As for Morag she went by track and path, by boher and bohereen, through
fords in rivers and over stepping-stones across them, until at last she
came to the country of Senlabor and to the Castle of the King.
No one of high degree was in the Castle, for all had gone to watch the
young horses being broken in the meadow by the river; the King and
Queen had gone, and the King’s foster-daughters; and of the maids in the
Castle, Baun and Deelish had gone too. The King’s Councillor also had
gone from the Castle. Morag went and stayed in the kitchen, and the
maids who were there did not know her, either because they were new and
had not heard her spoken of at all, or because she had changed to such
beauty through eating the berry of the Fairy Rowan Tree that no one
could know her now for Morag who had cleaned dishes in that kitchen
before.
It was Breas the King’s Steward who came to her and asked her who she
was. She told him. Then Breas looked sharply at her and saw she was
indeed Morag who had been in the King’s kitchen. Then he said loudly,
“Before you left you broke the dish that the King looked on as his
especial treasure, and for this, you will be left in the Stone House. I
who have power in this matter order that it be so.” Then he said in her
ear, “But kisses and sweet words would make me willing to save you.”
Morag, in a voice raised, called him by that evil name that he was known
by to the servants and their gossips. But the servants, hearing that
name said in the hearing of Breas, pretended to be scandalized. They
went to Morag and struck her with the besoms they had for sweeping the
floor.
Just then her foster-sisters, Baun and Deelish, came into the kitchen.
Seeing her there they knew her. They spoke to her quietly, but with
anger, saying they had not wanted her to go on the journey she had
taken, but, as she had gone it was a pity she had come back, for now she
had behaved in an iii-mannered way, and they who were her foster-sisters
would be thought to be as ill-mannered; they told her too that before
she came back they were well-liked by all, and that Breas had even
ordered a shady place to be given them at the horse-breaking sports,
and they had been able to see the two youths who had broken the horses,
Dermott and Downal.
“It was for a benefit to you that I came back,” said Morag. “I shall
ask one of you to do a thing for me. You, Baun, sing for the
foster-daughters of the King. Before they sleep to-night ask them to
tell the Queen that Morag has returned, and has a thing to give her.”
“I shall try to remember that, Morag,” said Baun. Morag was taken to
the Stone House by strong-armed bondswomen, and Baun and Deelish sat in
corners and cried and did not go near her.
That night the King’s foster-daughters kept awake for long, and after
Baun had sung to them they asked her to tell them what had happened in
the Castle. Then Baun remembered the tumult in the kitchen that had come
from the name given to Breas. She told the King’s foster-daughters that
Morag had come back. “She was reared in the same house with us,” said
Baun, “but she is not of the same parents.” And then she said; “If your
Fair Finenesses can remember, tell the Queen that Morag has come back.”
The next day when they were walking with the Queen one of the King’s
foster-daughters said, “Did you know of a maid named Morag? I have heard
that she has been away and has come back.”
“How did she fare?” said the Queen.
“We have not heard that,” said the maiden who spoke.
The Queen went to where Baun and Deelish were and from them she heard
that Morag had been put into the Stone House on the charge that she had
broken the King’s dish when she had been in the Castle before. Now the
Queen knew that the dish had been safe after Morag had left. She went
to the King’s Steward and accused him of having broken it and Breas
admitted that it was so. Thereupon he lost his rank and became the
meanest and the most despised servant in the Castle.
The Queen went to the Stone House and took Morag out. She asked her how
she had fared and thereupon Morag put the Rowan Berry in the Queen’s
hand. She hastened to her own chamber and ate it, and her youth and
beauty came back to her, and the King who had grown solitary, loved the
Queen again.
Then Morag came to great honor in the Castle and the Queen asked her
to name the greatest favor she could think of. And the favor that Morag
named was marriages for her foster-sisters with the two youths they
loved, Downal and Dermott from the court of the King of Ireland.
The Queen, when she heard this, brought fine clothes out of her chests
and gave them to Baun and Deelish. When they had dressed in these
clothes the Queen made them known to the two youths. Downal and Dermott
fell in love with Morag’s foster-sisters, and the King named a day for
the pairs to marry.
Morag waited to see the marriages, and the King and Queen made it a
grand affair. There were seven hundred guests at the short table,
eight hundred at the long table, nine hundred at the round table, and
a thousand in the great hall. I was there, and I heard the whole story.
But I got no present save shoes of paper and stockings of butter-milk
and these a herdsman stole from me as I crossed the mountains.
But Morag got better presents, for the Queen gave her three gifts--a
scissors that cut cloth of itself, a ball of thread that went into the
needle of itself, and a needle that sewed of itself.
V
Morag, with the three gifts that the Queen of Senlabor gave her,
came again to the Spae-Woman’s house. Her Little Red Hen was in the
courtyard, and she fluttered up to meet her. But there was no sign of
any other life about the place. Then, below at the washing-stream
she found the Spae-Woman rinsing clothes. She was standing on the
middle-stones, clapping her hands as if in great trouble. “Oh, Morag,
my daughter Morag,” cried the Spae-Woman, “there are signs on the
clothes--there are signs on the clothes!”
After a while she ceased crying and clapping her hands and came up from
the stream. She showed Morag that in all the shifts and dimities she
washed for her, a hole came just above where her heart would be. Morag
grew pale when she saw that, but she stood steadily and she did not
wail. “Should I go to the King’s Castle, fosterer?” said she. “No,”
said the Spae-Woman, “but to the woodman’s hut that is near the King’s
Castle. And take your Little Red Hen with you, my daughter,” said she,
“and do not forget the three presents that the Queen of Senlabor gave
you.” Then the Spae-Woman stood up and said the blessing of the journey
over Morag:--
May the Olden
One, whom Fairy
Women nurtured
Through seven ages,
Bring you seven
Waves of fortune.
Morag gave her the clasp of farewell then, and went on her way with the
Little Red Hen under her arm and the three presents that the Queen of
Senlabor gave her in her pouch.
Morag was going and ever going from the blink of day to the mouth of
dark and that for three crossings of the sun, and at last she came
within sight of the Castle of the King of Ireland. She asked a dog-boy
for the hut of MacStairn the Woodman and the hut was shown to her. She
went to it and saw the wife of MacStairn. She told her she was a girl
traveling alone and she asked for shelter. “I can give you shelter,”
said MacStairn’s wife, “and I can get you earnings too, for there is
much sewing-work to be done at this time.” Morag asked her what reason
there was for that, and the woodman’s wife told her there were two
couples in the Castle to be married soon. “One is the youth whom we have
always called the King of Ireland’s Son. He is to be married to a maiden
called Fedelma. The other is a youth who is the King’s son too, hut
who has been away for a long time. Flann is his name. And he is to be
married to a damsel called Gilveen.”
When she heard that, it was as if a knife had been put into and turned
in her heart. She let the Little Red Hen drop from her arm. “I would sew
the garments that the damsel Gilveen is to wear,” said she, and she sat
down on the stone outside the woodman’s hut. MacStairn’s wife then sent
to the Castle to say that there was one in her hut who could sew all the
garments that Gilveen would send her.
The next day, with a servant walking behind, Gilveen came to the
woodman’s hut with a basket of cloths and patterns. The basket was left
down and Gilveen began to tell MacStairn’s wife how she wanted them cut,
stitched and embroidered. Morag took up the crimson doth and let her
scissors--the scissors that the Queen of Senlabor gave her--run through
it. It cut out the pattern exactly. “What a wonderful scissors,” said
Gilveen. She stooped down to where Morag was sitting on the stone
outside of the woodman’s house and took up the scissors in her hand. She
examined it. “I cannot give it back to you,” said she. “Give it to me,
and I will let you have any favor you ask.” “Since you want me to
ask you for a favor,” said Morag, “I ask that you let me sit at the
supper-table to-night alone with the youth you are to marry.” “That will
do me no harm,” said Gilveen. She went away, taking the scissors and
smiling to herself.
That night Morag went into the Castle and came to the supper-table where
Flann was seated alone. But Gilveen had put a sleeping-draught into
Flann’s cup and he neither saw nor knew Morag when she sat at the
table. “Do you remember, Flann,” said she, “how we used to sit at the
supper-board in the house of Crom Duv?” But Flann did not hear her, nor
see her, and then Morag had to go away.