Celtic Myths

by Flame Tree Studio

“I know that,” says Cucullin; “divil a thing else he’d make of me; but before I go, will you let me feel what kind of teeth Fin’s lad has got that can eat griddle-bread like that?”

  “With all pleasure in life,” said she; “only, as they’re far back in his head, you must put your finger a good way in.”

  Cucullin was surprised to find such a powerful set of grinders in one so young; but he was still much more so on finding, when he took his hand from Fin’s mouth, that he had left the very finger upon which his whole strength depended, behind him. He gave one loud groan, and fell down at once with terror and weakness. This was all Fin wanted, who now knew that his most powerful and bitterest enemy was at his mercy. He started out of the cradle, and in a few minutes the great Cucullin, that was for such a length of time the terror of him and all his followers, lay a corpse before him. Thus did Fin, through the wit and invention of Oonagh, his wife, succeed in overcoming his enemy by cunning, which he never could have done by force.

  Footnotes for A Legend of Knockmany

  1. Fin M’Coul a.k.a Finn mac Cumaill of Fenian legend.

  2. Cucullin a.k.a. a giant version of Cúchulainn.

  The Leeching of Kayn’s Leg

  There were five hundred blind men, and five hundred deaf men, and five hundred limping men, and five hundred dumb men, and five hundred cripple men. The five hundred deaf men had five hundred wives, and the five hundred limping men had five hundred wives, and the five hundred dumb men had five hundred wives, and the five hundred cripple men had five hundred wives. Each five hundred of these had five hundred children and five hundred dogs. They were in the habit of going about in one band, and were called the Sturdy Strolling Beggarly Brotherhood. There was a knight in Erin called O’Cronicert, with whom they spent a day and a year; and they ate up all that he had, and made a poor man of him, till he had nothing left but an old tumble-down black house, and an old lame white horse. There was a king in Erin called Brian Boru; and O’Cronicert went to him for help. He cut a cudgel of grey oak on the outskirts of the wood, mounted the old lame white horse, and set off at speed through wood and over moss and rugged ground, till he reached the king’s house. When he arrived he went on his knees to the king; and the king said to him, “What is your news, O’Cronicert?”

  “I have but poor news for you, king.”

  “What poor news have you?” said the king.

  “That I have had the Sturdy Strolling Beggarly Brotherhood for a day and a year, and they have eaten all that I had, and made a poor man of me,” said he.

  “Well!” said the king, “I am sorry for you; what do you want?”

  “I want help,” said O’Cronicert; “anything that you may be willing to give me.”

  The king promised him a hundred cows. He went to the queen, and made his complaint to her, and she gave him another hundred. He went to the king’s son, Murdoch Mac Brian, and he got another hundred from him. He got food and drink at the king’s; and when he was going away he said, “Now I am very much obliged to you. This will set me very well on my feet. After all that I have got there is another thing that I want.”

  “What is it?” said the king.

  “It is the lap-dog that is in and out after the queen that I wish for.”

  “Ha!” said the king, “it is your mightiness and pride that has caused the loss of your means; but if you become a good man you shall get this along with the rest.”

  O’Cronicert bade the king goodbye, took the lap-dog, leapt on the back of the old lame white horse, and went off at speed through wood, and over moss and rugged ground. After he had gone some distance through the wood a roebuck leapt up and the lap-dog went after it. In a moment the deer started up as a woman behind O’Cronicert, the handsomest that eye had ever seen from the beginning of the universe till the end of eternity. She said to him, “Call your dog off me.”

  “I will do so if you promise to marry me,” said O’Cronicert.

  “If you keep three vows that I shall lay upon you I will marry you,” said she.

  “What vows are they?” said he.

  “The first is that you do not go to ask your worldly king to a feast or a dinner without first letting me know,” said she.

  “Hoch!” said O’Cronicert, “do you think that I cannot keep that vow? I would never go to invite my worldly king without informing you that I was going to do so. It is easy to keep that vow.”

  “You are likely to keep it!” said she.

  “The second vow is,” said she, “that you do not cast up to me in any company or meeting in which we shall be together, that you found me in the form of a deer.”

  “Hoo!” said O’Cronicert, “you need not to lay that vow upon me. I would keep it at any rate.”

  “You are likely to keep it!” said she.

  “The third vow is,” said she, “that you do not leave me in the company of only one man while you go out.” It was agreed between them that she should marry him.

  They reached the old tumble-down black house. Grass they cut in the clefts and ledges of the rocks; a bed they made and laid down. O’Cronicert’s wakening from sleep was the lowing of cattle and the bleating of sheep and the neighing of mares, while he himself was in a bed of gold on wheels of silver, going from end to end of the Tower of Castle Town.

  “I am sure that you are surprised,” said she.

  “I am indeed,” said he.

  “You are in your own room,” said she.

  “In my own room,” said he. “I never had such a room.”

  “I know well that you never had,” said she; “but you have it now. So long as you keep me you shall keep the room.”

  He then rose, and put on his clothes, and went out. He took a look at the house when he went out; and it was a palace, the like of which he had never seen, and the king himself did not possess. He then took a walk round the farm; and he never saw so many cattle, sheep, and horses as were on it. He returned to the house, and said to his wife that the farm was being ruined by other people’s cattle and sheep. “It is not,” said she: “your own cattle and sheep are on it.”

  “I never had so many cattle and sheep,” said he.

  “I know that,” said she; “but so long as you keep me you shall keep them. There is no good wife whose tocher does not follow her.”

  He was now in good circumstances, indeed wealthy. He had gold and silver, as well as cattle and sheep. He went about with his gun and dogs hunting every day, and was a great man. It occurred to him one day that he would go to invite the King of Erin to dinner, but he did not tell his wife that he was going. His first vow was now broken. He sped away to the King of Erin, and invited him and his great court to dinner. The King of Erin said to him, “Do you intend to take away the cattle that I promised you?”

  “Oh! no, King of Erin,” said O’Cronicert; “I could give you as many today.”

  “Ah!” said the king, “how well you have got on since I saw you last!”

  “I have indeed,” said O’Cronicert! “I have fallen in with a rich wife who has plenty of gold and silver, and of cattle and sheep.”

  “I am glad of that,” said the King of Erin.

  O’Cronicert said, “I shall feel much obliged if you will go with me to dinner, yourself and your great court.”

  “We will do so willingly,” said the king.

  They went with him on that same day. It did not occur to O’Cronicert how a dinner could be prepared for the king without his wife knowing that he was coming. When they were going on, and had reached the place where O’Cronicert had met the deer, he remembered that his vow was broken, and he said to the king, “Excuse me; I am going on before to the house to tell that you are coming.”

  The king said, “We will send off one of the lads.”

  “You will not,” said O’Cronicert; “no lad will serve the purpose so well as myself.”

 
He set off to the house; and when he arrived his wife was diligently preparing dinner. He told her what he had done, and asked her pardon. “I pardon you this time,” said she: “I know what you have done as well as you do yourself. The first of your vows is broken.”

  The king and his great court came to O’Cronicert’s house; and the wife had everything ready for them as befitted a king and great people; every kind of drink and food. They spent two or three days and nights at dinner, eating and drinking. They were praising the dinner highly, and O’Cronicert himself was praising it; but his wife was not. O’Cronicert was angry that she was not praising it and he went and struck her in the mouth with his fist and knocked out two of her teeth. “Why are you not praising the dinner like the others, you contemptible deer?” said he.

  “I am not,” said she: “I have seen my father’s big dogs having a better dinner than you are giving tonight to the King of Erin and his court.”

  O’Cronicert got into such a rage that he went outside of the door. He was not long standing there when a man came riding on a black horse, who in passing caught O’Cronicert by the collar of his coat, and took him up behind him: and they set off. The rider did not say a word to O’Cronicert. The horse was going so swiftly that O’Cronicert thought the wind would drive his head off. They arrived at a big, big palace, and came off the black horse. A stableman came out, and caught the horse, and took it in. It was with wine that he was cleaning the horse’s feet. The rider of the black horse said to O’Cronicert, “Taste the wine to see if it is better than the wine that you are giving to Brian Boru and his court tonight.”

  O’Cronicert tasted the wine, and said, “This is better wine.”

  The rider of the black horse said, “How unjust was the fist a little ago! The wind from your fist carried the two teeth to me.”

  He then took him into that big, handsome, and noble house, and into a room that was full of gentlemen eating and drinking, and he seated him at the head of the table, and gave him wine to drink, and said to him, “Taste that wine to see if it is better than the wine that you are giving to the King of Erin and his court tonight.”

  “This is better wine,” said O’Cronicert.

  “How unjust was the fist a little ago!” said the rider of the black horse.

  When all was over the rider of the black horse said, “Are you willing to return home now?”

  “Yes,” said O’Cronicert, ’very willing.”

  They then rose, and went to the stable: and the black horse was taken out; and they leaped on its back, and went away. The rider of the black horse said to O’Cronicert, after they had set off, “Do you know who I am?”

  “I do not,” said O’Cronicert.

  “I am a brother-in-law of yours,” said the rider of the black horse; “and though my sister is married to you there is not a king or knight in Erin who is a match for her. Two of your vows are now broken; and if you break the other vow you shall lose your wife and all that you possess.”

  They arrived at O’Cronicert’s house; and O’Cronicert said, “I am ashamed to go in, as they do not know where I have been since night came.”

  “Hoo!” said the rider, “they have not missed you at all. There is so much conviviality among them, that they have not suspected that you have been anywhere. Here are the two teeth that you knocked out of the front of your wife’s mouth. Put them in their place, and they will be as strong as ever.”

  “Come in with me,” said O’Cronicert to the rider of the black horse.

  “I will not: I disdain to go in,” said the rider of the black horse.

  The rider of the black horse bade O’Cronicert goodbye, and went away.

  O’Cronicert went in; and his wife met him as she was busy waiting on the gentlemen. He asked her pardon, and put the two teeth in the front of her mouth, and they were as strong as ever. She said, “Two of your vows are now broken.” No one took notice of him when he went in, or said “Where have you been?” They spent the night in eating and drinking, and the whole of the next day.

  In the evening the king said, “I think that it is time for us to be going”; and all said that it was. O’Cronicert said, “You will not go tonight. I am going to get up a dance. You will go tomorrow.”

  “Let them go,” said his wife.

  “I will not,” said he.

  The dance was set a-going that night. They were playing away at dancing and music till they became warm and hot with perspiration. They were going out one after another to cool themselves at the side of the house. They all went out except O’Cronicert and his wife, and a man called Kayn Mac Loy. O’Cronicert himself went out, and left his wife and Kayn Mac Loy in the house, and when she saw that he had broken his third vow she gave a spring through a room, and became a big filly, and gave Kayn Mac Loy a kick with her foot, and broke his thigh in two. She gave another spring, and smashed the door and went away, and was seen no more. She took with her the Tower of Castle Town as an armful on her shoulder and a light burden on her back, and she left Kayn Mac Loy in the old tumble-down black house in a pool of rain-drip on the floor.

  At daybreak next day poor O’Cronicert could only see the old house that he had before. Neither cattle nor sheep, nor any of the fine things that he had was to be seen. One awoke in the morning beside a bush, another beside a dyke, and another beside a ditch. The king only had the honour of having O’Cronicert’s little hut over his head. As they were leaving, Murdoch Mac Brian remembered that he had left his own foster-brother Kayn Mac Loy behind, and said there should be no separation in life between them and that he would go back for him. He found Kayn in the old tumble-down black house, in the middle of the floor, in a pool of rain-water, with his leg broken; and he said the earth should make a nest in his sole and the sky a nest in his head if he did not find a man to cure Kayn’s leg.

  They told him that on the Isle of Innisturk was a herb that would heal him.

  So Kayn Mac Loy was then borne away, and sent to the island, and he was supplied with as much food as would keep him for a month, and with two crutches on which he would be going out and in as he might desire. At last the food was spent, and he was destitute, and he had not found the herb. He was in the habit of going down to the shore, and gathering shell-fish, and eating it.

  As he was one day on the shore, he saw a big, big man landing on the island, and he could see the earth and the sky between his legs. He set off with the crutches to try if he could get into the hut before the big man would come upon him. Despite his efforts, the big man was between him and the door, and said to him, “Unless you deceive me, you are Kayn Mac Loy.”

  Kayn Mac Loy said, “I have never deceived a man: I am he.”

  The big man said to him:

  “Stretch out your leg, Kayn, till I put a salve of herbs and healing to it. Salve and binding herb and the poultice are cooling; the worm is channering. Pressure and haste hard bind me, for I must hear Mass in the great church at Rome, and be in Norway before I sleep.”

  Kayn Mac Loy said:

  “May it be no foot to Kayn or a foot to any one after one, or I be Kayn son of Loy, if I stretch out my foot for you to put a salve of herbs and healing on it, till you tell me why you have no church of your own in Norway, so as, as now, to be going to the great church of Rome to Rome tomorrow. Unless you deceive me you are Machkan-an-Athar, the son of the King of Lochlann.”

  The big man said, “I have never deceived any man: I am he. I am now going to tell you why we have not a church in Lochlann. Seven masons came to build a church, and they and my father were bargaining about the building of it. The agreement that the masons wanted was that my mother and sister would go to see the interior of the church when it would be finished. My father was glad to get the church built so cheaply. They agreed accordingly; and the masons went in the morning to the place where the church was to be built. My father pointed out the spot for the foundation. They bega
n to build in the morning, and the church was finished before the evening. When it was finished they requested my mother and sister to go to see its interior. They had no sooner entered than the doors were shut; and the church went away into the skies in the form of a tuft of mist.

  “Stretch out your leg, Kayn, till I put a salve of herbs and healing to it. Salve and binding herb and the poultice are cooling; the worm is channering. Pressure and haste hard bind me, for I must hear Mass in the great church at Rome, and be in Norway before I sleep.”

  Kayn Mac Loy said:

  “May it be no foot to Kayn or a foot to any one after one, or I be Kayn son of Loy, if I stretch out my foot for you to put a salve of herbs and healing on it, till you tell me if you heard what befell your mother and sister.”

  “Ah!” said the big man, “the mischief is upon you; that tale is long to tell; but I will tell you a short tale about the matter. On the day on which they were working at the church I was away in the hill hunting game; and when I came home in the evening my brother told me what had happened, namely, that my mother and sister had gone away in the form of a tuft of mist. I became so cross and angry that I resolved to destroy the world till I should find out where my mother and sister were. My brother said to me that I was a fool to think of such a thing. “I’ll tell you,” said he, “what you’ll do. You will first go to try to find out where they are. When you find out where they are you will demand them peaceably, and if you do not get them peaceably you will fight for them.”

  “I took my brother’s advice, and prepared a ship to set off with. I set off alone, and embraced the ocean. I was overtaken by a great mist, and I came upon an island, and there was a large number of ships at anchor near it; I went in amongst them, and went ashore. I saw there a big, big woman reaping rushes; and when she would raise her head she would throw her right breast over her shoulder and when she would bend it would fall down between her legs. I came once behind her, and caught the breast with my mouth, and said to her, ‘You are yourself witness, woman, that I am the foster-son of your right breast.’ ‘I perceive that, great hero,’ said the old woman, ‘but my advice to you is to leave this island as fast as you can.’ ‘Why?’ said I. ‘There is a big giant in the cave up there,’ said she, ‘and every one of the ships that you see he has taken in from the ocean with his breath, and he has killed and eaten the men. He is asleep at present, and when he wakens he will have you in a similar manner. A large iron door and an oak door are on the cave. When the giant draws in his breath the doors open, and when he emits his breath the doors shut; and they are shut as fast as though seven small bars, and seven large bars, and seven locks were on them. So fast are they that seven crowbars could not force them open.’ I said to the old woman, ‘Is there any way of destroying him?’ ‘I’ll tell you,’ said she, ‘how it can be done. He has a weapon above the door that is called the short spear: and if you succeed in taking off his head with the first blow it will be well; but if you do not, the case will be worse than it was at first.’