“It is not nice of you to laugh at us,” said Fiachna Finn.
“Who could help laughing at a king hunkering on a branch and his army
roosting around him like hens?” said the stranger.
“Nevertheless,” the king replied, “it would be courteous of you not to
laugh at misfortune.”
“We laugh when we can,” commented the stranger, “and are thankful for
the chance.”
“You may come up into the tree,” said Fiachna, “for I perceive that you
are a mannerly person, and I see that some of the venomous sheep are
charging in this direction. I would rather protect you,” he continued,
“than see you killed; for,” said he lamentably, “I am getting down now
to fight the sheep.”
“They will not hurt me,” said the stranger. “Who are you?” the king
asked.
“I am Mananna’n, the son of Lir.”
Fiachna knew then that the stranger could not be hurt.
“What will you give me if I deliver you from the sheep?” asked
Mananna’n.
“I will give you anything you ask, if I have that thing.”
“I ask the rights of your crown and of your household for one day.”
Fiachna’s breath was taken away by that request, and he took a little
time to compose himself, then he said mildly:
“I will not have one man of Ireland killed if I can save him. All that
I have they give me, all that I have I give to them, and if I must give
this also, then I will give this, although it would be easier for me to
give my life.” “That is agreed,” said Mannana’n.
He had something wrapped in a fold of his cloak, and he unwrapped and
produced this thing.
It was a dog.
Now if the sheep were venomous, this dog was more venomous still, for it
was fearful to look at. In body it was not large, but its head was of a
great size, and the mouth that was shaped in that head was able to open
like the lid of a pot. It was not teeth which were in that head, but
hooks and fangs and prongs. Dreadful was that mouth to look at, terrible
to look into, woeful to think about; and from it, or from the broad,
loose nose that waggled above it, there came a sound which no word of
man could describe, for it was not a snarl, nor was it a howl, although
it was both of these. It was neither a growl nor a grunt, although it
was both of these; it was not a yowl nor a groan, although it was both
of these: for it was one sound made up of these sounds, and there was in
it, too, a whine and a yelp, and a long-drawn snoring noise, and a deep
purring noise, and a noise that was like the squeal of a rusty hinge,
and there were other noises in it also.
“The gods be praised!” said the man who was in the branch above the
king.
“What for this time?” said the king.
“Because that dog cannot climb a tree,” said the man.
And the man on a branch yet above him groaned out “Amen!”
“There is nothing to frighten sheep like a dog,” said Mananna’n, “and
there is nothing to frighten these sheep like this dog.”
He put the dog on the ground then.
“Little dogeen, little treasure,” said he, “go and kill the sheep.”
And when he said that the dog put an addition and an addendum on to the
noise he had been making before, so that the men of Ireland stuck their
fingers into their ears and turned the whites of their eyes upwards, and
nearly fell off their branches with the fear and the fright which that
sound put into them.
It did not take the dog long to do what he had been ordered. He went
forward, at first, with a slow waddle, and as the venomous sheep came to
meet him in bounces, he then went to meet them in wriggles; so that in a
while he went so fast that you could see nothing of him but a head and
a wriggle. He dealt with the sheep in this way, a jump and a chop for
each, and he never missed his jump and he never missed his chop. When he
got his grip he swung round on it as if it was a hinge. The swing began
with the chop, and it ended with the bit loose and the sheep giving its
last kick. At the end of ten minutes all the sheep were lying on the
ground, and the same bit was out of every sheep, and every sheep was
dead.
“You can come down now,” said Mananna’n.
“That dog can’t climb a tree,” said the man in the branch above the king
warningly.
“Praise be to the gods!” said the man who was above him.
“Amen!” said the warrior who was higher up than that. And the man in the
next tree said:
“Don’t move a hand or a foot until the dog chokes himself to death on
the dead meat.”
The dog, however, did not eat a bit of the meat. He trotted to his
master, and Mananna’n took him up and wrapped him in his cloak.
“Now you can come down,” said he.
“I wish that dog was dead!” said the king.
But he swung himself out of the tree all the same, for he did not wish
to seem frightened before Mananna’n. “You can go now and beat the men
of Lochlann,” said Mananna’n. “You will be King of Lochlann before
nightfall.”
“I wouldn’t mind that,” said the king. “It’s no threat,” said Mananna’n.
The son of Lir turned then and went away in the direction of Ireland to
take up his one-day rights, and Fiachna continued his battle with the
Lochlannachs.
He beat them before nightfall, and by that victory he became King of
Lochlann and King of the Saxons and the Britons.
He gave the Black Hag seven castles with their territories, and he gave
her one hundred of every sort of cattle that he had captured. She was
satisfied.
Then he went back to Ireland, and after he had been there for some time
his wife gave birth to a son.