Legend of the Celtic Stone

by Michael Phillips

  This, over the years, had grown into a complete second room, in which they now slept, and which they continued to enlarge at every opportunity. Slowly they excavated the limestone from its depths, carrying the chunks outside and tossing them down, shaping the private chamber as much to their liking as was possible.

  “As you can see,” said Fidach, “the smoke does not so easily find its way out of the inner cave and must meander back into the big room. But otherwise we find it most comfortable.”

  “It is wonderful!” sighed Domnall.

  “And yours are the first eyes to see it besides ours,” added Fidach. “We hope you will come to understand its meaning with us.”

  “What does it mean, then?” asked the bard’s son. “Is it in preparation to hide away during an attack? Are you preparing a raid into Kildonanoid?”

  “We will explain everything later, Pendalpin’s son,” said Cruithne. “First, let us make ourselves comfortable, and prepare the fish and rabbits we were fortunate to kill. We will feast. Then we will hold counsel together.”

  Fifteen

  As dusk descended, the three young men gathered what sticks and brush they could find and heaped them up in the middle of the glen.

  When all was ready, Cruithne climbed back up to the mouth of the cave, while Fidach and Domnall took positions safely removed from the pile of combustibles.

  “This is something my brother always tries,” explained Fidach. “He has some notion of the technique’s value in times of battle, and he takes the opportunity whenever we come here to perfect it.”

  “What is he going to do?” asked the bard’s son.

  “Watch and see,” replied Fidach.

  Cruithne disappeared inside the cave momentarily, then returned holding a long spear, on whose tip he positioned a burning chunk of peat he had stabbed from the fire. Drawing back his arm, he let it sail. The ball of fire arched through the night from the cliff onto the pile below.

  A few flames slowly spread out as Fidach and Domnall cheered. Cruithne scampered back down the hillside and ran to meet them.

  “A direct hit!” exclaimed Fidach, “—your most perfect shot yet.”

  “An unusual way to start a fire,” remarked Domnall.

  The two brothers laughed.

  An hour later the night was dark. A thin moon had risen high in the black sky.

  The air was cold, both from the season and the elevation, but was not intolerable. While the small fire of peat continued to warm their sleeping quarters above, the three now sat talking around the blaze that had been ignited below from Cruithne’s incendiary lance.

  Though the bonfire would be neither a long nor a hot one—for it had been necessary to add to it fuel that was not dry—it served the youths’ purpose. Its crackling, hissing flames and dancing patterns of orange light mesmerized the spirit, calling forth many undefined thoughts and feelings as they sat gazing into its depths.

  A chance traveler, observing the scene from the top of the cliff above, might have thought to ask himself, “What does it mean? Why do they make such a great fire for none but themselves to see?”

  But where the two sons of Taran were concerned, being together was reason enough for such a celebration. There was no greater pleasure. They were two uncommon young men. To say that their mutual affection was ahead of its time would imply that humankind would one day come to understand, perhaps in some future eons distant from this, the joy of putting another above oneself—a prediction perhaps too far-reaching to prophesy concerning any era.

  Suffice it, therefore, to affirm that in the midst of and in spite of their differences of personality and temperament, each man cared for the other—if not more than for himself, at least in equal measure. During their younger years they had been playmates of more than orthodox harmony. In their youth they had been comrades in the hunt, companions in discovery, makers of the cave, climbers of the mountains, explorers of the forests. Now, in their young manhood, they had become staunch allies with a mutual concern for what their role would be amongst their people.

  It was no secret that Taran’s remaining days were few. Neither were they unaware of the bitterness of the dispute over the succession and of how the tongues of the old women of the hill-fort wagged in support of one or the other of their mothers’ sons.

  Both would readily have relinquished his own right of potential chieftainship in willing service to the other. Both, in fact, had expressed an eagerness to do so. Yet they jointly recognized that more was at stake than the title of chieftain. With Taran’s passing would dawn a new era in Caldohnuill. Competition for hunting grounds with neighboring tribes could not but increase. Encroachment by those tribes to the north and the south seemed inevitable.

  In this new time, with its new challenges, both Cruithne and Fidach longed to serve their people together. They had by degrees arrived at the reciprocal hope that they might lead side by side, with neither as chief preeminent over the other, and thus demonstrate leadership by cooperation and service rather than sovereignty of authority. It was a lofty goal, ambitious with the idealism of youth. It was to open this vision to their young friend, who would one day serve alongside them as bard to their people, that they had brought with them sixteen-year-old Domnall, son of Pendalpin.

  The three of them sat silent a long while, and then the melodic voice of Domnall began softly to croon an ancient melody. To the brothers, the sounds seemed almost to come from the fire itself, and the words from out of the very hill surrounding them in darkness.

  Se Coire cheathaich nan aighean siubhlach,

  An Coire rùnach is ùrar fonn

  Gulurach miad-fheurach, mìngheal, sùghar,

  Gach lusan fiùar bu chùbh-raidh leam

  Gu molach, dùbhghorm, torrach, luisreagach,

  Corrach plùranach, dlùghlan grinn.

  Caoin ballach dìtheanach, canach, mìsleanach;

  Gleann a, mhilltich ’s an lìon-mhor mang.

  ’Na ghlugan plumbach air ghoil gun aon-teas,

  Ach coileach bùirn tigh ’nn a grunnd eas lòm,

  Gach sruthan ùiseal ’na chuailean cùl-ghorm,

  A ruith ’na spùta ’s ’na lùba steall.

  My misty Corrie, haunted by deer,

  My lovely valley, my verdant glen,

  Soft, rich, and grass, sweetly scented

  With every flower I love;

  All thickly growing, and brightly blowing.

  Upon the sides of its dark green lawn,

  Moss, cannach, gowens adorn its mazes,

  Through which lightly skips the graceful fawn.

  Thence bubbles boiling, yet coldly coiling

  The newborn stream from the darksome deep;

  Clear, blue, and curling, and swiftly swirling,

  It bends and bounds in its headlong leap.

  “That was beautiful,” commented Fidach when he was through. “As you sang, I imagined the beginnings of the waters of Loch Bruid.”

  “You are indeed nearly a bard,” consented Cruithne. “Your father could not have sung the old ballad with more feeling.”

  Again silence fell. Each of the three stared into the dancing blaze, their eyes enraptured by its bright movement.

  “Nothing so wondrous exists anywhere,” murmured Fidach after a long pause in their conversation. “To sit upon a great mountain, breathing the blessed air of the lofty places, with sea and valley and river and gleaming loch spread out below . . .”

  “But it is dark,” said Domnall. “We can see none of all that.”

  “Ah, my young friend, after your song I took you for more bard than that. Can you not see everything with the eyes of your imagination? We have beheld all that, and more. We will see it again. With the dawn will visions of everything be renewed! But tonight, just to know it is there fills my soul!”

  As if in answer to his words, the orange and red flames flickered and cracked, shooting a shaft of fire up toward the night sky.

  “My brother speaks of the marvels of the
night,” said Cruithne. “But it is of a yet deeper marvel that we want to tell you, Domnall—one of life’s hidden mysteries.”

  His manly voice held an earnestness Domnall had never before heard in it. He waited. The two were his elders and might one day be his chiefs. He would listen for what they would tell him.

  “You are young,” Cruithne went on. “But it is time you should know of the things that burn in our hearts.”

  “The mystery,” put in Fidach with quiet passion, “lies in a single word—bràithreachas. Brotherhood rather than strife and competition.”

  “Bràithreachas,” repeated Domnall slowly.

  “You must not think it is because we happen to be brothers that we speak of brotherhood,” Fidach went on. “Our common blood is but a chance of nature. It has allowed us to learn of bonds deeper than blood can ever produce—the binding of hearts . . . hearts joined by the laying down of preeminence one over another.”

  “You see,” added Cruithne, “Fidach and I were born of different wombs. Our looks are different. I am more muscular and can lift heavier loads. He is slender and can run farther. We are of different personalities. Fidach is a thinker. I am a hunter. Do you see my meaning, Domnall?”

  The bard’s son laughed. “All in Laoigh know these differences.”

  “But whereas most men and women strive to gain ascendancy, as even my own mother would do, Fidach and I have come to care more for each other than we do for ourselves. Gladly I choose to lay down what is I in order that what is we may become greater.”

  “We desire to lead our people as one,” said Fidach, “whichever one of us happens to become chief. We will rule together . . . and show our people the power of unity and brotherhood—aonachd . . . bràithreachas.”

  “There will be no strife between us that cannot be resolved,” added Cruithne.

  “Only so will tribes and peoples be kept from the feuds which destroy,” said Fidach. “Though most do not consider such fighting wrong, they must one day see that it is in harmony that greatness is achieved.”

  “Ah, the folly of my own mother,” sighed Cruithne. “She is consumed by the evils of jealousy and ambition, thinking I must rise above other men so that she can rise above other women. It is a vain aspiration, doomed to end in despair and loneliness. The happiness she seeks cannot live in the blackness of her heart. As for me, to find myself over Fidach would mean my ruin, not my triumph.”

  “I have heard my father speak of such things,” said Domnall, “but why are you telling me all this?”

  “For the future, Domnall,” answered Cruithne. “For the future of our people, for the future of our land. You must understand the mystery of unity. As bard, you must speak and sing of these things. In story and proverb, you will hold power to sway men’s thoughts.

  “It is not enough that Fidach and I live as brotherhood, for we too will grow old. We will die and go the way of our father. But the people who come after us must also know what we have learned. They must know for all time. Otherwise they will continue to strive against one another. The land will constantly be divided, brother at war with brother, tribe against tribe, family against family, clan against clan, while all the time there is no joy, no harmony, and our enemies will be easily able to subdue us.”

  “You speak as a prophet, my brother,” said Fidach somberly. “Perhaps more of the second sight is yours than you think.”

  “I will leave prophecies to you.”

  “Everything my brother says is true, Domnall,” continued Fidach. “Strife within the heart of man is the most lethal of enemies. No enemy from without can vanquish a people who are strong within. With one of us as chief, and the other at his side, and with you as bard, our people can be taught to live this wonderful mystery. It is for the future of the land and our people that we share this with you, and that we now bring you into our bràithreachas.”

  “You speak of noble things,” said Domnall, his voice now solemn. “I am honored that you have taken me into your confidence. I will seek to be worthy of your trust.”

  The three fell into a thoughtful silence, their eyes fixed on the glowing embers of the dying fire.

  It was Cruithne who suddenly broke the solitude after several long minutes.

  “I have a thought,” he said. “Let us erect a monument . . . an carragh! Let us enshrine what we would see among our people with stones pointed toward the sky.”

  “Yes . . . yes!” replied Fidach excitedly. “Two great pillars, standing strong like two men . . .”

  “With a single slab of stone on top stretching across from one to the other,” suggested Domnall, catching the vision, “the two pillars becoming united as one.”

  “Spoken with vision and wisdom!” said Cruithne. “You are indeed a true bard’s son.”

  On they talked, late into the night, after the fire had dwindled to mere dying coals.

  When at last the three young men rose and walked slowly up to the cave for the night, their thoughts were full of the undertaking to which they had committed themselves. Their hearts swelled with love for one another. This love that had not been taught them. It had been breathed into their souls by a Power, of whose presence they possessed only faint and broken hints, as of an echo of a far-off song whispering mysterious messages, whose meanings were yet too dim for men to comprehend.

  They slept contentedly in their warm shelter, full of dreams for the future of the people they loved.

  Sixteen

  Five days later, a boy who had climbed to the top of the broch of Laoigh spotted Fidach, Cruithne, and Domnall crossing the valley to the east, approaching their home. Quickly he called to his fellows. The small group of shouting youngsters ran out of the hill-fort moments later to greet the returning travelers.

  The three young men had remained two more nights at gleann nan uaimh and then had marched down the valley of Sgeulachd toward Laoigh. The entire way they had discussed plans for their monument and the story they would carve in pictures upon the stones.

  Fidach argued for a drawing of the stag, to represent the mystical link between man and beast. Cruithne favored the likenesses of men—two, perhaps three, linked arm in arm. In the end they had decided to make use of all the figures, though in what arrangement and configuration they yet had to determine. The stones they would erect on the peak of Beinn Donuill, in view of the hill-fort. They would call the monument ann an aonachd tha bràithreachas—“In Unity Is Brotherhood.”

  The sun was setting behind Loch an Lagain as they strode across the valley and ascended to the hill-fort of Laoigh. Word had quickly spread through the stone houses of the settlement that the sons of the chief had returned, carrying a catch of fish for their father. Before they had walked halfway up the incline, they saw Aethilnon hastening out of the gate and down the path to meet them.

  “Hello, Mother!” cried Fidach cheerfully as she approached.

  She embraced her son warmly, then Cruithne as well. “So, Domnall,” she said, “did you have an adventure?”

  “I am certain you would not ask if you did not already know the answer,” laughed the youth. “These two are indeed worthy sons of a mighty chieftain!”

  Aethilnon’s face turned grave.

  “Your father is very ill,” she said to the two older boys. “I fear his time may be short.”

  Without awaiting another word, Cruithne and Fidach set out running up the remainder of the hill. “Your father is with him now,” added Fidach’s mother to Domnall. Then the two of them hurried along after the two sons of the dying chief.

  Reaching their stone house, they found Pendalpin seated at Taran’s bedside, softly humming an ancient melody. The place was but dimly lit, and the fire had burned low. There was no sign of Eormen.

  Aethilnon entered a few moments later. “He collapsed this morning,” she said softly. “He has been lying still ever since, breathing thinly. He will take no food or drink. Whenever he wakes, he asks for both of you.”

  Fidach stooped to one knee and re
ached out his hand. At the touch upon his shoulder, the old man seemed to know its source. His eyelids lifted slightly. Inside their sockets his eyes searched for sign of some figure before him. He was unable to move his head.

  “Is that you, my son?” came the feeble question from his lips.

  Realizing that Taran could not see him, Aethilnon motioned to her son. Fidach crept down near his father’s feet, where he now came into the old man’s line of vision. Taran weakly motioned the others away. Cruithne and Aethilnon immediately turned and walked out of the hut. Pendalpin rose and likewise left, with his son beside him.

  When the two were alone, Taran lifted a weary hand toward his eldest son. Fidach came toward him and clasped it firmly in his own.

  “My son,” came the chief’s voice, so weak that Fidach had to lean forward to make out the words, “you will soon be chief.”

  He paused. His eyes closed once more.

  The few words had taxed him. But after a moment he labored on, with many breaks and hesitations. Fidach listened, tears gathering in his eyes.

  “. . . I have told Pendalpin . . . and . . . elders . . . my wish . . . that you . . .”

  Again he stopped, breathing heavily. Fidach waited, his heart aching. He would have tried to persuade him to conserve his ebbing strength, but he knew such imploring would prove useless. His father was discharging a duty with these final words. Nothing would deter him from saying them. Therefore Fidach remained silent, gazing into the old man’s pale, wrinkled face with eyes of love that only a faithful son could possess. Patiently he waited for Taran to continue.

  “My mother . . . no heir . . . the elders must—”

  His voice broke in a fit of coughing. But he struggled to finish.

  “—they will decide . . . I have spoken my will to them . . . when you are chief . . . our people . . . serve . . . you must—”