He was the first to mount. But the creature stood waiting patiently and another lad mounted behind. Still the creature waited and then, one by one, all the sons of the chieftains were on his back; and all seated in comfort without crowding.
Donall, not being a chieftain’s son, waited behind before he was hauled into a precarious perch at the end. Even as he was being lifted up by his companions, the great steed pounded along the sea shore and then – then it took to the sea, speeding across the waves as if they were solid ground. Away, away, towards the red-gold setting sun, flying over the choppy bright waves.
Donall did not know where they went, except that they darted through great valleys formed by waves and whirlpools of tides and still the hooves of the beast did not sink as much as half an inch into the water.
Donall confessed that it never even entered their heads to leap off the back of the Kelpie. None could move off the broad back of the animal. It seemed that wherever their hands grasped the Kelpie, they were stuck and stuck fast.
It was then that Donall decided to act. Taking out his hunting knife with his right hand he slashed at the fingers of his left, which held tight to the young lord in front of him and the magnetism of the animal ran through each young son of each chieftain from Iain who held the mane at the front through to Donall’s one hand at the back. With the fingers thus severed, Donall freed himself of the power of the beast and he sprang from the back of the creature and plunged head-down into the sea.
He peered up and saw the Kelpie, with the chieftains’ sons still astride his white back, and the horse plunging down into the yawning maw of the Corrievreckan, the great whirlpool, which some said was the entrance into the Otherworld. His last sight of his companions was of youths laughing and joyous, for they did not realise their danger.
Donall swam and swam until the gentle tide washed him ashore at Dùn Bheagain and he made his way to the King of Sgìtheanach to report what had transpired.
There was another silence while the grieving chieftains reflected on his story.
“You cannot accept that there is an end to it!” cried a stentorian voice.
They looked up and saw the tall white-haired figure of Lomar, the King’s Druid.
The Lord of Ile laughed, but with anger not humour. “What would you have us do?”
“Fight the Kelpie’s magic with magic.”
“And the Kelpie as old as the ages themselves? There is no magic that can out-magic the spell of the Kelpie!” It was the Lord of Barragh who spoke, and his wisdom was to be respected, for his land was on the western rim of the ocean. He knew the ways of the gods and goddesses, for the far west was their resting place.
“Pah!” snapped Lomar. “You would rather use the strength that you have in grieving than fight the evil that has claimed your sons and heirs.”
“The Druid is right,” exclaimed the King of Sgìtheanach. “But what can we do? Our ships would not dare enter the Corrievreckan, for they would be swept down into the Otherworld.”
“Send a warrior to see Dall, the Blind One,” replied Lomar. “He has the wisdom.”
Now Dall, the Blind One, was a man of ancient wisdom who dwelt on the heights of the Hill of the Red Fox.
“He will be of no help,” cried the Lord of Colla. “No one can fight the Kelpie.”
“Indeed, what can he do, unless he be wise in bringing back the dead to life?” sneered the Lord of Arainn.
“That he cannot do,” cried the Lord of Eige. “Once they have gathered at the House of Donn, Lord of the Dead, the souls of the departed cannot be ferried home again.”
“By the Nine Wells of Manánnan, the Ocean God, I will go to see the Blind One!” cried Donall the shield-bearer, stung by their negative attitudes. “You are all old women, who would rather hide behind the walls of your fortress than take sword and shield and defy the fate that has taken away your sons. Is that all you care of them?”
The great chieftains of the islands looked at one another, full of surprise that a mere shield-bearer should berate them in such a fashion. But they made no move against him for, in truth, his words had stirred guilt within them.
“Bold young man, if you can deliver our sons, do so,” sighed the King of Sgìtheanach. “But we shall not raise false hopes in our womenfolk. Not even our wives, the mothers of our young sons, must know this plan, for fear it come to the ears of the Eich-Uisge, the dreadful Kelpie, who has carried them off.”
So it was agreed that no word was spoken of the hope that now lay within their breasts and the lusty sons of the kings of the islands were therefore mourned as dead and throughout the islands. There was a great sorrowing and a caoineadh, which is a keening, a great act of wailing and lamentation.
Donall took his shield and sword and set off immediately for the Hill of the Red Fox and he was not long in looking before he came across Dall, the Blind One, and told him his purpose.
“Trust is the first priority, my son.”
“Trust?”
“With trust, with faith, one can go anywhere or move any obstacle.”
Donall was silent.
“Do you trust me?” asked Dall.
“I . . . I have no one else to trust,” admitted Donall.
Dall smiled. “Your hand is wounded. Give it to me.”
Donall reached out the hand with the severed fingers.
Dall took it and held it a moment. “See that cauldron bubbling away on the heat of the fire?”
“I do,” replied Donall, seeing it in the hearth of Dall’s cabin.
“Put your hand into it. Have trust in me.”
Donall did not hesitate but did so. There was no pain.
“Draw it out now,” ordered Dall.
Great was Donall’s surprise when he saw that his hand was perfectly healed and the fingers regrown.
“We will succeed!” Donall cried with enthusiasm at such a demonstration of power.
“There is only one night of the year when we might do so,” agreed Dall. “In a few days’ time is the feast of Samhuinn, when the sun goes down, and the Otherworld becomes visible to this world. Souls may cross from one world to another. That is our chance. We may be able to rescue those chieftains’ sons and bring them home during the hour of midnight only. That feast-day and that time alone is the one time we may hope to rescue the lost chieftains’ sons.”
“How can this be done?”
Dall pursed his lips thoughtfully. He was not a vain man. “I do not know whether it can be accomplished. All I can pledge is that I will try, but faith is the key. If you have faith in me, then my task might be fulfilled.”
“What task?”
“At midnight on the feast of Samhuinn, I shall come to the castle of the King of Sgìtheanach. I shall stretch out my hands over the waters and order the return of the souls of your lost companions from the waters of the deep. It will be my strength and knowledge against that of the Otherworld.”
So Donall returned back home and, though he told the King of Sgìtheanach what old Dall had said, he did not tell the daughter of the king, who was sister to his lost friend, the prince he was shield-bearer to. This girl was named Dianaimh, for she was the “flawless” jewel of the islands, such being the meaning of the name. Now Donall and Dianaimh were close friends in the way of brother and sister and no more than that. Donall was, in fact, heartsick with love for Dianaimh’s cousin, a girl named Faoinèis.
Now Dianaimh had grown up with the young princes of the islands and had every cause to lament, as had the other women, but she could not bring herself to feel sad for she, too, was in love. It had happened only a short time before these tragic events. One day, as she was sitting on the sea shore, a little distance away from her father’s castle, by an inlet watching the sea birds swoop and dance in to warm sun, a handsome young man wandered by. He wore a snow-white shirt and an amazing green parti-coloured féile-beag, or kilt, and a brat-falaich or cloak. His skin was snow-white, his eyes green and his hair was the colour of the foam on the waves
striking the shore.
Now Dianaimh had been singing a sad song of lost love.
Cold are the nights I cannot sleep,
Restless are the nights when there is no repose,
Thinking of you my love,
Dreaming of the nights we were together
And now you are no longer at my side.
“A sad song is that, sweet lady,” said the young man. “You have brought a tear on my cheek.”
Dianaimh’s heart was full of sorrow for the young man who seemed so sad and handsome. He came and sat at her feet and there was, indeed, a desolation on his features.
“It is not a song of experience for me,” she confided wistfully.
“But the sentiment is there. Yet reach forward and wipe the tear from my cheek and all will be well.”
Now this was a bold thing to say and yet Dianaimh was not at all upset by it. She felt an urge to do as he asked and make him happy. She reached forward and with her finger, as gently as she could, she wiped his tear. The tear stuck to her finger and as she drew her hand away, it dropped on her breast above her heart. For a moment it felt warm and comforting. She looked on the young man with eyes of love.
“Sweet stranger, tell me your name?”
“I am called the Eich-Uisge, the Kelpie, lord of the deeps. Do you fear me?”
“Not I,” vowed Dianaimh, yet, deep within her, she knew there was a reason why she should have been scared. But the drop of a Kelpie’s tear makes a mortal its slave and lover.
“You are my love, Dianaimh,” the lord of the deeps said. “The beating of your heart is like the throb of my pulse.”
Each morning from that day on, Dianaimh and the Kelpie had met at the sea-shore and vowed their love to one another.
They had to part at sunset. The Kelpie was always strict about this. For when the sun came near the western horizon, he had to return to the sea.
“If ever you find me resting when the sun is setting,” the Kelpie admonished, “wake me and tell me to go.”
It happened one late afternoon, Dianaimh and her unearthly lover lay on the sea-shore, sleeping in one another’s arms. Dianaimh woke and saw the sun was near the western rim and she turned to her lover. He was so handsome and so deep in sleep that she felt it wrong to wake him. When he stirred she crooned a lullaby that sent him back to sleep. So she closed her eyes feeling there could be little harm in letting him rest a while longer.
She reached out her hand to stroke his silken hair, stroking it gently . . . gently . . . Then she became aware that the silk had a slimy touch to it. She looked with wide eyes. She lay in the arms of a strange creature, a pale horse, whose coat glistened with slime, with hoofed feet and a flowing white mane. One front hoof, where her lover’s hand had fondly held her hair, was now twisted in her braid. She tried to start away but the hoof so entwined her hair that she could not move. She felt in her belt for her knife and swiftly cut away the braid, leaving it in the hoof. Then she crept away.
The magic of the Kelpie’s tear had been dissolved within her breast, once she saw the Eich-Uisge for what he truly was. She knew that her love was impossible and that this world and the Otherworld could not be as one.
It was now that she truly realized the fate of all the young men she had grown up with and there was sadness upon her. For some days she sat wondering about them, for the story of how they were carried off by the Kelpie had spread from mouth to mouth, making the grief the harder to bear among the womenfolk of the islands.
Each day she heard the Kelpie calling her, but she was no longer its slave.
Then came the day when Dianaimh decided to challenge the Kelpie and demand to know the fate of the young men. So she answered the call of the Kelpie and went down to the sea-shore, where once they had been lovers. He stood there, in human form, as strong and handsome as ever he had been.
“I am glad you came, my love. I have been crying for you, these last few days. See, the tears lie on my cheeks. Wipe them away for me, please . . .”
Dianaimh stood with hands on hips. “I know your tricks, horse of the seas.”
His sea-green eyes were bright. “I need your love, mortal maiden. I need your love and that of no other.”
Dianaimh found her soul longed for the cool, strong magic of the handsome man-horse. “If you love me, Eich-Uisge, then you must give me a gift.”
“What gift would that be, Dianaimh?”
“The gift of the safe return of the chieftains’ sons.”
The Kelpie let out a long, low sigh. “You will not ask me in vain, loving Dianaimh,” he said softly. “Though you scorn me, I shall grant you this. Look for them on the eve when this world and the Otherworld meet.”
Then suddenly a beautiful white horse stood in his place and it reared on its hind legs, as if to strike the air with its forelegs. It turned and galloped down the sandy shore and across the waves of the ocean until it was gone towards the setting sun.
“May you find love and peace, Kelpie,” Dianaimh sighed softly after it.
Now, as we have said before, Donall, the shield-bearer, was in love with Faoinèis, who was Dianaimh’s cousin. She was by nature a vain person, and vanity had been the very name that her father had given her. She was staying with Dianiamh at this time. She paid little heed to Donall, for she loved to flirt and dance with as many young men as pleased her. She was proud and fickle and her attitude to young men was as a hawk to its prey for, like it, she made to ensnare them, biting deep with talons that held, and then letting go so that they fell lifeless to the earth while she flew on her way.
Donall was much saddened by this behaviour and Dianaimh was saddened by her friend’s sorrow. Especially as she understood what sorrow in love was. She and Donall had grown up together, as well as the fact that Donall had served her brother. She felt Donall was as much her brother as her real brother.
Now the feast of the god Samhuinn drew near. This was the great feast which marked the beginning of the New Year, the period of blackness. For it was written by the ancient ones that blackness comes before the light, that chaos precedes order, that death comes before rebirth.
One evening, shortly before the festival of Samhuinn, Dianaimh said to Faoinèis: “Donall loves you very much.”
Faoinèis smiled smugly. “Many men love me,” she replied and she was complacent in her vanity.
“Would it not be better to answer his plea that you may be married, so that you make a good start in this new year coming?”
“Silly, there is lots of time to consider that. Meanwhile, there are men enough that take my fancy. I am in no hurry to wed. I shall wait until a great king comes wooing me, for I am too fair to be wed to a minor king, or prince or chieftain, let alone a lowly shield-bearer such as Donall.”
On the day before the great Samhuinn Féis, the festival of the new year, which started at sunset and went through until the dawn, for the people counted their days from sunset to sunset, Donall asked Faoinèis if she would marry him and she dismissed him with the same laugh that she had given to her cousin Dianaimh.
“I wait for a great king to come wooing me. I could never be content to marry a lowly shield-bearer such as you.”
And the festival approached.
At sunset, the Kelpie stirred in his cold palace beneath the whirling waters of the coire-bhreacain, that is called today Corrievreckan, the Jura-Scarba whirlpool. He went and sat in his high-backed coral chair and looked out on his deep domain. And there Ròn Ghlas Mòr, the Great Grey Seal, came to his side. Ròn Ghlas Mòr was the Kelpie’s closest friend and companion through all the aeons of time, for they were both of the wild seal-folk. He knew the Kelpie’s thoughts as he knew his own and he also knew what was happening within and between the two worlds.
“Tonight is the Samhuinn Féis,” he ventured.
“This I know,” sighed the Kelpie.
“You are still weak for the love of Dianaimh.”
“This I also know.”
“There is love in her
for you, in spite of all that has passed. Yet, I fear, it was a wrong choice that you made. She is not like her cousin, Faoinèis the Vain. Faoinèis drains the love of men and leaves them without strength. It would have been a better thing to have dropped your tears on her breast, for she would have no soul to challenge your love.”
“It would have been the love of a lifeless statue,” pointed out the Kelpie.
Then Ròn Ghlas Mòr clapped his hands and the mermaids and mermen came rushing from the depths to inquire what task was needed. They gathered round the Kelpie, seated on his coral throne, and arranged his silken moon-gold hair, and put on him his kilt and cloak of parti-coloured greens and his gold and silver jewels.
Then the Kelpie stood up. “Tonight we will release the young men of the islands, as I have promised Dianaimh. In return, I shall bring Faoinèis back here as my mortal serving-maid.”
Ròn Ghlas Mòr smiled thinly. “No great exchange in that, but perhaps she will learn wisdom and you will bring warmth to that cold heart of hers.”
Then the Kelpie asked the mermaids and mermen to bring him his Falluinn na Mhuir-Bhàis, the Cloak of Sea-Death. Also, he asked for his Claidheamh Anam, his soul-sword, which could cut into the hardest heart and penetrate the deepest soul without shedding one drop of blood.
Then the Kelpie sped away to the mortal world above the waves.
It was now the start of the Samhuinn Féis. Donall knew that he was soon to start his journey to the Otherworld but his heart was sick for the love of Faoinèis. Already the pipers and fiddlers were playing and the women making their ancient puirt-a-bheul or mouth music. Already the dancers were skirling around the hall and the fires crackled beneath the roasting joints of meat.
So Donall went to where Faoinèis was standing, next to the daughter of the King of Sgìtheanach. “I must leave soon; before I do so, give me one dance. This one dance alone is all I can give you.”
The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends Page 31
