The Legend of the Corrib King

by Tom McCaughren

  ‘Because limestone is a porous rock,’ Big Jim told him. ‘You can see where the rain has worn holes in it, and there are cracks and caves all over the place.’

  ‘What a terrible waste,’ said Dan. ‘I mean, to spend all that time cutting their way through it.’

  Big Jim nodded. ‘I suppose it was in one way, but it was a lifesaver for the people who worked on it. You see, it was the time of the famine. They only got four pence a day, but it probably made the difference between life and death for most of them.’

  ‘Four pence,’ said Dan. ‘I wonder how much that is in today’s money?’

  ‘I saw in the paper,’ said Big Jim, ‘that somebody in the bank worked it out. And taking inflation into account, they reckoned it would be less than two euro.’

  What inflation meant, the young people didn’t know, but they thought it wasn’t much for a day’s work.

  ‘Anyway,’ added Big Jim, looking at Mary, ‘there’s no water in it worth talking about, so there’s no need to worry.’

  * * *

  Jamesie was like his father in many ways. He had black hair and was bronzed from the wind and sun of a summer spent on the lake. His Uncle Dan’s description of him as being like a string of pump water was very apt, for he had that awkward, lanky look of a young man who had suddenly shot up into his teens. While his mother packed a picnic lunch, he collected the fishing rods and a net from the closet. Jamesie hadn’t said much since they arrived, and his young visitors were looking forward to getting to know him again. They helped him carry the gear down the stone steps and watched as he placed it carefully in a blue boat with an outboard engine. They could see that this sort of thing was part of his everyday routine and they marvelled at how different it was from their own way of life back in Antrim.

  ‘Are we ready to go now?’ asked Tapser.

  Jamesie smiled. ‘Not quite. This is where the riddle starts.’ He went back into the house and brought out two jam jars with screw-on lids. Puzzled they followed him around to the field at the back. There he gave one jar to Cowlick to hold, took the lid off the other and asked, ‘Listen now, what do you hear?’

  ‘Grasshoppers,’ said Rachel.

  ‘Right,’ said Jamesie. Spotting one of them on a blade of grass, he reached down and scooped it into the jar with the lid. ‘They chirp like that when the sun comes out, and Pakie says they do it by rubbing their legs against their wings.’

  ‘Wings that whistle,’ said Cowlick. ‘So that’s what he meant.’

  Jamesie smiled and nodded, and Tapser asked him, ‘What do you think has happened to him?’

  ‘It’s hard to say. He’s never been away as long as this before.’ He clamped the lid on another grasshopper before Prince could disturb it. ‘And then there was his house …’

  ‘What about it?’ asked Róisín.

  ‘It had been broken into and everything thrown about.’

  ‘So that’s why you’re so worried about him,’ said Rachel.

  Jamesie nodded and, reaching into a clump of ferns, clamped the lid on the second jar. ‘There you are,’ he said, ‘legs that fly.’

  ‘Daddy-long-legs,’ the others exclaimed. ‘Of course.’

  Having added a few more to his collection, Jamesie took his cousins back to the boat. There he helped them put on life jackets, and seated them in such a way that their weight was evenly distributed. When they were all in position, and Prince was wedged safely between Tapser’s knees, he started the engine, took a firm grip of the tiller and steered them out onto the Corrib.

  No one said anything. There was no need. It was all so new and exciting. As well as that, they were trying to solve the next part of Pakie’s rhyme. ‘Fairies on the island, fish in the sky?’ They looked up and around them. All they could see were swallows skimming the water and a distant flock of cormorants soaring low across the lake in search of fish. As for the islands, there seemed to be dozens of them.

  Almost as if he could read their thoughts, Jamesie throttled back on the engine and let the boat bob quietly on the waves. ‘Pakie says there’s an island for every day of the year.’

  ‘You don’t think he could have had an accident?’ asked Rachel.

  ‘Maybe marooned on one of the islands or something,’ suggested Róisín.

  Jamesie shook his head. ‘His boat was still on the slipway beside his house. That’s why they’ve been concentrating the search along the shore.’

  ‘What do you think has happened to him?’ asked Tapser.

  ‘Well, he was having a lot of trouble with poachers. Unless he’s had a run-in with them.’

  ‘You don’t think he’s dead?’ exclaimed Rachel in horror. ‘I mean, they wouldn’t, would they?’

  ‘Some of them are capable of it all right,’ Jamesie told her. ‘But I think his body would have turned up if they had.’

  Starting up the engine again, he took them further out onto the lake, and after some time pulled in near one of the islands. ‘That’s Illaun na Shee,’ he told them.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Cowlick.

  ‘Illaun na Shee – island of the fairies.’

  ‘Fairies on the island!’ said Róisín and Rachel together.

  ‘That’s it,’ said Jamesie.

  ‘And what about fish in the sky?’ asked Tapser.

  ‘Maybe he meant birds carrying fish up into the sky in their beaks,’ suggested Róisín.

  Jamesie shook his head. ‘Look over the side.’

  They all looked into the clear waters of the lake.

  ‘Of course,’ said Róisín. ‘The sky. It’s mirrored in the lake.’

  Jamesie baited each of the rods with a grasshopper and a ‘daddy’ as he called the daddy-long-legs. The boat was drifting sideways past the island, and he showed them how to hold the rods so that the insects just touched the top of the small waves. ‘Now,’ he told them, ‘that’s dapping.’

  ‘Will the fish go for them?’ asked Tapser.

  Jamesie nodded. ‘In May it’s the Mayfly. But at this time of year it’s the daddies and grasshoppers. They blow off the islands and the trout love them.’

  Sure enough, it wasn’t long before there was a strong pull on Rachel’s line. Quickly she let it out just as Jamesie told her to do, and as it sliced through the water he took in the other rods, started up the engine and nosed the boat gently in towards the stony shore.

  ‘Careful now, wind him carefully,’ he advised her, and when the boat came to a halt he hopped out into about a foot of water and scooped the trout into the net.

  It was a big fish, but not as big as the one they spotted a few minutes later. It was lying on its side in a few inches of water near the shore, and was obviously dead.

  ‘It’s a salmon,’ Jamesie told them. He waded over and brought it back to the boat. ‘Strange, no sign of disease, and there’s no pollution around here.’

  ‘Maybe it’s one a fisherman thought had got away,’ suggested Tapser.

  Jamesie was examining the salmon’s mouth. ‘No sign of any hooks. But wait a minute, what’s this? It looks as if it choked on something.’

  The others watched as he extracted a crumpled ball of paper from the salmon’s gaping jaws. He smoothed it out and they saw the colour draining from his face.

  ‘It’s a poem!’ he exclaimed.

  2. THE MYSTERY OF THE JONAH FISH

  Big Jim spread the piece of paper on the table before him, read it again to himself, and handed it to Martin, saying, ‘Well, what do you think?’ They were all hoping that Martin, being a garda, might be able to give them an expert opinion.

  Martin pushed back his blue peaked cap and read the poem aloud:

  ‘Beyond the Cross there lies the king,

  Struck down by spears of man unseen.

  In his drink a trap wine redd,

  Too many wish that he was dead.

  Seek not the pike that struck him down,

  But the hand that seeks to take the crown …’

  ‘There’s more of
it on the other side,’ Big Jim told him.

  Turning the paper over, Martin continued:

  ‘Fairies and witches, foxes in ditches,

  Deadly the fingers that point to life’s riches.

  Beneath tall spires of gold the Story is told,

  Nymphs dance in the moonlight and secrets unfold …’

  ‘Well?’ asked Mag anxiously.

  ‘Sounds like him all right,’ Martin agreed.

  ‘And it looks like his writing too,’ added Jamesie.

  ‘Well, it’s very scribbled,’ said Martin.

  ‘But what does it mean?’ asked Tapser.

  ‘And how did it come to be in the salmon?’ wondered Cowlick.

  ‘Well, if it was Pakie who wrote it,’ said Martin, ‘and there are no other poets around here that I know of, it might be something he just threw away and was picked up by the salmon.’

  ‘But sure it’s hard enough to get them to take a piece of bait, let alone a ball of paper,’ argued Jamesie.

  Big Jim studied the poem again. ‘Jamesie thinks it might be some sort of mysterious message from Pakie. And you must admit, it’s very strange.’

  Martin smiled in a way that clearly showed he thought the idea was a bit far-fetched. ‘I suppose it is strange all right. But what would be the point in sending a message nobody can understand?’

  ‘And in a dead fish,’ added Róisín. ‘I think the poor thing probably choked on it.’

  Martin winked. ‘That’s what it gets for going too near Illaun na Shee.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ asked Cowlick.

  ‘Illaun na Shee,’ repeated Martin. ‘Didn’t Jamesie tell you that it’s an enchanted island? Sure maybe the little people put a spell on it.’

  ‘Now, Martin,’ said Mag, ‘that’s enough of that talk. Your brother’s bad enough without you making him worse.’

  ‘What sort of talk?’ asked her sister.

  ‘Oh, it’s all you ever hear about in this house, Mary. If Jamesie’s not talking about fishing, he’s talking about fairies and all that nonsense. Dear knows what visitors must think of us.’

  ‘And where did he get it from,’ said Big Jim, ‘but your own brother Pakie. Isn’t he ten times worse?’

  Mag nodded with an air of resignation, and judging it was time to talk about something else, Dan asked, ‘Anyway, Martin, what’s new in the world of crime?’

  ‘Ah, divil the thing, except for the salmon poaching.’

  ‘And there’s not much new in that,’ remarked Big Jim.

  ‘Is it much of a problem?’ asked Dan.

  ‘Usually the poachers don’t bother us much up around here,’ Martin told him. ‘It’s more of a problem in the lower part of the lake, near Annaghdown. But after the waterkeepers went on strike a while back there’s been poaching everywhere. Several boats have been stolen. Even the nets the Inland Fisheries put down to catch pike.’

  ‘And do you think the poachers took them too?’ asked Róisín.

  ‘I don’t think it, I know it,’ said Martin. ‘It’s just like stealing a car to commit a robbery.’

  ‘And was Pakie on strike?’ asked Dan.

  Martin shook his head and got up to go. ‘Sure you know Pakie. He does his own thing. Always did.’ He folded the piece of paper containing the poem, put it into the breast pocket of his tunic and told his mother, ‘If I hear any news of Pakie, I’ll let you know.’

  ‘Do that,’ said his father. ‘And you might keep an eye out for Jamesie and the lads. They’ll be pottering around the lake in the caravan with Nuadha.’

  ‘No problem,’ Martin assured him, ‘and doesn’t Jamesie know where to find me if he wants anything.’

  Nuadha, as Jamesie showed his cousins a short time later, was a small grey horse that had been acquired since their last visit. Willing hands helped him to back her in between the shafts of the caravan and fasten the harness. Big Jim and Mag checked that they had everything they needed – a tent for the boys, their sleeping bags, bedclothes for the girls who would sleep in the caravan, and fuel for the lamp. Yes, everything was in order, and they all climbed aboard. Prince barked loudly as if to say they were ready, and to a great send off of waving and good wishes and warnings to be careful, they moved off down the lane.

  Jamesie, they soon found, knew every inch of the Corrib countryside, and sometimes it seemed that Nuadha knew it almost as well. She turned into side roads and country lanes almost without bidding, until they arrived at a grassy clearing on the lake shore. When they had unharnessed her so that she could graze for an hour, they built a circle of stones and lit a fire to boil the kettle.

  As they sat down to a meal of tea and sandwiches, a gentle breeze swayed the heads of purple loosestrife that grew in great abundance everywhere, and rippled the water on the stony shore. The lake itself was deserted except for a family of what Jamesie said were ‘tufty’ ducks swimming contentedly not far out.

  ‘It’s really lovely, isn’t it?’ Róisín remarked, and the others munched and nodded in agreement.

  Tapser gave the remains of a sandwich to Prince and asked Jamesie, ‘Do you really think that poem was a message from Uncle Pakie?’

  Jamesie nodded.

  ‘You think he deliberately put it into the fish then,’ said Róisín. ‘But why a fish of all things?’

  ‘Because it would be just like putting a message in a bottle,’ Jamesie told them. ‘You see, if anybody finds a dead fish in the lake they’re bound to take it out and have it examined in case it’s been killed by disease or pollution. Especially anybody out fishing.’

  ‘But you heard what Martin said,’ Rachel reminded them. ‘He would never write a message no one can understand.’

  ‘He would,’ said Jamesie, ‘if he’s being held prisoner and didn’t want his captors to know that what he was writing was really a message.’

  ‘But who would want to hold him prisoner?’ asked Cowlick.

  ‘The salmon poachers would,’ said Jamesie. ‘I know what they’re like. They can be very vicious when anyone tries to stop them.’

  ‘And you think that’s what happened to Pakie?’ asked Róisín.

  Jamesie looked out across the lake and nodded.

  ‘But the others don’t seem to think that,’ said Rachel.

  ‘They think it all right,’ Jamesie asserted. ‘But they’re not saying it in front of us. Anyway, I know Uncle Pakie. He practically reared me.’

  ‘Right then,’ said Tapser. ‘That settles it. Let’s assume that Pakie has been kidnapped by the salmon poachers. Maybe he was getting too close to them, you know, making life too difficult for them.’

  ‘So he gets a message out in a dead salmon,’ said Cowlick.

  ‘A poem,’ said Róisín. ‘A clue maybe to where he’s being held.’

  ‘So all we have to do,’ said Rachel, ‘is figure it out.’

  ‘Jamesie,’ said Tapser, ‘you know this area. What do you think it means?’

  Jamesie took out a piece of paper on which he had made a copy of the poem and read it again. ‘Well, it says Beyond the Cross there lies the king … There’s the village of Cross on the Galway Road, but I think it’s more likely to mean the stone cross in the main street of Cong.’

  ‘Is that the famous Cross of Cong?’ asked Róisín.

  Jamesie shook his head. ‘It’s the Market Cross. The Cross of Cong is a processional cross that was kept in the abbey for centuries. It’s decorated with silver and bronze and precious stones, and is really beautiful. It used to have a large crystal in the centre that was said to contain a piece of the true Cross. But it’s in the National Museum in Dublin now, so the poem could hardly refer to it. No, I’d say it means the Market Cross all right.’

  ‘And the king?’ asked Róisín.

  ‘The lake is beyond the Market Cross, and there’s Illaun na Rí, King’s Island. But that’s too overgrown and anyway it’s too near Ashford Castle to be used by a gang of poachers.’

  ‘Is there anything else it might
mean?’ urged Tapser.

  ‘There’s the abbey. It lies beyond the Cross I suppose. It’s called a royal abbey because it was built by one of the High Kings of Ireland, Turlogh Mór O’Conor, for the Augustinians. The last High King, Turlogh’s son, Ruairi, spent the last years of his life there. He died in 1198, but I don’t think he was murdered or struck down as the poem says.’

  ‘Still,’ said Róisín, ‘it’s worth a try. There just might be a clue there. And we have to start somewhere.’

  There were few villagers around and only the jackdaws crouching close to the slated roofs watched as Jamesie took his cousins into the ruins of Cong Abbey. New slabs of stone and even freshly cut flowers showed that some people still buried their dead there. But there was no clue to the whereabouts of Pakie.

  Following a path, they came to a bridge over the Cong River. Just below the bridge was a little stone house which, said Jamesie, was called the Monk’s Fishing House. It was built out on the river and the water flowed underneath. Originally, he told them, there was a hole in the floor where the monks would put down a net. The net was tied to a bell in the abbey so that when a trout or salmon was netted, the bell would ring and the cook would know he had a fish for dinner!

  ‘I wish something in Pakie’s poem would ring a bell with us,’ sighed Rachel. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

  Looking over Jamesie’s shoulder, Tapser read part of the poem again. ‘Beyond the Cross there lies the king, Struck down by spears of man unseen. What other king could he have meant, Jamesie? One that was struck down by a spear or a sword.’

  ‘Unless it’s something to do with King Nuadha of the Silver Hand,’ said Jamesie getting to his feet. ‘What does it say about a hand again? Seek not the pike that struck him down, But the hand that seeks to take the crown.’

  ‘Who was this king what’s-his-name?’ asked Cowlick.

  ‘King Nuadha,’ replied Jamesie. ‘He was King of the Little People.’

  ‘That’s silly,’ said Róisín. ‘There’s no such thing.’

  ‘That’s what you think,’ said Jamesie. ‘They fought a famous battle here long ago. Come on, I’ll show you.’

  A short distance outside the village, Jamesie pulled Nuadha in to the side of the road. ‘Now,’ he told them, ‘that’s where the battle took place – the Plain of Southern Moytura.’