The High Deeds of Finn MacCool Read online

  And on the other side the war host was drawing up in three parts, and in the centre the King of Munster commanded all the fighting-strength of his province, while the Fianna of Clan Bascna and such as had joined them were drawn up on the wings. Osca commanded the left wing, and the leader of the right (the post which in all battles carries the most of honour and of danger) was Finn Mac Cool himself.

  The Fian Captain had put on his whole splendour of war gear; a silk shirt next his skin, and over it a battle shirt of many layers of linen waxed together, and over that his tunic of fine-meshed ringmail, and over that his gold-bordered belly-armour. Round his waist, a belt clasped with golden dragon heads; his sword hung at his side, his blue-bladed Lochlan war spear was in his hand; on his shoulder his round shield covered with green leather, its boss enriched with flowers of gold and silver and bronze. On his head, his war-cap of gilded bronze set about the brow with mountain gems that sparked back yellow-tawny light in the early rays of the sun. And around him the Clan Bascna stood close – shoulder to shoulder and shield to shield under their bright-tipped spears.

  The war horns sounded, and the two war hosts rushed upon each other. As they drew close together, the throwing-spears began to hum to and fro, and the moor of Gavra shook beneath their running feet, and from both sides the war cries and the Dord Fian rose like the surf of a mighty sea. And when they came together, the crash of their meeting rang through the Five Provinces of Erin and echoed back from the cold outer circle of the sky.

  Then many a spear was broken, and many a bright blade shattered into crimsoned shards, and many a shield and war-cap hacked in two, and many a champion cut down into his own blood, and many a dead face turned towards the sky. And the young heather grew purple-red as though it were in flower a month before its time.

  Osca was the spearhead of the attack that day, and wherever he turned his spear it seemed that a hundred warriors fell before him, opening a broad path for his following, into the boiling heart of the battle.

  And so he came at last, with his wounds blazing red upon him, to where Cairbri fought at the head of his household warriors. Cairbri leapt to meet him, and there among all the turmoil of the battle, they fought as though they had been alone in all the sunny uplands of Gavra. Again and again they wounded each other sore, but neither felt the sting of wounds that would have slain lesser men three times over, until at last Osca got in a blow that entered Cairbri’s body where the upper and lower plates of his belly armour came together, and drove out again through the small of his back. But as the High King fell, his falling twisted the spear from Osca’s grasp, and from the ground he thrust up at him, so that the spear entered below his guard and pierced upward from his belly into his breast. The blood came into his mouth, and he pitched forward across the High King’s body, with the pains of death already upon him.

  Then Cairbri’s household warriors charged forward to get possession of their lord’s body, and the champion’s who had slain him. But those who followed Osca did the same and after sharp and bitter struggle they brought the young champion off, with still a breath of life in him, and bore him back to where Finn stood on a little hillock, ordering the battle, and laid him at the Fian Captain’s feet.

  And Osca opened his eyes one last time, and said, ‘I have slain Cairbri for you.’

  ‘I would that you had left him for my slaying, and for me to get my death from him, instead of you,’ said Finn, and for the second time in his life, he wept.

  ‘Do not be doing that for me,’ Osca said, ‘for if it were you lying there, and I standing over you, do you think it’s one tear I’d be weeping for you?’

  ‘I know well enough that you would not, for Dearmid O’Dyna stands between us even now,’ said Finn. ‘But as for me, I will weep for whom I choose to weep for!’

  And with the thing part in jest and part in sorrow between them, Osca died. And there was not a palm’s breadth of his body without a wound on it.

  ‘That was a hero’s death,’ said Finn.

  And the battle frenzy woke in him – the battle fury that all men, himself among them, had thought that he was too old to know again – and he plunged forward into the boil of battle, with his closest sword companions storming at his heels. And his sword was a two-edged lightning clearing a path for him wherever he turned his face, and the hero light blazed upon his brow, so that no warrior could withstand him, and the dead fell in tangled heaps about him; and he thrust over them and through them like a young bull through standing barley. But as he went, one after another of the men behind him fell, Dering and Keelta and Coil Croda and Fincel and Ligan Lummina until he was raging alone through the enemy war host. And Fer-li the son of Fer-tai, saw him with no friend to guard his back, and made at him with drawn sword, for both their spears were gone long since; and so they fought until both were sore wounded. But at the last Finn swung up his sword for a mighty blow, and struck Fer-li’s head from his shoulders so that it went rolling and bouncing away under the feet of the battle, and Finn Mac Cool had the victory in that fight.

  But after, Fer-tai came hurling himself upon him to avenge his son.

  ‘Great deeds, Finn!’ he shouted. ‘Great deeds to be slaying a boy!’

  ‘Not so much a boy. And if you felt him so young and helpless, why did you not come before?’ Finn mocked him.

  ‘I had hoped that he would finish the slaying. I had rather that he had the pride and the honour of it!’

  So they fought across Fer-li’s headless body, knee to knee and shield to shield, and over their shield and under their armour, the blood ran down. And at last Finn slew the father as he had slain the son.

  And as he stood over the bodies, panting and far spent, and half blind with blood, the five sons of Urgriu came upon him in a circle, and Finn turned about and saw them all round him, closing in with spears raised to strike; and he knew that the end was come. He let his shield that could not face five ways at once drop to his feet, and stood straight and unmoving as a pillar-stone.

  And the five spears came at him, making five great wounds that put out the light of the sun . . .

  15

  The Return of Oisĩn

  In the Valley of the Thrushes, not far from where Dublin stands today, a crowd of men were trying to shift a great boulder from their tilled land, the village headman directing their efforts. The stone had been there as long as any of them could remember, or their grandfathers before them, and always they had grumbled at it because it got in the way of the ploughing. But though one or two half-hearted attempts had been made to shift it, it still lay half embedded in the hill side, where it always had lain.

  Now at last, they were really set upon getting rid of the thing, and every man in the village had gathered to lend his strength to the task.

  But it seemed that their strength was all too little, for there they were heaving and straining and grunting and hauling, their faces crimson and the sweat running off them, and the great boulder not moving so much as a finger’s breadth out of its bed.

  And as they strained and struggled – and they getting nearer each moment to giving up – they saw riding towards them a horseman such as none of them had ever set eyes on before, save maybe in some glorious dream. Taller and mightier than any man of this world he was, and riding a foam-white stallion as far beyond mortal horses as he was beyond mortal men. His eyes were strangely dark, his fair hair like a sunburst about his head. A mantle of saffron silk flowed back from brooches of yellow gold that clasped it at his shoulders, and at his side hung a great golden-hilted sword.

  ‘It is one of the Fairy Kind!’ said an aged villager, making the sign of the horns with the first two fingers of his left hand.

  ‘It is an archangel out of heaven!’ said a young one, and made the sign of the Cross.

  The splendid being, man or fairy or angel, reined in his horse, and sat looking down at them with a puzzled pity on his face. ‘You wanted this shifting?’ he said.

  The headman drew nearer, greatly d
aring. ‘We did so, but it seems ’tis beyond our strength. Would you be lending us the power of your arm, now?’

  ‘Surely,’ said the rider, and stooping from the saddle, set his hand under the boulder and gave a mighty heave. The boulder came out of the ground and went rolling over and over down the hillside like a shinty ball, and the watching villagers gave a great shout of wonder and admiration. But next moment their shouts turned to fearful and wondering dismay.

  For as he heaved at the boulder the rider’s saddle girth had burst, so that he fell headlong to the ground. The moment the white stallion felt himself free, he neighed three times and set off at a tearing gallop towards the coast, and as he went, he seemed not merely to grow small with distance, but to lose shape and substance and fade into the summer air like a wisp of wood-smoke.

  And there on the ground, where the splendid stranger had fallen, lay an old, old man, huge still, but with thin white beard and milky half-blind eyes, his silken mantle a patched and tattered cloack of coarsest homespun, his golden-hilted sword a rough ash stick such as a blind old beggar might use to support him and feel his way about the world. He half raised himself and peered about, then with a wild despairing cry, stretched all his length again burying his head in his arms.

  In a little, seeing that nothing terrible seemed to have happened to any of themselves, some of the bolder of the villagers came closer and lifted him up and asked him who he was.

  ‘I am Oisĩn the son of Finn Mac Cool,’ said the old man.

  Then the villagers looked at each other, and the headman said, ‘If you mean who I think you mean, then you’re as crazy as we must have been just now to be taking you for whatever it was we took you for.’

  ‘It was the sun in our eyes,’ said another man.

  And they asked the old man a second time who he was.

  ‘Why do you ask again, when I have already told you? I am Oisĩn the son of Finn Mac Cool, Captain of the Fianna of Erin.’

  ‘It is the sun on that bald head of yours,’ said the headman, kindly enough. ‘Finn Mac Cool and his heroes we have heard of, yes, but they have been dead these three hundred years.’

  Then the old man was silent a long while, his face bowed into his hands. At last he said, ‘How did they die?’

  ‘At the Battle of Gavra, not so far from here at all. There is a green mound up there beside the battleground. I was hearing once it was the grave of one of them, called Osca. A great battle it was, and they do say that there were none but boys and old men left in Erin when the fighting was done.’

  ‘But Oisĩn did not die then,’ another put in. ‘No man knows the death of Oisĩn, but the harpers still sing the songs he made.’

  ‘But now Priest Patrick has come into Erin, and told us of the one true God, and Christ His Son, and the old days are done with, and we listen to them only as men listen to old tales that are half forgotten.’

  The old man seemed half-dazed, like one that has taken a blow between the eyes. Only he cried out once, harshly and near to choking, ‘Strong and without mercy is your new God! And He has much to answer for if He has slain the memory of Finn and Osca!’

  Then the people were angry and cried ‘Sacrilege!’ and some of them picked up the small surface stones of the field to throw at the old man. But the headman bade them let him be until Priest Patrick had seen him and told them what they should do.

  So they took him to the old fortress of Drum Derg, where Patrick had at that time made his living place.

  And Patrick listened to their account of how he had come to them, and how, with the sun in their eyes they had mistaken him for a young man and asked his aid in moving the great stone from their tilled land, and of what had happened after.

  And Patrick was kind to the huge half-blind old beggar, and gave him a place for sleeping and a place for sitting by the fire, among his own Christian brotherhood.

  And often the priest of the new God, and the old man who had been Oisĩn would talk together. And Oisĩn told wonderful stories – almost all the stories that are in this book and many more beside – of Finn and the Fianna and the High and Far-off Days, which Patrick bade one of his scribes to write down on pages of fair white sheepskin, lest they should be forgotten.

  As time went by, Patrick came to believe that the old man was indeed Oisĩn the son of Finn Mac Cool, and one day he said to him, ‘It is upward of three hundred years since Finn and Osca and the flower of the Fianna died at Gavra. Tell me then, how is it that you have lived so long beyond your day and the days of your companions?’

  So Oisĩn told him this last story: the story of how he had ridden hunting with the Fianna one summer morning among the lakes of Killarney, and how the Princess Niamh of the Golden Hair had come out of the West, and asked him to return to Tyr-na-nOg with her. And how he had taken leave of Finn and Osca and the rest, and mounted behind her on her white horse, and how they had headed westward again until they came to the sea, and headed westward still, leaving the companions of the Fianna behind them on the shore.

  And when he reached that point in his story, Oisĩn buried his face in his hands and seemed to forget.

  Then, to rouse him, and because he was a man of curiosity and interest in all things, Patrick said, ‘Success and benediction! Tell me what happened after that.’

  And Oisĩn raised his head again, and staring with half-blind eyes into the heart of the fire, as though he saw there all things happening again, he went on with his story.

  ‘The white horse galloped across the waves as lightly as he had done across the green hills of Erin, and the wind overtook the waves, and we overtook the wind, and presently we passed into a golden haze through which there loomed half-seen islands with cities on their heights and palaces among leafy gardens. Once a fallow doe fled past us, chased by a milk-white hound with one blood-red ear; and once a maiden fled by on a bay horse, and she carrying a golden apple in her hand, and close behind her in hot pursuit, a young man on a white steed, a purple and crimson cloak flying from his shoulders, and a great sword naked in his hand.

  ‘But the sky began to darken overhead, and the wind rose and began to blow in great gusts that roused the waves to fury and sent the spindrift flying like white birds over our heads, and the lightning leapt between the dark sky and darker sea, while the thunder boomed and crashed all about us. Yet still the white horse sped on, unafraid, as lightly and sweetly as over the summer seas that we had traversed before. And presently the wind died and the darkness rolled away and sunshine touched the racing seas with gold. And ahead of us, under the spreading lake of blue sky, lay the fairest land that ever I had seen. Green plains and distant hills were all bathed in a honey-wash of sunlight that flashed and sparkled from the lakes and streams that met every turn of the eye, and changed to gold the white walls of the beautiful palace which stood close beside the shore. Flowers were everywhere, and butterflies like dancing flames upon the air, and as soon as I saw it, I knew that this could be no place but Tyr-na-nOg, the Land of Youth.

  ‘The white horse skimmed the waves towards the shore, and on the white sand we dismounted, and Niamh turned to me, most sweetly holding out her hands, and said, “This is my own land. Everything I promised, you shall find here, and above all and before all, the love of Niamh of the Golden Hair.”

  ‘Then there came towards us from the palace a troop of warriors, heroes and champions all, holding their shields reversed in token to me that they came in peace. And after them a gay and beautiful company led by the King of the land himself, in a robe of yellow silk, a golden crown blazing like the midsummer sun upon his head. And behind him came the Queen, most fair to see, and with a hundred maidens clustered all about her.

  ‘They kissed their daughter joyfully and tenderly, and the King took my hand in his saying, “A hundred thousand welcomes, brave Oisĩn.” Then turning with me to face all the host, he said, “This is Oisĩn, from the far-off land of Erin, he who is to be husband of Niamh of the Golden Hair. Bid him welcome, as I do.”


  ‘Then all the hosts, nobles and warriors and maidens alike bade me welcome. And all together, Niamh and myself walking hand in hand in their midst, we went up to the palace, where a great feast was prepared.

  ‘For ten days and nights we feasted, while the harpers made music sweeter than any heard in the world of men. I, Oisĩn, say that, I who was a harper among harpers of the world of men, in my time – and little birds as brightly coloured as flowers flew and fluttered about the banquet-house. And on the tenth day, Niamh and I were wed.

  ‘I lived in the Land of Youth three years – I thought it was three years – and I was happy as never man was happy before. But as the third year drew to a close, I began to think more and more of my father and my son, and of all the companions of my youth. Sometimes as we rode hunting, I would fancy that I heard the Fian hunting horn echoing through the woods, and think I recognized the deep baying of Brain and Skolawn among the belling of the milk-white Danann hounds. I began to fall into waking dreams, thinking how they would be hunting the woods of Slieve Bloom, of how the heroes would be telling old stories about the fire, in Almu of the White Walls, until it came to this – that Niamh asked me if I no longer loved her. I told her that she was the very life of my heart, and that I was happy as ever I had been in the Land of Youth, but the restlessness was on me, and I longed to see my father and my friends once more.

  ‘Then Niamh kissed me and clung to me, and tried to turn my thoughts elsewhere. But still I half-heard the Fian hunting horn echoing through my dreams at night, and at last I begged leave of her and of the King her father, to visit my own land once more.

  ‘The King gave me leave, though unwillingly, and Niamh said, “It’s not that I can be holding you while your heart draws you back to Erin, so I give you my leave also, though there’s a shadow on my mind, and I fear that I shall never see you again.”