At this Oonagh set up a loud laugh, of great contempt, by the way, and looked at him as if he was only a mere handful of a man.
‘Did you ever see Finn?’ said she, changing her manner all at once.
‘How could I?’ said Cucullin; ‘he always took care to keep his distance.’
‘I thought so,’ she replied; ‘I judged as much; and if you take my advice, you poor-looking creature, you’ll pray night and day that you may never see him, for I tell you it will be a black day for you when you do. But, in the meantime, you perceive that the wind’s on the door, and as Finn himself is away from home, maybe you’d be civil enough to turn the house, for it’s always what Finn does when he’s here.’
This was a startler even to Cucullin; but he got up, however, and after pulling the middle finger of his right hand until it cracked three times, he went outside, and getting his arms about the house, turned it as she had wished. When Finn saw this, he felt the sweat of fear oozing out through every pore of his skin; but Oonagh, depending upon her woman’s wit, felt not a whit daunted.
‘Arrah, then,’ said she, ‘as you are so civil, maybe you’d do another obliging turn for us, as Finn’s not here to do it himself. You see, after this long stretch of dry weather we’ve had, we feel very badly off for want of water. Now, Finn says there’s a fine spring-well somewhere under the rocks behind the hill here below, and it was his intention to pull them asunder; but having heard of you, he left the place in such a fury, that he forgot it. Now, if you try to find it, in truth I’d feel it a kindness.’
She then brought Cucullin down to see the place, which was then all one solid rock; and, after looking at it for some time, he cracked his right middle finger nine times, and, stooping down, tore a cleft about four hundred feet deep, and a quarter of a mile in length, which has since been christened by the name of Lumford’s Glen.
‘You’ll now come in,’ said she, ‘and eat a bit of such humble fare as we can give you. Finn, even although he and you are enemies, would scorn not to treat you kindly in his own house; and, indeed, if I didn’t do it even in his absence, he would not be pleased with me.’
She accordingly brought him in, and placing half a dozen of the cakes we spoke of before him, together with a can or two of butter, a side of boiled bacon, and a stack of cabbage, she desired him to help himself – for this, be it known, was long before the invention of potatoes. Cucullin put one of the cakes in his mouth to take a huge whack out of it, when he made a thundering noise, something between a growl and a yell. ‘Blood and fury!’ he shouted; ‘how is this? Here are two of my teeth out! What kind of bread is this you gave me?’
‘What’s the matter?’ said Oonagh coolly.
‘Matter!’ shouted the other again; ‘why, here are the two best teeth in my head gone.’
‘Why,’ said she, ‘that’s Finn’s bread – the only bread he ever eats when at home; but, indeed, I forgot to tell you that nobody can eat it but himself, and that child in the cradle there. I thought, however, that, as you were reported to be rather a stout little fellow for your size, you might be able to manage it, and I did not wish to affront a man that thinks himself able to fight Finn. Here’s another cake – maybe it’s not so hard as that.’
Cucullin at the moment was not only hungry, but ravenous, so he accordingly made a fresh set at the second cake, and immediately another yell was heard twice as loud as the first. ‘Thunder and gibbets!’ he roared ‘take your bread out of this, or I will not have a tooth left in my head; there’s another pair of them gone!’
‘Well, honest man,’ replied Oonagh, ‘if you’re not able to eat the bread, say so quietly, and don’t be wakening the child in the cradle there. There, now, he’s awake upon me.’
Finn now gave a skirl that startled the giant, as coming from such a youngster as he was supposed to be. ‘Mother,’ said he, ‘I’m hungry – get me something to eat.’
Oonagh went over, and putting into his hand a cake that had no griddle in it, Finn, whose appetite in the meantime had been sharpened by seeing eating going forward, soon swallowed it. Cucullin was thunderstruck, and secretly thanked his stars that he had the good fortune to miss meeting Finn, for, as he said to himself, I’d have no chance with a man who could eat such bread as that, which even his son that’s but in his cradle can munch before my eyes.’
‘I’d like to take a glimpse at the lad in the cradle,’ said he to Oonagh; ‘for I can tell you that the infant who can manage that nutriment is no joke to look at, or to feed of a scarce summer.’
‘With all the veins of my heart,’ replied Oonagh; ‘get up, acushla, and show this decent little man something that won’t be unworthy of your father, Finn M’Coul.’
Finn, who was dressed for the occasion as much like a baby boy as possible, got up, and asks Cucullin, ‘Are you strong?’ said he.
‘Mercy on us!’ exclaimed the other, ‘what a voice in so small a chap!’
‘Are you strong?’ said Finn again; ‘are you able to squeeze water out of that white stone?’ he asked, putting one into Cucullin’s hand. The latter squeezed and squeezed the stone, but in vain.
‘Ah, you’re a poor creature!’ said Finn. ‘You a giant! Give me the stone here, and when I’ll show what Finn’s little son can do, you may then judge of what my daddy himself is.’
Finn then took the stone, and exchanging it for the curds, he squeezed the latter until the whey, as clear as water, oozed out in a little shower from his hand.
‘I’ll now go in,’ said he, ‘to my cradle; for I scorn to lose my time with anyone that’s not able to eat my daddy’s bread, or squeeze water out of a stone. Bedad, you had better be off out of this before he comes back; for if he catches you, it’s in jelly he’d have you in two minutes.’
Cucullin, seeing what he had seen, was of the same opinion himself; his knees knocked together with the terror of Finn’s return, and he accordingly hastened to bid Oonagh farewell, and to assure her, that from that day out, he never wished to hear of, much less to see, her husband. ‘I admit fairly that I’m not a match for him,’ said he, ‘strong as I am; tell him I will avoid him as I would the plague, and that I will make myself scarce in this part of the country while I live.’
Finn, in the meantime, had gone into the cradle, where he lay very quietly, his heart at his mouth with delight that Cucullin was about to take his departure, without discovering the tricks that had been played on him.
‘It’s well for you,’ said Oonagh, ‘that he doesn’t happen to be here, for it’s nothing but hawk’s meat he’d make of you.’
‘I know that,’ says Cucullin; ‘divil a thing else he’d make of me; but before I go, will you let me feel what kind of teeth Finn’s lad has got that can eat griddle-bread like that?’
‘With all pleasure in life,’ said she; ‘only, as they’re far back in his head, you must put your finger a good way in.’
Cucullin was surprised to find such a powerful set of grinders in one so young; but he was still much more so on finding, when he took his hand from Finn’s mouth, that he had left the very finger upon which his whole strength depended, behind him. He gave one loud groan, and fell down at once with terror and weakness. This was all Finn wanted, who now knew that his most powerful and bitterest enemy was at his mercy. He started out of the cradle, and in a few minutes the great Cucullin, that was for such a length of time the terror of him and all his followers, lay a corpse before him. Thus did Finn, through the wit and invention of Oonagh, his wife, succeed in overcoming his enemy by cunning, which he never could have done by force.
PART SEVEN: TRADITIONAL STORIES AND CELTIC SAGA STORIES
‘Country-under-wave’ by Alice Furlong
There was once a little child, and he could not learn. It was not his fault. Every summer eve, and every winter night, he stood by the knee of his mother, and she said for him the names of the days of the week, and the seasons of the year, and told him how to call the sun and the moon and the stars. She gave him to know
that the wheat was sown in one time, and reaped in another; that the oxen drew the plough, and the swift, nimble steed the chariot; that there were seven degrees of folks in the land, and seven orders among the poets, and seven colours to be distributed among the folks and among the poets, according to rank and station. And many other things the mother taught him, standing by her knee. The child listened, and was of attentive mind.
But in the morning, she asked him what was shining in the heavens, and he made answer, ‘The moon.’ And she asked him when did men take sickles and go a-reaping, and he said, ‘In the season of Beltaine’ (which is the early summer season when birds are on the bough, and blossom on the thorn). And she bade him tell her what animal it was that drew the plough over red, loamy fields, and he answered, ‘The swift, nimble horse.’ And she questioned him of the seven folks, and the seven orders, and the seven colours, and he had no right understanding concerning any of these.
‘Ill-luck is on me, that I am the mother of a fool!’ said the poor woman many a time. Then the child used to steal away to the dim, green orchard, and hide among the mossy trees, and weep.
After a time, the mother gave up trying to teach him, and taught his younger brothers and his sister, instead. The boy then took the lowest place at table, and his fare was given him last, and he was, in that homestead, the person held in least respect by menservants and maids.
There was a wise woman tarrying in the place one day, putting herbs of healing about an ailing cow. She saw the boy, and his fair head hanging, and shame in his eyes. ‘What is wrong with this fair-headed lad?’ said she.
‘The head is wrong with him,’ answered the mother of the boy. ‘He has no utterance nor understanding. A heavy trouble to me, that! For there was none among my kin and people but had the wisdom and the knowledge fitting for his station.’
The wise woman muttered and mumbled to herself.
‘Get him the Nuts of Knowledge,’ said she, after that.
‘I have heard tell of them,’ said the mother, ‘but hard is their getting.’ The brothers and the sister of the child that could not learn stood round about, and listened to the talk between the mother and the wise woman, Dechtera.
‘The Nuts of Knowledge, they grow upon the Hazels of Knowledge, over a Well of Enchantment in the Country-under-Wave,’ said Dechtera. ‘If it be that you desire wisdom for your boy, good woman, you must send there some person to bring the nuts to you.’
The second son, Kian, flung back his hair. He was a proud youth, and full of courage as a ripe apple is full of sweetness.
‘Let me be going, that the disgrace may be taken from my mother, and the sons of my mother,’ said he.
The wise woman fingered her long lip.
‘If you would go, ‘tis soon you must be going,’ she said. ‘It is near the Eve of Beltaine, an eve of great witchery. Between the rising and the setting of the moon, that night, the loughs and the seas of Erin become gates of glass that will open to let through any person who seeks the Country-under-Wave. Is this to your mind, my son?’
‘It is pleasing to my mind,’ said the lad.
‘It is well pleasing to my mind,’ said the mother.
The wise woman went on telling them of the way to reach Country-under-Wave.
‘He must bid farewell to kith and kin, and go in his loneness to the lough shore that night,’ she said. ‘And when the gates of glass are shut behind him, he must tarry in the Under-water Land from Beltaine until Samhain and harvest, when the nuts of the Magic Hazels will ripen to scarlet red. And on the eve of Samhain, he will draw near the Well of Enchantment and wait for the dropping of the nuts. He must be swift to stretch out the hand and snatch them as they drop. For the Salmon of Knowledge, he too is waiting in the Well, to eat the fruit as it falls. In that hour, a rosy surge rises upon the water, and the Salmon eats and swims away, swimming all the seas of the round, rolling world. And he has a knowledge of everything that passes, overseas, and under-seas, and in hidden places and desert ways. But if this youth lets the nuts slip through his fingers, he shall be in the power of Them in the Country-under-Wave.’
‘Good are my fingers to catch and hold,’ said the boy, Kian.
The wise woman went away to the hills then, after curing the ailing cow.
Came the eve of Beltaine, the night of witchery. The lad said farewell to his house and home, and embraced his brothers and his sister and his mother. He went out alone under the moon, and there was fairy singing in the wind that night, and over the dewy fields the silver track of fairy feet. He came to the lough shore, and saw the water as gates of glass. He went boldly through and travelled crystal roadways and riverways until he came to the Country-under-Wave.
The grass was greener than emeralds there; the trees were bowers of blossom. A radiant mist was on the mountains. The level plain was more thick with flowers than the sky with stars of a night when there is neither moon nor cloud. ‘A better country than my mother’s country!’ said the youth to himself.
He was walking over a shining pebbly way until he came to a house. Every plank of the wall was of a different colour to the one beside it; the doors and windows were framed and pillared in wrought gold; the roof was fashioned of plumage so finely spread that it seemed like one feather without parting or division.
People were passing to and fro about this fair house. Noble of mien were they, with hair of the hue of primroses, with eyes sloe-black, the blush of the rosy foxglove on every cheek, the pure whiteness of milk on every brow. They came in a shining troop to meet Kian, the boy, and they said to him, ‘A hundred welcomes before you!’
The lad saluted them. They brought him within the palace, and invited him to abide there for the night. He said he was willing. The time went pleasantly with mirth and music. Soon the lad inquired where was the Well of Enchantment? ‘More than a day’s journey from this spot,’ the lord of the mansion made answer. On the red dawn of the morrow, the lad took his leave of them. They gave him a fair-woven napkin spun of silk as fine as the web of a spider.
‘When there comes upon you hunger or thirst, spread this napkin on the grass and it shall be covered with the choicest of foods and drinks,’ said the lord of the coloured house.
The lad gave them thanks.
‘It is a great country you have of it down here,’ he said. The noble people were pleased.
‘You never were in its like before,’ they said.
The boy, Kian, felt his high spirit rise up in him. He was a proud lad, and could not listen to a country being praised over his own. That was no fault. But he spoke a word, and the word was not true.
‘I have seen as many wonders in my mother’s country, and more,’ said he. Then he followed the crystal waterways and roadways, seeking the Well of Enchantment.
The folks of that mansion were watching him along the way. ‘A lie in his mouth in return for our hospitality!’ said they one to another. ‘Well, let it be so. He is not in our power now, but that may be mended another day.’
The boy followed his road. He was travelling till evening, and he came to the shore of the sea. The sand was in grains of gold, the waves fell with the sound of singing. He beheld white-maned seahorses race upon the strand, and wonderful people in chariots behind the horses. He sat down among the flowers, and he spread the fine-spun napkin, and it was covered with choice food and drinks. He ate his supper, and then looked about to find a place to rest for the night.
He saw a fair woman coming towards him, and gave her greeting.
‘A hundred welcomes before you, Kian,’ said she to him. He wondered how she knew his name. ‘You are in want of a resting-place for the night?’ said she.
‘I want that, among other things,’ said the lad.
The fair woman led him to a palace among the rocks. It was finer and better than the first house he had been in, if that were possible. Every person there had a star on the forehead and flowing pale-gold hair, like the ripple of the foam of the sea. And the clothing of every person was of t
he tint of waves, blue and green, shifting and changing with their stir and movement.
‘This is the house of Manannan Mac Lir, who commands the winds and the storms and the tempests that wreck ships and drown fishers,’ said the woman.
The boy remained there that night. Pleasant was the entertainment he got in the house of Manannan Mac Lir. On the morn of the morrow, he went forth again to find the Well of Enchantment. The folks of the house gave him a little bit of a cloak, no bigger than would go over the lad’s shoulders.
‘When you are in want of a shelter and sleeping booth for the night, hang this cloak from the first straight twig you pick up from the grass. The twig will be a pillar and the cloak a tent, therewith.’
He gave them thanks, and said, ‘Wonders upon wonders! What more can you do down here?’
The sea-folks laughed out. They laughed more softly than the sigh of summer waves. They were pleased with the youth.
‘You have not fallen in with such people before,’ said they. The spirit of the lad rose up. He forgot himself again. He told another lie.
‘The foot-boys of the King of Erin are better people,’ he said, and followed his journey. The folks of that sea-mansion laughed again. But now their laughter was like the whistle of the wind that bids the storm begin.
‘A boast he has instead of thanks for us,’ said they. ‘Let it be so. He is not in our power now. That will be mended another day.’
Kian, the boy, abode in the Country-under-Wave while the meadows ripened in his mother’s country, and mowers went forth with scythes, and maids tossed the hay. The apple was green and the cherry was red. After that, it drew nigh the harvest, and the apple reddened, and the cherry tree began to change the hue of its leaves.
Down in the Country-under-Wave, the youth was walking to and fro, seeking the Well of Enchantment. The day before the eve of Samhain, he came upon it, in a deep forest, where the wind murmured always and always. He saw the magic hazels, and knew them by the crimson of their fruit. And the nut-cluster drooped over the water of the Well, and leaned to its own rosy shadow beneath. ‘Now my journey is ended,’ said Kian, the boy.
Irish Folk and Fairy Tales Page 11