Irish Fairy Tales

by Stephens, James

  The King of Leinster came back then. He went to Duv Laca’s room.

  “Where is Tibraidè?” said he.

  “It wasn’t Tibraidè was here,” said the hag who was still sitting on the spike, and was not half dead, “it was Mongan.”

  “Why did you let him near you?” said the king to Duv Laca.

  “There is no one has a better right to be near me than Mongan has,” said Duv Laca, “he is my own husband,” said she.

  And then the king cried out in dismay:

  “I have beaten Tibraidè’s people.” He rushed from the room.

  “Send for Tibraidè till I apologise,” he cried. “Tell him it was all a mistake. Tell him it was Mongan.”

  Chapter 18

  Mongan and his servant went home, and (for what pleasure is greater than that of memory exercised in conversation?) for a time the feeling of an adventure well accomplished kept him in some contentment. But at the end of a time that pleasure was worn out, and Mongan grew at first dispirited and then sullen, and after that as ill as he had been on the previous occasion. For he could not forget Duv Laca of the White Hand, and he could not remember her without longing and despair.

  It was in the illness which comes from longing and despair that he sat one day looking on a world that was black although the sun shone, and that was lean and unwholesome although autumn fruits were heavy on the earth and the joys of harvest were about him.

  “Winter is in my heart,” quoth he, “and I am cold already.”

  He thought too that some day he would die, and the thought was not unpleasant, for one half of his life was away in the territories of the King of Leinster, and the half that he kept in himself had no spice in it.

  He was thinking in this way when mac an Dáv came towards him over the lawn, and he noticed that mac an Dáv was walking like an old man.

  He took little slow steps, and he did not loosen his knees when he walked, so he went stiffly. One of his feet turned pitifully outwards, and the other turned lamentably in. His chest was pulled inwards, and his head was stuck outwards and hung down in the place where his chest should have been, and his arms were crooked in front of him with the hands turned wrongly, so that one palm was shown to the east of the world and the other one was turned to the west.

  “How goes it, mac an Dáv?” said the king.

  “Bad,” said mac an Dáv.

  “Is that the sun I see shining, my friend?” the king asked.

  “It may be the sun,” replied mac an Dáv, peering curiously at the golden radiance that dozed about them, “but maybe it’s a yellow fog.”

  “What is life at all?” said the king.

  “It is a weariness and a tiredness,” said mac an Dáv. “It is a long yawn without sleepiness. It is a bee, lost at midnight and buzzing on a pane. It is the noise made by a tied-up dog. It is nothing worth dreaming about. It is nothing at all.”

  “How well you explain my feelings about Duv Laca,” said the king.

  “I was thinking about my own lamb,” said mac an Dáv. “I was thinking about my own treasure, my cup of cheeriness, and the pulse of my heart.” And with that he burst into tears.

  “Alas!” said the king.

  “But,” sobbed mac an Dáv, “what right have I to complain? I am only the servant, and although I didn’t make any bargain with the King of Leinster or with any king of them all, yet my wife is gone away as if she was the consort of a potentate the same as Duv Laca is.”

  Mongan was sorry then for his servant, and he roused himself.

  “I am going to send you to Duv Laca.”

  “Where the one is the other will be,” cried mac an Dáv joyously.

  “Go,” said Mongan, “to Rath Descirt of Bregia; you know that place?”

  “As well as my tongue knows my teeth.”

  “Duv Laca is there; see her, and ask her what she wants me to do.”

  Mac an Dáv went there and returned.

  “Duv Laca says that you are to come at once, for the King of Leinster is journeying around his territory, and Kevin Cochlach, the charioteer, is making bitter love to her and wants her to run away with him.”

  Mongan set out, and in no great time, for they travelled day and night, they came to Bregia, and gained admittance to the fortress, but just as he got in he had to go out again, for the King of Leinster had been warned of Mongan’s journey, and came back to his fortress in the nick of time.

  When the men of Ulster saw the condition into which Mongan fell they were in great distress, and they all got sick through compassion for their king. The nobles suggested to him that they should march against Leinster and kill that king and bring back Duv Laca, but Mongan would not consent to this plan.

  “For,” said he, “the thing I lost through my own folly I shall get back through my own craft.”

  And when he said that his spirits revived, and he called for mac an Dáv.

  “You know, my friend,” said Mongan, “that I can’t get Duv Laca back unless the King of Leinster asks me to take her back, for a bargain is a bargain.”

  “That will happen when pigs fly,” said mac an Dáv, “and,” said he, “I did not make any bargain with any king that is in the world.”

  “I heard you say that before,” said Mongan.

  “I will say it till Doom,” cried his servant, “for my wife has gone away with that pestilent king, and he has got the double of your bad bargain.”

  Mongan and his servant then set out for Leinster.

  When they neared that country they found a great crowd going on the road with them, and they learned that the king was giving a feast in honour of his marriage to Duv Laca, for the year of waiting was nearly out, and the king had sworn he would delay no longer.

  They went on, therefore, but in low spirits, and at last they saw the walls of the king’s castle towering before them. and a noble company going to and fro on the lawn.

  Chapter 19

  They sat in a place where they could watch the castle and compose themselves after their journey.

  “How are we going to get into the castle?” asked mac an Dáv.

  For there were hatchetmen on guard in the big gateway, and there were spearmen at short intervals around the walls, and men to throw hot porridge off the roof were standing in the right places.

  “If we cannot get in by hook, we will get in by crook,” said Mongan.

  “They are both good ways,” said mac an Dáv, “and whichever of them you decide on I’ll stick by.”

  Just then they saw the Hag of the Mill coming out of the mill which was down the road a little.

  Now the Hag of the Mill was a bony, thin pole of a hag with odd feet. That is, she had one foot that was too big for her, so that when she lifted it up it pulled her over; and she had one foot that was too small for her, so that when she lifted it up she didn’t know what to do with it. She was so long that you thought you would never see the end of her, and she was so thin that you thought you didn’t see her at all. One of her eyes was set where her nose should be and there was an ear in its place, and her nose itself was hanging out of her chin, and she had whiskers round it. She was dressed in a red rag that was really a hole with a fringe on it, and she was singing “Oh, hush thee, my one love” to a cat that was yelping on her shoulder.

  The Hag of the Mill was a bony, thin pole of a hag with odd feet

  She had a tall skinny dog behind her called Brotar. It hadn’t a tooth in its head except one, and it had the toothache in that tooth. Every few steps it used to sit down on its hunkers and point its nose straight upwards, and make a long, sad complaint about its tooth; and after that it used to reach its hind leg round and try to scratch out its tooth; and then it used to be pulled on again by the straw rope that was round its neck, and which was tied at the other end to the hag’s heaviest foot.

  There was an old, knock-kneed, raw-boned, one-eyed, little-winded, heavy-headed mare with her also. Every time it put a front leg forward it shivered all over the rest of its legs
backwards, and when it put a hind leg forward it shivered all over the rest of its legs frontwards, and it used to give a great whistle through its nose when it was out of breath, and a big, thin hen was sitting on its croup.

  Mongan looked on the Hag of the Mill with delight and affection.

  “This time,” said he to mac an Dáv, “I’ll get back my wife.”

  “You will indeed,” said mac an Dáv heartily, “and you’ll get mine back too.”

  “Go over yonder,” said Mongan, “and tell the Hag of the Mill that I want to talk to her.”

  Mac an Dáv brought her over to him.

  “Is it true what the servant man said?” she asked.

  “What did he say?” said Mongan.

  “He said you wanted to talk to me.”

  “It is true,” said Mongan.

  “This is a wonderful hour and a glorious minute,” said the hag, “for this is the first time in sixty years that any one wanted to talk to me. Talk on now,” said she, “and I’ll listen to you if I can remember how to do it. Talk gently,” said she, “the way you won’t disturb the animals, for they are all sick.”

  “They are sick indeed,” said mac an Dáv pityingly.

  “The cat has a sore tail,” said she, “by reason of sitting too close to a part of the hob that was hot. The dog has a toothache, the horse has a pain in her stomach, and the hen has the pip.”

  “Ah, it’s a sad world,” said mac an Dáv.

  “There you are!” said the hag.

  “Tell me,” Mongan commenced, “if you got a wish, what it is you would wish for?”

  The hag took the cat off her shoulder and gave it to mac an Dáv.

  “Hold that for me while I think,” said she.

  “Would you like to be a lovely young girl?” asked Mongan.

  “I’d sooner be that than a skinned eel,” said she.

  “And would you like to marry me or the King of Leinster?”

  “I’d like to marry either of you, or both of you, or whichever of you came first.”

  “Very well,” said Mongan, “you shall have your wish.”

  He touched her with his finger, and the instant he touched her all dilapidation and wryness and age went from her, and she became so beautiful that one dared scarcely look on her, and so young that she seemed but sixteen years of age.

  “You are not the Hag of the Mill any longer,” said Mongan, “you are Ivell of the Shining Cheeks, daughter of the King of Munster.”

  He touched the dog too, and it became a little silky lapdog that could nestle in your palm. Then he changed the old mare into a brisk, piebald palfrey. Then he changed himself so that he became the living image of Ae, the son of the King of Connaught, who had just been married to Ivell of the Shining Cheeks, and then he changed mac an Da’v into the likeness of Ae’s attendant, and then they all set off towards the fortress, singing the song that begins:

  My wife is nicer than any one’s wife,

  Any one’s wife, any one’s wife,

  My wife is nicer than any one’s wife,

  Which nobody can deny.

  Chapter 20

  The doorkeeper brought word to the King of Leinster that the son of the King of Connaught, Ae the Beautiful, and his wife, Ivell of the Shining Cheeks, were at the door, that they had been banished from Connaught by Ae’s father, and they were seeking the protection of the King of Leinster.

  Branduv came to the door himself to welcome them, and the minute he looked on Ivell of the Shining Cheeks it was plain that he liked looking at her.

  It was now drawing towards evening, and a feast was prepared for the guests with a banquet to follow it. At the feast Duv Laca sat beside the King of Leinster, but Mongan sat opposite him with Ivell, and Mongan put more and more magic into the hag, so that her cheeks shone and her eyes gleamed, and she was utterly bewitching to the eye; and when Branduv looked at her she seemed to grow more and more lovely and more and more desirable, and at last there was not a bone in his body as big as an inch that was not filled with love and longing for the girl.

  Every few minutes he gave a great sigh as if he had eaten too much, and when Duv Laca asked him if he had eaten too much he said he had but that he had not drunk enough, and by that he meant that he had not drunk enough from the eyes of the girl before him.

  At the banquet which was then held he looked at her again, and every time he took a drink he toasted Ivell across the brim of his goblet, and in a little while she began to toast him back across the rim of her cup, for he was drinking ale, but she was drinking mead. Then he sent a messenger to her to say that it was a far better thing to be the wife of the King of Leinster than to be the wife of the son of the King of Connaught, for a king is better than a prince, and Ivell thought that this was as wise a thing as anybody had ever said. And then he sent a message to say that he loved her so much that he would certainly burst of love if it did not stop.

  Mongan heard the whispering, and he told the hag that if she did what he advised she would certainly get either himself or the King of Leinster for a husband.

  “Either of you will be welcome,” said the hag.

  “When the king says he loves you, ask him to prove it by gifts; ask for his drinking-horn first.”

  She asked for that, and he sent it to her filled with good liquor; then she asked for his girdle, and he sent her that.

  His people argued with him and said it was not right that he should give away the treasures of Leinster to the wife of the King of Connaught’s son; but he said that it did not matter, for when he got the girl he would get his treasures with her. But every time he sent anything to the hag, mac an Dáv snatched it out of her lap and put it in his pocket.

  “Now,” said Mongan to the hag, “tell the servant to say that you would not leave your own husband for all the wealth of the world.”

  She told the servant that, and the servant told it to the king. When Branduv heard it he nearly went mad with love and longing and jealousy, and with rage also, because of the treasure he had given her and might not get back. He called Mongan over to him, and spoke to him very threateningly and ragingly.

  “I am not one who takes a thing without giving a thing,” said he.

  “Nobody could say you were,” agreed Mongan.

  “Do you see this woman sitting beside me?” he continued, pointing to Duv Laca.

  “I do indeed,” said Mongan.

  “Well,” said Branduv, “this woman is Duv Laca of the White Hand that I took away from Mongan; she is just going to marry me, but if you will make an exchange, you can marry this Duv Laca here, and I will marry that Ivell of the Shining Cheeks yonder.”

  Mongan pretended to be very angry then.

  “If I had come here with horses and treasure you would be in your right to take these from me, but you have no right to ask for what you are now asking.”

  “I do ask for it,” said Branduv menacingly, “and you must not refuse a lord.”

  “Very well,” said Mongan reluctantly, and as if in great fear; “if you will make the exchange I will make it, although it breaks my heart.”

  He brought Ivell over to the king then and gave her three kisses.

  “The king would suspect something if I did not kiss you,” said he, and then he gave the hag over to the king.

  After that they all got drunk and merry, and soon there was a great snoring and snorting, and very soon all the servants fell asleep also, so that Mongan could not get anything to drink. Mac an Dáv said it was a great shame, and he kicked some of the servants, but they did not budge, and then he slipped out to the stables and saddled two mares. He got on one with his wife behind him and Mongan got on the other with Duv Laca behind him, and they rode away towards Ulster like the wind, singing this song:

  The King of Leinster was married to-day,

  Married to-day, married to-day,

  The King of Leinster was married to-day,

  And every one wishes him joy.

  In the morning the servants c
ame to waken the King of Leinster, and when they saw the face of the hag lying on the pillow beside the king, and her nose all covered with whiskers, and her big foot and little foot sticking away out at the end of the bed, they began to laugh, and poke one another in the stomachs and thump one another on the shoulders, so that the noise awakened the king, and he asked what was the matter with them at all. It was then he saw the hag lying beside him, and he gave a great screech and jumped out of the bed.

  “Aren’t you the Hag of the Mill?” said he.

  “I am indeed,” she replied, “and I love you dearly.”

  “I wish I didn’t see you,” said Branduv.

  That was the end of the story, and when he had told it Mongan began to laugh uproariously and called for more wine. He drank this deeply, as though he was full of thirst and despair and a wild jollity, but when the Flame Lady began to weep he took her in his arms and caressed her, and said that she was the love of his heart and the one treasure of the world.

  After that they feasted in great contentment, and at the end of the feasting they went away from Faery and returned to the world of men.

  They came to Mongan’s palace at Moy Linney, and it was not until they reached the palace that they found they had been away one whole year, for they had thought they were only away one night. They lived then peacefully and lovingly together, and that ends the story, but Brótiarna did not know that Mongan was Fionn.

  The abbot leaned forward.

  “Was Mongan Fionn?” he asked in a whisper.

  “He was,” replied Cairidè.

  “Indeed, indeed!” said the abbot.

  After a while he continued: “There is only one part of your story that I do not like.”

  “What part is that?” asked Cairidè.

  “It is the part where the holy man Tibraidè was ill treated by that rap— by that—by Mongan.”