of years, that the birds of all the regions round were wont to collect
daily, and gather in flocks round about the singing swans. Thus it was
that the little lake came to be called the Lake of the Bird Flocks.
At sunrise these innumerable birds would disperse far and wide; some
seaward, some inland, some northward to Achill, some as far south as
the three rocks known as Donn’s Sea-Rest, some to Inniskea--to this
day called the Isle of the Lonely Crane, for there dwells, and has
dwelled since the beginning of the world, and shall dwell till the day
of flame, a solitary brooding crane. But at night every bird returned
to Innis Glora, to hear the slow, sweet, fairy music of the children of
Lir.
In this way the years went past.
On a day of the days Fionula called her brothers to listen to her,
because of a dream that she had dreamed.
“The Taillkenn[6] has come at last,” she said. “I saw a strange light
in the East at midnight. A star rose out of it, and travelled through
the gulfs of the sky, and rested over Erin, and sank slowly over this
our dear land. Then I heard a smoke of voices rising to the stars, and
thence, too, came a chiming sweeter than any chants we have sung in all
these thrice three hundred years.”
On the eve of that day a man came forth from the mainland in a coracle.
He came to Innis Glora, and alighted there, and kneeled in a strange
fashion, and supplicated some god.
It was St. Kemoc.
After nightfall the wild swans were silent, for all were heavy with the
strangeness of this man, who was not like unto any Dedannan or even a
Milesian, and who prayed on his knees, and supplicated a god set beyond
the stars.
In the grey dawn they awoke, trembling. Trembling still, they started
and ran bewilderedly to and fro, for strange and dreadful to them was
the sound that they heard. It was but a little sound, and faint and
afar; but it was the chiming of a bell, and in all the thrice three
hundred years and more they had lived they had heard nought like it.
The bell was the matin-bell of St. Kemoc, but they knew it not, nor
what it meant. Aed and Fiachra and Conn ran wildly and far, but at
last when the bell ceased, they returned to Fionula.
“Do you know what this sound is, this faint, fearful sound that has
terrified us, dear brothers?”
“No, we have heard the faint, fearful voice, but know not what it is.
Is it the voice of the strange man who has come among us, and is he a
god?”
“No,” answered Fionula, with grave joy, “but it is the voice of the
Christians’ bell. Soon we shall be free of our spell; soon we shall
have peace. It is the bell we have dreamed of for so many years.”
All were glad at that. Kemoc had again begun to ring his matin-bell,
and the four swans crouched low, listening to its strange music. When
it ceased, Fionula spoke:
“Let us now sing our music.”
Therewith they sang their slow, sweet, fairy music.
Kemoc rose in his place, amazed with great wonder. At first he thought
it was the voices of the angels singing in Paradise. Then suddenly it
was revealed to him that it was the slow, sweet, fairy music of the
children of Lir, whereat he rejoiced exceedingly, for he had fared
westward in the hope to find and save Fionula and Aed and Fiachra and
Conn, of whom he had heard soon after he came to Erin with tidings of
Christ and the Christian faith.
So when his prayers were done, and sunrise put a shine of gold upon the
sea, Kemoc rose and went to the lake, and hailed the four white swans.
And when they answered and told him who they were, he gave thanks to
God.
“Come now to land,” he added, “and sojourn with me, for it is in this
place that ye are destined to be freed from your enchantment.”
Filled with a great joy on hearing the words of the Christian saint,
they came ashore, and went with him to where he had builded his cell
against the forefront of a cave.
Three days later a skilled craftsman for whom he had sent came to Innis
Glora, and wrought two slender shining chains of silver. These St.
Kemoc put upon Fionula and Aed and upon Fiachra and Conn, to show that
they were now bondagers to Christ, for all that they were still swans
and under the doom of the spell of Aeifa.
Thereafter the time passed with joy and peace. Kemoc taught them the
holy faith, and came to love them with his whole heart. As for the
children of Lir they were glad with so great a gladness that they
remembered no more their long misery, and even loved better to hear
the hymns and litanies of St. Kemoc than the lifesweet war-chants and
love-songs they had heard in their childhood from Irbir and other bards
and minstrels.
But at that time[7] there was a queen in Erin who above all other
things desired the glory of having these marvellous singing swans as
her own. In the olden days men and women were wont to hold the decrees
of the gods and of fate in reverence; and more thought was taken of
the inner meanings of dreams, marvels, and the strange vicissitudes
of life. Has not a wise poet declared that the smaller the soul the
greater the tyranny? This queen was Decca, daughter of Finghin, king of
Munster, and wife of Lairgnen, the king of Connaught.
It was of these two that Aeifa, long, long ago, had spoken
prophetically, but none remembered this save only Fionula, in whose
mind dreams and memories floated as water-blooms on a mountain
lake--the blooms that float and sink and rise as though a breath
sustained or swayed them, the breath out of still, pellucid depths.
At last the desire of Decca overmastered her. She begged Lairgnen to
fare westward to Kemoc, and obtain the swans from the saint and bring
them to her. But this the king feared to do, nor held it a kingly act.
Then Decca gave way to her anger, and left the great house of the king
and vowed that she would not sleep there another night till Lairgnen
brought her the singing swans.
So the woman fled southward into Munster, her father’s realm.
Lairgnen the Connaught king loved his wife to weakness. He was the
slave of her dark eyes and her smiling lips and her selfish heart and
her poor will: so he came to evil then, and later. For according as a
man’s love is, and as he loves to strength, so shall his life be abased
or uplifted.
So Lairgnen sent messengers after Decca, and sought her in the south.
Thus was the prophecy fulfilled.
The woman returned, but put a bond upon the king. He was weak, and she
made a sport of him as women do who are loved to weakness and not to
strength: as with men also, when women love them ignobly, and not as
high mate with high mate.
Thus it came about that Lairgnen gave the word to St. Kemoc that
he desired the four swans to be sent to him at his royal house in
Connaught. Kemoc, however, refused. He served the King of kings, not
the king of Connaught.
Full of wrath, Lairgnen set out for the western coast, and at last
reached Innis Glora. When he asked Kemoc if he had indeed refused to
give up the swans at his command, and was told that this was so, he
swore the old pagan oath by the sun and the moon and the wind, and
vowed that he would not leave that place without them.
“Doom must be fulfilled, O king,” said Kemoc, “but woe unto that man by
whom the evil of a day of the days is wrought.”
Lairgnen laughed, and followed the saint into the little chapel where
the four swans stood before the altar, singing a sweet wonderful song
that was a hymn of peace and joy. Seizing the silver chain of Fionula
and Aed in one hand, and that of Fiachra and Conn in the other, he
forced them to follow him.
“Do not do this thing, Lairgnen, son of Colman,” said St. Kemoc.
“And for why not?” asked the king, smiling grimly, as he neared the
door of the wattle-church. “Am I not the king, and can I not do as I
will in mine own lands?”
“There is another King. If thou doest a wrong against Him, thou shalt
have neither the desire of thine heart nor yet go free of the penalty
of lifelong sorrow and a bitter end.”
For a moment Lairgnen quailed. The angry voice of a cleric was a
perilous omen in those days. Then he strode forward, dragging after him
the four swans.
Suddenly a wild, strange cry resounded over the church. All stood
silent, appalled. To Fionula only was it revealed that it was neither
the screaming of the wind, nor the thin shrewd wail of the sea, nor the
savage cry of a sea-mew--but that it was the voice of Aeifa, that lost
forlorn demon of the air for whom there might be no rest now till the
day of the flame of which St. Kemoc spoke.
“Come!” said Lairgnen, with a great effort.
But when he strove with the chains, lo! a strange thing happened.
These fell apart, and at the same moment the great wings of the swans
contracted, and the white feathers that were the beauty of their bodies
shrivelled. A mist of blown feathers was about them: and when Lairgnen
and Kemoc looked through this as it settled upon the ground like dust,
they beheld a wonderful and a terrible thing.
For as the feathers fell away from the children of Lir, Fionula and
her brothers once more regained their human shape. But now they were
no longer fair and sweet and young, as they were when Aeifa put her
enchantment upon them. They stood there, worn with intolerable age.
Grey and ashy were their bodies, and long and sere and white their
thin, blanched hair: and they were tremulous as reeds, and their wan
hands were as the shaking wan leaves of the poplar when autumn is dead.
The children of Lir looked one upon the other with dim, forlorn eyes.
It was a bitter thing to live so many ages only to find that their own
kith and kin were as dust, and that their habitation was a wilderness,
and that their very race had passed away: to see each other in human
form again, but Fionula an aged ancient woman, grey as old hanging moss
and wrinkled as the wave-rippled sand, and tall Aed and swift Fiachra
and laughing Conn as three feeble old men, wavering as their own
shadows.
When Lairgnen saw this he was overcome with dread. He uttered a strange
cry, and, averting his face, fled from the little chapel, nor looked
back once upon Innis Glora; and feared the following flight of his own
shadow till once more he reached his great house in Connaught, over
which he heard a demon of the air wailing and laughing, and knew that
it was Aeifa, and that the terror of this banshee would be with him and
his for ever.
As he fled, he heard the bitter execrations of St. Kemoc, but these he
heeded less than the thin, inarticulate murmur of the voices of the
children of Lir, like the hum of gnats in a well.
Nevertheless Kemoc himself was able to hear the whisper of Fionula. So
one may hear the faint rustle of leaves in the heart of a forest where
there is no wind.
“Be swift, holy one, and give us baptism, here before the altar. We
have but a brief while wherein to draw breath. Great is thy sorrow at
this parting, but not more great than is ours. Nevertheless the end
is always in the beginning, and we are but the dry thistledown of the
young sprays of green. For thee, too, O Kemoc, the vial of silence
shall be broken, but not until thy hair is like the foam of the sea,
and thine eyes dim as the light beneath a wave.”
Thereupon St. Kemoc led them slowly towards the altar, and bade
farewell to each, for he saw that the shadow of death had covered them
from the soles of the feet to the chin of the head, and was rising to
the eyes.
Once more Fionula spoke.
“Farewell, dear brothers,” she said. “We are so old that we have
forgotten age. Very weary should we be were it not for sweet death. We
go far hence, and it may well be that we visit Hy Brásil before we see
the shining of the gates of Paradise. There we shall greet our father
Lir, and he shall come with us. And if he come not, we shall abide with
him, for love is stronger than death.”
“Even so,” whispered Aed and Fiachra and Conn.
“And to thee, Kemoc, thou holy one,” she murmured, “I have this thing
for the saying. We are of our people, and would fain be in the darkness
as our ancient forgotten dead before us. It is not fitting that we lie
in the earth who are of the old race, and have the blood of kings, and
have lived in no dishonour, and die as we have lived.”
“Speak, Fionula.”
“When we fail utterly and perish, as we shall do within this hour that
is upon us, O Kemoc, remember that as in life I so often sheltered my
brothers against my breast and sides when we were swans, we must not be
apart in death. Therefore bury us on this spot and in one grave.[8] And
in that grave let Conn stand near me at my right side, and Fiachra at
my left, and let Aed my twin-brother be before my face.”
With that she sighed. So sighs a wan, drifting leaf wind-slidden over
sere grass.
Then Kemoc baptized Fionula and Aed and Fiachra and Conn: and when he
had given them eternity and the company of saints, they died. They did
not fall, but wavered as dry reeds, and were suddenly at one with
their own shadows, and were no more.
When the saint rose from his knees, he put the tears from his face and
stared into the deeps of heaven. Then he had the joy of a glad vision.
Overhead he beheld four children with light silver-shining wings, their
faces radiant: yet knew not whether they were little ones or were
youthful with new life, for the glory dazzled him. A moment, as the
foam-bells on a falling wave, they were there: then they vanished, and
passed westward, and were in Hy Brásil with Lir and their own people
even while Kemoc bent lamenting over the frail ancient bodies that had
been the children of Lir.
So in that place a grave was digged, and Fionula was placed standing
therein: and by her right side, Conn; and by her left, Fiachra; and
before her face, Aed. Over this grave Kemoc raised a mound, and put a
great stone upon it. Then he made a lament over the dead.
When all the people were gone, there remained only Kemoc, and a young
poet and cleric named Ebric the son of Ebric, the son of Ebric of Irros
Domnann. And when St. Kemoc went to his cell, and knew the dark hour,
because of his sorrow, Ebric stood by the great stone at the mound and
graved in Ogham the names of Fionula and Aed and Fiachra and Conn.
The salt grasses wave out of the dust, the dust of the powder of that
stone which Ebric graved with cunning hand: but out of the hearts
of men who shall take the sorrowful tale of the Children of Lir, or
against it shall prevail what frost of age, what breath of time?
The stone perisheth, but the winged word on the breath of the lips
endureth for ever.
[Illustration]
The Fate of
the Sons of Turenn
[Illustration: Turenn interceding for his sons.
_To face p. 117._]
]
The Fate of
the Sons of Turenn
I will tell you now the old heroic saga of the Fate of the Sons
of Turenn: how they paid the great eric laid upon them by Lu the
Long-Handed, called the Ildanna because of his great wisdom in all
magic craft and Dedannan lore; and how at the last their dauntless
bravery was as sand before the wind, as mist before the sun, as dew
upon the grass.
It is one of the most ancient of tales. Brian, Ur, and Urba, the sons
of Turenn, did their great wrong upon Kian, the father of Lu of the
Long Hand, and paid their unheard-of and heroic eric, when Bove Derg,
the last king of the Dedannans, was still a youth--and that was long
before the Children of Lir were changed into four white swans.
No Milesian had been seen in Erin in those days. Nevertheless the
power of the Dedannans was already broken, though they were still
foremost in green Banba, as the bards loved to call Erin, after a great
queen who had reigned there, when the Fairy Host was supreme: for the
fierce Fomorian pirates of the north had descended upon them again and
again like a devastating plague, and at last their High King, the King
of Lochlin, Balor of the Evil Eye, had subdued them into bondage.
Year by year, and that for the fourth part of a year, Balor sent
his emissaries to collect tribute. The men were of the greatest
and fiercest of the black Fomorians, so called because they were
black-haired and black-bearded, with fells as coarse and thick as
those of wild boars. These men were dreaded by the Dedannans, for they
appeared to be beyond all reach of magic spells, and to have more
terrible arms and an invincible power in warfare.
At that time Nuadh of the Silver Hand was High King of Erin. He was
the most prudent of all the Dedannan kings, but there were many of
the wisest druids and bards even in his own day who lamented that he
was over-prudent, and that it would be wiser to risk all in order
to regain honour and freedom than to lose all for the sake of an
inglorious peace. Nevertheless, so great was the love of life among the
people at large, and so keen was their desire to be left at peace by
the Fomorians, that Nuadh of the Silver Hand put aside his kinglihood,
and agreed to pay both tribute and homage.
The yearly tax laid by Balor of the Evil Eye upon Nuadh of the Silver
Hand and all the Dedannan folk, was this: a tax separately upon
querns, kneading-troughs, and baking-flags, the three things which
every Dedannan had to use. Besides this, there was a tax of one gold
ounce for every man and woman of the Tuatha-De-Danann. Every year the
people had to assemble at the Hill of Tara, where the High King had
his palace, and there submit their tribute with many obeisances to the
dark, scowling emissaries of Balor of the Evil Eye.
In one year of the years this happened as before. But after Nuadh of
the Silver Hand and all his nobles and druids and all the Dedannans had
made humble obeisance before the Fomorians, and while the tribute was
being put together, a strange sight was descried.
Coming from the east was a company of lordly men, splendidly arrayed in
white with gleaming helmets and shields, and riding tall white horses.
These were headed by a youthful champion of so great a stature and so
warlike a mien, that all men knew he could be none other than Lu the
Long-Handed, son of Kian the Noble. All the northlands and eastlands of
Erin were aware of the rumour of his great valour and worth, and there
was at that day no champion so feared between the two seas.
Lu, son of Kian, was also of the Dedannans, but he was of the older
and rarer branch, and he and his claimed that the Fairy Host, of
which they formed the chief ornament, rose or fell by their support.
Among the splendid company were the sons of Manannan, son of Lir, the
lord of the sea, and other chieftains and brave knights. Yet, as they
approached, it was Lu of the Long Hand who held all eyes. Upon his head
was a golden helmet, wherefrom gleamed two great shining stones--the
eyes of strange gods they seemed to the people. His body was covered
with shining armour that was no other than the famous coat of armour of
Manannan, through which no weapon might pierce; and by his side hung
the terrible sword, the “Answerer,” which had but one answer for every
one against whom it was raised--death. The horse, too, that Lu rode was
the far-famed stallion of Manannan, so swift that the March wind could
not overtake him, nor could water, air, or land offer any obstacles to
his progress.
A great shout welcomed these champions of the Fairy Host as they
drew near, but this shout came from the assemblage outside of Tara;
and neither the king nor his lords rose at their approach. The
Fomorians scowled and stood apart, and then scornfully resumed their
tax-gathering.
When they had finished their task the Fomorians rose and together
approached the place where the king sat high among his people.
As they drew near, Nuadh of the Silver Hand and all his lords rose and
made humble obeisance.
At this, Lu the Ildanna frowned, and when Lu of the Long Hand frowned
his company knew that evil was like to come.
“Tell me, O King,” he said haughtily: “why do you make obeisance to
these rude, ungainly folk, and did none to us when we approached, to us
who are of the old Dedannan race?”
Thereupon Nuadh of the Silver Hand spake the bitterness of truth, and
how it was that in order to save the land from devastation, and his
people from rapine and outrage, he submitted to the Fomorian yoke. And
for the same reason he had not ventured to pay homage to Lu and the
Fairy Host, for the Fomorians would have taken this as an insult to
Balor of the Evil Eye, and some great evil would have ensued.
Lu smiled scornfully.
“And at the worst, O Nuadh of the Silver Hand, there is a disastrous
end and death. What then? Is not death the sure end of all men, and is
not disaster the lot of many a hero as well as of many a slave?”
“That is so, Ildanna.”
“Then why evade that shadow, and all because of fear of these dark
pirates out of the north. Is not honour better than safety, and is not
shame a worse death than to be slain?”
“Even so, Ildanna. Nevertheless, I wish to avoid vain bloodshed. There
can be but one end. Why should I ruin my people?”
“Ruin is not a sure thing, O King: but if it were, better ruin than
dishonour.”
“Dost thou speak as a lord of high birth, or as one of the common
people?”
“I speak as the son of Kian the Noble.”
“Even so; but for each noble in my kingdom there are a thousand
Dedannans of no rank. I am their king. I speak for them.”
For a time thereafter Lu sat brooding. His silence was worse than his
scornful words. Nuadh the King saw what was in his mind, and dreaded
that he would go forth in his wrath. Thrice he half rose as though to
lay hands upon Lu to restrain him, and thrice he sat back uncertain
what to do.
Then suddenly Lu rose, and in the eyes of all men drew slowly from its
sheath his great white sword. At sight of the “Answerer,” there was
a shiver among the Dedannans, so great was the terrible fame of this
sword, but still more because the drawing of it there and then by Lu of
the Long Hand meant that the flame was in his blood.
“Beware!” cried the king.
But Lu laughed a grim laugh. Then, lifting the “Answerer” on high,
and knitting his brows into a heavy frown, he sprang in among the
Fomorians.
It was like the leap of lightning among wild cattle, that. Hither
and thither the “Answerer” flashed, and at each blow a Fomorian head
whirled to the ground; yea, as a sharp prow will divide the wave-crest
from the wave, so the great sword severed the head from the shoulders
of each Fomorian, shoring through helmet or thick fell of hair as
through water.
It was not till a whirlwind of swords flashed and circled around Lu
that those about him woke from their stupor. Then with a loud shout the
sons of Manannan and others of the Fairy Host leaped forward and joined
in the fray.
The Fomorians fought with fury, being wrought to madness by the thought
that they were as chaff before these newcomers, in the face of the
whole Dedannan nation--for so great was their scorn of the people they
held in bondage that death at their hands seemed doubly accursed.
But before Lu of the Long Hand and his Fairy Host there was no
withstaying. By tens and scores the Fomorians fell, as swaying grain
before the reaper. Everywhere, flashing like a meteor, the white gleam
of the Answerer rose and fell, the pulse of death.
At last only nine of the Fomorian pirates survived, and these clustered
upon a low rising, and fought desperately to the end. Suddenly the
tides of battle ceased, and this was because of the voice of Lu Ildanna.
He looked scornfully at the remnant of the proud Fomorians. These were
now sullenly at bay, foreseeing death only, and not unwillingly now
that the despised Dedannans had brought them to so sore a pass.
“Let these dogs go!” exclaimed Lu.
At the bitter words, the emissaries of King Balor of Lochlin gripped
their swords anew, and ground their teeth in impotent rage. More they
could not do, for even in their brief breathing space they saw that
they were beset by a hedge of spears.
“Let these dogs go!” Lu said again. Then, addressing them, he added:
“Look ye, ye carrion wolves, we spare your lives only that ye may fare
back to your dens in the north, and tell that unkingly king, Balor of
the Evil Eye, that which we have done unto your company. And say this
also, that if he come hither, we shall do unto him and his, that which
we have done unto these dead men who were once your fellows.” With that
the nine Fomorians departed, scowling fiercely and below their breath
muttering imprecations and menaces.