by Tom O'Neill
‘All of that and more,’ said Mac Cumhaill. ‘Men have died in battle over one inch of the ground I am talking about.’
‘Would there not be meddlesome backward Milesian locals claiming the land was theirs?’
‘I would get you authorisation from the highest level in that area.’
‘You do know we have authorisation from the highest authority in the land for what we have here?’ said the runt tetchily.
‘Well now, that’s the other side of it. You see the trouble you have here? A High King’s word doesn’t count for anything in this country. It’s not like in other lands. The High King is a kind of puppet.’ Mac Cumhaill seemed to take particular pleasure in this treasonous speech. ‘He is a man who can give you promises all day long but nothing behind them. You need the permission of the local person in charge. That is the one and only way to get ownership of anything here.’
The senior goblin was already too blinded to suspect deception. He tried to sound casual when he said, ‘So ... um ... tell me where this new paradise is.’
‘I will do better than that. I will bring you there this very night.’
Not even this shaky proposition awoke the little man’s judgement. Only a fool went to inspect lands by moonlight. But the goblin was too eager.
‘But only once I’ve got my price,’ added Mac Cumhaill.
The container of shiny stones was quickly brought to Mac Cumhaill, who ran off so quickly to hide it that neither goblin nor big person had any idea where he went with it. He was back in hardly any time, his hands looking as though he had had been digging in muck.
The goblins were very keen to move. Thousands of them were already lined up when Mac Cumhaill returned. They were carrying huge packs larger than themselves. No human could fail to marvel at the strength they had in their little square bodies. Men, women, and children were carrying more than their donkeys. As they were leaving, Mac Cumhaill took the goblin chief over to the local chieftains to have a word.
‘All a mistake,’ said the goblin chief. ‘We thought these were our ancestral lands. We were mistaken and we are now going to the correct place.’
The chiefs nodded wisely.
‘Daghda bless your journey and may he close up the road behind you,’ whined Keefe after them.
Mac Cumhaill discovered the goblins to be slow walkers and by day break they were not yet near the destination. They rested in a holly wood during the daytime. When dusk fell he took them on again. They dragged themselves along in disorderly reluctant fashion, grumbling furiously. Eventually they reached a place where Mac Cumhaill stuck a hazel rod in the ground. He said, ‘Here you are.’
He was standing in the middle of the land of Fir Luirg. Luckily it was still a very dark night and the goblins, tired out, were not able to see that the ground mightn’t have been quite as great as he had promised them. It wasn’t a mountain. That much was true. But there were many small drumlin hills in every direction. And instead of great flowing rivers jumping with salmon, there were hundreds of little stagnant lakes that contained a few scaly pike and water rats.
‘Here I leave you and wish you the best of good luck,’ said Mac Cumhaill.
‘Wait up there,’ the goblin chief said. ‘How will we know the boundaries of our land?’
‘That never bothered you too much before,’ said Mac Cumhaill.
‘Talk respectfully,’ growled the goblin, ‘for I am tired and not in the mood for back chat from a stupid Celteen. Tell me the nature of the deal you have worked for us here, with the local king.’ His eager expression had given way to his more usual sour look. After all this time travelling with Mac Cumhaill, Conán and Matha, singing merrily and out of tune, he was clearly starting to suspect that all might not have been quite in order. But he was not keen to face the possibility that this was some kind of trick. His popularity with his own people might not remain very high should they discover he had made a mistake of judgment. Mac Cumhaill had heard it said that goblins retired failed leaders in a cauldron of boiling spit.
‘Walk as far as you can in any direction for, let’s say, a day, and that ground is yours,’ said Mac Cumhaill casually.
‘And you say there is no one else here going to claim they have rights to this?’
‘I didn’t say that. But if you do meet any people, you can tell them you have been granted the rights to this ground and then you can tell them to move off directly.’
‘Good enough,’ said the runt. ‘I was hoping the land was clear of your type, but we’ll just have to do as you say and run them. Who should I say has granted this right?’
‘You will say, Badhbh, their most mighty queen, the High Queen of Connacht, descended from Maedhbh, blessed be her name, has made the grant and it is irrevocable.’
‘Are you sure?’ said the runt, his face looking a bit pale.
‘Certain,’ said Mac Cumhaill. ‘Now, I’ll bid you good night.’
Suddenly Fionn Mac Cumhaill was surrounded. ‘You’re not going from here,’ said the goblin boss. ‘You will stay with us and explain to the people we meet tomorrow, about the grant from this queen. I don’t trust people who let a woman rule.’
‘I thank you for the kind offer of further hospitality,’ said Mac Cumhaill, ‘but I have to go home to clean the dung out of my cow house and it is a task that calls me more strongly than the pleasure of any more of your companionship.’
‘That was a command. You and these other two have ceased to be my servants. You are now my slaves. And when we are done with driving off the locals and setting up the fences tomorrow, you will go with my men to recover the gems I lent you.’
Matha did not like the sound of this. He had never been in any kind of conflict before. Other than trying to beat Mac Cumhaill with a stick. He particularly didn’t like how cheerfully flushed Conán looked at the prospect of trouble. Like it was what he was made for. He stood with a hand on his sword and another on his dagger, as Mac Cumhaill’s charm vanished.
‘I have held my part of the deal to the last detail,’ said Mac Cumhaill loudly, to make all the goblins in the area stop their scratching and digging. ‘You are surely not telling your people here that you think this place you have led them to is not their promised homeland?’
The senior man became nervous at this. He thought for a minute. ‘All I am saying is that I am keeping you here and if you do not shut your clever mouth, I will keep you dead instead of alive.’
Mac Cumhaill laughed. He reached down and grabbed spears from two of the guards. One held on and Mac Cumhaill had to shake him off it. Then he ran the spear through the shoulder of the goblin chief’s tunic and lifted him up with it. The chief started squealing at his men not to fire any more spikes at Mac Cumhaill in case they hit himself instead. Mac Cumhaill walked off with the chief swinging from the end of his spear. Conán followed, sweeping his sword low in a great circle like a sickle cutting corn, forcing the goblin crowd to stay well back. Matha did nothing, only walked quite nervously between the two big men who were roaring and making wolf howls. He was about as scared of them as he was of the goblins.
When they were a good distance from the swarm of goblins, Mac Cumhaill set their chief down carefully and the three of them continued to walk away. A few spears were thrown half-heartedly, but none of the goblins chased after them. They had obviously realised by now that they weren’t dealing with farmers. Mac Cumhaill and his companions didn’t go far. Just a short way out of sight.
Next morning, the sun was bright enough for the bumps on the promised land to be quite evident. After much grumbling, the goblins apparently decided to make the best of the situation. Parties of goblins were sent in every direction. They were to find the ends of their property at the finish of a day’s walk. They were to start immediately, walk faster than they had ever done, and only stop at midnight. Any farming people they met on the way were to be told that the goblins were loyal subjects of Badhbh, Queen of all Connacht, and that they had been granted this land by her. The farming
people and their chiefs were to be chased off at spear point to spread fear and panic. Their animals and tools were to be taken from them.
By the end of that day, many people had fled before the industrious goblins. The fences started going up and the groups worked towards each other to complete the enclosure, a massive circle of stolen lands.
Before dawn the following morning at least twenty chieftains whose clans had lost most or all of their lands to the goblins arrived at Emhain Macha in a terrible state of upset. They were greeted by Tíreach, who was pacing the perimeter. The tone of the rage he flew into was reputedly so bad that he couldn’t get any coherent words out to anyone for over an hour. He jumped up and down spitting and spluttering and breaking spears on the ground, saying, ‘I knew it, I knew it.’
Because of course the lands of the Fir Luirg were entirely inside Uladh, the last place on earth that any sensible person would think they might be able to peacefully steal land. Even if you were brazen enough to try, the very worst thing you could say was that it was the Queen of Connacht who had granted you permission. Each mention of her name by the chiefs who continued to arrive at Tíreach’s camp only multiplied his rage. The goblins’ chances of a happy co-existence with the people in those parts became remote.
An hour after the first complaining chief had arrived, Tíreach had calmed down enough to be able to see straight. He and the head of his army, the Mad Hound of Uladh, were ordering their ever-ready men to arms and yoking his own chariot to two white horses. The Hound wasn’t as fast or big as his reputation, but he shared with Tíreach a belief that an enemy lurked behind every bush. Tíreach and the Hound were battle-hungry men. Now, at last, they had a real day’s work in front of them.
The two of them led the charge towards the lands of Fir Luirg.
Mac Cumhaill and Conán, not wanting to miss the spectacle, had moved to a viewing place a small distance from where the goblin fence crossed the path from Emhain Macha. It was a smaller distance than Matha would have preferred. Before the dawn had even broken he witnessed the astounding sight. Tíreach and the Hound were standing in a racing chariot, red-faced in the cold morning, and naked save for some bits of paint and protective necklaces. They were screaming and waving their swords and whips. The blood almost stopped circulating in Matha’s veins.
Tíreach, to give him credit, got on much better with animals than he did with people. He had all classes of creatures as pets. On this occasion, several of the chariots following him were carrying crates of animals, although Matha couldn’t make out from his hiding place exactly what manner of animal they were.
Seeing the neat wicker fence cutting across his road was the last straw for Tíreach. He tried to drive his horses through it first but then got down and started at it with his hatchet, pulling the fence apart with a shower of curses and throwing sticks in the air like a lunatic. Even the Hound wasn’t sure whether it was safe to go and help him in case he came in for a blow from the hatchet, so he stood back with the other arriving soldiers and watched their King at work. Within a minute he had made a wide enough gap and was moving on through, still bawling like a raving jackass.
Because the goblins had taken such a big expanse this time, they were spread too thin and it took longer for a clot of them to form around Tíreach and his men. The goblins were not nearly as warlike when they saw soldiers in front of them rather than farmers. They went straight to bartering mode. Three of their more important men, including the boss whom Mac Cumhaill had dealt with, came out with smiles spread over them like a rash.
‘What seems to be your trouble, good sirs?’ said the goblin chief.
‘The trouble is that you are not wanted here,’ said the Hound, as Tíreach was too enraged to talk sense.
‘Oh, but we have had our rights to these ancestral grounds by the graciousness of Queen Badhbh,’ said the chief.
There was silence as Tíreach and the Hound looked at each other. The canny little goblin chief knew for certain now, from the faces of these two, that the situation was not quite as the big man had led him to believe. But he couldn’t have known just how bad a hole he was in.
‘Ahem, not entirely Badhbh’s decision I take it?’ he said astutely and politely. ‘Maybe there has been a misunderstanding. Can we not talk about this?’
‘You’ve got to the count of twenty to do whatever talking you wish,’ said the Hound.
‘You are too kind, thank you,’ said the chief goblin, moving up to stand next to Tíreach. ‘You see there was this enormous farmer who told us we could set up here ...’
‘What are you talking about?’ responded the Hound. ‘What was this farmer’s name?’
‘Er... I don’t know what his name was, he didn’t tell us.’
‘We know well you were sent here by Badhbh to take over our lands,’ said the Hound, looking at Tíreach’s shaking head.
‘Yes! Or ... No?’ said the goblin, getting confused; then, pressing closer to Tíreach, he said, ‘Here, have these as a token of atonement for any mistake I may have made.’
Tíreach opened his hand and looked down at the two shockingly beautiful red emeralds that the goblin had squeezed into his fist. The goblin just waited for the magic to soak in.
‘What’s this?’ said Tíreach finally.
‘Plenty more where they came from,’ nudged the goblin quietly.
‘What in blazes!’ Tíreach was shouting so loud that his voice was echoing back and forth between the little poor hills. ‘Are you completely wrong in the head? I’m talking to you about stealing my land and you are stuffing stones into my hand?’
The goblin had miscalculated. The magic of the gems hadn’t the slightest effect on Tíreach. This was a man who lived in less comfort than the most self-punishing hermit druid. There had never been a moment in his life when a dream of personal luxury had entered his head. He wanted nothing in this life, only peace of mind and that was beyond his reach. The gems were as worthless to him as two limestone pebbles. He flung them away from him and, unable to contain himself any longer, drew his sword on the goblin chief. The unfortunate little man made the mistake of pulling out some kind of wand and starting to chant some magic or prayer which might have scared off ordinary people. He could not have known what a low tolerance Tíreach had for the arts. That was the end of him. Before he knew a thing about it, his body was cleanly sliced down the middle.
That was the beginning and end of the fighting. The goblins ran to their tunnels in the hope that the Celts with the lean bare bottoms and the dancing rage would be afraid to follow them in. It was then that Tíreach ordered that the crates be opened and his pets released. He had brought an army of badgers. They got out of the boxes and stood around waiting for his instructions. With a few peculiar whistles he sent them all towards the tunnels. Those badgers would have put the fear of Daghda into anyone regardless of whether you lived above ground or below it. Everyone respected the badger. He was a man who minded his own business. But if you crossed him, he made an unkind enemy and one that was very hard to kill. In no time, the goblins were all running out of their tunnels without too much damage done to them. One of the other senior lads approached the Hound and said to him in panic, ‘Call them off, call them off, your soldiers and badgers. We have no further truck with you. Call them back.’
‘You will go back to where you came from!’ the Hound said.
‘Will we what?’ said the man in terrible pique. ‘Do you think you could tie us here in this foul country for one hour more? A place where we can’t trust anyone? When we try to cut a few deals just to allow us to eke out a little share for ourselves, we are met with trickery and deceit the likes of which even a goblin has never seen before? There is no place in this land for honest hard-working goblins.’
Within a day, all the goblins were gone. They had been in such a hurry that they headed for the nearest sea, which was on the west coast. They set off in a thousand little makeshift vessels, sailing around the outside of the dreaded country of Éirinn,
to get back to the lands of their origin.
Tíreach of course, on seeing them flee west, was confirmed in his idea that they were a tribe of small Connacht men and that they had gone back there with their tails between their legs. He was therefore very satisfied that he had taught Badhbh a good lesson.
Badhbh never figured out the meaning of the gift she received that year – one half of a goblin sliced cleanly like a side of beef. But it had a sobering effect on her. She could only assume that Tíreach had taken that final step over the edge into madness. She decided it would be prudent to stop playing tricks on him for a little while in case he was so deranged that the next prank might actually provoke him to war.
Mac Cumhaill headed back to Tara with Conán and Matha. He reported to Cormac that Tíreach had just given them the best entertainment any king in the world had on offer. ‘Well now, well now,’ said Cormac, ‘the lovely man. I knew he had a merry heart in him despite that leg of cold pigeon. I must go up there for some diversion someday soon.’
After his feed of honey brew Cormac was expanding about what a wonderful family Tíreach had. Mac Cumhaill took the chance to replace the gems in his pouch with two coloured beads given to him once by a magpie with whom he was friendly. Whatever happened to the two real gems or indeed to the full bucket of them that Mac Cumhaill extracted from the goblins has not ever been told.
Chapter 7
DUCK EGGS
When Dark got back he didn’t turn the lights on. Without his mam and Connie there, the house was suddenly feeling cold and damp, like a building already long abandoned. The flames that had disappeared from the rath still smouldered in his head. He put on the television to try to take the sharpness off the silence. He sat on the floor with his back to the Aga and talked to the dogs. Pumpkin put her head on his lap. He stroked her soft hair and tried to think about everything. He slipped into something close to sleep.