These are of the Seanachas told me by Ian Cameron ("Ian Mòr"), before
the flaming peats, at a hill-shealing, in a season when the premature
snows found the bracken still golden and the ptarmigan with their
autumn browns no more than flecked and mottled with gray.
He has himself now a quieter sleep than the sound of that falling
snow, and it is three years since his face became as white and as
cold.
He had pleasure in telling _sgeul_ after _sgeul_ of the ancient days.
Far more readily at all times would he repeat stories of this dim past
he loved so well than the more intimate tales which had his own pulse
beating in them, as "The Daughter of the Sun" and others that I have
given elsewhere. Often he would look up from where he held his face in
his hands as he brooded into the dull steadfast flame that consumed
the core of the peats; and without preamble, and with words in no
apparent way linked to those last spoken, would narrate some brief
episode, and always as one who had witnessed the event. Sometimes,
indeed, these brief tales were like waves: one saw them rise,
congregate, and expand in a dark billow--and the next moment there was
a vanishing puff of spray and the billow had lapsed.
I cannot recall many of these fugitive tales--seanachas, as he spoke
of them collectively, for each _sgeul_ was of the past, and had its
roots in legendary lore--but of those that remained with me, here are
four. All came upon me as birds flying in the dark: I knew not whence
they came or upon what wind they had steered their mysterious course.
They were there, that was all. Ancient things come again in Ian's
brain: or recovered out of the dim days, and seen anew through the
wonder-lens of his imagination.
* * * * *
It was in a white June, as they call it, in the third year after the
pirates of Lochlin had fed the corbies of the Hebrid Isles, that the
summer-sailors once more came down the Minch of Skye.
An east wind blew fresh from the mountains, though between dawn and
sunrise it veered till it chilled itself upon the granite peaks of the
Cuchullins, and then leaped north-westward with the white foam of its
feet caught from behind by the sun-glint.
The vikings on board the _Svart-Alf_ laughed at that. The spray flew
from the curved black prow of the great galley, and the wake danced in
the dazzle--the sea-cream that they loved to see.
Tall men they were, and comely. Their locks of yellow or golden or
ruddy hair, sometimes braided, sometimes all acurl like a
chestnut-tree bud-breaking in April, sometimes tangled like sea-wrack
caught in a whirl of wind and tide, streamed upon their shoulders. In
their blue eyes was a shining as though there were torches of white
flame behind them: and that shining was mild or fierce as home or
blood filled their brain.
The _Svart-Alf_ was the storm-bird of a fleet of thirty galleys which
had set forth from Lochlin under the raven-banner of Olaus the White.
The vikings had joyed in a good faring. Singing south winds had blown
them to the Faroe Isles, where from Magnus Cleft-Hand they had good
cheer, and the hire of three men who knew the Western Isles and had
been with the sea-kings who had harried them here and there again and
again.
From Magnus-stead they went forth swelled with mead and ale and
cow-beef: and they laughed because of what they would give in payment
on their way back with golden torques and bracelets and other
treasure, young slaves, women dark and fair, and the jewel-hilted
weapons of the island-lords.
Cold black winds out of the north-east drove them straight upon the
Ord of Sutherland. They sang with joy the noon when they rounded Cape
Wrath and came under the shadow of the hills. The dawn that followed
was red not only in the sky but on the sheen of the sword-blades. It
was the Song of the Sword that day, and there is no song like that
for the flaming of the blood. The dark men of Torridon were caught
unawares. For seven days thereafter the corbies and ravens glutted
themselves drinking at red pools beside the stripped bodies which lay
stark and stiff upon the heather. The firing of a score of homesteads
smouldered till the rains came, a day and two nights after the old
women who had been driven to the moors stole back wailing. The maids
and wives were carried off in the galleys: and for nine days, at a
haven in the lone coast opposite the Summer Isles, their tears, their
laughter, their sullen anger, their wild gaiety, their passionate
despair gave joy to the yellow-haired men. On the ninth day they were
carried southward on the summer-sailing. At a place called
Craig-Feeach, Raven's Crag, in the north of Skye, where a Norse Erl
had a great Dûn that he had taken from the son of a king from Eirèann
whose sea-nest it had been, Olaus the White rested awhile. The women
were left there as a free spoil: save three who were so fair that
Olaus kept one, and Haco and Sweno his chief captains took the others.
Then, on an evening when the wind was from the north, Olaus and ten
galleys went down the sound. Sweno the Hammerer was to strike across
the west for the great island that is called Lewis: Haco the Laugher
was to steer for the island that is called Harris: and Olaus himself
was to reach the haven called Ljotr-wick in the Isle of the Thousand
Waters that is Benbecula.
On the eve of the day following that sailing a wild wind sprang up,
blowing straight against the north. All of the south-faring galleys
save one made for haven, though it was a savage coast which lay along
the south of Skye. In the darkness of the storm Olaus thought that the
other nine wave-steeds were following him, and he drove before the
gale, with his men crouching under the lee of the bulwarks, and with
Finnleikr the Harper singing a wild song of sea-foam and flowing blood
and the whirling of swords.
The gale was nigh spent three hours after dawn: but the green seas
were like snow-crowned hillocks that roll in earth-drunkenness when
the flames surge from blazing mountains. Olaus knew that no boat
could live in that sea, except it went before the wind. So, though
not a galley was in sight, he fared steadily westward.
By sundown the wind had swung out of the south into the east: and by
midnight the stars were shining clear. In the blue-dark could be seen
the white wings of the fulmars, seaward-drifting once again from the
rocks whither they had fled.
Then came the dawn when the sun-rain streamed gladly, and a fresh east
wind blew across the Minch, and the _Svart-Alf_, that had been driven
far northward, came leaping south-westwardly, with laughter and fierce
shining of sky-blue eyes, where the vikings toiled at the oars, or
burnished their brine-stained swords and javelins.
All day they fared joyously thus. Behind them they could see the blue
line of the mainland and the dark-blue mountain-crests of Skye:
southward was a long green film, where Coll caught the waves ere they
drove upon Tiree; south-eastward, the gray-blue peaks of Halival and
Haskival rose out of the Isle of Terror, as Rùm was then called.
Before them, as far as they could see to north or south, the
purple-gray lines that rose out of the west were the contours of the
Hebrides.
"Dost thou see yonder blue splatch, Morna?" cried Olaus the White to
the woman who lay indolently by his side, and watched the sun-gold
redden the mass of ruddy hair which she had sprayed upon the boards, a
net wherein to mesh the eyes of the vikings, "do you see that blue
splatch? I know what it is. It is the headland that Olaf the Furious
called Skipness. Behind it is a long fjord in two forks. At the end of
the south fork is a place of the white-robes whom the islanders call
Culdees. Midway on the eastern bend of the north fork is a town of a
hundred families. Over both rules Maoliosa, a warrior-priest, and
under him, at the town, is a graybeard called Rumun mac Coag. All this
I have learned from Anlaf the Swarthy, who came with us out of Faroe."
Morna glanced at him under her drooped eyelids. Sure, he was fair to
see, for all that his long hair was white. White it had gone with the
terror of a night on an ice-floe, whereon a man who hated the young
erl had set him adrift with seven wolves. He had slain three, and
drowned three, and one had leaped into the sea: and then he had lain
on the ice, with snow for a pillow, and in the dawn his hair was the
same as the snow. This was but ten years ago, when he was a youth.
She looked at him, and when she spoke it was in the slow lazy speech
that in his ears was drowsy-sweet as the hum of the hives in the
steading where his home was.
"It will be a red sleep the men of that town will be having soon, I am
thinking, Olaus. And the women will not be carding wool when the moon
rises to-morrow night. And ..."
The fair woman stopped suddenly. Olaus saw her eyes darken.
"Olaus!"
"I listen."
"If there is a woman there that you desire more than me I will give
her a gift."
Olaus laughed.
"Keep your knife in your girdle Morna. Who knows but you may need it
soon to save yourself from a Culdee!"
"Bah. These white-robed men-women have nought to do with us. I fear
no man, Olaus: but I have a blade for the woman who will dazzle your
eyes."
"Have no fear, white wolf. The sea-wolf knows his mate when he has
found her!"
An hour after sun-setting a mist came up. The wind freshened. Olaus
made silence throughout the war-galley. The vikings had muffled their
oars, for the noise of the waves on the shore could now be heard. Hour
after hour went by. When, at last, the moonlight tore a rift in the
häar, and suddenly the vapour was licked up by a wind moving out of
the north, they saw that they were close upon the land, and right
eastward of the headland of Skipness.
Anlaf the Swarthy went to the prow. Blackly he loomed in the moonlight
as he stood there, poising his long spear, and sounding the depths
while the vessel slowly forged shoreward. By the time a haven was
found, and the vikings stood silent upon the rocks, the night was
yellow with moonshine, and the brown earth overlaid with a soft white
sheen wherein the long shadows lay palely blue.
There was deep peace in the island-town. The kye were in the
sea-pastures near, and even the dogs slept. There had been no ill for
long, and Rumun mac Coag was an old man, and dreamed overmuch about
his soul. This was because of the teaching of the Culdees. Before he
had known he had a soul he was a man, and would not have been taken
unawares--and he over-lord of a sea-town like Bail'-tiorail.
Olaus the White made a wide circuit with his men. Then, slowly, the
circle narrowed.
A bull lowed, where it stood among the sea-grass, stamping uneasily,
and ever and again sniffing the air. Suddenly one heifer, then
another, then all the kye, began a strange lowing. The dogs rose, with
bristling felts, and crawled sidelong, snarling, with red eyes
gleaming savagely.
Bethoc, the young third wife of Rumun, was awake, dreaming of a man
out of Eirèann who had that day given her a strange pleasure with his
harp and his dusky eyes. She knew that lowing. It was the _langanaich
an aghaidh am allamharach_, the continued lowing against the
stranger. She rose lightly, and unfastened the leather flap, and
looked down from the grianan where she was. A man stood there in the
shadow. She thought it was the harper. With a low sigh she leaned
downward to kiss him, and to whisper a word in his ear.
Her long hair fell over her eyes and face and blinded her. She felt it
grasped, and put out her hand. It was seized, and before she knew what
was come upon her she was dragged prone upon the man.
Then, in a flash, she saw he had yellow hair, and was clad as a
Norseman. She gasped. If the sea-rovers were come, it was death for
all there. The man whispered something in a tongue that was strange to
her. She understood better when he put his arm about her, and placed a
hand upon her mouth.
Bethoc stood silent. Why did no one hear that lowing of the kine, that
snarling of the dogs which had now grown into a loud continuous
baying? The man by her side thought she was cowed, or had accepted the
change of fate. He left her, and put his foot in a cleft. Then, sword
under his chin, he began to climb stealthily.
He had thrown his spear upon the ground. Soundlessly Bethoc stepped
forward, lifted it, and moved forward like a shadow.
A wild cry rang through the night. There was a gurgling and spurting
sound as of dammed water adrip. Rumun sprang from his couch, and
stared out of the aperture. Beneath he saw a man, speared through the
back, and pinned to the soft wood. His hands claspt the frayed
deer-skins, and his head lay upon his shoulder. He was laughing
horribly. A bubbling of foam frothed continuously out of his mouth.
The next moment Rumun saw Bethoc. He had not time to call to her
before a man slipped out of the shadow, and plunged a sword through
her till the point dripped red drops upon the grass beyond where she
stood. She gave no cry, but fell as a gannet falls. A black shadow
darted across the gloom. A crash, a scream, and Rumun sank inert, with
an arrow fixed midway in his head through the brows.
Then there was a fierce tumult everywhere. From the pastures the kye
ran lowing and bellowing, in a wild stampede. The neighing of horses
broke into screams. Here and there red flames burst forth, and leapt
from hut to hut. Soon the whole rath was aflame. Round the dûn of
Rumun a wall of swords flashed.
All had taken refuge in the dûn, all who had escaped the first
slaying. If any leaped forth, it was upon a viking spear, or if the
face of any was seen it was the targe for a swift-sure arrow.
A long penetrating wail went up. The Culdees, on the further loch,
heard it, and ran from their cells. The loud laughter of the
sea-rovers was more dreadful to them than the whirling flames and the
wild screaming lament of the dying and the doomed.
None came forth alive out of that dûn, save three men, and seven women
that were young. Two of the men were made to tell all that Olaus the
White wanted to know. Then they were blinded, and put in a boat, and
set in the tide-eddy that would take them to where the Culdees were.
And, for the Culdees, they had a message from Olaus.
Of the seven women none was so fair that Morna had any heed. But
seven men had them as spoil. Their wild keening had died away into a
silence of blank despair long before the dawn. When the light came,
they were huddled in a white group near the ashes of their homes.
Everywhere the dead sprawled.
At sunrise the vikings held an ale-feast. When Olaus the White had
drunken and eaten, he left his men and went down to the shore to look
upon the fortified place where Maoliosa the Culdee and his white-robes
lived. As he fared thither through what had been Bail'-tiorail there
was not a male left alive save the one prisoner who had been kept,
Aongas the Bow-maker as he was called: none save Aongas, and a strayed
child among the salt grasses near the shore, a little boy, naked and
with blue eyes and laughing sunny smile.