The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends

by Peter Berresford Ellis

  “Well, the truth is, I can tell you how I was in a more difficult situation than that.”

  “Tell away,” invited the King of Lochlann.

  “It was when I was a young lad, out hunting on my father’s lands. Chance had brought me to the sea-shore where there were jagged rocks, and undersea caves and the like. All were washed by the angry foam lips of the ocean god.

  “When I came to the shore, I saw a trickle of smoke arising from between two rocks. Now that is strange, I thought to myself. What could be the meaning of it? I began to climb over the rocks in my curiosity towards the smoke. It so happened that I fell. As luck would have it, no bone of mine was broken, the skin not blemished by bruising, but I had fallen down a deep cleft in the rocks. How to get out with the sea tide approaching and the hollow filling with its surging flood was my first thought.

  “It was a terrible thing, to die from drowning. I knew that the sides of the cleft were too steep to climb. It was then that I heard a clattering sound. Who should it be but a giant, leading a herd of goats with a buck at their head? The giant’s head popped over the rim and he stared down at me with one great eye.

  “ ‘Hello, Conall Cròg Buidhe,’ he called down. ‘My knife has been rusting a long time in its sheath, waiting for the tender flesh of a human boy.’

  “ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘it is not much of a meal you’ll get from me, for boys do not have much meat and are sinewy in the extreme. However, if you help me out, I can help you.’

  “The giant frowned.

  “ ‘Help me? How so?’

  “ ‘I have a gift for healing, and I see you have one eye. If you release me, I will bestow on you the sight of the other eye.’

  “Now the giant thought about this a moment and then he nodded his agreement.

  “ ‘I will release you, Conall, but only after you have given me the sight in the other eye. Tell me what I must do. If it works, then I shall pull you out.’

  “Now that left me in difficulties. But I had no option but to pursue a plan. So I told him to prepare his giant cauldron and light a fire under it and boil water. And all the time my mind was working on how to achieve my freedom.

  “With the water warming, I found some seaweed in the cleft. Then I told the giant that he must dip the seaweed in the cauldron and rub it in his good eye before he rubbed it on the other. Thus I convinced him that the sight of the good eye would be passed to the other eye. In fact, I knew the property of the seaweed well enough and knew that it would take the sight from the good eye and not give sight to the second eye.

  “Now, when this happened, the giant was in a fearful rage. He stood, blind, but threatening over the cleft where I was trapped and he said that I would never get out or, if he caught me, I would be put in his cauldron and boiled to make my flesh tender enough for his appetite. This was no good for me, for I had hoped to escape while he was blinded. So, all through the night, I crouched in the cleft out of his reach, holding my breath at times in case he heard me.

  “When it was dawn, the giant finally dropped off to sleep and I managed to climb out of the cleft. But I climbed into a pen, in which he had put his goats, and it was difficult to get out of that pen when the goats started to shift and make a noise so that the giant woke up.

  “ ‘Are you still asleep, boy?’ called the giant down the cleft, for he was still blind. Then he paused to listen: ‘No, you are no longer in the cleft but you are among my goats.’

  “Seeing him approaching, I killed the buck goat and began to skin it for dear life.

  “The giant paused, frowning.

  “ ‘It is one of my goats that you are killing?’ he demanded.

  “ ‘Not I,’ I replied. ‘It is true that I am in the pen with your goats, but I am trying to release a goat whose rope had become too tight around her neck.’ So saying, I released one of the goats and let her out. The giant, feeling about, felt the goat and caught her, fondling the goat.

  “ ‘It is true what you say, boy. I feel the goat but cannot see her. Her rope is loose.’

  “I kept letting the goats loose, one at a time, and the giant, feeling each, let them go.

  “Finally, I put on the skin of the buck goat and, on hands and knees, I began to crawl out of the gate away from the pen between the legs of the giant. The giant reached down and put a hand on my head and felt the horns of the buck and ran his finger down my back, feeling the skin.

  “ ‘Well, that is my buck alive and well. Where are you, boy?’

  “Outside the pen, I roared: ‘Here I am, out and free in spite of you!’

  “There was joy on me in my boasting.

  “The giant sat down abruptly and great was the sadness on his face.

  “ ‘You have brought me to ruin, boy. Well, I cannot help but admire you. In token of your victory, I shall give you a ring of mine and, if worn, this ring will do you naught but good. Here is the ring.’

  “The giant pulled the ring from his pocket and held it up.

  “I smiled sceptically, for I was a wise child.

  “ ‘Do you throw your ring to me, for I will not come near you and be caught, giant,’ I said.

  “ ‘That is no problem,’ said the giant and threw the ring across the sands.

  “I went forward and picked it up. It was a fine ring of silver. I admired its craftsmanship and slipped it on my little finger of my left hand.

  “ ‘Does the ring fit you?’ inquired the giant anxiously.

  “ ‘It fits well enough,’ I assured him.

  “Then the giant cried: ‘Where are you, ring?’

  “And the ring answered back.

  “ ‘Here I am,’ it said.

  “The giant rose and came running towards the speaking ring. Now I realised what dire straits I was in, and I struggled to tear the ring from my little finger. But it would not come off. Every time the giant asked, ‘Where are you, ring?’, it would reply, ‘I am here.’ I was in such a bad extremity then, that I knew only one escape. I took out my sgian dubh, took the knife and cut off the little finger of my left hand on which I had placed the ring. Then I threw it far out over the cliffs into the boundless ocean.

  “The giant lumbered past.

  “ ‘Where are you, ring?’ he called.

  “ ‘I am here,’ answered the ring from the depths of the ocean.

  “He sprang over the cliff towards the sound of the voice and fell into the sea. It was a pleasing sight to see him drowning. I was able to return home with the herd of goats, without the buck I had slain, of course. There was great joy on my parents when I returned.”

  The mother of the King of Lochlann, sitting by the fire, nodded in appreciation. “I have never heard of a more dangerous situation, except once,” she observed.

  “It is a good tale,” remarked the King of Lochlann.

  “And the proof of it is here,” replied Conall, holding out his hand. “For, if you will observe, I lack a finger on which the ring was.”

  “I see you lack the finger so that you have spoken truly. I will reply in truth as well. By this tale, you have saved the life of your second son. Only your eldest son will be hanged tomorrow . . . However, if you have a third tale to tell me, of a harder situation than facing the death of your eldest son, and can convince me of it, I shall release him to you as well.”

  “It so happens, King of Lochlann, that I have. It happened when I was a young man. My father found me a wife and I was married. One day, I was out to hunt and came to a loch. In the loch was a little island and I saw game a-plenty on it. I wandered around the loch, looking for a means of getting across, and on the bank I found a boat. I took a step inside it and, before I had lifted the other leg into it, it took to the waves and sped towards the island in the middle of the loch.

  “I could not believe that I had landed so swiftly on the island. I stepped ashore and found that a mist had come down, obscuring everything. I turned back to the boat and it, too, had vanished. So I went on to find shelter, but there was no shelter at
all. The woods had gone and there was nothing but scrub and shrub. I suddenly saw an old cabin among this wilderness and there was a patch of clear weather round it. Before the cabin stood a cauldron, hanging over a fire.

  “Seated outside was a woman with a naked baby on her knee and she held a knife in her hand. She was putting the knife to the throat of the baby and the baby was laughing in her face. Then the woman dropped the knife to the ground and began to cry. Her sobs were so heart-rending that they sent cold shivers up and down my back.

  “ ‘What ails you, woman?’ I demanded.

  “She caught sight of me and started.

  “ ‘Who are you, and how came you here?’ she demanded.

  “So I told her the truth of it.

  “ ‘It was the same with myself,’ she confessed. ‘I came with my child.’

  “ ‘Your child?’ I asked. ‘Why were you putting the knife to its throat, then?’

  “She gave a low sob.

  “ ‘Do you see that cauldron? Well, the cauldron and the fire belong to an evil wizard. The wizard has told me that I must put my baby in the cauldron and boil it for the wizard’s meal by the time he returns.’

  “I peered around.

  “ ‘Where is this wizard?’

  “ ‘Not far away, gathering herbs for the pot.’

  “ ‘Can you not escape?’

  “ ‘No more than you can. The boat is under the wizard’s control and will not return us to the mainland.’

  “ ‘What if you refuse?’ I pressed.

  “ ‘The wizard has sworn to put me in his cauldron instead.’

  “Just then, we heard the footsteps of the wizard returning.

  “The woman began to sob.

  “ ‘Hide the baby behind those trees,’ I instructed and, while she did so, I went to the cauldron and tested the water. As luck would have it, the woman had neglected to keep the fire heated and so the water was only lukewarm.

  “ ‘I will step in the pot,’ I told her, ‘and do you put the cover of the pot over it when I am inside.’

  “So it was I stepped into the lukewarm water and the woman placed the lid on the cauldron.

  “Then the wizard came along.

  “ ‘Ho, woman!’ I heard his raucous cry. ‘Have you boiled the child for me, yet?’

  “ ‘He is still in the pot, sir,’ cried the woman. ‘He is not done yet.’

  “I raised my voice and cried from inside the cauldron:

  “ ‘A mhàthair, a mhàthair, it is boiling that I am!’

  “Whereupon the wizard laughed heartily.

  “ ‘Then you shall soon be done!’ I heard him heaping wood under the cauldron and it began to grow hot. I was sure that I would soon scald to death but the wizard, as luck would have it, fell asleep by the fire. As soon as he was snoring, the woman came across and raised the lid.

  ‘ “Is it alive, you are?’ she demanded.

  “I stood up with my face red and wet.

  “ ‘Barely,’ I gasped.

  “I climbed out of the cauldron as carefully as I could and ran to the stream to cool myself. But I scalded the palms of my hands where I gripped the rim of the cauldron.

  “ ‘How can we kill the wizard?’ I asked.

  “The woman, whispering, told me that nothing could kill the wizard except his own spear, which he wore slung across his back.

  “So I went to him and slowly began to draw the spear out. His snoring breath was powerful, so powerful that, on every intake, as I bent over him drawing the spear, he drew me close. It took a while to loosen the spear and finally I had it in my hand.

  “But I was a warrior and could not kill a sleeping man.

  “So I bent forward and gave him a prick in his face. He blinked and lifted his head. He stared at me and in that second I cast his spear. It went right through him and he fell dead on the ground. Then I took the woman and the child and went back to the boat. Because the wizard was dead, the boat no longer was possessed of magical powers and so we were able to come safely back to shore.

  “The woman and her child went on their way and I returned home to my wife in Airer Ghàidheal. That was a more dangerous situation than facing the death of my eldest son tomorrow.”

  The King of Lochlann slapped his thigh and shook his head. “That is a fine tale. But is there proof of it? Without proof, your son will hang.”

  Before Conall could answer, the King of Lochlann’s mother leant forward. “Show me the palms of your hands, Conall Cròg Buidhe.”

  Conall did so, showing the healed scalded skin whose tissue had turned to a yellow colour and which had earned him his nickname of the Yellow Hand.

  “So it is you, Conall, who were there?” the king’s mother said slowly.

  “That I was,” he affirmed.

  “And that I was, too. I was the woman who was a prisoner of the wizard and that baby you saved is none other than my son, who now sits on the throne of Lochlann.”

  Then Conall and Sigurdsson seized each other in joy and embraced.

  “Good it is, Conall Cròg Buidhe, that you have come through all these hardships. Better it is that you saved my life and that of my mother. I give you back the life of your third son. And this I add to it: you may take with you, on your return to Fótla, the Each Donn, my brown horse. And this I add to that: you may take a sack of gold as a token of our friendship.”

  So it was that the next day, Conall and his three sons embarked for the kingdom of Fótla, with the Each Donn and a sack of gold. And he returned first to his home and gave the sack of gold to his wife. Then he went to the King of Fótla and gave the brown horse to him. And the King of Fótla vowed he would be a friend to Conall thereafter and, moreover, Conall’s three sturdy sons learnt the wisdom of prudence and sobriety and were never again given to impetuosity.

  18 The Kelpie

  The sons of all the chieftains of the Western Isles, those sons who were the tanists, which is to say the heirs-elect to their father’s chiefdoms, once decided to go forth together on a great fishing expedition in the bright waters of An Cuan Barragh, which is Barra’s Sound. They set out and never came back.

  It was seven days afterwards that the King of the Island of Sgìtheanach sent forth messengers, to bring all the chieftains of the islands to an assembly at Port Rìgh, the harbour of the Lord of Sgìtheanach. And they came: from Arainn, Cinn Tire, lie and Diura, from Colbhasa, Muile, Tirodh, Colla, Eige, Rum and Canaigh and from the extreme west from Barraigh, Uibhist-a-Deas and Uibhist-a-Tuath and from Na hEaradh and Leodhas – all the chieftains came in their great war-ships.

  They gathered in the assembly hall, each with his sword and shield, and listened to the grim-faced lord, who stood pale and drawn. The chiefs were astonished to see that, by his side, stood Donall, the shield-bearer to the heir of the King of Sgìtheanach. He had been among the party of young chieftains’ sons when they had gone fishing.

  “Can it be that our sons still live?” demanded the chief of Cinn Tire.

  “Shame is my portion,” replied Donall, “I am the only one of the young company to escape.”

  They saw that his left hand was covered with a bloody bandage and realised that he had not left the others easily.

  “All are perished?” demanded the Lord of Colbhasa.

  “As true as I stand here,” nodded Donall and there was grief in his voice.

  “How could this be – who brought the curse of the Eich-Uisge, the feared Kelpie, upon our people?” It was the chief of lie who spoke, voicing what they all felt a mind to ask.

  The shield-bearer hesitated and looked at the King of Sgìtheanach.

  “Speak on, be not afraid,” grunted the king, gazing with downcast eyes as if he could not bring himself to look upon his fellow chieftains.

  “It was Iain, son of my Lord of Sgìtheanach,” Donall confessed. “But no blame to him,” he added hurriedly. “The Kelpie appeared to us as a beautiful creature. It was as white as the froth of the waves, his mane like the restless foam around
the rocks of the sea shore. He was a gentle beast and whinnied softly as he pawed with his hooves on the foreshore.

  “We had seen the creature as we sailed in An Cuan Barragh and came on Eilean nam Muc. There was the beast on the foreshore and Prince Iain was the first to cry to us to go ashore and see what manner of splendid animal this white creature was. Surprise and joy was on us as we landed our ships on the shore and Iain went forward holding out his hand – you all know what pride Iain took in horses and how he loved them.”

  Donall paused. The great chieftains of the island were nodding to themselves.

  “Speak on, Donall,” cried the Lord of Diura. “Speak on, though there is pain in my heart each time you utter what must be.”

  “Iain stretched out his hand to the creature’s muzzle and the animal nuzzled him. May the gods take pity on us.”

  “All our sons, our heirs . . .” The old chieftain of Colla, who had but one son, suddenly placed his old white-haired head in his hands and a sob racked his body.

  “Lost, lost and soon our lands and strongholds will be no more. All lost to the Kelpie!” cried the Lord of Leodhas.

  “Prince Iain would have severed his hand, had he known the outcome,” cried Donall defensively.

  “Would he had done so,” snapped the Lord of Muile.

  “But surely he knew?” The Lord of Canaigh raised the question. “Who does not know the ancient lore?”

  “This is true,” the Lord of Colbhasa agreed. “All of you have been taught the ancient lore, since you were able to leave your mothers’ arms. You must have known!”

  Donall hung his head in shame. “We knew . . . we had been taught. But we did not believe it. We thought you made up the tale to frighten us. Young men always reject the stories of their elders.”

  “You know, now,” muttered the King of Sgìtheanach.

  “And know too late to do anything,” sighed the chieftain of Rum.

  “We’d best hear the story out,” observed the taciturn chieftain of Tirodh.

  Donall called for a drink and took a sip to fortify himself. “This is the way of it,” he began.

  The young sons of the chieftains had seen the magnificent horse on the sands of the Island of Muc, which is the island of pigs. They had landed and petted the great white horse. The young men thought the beast must be lost, for there was no one rich enough on the island to possess such a creature. Then it was that Iain suggested that they ride on it.