The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends (23 page)

They smiled joyfully at his return.

“Tell me more about your God and his Son.”

And so they taught him. And he came to believe with a passion and they called him Maccaldus, for that was the form of his name in the language of the new religion. So Maccaldus, who had been the
foremost thief of Ulaidh, felt repentance for his past lives and Conindri and Romuil took him to a stream and poured water over his head and confirmed him in the new religion.

That evening, Conindri was cooking a fish that he had caught and he brought it to the table to divide between the three of them. As he cut open the fish, they saw a key in its belly and Mac
Cuill recognised it as the same one with which Sucat had locked the chains about his wrist. When he told Conindri and Romuil, they were astounded.

“Sucat Mac Calphurn is the foremost preacher of our faith, which is why we call him Patricius – father of citizens.”

Conindri immediately unlocked the chains and they fell at Mac Cuill’s feet.

The very next day, Mac Cuill went out into the island of Inis Falga and began to preach the new religion. And he went up to the Lonan stone circle, near Baldrine, where he found the Druids, set
in the ancient ways, about to sacrifice a human child. A stone altar had been heated by fire and it was proposed to throw the child upon it. As the child was being flung forward, Mac Cuill threw a
phial of water that had been blessed by the saints and it landed on the stone before the child and split it asunder. And the child was not harmed.

Straightaway the Druids fled, but Mac Cuill called them back and he also called before him the King of Inis Falga and told them henceforth to worship in the new religion.

One chieftain refused, and this was GilColumb, whose name meant “servant of the dove”. But he was named with irony, for he was no follower of the peaceful path. And this GilColumb
and his three sons desired to kill Mac Cuill, and one night they slunk stealthily to the church which Mac Cuill had built. Mac Cuill and his followers, hearing that his enemies were approaching,
guided his people into the subterranean caverns beneath his church.

With loud shrieks, GilColumb and his three sons, and his followers, burst into the church.

“Where are you departed?” yelled GilColumb in anger, finding no one there.

And Mac Cuill appeared before him with his pastoral staff. GilColumb’s followers stepped back in awe.

“What have you against me, GilColumb? Why have I offended you, that you should attack my sanctuary with slaughter in mind?”

“Are you Mac Cuill, the former thief?” sneered GilColumb, braver than his band of men.

“I am Maccaldus, the bishop of this land,” replied Mac Cuill solemnly. “I am the servant of Christ.”

GilColumb laughed and raised his sword to smite him.

Mac Cuill, however, leant forward and tapped GilColumb
over the heart with his pastoral staff. The impious chieftain uttered an horrendous shriek and then his tongue clove
to his mouth. After six hours, GilColumb died in agony and all those who lived on Inis Falga realised that Mac Cuill was the one chosen to bring them to the new religion.

Therefore, one evening, Manánnan Mac Lir himself appeared before Mac Cuill on the foreshore.

“So it has come to this,” the old god said. “We who were young together on the Isle of Destiny are gods no longer. Bitterness and rebirth have brought you to the human state,
where now you preach a new philosophy. Our journeys through life no longer converge nor even go in parallel direction. The people no longer need the gods of their forefathers and
mothers.”

Mac Cuill was sad. “There is no returning. This is the destiny of the world. No footsteps back.”

Manánnan shook his head. “Perhaps I could have prevented this, had I not blown you to this island, which was my last refuge.”

“But that was written in the book of destiny, Manánnan son of Lir. Even before Danu, the divine waters, first moistened this earth.”

“People no longer believe in me and so I am reduced to a shadow and like a shadow I will be extinguished in the light of the new learning.”

“Your spirit shall abide among the grey seas and the misty mountains of this island, for so long as one person remembers you,” replied Mac Cuill.

“One person?” mused the ocean god. “Where would I find that one?”

“I shall remember you,” replied Mac Cuill softly.

Henceforth, Inis Falga was known as Ellan Vannin, the Island of Manannan Mac Lir, which today is still known by the shortened version of the Isle of Man. Mac Cuill himself was known first as
Maccaldus and then as Maughold and it is as St Maughold that he is still venerated in the Island of the Ocean God.

9 Y Chadee

T
here were two handsome princes, sons of the ageing King of Ellan Vannin, and their names were Eshyn and Ny-Eshyn. Eshyn was the elder of the two.
He was fair and upright like his father. He was also renowned as a brave warrior who was fearless in battle and just in his judgment. All the young women of Ellan Vannin admired Eshyn and many
tried to attract his attention, fluttering their eyelids and blushing as he passed by. But Eshyn was a serious young man and not given to spending time flirting with young women. He believed in
true love; that one day he would meet the woman he would spend the rest of his life with and, at that moment, he would know who it was.

His younger brother, Ny-Eshyn, while just as handsome, was of a weak character. He drank too much, had affairs with many women and gambled frequently. He was also of a jealous disposition. He
was jealous of his elder brother, and his jealousy made him angry and brooding. His jealousy gnawed like a knife twisting in his stomach.

One evening, Ny-Eshyn was returning across the slopes of South Barrule, on whose peak was a castle. At the castle gate stood a wizened old man who had strange eyes, one blue and one green. They
could look east and west and south, but never could they look towards the north.

“
Bannaghtyn,
Ny-Eshyn,” the old man greeted in the language of the island. “
Cre’n-ash ta shiu
?”

“Who are you, who asks me how I am?” returned Ny-Eshyn with discourtesy.

“That is by the by,” replied the old man. “What ails you? I am merely a friend to all who are troubled and who seek joy in this life.”

“I hate my brother,” snapped the prince. “He has everything that makes him happy in life but I have nothing.”

“Is it so?” mused the old man. “There is a proverb in this land –
Cha nee eshyn ta red beg echey ta boght agh eshyn ta geearree ny smoo.
It is not he who has
little that’s poor, but he who desires more.”

Ny-Eshyn scowled in anger. “How dare you quote proverbs at me, little man? I tell you that my life is made miserable by my brother.”

The old man sighed and shrugged. “Well, that is not anything to fret about.”

“Why so?” Ny-Eshyn was much irritated, and might well have struck the old man down, had he not been intrigued by the movements of the man’s strange eyes and he remembered that
it was said that the
ferrishyn,
or evil spirits, had that cast of eye. So he kept his temper in check.

“Because it is a problem that can be solved.” And the old man reached down, for there was a basket at his feet, and picked up the wickerwork. “Here, inside this there is a
snake. All you have to do is put the basket under his bed during the day and, by evening, he will become coarse-featured and ugly and women will turn from him and men will revile him.”

“Will it be so?” demanded Ny-Eshyn eagerly.

“I do not lie,” said the wizened creature firmly.

So Ny-Eshyn took the basket, hearing the snake hissing within it, and went home to his father’s great castle at Doolish.

That night passed and at dawn, Prince Eshyn, who was a great hunter, rose and went out to seek the red deer on the slopes of Slieau Meayll. As soon as he heard his brother depart from the
castle, Ny-Eshyn took his basket and the snake and went to his brother’s room and placed it under the bed.

That evening, a strange apparition appeared at the gates of the castle at Doolish: a bent figure of a man, with coarse grey skin and a protruding nose like the beak of a bird. His eyes
were crossed, his hair matted and he had a permanent dribble on his chin.

The warriors on guard frowned and looked at one another, for they did not recognize him, but they saw that he rode Prince Eshyn’s favourite horse.

“Who are you who rides that horse?” demanded one of the warriors. “Where is our handsome prince who owns the steed?”

The stranger stared at the warrior and called him by name.

“Do you jest?” the ugly one demanded, in a strange grating voice, which the man did not recognize. “I am Prince Eshyn.”

The guard burst out laughing.

“You are mad to think you can trick us. We know our prince too well.”

Then one of the warriors, more reflective than the other, said: “If this ugly horror rides Eshyn’s horse, it can only mean that he must have stolen it. If he has stolen it, it means
that he has worsted Eshyn in a fight. The only way he could do that would be to murder him, for Eshyn is so great a warrior he would not allow his horse to be stolen while he was alive.”

And so they raised an alarm.

Eshyn began to cry out for his father, the king, as he struggled with the palace guards.

“Father! Father! They are attacking your eldest son!”

But the old king came to the battlements and looked down. “I recognise you not, stranger!” He turned back into the castle.

Still Eshyn struggled. “Mother! Mother! They are attacking your eldest son!” cried Eshyn.

The queen came and gazed on him in disgust. “Drive this evil one away and find out what has happened to my dear son, Eshyn!” she ordered.

More guards began to converge on him and so the young prince, in the hideous guise, tugged at the reins of his steed and went galloping away.

He reached a stream and stopped for water to refresh himself after the strange experience at the gates of his own castle and, as he did so, he saw his reflection in the water.

He screamed at what he saw.

Now he knew why he had not been recognized at the castle.

His heart was heavy and he sent his horse, with a slap on the rump, back in the direction of the castle. It was not fitting for someone looking like he did to ride the horse of a prince. He
turned his laggardly footsteps towards the valley that lies through Beinn-y-Phott and Snaefell and, after wandering a day and a night, he came to the deep black lake which lies in Druidale, under
the shadow of the black mountain, Slieau Dhoo.

Here he sat down on a great granite stone and placed his head in his hands. He did not know what had caused his shape to change, nor did he know what he should do.

He heard a sound nearby and looked up.

Along the pathway by the grim dark lake, an old woman was coming along, staggering a little under the weight of a great heavy bundle of sticks which she carried on her crooked back. Every so
often, she paused to gather a handful of sticks which had fallen from the bundle, but each time she did this, more sticks fell out. But she slowly managed to build up the great bundle, which was
apparently so heavy that she was bent double beneath it.

“
Moghrey mie, venainstyr
,” called Eshyn for, although he had troubles, he had always been a polite and sympathetic young man. These words meant: “Good morning, madam. Do
you journey far with that bundle?”

The old woman stopped and pointed up Slieau Dhoo. “My cabin is up there, near the summit of the black mountain.”

It was quite a climb, but Eshyn did not even consider the difficulty. “I will carry the bundle up there for you,” he said and, without another word, he took the great bundle of
sticks from the old woman and slung it on his own back. They started to climb up the steep path and as they did so, Eshyn sighed deeply.

“
Vel shiu ching
? Are you ill?” asked the old woman in concern. “Is it too heavy for you, my son?”

“Not too heavy; the heaviness is in my heart,” replied Eshyn sadly.

“What is it that ails your heart, my son?”

As they climbed, Eshyn told her his story: or, at least, that
part of it which he knew. By the time he had finished it, they had reached the little white stone cottage, with
its face towards the sun and its back to the summit of the hill.

“Put down the sticks and come into my cottage. Rest awhile while I kindle a fire to warm us.”

Eshyn shook his head. “I am a young man, old woman. It is you who should rest, while I kindle the fire.”

He insisted that the old woman sit down while he prepared the fire and she told him, once it was alight, to place a small kettle on the flames and put some mackerel in to cook.

As he did this, she went to the window and gazed at the sky, for it was now cloudless night and the stars were out. She considered the patterns made by the stars carefully. Then she returned
inside and took the fish from the kettle and placed them on the table with bread and newly churned butter.

“Eat and grow strong, young Eshyn,” she told him. “You shall be as comely as you once were and as happy. You will, however, need all your strength. So eat and rest here until
morning, and then I shall tell you how you may accomplish that.”

So Eshyn ate and rested, drowsing fitfully in a corner by the fire.

In the morning the old woman came to him.

“
Vel shiu er chadley dy-mie?
Have you slept well?” she asked him.

“
Cha nee feer vie
. Not very well,” he replied, for he was always a truthful youth.

“Have some tea; it will refresh you. Then you must be gone. You must walk across the hills to South Barrule. At the top of the mountain is a fairy fortress. At the entrance to the
fortress, you will come across a wizened old man, with one eye blue and the other eye green. They are able to look east and west and south but cannot look at the north. He will greet you with these
words: ‘
Bannaghtyn
, Eshyn! What ails you? I am a friend to all who are in trouble and who seek joy in this life.’ You can tell him what ails you. But on no account accept his
advice. Whatever he tells you to do, do the exact opposite. Do you understand?”