The High Deeds of Finn MacCool Read online

  There was Ligan Lumina, Ligan the Leaper, who could overtake the west wind, and leap across Tara from side to side when the lightness of heart was on him; and Fergus Finvel, who was among the wisest of Finn’s councillors; and there was Dering, son of Dobar O’Bascna, who could tell by shutting his eyes and looking into the darkness at the back of his head what things were happening at a distance or would happen at a future time.

  There was Dearmid O’Dyna, who was brave and gentle and so fair to look upon that few women could look and not fall in love with him.

  And there were the few old warriors from the Connacht woods and their young bodyguard, who came with the Treasure Bag of the Fianna. The old warriors were past their fighting days, but they sat beside the fire at Almu in winter and in the sun before the hall door in summer and plagued the young ones with their counsel.

  And in the later days, when Finn himself was growing old, there was Osca, Oisĩn’s son, the bravest of the brave, who seemed born and bred for fighting and for nothing else, but a loyal and loving friend to one man, and that man Dearmid O’Dyna. For Dearmid’s sake, there came bad blood between himself and Finn in the last years of all; yet another of the things told of Finn was that he wept only twice in all his life, and once was for the death of Bran, his favourite hound, and once was for the death of Osca.

  These then, were the greatest and most famous of the champions who followed Finn Mac Cool, but there were many and many more, whose names have been forgotten, for indeed the Fianna of Erin was more than three thousand strong. And scarce a day went by that a man did not come seeking to join it.

  Strange men, some of them, with strange stories at their backs, such as the three young warriors with the great hound. The hound had this power, that by breathing on water he could change it into wine or mead, whichever was demanded, and his three masters made the condition, on joining the Fianna, that they should always sleep apart from the rest of the camp, and when Finn enquired why this might be, the leader among them explained, ‘Every night, one of us three must die, and the other two must watch beside him till he returns to life at sunrise. Therefore we would be undisturbed in our watching.’

  It was not easy to join the Fianna, and many tried and failed, for Finn ruled that no man should become one of the proud brotherhood without passing many tests. A warrior must be skilful as well as brave, and to prove his skill, the young man who wished to join their number must first, with only a shield and a hazel rod, defend himself against nine men posted all around him while standing in a hole in the ground, so that he could not move from the hips down. If one of the spears they cast at him so much as grazed his skin or drew one drop of blood, he was not taken. Then his hair was plaited into a score of braids, and he was hunted through the woods by others of the Fianna; and if he was wounded or run down, if his spear trembled in his hand, or a single strand of hair broke loose from its braiding, or if a dry twig cracked under his running foot, he was not taken. Then he must leap over a branch set at his own height above the ground, and run under another set level with his knee, and still running he must pull a thorn out of his foot without slackening speed. If he passed all these tests, he must still know the Twelve Books of Poetry, and be able to recite long passages from them; and he must have by heart a score or more of the ancient tales in which was hidden the secret lore and history of Erin. And if he could do all these things, he was taken.

  Then Finn would bind him by oath never to take a dowry with a wife, never to take another man’s cattle by raiders’ right, unless in vengeance for a wrong, never to refuse help to any man, and never, however hard pressed, to fall back in combat before less than nine warriors.

  And then at last the newcomer would swear fealty to the High King of Erin, and to Finn Mac Cool his Captain. And after that he took his place among the Fianna.

  And so it was that in the time of Finn, the Fianna came to its full greatness such as it had never had before. And with the death of Finn its greatness passed away.

  4

  Finn and the Young Hero’s Children

  This story and the one that follows it tell how Finn Mac Cool came by the two hounds that were his favourites among all his hunting dogs, and it starts in this way.

  Finn and some of his companions were out hunting among the seaward hills of Argyll. In those days Argyll was close kin to Erin and many of the great chiefs hunted on both sides of the water. They had killed, and were resting in the warm honey-smelling heather that crept right down to the rocky shore where the little waves of fine weather came in from the West, to cream upon the gull-grey shingle. And as they sprawled at their ease, Goll Mac Morna, whose one eye was better than most men’s two, said to them suddenly, ‘Look there!’ And when they looked where his finger pointed out to sea, they saw a dark fleck on the distant brightness of the water, that became a nutshell boat, that became at last a fine war-galley pulling in to shore.

  The men with Finn caught up their hunting spears at the sight. But Finn said, ‘Ach now, let you wait! Every stranger is not an enemy, and there are no war shields hung along the side of the galley.’

  The boat grounded on the shingle, and the tall man at the steering oar sprang overboard, and leaving the rowers to run her further up the beach, he turned his face to the land, and came striding up through the salt-burned heather to where Finn and his companions stood waiting for his coming.

  He was tall and finely dressed, with strings of coral and twisted silver about his neck, but his eyes under his golden brows were dark with trouble as they moved from one to another of the Fian hunters until they found and rested upon Finn.

  ‘You are Finn Mac Cool, the Lord of the Fianna?’ he said.

  ‘I am so,’ said Finn. ‘What is it that brings you seeking me?’

  ‘I come asking for your help to save my child, for without it, I shall lose this small one as I have lost two sons before.’

  ‘And how did this grief come upon you? And what thing can I be doing about it?’

  ‘As to both these questions, they can wait. Believe only – for it is true – that you and only you can save this third child for me and my wife.’

  ‘And how if I refuse to go on a blind errand?’ Finn said.

  ‘Then I lay this geise upon you, that before you eat or drink or sleep, you follow me,’ said the stranger. And turning, he strode away down to the shore.

  His crew saw him coming, and before he reached it they had run the war-boat down into the shallows once more. He sprang in, the rowers after him; they bent to their oars and the galley drew away from the shore, becoming first a nut-shell boat, then a splinter of darkness far out on the bright water, then gone as though it had never been.

  And Finn turned from looking after it and said, ‘Since I may neither eat nor drink nor sleep until I follow, it is in my mind that now I had best be following.’

  ‘We will come with you,’ said his companions, but Finn refused and bade them carry the kill back to the hunting camp, and he went down to the shore alone.

  Among the rocks and the spray-wet shingle he met seven men, who might almost have been waiting for him. ‘Greetings to you, Finn Mac Cool,’ said the first. ‘The sun and the moon on your path. Is there a service that we can be doing you?’

  ‘Greetings to you,’ said Finn Mac Cool. ‘What thing can you do best in all the world?’

  ‘I am a shipwright,’ said the man.

  ‘How good a shipwright are you?’

  ‘With three strokes of my axe I can fell the alder tree that grows yonder where the stream comes down, and cut it into planks and build a ship of them.’

  ‘That is a good skill,’ said Finn, and he turned to the second man. ‘What thing can you do best in all the world?’

  ‘I am a tracker,’ said the man. ‘I can track the wild-duck over the nine waves in nine days.’

  ‘And you?’ said Finn to the third man. ‘What thing can you do best?’

  ‘I am a gripper. When I grip I never let go until my arms tear their ro
ots out of my shoulders as the thing I have in my grip comes to me.’

  ‘And what is your skill?’ said Finn to the fourth man.

  ‘I am a climber. I can climb a single thread of silk whose other end is fastened to the third star of Orion’s Belt.’

  ‘And yours?’ said Finn to the fifth man.

  ‘I am a thief. I can steal a heron’s egg from the nest while the mother bird stands by and watches.’

  ‘And yours?’ said Finn to the sixth man.

  ‘I am a listener. I can hear what people whisper to each other, lip to ear, at the other end of the world.’

  ‘And yours?’ said Finn Mac Cool to the seventh man, the last man of all.

  ‘I am a marksman. I can pierce an egg thrown into the sky as far as the strongest bow can send an arrow.’

  ‘Then indeed you can be of service to me,’ said Finn Mac Cool, and gave each man his orders.

  So the Shipwright felled the alder tree and cut it into planks and built a ship, with three blows of his axe. And they ran it down into the shallows, and Finn took the steering oar, for that was always the place of the leader. And the Tracker went and stood in the bow to guide them in the wake of the other vessel that nobody else could see or smell. And the rest pulled at the oars, and helped by the square sail they sped through the water with the speed of one of Manannan the Sea God’s white-maned horses.

  And at sunset they came to land.

  They ran their ship up on to the shingle, where the stranger-chief’s war-boat already lay at rest, and made towards the place, far up the glen that opened to that part of the shore, where they could see hearth smoke rising among the hazel and alder woods.

  They came to a fine house in a clearing, with a level green all about it, and out strode the Young Hero to greet them, and flung his arms about Finn’s shoulders.

  ‘So you are come!’

  ‘I was hungry and thirsty, also presently I shall wish to sleep,’ said Finn, with the laughter hooking up the corners of his mouth.

  ‘Eat and drink now,’ said the Young Hero. ‘Sleep must wait a while.’

  And with his arm still across Finn’s shoulders, he led them into his hall, and sat them down to the noble supper which his people brought in on chargers as broad as so many war shields and set before them. And while they ate roast boar and salmon, and drank heather-tasting yellow mead, he told Finn why he had brought him there.

  ‘Seven years ago, I paid the bride-price for a maiden who my heart sang to, and brought her home from her father’s hearth to mine. A year later to the day, she bore me a son, and I thought myself the most happy man on earth, until that same night a great hand came down through the chimney-hole, and snatched the babe from his mother’s side. Three years ago this very night, my wife bore me another son, but again the hand came down through the chimney-hole, a great black hand gnarled like a tree root, and snatched that babe from us also. And now tonight my wife lies in the women’s quarters, with her time come to bear a third. That is the reason that I came seeking your aid, and laid you under geise to follow me before you should eat or drink or sleep.’

  ‘This is an ill story,’ said Finn, ‘but if it can be done, I and my men will surely save the third babe for you. Take me now to the women’s quarters, and let my men sleep close outside.’

  So the Young Hero led them to the women’s quarters behind the hall, where his wife lay under a coverlid of fine embroidered crimson cloth, with all the women of the household busy about her.

  And Finn went in and sat himself down by the hearth to watch, while his men lay close outside. And whenever he felt sleep drawing near, he drove his hand against the sharp edge of the iron bar from which the cauldron hung, and so kept wakeful with his wits about him.

  At midnight the child was born, and hardly had the women helpers cried out that it was a son, than a great black hand, gnarled as a tree root, came down through the chimney-hole, and reached out to snatch the tiny squalling thing.

  Then Finn called to the Gripper, and the Gripper seized hold of the hand and wrestled with it. He was shaken to and fro as a rat is shaken by a dog, but his grip never slackened, until a howl of rage and agony burst upon them from overhead, and down through the chimney-hole crashed the great black arm, torn out by the roots from its owner’s shoulder. But quick as the strike of a snake, the other hand came down after it and snatched up the babe and was gone.

  Grief and wailing rose in the Young Hero’s house, and all his people looked at Finn as men look on one who has failed them.

  Then Finn swore a great oath. ‘Before dawn myself and my men will be on the trail of this hand, and if we do not bring your son safe back to you, may none of us ever return to our own hearths again!’

  They went down to the shore once more, and ran their ship down into the shallows and sprang on board. And once again Finn went to the stern and took the steering oar, and the Tracker went to the bow and stood there sniffing like a hound, and said, ‘This way, and no other, the track runs through the water.’

  And Finn steered as the Tracker bade him.

  All that day they followed the wave-trail as the Tracker sniffed it out, and just at sunset they saw far ahead of them a dark speck on the water that was too small for an island and too large for a gull. As they drew nearer, they saw by the last rays of the sun and the first rays of the moon that it was a tower rising sheer out of the water, and the roof of it shining darkly silver over all.

  They rowed towards it until the galley touched against the walls. Then while the others rested on their oars, the Climber set one foot on the gunwale and the other on the wall of the tower, and walked up it as though he had been a fly.

  In a while he came back, and dropped into the waiting boat.

  ‘Well?’ said Finn.

  ‘Well enough,’ said the Climber. ‘The roof of this tower is made of eelskins on which a man must be slipping and sliding at every step. Otherwise I had been back sooner.’

  ‘You are back now,’ said Finn. ‘What word do you bring with you?’

  ‘I reached the smoke-hole in the crest of the roof, and looked down through it, and below me I saw the giant lying on his bed with a silk coverlid over him and a satin sheet under him, his left shoulder swathed in bloody linen, but the babe asleep in his outstretched right hand. On the floor of the chamber two young boys were playing shinty with golden sticks and a silver ball, and beside the hearth a wolfhound bitch lay suckling two pups, one grey and one brindled.’

  ‘Well, indeed,’ said Finn. ‘Now it is the turn of the Thief. But you must go up again, carrying him on your back, for no one save yourself could climb these sheer walls and a roof as slippery as moonshine.’

  So the Climber went up again, carrying the Thief on his back, and it was more than once they went, and brought away everything that was in the chamber; the boys with their golden shiny sticks and silver ball, the wolfhound pups from their mother’s flank, the silk coverlid and even the satin sheet on which the giant lay and the new-born babe from the hollow of his right hand. Everything except the wolfhound bitch and the giant still sleeping on his stripped bed.

  Finn wrapped the babe in the coverlid, and laid him in the hollow of the ship, with the hound pups on either side for warmth; and the rowers bent to their oars; and so they drew off from the giant’s tower, making all speed on their homeward way.

  Now the Listener had stationed himself in the stern, beside Finn at the steering oar, and they had not gone far when he said, ‘I hear the gaint waking, for he is cold without his bedclothes. He is looking for the babe and the other things, but chiefly he is looking for the babe; and he is angry. He is very angry. Now he is sending the wolfhound after us. Row as hard as ever you can, for she too is angry!’

  The rowers bent to their oars with redoubled effort, and the ship leapt through the water like a sea-swallow that outruns the waves, but before long they saw the wolfhound coming after them, swimming so fast that red sparks sprang from her muzzle and flanks, and streamed away in her
wake.

  ‘If she so much as brushes alongside us she’ll set the planking alight,’ said Finn. ‘Throw out one of the pups, and maybe she will be turning aside to save the creature and take it back.’

  So they flung overboard the grey pup, and sure enough the mother lost all interest in the boat, and seizing the floundering puppy by the scruff of its neck, she turned about and swam back the way she had come, growing smaller and smaller until she disappeared into the distance and the first light of morning.

  Finn’s men rowed till their hearts were like to burst, but after a while the Listener, standing beside Finn in the stern, said, ‘The hound bitch has got back to the tower. The giant is very angry. He is ordering her to come after us again; I can hear how he rages at her, but she will not come; she will not leave the pup she saved. She is telling him so, as a hound speaks with its ears laid back and teeth bare. Now he has given up trying to send her. And now – now he is coming after us himself!’

  ‘Row as you never rowed before!’ said Finn. And the rowers sent the ship whistling over the wavetops more swiftly than the west wind itself, but before long they saw the giant coming, and the western waters reaching only midway up his thighs, and the waves boiling into whirlpools all about him at every step. On he came, striding in their wake, and for all their desperate struggling at the oars, his stride brought him closer and closer yet.

  Then Finn put his thumb between his teeth, the thumb which he had burned when he was cooking Fintan the Salmon of Knowledge, and instantly it came to him that the giant was charmed against all weapon wounds save in one place, and that place a mole on the palm of his one remaining hand. And only through the mole could he be slain.

  Finn told the Marksman this, and Marksman said, ‘If I can catch but a single glimpse of that mole, he is a dead giant.’