Finally, on the forge lay a tapering, two-edged blade, each of the edges honed razor sharp, and it came to a needle point. Before putting the final edge on it, however, the smith made its hilt. He twined leather strands about the rounded end of the blade. The leather had been cured from the hide of a newborn bull calf; it was soft and very tough. Then he inlaid the leather with delicately spun gold wire. This combination of bull-calf hide and gold filament made a supple handle that could fit itself to any grip, and would allow a warrior to keep his hold in the shock and ruck of the most violent battle.
The handguard was no simple crosspiece, but a deep cusp made of brass leaf, beaten thin as flower petals and welded together leaf upon leaf, making a guard that was as supple as leather and tough as steel. No blade could shear through it and wound the swordsman’s hand.
Finally, just as night ended and the great gong sounded to call the slaves from their brief sleep, the smith honed the edge of the blade for the last time, wiped it down with an oily rag, and held it gleaming to the forge fire.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” he said to Finn.
“Beautiful,” said Finn. “As beautiful as the sword of Cuhal. But can it cut as well? We must try its edge.”
“Here,” said the smith, thrusting the sword into Finn’s hand. “You try its edge. You will find it can cut this anvil in two. And when you have satisfied yourself that it equals or surpasses the sword of Cuhal and that I—I—am the author of this blade, why, then you will give it back to me and I will strike your head off your shoulders for your insolence.”
“Well,” said Finn. “I suppose it could be considered an honor to be decapitated by the best sword ever made—if such it is—but let me try it first before you finish your boast.”
Finn made a pass or two in the air.
“Ah, nicely balanced,” he said. “Now for the test.”
But he did not strike at the anvil. He struck at his own ankle. As the smith stared in amazement, Finn struck off the chain which shackled him to the stone. He did a little dancing step and laughed into the smith’s face.
“Why, nothing makes you feel as light-footed as being chained to a rock for a couple of months.”
“What are you doing?” whispered the smith in horror.
“Testing your sword. Indeed, it is everything you claimed. It cut fairly through my chains. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were good at heads, too.”
Before the smith could take a step backward, the blade glittered in the forge light once again, and swept the troll’s head off his shoulders. And Finn himself, moving swiftly and silently as the shadow of flame upon the rock wall, fled up the hills of slag, up, up, up, his feet spurning the ash and raising clouds of fine gray powder. Two sentries leaped to stop him. The blade flashed again, and two heads rolled in the ash. And Finn was out the mouth of the crater and rushing down the slope so swiftly he did not seem like a man at all, but like a goat leaping or a stone dropping.
Down the slope he rushed, down to the level ground, never breaking his stride. Onward he rushed, hurdling logs, leaping streams, into a girdle of trees. Through the trees, onto the beach. There, riding his luck—which is another name for hardship challenged and overcome—he spied a small skiff hidden in the reeds. It was a slender little coracle, made of hides stretched over wooden ribs, something like our canoe. He pushed it into the surf, jumped into it, and paddled away as swiftly as he could.
When he lost sight of land and knew that he was safe from pursuit, he stopped paddling, looked into the depths of the water and said: “O great Lyr, God of the Sea, you whom I rescued from captivity, O Lord of the Deep, I ask that you return favor for favor. Keep the sky clear and the waters calm, and send me a favoring wind that I may reach the shore of Eire. Any shore at all of the lovely land, I don’t care. I’m no hard bargainer. Put me ashore at Leinster, Munster, Meath, or Connaught. I’ll settle for any of them and walk the rest of the way, rejoicing. But let the winds be fair …”
The sea god answered.
9
How Lyr Paid His Debt
The sky darkened. Black clouds roiled up out of nowhere. Lightning stitched the sky. Thunder growled. The winds pounced from all directions at once, spinning the skiff crazily. Finn flailed with his paddle on both sides, struggling to keep the little boat from overturning.
Then the last of the sunlight was snuffed like a candle. A howling darkness fell. The skiff bucked like a wild horse. Finn felt himself going over. There was no way he could stop it. The coracle was turning turtle. He sucked in a deep breath before going underwater.
The water was cold … cold. He swam to the surface and immediately flung himself into the direction he guessed the boat to be. He grasped its slippery side, hugged it tight with such force he thought its wooden ribs would crack, but he didn’t dare ease his grip. The wind was trying to pull him off. Struggling with all his might, he succeeded in inching his way up on the overturned skiff, and sat astride it, gripping it with his knees, clenching the keelson with his hands.
He had not lost his sword, though, nor did he have to hold on to it. It seemed to press its length against his leg like something alive. Its metal seemed to glow warmly there with some sleeping fire from its meteor birth. And it shone dimly, casting a small light so that he wasn’t in utter darkness. When he grasped its hilt it was almost like grasping the hand of a friend. And, somehow, the dimly glowing, softly warming moon-metal sword kept him alive during that terrible night.
Dawn found him still clinging to the overturned skiff. Three-quarters drowned, punished by the wind, almost frozen—but still alive. The sun stood on the horizon like a battered tin dish, and the sea was lead colored. Then Finn saw the worst sight you can see upon the face of the waters: the long, sleek bodies of sharks turning all around his boat, showing their white bellies and their triple rows of teeth. They seemed in no hurry. They were trailing him, as if knowing there was no place he could go. But they came closer. There were seven of them, he saw, each one bigger than the next, and the smallest of them longer than his coracle.
“Looks like this is it, all right,” said Finn to himself. “But I wish I knew what’s up with Lyr. He’s acting as if I were his worst enemy instead of the one who traveled so many freezing miles to unlock his domain from the grip of Vilemurk. If he takes notice of me at all, it’s no friendly notice. For the sharks are subject to him, as are all creatures of the deep. And, sure, they mean me no good at all, and they’re getting closer and closer. Well, I won’t make it easy for them.”
The sword leaped into his hand. As one shark turned within arm’s reach just under the surface of the water, Finn struck him with a slashing downward blow and cut off the final length of him, as a fishmonger slashes the tail off a bluefish before he wraps it in paper to give to a housewife. Blood dyed the water. Finn saw the wounded shark disappear under the snout-faced rush of the other sharks who converged on him, burying him under their threshing bodies, and in the space of half a minute they had eaten him away to the bone.
“Wish I could say there was one less,” thought Finn. “But there’s a total of two more, because three new ones came to the feast.”
He held his sword poised, but did not know which way to strike, for the sharks, with dreadful intelligence, were now ringing the overturned skiff, and coming at it from all sides so that if he struck in one direction, the rest would be upon him before he could strike the other way.
“You’re lucky, my enemies!” shouted Finn. “The sharks are doing your job for you. And I shall never face you now, sword in hand. Farewell, enemies! Farewell, dear cat and hawk. Farewell, Kathleen, most curious girl. Farewell, Lyr, treacherous god. Farewell, Ploughman. And now a sharp farewell to you, my finny friends!”
Whirling the sword about his head, making himself a chaplet of blue fire for his final moments, Finn waited for the sharks to come.
Suddenly, they were gone. He heard an odd gobbling, clucking sound, and saw three enormous swans sailing across the water toward him.
Huge birds, bigger than eagles they seemed, floating there. One swan rose upon its knuckled claws and stretched its neck and beat its wings, and, far away, Finn saw the last of the sharks slicing through the water. The sun was still tin colored and the sea lead colored, but where each swan floated was a pool of radiant blueness, as if the birds carried their own light.
“There’s some magic at work,” thought Finn.
He was surer of it still when he felt himself being lifted gently in the air and the skiff righting itself beneath him, and himself dropping back into it. The swan who had stood on its claws swam up to the boat. Its feathers flamed with such snowy brightness that Finn’s eyes were dazzled, and he could not see. When his vision cleared, there was Kathleen seated in the coracle facing him. She wore a long, white, lacy dress that seemed to be spun of foam, and on her head she wore a crown of coral and pearl.
“We meet again,” she said.
“Kathleen,” whispered Finn. “You’re more beautiful than ever.”
“Easy now,” said Kathleen. “Be very careful what you say. You’re floating on Lyr’s own sea, and there are things swimming about underneath us who can hear every word, and are sure to tattle.”
“What are you talking about? Lovely Kathleen, I’m glad to see you. And you make less sense than ever. But thank you for chasing away the sharks—for it was you, I know. And why are you sometimes a swan now? Tell me all.”
“Hush, then, and listen,” said Kathleen. “Be doubly still so that you can hear me out and understand how our story ends. And also because that way you won’t be uttering any dangerous words. I left you riding the dragon, and him spouting flame and melting all the icebergs. I never expected to see you again. But I did what you told me. I took your sword and crossed the melting ice and entered the cave, and went down, down through the dark passageway, down the center of the mountain, escorted by the tomcat who fought off the foul little trolls who serve Vilemurk down there. Down, down I went to where Lyr was chained to a great granite pillar. I lifted your sword and struck off the manacles. Just then the dragon must have passed directly overhead, and his flaming breath hit our ice mountain. All melted away in a cascading sheet of water. And Lyr, free again, floating on his own flood tide with the ice melting all about him, the sea rising higher and higher, Lyr was king again—free and regal, trident in his hand, spearing the mist crones and the frost legions, calling great blue whales from the deep who broached the surface of the sea, and fell with their tons of weight upon Vilemurk’s minions.
“The battle didn’t last long. Lyr rode the rising tide to victory. The ice was melted, and the seas were free again, and Lyr was king. I was swimming alongside him. Then I was riding his shoulder, clinging to his beard. And, well, he was in a happy mood and full of power and joy. And grateful to me, I suppose, for striking off his chains. Anyway, he took me to his castle at the bottom of the sea, and made me his wife. One of them, that is. But his favorite, I guess. Unless he’s busier than even a god should be.”
“So you’re a queen now?”
“Yes, Finn, in a kind of strange, wet way, I’m a queen. Me. Kathleen ni Houlihan, daughter of my father who was lodged in his dung heap, stinking up the east wind as it blew across Leinster. Well, I have never forgotten my father. Indeed, he’s an unforgettable kind of man. So I craved a boon of Lyr. He sent a finger of the sea curling inland, and its cleansing tide swept away my father’s midden. And a green salt magic turned my father into the cleanest creature in the whole world of living things—a swan. There he is now, that swan. See how white his feathers are? You would never know that he was once the dirtiest widower in the history of grief, would you? And that he had built up a heap of regret around him that was the shame of the four counties. No, he’s a swan now. A big, beautiful, royal swan. But he still has his angry red face. See?”
“And who’s the other swan?”
“Why, bless you,” said Kathleen. “That’s my mother. For Lyr did me that favor, too. He called her back from the dead. Gods can do that, but they don’t like to. Without that boon, though, the first one wouldn’t have been any good, because my father would have refused to live as man or swan without his wife. There she is. Look at her. Isn’t she beautiful? And this cleanliness now is no contradiction. For she was the cleanest little body anyone ever saw. So she comes rightfully by her feathers, and is very happy as a swan.”
“Mother!” called Kathleen.
The smaller swan glided over to the boat.
“I want you to meet my friend Finn. It’s him we owe everything to. He saved my life, you know, many times. And it was through him that I met Lyr. Greet him, Mother.”
The swan spoke in a low, throbbing voice, very much like Kathleen’s but gentler. “Greetings to you, Finn McCool. Thank you for all you have done for my daughter and my husband and me.”
She folded her white wings around his neck and pecked him softly on the lips.
“Thank you, madame,” said Finn, “for the sweetest kiss ever bestowed upon a shipwrecked man.”
“No sweeter than you deserve, Finn, who have rescued me from the dead, and my husband from the filth of despair, and made my girl a queen.”
She pecked him again on the lips. Finn heard a strangled gobbling and looked up. He saw the largest swan rising onto his knuckled claws in the water, and beating his wings and shaking his red wattles furiously, and stretching his neck, and hissing.
“You there,” gargled the swan, who was Houlihan. “You there in the boat! What’s that you’re doin’ with my wife? What’s all this billin’ and cooin’? What’s the lout up to, darlin’? Is he trying to make free with you? I’ll sink him so deep even the sharks won’t find him.”
He fluffed up his feathers so that he seemed to double in size, and swam slowly toward the skiff.
“Shut up, Dad,” said Kathleen. “He’s a friend of mine. And the best friend this family ever had. If it wasn’t for him you’d still be on your dung heap, and I’d be long eaten by the dragon.”
“Apologize to him, dear,” said the mother swan. “Thank him for all he’s done.”
Houlihan clucked something unintelligible, and ducked his head underwater, pretending to feed.
“You’re welcome, sir,” said Finn.
The mother swan swam to her husband’s side, and they both swam a distance away, and floated there, waiting for Kathleen. Finn said to her:
“What happened to Carth, who was your husband? Did you forget about him?”
“Oh, no,” said Kathleen. “I worked a small magic there, too. He was too downy and gentle for a man, beaten too soft by his mother. So I changed him into an aspect of his true nature. He’s a downy duckling now, and my pet. He swims about with me sometimes, and I fondle him, and feed him small fish, and he is very happy.”
“And his mother?” asked Finn.
“I changed her according to her nature, too. She’s a pelican now. It made little change in her appearance, actually. I just pulled out her jaw a bit, and bent her nose a little to meet it. And provided her with wings not unlike the sleeves of her dress. Her voice is the same. And she flies about, croaking raucously, diving for fish. What’s more, just to prove I have a kind heart, I gave her a final gift. An egg that will never hatch—really a stone, you know, from the bottom of the sea, but shaped and colored like a pelican’s egg. She can sit on it in her nest, and sit, and sit, and it will never hatch, never grow up, never fly away from its mother.”
“Truly, you have a kind heart,” said Finn. “And imagination to go along with it. I’m jealous of Lyr, Kathleen. I’ve never met a girl I fancied more.”
“Hush now!” whispered Kathleen. “You fool! That’s just the point. He’s jealous of you. He knows our story. I told him the whole adventure, not realizing that his mood is of the sea itself. He’s changeable as the sea, and as violent in his tantrums. He’s conceived such an envy of you as to make your life unsafe whenever you venture near the water. I pray you, Finn, when you get back to shore, try to stay there.
Dry land’s the place for you, lad, because the sea god is not fond of you.”
“The next time the gods fight, I’ll stay neutral,” said Finn. “You help one of them, and they both become your enemies.”
And that’s the end of this story. Kathleen changed back into a swan, and the three swans escorted the little coracle back to a shore of Eire, and Lyr did not strike again. But after that time, Finn was very careful whenever he found himself at sea.
Since that time, too, Kathleen ni Houlihan has figured in many legends. Sometimes she is said to be swan-born; sometimes she is known as the bride of the sea. Now we know why.
Since that time, also, dragons breathe fire.
About the Author
Bernard Evslin(1922–1993) was a bestselling and award-winning author known for his works on Greek and other cultural mythologies. The New York Times called him “one of the most widely published authors of classical mythology in the world.” He was born in New Rochelle, New York, and attended Rutgers University. After several years working as a playwright, screenwriter, and documentary producer, he began publishing novels and short stories in the late1960s. During his long career, Evslin published more than seventy books—over thirty of which were for young adults. His bestseller Heroes, Gods and Monsters of the Greek Myths has been translated into ten different languages and has sold more than ten million copies worldwide. He won the National Education Association Award in 1961, and in 1986 his book Hercules received the Washington Irving Children’s Book Choice Award. Evslin died in Kauai, Hawaii, at the age of seventy-seven.
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