Legend of the Celtic Stone

by Michael Phillips

  Cruithne too was a Celt. His blood ran hot with love of a challenge, and his fine iron-tipped javelin was ever at his side.

  Domnall followed the warrior-chief and the poet-chief. At sixteen, he was still a boy in many ways, but already the ways of the bard were deepening within him. His sensitivities to the land and its creatures and people grew every passing year. From his father, at whose knee he had heard the ancient tales, he had also been given eyes and heart to learn what it all meant. His hands had strummed the bardic clarsach from the moment he could sit. Now the countless ballads that comprised Caldohnuill’s history had deeply woven themselves into his being and made up the very matrix of his consciousness.

  As Domnall walked along behind, therefore, unconsciously he hummed a haunting melody of unknown origin. The adventure had already begun to mark itself into his heart, to be added in later years to the tales he would pass to his own son. For he too was a Celt, and a bard’s son besides. His soul was full of an ever-recurring impulse to break out now in melancholy chant, now in happy song, to tell what has been and what might yet be.

  The three young men, so distinctive of temperament, yet bound by bonds of clan and friendship, blood and lifelong camaraderie, made together a threefold cord of Celtic character—the multisighted mystic, the hot-blooded adventurer, and the historian-bard. As they followed their course across the frozen ground, the very expressions on the three faces offered fit symbols to epitomize the varied character of their clan and their race.

  Several hours later, as the afternoon shadows lengthened toward night, they yet trudged on. They had covered some six or seven miles, and had rejoiced along the way in a successful catch of eight or ten fine freshwater trout. With the dried salty venison and baked hard cakes of ground oatmeal mixed with water and melted fat from the slaughtered boar, their catch would make them a feast around tonight’s fire.

  The wind still hounded them, softer now, but colder with the approach of darkness. They were nearing the vicinity of Cracail Mor, rounding the short end of a small lake in the midst of rugged and rocky hills. Walking here was difficult even when the light was good, and it would shortly grow treacherous.

  The hills hereabouts offered a very picture of desolation. What little vegetation dared peek its greenery from between the rocks was still mostly white from a remaining dusting of snow, or with the frost that already anticipated the night. None of the shapes of rocks or bushes or even trees contained much beauty. All was gray and brown and seemed worn, hopeless, and tired—and so very cold!

  The walkers would not make it out of this wasteland tonight as they had planned. They now sought a tolerably flat piece of ground, protected by a ledge or large rock from the southwesterly direction of the breeze, where they might make their camp and build the fire that would see them through the frigid black hours. How thankful they were for the warm pelts and skins they wore, and for the extras they carried.

  An hour later, they were sitting around a brightly roaring blaze, sheltered from the wind, and laughing as only the young can laugh, heartily enjoying the end of their first day and the rewards of their labors at the loch.

  Ten

  Far away, some thirteen to fifteen miles almost due south, in a forlorn cave across the waters of Loch Durcellach, another fire burned. It was smaller, though the heat required from it was not so great, for the blood of the three who sat talking around it ran hot enough to make up for the cold.

  A woman—old, the wrinkles under her eyes accentuated by the bright flickers of flame, but still feisty and vigorous—sat in animated speech with two men. The gestures of her hands and face suggested it was with difficulty that she made herself understood. Her eyes within their network of wrinkles shone with a fire of dubious origin. The clenched fist accompanying her words disclosed the intensity with which she spoke.

  They came from different tribes, she and the men with whom she shared the fire, though all three possessed similar origins, and thus much commonality of tongue. The men were of the tribe Roismaeatae, meaning they were people of Celtic Maeatae extraction who had migrated north and settled in Rois. She had sojourned south to meet them from Laoigh in Caldohnuill. Though the two tribes would not exactly have considered themselves enemies, in these times, even with shared strains of blood, few indeed were the affiliations that would have led them to consider another tribe a friend. The woman and two men were no exception. Self-interest alone guided the motives on each side of the fire.

  At present the woman was speaking.

  “Time is short, I say. You must act without delay!”

  “We cannot march against the hill. We would be slaughtered as we made approach from the plain.”

  “Have you not been listening, you fool?” rasped the woman. “You must infiltrate the camp, and when the time is right and the boy is alone—”

  “It will have to be at night.”

  “Without question.”

  “How will we know him?”

  “Leave that to me! When the time is right, I will give him a greeting you will not mistake.”

  “A mistake will cost you your head, old woman!”

  “We must pick a moment when my own son is out of the camp. Then you must move swiftly.”

  “What has your son to do in this matter, cousin of the Maeatae?” asked the other man.

  “Hold your wicked tongue!” retorted the woman. “Even in this foul place, do not speak that word! I have all but convinced the old hags of the place that I am one of them. If they knew my son’s veins flowed with your blood, he would never be chief.”

  One of the men laughed deeply. It was far from a merry sound, and it echoed only a twisted pride in the woman’s guileful deception.

  “What makes you think he will be chief anyway?” he asked, laughing again, this time in something more like derision.

  “If you do as I tell you, they will have no choice. You will kill that old fool who is my husband and his bastard offspring. Then I will make certain my son returns to drive off the savage raiders. He will be acclaimed a hero.”

  “So, that is what you would call us—savage raiders?” asked the first man, with menace in his tone.

  “Keep your blood calm, you fool! I was but thinking what they will call you after.”

  “Insolent wretch. No one calls me a fool!” He rose from the fire, and his hand sought the huge blade at his side.

  The woman sat unmoved, the flicker of a smile playing at her mouth. If there was the slightest trace of fear in her heart, not a hair on the back of her crinkly neck moved to show it.

  “You are a dangerous accomplice,” she said at length. “But I do not think you will harm me.”

  “You push me far.”

  “Yes, and you will fall in with my plan if you know what is good for your people. But the dark powers roast you if you lay any trap for me.”

  “I do not plan to get close enough to you again to allow your hot breath or the fires from your pit to singe so much as the hair of my arm!”

  “Say what you will,” growled the woman. “It is I who can put wealth in your hands.”

  “What can you give that we cannot take for ourselves? That is the one flaw in this daring scheme of yours, my evil-minded cousin—yes! I will call you by the word, if only to show you I fear the words of no woman! You summoned my brother and me here to hatch your sinister plot. But I have heard nothing yet that would benefit us. What do we gain?”

  “I can put wealth in your hands,” she replied, eyes aglow. “Precious silver bowls and trinkets, finely smithed jewelry and exquisite stones from far across the Dark Waters. Neck pieces and hair adornments for your women. There is abundance of silverwork in the hill-fort, but only I can lay my hands on it for you. I will bring it all to you after my son has driven you off.”

  “You expect us to run in fear from a mere boy?”

  “A boy, you call him!” she shrieked. “My Cruithne is a mighty warrior, worth any three of your kind!”

  “And it is from fear for
our safety that we must come when he is away from camp?” rejoined one of the men with a throaty chuckle.

  “He would slay you with one deadly aim of his spear if you dared approach uninvited!”

  “Let him try it, and you will see your son’s blood soak into the ground along with the other’s.”

  “If you attempted to harm his brother, he would lift your severed head in his hand before you could raise your knife an inch against the soft-brained interloper!”

  She stopped momentarily and gazed into the fire as her voice grew pensive.

  “That is my son’s only weakness,” she went on, “—his distorted affection for the whoreson scoundrel of that baseborn woman.”

  Then just as quickly, she shot her glance back up toward the two men and again addressed them in vehement tone.

  “I will see to it that he returns in time to drive you off. The black death take you if you harm a hair of his head. I will do the work for him and plunge a dagger into both your breasts! But do what I say and run like the cowards you are, and seven days later, when the moon is high, I will bring to this same spot enough wealth to satisfy even your greedy fingers!”

  “How do you propose that we enter the fort unseen and unheeded, without the rest of the men raising the call against us? They will surely know you as a traitor and us as the enemy when they witness our taking counsel together.”

  “You must come as friends.”

  “Impossible.”

  “There is a way.”

  “You cannot reveal us to your relatives. We would be walking into certain death.”

  The woman fell silent for several moments. She stared into the dying embers, even as the two cousins she had not seen for almost ten years stared into the fiery orbs of her eyes. They mistrusted her, yet were bound in an ancient bond of blood unknown to anyone in Laoigh, including Eormen’s own husband.

  “It can be done, I tell you,” she said at length, dark cunning in her voice. “You must paint your chests with the reindeer or the wolf. They will take you for one of the tribes from Kildonanoid. I will greet you as distant members of my family, for old Cowall is said to have migrated down from the north with her sucklings and husband.”

  “Tattoo our bodies with the emblems of our enemies?” rose the voice of one of the men. “You speak words of betrayal!”

  She laughed, amused at the thinness of skin and stiffness of brain in the one she had played with as a child.

  “I said paint your chests, not tattoo them. The designs need not be permanent. Mix the blood of a rat and black water squeezed from wet peat with the dye of Kermes. The design will serve our purpose. You can swim Loch Durcellach when your mission is complete, and by the time you reach your borders, all trace of your temporary treason will have washed its way toward Durcellach Bay.”

  “And if the heavens turn against us and the sky empties itself of rain?”

  “Then cover your chests, you fool! And make sure you keep the images of those ugly entangled snakes on your backs covered as well, or the people of the hill will know in an instant the Maeatae whom they hate.”

  “You would have us walk into the wolf’s lair, as they call Laoigh, with a painted tattoo as our only protection?”

  “The wolf is old, and his eyes weak. Come bearing him a gift, and mind that you do not approach from the south. The old fool has a passion for the flesh of wild boar. Come carrying a dead pig on your shoulders with words of greeting, and he will welcome you. Bury the weapons you will need in the bowels of the beast. I will take care of the rest. You may trust me.”

  Now it was the men’s turn to laugh, and they did so. But the sound was far from a pleasant one.

  “You are an old witch,” said one. “If danger should lurk behind Taran’s walls of stone, it will be your flesh my knife shall slit.”

  “There will be no danger if you do as I say.”

  “And if the silver is not as you promised, and not so bountiful,” added the other, “a second raid may come to Laoigh one night when you least expect it. But yours will be the only neck the sharp blades of Roismaeatae seek!”

  “You troublesome fools,” said Eormen, rising. “You will get your pieces of silver when my son is chief.”

  She turned and made her way toward the mouth of the cave. The voice of one of her cousins stopped her.

  “Be vigilant, old woman. Our druids will offer the sacrifice of a virgin in the sacred grove that we may be successful. Then we will come when the sun rises high in the southern sky, not more than fifteen days from this time. If we discover that you have betrayed us, it will be your gore we will next sprinkle on the oaks.”

  She merely nodded, then disappeared into the night.

  Neither of the two men said anything for many long minutes. Together they sat watching the final flames of the fire flicker to their death and give way at last to glowing embers. When finally they arose to leave, the inside of the cave was black, and only a thin trail of smoke remained behind them.

  Eleven

  The morning was well advanced when the three stalwart young walkers reached the Falls of Bruid. Sounds of whitewater tumbling over the rocks and crashing downward reached their ears many minutes before the spectacular sight came into view. The fact only heightened the wonderful terror of the perilous place.

  Loch Bruid, the greatest inland loch for many days in all directions, had been carved out of the highland granite thousands of years before by retreating glacial ice. In one of nature’s creatively humorous moments, it had been left perched nearly atop a range of encircling peaks, a basin some two thousand feet high into which the waters from many streams poured melting snows from the mountains, but out of which there was but one natural means of egress. A narrow aperture at the southeast end of the loch, between two jagged cliffs, sent a narrow but swift, and at certain seasons deep, torrent of water on an exciting journey that would, some eight miles distant, empty into the headwaters of Loch Durcellach and thence flow eastward to the sea.

  The remarkable feature of the course of Loch Bruid’s overflow, however, was not the two-thousand-foot descent in elevation, but the fact that more than half of it occurred within some five hundred lineal feet along its path, at approximately the halfway point between Bruid and Durcellach. Following a steadily downward yet not unleisurely course, the stream wound southward, gaining both speed and volume from small tributaries along the way, until suddenly the very earth beneath it seemed to give way. Without warning, the current cascaded downward in a rush, over boulders and stones, frothing itself into a positive frenzy of turbulent whitewater.

  Then suddenly, in a geological moment of genius seemingly too marvelous to be wasted upon a wilderness where scarce eye could see it, the downward surge hesitated and, in a narrow, smooth, and nearly level trough of some thirty or forty feet, gathered itself in a final rush, shot straight out over a single slab of overhanging rock, and plunged gloriously through the air some three hundred feet straight down. There it thundered into a great pool of unknown depth, which had apparently been hewn out of the rocky terrain for no other purpose than to receive the magnificent cataract.

  It was at a point about a third of the way down the waterfall that Cruithne, Fidach, and Domnall now stood, beholding in silent awe the sight before them. Domnall had been to the falls only once before, as a mere lad with his father. But all morning, as they walked, the two sons of the chief had heightened his expectation of what he was about to behold with their own tales of its splendor.

  As he stood gazing upward toward the point where the watercourse shot out as if propelled by some great invisible force from the very mountain itself, then turning his eye downward to behold the constantly churning tarn below, the bardic imagination of the boy was not disappointed. Through his brain pulsed not only the sight and sound of water tumbling over stones, but also enshrouded images of seasons and eras, of heat and cold, of ice and sun and clouds and rain that all combined somehow to have made the water and now caused it to run so.

&n
bsp; “Eh, Domnall!” said Cruithne, with inquiring tone. “As we promised?”

  “Magnificent . . . yes!” replied the son of Pendalpin in a soft voice.

  Neither Fidach nor Domnall could gaze upon such a sight without sinking into reverie, wondering, each in his own way, what so wondrous a gift to their senses might mean.

  Had Fidach been told what even the wisest bards in the land could not dream of—that the waters of the lochs and rivers and the great sea itself returned invisibly to the sky, then fell in their season back again to earth, such a truth would have deepened the mystery tenfold, binding together the earth and heavens in a closed circle of incomprehensible beginnings and endings. That the visible, finite stream before him should both come from the rain and snow of the heavens and be fated to return one day to the sky—such an idea would have sent the thoughtful brain of Fidach, son of Taran, into an agony of joyful wonder. As it was, his heart only felt what his brain did not know, and his sense of almost holy marvel was enlarged. He watched, he listened, and inside was glad.

  As the two young philosophers contemplated the wonder of the place, however, the energetic Cruithne was eager to be about his favorite business at the falls.

  “Come . . . come!” he shouted, leading the way downward along a barely visible, precipitous path that wound to the foot of the falls. “The sun is warm today. We must cool ourselves before we continue on!”

  This was the one aspect of their plans for the day the two older youths had intentionally left for Domnall to discover in the panic of the moment.

  With a broad smile spreading over his face, Fidach followed his brother. “Yes, the water beckons us,” he said. “Come, Domnall . . . we will swim in the pool below!”