Finn Mac Cool

by Morgan Llywelyn

  “I clank when I walk,” Blamec muttered.

  Lugaid asked Finn, “Are you bringing that special spear with you?”

  “Cuchulain’s spear?” It sounded much more impressive than saying “Fiachaid’s spear.” “I am of course. I go nowhere without it, anymore than I would travel without my hounds.”

  Next morning, in a dawn as crisp as a green apple, the hunting party left Tara. A number of people gathered at the Slige Asal gateway to see them go. There was a festive air. Hounds danced and yapped, men laughed and boasted about the number of animals that would be killed, their size and ferocity.

  A sharp wind sprang up before the hunters were out of sight of Tara. Following Finn, they broke into a trot to keep themselves warm. Because of the severe cold of recent days, the mud of winter was frozen solid, so Finn turned off the road and headed for the nearest expanse of trees.

  Entering the forest, he had an immediate sense of homecoming.

  Even leafless, the great oaks seemed alive and aware. Together with the ash, yew, and hazel, they comprised the nobility of the forest. Commoners, according to the druids, were such plants as birch and alder and willow. There was a still lower order, the so-called “slave” species, such as gorse, bog myrtle, and the bracken that was used in soapmaking and to provide potash for bleaching linen.

  “In childhood I used to think of myself as a silver birch tree,” Finn confided to Cailte as they slowed to a walk. “But I don’t anymore.”

  “You don’t?”

  “I am an ash tree,” said Finn Mac Cool.

  Cailte raised one quizzical eyebrow but made no comment.

  Ten men walked through the forest with the total silence of long training. But for one of them, it was impossible to walk for very long without saying something. Fergus Honey-Tongue softly recited, “The full property of each clan includes the kindling from their woodlands, the cooking material from their woodlands, the nutgathering of their woodlands, wood to supply the frame for every cart they require, spear shafts and yokes and horse goads and timber for the carriage of corpses.”

  Finn turned to him. “What’s that?”

  “Brehon Law, of course. Every member of a clan is entitled to an equal share of their woodlands. But it must be exactly equal. I grew up on the edge of a forest of yew and holly, so we learned the law as soon as we were old enough to start gathering kindling. Surely you did too, Finn.”

  “I did of course,” Finn said firmly.

  As they walked on, he recited Fergus’s words silently to himself until they were memorized, adding to his store of knowledge.

  Goll said, almost wistfully, “There are apple trees beyond my fort.”

  Suddenly Finn recalled Goll’s words: “How pleasant it is, after Samhain, to retire to your own fort with your own woman!”

  But when the Samhain Assembly had ended, and Finn had decided to keep his men at Tara, Goll had never complained, never said a word. However much he might have longed to go home, his Fíanna discipline had overridden the desire.

  Finn moved closer to Goll Mac Morna. “Once the new Assembly Hall is up,” he said softly to the one-eyed man, “the heaviest construction will be done. I think you could go then, and winter in your own place.”

  Goll’s head snapped around. He gave Finn a piercing look. “Why do you want to be rid ot me?”

  “I don’t! I just thought

  “I’m one of the nine,” Coll said abruptly. “They stay, I stay.”

  “Ssshhh,” hissed Donn, raising one hand.

  They froze.

  The grunting was distant but unmistakable. Wild boar. Ten men grinned as one.

  Finn cast an anxious glance at Bran and Sceolaun. The hunting party had brought a small pack of hounds with them in addition to Finn’s pair, hut the others were experienced dogs accustomed to wild boar, which were notoriously unpredictable. Bran and Sceolaun were very young. Finn did not want them to get excited and rush in with eager abandon, getting killed before they could learn the game.

  He made a short, sharp signal with his hand, bidding his hounds stay close beside him no matter what happened.

  The other hounds had now got wind of the boar and were beginning to fan out through the woods. Finn and his men advanced cautiously. He beckoned to Goll and Cailte to join him in the lead.

  Hush-footed, they drifted like snow through the forest. Behind them, Cael whispered mischievously to Blamec, “I can hear you clanking,” and was rewarded with an angry glare.

  Suddenly one of the hounds gave voice in the forest. At once there was the sound of something crashing through underbrush, then a wild, insane squealing followed by an agonized yelp.

  Finn ran forward, the others hot on his heels. He carried his javelin upright to clear the closely packed trees, the joint of his wrist flexing so he could alter the angle of the spear at any moment and throw it.

  There was a noise like thunder coming toward him, a roaring in the forest like a great gale approaching.

  Another cry of pain from a hound.

  Beside Finn, Sceolaun answered with an eager whining. “Stay!” he commanded.

  A massive boar burst from the undergrowth, running at an angle to Finn. Its rounded back was covered with coarse bristles; its curving yellow tusks were smeared with blood.

  Finn hurled his javelin at one tiny, malevolent eye, but the boar was astonishingly agile. It skittered sideways. The spear flew past its head to embed itself, shaft vibrating, in the earth.

  Bringing his left arm forward to cover his lower torso with his shield, Finn hooked his scabbard with his leg as Lochan had demonstrated and drew his new sword one-handed. He did not think even this sword could sever the spinal column of a boar, protected as it was by layers of hide and tendon and muscle. But when the boar bolted past him, he could deliver a powerful hacking blow that would begin the process of weakening the creature for the kill.

  But the boar did not run past him. With an adroit change of direction, it charged straight at him, squealing with manic fury. Finn gave a desperate swing of his sword, but with the animal coming toward him head-on, it did little damage.

  The boar struck Finn’s shield with such force the hard yew wood split down the middle and one half fell away. Another leap and the boar would tear Finn’s belly open. Finn staggered backward, lost his balance. fell.

  The boar was on top of him.

  Bran hurtled forward. The hound did not make the mistake of trying for the spine at the base of the skull. Instead, the agile dog slid along the beast’s side, dived, and ripped its genitals from its body.

  The boar screamed like a human. Finn twisted and managed to wriggle out from under as a geyser of blood erupted from the severed femoral artery.

  As he was getting to his feet, Bran leaped forward to clamp relentless jaws behind the boar’s ear, grinding down, down, seeking the kill. The huge hound shook its head and growled as if worrying a giant rat. The boar swayed, made a strangled, choking sound. Blood began to stream from its nostrils. Its forelegs buckled.

  The fénnidi attacked from every side.

  Goll and Cailte were already swinging their swords so wildly Finn could not get in a blow, and he swore at them both impartially. The other fénnidi were hurling their spears into the boar with shouts of glee.

  Slowly, almost decorously, the great beast toppled onto its side. Unseen organs gurgled. Slender legs thrashed convulsively.

  Panting, the men ceased their attack and stepped back to allow a noble adversary to die with dignity.

  At last the boar lay still, a monstrous mountain of cooling meat.

  Monster …

  Finn remembered the idiot with the torch. Bran had fought for him that day too—and had surely saved his life on Black Head.

  He crouched down beside his dog. Bran was pungent with the rank smell of wild blood. It dripped from the hound’s coarse coat. Finn ran his hands along muscular flanks and across the white belly to assure himself his dog was uninjured; then he threw his arms around Br
an’s neck, blood and all. “Was there ever such a deed or such a dog?” he murmured.

  Whining softly, Sceolaun crowded close for her share of the affection.

  Cailte was examining the dead boar. “Look at all this meat!” His belly rumbled; his companions laughed.

  “It’s heads we came for,” said Blamec.

  “But we have to take the meat back too. We can’t leave it here for the wolves. The haunch is the champion’s portion!”

  “I can stay here,” Conan volunteered, “and guard this carcass while you hunt for the others. Cailte’s right, we can’t let the wolves get it, and we can’t carry it with us and hunt too.” As he spoke he was already seating himself on the ground beside the dead boar and making himself comfortable with the energy a lazy man brings to such a task.

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Finn admitted. “We’ll bring the others here as we kill them and you can guard the lot.”

  “I’m glad this one didn’t kill you,” Goll told Finn. “It would have been a great nuisance having to carry your body back to Tara slung on a pole, along with fourteen wild boars.”

  Finn laughed. “I’m glad you won’t have that inconvenience!”

  The forest was teeming with wild game. By the time the dim forest light faded, they had slain more animals than they needed. Fifteen carcasses were piled beside the reclining Conan Maol.

  “We’ll camp here tonight,” Finn decided, “and go hack to Tara in the morning.”

  It was partly a selfish decision. He wanted to stay in the forest.

  Finn’s body still tingled with the elation of being one with the forest again. The fragrance of earth and leaf mould was in his nostrils. He wanted to sleep pillowed on a tree root and feel the night alive around him.

  As they gathered their bedding materials, he remarked to Cailte, “My favourite sleep music is the cackling of wild ducks on the Lake of the Three Narrows, the scolding of the blackbird of Derrycairn, and the lowing of cows in the Valley of Thrushes.”

  “Is that poetry?”

  “It sounds a bit like poetry,” Finn conceded. “Perhaps it is—or will be. Poetry comes to me when I’m out under the sky. In the silences, I hear it.”

  “I’m not always sure when you’re talking poetry,” Cailte told him. “Sometimes you sound like a bard and sometimes you sound like the rest of us. Which voice is the real Finn’s?” he asked teasingly.

  But Finn did not answer.

  Finn did not know the answer.

  They caught small game for their meal and roasted it over a cheery fire. Wild boar was royal food; they would return it to Tara unsampled.

  When they finished eating and settled back to watch the fire shimmer into embers, Finn cleared his throat.

  Putting one hand on the head of Bran, who lay stretched beside him, he asked his companions, “Shall I tell you how I came to have my two fine hounds?”

  “No better time than now!” cried Blamec eagerly.

  Recalling the story he had told Cormac about his magical heritage, Finn began. “Muirinn my mother had a sister a full generation younger than herself. but equally gifted. This sister was called Tuirna, and like my mother, she was wife to a rígénnid, a man called Iollan.

  “But this Iollan had a marriage with another woman as well, and this woman was jealous by nature. When she learned about Tuirna, she went to see her, pretending to offer her friendship and approval. She took Tuirna walking among the hills, and when they got where no one could see them, the jealous woman took a weapon from under her cloak and tried to strike Tuirna a fatal blow. Tuirna saw it coming, fortunately, and changed herself magically into a hound. She ran away and thus saved her life.

  “But the jealous woman would not let her be. She set a trap for her rival and caught her in it. She was too afraid of Tuirna’s magic to try to kill her again, so she contented herself with taking the hound a far distance away and giving her into the care of a man known to hate hounds.

  “Tuirna began hunting game and bringing it back to this man. Eventually he came to appreciate her, and through her, to love all animals. He was so devoted to Tuirna and cared for her so well that she never wanted to change back into human shape.

  “In time she gave birth to a pair of whelps, one great fine strong puppy and a little weak one. I had joined the Fíanna at this stage and was looking for a young hound I could train to hunt, and I heard of this wonderful animal and her two whelps. So I went to the man to ask for one of them.

  “When I saw the hitch Tuirna, there was the same look in her eyes as my mother had. I begged the man to let me take her out for one day’s hunting, to try her so I should know if I wanted her offspring. He agreed, though reluctantly. I could tell he did not like to be parted from her. He made me promise to be good to her and bring her back promptly.

  “I took her into the forest and persuaded her to reveal her true form to me, which at last she did. She showed herself as a woman and told me her story, including the fact that she was the youngest sister of my mother.

  “I offered to help her find Iollan and to restore her to him, but she refused. She said she had for many years lived the wild, free life of a huntress and she would not give it up now, not to be any man’s wife. I took her back in her hound shape and told the man I wanted both her whelps, promising to cherish them as he cherished her.

  “They lie at my feet this night, dearer to me than any,” Finn concluded, stroking Bran and Sceolaun.

  They gazed back at him with absolute devotion.

  The fían relished the tale. More than one fénnid got up and came to rumple Bran’s ears or smooth his hand down Sceolaun’s back admiringly.

  Only Goll stayed where he was, watching Finn with an inscrutable expression on his scarred face.

  As they set off for Tara in the morning, Goll took Finn aside, leaving the others to tie their trophies to poles for carrying suspended between them. In a low voice, Goll said, “That’s your most preposterous tale yet, Finn. I wouldn’t tell that where anyone else can hear if I were you.”

  “Why not? They enjoyed it.”

  “Those ignorant lads? They’d believe anything you told them. But if you trot that tale past a more knowledgeable audience, you’ll be humiliated.”

  Finn balled his fists. “How?” he challenged.

  “You’ll be called a liar. You’ve given yourself away at the beginning. No woman of your mother’s clan would have been wife to a rígfénnid.”

  “My own mother was!”

  “She wasn’t Cuhal’s contract wife, Finn. In fact, she wanted nothing to do with him. Her father was a bo-aire, a cattle lord; her family had wealth and prestige. They thought of Cuhal and those like him as social outcasts. Cuhal’s attentions were an embarrassment to Muirinn and she complained to her father, who demanded Cuhal’s word of honour he’d leave the woman alone. But he didn’t. He kidnapped her against her will and stole her jewelry with her, then refused to pay her father the honour price for her.”

  Aghast, Finn cried, “I don’t believe a word of it!”

  Goll shrugged. “That doesn’t alter the facts. There are still men in the Fíanna who remember; ask them. Cuhal broke his word, defiled a woman of superior rank against her will, and then wouldn’t compensate her family as he was obliged to under the law. It was a great scandal, and it all rebounded very badly on the Fíanna. I wasn’t surprised when Muirinn ran away from Cuhal as soon as she could.”

  “She didn’t!”

  “She did—before the Battle of Cnucha. Clan Morna fought to overthrow Cuhal, who’d disgraced us, and Muirinn ran away and abandoned Cuhal’s baby on the Bog of Almhain. Then she found some Kerry chieftain who didn’t know the story, and married him.”

  Finn was livid. His eyes were terrible. Goll began to regret having said anything. True though it was, it seemed a petty revenge to have taken against the long-dead Cuhal.

  He extended his hand. “Finn, I—”

  Finn knocked it aside. “Leave me alone.”

  On th
e way back to Tara, the fían carried their trophies triumphantly and sang as they marched. Only Goll and Finn were silent. Goll kept his eye on Firm, who walked rigidly, indifferent to the weight of the pole he shouldered, his gaze fixed on the ground in front of him.

  Goll wondered what he was thinking.

  The exuberant singing heralded their arrival, and people came running out to meet them and exclaim over their success. In the forefront was Lochan the smith, who went straight to Finn. “How were those new swords?” he wanted to know.

  Finn shook his head as if shaking off a dream. “They served us well enough. You see we killed fifteen.”

  “Fifteen!” Lochan’s eyes shone. “There’ll he some feasting surely!”

  “Indeed.” Finn stopped walking. At the other end of his pole, Cailte stopped too. The rest of the men followed suit. Finn gave Lochan a concentrated look. “Fifteen,” he said again. “More than we need. Have you ever had a whole boar for yourself, smith?”

  “I? Never. A boar is the feast of chieftains and kings.”

  “You would consider a boar a noble gift, then?”

  “Sumptuous!” exclaimed Lochan, wondering where this was leading.

  “Would a whole boar every year be sufficient for a coibche?” Finn asked him.

  Lochan the smith was not easily disconcerted. With hardly a hesitation, he said, “Which of my daughters do you want? I have several, any of them a fine armful for a man. And can I assume it’s a contract marriage, since there’s to be coibche? First degree, is it? How much property will she have to bring with her to equal yours?” He was eyeing Finn’s checkered cloak.

  The young man’s sexual pride had suffered a painful blow, but another sort of pride was rising in him to redress the damage, to redress a great amount of damage. From the corner of his eye, Finn noticed that his men were listening avidly to the conversation.

  He raised his voice. “From now on, no member of the Fíanna will take any property with a woman. We’re hunters and warriors, we can support our women entirely with battle loot and the spoils of the chase.”