried off by his routed followers. When they got him home, still living, to Emain Macha, his physician, Fingen, pronounced that if the ball were extracted from his head he must die; it was accordingly sewn up with golden thread, and the king was bidden to keep himself from horse-riding and from all vehement passion and exertion, and he would do well.
Seven years afterwards Conor saw the sun darken at noonday, and he summoned his Druid to tell him the cause of the portent. The Druid, in a magic trance, tells him of a hill in a distant land on which stand three crosses with a human form nailed to each of them, and one of them is like the Immortals.“Is he a[pg 241]malefactor?”then asks Conor.“Nay,”says the Druid,“but the Son of the living God,”and he relates to the king the story of the death of Christ. Conor breaks out in fury, and drawing his sword he hacks at the oak-trees in the sacred grove, crying,“Thus would I deal with his enemies,”when with the excitement and exertion the brain-ball bursts from his head, and he falls dead. And thus was the vengeance of Mesgedra fulfilled. With Conor and with Cuchulain the glory of the Red Branch and the dominance of Ulster passed away. The next, or Ossianic, cycle of Irish legend brings upon the scene different characters, different physical surroundings, and altogether different ideals of life.
Ket and the Boar of mac Datho
The Connacht champion Ket, whose main exploit was the wounding of King Conor at Ardnurchar, figures also in a very dramatic tale entitled“The Carving of mac Datho's Boar.”The story runs as follows:
Once upon a time there dwelt in the province of Leinster a wealthy hospitable lord named Mesroda, son of Datho. Two possessions had he; namely, a hound which could outrun every other hound and every wild beast in Erin, and a boar which was the finest and greatest in size that man had ever beheld.
Now the fame of this hound was noised all about the land, and many were the princes and lords who longed to possess it. And it came to pass that Conor King of Ulster and Maev Queen of Connacht sent messengers to mac Datho to ask him to sell them the hound for a price, and both the messengers arrived at the dūn of mac Datho on the same day. Said the Connacht messenger:“We will give thee in exchange for the hound six hundred milch cows, and a chariot with two horses, the best that are to be found in Connacht, and at the end[pg 242]of a year thou shalt have as much again.”And the messenger of King Conor said:“We will give no less than Connacht, and the friendship and alliance of Ulster, and that will be better for thee than the friendship of Connacht.”
Then Mesroda mac Datho fell silent, and for three days he would not eat or drink, nor could he sleep o' nights, but tossed restlessly on his bed. His wife observed his condition, and said to him:“Thy fast hath been long, Mesroda, though good food is by thee in plenty; and at night thou turnest thy face to the wall, and well I know thou dost not sleep. What is the cause of thy trouble?”
“There is a saying,”replied Mac Datho,“'Trust not a thrall with money, nor a woman with a secret.'”
“When should a man talk to a woman,”said his wife,“but when something were amiss? What thy mind cannot solve perchance another's may.”
Then mac Datho told his wife of the request for his hound both from Ulster and from Connacht at one and the same time.“And whichever of them I deny,”he said,“they will harry my cattle and slay my people.”
“Then hear my counsel,”said the woman.“Give it to both of them, and bid them come and fetch it; and if there be any harrying to be done, let them even harry each other; but in no way mayest thou keep the hound.”
Mac Datho followed this wise counsel, and bade both Ulster and Connacht to a great feast on the same day, saying to each of them that they could have the hound afterwards.
So on the appointed day Conor of Ulster, and Maev, and their retinues of princes and mighty men assembled at the dūn of mac Datho. There they found a great feast set forth, and to provide the chief dish mac Datho[pg 243]had killed his famous boar, a beast of enormous size. The question now arose as to who should have the honourable task of carving it, and Bricriu of the Poisoned Tongue characteristically, for the sake of the strife which he loved, suggested that the warriors of Ulster and Connacht should compare their principal deeds of arms, and give the carving of the boar to him who seemed to have done best in the border-fighting which was always going on between the provinces. After much bandying of words and of taunts Ket son of Maga arises and stands over the boar, knife in hand, challenging each of the Ulster lords to match his deeds of valour. One after another they arise, Cuscrid son of Conor, Keltchar, Moonremur, Laery the Triumphant, and others—Cuchulain is not introduced in this story—and in each case Ket has some biting tale to tell of an encounter in which he has come off better than they, and one by one they sit down shamed and silenced. At last a shout of welcome is heard at the door of the hall and the Ulstermen grow jubilant: Conall of the Victories has appeared on the scene. He strides up to the boar, and Ket and he greet each other with chivalrous courtesy:
“And now welcome to thee, O Conall, thou of the iron heart and fiery blood; keen as the glitter of ice, ever-victorious chieftain; hail, mighty son of Finnchoom!”said Ket.
And Conall said:“Hail to thee, Ket, flower of heroes, lord of chariots, a raging sea in battle; a strong, majestic bull; hail, son of Maga!”
“And now,”went on Conall,“rise up from the boar and give me place.”
“Why so?”replied Ket.
“Dost thou seek a contest from me?”said Conall.“Verily thou shalt have it. By the gods of my nation I swear that since I first took weapons in my hand I[pg 244]have never passed one day that I did not slay a Connacht man, nor one night that I did not make a foray on them, nor have I ever slept but I had the head of a Connacht man under my knee.”
“I confess,”then said Ket,“that thou art a better man than I, and I yield thee the boar. But if Anluan my brother were here, he would match thee deed for deed, and sorrow and shame it is that he is not.”
“Anluan is here,”shouted Conall, and with that he drew from his girdle the head of Anluan and dashed it in the face of Ket.
Then all sprang to their feet and a wild shouting and tumult arose, and the swords flew out of themselves, and battle raged in the hall of mac Datho. Soon the hosts burst out through the doors of the dūn and smote and slew each other in the open field, until the Connacht host were put to flight. The hound of mac Datho pursued the chariot of King Ailell of Connacht till the charioteer smote off its head, and so the cause of contention was won by neither party, and mac Datho lost his hound, but saved his lands and life.
The Death of Ket
The death of Ket is told in Keating's“History of Ireland.”Returning from a foray in Ulster, he was overtaken by Conall at the place called the Ford of Ket, and they fought long and desperately. At last Ket was slain, but Conall of the Victories was in little better case, and lay bleeding to death when another Connacht champion named Beälcu168found him.“Kill me,”said Conall to him,“that it be not said I fell at the hand ofoneConnacht man.”But Beälcu said:“I will not slay a man at the point of death, but I will bring thee home and heal thee, and when thy strength is come again[pg 245]thou shalt fight with me in single combat.”Then Beälcu put Conall on a litter and brought him home, and had him tended till his wounds were healed.
The three sons of Beälcu, however, when they saw what the Ulster champion was like in all his might, resolved to assassinate him before the combat should take place. By a stratagem Conall contrived that they slew their own father instead; and then, taking the heads of the three sons, he went back, victoriously as he was wont, to Ulster.
The Death of Maev
The tale of the death of Queen Maev is also preserved by Keating. Fergus mac Roy having been slain by Ailell with a cast of a spear as he bathed in a lake with Maev, and Ailell having been slain by Conall, Maev retired to an island169on Loch Ryve, where she was wont to bathe early every morning in a pool near to the landing-place. Forbay son of Conor mac Nessa, having discovered this habit of the queen's, found means one day to go unperceived to the pool and to measure the distance from it to the shore of the mainland. Then he went back to Emania, where he measured out the distance thus obtained, and placing an apple on a pole at one end he shot at it continually with a sling until he grew so good a marksman at that distance that he never missed his aim. Then one day, watching his opportunity by the shores of Loch Ryve, he saw Maev enter the water, and putting a bullet in his sling he shot at her with so good an aim that he smote her in the centre of the forehead and she fell dead.
The great warrior-queen had reigned in Connacht, it was said, for eighty-eight years. She is a signal example[pg 246]of the kind of women whom the Gaelic bards delighted to portray. Gentleness and modesty were by no means their usual characteristics, but rather a fierce overflowing life. Women-warriors like Skatha and Aifa are frequently met with, and one is reminded of the Gaulish women, with their mighty snow-white arms, so dangerous to provoke, of whom classical writers tell us. The Gaelic bards, who in so many ways anticipated the ideas of chivalric romance, did not do so in setting women in a place apart from men. Women were judged and treated like men, neither as drudges nor as goddesses, and we know that well into historic times they went with men into battle, a practice only ended in the sixth century.
Fergus mac Leda and the Wee Folk
Of the stories of the Ultonian Cycle which do not centre on the figure of Cuchulain, one of the most interesting is that of Fergus mac Leda and the King of the Wee Folk. In this tale Fergus appears as King of Ulster, but as he was contemporary with Conor mac Nessa, and in the Cattle Raid of Quelgny is represented as following him to war, we must conclude that he was really a sub-king, like Cuchulain or Owen of Ferney.
The tale opens in Faylinn, or the Land of the Wee Folk, a race of elves presenting an amusing parody of human institutions on a reduced scale, but endowed (like dwarfish people generally in the literature of primitive races) with magical powers. Iubdan,170the King of Faylinn, when flushed with wine at a feast, is bragging of the greatness of his power and the invincibility of his armed forces—have they not the strong man Glower, who with his axe has been known to hew down a thistle at a stroke? But the king's bard,[pg 247]Eisirt, has heard something of a giant race oversea in a land called Ulster, one man of whom would annihilate a whole battalion of the Wee Folk, and he incautiously allows himself to hint as much to the boastful monarch. He is immediately clapped into prison for his audacity, and only gets free by promising to go immediately to the land of the mighty men, and bring back evidence of the truth of his incredible story.
So off he goes; and one fine day King Fergus and his lords find at the gate of their Dūn a tiny little fellow magnificently clad in the robes of a royal bard, who demands entrance. He is borne in upon the hand of Æda, the king's dwarf and bard, and after charming the court by his wise and witty sayings, and receiving a noble largesse, which he at once distributes among the poets and other court attendants of Ulster, he goes off home, taking with him as a guest the dwarf Æda, before whom the Wee Folk fly as a“Fomorian giant,”although, as Eisirt explains, the average man of Ulster can carry him like a child. Iubdan is now convinced, but Eisirt puts him undergeise, the bond of chivalry which no Irish chieftain can repudiate without being shamed, to go himself, as Eisirt has done, to the palace of Fergus and taste the king's porridge. Iubdan, after he has seen Æda, is much dismayed, but he prepares to go, and bids Bebo, his wife, accompany him.“You did an ill deed,”she says,“when you condemned Eisirt to prison; but surely there is no man under the sun that can make thee hear reason.”
So off they go, and Iubdan's fairy steed bears them over the sea till they reach Ulster, and by midnight they stand before the king's palace.“Let us taste the porridge as we were bound,”says Bebo,“and make off before daybreak.”They steal in and find the[pg 248]porridge-pot, to the rim of which Iubdan can only reach by standing on his horse's back. In straining downwards to get at the porridge he overbalances himself and falls in. There in the thick porridge he sticks fast, and there Fergus's scullions find him at the break of day, with the faithful Bebo lamenting. They bear him off to Fergus, who is amazed at finding another wee man, with a woman too, in his palace. He treats them hospitably, but refuses all appeals to let them go. The story now recounts in a spirit of broad humour several Rabelaisian adventures in which Bebo is concerned, and gives a charming poem supposed to have been uttered by Iubdan in the form of advice to Fergus's fire-gillie as to the merits for burning of different kinds of timber. The following are extracts:
“Burn not the sweet apple-tree of drooping branches, of the white blossoms, to whose gracious head each man puts forth his hand.”
“Burn not the noble willow, the unfailing ornament of poems; bees drink from its blossoms, all delight in the graceful tent.”
“The delicate, airy tree of the Druids, the rowan with its berries, this burn; but avoid the weak tree, burn not the slender hazel.”
“The ash-tree of the black buds burn not—timber that speeds the wheel, that yields the rider his switch; the ashen spear is the scale-beam of battle.”
At last the Wee Folk come in a great multitude to beg the release of Iubdan. On the king's refusal they visit the country with various plagues, snipping off the ears of corn, letting the calves suck all the cows dry, defiling the wells, and so forth; but Fergus is obdurate. In their quality as earth-gods,dei terreni, they promise to make the plains before the palace of Fergus stand thick with corn every year without ploughing or sowing,[pg 249]but all is vain. At last, however, Fergus agrees to ransom Iubdan against the best of his fairy treasures, so Iubdan recounts them—the cauldron that can never be emptied, the harp that plays of itself; and finally he mentions a pair of water-shoes, wearing which a man can go over or under water as freely as on dry land. Fergus accepts the shoes, and Iubdan is released.
The Blemish of Fergus
But it is hard for a mortal to get the better of Fairyland—a touch of hidden malice lurks in magical gifts, and so it proved now. Fergus was never tired of exploring the depths of the lakes and rivers of Ireland; but one day, in Loch Rury, he met with a hideous monster, theMuirdris, or river-horse, which inhabited that lake, and from which he barely saved himself by flying to the shore. With the terror of this encounter his face was twisted awry; but since a blemished man could not hold rule in Ireland, his queen and nobles took pains, on some pretext, to banish all mirrors from the palace, and kept the knowledge of his condition from him. One day, however, he smote a bondmaid with a switch, for some negligence, and the maid, indignant, cried out:“It were better for thee, Fergus, to avenge thyself on the river-horse that hath twisted thy face than to do brave deeds on women!”Fergus bade fetch him a mirror, and looked in it.“It is true,”he said;“the river-horse of Loch Rury has done this thing.”
Death of Fergus
The conclusion may be given in the words of Sir Samuel Ferguson's fine poem on this theme. Fergus[pg 250]donned the magic shoes, took sword in hand, and went to Loch Rury:
“For a day and nightBeneath the waves he rested out of sight,But all the Ultonians on the bank who stoodSaw the loch boil and redden with his blood.When next at sunrise skies grew also redHe rose—and in his hand theMuirdris' head.Gone was the blemish! On his goodly faceEach trait symmetric had resumed its place:And they who saw him marked in all his mienA king's composure, ample and serene.He smiled; he cast his trophy to the bank,Said, 'I, survivor, Ulstermen!' and sank."
“For a day and night
Beneath the waves he rested out of sight,
But all the Ultonians on the bank who stood
Saw the loch boil and redden with his blood.
When next at sunrise skies grew also red
He rose—and in his hand theMuirdris' head.
Gone was the blemish! On his goodly face
Each trait symmetric had resumed its place:
And they who saw him marked in all his mien
A king's composure, ample and serene.
He smiled; he cast his trophy to the bank,
Said, 'I, survivor, Ulstermen!' and sank."
This fine tale has been published in full from an Egerton MS., by Mr. Standish Hayes O'Grady, in his“Silva Gadelica.”The humorous treatment of the fairy element in the story would mark it as belonging to a late period of Irish legend, but the tragic and noble conclusion unmistakably signs it as belonging to the Ulster bardic literature, and it falls within the same order of ideas, if it were not composed within the same period, as the tales of Cuchulain.
Significance of Irish Place-Names
Before leaving this great cycle of legendary literature let us notice what has already, perhaps, attracted the attention of some readers—the extent to which its chief characters and episodes have been commemorated in the still surviving place-names of the country.171This is true of Irish legend in general—it is especially so of the Ultonian Cycle. Faithfully indeed, through many a century of darkness and forgetting, have these names pointed to the hidden treasures of heroic romance[pg 251]which the labours of our own day are now restoring to light. The name of the little town of Ardee, as we have seen,172commemorates the tragic death of Ferdia at the hand of his“heart companion,”the noblest hero of the Gael. The ruins of Dūn Baruch, where Fergus was bidden to the treacherous feast, still look over the waters of Moyle, across which Naisi and Deirdre sailed to their doom. Ardnurchar, the Hill of the Sling-cast, in Westmeath,173brings to mind the story of the stately monarch, the crowd of gazing women, and the crouching enemy with the deadly missile which bore the vengeance of Mesgedra. The name of Armagh, or Ard Macha, the Hill of Macha, enshrines the memory of the Fairy Bride and her heroic sacrifice, while the grassy rampart can still be traced where the war-goddess in the earlier legend drew its outline with the pin of her brooch when she founded the royal fortress of Ulster. Many pages might be filled with these instances. Perhaps no modern country has place-names so charged with legendary associations as are those of Ireland. Poetry and myth are there still closely wedded to the very soil of the land—a fact in which there lies ready to hand an agency for education, for inspiration, of the noblest kind, if we only had the insight to see it and the art to make use of it.