The Mammoth Book of Celtic Myths and Legends

by Peter Berresford Ellis

  Eshyn was exhausted by his adventures and sorely tempted to lay down on the nearest couch and be pampered by the beautiful maidens. But he remembered the advice he had been given and pressed on, exiting the castle by another way.

  He was then on the sandy sea shore again and there was the prow of a great ship before him, beached in the shadows. On the shore before it stood the figure of a maiden.

  He almost fell at her feet, so tired he was.

  As he peered up he saw that she was a lady of great beauty. He had never seen her like before, and straightaway he gave his heart to her.

  “You are a gallant hero,” she said, staring sweetly down at him. “Indeed, you are a brave man who has overcome every hardship to obtain the Sword of Light and the Everlasting Pearl. Who are you?”

  “I am Eshyn, lady; son of the king of Ellan Vannin.”

  “And what is your mission in the Otherworld?”

  “I came to recover my lost manhood, my handsome figure, so that I could retrieve my place at the court of my father.”

  She threw back her white swan-like neck and laughed gently. “You are handsome, Eshyn, and you have not lost your manhood. Will you give the Sword of Light to me and the Everlasting Pearl?”

  Eshyn was sorely tempted to hand them over, but he shook his head. “As sad as it makes me, I cannot. For I must retain these until the Queen of the Fairies tells me otherwise.”

  “You will not give them up to spend your time with me? I can show you such pleasures that you have never dreamed of.”

  “Who are you, lady?” he demanded.

  “I am the daughter of Orion. I am Y Chadee, the Everlasting Pearl.”

  “Although he who holds should be ready to give, I cannot do so, even to you. I must hold these objects, for my joy in the world is more important than the shadows of this one.”

  The young maiden looked at him sadly. “Then rest a moment, Eshyn, and you will be returned to the world as you want.”

  He closed his eyes a moment and then . . . he found the sun shining down on him and he was snuggled in the corner of the old woman’s cottage, back on Slieau Dhoo.

  The old woman was bending over him.

  “Vel shiu aslaynt?” she was asking with anxiety on her brow, thinking him ill.

  He sat up, shaking his head.

  “Cha vel, booise da Jee,” he replied. “No, thank God! But, old woman, where have I been?”

  She smiled thinly. “Where do you think you have been, my son?”

  He frowned and examined himself. The first thing he noticed was that he was wearing the great sword, the Cliwe-ny-Sollys. Then he put his hand in his pocket and found the Everlasting Pearl.

  “Then it was no dream, but all was true?”

  “It is true for you, my son.”

  At once Eshyn was sad. “Oh, then I have broken my heart. I found someone who was more lovely than any on this earth, a wonderful vision, a beautiful lady. I had the chance to exchange these baubles for her love.”

  “Then you would have been condemned to your ugly body and a fleeting moment in the Otherworld.”

  “Rather that for one more smile from her grey eyes.” He frowned. “She smiled on me, as ugly as I am.”

  “Ugly?” The old woman handed him a mirror.

  He stared at himself. There he was, as tall and handsome as ever he had been.

  “How can I repay you, old woman?” he said, almost dancing with delight.

  “By returning to your father’s castle at Doolish and showing him these things. Then, before all the court, casting them into the dark seas beneath the castle wall. You must do this, in spite of all their pleading and offers.”

  “It makes me sad to bring the sword and the pearl back from the Otherworld, to bring them here when I might have exchanged them for the tender love of Y Chadee. But you have returned me to my normal state and I will do as you ask.”

  So Eshyn bade farewell to the old woman and set off for Doolish.

  This time, the guards recognised him and greeted him with shouts of joy and bore him on their shoulders into the king’s chamber. The king and queen, who had been lamenting their eldest son as dead, were beside themselves with happiness. The only angry face in the castle belonged to Ny-Eshyn, who stood sulking behind the throne, cursing the wizened old man for failing him in that his brother had returned, alive and well, and as handsome as ever.

  “Where were you?” demanded the old king.

  “Adventuring in the Otherworld,” replied Eshyn.

  “How can this be?” demanded the old king.

  “Indeed, show us proof of it!” challenged Ny-Eshyn, the jealous brother. “Otherwise, I shall not believe it.”

  Eshyn drew the great Sword of Light, the Cliwe-ny-Sollys. “This is the Sword of Orion,” he exclaimed.

  He held it up so that it sparkled and shone with an ethereal light and caused the king and his courtiers to intake their breath with wonder.

  Then Eshyn took out the pearl. As he held it up, it suddenly started to shine so that the king and his courtiers blinked their eyes and averted their gaze.

  “This is the Everlasting Pearl.”

  “What great treasures you have brought back,” breathed the king. “Truly, you are a son of mine.”

  “I have another task to fulfil,” Eshyn said. “Come with me.”

  He led them all to the battlements. “I am here, returned to my normal shape, alive and well, and unharmed, because of a promise. That promise I mean to keep.”

  He went to the battlements and peered down into the angry, tempestuous seas striking the rocks below.

  “Wait! Do not be hasty!” cried his father, the king. “Those things are of great earthly value.”

  All the courtiers, his own mother and his brother, Ny-Eshyn, cried for him to stop and offered him all manner of things if he did not part with those Otherworld treasures.

  But Eshyn took the sword and the pearl and threw them over the battlements, sending them spinning into the white-crested waves below.

  Perhaps it was a trick of the light, perhaps not; perhaps it was only Eshyn that saw it. It seemed that a great hand of Manánnan Mac y Leirr, the Ocean God himself, came out of the waves and caught the sword and the pearl before sinking into the Otherworld depths.

  Eshyn turned back. “My promise is thus fulfilled.”

  “You have thrown away a great treasure,” muttered his brother.

  “Not so. I have gathered a treasure, for I have garnered wisdom in great store. I hold that wisdom is the greatest treasure.”

  The old king nodded reflectively. “He who holds, must first have discovered. He who has discovered, must first have sought. He who has sought, must first have braved all impediments. Thus did the Druids teach.”

  In anger, Ny-Eshyn stormed from the court.

  At that moment, there was the sound of a horn outside the castle, and a gold and silver carriage was driven into the courtyard. The king and his queen and Eshyn went down to see who had arrived.

  A beautiful girl stepped down.

  Eshyn’s heart missed a beat.

  “Y Chadee!” he gasped.

  Indeed, the beautiful daughter of Orion descended and stood smiling at him.

  “You did not settle for treasures from the Otherworld but rather for love in this one. For the love of a man such as you, I am destined in this world and the Otherworld, for there are no barriers to true love.”

  There was great rejoicing in the royal house of Ellan Vannin when Eshyn announced his marriage to the Everlasting Pearl.

  Yet of Ny-Eshyn, no one saw him after he left the Castle of Doolish. Some said that he had ridden off in the direction of South Barrule, cursing the ferrishyn, or the fairy folk, which, they reflected, was not a wise thing to do. Certainly, he was never seen again in all the length and breadth of Ellan Vannin.

  10 The Ben-Varrey

  Some say that the Sheading of Rushen, at the south end of Ellan Vannin, comes from the Manx word roisen, which means a little pe
ninsula. The earliest mention of the name Rushen is to be found entered against the year AD 1134 in the great book known as Chronicon Regum Manniae et Insularum (or, in English, the Chronicles of the Kings of Man and the Islands). Rushen is partially a peninsula, bordered to the west and south by the boundless oceans. There were three parishes in the sheading : Kirk Christ, Kirk Arbory and Kirk Malew.

  Now Kirk Christ is close to the sea, and all the people of Kirk Christ know the sea and its humours. They know each rock by name. Here is Creg na Neen, “rock of the girls”, where two girls were caught by the tide here and drowned, being found the next morning locked together by their entangled tresses. There is Ghaw Cham, the winding creek. And there is Ghaw Jeeragh which means “the straight creek”. There is Kione ny Goggyn, the headland of clefts or chasms. There is Purt ny Ding, which is from the Manx Port of Creg Ineen ny Dane which, in English, means “the rock of the Dane’s daughter”; legend has it that a Danish ship was wrecked and the captain’s daughter was saved after clinging to this rock.

  Oh yes; every rock around this wild and turbulent coastline is named and remembered.

  It can be a wild, desolate coastline, where strange things are seen but never spoken of. But the story of the Ben Varrey is told on wild dark nights before the glowing embers, after the children are safely to bed. It is a story told in hushed tones, lest the howling tempest carry the words to the deeps of the dark sea outside.

  In Keeill Moirrey, there lived a fisherman named Odo Paden. He was a poor man, not making much of a living. The inclement weather did not help. One day he was casting his nets along Creg ny Scarroo, which is the rock of the cormorants, and feeling pretty desperate, for there were fishes all around him and yet not one in the bottom of his boat.

  Suddenly, he found a ben-varrey perched on his gunwale, smiling at him enticingly. For a moment he thought he was seeing a vision and he crossed himself and shut his eyes. When he looked up again, she was still there. Now a ben-varrey is a sea-maiden, what some may call a mermaid.

  “Moghrey mie, Odo Paden,” she greeted. “Are you not getting enough fish?”

  Odo Paden sighed.

  “True enough. At this rate I shall be starving by tomorrow.”

  “Would you reward me if I filled your net?” asked the sea-maiden.

  “I would if I had the means to do so, but I have not.”

  “Are you married, Odo Paden?” asked the mermaid.

  “I am not, nor have I wish to be.”

  The mermaid pouted. “Well, if you will marry me, I will ensure that your nets are filled and that you are well provided for.”

  Odo Paden sniffed in disapproval. “What use are you to me as a wife? You cannot even leave the ocean.”

  “That I could, but only if you follow my advice. If you promise to marry me, I shall fill your nets and among the fish I will put there will be a great silver sea trout. Now you must not eat that fish but, tomorrow morning, you will take it to Port Erin and demand a golden sovereign for it. Then come back and throw the golden sovereign into the sea by Creg ny Baih.”

  Now Creg ny Baih was a dangerous place and means, appropriately enough, the “rock of drowning”.

  Odo Paden thought for a moment and found the only alternative was to remain without fish and starve.

  So he promised to obey the ben-varrey and marry her. Before long, the nets were filled and, sure enough, there was a big silver trout there. He laid this aside when he returned home that night. The next morning he took it in a sack to Port Erin. There was a fair in Port Erin that day, and he dallied there. At the fair, he came across a great crowd gathered in a circle around a showman.

  Odo Paden peered forward to see what the attraction was.

  Seated on the ground was a kayt, which is a cat, with a fiddle and before him was a lugh, which is a mouse, and a deyll, which is a cockroach. The cat struck up a tune on his fiddle and the mouse and the cockroach began to dance. It was such a lively tune that everyone around began to clap and jig and dance and laugh and call to one another. Never was there such a happy crowd.

  Then the showman picked up the cat and its fiddle, the mouse and the cockroach and put them in a sack. He held out his hat and soon it was filled with a clinking mass of coins.

  The man, seeing Odo Paden watching him, gave him a friendly grin.

  “You seem a sensitive sort of fellow. How would you like to buy my animals and make yourself a fortune? I’ve made enough money and want to retire from this life.”

  “I would like it fine,” Odo Paden agreed, for he was still counting up how much the man must have made from the exhibition. “But I have no money.”

  “It’s not money that I am after. Didn’t I say that I have enough? But I really fancy a dish of fine sea trout. I would give the cat and the fiddle for a fish like that.”

  Immediately, Odo Paden showed him his sack with the sea trout.

  “Now we can make a bargain. I will give you the cat and the fiddle for that sea trout.”

  Odo Paden frowned, remembering his promise to the ben-varrey.

  “I rather wanted a gold sovereign for it.”

  “Gold sovereigns a-plenty you’ll be getting, if you have the cat and the fiddle. And if you come here again tomorrow with another trout, I will exchange the mouse for it and for a third such trout, you may have the cockroach.”

  Now Odo Paden had never had money in his life and thought the bargain too great to miss; so he took the cat and the fiddle back to his cottage by the sea in Keeill Moirrey.

  That night, the rain lashed on the windows of his cottage, rain mingled with salt sea spray and, when he went to look out on the inclement weather, Odo Paden saw the mermaid waiting on the shore outside.

  “Odo Paden, you have sold the sea trout but where is the gold sovereign you promised me?” she called sternly.

  “I did better than get you a sovereign,” replied Odo Paden.

  “What is better than I being able to get ashore?”

  He held up the cat and the fiddle and set them on the window ledge and told it to play.

  The mermaid looked on with a sad smile. “It is amusing, Odo Paden. How does it help me to the shore or get you with a full net?”

  “Give me another silver sea trout and you shall see,” replied the fisherman, firmly believing he was acting for the best.

  Early the next morning, Odo Paden found another silver trout on his doorstep and hurried off to Port Erin. There was still a fair there and he saw a crowd gathered in a circle. There was the showman and on the ground before him were the mouse and the cockroach. The showman started to whistle and the mouse and the cockroach began to dance.

  Soon all the crowd were whistling and dancing and laughing and never were people more happy in their lives. At the end of the dance, the man picked up the mouse and the cockroach and put them in a sack and then held out his cap and the coins flooded into it. He looked up and saw Odo Paden and grinned.

  “So you are back again?” he asked.

  “Back with a fine silver sea trout,” agreed Odo Paden.

  “In that case, I will exchange the mouse for your trout. Just think of the money you could make with the cat, the fiddle and the mouse.”

  Odo Paden had rather wanted the cockroach as well but he settled for the mouse.

  “If you have a third silver sea trout you may have the cockroach,” said the showman, repeating his promise of the previous day.

  Off went Odo back to Keeill Moirrey and into his cottage.

  That night, another storm lashed at his cottage windows, mingling the sea spray and rain together. Odo Paden went to the window and there, on the seashore, was the mermaid waiting patiently.

  “Where is the golden sovereign which you promised, Odo Paden?” demanded the mermaid, sternly.

  “I have something better,” replied the fisherman.

  “What is better than I being able to get ashore?”

  Odo Paden took out the mouse and set it on the windowsill and then he placed the cat and t
he fiddle by it and told them to strike up a tune. The mouse raised itself on its hind legs and began to dance while the cat scraped away on the fiddle.

  The mermaid smiled with sadness. “Fine that is, but where is my gold sovereign?” she demanded. “How am I to get to shore?”

  “Give me a third silver sea trout and I’ll be back tomorrow night,” Odo Paden assured her.

  Next morning, sure enough, there was a silver sea trout outside his cottage and into the sack it went and he went off to Port Erin. The fair was still on, and there he saw a circle of people gathered. He pushed his way through the crowd and saw the showman with the cockroach on the ground. The man whistled and the cockroach began to dance and everyone around began to dance. They laughed and smiled and never were there people so happy.

  Then the showman put the cockroach in his sack and passed round his hat and, in a blink of an eye, it was filled with coins. The man spotted Odo Paden and smiled a greeting.

  “Back again, Odo Paden?”

  “And with another fine silver sea trout,” assured the fisherman.

  “Well, it is a great bargain that you have. You have released me from the cares and worries of the fair. Yet I have made several fortunes and wish you the same.”

  So Odo Paden went back to Keeill Moirrey.

  That night, the storm blew hard against his cottage, with the rain mixing with the salt sea spray. He went to the window and there was the mermaid waiting patiently by the sea shore.

  “Where is my golden sovereign, Odo Paden? Three days are now passed and now the sovereign must be thrown into the sea at Creg y Baih.”

  “Now I have something which is far better than a golden sovereign,” the fisherman assured her.

  “Better than I being able to come ashore?” demanded the mermaid.

  “Better indeed. This will keep me in riches for all my life.”

  He set the mouse and cockroach and the cat and the fiddle on the windowsill and told them to play.

  They did so and the mermaid smiled sadly at the sight. When they had stopped and Odo Paden had put them away in the sack again, she turned her sorrowful countenance to him.

  “Ah, Odo Paden, I could have come ashore and loved and taken care of you. I am a king’s daughter who has to remain enchanted in the form of a mermaid until the wicked Druid, Drogh-Yantagh, the evil-doer, who did this, be paid a golden sovereign at the ‘rock of drowning’ or be made to laugh. As the Druid hasn’t laughed in seven long years, small chance of that. Now you have thrown away my only chance of escaping from the sea and obtaining happiness.”