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CHAPTER II
They were married in a haste which equalled the king’s desire; and as he did not again ask her name, and as she did not volunteer to give it, and as she brought no dowry to her husband and received none from him, she was called Becfola, the Dowerless.
Time passed, and the king’s happiness was as great as his expectation of it had promised. But on the part of Becfola no similar tidings can be given.
There are those whose happiness lies in ambition and station, and to such a one the fact of being queen to the High King of Ireland is a satisfaction at which desire is sated. But the mind of Becfola was not of this temperate quality, and, lacking Crimthann, it seemed to her that she possessed nothing.
For to her mind he was the sunlight in the sun, the brightness in the moonbeam; he was the savour in fruit and the taste in honey; and when she looked from Crimthann to the king she could not but consider that the right man was in the wrong place. She thought that crowned only with his curls Crlmthann mac Ae was more nobly diademed than are the masters of the world, and she told him so.
His terror on hearing this unexpected news was so great that he meditated immediate flight from Tara; but when a thing has been uttered once it is easier said the second time and on the third repetition it is patiently listened to.
After no great delay Crimthann mac Ae agreed and arranged that he and Becfola should fly from Tara, and it was part of their understanding that they should live happily ever after.
One morning, when not even a bird was astir, the king felt that his dear companion was rising. He looked with one eye at the light that stole greyly through the window, and recognised that it could not in justice be called light.
“There is not even a bird up,” he murmured.
And then to Becfola.
“What is the early rising for, dear heart?”
“An engagement I have,” she replied.
“This is not a time for engagements,” said the calm monarch.
“Let it be so,” she replied, and she dressed rapidly.
“And what is the engagement?” he pursued.
“Raiment that I left at a certain place and must have. Eight silken smocks embroidered with gold, eight precious brooches of beaten gold, three diadems of pure gold.”
“At this hour,” said the patient king, “the bed is better than the road.”
“Let it be so,” said she.
“And moreover,” he continued, “a Sunday journey brings bad luck.”
“Let the luck come that will come,” she answered.
“To keep a cat from cream or a woman from her gear is not work for a king,” said the monarch severely.
The Ard-Ri’ could look on all things with composure, and regard all beings with a tranquil eye; but it should be known that there was one deed entirely hateful to him, and he would punish its commission with the very last rigour—this was, a transgression of the Sunday. During six days of the week all that could happen might happen, so far as Dermod was concerned, but on the seventh day nothing should happen at all if the High King could restrain it. Had it been possible he would have tethered the birds to their own green branches on that day, and forbidden the clouds to pack the upper world with stir and colour. These the king permitted, with a tight lip, perhaps, but all else that came under his hand felt his control.
It was his custom when he arose on the morn of Sunday to climb to the most elevated point of Tara, and gaze thence on every side, so that he might see if any fairies or people of the Shi’ were disporting themselves in his lordship; for he absolutely prohibited the usage of the earth to these beings on the Sunday, and woe’s worth was it for the sweet being he discovered breaking his law.
We do not know what ill he could do to the fairies, but during Dermod’s reign the world said its prayers on Sunday and the Shi’ folk stayed in their hills.
It may be imagined, therefore, with what wrath he saw his wife’s preparations for her journey, but, although a king can do everything, what can a husband do...? He rearranged himself for slumber.
“I am no party to this untimely journey,” he said angrily.
“Let it be so,” said Becfola.
She left the palace with one maid, and as she crossed the doorway something happened to her, but by what means it happened would be hard to tell; for in the one pace she passed out of the palace and out of the world, and the second step she trod was in Faery, but she did not know this.
Her intention was to go to Cluain da chaillech to meet Crimthann, but when she left the palace she did not remember Crimthann any more.
To her eye and to the eye of her maid the world was as it always had been, and the landmarks they knew were about them. But the object for which they were travelling was different, although unknown, and the people they passed on the roads were unknown, and were yet people that they knew.
They set out southwards from Tara into the Duffry of Leinster, and after some time they came into wild country and went astray. At last Becfola halted, saying:
“I do not know where we are.”
The maid replied that she also did not know.
“Yet,” said Becfola, “if we continue to walk straight on we shall arrive somewhere.”
They went on, and the maid watered the road with her tears.
Night drew on them; a grey chill, a grey silence, and they were enveloped in that chill and silence; and they began to go in expectation and terror, for they both knew and did not know that which they were bound for.
As they toiled desolately up the rustling and whispering side of a low hill the maid chanced to look back, and when she looked back she screamed and pointed, and clung to Becfola’s arm. Becfola followed the pointing finger, and saw below a large black mass that moved jerkily forward.
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“Wolves!” cried the maid. “Run to the trees yonder,” her mistress ordered. “We will climb them and sit among the branches.”
They ran then, the maid moaning and lamenting all the while.
“I cannot climb a tree,” she sobbed, “I shall be eaten by the wolves.”
And that was true.
But her mistress climbed a tree, and drew by a hand’s breadth from the rap and snap and slaver of those steel jaws. Then, sitting on a branch, she looked with angry woe at the straining and snarling horde below, seeing many a white fang in those grinning jowls, and the smouldering, red blink of those leaping and prowling eyes.
CHAPTER III
But after some time the moon arose and the wolves went away, for their leader, a sagacious and crafty chief, declared that as long as they remained where they were, the lady would remain where she was; and so, with a hearty curse on trees, the troop departed. Becfola had pains in her legs from the way she had wrapped them about the branch, but there was no part of her that did not ache, for a lady does not sit with any ease upon a tree.
For some time she did not care to come down from the branch. “Those wolves may return,” she said, “for their chief is crafty and sagacious, and it is certain, from the look I caught in his eye as he departed, that he would rather taste of me than cat any woman he has met.”
She looked carefully in every direction to see if one might discover them in hiding; she looked closely and lingeringly at the shadows under distant trees to see if these shadows moved; and she listened on every wind to try if she could distinguish a yap or a yawn or a sneeze. But she saw or heard nothing; and little by little tranquillity crept into her mind, and she began to consider that a danger which is past is a danger that may be neglected.
Yet ere she descended she looked again on the world of jet and silver that dozed about her, and she spied a red glimmer among distant trees.
“There is no danger where there is light,” she said, and she thereupon came from the tree and ran in the direction that she had noted.
In a spot between three great oaks she came upon a man who was roasting a wild boar over a fire. She saluted this youth and sat beside him. But after the first glance and greeting he did not look at her again, nor did he speak.
When the boar was cooked he ate of it and she had her share. Then he arose from the fire and walked away among the trees. Becfola followed, feeling ruefully that something new to her experience had arrived; “for,” she thought, “it is usual that young men should not speak to me now that I am the mate of a king, but it is very unusual that young men should not look at me.”
But if the young man did not look at her she looked well at him, and what she saw pleased her so much that she had no time for further cogitation. For if Crimthann had been beautiful, this youth was ten times more beautiful. The curls on Crimthann’s head had been indeed as a benediction to the queen’s eye, so that she had eaten the better and slept the sounder for seeing him. But the sight of this youth left her without the desire to eat, and, as for sleep, she dreaded it, for if she closed an eye she would be robbed of the one delight in time, which was to look at this young man, and not to cease looking at him while her eye could peer or her head could remain upright.
They came to an inlet of the sea all sweet and calm under the round, silver-flooding moon, and the young man, with Becfola treading on his heel, stepped into a boat and rowed to a high-jutting, pleasant island. There they went inland towards a vast palace, in which there was no person but themselves alone, and there the young man went to sleep, while Becfola sat staring at him until the unavoidable peace pressed down her eyelids and she too slumbered.
She was awakened in the morning by a great shout.
“Come out, Flann, come out, my heart!”
The young man leaped from his couch, girded on his harness, and strode out. Three young men met him, each in battle harness, and these four advanced to meet four other men who awaited them at a little distance on the lawn. Then these two sets of four fought togethor with every warlike courtesy but with every warlike severity, and at the end of that combat there was but one man standing, and the other seven lay tossed in death.
Becfola spoke to the youth.
“Your combat has indeed been gallant,” she said.
“Alas,” he replied, “if it has been a gallant deed it has not been a good one, for my three brothers are dead and my four nephews are dead.”
“Ah me!” cried Becfola, “why did you fight that fight?”
“For the lordship of this island, the Isle of Fedach, son of Dali.”
But, although Becfola was moved and horrified by this battle, it was in another direction that her interest lay; therefore she soon asked the question which lay next her heart:
“Why would you not speak to me or look at me?”
“Until I have won the kingship of this land from all claimants, I am no match for the mate of the High King of Ireland,” he replied.
And that reply was llke balm to the heart of Becfola.
“What shall I do?” she inquired radiantly. “Return to your home,” he counselled. “I will escort you there with your maid, for she is not really dead, and when I have won my lordship I will go seek you in Tara.”
“You will surely come,” she insisted.
“By my hand,” quoth he, “I will come.”
These three returned then, and at the end of a day and night they saw far off the mighty roofs of Tara massed in the morning haze. The young man left them, and with many a backward look and with dragging, reluctant feet, Becfola crossed the threshold of the palace, wondering what she should say to Dermod and how she could account for an absence of three days’ duration.
CHAPTER IV
IT was so early that not even a bird was yet awake, and the dull grey light that came from the atmosphere enlarged and made indistinct all that one looked at, and swathed all things in a cold and livid gloom.
As she trod cautiously through dim corridors Becfola was glad that, saving the guards, no creature was astir, and that for some time yet she need account to no person for her movements. She was glad also of a respite which would enable her to settle into her home and draw about her the composure which women feel when they are surrounded by the walls of their houses, and can see about them the possessions which, by the fact of ownership, have become almost a part of their personality. Sundered from her belongings, no woman is tranquil, her heart is not truly at ease, however her mind may function, so that under the broad sky or in the house of another she is not the competent, precise individual which she becomes when she sees again her household in order and her domestic requirements at her hand.
Becfola pushed the door of the king’s sleeping chamber and entered noiselessly. Then she sat quietly in a seat gazing on the recumbent monarch, and prepared to consider how she should advance to him when he awakened, and with what information she might stay his inquiries or reproaches.
“I will reproach him,” she thought. “I will call him a bad husband and astonish him, and he will forget everything but his own alarm and indignation.”
But at that moment the king lifted his head from the pillow and looked kindly at her. Her heart gave a great throb, and she prepared to speak at once and in great volume before he could formulate any question. But the king spoke first, and what he said so astonished her that the explanation and reproach with which her tongue was thrilling fled from it at a stroke, and she could only sit staring and bewildered and tongue-tied.
“Well, my dear heart,” said the king, “have you decided not to keep that engagement?”
“I—I—!” Becfola stammered.
“It is truly not an hour for engagements,” Dermod insisted, “for not a bird of the birds has left his tree; and,” he continued maliciously, “the light is such that you could not see an engagement even if you met one.”
“I,” Becfola gasped. “I—-!”
“A Sunday journey,” he went on, “is a notorious bad journey. No good can come from it. You can get your smocks and diadems to-morrow. But at this hour a wise person leaves engagements to the bats and the staring owls and the round-eyed creatures that prowl and sniff in the dark. Come back to the warm bed, sweet woman, and set on your journey in the morning.”
Such a load of apprehension was lifted from Becfola’s heart that she instantly did as she had been commanded, and such a bewilderment had yet possession of her faculties that she could not think or utter a word on any subject.
Yet the thought did come into her head as she stretched in the warm gloom that Crimthann the son of Ae must be now attending her at Cluain da chaillech, and she thought of that young man as of something wonderful and very ridiculous, and the fact that he was waiting for her troubled her no more than if a sheep had been waiting for her or a roadside bush.
She fell asleep.
CHAPTER V
In the morning as they sat at breakfast four clerics were announced, and when they entered the king looked on them with stern disapproval.
“What is the meaning of this journey on Sunday?” he demanded.
A lank-jawed, thin-browed brother, with uneasy, intertwining fingers, and a deep-set, venomous eye, was the spokesman of those four.
“Indeed,” he said, and the fingers of his right hand strangled and did to death the fingers of his left hand, “indeed, we have transgressed by order.”
“Explain that.”
“We have been sent to you hurriedly by our master, Molasius of Devenish.”
“A pious, a saintly man,” the king interrupted, “and one who does not countenance transgressions of the Sunday.”
“We were ordered to tell you as follows,” said the grim cleric, and he buried the fingers of his right hand in his left fist, so that one could not hope to see them resurrected again. “It was the duty of one of the Brothers of Devenish,” he continued, “to turn out the cattle this morning before the dawn of day, and that Brother, while in his duty, saw eight comely young men who fought together.”
“On the morning of Sunday,” Dermod exploded.
The cleric nodded with savage emphasis.
“On the morning of this self-same and instant sacred day.”
“Tell on,” said the king wrathfully.
But terror gripped with sudden fingers at Becfola’s heart.
“Do not tell horrid stories on the Sunday,” she pleaded. “No good can come to any one from such a tale.”
“Nay, this must be told, sweet lady,” said the king. But the cleric stared at her glumly, forbiddingly, and resumed his story at a gesture.
“Of these eight men, seven were killed.”
“They are in hell,” the king said gloomily.
“In hell they are,” the cleric replied with enthusiasm.
“And the one that was not killed?”
“He is alive,” that cleric responded.
“He would be,” the monarch assented. “Tell your tale.”
“Molasius had those seven miscreants buried, and he took from their unhallowed necks and from their lewd arms and from their unblessed weapons the load of two men in gold and silver treasure.”
“Two men’s load!” said Dermod thoughtfully.
“That much,” said the lean cleric. “No more, no less. And he has sent us to find out what part of that hellish treasure belongs to the Brothers of Devenish and how much is the property of the king.”
Becfola again broke in, speaking graciously, regally, hastily: “Let those Brothers have the entire of the treasure, for it is Sunday treasure, and as such it will bring no luck to any one.”
The cleric again looked at her coldly, with a harsh-lidded, small-set, grey-eyed glare, and waited for the king’s reply.
Dermod pondered, shaking his head as to an argument on his left side, and then nodding it again as to an argument on his right.
“It shall be done as this sweet queen advises. Let a reliquary be formed with cunning workmanship of that gold and silver, dated with my date and signed with my name, to be in memory of my grandmother who gave birth to a lamb, to a salmon, and then to my father, the Ard-Ri’. And, as to the treasure that remains over, a pastoral staff may be beaten from it in honour of Molasius, the pious man.”
“The story is not ended,” said that glum, spike-chinned cleric.
The king moved with jovial impatience.
“If you continue it,” he said, “it will surely come to an end some time. A stone on a stone makes a house, dear heart, and a word on a word tells a tale.”
The cleric wrapped himself into himself, and became lean and menacing. He whispered: “Besides the young man, named Flann, who was not slain, there was another person present at the scene and the combat and the transgression of Sunday.”
“Who was that person?” said the alarmed monarch.
The cleric spiked forward his chin, and then butted forward his brow.
“It was the wife of the king,” he shouted. “It was the woman called Becfola. It was that woman,” he roared, and he extended a lean, inflexible, unending first finger at the queen.
“Dog!” the king stammered, starting up.
“If that be in truth a woman,” the cleric screamed.
“What do you mean?” the king demanded in wrath and terror.
“Either she is a woman of this world to be punished, or she is a woman of the Shi’ to be banished, but this holy morning she was in the Shi’, and her arms were about the neck of Flann.”
The king sank back in his chair stupefied, gazing from one to the other, and then turned an unseeing, fear-dimmed eye towards Becfola.
“Is this true, my pulse?” he murmured.
“It is true,” Becfola replied, and she became suddenly to the king’s eye a whiteness and a stare. He pointed to the door.
“Go to your engagement,” he stammered. “Go to that Flann.”
“He is waiting for me,” said Becfola with proud shame, “and the thought that he should wait wrings my heart.”
She went out from the palace then. She went away from Tara: and in all Ireland and in the world of living men she was not seen again, and she was never heard of again.
THE LITTLE BRAWL AT ALLEN
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CHAPTER I
“I think,” said Cairell Whiteskin, “that although judgement was given against Fionn, it was Fionn had the rights of it.”
“He had eleven hundred killed,” said Cona’n amiably, “and you may call that the rights of it if you like.”
“All the same—” Cairell began argumentatively.
“And it was you that commenced it,” Cona’n continued.
“Ho! Ho!” Cairell cried. “Why, you are as much to blame as I am.”
“No,” said Cona’n, “for you hit me first.”
“And if we had not been separated—” the other growled.
“Separated!” said Cona’n, with a grin that made his beard poke all around his face.
“Yes, separated. If they had not come between us I still think—”
“Don’t think out loud, dear heart, for you and I are at peace by law.”
“That is true,” said Cairell, “and a man must stick by a judgement. Come with me, my dear, and let us see how the youngsters are shaping in the school. One of them has rather a way with him as a swordsman.”
“No youngster is any good with a sword,” Conan replied.
“You are right there,” said Cairell. “It takes a good ripe man for that weapon.”
“Boys are good enough with slings,” Confro continued, “but except for eating their fill and running away from a fight, you can’t count on boys.”
The two bulky men turned towards the school of the Fianna.
It happened that Fionn mac Uail had summoned the gentlemen of the Fianna and their wives to a banquet. Everybody came, for a banquet given by Fionn was not a thing to be missed. There was Goll mor mac Morna and his people; Fionn’s son Oisi’n and his grandson Oscar. There was Dermod of the Gay Face, Caelte mac Ronan—but indeed there were too many to be told of, for all the pillars of war and battle-torches of the Gael were there.
The banquet began.
Fionn sat in the Chief Captain’s seat in the middle of the fort; and facing him, in the place of honour, he placed the mirthful Goll mac Morna; and from these, ranging on either side, the nobles of the Fianna took each the place that fitted his degree and patrimony.
After good eating, good conversation; and after good conversation, sleep—that is the order of a banquet: so when each person had been served with food to the limit of desire the butlers carried in shining, and jewelled drinking-horns, each having its tide of smooth, heady liquor. Then the young heroes grew merry and audacious, the ladies became gentle and kind, and the poets became wonders of knowledge and prophecy. Every eye beamed in that assembly, and on Fionn every eye was turned continually in the hope of a glance from the great, mild hero.
Goll spoke to him across the table enthusiastically.
“There is nothing wanting to this banquet, O Chief,” said he.
And Fionn smiled back into that eye which seemed a well of tenderness and friendship.
“Nothing is wanting,” he replied, “but a well-shaped poem.” A crier stood up then, holding in one hand a length of coarse iron links and in the other a chain of delicate, antique silver. He shook the iron chain so that the servants and followers of the household should be silent, and he shook the silver one so that the nobles and poets should hearken also.
Fergus, called True-Lips, the poet of the Fianna-Finn, then sang of Fionn and his ancestors and their deeds. When he had finished Fionn and Oisi’n and Oscar and mac Lugac of the Terrible Hand gave him rare and costly presents, so that every person wondered at their munificence, and even the poet, accustomed to the liberality of kings and princes, was astonished at his gifts.
Fergus then turned to the side of Goll mac Morna, and he sang of the Forts, the Destructions, the Raids, and the Wooings of clann-Morna; and as the poems succeeded each other, Goll grew more and more jovial and contented. When the songs were finished Goll turned in his seat.
“Where is my runner?” he cried.
He had a woman runner, a marvel for swiftness and trust. She stepped forward.
“I am here, royal captain.”
“Have you collected my tribute from Denmark?”
“It is here.”
And, with help, she laid beside him the load of three men of doubly refined gold. Out of this treasure, and from the treasure of rings and bracelets and torques that were with him, Goll mac Morna paid Fergus for his songs, and, much as Fionn had given, Goll gave twice as much.
But, as the banquet proceeded, Goll gave, whether it was to harpers or prophets or jugglers, more than any one else gave, so that Fionn became displeased, and as the banquet proceeded he grew stern and silent.
CHAPTER II
[This version of the death of Uail is not correct. Also Cnocha is not in Lochlann but in Ireland.]
The wonderful gift-giving of Goll continued, and an uneasiness and embarrassment began to creep through the great banqueting hall.
Gentlemen looked at each other questioningly, and then spoke again on indifferent matters, but only with half of their minds. The singers, the harpers, and jugglers submitted to that constraint, so that every person felt awkward and no one knew what should be done or what would happen, and from that doubt dulness came, with silence following on its heels.
There is nothing more terrible than silence. Shame grows in that blank, or anger gathers there, and we must choose which of these is to be our master.
That choice lay before Fionn, who never knew shame.
“Goll,” said he, “how long have you been taking tribute from the people of Lochlann?”
“A long time now,” said Goll.
And he looked into an eye that was stern and unfriendly.
“I thought that my rent was the only one those people had to pay,” Fionn continued.
“Your memory is at fault,” said Goll.
“Let it be so,” said Fionn. “How did your tribute arise?”
“Long ago, Fionn, in the days when your father forced war on me.”
“Ah!” said Fionn.
“When he raised the High King against me and banished me from Ireland.”
“Continue,” said Fionn, and he held Goll’s eye under the great beetle of his brow.
“I went into Britain,” said Goll, “and your father followed me there. I went into White Lochlann (Norway) and took it. Your father banished me thence also.”
“I know it,” said Fionn.
“I went into the land of the Saxons and your father chased me out of that land. And then, in Lochlann, at the battle of Cnocha your father and I met at last, foot to foot, eye to eye, and there, Fionn!”
“And there, Goll?”
“And there I killed your father.”
Fionn sat rigid and unmoving, his face stony and terrible as the face of a monument carved on the side of a cliff.
“Tell all your tale,” said he.
“At that battle I beat the Lochlannachs. I penetrated to the hold of the Danish king, and I took out of his dungeon the men who had lain there for a year and were awaiting their deaths. I liberated fifteen prisoners, and one of them was Fionn.”
“It is true,” said Fionn.
Goll’s anger fled at the word.
“Do not be jealous of me, dear heart, for if I had twice the tribute I would give it to you and to Ireland.”
But at the word jealous the Chief’s anger revived.
“It is an impertinence,” he cried, “to boast at this table that you killed my father.”
“By my hand,” Goll replied, “if Fionn were to treat me as his father did I would treat Fionn the way I treated Fionn’s father.”
Fionn closed his eyes and beat away the anger that was rising within him. He smiled grimly.
“If I were so minded, I would not let that last word go with you, Goll, for I have here an hundred men for every man of yours.”
Goll laughed aloud.
“So had your father,” he said.
Fionn’s brother, Cairell Whiteskin, broke into the conversation with a harsh laugh.
“How many of Fionn’s household has the wonderful Goll put down?” he cried.
But Goll’s brother, bald Cona’n the Swearer, turned a savage eye on Cairell.
“By my weapons,” said he, “there were never less than an hundred-and-one men with Goll, and the least of them could have put you down easily enough.”
“Ah?” cried Cairell. “And are you one of the hundred-and-one, old scaldhead?”
“One indeed, my thick-witted, thin-livered Cairell, and I undertake to prove on your hide that what my brother said was true and that what your brother said was false.”
“You undertake that,” growled Cairell, and on the word he loosed a furious buffet at Con’an, which Cona’n returned with a fist so big that every part of Cairell’s face was hit with the one blow. The two then fell into grips, and went lurching and punching about the great hall. Two of Oscar’s sons could not bear to see their uncle being worsted, and they leaped at Cona’n, and two of Goll’s sons rushed at them. Then Oscar himself leaped up, and with a hammer in either hand he went battering into the melee.
“I thank the gods,” said Cona’n, “for the chance of killing yourself, Oscar.”
These two encountered then, and Oscar knocked a groan of distress out of Cona’n. He looked appealingly at his brother Art og mac Morna, and that powerful champion flew to his aid and wounded Oscar. Oisi’n, Oscar’s father, could not abide that; he dashed in and quelled Art Og. Then Rough Hair mac Morna wounded Oisin and was himself tumbled by mac Lugac, who was again wounded by Gara mac Morna.
The banqueting hall was in tumult. In every part of it men were giving and taking blows. Here two champions with their arms round each other’s necks were stamping round and round in a slow, sad dance. Here were two crouching against each other, looking for a soft place to hit. Yonder a big-shouldered person lifted another man in his arms and threw him at a small group that charged him. In a retired corner a gentleman stood in a thoughtful attitude while he tried to pull out a tooth that had been knocked loose.
“You can’t fight,” he mumbled, “with a loose shoe or a loose tooth.”
“Hurry up with that tooth,” the man in front of him grum-bled, “for I want to knock out another one.”
Pressed against the wall was a bevy of ladies, some of whom were screaming and some laughing and all of whom were calling on the men to go back to their seats.
Only two people remained seated in the hall.
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Goll sat twisted round watching the progress of the brawl critically, and Fionn, sitting opposite, watched Goll.
Just then Faelan, another of Fionn’s sons, stormed the hall with three hundred of the Fianna, and by this force all Goll’s people were put out of doors, where the fight continued.
Goll looked then calmly on Fionn.
“Your people are using their weapons,” said he.
“Are they?” Fionn inquired as calmly, and as though addressing the air.
“In the matter of weapons—!” said Goll.
And the hard-fighting pillar of battle turned to where his arms hung on the wall behind him. He took his solid, well-balanced sword in his fist, over his left arm his ample, bossy shield, and, with another side-look at Fionn, he left the hall and charged irresistibly into the fray.
Fionn then arose. He took his accoutrements from the wall also and strode out. Then he raised the triumphant Fenian shout and went into the combat.
That was no place for a sick person to be. It was not the corner which a slender-fingered woman would choose to do up her hair; nor was it the spot an ancient man would select to think quietly in, for the tumult of sword on sword, of axe on shield, the roar of the contending parties, the crying of wounded men, and the screaming of frightened women destroyed peace, and over all was the rallying cry of Goll mac Morna and the great shout of Fionn.
Then Fergus True-Lips gathered about him all the poets of the Fianna, and they surrounded the combatants. They began to chant and intone long, heavy rhymes and incantations, until the rhythmic beating of their voices covered even the noise of war, so that the men stopped hacking and hewing, and let their weapons drop from their hands. These were picked up by the poets and a reconciliation was effected between the two parties.
But Fionn affirmed that he would make no peace with clann-Morna until the matter had been judged by the king, Cormac mac Art, and by his daughter Ailve, and by his son Cairbre of Ana Life’ and by Fintan the chief poet. Goll agreed that the affair should be submitted to that court, and a day was appointed, a fortnight from that date, to meet at Tara of the Kings for judgement. Then the hall was cleansed and the banquet recommenced.
Of Fionn’s people eleven hundred of men and women were dead, while of Goll’s people eleven men and fifty women were dead. But it was through fright the women died, for not one of them had a wound or a bruise or a mark.
CHAPTER III
AT the end of a fortnight Fionn and Goll and the chief men of the Fianna attended at Tara. The king, his son and daughter, with Flahri, Feehal, and Fintan mac Bocna sat in the place of judgement, and Cormac called on the witnesses for evidence.
Fionn stood up, but the moment he did so Goll mac Morna arose also.
“I object to Fionn giving evidence,” said he.
“Why so?” the king asked.
“Because in any matter that concerned me Fionn would turn a lie into truth and the truth into a lie.”
“I do not think that is so,” said Fionn.
“You see, he has already commenced it,” cried Goll.
“If you object to the testimony of the chief person present, in what way are we to obtain evidence?” the king demanded.
“I,” said Goll, “will trust to the evidence of Fergus True-Lips. He is Fionn’s poet, and will tell no lie against his master; he is a poet, and will tell no lie against any one.”
“I agree to that,” said Fionn.
“I require, nevertheless,” Goll continued, “that Fergus should swear before the Court, by his gods, that he will do justice between us.”
Fergus was accordingly sworn, and gave his evidence. He stated that Fionn’s brother Cairell struck Cona’n mac Morna, that Goll’s two sons came to help Cona’n, that Oscar went to help Cairell, and with that Fionn’s people and the clann-Morna rose at each other, and what had started as a brawl ended as a battle with eleven hundred of Fionn’s people and sixty-one of Goll’s people dead.
“I marvel,” said the king in a discontented voice, “that, considering the numbers against them, the losses of clann-Morna should be so small.”
Fionn blushed when he heard that.
Fergus replied:
“Goll mac Morna covered his people with his shield. All that slaughter was done by him.”
“The press was too great,” Fionn grumbled. “I could not get at him in time or—-”
“Or what?” said Goll with a great laugh.
Fionn shook his head sternly and said no more.
“What is your judgement?” Cormac demanded of his fellow-judges.
Flahri pronounced first.
“I give damages to clann-Morna.”
“Why?” said Cormac.
“Because they were attacked first.”
Cormac looked at him stubbornly.
“I do not agree with your judgement,” he said.
“What is there faulty in it?” Flahri asked.
“You have not considered,” the king replied, “that a soldier owes obedience to his captain, and that, given the time and the place, Fionn was the captain and Goll was only a simple soldier.”
Flahri considered the king’s suggestion.
“That,” he said, “would hold good for the white-striking or blows of fists, but not for the red-striking or sword-strokes.”
“What is your judgement?” the king asked Feehal. Feehal then pronounced:
“I hold that clann-Morna were attacked first, and that they are to be free from payment of damages.”
“And as regards Fionn?” said Cormac.
“I hold that on account of his great losses Fionn is to be exempt from payment of damages, and that his losses are to be considered as damages.”
“I agree in that judgement,” said Fintan.
The king and his son also agreed, and the decision was imparted to the Fianna.
“One must abide by a judgement,” said Fionn.
“Do you abide by it?” Goll demanded.
“I do,” said Fionn.
Goll and Fionn then kissed each other, and thus peace was made. For, notwithstanding the endless bicker of these two heroes, they loved each other well.
Yet, now that the years have gone by, I think the fault lay with Goll and not with Fionn, and that the judgement given did not consider everything. For at that table Goll should not have given greater gifts than his master and host did. And it was not right of Goll to take by force the position of greatest gift-giver of the Fianna, for there was never in the world one greater at giving gifts, or giving battle, or making poems than Fionn was.
That side of the affair was not brought before the Court. But perhaps it was suppressed out of delicacy for Fionn, for if Goll could be accused of ostentation, Fionn was open to the uglier charge of jealousy. It was, nevertheless, Goll’s forward and impish temper which commenced the brawl, and the verdict of time must be to exonerate Fionn and to let the blame go where it is merited.
There is, however, this to be added and remembered, that whenever Fionn was in a tight corner it was Goll that plucked him out of it; and, later on, when time did his worst on them all and the Fianna were sent to hell as unbelievers, it was Goll mac Morna who assaulted hell, with a chain in his great fist and three iron balls swinging from it, and it was he who attacked the hosts of great devils and brought Fionn and the Fianna-Finn out with him.