The Legend of the Corrib King

by Tom McCaughren

  ‘It doesn’t look much like a plain to me,’ observed Rachel. ‘It’s all stone walls.’

  ‘Stone walls or not,’ asserted Jamesie, ‘that’s where it happened. You can see the stone monuments in there for yourself.’

  ‘Was there really such a battle?’ asked Cowlick, pulling a handful of grass and giving it to Nuadha.

  ‘Of course there was. It was between a race of magicians called the Dé Danann, and a race of small dark people called the Fir Bolg.’

  ‘The Fir Bolg,’ said Róisín. ‘I read about them all right. Their name means the men of the bags.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Jamesie. ‘They’re supposed to have carried soil in their leather bags when they were slaves. There was them and the Dé Danann and they fought each other here. It was a long battle, and during it King Nuadha of the Dé Danann had his hand cut off by a Fir Bolg warrior. So he had it replaced by a silver hand.’

  ‘And is that why you called your horse Nuadha?’

  Jamesie nodded. ‘We thought it suited her, seeing how she’s small and silvery. Anyway, the Dé Danann won, but the king was killed in another battle. Then, in spite of their magic powers they were beaten by the Celts. So they fled to the caves and became known as the little people.’ Jamesie paused. ‘Pakie says the banshee of the Fir Bolg can still be heard crying in the woods towards Cornamona. And he says the Dé Danann still celebrate their victory by the light of the moon in Nymphsfield … over there, on the other side of the road.’

  ‘Nymphsfield!’ said Rachel. ‘Isn’t there something in the poem about nymphs?’

  Jamesie consulted the piece of paper again and exclaimed, ‘That’s right. Nymphs dance in the moonlight and secrets unfold.’

  Hopeful now that they were on to something, they set out to explore the fields and their strange monuments. In one field they found a huge cairn, a mountain of stones which Jamesie said was built at the end of the first day of fighting when each Fir Bolg warrior brought a stone and the head of an enemy warrior to his king. They even found stone steps leading down to small underground doorways. And an ancient circle of stones. But search as they did, no secrets unfolded on the Plain of Southern Moytura. Not even in Nymphsfield.

  3. GOING AROUND IN CIRCLES

  A fresh breeze blew in across the fields from the Corrib, rippling the long grass and ruffling Prince’s hair as he lay waiting for Tapser and his cousins to move back to the caravan. They had seated themselves in the middle of the stone circle to consider the situation and plan their next move.

  ‘I still don’t think we have it right,’ said Tapser. He asked Jamesie to show him the poem again and read the lines several more times to himself to try and make some sense of them.

  ‘Don’t you think we’re on the right track then?’ asked Cowlick.

  Tapser shook his head. ‘It talks about pikes and things. That sounds more like the hooked spears they used in 1798. Remember, Old Daddy Armstrong told us about them when we were trying to solve the mystery of the Legend of the Golden Key?’

  ‘But it talks about fairies and things too,’ Jamesie pointed out, ‘and this is the only place where you have a murdered king, all tied up with a story about the little people.’

  ‘But surely you don’t really believe stories like that?’ Róisín asked him.

  ‘Uncle Pakie believes them. He says this was the first battle ever recorded in this country. And if it’s not true, how do you account for all the monuments and the small underground houses? Now tell me that. You saw them for yourself, didn’t you?’

  ‘We saw wee doorways,’ said Róisín, ‘but that doesn’t mean they were occupied by little people.’

  ‘What does it mean then?’ asked Jamesie.

  ‘I read that in some prehistoric houses they put in small doorways for defensive purposes.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Cowlick asked her.

  ‘Well, when they were being pursued they would disappear into their underground homes, and maybe that’s why they got the name of being magic. And because the doors were small it was easier to keep their enemies out. Sometimes they also built earthen banks or ring forts around them to keep out wolves and things too, I suppose.’

  Róisín could see that Jamesie’s belief in the little people and what Pakie had told him wouldn’t be easily shaken, and anxious not to hurt his feelings, she added quickly, ‘No, I think Tapser’s right and that the poem means something else. I mean, this king it talks about. That doesn’t have to be a real king. It could just as easily be Pakie himself. Have you ever thought of that?’

  Jamesie sat up and looked at Róisín, puzzled. ‘How could it be Pakie?’

  ‘Well, why not? Daddy told us that of all the poachers, he was the best. And he should know.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Cowlick. ‘And isn’t he the king now when it comes to catching them?’

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ said Jamesie, taking the suggestion as the compliment it was meant to be. ‘But what about the part on the back, about fairies and witches?’

  ‘We’ll work that out when we come to it,’ Tapser told him. ‘But you know, Róisín could be on to something.’ He read the poem again, aloud this time. ‘If that’s what it means, then maybe this line – In his drink a trap wine redd – means he was drugged so he could be taken prisoner by the poachers.’

  ‘Well, maybe you’re right,’ said Rachel. ‘And the word king is spelt with a small k. But I think there’s more to it than that.’

  ‘In what way?’ asked Tapser.

  Rachel reached for the slip of paper and said, ‘Look at the spelling. The word king, as I said, is spelt with a small k. And the word redd has two ds.’ The others gathered around to see. ‘And the word Story,’ she went on, ‘that has a capital S.’ The others nodded. ‘And the word pike. I agree with Tapser, that’s a funny word to use.’

  The others took back the paper and studied the points Rachel had made.

  ‘Unless it has more than one meaning,’ said Tapser, ‘and the words themselves are some sort of clue.’

  Thinking about that, they made their way back down to where they had left Nuadha and the caravan. As Jamesie flicked the reins and took Nuadha back out onto the road, the others cast one more glance back at the Plain of Moytura and its strange monuments. Whether they believed his stories or not, they could just imagine hordes of little men on little horses, riding swiftly across the fields and over the stone walls to engage their enemies in battle.

  Back on the Galway road again, they came upon several horse-drawn caravans belonging to real travelling people.

  Tapser laughed. ‘People will think we’re travellers too.’

  ‘They’re just the same as us,’ said Rachel, ‘only we live in houses and they don’t.’

  A pony and trap driven by a fat man with a red face galloped past them and pulled in behind the other caravans. Jamesie pulled on the reins and eased back a bit.

  ‘You hardly ever see caravans like them any more,’ Róisín remarked. ‘They nearly all have cars and vans and modern caravans.’

  Jamesie was about to reply, when the travellers pulled into a piece of waste ground. There were several other caravans there already, as well as a modern cream-coloured one drawn by a green van. There were also strings of horses tied up here and there, and stacked at the roadside were piles of carpets, chairs, mirrors, old lawnmowers, brasses and oil lamps, which the travellers obviously hoped to sell to passers-by.

  ‘It’s time we were stopping too,’ said Jamesie, and a short distance further on he turned onto a side road and made camp not far from the Corrib.

  * * *

  ‘I still think Martin treated the whole thing very lightly,’ Rachel remarked. They had finished eating and were sitting around the embers of their campfire.

  ‘I wonder what the other part of the poem means,’ said Jamesie. ‘Fairies and witches, foxes in ditches.’

  ‘You know, Aunt Mag is right,’ Róisín told him. ‘There’s nothing in your head but fa
iries and banshees and things.’

  ‘Poor Róisín,’ teased Tapser. ‘She won’t be able to sleep tonight for fear the little people might come and take her away.’

  ‘Not that they’d want her,’ grinned Cowlick.

  ‘Would you give over,’ said Róisín. ‘We’ll see how smart you two are when it gets dark.’

  Cowlick leafed through a book on fishing he had found in the caravan. It was one Big Jim had put there for tourists.

  ‘Maybe we’ll go fishing tomorrow,’ Jamesie told him.

  ‘It says here the salmon is the king of fish,’ said Cowlick.

  The others sat up with a jerk and looked at each other. ‘The king,’ they exclaimed.

  ‘Maybe that’s why the poem uses a small k,’ said Rachel as they crowded around. ‘What else does it say?’

  ‘Here’s a picture of a man spearing salmon in olden days.’

  ‘Struck down by spears of man unseen,’ said Róisín. ‘Poachers!’

  ‘It also says,’ Cowlick went on reading, ‘that the salmon responded to a rowan berry on a cord and won for Fionn Mac Cuil first place in all the land for wisdom and knowledge.’

  ‘In his drink a trap wine redd,’ cried Tapser.

  ‘And look,’ exclaimed Rachel, reading over her brother’s shoulder, ‘it also says the hen salmon lays her eggs in a hollow in the river bed called a redd.’

  ‘I never knew that was called a redd,’ said Jamesie. ‘And the pike,’ he added, ‘that must mean the pike fish. It eats young salmon.’

  ‘So we were right,’ said Tapser. ‘It is a double meaning.’

  ‘But what does it mean?’ wondered Rachel. ‘It’s like going around in circles.’

  ‘Let me see,’ said Tapser, ‘Beyond the Cross, that must mean the Corrib, there lies the king, that’s the salmon, or, as Róisín says, Pakie himself. Struck down by spears etc., that must mean trapped by the poachers. Right?’

  ‘Too many wish that he was dead!’ continued Cowlick. ‘They want Pakie out of the way so they can go on poaching.’

  ‘And the next bit,’ said Róisín. ‘Seek not the pike that struck him down, But the hand that seeks to take the crown. It’s telling whoever finds the message to find the poachers. But where? Whereabouts on the Corrib should we look?’

  ‘You don’t think the answer could be in the other part of the poem, do you?’ asked Rachel. ‘What does it say again?’

  Jamesie read out the second part of the poem once more:

  ‘Fairies and witches, foxes in ditches,

  Deadly the fingers that point to life’s riches.

  Beneath tall spires of gold the Story is told,

  Nymphs dance in the moonlight and secrets unfold …’

  ‘I’ve a feeling that isn’t going to be as easy to solve as the first part,’ said Tapser.

  ‘And who said that was easy?’ sighed Rachel.

  ‘He seems to be telling us where the key to the thing is,’ remarked Cowlick. ‘If only we could understand it.’

  ‘Fairies, fairies,’ said Róisín. ‘What would he have meant by that?’

  ‘There’s the riddle he sent to us!’ said Rachel. ‘When he asked us to come to the Corrib? It also mentioned fairies.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Cowlick. ‘Fairies on the island.’

  ‘You don’t think that could have a secret meaning too?’ wondered Tapser. ‘Maybe even that the island he was talking about is being used by poachers. What was it you called it, Jamesie? Illaun na Shee?’

  ‘Well, he has been on their trail for a long time,’ said Jamesie. ‘And come to think of it, that’s where we found the salmon.’

  ‘Then let’s go over and investigate,’ urged Cowlick.

  ‘I’m not going over there now,’ said Rachel.

  ‘I’m not saying we should go now,’ Cowlick told her. ‘In the morning. How about it, Jamesie?’

  ‘Okay. We can get a boat down at Uncle Pakie’s place.’

  The light was fading now and they decided to go for a walk before turning in. They wrapped themselves up well, as the breeze from the Corrib had turned chilly, and strolled back up to the road. Rounding a corner, they came upon the travellers’ camp and Róisín turned, saying, ‘It’s time we went back.’

  ‘She’s afraid of the travellers,’ said Cowlick to Tapser.

  ‘I am not,’ retorted Róisín. ‘I just think we’ve come far enough, that’s all.’

  ‘I dare you to go up to them then,’ teased Cowlick.

  Róisín felt Rachel slipping her hand into hers, and squeezed it to give her younger sister reassurance.

  ‘All right then,’ she said to Cowlick, ‘but you lead the way if you’re so brave.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Jamesie, ‘we’ll all go, but only as far as the first caravan. And Tapser, you’d better keep Prince under control.’

  Pretending not to be afraid, but with their hearts thumping, they tiptoed over to the green van with the cream-coloured caravan which was parked at the edge of the camp. Beyond the van a campfire flickered and in the darkness nearby they could just make out the fat man’s pony and trap. The fat man was sitting at the fire talking to another man, and as they peered around the van at them, Jamesie whispered, ‘Listen.’

  Hardly daring to breathe, they heard the two men talking about some problem with the gardaí and something about an island. And they could hardly believe their ears at what they heard next.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said the fat man, ‘nobody will find him, not so long as you stay close to the little people.’

  ‘I’ll take him to the fairy queen then,’ said the other, a thin man with a lot of rings on his fingers.

  ‘Do. And don’t forget, she can’t be seen in daylight.’

  ‘Right,’ said the man with the rings as the two of them rose to their feet. ‘See you at the fair.’

  The man with the rings went into the caravan, and the other disappeared into the darkness. Flabbergasted and frightened by what they had heard, Jamesie and his cousins turned and ran and didn’t stop until they reached their own caravan.

  ‘Did you hear what they said?’ gasped Jamesie. ‘About the little people and the fairy queen.’

  ‘Now hold on, Jamesie,’ said Tapser firmly. ‘We heard what they said, but there must be some other explanation for it.’

  Róisín tried to calm herself too. ‘And that man they were talking about. I wonder if it was Uncle Pakie?’

  ‘Well, they were talking about a prisoner,’ said Cowlick.

  ‘And they were talking about an island too,’ Jamesie recalled. ‘And fairies. I wonder if it was Illaun na Shee?’

  ‘All the more reason to go there and find out,’ said Tapser. ‘Come on, let’s turn in. We can talk about it in the morning.’

  The night passed uneventfully and when the morning came they were all present and correct. None of them had been spirited away by the little people, in spite of any private fears they might have had! Yet even the light of day, they found, couldn’t wipe away the stark reality of what they had overheard at the campfire. Furthermore, as they walked slowly past the camp now, they could see no sign of the green van with the cream-coloured caravan, or for that matter the pony and trap.

  ‘If only we could have got the number of the van,’ said Tapser.

  ‘At least we know it’s green,’ said Cowlick.

  Róisín held up the palms of her hand to reveal smudges of green paint where she had leaned against the van the night before. ‘It’s green now, but for how long?’

  ‘So where do we go from here?’ wondered Cowlick. ‘The island?’

  ‘Rachel and I have been talking this business over,’ Róisín told him. ‘And we think that before we go to the island or anywhere else, we should go to the police and tell them what we know.’

  ‘We could tell Martin,’ Jamesie suggested. ‘He’s stationed in a village not far from here.’

  They all agreed that this was the best thing to do, so they yoked Nuadha up to the caravan and
off they went.

  4. BEYOND THE CROSS

  The sight of a horse-drawn caravan in the village wasn’t unusual, but it was unusual to see one pulling up outside the garda station. As Jamesie remarked, the travelling people usually tried to stay as far away from the police as possible. Martin wasn’t in, but there was another garda on duty, a big burly man with a ruddy face, and they decided the matter was urgent enough to tell him.

  After writing laboriously in a big ledger for a few minutes, the garda closed the book, took off his glasses, leaned across the counter and asked, ‘Now, what seems to be the trouble?’

  In the end, maybe the real trouble was that they all tried to tell him about their Uncle Pakie at the same time. Jamesie was talking about him being held by the little people, Róisín was talking about him being taken to the fairy queen, Rachel was talking about fairies and witches, Cowlick was talking about an enchanted island, and Tapser was talking in riddles!

  The garda was mesmerised, and no wonder. He put up his big hands to signal them to stop. ‘Fairies!’ he said. ‘Witches! Enchanted islands!’ and he started to roar with laughter.

  ‘Honestly,’ protested Jamesie, ‘we’re telling the truth. They said the little people have him.’

  ‘Jamesie,’ said the garda, still shaking with laughter, ‘if it wasn’t that you’re Martin’s brother, I’d arrest you for wasting garda time. Now off with you before I change my mind.’

  The garda opened his ledger again. His big stomach was still heaving with laughter, and he was chuckling, ‘Fairies and witches! Begobs that’s a good one.’

  ‘Anyway, will you tell Martin what I said?’ asked Jamesie from the doorway.

  The garda laughed again. ‘Oh, have no fear, I’ll tell him all right. Now off with you. And Jamesie, if you see any more little people will you bring me one? I could do with a new pair of boots and I believe they’re good at that sort of thing.’ Then he almost collapsed with laughter at his own joke.