Monsters of Celtic Mythology

by Bernard Evslin

  Kathleen stood tall. There was a deep throb in her voice as she said: “By the high gods, you can charm the birds off a tree, and a girl out of her judgment. I don’t know if I’m brave or foolish, but I’m with you till the death.”

  “What do I do?” asked the hawk.

  “I have a task for you. You must fly high and strike well to deal with the winged mist crones who will try to spread a fog about us and bewilder our enterprise.”

  “And I?” asked the cat.

  “You will accompany Kathleen to the bottom of the cave, attending every step of her descent. You will need all your wits and claws and all the sorcerous tricks you learned from the witch who owned you to fight off the legions of frost demons that dwell in the cave and make a ferocious horde with their white leather wings and icicle teeth. Task enough for any tom.”

  “Until then I’ll take a catnap. Wake me up when it’s dragon time.”

  7

  Dragon Time

  Finn and Kathleen lay on the ice floe in their polar-bear capes. The uncanny night had fallen at noon, and a creeping mist had put out the few dim stars. Kathleen tried to keep perfectly still, tried to clench her jaws to keep her teeth from chattering, but she was torn by fear. She began to cry, soundlessly, without sobbing. Her tears froze and fell tinkling on the ice.

  “What’s that?” whispered Finn.

  “My tears falling. They’re frozen, and chiming when they hit.”

  “Why are you crying?”

  “From fear. Aren’t you afraid? I thought you were such a coward. Why aren’t you afraid?”

  “I’ve been a coward for a long time. I know how to handle it. Now stop weeping. The dragon will grow suspicious. Sleeping bears don’t chime.”

  Kathleen stopped crying and waited for the dragon to come. Now, Finn didn’t want her to see the dragon coming. He thought that the sight of it might so terrify the girl that she would scream before it reached Finn, and that the monster would realize that it faced enemies and would blow its breath on them, freezing their marrow and turning them into solid lumps of meat to be devoured at his leisure. So Finn had warned Kathleen to keep her eyes down and not look up. But she found this very difficult. She heard a scraping, slithering sound, as if heavy chains were being dragged across the floe. She knew that the dragon was coming out of its cave and crossing the ice toward them.

  She couldn’t help herself. She had to raise her head and look. Then she wished she hadn’t.

  What she saw at first were two strange, smouldering pits, far apart, but level, growing brighter and redder as they came toward her. She couldn’t imagine what they were. But then, as the chain dragging grew heavier until the very ice trembled beneath her, she realized that these pits of light were the dragon’s eyes. By their light, she saw the whole terrible length of it—the huge jaws full of teeth, the ridged spine, the great spiked tail. She heard its claws now, scraping on the ice like enormous shovels, as the beast came closer and closer. Finally, she couldn’t stand it any longer. She let her head fall into her hands again with a little moan.

  Then she heard a loud, rasping snuffle which was its breathing, and she knew that the beast was almost upon them, coming to inspect the two sleeping shapes that were herself and Finn in their white fur mantles. She looked up again and, horror of horrors, saw the jaws gape and snap up the white heap that lay beside her. She couldn’t believe that Finn would be quick enough to slip out of the bear hide, but he did. In the glare of the dragon’s eyes she saw the black shape of Finn’s body crossing her.

  Then, an unbelievable roar, a mind-shattering rumbling, howling cry was torn from the dragon, who practically stood on its tail in agony. She didn’t dare rise to her feet but simply curled herself into a ball and rolled away as fast as she could over the ice. She saw the dragon fall its full length, then scramble up and begin to beat its leathery wings with enormous force, and then rise into the air spouting flame like a volcano. And she knew the monster had swallowed the seeds of fire which were wrapped in the polar-bear skin, just as Finn had planned, and that there was a fire in its belly, and that it was in torment.

  She watched in amazement as a huge gout of flame shot out of the dragon’s maw and touched an iceberg, lighting up snow with radiant whiteness. She saw the iceberg hiss away in a giant plume of steam. She struggled to her feet again, peering about for Finn, but she didn’t see him anywhere. The dragon bellowed again, and spouted flame. And by its light she saw an unbelievable sight: Finn riding the dragon’s head, a dagger in each hand, stabbing the leather skull first on one side, then the other, trying to steer the monster in its flight. She understood what he was trying to do. Every time the dragon gushed flame the ice would melt and the sea would spring free. Finn, riding the dragon’s head, trying to steer it by dagger thrust, was using the monster as a giant flamethrower to melt the ice by which Vilemurk had locked the seas.

  “Oh, grief,” said Kathleen to herself. “He’s a dead man. How long will he be able to ride that fearsome head? He’ll be burned alive, or shaken free and gobbled up by the dragon, or lashed by that terrible tail. Good-bye, Finn, unwilling hero, gray-eyed stripling of the golden tongue. Farewell, my boy.”

  But she had no time for mourning. Finn had told her what she must do. She picked up his sword, and made her way across the slushy ice to the mouth of the cave where Lyr lay bound.

  Kathleen was right. Finn was in mortal danger. But he was in ecstasy, too. There was something about being perched high in the air on this brute head, steering the monster with daggers, and watching the great streamers of flame melt the icebergs and crack the floes, and seeing the sea leap free—there was a glory about this that dissolved his fears just as the ice was melted by the flame. The great joy he knew then was a joy given very few to feel, and those few are all heroes, of one kind or another. It was a joy that is felt when one turns a great key of nature—which is usually far beyond anyone’s power—for Finn felt that he, actually, himself, by his own efforts, by his own wit and daring, was changing the weather, unlocking the sea, restoring the life of its creatures, and rescuing from starvation those who drew their bounty from the sea. And when a man or woman feels that joy in turning one of nature’s stubborn keys, then he is apt to forget all lesser pain, forget his fears, doubts, hesitation. He knows the ecstasy of being a great natural force. The winds blow through him, he is warmed by the primal flame, and for a brief moment, before he flares into death, he knows that he has melted the icy indifference that reality turns to youthful hopes.

  That is why Finn, who was no stranger to fear, as we know, kept riding the leather head, stabbing it this side and that with his daggers, steering the beast in its clumsy, leather-winged flight so that the flame of its breath played over iceberg and ice floe, vaporizing the massy piles of ice, splitting the floes, and letting the waters boil free.

  So intoxicated was he with the joy of flight that he hardly realized when the dragon, growing more accustomed to the savage flame in its belly, became aware of the lesser torment on its head, and snapped its enormous length like a whip, sending Finn high into the air. The dragon then did a half somersault, pivoting upon its great wings, putting itself in position to lash out with its tail at the falling body.

  Now the air was thick with the steam of melting icebergs, thick as soup. Finn saw the dragon turn and poise its tail, and he knew what the beast intended. Falling as he was, Finn doubled up his legs and kicked out with all his might like a bronco sun-fishing, and was able to lodge himself in a thicker column of steam, which is what he wanted. It slowed his fall somewhat and partially hid him from the dragon. But the dragon struck too soon. The flailing tail missed Finn, but only by inches. He felt the point of its spike tear away his sealskin mantle, and the wind of the terrible lashing tail sent him blowing like a leaf, skittering sideways through the air. The force of it knocked him into a swoon. He fell onto a wedge of floating ice headfirst, and lay crumpled there, bleeding from the head.

  8

  Another S
word

  He was plucked from the ice by a hungry mist crone whose favorite fare in all the world was human blood, especially hero’s blood, drunk fresh from the skull. She stooped low, chittering, and plucked him from the floe and flew away toward her nest. But then she felt his heart beating and realized that he was alive.

  “I’d better not eat him,” she thought. “He’s worth more than a meal or two. He’s a well-made young lad, and will make a fine slave for the smith demons. For such a one, no doubt, they will trade me ten worn-out old slaves who, nevertheless, will furnish enough blood to last me through the season. Not hero’s blood, to be sure, but we’re in for a hungry winter, I know, what with Vilemurk’s defeat. The master grows angry when the winter is warm, and the pickings will be lean, lean …”

  The mist crone bore Finn to the crater of a volcano in the dead middle of Vilemurk’s secret domain. There she traded him for ten used-up smithy workers. Finn was taken down into the foul, smoky depths of the mountain, and the mist; crone flew off, chittering happily, bearing a bladderful of fresh blood and a sack of fresh skulls.

  Finn awoke to find himself a slave in the smithy, which is one of the worst things that can happen to anyone. The hollow mountain was a loathsome, sooty place, lit only by the volcano fire upon which the twisted smiths forge their weapons. The slaves are used to tend the fires and work the bellows, and haul the ashes and scrub the anvil. They are kept half starved, allowed almost no rest, and are worked until they drop. No guard is kept upon them because they cannot possibly escape. Each one is chained by the ankle to a round, flat stone so heavy that the slave can barely trundle it along. Nevertheless, he is expected to keep up with his work. If he falls behind he is flogged almost to death. So the slaves drag their stones about from task to task as nimbly as they can. When completely worked out, they are either fed to the flames or sold to the mist crones, for the smith demons can always count upon a fresh supply of slaves. The Pig’s Ploughman makes constant war on the other gods, and on humans, and is always taking prisoners. And prisoners of war were always enslaved.

  At first Finn didn’t care how soon he dropped from exhaustion and was fed to the flames. To labor ceaselessly in the strangling darkness, he thought, was worse than any death could be. He could hardly breathe, the air was so thick with charcoal dust and ash. And no matter how fast he worked he was beaten to make him work faster.

  “Well,” he thought to himself. “If it’s time to go I’ll take one or two of them with me. The next time anyone tries to beat me I’ll snatch the whip from his hand and knock out his snaggly teeth with its butt, and wrap the lash around his neck and strangle him with it. Then the others will bash in my skull with their iron mallets and that will be that.”

  So he prepared for one last act of defiance, and immediate death. But then, for some reason or other, his wrath turned icy. His weird stubbornness arose, and his wits began to work.

  “After all,” he said to himself, “I’ve served an apprenticeship in suffering. I’ve been imprisoned before, beaten before, skillfully tortured. And didn’t I learn endurance from ordeal, and the power of silence, and some of the arts of strategy? Am I to forget all that because of a few weeks’ discomfort? No! Finn McCool does not surrender so quickly. He does not allow his enemies so easy a victory. His death will be dearly purchased. Let me think now. Let me be true to myself and find a way out of all this misery, and pay back those who have made me suffer. That is the way of a man and a warrior.”

  So, instead of snatching his few poor rags of sleep that night, he lay there in grime and exhaustion, trying to make a plan. The next day at the forge he spoke to the head smith, who was just putting an edge to a splendid sword.

  “Pardon, Master, but that blade looks dull.”

  “What!” cried the smith. “Miserable earthworm! How dare you address me without permission! How dare you pass an opinion on a weapon I have forged! What do you know of swords anyway, slave?”

  “Like many a slave,” said Finn, “I was a warrior once, and the son of warriors. I am Finn McCool. My father was the great Cuhal. His sword, by common admission, was the finest ever forged. That blade could shear off a bull’s horns or a boar’s tusks as if they were twigs. I have seen my father scythe down an oak tree as thick around as a span of oxen with one whisk of that sword. And I know for a fact, because the sword became mine after my father’s death, that it could cut through any link of any chain ever made. It was this sword that cut away Lyr’s shackles when he was Vilemurk’s prisoner, and set him free to turn the tide against your lord in the recent war. For I, myself, gave that sword into the hands of the one who struck the chains off the sea god.”

  “That was your sword?” muttered the smith wonderingly. “Your very own, the blade of Cuhal? We knew, of course, that it must have been that blade that cut Lyr free, for no other could have done it. We forged the manacles right here in this workshop. As for the sword, I must tell you that it was made by my own father, who passed all his craft to me.”

  “If you’re as good as your father,” said Finn, “why can’t you make a sword as good as the one he made for my father?”

  “It was not made for your father,” said the smith. “It was ordered by Vilemurk himself to give as a gift to one of his favorites, the Prince of the North. It was stolen by your father.”

  “Not stolen. Taken as honorable booty from the hand of a dead enemy. My father, Cuhal, defeated the Prince of the North in a mighty battle, as you well know.”

  “Nevertheless,” said the smith, “we have no call for such weapons these days. Vilemurk has ordered none that fine. But if he did, I would be the one to make it, I, myself, son of my father.”

  “What do you mean there is no call for such a blade?” asked Finn. “Does the call have to come from Vilemurk? Do you not hear your own pride speaking sometimes in the pulse of your blood during a sleepless night? Does it not say, ‘You cannot prove that you are the smith your father was, for you have done nothing to equal what he has done’? Do you never hear the teasing voice of your pride? Can you bear to live out your days in this smoky mountain laboring at these cheap weapons, never being able to prove that you have something special you can do? That you have a skill that can be matched by no other man or demon? For a skill unused is no skill at all. Your father might as well have taught his craft to that slab of rock. For you have done nothing with it, and will not be able to teach it to your son. It will have died of disuse.”

  “Stop it!” cried the smith. “Your words sting worse than those blind worms who gnaw at the roots of mountains and come through the rock at night to torment crater folk. Stop talking, I say! Not another word! Or I’ll fling you into the fire straightaway.”

  “You can stop me from talking,” said Finn. “And you can fling me into the fire. But you will remember my words all the same, and they will burn in your mind. For I am only your own idea of yourself speaking. I am your thwarted pride speaking, which you cannot silence until you do what you know you have to do.”

  “Enough!” roared the smith. “I am as good a craftsman as my father. I shall prove it this very night. All night long shall I labor, and you will stay here feeding the fire. And I shall forge such a blade as will make you forget the sword of Cuhal.”

  “Permit me to doubt it,” said Finn politely. “I believe that your talents have grown rusty through years of disuse, and that you will not be able to forge such a blade. But I shall await the outcome with much curiosity.”

  All night long the smith labored, bringing to his task all the cunning and all the lore learned by the mountain trolls through thousands of years of forging tools and weapons since the first metal was smelted from the first ore dug out of the earth. And this smith was indeed a patient and clever craftsman. And he brought such a proud fury to his work that night as to go beyond his own skill and invoke a magic of craft beyond craft. All night long, Finn stoked the fire for him and worked the bellows, watching closely, but keeping very still.

  From a s
pecial bin the smith took a bar of volt blue metal. This metal had been dug out of a meteor that had flamed briefly in the sky centuries before, and then buried itself in the earth. After the meteor cooled, it showed a curious gray rock streaked with blue metal that the mountain trolls had taken as a prize. Only head smiths were allowed to work this metal from the sky, and only on the most special occasions. It was the hardest, most flexible metal in all the world, and took the sharpest edge. Finn recognized it—his father’s blade had shone with the same silvery blue light—and his breath caught with excitement, but he was very careful not to show the smith how he felt.

  The sword maker heated the bar of metal red-hot, and plunged it into a vat of water until it cooled off. He did this three times, then heated it white-hot, this time plunged it into a broth made of bear’s blood to give the blade courage, and fox’s blood to give it cunning, and owl’s blood so that it would never sleep in its sheath—all mixed with crystalline ice water from the frost king’s own fountain. Each time he worked the molten ingot, shaping it into a murderous, elegant slenderness.