[10] Cumhail, genitive of Cumhal, after Mac = son; pronounced Cool.
Cumhal Macart was a great champion in the west of Erin, and it was
prophesied of him that if ever he married he would meet death in the
next battle he fought.
For this reason he had no wife, and knew no woman for a long time; till
one day he saw the king's daughter, who was so beautiful that he forgot
all fear and married her in secret.
Next day after the marriage, news came that a battle had to be fought.
Now a Druid had told the king that his daughter's son would take the
kingdom from him; so he made up his mind to look after the daughter, and
not let any man come near her.
Before he went to the battle, Cumhal told his mother everything,--told
her of his relations with the king's daughter.
He said, "I shall be killed in battle to-day, according to the prophecy
of the Druid, and I'm afraid if his daughter has a son the king will
kill the child, for the prophecy is that he will lose the kingdom by the
son of his own daughter. Now, if the king's daughter has a son do you
hide and rear him, if you can; you will be his only hope and stay."
Cumhal was killed in the battle, and within that year the king's
daughter had a son. By command of his grandfather, the boy was thrown
out of the castle window into a loch, to be drowned, on the day of his
birth.
The boy sank from sight; but after remaining a while under the water, he
rose again to the surface, and came to land holding a live salmon in his
hand.
The grandmother of the boy, Cumhal's mother, stood watching on the
shore, and said to herself as she saw this: "He is my grandson, the true
son of my own child," and seizing the boy, she rushed away with him, and
vanished, before the king's people could stop her.
When the king heard that the old woman had escaped with his daughter's
son, he fell into a terrible rage, and ordered all the male children
born that day in the kingdom to be put to death, hoping in this way to
kill his own grandson, and save the crown for himself.
After she had disappeared from the bank of the loch, the old woman,
Cumhal's mother, made her way to a thick forest, where she spent that
night as best she could. Next day she came to a great oak tree. Then she
hired a man to cut out a chamber in the tree.
When all was finished, and there was a nice room in the oak for herself
and her grandson, and a whelp of the same age as the boy, and which she
had brought with her from the castle, she said to the man: "Give me the
axe which you have in your hand, there is something here that I want to
fix."
The man gave the axe into her hand, and that minute she swept the head
off him, saying: "You'll never tell any man about this place now." One
day the whelp ate some of the fine chippings (_bran_) left cut by the
carpenter from the inside of the tree. The old woman said: "You'll be
called Bran from this out."
All three lived in the tree together, and the old woman did not take her
grandson out till the end of five years; and then he couldn't walk, he
had been sitting so long inside.
When the old grandmother had taught the boy to walk, she brought him one
day to the brow of a hill from which there was a long slope. She took a
switch and said: "Now, run down this place. I will follow and strike you
with this switch, and coming up I will run ahead, and you strike me as
often as you can."
The first time they ran down, his grandmother struck him many times. In
coming up the first time, he did not strike her at all. Every time they
ran down she struck him less, and every time they ran up he struck her
more.
They ran up and down for three days; and at the end of that time she
could not strike him once, and he struck her at every step she took. He
had now become a great runner.
When he was fifteen years of age, the old woman went with him to a
hurling match between the forces of his grandfather and those of a
neighboring king. Both sides were equal in skill; and neither was able
to win, till the youth opposed his grandfather's people. Then, he won
every game. When the ball was thrown in the air, he struck it coming
down, and so again and again,--never letting the ball touch the ground
till he had driven it through the barrier.
The old king, who was very angry, and greatly mortified, at the defeat
of his people, exclaimed, as he saw the youth, who was very fair and
had white hair: "Who is that _fin cumhal_[11] [white cap]?"
[11] Cumhal, the name of Fin's father. Denotes also a cap or
head-covering, fin = white. The punning resemblance suggested to the old
woman the full name, Fin MacCumhail.
"Ah, that is it; Fin will be his name, and Fin MacCumhail he is," said
the old woman.
The king ordered his people to seize and put the young man to death, on
the spot. The old woman hurried to the side of her grandson. They
slipped from the crowd and away they went, a hill at a leap, a glen at a
step, and thirty-two miles at a running-leap. They ran a long distance,
till Fin grew tired; then the old grandmother took him on her back,
putting his feet into two pockets which were in her dress, one on each
side, and ran on with the same swiftness as before, a hill at a leap, a
glen at a step, and thirty-two miles at a running-leap.
After a time, the old woman felt the approach of pursuit, and said to
Fin: "Look behind, and tell me what you see."
"I see," said he, "a white horse with a champion on his back."
"Oh, no fear," said she; "a white horse has no endurance; he can never
catch us, we are safe from him." And on they sped. A second time she
felt the approach of pursuit, and again she said: "Look back, and see
who is coming."