The High Deeds of Finn MacCool Page 4

  Then the giant reached the stern of the ship, and towering over it like a crag, he reached out to grasp the masthead.

  As he opened his hand to do so, the mole on the palm of it showed for one instant, and in that instant the Marksman notched an arrow to his bow, and drew and loosed. The arrow sped true to its mark, and with a yell that echoed from the sea to the sky and back again the giant fell dead.

  The crash of his fall was like a mountain falling into the sea, and the ship rocked wildly, plunging under them like a startled horse, then righted itself and rode clear.

  ‘That was a near thing,’ said Finn, ‘and that was a fine shot. Now we will be turning about and heading back to the giant’s tower, for it is not in my mind to leave a good hound or a strong pup masterless in such a place.’

  So they brought the ship about, and they rowed and sailed back to the giant’s tower, and took the grey pup again, and with him his dam, who seemed now to be no more savage than any other hunting dog. And then for the last time they pulled away from the tower and set the galley’s head toward the Young Hero’s landing-beach and the Glen of the Hazel Woods. They rowed more slowly now, for they were very weary and there was no longer any pursuit to fear, and it was dawn of the next day when they came to the landing-beach.

  They ran the boat up the shingle to its place beside the Young Hero’s galley, and went on up the glen towards the house, Finn walking ahead with the babe still wrapped in the silken coverlid, the strange crew following with the other two boys, the hound bitch and her puppies, the satin sheet and the golden shinty sticks and the silver ball.

  The Young Hero saw them at a distance and came to meet them. And when he saw not only the babe tucked under Finn’s arm, but the two boys, he wept for the joy of finding all his sons again, when he had hoped only for the return of the last born. He knelt to Finn as though he were Cormac the High King, and begged to know what would seem to the Fian Captain a fitting reward, for all that he owned was Finn’s for the asking.

  ‘Give me my choice of the two hound pups,’ said Finn, ‘for truly I never saw any that showed better promise.’

  Then they all went into the Young Hero’s hall, where a great feast was made ready for them. And they remained with the Young Hero for a year and a day, hunting or trying their prowess at shinty and in all manner of sports and pastimes by day, and feasting royally by night. And if the last night’s feasting was not the best of all, it was assuredly not the worst, even though the shadow of parting lay over it.

  And when they sailed for Erin the next day, Finn took with him the brindled and white-breasted hound, now full grown, while the dam and the other yearling remained with the Young Hero who had named him Skolawn, which means Grey Dog.

  Finn called the brindled hound Bran, and he was the first of his two favourite hunting dogs.

  5

  Finn and the Grey Dog

  The months went by and the months went by, and again Finn and his companions went hunting. They had made their kill and were on the point of turning home by Almu of the White Walls when a stranger came to them.

  This was a tall youth with hair as barley-pale as Finn’s own, and eyes the colour of winter seas. ‘You will be Finn Mac Cool, Captain of the Fianna of Erin?’ said he, singling out Finn from his fellows, as most people could do easily enough by his great height and his air of having the very sun at his feet for a shinty ball.

  ‘I am so,’ said Finn, ‘and who are you? And where from? And what bring’s you seeking Finn Mac Cool?’

  ‘As to the first, my name would mean nothing to you,’ said the boy. ‘As to the second, I am from the East and from the West; your name is known in both places. As to the third, I am wanting a master to serve for a year and a day.’

  ‘And if I take you into my service, what reward will you demand at the end of the year and a day.’

  ‘Only that you come and feast with me in the royal palace at Lochlan,’ said the boy.

  Now Lochlan was the homeland of the Vikings, the sea raiders, and the chief war-task of the Fianna was to keep the coasts of Erin safe from their raids and harryings. So Finn knew that this bidding to feast in the royal palace of Lochlan was like to be a trap. But there was always the chance that it was a holding out of the hand of friendship, and if that were so, a sore thing it would be to refuse. And Finn was never one to turn from a thing just because it smelled of danger. So he said, ‘That seems a small enough wage. Serve me well, and I will pay it gladly.’

  So the boy became one of Finn’s household, and served him faithfully for a year and a day. And at the end of that time he came to Finn on the level green before the walls of Almu. ‘The year is finished and the day is finished. Have I served you well?’

  ‘You have indeed,’ said Finn.

  ‘Then now I claim my wages. Come with me to the royal palace of Lochlan.’

  ‘Surely I will come,’ said Finn, but to his own men he said, ‘Fian Brothers, if I am not back among you within a year and a day, whet your spears and furbish your war-bows to avenge me on the shores of Lochlan.’

  Then he went into the house-place to make ready for the journey. His druth, his jester, sat by the fire, and the tears ran down his long crooked nose and hissed as they fell into the hot ashes. ‘Ach now, a fine sort of jester you are,’ said Finn, thumping him lightly on the shoulder in passing. ‘You should be making some fine jest to cheer me on my journey.’

  ‘It is not I that am feeling like making jests,’ said the little man, rubbing his shoulder.

  ‘Are you sorry that I am going to Lochlan?’

  ‘I am sorry. But though I cannot think of a jest to make you laugh at the outset of your journey, I can give you a piece of good advice to carry if you can find room for it.’

  ‘And what is that?’ said Finn.

  ‘Take with you Bran’s golden chain.’

  ‘That seems very strange advice, but I will take it,’ said Finn. And so when he set out, following the Lochlan boy, Bran’s golden chain was bound like a rich belt about his waist. The Lochlan boy led the way, and so swiftly did he cover the ground that for all Finn’s long legs, the Fian Captain could never overtake him, nor even come nearer to him than to see him always just disappearing over the next hill. So it was when he came to the coast, to a sheltered bay that he never remembered having seen before, and found a Lochlan galley waiting for him. The boy had gone ahead in another galley and was already far out to sea.

  For many days they sailed and rowed until they came to the shores of Lochlan, and then to the royal palace. And when Finn reached the forecourt with the crew of the ship that had brought him there all about him, the boy was already sitting at the High Table in the King’s hall, with the King his father. The King’s hall was fine and proud to see, both inside and out. Gilded stag’s horns crowned the roof that towered above the lesser roofs of the palace, and within the walls were hung with fine stuffs to keep out the draughts, and enriched with gold and enamel and walrus ivory, the harvest of many raids. Long tables of polished wood, already crowded with the sea-warriors and their women, were loaded with food and drink for a feast.

  Finn entered the hall, still with the galley’s crew about him. And since no one came to him with the guest cup, nor bade him come up to the High Table, he sat himself quietly down on a bench among them, and looked about him warily, and waited for what might happen next.

  At the High Table the Lochlan lords had gathered together. They spoke low-voiced among themselves, glancing often in the direction of Finn. And Finn did not need to put his thumb between his teeth to know that whatever they said, it boded no good to himself. And he thought. ‘So I have indeed walked into a trap. And now I must get out of it as best I may.’

  But the door was shut behind him, and the galley’s crew ringed him round.

  ‘Hang him,’ said one noble.

  ‘Ach no,’ said another. ‘We should have to get a rope and bring it in, while all the while, here is the hearth fire all ready to our hands. Let us burn
him and be done with it.’

  ‘Die he must,’ said a third, an old man with skin burned by sun and spindrift and eyes narrowed by gazing into the distances of many seas, ‘but let it be by water; drowning is a death for a man.’

  And at that moment there rose far off a mournful sound that might have been the cry of a wolf or the howl of a savage and despairing dog. And the Viking lords looked at each other and smiled in their yellow beards.

  ‘Grey Dog shall do the killing for us.’

  ‘And most willingly, too.’

  ‘Aye. It has been death to any man to go near him since we captured him in that raid on the Glen of the Hazel Woods and brought him to Lochlan. Let us just take the man Finn to Glen More and leave him there. Grey Dog will see to the rest.’

  Then one of them made a signal to the seamen surrounding Finn and they caught his arms and twisted them behind him. And struggle as he would, he could not win free, for they were too many for him, though each one by himself he could have broken like a dead stick across his knee. So at last he ceased to struggle and stood quiet, saving himself for a later time.

  And in the distance, the dog howled again.

  ‘Now, take him to Glen More and leave him there,’ said the King of Lochlan.

  The young Prince said, ‘I will come too. It was my year and a day of service that won him here from Erin.’

  And he looked at Finn with pleasure, as a hunter looks at his kill which other men have hunted in vain.

  And the lords of the High Table looked at each other with savage and silent laughter.

  In the distance, the dog howled a third time.

  Finn heard it, and his belly knotted itself up small under his breastbone. But he thought, ‘If I start my fight here, with the door shut, and all these men about me, then I shall be a worse fool than I was for coming here in the first place. Maybe somewhere between here and Glen More I will be getting my chance.’

  So he stood unresisting while they bound his wrists, only he tightened all his muscles and made his wrists as thick as might be, so that when he let go, the bonds were slacker than the men who had bound him could possibly have guessed. And as they began to thrust him towards the door, he shouted up to the High Table, ‘If this is Lochlan faith and Lochlan hospitality, then give me the faith and hospitality of wolves, which is altogether a truer and a kindlier thing!’

  Then someone cursed, and struck him across the mouth, and he was hustled out through the door, which some of them ran to unbar, and away over the hills in the evening light, with never a chance to break out from among them, until they came to Glen More.

  Glen More was a narrow gash among the hills, walled on either side by sheer rock and scree which there could be no climbing. And somewhere ahead of them the unearthly howling of Grey Dog echoed back from the rocks; a sound to make the bravest man’s hair rise on the back of his neck. In the mouth of the Glen they passed a tiny bothie where an old man and wife lived, whose daily task was to feed Grey Dog. But even they did not dare to approach the terrible creature, and only went each morning to a certain hazel tree beside the burn, and flung the lumps of raw meat as far as they could up the Glen from there, and then ran back and barricaded the door of the bothie until the sounds of snarling and worrying told them that Grey Dog had come for his food, and the silence afterwards told them that he had gone back again into the further fastnesses of the Glen.

  The men in charge of Finn urged him on, past the hazel tree, to the place where blood and bits of splintered bone showed where Grey Dog had devoured the whole of a buck flung out for him that day. But his howls that now seemed to echo all about them had not the sound of a creature full-fed and contented, but rather of a lost soul in torment and savage with hate of all the world.

  ‘And this is far enough for us to be going,’ said one of the men, ‘I’ve no mind to go the way of today’s fat buck.’

  ‘Nor I,’ said another. ‘The sooner and the further we are away from here the happier I shall be.’

  ‘A pity it is that we cannot be staying a while to watch,’ said the prince regretfully.

  ‘Neither you nor us,’ said the first. ‘You would be welcome to stay and watch alone – it is not us that would be spoiling your pleasures, my young fighting-cock – but the King your father might not be best pleased to lose his son, and it is us that would suffer for it.’

  Then Finn heard running feet behind him, growing smaller into the distance, and knew that he was alone, with his hands bound, and the wind blowing up the Glen, so that it must carry his scent to Grey Dog.

  ‘Well,’ he said to himself, ‘there’s no climbing out of his place. If I run, the men will kill me, and if, as it seems, I am to die anyway, I had sooner die from the fangs of this Grey Dog than at the hands of the Lochlan men. But the first thing is to get my own hands free.’

  And he made his hands as narrow as might be, and pulled and strained and twisted until the veins of his forehead stood out, and the red blood sprang from his galled wrists, and at last he dragged his hands free, and dropped the binding-thongs to the ground behind him. And there he stood and waited for the next thing. And then far up from the Glen he heard Grey Dog coming, and soon he broke from cover into sight. Then Finn wondered if it would not have been better to run after the Lochlan men and die fighting them with his naked hands, after all. Grey Dog himself seemed no more than a shadow padding down between the rocks, and a snarling and a baying that grew louder every moment, but the breath that came from his snarling muzzle was a flame of fire that scorched and shrivelled everything in his path.

  The blast of it caught Finn while the hound was still afar off, and his skin reddened and blistered and cracked. But he stood his ground, and suddenly he remembered the words of the jester, beside the hearth fire at Almu of the White Walls. ‘Take Bran’s golden chain with you,’ and he knew what he must do.

  He waited until Grey Dog was close upon him and he could bear the fiery breath no longer; and then he tore the golden chain, already glowing red-hot, from about his waist and shook it towards Grey Dog, as a man shakes the leash towards his hunting dog when he wants him for the chase, or the bridle towards his horse when he wishes him to come to the chariot yoke.

  Grey Dog stopped in his tracks, and the fire of his breath sank low. Finn shook the chain a second time, and Grey Dog crouched on his belly, his muzzle in his paws while the flame of his breath died quite away. Finn shook the chain a third time, and Grey Dog cocked his ears, then sprang up and came with his tail waving behind him, to lick Finn’s burns with a gentle tongue so healing that the pain went out of them on the instant. Then Finn stooped and fondled his ears as he might have done Bran’s, and Grey Dog rubbed and butted his head against Finn’s knees. And while he did so, Finn put Bran’s golden chain round his neck and said, ‘Come then, Skolawn.’

  And they went down the Glen together.

  As they came towards the bothie at the Glen foot, the old woman, who was standing in the doorway, ran in to her husband by the hearth.

  ‘Husband! Husband! I have just seen such a sight as I never thought to see!’

  ‘And what sight was that, then?’ asked the old man, not even troubling himself to look up from the straw that he was braiding into a new ox collar.

  ‘I have seen the man again, the man who the King’s warriors were thrusting in their midst when they passed this way a while and a while back. The tallest and best-to-look-at man that ever I saw; the hair of him like barley under a white sun-haze, and the eyes of him grey as a gull’s wing; and him coming down the Glen with Grey Dog on a golden chain pacing at his heels as quiet and friendly as our old Lop-Ear herself!’

  Then the husband abandoned his ox collar and scrambled to his feet. ‘That must be Finn Mac Cool, for of all the men of Lochlan and of Erin, only Finn could tame Grey Dog, and with Bran’s golden chain to help him.’

  So they went out of the bothie to meet Finn as he came down the Glen with Skolawn pacing at his heels.

  Finn greeted the
m and told them of all that had happened, and asked for a meal and a place to lie down and rest, hidden from his enemies.

  ‘As to yourself, you are most welcome to enter, and to share our fire and all that we have, even for a year and a day,’ said the old man, ‘but as for the dog – Grey Dog . . .’

  ‘His name is Skolawn,’ Finn said, ‘and he will be no more trouble nor danger to you than any other hound entering your houseplace at his master’s heels.’

  So Finn entered, and Skolawn behind him, and there they remained for a year and a day with the old man and his wife; and none of the Lochlan nobles knowing that Finn was not dead, but lying hid there.

  At the end of the year and a day, the old woman was standing on the hillock close by her houseplace. And looking towards the sea, she saw a thing that sent her screeching back to the bothie like a hen with the eggs stolen from under her.

  ‘There are stranger war-boats all along the strand, and a great army landing from them on the beach!’

  ‘Who leads them?’ said Finn, who was sitting by the hearth, helping the old man to mend a fishing net.

  ‘A tall proud man with one eye. By the look of him I’d say he has no equal for fighting under the stars.’

  ‘That will be Goll Mac Morna,’ said Finn, ‘and the fighting men he leads are mine, the Fianna of Erin. But do not be afraid, no harm shall come to you, for the year and a day that I have eaten your food and slept safe by your hearth.’ And whistling Skolawn to heel, he strode out to meet his old companions.

  They raised a great shout at sight of him, and came running up from the shore. But away ahead of them, travelling in long leaps and bounds with his plumed tail flying like a banner behind him, came his great hound Bran. Skolawn sprang forward snarling, then checked as the brindled one came up, and they walked round each other stiff-legged, their hackles stirring and half lifting on the backs of their necks. Then Bran gave a deep and joyful bark, and crouched on his front paws, stern in the air like a pup that wants to play, and next instant he and Skolawn were spinning in circles round each other, with yelpings and small excited whines – for they were litter brothers, though they had been parted from each other when they were so young that they still suckled at their mother’s flank; and they were not as other hounds, but had each a man’s heart in them, so that after the first few moments of their meeting they knew their brotherhood to each other.