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.



CHAPTER IX

THE CHAMPION AND THE KING

"Sing, O Muse, the destructive wrath of Achilles, son of Peleus, which brought countless woes upon the Achaeans."

—Homer.

Concobar Mac Nessa sat one day in his high chair, judging the Ultonians. His great Council sat before him. In the Champion's throne sat Fergus Mac Roy. Before the high King his suitors gave testimony and his brehons pleaded, and Concobar in each case pronounced judgment, clearly and intelligently, briefly and concisely, with learning and with equity.

"Right glad am I, O Concobar," said Fergus, "that thou art in the King's throne, and I where I sit. Verily, had I remained in that chair of honour and distress, long since would these historians and poets and subtle-minded lawyers have talked and rhymed me into madness, or into my grave."

Concobar made answer—"Dear foster-father, the high gods in their wisdom have fashioned us each man to illustrate some virtue. To thee they have given strength, courage, and magnanimity above all others; and to me, in small measure, the vision of justice, and the perception of her beautiful laws. A man can only excel in what he loves, and verily I love well the known laws of the Ultonians."

A great man just then entered the hall. His mantle was black. In the breast of it, instead of a brooch, he wore an iron pin. He came swiftly and without making the customary reverences. His face was pale, and his garments torn, his dark-grey tunic stained with blood. He stood in the midst and cried—

"O high King of the Ultonians, and you the wise men and sages of the children of Rury, to all of you there is now need of some prudent resolution. A great deed has been done in Ulla."

"What is that?" said the King.

"The abduction of the Beautiful Woman by Naysi, son of Usna. Verily, she is taken away and may not be recovered, for the Clan Usna came last night with a great company to the dun and they stormed it in their might and their valour, and their irresistible fury, and they have taken away Deirdre in their swift chariots, and have gone eastwards to the Muirnicht with intent to cross the sea northwards, and abide henceforth with their prize in the land of the Picts and of the Albanah, beyond the stormy currents of the Moyle."

Fergus Mac Roy, when he heard that word, sat up with eyes bright- blazing in his head. Dearer to him than all the rest were those sons of Usna, namely—Naysi, Anli, and Ardane, and dearest of the three was Naysi, who excelled all the youth of his time in beauty, valour, and accomplishments.

"Bind that man!" cried Concobar. His voice rang terribly through the vast chamber. Truly it sheared through men's souls like a dividing sword.

His guards took the man and bound him. "Lead him away now," said Concobar," and stone him with stones even to the parting of body with soul."

The man was one of Deirdre's guard.

A great silence fell upon the assembly after that and no man spoke, only they looked at the King and then again at the Champion, and, as it were, questioned one another silently with their eyes. It was the silence behind which run the Fomorh, brazen-throated and clad with storm. Well knew those wise men that what they long apprehended had come now to pass, namely, the fierce and truceless antagonism of the King and of the ex-King. Well they knew that Concobar would not forgive the Clan Usna, and that Fergus Mac Roy would not permit them to be punished. Therefore, great and mighty as were the men, yet on this occasion they might be likened only to cattle who stand aside astonished when two fierce bulls, rending the earth as they come, advance against each other for the mastery of the herd. In the high King's face the angry blood showed as two crimson spots one on either cheek, and his eyes, harder than steel, sparkled under brows more rigid than brass. On the other hand, the face of the Champion darkened as the sea darkens when a black squall descends suddenly upon its sunny and glittering tides, wrinkling and convulsing all the face of the deep. His listlessness and amiability alike went out of him, and he sat huge and erect in his throne. His mighty chest expanded and stood out like a shield, and the muscles of his neck, stronger than a bull's, became clear and distinct, and his gathering ire and stern resolution rushed stormfully through his nostrils. The King first spoke.

"To the man who has broken our law and abducted the child of ill omen, I decree death by the sword and burial with the three throws of dishonour, and if taken alive, then death by burning with the same, and if he escapes out of Erin, then sentence of perpetual banishment and expatriation."

"He shall not be slain, and he shall not be burned, and he shall not be exiled. I say it, even I, Fergus, son of the Red Rossa, Champion of the North. Let the man who will gainsay me show himself now in Emain Macha. Let him bring round the buckle of his belt."

His eyes, as he spoke, were like flames of fire under a forehead dark crimson, and with his clenched fist he struck the brazen table before his throne, so that the clang and roar of the quivering bronze sounded through all the borders of Ulla.

"I will gainsay thee, O Fergus," cried the King, "I am the guardian and the executor of the laws of the Ultonians, and those laws shall prevail over thee and over all men."

"All laws in restraint of true love and affection are unjust," said Fergus, "and the law by which Deirdre was consigned to virginity was the unrighteous enactment of cold-hearted and unrighteous men."



CHAPTER X

DEIRDRE

"Beautiful the beginning of love, A man and a woman and the birds of Angus above them."

GAELIC BARD.

The birth of the child Deirdre, daughter of the chief poet of Ulla, was attended with a great portent, for the child shrieked from the mother's womb. Cathvah and the Druids were consulted concerning that omen. They addressed themselves to their art of divination, and having consulted their oracles and gods and familiar spirits, they gave a clear counsel to the Ultonians.

"This child," they said, "will become a woman, in beauty surpassing all the women who have ever been born or will be born. Her union with a man will be a cause of great sorrow to the Ultonians. Let her, therefore, be exposed after birth; or, if you would not slay the Arch-Poet's only child, let her be sternly immured; let her be reared to womanhood in utter and complete and inviolable solitude, and live and die in her virginity."

The Ultonians determined that the child should live and be immured. These things took place in the reign of Factna the Righteous, father of Concobar. When the child was born she was called Deirdre. The Ultonians appointed for her a nurse and tutoress named Levarcam. They built for her and for the nurse a strong dun in a remote forest and set a ward there, and they made a solemn law enjoining perpetual virginity on the child of ill omen, and the Druids shed a zone of terror round the dun.

Concobar Mac Nessa in the wide circuit of his thoughts consulted always for the inviolability of that law, and the stern maintenance of the watching and warding.

Unseen and unobserved, forgotten by all save the wise elders of the Ultonians and by Concobar their King, whose thoughts ranged on all sides devising good for the Red Branch, the child Deirdre grew to be a maiden. Though her beauty was extraordinary, yet her mind was as beautiful as her form, so that the Lady Levarcam loved her exceedingly.

One day when the first flush of early womanhood came upon the maiden, she said to her tutoress as they sat together and conversed—

"Are all men like those our guards who defend us against savage beasts and the merciless Fomorians, dear Levarcam?"

"Those our guards are true and brave men," said Levarcam.

"Surely they are," said the girl, "and we lack no courtesy and due attention at their hands, but dear foster-mother, my question is not answered. Maybe it is not to be answered and that I am curious overmuch. Are all men grim, grave, and austere, wearing rugged countenances scored with ancient wounds, and bearing each man upon his shoulders the weight of some fearful responsibility? Are all men like that, dear Levarcam?"

"Nay, indeed," said the other, "there arc youths too, gracious, and gay, and beautiful, as well as grave men such as these."

They sat together in their sunny grianan, [Footnote: A derivative from Grian, the sun. The grianan was an upper chamber, more elegantly furnished than the hall, usually with large windows and therefore well lit and reserved for the use of women.] embroidering while they conversed. It was early morning and the air was full of the noises and odours of sweet spring-time.

"I know that now," said the maiden, "which I only guessed before, for waking or sleeping I have dreamed of a youth who was as unlike these men as the rose-tree with its roses is unlike the rugged oak-tree or the wrinkled pine that has wrestled with a thousand storms. I would wish to have him for a playfellow and pleasant acquaintance. Of maidens, too, such as myself I have dreamed, yet they do not appear to me to be so alluring or so amiable as that youth."

"Describe him more particularly," said Levarcam. "Tell me his tokens one by one that I may know."

"He is tall and strong but very graceful in all his motions; and of speech and behaviour both gay and gracious. He is white and ruddy, whiter than snow and ruddier than the rose or the fox- glove, where the heroic blood burns bright in his comely cheeks. His eyes are blue-black under fine and even brows and his hair is a wonder, so dense is it, so lustrous and so curling, blacker than the crow's wing, more shining than the bright armour of the chaffer. His body is broad above and narrow below, strong to withstand and agile to pursue. His limbs long and beautifully proportioned; his hands and feet likewise, and his step elastic Smiles seldom leave his eyes and lips, and his mouth is a fountain of sweet speech. O that I were acquainted with him and he with me? I think we should be happy in each other's company. I think I could love him as well as I do thee, dear foster-mother."

As she spoke, Deirdre blushed, and first she stooped down over her work and then put before her face and eyes her two beautiful hands, rose-white, with long delicate nails pink-flushed and transparent; and tears, clearer than dewdrops, gushed between her ringers and fell in bright showers upon the embroidery. Then she arose and flung her soft white arms around Levarcam and wept on her bosom.

"There is one youth only amongst the Red Branch," said Levarcam, "who answers to that description, namely Naysi, the son of Usna, who is the battle-prop of the Ultonians and the clear-shining torch of their valour, and what god or druid or power hath set that vision before thy mind, I cannot tell."

"Would that I could see him with eyes and have speech with him," answered the girl. "If but once he smiled upon me and I heard the sweet words flow from his mouth which is beyond price, then gladly would I die!"

"Thou shall both see him and have speech with him, O best, sweetest, dearest, and loveliest of all maidens. Truly I will bring him to thee and thee to him, for there is with me power beyond the wont of women."

Now Levarcam was a mighty Druidess amongst the Ultonians. So the lady in whom they trusted forgot the ancient prophecies and the stern commands of the Red Branch and of their King, owing to the great love which she bore to the maiden and the great compassion which grew upon her day by day, as she observed the life of the solitary girl and thought of the cruel law to which all her youth and beauty and wealth of sweet love beyond all the jewels of the world were thus barbarously sacrificed by the Ultonians in obedience to soothsayers and Druids.

Naysi, son of Usna, once in a hunting became separated from his companions. He wandered far in that forest, seeking some one who should direct him upon his way. Oftentimes he raised his voice, but there was no answer. Such were his beauty, his grace, and his stature, that he seemed more like a god than a man, and such another as Angus Ogue, son of Dagda, [Footnote: Angus Ogue was the god of youth and beauty, son of the Dagda who seems to have been the genius of earth and its fertility or perhaps the Zeus of our Gaelic mythology.] whose fairy palace is on the margin of the Boyne. His head and his feet were bare. His short hunting-cloak was dark-red with flowery devices along the edge. On his breast he wore a brooch of gold bronze; carbuncles and precious stones were set in the bronze, and it was carved all over with many spiral devices. His shirt below the mantle was coloured like the tassels of the willow trees. His hair was fastened behind with a clasp and an apple of red gold, and that apple lay below the blades of his ample shoulders. In one hand he bore a broken leash of red bronze, and in the other two hunting spears with blades of flashing findruiney and the hafts were long, slender, and shining. By his thigh hung a short sword in a sheath of red yew and beside it the polished and nigh transparent horn of the Urus, suspended in a baldrick of knitted thread of bronze. The grass stood erect from the pressure of his light feet. His manly face had not yet known the razor; only the first soft down of budding manhood was seen there. His countenance was pure and joyous with bright beaming eyes, and his complexion red and white and of a brilliancy beyond words. In his heart was no guile, only indomitable valour and truth and loyalty and sweet affection. He had never known woman save in the way of courtesy. The very trees and rocks and stones seemed to watch him as he passed.

Then suddenly and unawares an ice-cold air struck chill into his inmost being, the bright earth was obscured and the sun grew dark in the heavens and menacing voices were heard and horrid forms of evil, monstrous, not to be described, came against him, and they bade him return as he had come or they would tear him limb from limb in that forest. Yet the son of Usna was by no means dismayed, only he flushed with wrath and scorn and he drew his sword and went on against the phantoms. In truth Naysi was at that moment passing through the zone of terror which the Ultonian Druids had shed around the dun where Deirdre was immured. The phantoms gave way before him and Naysi passed beyond the zone. "Surely," he said, "there is some chief jewel of the jewels of the world preserved in this place."

He came to an opening in the forest. Beyond it there was a great space which was cleared and girt all round by trees. There was a dun in its midst. Scarlet and white were the walls of that dun. There was a watch-tower on one side of the dun and a man there sitting in the watchman's seat; a grianan on the other with windows of glass. The roof of the dun was covered all over with feathers of birds of various hues, and shone with a hundred colours. The doorway was the narrowest which Naysi had ever seen. The door pillars were of red yew curiously carved, having feet of bronze and capitals of carved silver, and the lintel above was a straight bar of pure silver. A knotted band or thickening ran round the walls of the dun like a variegated zone, for the colours of it were many and each different from the colours on the walls. In the world there was no such prison as there was no such captive as that prison held. Armed men of huge stature and terrible aspect went round the dun. Their habiliments were black, their weapons without ornament, the pins of their mantles were of iron. With each company went a slinger having his sling bent, an iron bolt in the sling, and his thumb in the string-loop, men who never missed their mark and never struck aught, whether man or beast, that they did not slay. Great hounds such as were not known amongst the Ultonians went with those men. They were grey above and tawny beneath, as large as wild oxen after the growth of one year. They were quick of sight and scent, fiercer than dragons and swifter than eagles; they were not quick of sight and scent to-day. The Lady Levarcam had great power. In and around that dun were three hundred men of war, foreigners, picked men of the great fighting tribes of Banba. Such was the decree of the Ultonians and their wise King, so greatly did they fear concerning those prophecies and omens and concerning the child who in Emain Macha shrieked out of her mother's womb. Naysi regarded the dun with wonder and amazement, and with amazement the astonishing rigour of the watch and ward which were kept there, and the more he looked the more he wondered. It seemed to the hunter that he had chanced upon one of the abodes of the enchanted races of Erin, namely the Tuatha De Dana or the Fomorians, whom the sons of Milesius by their might had driven into the mountains and unfrequented places and who, now immortal and invisible, and possessing great druidic power, were worshipped as gods by the Gael. He knew he was in great peril, but his stout heart did not fail; he was resolved to see this adventure to an end.

As he was about to step out into the open two women came from the door of the grianan. One of them was old; she leaned upon her companion and in her right hand held a long white wand squared save in the middle where it was rounded for the hand grip, very long, unornamented, and unshod at either extremity. Naysi paid slight attention to her, though, as she was the first to come forth, he observed these things. The other was young, tall, slender, and lissom, her raiment costly and splendid like a high queen's on some solemn day, and like a queen's her behaviour and her pacing over the flowery lawn. Never had that hunter seen such a form, so proudly modest and virginal, such sweetness, grace, and majesty of bearing. Presently, having passed a company of the guards, she flung back the white, half-transparent veil that concealed her face. Then the sudden radiance was like the coming unlocked for out of a white cloud of that very bright star which shines on the edge of night and morning. All things were transfigured in her light. Before her the grass grew greener and more glittering and rare flowers started in her way. A silver basket of most delicate craftsmanship, the work of some cunning cerd, was on her right arm. It shone clear and sparkling against her mantle which was exceedingly lustrous, many times folded, darkly crimson, and of substance unknown. She towered above her aged companion, straight as a pillar of red yew in a king's house. So, unwitting, jocund, and innocent, fresh and pure as the morning, she paced over the green lawn, going in the direction of that youth, even Naysi, son of Usna the Ultonian. Naysi's loudly beating heart fell silent when he saw how she came straight towards him; he retreated into the forest, so amazing and so confounding was the radiance of that beauty. A company of those grim warders, silent and watchful, followed close upon the women. As they went they slipped the muzzles from the mouths of their dogs and lead them forward leashed. The countenances of the men shewed displeasure. From the tower the watchman cried aloud words in an unknown tongue, hoarse, barbaric accents charged with energy and strong meaning. His voice rang terribly in the hollows of the forest. There was a counter challenge in the forest repeated many times, the voices of men mingled with the baying of hounds. There was a ring of sentinels and dogs far out in the forest. The son of Usna had gone through the ring. For twice seven years and one that astonishing watch and ward had been maintained day and night without relaxation or abatement. When they came to the edge of the forest Levarcam addressed the commander of that company. She said, "The Lady Deirdre would be alone with me in the forest for a little space to gather flowers and listen to the music of the birds and the stream, relieved, if but for one moment, of this watching and warding."

The man answered not a word. He was of the Gamanrdians, dwellers by the Sue, which feeds the great Western River; [Footnote: The Shannon.] his people were of the Clan Dega in the south, and of the children of Orc [Footnote: In scriptural language "of the seed of the giants," huge, simple-hearted and simple-minded men, who could obey orders and ask no questions.] from the Isles of Ore in the frozen seas. [Footnote: The Orkney Islands.] The blood of the Fomoroh was in those men. The women went on, and that grim company followed, keeping close behind. When they gained the first cover of the trees Levarcam turned round and stretched over them her wand. They stood motionless, both men and dogs. Then the women went forward, and alone.

"Fill thy basket now with forest flowers, O sweetest, and dearest, and fairest of all foster-children, and listen to the songs of the birds and the music of the rill. Cull thy flowers, darling girl, and cull the flower of thy youth, the flower that grows but once for all like thee, the flower whose glory puts high heaven to shame, and whose odour makes mad the most wise."

"Where shall I gather that flower, O gentlest and most amiable of foster-mothers? Is it in the glade or the thicket, or on the margent of the rill?

"It is not to be found by seeking, O fairest of all maidens. Gather it when thou meetest with it in the way. Wear it in thy heart, be the end what it may. Verily thou wilt not mistake any other flower for that flower."

"I know not thy meaning, O wise and many-counselled woman, but there is fear upon me, and trembling, and my knees quake at thy strange words. Now, if the whole world were swallowed up I should not be surprised. Surely the end of the world is very nigh."

"It is the end of the world and the beginning of the world; and the end of life and the beginning of life; and death and life in one, and death and life will soon be the same to thee, O Deirdre!"

"There is amazement upon me, and terror, O my foster-mother, on account of thy words, and on account of the gathering of this flower. Let us return to the dun. Terrible to me are the hollow- sounding ways of the unknown forest."

"Fear not the unknown forest, O Deirdre. Leave the known and the familiar now that thy time has come. Go on. Accomplish thy destiny. It is vain to strive against fate and the pre-ordained designs of the high gods of Erin. Truly I have failed in my trust. I see great wrath in Emain Macha. I see the Red Branch tossed in storms, and a mighty riving and rending and scattering abroad, and dismal conflagrations, and the blood of heroes falling like rain, and I hear the croaking of Byves. [Footnote: Badb, pronounced Byve, was primarily the scald-crow or carrion-crow, secondarily a Battle-Fury.] Truly I have proved a brittle prop to the Ultonians, but some power beyond my own drives me on."

"What wild words are these, O wisest of women, and what this rending and scattering abroad, and showers of blood and croaking of Byves because I cull a flower in the forest?"

"Nay, it is nothing. Have peace and joy while thou canst, sweet Deirdre. Thus I lay my wand upon thy bosom and enjoin peace!"

"Thou art weary, dear foster-mother. Rest thee here now a little space, while I go and gather forest flowers. They are sweeter than those that grow in my garden. O, right glad am I to be alone in the forest, relieved from the observation of those grim-visaged sentinels, to stray solitary in the dim mysterious forest, and to think my own thoughts there, and dream my dreams, and recall that vision which I have seen. O Naysi, son of Usna, sweeter than harps is the mere sound of thy name, O Ultonian!"

Deirdre after that went forward alone into the forest.

Naysi, when he had started back into the forest stood still for a long time in his retreat. It was the hollow of a tall rock beside a falling stream of water, all flowing snow or transparent crystal. Holly trees and quicken trees grew from its crest, and long twines of ivy fell down before like green torrents. Behind them he concealed himself, when he heard the cries and the challengings and the baying of the hounds. Then he saw the maiden come along the forest glade by the margent of the stream, her basket filled and over-flowing with flowers. The sentient stream sang loud and gay to greet her approaching, with fluent liquid fingers striking more joyously the chords of his stony lyre. Light beyond the sun was shed through the glen before her. Birds, the brightest of plumage and sweetest of note of all the birds of Banba, [Footnote: One of Ireland's ancient names.] filled the air with their songs, flying behind her and before her, and on her right hand and on her left. Through his lattice of trailing ivy the son of Usna saw her. Her countenance was purer and clearer than morning-dew upon the rose or the lily, and the rose and lily, nay, the whiteness of the snow of one night and the redness of the reddest rose, were there. Her eyes were blue-black under eyebrows black and fine, but her clustering hair was bright gold, more shining than the gold which boils over the edge of the refiner's crucible. Her forehead was free from all harshness, broad and intelligent, her beautiful smiling lips of the colour of the berries of the mountain ash, her teeth a shower of lustrous pearls. Her face and form, her limbs, hands and feet, were such that no defect, blemish or disproportion could be observed, though one might watch and observe long, seeking to discover them. In that daughter of the High Poet and Historian of the Hound-race of the North, [Footnote: The hound was the type of valour. Though Cuculain was pre-eminently the Hound, the Gaelic equivalents of this word will be discovered in most of the famous names of the cycle.] child of valour and true wisdom, the body did not predominate over the spirit, or the spirit over the body, for as her form was of matchless, incomparable, and inexpressible beauty, so her mind was not a whit less well proportioned and refined. Jocund and happy, breathing innocence and love, she came up the dell. The birds of Angus [Footnote: Angus Ogue's kisses became invisible birds whose singing inspired love.] unseen flew above her and shed upon her unearthly graces and charms from the waving of their immortal wings. A silver brooch lay on her breast, the pin of fine bronze ran straight from one shoulder to the other. On her head was a lustrous tyre or leafy diadem shading her countenance, gold above and silver below. Her short kirtle was white below the rose-red mantle, and fringed with gold thread above her perfect and lightly stepping feet. Shoes she wore shining with brightest wire of findruiney. As she came up the dell, rejoicing in her freedom and the sweetness of that sylvan place and the solitude, she contemplated the bright stream, and sang clear and sweet an unpremeditated song.

Naysi stepped forth from his place, putting aside the ivy with his hands, and came down the dell to meet her in her coming. She did not scream or tremble or show any signs of confusion, though she had never before seen any of the youths of the Gael. She only stood still and straight, and with wide eyes of wonder watched him as he drew nigh, for she thought at first that it was the genius of that glen and torrent taking form in reply to her druidic lay. Then when she recognised the comrade and playfellow of her vision, she smiled a friendly and affectionate greeting. On the other hand, Naysi came trembling and blushing. He bowed himself to the earth before her, and kissed the grass before her feet.

They remained together a long time in the glen and told each other all they knew and thought and felt, save one feeling untellable, happy beyond all power of language to express. When Deirdre rose to go, Naysi asked for some token and symbol of remembrance.

As they went she gathered a rose and gave it to Naysi.

"There is a great meaning in this token amongst the youths and maidens of the Gael," said he.

"I know that," answered Deirdre. Deirdre returned to Levarcam.

"Thou hast gathered the flower," said Levarcam.

"I have," she replied, "and death and life are one to me now, dear foster-mother."

Naysi went away through the forest and there is nothing related concerning him till he reached Dun Usna. It was night when he entered the hall. His brothers were sitting at the central fire. Anli was scouring a shield; Ardane was singing the while he polished a spear and held it out against the light to see its straightness and its lustre. They were in no way alarmed about their brother.

"I have seen Deirdre, the daughter of Felim," he said.

"Then thou art lost!" they answered; the weapons fell from their hands upon the floor.

"I am," he replied.

"What is thy purpose?" they said.

"To storm the guarded dun, even if I go against it alone, To bear away Deirdre and pass into the land of the Albanagh." [Footnote: The Albanagh were the people who inhabited the north and west of Scotland, in fact the Highlanders. In ancient times they and the Irish were regarded as one people.]

"Thou shalt not go alone," they said. "We have shared in thy glory and thy power, we will share all things with thee."

They put their right hand into his on that promise. One hundred and fifty nobles of the nobles of that territory did the same, for with Naysi as their captain they did not fear to go upon any enterprise. They knew that expatriation awaited them, but they had rather be with Naysi and his brothers in a strange land than to live without them in Ireland. So the Clan Usna with their mighty men stormed the dun and bore off Deirdre and went away eastward to the Muirnicht. And they crossed the Moyle [Footnote: The sea between Ireland and Scotland. "Silent, O Moyle. be the roar of thy waters,"] in ships into the country of the Albanagh, and settled on the delightful shores of Loch Etive and made swordland of the surrounding territory. Great, famous, and long remembered were the deeds of the children of Usna in that land.



CHAPTER XI

THERE WAS WAR IN ULSTER

"Each spake words of high disdain And insult to his heart's best brother, They parted ne'er to meet again."

—COLERIDGE

It was on account of this that there arose at first that dissidence and divergence of opinion in the great Council at Emain Macha between Concobar Mac Nessa and Fergus Mac Roy, Concobar standing for the law which he had been sworn to safeguard and to execute, and Fergus casting over the lovers the shield of his name and fame, his authority and his strength, and the singular affection with which he was regarded by all the Ultonians.

After Fergus had made that speech in disparagement and contempt of the solemn enactment and decree in accordance with which Deirdre had been immured, Concobar did not immediately answer, for he knew that he was heated both on account of the abduction and on account of the words of Fergus. Then he said—

"The valour of the Red Branch, whereby we flourish so conspicuously herein the North, doth not spring out of itself, and doth not come by discipline, teaching, and example. It has its root in a virtue of which the bards indeed, for bardic reasons, make little mention though it hold a firm place in the laws of the Ultonians both ancient and recent. This, our valour, and the famous kindred virtues through which we are strong and irresistible, so that the world has today nothing anywhere of equal glory and power, spring from the chastity of our women, which is conspicuous and clear-shining, and in the modesty and shamefastness of our young heroes, and the extreme rarity of lawless relations between men and women in Ulla, the servile tribes excepted, of whom no man maketh any account. Against such lawlessness our wise ancestors have decreed terrible punishments. According to the laws of the Ultonians, those who offend in this respect are burned alive in the place of the burnings, and over their ashes are thrown the three throws of dishonour. And well I know that these laws ofttimes to the unthinking and to those who judge by their affections merely, seem harsh and unnatural. Yea truly, were I not high King, I could weep, seeing gentle youths and maidens, and men and women, whom the singing of Angus Ogue's birds have made mad, led away by my orders to be devoured by flame. But so it is best, for without chastity valour faileth in a nation, and lawlessness in this respect begetteth sure and rapid decay, and I give not this forth as an opinion but as a thing that I know, seeing it as clearly with my mind, O Fergus, as I see with my eyes thy countenance and form and the foldings of thy fuan [Footnote: Mantle.] and the shape and ornamentation of the wheel- brooch upon thy breast. Without chastity there is no enduring valour in a nation. And thou, too, O Fergus, sitting there in the champion's throne, hast more than once or twice heard me pronounce the dread sentence without word of protest or dissent. But now, because it toucheth thee thyself, strongly and fiercely thy voice of protest is lifted up, and unless I and this Council can over- persuade thee, this thy rebellious purpose will be thy own undoing or that of the Red Branch. Are the sons of Usna dear only to thee? I say they are dearer to me, but the Red Branch is still dearer, and it is the destruction of the Red Branch which unwittingly thou wouldst Compass. Nor was that law concerning the inviolable virginity of the child of Felim foolish or unwise, for it was made solemnly by the Ultonians in obedience to the united voice of the Druids of Ulla, men who see deeply into the hidden causes of things and the obscure relations of events, of which we men of war have no perception."

So spoke Concobar, not threateningly like a sovereign king, but pleadingly. On the other hand Fergus Mac Roy, rearing his huge form, stood upon his feet, and said—

"To answer fine reasonings I have no skill, but I swear by the sun and the wind and the earth and by my own right hand, which is a stronger oath than any, that I will bring back the sons of Usna into Ireland, and that they shall live and flourish in their place and sit honourably in this great hall of the Clanna Rury, whether it be pleasing to thee or displeasing. For I take the Clan Usna under my protection from this day forth, and well I know that there is not in Erin or in Alba a man born of a woman, no nor the Tuatha De Danan themselves, who will break through that protection!"

"I will break through it," said the King.

After that Fergus departed from Emain Macha and went away with his people into the east to his own country. There he debated and considered for a long time, but at last, so great was his affection for the Clan Usna, that he went over the Moyle in ships to the country of the Albanagh and brought home the sons of Usna, and they were slain by Concobar Mac Nessa, according as he had promised by the word of his mouth. Then Fergus rebelled against Concobar, drawing after him two-thirds of the Red Branch, and amongst them Duvac Dael Ulla and Cormac Conlingas, Concobar's own son, and many other great men, but the chiefest and best and most renowned of the Ultonians adhered to the King. The whole province was shaken with war and there was great shedding of blood, but in the end Concobar prevailed and drove out Fergus Mac Roy. After that expulsion Fergus and three thousand of the Red Branch fled across the Shannon and came to Rath Cruhane, and entered into military service with Meave who was the queen of all the country west of the Shannon.

There is nothing told about Cuculain in connection with this war. It is hard to imagine him taking any side in such a war. But, in fact, he was still a schoolboy under tutors and governors and could not lawfully appear in arms, seeing that he was not yet knighted. He was either with the smiths or, having procured a worthy hound to take his place, he had gone back to the royal school at Emain Macha. But the time when Cuculain should be knighted, that is to say, invested with arms, and solemnly received into the Red Branch as man to the high King of all Ulla, now drew on, and such a knighting as that, and under such signs, omens, and portents, has never been recorded anywhere in the history of the nations.

In the meantime, Fergus and his exiles served Queen Meave and were subduing all the rest of Ireland under her authority, so that Meave, Queen of Connaught, became very great and proud, and in the end meditated the overthrow of Ulster and the conquest of the Red Branch. Queen Meave and Fergus leading the joined host of the four remaining provinces, Meath, Connaught, Munster, and Leinster, certain of success owing to a strange lethargy which then fell on the Ultonians, did invade Ulster. But as they drew nigh to the mearings they found the in-gate of the province barred by one man. It is needless to mention that man's name. It was Dethcaen's nursling, the ex-pupil of Fergus Mac Roy, the little boy Setanta grown into a terrible and irresistible hero. It was by his defence of Ulster on that occasion against Fergus and Meave and the four provinces, that Cuculain acquired his deathless glory and became the chief hero of the north-west of the world. So these chapters which relate to the abduction of Deirdre and the rebellion and expulsion of Fergus, are a vital portion of the whole story of Cuculain. We must now return to the hero's schoolboy days which, however, are drawing to a memorable conclusion.



CHAPTER XII

THE SACRED CHARIOT

"He dwelt a while among the neat-herds Of King Admetus, veiling his godhood."

Greek Mythology.

"At Tailteen I raced my steeds against a woman, Though great with child she came first to the goal, Alas, I knew not the auburn-haired Macha, Thence came affliction upon the Ultonians."

CONCOBAR MAC NESSA.

Concobar Mac Nessa on a solemn day called Cuculain forth from the ranks of the boys where they stood in the rear of the assembly and said—

"O Setanta, there is a duty which falls to me by virtue of my kingly office, and therein I need an assistant. For it is my province to keep bright and in good running order the chariot of Macha wherein she used to go forth to war from Emain, and to clean out the corn-troughs of her two steeds and put there fresh barley perpetually, and fresh hay in their mangers. Illan the Fair [Footnote: He was one of the sons of Fergus Mac Roy slain in the great civil war.] was my last helper in this office, till the recent great rebellion. That ministry is thine now, if it is pleasing to thee to accept it."

The boy said that it was pleasing, and the King gave him the key of the chamber in which were the vessels and implements used in discharging that sacred function.

Afterwards, on the same day, the King said to him, "Wash thyself now in pure water and put on new clean raiment and come again to me."

The boy washed himself and put on new clean raiment. The King himself did the same.

Concobar said: "Go now to the chamber of which I have given thee the key and fill with oil the silver oil-can and take a towel of the towels of fawn-skin which are there and return." He did so; and Concobar and his nephew, armed youths following, went to the house of the chariot.

Ere Concobar turned the wards of the lock he heard voices within in the chariot-house. There, one said to another, "This is he. Our long watch and ward are near the end." And the other said, "It is well. Too long have we been here waiting."

"Hast thou heard anything, my nephew?" said Concobar.

"I have heard nothing," said the lad.

Concobar opened the great folding-doors. There was a sound there like glad voices mingled with a roar of revolving wheels, and then silence. Setanta drew back in dismay, and even Concobar stood still. "I have not observed such portents before in the chariot- house," he said. The King and his nephew entered the hollow chamber. The chariot was motionless but very bright. One would have said that the bronze burned. It was of great size and beauty. By its side were two horse-stalls with racks and mangers, the bars of the rack were of gold bronze which was called findruiney, and the mangers of yellow brass. The floor was paved with cut marble, the walls lined with smooth boards of ash. There were no windows, but there were nine lamps in the room. "It will be thy duty to feed those lamps," said Concobar.

Concobar took the fawn-skin towel from the boy and polished the chariot, and the wheels, tyres, and boxes, and the wheel-spokes. He oiled the wheels too, and mightily lifting the great chariot seized the spokes with his right hand and made the wheels spin.

"Go now to the chamber of which I have given thee the keys," he said, "and bring the buckets, and clear out the mangers to the last grain, and empty the stale barley into the place of the burning, and afterwards take fresh barley from the bin which is in the chamber and fill the mangers. Empty the racks also and bring fresh hay. Thou wilt find it stored there too; clean straw also and litter the horse-stalls."

The boy did that. In the meantime Concobar polished the pole, and the yoke, and the chains. From the wall he took the head-gear of the horses and the long shining reins of interwoven brass and did the same very carefully till there was not a speck of rust or discolouration to be seen.

"Where are the horses, my Uncle Concobar?" said the boy.

"That I cannot rightly tell," said Concobar, "but verily they are somewhere."

"What are those horses?" said the boy. "How are they called? What their attributes, and why do I fill their racks and mangers?"

"They are the Liath Macha and Black Shanglan," said Concobar. "They have not been seen in Erin for three hundred years, not since Macha dwelt visibly in Emain as the bride of Kimbaoth, son of Fiontann. In this chariot she went forth to war, charioteering her warlike groom. But they are to come again for the promised one and bear him to battle and to conflict in this chariot, and the time is not known but the King of Emain is under gesa [Footnote: Terrible druidic obligations.] to keep the chariot bright and the racks and mangers furnished with fresh hay, and barley two years old. He is to wait, and watch, and stand prepared under gesa most terrible."

"Maybe Kimbaoth will return to us again," said the boy.

"Nay, it hath not been so prophesied," answered the King. "He was great, and stern, and formidable. But our promised one is gentle exceedingly. He will not know his own greatness, and his nearest comrades will not know it, and there will be more of love in his heart than war." So saying Concobar looked steadfastly upon the boy.

"Conall Carnach is as famous for love as for war," said Setanta. "He is peerless in beauty, and his strength and courage are equal to his comeliness, and his chivalry and battle-splendour to his strength."

"Nay, lad, it is not Conall Carnach, though the women of Ulla sicken and droop for the love of him. Verily, it is not Conall Carnach."

Setanta examined curiously the great war-car.

"Was Kimbaoth assisting his wife," he asked, "when she took captive the sons of Dithorba?"

"Nay," said the King, "she went forth alone and crossed the Shannon with one step into the land of the Fir-bolgs, and there, one by one, she bound those builder-giants the sons of Dithorba, and bore them hither in her might, and truly those five brethren were no small load for the back of one woman."

"Has anyone seen her in our time?" asked the lad.

"I have," said Concobar. "I saw her at the great fair of Tailteen. There she pronounced a curse upon me and upon the Red Branch. [Footnote: At Tailteen a man boasted that his wife could outrun Concobar's victorious chariot-steeds. Concobar compelled the woman to run against his horses. She won the race, but died at the goal leaving her curse upon the Red Branch.] The curse hath not yet fallen, but it will fall in my time, and the promised one will come in my time and he will redeem us from its power. Great tribulation will be his. Question me no more, dear Setanta, I have said more than enough."

They went forth from the sacred chamber and Concobar locked the doors.

As they crossed the vacant space going to the palace, Concobar said—

"Why art thou sad, dear Setanta?"

"I am not sad," answered the boy.

"Truly there is no sadness in thy face, or thy lips, in thy voice or thy behaviour, but it is deep down in thine eyes," said the King. "I see it there always."

Setanta laughed lightly. "I know it not," he said.

Concobar went his way after that, musing, and Setanta, having replaced the sacred vessels in their chamber and having locked the door, strode away into the boys' hall. There was a great fire in the midst, and the boys sat round it, for it was cold. Cuculain broke their circle, pushing the boys asunder, and sat down. They tried to drag him away, but he laughed and kept his place like a rock. Then they called him "a Fomorian, and no man," and perforce made their circle wider.



CHAPTER XIII

THE WEIRD HORSES

"On the brink of the night and the morning My coursers are wont to respire, But the earth has just whispered a warning, That their flight must be swifter than fire, They shall breathe the hot air of desire."

SHELLEY.

One night when the stars shone brightly, Setanta, as he passed by Cathvah's astrological tower, heard him declare to his students that whoever should be knighted by Concobar on a certain day would be famous to the world's end. He was in his coming out of the forest then with a bundle of young ash trees under his arm. He thought to put them to season and therewith make slings, for truly he surpassed all others in the use of the sling. Setanta went his way after that and came into the speckled house. It was the armoury of the Red Branch and shone with all manner of war- furniture. A fire burned here always, absorbing the damp of the air lest the metal should take rust. Setanta flung his trees into the rafters over the fire very deftly, so that they caught and remained there. He said they would season best in that place.

As he turned to go a man stood before him in the vast and hollow chamber.

"I know thee," said the boy. "What wouldst thou now?"

"Thou shalt go forth to-night," said the man, [Footnote: This man was Lu the Long-Handed, the same who met him when he was leaving home.] "and take captive the Liath Macha and Black Shanghlan. Power will be given to thee. Go out boldly."

"I am not wont to go out fearfully," answered the lad. "Great labours are thrust upon me."

He went into the supper hall as at other times and took his customary place there, and ate and drank.

"Thy eyes are very bright," said Laeg.

"They will be brighter ere the day," he replied.

"That is an expert juggler," said Laeg. "How he tosseth the bright balls!"

"Can he toss the stars so?" said Setanta.

"Thou art strange and wild to-night," said Laeg.

"I will be stranger and wilder ere the morrow," cried Setanta.

He stood up to go. Laeg caught him by the skirt of his mantle. The piece came away in his hand.

"Whither art thou going, Setanta?" cried the King from the other end of the vast hall.

"To seek my horses," cried the lad. His voice rang round the hollow dome and down the resounding galleries and long corridors, so that men started in their seats and looked towards him.

"They are stabled since the setting of the sun," said the chief groom.

"Thou liest," answered the boy. "They are in the hills and valleys of Erin." His eyes burned like fire and his stature was exalted before their eyes.

"Great deeds will be done in Erin this night," said Concobar.

He went forth into the night. There was great power upon him. He crossed the Plain of the Hurlings and the Plain of the Assemblies and the open country and the great waste moor, going on to Dun- Culain. Culain's new hound cowered low when he saw him. The boy sprang over moat and rampart at one bound and burst open the doors of the smith's house, breaking the bar. The noise of the riven beam was like the brattling of thunder.

"That is an unusual way to enter a man's house," said Culain. He and his people were at supper.

"It is," said Setanta. "Things more unusual will happen this night. Give me bridles that will hold the strongest horses." Culain gave him two bridles.

"Will they hold the strongest horses?" said the boy.

"Anything less than the Liath Macha they will hold," said the smith.

The boy snapped the bridles and flung them aside. "I want bridles that will hold the Liath Macha and Black Shanglan," said he.

"Fire all the furnaces," cried Culain. "Handle your tools; show your might. Work now, men, for your lives. Verily, if he get not the bridles, soon your dead will be more numerous than your living."

Culain and his people made the bridles. He gave them to Cuculain. The smiths stood around in pallid groups. Cuculain took the bridles and went forth. He went south-westwards to Slieve Fuad, and came to the Grey Lake. The moon shone and the lake glowed like silver. There was a great horse feeding by the lake. He raised his head and neighed when he heard footsteps on the hill. He came on against Cuculain and Cuculain went on against him. The boy had one bridle knotted round his waist and the other in his teeth. He leaped upon the steed and caught him by the forelock and his mouth. The horse reared mightily, but Setanta held him and dragged his head down to the ground. The grey steed grew greater and more terrible. So did Cuculain.

"Thou hast met thy master, O Liath Macha, this night," he cried. "Surely I will not lose thee. Ascend into the heavens, or, breaking the earth's roof, descend to Orchil, [Footnote: A great sorceress who ruled the world under the earth.] yet even so thou wilt not shake me away."

Ireland quaked from the centre to the sea. They reeled together, steed and hero, through the plains of Murthemney. "Make the circuit of Ireland Liath Macha and I shall be on the neck of thee," cried Cuculain. The horse went in reeling circles round Ireland. Cuculain mightily thust the bit into his mouth and made fast the headstall. The Liath Macha went a second time round Ireland. The sea retreated from the shore and stood in heaps. Cuculain sprang upon his back. A third time the horse went round Ireland, bounding from peak to peak. They seemed a resplendent Fomorian phantom against the stars. The horse came to a stand. "I think thou art tamed, O Liath Macha," said Cuculain. "Go on now to the Dark Valley." They came to the Dark Valley. There was night there always. Shapes of Death and Horror, Fomorian apparitions, guarded the entrance. They came against Cuculain, and he went against them. A voice from within cried, "Forbear, this is the promised one. Your watching and warding are at end." He rode into the Dark Valley. There was a roaring of unseen rivers in the darkness, of black cataracts rushing down the steep sides of the Valley. The Liath Macha neighed loudly. The neigh reverberated through the long Valley. A horse neighed joyfully in response. There was a noise of iron doors rushing open somewhere, and a four-footed thunderous trampling on the hollow-sounding earth. A steed came to the Liath Macha. Cuculain felt for his head in the dark, and bitted and bridled him ere he was aware. The horse reared and struggled. The Liath Macha dragged him down the Valley. "Struggle not, Black Shanglan," said Cuculain, "I have tamed thy better." The horse ceased to struggle. Down and out of the Dark Valley rodest thou, O peerless one, with thy horses. The Liath Macha was grey to whiteness, the other horse was black and glistening like the bright mail of the chaffer. He rode thence to Emain Macha with the two horses like a lord of Day and Night, and of Life and Death. Truly the might and power of the Long-Handed and Far-Shooting one was upon him that night. He came to Emain Macha. The doors of Macha's stable flew open before him. He rode the horses into the stable. Macha's war-car brayed forth a brazen roar of welcome, the Tuatha De Danan shouted, and the car itself glowed and sparkled. The horses went to their ancient stalls, the Liath Macha to that which was nearer to the door. Cuculain took off their bridles and hanged them on the wall. He went forth into the night. The horses were already eating their barley, but they looked after him as he went. The doors shut to with a brazen clash. Cuculain stood alone in the great court under the stars. A druidic storm was abroad and howled in the forests. He thought all that had taken place a wild dream. He went to his dormitory and to his couch. Laeg was asleep with the starlight shining on his white forehead; his red hair was shed over the pillow. Cuculain kissed him, and sitting on the bed's edge wept. Laeg awoke.

"Thou wert not well at supper," said Laeg, "and now thou hast been wandering in the damp of the night, and thou with a fever upon thee, for I hear thy teeth clattering. I sought to hinder thee, and thou wouldst not be persuaded. Verily, if thou wilt not again obey me, being thy senior, thou shalt have sore bones at my hands. Undress thyself now and come to bed without delay."

Cuculain did so.

"Thou art as cold as ice," said Laeg.

"Nay, I am hotter than fire," said Cuculain.

"Thou art ice, I say," said Laeg, "and thy teeth are clattering like hailstones on a brazen shield. Ay, and thine eyes shine terribly."

Laeg started from the couch. He struck flintsparks upon a rag steeped in nitre, and waved it to a flame, and kindled a lanthorn. He flung his own mantle upon the bed and went forth in his shirt. The storm raged terribly; the stars were dancing in high heaven. He came to the house of the Chief Leech and beat at the door. The Leech was not in bed. All the wise men of Emain Macha were awake that night, listening to the portents.

"Setanta, son of Sualtam, is sick," said Laeg.

"What are his symptoms?" said the Leech.

"He is colder than ice, his eyes shine terribly, and his teeth clatter, but he says that he is hotter than fire."

The Leech went to Cuculain. "This is not a work for me," he said, "but for a seer. Bring hither Cathvah and his Druids." Cathvah and and his seers came. They made their symbols of power over the youth and chanted their incantations and Druid songs. After that Cuculain slept. He slept for three days and three nights. There was a great stillness while the boy slept, for it was not lawful at any time for anyone to awake Cuculain when he slumbered.

On the third morning Cuculain awoke. The bright morning sunshine was all around, and the birds sang in Emain Macha. He called for Laeg with a loud voice and bade him order a division of the boys to get ready their horses and chariots for charioteering exercise and fighting out of their cars.



CHAPTER XIV

THE KNIGHTING OF CUCULAIN

"Then felt I like a watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken."

KEATS.

The prophecies concerning the coming of some extraordinary warrior amongst the Red Branch had been many and ancient, and by certain signs Concobar believed that his time was now near. Often he contemplated his nephew, observed his beauty, his strength, and his unusual proficiency in all martial exercises, and mused deeply considering the omens. But when he saw him slinging and charioteering amongst the rest, shooting spears and casting battle-stones at a mark before the palace upon the lawn, and saw him eating and drinking before him nightly in the hall like another, and heard his clear voice and laughter amongst the boys, his schoolfellows and comrades, then the thought or the faint surmise or wish that his nephew might be that promised one passed out of his mind, for the prophesyings and the rumours had been very great, and men looked for one who should resemble Lu the Long-Handed, son of Ethlend, [Footnote: This great deity resembled the Greek Phoebus Apollo. He led the rebellion of the gods against the Fomorian giants who had previously reduced them to a condition of intolerable slavery. Some say that he was Cuculain's true father. His favourite weapon was the sling, likened here to the rainbow. It was not a thong or cord sling, but a pliant rod such as boys in Ireland still make. The milky way was his chain.] whose sling was like the cloud bow, who thundered and lightened against the giants of the Fomoroh, who was all power and all skill, whose chain wherewith he used to confine Tuatha De Danan and Milesians, spanned the midnight sky. The rumours and prophecies were indeed exceeding great and Cuculain, though he far surpassed the rest, was but a boy like others. He stood at the head of Concobar's horses when the King ascended his chariot. His shoulder was warm and firm to the touch when the King lightly laid his hand upon him.

One night there were terrible portents. All Ireland quaked; there was a druidic storm under bright stars; the buildings rocked; a brazen clangour sounded from the Tec Brac; there were mighty tramplings and cries and a four-footed thunder of giant hoofs, and they went round Ireland three times, only the third time swifter and like a hurricane of sound. Cuculain was abroad that night. There was deep sleep upon the people of Emain, only the chiefs were awake and aware. Cuculain was sick after that. The Druids stood around his bed.

"The world labours with the new birth," said Concobar. "Maybe my nephew is the forerunner, the herald and announcer of the coming god!"

One evening, after supper, when the lad came to bid his uncle good-night as his custom was, he said, "If it be pleasing to thee, my Uncle Concobar, I would be knighted on the morrow, for I am now of due age, and owing to the instructions of my tutor, Fergus Mac Roy, and thyself, and my other teachers and instructors, I am thought to be sufficiently versed in martial exercises, and able to play a man's part amongst the Red Branch."

He was now a man's full height, but his face was a boy's face, and his strength and agility amazed all who observed him in his exercises.

"Has thou heard what Cathvah has predicted concerning the youth who is knighted on that day?" said the King.

"Yes," answered the lad.

"That he will be famous and short-lived and unhappy?"

"Truly," he replied.

"And doth thy purpose still hold?"

"Yes," he answered, "but whether it be mine I cannot tell."

Concobar, though unwilling, yielded to that request.

Loegairey, the Victorious, son of Conud, son of Iliach, the second best knight of the Red Branch and the most devoted to poetry of them all came that night into the hall while the rest slumbered. The candles were flickering in their sockets. Darkness invested the rest of the vast hollow-sounding chamber, but there was light around the throne and couch of the King, owing to the splendour of the pillars and of the canopy shining with bronze, white and red, and silver and gold, and glittering with carbuncles and diamonds, and owing to the light which always surrounded the King and encircled his regal head like a luminous cloud, seen by many. He was looking straight out before him with bright eyes, considering and consulting for the Red Branch while they slept. Two great men having their swords drawn in their hands, stood behind him, on the right and on the left, like statues, motionless and silent.

Loegairey drew nigh to the King. Distraction and amazement were in his face. His dense and lustrous hair was dishevelled and in agitation round his neck and huge shoulders. He held in his hand two long spears with rings of walrus tooth where the timber met the shank of the flashing blades; they trembled in his hand. His lips were dry, his voice very low.

"There are horses in the stable of Macha," he said.

"I know it," answered the King.

Concobar called for water, and when he had washed his hands and his face, he took from its place the chess-board of the realm, arranged the men, and observed their movements and combinations. He closed the board and put the men in their net of bronze wire, and restored all to their place.

"Great things will happen on the morrow, O grandson of Iliach," he said. "Take candles and go before me to the boys' dormitory."

They went to the boys' dormitory and to the couch of Cuculain. Cuculain and Laeg were asleep together there. Their faces towards each other and their hair mingled together. Cuculain's face was very tranquil, and his breathing inaudible, like an infant's.

"O sweet and serene face," murmured the King, "I see great clouds of sorrow coming upon you."

They returned to the hall.

"Go now to thy rest and thy slumber, O Loegairey," said the King. "When the curse of Macha descends upon us I know one who will withstand it."

"Surely it is not that stripling?" said Loegairey. But the King made no answer.

On the morrow there was a great hosting of the Red Branch on the plain of the Assemblies. It was May-Day morning and the sun shone brightly, but at first through radiant showers. The trees were putting forth young buds; the wet grass sparkled. All the martial pomp and glory of the Ultonians were exhibited that day. Their chariots and war-horses ringed the plain. All the horses' heads were turned towards the centre where were Concobar Mac Nessa and the chiefs of the Red Branch. The plain flashed with gold, bronze, and steel, and glowed with the bright mantles of the innumerable heroes, crimson and scarlet, blue, green, or purple. The huge brooches on their breasts of gold and silver or gold-like bronze, were like resplendent wheels. Their long hair, yellow for the most part, was bound with ornaments of gold. Great, truly, were those men, their like has not come since upon the earth. They were the heroes and demigods of the heroic age of Erin, champions who feared nought beneath the sun, mightiest among the mighty, huge, proud, and unconquerable, and loyal and affectionate beyond all others; all of the blood of Ir, [Footnote: On account of their descent from Ir, son of Milesius, the Red Branch were also called the Irians.] son of Milesius, the Clanna Rury of great renown, rejoicing in their valour, their splendour, their fame and their peerless king. Concobar had no crown. A plain circle of beaten gold girt his broad temples. In the naked glory of his regal manhood he stood there before them all, but even so a stranger would have swiftly discovered the captain of the Red Branch, such was his stature, his bearing, such his slowly-turning, steady- gazing eyes and the majesty of his bearded countenance. His countenance was long, broad above and narrow below, his nose eminent, his beard bipartite, curling and auburn in hue, his form without any blemish or imperfection.

Cuculain came forth from the palace. He wore that day a short mantle of pale-red silk bordered with white thread and fastened on the breast with a small brooch like a wheel of silver. The hues upon that silk were never the same. His tunic of fine linen was girt at the waist with a leathern zone, stained to the resemblance of the wild-briar rose. It descended to but did not pass his beautiful knees, falling into many plaits. The tunic was cut low at the neck, exposing his throat and the knot in the throat and the cup-shaped indentation above the breast. On his feet were comely shoes sparkling with bronze plates. They took the colour of everything which they approached. His hair fell in many curls over the pale-red mantle, without adornment or confinement. It was the colour of the flower which is named after the dearest Disciple, but which was called sovarchey by the Gael. A tinge of red ran through the gold. As to his eyes, no two men or women could agree concerning their colour, for some said they were blue, and some grey, and others hazel; and there were those who said that they were blacker than the blackest night that was ever known. Yet again, there were those who said that they were of all colours named and nameless. They were soft and liquid splendours, unfathomable lakes of light above his full and ruddy cheeks, and beneath his curved and most tranquil brows. In form he was symmetrical, straight and pliant as a young fir tree when the sweet spring sap fills its veins. So he came to that assembly, in the glory of youth, beauty, strength, valour, and beautiful shame- fastness, yet proud in his humility and glittering like the morning star. Choice youths, his comrades, attended him. The kings held their breaths when he drew nigh, moving white knee after white knee over the green and sparkling grass. When the other rites had been performed and the due sacrifices and libations made, and after Cuculain had put his right hand into the right hand of the King and become his man, Concobar gave him a shield, two spears and a sword, weapons of great price and of thrice proved excellence—a strong man's equipment. Cuculain struck the spears together at right angles and broke them. He clashed the sword flat-wise on the shield. The sword leaped into small pieces and the shield was bent inwards and torn.

"These are not good weapons, my King," said the boy. Then the King gave him others, larger and stronger and worthy of his best champions. These, too, the boy broke into pieces in like manner.

"Son of Nessa, these are still worse," he said, "nor is it well done, O Captain of the Red Branch, to make me a laughing-stock in the presence of this great hosting of the Ultonians."

Concobar Mac Nessa exulted exceedingly when he beheld the amazing strength and the waywardness of the boy, and beneath delicate brows his eyes glittered like glittering swords as he glanced proudly round on the crowd of martial men that surrounded him. Amongst them all he seemed himself a bright torch of valour and war, more pure and clear than polished steel. He then beckoned to one of his knights, who hastened away and returned bringing Concobar's own shield and spears and sword out of the Tec Brac, where they were kept, an equipment in reserve. And Cuculain shook them and bent them and clashed them together, but they held firm.

"These are good arms, O son of Nessa," said Cuculain.

"Choose now thy charioteer," said the King, "for I will give thee also war-horses and a chariot."

He caused to pass before Cuculain all the boys who in many and severe tests had proved their proficiency in charioteering, in the management and tending of steeds, in the care of weapons and steed-harness, and all that related to charioteering science. Amongst them was Laeg, with a pale face and dejected, his eyes red and his cheeks stained from much weeping. Cuculain laughed when he saw him, and called him forth from the rest, naming him by his name with a loud, clear voice, heard to the utmost limit of the great host.

"There was fear upon thee," said Cuculain.

"There is fear upon thyself," answered Laeg. "It was in thy mind that I would refuse."

"Nay, there is no such fear upon me," said Cuculain.

"Then there is fear upon me," said Laeg. "A charioteer needs a champion who is stout and a valiant and faithful. Yea, truly there is fear upon me," answered Laeg.

"Verily, dear comrade and bed-fellow," answered Cuculain, "it is through me that thou shalt get thy death-wound, and I say not this as a vaunt, but as a prophecy."

And that prophecy was fulfilled, for the spear that slew Laeg went through his master.

After that Laeg stood by Cuculain's side and held his peace, but his face shone with excess of joy and pride. He wore a light graceful frock of deerskin, joined in the front with a twine of bronze wire, and a short, dark-red cape, secured by a pin of gold with a ring to it. A band of gold thread confined his auburn hair, rising into a peak behind his head. In his hands he held a goad of polished red-yew, furnished with a crooked hand-grip of gold, and pointed with shining bronze, and where the bronze met the timber there was a circlet of diamond of the diamonds of Banba. He had also a short-handled scourge with a haft of walrus tooth, and the rope, cord, and lash of that scourge were made of delicate and delicately-twisted thread of copper. This equipment was the equipment of a proved charioteer; the apprentices wore only grey capes with white fringes, fastened by loops of red cord.

Laeg was one of three brothers, all famous charioteers. Id and Sheeling were the others. They were all three sons of the King of Gabra, whose bright dun arose upon a green and sloping hill over against Tara towards the rising of the sun. Thence sprang the beautiful stream of the Nemnich, rich in lilies and reeds and bulrushes, which to-day men call the Nanny Water. Laeg was grey- eyed and freckled.

Then there were led forward by two strong knights a pair of great and spirited horses and a splendid war-car. The King said, "They are thine, dear nephew. Well I know that neither thou, nor Laeg, will be a dishonour to this war equipage."

Cuculain sprang into the car, and standing with legs apart, he stamped from side to side and shook the car mightily, till the axle brake, and the car itself was broken in pieces.

"It is not a good chariot," said the lad.

Another was led forward, and he broke it in like manner.

"Give me a sound chariot, High Lord of the Clanna Rury, or give me none," he said. "No prudent warrior would fight from such brittle foothold."

He brake in succession nine war chariots, the greatest and strongest in Emain. When he broke the ninth the horses of Macha neighed from their stable. Great fear fell upon the host when they heard that unusual noise and the reverberation of it in the woods and hills.

"Let those horses be harnessed to the Chariot of Macha," cried Concobar, "and let Laeg, son of the King of Gabra, drive them hither, for those are the horses and that the chariot which shall be given this day to Cuculain."

Then, son of Sualtam, how in thy guileless breast thy heart leaped, when thou heardest the thundering of the great war-car and the wild neighing of the immortal steeds, as they broke from the dark stable into the clear-shining light of day, and heard behind them the ancient roaring of the brazen wheels as in the days when they bore forth Macha and her martial groom against the giants of old, and mightily established in Eiriu the Red Branch of the Ultonians! Soon they rushed to view from the rear of Emain, speeding forth impetuously out of the hollow-sounding ways of the city and the echoing palaces into the open, and behind them in the great car green and gold, above the many-twinkling wheels, the charioteer, with floating mantle, girt round the temples with the gold fillet of his office, leaning backwards and sideways as he laboured to restrain their fury unrestrainable; a grey long-maned steed, whale-bellied, broad-chested, with mane like flying foam, under one silver yoke, and a black lustrous, tufty-maned steed under the other, such steeds as in power, size, and beauty the earth never produced before and never will produce again.

Like a hawk swooping along the face of a cliff when the wind is high, or like the rush of March wind over the smooth plain, or like the fleetness of the stag roused from his lair by the hounds and covering his first field, was the rush of those steeds when they had broken through the restraint of the charioteer, as though they galloped over fiery flags, so that the earth shook and trembled with the velocity of their motion, and all the time the great car brayed and shrieked as the wheels of solid and glittering bronze went round, and strange cries and exclamations were heard, for they were demons that had their abode in that car.

The charioteer restrained the steeds before the assembly, but nay- the-less a deep purr, like the purr of a tiger, proceeded from the axle. Then the whole assembly lifted up their voices and shouted for Cuculain, and he himself, Cuculain, the son of Sualtam, sprang into his chariot, all armed, with a cry as of a warrior springing into his chariot in the battle, and he stood erect and brandished his spears, and the war sprites of the Gael shouted along with him, for the Bocanahs and Bananahs and the Geniti Glindi, the wild people of the glens, and the demons of the air, roared around him, when first the great warrior of the Gael, his battle-arms in his hands, stood equipped for war in his chariot before all the warriors of his tribe, the kings of the Clanna Rury and the people of Emain Macha. Then, too, there sounded from the Tec Brac the boom of shields, and the clashing of swords and the cries and shouting of the Tuatha De Danan, who dwelt there perpetually; and Lu the Long-Handed, the slayer of Balor, the destroyer of the Fomoroh, the immortal, the invisible, the maker and decorator of the Firmament, whose hound was the sun and whose son the viewless wind, thundered from heaven and bent his sling five-hued against the clouds; and the son of the illimitable Lir [Footnote: Mananan mac Lir, the sea-god.] in his mantle blue and green, foam-fringed passed through the assembly with a roar of far-off innumerable waters, and the Mor Reega stood in the midst with a foot on either side of the plain, and shouted with the shout of a host, so that the Ultonians fell down like reaped grass with their faces to the earth, on account of the presence of the Mor Reega, and on account of the omens and great signs.

Cuculain bade Laeg let the steeds go. They went like a storm and three times encircled Emain Macha. It was the custom of the Ultonians to march thrice round Emain ere they went forth to war.

Then said Cuculain—"Whither leads the great road yonder?"

"To Ath-na-Forairey and the borders of the Crave Rue."

"And wherefore is it called the Ford of the Watchings?" said Cuculain.

"Because," answered Laeg, "there is always one of the King's knights there, keeping watch and ward over the gate of the province."

"Guide thither the horses," said Cuculain, "for I will not lay aside my arms till I have first reddened them in the blood of the enemies of my nation. Who is it that is over the ward there this day?"

"It is Conall Carnach," said Laeg.

As they drew nigh to the ford, the watchman from his high watch- tower on the west side of the dun sent forth a loud and clear voice—

"There is a chariot coming to us from Emain Macha," he said. "The chariot is of great size; I have not seen its like in all Eiriu. In front of it are two horses, one black and one white. Great is their trampling and their glory and the shaking of their heads and necks. I liken their progress to the fall of water from a high cliff or the sweeping of dust and beech-tree leaves over a plain, when the March wind blows hard, or to the rapidity of thunder rattling over the firmament. A man would say that there were eight legs under each horse, so rapid and indistinguishable is the motion of their limbs and hoofs. Identify those horses, O Conall, and that chariot, for to me they are unknown."

"And to me likewise," said Conall. "Who are in the chariot? Moderate, O man, the extravagance of thy language, for thou art not a prophet but a watchman."

"There are two beardless youths in the chariot," answered the watchman, "but I am unable to identify them on account of the dust and the rapid motion and the steam of the horses. I think the charioteer is Laeg, the son of the King of Gabra, for I know his manner of driving. The boy who sits in front of him and below him on the champion's seat I do not know, but he shines like a star in the cloud of dust and steam." Then a young man who stood near to Conall Carna, wearing a short, red cloak with a blue hood to it, and a tassel at the point of the hood, said to Conall—

"If it be my brother that charioteers sure am I that it is Cuculain who is in the fighter's seat, for many a time have I heard Laeg utter foul scorn of the Red Branch, none excepted, when compared with Sualtam's son. For no other than him would he deign to charioteer. Truly though he is my own brother there is not such a boaster in the North."

Then the watchman cried out again—

"Yea, the charioteer is the son of the King of Gabra, and it is Cuculain, the son of Sualtam, who sits in the fighter's seat. He has Concobar's own shield on his breast, and his two spears in his hand. Over Bray Ros, over Brainia, they are coming along the highway, by the foot of the Town of the Tree; it is gifted with victories."

"Have done, O talkative man," cried Conall, "whose words are like the words of a seer, or the full-voiced intonement of a chief bard."

When the chariot came to the ford, Conall was amazed at the horses and the chariot, but he dissembled his amazement before his people, and when he saw Cuculain armed, he laughed and said,—

"Hath the boy indeed taken arms?"

And Cuculain said, "It is as thou seest, O son of Amargin; and moreover, I have sworn not to let them back into the Chamber-of- Many-Colours [Footnote: Tec Brac or Speckled House, the armoury of the Ultonians.] until I shall have first reddened them in the blood of the enemies of Ulla."

Then Conall ceased laughing and said, "Not so, Setanta, for verily thou shalt not be permitted;" and the great Champion sprang forward to lay his fearless, never-foiled, and all conquering hands on the bridles of the horses, but at a nod from Cuculain, Laeg let the steeds go, and Conall sprang aside out of the way, so terrible was the appearance of the horses as they reared against him. "Harness my horses and yoke my chariot," cried Conall, "for if this mad boy goes into the enemies' country and meets with harm there, verily I shall never be forgiven by the Ultonians."

His horses were harnessed and his chariot yoked,—illustrious too were those horses, named and famed in many songs—and Conall and Ide in their chariot dashed through the ford enveloped with rainbow-painted clouds of foam and spray, and like hawks on the wing they skimmed the plain, pursuing the boys. Laeg heard the roar and trampling, and looking back over his shoulder, said,—

"They are after us, dear master, namely the great son of Amargin and my haughty brother Ide, who hath ever borne himself to me as though I were a wayward child. They would spoil upon us this our brave foray. But they will overtake the wind sooner than they will overtake the Liath Macha and Black Shanglan, whose going truly is like the going of eagles. O storm-footed steeds, great is my love for you, and inexpressible my pride in your might and your beauty, your speed and your terror, and sweet docility and affection."

"Nevertheless, O Laeg," said Cuculain, "slacken now their going, for that Champion will be an impediment to us in our challengings and our fightings; for when we stop for that purpose he will overtake us, and, be our feats what they may, his and not ours will be the glory. Slacken the going of the horses, for we must rid ourselves of the annoyance and the pursuit of these gadflies."

Laeg slackened the pace, and as they went Cuculain leaped lightly from his seat and as lightly bounded back again, holding a great pebble in his hand, such as a man using all his strength could with difficulty raise from the ground, and sat still, rejoicing in his purpose, and grasping the pebble with his five fingers.

Conall and Ide came up to them after that, and Conall, as the senior and the best man amongst the Ultonians, clamorously called to them to turn back straightway, or he would hough their horses, or draw the linch-pins of their wheels, or in some other manner bring their foray to naught. Cuculain thereupon stood upright in the car, and so standing, with feet apart to steady him in his throwing and in his aim, dashed the stone upon the yoke of Conall's chariot between the heads of the horses and broke the yoke, so that the pole fell to the ground and the chariot tilted forward violently. Then the charioteer fell amongst the horses, and Conall Carna, the beauty of the Ultonians the battle-winning and ever-victorious son of Amargin, was shot out in front upon the road, and fell there upon his left shoulder, and his beautiful raiment was defiled with dust; and when he arose his left hand hung by his side, for the shoulder-bone was driven from the socket, owing to the violence of the fall.

"I swear by all my gods," he cried, "that if a step would save thy head from the hands of the men of Meath, I would not take it."

Cuculain laughed and replied, "Good, O Conall, and who asked thee to take it, or craved of thee any succour or countenance? Was it a straight shot? Are there the materials of a fighter in me at all, dost thou think? Thou art in my debt now too, O Conall. I have saved thee a broken vow, for it is one of the oaths of our Order not to enter hostile territory with brittle chariot-gear!"

Then the boys laughed at him again, and Laeg let go the steeds, and very soon they were out of sight. Conall returned slowly with his broken chariot to Ath-na-Forairey and sent for Fingin of Slieve Fuad, who was the most cunning physician and most expert of bone-setters amongst the Ultonians. Conall's messengers experienced no difficulty in finding the house of the leech, which was very recognisable on account of its shape and appearance, and because it had wide open doors, four in number, affording a liberal ingress and free thoroughfare to all the winds. Also a stream of pure water ran through the house, derived from a well of healing properties, which sprang from the side of the uninhabited hill. Such were the signs that showed the house of a leech.

When they drew nigh they heard the voice of one man talking and of another who laughed. It happened that that day there had been borne thither a champion, in whose body there was not one small bone unbroken or uninjured. The man's bruises and fractures had been dressed and set by Fingin and his intelligent and deft-handed apprentices, and he lay now in his bed of healing listening joyfully to the conversation of the leech, who was beyond all others eloquent and of most agreeable discourse.

When Conall's messengers related the reason of their coming, Fingin cried to his young men, "Harness me my horses and yoke my chariot. There are few," he said, "in Erin for whom I would leave my own house, but that youth is one of them. His father Amargin was well known to me. He was a warrior grim and dour exceedingly, and he ever said concerning the boy, 'This hound's whelp that I have gotten is too fine and sleek to hold bloody gaps or hunt down a noble prey. He will be a women's playmate and not a peer amongst Heroes.' And that fear was ever upon him till the day when Conall came red out of the Valley of the Thrush, and his track thence to Rath-Amargin was one straight path of blood, and he with his shield-arm hacked to the bone, his sword-arm swollen and bursting, and the flame of his valour burning bright in his splendid eyes. Then, for the first time, the old man smiled upon him, and he said, 'That arm, my son, has done a man's work to-day.'"



CHAPTER XV

ACROSS THE MEARINGS AND AWAY

"Say, rushed the bold eagle exultingly forth. From his home, in the dark rolling clouds of the North?"

CAMPBELL.

As for the boys, they proceeded joyfully after that pleasant skirmish and friendly encounter, both on account of the discomfiture of him who was reckoned the prime champion of the Ultonians, and because they were at large in Erin, with no one to direct them, or to whom they should render an account; and their happiness, too, was increased by the mettle, power and gallant action of the steeds, and by the clanking of the harness and the brazen chains, and the ringing of the weapons of war, and the roar of the revolving wheels, and owing to the velocity of their motion and the rushing of the wind upon their temples and through their hair.

Then Cuculain stood up in the chariot, and surveyed the land on all sides, and said—

"What is that great, firm-based, indestructible mountain upon our left hand, one of a noble range which, rising from the green plain, runs eastward. The last peak there is the mountain of which I speak, whose foot is in the Ictian sea and whose head neighbours the firmament."

And Laeg said, "Men call it Slieve Modurn, after a giant of the elder time, when men were mightier and greater than they are now. He was of the children of Brogan, uncle of Milesius, and his brothers were Fuad and Eadar and Breagh, and all these being very great men are commemorated in the names of noble mountains and sea-dividing promontories."

"Guide thither the horses," said Cuculain. "It is right that those who take the road against an enemy should first spy out the land, choosing judiciously their point of onset, and Slieve Modurn yonder commands a most brave prospect."

Laeg did so. There, in a green valley, they unharnessed the horses and tethered them to graze, and they themselves climbed the mountain and stood upon the top in the most clear air. Thence Laeg showed him the green plain of Meath extending far and wide, and the great streams of Meath where they ran, the Boyne and the Blackwater, the Liffey and the Royal Rye, and his own stream the Nanny Water, clear and sparkling, which was very dear to Laeg, because he had snared fish there and erected dams, and had done divers boyish feats upon its shores.

Cuculain said, "I see a beautiful green hill, shaped like an inverted ewer, on the south shore of the Boyne. There is a noble palace there. I see the flashing of its lime-white sides, and the colours of the variegated roof and around it are other beautiful houses. How is that city named O Laeg, and who dwells there?"

"That is the hill of Temair," answered Laeg, "Tara's high citadel. Well may that city be beautiful, for the seat of Erin's high sovereignty is there. The man who holds it is Arch-king of all Erin."

"Westward by south," said Cuculain, "I see another city widely built, and unenclosed by ramparts and defensive works, and hard by there is a most smooth plain. At one end of the plain I see a glittering, and also at the other,"

And Laeg said, "That is the hill of Talteen, so named because the mother of far-shooting Lu, the Deliverer, is worshipped there, and every year, when the leaves change their colour, games and contests of skill are celebrated there in her honour. So it was enjoined on the men of Erin by her famous son. Chariot races are run there on that smooth plain. The glittering points on either side of it are the racing pillars of burnished brass, the starting-post, and that which the charioteers graze with the glowing axle. Many a noble chariot has been broken, and many a gallant youth slain at the further of those twain. It was there that Concobar raced his steeds against the woman with child, concerning which things there are rumours and prophesyings."

So Cuculain questioned Laeg concerning the cities of Meath, and concerning the noble raths and duns where the kings and lords and chief men of Meath dwelt prosperously, rejoicing in their great wealth. Cuculain said, "None of these kings and lords and chief men whom thou hast enumerated have at any time injured my nation, and there is not one upon whom I might rightly take vengeance. But I see one other splendid dun, and of this thou hast said no word, though thrice I have questioned thee concerning it."

Laeg grew pale at these words, and he said,

"What dun is that, my master?"

Cuculain said, "O fox that thou art, right well thou knowest. It is not a little or mean one, but great, proud, and conspicuous, and vauntingly it rears its head like a man who has never known defeat, but on the contrary has caused many widows to lament. Its white sides flashed against the dark waters of the Boyne, and its bright roofs glitter above the green woods. There is a stream that runs into the Boyne beside it, and there are bulwarks around it, and great strong barriers."

Laeg answered, "That is the dun of the sons of Nectan."

"Let us now leave Slieve Modurn," said Cuculain, "and guide thither my horses, for I shall lay waste that dun, and burn it with fire, after having slain the men who dwell there."

Then Laeg clasped his comrade's knees, and said, "Take the road, dear master, against the royalest dun in all Meath, but pass by that dun. The men are not alive to-day who at any time approached it with warlike intent. Those who dwell there are sorcerers and enchanters, lords of all the arts of poison and of war."

Cuculain answered, "I swear by my gods that Dun-Mic-Nectan is the only dun in all Meath which shall hear my warlike challenge this day. Descend the hill now, for verily thither shalt thou fare, and that whether thou art willing or unwilling."

Now, for the first time, his valour and his destructive wrath were kindled in the soul of Dethcaen's nursling. Laeg saw the tokens of it, and feared and obeyed. Unwillingly he came down the slopes of Slieve Modurn, and unwillingly harnessed the horses and yoked the chariot, and yoked the horses. Southwards, then, they fared swiftly through the night, and the intervening nations heard them as they went. When they arrived at the dun of the sons of Nectan it was twilight and the dawning of the day. Before the dun there was a green and spacious lawn in full view of the palace, and on the lawn a pillar and on the pillar a huge disc of shining bronze. Cuculain descended and examined the disc, and there was inscribed on it in ogham a curse upon the man who should enter that lawn and depart again without battle and single combat with the men of the dun. Cuculain took the disc from its place and cast it from him southwards. The brazen disc skimmed low across the plain and then soared on high until it showed to those who looked a full, bright face, like the moon's, after which, pausing one moment, it fell sheer down and sank into the dark waters of the Boyne, without a sound, or at all disturbing the tranquil surface of the great stream, and was no more seen.

"That bright lure," said Cuculain, "shall no more be a cause of death to brave men. This lawn, O Laeg, is surely the richest of all the lawns in the world. Close-enwoven and thick is the mantle of short green grass which it wears, decked all over with red- petalled daisies and bright flowers more numerous than the stars on a frosty night."

"That is not surprising," said Laeg, "for the lawn is enriched and made fat by the blood that has been shed abundantly now for a long time, the blood of heroes and valiant men—slain here by the people of the dun. Very rich too, are the men, both on account of their strippings of the slain, and on account of the druidic well of magic which is within the dun. For the people come from far and near to pay their vows at that well, and they give costly presents to those sorcerers who are priests and custodians of the same."

"Noble, indeed, is the dun," said Cuculain. "But it is yet early, for the sun is not yet risen from his red-flaming eastern couch, and the people of the dun, too, are in their heavy slumber. I would repose now for a while and rest myself before the battles and hard combats which await me this day. Wherefore, good Laeg, let down the sides and seats of the chariot, that I may repose myself for a little and take a short sleep."

For just then precisely an unwonted drowsiness and desire for slumber possessed Cuculain.

"Witless and devoid of sense art thou," answered Laeg, "for who but an idiot would think of sweet sleep and agreeable repose in a hostile territory, much more in full view of those who look out from a foeman's dun, and that dun, Dun-Mic-Nectan?"

"Do as I bid thee," said Cuculain. "For one day, if for no other, thou shalt obey my commands."

Laeg unyoked the chariot and turned the great steeds forth to graze on the druidic lawn, which was never done before at any time. He let down the chariot and arranged it as a couch, and his young master laid himself therein, composing his limbs and pillowing tranquilly his head, and he closed his immortal eyes. Very soon sweet slumber possessed him. Laeg meanwhile kept watch and ward, and his great heart in his breast continually trembled like the leaf of the poplar tree, or like a rush in a flooded stream. The awakening birds unconscious sang in the trees, the dew glittered on the grass; hard by the royal Boyne rolled silently. The son of Sualtam slumbered without sound or motion, and the charioteer stood beside him upright, like a pillar, his grey bright eyes fixed upon the house of the sorcerers, the merciless, bloody, and ever-victorious sons of Nectan, the son of Labrad.

Of the people of the dun, Foil, son of Nectan, was the first to awake. It was his custom to wander forth by himself early in the morning, devising snares and stratagems by which he might take and destroy men at his leisure. He was more cruel than anything. By him the great door of the dun, bound and rivetted with brass, was flung open. With one hand he backshot the bar, which rushed into its chamber with a roar and crash as of a great house when it falls, and with the other he drew back the door. It grated on its brazen hinges, and on the iron threshold, with a noise like thunder. Then Foil stood black and huge in the wide doorway of the dun, and he looked at Laeg and Laeg looked at him. The man was ugly and fierce of aspect. His hair was thick and black; he was bull-necked and large-eared. His mantle was black, bordered with dark red; his tunic, a dirty yellow, was splashed with recent blood. There were great shoes on his feet soled with wood and iron. In his hand he bore a staff of quick-beam, as it were a full-grown tree without its branches. He being thus, strode forward in an ungainly manner to Laeg, and with a surly voice bade him drive the horses off the lawn.

"Drive them off thyself," said Laeg.

He sought to do that, but owing to the behaviour of the steeds, he desisted right soon, and turned again to Laeg.

"Who is the sleeping youth?" said he, "and wherefore hath he come hither in an evil hour?"

"He is a certain mild and gentle youth of the Ultonians," replied Laeg, "who yester morning prosperously assumed his arms of chivalry for the first time, and hath come hither to prove his valour upon the sons of Nectan."

"Many youths of his nation have come hither with the same intent," said the giant, "but they did not return."

"This youth will," said Laeg, "after having slain the sons of Nectan, and after having sacked their dun and burned it with fire."

Foil hearing that word became very angry, and he gripped his great staff and advanced to make a sudden end of Laeg first, and then of the sleeper, Laeg, on his side, drew Cuculain's sword. Hardly and using all his strength, could he do so and at the same time hold himself in an attitude of defence and attack, but he succeeded. His aspect, too, was high and warlike, and his eyes shone menacingly the while his heart trembled, for he knew too well that he was no match for the man.