Old Friends: The Lost Tales of Fionn Mac Cumhaill

by Tom O'Neill

  Dark listened at the back door of the milking parlour.

  ‘What has you here so early in the morning, anyway?’ Brian was saying.

  ‘Ah, nothing of much consequence, my good man. Except that I was passing and said I’d drop in to see how you were getting on.’

  Brian didn’t reply.

  ‘Any updates on when our good friend Cornelius is getting out?’ asked Trevor.

  Dark came closer to the door.

  ‘I don’t know anything about the man’s situation,’ said Brian. ‘It’s not my business.’

  ‘I should rather think, though, that it may be some time yet,’ Trevor continued. ‘Even with remission.’

  ‘If you know, why did you ask? Isn’t that a long time for a minor offence, though?’ said Brian.

  ‘I rather think not. Con was his own worst enemy,’ said Trevor. ‘He lives by his own laws and you can’t be going on like that in this day and age.’

  ‘Connie never did anyone a bad turn,’ said Brian, with definite anger in his voice. ‘I heard he asked that inspector lad not to be nosing around and it was only when the man refused that he lifted him up and put him in his car. He didn’t strike or hurt the man in any way. Just lifted him like a kitten and put him back in his nest.’

  ‘A man only doing his job! And then on top of that, he shoved the man’s car up the lane with the loading shovel!’

  ‘I’ll tell you another thing too,’ continued Brian, ‘there isn’t a farmer in the county who doesn’t agree with Connie telling those lads from the department that they’re no better than the old land agents. And it was harsh to lock up a man who was never in court before, just for standing up to official blackguardism.’

  ‘Ah ha! It seems you are labouring under a misapprehension. Like many another around here, you have jumped to the conclusion that this man was an agricultural inspector. He was not that. No, sir. In fact that visitor was an inspector from the Department of Heritage. What do you have to say to that, now, sir?’

  ‘Whatever,’ said Brian, after a slight pause, obviously a little bit surprised by this information, as was Dark.

  ‘You see, you think you know Cornelius well. But I’m not sure any of us knows him at all. What was a man from that department looking for on these premises? Tell me that if you can!’

  Brian shooed out four cows who were finished milking and ignored Trevor’s question.

  ‘Well, Con, of course, is his own worst enemy,’ Trevor said again, ‘coming into court in that state. Wearing a bright yellow suit and the big wild woolly head on him and representing himself. You can’t blame the judge for thinking he was making a mockery of the court of law. Even then, the judge gave him a chance and says to him, “Now then Mr... er... McLean, do you think you can live beyond the reach of civilised society? Maybe in whatever uncouth world you inhabit, the intimidation and assault of a government official is acceptable behaviour?”’

  ‘Were you at the court then?’ said Brian. ‘What business did you have there?’

  ‘I was there indeed, Mr Brody, as is my constitutional right, may I inform you. But Con looks straight at the old judge and says, “ A chara, I mind my business well and I don’t want some gomdaw in a suit nosing around my yard and rooting through my sheds. That’s not part of his job. What was he looking for, anyway?” What did Con mean by that, Brian, do you think? What did he think a man from Heritage might have been looking for on these premises?’

  Brian shrugged.

  Trevor continued to relay the conversation with the judge. ‘“Would you at least apologise to the man?” the judge says to Con. “The man has graciously offered to let the matter go if you are ready to apologise and allow him to come and do a full inspection unhindered.” But Con says, “To tell you the honest truth, my friends, I’m not a bit sorry. If I said I was, I’d only be talking horse shite.” The judge got rather miffed, because the whole courtroom erupted in laughter.’

  ‘Well,’ Brian said, looking at Trevor with no pleasure, ‘that’s the truth. One thing about Connie McLean is that at least he is neither a liar nor a sneak.’

  The comment had no effect on Trevor. He added with satisfaction, ‘Indeed, I suppose you couldn’t blame the judge for getting in a rage. He hardly waited a minute before dishing out the big sentence, saying that Connie had complete contempt for authority and that he needed to send a clear message to others who might think they are beyond the law. In case the country would descend into chaos.’

  ‘I have to get on with the milking now anyway, Trevor,’ said Brian.

  ‘Oh, quite so. But do give me a call if you get any ideas about what Con might have been hiding here. We probably should try to find it before the authorities. That way we could make sure that... er... so... so that Helen and the lad don’t get in trouble.’

  Dark waited for Trevor’s truck to turn up the lane before he headed back towards the calves.

  That afternoon, he came home from school with a mountain of homework. Sullivan was running an accumulator scheme, as she called it. Every day she caught you for not having some work done, she would double it and add it to the next day’s work. And on top of that, there was something in all the other subjects to learn for tomorrow, as well as a maths test. He hadn’t the remotest prospect of getting it all done. He sat at the kitchen table. He took out some copybooks with the intention of doing his usual trick – trying to guess what parts Sullivan would check and make some sort of stab at those bits. It sometimes worked. Then he remembered the Old Man’s offer, and he stuffed all the books back in the bag. Feckit, I’ll see what that old chancer can do for me.

  When he got to the rath that night the Old Man was not there. And nobody else appeared either. He waited. A quarter of an hour passed. Then thirty minutes. It started raining and the oak leaves started dripping. It was a kind of warm and nice wetness.

  When he moved under the biggest yew, he got a fright. He was certain he saw a big branch move. It moved slowly. It moved to better cover him and his bag, which he had brought with him.

  After a while longer he started wondering if the Old Man had deserted him too. Got bored with him. He was surprised to feel tears of desolation rising under his eyelids. Then he heard two voices. One, he didn’t recognise. It was even older than the Old Man’s, and raspy, like a very old goat might sound if it could shape human words.

  Then the Old Man appeared. And the fire sprang up in the usual place. He introduced an invisible other.

  ‘I had to drag this old torment along. We call him Dreoilín – the wren man, don’t you know.’

  Though Dark couldn’t see the other at all, still he said, ‘Hello Mr Dreoilín.’

  ‘Hello to you, son,’ said the voice nicely, and then quickly returned to whining at the Old Man. ‘When can I go? I have other things to be doing.’

  ‘You can go when you’ve helped this boy solve his problem with books.’

  ‘Son, how would you like to make the problem go away?’ said Dreoilín

  ‘What do you mean?’ said the Old Man. ‘Why do you always like to talk in riddles?’

  ‘Well, I can remove your worry by getting the work done for you or I can just remove the worry.’

  Dark was confused by this. He found himself a bit scared of the bodiless voice. He didn’t want to ask too much.

  ‘I suppose, just get rid of the worry. That will probably do,’ he said.

  ‘Grand. Very wise. Then say after me, “And what would I care about the bookish word when there’s a world of great things to be seen and smelt and heard?”’

  Dark repeated the words and as soon as they came out of his mouth, sure enough, his cares about what the teachers would say or even what his mother would say were completely gone.

  ‘What way are you now?’ asked the Old Man.

  ‘Good,’ said Dark, feeling very good indeed.

  ‘Good.’

  The Old Man turned to the bushes and said, ‘You’re of course welcome to stay with us and keep us company here ti
ll daybreak.’

  A small rusty bird that Dark hadn’t noticed flapped off fussily away and for an instant Dark caught a reflection of Dreoilín’s leathery old face.

  The Old Man said to Dark, ‘Don’t take offence. He’s a sound man in most ways, but there is no druid I ever met who was easy in the company of the little people.’

  The familiar smell of burning sticks filled the air. The usual companions were now at the fire. The goblet was more full and the girl who brought it sat not far from Dark. The Old Man cleared his throat and poked the fire vacantly with a pole. He stared into it for a while in silence before starting in a slow and sombre voice.

  Old Friends

  Some old battles were crowed about gloriously afferwards, by bards – men who did not understand that war was not about glory, only about defeat either suffered or inflicted, cut with rage and fear into the bodies of other men. But there was one particular battle that the bards recorded no songs about. That battle and what followed it shook Mac Cumhaill’s faith in himself and in many whom he had considered his friends.

  It was late spring one year when messengers reached Fionn and the king with word of an invading army that had appeared with no warning. These gentlemen just peeped over the Sperrin hills in the north one day, marching in a disorderly line. Nobody knew where they had come from. Or how – for there were no reports of ships.

  As far as King Cormac was aware, he had no major quarrel with any other ruler or country at that time. And there were no armies, as far as anyone knew, that had been advancing across other lands in this direction. There had been none of the usual signs that tensions might be building up. So the Fianna was caught somewhat off guard with no preparations made for a major war.

  Most armies are sent with a purpose and demands. But this one didn’t seem to have a country or a cause. War itself seemed to be the only purpose of these malignant men. They just moved forward, cutting down everything in their path. They were without mercy for man, woman, child or animal.

  A day’s march ahead of them now, the countryside moved before them in terror. The only living things that waited to meet them were birds, wolves, foxes, rats and insects. Even the mice, the rabbits and the badgers sensed that their future was not bright if they were to stay put and they fled with the people and the domestic animals creating a gathering wave, moving south.

  As panic spread across the land, the Fianna was so badly caught off balance that it took two days to gather the men and horses. Many had been working with their clans, as was customary if a spring was peaceful. At that time of year the same sturdy horses that could charge through enemy lines with a raging chariot in tow, could just as well calmly plough a furrow. And the men trained in sword and spear would work hard from dawn till dusk, cutting turf and grass and saving both to make sure that warmth and well-fed animals were assured in the winter to follow.

  The Fianna assembled and prepared for their first meeting with these hardy gentlemen at the eiscir mór. It was decided – Mac Cumhaill decided – that the Fianna should spread out along that fine bank of ground and let them see how well they were able to march up and over it to get to the other half of the country. That was a suitable pattern to meet them in, because of the foolish and artless way they were spread out and marching in a single line. The Fianna had only about 3,120 men active at that time. From the spread of the others it was estimated there were more than 9,000 of them.

  The Fianna had overcome far worse odds in the past and Mac Cumhaill allowed that the ridge would level the contest. In fact, if the soldiers were as clumsy and without strategy as they sounded, Mac Cumhaill was starting to hope it might be no contest at all and the invaders might be fleeing within hours.

  The wait wasn’t long. The Fianna saw them approaching and grunting all the more as they dragged their feet through the bogs below. The early reports from the shocked and fleeing population turned out to have been only slightly exaggerated. They weren’t actually wolf-headed monsters, bigger than Mac Cumhaill and breathing poison. But they weren’t exactly genial, everyday characters either. They had some of the appearance of ordinary soldiers. Large lumps of men with goatskin tunics, lethally sharpened swords, and iron shields.

  Their communication, if it was that, was just a deep, grumbling, gurgling murmur. They were all entirely colourless and dour in appearance. And it turned out they were far from ordinary in other respects as well.

  When they reached the foot of the eiscir, Mac Cumhaill ordered the men at the top of the hill to stand up, show themselves and have their weapons at the ready. He ordered the buglers to let out the most blood-curdling sounds they could issue. He was giving the advancing men a chance to run away. They didn’t, of course. They just kept coming.

  When the first of them got to the top of the hill, the Fianna laid into them. The advantage of the hill was enough to ensure that all of these first ones rolled down dead after a short struggle.

  The others kept coming, as expected, and Mac Cumhaill thought that within a few hours it would be all done. The bull-headed among them would be sent to their other world and the prudent would get sense and flee. The choice was theirs. Or so he thought. He almost felt sorry for them at that point, with the clumsy, stubborn way they kept coming up the hill only to fall back down it, dead.

  However, that was when things took a less agreeable turn.

  About half way through the first wave, with many of the enemy dead and only a few of the Fianna dead or badly wounded, Ó Lochlainn of Raghnaill started shouting like a madman, ‘Look look, them boys are not ordinary human kind. Them boys are some kind of auld buan taibhse, some kind of permanent ghost warriors, or something’.

  At first everyone thought Ó Lochlainn was just being himself, getting worked up over nothing. He was pointing down the hill in such horror that he never even saw the heavy foreign sword sweeping towards his head, severing its very thick connections to his body and with it, severing Ó Lochlainn’s own connections with this world. He went quiet. At least his head rolled down south rather than up north.

  Fiachra ran over and delivered a similar fate to the enemy soldier who had seemed quite unsure what to do now that he was standing on top of the eiscir in Ó Lochlainn’s place.

  ‘May the bold Ó Lochlainn be blessed with a steadier brain in whatever world he has crossed into than he was in this,’ said Conán, not always the most sentimental man.

  Everyone else now looked down at where Ó Lochlainn had been pointing. There, an enemy warrior who had fallen back seemingly dead, down into the bog-water below, started getting back up onto his feet as if there was nothing wrong with him.

  Soon there were more of them at it. Corpses re-growing missing arms, even missing heads, some who had been lying face down in water for an hour, shaking themselves off and getting ready to come back up the hill at the Fianna. Their wounds seemed to be healed and they clambered back up with as much strength as if they’d only been touched with a feather.

  In some kind of doubtful mark of respect to Ó Lochlainn, lying at the bottom of the hill, several feet from his head with its still open mouth, the plague of soldiers that were facing the Fianna were given the name of the buan Ó Lochlainns.

  It was the mercy of Daghda that protected the Fianna that night. Men’s spirits sank very low. They had gone from thinking of a fight where they were only outnumbered by three to one, to a fight with only one finish – exhaustion and then death.

  A small glimmer of good fortune arrived with the dawn. The buans retreated a little distance, just out of spear range.

  Goll came to Mac Cumhaill saying, ‘Whatever kind of yokes these are, they obviously don’t like the daylight. We should attack them now, and catch them off guard.’

  ‘Off guard?’ intervened Conán angrily, with his crazy eyes looking dangerously at Goll. ‘What are you talking about, man? They’re not cuddling up to sleep. They are standing there fully armed and watching us. Maybe even hearing us. You want us to go down in the bog among them and let them s
laughter us altogether?’

  Mac Cumhaill agreed with Conán. It was too risky to abandon the one advantage they had, along the ridge of the eiscir. Besides, the men were too tired and broken up.

  ‘Ten men to take the wounded back down the hill,’ he ordered. ‘Two men to go to appeal to Conaire, King of Mumhan, and all the clan chiefs of the south for any more people who have had training to come and give us a lift up here. These are not highly skilled soldiers we are facing here. All we need is people who have energy and who can swing an axe or a sword. Five men on rota, watching for these buan Ó Lochlainns to make any move during the day. Twenty to go round up oats and any meat that can be got, to feed the soldiers. Everyone else to eat and sleep and store up as much strength as they can for the dark.’

  That was it. Before the end of the day, many men and women arrived. The chiefs had not forced anyone to come, but everyone knew that it must have been a desperate situation when Mac Cumhaill was prepared to call for people who were not fully trained. Some had probably guessed that if the enemy got past this defence, there was nothing else to stop them and the entire nation would be driven into the sea in the south, or slaughtered. And for others, the sooner this was won, the sooner the beasts and people from north of the eiscir could be sent back home, which would be good for everyone’s nerves.

  Some who answered the call had retired from the Fianna to farm or to rear children. Some were youngsters who had been doing some training at home in the hope of being selected for the Fianna. One tall boy came up to the hut where Fionn and Conán were sitting. Diarmuid stopped the boy from approaching and asked his name. He wouldn’t say. Diarmuid commanded him to go home and get out of harm’s way.

  Conán and Goll did their best to prepare the volunteers. Those that were strong and fast enough came up to the top of the bank to help the Fianna fighters. Others were organised in a row at the bottom of the hill and were ready to swarm in on any buan Ó Lochlainn that made it through, planting him with blows from ash sticks and clubs.