The Hound of Ulster Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1. Dectera’s Gift

  2. A Day for Taking Valour

  3. The Bridge of Leaps

  4. The Princess Aifa

  5. Cuchulain’s First Foray

  6. Cuchulain’s Wedding

  7. Bricrieu’s Feast

  8. The Championship of Ireland

  9. Deirdre and the Sons of Usna

  10. The Hosting of Maeve

  11. The Fight at the Ford

  12. The Death of Ferdia

  13. The End of the Cattle Raid

  14. The Coming of Connla

  15. The Witch Daughters of Calatin

  16. The Death of Cuchulain

  17. The Vengeance of Conall the Victorious

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Also from Red Fox Classics

  Copyright

  About the Book

  The boy who takes up the spear and shield of Manhood on this day will become the most renowned of all the warriors of Ireland, men will follow at his call to the world’s end, and his enemies will shudder at the thunder of his chariot wheels.

  So the prophecy went, and as the boy Cuchulain heard it, he went forward to claim the weapons of his manhood. This is the story of how he became the greatest of heroes – the Hound of Ulster.

  For Juliet

  With the Author’s love, and her apologies for a story

  from the wrong side of the Border

  1. Dectera’s Gift

  THIS IS THE story of Cuchulain, the Champion of Ulster, the greatest of all the Heroes of the Red Branch. Listen, now.

  In the great days long past, there was a King of Ulster whose name was Ross the Red, and Maga his Queen was a woman of the Sidhe, the Lordly Ones, whose home is in Tir-Nan-Og, the Land of Youth. And Fiachtna the Giant was their son, and Fiachtna’s son was Conor Mac Nessa, and both of them after Ross were to be Kings of Ulster in their turn. But the time came when Maga was no longer content with Ross the Red, and since no one can hold the Lordly People against their will, they parted, and she became the wife of Cathbad, who, though he had not then a grey hair in his beard, was the wisest of all the Druids in the land. And Ross the Red took a second wife, and the name of that one was Roy—a mortal maiden, this time, for he had had his fill of the Lordly Kind—and the son she bore him was Fergus Mac Roy.

  And Cathbad and Maga had three daughters, Dectera, Elva and Finchoom. And Finchoom’s son was Conall of the Victories; and Elva’s three sons by her husband Usna were Naisi, Ainle and Ardan, and Dectera’s son was no other than Cuchulain himself.

  And these are the names and kindreds that you must remember, for these, with their comrades and henchmen and the sons who came after them were the Heroes of the Red Branch, because they were all of them sprung from Ross the Red, or linked with him through his first Queen.

  One Midsummer Eve when Conor had not long been King, Dectera his kinswoman went down with her fifty maidens to wash their clothes in the stream that ran below the Royal Dūn, at Emain Macha. And when the shadows grew long at evening, and still they had not come carrying their new-washed linen back up the hill, search was made for them beside the ford and under the ancient hazel trees. But not so much as a golden hair of them was to be found.

  For many days Conor and his warriors searched through the length and breadth of Ulster, and far south into Ireland beyond, but all to no avail. ‘They have heard the music of the Silver Branch and gone into the Hollow Hills, into Tir-Nan-Og,’ said Cathbad the Druid. ‘Dectera has gone to her mother’s kind, and taken the others with her like a flock of birds behind their leader.’

  Three years went by, and it was as though Dectera and her maidens had never been; and then on another Midsummer’s Eve, a flock of small bright birds descended on the barley fields about Emain Macha and the little stone-walled plots where the half wild fruit trees grew, and began to destroy the ripening fruit. Word of this was brought to Conor Mac Nessa and it seemed to him that there was sport to be had, as well as the saving of the crops. And so with a band of his household warriors—with Fergus Mac Roy and young Laery the Triumphant and Bricrieu of the Bitter Tongue and others—he took his pouch filled with sling stones, and set out. But try as they would, they could not hit one of the small bright birds among the apple boughs, and the birds for their part only flew a little way and began to feed again. And when the warriors followed them with fresh pebbles in their slings, they fluttered a little farther—and the fluttering of them was like laughter—and so drew the hunters on and on, until at dusk when they could no longer see to sling the polished stones, the King and his companions found themselves near to the fairy mound at Brugh-Na-Boyna.

  ‘It is too far to be going back to Emain Macha tonight,’ said Conor. ‘It is past cowstalling time, and they will have closed the gates and set free the ban dogs and we shall rouse the whole Dūn and bring the women squealing round our ears. We can make a fire and ’twill not harm us to sleep one night fasting.’ And so they made a fire of dry thorn branches and lay down about it, wrapped in their cloaks with their feet to the warmth, while one of their number sat up to keep the blaze going, though indeed ’twas little there was to fear from the wolves at Midsummer.

  But Fergus Mac Roy was restless and could not sleep, so that at last he said to himself, ‘Ach, the moonlight is in my feet that I cannot be still,’ and he drew his legs under him and went off along the banks of the river towards the fairy mound. As he drew towards it, he saw that a little mist lay low about the hillock, snail-silver in the light of the full summer moon; and then it seemed to him that the mist flowered from silver into gold, and that the light came no longer from the moon but from within the mist itself, as though there were a hundred torches blazing at the heart of it. And as he came to a halt, thinking maybe the thing was best not meddled with, a great burst of light opened upon him, and he saw that the gates of the fairy hill stood wide. Indeed it was no hill at all, but a King’s hall greater and more glorious even than the Hall of the High Kings of Ireland at Tara itself; and he moved towards it as though his feet were drawn by the suck of a tide. There were half-seen shapes about him, and half-heard music in his ears more sweet than any harping in any King’s hall of the world of men; and on the shining threshold a man stepped out to meet him, golden and fiercely beautiful, so that it seemed the light shone from himself and not from any torches at all, as one would not need torches with the sun blazing in a clear sky. And Fergus knew that even among the Lordly People only one could shine with such a flame, and that was Lugh of the Long Spear, the Sun Lord himself; and he shielded his eyes under his arm. But when he looked at the woman who had come also to stand in the gateway, his eyes grew cool again, for she was like the shadow behind the sun, as graceful and fine-drawn as the shadow of a wild cherry tree.

  And looking at her, Fergus saw that she was the lost Princess Dectera.

  ‘You are welcome, Fergus Mac Roy,’ said Lugh the Sun Lord, ‘most gladly welcome, tonight of all the nights there are.’

  And Dectera said to him ‘You are welcome as the rain in a dry summer on the orchards of Emain Macha, for my heart has looked of late for one of my own kin to come to me.’

  ‘Not only I, but Conor himself and others of the Red Branch are close at hand, for a flock of birds led us on this way until we were too far from Emain Macha to return this night, and so we made a fire to sleep by, and there they sleep in their cloaks. Give me leave now to go back and rouse them and bring them here, for they will weep for gladness to see Dectera again.’

  Dectera smiled as though at a secret when he spoke of the birds that had led them. But she shook her
head. ‘You have seen me and you know that it is well with me and I am happy. Go back to the camp now, and sleep with the rest.’

  And then it seemed to Fergus that the mist returned, and he found that he was running back towards the camp. He saw the gleam of the watch fire and ran towards it, between the sleeping warriors who startled awake at his coming, until he was beside Conor the King, who had risen to his elbow, flinging back the cloak from his dark head. ‘Is there a wolfpack on your heels then, my Uncle?’ he demanded, dashing the sleep from his eyes.

  And dropping beside him, Fergus told his story, and he was gasping for breath, for he had been running hard. Before all was told, the young King was on his feet, and the rest of the warriors pressing about him, and he chose out several of the men and bade them go swiftly, swiftly to the fairy hill, and bring Dectera back to him with all honour.

  And when the warriors were gone, running silently as they would be on the hunting trail, the rest cast more thorn branches on the fire and sat down on their haunches to wait. In a while and a while the warriors returned, but Dectera was not with them. ‘Ach, you need not tell it. There was nothing there but the hillock in the moonlight, and it with a wisp of ground-mist about its loins,’ Fergus said disgustedly, pulling up tufts of grass and throwing them in the river.

  ‘All was as you saw it,’ said Laery the Triumphant, and then to the King he said, ‘My Lord, we have seen the Lady Dectera, and Himself who is with her. But she bade us to say to you that she is sick, and beg you to forgive her and wait a while; and she bade us say that when the sickness passes from her, she will come, and bring with her a gift for Ulster.’

  Conor’s dark brows drew together, for he was not a patient man, but there was no other thing to be done. And so they waited, gathered about the fire, and from waiting they fell at last, every one of them, into sleep, as though the harp of the Dagda had laid its spell on them.

  In the first green light of dawn, with the ringed plover calling, the warriors awoke, and stared with startled eyes at the thing they found in the midst of them. For there, wrapped in a piece of golden silk within a dappled fawn skin, and mewing for all the world like the ringed plover, lay a new-born man child!

  The Princess Dectera had come and gone again, leaving behind her her promised gift for Ulster.

  Fergus Mac Roy carried the babe in the crook of his shield arm back to Emain Macha, and they gave him to Dectera’s youngest sister Finchoom, who had a child of her own a few months old. And Finchoom nursed the two together. They called him Setenta on his naming-day, and the Plain of Murthemney that runs from Dūn Dealgan southward into Meath was given to him for his inheritance. But it was little enough that Setenta cared for that, sprawling with Conall and the hound puppies about the threshold of the King’s Hall.

  When they were seven summers old, and besides being cousins and foster brothers, were grown to be the closest and staunchest of friends, Setenta and Conall went to the Boys’ House, where the sons of the princes and chieftains of Ulster learned the lessons that would make them warriors when the time came. And there, Setenta found the second of the three friends who were to be dearest to him through all his life. And this was Laeg, son of a Leinster noble killed in a cattle raid, who had been set in Conor’s household for a hostage when he was yet too young to know the meaning of what had befallen him, and had long since forgotten that he was anything but Ulster-born among his own kind. He was a year older than Setenta, a tall boy, red-haired, and freckled as a foxglove; and such a way with horses he had that even at eight years old he had but to whisper in the ear of an angry stallion for the beast to grow gentle as a filly foal.

  One day when Setenta was nearing the end of his time in the Boys’ House, King Conor and his nobles were bidden to a great feast at the Dūn of a certain Cullen who was the greatest swordsmith in all Ulster, and young Setenta was to go with them—for was it not time, said Conor, that the boy learned the ways of courtesy as well as the ways of war? But he forgot the time of day and when the hour came for setting out, he was in the middle of a game of hurley with his companions, and standing, hurley stick in hand at the King’s chariot wheel, he explained, ‘If I come now, we shall lose the game.’

  Conor smiled in the black of his beard. He was a stern man easily moved to anger, but he was fond of this small dark fighting cock of a cousin and allowed him freedoms that he would not have allowed to any other of the Boys’ Band. ‘What’s to be done, then?’

  ‘Let my Lord the King ride on,’ Setenta said, ‘and when the game is over and we have won, I will follow.’

  So the King laughed and rode on with his nobles, and Setenta went back to his companions.

  At dusk, Conor and his warriors reached the Rath of Cullen, and the master smith made them warmly and richly welcome, and brought them into his house-place and feasted them on fresh boar meat and badger’s flesh roasted with wild honey, and fine imported Greek wine in splendid bronze and silver cups of his own forging. Meanwhile his people, not knowing of Setenta’s coming, or else forgetting about it, dragged the night-time barricade of thorn bushes into the gateway, and let loose Cullen’s huge hound, who guarded his master’s house so well and mightily that Cullen, who loved him, was wont to boast that with his dog loose in the forecourt he feared nothing less than the attack of a full war host.

  In the midst of the feasting, with the harp music leaping to the firelit rafters, there rose an appalling uproar in the night outside, a baying and yelling that brought every man to his feet and snatching up his weapons. ‘Here is your war host, by the sound of it!’ Conor said, and ran for the doorway, the lord of the house beside him and the warriors pounding at their heels. Men with torches were running towards the outer gates, where the yelling and snarling had sunk suddenly and horribly silent. And in the ragged glare of the torches, Conor and his warriors saw that the gate pillar was splashed with blood, and the thorn bushes had been thrust aside from the gateway, and in the opening, with the moon-watered darkness of the night behind him, stood Setenta, breathing like a runner after a race, and looking down at the body of the great speckled wolfhound that lay dead at his feet.

  ‘What has happened here?’ Conor demanded.

  The boy looked up at their coming, and said, ‘He would have killed me, so I killed him.’

  And Cullen said harshly, ‘How was it done?’

  And Setenta looked at his hands as though he were seeing them for the first time. ‘I caught him by the throat as he sprang at me, and dashed his life out against the gate pillar.’

  ‘Ach now, that was a deed that few among full-grown warriors could perform.’ Conor beat his fist against his thigh in approval, and there was a roar of praise and laughter from the men about him.

  Only Cullen the Swordsmith stood silent, staring down at the body of the great hound; and all the lines on his face were cut heavy with grief as with one of his own sword blades. And as they looked at him, a silence fell on the rest, so that they heard the night wind and the spluttering of the torches. Setenta broke the stillness, looking slowly up into the man’s face. ‘Give me a whelp of the same breed, Cullen the Swordsmith, and I will train him to be all to you that this one was. And meanwhile, let you lend me a shield and a spear, and I will be your guard-dog and keep your house as well as ever hound could do.’

  Cullen shook his head, and set a hand kindly enough on the boy’s thin shoulder. ‘It is a fine offer, but I can still train my own hounds. Go you back to your own training, for it is in my heart that when the time comes, you will be the guard-hound of all Ulster.’

  ‘And meanwhile,’ said Fergus Mac Roy proudly, for he had never forgotten that it was himself had carried Setenta back to Emain Macha in the crook of his shield arm on the day that he was born, ‘let us call him Cuchulain, the Hound of Cullen, in remembrance of his first battle and the offer he made afterwards!’

  And so they caught the boy up and carried him into the fire-lit hall, shouting his new name after him: ‘Cuchulain! Cuchulain!’

&n
bsp; And Cuchulain he remained, until the day that he went beyond the sunset.

  2. A Day for Taking Valour

  A SHORT WHILE after the slaying of Cullen’s hound, the time came for first Laeg and then Conall to Take Valour, which is to say, to take the weapons of manhood upon them, and bid farewell to the Boys’ House. And Cuchulain was left behind to serve out the last months of his training.

  But ’twas few enough Cuchulain served of those remaining months, for one soft autumn day with the colours of the world all rich and dark as though the bloom of bilberries were on them, he came up from spear practice, and passed close by the thicket of ancient hazels that dropped their nuts into the water above the ford of the stream. And under the hazel trees, Cathbad sat with some of the Boys’ Band about him, propounding to them the laws of their people—for it was his task to teach them such things, together with star wisdom and the art of cutting the Ogham word signs on willow rods. The lesson was over, but as Cuchulain came splashing through the ford, there was laughter and a dappling of eager voices, for the boys, who were all of them near their time for becoming men, were trying to coax him into foretelling to them what days would be most fortunate for Taking Valour, for Cathbad was wise in other things than law and writing.

  ‘I am tired. I have told enough,’ Cathbad said.

  ‘Of law, yes,’ the others chorused, ‘but this is another thing.’ And one of them, Cormac Coilinglass, the second son of the King, leaned forward with his arms across his knees and grinned at him. ‘If you give us a day under good stars for our starting out, shall we not be like to do you the more credit among men, master dear?’

  Cathbad smiled into his long beard that was still streaked with gold, though the hair of his head was white as a swan’s wing; but under his white brows was a frown. ‘Children, children you are, seeking to make the old man prance for you like a juggler with apples and silver cups. This much I will do, and no more. I will tell you what fortune lies upon this day, waiting for any boy who Takes Valour on it,’ and he smoothed a space on the bare earth before him, and shook red and white sand upon it from two horns at his girdle, and began with his long forefinger to trace in the sand the strange curved lines of divination, while Cuchulain his grandson checked and stood watching with his hand on the trunk of the nearest hazel tree. Cathbad was scarcely aware of him, as he stooped frowning over the patterns in the sand, for he never put forth the least part of his power without giving to it his whole self, as though the fate of all Ireland hung upon what he did. He drew more lines and studied them, frowning still, while the boys crowded closer, half of them breathing down his neck, then he brushed all smooth again, and looked up, slowly, pressing his hands across his eyes, as though he would brush away the things that he had seen. ‘The boy who takes up the spear and shield of manhood on this day will become the greatest and most renowned of all the warriors of Ireland, men will follow at his call to the world’s end, and his enemies will shudder at the thunder of his chariot wheels, and the harpers shall sing of him while green Ireland yet rises above the sea; but his flowering-time shall be brief as that of the white bell-bine, opening in the morning and drooping before night. For he shall not live to count one grey hair at his temples . . . I can see no more.’