The Celtic Riddle (13 page)

When most of us were breathless, Aidan yelled above the din. "We'll
have to take a break for a moment!" he shouted. "I have to make a
living, don't I? So who's for another drink, and for some of Sheila's
food? Best bar fare in town!"

Breeta and Michael collapsed, laughing, onto the stools at our
table. Jennifer and Alex joined us shortly thereafter. "That was
brilliant!" Jennifer gasped. "Absolutely brilliant." And it was. The
whole evening had an exuberance and spontaneity to it that was sadly
lacking in much of the music and dance that is promoted as Celtic these
days. This was the real thing. Jennifer reached over and hugged me.
"I'm having the best time," she said. "Ever!" I hugged her back.

"There'll be a music festival on here in two, three weeks," Michael
said. "There'll be music and dancing everywhere in town. Too bad you
won't be here. Or maybe you will. Maybe you'll be enchanted by the
place-plenty are-and want to stay forever. It happens, you know."

"Let's stay!" Jennifer said. So much for the girl who hadn't wanted
to leave her friends in Toronto even for a week or two.

Malachy and Kevin were up at the bar, now, and Aidan was pouring
them both a drink, and one for Denny if he'd promise a story. "All
right then," Aidan shouted over the din a few minutes. "If you'll
fortify yourselves with a little liquid libation, we'll be hearing a
tale from Denny." There was a roar and some foot stomping approval.

"Tell about the time you heard the banshee, Denny," a young woman at
the back called out.

"Someone get Denny's chair," Aidan said, and a rocker was quickly
pulled up in front of the fire.

"In honor of Breeta's return to The Three Sisters, she can pick the
story," Denny said.

"Pick a good one, Breeta," a man called out.

Breeta thought for a moment. "In honor of my Da," she said at last,
"I'd like one of the old ones, Denny. Tell us the story of how the Good
People came to rule Ireland."

"Good choice, Breeta," Malachy said.

Denny rocked back and forth in his chair for a moment or two.

"The tale I'm telling you now happened a long, long time ago," he
began. "Before Amairgen and the Sons of Mil set foot on these shores.
Not so far back as the plague that killed the sons and daughters of
Partholan. Not so far back as that. But a long time ago, even so.

"In those days, there were giants roamed the earth, and creatures
with one leg and one arm, like serpents came out of the sea. Back then,
unsheathed weapons told tales, the sky could rain fire, and the shrieks
of the Hag would be heard in the night.

"And it was then that the fiercest of battles, the struggle of light
over darkness, were fought and won by the Tuatha de Danaan."

The bar was absolutely silent. Three small children, sons and
daughter of the innkeepers, crept into the room and sat on the floor,
transfixed. Driving rain splattered against the window, and the fire
cracked and hissed.

"Now there's many a story about how the de Danaan came to be here in
Ireland. Many a tale. Some say they came from Scythia, driven out by
the Philistines; others say they came from northern realms, from four
glorious cities where they learned magic and druidic skills.

"There's more than one tale about how they arrived. Some say they
arrived in a mist, others that they came in ships which they burned so
they would not fall into Fomorian hands or so they themselves would not
be able to flee.

"However they got here, when the smoke or mist cleared, the Fir
Bolg, for it was them who lived in the western reaches of our island,
found the Tuatha de had already fortified their place.

"The two groups met. They inspected each other's weapons, those of
the Fir Bolg heavy and fierce-looking, the Tuatha de's light and agile.
'We should divide up the island equally,' the Tuatha de told the Fir
Bolg.

"But the Fir Bolg were not impressed by the weapons of these
newcomers, and they decided not to accept the offer, but instead to
fight. And thus it was that the first mighty Battle of Mag Tuired was
fought on a plain near Cong. At the head of the Fir Bolg was Eochaid,
son of Ere; leading the Tuatha de was the prince Nu-ada."

"Nuada Silver Hand," one of the children called out.

"Nuada Argat-lam, Nuada Silver Arm," Denny agreed. "But he wasn't
called that just yet, not till after the battle, and I'll tell you why.
The battle was fierce, and there were heavy losses on both sides. But
the Tuatha de won victory and pressed the Fir Bolg northward, where
eleven hundred were slain, among them Eochaid, son of Ere.

"But there was a price to pay. In that wondrous battle, Nuada lost
his hand. Diancecht the healer and Credne the brazier made for him a
silver hand, which worked just like the one you have," Denny said,
grabbing one of the children's arms. "For the Tuatha de had the magic,
didn't they?

"But this was a great loss for the Tuatha de, for Nuada could no
longer be their king, Tuatha de kings having to be perfect, and even
though the silver hand worked so well, Nuada was no longer considered
perfect. So the kingship fell to Bres, the beautiful, who was not only
half Fomorian, but a very bad king. And the Fomorians exacted so much
tribute from the Tuatha de that they suffered greatly, even their gods,
like the Dagda and the rest. Just when it seemed darkest, a new
champion arose, the greatest of them all, Lugh Lam-fada, Lugh of the
Long Arm, and he, along with the other gods, and Nuada, with a real arm
now, through magic made, fought the second great battle of Mag Tuired,
more vicious than the first, the battle for supremacy over the dreaded
Fomorians."

What followed was a wonderful tale, of magic harps, swords and
spears, of gods and goddesses, of prophecies and promises broken, of
bravery and treachery, of fathers killed by sons, and sons by fathers,
and in the end, the death of Nuada on the field of battle, and a
prophecy, from the Morrigan, goddess of war, of the end of the world.

"And this is only one of the tales of the Tuatha de," Denny
concluded. "There are many more, until, as you all know, they were
defeated at last by the Sons of Mil and banished to the sidhe, the
islands and the underworld, where they live to this day." He paused for
a moment. "And how about a little something to wet the whistle,
barman?" he said.

The crowd applauded, then turned back to their friends and their
drinks, and soon the room was a din of conviviality.

As the others chatted away, I couldn't help my mind wandering a
little, back to the unpleasant episodes with Conail earlier in the day.
Extenuating circumstances, Garda Minogue had said, in explaining why
they wouldn't be laying charges against O'Connor. If the recent ugly
scene was anything to go by, those extenuating circumstances included a
bad fight with his wife, one which could have signalled the end of the
marriage, a fact that could have resulted in O'Connor's reckless exit
from Second Chance that afternoon as we were arriving, and his ill
humor later on. Just as his wife inherited half of Byrne Enterprises,
by all accounts a very successful business, and one he'd had a hand in
running, or running down, to use Byrne's own words, Fionuala turfed him
out. No wonder his excessive fervor in searching out the clue: He'd
want to beat that family to the treasure, whatever it was, even more
than I did.

"Have you thought about what your father's treasure might be, Bree?"
Michael was asking as I returned to the present from my reverie.

"Of course I have," she replied. "I've thought about it and him a
lot."

"So?"

"I think he was telling us that whatever it is is very, very old. He
chose Amairgen's chant after all. That makes it Celtic, that I'm sure
of, or maybe something from the time of Amairgen."

"So when exactly is that?" Jennifer asked.

"Any time after about 20B.C.," Breeta replied. "It could be as late
as the twelfth or even the fifteenth century, when the 'Song of
Amairgen' was written down."

Jennifer's eyes widened. "But that could be almost anything.
Illuminated manuscripts, gold, iron, bronze, anything."

"It could," Breeta replied.

"Surely you could narrow it down for us a little more than that,"
Michael sighed. "What about all those old maps and weapons of your
Da's? I know he said he was giving them to Trinity College, but could
it be another of those, an especially old or important one? Are those
things worth anything?"

"Oh yes," I said, "they are."

"It could be," Breeta said. "But my father liked lots of things. He
wasn't an educated man, you know. He said that all the education in the
world wouldn't have made him a success, just hard work. He left school
early to work with his father in the family business, before he ran
away to sea. Despite what he said, though, I think he felt the lack of
education keenly. That's why he wanted you to go back to school,
Michael." Michael nodded.

"Da was exceptionally well read, though, self-taught. He'd been
brought up on all the old stories, like the one Denny just told us, and
he taught them to us, my sisters and me. In some ways, he believed the
old stories. Oh, I don't mean he believed in magic or the Little People
or anything, at least no more so than most Irishmen, but unlike some,
he believed the ancient stories were, in fact, real stories about real
events and real people, and when he wasn't at work, he was out trying
to prove it. He found and read old manuscripts, studied old maps,
located all the sites of the great epic battles. You can find them,
too, if you look."

"I gather this isn't a point of view shared by everyone," Alex said.

"You're quite right about that," she laughed. "I remember studying
the Leabhar Gabala, the Book of Invasions, at school. Amairgen's poem
comes from that, incidentally, and the story Denny just told us. It's
the story of the arrival of various people on Ireland's shores,
starting with someone called Cessair. There were Partholanians,
Nemedians, then the Tuatha de, and eventually the so-called Sons of
Mil, the Celts. I'd learned it at my father's knee, as they say." Her
voice caught a little as she spoke.

"Anyway, the school had got in a professor of archaeology to talk to
us about it. He said that the Mythological Cycle, the part of the
Leabhar Gabala containing these very old stories, was just a collection
of old fables, stories that were supposed to tell us something about
the human condition, but not in any way true, and that they had been
written down by monks in the twelfth century, not by poets like
Amair-gen at all. He even said there was no real archaeological
evidence for all the invasions that the book tells us about. I was
terribly disappointed, and I raced home to talk to Da about it. I can't
have been more than ten years old at the time, and I still believed all
the stories he'd told me to be absolutely true, like children believing
in Santa Claus, I suppose.

"Da was absolutely furious. He said that for all his schooling, the
professor was nothing but a bloody ijit. He said it was true that the
stories had been written down by monks all right, but that these monks
had worked hard to preserve the old stories and that the stories
themselves were much, much older than that. He said maybe the old
stories had been exaggerated a little over time, and given a lot of
magic, but that once you stripped away these elements in the stories,
you would have a record of real history remembered and passed down
through the centuries as myths."

"Your father was what is sometimes called an annalist, I believe,"
Alex said. "Quite an honorable tradition in the study of ancient times,
trying to prove an historical basis for the old myths."

"Yes, but my Da became obsessed with the idea of proving that
professor wrong, partly I think, because of his lack of schooling-he
was a little sensitive on that score-but also because he really did
think the man was an ijit. My father believed there were successive
invasions of various peoples, many of them probably different groups of
Celts. And he set out to prove it, to track the evidence down."

"So how was he planning to do this?" I asked.

"Well for starters, he set out to find and identify the four great
gifts of the gods," she said.

Michael just looked at her. "He was daft," he said.

"Maybe," she said. "But what about Lia Fail? It exists, doesn't it?"

"You are going to have to enlighten us a little," Alex said. "Who or
what is Lia Fail? And what are the four great gifts of the gods?"

"The stories of the Tuatha de Danaan tell of four fabulous objects
that were supposed to have been brought from the four cities from which
the Tuatha de came," she replied. "From Falias, one of those cities, is
supposed to have come the Stone of Fal. The Stone of Fal was at Tara,
seat of the High Kings of Ireland. If someone was to be that High King,
he had to touch the stone. If it roared, then he was the rightful king.
There really is a stone called Lia Fail at Tara to this day-I mean you
can go there and see it. But most people feel that it is not the
original. The real one was sent over to Scotland for use in a kingship
ceremony there, and was eventually taken to Scone.

"The Stone of Scone!" Alex exclaimed. "That's the so-called
Coronation Stone, isn't it, the one just recently returned from
Westminster to Scotland? The one that was in the base of the British
throne?"

"Exactly," she replied. "It was said that whoever had the Stone
would rule Scotland, or Scotic, actually, to use an earlier term, by
which we mean the Scots/Irish Milesians. That's why it's so important
that it be returned to Scotland. The Scots never did take too well to
the idea that the King or Queen of England was sitting on it.

"Now there are a lot of tales about that stone. Some say that the
Stone in Westminster is not the real Stone of Scone, or Lia Fail, if we
go back to its origins, just a plain old stone, and that the real one
is hidden somewhere in Scotland. Some say it never left Ireland. What
Da would say is that there was a real stone that played an important
part in the choice of the High King of Ireland. He wouldn't go so far
as to say it roared when touched by the chariot wheel of the true king,
but he did believe there was an important stone.