The Unfortunate Fursey

by Mervyn Wall

  “Well, everything is fixed,” he said, “most satisfactorily. The only thing that remains to be done, is to burn Fursey.”

  Fursey glanced incredulously from the Bishop to Father Furiosus. When he saw the friar nodding gravely, he turned and fled to the far corner of the room where Abbot Marcus was rising stiffly from his chair.

  “Father Abbot,” he cried. “They say that they’re going to burn me. It’s not true, is it?”

  The Abbot looked at him sadly.

  “Of course it’s true. You know as well as any of us that the only way to cure a sorcerer is to burn him. I understood that you appreciated the position when you surrendered yourself. After all, we can’t allow a wizard to be at large in the territory, nor can we allow your soul to be eternally lost for the want of a little cleansing fire.”

  “That’s all very well,” quavered Fursey, “but I thought that now that everything is fixed—.”

  Before he could utter another word Father Furiosus, who had approached him from behind, seized him suddenly by the arms and flung him forward on his face on to the floor.

  “Call the guards,” commanded the friar.

  Fursey, not unnaturally incensed at this high-handed proceeding, bounded to his feet, and before the three ecclesiastics, who apparently did not expect resistance on his part, had grasped what he was about, he darted through the door into the hall. A damp-souled servingman was gloomily sweeping the floor with a broom. Fursey did not stop to ask his permission, but snatched the broom from him; and running to a corner, tore the box of ointment from his pocket. He had thoroughly smeared the shaft before the clerics burst from the room into the hall.

  “Stop!” shouted the friar.

  Before they could reach him, Fursey had flung his leg over the broom and shot towards the ceiling. As he flew in circles around the hall, his head brushing the rafters, Father Furiosus sprang from table to table aiming blows at him with his blackthorn stick.

  “Resistance will avail you nought!” shrilled the Bishop.

  Fursey did not answer: he was too preoccupied in steering the broom in the limited space available so as to avoid collision with the walls. It was a difficult task, for the constant circling made him dizzy.

  “Come down, Fursey,” urged the Abbot. “These antics can have only one end. Please come down.”

  “Yah!” retorted Fursey. “Come down and be burnt! What kind of a fool do you think I am?”

  The Bishop tore open the great door of the Palace with the apparent object of summoning assistance. Fursey saw his opportunity. He swooped suddenly, snatched a flint and taper from a table, banked sharply, and shot through the open doorway like a bullet. When he reached the open air, he swerved once again and alighted on the roof of the Palace. A large crowd of townspeople who had waited for hours before the Bishop’s dwelling in the hope of further financial benefit from the visit of the generous Prince Apollyon, raised a shout of surprise as they beheld the marvel and saw Fursey perched on the ridge of the roof. Their astonishment changed suddenly to rage as they beheld Fursey lighting the taper and setting fire to the thatch of the roof in half-a-dozen different places. It was borne in powerfully on the citizens that it would be incumbent on them to contribute generously for a new palace for their pastor. A storm of maledictions was hurled at Fursey, but the more practical were quickly disciplined by Father Furiosus and ran in all directions for ladders and buckets. Fursey regarded the creeping flames with satisfaction, then a thought seemed to strike him. He peered down at the howling mob as if to select a victim. His eye fell on a small, flaxen-haired slave on the edge of the crowd, who was gaping up at him with his mouth open. Fursey flung his leg over the broom once more and suddenly swooped. The crowd panicked and gave way before him, allowing Fursey as he swept over their heads, to grip the diminutive slave by his long hair and fly back with him on to the roof of the Palace. The slave lay across the ridge of the roof with his eyes turned up to Heaven, fully convinced that his last hour had come. Fursey took him by the throat.

  “What day of the week is this?” demanded Fursey.

  “What’s that you said, sir?” gasped the slave.

  “I asked you what day of the week it was.”

  The slave closed his eyes and started to say his prayers. Fursey thumped his head a couple of times against the crossbeam so as to make him stop. The treatment was efficacious. The wretched creature was silent and looked up at Fursey with his eyes bloodshot and his tongue hanging out.

  “What day of the week is it?” repeated Fursey applying additional pressure to his gullet.

  “Saturday,” gasped the slave.

  “I thought so,” muttered Fursey grimly, and with a mighty heave he yanked his prisoner into a sitting position.

  “Point out the position of Kilpuggin Church,” snarled Fursey, baring his teeth.

  The slave raised a trembling hand and pointed.

  “Thanks,” said Fursey, immediately releasing him.

  There was a howl of horror from the crowd as the slave slid down the roof and fell to the pavement below with a crunching sound that spoke of broken limbs. The flames were crackling merrily as Fursey once more mounted the broom and sped like a bolt across the housetops of the settlement and away over the green fields. Not once did he falter in his course until he sighted the little church of Kilpuggin. He circled the building once to reconnoitre. He saw horses tethered outside, but there were no human beings. He made a second circuit just for safety, and then made a smooth landing at the church door. He propped his broom carefully in the entrance, and tiptoed in. It was as he had hoped. In the nave in the centre of a small group of friends stood Magnus and Maeve, and behind them Declan and the Widow Dykes. The double wedding had not yet commenced.

  “Why, it’s Flinthead come to my wedding!” cried Maeve. “Welcome, Flinthead!” and she advanced a pace to meet him. Fursey brushed by her, his eyes fixed on Magnus, who was smiling down at him in amused contempt. Fursey did not waste any words, but promptly kicked the bridegroom in the stomach and sent him sprawling. Phineas the Clerk pushed himself forward through the horrified group of guests.

  “Flinthead!” he exclaimed. “Are you mad?”

  “I’m not Flinthead. I’m Fursey, the most powerful and terrible sorcerer that this land has ever known.”

  “I always knew that there was something strange about you,” breathed Maeve.

  “Are you mad?” repeated Phineas shrilly.

  “Look through the door,” shouted Fursey, “if you don’t believe me. I’ve just set fire to the Bishop’s Palace, and the flames of Cashel are roaring into the sky.”

  Magnus sat up on the floor, more astonished than angry, until Fursey put him once more into a recumbent position with a deft kick under the chin.

  “I’m now going to turn you all into toads,” asserted Fursey, “and keep you in jars for my amusement.”

  There was a gasp of horror, and the little group withdrew a couple of paces.

  “Nonsense,” declared Declan, coming forward and peering closely into Fursey’s face. “You’re not a sorcerer. You’re Flinthead, my farmboy, who ran away last week with a suit of my second-best clothes.”

  “What would you like for your wedding?” asked Fursey fiercely. “Wine?”

  “Yes,” replied the old man.

  Fursey swept the coil of rope from his shoulder, and flinging it over a beam in the roof, jerked it sharply. An immense beaker of wine fell out of nowhere and smashed in pieces on the floor at his feet. The guests retreated precipitately with cries of horror, save only Declan, who clambered on to a chair and began to inspect the rafters to see whether there was anything else concealed there. A priest had appeared among the startled guests. Fursey heard the word “weapons” and saw that the men were scattering towards the back of the church. He immediately seized Maeve by the arm and ran with her to the door.

  “Oh, Flinthead,” she gasped. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m eloping with you,” explained Fursey. “W
e’re going to a better and a freer land.”

  “But I can’t elope with you,” she said. “I’ve got to marry Magnus.”

  “You can’t want to marry that big, boastful bully,” insisted Fursey.

  “But the priest has been paid and all the guests invited,” she objected faintly. “What will people say?”

  “Let them say what they like,” asserted Fursey stoutly. “Your friends have run for their weapons. You wouldn’t want to see me cut to pieces at your feet.”

  “Of course not. But I can’t marry a sorcerer.”

  “Why not? It’s as good a profession as any other.”

  “But what would we live on? You’ve no property.”

  “We’ll fly to Britain,” declared Fursey, “and open a grocer’s shop. It’s the easiest thing in the world, I’ll spend the mornings pulling on the rope, and the afternoons selling off the goods.”

  “I hear them coming,” declared Maeve, throwing a terrified glance over her shoulder.

  “If you don’t come with me,” declared Fursey, “I’ll have to stand here and fight them; and however manfully I fight, I’ll be cut to pieces.”

  “But have we a steed on which we may escape?”

  “Yes,” replied Fursey, producing the broom.

  “You’re such a precipitate man,” gasped Maeve.

  “The man of action rules the world,” declared Fursey. “Throw your leg across.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t,” said Maeve modestly, “I’ll ride side-saddle.”

  As the guests burst from the church clutching their swords, they saw Fursey bent intently over the broom as it rose, while Maeve sat behind, clinging to him desperately and emitting little terrified screams. Thrice Fursey circled the church shouting derisively, while the terrified guests ran hither and thither. Then Fursey, fearing that they might start ringing the church bell, and so bring him to earth, rose high into the air and turned his face towards the east. He glanced over his shoulder only once to gaze with satisfaction at the billowing smoke that crept upwards into the sky over Cashel. Then he flew eastwards, over the grey-green fields, the crooked roads and the sluggishly rolling mountains of Ireland, the first of many exiles for whom a decent way of living was not to be had in their own country.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Mervyn Wall was born in Dublin in 1908. He attended Belvedere College, a Jesuit school for boys in Dublin, and obtained his B.A. from the National University of Ireland in 1928. He worked in the Irish civil service from 1934-1948 and later for Radio Éireann as Programme Officer. In 1957 he became Secretary of the Arts Council of Ireland, a post he held until his retirement in 1975. Though he published a number of novels, short stories, and plays, Wall is best remembered for his two comic fantasies centering on the medieval monk Fursey, which have been republished several times and praised by critics such as E. F. Bleiler and Darrell Schweitzer. Wall died in 1997.