Old Friends: The Lost Tales of Fionn Mac Cumhaill

by Tom O'Neill

  Mac Cumhaill knew only too well that this was true. With the sí, a local grievance could be settled locally. It made it very hard to prevent outbreaks of war, as some local chiefs of the good people could take a broad view of what constituted fair revenge. There was no guaranteeing that this band of angry little people would not cause a lot of misery this night, ensuring that the big people would be out with Mac Cumhaill the next day demanding further retaliation. And so it could go on into a bitter war.

  ‘I put myself at your mercy, chief,’ said Mac Cumhaill. ‘Tell me what is to be done to avoid this getting out of hand and causing much damage to innocents on both sides.’

  ‘A good young man has lost a limb. The fact that he is not split in two is not down to lack of intention. We will avenge this and the consequences may fall upon us all as they choose.’

  Mac Cumhaill did not know what to say next. A feeling of dread overcame him. The very worst kind of war was one between the peoples who share a country, because they already know each others’ every move.

  In the silence, another voice spoke: ‘It is our request that the retribution is left to Fionn.’ There stood Aoife, her face still marked from tears, talking now with the mature tones of a woman twice her age.

  ‘You both claim to need to act on my honour and on the injury to my loved one. But we have decided that we do not want any death to overshadow our wedding. We want Mac Cumhaill to take care of this. And we demand that Mac Cumhaill not kill the bear. He must be banished so that he can never torment us again, and the people in the land he is banished to must be warned of his fault so he can be watched at all times. That is all. Any further action on either side will be a further injury to Séafra.’

  There was nothing more to be said. Both Mac Cumhaill and the fairy chief were in awe of this young woman and her lover. They both knew right then that more would be heard of them in the future.

  Mac Cumhaill left quietly, sending Donn and Uileog to raise all members of the Fianna at the camp with the instruction that they were to bring out the hounds and scour the countryside looking for Art.

  Mac Cumhaill had again misread Art. He thought he would at least have had the good sense to realise how grave the situation was for him now, and to lie low or flee. But not at all. A few hours later, Art arrived back into the training camp. Only Mac Cumhaill and Conán were there. They could hardly believe their eyes when he wandered over and said, quite casually, ‘Reporting for training. Where are the rest of the boys?’

  A black rage spread over Conán’s face. Art never saw the first blow coming into his face. Conán’s fist landed so hard that Art, tough and all as he was, crumpled. He barely felt any of the other punches landing all over his head and ribs as he tumbled onto the ground. Mac Cumhaill didn’t attempt to hold Conán back.

  When Art woke up, he was on a chariot with his hands tied. From there he was taken and put into a wooden cage on a boat with cattle.

  ‘I want to talk to Fionn,’ he started shouting. ‘This is an indignity. I demand to talk to Mac Cumhaill.’

  Uileog and Donn, who were given the privilege of seeing him off, looked at him and said nothing.

  He shouted at them, ‘I am a far more important warrior than either of you. One day I will be a king. Do as I tell you now and go to call Fionn so that I may be released from this humiliation.’

  ‘Do you find it humiliating to be alive?’ asked Uileog quietly. ‘That can be cured.’

  ‘You touch me and you’ll regret the day.’

  ‘There’s no need for you to see Fionn, as he sent a special message’, said Donn. ‘He says to let you know that the only reason you are alive today is that Aoife asked for you to be spared. However, once you are put on this boat, that promise to Aoife is over. After that, if he ever meets you again, whether in this world or some other, he will crush your head.’

  ‘Will he indeed!’

  ‘And he’s the least of your worries, I’d say,’ said Uileog. ‘Aoife’s grant of mercy to you is also ended this minute for the little people. If they see you after this day, they will give you plenty of time to wish you had met Fionn first for a quicker and less painful transfer to whatever world you will go to after this one. The sí are sweet people when they meet sweet people. When they meet a sour person, they can turn very very sour.’

  Art’s protests were quieter from then on, and he made no more demands to be put back onshore. The boatmen took him along with their other cargo, to his own country. Mac Cumhaill sent a message to Angharad asking that Art be watched closely at all times and not be trusted with weapons. He asked Cormac to give the same message to Angharad, in case she thought that Mac Cumhaill was being hard on Art.

  Regrettably, that was not the end of Art. Angharad’s ways did not prepare her for the kind of sly treachery that now lurked near her. Art took it on himself to go and work for no reward in Angharad’s service. He impressed her so much with his hard work and deference, dedication and politeness that she soon got into the habit of exchanging greetings with him. Increasingly she found it hard to believe that this was the same man of whom she had had such dire warnings from Cormac and Mac Cumhaill. She started to think that maybe they were just being overprotective of her and that they had blown some minor mistake out of all proportion.

  One day, she decided to call him into her rooms to discuss the situation.

  ‘You are indeed the best and most loyal worker a queen could ever wish to have,’ she said.

  ‘It is my greatest honour to serve you,’ said Art. ‘I only wish you would let me serve you better in the skills that I am really trained in.’

  ‘And what are those?’ she asked.

  ‘In the skill of defending a precious leader from attack,’ said Art carefully.

  ‘Well, I have had no need of such defence as I rather avoid making enemies,’ said the queen.

  ‘That is one of the things that makes you so great. But, and I don’t mean to worry you, but…’

  ‘But what? Art? You can be honest with me.’

  ‘Well, when I was in foreign lands I heard talk that there may be forces seeing your land as an easy target for attack and pillage.’

  ‘I have avoided it this long through reaching agreement with people in a civilised way. I intend to keep doing that.’

  ‘Alas, not all people in the world are as committed to honour or good intentions,’ said Art, slowly. ‘I have heard rumours that there may be a force gathering that would overrun this country without any discussions with you, enslaving and slaughtering our people and taking all before them.’

  ‘Oh, I doubt that is true; my neighbouring leaders would always warn me if such a problem was building up.’

  ‘They may not know yet either.’

  ‘Well, what can I do about it anyway, even if it is a remote possibility?’

  ‘You could have some defences. I could do that for you at no effort or cost to you.’

  ‘Well, maybe, if it would cost the people no extra in taxes, it can’t hurt…You say you have gained sufficient experience in these types of things?’

  ‘Yes. I am the best there is. Oh, but then of course, according to our friends across the water, you can’t trust me with a weapon or leave me untended.’

  She looked at him long and hard. She said, ‘Tell me your side of that then. What was that all about?’

  ‘It was a major misunderstanding. I caught a fairy man trying to molest a young woman. When I tried to save her, he flew at me with a dagger. As I was attempting to take it from him, he fell over it and cut his own foot off. Mayhem broke lose. As you maybe know, when a big person has a clash with one of them, the big person is automatically wrong in their view. The scheming fairies put a spell on the woman and made her vow that she loved the fairy man and that I, in fact, had been trying to kill him for other reasons.’

  ‘Oh, the treachery! What other reasons could you possibly have had?’

  ‘Exactly. What could have been in it for me? Rescuing a damsel in distress. They
tried to say it was jealousy and Fionn Mac Cumhaill just wouldn’t hear my side of the story.’

  ‘Well, he can be a bit full of his own opinions at times,’ said the queen helpfully, ‘and I suppose Cormac just believed what Mac Cumhaill told him.’

  ‘Exactly. But I can tell you, after being shipped off in disgrace like a criminal, I will think long and hard before I ever consider doing anything to help them again.’

  ‘Oh, well don’t let one bad incident mar your entire life,’ said Angharad, reaching over to touch the calculating brow of the bear-man.

  He was finding it hard to contain his joy beneath a conjured frown.

  ‘But what can I do? Loyal soldiering is all I know.’

  ‘Well, that’s what you will be employed to do for me, then. Though I have to remind you, I don’t need very much protecting because I prefer to get on well with everyone and not to keep many possessions. But I do always keep a few guards, mainly to fend off drunkards or madmen who pester me. Not a grave job, but you can join them if you wish. Go and get yourself weapons and protect me.’

  ‘But what about the instruction from Fionn?’

  ‘Ah, I will talk to him the next time I see him and we will laugh about the entire episode, I am sure.’

  The very next day, Art was travelling the countryside looking for the half-skilled and the willing. There were small bands of bullies to be found in most of the chieftaincies around Móna at that time. They survived by extorting silver and grain from villages in return for not burning them down. Art offered these men a deal they couldn’t turn down. There was going to be only one force taking protection taxes from the villages from now on. They could either be with Art’s force or be killed. If they joined him, they would get training and respect. They would even get a grand new title conferred by Art. Sir This or Sir That. And they would be forgiven for all previous robberies and murders.

  Art knew how to get his point through quickly. He recruited the first band of hoodlums he met, and together they killed the next two bands. After that, all joined or fled. With the villages too, he burnt the first two where elders asked any questions about why they should pay him any taxes. From there on, he quickly became the glorious protector of all villages in Móna.

  In a matter of months he had a sizeable force and he controlled all of Angharad’s countryside. She became completely isolated. The love they had held for her was completely outweighed by the fear provoked by Art.

  Then one day he told Angharad he had to remove her from the castle to protect her from an invading force.

  She said, ‘This has gone too far, Art. This is not what I had intended. The people are scared of my army. I want this to end.’

  Art barked at her. ‘Quiet, foolish woman. You had your chance.’

  She was escorted at sword-point, thrown into a cabin on a remote hillside and a guard left with her to keep her fed and stop her wandering. Art hadn’t lost his shrewdness and he reckoned it might come in useful to be able to show her to the people at some point in the future. And she would look better at that point if she was alive.

  Art issued a proclamation saying that Angharad had been taken ill, and that she had pleaded with him to take on the role of king. He had loyally taken on the heavy burdens of State. That was that. King Art began his reign.

  Art soon recruited balladeers. They complied with his requests to make a glorious history for him. Soon the songs people were expected to sing at firesides in Móna claimed that their glorious warrior, Art, had slain a huge, winged lizard that breathed fire. They also claimed he had accomplished many great deeds while in Éire. Most common of all, though, were heroic songs about how he had raided and harried fairy people wherever he encountered them. Any fool would have known these tales were untrue, as there is no human ever who has set out deliberately to harass and torment the sí and lived to tell the tale.

  He never freed himself from the wound that Aoife and the sí had inflicted on his pride. One of the increasingly bizarre proclamations from him puzzled even his most obsequious advisers:

  Relations between humans and fairies are against the laws of the gods and are unnatural. Henceforth, anyone engaged in such relations will be considered to have offended the gods and will be struck down. Furthermore, any children of such relations must not see the light of day, as they create an unbearable torment, reminding us forever of the sins of their parents.’

  In spite of his increasingly entrenched obsession with the sí and his mistrust of women – none was allowed to join his realm or to enter his castle – the people of Móna soon became immersed in his way. The initial fear of saying anything negative about him gave way to habit and then belief. The people there started saying things like, ‘Under King Art’s glorious rule, crime is a distant memory.’ That was true. The Sirs ruled absolute and anyone even suspected of a theft or assault would be accused of damaging the king’s property and would be killed without further ceremony.

  Many of the neighbouring kingdoms were amused and flowed with tales of the increasingly isolated and eccentric King Art, meeting endlessly with his Sirs, touching them with his sword as he conferred new titles on them every month, and spending hours deciding on the contours of their armour and the colours of the feathers and emblems of each. In Éire, though, there was little royal amusement. Cormac wanted Art’s reign ended and his cousin Angharad reinstated.

  Mac Cumhaill refused. ‘We are not honour-bound to reinstate her as she dismissed our warnings. Besides, it doesn’t do us any harm to have an army of raving lunatics that has to be gone through by anyone approaching us from the east.’

  ‘You are a calculating man at times. But you won’t enjoy it so much if Arthur decides to bring his lunatics over here.’

  Mac Cumhaill knew that wouldn’t happen. Arthur would be terrified in case any of his men got to hear the truth of his disgrace or discovered the truth of his previous tangles with the fairies.

  ‘And you?’ said Cormac craftily. ‘You were not at any time deceived by Art’s flattery?’

  Mac Cumhaill went across the sea that night with Conán and Bran and took Angharad from her mountain hut while the guard was sleeping. When word got to Arthur, he calculated that his old enemies had drugged the guard. He announced to his people that the wonderful, gentle Angharad had been whisked off by the evilest of fairies and he entered a period of mourning for her.

  Angharad was in fact brought back to Éirinn where she lived to old age as a guest of Cormac. soft-hearted to the end, she bore no bitterness. She wouldn’t even say a bad word about Art. She would just go quiet when his name was mentioned. Other than that, she charmed everyone she met with kindness and concern. They included Aoife and Séafra who came to visit her often, and who named their first-born child Angharad.

  As for Art, he died young. Reputedly his heart burst open with rage after his castle collapsed into its moat and he discovered that the foundations had been removed stone by stone by some unseen forces. All the removed stones could be seen in a pile a mile away, erected in a gigantic likeness of Luan, the king of the sí. He couldn’t bear it. However, his era made such a mark on the minds of his people that folklore about the great King Art made it sound like it lasted a hundred glorious years rather than the actual five miserable years.

  When the Old Man faded, Arthur was lying on the soft bed of leaves and looking up at the old yew tree again. He sat up, alarmed, beginning to realise it was daytime. He’d be late for the feeding and all.

  He could hear other voices calling from a distance, maybe beyond the far ditch of the Rocky Field.

  He climbed to his feet. He had a terrible pain in his stomach and his mouth was as dry as if he’d been chewing sloes. He pushed out through the bushes and whistled because he felt too weak to shout loud enough for anyone to hear from that distance.

  A huge figure burst through the far ditch of the bog. Arthur was very confused. Even with his blurred vision, the figure could only have been Connie.

  Connie came running in g
reat steps, water splashing as he missed the rushes. Another man ran more carefully behind him. Brian.

  As they reached him, they stared at him for a moment, not seeming to know what to say.

  Then Connie said, ‘It’s, eh, good to see you, bud.’

  ‘Oh, thanks be to Jaysus, thanks be to Christ,’ Brian kept saying.

  Arthur’s eyes were slow in adjusting to the daylight. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘The bold gardaí couldn’t find you so they let me out to look for you!’

  ‘But I’m only an hour or two late,’ he said, trying to assess how high the sun was. ‘And it’s Saturday. So I’m not even missing school.’ The mention of the guards in all this was beyond him.

  Brian looked at Connie.

  ‘Actually it’s Friday, Art. You’ve been missing for a week.’

  Arthur didn’t know how that could be. But he couldn’t think about it. He was just so thirsty. Getting water was about all he could think of. Before they could stop him, he was on his knees scooping up from a pocket of black bog-water. When he stood up again his legs buckled.

  Connie lifted him up. Arthur didn’t have the strength to object.

  ‘Let’s get you back,’ said Connie. ‘There’s someone above in the house going to have the happiest day of her life. Jesus Christ, you’re gone massive! Skinny and all as you are, it’d be easier to carry Brian.’

  When they got into the kitchen, his mother stared blankly, her face grey. Then she collapsed and Brian caught her before she hit the floor.

  When she recovered she couldn’t stop kissing Arthur and giving Connie the occasional kiss too and saying, ‘Oh, God. Oh, thank you.’

  She was hardly coherent for a while, touching him as if she didn’t believe he was real.

  Then she said, ‘I’m sorry Art. That night you went missing – I stayed up late and thought more about the idea of leasing the farm and your reaction to it, and I realised what a mistake it was. I went in to wake you to tell you it was OK. But you were gone. It felt like after all the time you and I had been treading our way carefully along a difficult cliff path together, I forgot for just a second and let go of your hand, let you slip away, and the world had finally come to an end.’