Irish Fairy Tales

by Stephens, James

  “I have learned much from you, dear master,” said Fionn gratefully.

  “All that I have is yours if you can take it,” the poet answered, “for you are entitled to all that you can take, but to no more than that. Take, so, with both hands.”

  “You may catch the salmon while I am with you,” the hopeful boy mused. “Would not that be a great happening!” and he stared in ecstasy across the grass at those visions which a boy’s mind knows.

  “Let us pray for that,” said Finegas fervently.

  “Here is a question,” Fionn continued. “How does this salmon get wisdom into his flesh?”

  “There is a hazel bush overhanging a secret pool in a secret place. The Nuts of Knowledge drop from the Sacred Bush into the pool, and as they float, a salmon takes them in his mouth and eats them.”

  “It would be almost as easy,” the boy submitted, “if one were to set on the track of the Sacred Hazel and eat the nuts straight from the bush.”

  “That would not be very easy,” said the poet, “and yet it is not as easy as that, for the bush can only be found by its own knowledge, and that knowledge can only be got by eating the nuts, and the nuts can only be got by eating the salmon.”

  “We must wait for the salmon,” said Fionn in a rage of resignation.

  Chapter 10

  Life continued for him in a round of timeless time, wherein days and nights were uneventful and were yet filled with interest. As the day packed its load of strength into his frame, so it added its store of knowledge to his mind, and each night sealed the twain, for it is in the night that we make secure what we have gathered in the day.

  If he had told of these days he would have told of a succession of meals and sleeps, and of an endless conversation, from which his mind would now and again slip away to a solitude of its own, where, in large hazy atmospheres, it swung and drifted and reposed. Then he would be back again, and it was a pleasure for him to catch up on the thought that was forward and re-create for it all the matter he had missed. But he could not often make these sleepy sallies; his master was too experienced a teacher to allow any such bright-faced, eager-eyed abstractions, and as the druid women had switched his legs around a tree, so Finegas chased his mind, demanding sense in his questions and understanding in his replies.

  To ask questions can become the laziest and wobbliest occupation of a mind, but when you must yourself answer the problem that you have posed, you will meditate your question with care and frame it with precision. Fionn’s mind learned to jump in a bumpier field than that in which he had chased rabbits. And when he had asked his question, and given his own answer to it, Finegas would take the matter up and make clear to him where the query was badly formed or at what point the answer had begun to go astray, so that Fionn came to understand by what successions a good question grows at last to a good answer.

  One day, not long after the conversation told of, Finegas came to the place where Fionn was. The poet had a shallow osier basket on his arm, and on his face there was a look that was at once triumphant and gloomy. He was excited certainly, but be was sad also, and as he stood gazing on Fionn his eyes were so kind that the boy was touched, and they were yet so melancholy that it almost made Fionn weep.

  “What is it, my master?” said the alarmed boy.

  The poet placed his osier basket on the grass.

  “Look in the basket, dear son,” he said.

  Fionn looked.

  “There is a salmon in the basket.”

  “It is The Salmon,” said Finegas with a great sigh. Fionn leaped for delight.

  “l am glad for you, master,” he cried. “Indeed I am glad for you.”

  “And I am glad, my dear soul,” the master rejoined.

  But, having said it, he bent his brow to his hand and for a long time he was silent and gathered into himself.

  “What should be done now?” Fionn demanded, as he stared on the beautiful fish.

  Finegas rose from where he sat by the osier basket.

  “I will be back in a short time,” he said heavily. “While I am away you may roast the salmon, so that it will be ready against my return.”

  “I will roast it indeed,” said Fionn.

  The poet gazed long and earnestly on him.

  “You will not eat any of my salmon while I am away?” he asked.

  “I will not eat the littlest piece,” said Fionn.

  “I am sure you will not,” the other murmured, as he turned and walked slowly across the grass and behind the sheltering bushes on the ridge.

  Fionn cooked the salmon. It was beautiful and tempting and savoury as it smoked on a wooden platter among cool green leaves; and it looked all these to Finegas when he came from behind the fringing bushes and sat in the grass outside his door. He gazed on the fish with more than his eyes. He looked on it with his heart, with his soul in his eyes, and when he turned to look on Fionn the boy did not know whether the love that was in his eyes was for the fish or for himself. Yet he did know that a great moment had arrived for the poet.

  “So,” said Finegas, “you did not eat it on me after all?”

  “Did I not promise?” Fionn replied.

  “And yet,” his master continued, “I went away so that you might eat the fish if you felt you had to.”

  “Why should I want another man’s fish?” said proud Fionn.

  “Because young people have strong desires. I thought you might have tasted it, and then you would have eaten it on me.”

  “I did taste it by chance,” Fionn laughed, “for while the fish was roasting a great blister rose on its skin. I did not like the look of that blister, and I pressed it down with my thumb. That burned my thumb, so I popped it in my mouth to heal the smart. If your salmon tastes as nice as my thumb did,” he laughed, “it will taste very nice.”

  “What did you say your name was, dear heart?” the poet asked.

  “I said my name was Deimne.”

  “Your name is not Deimne,” said the mild man, “your name is Fionn.”

  “That is true,” the boy answered, “but I do not know how you know it.”

  “Even if I have not eaten the Salmon of Knowledge I have some small science of my own.”

  “It is very clever to know things as you know them,” Fionn replied wonderingly. “What more do you know of me, dear master?”

  “I know that I did not tell you the truth,” said the heavy-hearted man.

  “What did you tell me instead of it?”

  “I told you a lie.”

  “It is not a good thing to do,” Fionn admitted. “What sort of a lie was the lie, master?”

  “I told you that the Salmon of Knowledge was to be caught by me, according to the prophecy.”

  “Yes.”

  “That was true indeed, and I have caught the fish. But I did not tell you that the salmon was not to be eaten by me, although that also was in the prophecy, and that omission was the lie.”

  “It is not a great lie,” said Fionn soothingly.

  “It must not become a greater one,” the poet replied sternly.

  “Who was the fish given to?” his companion wondered.

  “It was given to you,” Finegas answered. “It was given to Fionn, the son of Uail, the son of Baiscne, and it will be given to him.”

  “You shall have a half of the fish,” cried Fionn.

  “I will not eat a piece of its skin that is as small as the point of its smallest bone,” said the resolute and trembling bard. “Let you now eat up the fish, and I shall watch you and give praise to the gods of the Underworld and of the Elements.’’

  Fionn then ate the Salmon of Knowledge, and when it had disappeared a great jollity and tranquillity and exuberance returned to the poet.

  “Ah,” said he, “I had a great combat with that fish.”

  “Did it fight for its life?” Fionn inquired.

  “It did, but that was not the fight I meant.”

  “You shall eat a Salmon of Knowledge too,” Fionn assure
d him.

  “You have eaten one,” cried the blithe poet, “and if you make such a promise it will be because you know.”

  “I promise it and know it,” said Fionn, “you shall eat a Salmon of Knowledge yet.”

  Chapter 11

  He had received all that he could get from Finegas. His education was finished and the time had come to test it, and to try all else that he had of mind and body. He bade farewell to the gentle poet, and set out for Tara of the Kings.

  It was Samhain-tide, and the feast of Tara was being held, at which all that was wise or skilful or well-born in Ireland were gathered together.

  This is how Tara was when Tara was. There was the High King’s palace with its fortification; without it was another fortification enclosing the four minor palaces, each of which was maintained by one of the four provincial kings; without that again was the great banqueting hall, and around it and enclosing all of the sacred hill in its gigantic bound ran the main outer ramparts of Tara. From it, the centre of Ireland, four great roads went, north, south, east, and west, and along these roads, from the top and the bottom and the two sides of Ireland, there moved for weeks before Samhain an endless stream of passengers.

  Here a gay band went carrying rich treasure to decorate the pavilion of a Munster lord. On another road a vat of seasoned yew, monstrous as a house on wheels and drawn by an hundred laborious oxen, came bumping and joggling the ale that thirsty Connaught princes would drink. On a road again the learned men of Leinster, each with an idea in his head that would discomfit a northern ollav and make a southern one gape and fidget, would be marching solemnly, each by a horse that was piled high on the back and widely at the sides with clean-peeled willow or oaken wands, that were carved from the top to the bottom with the ogham signs; the first lines of poems (for it was an offence against wisdom to commit more than initial lines to writing), the names and dates of kings, the procession of laws of Tara and of the sub-kingdoms, the names of places and their meanings. On the brown stallion ambling peacefully yonder there might go the warring of the gods for two or ten thousand years; this mare with the dainty pace and the vicious eye might be sidling under a load of oaken odes in honour of her owner’s family, with a few bundles of tales of wonder added in case they might be useful; and perhaps the restive piebald was backing the history of Ireland into a ditch.

  On such a journey all people spoke together, for all were friends, and no person regarded the weapon in another man’s hand other than as an implement to poke a reluctant cow with, or to pacify with loud wallops some hoof-proud colt.

  Into this teem and profusion of jolly humanity Fionn slipped, and if his mood had been as bellicose as a wounded boar he would yet have found no man to quarrel with, and if his eye had been as sharp as a jealous husband’s he would have found no eye to meet it with calculation or menace or fear; for the Peace of Ireland was in being, and for six weeks man was neighbour to man, and the nation was the guest of the High King.

  Fionn went in with the notables.

  His arrival had been timed for the opening day and the great feast of welcome. He may have marvelled, looking on the bright city, with its pillars of gleaming bronze and the roofs that were painted in many colours, so that each house seemed to be covered by the spreading wings of some gigantic and gorgeous bird. And the palaces themselves, mellow with red oak, polished within and without by the wear and the care of a thousand years, and carved with the patient skill of unending generations of the most famous artists of the most artistic country of the western world, would have given him much to marvel at also. It must have seemed like a city of dream, a city to catch the heart, when, coming over the great plain, Fionn saw Tara of the Kings held on its hill as in a hand to gather all the gold of the falling sun, and to restore a brightness as mellow and tender as that universal largess.

  In the great banqueting hall everything was in order for the feast. The nobles of Ireland with their winsome consorts, the learned and artistic professions represented by the pick of their time were in place. The Ard-Rí, Conn of the Hundred Battles, had taken his place on the raised dais which commanded the whole of that vast hall. At his right hand his son Art, to be afterwards as famous as his famous father, took his seat, and on his left Goll mor mac Morna, chief of the Fianna of Ireland, had the seat of honour. As the High King took his place he could see every person who was noted in the land for any reason. He would know every one who was present, for the fame of all men is sealed at Tara, and behind his chair a herald stood to tell anything the king might not know or had forgotten.

  Conn gave the signal and his guests seated themselves.

  The time had come for the squires to take their stations behind their masters and mistresses. But, for the moment, the great room was seated, and the doors were held to allow a moment of respect to pass before the servers and squires came in.

  Looking over his guests, Conn observed that a young man was yet standing.

  “There is a gentleman,” he murmured, “for whom no seat has been found.”

  We may be sure that the Master of the Banquet blushed at that.

  “And,” the king continued, “I do not seem to know the young man.”

  Nor did his herald, nor did the unfortunate Master, nor did anybody; for the eyes of all were now turned where the king’s went.

  “Give me my horn,” said the gracious monarch.

  The horn of state was put to his hand.

  “Young gentleman,” he called to the stranger, “I wish to drink to your health and to welcome you to Tara.”

  The young man came forward then, greater-shouldered than any mighty man of that gathering, longer and cleaner limbed, with his fair curls dancing about his beardless face. The king put the great horn into his hand.

  “Tell me your name,” he commanded gently.

  “I am Fionn, the son of Uail, the son of Baiscne,” said the youth.

  And at that saying a touch as of lightning went through the gathering so that each person quivered, and the son of the great, murdered captain looked by the king’s shoulder into the twinkling eye of Goll. But no word was uttered, no movement made except the movement and the utterance of the Ard-Rí.

  “You are the son of a friend,” said the great-hearted monarch. “You shall have the seat of a friend.”

  He placed Fionn at the right hand of his own son Art.

  Chapter 12

  It is to be known that on the night of the Feast of Samhain the doors separating this world and the next one are opened, and the inhabitants of either world can leave their respective spheres and appear in the world of the other beings.

  Now there was a grandson to the Dagda Mor, the Lord of the Underworld, and he was named Aillen mac Midna, out of Shí Finnachy, and this Aillen bore an implacable enmity to Tara and the Ard-Rí.

  As well as being monarch of Ireland her High King was chief of the people learned in magic, and it is possible that at some time Conn had adventured into Tir na n-Og, the Land of the Young, and had done some deed or misdeed in Aillen’s lordship or in his family. It must have been an ill deed in truth, for it was in a very rage of revenge that Aillen came yearly at the permitted time to ravage Tara.

  Nine times he had come on this mission of revenge, but it is not to be supposed that he could actually destroy the holy city: the Ard-Rí and magicians could prevent that, but he could yet do a damage so considerable that it was worth Conn’s while to take special extra precautions against him, including the precaution of chance.

  Therefore, when the feast was over and the banquet had commenced, the Hundred Fighter stood from his throne and looked over his assembled people.

  The Chain of Silence was shaken by the attendant whose duty and honour was the Silver Chain, and at that delicate chime the hall went silent, and a general wonder ensued as to what matter the High King would submit to his people.

  “Friends and heroes,” said Conn, “Aillen, the son of Midna, will come to-night from Slieve Fuaid with occult, terrible fire agai
nst our city. Is there among you one who loves Tara and the king, and who will undertake our defence against that being?”

  He spoke in silence, and when he had finished he listened to the same silence, but it was now deep, ominous, agonized. Each man glanced uneasily on his neighbour and then stared at his wine-cup or his fingers. The hearts of young men went hot for a gallant moment and were chilled in the succeeding one, for they had all heard of Aillen out of Shí Finnachy in the north. The lesser gentlemen looked under their brows at the greater champions, and these peered furtively at the greatest of all. Art og mac Morna of the Hard Strokes fell to biting his fingers, Conán the Swearer and Garra mac Morna grumbled irritably to each other and at their neighbours, even Caelte, the son of Ronán, looked down into his own lap, and Goll Mor sipped at his wine without any twinkle in his eye. A horrid embarrassment came into the great hall, and as the High King stood in that palpitating silence his noble face changed from kindly to grave and from that to a terrible sternness. In another moment, to the undying shame of every person present, he would have been compelled to lift his own challenge and declare himself the champion of Tara for that night, but the shame that was on the faces of his people would remain in the heart of their king. Goll’s merry mind would help him to forget, but even his heart would be wrung by a memory that he would not dare to face. It was at that terrible moment that Fionn stood up.

  “What,” said he, “will be given to the man who undertakes this defence?”