Old Friends: The Lost Tales of Fionn Mac Cumhaill

by Tom O'Neill

  Then there was a tiny crack. A broken twig that sounded as clear as a rifle shot. He looked at the Old Man.

  ‘You are a good boy, Arthur,’ said the Old Man.

  ‘But what was that?’ Dark was not sure that he was pleased to have the symphony of sounds broken. ‘A fox or a badger? Or one of the sí?’ he ventured.

  ‘You won’t hear the sí unless they want you to,’ said the Old Man. ‘It’s a wolf.’

  ‘There are no wolves left, they killed the last one in Fenagh in 1860,’ said Dark, repeating from the store of facts that Connie used to entertain him with on his first days in this place. ‘It had to be a fox.’

  ‘You’re wrong about that, a mhic. They’re still with us. But the poor creatures have to keep to themselves. During the daytime, they keep very well hidden from the view of modern people. It is a terrible curse for them that their very appearance, something they can do nothing at all about, is enough to make sensible people shiver with fear and a desire to kill them.’

  They were quiet for a while longer. Then the Old Man said, ‘Tell me how things stand with you, Arthur.’

  ‘Nothing much to say,’ said Dark. ‘The usual. I got in trouble for forgetting to do homework yesterday, so I’m supposed to do double today.’

  ‘Art,’ said the Old Man, looking slightly puzzled at the word homework, ‘time is your own to use.’

  ‘Homework means extra learning they give us after school has ended.’

  Dark still didn’t ask how the Old Man knew his name.

  ‘I see. Well, all learning from books I’m sure has its good. Maybe it means you won’t have to fight for everything. But they have to leave you time for all the other learning that comes from gallivanting and climbing and smelling and getting soaked and bruised and investigating snails and watching how the blackbird watches your back and staring at the clouds or the stars and listening to all the wonderful sounds that are to be heard when people know how to be quiet.’

  ‘Yes. But they’ll give me a bollocking if I don’t do the stuff. And I don’t enjoy that much.’

  ‘If you don’t learn these things as a young person, you are cut off forever from everything in the world that you are part of and that is inside you,’ said the Old Man, as if Dark hadn’t spoken. ‘You would grow up as a shell, making the movements and sounds of a person, but empty of humanity. I cannot think of anything worse to happen to a young man.’

  ‘Yes, but I’ll get in trouble and it seems I am always the one who is in trouble. I really don’t like it much.’

  ‘That’s very sensible, a mhic,’ said the Old Man, looking straight at him as if he could see inside him. After a while he said, ‘Right, tomorrow, bring whatever extra work this teacher gives you and I’ll get one of my lads to fix it up for you.’

  Dark had no idea who the lads might be, but this certainly sounded like a plan with promise.

  The Old Man then led him back to the fireside. Conán and the red-haired woman nodded to him. He was looking around before he sat down.

  Conán noticed and grinned. ‘Don’t worry, garsún, I don’t think little Etain has forgotten you.’

  The tiny slender girl with the goblet came forward and smiled at Dark. He drank. She stayed longer this time, and more of the others of her people also came out in front of the fire to listen to the yarn the Old Man was starting into.

  The Old Man looked at Dark again and said, ‘You have an interest in swords?’

  He did. Dark actually knew quite a lot about them. There was a claymore that he was saving for and he was hoping it would not be gone off eBay before he had figured out how he could get a PayPal account set up.

  ‘Well, there was a young woman who lived not far from here who was possibly the finest sword-maker the world has ever known.’

  As his gaze settled on the flames, Dark could picture clearly the hill which was the first place the Old Man’s gentle words took him to. It was only a few miles from Connie’s farm. It was different though. There was a little wooden hut. And a tall woman with a hard face, feeding what looked like fish heads to a cat. She was not a young woman and Dark couldn’t imagine her making swords.

  Weapons Woman and the Wolf Beo

  In her later years, Eibhlín Rua Ní Fhógartaigh was rarely to be found in a good temper. Even her cat, the only companion that stuck with her, was undernourished. The bad opinion she had developed of people had evolved into a dislike of all living creatures, and she kept the cat as thin as a blade of grass in case it might get notions above its station.

  But she had not always been such a miserable soul. In fact, at one time, she had been considered by everyone to be one of the finest people the country ever produced. She had been a brilliant child. She invented all kinds of things for making life easier. She invented a stabiliser bar to hold pots steady over the hearth as they boiled. She invented a special harness that stopped wild heifers from kicking when they were first milked. She calculated the exact height of the mountain at the back of her parents’ settlement and she discovered that the seeds of oats, when boiled, made a very good morning feed for man and beast.

  As she grew into an adult, her advice was sought on matters by people from all around the country and abroad. And many young men, as well as many who were no spring chickens, tried to impress her, thinking that they could do worse than found their families upon such a rock of beauty and resourcefulness.

  As she grew, her attitude became less warm. Her father was a hard, cold man who boasted about her successes and drove her hard to achieve more. Her mother never interfered with the father-daughter team, so she learnt no warmth at home. Or maybe it was that she was really just like her father and didn’t have any warmth in her in the first place.

  He had never allowed her time for things he considered silly, like wandering around with other girls and boys having sport. So she didn’t have any close friends that she liked or trusted. And it was said that she grew bored of the men who kept coming to try to impress her. She started to think that everyone was as transparent and as useless as these visitors. She lost her liking for people and developed a cynicism about life, thinking that there was very little good to be said about any of the rest of humankind.

  Whatever the cause, her own interests turned to inventing weapons and traps. After her twentieth birthday she stopped all other experimenting and discovery. For three years, she produced nothing. But all day long she would have great fires lit in a furnace her father had built for her in the Fógartaigh chief ’s compound. In the roasting embers at night she would be working with iron, tin and copper, dropping red hot metal into troughs of water. Crucible, hammer and tongs were the focus of her tender attentions while other people her age were marrying and building families. Then, in the early mornings, while servants were refuelling the fire for her, the air would be filled with the swishes and sighs of stone on metal. She would be perfecting different strokes that the most expert blade-sharpeners in the country had taught her. Each had their own patient, soothing rhythm which whispered to the passerby that ancient secrets were being expressed; that the angle of the stone on the edge of a new blade was perfect and the return stroke was absolutely smooth.

  For some time, this was not seen as a problem, because Eibhlín remained dedicated to doing this work in the service of the Fianna’s defence of the people. Not a week went by that she did not have some improved weapon sent for Mac Cumhaill to try. One week it would be a spear with a longer, narrower head that she said would more easily slide through a chest and find the most elusive heart. The next it would be spikes on hazel rods that would spring up when horsemen went through long grass, and impale the unlucky horses.

  When less vigorous humours were upon her, she would produce bugles. Some were the longest and slenderest in the world, to show the fineness of her mastery of metal-work. Others were designed to terrify the enemy before ever a blow was struck, stout in the shape of ferocious unearthly boar or wolf heads and with a woeful sound you would not think could com
e from the land of the living.

  If the truth be told, war and defence was our business and we had to take note of these ideas even if we didn’t like her approach or the pleasure she seemed to get from developing the foulest weapons. We had to test them in case there was a chance they might improve our ability to save our people from falling victim to enemy marauders.

  Some were used. Others weren’t. That was the start of things going wrong. She would be happy enough when an invention was used. Her greatest success was with the sword. She developed one that still had the old wide slashing body like the older ones of us were used to, but that also had a long narrowing tip that would pierce any protection if the man behind it had the strength and will to drive it. What was even more important, she came up with a way of moulding these swords so they could be produced quickly in great numbers. This weapon became widely used by many of the Fianna. Mac Cumhaill himself never used one. He would never part with the sword that had been passed through seven generations, carrying all of the ornamental engravings that transferred the blessings and craft of ancestors into the hand of the man who clasped it and which brought him luck if his purpose was fair. Mac Cumhaill believed the new ones, made mostly of iron, would not carry recollections through to his grandchildren, but would rot away with their owners.

  Nevertheless, Eibhlín was rightly celebrated for this, and maybe all the praise went to her head. On a side matter, we should mention here that all advantage that these swords gave was soon lost as they were copied in many foreign lands. Eibhlín was partly to blame for this, but the king, Cormac, had to take most of the blame. He took such pride in his people’s achievements that he was not able to keep any secrets. Visiting dignitaries would be introduced to Eibhlín, who would offer each of them a sword with their royal insignia etched alongside her own special spiral signature on the handle. Despite the best advice and polite warnings from Mac Cumhaill and others, the king encouraged her to do this.

  The real trouble, though, was that when Mac Cumhaill or the Fianna didn’t adopt one of her creations, she didn’t take it well. As time went on, she showed this more and more openly.

  She would grumble, ‘Useless stumps of Fianna men! They wouldn’t know a good weapon if it jumped up and prodded them. If it wasn’t for me, they’d still be fighting with sticks and stones.’

  Once, she developed a new cap for chariot horses. It was a silvery, plain thing. Mac Cumhaill didn’t like it because he knew that the bronze helmets with the old engravings gave the charioteers luck and courage. She was very angry when Mac Cumhaill returned the new thing to her with a message of thanks. She came immediately over to the caves near the summer training fields, where Mac Cumhaill and his men rested in the evenings. She stormed in, waving one of her shiny pony helmets and saying, ‘What exactly is it you don’t like about this?’

  ‘It’s not that I don’t like it,’ said Mac Cumhaill.

  ‘It’s lighter, only half the weight of the old caps you make those poor useless nags of yours wear.’

  ‘That may be so, and it is very clever, but the difference in weight is not going to make much difference to a horse that is able to carry the likes of myself or Conán there, at a gallop,’ said Mac Cumhaill, laughing. ‘Sure, wouldn’t the hair on Conán’s hands alone weigh more than old and new pony helmets together?’

  She knew Mac Cumhaill was right about this. All the Fianna’s horses were very big and wide-chested, renowned the world over for being as strong as five normal horses, as calm as an old man who has seen it all and whom nothing can surprise, and as well suited to ploughing a field in quiet times as facing an enemy or storming through huge thorny thickets in pursuit of a boar.

  ‘And because it is smooth and curved outwards, it’s more likely to deflect an arrow,’ she shouted.

  ‘I’ll allow you that, but I’ve never seen an arrow pierce the old helmets,’ said Mac Cumhaill politely.

  ‘Well, you should take them if you believe what you are offen quoted as saying: that the difference between terrible defeat and glorious victory is offen just leaf thin,’ she said.

  ‘It is my decision that we won’t be using the cap. But thank you for bringing it,’ said Mac Cumhaill.

  ‘Curses on you; I’m doing all that I can to help you bar going out to do the fighting myself. Maybe that’s what I should do. Then I’d show you. Great lazy beasts.’

  ‘What you maybe don’t realise, Eibhlín, is that the thing that makes the best soldiers is fierce reluctance followed by blind courage. A good person is always slow to fight and will look for every other option. Only if he is finally left with no other resort, he will fight with a purpose and intensity that no ordinary paid soldier can match. At that stage it is more important for him to be surrounded by instruments that he trusts and that fill him with the pride of generations lost. These fortify his spirit.’ Mac Cumhaill spoke patiently, because he realised she was still young and allowed to sometimes speak wildly.

  ‘I think that is just raiméis. Just excuses for the fact that you’ve become weak-hearted.’

  The soldiers around Mac Cumhaill bristled, but she continued, ‘And with our supposed defenders as weak as noble girls, it won’t take long for some foreign army to realise and to come and overrun this country.’

  ‘That’s enough now,’ said Mac Cumhaill, laughing. ‘Take your invention away and maybe the next one will be something we can agree on.’

  That is what she did. From that point on she took away all her inventions. She decided that the Fianna were backward and that Mac Cumhaill was stuck in the past. She had done all she could for them. Now she was going to show her wares to a wider audience.

  When the king heard of her decision, he was worried. He called her to Tara. He met with her in private and called her out into his vegetable gardens where he offen went for peace. There he spoke to her like a daughter. He pleaded with her to continue bringing her work only to the Fianna.

  ‘Fionn Mac Cumhaill insulted me,’ she said. ‘When he apologises I will reconsider.’

  ‘Well, I will ask Fionn to do that. And then you will be happy?’

  ‘And he should be forced to take on whatever inventions I bring to him.’

  ‘No, little one,’ said Cormac patiently, ‘that would be a harder thing.’

  ‘Why? You are the king. He serves you.’

  Cormac could see he was not making any progress.

  ‘His king indeed. And his servant. And yours too. I cannot ask a skilled tradesman to do a job and then tie his hand by telling him what tools he must use.’

  ‘I can see you are just too soft and you are allowing that overgrown elk to push you around.’

  ‘You are of course allowed not to bring your inventions to us,’ said Cormac more imperiously, stepping back into the main hall where his advisers awaited. ‘But I am sorry that I can’t allow you to take your fearsome inventions to the hands of our foreign enemies.’

  Eibhlín turned her back on Cormac and walked out. She knew, as everyone present did, that Cormac, in his own quiet way, had just given her a command. And that it would be unwise to disobey. But she noted that the king hadn’t explicitly forbidden her from trading her inventions with foreign forces that were not the enemies of Éirinn, even if they were not exactly friends either.

  She packed up sacks and boxes of gadgets and weapons, some finished, some not. She gathered a small stash of gold rings and bracelets she had been given as rewards for some of her work. She went north and hired passage on a trading boat that took her and her wares on a long journey. She was destined for the land of the Angledanes. She had heard the fables of great dragon-slaying warrior kings who lived there and she was determined that was where she wanted to go.

  But Eibhlín had little idea of what lay behind these fables or what she was getting herself involved with. Her anger and injured pride prevented her from asking for any advice.

  If she had asked, she might have learned that in Angledane country there was a downtrodden people, entrappe
d forever by their own fears. And she would have learned that their revered king was nothing but the spineless pawn of a demon queen. This queen, the cold, ruthless power of Angledaneland, was unknown to the people of that place. She only showed herself to outsiders. All the people there ever saw were the cruel, lowly men she tricked them into accepting as their glorious monarchs.

  This demon queen picked a new king every twenty years. She amused herself by always picking rogues who would make life as hard as possible for the people of Angledaneland. When it was coming time for a change, foul men would come from every part to try to win her favour. They were robbers, pirates, murderers, disgraced soldiers, men who had either fled or been chased away from their own people. All of them were braggarts, boasting of great military feats.

  Once she had picked her new man, she would initially smother him in her charms and conceive a child with him. She would allow him to ride into the castle of the outgoing king and tell the people what a great warrior he was. She would have him ‘heroically’ slay the terrible beast of their dark imaginations.

  In horrible reality, the ‘beast’ that the new man was slaying was nothing more than a harmless nineteen-year-old boy, whose only offence was horrendous ugliness. In each case, the nineteen-year-old was the queen’s own son, born of her previous relationship with the old king, whose time was now up.

  These unfortunate boys had never harmed anyone. As they grew into young men, she would send each one out, in turn, to wander the hills at night. Without the lad’s knowing it, she was sending him out to scare the people in the settlements below and to make him the object of their terror and loathing. That way, she could ensure that when it came to his slaying by her new king, there would be an aura of heroism about her new man, who was apparently saving the people from the horrendous beast that prowled around at night, terrifying the children and the horses.