The High Deeds of Finn MacCool Page 5

  Then both together they flung themselves joyfully upon Finn, leaping about him and rearing up to plant their forepaws on his shoulders, and lick his face, so that any ordinary man would have been flat on his back before they were finished.

  But by then the men from the war-boats had come up, and there were greetings and rejoicings all round.

  ‘Here we are come to avenge you, and you strolling down to meet us, strong and well as though you had feasted every night in your own hall!’ shouted Goll, with his arm across Finn’s mighty shoulders. But the joy of the Fianna turned to anger when Finn told them how he had been received in the King of Lochlan’s palace, and swords were out on the instant, and the men swearing vengeance after all.

  And the vegeance of the Fianna started at one end of Lochlan and did not end until it came to the other. Only the old man and woman in the bothie at the foot of Glen More suffered no harm.

  And that was how Finn Mac Cool came by the second of his two favourite hunting dogs.

  6

  The Birth of Oisĩn

  Again, Finn and his companions rode hunting in their home woods, and as they returned at evening towards Almu of the White Walls, suddenly a young dappled hind sprang up from the fern and foxgloves of a little clearing, almost under the nose of Finn’s horse, and bounded away into the trees.

  Finn’s companions set up a great burst of hunting cries, and slipped the hounds from leash, and the hounds, weary as they were, sprang away on the track of the fleeing hind, and instantly the whole hunt swept after them, all the weariness of the day forgotten in the music of the hounds and the rush of the horses’ speed and the excitement of the new chase.

  But Finn noticed a strange thing, that however much the hind doubled and twisted in her track, she was drawing steadily nearer to the Hill of Almu itself. Almost it seemed as though she were trying to reach the place, like one running for sanctuary, yet what sanctuary could a hunted hind look for in the dun of the hunter?

  On they sped, the hind well ahead, seen and lost among the trees, the hounds streaking on her trail, the horsemen thundering after. But the hind was as swift as the cloud shadow on a March day, and soon only Finn himself and his two great hounds still had her in sight, while the rest of the hunt fell farther behind, and at last all sound of them was lost in the wind-rustle and bee-drone and cuckoo-call of the summer woods.

  Once the hind checked her speed and glanced back, as though to see who rode close on her trail, then fled on again, with Bran and Skolawn close behind her.

  For a few moments the three were lost to view, where the alder and hazel and quicken trees clustered thick along the fringes of the forest, and then, as he crashed out through the undergrowth on to the open moors that surrounded the Hill of Almu, Finn came upon the strangest sight that ever he had seen. For there in a little hollow set about with fern and shadowy with harebells, the hind lay panting from her long run, and Bran and Skolawn were standing over her, licking her face and her trembling limbs as though to tell her that she was safe with them and had nothing now to fear.

  And while Finn stood staring, and the hind turned her graceful head and looked at him with the soft long-lashed eyes of her tribe, he heard the Fian hunting horn, and then the music of the hounds close at hand.

  The hind sprang to her feet and stood trembling, and instantly Bran and Skolawn set themselves on either side of her, their hackles rising as they prepared if need be to fight. Then Finn wheeled his horse across the path of the hunt as they came up, and shouted to the Fianna to call off their hounds.

  The horsemen reined in, pulling the horses back on their haunches, and seeing what was behind their Captain, called off their hounds in a hurry, for they knew Bran and Skolawn when their hackles rose like that, and knew that any hound who took up their challenge would be a hound lost to the pack. But Goll Mac Morna looked at the trembling hind and said, ‘This is surely a strange quarry that you have run to bay.’

  ‘It is in my mind that she was striving to reach Almu,’ Finn said, half laughing at the foolishness of his own thought, yet holding to it all the same, ‘and a poor thing it would be if a man were to hunt the guest who seeks his gates.’

  So the hunting party rode on, across the level country and up the Hill of Almu. And sure enough, the hind went ahead of them, and she playing with Bran and Skolawn by the way. And when they came to the gates, in she went, and that evening at supper she lay at Finn’s feet, with the two great hounds one on either side of her.

  In the midst of that night, Finn woke with a start. His sleeping hut was white with moonlight that flooded in through the open door, and standing in the heart of the moonlight, like the gold in the heart of a white flower, was the most beautiful maiden that ever his eyes had touched upon. She wore a gown of soft saffron wool clasped at the shoulder with yellow gold, and out of it her neck rose white, and her slim bare arms were white, and her hair was so warmly golden that even the moon could not wash the gold out of it. Only her eyes were soft and dark and shadowed with long black lashes as the eyes of the hind had been.

  ‘Who are you?’ said Finn, wonderingly, and came to his elbow under the silken coverlid, ‘and what is it that you do here? For you are no woman of Almu that I have ever seen before.’

  ‘If you wish for a name to call me by, then call me Saba,’ said the maiden. ‘I am the hind that you hunted today.’

  ‘This is beyond my understanding,’ said Finn, rubbing his hand across his forehead. ‘Am I dreaming? If so, I hope its a dream I’ll be remembering in the morning.’

  ‘You are not dreaming,’ the maiden said. ‘Listen, and you shall understand. Three of your mortal years ago, the Dark Druid of my own people tried to force his love on me and have me for his wife, and because I would have none of him, he used his magic to put upon me the hind’s shape that I have worn ever since. But a slave of his who took pity on me and had good cause to hate him, told me that if I could win to the Dun of Almu, within the white walls of Finn Mac Cool, I should be safe from the spells of our dark master, and my true shape would come to me again. But for long and long, I could not come close to the Dun, for fear of your dogs and your hunters, until today I found the chance to let myself be run down by you and no other hunter, and by your dogs Bran and Skolawn, who have enchantment in them also, and the hearts of men, and who would know me for what I am and do me no harm.’

  ‘Here you are safe indeed,’ Finn said, ‘and none shall harm you or seek to force his love on you nor bind you with any bond against your will. But can you be happy among mortal folk, and you with never one of your kind to speak with or to touch your hand?’

  For he knew that her own people of whom she spoke were the Danann People, the Proud Ones, the Fairy Kind.

  ‘I will tell you that at another time. Now it is enough to be safe,’ said Saba, and she smiled a little, and turned and went out of the sleeping hut. And as she went, she seemed to take the whiteness of the moonlight with her.

  So Saba remained in the Dun of Almu. And Finn grew to love her, until the day came when he asked her to drink the bride-cup with him. And he did not ask lightly, for well he knew the sorrows and hazards that might be in store for a mortal man who takes a bride from the Fairy Kind.

  ‘You asked me once,’ Saba said, ‘if I could be happy among mortal folk, with none of my own kind to speak with or to touch my hand.’

  ‘And you said that you would tell me another time.’

  And Saba said, ‘I will tell you now. I can be happy anywhere in the Three Worlds with you, and not happy anywhere without you. You have done that to me, you who promised that in Almu no one should bind me with any bond against my will.’

  So she became Finn’s wife, and their happiness was like the happiness of the Immortals in the Land of Youth where spring never turns to winter, and magic birds sing always in the branches of the white apple trees whose blossom never falls, even when the apples sweeten and turn gold.

  The months went by, and they wanted nothing in the world
but to be in each other’s company. Indeed, as moon followed moon, and summer turned to autumn and autumn to winter and back to spring, and Finn seemed to have no taste left for war or hunting or anything that could take him from her side, the Fianna began to mutter among themselves that their Captain was not the man he had been before her coming.

  And then one day word came to Almu of the White Walls that there were Lochlan war-boats in Dublin Bay.

  Then Finn roused himself, and called out the Fianna of the Five Provinces. And in the forecourt of Almu, as in other strongholds through the length and breadth of Erin, the warriors gathered to sharpen sword and spear blade on tall weapon stone.

  Saba seemed to grow whiter and thinner as she watched, and once she said to Finn with her arms round his neck, ‘Need you go?’

  ‘A bargain is a bargain, and payment must be earned,’ Finn said. ‘The men of Erin pay us tribute and give us the shelter of their hearths and the food from their store sheds, that we may keep the shores of Erin for them, from the menace of the sea raiders. And shall we take the tribute, and eat from the store sheds and warm ourselves at the hearths, and not keep the shore in return?’

  ‘But need you go?’ said Saba.

  And Finn thought, ‘That is the Fairy Kind speaking,’ but he said only, ‘The Fianna of the Five Provinces do not go into battle without their leader.’ And then he told her a thing that Goll Mac Morna had once said: ‘A man lives after his life, but not after his honour,’ and gently pulled her arms from about his neck, and went out to see how the armourers were doing.

  At the very last, with the warriors waiting before the gates, he said, ‘Wait for me, bride-of-my-heart, and soon we shall be together again. But while I am away, promise me that you will not set foot outside the walls of Almu, nor speak to anyone not of our household.’

  And Saba promised, and Finn marched away at the head of the Leinster Fianna, towards the agreed hosting-place where the Munster and Mide, Connacht and Ulster battalions would join him.

  Seven days they were fighting the sea raiders, and they drove them from the land and down the shore, and back, back, back to their ships – those that were left of them. But many a Lochlan man lay dead among the coast-wise hills of Erin, and many were left wounded or captive, to drag out their days with an iron slave collar round their necks herding cattle or threshing barley for an Irish master. And many a black war-boat staggered home with half her crew, or was left beached on the shores of Dublin Bay, for lack of enough men to work the oars. And these the Fianna fired, and left for so many beacons blazing along the shore behind them, when they turned home again on the eight day.

  With every step of the homeward way, Finn thought more strongly of Saba, and his heart went out ahead of him to be with her again. And when they reached the foot of the Hill of Almu and began to climb, his gaze went searching to and fro along the ramparts and among all the possible look-out places, for the first sight of her waiting for him. But no sign of Saba could he see. And when he came into the forecourt and looked about him, thinking that now surely she would come running, still there was no sign of her, not so much as the glimmer of a single golden hair. And his household hung back, with trouble in their faces, instead of crowding forward to greet him as they usually did, and seemed to find it hard to meet his eyes.

  And suddenly a cold hand seemed to close on Finn’s heart.

  ‘Where is the Lady Saba?’ he demanded. ‘Is she sick? Why is she not here to greet me?’

  Then his steward came forward with bent head, and told him what he asked.

  ‘While you were away, Lord of Almu, aye, not three days since, we saw one coming up the hill towards the gate, who seemed in all things so far as the eye could tell to be yourself, and with him two hounds who had the outward seeming of Bran and Skolawn, even to the three black hairs on the tip of Skolawn’s tail. And at the same time we seemed to hear the sound of the Fian hunting horn. Then the Lady Saba, who was watching from the gatehouse roof, as she had watched all and every day for your return, cried out glad and sweet, and hurried down to where the men were already opening the gate for your coming in. We shouted to her to remain within, but truly, it is in my mind that she never heard us, and she was out through the gate like the dart of a swallow, and running down the hill.’

  ‘And then?’ said Finn in a terrible voice.

  ‘When she came close to him who wore your shape and seeming, she checked, and gave a loud, bitter cry, and turned to run back towards the gate. But he struck her with a hazel wand, and there, where she had been, was a dappled hind, and she doubling and twisting piteously as still she tried to reach the gate, and the two hounds drove her back. We seized our weapons and ran out to aid her, but when we reached the place, there was nothing to be seen. Neither hind nor hounds nor enchanter, not so much as their shadows on the bare hillside. And suddenly the air was filled with a great rushing, shouts and cries and hoof-drum of galloping horses and the baying of hounds, and some of us thought that it came from this direction and some that it came from that, until at last all died away into the wind. We have searched all the country round, but there is no trace of her nor of those who hunted her. Oh, my Lord Finn, the Lady Saba is lost to us!’

  Then Finn covered his face with his hands, that no man might see the look on it, and went to his own chamber, speaking no word.

  All that day and all the next, he remained shut away and no one dared to go near his door. And on the third day he came out, and took up his place and his duties as Captain of the Fianna once more.

  Seven years went by before he rode hunting again, and all that time, whenever he was not with the High King nor on the war trail against the sea raiders, nor at the summer training, he went searching for Saba, from North to South and from East to West. From coast to coast of Erin he sought her, taking with him no hounds but Bran and Skolawn, up every mountain and down every glen and through the depths of every forest and across the windy heights of every moor. But nowhere did he find any trace of her.

  And when the seven years were past, he gave up all hope of finding her again, and began to hunt with the rest of the Fianna as of old.

  One day they were hunting on Ben Bulben in Sligo, the hounds running far ahead, when he heard their trail-music change to a fierce yelping and snarling like a dog fight. He and his companions ran forward – they were hunting on foot that day, for the mountain runs were too steep for the ponies – and found a naked boy standing under a quicken tree, the hounds striving to seize him, all save Bran and Skolawn, who with fangs bared and ears laid back, had sprung forward and turned on the rest of the pack to hold them off.

  Memory smote Finn under the heart, and he remembered another time that he had come upon his two great hounds doing this very thing. But then it had been to protect a dappled hind . . .

  His men gathered round, beating off the hounds, while the boy stood quite unafraid, looking round from one to another of them. He was tall and well shaped, though slight of build – a runner rather than a wrestler, thought Finn, who was used to judging in these matters – and his hair was almost as pale as Finn’s own, so that his dark eyes seemed all the more dark by contrast. He stood like a wild thing, tensed and light on his feet, yet still proudly unafraid.

  ‘Who are you?’ Finn asked.

  The boy looked at him, but spoke no word.

  ‘What is your name? Where is it that you come from?’

  Still the boy said no word, and suddenly Keelta Mac Ronan said, ‘It is no good to ask him. Don’t you see? He knows only the Wild. He does not understand man’s tongue!’

  So Finn held out his open hand to the boy, slowly and reassuringly, so that he might understand there was no menace in it. The boy looked from his face to his outstretched hand and back again. ‘Come,’ said Finn, as he might have said to a hound puppy he was training, knowing that the pup would not yet know the meaning of the word, but his voice speaking it would mean something all the same. And slowly, the boy came and set his hand in Finn’s.


  So they returned to Almu with the strange boy in their midst. And all the way, Finn watched him, as though some great questing was in his mind, and the boy was the answer.

  At first he was like a wild creature caged. Everything was strange to him; clothes chafed and hampered him after running naked all his life, so he pulled off breeks and shirt again and again, and threw them away. He did not know how to eat among men, and would snatch his food and take it under the table with the hounds. But little by little he grew less wild; more used to the ways of men; he began to be able to guess what people meant when they spoke to him, though sometimes he guessed wrong, and brought Goll Mac Morna an apple when the old warrior had asked him to scratch the gad-fly bite between his shoulder blades, or came willingly to loose the thongs of Finn’s hunting shoes for him when the Fian Captain had only said that the nights were growing colder. And at last, hesitating and stumbling at the outset, he began to gain the power of human speech.

  And when speech came easily enough to him for story telling, it was a strange story he had to tell Finn, sitting between Bran and Skolawn at the Fian Captain’s feet, one winter’s night with the wind howling like a wolf pack about the door.

  Ever since he could remember, he had lived with a dappled hind. He supposed that she was his mother, for he had had no other, nor any father, so far as he knew. And she had given him milk when he was very small, and the warmth of her body curled about him when the nights were cold, and comfort when he was hurt or unhappy, and love and gentleness at all times. They had lived in a green and beautiful valley, from which – he was not quite sure how or why – there seemed no way out, but he supposed there must have been, after all, because assuredly there was a way in, though he had never found it. And this he knew, because though he lived on nuts and berries in summer, in winter food was left for him daily in a certain cave on the hillside; and also because a man came to them at times, a very tall dark man, at whose coming he had always been troubled and afraid. Sometimes the man spoke to the hind his mother in tones that were darkly sweet as heather honey, sometimes in a voice hard with menace, but always the hind shrank away and would not even look at him; until at last he went off again, very angry.