Old Friends: The Lost Tales of Fionn Mac Cumhaill

by Tom O'Neill

  Soon, he had only one thought left keeping him alive. When he died, would his spirit then be forever trapped in this barren desolation? Would he lose the one consolation that had always made it easy to risk death in the past – the longing to be reunited with his father, his mother, and with ever-growing numbers of comrades now on the other side? He became very quiet inside.

  What was happening back in Éire would have destroyed him altogether had he known it at the time. The story about the spear wound and the wolves continued to do the rounds and to become established as the truth. Few still asked how wolves could have dragged an enormous body away so quickly or how it was that no trace of his weapons or clothing had been found.

  And indeed, his presumed death sent a wave of mourning and fear across the country. The people recounted all of his good qualities, as they do when a friend dies, and mentioned nothing of his faults. They talked of his gifts of wisdom, enormous strength, absence of fear and soft heart. And they also worried quietly as to what might happen once enemies heard that the mountainous man they feared was no longer around to ensure that friendly visitors to Éirinn met an enormous welcome and unfriendly ones met a ferocious rebuke.

  All of the Fianna were afflicted by sadness and depression. Eventually the king called the leaders to Tara. When they were all settled in the great hall, and food and drinks were being prepared for them in the background, Cormac made a short speech.

  He said, not insincerely, ‘Fionn Mac Cumhaill was a great man. Part of the reason I’ve called you together is to celebrate him. I’ll miss him more sorely than most. But now the time for mourning and feeling sorry for ourselves has past. As is our tradition, we must try to celebrate the passing of a loved one into a better world. We embrace change and new life. A new era. And I want you to now help me pick a new leader for the Fianna, so that we can rebuild my protection... And your own, of course.’

  Most of the Fianna took heart in the king’s command that it was their patriotic duty to bury their recollections of Mac Cumhaill’s deeds in the past, and to set to today’s task of rebuilding the army. Many must have had advance notice of the purpose of the meeting, as the discussions about who should take Mac Cumhaill’s place didn’t take long. Within an hour it was clear that most wanted Diarmuid to lead them.

  Diarmuid, who was seated next to the king, raised his voice to address Conán who was standing at the back of the gathering, near the entrance.

  ‘What is your advice to me in this?’

  Everyone was surprised that he asked Conán this. Complete silence fell on the gathering. Diarmuid and Conán were not known to be friendly. They were not men who would ever have had much to talk about. Conán was a very large, disagreeable man, fond of bad-mannered jokes and not particular about who he offended. He was happiest in the mountains. Nothing had been seen of him since Fionn’s disappearance, until he was summoned to this meeting. It was said that he had been sitting for days in a bed of heather in the middle of the Nine Stones on Sliabh Laigin, a memorial to his own people. Diarmuid was a slender, diplomatic man who liked fine garments and polite conversation and was usually very much concerned to please the king and not to go against the general consensus of the leaders.

  Yet Diarmuid must have known that behind the raiméis and the great black forest of hair, Conán was as true as a great rock. He knew that Conán was the person Mac Cumhaill trusted most. And Diarmuid was not going to take on the leadership unless he knew this man approved.

  Conán did not respond to Diarmuid’s question. Diarmuid stood and looked straight at him and said again, ‘Conán, I am asking you, what should I do?’

  Conán stood away from the pole he had been leaning against. With the evening sun at his back, he created an enormous shadow falling from the entrance through the parted crowd, reaching the front of the hall.

  He shouted at them all, ‘Daghda curse you all and Cormac too, for that matter. I don’t care whether you’re King or slave. No man should ever ask us to bury Fionn Mac Cumhaill’s memory. If I had a nugget of gold for every time Fionn put blind faith in me, I’d be the wealthiest man in this world. I’m not about to lose faith in him now. There’s nobody in this country who’ll persuade me that Mac Cumhaill is dead until they’ve shown me some proof of it.’

  Diarmuid now was silent.

  Conán continued, banging his huge stick against the pole with every word, ‘On the graves of all my ancestors, I will never rest a day until that man is found’.

  Many people turned away from Conán. ‘Poor soul. The grief has driven him mad,’ they whispered. Diarmuid thought about this for a while. Then he turned to Cormac and said, ‘With the greatest of respect I cannot accept your offer.’

  ‘He would not make a suitable leader of the New Fianna anyway, when he’s like that,’ one of the younger members said.

  Cormac was obviously shaken. But eventually he declared, ‘I regret that you feel that way. But it is the present and the living we have to be most concerned with. I need strength. I need unity. What is needed in the Fianna now is a steady experienced hand on the reins. Goll! Step forward!’

  Goll, the bald slayer of Cumhall, feigned humility when asked to resume the role he felt should always have remained his anyway.

  He said, ‘There is no man here who feels the death of the great Fionn Mac Cumhaill more sorely than I. I should have been more watchful and prevented his rash descent of the eiscir into the sword of the fiend. But when a previous king laid heavy tasks at my feet, I never faltered. Unlike others, I will never let sentimental feelings get in the way of duty. From here on there will be proper training in the New Fianna – I will make sure that your army is never caught unprepared, as it was when the unfortunate Fionn Mac Cumhaill led us, disorganised, weak and badly trained, against the buans.’

  Conán was in a fuming rage. Diarmuid led him from the gathering quickly, before trouble erupted, saying, ‘Conserve yourself, we’ve got greater challenges now.’

  They hoped at least a few others might join them. Many good people had stood, apparently torn between respect for them and obedience to the new head man. They quietly waited a while outside, not quite sure what to do next and not knowing what to say to each other. They were both surprised at the only other person who emerged a few minutes later. It was Liath Ní Choinchin.

  They might have expected some older, hard-bitten men like themselves; people who had spent too many years next to Mac Cumhaill, shared some dark secrets with him, and travelled with him through all kinds of adventures and troubles. But Liath did not quite answer that description. Sure enough, she was a formidable soldier, full of determination and wiliness. But the shy twenty-year-old was not the most obvious volunteer for the hard road. They both looked at her, waiting to hear what message she brought.

  ‘I am with you,’ was all she said.

  ‘You’re young and have great things in front of you,’ said Diarmuid. ‘You shouldn’t feel obliged to join us hardened old boars. We’re too set in our ways to accept what’s going on in there.’

  ‘With respect, I am not doing it for you,’ she said curtly.

  ‘I understand,’ said Diarmuid, slightly miffed. ‘Many women have a fondness for Fionn. But Fionn would want you to go ahead and further yourself. You will move up in the ranks quickly – as long as you don’t get involved with us.’

  ‘Do you think that loyalty and devotion are qualities that only come with age?’ she said sharply. ‘When Conán talked inside there, I first came to understand what the old people always said – people live in each other’s shadows. If I give up on Fionn, what is there left of me?’

  Conán and Diarmuid glanced at each other. Conán said, ‘She knows her mind. Two old boars and a young mule it is then.’

  They wandered towards the edge of a nearby woodland to make camp and to get away from the gradually rising spirits that were starting to come from the great hall as the drink was taken in. As they sat around a small fire, looking at each other and realising that none had th
e vaguest idea of what to do next or where to start looking for Fionn, another person made a welcome appearance. It was Dreoilín, the old druid.

  ‘Whatever help I can be,’ he announced, ‘I am with you.’

  They spent the night there. They talked about what to do and where to start. Liath and Diarmuid believed they were probably looking for well-picked bones. Conán and Dreoilín were convinced, without any reasons they could put in words, that they were still looking for a big lump of a live man. They agreed they’d go the next morning to the site where Fionn fell. Even though Conán had spent two days there after everyone had left and they knew there was nothing to be found, they hoped maybe Dreoilín would get a sense if there was anything otherworldly at work there. And they’d decide from there what to do.

  They headed off in the early morning drizzle, four of the least likely companions ever to travel together. The gigantic, wild man; the elegant, sandalled man; the crooked, little ancient; and the slight woman with long, red plaits. The people they met along the way, picking elderflowers, tending sheep and bringing in hay, looked with a mixture of pity and admiration.

  ‘Success or death’, were the words that had been exchanged between them over a dancing fire the night before. There were no other ways for this mission to end. None of them would ever give up. And in the cold grey of the morning, success seemed the less likely option.

  ‘How long would you think our mission will take?’ Liath asked Dreoilín sincerely.

  She had never had dealings with a druid before and was somewhat in awe of this twisted little old man.

  Conán overheard and laughed, getting back to his usual form.

  ‘In twenty years, we could still be going around, frightening children – known as the wandering lunatics, who appear occasionally from the forests, turning over stones, still looking for the big fella, and only finding maggots. Sure, look at the tidy little head on Diarmuid, doesn’t he already look like a madman?’

  ‘Don’t mind him, a chroí,’ said Dreoilín. ‘When you keep a single goal always in the fore of your mind, never letting anyone distract you from it, a door will always open; you will always find a way.’

  It took them most of a day to get to the place, near midway along the eiscir, where Fionn had fallen. They stayed behind the boulder for a while, looking at the grass as if it was going to tell them something. Then they went to the sceach bush under which the buan leader had stood. Conán hacked all the limbs from the little tree with his sword. They camped behind the rock. Even at night the ground remained cold and silent. It was as if nothing had ever happened there.

  The next day, they started to journey towards the Sperrin hills to visit the area where the buans were first reported. At the end of the first day of that journey, they met a man who said his sister had seen someone that she was sure was Fionn Mac Cumhaill, wandering aimlessly in the woods over further to the west. Their hearts were greatly lifted for a little while. Maybe he was stunned and had lost his memory.

  They spent the next two days combing through those woods before moving back to their original pathway. Over the weeks ahead they had many such episodes. People offered them food and often shelter and information they hoped might be helpful. And so they followed rumours of sightings of Mac Cumhaill appearing at dusk, here, there and everywhere. They often parted to hunt separately. Most evenings, they would meet again to decide where to go next, and partly just for each other’s company, because by that stage each of them separately was starting to wonder if their own minds were going.

  In the north they found nothing either and ventured back down towards Lough Derg, the place that Conán reckoned Mac Cumhaill would surely wander if his limbs were loosened from the control of his brain.

  Then one day, after many months of roaming, they chanced into the home of Dailin, an elderly druid and friend of Dreoilín. He chastised Dreoilín for not having looked for the help of his own kind sooner. On Dreoilín’s agreement Dailin sent word out for all of the druids of the south to assemble. Some flew. Some swam. And some rode ponies. Nobody dared asked these men about their ways. But somehow all 23 of them were sitting or standing around the big fire at the centre of Dailin’s clan encampment by the middle of the next day, because the word of Dreoilín, their high man, carried more import with them than any instruction from Goll or even Cormac.

  They might as well not have travelled for all they knew about the buans or Fionn. They were about to disperse again when one man from the far south said to them, ‘Would it be beyond the bounds of reason to have a talk with old Brigid?’

  A silence descended amongst the Druids.

  ‘Who is Brigid?’ asked Liath.

  None of the druids answered.

  ‘He is an old bodach who is maybe a thousand years old and is said to have been dead and buried more than three times without much effect on him at all,’ said Conán. ‘These old boys say they don’t like him because they accuse him of practising a bit on the dark side.’

  Brigid was not much talked of or heard of in this generation. And those who did know him thought it better to steer clear of him. He may have been a failed druid himself, a man who had been excluded from their circle a long time before any of the present men was even born. The indiscretion that had brought dishonour on him was no longer remembered with certainty, though there was a rumour of an accidental death of a man that Brigid wasn’t fond of. His state of mind in the past few hundred years was not thought to be the soundest.

  The druid who asked the question explained himself apologetically.

  ‘I’ve heard it said that Brigid once talked of a battle long ago where “air soldiers” had come to the country. Do you not think there’s a chance that those boys were some relations of these buans?’

  Several of the druids complained that Brigid shouldn’t be called.

  ‘He is doting,’ whined one narrow, soft-skinned priest from Corca Dhuibhne. ‘His only power, aside from his abusive gob, is his delusion of being a druid.’

  ‘Have you a better plan, Mangan?’ asked Dreoilín sharply.

  Mangan pursed his lipless mouth and Conán, always nervous in the presence of too many priests, volunteered to go and fetch Brigid.

  Brigid arrived near midnight. He was not a small man and the sight of him sitting on Conán’s shoulders was a strange sight indeed. He had insisted on being carried all the way. When he was set down, he made a motion of dusting off the muddy sack tunics that were tied around him with strings of bindweed.

  Brigid was cantankerous and full of nonsense. When he had finished dusting himself off, the tall, grey bodach looked at his transport and complained in a rusty old voice: ‘I’d have been more comfortable if you’d dragged me along the ground.’

  Perhaps he had been fed on the milk of otherworld cows, like the real Brigid. Or maybe he had first crossed into this world on Brigid’s festival day of Imbolg. Nobody could imagine how else this hairy-faced putrid heron of a man had ended up with the name of the beautiful female god of fertility.

  He looked around and, rattled, asked ‘Which of you goats dared disturb the sleep of the greatest auld druid in the world?’

  ‘I did,’ said Dreoilín, stepping forward. ‘And I’d be very grateful if you’d tell us what you know of the “air soldiers” you have been heard to speak of.’

  ‘And who are you, you miserable git, to be asking anything of the great Brigid?’

  ‘I’m Dreoilín, chief druid of all Éirinn,’ said Dreoilín, slightly offended, ‘and I’ll be pleased if you would answer my question as quickly as you like.’

  ‘Sure, I am answering as quickly as I like. That’s as quick as nothing at all. And don’t I know you’re Dreoilín, with your face like wolfhound’s vomit and your sad pretence of magic, why would the great Brigid be bothered talking to you?’

  ‘Because the great Brigid will get a slap in the gob if he doesn’t,’ shouted Conán, picking the bodach up by the hair. But his raised hand was frozen in the air by a look from Dreoilín.<
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  ‘You don’t call me to a druid’s gathering for over five hundred years, and now that you want something, you remember that I have more magic in my tailbone than the whole lot of you together,’ railed the old man, who seemed very pleased with the shocked looks from his audience. ‘You are a tragic shower of wasters and I’m heading back to my bed before the sight of you gives me nightmares.’

  Dreoilín said, ‘I’ll certainly respect your druidic powers if you show me you have any. You can start by telling us how to deal with the spirit warriors.’

  ‘I’ll have to think for a minute,’ said Brigid, putting his finger to his head and looking like he was thinking for no more than one second. ‘Well, I’ve reached my decision. NO. Leave me alone. You have no call on me. I owe you nothing. I have taken comfort from the company of hardly any persons these two centuries past and I owe no person the slightest little thing. So you can carry on with your merriment without me.’

  He made a dash for the entrance of the compound, but was caught in the arms of Diarmuid.

  Diarmuid let go and the sad, weary look in Diarmuid’s eyes seemed to quieten him. Diarmuid spoke softly to him, telling him of the loss of Mac Cumhaill and of the desperate quest.

  ‘Oh!’ said Brigid in a slightly changed tone. ‘Why didn’t they tell me? Sure, I know Mac Cumhaill well. He never passed my part of the country without calling into my cave for a yarn.’

  A disapproving murmur went through the druids. Even Diarmuid and Liath looked disbelieving.

  Brigid was delighted.

  ‘Your hero! And let me tell you, a man not ashamed to drink a gallon of morning dew in the company of a demon. There were lots of years when he was the only human soul I’d see from one spring to the next. No, Mac Cumhaill was not the worst of you. I’ll help as a favour to him, not to any of you.’

  Immediately from Brigid’s descriptions it was clear that the ‘air soldiers’ who had visited a thousand years earlier were indeed the same as the buan Ó Lochlainns of the recent battles.