The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends

by Peter Berresford Ellis

  Then, one day, Fionnghuala sensed something in the air. A fierce storm was approaching. She knew it was going to be more fierce than any storm before. So she turned to her brothers.

  “There is a bad tempest following and it is sure that the winds and tides will separate us. We must fix a meeting-place, so that if we are parted, we shall be sure to find one another again.”

  Fiachra agreed: “Sensible is that suggestion, my dear sister. Let us meet at Carricknarone, as we all know that rock.”

  Carricknarone was a rocky outcrop in the sea.

  The storm came up abruptly. A wild, wailing wind spread across the sea, whipping at the waves, and lightning flashes split the heavens, and the sea clawed at the four poor forms which huddled together on its raging billows. Storm-tossed, wind-driven, they were hurled in the black gloom.

  When dawn broke and there was an easing of the tempest, Fionnghuala found that she was alone on the waters. There was no sign of her brothers. Feeling desolate, she made her way towards Carricknarone, the rock of the seas and, cold and anguished, she reached its rocky outcrop. There was still no sign of her brothers.

  “Alas, alas,” she cried, “there is no shelter, no rest for us, and my heart is sundered in me. Gone are my loved ones in the bitter night; gone is everything but my grief, my cold, my hunger and my fear. These now are my constant companions.”

  She climbed onto the rock and peered round.

  “Alas, alas, my brothers are lost in the wild tempest. Death itself would be a small mercy. Is there no pity in this world for me? Will I never see my brothers that are now dearer to me than all the human race?

  “Alas, alas, no shelter for me, nor rest. Have we not suffered agony enough, nor cruelty enough, or does the depths of long anguish continue forever?”

  She was so sunk into despair that she wished to die and took one last look at the grey skies before she decided to succumb to death. But in that grey darkness she saw a white speck. She peered again and there, bedraggled but flying bravely, was a tiny wind-tossed swan, making its valiant way towards the rock.

  It was Conn.

  With a cry of joyous recognition, she rose up towards him, urging him on. She helped poor Conn, now more dead than alive, onto the rock. Then came Fiachra, limping feebly through the shallows, and it took a mighty effort of Fionnghuala and Conn to bring him to safety. They huddled with only the warmth of their wings to revive themselves.

  Yet still Fionnghuala was sad.

  “If only Aodh was here, then all would be well with us.”

  As if at her words, they saw Aodh coming towards them. He rode the waves proud, and he was well and radiant and his feathers dry. He came ashore and told them that he had found a welcome in a great cave on the shores of high-hilled Alba and was thus able to shelter from the fury of the storm. And he came and gave his siblings his warmth and comfort.

  “Oh,” cried Fionnghuala, “wonderful is it to be in life and together again. But we have three hundred years on this salt sea of Moyle and must be prepared for many such storms as this.”

  So it was. Alas, so it was.

  For many long years, they endured on the storm-tossed sea of Moyle, first sheltering here and then there, while great winds and howling tempests tried to separate them. Though never again did it ever succeed in doing so, as it had done in that first great storm. For now they knew the cave in high-hilled Alba, they fled to it for safety at the coming of the storms.

  So it came about one day that they were swimming close to the shores of Éireann, by the mouth of the River Bann and, looking towards the shore, they saw a great procession riding from the south. There were chiefs and lords and attendants and warriors who were clad in the splendour of their cloaks. They rode on white horses. Bright lights glinted on their armour, their shields and weapons.

  “Who can they be?” wondered Fiachra.

  “A party of warriors, perhaps?” suggested Conn.

  “Warriors off to fight some great war?” hazarded Aodh.

  “Let us swim closer, that we might find out the meaning of this great cavalcade,” suggested Fionnghuala.

  Now when the party of warriors saw the swans swimming towards the shore, they turned and went down to meet them. At their head were the two sons of the Bodb Dearg. They greeted the swans with cries of joy and happiness for, they said, they had been searching for the children of Lir for many years, travelling along the coasts of the Sea of Moyle. They assured them that they brought the love of all the Tuatha Dé Danaan to the outcasts. Most of all, they brought the love of their father Lir and of the Bodb Dearg.

  The children of Lir immediately asked about the health of their father, Lir, and after him, of the Bodb Dearg.

  “They are both well,” said the sons of the Bodb Dearg, “and the hosts of the Dé Danaan are celebrating the feast of Gobhainn the smith-god, at your father’s own sídh. Their happiness would be complete if you could share in those festivities. It has been so long since you left the shores of Loch Dairbhreach that they sent us in search of news of you.”

  The eyes of the children clouded when they heard this.

  “Suffering and torment have been our lot since we have left Loch Dairbhreach. No tongue can utter what we have been through. But we will give you a song which you must remember and take back to our father and to your father and you must sing it to the hosts of the Dé Danaan.”

  Then the children of Lir raised their voices and sung their sad lament.

  Bleak and cold is our home,

  Ice wet are our feathers –

  No comfort to us.

  Pain and sickness is our only guide,

  The pitiless sea is our constant companion,

  Grief, grief, is our only warmth

  In the bleak heartless world which is ours.

  The sons of the Bodb Dearg repeated the sad song and bade farewell to the children of Lir. The four swans returned to the icy waters of the Sea of Moyle and drifted away from the shore.

  When they had vanished, the two sons of the Bodb Dearg shed a tear and turned their men, who also wept in their grief, towards their homes. They finally reached Lir’s sídh and all the Dé Danaan gathered there to hear their news, including the Bodb Dearg. The sons of the Bodb Dearg sang the sad song of the children of Lir.

  Lir was so overcome with anguish that he was unable to utter his grief and sat like a stone statue.

  The Bodb Dearg put forth a hand to comfort him.

  “Our power cannot help them, but they are still in life. It is good to know that one day this power will be broken and they will be free of their suffering.”

  For three long centuries the children of Lir suffered upon the terrible Sruth na Maoile. It seemed a time without end. But at last the time came when Fionnghuala called her brothers together.

  “It is time to leave this place and fly to the west. Now we must go to Iorras Domhnann.”

  They took wing with trepidation, for it had been promised that their suffering off Iorras Domhnann would be even greater and yet none of them could imagine a greater suffering than what they had endured for the last three hundred years on the cold sea of the east, battered by the storm-sent winds and raging seas.

  Across the kingdom of Ulaidh they flew, across the lochs and mountains, across the lands of the Cenel Conaill and the great bay which separated the Cenel mBogaine from the kingdom of Connachta, until they alighted in the seas off Iorras Domhnann, the “head of the world” which is now called Erris, Co. Mayo, for there was no point farther west that could be reached. This was where the known world ended, with the great western ocean and across it, far, far to the west was the Otherworld, the haven of lost souls, Hy Breasal. The waters were not as cold as Sruth na Maoile, but the storms were stronger, the waves harsher and the pounding on the rocky coastline was more dangerous.

  Their suffering continued.

  Now it happened that there was a young farmer and fisherman named Aífraic of Béal na Mhuirthead, which is now called Belmullet, and one day, whi
le he was cultivating his land, he heard singing from the seas. Looking seaward, he saw the four swans dancing on the waves and singing their sad songs. He was entranced, for he had the soul of a poet, for the prefix to his name, Aí, means “poetic inspiration” and “learning”. Thereafter, every day he went to the shore and sat listening to the songs of the children of Lir.

  Now the day came when, having made himself known to the children, he found that they were able to converse with him. Each day he talked with them and they gradually told their story to him. He came to love each one of them and they came to love him, for he was a gentle and learned soul. Because he was a poet and storyteller he, in turn, began to tell their story to his neighbours at the evening gatherings. Although Aífraic refused to let anyone meet the four swans, for fear some harm might befall them, his tale began to spread throughout the kingdom of Connacht. We might add that, were it not for the tales of Aífraic, we might never have known the sad tale of the children of Lir.

  That the children suffered still, let there be no doubt. The seas of the western ocean are not kind. So cold are they that, at times, the seas from Iorras Domhnann and around Béal na Mhuirthead froze with black ice and snow came down like a white sheet.

  According to Aífraic, no other nights in the nine centuries of torment were so pitiless than the winter nights off Iorras Domhnann. Fionnghuala’s three brothers confessed that they were not far away from commencing their journey to the Otherworld. Death was approaching them and, in spite of Fionnghuala’s lamentations, the icy fingers of Donn, lord of death, were reaching out to transport their souls westward.

  Then, in the depths of her misery, Fionnghuala felt a strange, warming feeling within her. She could not understand it. She stopped her wailing and allowed her mind to experience the strange, comforting feeling that enveloped her; it was consoling, soothing to her very soul. Words formed in her mind and the words were the great song of Amairgen the Druid. In spite of the howling wind and the crashing of the white-foamed seas on the rocks, she raised her voice and began to sing the words.

  I am the Wind that blows across the Sea;

  I am the Wave of the Ocean;

  I am the Murmur of the Billows;

  I am the Bull of the Seven Combats;

  I am the Vulture on the Rock;

  I am a Ray of the Sun;

  I am the Fairest of Flowers;

  I am a Wild Boar in Valour;

  I am a Salmon in the Pool;

  I am a Lake on the Plain;

  I am the Skill of the Craftsman;

  I am a Word of Science;

  I am the Spear point that gives Battle;

  I am the God who creates in the head of man the Fire of Thought.

  Who is it that Enlightens the Assembly upon the mountain, if not I?

  Who tells the ages of the moon, if not I?

  Who shows the Place where the Sun goes to rest, if not I?

  Who calls the Cattle from the House of Tethra?

  On whom do the Cattle of Tethra smile?

  Who is the God that fashions Enchantments –

  – the enchantment of battle and the wind of change?

  When Fionnghuala stopped singing the ancient chant, she found that her three brothers were also singing with her.

  “I do not understand this, brothers,” she said, “yet I feel that there is some power here with us which is beyond my understanding. It is great and awe-inspiring. It is the Truth and we must abide with the Truth against the World. For we will abide, no matter our fate. We will always be, no matter our shape, no matter where we are, in this world or the next. Our spark of thought, once ignited, can never be extinguished.”

  And in spite of the cold, the storm and the agony of their torment, their souls were renewed and hope was reborn within them.

  So they remained there off Iorras Domhnann for the allotted three centuries.

  The day came when Fionnghuala called her three brothers and told them:

  “The appointed hour has come. We can now leave this place and fly to our father at Sídh Fionnachaidh in the warm interior of Éireann. Lir and the children of Danu, the Mother Goddess, will rejoice to see us.”

  With gladness in their hearts, the four swans rose from the waters of the icy sea, and, circling over Iorras Domhnann, where Aífraic had once lived – for being merely a mortal, he had long grown old and died, as had his children and his children’s children – they set off eastward to the palace of the mighty Lir.

  A great sadness waited for them.

  There was no sign of Sídh Fionnachaidh. Desolation was there in its place. Nothing stirred there, save the wind across the hill and the rustle of the overgrown grasses. There was no sign of the children of Danu, no sign of the old gods and goddesses of Éireann. True, it was, that the descendants of the sons of Míle Easpain, the first mortals in Éireann, still lived on. But they had long ago rejected the ancient gods and goddesses, though some had vague memories of them which were greatly distorted.

  But gods and goddesses exist only as long as memory and respect for them remain.

  The mortals had driven the Ever-Living Ones underground into the hills and, eventually, those immortals dwelling in the hills, the sídhe, were relegated, in people’s minds, to mere fairy folk. Even the names of the greatest of the gods were forgotten. Lugh Lamhfada, the sun god and god of all arts and crafts, who was the father of the hero Cúchulainn by a mortal woman, had gone. The mortals now remembered the great god only as a little fairy craftsman whom they called Lugh-chromain, “little stooping Lugh”, which would later be mispronounced as “leprechaun”.

  After nine centuries of suffering, the poor children of Lir found that the mortals had finally destroyed the gods. The Tuatha Dé Danaan were all dead. Even more devastating was the fact that it was only their step-mother Aoife, in the guise of the evil demon the Mórrígán, goddess of death and battles, that people still kept alive, for they continued to take pleasure in war and bloodshed.

  Horror overcame the four swans as they perched by that desolate Sídh Fionnachaidh.

  They sang a sad lament.

  “Whither have gone the stately palaces of our father? Weeds and nettles grow in place of the noble pillars and frescoed walls. Silence fills the desolate hill, not even the whisper of their voices remain. Where are the gods and their goddesses, where the heroes and the noble kings? Not even as mould do they lie in their graves. There is nothing left.”

  So they paid their sad tribute to a world that had disappeared and left them behind.

  There was now no home left for them.

  Fionnghuala called her brothers together.

  “Little hope for us here. But the curse remains until a Prince from Connacht shall marry a Princess from Munster. So let us fly back to Connacht, to the only home we knew, which was at Iorras Domhnann. Let us go back there, in more sheltered waters, and await that day which Aoife foretold would come.”

  So they rose up into the air and flew back to the west and circled over Iorras Domhnann. But it wasn’t to that spot they went, for Fionnghuala espied a pleasant little island and it was called Inis Gluaire, which is now Inishglory off Annagh Head. On this island was a sheltered lake, not large at all, but enough to give them shelter and food and keep them safe from the mortals who had rejected their father and the others of the Tuatha Dé Danaan.

  To their surprise, they found one mortal living in a tiny cell of a hut on the island, and soon they grew to know him well. He was a kind and gentle holy man. They called him Mo Cháemmóg, which is an endearing form of Cháemmóg, which means “beloved person”.

  The holy hermit would listen to their singing and was in great wonder of it, for he had never heard such sweet music. Each day, he would listen to their song and knew that song was the eternal truth.

  One day, the holy hermit came to them and said:

  “Beloved children, you may come ashore with me, for the day has come when your enchantment shall be ended.”

  Having heard the story of A
oife’s curse, Cháemmóg learnt that the king of Connacht, Laidgnén Mac Colmán, desired a wife. The woman he had chosen was a princess from Mumhan, Deichtine, daughter of King Fíngen of the Eóganachta of Cashel. History records their names, for Laidgnén ruled Connacht in the year AD 649 until his death in AD 655, while Fíngen of Cashel is recorded as dying in AD 629. It was Deichtine’s brother, Máenach, who ruled Munster from his seat at Cashel when the marriage proposal was made. The Princess Deichtine had agreed to the marriage on one condition. This condition was that Laidgnén give her, as a wedding gift, the four singing swans dwelling in his kingdom whom she had heard so much about.

  Indeed, the story of the children of Lir had long been known at the court of Connacht, from the stories that Aífraic once told. Now Laidgnén was worried when he heard this demand from Deichtine, for he knew that the children of Lir were no ordinary birds to be given as presents to appease the vain glory of any man or woman. However, the terms of the marriage contract were made plain to him by the emissary of the Princess Deichtine.

  When the King of Connacht heard that Dechtine positively refused to marry unless the gift be made, he reluctantly accepted and said that if she came to his court, the birds would be waiting for her. At the same time, he sent messengers to Cháemmóg on Inis Gluaire and told him to send him the four swans.

  The holy man refused and great was the anger of the King of Connacht. Not just his word to Dechtine was broken but his very pride was hurt. He turned his anger from Dechtine, who had made the impossible demand, to Cháemmóg. So he gathered his royal bodyguard, the Gamhanrhide, and set off for Inis Gluaire.

  Cháemmóg met him on the shore quite calmly.

  “You have insulted your king, holy one!” shouted Laidgnén. “You have refused to give up the swans so that I may present them to Dechtine of Mumhan and make her my bride.”

  “There is no insult, for what you ask is not in my power. I have no power to give you these poor creatures, any more than you have power to take them from me.”