Old Friends: The Lost Tales of Fionn Mac Cumhaill

by Tom O'Neill

  ‘I would say it is a very long time,’ said Conán, ‘since anyone looked at you and saw a little ray of hope. But if you can tell us any small thing about how to reach the land of these cockroaches I will love you more than your unfortunate mother could ever have.’

  The bodach became serious.

  ‘First I will need you each to collect a fistful of the pollen of daisies.’

  No questions were asked. Right there in the dark, they all spread out and got down on their hands and knees in the dewy grass, looking for daisies and trying to get the pollen out of them. Dreoilín changed into his bird form and flitted, collecting in his beak.

  After about an hour, he called them all.

  Then he said, ‘Now. I want all the useless druids to go home, as what I have to say is not fit for their ears. Dreoilín and Mac Cumhaill’s three other cronies will come with me.’

  The other druids were not unhappy to comply, but one of them wondered what to do with the pollen they had collected.

  ‘You can keep that if you want,’ said Brigid, snuffling in nasty delight into his sacking. Then he looked like he was starting to have little convulsions as spouts of high-pitched laughter broke out of his control, ‘as a memento... of the day... I got a bunch of heroes and priests to go down on their knees before me.’

  Liath got in a rage when she heard this. She didn’t shout, though. The old bodach never saw her coming. In a flash he was on his back on the ground with her foot on his chest and the blade of her sword tickling his neck.

  ‘You. We are very tired. If you had nothing more to offer us only to make fools of us, you should have made haste back to your cave while you had the chance.’

  The snuffling laughs only got louder as his old legs curled up.

  Conán pulled Liath’s sword arm back.

  ‘Just in case those stories about his ability to come back from the grave have been exaggerated, maybe we should keep him in one part for as long as we need him.’

  The obnoxious bodach stood up and shook the sack-cloths that covered him. A lot of dirt fell off him.

  ‘Well now, my fine companions,’ he said, still sobbing with laughter, ‘this is the situation. I’ll take you there and do the talking for you. You’ll have a very short time to get your lad out. When you get back here – if you get back here I mean – ’ He snuffled back another bout of laughter and was interrupted by Dreoilín.

  ‘Come on then,’ said Dreoilín. ‘That’ll do.’

  ‘That’s not all,’ said the bodach, ‘if you get back here, nobody will ever ask Brigid any questions about how or why or suchlike.’

  ‘But how do you get on so well with them that you think you can keep them entertained?’ said Diarmuid, ‘And how do you know you can even get us into their place easily? Have you been there before?’

  ‘Now, that’s just the thing I mean,’ said the bodach. ‘No questions.’

  ‘But... ’ said Diarmuid, who was too honourable for making bargains that might have hidden corners.

  ‘It’s a deal,’ intervened Dreoilín.

  ‘And one other thing,’ said the bodach, patting Dreoilín on the back as if he was a chap, ‘you will invite me to every druid gathering in future and put me back where I belong at the head of the table alongside yourself.’

  The others thought this would be too much for Dreoilín to swallow, now that he knew for almost sure that the bodach was a creature who was not unfamiliar with dark magic and not unfriendly with enemy forces. But Dreoilín must have been just as desperate in his quest for Mac Cumhaill as his three companions were. He thought for just a minute before he nodded and said, ‘Yes.’

  The bodach ’s eyes couldn’t hide his delight. He said, ‘That’ll do me now. Daghda love me. Come with me.’

  They followed him a few steps to the open well in the middle of the settlement. He went down on his hunkers. He pulled a bag from amongst his layers of covering. It was a surprisingly large bag. He started laying things out on the ground. They were bones. Five of them. And a skull.

  Diarmuid was horrified. But when the bodach signaled that he wanted each of them to take hold of a bone, each complied.

  ‘Success or death, old friends’, nodded Conán to Diarmuid and the others quietly, as he grabbed what looked like it had been the upper arm of a sturdy man.

  Brigid himself held the skull and a rib bone.

  Then began a rattling murmuring sound from the bodach that would send a chill to the core of the bravest soul. In another instant, they were in the grey land, straight in front of the entrance to the long, low building. They were startled. But they soon gathered their senses as they saw a dozen or more of the all-too-familiar buans trundling towards them. The three soldiers drew their swords and stood in front of Dreoilín. The bodach grabbed the bones from each of their hands and stepped in front of them. He kept up his gurgling and Conán then recognised it. It was the very same sound as the buans made. And the advancing grey men stopped to listen. He was holding out a bone. He had their full attention.

  Without turning to Dreoilín he growled urgently from the side of his mouth, ‘What are you lot gawking at? Do you not have work to do?’

  For whatever reason, when the buans were looking at Brigid’s bones, they were not able to see Conán and the other three heading off past them into the castle.

  They entered the long-walled castle, now unguarded. They went through from one room to the next, all grey and identical square rooms with nothing in them. There seemed to be no central hall, no banquet rooms, no hearths, no king or queen, no evidence of any comforts. It did not seem an excessively joyful place even for its willing inhabitants.

  Eventually, Diarmuid noticed a trapdoor in the floor of one of the main corridors. Strange and horrible sounds seemed to be coming from beneath it. Diarmuid lifted the stone cap and flung it aside. They stared into absolute darkness. Conán did a mad thing, jumping in without knowing whether there were steps or even a bottom below them. For luck he hit a floor not far enough down to break his legs. The others followed quickly.

  They climbed down a sloping corridor in terrifying darkness. They felt their way along a passage and found many doors. They tapped on each with sword handles. All they heard from inside was groaning. Eventually their knock on one door at the furthest end of the passage, brought a sound that made all of their hearts jump.

  ‘To blazes with you all, can’t you even let me sleep for the hour?’

  It was, without doubt, Fionn Mac Cumhaill’s voice.

  Conán had more blind devotion to Mac Cumhaill even than his hound, Bran, did. He was so overcome at the sound of Mac Cumhaill’s living voice that he found a huge surge of strength. With one blow from his foot he smashed the massive slate door to smithereens. Mac Cumhaill still couldn’t see who it was. He shouted again and lunged at them.

  ‘Get away from me, you heinous curs.’

  Then he heard their shouts: ‘Come on, come quick, the mountains are calling.’

  Mac Cumhaill lowered his voice.

  ‘What? Who is there? Conán? Can it be? My mind is gone.’

  ‘Could it be anyone else?’ said Liath.

  ‘Liath?’

  ‘And Diarmuid, and Dreoilín,’ said Liath.

  ‘Shame on me, shame on me, shame on me; how could I have thought my old friends would have forgotten me. Please forgive me for thinking so little of you.’

  ‘You don’t know how near you were to being right,’ said Diarmuid. ‘You can thank Conán here for knocking shame into the rest of us.’

  ‘There’s no time for blather,’ said Conán. ‘Let’s get you quickly away from here.’

  When they got out into the grey daylight, they were shocked at the pale and wasted Mac Cumhaill. No one commented until Conán turned to Diarmuid.

  ‘Well I’ll concede, those who thought we’d be bringing back a bag of bones weren’t far wrong.’

  Mac Cumhaill fired a stone that lifted a wandering buan off his feet and said, ‘There’s still a bi
t of breath left in these old bones.’

  When they got back out of the castle yard, Brigid was still engaging his associates. He had now taken many more bones from his bag and he appeared to be swapping them for some grey paste and yellow powder. When he saw the five returning, he surreptitiously stuffed the substances into his layers. He nodded to Mac Cumhaill, who nodded back. Without any chat, he again gave them all bones to hold. Again he touched the skull and recited his cant. Before the buans even realised, the dealing was all done, Brigid and the five were sitting back in Dailin’s camp near the banks of the lovely Lough Derg.

  It took them a little while to recover their senses. Dailin came out to see what the commotion was about and was stunned and delighted to see Fionn with them where there had been only Brigid and the four wanderers not more than an hour previously.

  Diarmuid stood and said, ‘Before we go any further, I want to know what potions you got from those monsters and how you know them so well and why you wouldn’t leave us go back to free those other unfortunate souls who remain enslaved by the buans.’

  Dailin noticed the bones then. He was not a fan of Brigid. His voice also became overtaken by concern.

  ‘I want to know what kind of wickedness has just been practiced in my homestead and whose bones exactly you people are clutching.’

  They all dropped the bones. Brigid gathered the bones quickly back into his bag, snuffling and snorting.

  ‘Remember now, no questions.’

  With that, he hobbled quickly towards the entrance of the enclosure and disappeared into the night. Nobody tried to follow him.

  A chariot was yoked and Fionn was taken to his home where Úna was overcome to see him. Every day that she nursed him to his recovery, his friends would call around and they would sit up late trying to make sense of everything that had happened and discussing what to do about the bodach.

  Conán wasn’t very picky about his company and didn’t care for debates about whether Brigid was bad, since he had done them a good turn. Diarmuid wanted Brigid brought before the brehon s, who could ask him to prove that he was not involved in evildoings and who could force him to return the bones to rest in peace wherever he had taken them from in case their owners came to haunt them all. Liath favoured getting the despicable bodach to bring them back to free the rest of the slaves and destroy the castle.

  Dreoilín said, ‘The bones, in my opinion, might not be human in the first place. It is likely that Brigid has been trading the bones of the buans who died at the eiscir back to their own people. It is best not to test his powers by having him take us back there because he is probably less powerful than he makes out and we might all end up stuck there this time. Furthermore, while I too would like to see him having to account for his bad behaviour, it might be wiser to leave him living in his miserable cave for another thousand years. After all, his ability to travel to the land of the buans might be needed again by our descendents.’

  Finally Mac Cumhaill said, ‘It’s true what the bodach told you – that I know him a long time.’

  Liath and Diarmuid looked disappointed.

  Mac Cumhaill continued, ‘And I still can’t tell you whether he is good or bad. Probably, like the druid’s egg, he is good in spots. But a deal is a deal.’

  Conán nudged Dreoilín.

  ‘And you will have the pleasure of having him by your side at every druid meeting from here on. A deal is a deal.’

  After a few weeks in the care of Úna, Mac Cumhaill was called back into the leadership of the Fianna. Cormac considered throwing a big party to celebrate Fionn’s return but he first discreetly enquired to ensure that the four travellers would attend such an event. He mightn’t have always been a wise king but he was wily enough to make up for it.

  When Conán let it be known that there might be skin and hair flying if he caught sight of Goll and Cormac with a glass of mead in his veins, Cormac announced that a party would not be appropriate given how ill Fionn still was. Maybe he’d have one in a year or two when everyone was feeling better. Instead, he sent out a message across the land issuing a thousand welcomes home to Fionn.

  Of course, he implied that he was the one who had sent Conán looking and that he had never for a moment believed that Mac Cumhaill was a goner.

  In fact, everyone Mac Cumhaill met was full sure that they remembered saying, Conán will bring Fionn back sooner or later. Goll told Mac Cumhaill that he had made no changes because he knew Fionn would be back shortly. The ‘Fianna Nua’ story was just someone’s imagination running away.

  Mac Cumhaill said nothing about any of it. His first act, when he was back in Tara, was to call for the boy who witnessed all battles. The spell was indeed lifted and the boy was growing up with the intention of working the soil and of never seeking out the sight of bloodshed in his life again.

  Fionn turned to Liath Ní Choinchin and said, ‘Take this boy to Cormac and make sure his aunt and her family are well rewarded for the great help this young man has given us. Then take him home.’

  From that day on, Mac Cumhaill was wiser and more careful with his trust. His friendship became very tightly bound to the four who had risked their lives for him and his mistrust of many others became a silent handicap to him for many a long day afterwards.

  Dreoilín never again called another general meeting of druids.

  It was very early morning, but a bit later and lighter than usual when the people, big and little, faded from Dark’s sight. To his relief, there was no sign of any yellow-eyed, grey-haired hounds.

  He thought he heard someone calling his name. And then again, louder. It was back up the fields somewhere, maybe at the house. He left the rath and started running back up the fields. The rising sun cast a redness such as he had never seen in a morning sky.

  There in the yard was a huge orange truck parked up against the little 135 tractor that Dark had left out after using it to spread fertiliser in the lower fields the evening before. He couldn’t even begin to understand how neither his mother nor the super-alert Georgina had woken up with the noise of the enormous articulated unit coming into the gravelled yard or the racket of his name being yelled so loudly.

  In front of the truck stood a man almost the same shape as the front wheel. He was hardly up to Dark’s waist in height, but very stocky. Dark certainly wouldn’t have liked to tangle with him. He had bright red hair in a huge afro. He wore a grin that looked permanent and slightly insane. One eye was blue green and looked directly at him. The other was like white china and didn’t look anywhere.

  ‘How’ye Art?’ said the man, ‘Balie is the name they calls me.’

  Dark remembered him now. He had seen him once before, a long time back. He had spent a night in the kitchen drinking cans of Guinness, smoking Majors, playing 25s and laughing with Connie and a couple of other lads.

  ‘Alright,’ said Dark. ‘Connie isn’t here, though. He’s been away for a long time.’

  ‘Oh, I know that, boss,’ laughed the man. ‘I was just going down the road there and I said I’d call in to see how the young man of the place is getting on.’

  ‘Alright,’ said Dark again, still not sure what the man wanted or how he’d known he’d be down the fields or what he himself was doing driving around the roads in a trailerless truck at five o’clock on a cold Tuesday morning.

  ‘Don’t be worried,’ laughed the man. ‘Connie and me go a long way back. A long, long way. And I can see you’re doing grand. I’ll let him know that.’

  ‘That’s the finest, then,’ said Dark, feeling more relaxed, but still not completely at ease until he knew exactly what the man wanted.

  The man laughed again and said, ‘Well, I can see there’s nothing to worry about here. But listen, my brother, here’s my mobile number. Connie still has good friends, you know. I’m always on the roads, especially at night, and if you ever need help with anything, you give the Red Lad here a shout. I won’t be long coming. Alright?’

  ‘Alright.’

  �
��Good luck, then,’ said Balie the Red Lad, crushing his hair on the wing mirror as he climbed back up into the truck.

  ‘Good luck,’ said Dark. ‘Thanks. And... will you tell him I was asking for him if you see him?’

  The man closed the door and rolled down the window. Seventies disco music came blaring out. He stuck his elbow out. Still no dogs woke. ‘That I will, sir. That I will.’

  ‘McLean, read out your answer to question four,’ said Sullivan. She sometimes asked other people too, but she always tried Dark first. Ever since the first day when his mother told her that he was still finding it hard to talk in front of people and could the teachers please maybe not ask him things in class, to give him a while to get better.

  Dark, as usual, said nothing. But today was entirely different. For the first time, he didn’t feel his entire face and ears getting red hot with embarrassment.

  ‘Quel surprise, Mr Dumb. Still waiting for the cat to bring his tongue back?’

  ‘No Miss. I’m talking now.’ Dark was as surprised as the rest of the classroom at the words bouncing out of his mouth.

  She was startled. But only for a moment. ‘So there we are! So the lanky city lad has a tongue after all. I knew I’d be the first teacher here to get you to talk,’ she crowed delightedly. ‘I knew very well there was nothing at all wrong with you other than being spoilt by your mummy. Alright then. Bring up your work and show it to me if you don’t want to call it out.’

  ‘I would, but there’s nothing to see,’ said Dark calmly.

  ‘What?’ Miss Sullivan was really baffled now, ‘Why not? I suppose you’re going to tell me some feeble excuse like you forgot or... or... or a wolf ate it?’

  Now Dark was taken aback. He thought that a very peculiar suggestion for her to make. He had never heard any teacher talk of a wolf before.

  ‘Well, no, Miss,’ he said eventually. ‘No, the wolf didn’t come near it.’

  ‘Are you being smart with me, young man?’ She was becoming an even paler white than usual, which was always a sign that she was getting angry.

  ‘No, Miss. He didn’t.’