by Tom O'Neill
Then there came a bigger voice from somewhere inside: ‘Bal, what are you at out there, you thundering stuachán? Will you escort that young man in like I asked you and don’t be annoying him.’
‘Ah, the bitter word for a little man only trying to do his job.’
The complaining voice was now pulling Dark by the arm and there was no longer any option of turning back for home.
He was pulled through a very thick clump of briars that would certainly not have been his own ideal choice of entry point. As they made their way in, the vice-like hand that was gripping him and the runty body attached to it became visible. He was being pulled by the smallest man he had ever seen. A man with a mop of red hair plastered over one of the ugliest heads on earth. Dark was so shocked by the sight of him that he truly wasn’t able to find words to respond to the continuing barrage of unrelated questions.
Inside was completely different to when Dark had seen it before. There was a blazing fire where there had been an old bed of pine needles during the daytime. There was great light and smoke from it, though he had neither seen nor smelt even the slightest hint of this from a few metres away, on the outside of the rath.
The ferocious man still wouldn’t let go of his arm till he was warned again by the voice from the fire. Then he let go suddenly and Dark fell over. The little red runt laughed and said, ‘Always shouting and roaring at the small man as if he got pleasure from his job.’ Then, extending the same hand, he said, ‘You are most excruciatingly welcome, by the way.’
Dark thanked him quietly without accepting the handshake.
‘Come on over here, a mhic,’ called the voice from the fire.
The Old Man was standing there. Dark’s fear evaporated. He went over to him. On the other side of the huge fire was another old man, sitting on a bench. He too was enormous and with a lion’s mane of hair, still black. He grinned widely at Dark when the Old Man said, ‘That blackguard over there is my oldest friend, Conán Mac Liath.’
Then the Old Man said, ‘Come and sit over here next to me. Will you have something to drink?’
Dark was suddenly more thirsty than he could describe. It must have been the fear and the flames.
‘Only soft drinks.’
‘Is this soft enough?’ said a voice from right next to Dark.
There was a girl, fully grown but hardly as high as his knee. She was holding a golden chalice but Dark hardly noticed it. She had jet-black hair, large greenish eyes, and a smile that made him feel overwhelmingly shy.
From high in the trees, Bal laughed down to the young woman, ‘A chroí, don’t think you are the first one to stun the lad with your looks. I nearly knocked him out myself.’
Dark was embarrassed. He took the cup and the woman stepped back amongst the trees where Dark now realised there might be many other little eyes watching his every move.
‘Drink up, Arthur,’ said the Old Man. ‘We are the guests of the sí here in this great rath and they are a people who pride themselves on their hospitality towards welcome guests.’
Dark wondered how he would know whether he was a welcome guest.
Seeing his hesitation, Bal shouted down, ‘And with unwelcome guests, the little goblet of poison would knock a horse on his back roaring, before he could sing a verse of “As I Roved Out”.’
‘Don’t mind him,’ said the Old Man.
Dark put the tiny cup to his mouth. Though no more than a teaspoon of liquid filled the cup, it seemed plenty and it tasted sweeter than a chocolate malt. He suddenly felt quite relaxed and sure of himself. He came and sat on a log next to the Old Man and put his hands out to be warmed by the fire, as though he had been doing it all his life. Though nobody seemed to be adding sticks to it, the fire stayed blazing and crackling heartily.
The Old Man was talking across the fire to Conán, recalling various people Dark had never heard of.
A woman with long, plaited, red hair and shiny robes appeared. She sat next to the Old Man, on the other side. Dark wasn’t introduced to her.
After some time, the Old Man turned to Dark and the mellow words started. ‘Have you any interest at all in passing the time with old men telling stories about times past?’
Dark nodded. He was so comfortable sitting there, he didn’t care what talk was in the air.
His heart contracted as he stared into the fire and felt himself start to float on the magical story voice. Right in the centre he could clearly make out the figure of a tall old woman in a long black shawl standing at the banks of a river.
The others had settled around the fire now too: the redhaired lady, Bal and three or four other little people whom Dark hadn’t noticed venturing forth from the trees. They were all staring into the flames, encouraging the Old Man. To help get him started they were murmuring things like, ‘Aye, indeed, and it’s true for you, those were the days indeed.’
Soon they too were moving through the heavens on a carpet of mellow words. This was the story the Old Man told that night.
Calling the banshee
One dark winter’s evening, Fionn Mac Cumhaill was travelling silently by chariot with three other men on the carriageway between Tara and Emhain Macha. It was truly one of those nights when, for no earthly reason, every human heart is on edge. That Samhain was only a day past was on every man’s mind. Some of those who visited from other worlds on Samhain night were known to stay a day or two longer before retreating to where they had come from.
The mission they were about was not one that excited them. Mac Cumhaill had been sent by King Cormac yet again to try to dissuade Tíreach, the man in charge up in Uladh, from starting another war with the people in the west of the country.
As the chariots approached the crossing point on the moody Boann river, there appeared, from nowhere, an old woman dressed entirely in black. The men only saw her barely in time but they needn’t have worried about running over her, as the horses had already stopped dead in front of her.
It was a peculiar sight. There was no cabin or habitation anywhere near this spot, as far as Mac Cumhaill knew. And here was this old lady all alone in the spills of rain, smiling at them.
‘Daghda save you all,’ she said when they stopped. ‘Fionn Mac Cumhaill, isn’t it?’
For a moment Mac Cumhaill thought he saw an unusual light in her eyes.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen your beautiful face before, good woman, but if I have and have forgotten your name, I beg your forgiveness,’ he said. ‘Is there any help we can offer you? We have some fresh bread and cheese and you would be more than welcome to share it with us. Would you allow us to run you to your home on one of the chariots, to get you in out of the rain on this desolate night?
‘No, you may not have met me yet,’ she said peculiarly, ‘and I’m not in need of transport at all. Where are you off to, then, on this bad night?’
‘Well to tell the truth, we are about a task no one of us has any appetite for,’ Mac Cumhaill told the old woman. ‘Above in Emhain Macha.’
‘That man up there would fight over a patch of bad grass or a scrawny cow,’ said the woman. ‘And the others over beyond in the west are not a whole lot better, always tormenting him. You’d be as well off resting here by the river bank for the night and resume your journey in the morning when the rain has cleared and some light has fallen on matters.’
Fionn didn’t know what to say. He had told the woman nothing of his business. Yet she spoke about it as if she had been privy to all his own thoughts on the matter. In fact, on this occasion, the exact nature of the complaint about which Tíreach was threatening war had to do with precisely one scrawny cow. He said nothing.
The old woman continued: ‘A scabby head bleeds easy. Whether you go there tonight or tomorrow will make no difference. Nothing will stop that man eventually finding an offence that causes him to fight.’
Mac Cumhaill looked around to see what Conán made of this. When he looked back to question the woman, she was gone. He never saw her again.
On top of that, the going was foggy and dangerous for the animals, so they pulled the horses and chariots upriver a distance to a place where there was a wide strip of grazing on the bank and protection provided by a steep incline above it.
Fionn took Conán on foot with him to visit a friend of his, Murtagh by name, leaving the other two men to rest for the night.
Like many of Mac Cumhaill’s friends around the country, Murtagh lived in a hill-top camp, cut off from the comforts of life, far from the trading and the scheming that went on in the lowlands. Murtagh and his clan contented themselves with working a steep strip of cold ground and doing the odd bit of hunting as their way of keeping death at bay. Mac Cumhaill had an understanding of the good people of the hills and their plain, honest ways, since his childhood upbringing in Sliabh Bladma.
He didn’t usually take other members of the Fianna to such places in case they might prattle about it to King Cormac when they got back, for Cormac didn’t approve of Mac Cumhaill’s association with the hill people. But Conán also liked the hills and the quiet ways and was not so afraid of the dark or of the spirits that inhabited its wild corners.
They had an hour to go, mostly through heavy bog and across three rivers, and then came the climb up the hill. Mac Cumhaill, impatient, strode straight up, while Conán zigzagged along a sheep track to make the slope more gradual.
A black-and-white dog came down part of the way to bark at them. At the barking, a boy appeared on the bank of the fort above them, saying nervously into the dark, ‘Who is it? Is there someone there? Who’s there?’
‘Don’t worry son,’ shouted Fionn, ‘it’s Mac Cumhaill and a friend. Tell Murtagh we’re here to see how he’s getting on.’
They were led by the boy into the camp and then into the biggest hut where most of the adults of the clan were sitting around a fire, settled in for the long winter evening full of yarns and gallery.
Murtagh stood up and said, ‘Come on in; isn’t it grand to see you!’
‘It’s grand to see you all too,’ said Conán. ‘Daghda dhaoibh go léir, blessings be on everyone here.’
‘What has you out on such a miserable night?’ asked Murtagh. ‘You’re not bringing us any sort of bad news, are you?’
‘Not at all,’ said Mac Cumhaill.
‘Well, come and sit next to the fire and we’ll get you something to keep the walls of your belly apart,’ said Murtagh.
Soon Mac Cumhaill and Conán were being helped to bowls of barley broth, green apples, boiled eggs and large lumps of boiled sheep meat. Mac Cumhaill knew only too well that this food had been set aside for the next day’s meal. But he also knew that the hurt Murtagh would feel if his guests failed to eat their fill would be greater than the sacrifice of scarce food the next day.
Murtagh went to call the children from their sleep. He insisted they’d be disappointed not to have met Mac Cumhaill. He introduced his own three daughters and a baby son to Mac Cumhaill and Conán, his face burning with pride and affection.
People here rarely had visitors. They were hoping the famous travellers would have interesting tales that could be retold with some decoration, during many fireside gatherings in the future. But they would wait, leaving the two big men to eat in peace.
While the guests ate, the hosts continued to dispute among themselves about whether the signs from the trees and the grasses were for a harsh winter or a mild one, and when they were done with that, a Seanachaí in the corner started to tell a yarn that you could see was even older than himself, about a marvellous dog that knew when a cow was about to calve and would bring her home from the bog. It was a story they’d all heard before, but, like many a good teller, the old man could still hold everyone’s attention with the addition of new twists to each telling.
Everyone except Murtagh, that is, who apparently was still thinking about the weather predictions, and said, ‘To tell you all the truth, I don’t believe in old pisreóg s. It doesn’t matter which tree lost its leaves first or what colour the grass on the south slope of the grazing land was the day before Samhain, the winter will still come whatever way it wants to come.’
‘That’s surprising talk,’ said an old man sharply. ‘All the plants have stories to tell and it is foolish to disregard them.’
‘If they were good predictors,’ said Murtagh, ‘why, then, do we get surprised by the weather every year?’
‘Just because we are not good at reading the signs,’ said the old man, ‘doesn’t mean the signs aren’t there.’
Everyone else seemed to agree with the old man, and Murtagh went quiet.
Because Murtagh was such a kind and gentle man, Mac Cumhaill decided to jump in on his side of the argument. ‘I don’t know, I think maybe Murtagh is right. Is it not the case that half the time, when the weather coincides with our predictions, we say that proves the signs are right and then the other half the time when the weather does the opposite, we say that it is just a rare exception or that we didn’t take all the signs into account?’
‘Hmmm,’ came the murmured reply. The clan were prepared to listen to this argument when it came from an outsider, whereas they wouldn’t countenance it from one of their own.
But then Mac Cumhaill’s support had a surprising effect on Murtagh. He stood up and said, ‘And while we are at it, that’s not all. There’s a lot of other things we believe in that are pure nonsense and raiméis.’
‘Like what?’ asked the same old man, concerned.
‘Like the banshee,’ said Murtagh.
Silence fell on the assembly. This was not something anyone wanted to hear Murtagh saying. Nobody wanted to talk about this subject. That included the visitors. And most certainly, nobody wanted to dare her to appear, as Murtagh was about to do.
‘There is no such thing and if there was, I defy her to come here for me now.’
People sucked in their breaths in shock.
‘Fionn agrees with me,’ said Murtagh, looking for more support.
‘Murtagh, dear friend,’ said Mac Cumhaill quietly, ‘I know that what you say comes from a lot of thinking and wisdom. I agree that we are sometimes misled by superstitions. And I would love to agree with you on this too, but I cannot, for the simple reason that I know you are wrong. I have heard that same good lady more times than I ever wanted, when she came to warn of the deaths of dear comrades who headed out with me in battle. I would plead with you to take back what you just said.’
Murtagh looked a little shaken, but he continued. ‘I don’t believe she exists any more than I believe in the salmon of knowledge. I think you got your exceptional knowledge from the fact that your father and mother had exceptional cleverness, the same as the rest of us got what great or little brains we may have from our own fathers and mothers. And as for the banshee, I think the sounds that people think are hers are only the sounds of vixens in heat. Again, if I am wrong, I defy the banshee to present herself.’
The mood of the gathering had changed completely. People whispered urgently to each other and started to get ready to make their way back to their own huts. But there was no time. A minute later, still a distance away, they heard a sound. It was eerie and sad to those who had never heard it before. It was unmistakable and terrifying to those who had. It held the sounds of a north wind cutting through a gap, the misery of an eternal Oíche Shamhna, and the shrieks of grief of a woman mourning her most beloved.
The silence that it brought to that home made the fire itself go down. In the cold and dark, the people sat and waited.
The sounds got closer until it seemed she was just over the mound of the outside cattle fence. And there was no mistaking what she was saying. She was calling the name of Murtagh. Murtagh turned white and started trembling like an aspen leaf. Not a person in th
e place could doubt the facts now. There was no escape. Murtagh would be dead within hours. When the banshee tired of her olagón and caoining and went off to torment some other poor souls, people didn’t know what way to look. A death in the air always fills people with thoughts of sí and fear.
Every adult present had lived long enough already to understand how quickly death steals our friends and dear ones. They started to leave the hut quietly with their heads bowed, as though Murtagh was already gone. They didn’t look directly at Murtagh as they didn’t know what to say to him.
But his children didn’t leave. They started hugging him and crying and sobbing to an extent that could have melted the very rocks. They had already lost their mother at the time she was giving birth to the young boy.
Mac Cumhaill and Conán would rather have been anywhere else than to be seeing this.
‘Maybe we should leave them to their great trouble,’ said Conán quietly to Mac Cumhaill.
Mac Cumhaill cleared his throat and stood up. ‘I think it’s best we leave you to be together.’
Murtagh stood up too. Mac Cumhaill expected him to be angry or incoherent. But he wasn’t. He was just the same polite Murtagh.
‘Please, Fionn,’ he said. ‘I ask you a favour. Not for myself. For my children. Can you talk to the banshee or get some of your powerful druids to reverse her spell?’
‘Many have tried,’ said Mac Cumhaill. ‘I am sorry.’
‘Tell her if she can just give me enough time to get the four little ones better started in life, then I’ll gladly go with her.’
‘Kings have tried,’ said Conán, putting his hand on Murtagh’s shaking shoulder, ‘and failed. Her word can’t be unspoken. All I can say to you is to make every minute from now until tomorrow stretch until each lasts as long as a day itself.’
Fionn and Conán left the children with their father. The only one other person still in the room with them was the old man who had argued about the weather signs. He stared into the red embers of ash branches as though he had been struck by a club. Mac Cumhaill now realised that he was Murtagh’s father.
