Early Irish Myths and Sagas (8 page)

‘The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel’ is part impacted myth, part heroic saga and part literary tour de force. The name of the hosteller in the title is uncertain: some texts give Úa Dergae (the nephew of the red goddess) instead of Da Derga (the red god). In either case, the red deity is chthonic; and the mythic subtext deals with the slaying of a king, in a house of death, at Samuin. Although there is no mention of an iron house, the raiders’ attempts to burn the hostel suggests that it is related to the iron houses in ‘The Intoxication of the Ulaid’ and ‘The Destruction of Dind Rig’. Curiously, although Conare is slain – and that is the point of the tale – the hostel is never actually destroyed.

The opening episode, which describes the wooing of Étaín by Echu Feidlech, expands upon the story in the second section of ‘The Wooing of Étaín’. At the point where Echu dies, however, something appears to be missing, even though there is no evidence of a lacuna. What follows in the manuscripts is very confused, even as to syntax, but it appears to be a garbled version of the incest episode at the end of ‘The Wooing of Étaín’, and we can probably assume that, originally, the child is abandoned because it is the offspring of the king’s inadvertent union with his own daughter. The conception of Conare Már, like that of the Ulaid hero Cú Chulaind, is duple, the storyteller in both
cases attempting to reconcile traditions of divine paternity with those of ordinary mortal fatherhood. Once Conare has been installed as king, the tale begins to edge into a kind of history – perhaps it recalls a significant battle or raid in Irish tribal warfare.

Throughout ‘The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel’, Conare appears doomed: doomed to break his gessa (taboos), doomed to die for being the offspring of incest. Yet he is not entirely guiltless: the story suggests that he has shown poor judgement in excusing his foster-brothers from hanging and in interfering in the quarrel between his two clients. The structure of the tale is idiosyncratic; some may find the catalogue section tedious and the climax disappointingly perfunctory. Irish stories, in manuscript, do tend to become ‘unbalanced’: descriptive passages flower into luxuriant growths out of all proportion to their narrative importance (perhaps owing to the storyteller’s showing off), while conclusions seem casually, even indifferently, thrown away (perhaps owing to the storyteller’s or scribe’s growing tired). But it is also true that descriptive catalogues of this sort were important to the Celts – both as literary set-pieces and as a matter of record – and that, in this case at least, the lack of attention given to the dénouement underlines its inevitability.

There was once a famous, noble king of Ériu, and Echu Feidlech was his name. One day, as he was crossing the fairground of Brí Léith, he saw a woman at the edge of the
well. She had a bright silver comb with gold ornamentation on it, and she was washing from a silver vessel with four gold birds on it and bright, tiny gems of crimson carbuncle on its rims. There was a crimson cloak of beautiful, curly fleece round her, fastened with a silver brooch coiled with lovely gold; her long-hooded tunic was of stiff, smooth, green silk embroidered with red gold, and there were wondrous animal brooches of gold and silver at her breast and on her shoulders. When the sun shone upon her, the gold would glisten very red against the green silk. Two tresses of yellow gold she had, and each tress was a weaving of four twists with a globe at the end. Men would say that hair was like the blooming iris in summer or like red gold after it had been burnished.

At the well, the woman loosened her hair in order to wash it, and her hands appeared through the opening of the neck of her dress. As white as the snow of a single night her wrists; as tender and even and red as foxglove her clear, lovely cheeks. As black as a beetle’s back her brows; a shower of matched pearls her teeth. Hyacinth blue her eyes; Parthian red her lips. Straight, smooth, soft and white her shoulders; pure white and tapering her fingers; long her arms. As white as sea foam her Síde, slender, long, smooth, yielding, soft as wool. Warm and smooth, sleek and white her thighs; round and small, firm and white her knees. Short and white and straight her shins; fine and straight and lovely her heels. If a rule were put against her feet, scarcely a fault would be found save for a plenitude of flesh or skin. The blushing light of the moon in her noble face; an uplifting of pride in her smooth brows; a gleam of courting each of her two royal eyes. Dimples of pleasure each of her cheeks, where spots red as the blood of a calf alternated with spots the whiteness of shining snow. A gentle, womanly dignity in her voice; a steady, stately step,
the walk of a queen. She was the fairest and most perfect and most beautiful of all the women in the world; men thought she was of the Síde, and they said of her: ‘Lovely anyone until Étaín. Beautiful anyone until Étaín.’

A strong desire at once seized the king, and he sent a messenger on ahead to detain her. The king asked news of her, and when he had identified himself, he said ‘Will there be a time for me to sleep with you?’ ‘It is that we have come for, under your protection,’ she answered. ‘Whence did you come and where do you go?’ Echu asked. ‘Not difficult that,’ she replied. ‘I am Étaín, daughter of Étar king of Echrade from the Síde. I have been here twenty years since I was born in the síd; men of the Síde, both kings and nobles, have sought me, but none obtained me, and that is because I have loved you with the love of a child since I was able to speak, both for your splendour and for the noble tales about you. I have never seen you, but I knew you by your description. It is you I wish to have.’ ‘Indeed, it is not a false friend whom you have sought from afar,’ said Echu. ‘You will be welcome, and you will have every one of your women, and I will be yours alone for as long as you desire.’ ‘My proper bridal gift first,’ said Étaín, ‘and then my desire.’ ‘You will have that,’ said Echu, and her bridal price was given to her, seven cumals.

Then the king, Echu Feidlech, died.

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After a time Cormac, who was king of Ulaid and a man of three gifts, abandoned Echu’s daughter because she was barren save for the daughter she had borne after her mother had made a porridge for her. She had said to her mother ‘A wrong you have done me, for it is a daughter I will bear.’ ‘No matter that,’ her mother had replied, ‘for a king will seek the girl.’

Cormac then took back the woman – Étaín – and it was his wish to kill the daughter of the woman he had abandoned. He did not allow her mother to rear her but ordered two servants to take her to a pit. As they were throwing her into the pit, she laughed and smiled at them, and a weakness overcame them. They took her, then, to the cattle shed of the herdsman of Eterscélae son of lar king of Temuir; there they fostered her until she became a good embroiderer, and there was not in Ériu a king’s daughter fairer than she. They wove her a house that had no door, only a window and a skylight. Eterscélae’s people noticed this house, and it seemed to them that the herdsmen were taking food inside. One man looked through the skylight, then, and he saw a very fair, very beautiful woman inside. This news was related to the king, and people were sent immediately to destroy the house and take the woman without permission, for the king was barren, and it had been prophesied that a woman of unknown race would bear him a son.

That night, when the woman was in the house, she saw a bird coming to her through the skylight; it left its feather hood in the middle of the house and took her and said ‘The king’s people are coming to destroy this house and take you to him by force. But you will be with child by me and will bear a son, and his name will be Conare’ (her name was Mess Búachalla), ‘and he is not to kill birds.’

After that, she was taken to the king. Her fosterers went with her, and she was betrothed to the king; he gave seven cumals to her and seven to her fosterers. The fosterers were ennobled so that they became of the ruling class; thus, there are two men called Fedilmid Rechtade. The woman bore the king a son – Conare son of Mess Búachalla – and she requested of the king that the boy have three fosterages: the men who had fostered her and the two men called
Mane Milscothach and she herself. And she said to the men of Ériu ‘Those of you who wish anything from the boy should contribute to the three households.’

Thus Conare was reared. The men of Ériu knew him from the day he was born, and three other boys were reared with him: Fer Lé and Fer Gar and Fer Rogain, all sons of the fían-champion Dond Désa, a man of supporters for the support of the boy.
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Conare possessed three gifts – the gift of hearing and the gift of seeing and the gift of judgement – and he taught a gift to each of his foster-brothers. Whenever a meal was prepared for him, the four would go to it together; and even if three meals were prepared for him, every one of them would go to his meal. And all four had the same garments and weapons and colour of horses.

After that, the king, Eterscélae, died. The men of Ériu then assembled at the bull feast: a bull was killed, and one man ate his fill and drank its broth and slept, and an incantation of truth was chanted over him. Whoever this man saw in his sleep became king; if the man lied about what he saw in his sleep, he would die. Now four charioteers were playing by the Life, Conare and his three foster-brothers; and Conare’s fosterers came to take him to the bull feast. The bull-feaster had in his sleep seen a naked man coming along the road to Temuir at daybreak and bearing a stone in his sling. ‘I will follow you shortly,’ Conare said.

Later, Conare left his foster-brothers playing and turned his chariot and charioteer towards Áth Clíath; there he saw huge, white-speckled birds, unusual as to size and colour. He turned and followed them until his horses grew tired, and the birds always preceded him by no more than the length of a spear cast. Then he took his sling and stepped from his chariot and followed the birds until he reached the ocean. The birds went on the waves, but he overtook
them. The birds left their feather hoods, then, and turned on him with spears and swords; one bird protected him, however, saying ‘I am Nemglan, king of your father’s bird troop. You are forbidden to cast at birds, for, by reason of birth, every bird here is natural to you.’ ‘Until now, I did not know this,’ said Conare. ‘Go to Temuir tonight, for that would be more fitting,’ Nemglan said. ‘There is a bull feast there, and it will make you king. The man who naked comes along the road to Temuir at daybreak with a stone in his sling, it is he who will be king.’

Conare went forth, then, and on each of the four roads that led to Temuir there were three kings waiting with garments, for it had been prophesied that the king would come naked. He was seen on the road where his fosterers were waiting, and they put the clothing of a king round him and placed him in a chariot, and he took their hostages. The people of Temuir said ‘It seems to us that our bull feast and our incantation of truth have been spoilt, for it is a young, beardless lad who has been brought to us.’ But Conare replied ‘No matter that. A young, generous king is no blemish, and I am not corrupt. It was the right of my father and grandfather to take hostages at Temuir.’ ‘Wonder of wonders!’ said the hosts. They conferred the kingship of Ériu upon him, and he said ‘I will inquire of wise men that I myself may be wise.’

All this Conare said just as the man on the waves had taught him to. This man had said to him ‘Your bird-reign will be distinguished, but there will be gessa against it, and they are these:
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You are not to go righthandwise round Temuir and lefthandwise round Brega. You are not to hunt the wild beasts of Cernae. You are not to venture out of Temuir every ninth night. You are not to pass the night in a house where firelight may be seen from within or from without after sunset. Three Deirgs are not to precede you
into the house of Deirg. No plunder is to be taken in your reign. A company of one man or one woman is not to enter your house after sunset. You are not to interfere in a quarrel between two of your servants.’