The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends (12 page)

Fionnghuala smiled gently at the king.

“Return to your palace, mighty king. Dechtine will be yours and even now stands at your palace gates, remorseful and penitent that she made such a demand on you. You will be happy and have
a long reign.”

The king and his bodyguard took to their boat, still in awe and trembling at what they had witnessed.

Not so Cháemmóg who came forward and, children of gods and goddesses or not, he embraced them with love and tenderness.

“What can I do for you, my children?” he asked, for he was not able to change his mode of addressing those he loved so well.

“We grow tired,” said Fionnghuala, “and have but a few moments of life left among us. Now our torment is about to end. You must help us and bless us. While I see your sorrow at
our deaths, we have long outlasted our allotted span for what was ours and our world is no more. It is right that we go, though we are also in sorrow that we should leave you, our trusted
friend.”

Cháemmóg was tearful. “Tell me what I must do?”

“No more than bury us all here, here in this sacred spot. Bury us in the tradition of our people, bury us standing, standing facing one another, as so often we have stood in this
world.”

The holy hermit dug the grave as he was instructed and, as he dug, the children of Lir sang their last song. But gone were their beautiful voices that they had had while they were swans.
However, their cracked and ancient voices made the words more beautiful than any the hermit had ever heard.

“Death is near, our pain nearly ended, stretch out a hand of blessing. Soon we shall sleep, so make our bed comfortable that we may lie with the sound of the gentle waves and whispering
wind in our ears. Place us together, as so often we were placed, four together, facing each other, a loving hand
holding each other in eternal, unbreakable clasp. Death is near,
sleep is now come as a joy to end our sorrow.”

And when the last words of their song were distant whispers on the air, Cháemmóg turned and found them all locked in a last embrace. The tears fell from his eyes like bubbling
waterfalls. And as he bent to them, a strange thing occurred. They were children again. Four lovely young children with golden hair and happy faces. They turned radiantly to him and gazed at him
for a moment with love. Then they were gone and the bodies of the four ancient ones lay dead at his feet.

In accordance with their wishes, Cháemmóg took them and washed their bodies, which is the ritual
tonach
. Then he wrapped their poor corpses in the
racholl
or the
corpse clothes. He placed them in the grave. Fionnghuala was placed at one side with Conn at her right hand and Fiachra at her left and with Aodh standing before her. Their hands were clasped in
unbreakable unity. Then over the bodies he placed the traditional branches of broom.

When this was done, the sorrowing holy hermit raised a
leacht
, a sepulchre monument, and engraved their names upon the stone and sang the lamentation of sorrow which is the
Nuall-guba
.

“My eyelids drop tears and great is my anguish, it is sorrowful for me to be in life after the passing of these souls. Sad is my eye, my heart is withered, since the grave of these souls
was dug.”

It is said, though I cannot vouch for it, that if you still believe in the old gods and goddesses of Éireann, and your boat circles the island of Inis Gluaire on a balmy summer’s
evening, if you listen carefully, you may still hear the beautiful sad music of the children of Lir.

4 The Love of Fand

C
ú Chulainn, the greatest of the champions of Conchobhar Mac Nessa, King of Ulaidh, sat with other members of the Craobh Ríoga, the
warriors of the Royal Branch, bodyguards to the king. It should be explained that the Craobh Ríoga, because of the tired eyesight of an ancient scribe, was mis-transcribed long ago as the
Craobh Ruadha, or Red Branch warriors. We, however, shall forgive the scribe’s mistake and return those ancient warriors to their real appellation.

It was a balmy evening and a summer one. The Royal Branch warriors were idling away the early evening before the trumpet would summon them into the feasting hall.

Cú Chulainn was playing a game of
fidchell
, or wooden wisdom, a board game at which he especially excelled, in one of the rooms of the fortress of the Royal Branch warriors, which
is known as An Eamhain, a place that is now called Navan in Co. Armagh. Outside of the fortress, on the shores of the lake, in front of the fortress, the wives of the warriors were bathing and
resting.

Out of the western sky, a large flock of birds appeared. They circled the lake and landed on it. They were strange birds with feathers of the purest white. None of the women could identify what
type of birds they were, for they had never been seen before in any part of the land of Éireann.

It so happened that Cú Chulainn’s wife, Émer, daughter of Forgall Manach, was at the lakeside. She was engaged in conversation and banter with the wives of the other
warriors.

“Ah, if Cú Chulainn were here, he would catch one of those strange birds as a present for me,” Émer observed.

The other wives, not to be outdone, claimed that their husbands, each of them fine warriors, would catch the birds for them if they were present.

Now it so happened that Laeg Mac Riangabur, the charioteer of Cú Chulainn, was walking by. Stung by the remarks of the other women, Émer asked him to go to her husband and say that
the women of Ulaidh would like him to catch the strange white birds for them.

Cú Chulainn was irritated at being interrupted in the middle of his game of
fidchell
. “Do the women of Ulaidh have nothing better to do than ask me to go chasing birds for
them?” he snapped.

Laeg was uneasy. “It is Émer who asks this of you, Cú Chulainn, and out of love and her pride in you.”

The great warrior was not mollified. “How so?”

“It is so because, being in love with you, she has pride in your ability and boasts of it before the other women. If you deny her, then she will be left only with the blemish of shame on
her.”

Cú Chulainn rose and apologised to his opponent. He did so without enthusiasm, but Laeg’s words had struck a resonance with him. “A fine thing is this that I am asked to do,
to go catching birds for women,” he grumbled.

Still, he turned to Laeg and told him to bring him his weapons and chariot. Laeg came forward with the
Carbad Searrdha
, the scythed wheeled chariot, which had great knives attached to the
axles. Cú Chulainn was the leading champion of Ulaidh, skilled in all athletic forms, deft in the use of sling, javelin and sword and brilliant in the defensive use of his shield. Laeg was
his equal in the use of bow and driving the heavy chariot into battle.

Down to the lake shore thundered the chariot, and along the water’s edge. Using his sling, Cú Chulainn created a current of air which caused the birds to struggle to the edge of the
lake, flapping their wings and, before they could take to the air again, Laeg had seized and bound them. Then Cú Chulainn had Laeg drive him to where the women of Ulaidh
were waiting and he gave each of them one of the strange birds.

Émer was standing a little apart and Cú Chulainn had no bird to give her. He had done this deliberately as a way of punishing her for making him do a deed he was not interested in
doing. But when he saw she was standing, eyes downcast and sorrowful, he began to regret his petulance.

“There is anger on your face,” he said sternly, trying to throw his guilt at her.

“Why should I be angry with you, husband? I asked you to give the birds to the women and you did so. I asked as if it were I who had the power to give them the birds and so it is just that
I am rebuked by you. I did it from pride in you, for you are my husband. Those women all love you and it is with them I have to share you, although no one has any share in me except
yourself.”

Now there was a little bitterness in her voice, for it was true that Cú Chulainn was loved by many women, although he had sought out, courted and married only Émer, because he had
once said that she had the six gifts of womanhood: the gift of beauty; the gifts of sweet speech and of singing; the gift of needlework; the gift of wisdom and the gift of loving only her
husband.

Émer had chosen Cú Chulainn for her husband on her own terms, and he had been made to pass strict tests to prove himself worthy of her. Her love for him was mature and deep and she
knew him well. She accepted that he was pursued by women throughout his life, for he was a handsome and glamorous hero. But now and again she pointed out to Cú Chulainn that his arrogance
was childish: as it was now.

The great warrior blushed with shame before her. He was sorry for his petulance. He climbed down from the chariot and kissed her hands in apology. “The next time any strange birds alight
on this lake, they shall be yours, Émer,” he vowed.

No sooner had he spoken when there came, out of the west, two birds of amazing colours – one had green feathers and the other had crimson. They were more beautiful than any of the strange
white birds that had alighted on the lake. Their wings
moved slowly and majestically as they circled the lake and their cries made sweet music that lulled the other women to
sleep where they stood.

“Those are your birds, Émer,” declared Cú Chulainn without vanity.

He asked Laeg for his sling but Émer reached forward and laid a hand on his arm.

“I am afraid, husband. There is something curious about those birds. Something that bodes ill for those who oppose them. Let them proceed in peace.”

“I swore that they would be yours, Émer.” So saying, Cú Chulainn aimed his sling and let loose. For the first time since he had taken up the profession of arms, his
cast missed. He stared in astonishment.

Even Laeg was amazed. “That is a strange thing. You have never missed a cast before,” observed the charioteer.

Annoyed, Cú Chulainn made another cast and yet another. Each time he missed and the strange birds circled lazily above, crying their weird song. In anger, he took up his spears and cast
them. They all missed. Then the birds flew off.

A rage descended on him, almost akin to his battle-rage, and he leapt into the chariot, without waiting for Laeg and whipped up the horses, heeding neither the cries of either Émer nor
Laeg. Away he went after the westward-flying birds. How long he followed them, he did not know, for he lost all sense of time. Finally, he came to a great lake and he saw the birds alight on a
rocky outcrop and disappear. He searched all around the lake but there was no sign of them

It was then he realised how exhausted he was. So he lay down by his chariot, his back against an ancient pillar stone, and a weary sleep came over him. As he lay in a semi-dreaming state, he saw
two women approaching him from the direction of the lake. One wore a green cloak and the other a crimson cloak. The one in the green cloak carried a rod of rowan and, laughing, she cried:
“Unkind you were to cast things at us. This for that.” And she beat him with the rod of rowan. When she finished, the one in the crimson cloak also beat him. Each time the rod touched
him, the strength
and vigour went out of his body. Then they returned back to the lake.

The next morning, Laeg and the warriors of the Craobh Ríoga came across him, stretched out by his chariot. They had been hunting for him since dawn for, when he had not returned, a great
search had been made for him. They could not rouse him from his semi-sleep.

“We will take him back to Émer,” Laeg suggested. “She will know what to do.”

“But Émer has already departed for Cú Chulainn’s fortress at Dún Dealgan, thinking that he might have gone there,” replied one of the warriors.

Then Cú Chulainn began to babble and, in his fever, he told them to take him to the Speckled Hall of An Emhain and send for Eithne Inguba to nurse him.

Now his comrades were shocked for Cú Chulainn, before he had married Émer, had had a long relationship with Eithne, who loved him still. Some of his comrades suspected that Eithne
might still be his mistress. They wondered what they should do. But his fever and babbling grew worse and so they decided to appease him. They took him to the Speckled Hall, where the warriors kept
their most valuable treasures, and there they laid him out on a bed and put his weapons around him.

And Eithne Inguba was called for. Though she knew many helping remedies, she could do nothing for him. He lay in a strange wasting sickness, growing weaker and weaker, until they began to fear
for his life.

One morning, a tall warrior of astoundingly commanding appearance came to the Speckled Hall and demanded to be taken to Cú Chulainn’s sickbed.

Laeg demanded to know who he was.

“I am Aonghus, son of Aedh Abrat.”

So haughty was his manner that Laeg took him for a foreign prince and they let him in. He went and knelt at the sick warrior’s side and he began to intone a strange song which no one
understood. Cú Chulainn heard the words, though he had no understanding of them.

Then, to everyone’s astonishment, he simply vanished. They asked what the song could mean. Whatever it meant,
Cú Chulainn grew no better and
yet grew no worse. Eithne continued with every means of healing at her disposal, but nothing changed Cú Chulainn’s wasting sickness.

“There is one thing we might try,” Eithne suggested.

“What is that?” demanded Laeg,

“Let us take him back to the pillar stone where this sickness began. It might change the course of this illness.”

Laeg felt guilty for, in all this time, no one had been sent to Dún Dealgan to fetch Émer nor inform her of her husband’s illness. But he thought that Eithne might have the
right idea and Cú Chulainn, on his sickbed, was placed in his chariot, and he drove it to the spot where they had discovered him and set him against the pillar stone.