“Kindness!” Milcho exploded. “Why your name will be on Meathish tongues for years to come, Celthair, and your valiant sister Ess-and yours, Cormac, who slew first!”
Samaire smiled rather wistfully. “In Munster where we slew Picts, we be called the offspring of Cuchulain,” she said. “In the home of Mogh mac Findtain of lower Meath, it’s Anu and Grannus and Curoi we are. Now it’s back to Celthair and Ess for me and thee, brother.”
Milcho was frowning. “I have not… your true names then, heroes of Eirrin?”
“Lord Milcho,” Cormac said, “ye have not. It’s Cormac mac Art of Connacht I am. As for my companions… they be lord and lady. An you’ll wait till we’re after reaching Tara Hill, a messenger will soon bring ye word of their true names.”
Frowning, Milcho looked from one of his guests to the next. “Lord and lady?”
“Cormac,” Ceann said, “has for once said too much. But aye Lord Milcho. We travel with our names in hooded cloaks, and I believe ye’ll soon know the reason, once we have held converse with the Ard-righ.”
Awhile longer Milcho mac Rogh gazed in frowning puzzlement on his guests. Then he heaved a sigh and touched the table near Ceann’s arm. “Well, my lord and lady, I shall rephrase my words to the High-king then, and say no more; no man need tell all his business lest the crows fly off with it. Too, when ye’ve done what ye three have, why-” Milcho broke off. He pointed triumphantly.
“Prince Senchann!”
His three visitors laughed, then apologized. Nay, they were not of the Eoghannacta of Munster, and surely even disguise-loving Senchann mac Eogain came not so far north in his minstrelish role.
Again Milcho sighed. “There are stories,” he said, but he did not trouble to add more of Senchann, who was already becoming legend. Milcho beamed upon the trio, pausing to regain composure.
“Well, my goblet has gone empty, and it’s filled I like it best! My lord, my lady… mac Art?”
Samaire shook her head; careful Ceann peered into his cup. But Cormac extended his with alacrity, without a glance within.
“Aye, Lord Milcho, my throat would welcome a wetting with more dairlin drops of the dew of Tullamor!”
The three, their finery now undisguised, set off once more on the morning of the morrow. Now there were many on the broad road, the Slighe Dala, one of five great highways that led to Tara of the Kings. It was the last day of July but one, and brightly clad pilgrims from every walk of life thronged to the capital for the great Fair. It preceded the less festive but more important-to some-gathering of Feis Mor.
The air was silent by the shrill voices of pipes and flutes and gaily chattering people.
The three heroes of Brosna Wood were unable to trot their restless mounts amid that teeming pilgrimage, much less gallop to reach their goal the faster. Other horses plodded along, some gaily decorated draft-animals, others richly caparisoned, prancing pacers. The latter were sat by lords and ladies in fine fabrics and jewels that flashed and twinkled from settings of gold and silver. One-horse carts there were too, and some drawn by teams of two big-hoofed horses or stolid oxen with decorated yokes. The carts were laden with produce or the handiwork of many a long winter’s even, and mayhap after the fair more than one of the proud nobles would ride home wearing some sample of the superb workmanship that now burdened peasantish carts.
People of festive mind called out gaily to each other. Smiles, like precious metals and gems and brightly-coloured clothing, challenged the sun for brilliance. Men and women alike, aye and children and beasts of burden, stood tall and proud. Hair was fresh-trimmed and well washed, bedizened with ribands and pearls, bands of silver or fine-coloured leather set with stones, and sometimes gold. Precious or no, the stones were bright and twinkly and varicoloured, and proudly worn.
It was Fair time, and there were no Munstermen in the throng, or Connachtish or Meathish fairgoers yet either, no Ulstermen or Leinsterish travelers to Tara this day. All were Eirish. The Irish gathered together in peace, and with high happiness.
Insofar as it were possible, there were no peasants or merchants, no creditors or debtors; and a lowborn son or daughter of the soil was as one with the highchinned scions of well-known old houses and their richly draped and dazzlingly bejeweled ladies.
All were of Eirrin, and free, and proud of both.
No creditor held power over those in his debt, for such was the law of Fair-time; lenders had even to return, on request, the personal possessions pledged against debts. This so that all the sons and daughters of Eirrin might hold high their heads on this great occasion, be they descendants of Celts or Sidhe, of fishermen or warriors or poets, of the ua-Neill or from generations of raisers of flax or snorting swine. All were free at the Fair. And all were safe, for the King’s Peace prevailed, on pain of death-as Cormac mac Art of Connacht well remembered.
As the day wore on, the trio that had been all but deified at Tulla Mor was recognized, and that noisily. The “fighting minstrel Celthair” was prevailed upon to strum and sing. Glad Ceann was that he had been at the composing in his head of a few lines concerning the encounter in the Wood of Brosna.
“They closed full fast on every side!
No slackness was there found;
And many a fierce highwayman
Lay bleeding on the ground!"
“Many?” Samaire murmured, smiling. Her brother, undaunted, sang too of the Fair:
“Trumpets, harps, wide-mouthed horns;
Cruisechs, tympanists, without pause-
Poets, balladeers and troupes of
agile jugglers,
Pipers, fiddlers, even outlaws!
Bow-men and flute players,
The host of chattering flyers like elves,
Shouts and loud bellowers
At the Fair do all these exalt themselves! “
Laughter and cheers rose roundabout from throats highborn and low-, and snow-haired oldsters skipped with the young and very young. Bright garments whirled and fluttered. Someone called out happily, and Cormac turned away, for a man did not forget a Connactish accent, not even after twelve years and more.
THE GREAT FAIR
– from O’Curry’s translation of the old Gaelic, with amendments
Listen, O Eire-sons of the monuments!
Ye truth-upholding hosts!
Until you have from me,
from every source,
The history of famed Teamar called Tara.
Tara, the hill of a splendid fair,
With a widespread unobstructed green.
The hosts who came to celebrate it
– On it they contested their noble races.
The renowned field
is the high ground of kings,
The dearly loved of noble clans;
There are many meeting mounds
For their ever-loved ancestral hosts.
To mourn for queens and for kings,
To denounce aggression and tyranny,
Often were the fair hosts in summer
Upon the smooth brow of noble old Tara.
Heaven, earth, sun, moon and sea;
Fruits, fire, and riches;
Mouths, ears, alluring eyes,
Feet, hands, noses and teeth-
The people of the Gaedhil did celebrate
In Tara, to be highly boasted of,
A fair without broken law or crime,
Without a deed of violence,
without dishonour.
On the first day of August without fail,
They repaired thither every third year;
There aloud with boldness
they proclaimed
The rights of every law, and the restraints:
Not to sue, levy, or controvert debts-
To abuse the steeds in their career
Is not allowed to contending racers;
Elopements, arrests, distraints…
That no man goes into the woman’s
Airecht,
That no women go
into the Airecht of
fair clean men;
That no abduction is heard of,
Nor repudiation of husbands or of wives.
Whoever transgresses the law of the
assembly
(Which of old was indelibly writ)
Cannot be spared for family connection,
But must die for his transgression.
There are its many privileges-
Trumpets, cruits, wide-mouthed horns,
Cuisigs and tympanists without
weariness,
Poets and lesser rhymesters.
Fenian tales of the Finn, an untiring
entertainment-
Destruction, cattle-preys, Courtships,
Inscribed tablets, and books of trees,
Satires, and sharp-edged Runes…
Proverbs, maxims, royal precepts
And the truthful instructions of Fithal,
Occult poetry, topographical
etymologies,
The precepts of Cairbre and King
Cormac;
The Feasts, with the great Feast of Tara;
Fairs, with the fair of Emania.
Annals are there verified:
Every division into which Eirrin was
divided.
The history of the household of Tara-not
insignificant!
The knowledge of every territory of
Eirrin,
The history of the women of illustrious
families:
Of courts, Prohibitions, Conquests;
The noble Testament of Cathair the Great
To his descendants, to direct steps of
royal rule;
Each one sits in his lawful place
So that all attend to them and
listen, listen.
Pipers, fiddlers, chain-men,
Bow-men, and tube-players;
A crowd of babbling painted masks,
Roarers and bellowers loud!
These all exert their utmost powers
For the magnanimous king of the
Barrow,
Until the noble king in proper measure
bestows
Upon each art its rightful meed.
Elopements, slaughters, musical
choruses,
The accurate synchronisms of noble
races,
The succession of the sovereign kings of
Meath-
Their battles, and their stern valour.
Such is the arrangement of the Fair,
By the lively ever happy host;
May they receive from the gods
A land with choicest fruits!
Chapter Seventeen: Champion of Rath Cumal
Steeds, swords, beautiful chariots,
Spears, shields, human faces,
Dew, fruits, blossoms and foliage,
Day and night, a heavy flooded shore!
– “The Great Fair”; tr. O’Curry
Long ago the Milesian settlers of Eirrin came from Spain, and it was after a Spanish woman that Tara was named. The first Milesian High-king, Eremon, had as wife Tea, the daughter of Spain’s king. After she died and was laid to rest here, the sprawling eminence came to be called “Tea-Mur”: the burying-place of Tea. In other forms the word was Teamhair, and Teamair, and Temair and Tamara-and so eventually Tara.
Called “Tara Hill,” it was more: a great sprawling high place covering full twenty acres. Smaller duns or hills rose on it, and each had become the natural site for a rath or walled enclosure. Seven such raths rose on Tara. Each was like a small town, with imposing buildings that housed the nobles, as well as lesser ones for their relatives, and the necessary outbuildings. Round about pressed close the thatched roofs of the houses of the common folk, which crowded too the plain around the foot of the broad high-land. Every structure was of wood. Some were decorated and strengthened with bronze; a few were actually faced with the ruddy metal.
It was Ollam Fodla in the misty past had given Tara her pre-eminence over the emerald land, by calling together the kings in the first triennial council or parliament: the Great Feis. The Feis-mor had now been held on Tara Hill each third year for a half-score of centuries.
The greatest of the rath-duns was that of the High-king or Ard-righ. Within were one house for each Irish king who came to the Feis, and a grianan or sun-house for their women-folk and attendants. This structure High-king Cormac had raised two hundred years agone, as he had the Stronghold of Hostages and the House of a Thousand Soldiers, and the Star of Bards. In the latter met the filays and seanachies, the brehons and ollams: poets, historians/storytellers, judges and learned doctors of law and letters.
Most magnificent of all-aye, more so than the residence of the Ard-righ himself-was the banqueting hall and meeting-place, the Mi-Chuarta.
Ceann and Samaire of Leinster and Cormac mac Art would have their time in that mighty structure, but now it was Fair-time in Tara of the Kings.
Everywhere were pennons and brightly coloured tents and striped awnings, and what was not bartered for and sold was not worth the having. Horsebacked arrivals could hardly move amid all the colourful-and noisy-press. Cormac was just beginning to wonder where he and his companions would take their nightly rest when a contralto voice called out Samaire’s name, loudly and with much surprise.
Cormac could not be certain who had so shouted, for more than one stared at the mounted trio. Nor would he have expected the hail to have emanated from the young woman in whose ornately-coiffed topaz hair glittered and sparkled a seeming thousand pearls and small blue stones. Tall she was, and willowy in a long heliotrope robe and silken cloak of deep mauve sewn all with silver crescents and moons.
Samaire picked that woman from out the throng at once, for she recognized her-and cautioned her to silence with finger to lips.
It was thus Cormac mac Art met Samaire’s cousin Aine, wife of the noble prince Cumal Uais of the ancient Boar sept, and he of the ua-Neill. Thus too did Cormac and his companions come into one of the noble houses on high Tara, where they were well-housed and fed and treated with honour as royal relatives.
A man of rising forty was Cumal Uais, who had lost much hair above and replaced it with much belly below. He was warm enough to his wife’s cousins and their “protector.” It was he who handled the exchanging of their personal property: the balance of the Viking loot that had seen them all across Eirrin. Ruddy-faced Cumal and milk-skinned Aine would keep secret the trio’s identity for the few more days they wanted. The High-king was more than passing busy with the Fair.
There was a gifting on both sides, with the guests receiving far more than their hosts; Aine, naturally, was horrified by Samaire’s story but delighted by the unexpected visit.
Cormac met burly Tigernach, who’d be representing the house of Cumal the Noble in the martial games that would be the major Fair event two days hence. Cormac and Tigernach agreed to Cumal’s urging, and met under “arms”: shields and swords of hardened wood, blunt of both point and edge. With nothing to gain by putting defeat on his host’s champion, Cormac allowed himself to be put down, narrowly, in three several skirmishes.
Himself no weapon man, Cumal only beamed and nodded, without knowing that Tigernach’s opponent had not striven his best.
But Tigernach knew. “It’s holding back ye’ve been, Cormac mac Othna,” he said quietly. “Ye could have defeated me at any time, not so?”
Cormac looked at the man wearing the Boar-and-the-Red of Cumal Uais.
“What is a man to do, who won’t lie?” he asked piously-and falsely, for he was no amadan or fool, and had lied many times. He stood before Tigernach a liar even now, both in name and deeds: the one was invented, the other hardly his best.
“Enter the arms-striving contests yourself,” the thicker man said, “and show all what prowess is! It’s twice now I have claimed the second honours, with first going to Bress of the Long Hand, mac Keth of Leinster. Now I know he respects my ability, and
we will see what comes out this year. But it’s yourself could drive the sneer from off his supercilious face.”
“Bress mac Keth… with sorrel-horse hair and feet on him like loch-boats?”
Tigernach chuckled. “O’course! All know Bress of the Long Hand-and feet!-champion at every Fair these nine years have seen Leinster hog all the honours.”
Aye, Cormac mused, I know him. But not in that way, the mocking sneering young wolf sent to arrest or bring death on me these twelve years agone! Bress had volunteered for that task that many wanted not, Cormac remembered, for Bress mac Keth was far from fond of mac Art of Connacht. Better at arms and far less arrogant and better liked, Cormac had received the Command of Fifty that Bress thought should have been his.
Twelve long years ago. And now Bress was champion of Eirrin.
“It’s yourself must put him down, Tigernach mac Roig, for I have no wish to enter the contests at arms.”
Tigernach sighed. “Because ye be guest in my lord Cumal’s house and would not contest with his champion, whom ye know ye’d best!”
“For reasons of my own.”
They were crossing the practice field to the bronze-girt house, into which the smiling Cumal and his belly had already disappeared. Tigernach said, “Cormac.”
“Aye?”
“A gift to me, Cormac!”
Cormac sighed, and waited for Tigernach to ask his boon.
“Contest with me again, in private, and with might and main!”
“Tigernach… and if it’s harm I bring to your hand or arm? Ye’d be no fit representative of your lord, and I’d be disgraced.”
“We’ll be wearing then full armour, and faulconer’s gloves.”
Tigernach pushed the more; Cormac agreed. Armoured, helmeted, gloved, in a privy place they met with buckler and wooden sword.
Five times was defeat put on Tigernach, though he strove his best. And he was naught but delighted. Yet Cormac shook off the man’s urgings that he enter the “Rites of Srreng,” after the champion of many centuries gone; ’twas Srreng who’d cut off the hand of the De Danaan king in the war for Eirrin.
At last Cormac went surly and worse, so that Tigernach left off urging and each went his own way.
The Sword of the Gael cma-5 Page 16
