The Hounds of the Morrigan

by Pat O'Shea

  It made no sense at all. They were trapped. All three knew it, for there was no place at all where they could hide. Even if they had the strength necessary to lift the bell and get in under it, they would be found in the end, for it was the only place to search.

  They looked around at the forbidding stone bowl that they couldn’t possibly climb out of and they were convinced that they were in a prison and that it was The Mórrígan’s doing. Pidge, listening, thought he could hear the horses still running somewhere in the mist and he knew that it was only a matter of time, now.

  We may be killed here, he thought and his mind felt numb.

  So at last, they were trapped.

  Cooroo dropped to the floor, beaten. His rib cage rose and fell, his tongue lolled and he lay stretched out on the ground, looking up at them with bloodshot eyes full of pain.

  Brigit looked around her at the still forbidding stone and she seemed to crumple. As Pidge looked at her he understood that almost all of her courageous spirit had gone. There were no words left to say that could have any meaning; and all he could do was keep an arm around her in a useless gesture of protection. In his other hand he still gripped the squirming pebble. He could hear the horses still galloping somewhere in the mist and he knew that, sooner or later, the fearsome she-warriors would discover them. One last obstinate spark glowed to life within him. Let them take it from me! he thought distractedly. Let them take it from my dead hand, as I had to take it from the Glomach’s hand.

  Shuddering uncontrollably, he thought of the dogs whose teeth were made to tear and of the terrible she-warriors with their swords and spears.

  The tears of regret and fear and just sorrow fell from his eyes, and he thought how pointless everything had been.

  ‘Do not be afraid,’ said a voice. ‘The Dagda is my father.’

  ‘What?’ Pidge said, looking round him blindly, thinking that he had imagined it.

  ‘You have almost defeated her, do not be afraid. Take the serpent.’

  It was the eel! The Great Eel from the water spout. His head had appeared through the centre circle of the grid. In a moment the iron case was there in his jaws and Pidge made a snatch at it. He struggled to keep hold of the pebble with one hand, while Brigit helped in a fumbling way to get the iron case open. He snatched out the page with Olc-Glas and allowed the case to drop to the ground. The page began to struggle to get away from him. It fluttered wildly in his hand.

  Without thinking at all of what he was doing, Pidge opened the hand that held the pebble and his tears fell onto it. Suddenly there was a most foul stench and on the stone’s surface, the red stain softened. In his other hand, the page struggled even harder to escape, and Pidge brought his hands close together one above the other. He seemed to be obeying an unspoken order.

  The softened blood on the stone went thick and slimy. It moved slowly and gathered into an expanding, gluey clot. Pidge tilted the pebble and the glob of blood slid to the edge and hung as a drop. The sticky slop fell—first lengthening like elastic—and it landed right onto the drawing of Olc-Glas on the page, covering his head completely.

  Just before the blood landed, the page screamed. The smell then was frightful and it made the children feel faint. For two or three moments nothing more happened and then a tremendous heat filled the quarry as the energy of the evil snake was dissipated. In those few moments The Mórrígan would have swallowed the snake and taken this energy into her being, if things had gone her way.

  The whole sheet of paper had gone to nothing but stink; there were no remains. Not a fragment was left.

  But all was not finished yet.

  For when Olc-Glas screamed, there was the loud drumming of hooves up above them, as the she-warriors reached the rim of the quarry. Huge iron spears rained down on them from all sides, piercing the swirling mist that was a layer overhead. Through all that was happening, Pidge found himself noticing that, oddly, the spears were painted green.

  The she-warriors could now be seen through small shiverings and partings in the mist.

  The screaming of the snake had also brought The Mórrígan.

  She alighted at the edge of the quarry in her hag form and looked down. In a glance she saw that she was beaten, and she knew that the snake Olc-Glas and the pebble’s blood-drop, were lost to her forever. A strident sound, raucous and harsh, yet dismal, came from her throat and she changed and towered as a monstrously huge, three-headed bird, that was as black as pitch but with red eyes burning. She was Scald Crow.

  The noise of her voice coming from three widely-gaping beaks, filled the quarry with sickening echoes and froze the children to the marrow. They huddled down together, as near to the ground as they could get, fearful and terrified of what she would do.

  But part of her terrible screeching cry was because she knew that she could do nothing, take no revenge. For if she lifted her hand against them a second time, The Dagda’s reply would surely be swift and she might be overwhelmed.

  The three baleful heads, branching from the one neck of the odious bird-body, glared down at the children for a few moments more, and then the filthy creature, coal-black but with few real feathers, flapped its great wings.

  Still crying as though partly in reproach, she circled the quarry once, before rising through the mist and taking to the sky, her she-warriors rising with her on their horses. There, high up, she dissolved into a mass of billowing black atoms that was an uneven sprawl of cloud—the Queen of Phantoms.

  Her lament at losing tore through the sky, before she rose, dark and shapeless, even higher into the air and travelled away, her she-warriors riding in a wide arc around her. And the still faithful hounds were there, mutely following their Queen and her warriors. Slowly and silently they all moved away from the world, the unbound hair of the she-warriors floating and waving and streaming out behind them, as they rose and fell massively in their saddles, responding to the movements of the horses beneath them, without the whisper of a sound.

  There was a long hush during which the mist rippled softly and then it cleared and was gone; and a suffusion of peace hung over the stone bowl.

  Radairc swooped down to them.

  ‘She’s gone,’ he said. ‘You’ve won for The Dagda and everyone.’

  Everything happened rapidly then.

  The quarry seemed to be shrinking. It closed in as it shrank and, in the end, the children and Cooroo had only just time to leap out of it, before it became impossible not to topple over in the little space that was left. They looked about them with great amazement.

  They were standing in Eyre Square.

  The quarry had become the stone bowl of the drinking fountain and the large brass bell was really only a copper drinking-cup and the grid at the bottom was only to let waste water run away. The green-painted spears of the she-warriors had been the iron railings, for the railings were gone. So that’s what happened to them, Pidge thought dreamily.

  All the evil had gone.

  It was even possible to feel the lack of it everywhere.

  The first thing Pidge did was to fill the drinking-cup and offer water to Cooroo, and the fox lapped it gratefully. After he had drunk enough with Pidge refilling the cup as needed, Cooroo went on his hind legs and licked Pidge’s face and then he went to Brigit and licked her face too. When he padded off silently in the shadows, they realized he had been saying goodbye. As he went, he made himself small and kept in the shadows. Some people would say he was slinking; but all that he was, really, was a small animal being wise in the care of its life.

  The square was utterly empty and the shadows lay deep blue like spilled ink.

  The children looked all about them and up at the sky.

  The sun had gone behind a vast puffed-up smokey cloud. The edges of the sun cloud were lit up by it and seemed like beautiful silver tissue; and that was ordinary and wonderful. Rain began to fall softly and the sun came from behind the cloud; and the light touched the rain so that it fell in glittering drops. Radairc circled t
hrough it, and he came to them and said:

  ‘It is really all over.’

  A rainbow appeared then and Brigit reached for Pidge’s hand, for the rainbow had brought music with it; and that was not ordinary, but marvellous indeed. Each colour had its own pure and beautiful sound—music beyond imagination or dream. They seemed to be listening with every pore, every strand of their hair, with their finger-tips and the skin at the backs of their necks. As they stood exalted, the half circle of the rainbow straightened out slowly, slowly, and reached down to them. It enveloped them in its radiance and they could feel the colours tingling and dancing on their arms and faces. Tiny beads of violet and green were clinging to the small fair hairs on Brigit’s bare arms and on Pidge’s face too; and they sparkled like minute lights on a Christmas tree. The clear unearthly music was a mist and a storm and a tranquillity of sound at their feet. Radairc was a blissful ball of feathers. Then the colours began to flow like a river of magic and the children found that they were moving with it. They wanted to talk; but they didn’t know what to say. At last Brigit said:

  ‘Pidge, we are riding a rainbow.’

  And Pidge found that all he could say was:

  ‘ Yes.’

  For this was The Dagda loving them and thanking them and it gave the children the greatest-ever joy.

  Gently the rainbow flowed through the sky, until in the end it carried them through the grey stone doorway at Shancreg. For a few seconds more the rainbow and the music swirled round them and then they were gone.

  Pidge looked up at the sky and noticed without surprise that the plane was still there, still making its vapour-trail; the trails it had made earlier were only now drifting in wisps. He glanced at the ground and saw an apple-core, still fresh but browned a bit, lying at his feet, and he knew that they had only been gone for an hour or so.

  They both looked back through the doorway and saw a soap bubble coming towards them. It was the last bubble that had been on Hannah’s hands—the one that had floated away when all of the others had burst.

  The soap bubble came and hovered above them. It grew bigger and expanded until it was like a transparent dome, and it came down over them and enveloped them. It was as if they stood inside a glass ball like the scrying-glass.

  Their friends now came to say goodbye—they saw them all again.

  First Cathbad was suddenly there, tall and proud in his white robes. He smiled broadly. As they looked at his face, it changed and it was fleetingly the face of the old scholar that Pidge had met on the first day in the bookshop. And then it was Cathbad’s face again.

  Hannah and Corny came laughing and dancing. As they came, their outlines trembled slightly and they dissolved to become their old friends, Boodie and Patsy, for a short space only; and then they were transformed into figures of great beauty and light. The children saw them as they truly were. Brigit, Goddess of the Hearth had brought her humble dandelions; and Angus Óg, the God of Love, had not only his daisies but a ring of white birds that flew in a circle round his head.

  The Seven Maines came and each one cupped the children’s faces in their hands for a moment, before leaving a light kiss on the crowns of their heads. And the Poor Woman with the ducks and geese was there, and they changed as they had changed before, so that Queen Maeve and Ailill and all her men now stood before Pidge and Brigit. They honoured the boy and girl and showed respect by laying their swords, shields and spears on the ground at their feet.

  Then the Old Angler came running as a speck in the distance; and standing before them, once again, was Cúchulain, the warrior and hero. He bent down, and with an arm around each of them, he set them onto his shield and he lifted them up in the air high above his head and they could see Daire and Finn and all of their people. And as Cúchulain held them aloft, there were three great bellowings of praise. They were being saluted as heroes. It was all tremendously powerful and it quickened Pidge and Brigit so that they were shouting with excitement too.

  Cúchulain at length put them down and Angus Óg came to them and they looked into his eyes. These lovely eyes had the blue of a bluebell wood trapped in them and his gaze held them while everything darkened about them. And with a wonderful, tender love he gently made them forget, until very suddenly the bubble was no longer there and everyone was gone.

  The children stood wondering why they were in the field with the tumbled stones and why they felt so happy. Brigit’s schoolbag was lying on the ground. She was surprised by this and by the fact that the strap was broken. When she opened it, she was not at all surprised to see that it was empty.

  They set off for home, but their eyes were bright and dancing and they were full of joy.

  When they got home, there was great excitement in the house.

  Sally was back and she was jumping all over them and licking them.

  ‘We think she was in the horse-box and slipped out before we noticed,’ Michael, their father, explained.

  But Auntie Bina was even more excited about some travelling-people that had called to ask for a little food. She had invited them in for a cup of tea; and the woman had sung songs and played a banjo first and then a concertina; and the old man had danced while holding out the tips of his coat-skirts. The old woman had told Auntie Bina’s fortune and had left presents for Pidge and Brigit, for she had seen that they existed when she read Auntie Bina’s hand.

  ‘It was the greatest fun; what a pity you missed it,’ Auntie Bina said.

  For Pidge they had left a glass snowball with an alpine scene inside it; and for Brigit there was a penny whistle and a whole set of china. There were six egg cups in the set; the china was decorated with dandelions and daisies and Brigit loved it at once.

  Sometimes Pidge would see a frown of concentration on Brigit’s face as she tried hard to remember something that she couldn’t name, and he would frown and try to remember with her. Other times, he would feel something in his mind, a picture that wouldn’t quite form, and he would try to grasp after it, finding as he gave up, that Brigit would be staring at him at such times, with a great frown of effort on her face too.

  And there were times when Pidge shook the glass and, as the snow was falling and beginning to clear, he fancied that he saw strange yet familiar things through the snow, but only briefly, and never long enough to be certain of anything. It was intriguing and mysterious, and he was always excited when it happened and called Brigit to look.

  And from time to time they would both meet a dog-fox; the same one every time, they were sure. He would stand and let them come quite close before walking away. They knew that he was not afraid of them at all. Every now and then he would stand still for a long time, and they would all three look at each other with puzzlement and affection and feelings of knowing that could not be explained by the children. If ever they went on a picnic, he would appear. They would throw food near him which he accepted and ate with perfect ease. On winter days, they particularly went for his sake and he was always waiting for them. In time, to their delight, they found that he trusted them enough to eat the food from their hands and even let Brigit stroke him. One day they found out by accident that he relished sausages above everything; and Pidge never forgot to buy some especially for him, whenever he was in Galway.

  They often heard him bark in the night.

  There were times as well, when they were aware of faint, mystifying and joyous echoes that made them stop in the middle of doing something to gaze at each other.

  And whenever Old Mossie Flynn spoke of his former lodgers, the children were always deeply interested in what he said, and would sit silently and stare at him with widened eyes.

  And on windy days there was a kite. It was splendid and always flew beautifully. There was a picture of an old ship painted on it and it had long ribbons of violet satin flowing out from it and these always danced in the breeze and sometimes glittered as though with silver. Pidge had made the kite himself. He had found the design and instructions in a book that he had happened on in th
e library in Galway. Auntie Bina gave the ribbons. She had found them at the bottom of an old trunk, and said at the time, that she didn’t even know that she had them. Brigit always said that the kite was hers and that Pidge had made it especially for her. Somehow he never minded, when she said this.

  Many times later he tried to find the book again but he never could, even with the librarian’s interested help. It wasn’t in any catalogue and all trace of it had vanished.

  Last of all were the rainbows.

  From that time out, they always saw lots of rainbows; and occasionally when they were with other people, there would be one. If it were particularly magnificent, they would cry out:

  ‘Look! There’s a rainbow!’—and the other people would say:

  ‘Where? Where?’

  And the children would be surprised.

  Epilogue

  WHEN the Sergeant fell he had dropped onto the entangled nests of waterbirds. Over the years the flat nests had come away from their moorings in the reeds at both sides of the lake during storms, and drifted to land at this spot, carried by a current that was changeless. They were massed in a great bed at the Sergeant’s feet, like a raft. He had landed on his back, legs in the air, still clutching onto his bike by the handle-bars. The wheels continued to spin gently as he slowly floated across the lake.

  Now when the Sergeant came to, he was on his bicycle and riding in circles round the stones in Shancreg. From the deep grooves his wheels had made in the ground, he concluded that he had been foolishly cycling in this way for some time. He pulled himself together, dismounted and wheeled his bike across the field and he lifted it over the wall and went out onto the road.

  He was thoughtful as he cycled back to the Garda barracks in Galway.

  The young Garda was surprised to see him and remarked that he hadn’t been gone long. The Sergeant reached over to pat the young man on the shoulder and he was cut to the heart when the young Garda flinched and drew back. He was stricken with remorse for the harshness he had shown in the past, and from that day out he became the nicest Sergeant that the world has ever known. Hardened criminals used to break down and cry in the streets when he passed; and in later years, people were known to say that when God made that particular Sergeant, he broke the mould.