_Scathach (pronounced Scá-ya or Ský-ya) was an Amazonian queen of the
Isle of Skye, and is supposed to have given her name to that island._
In the year when Cuchullin left the Isle of Skye, where Scathach the
warrior-Queen ruled with the shadow of death in the palm of her
sword-hand, there was sorrow because of his beauty. He had fared back
to Eiré, at the summons of Concobar mac Nessa, Ard-Righ of Ulster. For
the Clan of the Red Branch was wading in blood, and there were seers
who beheld that bitter tide rising and spreading.
Cuchullin was only a youth in years: but he had come to Skye a boy,
and he had left it a man. None fairer had ever been seen of Scathach
or of any woman. He was tall and lithe as a young pine: his skin was
as white as a woman's breast: his eyes were of a fierce bright blue,
with a white light in them as of the sun. When bent, and with arrow
half-way drawn, he stood on the heather, listening against the belling
of the deer; or when he leaned against a tree, dreaming not of
eagle-chase or wolf-hunt, but of the woman whom he had never met; or
when, by the dûn, he played at sword-whirl or spear-thrust, or raced
the war-chariot across the machar--then, and ever, there were eyes
upon his beauty and there were some who held him to be Angus Ogue
himself. For there was a light about him, such as the hills have in
the sun-glow an hour before set. His hair was the hair of Angus and of
the fair gods: earth-brown shot with gold next his head, ruddy as
flame midway, and, where it sprayed into a golden mist of fire, yellow
as windy sunshine.
But Cuchullin loved no woman upon Skye, and none dared openly to love
Cuchullin, for Scathach's heart yearned for him, and to cross the
Queen was to put the shroud upon oneself. Scathach kept an open face
for the son of Lerg. There was no dark frown above the storm in her
eyes when she looked at his sunbright face. Gladly she slew a woman
because Cuchullin had lightly reproved the maid for some idle thing:
and once, when the youth had looked in grave silence at three
viking-captives whom she had spared because of their comely manhood,
she put her sword through the heart of each, and sent him the blade,
dripping red, as the flower of love.
But Cuchullin was a dreamer, and he loved what he dreamed of, and that
woman was not Scathach, nor any of her warrior-women who made the Isle
of Mist a place of terror for those cast upon the wild shores, or
stranded there in the ebb of inglorious battle.
Scathach brooded deep upon her vain desire. Once, in a windless
shadowy gloaming, she asked him if he loved any woman.
"Yes," he said, "Etáin."
Her breath came quick and hard. It was for pleasure to her then to
think of Cuchullin lying white at her feet, with the red blood
spilling from the whiteness of his breast. But she bit her underlip,
and said quietly:
"Who is Etáin?"
"She is the wife of Mídir."
And with that the youth turned and moved haughtily away. She did not
know that the Etáin of whom Cuchullin dreamed was no woman that he had
seen in Eiré, but the wife of Mídir the King of Faerie, who was so
passing fair that Mac Greine, the beautiful god, had made for her a
grianan all of shining glass, where still she lives in a dream, and in
that sun-bower still is fed at dawn upon the bloom of flowers and at
dusk upon their fragrance. _O ogham mhic Gréine, tha e boidheach_,[15]
she sighs for ever in her sleep: and that sigh is in all sighs of love
for ever and ever.
[15] "O beauty of my love the Sun-lord" (_lit._ "O Youth, son of
the Sun, how fair he is!")
Scathach watched him till he was lost behind the flare of the
camp-fires of the rath. For long she stood there, brooding deep; till
the sickle of the new moon, which had been like a blown feather over
the sun as it sank, stood out in silvershine against the blue-black
sky, now like a wake in the sea because of the star-dazzle that was
there. And what the queen brooded upon was this: whether to send
emissaries to Eirèann, under bond to seek in that land till they found
Mídir and Etáin, and to slay Mídir and bring to her the corpse, for a
gift from her to lay before Cuchullin: or to bring Etáin to Skye,
where the Queen might see her lose her beauty and wane into death.
Neither way might win the heart of Cuchullin. The dark tarn of the
woman's mind grew blacker with the shadow of that thought.
Slowly she moved dûn-ward through the night. "As the moon sometimes is
seen rising out of the east," she muttered, "and sometimes, as now, is
first seen in the west, so is the heart of love. And if I go west, lo
the moon may rise along the sunway: and if I go east, lo the moon may
be a white light over the setting sun. And who that knoweth the heart
of man or woman can tell when the moon of love is to appear full-orbed
in the east or sickle-wise in the west?"
It was on the day following that tidings came out of Eirèann. An
Ultonian brought a sword to Cuchullin from Concobar the Ard-righ.
"The sword has ill upon it, and will die, unless you save it, Cuculain
son of Lerg," said the man.
"And what is that ill, Ultonian?" asked the youth.
"It is thirst."
Then Cuchullin understood.
On the night of his going none looked at Scathach. She had a flame in
her eyes.
At moonrise, she came back into the rath. No one, meeting her, looked
in her face. Death lay there, like the levin behind a cloud. But Maev
her chief captain sought her, for she had glad news.
"I would slay you for that glad news, Maev," said the Dark Queen to
the warrior-woman, "for there is no glad news unless it be that
Cuchullin is come again: only, I spare, for you saved my life that day
the summer-sailors burned my rath in the south."
Nevertheless, Scathach had gladness because of the tidings. Three
viking-galleys had been driven into Loch Scavaig, and been dashed to
death there by the whirling wind and the narrow furious seas. Of the
ninety men who had sailed in them, only a score had reached the rocks:
and these were now lying bound at the dûn, awaiting death.
"Call out my warriors," said Scathach, "and bid all meet at the oak
near the Ancient Stones. And bring thither the twenty men that lie
bound in the dûn."
There was a scattering of fire and a clashing of swords and spears,
when the word went from Maev. Soon all were at the Stones beneath the
great oak.
"Cut the bonds from the feet of the sea-rovers, and let them stand."
Thus commanded the Queen.
The tall fair men out of Lochlin stood, with their hands bound behind
them. In their eyes burned wrath and shame, because that they were the
sport of women. A bitter death theirs, with no sword-song for music.
"Take each by his long yellow hair," said Scathach, "and tie the hair
of each to a down-caught bough of the oak."
In silence this thing was done. A shadow was in the paleness of each
viking-face.
"Let the boughs go," said Scathach.
The five score warrior-women who held the great boughs downward,
sprang back. Up swept the branches, and from each swung a living man,
swaying in the wind by his long yellow hair.
Great men they were, strong warriors: but stronger was the yellow hair
of each, and stronger than the hair the bough wherefrom each swung
and stronger than the boughs the wind that swayed them idly like
drooping fruit, with the stars silvering their hair and the
torch-flares reddening the white soles of their dancing feet.
Then Scathach the Queen laughed loud and long. There was no other
sound at all there, for none ever uttered sound when Scathach laughed
that laugh, for then her madness was upon her.
But at the last Maev strode forward, and struck a small clarsach that
she carried, and to the wild notes of it sang the death-song of the
vikings.
O arone a-ree, eily arone, arone!
'Tis a good thing to be sailing across the sea!
How the women smile and the children are laughing glad
When the galleys go out into the blue sea--arone!
O eily arone, arone!
But the children may laugh less when the wolves come,
And the women may smile less in the winter--cold--
For the Summer-sailors will not come again, arone!
O arone a-ree, eily arone, arone!
I am thinking they will not sail back again, O no!
The yellow-haired men that came sailing across the sea:
For 'tis wild apples they would be, and swing on green branches,
And sway in the wind for the corbies to preen their eyne,
O eily arone, eily a-ree!
And it is pleasure for Scathach the Queen to see this:
To see the good fruit that grows upon the Tree of the Stones.
Long, speckled fruit it is, wind-swayed by its yellow roots,
And like men they are with their feet dancing in the void air!
O, O, arone, a-ree, eily arone!
When she ceased, all there swung swords and spears, and flung flaring
torches into the night, and cried out:
_O, arone a-ree, eily arone, arone,
O, O, arone, a-ree, eily arone!_
Scathach laughed no more. She was weary now. Of what avail any joy of
death against the pain she had in her heart, the pain that was called
Cuchullin?
Soon all was dark in the rath. Flame after flame died out. Then there
was but one red glare in the night, the watch-fire by the dûn. Deep
peace was upon all. Not a heifer lowed, not a dog bayed against the
moon. The wind fell into a breath, scarce enough to lift the fragrance
from flower to flower. Upon the branches of a great oak swung
motionless a strange fruit, limp and gray as the hemlock that hangs
from ancient pines.