Part 17 (2/2)

And now welcome to thee, O Conall, thou of the iron heart and fiery blood; keen as the glitter of ice, ever-victorious chieftain; hail, mighty son of Finnchoom! said Ket.

And Conall said: Hail to thee, Ket, flower of heroes, lord of chariots, a raging sea in battle; a strong, majestic bull; hail, son of Maga!

And now, went on Conall, rise up from the boar and give me place.

Why so? replied Ket.

Dost thou seek a contest from me? said Conall. Verily thou shalt have it. By the G.o.ds of my nation I swear that since I first took weapons in my hand I have never pa.s.sed one day that I did not slay a Connacht man, nor one night that I did not make a foray on them, nor have I ever slept but I had the head of a Connacht man under my knee.

I confess, then said Ket, that thou art a better man than I, and I yield thee the boar. But if Anluan my brother were here, he would match thee deed for deed, and sorrow and shame it is that he is not.

Anluan is here, shouted Conall, and with that he drew from his girdle the head of Anluan and dashed it in the face of Ket.

Then all sprang to their feet and a wild shouting and tumult arose, and the swords flew out of themselves, and battle raged in the hall of mac Datho. Soon the hosts burst out through the doors of the dun and smote and slew each other in the open field, until the Connacht host were put to flight. The hound of mac Datho pursued the chariot of King Ailell of Connacht till the charioteer smote off its head, and so the cause of contention was won by neither party, and mac Datho lost his hound, but saved his lands and life.

*The Death of Ket*

The death of Ket is told in Keatings History of Ireland. Returning from a foray in Ulster, he was overtaken by Conall at the place called the Ford of Ket, and they fought long and desperately. At last Ket was slain, but Conall of the Victories was in little better case, and lay bleeding to death when another Connacht champion named Belcu(168) found him. Kill me, said Conall to him, that it be not said I fell at the hand of _one_ Connacht man. But Belcu said: I will not slay a man at the point of death, but I will bring thee home and heal thee, and when thy strength is come again thou shalt fight with me in single combat. Then Belcu put Conall on a litter and brought him home, and had him tended till his wounds were healed.

The three sons of Belcu, however, when they saw what the Ulster champion was like in all his might, resolved to a.s.sa.s.sinate him before the combat should take place. By a stratagem Conall contrived that they slew their own father instead; and then, taking the heads of the three sons, he went back, victoriously as he was wont, to Ulster.

*The Death of Maev*

The tale of the death of Queen Maev is also preserved by Keating. Fergus mac Roy having been slain by Ailell with a cast of a spear as he bathed in a lake with Maev, and Ailell having been slain by Conall, Maev retired to an island(169) on Loch Ryve, where she was wont to bathe early every morning in a pool near to the landing-place. Forbay son of Conor mac Nessa, having discovered this habit of the queens, found means one day to go unperceived to the pool and to measure the distance from it to the sh.o.r.e of the mainland. Then he went back to Emania, where he measured out the distance thus obtained, and placing an apple on a pole at one end he shot at it continually with a sling until he grew so good a marksman at that distance that he never missed his aim. Then one day, watching his opportunity by the sh.o.r.es of Loch Ryve, he saw Maev enter the water, and putting a bullet in his sling he shot at her with so good an aim that he smote her in the centre of the forehead and she fell dead.

The great warrior-queen had reigned in Connacht, it was said, for eighty-eight years. She is a signal example of the kind of women whom the Gaelic bards delighted to portray. Gentleness and modesty were by no means their usual characteristics, but rather a fierce overflowing life.

Women-warriors like Skatha and Aifa are frequently met with, and one is reminded of the Gaulish women, with their mighty snow-white arms, so dangerous to provoke, of whom cla.s.sical writers tell us. The Gaelic bards, who in so many ways antic.i.p.ated the ideas of chivalric romance, did not do so in setting women in a place apart from men. Women were judged and treated like men, neither as drudges nor as G.o.ddesses, and we know that well into historic times they went with men into battle, a practice only ended in the sixth century.

*Fergus mac Leda and the Wee Folk*

Of the stories of the Ultonian Cycle which do not centre on the figure of Cuchulain, one of the most interesting is that of Fergus mac Leda and the King of the Wee Folk. In this tale Fergus appears as King of Ulster, but as he was contemporary with Conor mac Nessa, and in the Cattle Raid of Quelgny is represented as following him to war, we must conclude that he was really a sub-king, like Cuchulain or Owen of Ferney.

The tale opens in Faylinn, or the Land of the Wee Folk, a race of elves presenting an amusing parody of human inst.i.tutions on a reduced scale, but endowed (like dwarfish people generally in the literature of primitive races) with magical powers. Iubdan,(170) the King of Faylinn, when flushed with wine at a feast, is bragging of the greatness of his power and the invincibility of his armed forceshave they not the strong man Glower, who with his axe has been known to hew down a thistle at a stroke? But the kings bard, Eisirt, has heard something of a giant race oversea in a land called Ulster, one man of whom would annihilate a whole battalion of the Wee Folk, and he incautiously allows himself to hint as much to the boastful monarch. He is immediately clapped into prison for his audacity, and only gets free by promising to go immediately to the land of the mighty men, and bring back evidence of the truth of his incredible story.

So off he goes; and one fine day King Fergus and his lords find at the gate of their Dun a tiny little fellow magnificently clad in the robes of a royal bard, who demands entrance. He is borne in upon the hand of da, the kings dwarf and bard, and after charming the court by his wise and witty sayings, and receiving a n.o.ble largesse, which he at once distributes among the poets and other court attendants of Ulster, he goes off home, taking with him as a guest the dwarf da, before whom the Wee Folk fly as a Fomorian giant, although, as Eisirt explains, the average man of Ulster can carry him like a child. Iubdan is now convinced, but Eisirt puts him under _geise_, the bond of chivalry which no Irish chieftain can repudiate without being shamed, to go himself, as Eisirt has done, to the palace of Fergus and taste the kings porridge. Iubdan, after he has seen da, is much dismayed, but he prepares to go, and bids Bebo, his wife, accompany him. You did an ill deed, she says, when you condemned Eisirt to prison; but surely there is no man under the sun that can make thee hear reason.

So off they go, and Iubdans fairy steed bears them over the sea till they reach Ulster, and by midnight they stand before the kings palace. Let us taste the porridge as we were bound, says Bebo, and make off before daybreak. They steal in and find the porridge-pot, to the rim of which Iubdan can only reach by standing on his horses back. In straining downwards to get at the porridge he overbalances himself and falls in.

There in the thick porridge he sticks fast, and there Ferguss scullions find him at the break of day, with the faithful Bebo lamenting. They bear him off to Fergus, who is amazed at finding another wee man, with a woman too, in his palace. He treats them hospitably, but refuses all appeals to let them go. The story now recounts in a spirit of broad humour several Rabelaisian adventures in which Bebo is concerned, and gives a charming poem supposed to have been uttered by Iubdan in the form of advice to Ferguss fire-gillie as to the merits for burning of different kinds of timber. The following are extracts:

Burn not the sweet apple-tree of drooping branches, of the white blossoms, to whose gracious head each man puts forth his hand.

Burn not the n.o.ble willow, the unfailing ornament of poems; bees drink from its blossoms, all delight in the graceful tent.

The delicate, airy tree of the Druids, the rowan with its berries, this burn; but avoid the weak tree, burn not the slender hazel.

The ash-tree of the black buds burn nottimber that speeds the wheel, that yields the rider his switch; the ashen spear is the scale-beam of battle.

<script>