Ireland

by Frank Delaney

  No mistake, no possible doubt; the Storyteller had evidently answered a question.

  Another question: “Where do you get your stories from?”

  Answer (after a pause): “That’s like asking a star where it gets its light. Or a lark where it gets its song. But I can help you a little. Whenever I’m visiting a house in an important or famous place, I always try to have a story about that place. Not long ago, I found myself in the vicinity of Slievenamon, the Mountain of the Women. Decent people there gave me bed and board, and I told them a story of how the mountain got its name. And since you invited me here to tell a story, I’ll offer it now to you.”

  THE GREAT IRISH WARRIOR, FINN MACCOOL, had the longest arms and the fastest legs and the fairest hair and the bluest eyes and the broadest shoulders and the soundest digestion of any man ever living. He was a god, a leader, a warrior, a hunter, and a thinker.

  And he was a poet. One day, when they were all discussing the sweetest music on earth, one of Finn’s warriors said it was the sound of hounds baying as they pursued a stag. Another claimed it must be the rushing of water over a weir when fishing for salmon. A third said it was surely the flutter of a woodcock’s wings as it rose from the brush before the archer.

  The argument raged back and forth, with every warrior giving his opinion. Finally they all turned to Finn, who hadn’t said a word.

  “Finn,” they said, “what do you think is the sweetest music in all the world?”

  Finn didn’t answer for a minute. He looked into the distance, where the mountains were turning purple in the light of the sinking sun—and then he spoke.

  “The sweetest music of all,” he said, “is the music of what happens.”

  Make of that what you will.

  Anyway, it came to pass once that Finn MacCool was searching for a wife. You would think he knew how to find the right creature; after all, hadn’t he tasted the Salmon of Wisdom? You remember that, as a boy, he met a man on the banks of the river Boyne, who asked him to tend a salmon the man had caught and was boiling on the fire.

  “But,” he said to Finn, “on no account are you to taste it.”

  He knew, you see, that he had at last caught the Salmon of Wisdom, and he also knew that whoever tasted it first would instantly acquire all the wisdom there ever was or would be. That was why he wanted the fish in the first place.

  Young Finn watched the salmon cooking, and to his alarm he saw a blister rise on the salmon’s skin. He was worried in case this meant that the fish was burning, so he pressed his thumb down on the blister. But it burned him, and he put the thumb into his mouth to cool the burn. At that moment he saw all the wisdom in the world. And that’s why we have wisdom teeth—because that was the tooth where Finn pressed his thumb.

  Now: when Finn grew up and wanted to marry, he knew what he was looking for; the wife he wanted to marry had to be beautiful and capable, exactly what any man wants in a wife, only some want her to be wealthy as well. And they want a woman who other men admire—but don’t admire too much.

  Finn was a very eligible bachelor, so, as you can imagine, once he let the world know he was in the market for a wife, it was as if the heavens opened and girls came down like rain. So many lovely, sweet-natured, competent lassies were brought by their mothers to see Finn that he had to work out some way of dealing with it. Drawing on his wisdom, he decided on a solution, as follows.

  He asked them all to meet him at a place where he used to enjoy hunting, on a mountainside in county Tipperary. Good deer ran there, and some wild boar, and down the slopes poured mountain streams, bright as molten silver, cool and refreshing to wash a hunter’s face at the end of a great day’s pursuit.

  Hundreds and hundreds of girls arrived with, needless to say, their mothers, and in many cases their entire families, all recruited to the cause of marrying Finn. The great man lined them up to inspect them, and they all smiled big wide smiles at him. Some of them were as blond as flour, and some were as dark as blackberries, and some were as red-haired as rage. And they were all raising their eyebrows at him and saying “Choose me! Choose me! I’ll make the perfect wife for you.” Some of them had even brought apple cakes that they had baked, because Finn MacCool was known to have a mighty appetite for apple cakes.

  Looking at this variegated throng, Finn didn’t know what to do. Any man faced with that gorgeous array would have to admit bewilderment. This was his solution: Finn got them all to wait at the foot of the mountain, and he organized a race to the peak; he would sit up there, and the first girl to reach him would be his bride.

  He told them the rules of the race. It could only be conducted in daylight. There was to be no movement during the night, in case some girl got her father and her brothers to carry her near to the peak while everyone else was asleep. He would blow his hunting horn to start the race, and again to call a halt each night. And he told them, “As it’s a very steep mountain, with rough ground and wild thorny bushes, I expect that the race will take up to three days.”

  He left them, climbed the mountain himself in seven strides—calling, of course, on his powers as a god—found a comfortable place to sit, and blew a long blast on the horn. It echoed among the valleys and the woodlands; it scared the deer and the mice and the songbirds—and it started the race. Hundreds of girls in their pretty colors scrambled and clambered up through the heather and over the stones of this rough old slope.

  Now Finn MacCool hadn’t tasted the Salmon of Wisdom in vain. He’d given them the hardest test of their lives. Some fell into the streams; some cut themselves on stones and started to cry; and some got so badly scratched by the heather or bitten by the horseflies, because it was a very hot summer day, that they stopped and could carry on no more.

  But by the first nightfall, there were still several hundred girls left in the race, and they had reached about a third of the way up the mountain. Finn blew his big hunting horn, and that was the signal to tell them that the race was over for the first day. He watched over them from the mountain peak as the girls all settled down slowly to rest. In most cases their fathers or their brothers or their uncles had followed them up the mountain to bring food.

  Some who had come alone had brought no food—after all, nobody had expected a race—and they were invited to share with those who had lashings to eat. They might all have been rivals, but every woman was on her best behavior, because they also wanted Finn to see how nice they were. At nightfall, as the shadows finally darkened over the mountain, the sight Finn saw was one of happy people settling down and eating well.

  Next morning, when the sun had fully risen and Finn had consumed his breakfast of berries and wild honey, washed down with the water of a sweet mountain stream, he blew a loud blast on his horn. As he peeped over the edge of the crag on which he sat, he saw the race begin again. The girls in their gorgeous colors set out on the long climb, and such leaders as had been at the front the previous day now led once more. This day grew much hotter than the previous one, and many fell by the wayside, in tears, berated by their mothers for not making a greater effort. It felt like an act of charity when Finn blew the horn at the end of the second day.

  After much bathing of bruised feet and much feeding of hungry mouths, the mountainside at last fell quiet as the exhausted girls fell fast asleep. Finn sat high above them and listened to the music of the night’s happenings—the occasional soft cheep of a little bird dreaming in its nest nearby, or the sudden cry of a small creature caught by an owl, or the snuffle of a badger rooting food for its young.

  Now: when all the girls had been lined up in front of him on the day they arrived, Finn had noticed one above all the others. She was a red-haired girl from Kildare, with a lovely wide smile and a shy and gentle eye. He had tracked her journey during the day, and he saw that she had done well and was robust enough to keep in among the leaders of the race. Everybody had responded well to her; even the most ambitious of the mothers had smiled if the girl spoke to her.

  On that se
cond night, when Finn was satisfied that all the ladies were sleeping, he crept down the mountain. Being a god and a great hunter, he had eyes that could see in the dark, and he began to inspect the sleeping beauties. He was searching for the girl from Kildare.

  And he found her; she was asleep like a baby on a bed of heather. Finn reached down, picked her up very gently in his great arms, and carried her to a place near the peak of the hill. He placed her down at a spot not so far up the mountain that anybody would think she cheated, but not so far down that she could be overtaken.

  Next morning, when the sun had cleared the hill, Finn blew on his hunting horn for the race to start, and the girl awoke. She blinked her eyes, saw where she was, rose, and started running up the slope. It takes little imagination to realize that she was the first to reach Finn’s arms.

  On the first day of the next quarter the Kildare girl became Finn MacCool’s bride. It was the greatest wedding ever seen in Ireland. There were seven men wielding seven shovels for seven days, stripped to the waist and sweating—and they were only mixing the mustard for the sandwiches.

  And that’s how the place got its name; the Irish word Slievenamon means “the mountain of the women.” Now—is that myth or history? Some will tell you that it’s a myth, meaning fanciful—but I’d say it has to have some truth. Why else would we have a place called Slievenamon?

  Music broke out; no announcement, no thank-you, no name. Ronan waited for the tune to end, but—nothing: no reference back, no comment. Ronan’s elation gave way to dismay. Could he reach the man? Where did the broadcast come from? Dublin? Over a hundred miles away. Nearest telephone? The doctor, but that’s three miles. And anyway, what number to call? He sank back on his knees to consider. Then, gathering his resolve, he rose, went to the table, and wrote the story down as best he could.

  Next morning Ronan said, “Dad, where do they make the programs on the wireless?”

  He wrote to Dublin that day. After some weeks a letter came back from the Director of Radio, saying they could not put listeners in direct touch with contributors, but if Ronan cared to write a letter, they would forward it. “However, in the case of your inquiry there seems little point, as we believe the gentleman in question lacks a permanent address.”

  Disappointment again—but there was a straw to grasp; at least he knew that the Storyteller still walked the land; the search was worth keeping up. As long as the Storyteller still traveled, Ronan had some chance of finding him; if the man came off the road, it probably meant illness and unthinkable death. Every day now he checked the radio program list in case another appearance should be heralded, and every day he revised his knowledge of this new tale.

  The writing down of the story—having a tangible record—brought such comfort that he then transcribed the other stories he had heard. Sometimes he checked details with his father or Kate, and he wrote and rewrote again and again, fine-tuning and adding and shaping, until he felt he had fully echoed that beloved voice from his head.

  Just under two years later—on his fourteenth birthday, in October 1956—another written reward came his way. John came home from work, slipped into Ronan’s room, and took a letter from his pocket, written on blue paper.

  Dear Mr. O’Mara,

  I have something of interest for you here. Your name was suggested to me because it is known that you collect folklore, and we have recently had a Storyteller visit us. He told a long tale that entertained us all. My daughter is attending secretarial college, where she is learning to be a secretary. She took down the story in shorthand and typed it out. Her teacher said she typed it magnificently. When the gentleman found out that there would be a record of what he said, he mentioned your name and that of your son, Ronan, and he seemed most anxious that your boy would receive this story. Knowing the way things can get lost, I don’t want to put it in the post, but if you would care to visit us some Sunday, I’d gladly hand it over.

  Yours truly,

  Madge O’Callaghan (Mrs.)

  On the following Sunday, they drove thirty miles to the house of Madge O’Callaghan (Mrs.). Ronan, who had not slept the night before, pulled all talk in the car back to the Storyteller.

  “I wonder how long he stayed with them?”

  “What stories did he tell?”

  “He was very near us.”

  “I wonder, did he know them before?”

  Kate said, “Why do you ask that?”

  “On the map they’re east of us, and when he left us he went east.”

  John said, “But that’s five years ago. How can you remember so clearly?”

  From the back seat, Kate said, “Ronan remembers everything about him.”

  The house had a thick and safe thatched roof. On a windowsill cooled a loaf of fresh bread. A dog wagged his way to them, licking Ronan’s hand. Inside, everything shone, including the stone floor.

  Madge O’Callaghan (Mrs.) welcomed them. On the table sat crockery and a deep apple pie. Ronan’s patience dwindled as Mrs. O’Callaghan fretted about other things—the government, the weather, “the state of the country.”

  “We have too many elections altogether,” she said. “I’m beginning to think we should have no government. We should do the job ourselves.”

  At last John asked the aching question.

  “Now tell us about your Storyteller?”

  “Well, he came in here one night a few months ago and I wasn’t best pleased to see him let me tell you because I knew that he’d disturb the whole house and those old men they always want to stay for a week but this man said no that he was never again going to stay in any one house for more than two nights that way he could do no damage that’s what he said.”

  Madge O’Callaghan (Mrs.) practiced unusual punctuation.

  “So anyway he arrived and we fed him and he sat down and it was like having a magician here we were all speechless when he told us the story of how the monks wrote the Book of Kells and my husband said afterward that wasn’t the truth of it how could they write the Book of Kells like that and we all said to my husband what does it matter if the story is as good as that?”

  She looked at Ronan.

  “He asked if we knew you and he told us about you.” She stopped and, uncertain how to continue, looked at John and Kate.

  Ronan said, “Was he all right? I mean, his health?”

  “My daughter sat alongside him and she has the shorthand she can write down a hundred words a minute imagine that a hundred words a minute and she took it all down and she typed it out and her teacher said it was magnificent the way she did it.”

  Large, placid Madge O’Callaghan went to a dresser in the corner of her large, placid kitchen. She drew out a manila envelope and handed it to John, who handed it to Ronan, who placed it on his lap. The farm wife smiled at him.

  “Oh, another thing I said to him, ‘Sir, how fast can you walk?’ and he said to me, ‘Missus, my height, when I don’t stoop, reaches to six feet and three inches. Often have I contemplated whether my long legs count as an advantage, and I’ve concluded that they do. Because,’ says he, ‘I’ve looked at small men hurrying and they have a great deal more work to do than me. In answer to your question, I took to the road in nineteen-twelve and I believe I’ve been walking at least thirty miles a day for the past forty-four years. In any one year, I hope to spend an average of two successive nights in the same bed, that is to say, when I arrive at a house, I hope they’ll put me up for as long as they can. Some people manage ten nights, some manage none, and I calculate that it averages out at two. If, therefore, I average five walking days a week—that means I walk for two hundred and sixty days a year. Multiply that by an average thirty miles a day, and we come to a sum total of roughly eight thousand miles a year. For a period of forty-four years I reach a total of, miles walked, over three hundred and forty thousand. I seem to recall that the circumference of the earth is twenty-four thousand nine hundred and two miles, and if my poor mathematical gift doesn’t fail me, I assess that I ha
ve walked round the globe nearly fourteen times.’ My husband calculated it afterward and said it all worked out.”

  Suitable wonder lit all faces.

  “Three hundred and forty thousand miles,” said John and looked sad. Ronan had a picture of the Storyteller as a tiny figure walking along the equator on a huge globe of the earth.

  Mrs. O’Callaghan said, “He told us he knows most of the barns and overhanging sheds and warehouses and unguarded premises on the island of Ireland and he said he even knows one or two trees where a hollow in the trunk gives him shelter.”

  John, rising from the table, said, “The things people know.”

  Ronan carried the typed document home reverently. He locked his bedroom door, opened the envelope, and flicked through the pages—a clutch of foolscap papers pinned in the top left-hand corner with a brass staple.

  First (in the “magnificent” typing) he read the heading: “A story told by a Travelling Storyteller at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Michael O’Callaghan of Mullinahone on the evening of Tuesday, the 5th of August, 1956. Taken down in shorthand and typed by Madeleine O’Callaghan, second daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Michael O’Callaghan.” Beneath came the title, “How The Monks Wrote the Book of Kells.” Lower still were the words, “Madeleine O’Callaghan, Typist.”

  Familiar ground; a school project had required Ronan to trace one of the great “carpet” pages in the Book of Kells, where the art was as intricate as an Afghan rug. Next year’s school visit to Dublin promised to visit Trinity College Library and see the book in its glass case, a page turned per day. His father liked telling the story of how Queen Victoria viewed “the greatest treasure of the early Christian Church in Western Europe, and what did she do? She called for a pen and wanted to sign it like some kind of Visitors’ Book.”

  His hands almost unsteady with excitement, Ronan turned over the facing page, read the first words and again heard the unmistakable voice: “I have a story tonight that will inform you as to what an artistic country Ireland was, twelve hundred years ago.”