SETANTA, THE PEACE-MAKER
“The swine-herd
[Footnote: One of the minor gods. He resembles Mars
Sylvanus of the Romans to whom swine were sacrificed.]
of Bove Derg, son of the Dagda,
The feasts to which he came used to end in blood.”
GAELIC BARD.
Culain sat silent for a long time looking out before him with eyes like
iron, and when at last he spoke his voice was charged with wrath and
sorrow.
“O Concobar,” he said, “and you, the rest, nobles of the children of
Rury. You are my guests to-night, wherefore it is not lawful that I
should take vengeance upon you for the killing of my brave and faithful
hound, who was a better keeper of my treasures than a company of hired
warriors. Truly he cost me nothing but his daily allowance of meat, and
there was not his equal as a watcher and warder in the world. An eric,
therefore, I must have. Consult now together concerning its amount and
let the eric be great and conspicuous, for, by Orchil [Footnote: The
queen of the infernal regions.] and all the gods who rule beneath the
earth, a small eric I will not accept.”
Concobar answered straight, “Thou shalt not get from me or from the
Ultonians any eric, small or great. My nephew slew the beast in fair
fight, defending his life against an aggressor. But I will say something
else, proud smith, and little it recks me whether it is pleasing to thee
or not. Had thy wolf slain my nephew not one of you would have left this
dun alive, and of your famous city of artificers I would have made a
smoking heap.”
The Ultonians fiercely applauded that speech, declaring that the smiths
should get no eric, great or small, for the death of their monster. The
smiths thereupon armed themselves with their hammers, and tongs, and
fire-poles, and great bars of unwrought brass, and Culain himself seized
an anvil withal to lay waste the ranks of the Red Branch. The Ultonians
on their side ran to the walls and plucked down their spears from the
pegs, and they raised their shields and balanced their long spears,
and swords flashed and screeched as they rushed to light out of the
scabbards, and the vast chamber glittered with shaking bronze and shone
with the eyeballs of angry men, and rang with shouts of defiance and
quick fierce words of command. For the Red Branch embattled themselves
on one side of the chamber and the smiths upon the other, burning with
unquenchable wrath, earth-born. The vast and high dome re-echoing rang
with the clear terrible cries of the Ultonians and the roar of the
children of the gloomy Orchil, and, far away, the magic shield moaned at
Emain Macha, and the waves of the ocean sent forth a cry, for the peril
of death and of shortness of life were around Concobar in that hour.
And, though the doors of thick oak, brass-bound, were shut and barred,
there came a man into the assembly, and he was not seen. He was red all
over, both flesh and raiment, as if he had been plunged in a bath of
blood. His countenance was distraught and his eyes like those of an
insane man, and sparks new from them like sparks from a smith’s stithy
when he mightily hammers iron plucked white from the furnace. Smoke
and fire came from his mouth. He held in his hand a long boar-yard. The
likeness of a boar bounded after him. He traversed the vast chamber with
the velocity of lightning, and with his boar-yard beat such as were
not already drunk with wrath and battle-fury, and shot insane fire into
their souls. [Footnote: This was the demon referred to in the lines at
the head of the chapter.]
Then indeed it wanted little, not the space of time during which a man
might count ten, for the beginning of a murder grim and great as any
renowned in the world’s chronicles, and it is the opinion of the learned
that, in spite of all their valour and beautiful weapons, the artificers
would then and there have made a bloody end of the Red Branch had the
battle gone forward. But at this moment, ere the first missile was
hurled on either side, the boy Setanta sprang into the midst, into the
middle space which separated the enraged men, and cried aloud, with a
clear high voice that rang distinct above the tumult--
“O Culain, forbear to hurl, and restrain thy people, and you the
Ultonians, my kinsmen, delay to shoot. To thee, O chief smith, and thy
great-hearted artificers I will myself pay no unworthy eric for the
death of thy brave and faithful hound. For verily I will myself take thy
dog’s place, and nightly guard thy property, sleepless as he was, and I
will continue to do so till a hound as trusty and valiant as the hound
whom I slew is procured for thee to take his place, and to relieve me
of that duty. Truly I slew not thy hound in any wantonness of superior
strength, but only in the defence of my own life, which is not mine but
my King’s. Three times he leaped upon me with white fangs bared and eyes
red with murder, and three times I cast him off, but when the fourth
time he rushed upon me like a storm, and when with great difficulty I
had balked him on that occasion also, then I took him by the throat and
by his legs and flung him against one of the brazen pillars withal to
make him stupid. And truly it was not my intention to kill him and I am
sorry that he is dead, seeing that he was so faithful and so brave, and
so dear to thee whom I have always honoured, even when I was a child at
Dun Dalgan, and whom, with thy marvel-working craftsman, I have for
a long time eagerly desired to see. And I thought that our meeting,
whensoever it might be, would be other than this and more friendly.”
As he went on speaking the fierce brows of the smith relaxed, and first
he regarded the lad with pity, being so young and fair, and then with
admiration for his bravery. Also he thought of his own boyish days,
and as he did so a torrent of kindly affection and love poured from his
breast towards the boy, yea, though he saw him standing before him with
the blood of his faithful hound gilding his linen lena and his white
limbs. Yet, indeed, it was not the hound’s blood which was on the boy,
but his own, so cruelly had the beast torn him with his long and strong
and sharp claws.
“That proposal is pleasing to me,” he said, “and I will accept the eric,
which is distinguished and conspicuous and worthy of my greatness and of
my name and reputation amongst the Gael. Why should a man be angry for
ever when he who did the wrong offers due reparation?” Therewith over
his left shoulder he flung the mighty anvil into the dark end of the
vast chamber among the furnaces, at the sound of whose falling the
solid earth shook. On the other hand Concobar rejoiced at this happy
termination of the quarrel, for well he knew the might of those huge
children of the gloomy Orchil. He perceived, too, that he could with
safety entrust the keeping of the lad to those people, for he saw
the smith’s countenance when it changed, and he knew that among those
artificers there was no guile.
“It is pleasing to me, too,” he said, “and I will be myself the lad’s
security for the performance of his promise.”
“Nay, I want no security,” answered the smith. “The word of a scion of
the Red Branch is security enough for me.”
Thereafter all laid aside their weapons and their wrath. The smiths with
a mighty clattering cast their tools into the dark end of the chamber,
and the Ultonians hanged theirs upon the walls, and the feasting and
pledging and making of friendly speeches were resumed. There was no more
any anger anywhere, but a more unobstructed flow of mutual good-will and
regard, for the Ultonians felt no more a secret inclination to laugh at
the dusky artificers, and the smiths no longer regarded with disdain the
beauty, bravery, and splendour of the Ultonians.
In the meantime Setanta had returned to his place between the King and
Fergus Mac Roy. There a faintness came upon him, and a great horror
overshadowed him owing to his battle with the dog, for indeed it was no
common dog, and when he would have fallen, owing to the faintness, they
pushed him behind them so that he lay at full length upon the couch
unseen by the smiths. Concobar nodded to his chief Leech, and he came
to him with his instruments and salves and washes. There unobserved he
washed the cruel gashes cut by the hound’s claws, and applied salves and
stitched the skin over the wounds, and, as he did so, in a low voice he
murmured healing songs of power.
“Where is the boy?” said Culain.
“He is reposing a little,” said Concobar, “after his battle and his
conflict.”
After a space they gave Setanta a draught of mighty ale, and his heart
revived in him and the colour returned to his cheeks wherein before was
the pallor of death, and he sat up again in his place, slender and fair,
between Concobar and Fergus Mac Roy. The smiths cried out a friendly
welcome to him as he sat up, for they held him now to be their
foster-son, and Culain himself stood up in his place holding in both
hands a great mether [Footnote: A four-cornered quadrangular cup.] of
ale, and he drank to all unborn and immature heroes, naming the name
of Setanta, son of Sualtam, now his dear foster-son, and magnified his
courage, so that the boy blushed vehemently and his eyelids trembled
and drooped; and all the artificers stood up too and drank to their
foster-son, wishing him victory and success, and they drained their
goblets and dashed them, mouth downwards, upon the brazen tables, so
that the clang reverberated over Ulla. Setanta thereupon stood up while
the smiths roared a welcome to their foster-son, and he said that it
was not he who had gained the victory, for that someone invisible had
assisted him and had charged him with a strength not his own. Then he
faltered in his speech and said again that he would be a faithful hound
in the service of the artificers, and sat down. The smiths at that time
would not have yielded him for all the hounds in the world.
After that their harpers harped for them and their story tellers related
true stories, provoking laughter and weeping. There was no story told
that was not true in the age of the heroes. Then the smiths sang one
of their songs of labour, though it needed the accompaniment of ringing
mettle, a song wild and strange, and the Ultonians clear and high sang
all together with open mouths a song of battle and triumph and of the
marching home to Emain Macha with victory; and so they spent the night,
till Concobar said--
“O Culain, feasting and singing are good, but slumber is good also.
Dismiss us now to our rest and our slumber, for we, the Red Branch, must
rise betimes in the morning, having our own proper work to perform day
by day in Emain Macha, as you yours in your industrious city.”
With difficulty were the smiths persuaded to yield to that request, for
right seldom was there a feast in Dun Culain, and the unusual pleasure
and joyful sense of comradeship and social exaltation were very pleasing
to their hearts.
The Ultonians slept that night in the smiths’ hall upon resplendent
couches which had been prepared for them, and early in the morning,
having taken a friendly leave of the artificers, they departed, leaving
the lad behind them asleep. Setanta remained with the smiths a long time
after that, and Culain and his people loved him greatly and taught him
many things. It was owing to this adventure and what came of it that
Setanta got his second name, viz., the Hound of Culain or Cu-Culain.
Under that name he wrought all his marvellous deeds.