The Hounds of the Morrigan

by Pat O'Shea

  ‘Who is there? What has blown in to me?’ the loud whisper asked. It answered itself immediately by saying: ‘Two young ones! What an unexpected treat to be sure!’

  The voice sounded friendly and welcoming and Pidge hoped at once that there was nothing to fear after all. They both took heart and came further into the cave.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked, cautiously all the same.

  ‘I am The Glomach, my dear,’ said the voice. ‘And this is where I bide.’

  ‘The Glomach,’ Brigit echoed, about to giggle. Pidge gave her hand a warning squeeze to be on the safe side.

  ‘You’ve heard of me, no doubt?’ the whisper asked hopefully.

  ‘Yes,’ Pidge lied quickly. He didn’t want to get on the wrong side of anything called a Glomach.

  ‘What do they say, small lad?’ the voice sounded pleased, but suspicious. The owner of the voice stayed in the gloom and they had no idea of what he looked like.

  Pidge had gathered his wits by now and he said:

  ‘That you are a greatly skilled blacksmith.’

  ‘What else do they say?’ the voice wondered a little nervously.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing of my other skills?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nothing of my habits?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about my ugliness?’

  ‘We’ve heard nothing about that.’

  ‘Oh,’ the voice said sadly. ‘I am ugly. I am very, very ugly. That is why I am lonely. I am very, very lonely. Are you sorry for me, little children?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Brigit said truthfully.

  ‘Oh, you should be—indeed, you should.’

  ‘How ugly are you?’ Brigit asked. ‘What do you look like?’

  ‘Oh, my sweet dote,’ said The Glomach, ‘I hardly know what to say. I am of the race of the Fomoiri—but I was born wrong, you see. My people all have one hand, one leg, and three rows of teeth. I am a monster with two hands, two legs—and only one row of teeth. Indeed I am a dreadful sight!’

  Here The Glomach sighed deeply.

  And here, Brigit laughed.

  ‘You must be daft,’ she said. ‘Everyone looks like that.’

  ‘Do you say—that you look like that?’

  ‘Yes—of course I do.’

  ‘Pitiful!’ sighed The Glomach. ‘So young, so sweet, so pitful.’

  ‘Come out now and let us see you,’ Brigit said bravely.

  ‘You might be sorry,’ said The Glomach; and the next moment a monstrous man came out of the inner cave and smiled down at them.

  ‘I am The Glomach,’ he said. ‘I am so pleased that we look the same.’

  They were struck speechless with horror at the sight of him.

  He was a bandy-legged, blobber-lipped, barrel-bellied, big-bottomed Giant.

  There were ridges on his forehead like thick corduroy lying sideways, and bony ledges densely knotted with black hairs that were entwined and twisted and tangled with each other like ancient briars. They stood out over his eyes. His yellow teeth were as big as shoe-buckles, and there were a couple missing at the front where his tongue showed in a little bulge, like a small pink balloon, when he smiled. He wore a rough tunic of sacking under a leather apron that was marked with scorches and around his fat middle was a broad belt also of leather. Wherever his clothes finished and his skin showed, it was spiked with bristly dark hairs that stood up like black pins.

  There was a silence filled with shock as the children stared up at him. Things were happening inside their bodies; all sorts of little signals were preparing their legs for running away. But their brains were several jumps behind normal and the messages were only just getting to their knees when The Glomach said sweetly:

  ‘How very kind you are, to come all this way to visit me here at the back of beyond. Now you see me,’ and he shyly turned away and hung his head.

  Rolls of fat ran down from the back of his head so that his neck looked like a bloated pink caterpillar.

  ‘Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum …’ Brigit was gibbering under her breath.

  The Glomach thought this a great joke and he roared with laughter and slapped his thighs, creating inferior thunderclaps.

  ‘That’s a good one!’ he said. ‘I do like a good joke. Give us another—it makes things seem more friendly.’

  Brigit’s mind was running wild. A commonplace saying came into her head.

  ‘You’ll be a great help to your mother when you grow up,’ she ventured, her voice half-strangled with fear. A deep look of repugnance was fixed on her face.

  The Glomach immediately burst into tears.

  ‘Me mother!’ he sobbed. ‘Me mother! Oh, I miss me mother. Now I have no one to take the top off me egg.’

  ‘You’re big enough and ugly enough to do it yourself,’ Brigit said weakly—but she had gained a little courage, as had Pidge, at seeing The Glomach cry.

  ‘Ah, but it was so nice when she did it—with a shaking of the salt in it—and the little stirrings with the egg spoon—and the dipping of the finger of bread in the yellow. Mothers do it best, you know.’

  ‘Well, you great big eejit of a baby, your mother spoiled you!’ Brigit risked saying.

  ‘She did. She ruined me,’ The Glomach agreed, and he wiped his eyes on the back of a massive hairy arm and he sniffed.

  ‘You said I was ugly,’ he grumbled in a hurt and accusing sort of way.

  ‘You are the biggest Giant I’ve ever seen and you’re much uglier than you said,’ Brigit answered, in spite of Pidge pressing her hand urgently while she spoke.

  ‘Now you will want to run away. But, that would be silly, wouldn’t it, when I am the fastest thing in the whole world. Would you like to see how fast I can run?’

  Not waiting for an answer, The Glomach bounded out of the cave. For a few seconds there was the loud thump of feet. In the moments that followed, there was a confusion in Pidge and Brigit as to what they should do, where they could hide; and the question—why don’t we hear the sound of his feet if he is still running?

  In a very few minutes, The Glomach bounded back in to them, shoved a small green fern from the Eye Of The Needle into Pidge’s hand, and snatched a huge piece of wood from the ground which he thrust into his fire; then, he raced on lumpishly into the darkness of a second cave behind the fire.

  Stupefied, they watched the light going away and very soon a second light was there, followed by a third, and further on a fourth, and further on still, a fifth. They realized that the Giant was running the whole circle of a vast place as big as a small town, and that he was lighting torches set in brackets on the skin of stone that was the hollow inside of a whole mountain. They had only just realized this, when he had completed the turn and was lighting up all the way back to them; and there he was, standing beside them with the wood hardly burnt—and he was not even panting. They gaped at the smiling Glomach and the feat that he had performed, and they were stunned into speechlessness.

  They looked at the nearest torches, flaming and smoking—and at the ones further away that were only thumbnails of light in the distance and they knew that they could never run away from him.

  ‘That’s my running skill,’ he said proudly. ‘What do you think of it?’

  There was no answer from the children.

  ‘I am the fastest thing in the whole world. I can run the breadth of Ireland during the span of a blackbird’s song.’

  ‘But, the sea can do all that and more,’ Pidge found himself saying.

  The Glomach frowned.

  ‘What?’ he said testily.

  ‘The sea can do all that and more,’ Pidge repeated in a rush.

  ‘I am the hungriest thing. There is nothing I can’t swallow and still swallow,’ The Glomach boasted, looking provocatively at Pidge.

  ‘The sea is all you are and more,’ Pidge said in answer, and he wondered at himself.

  ‘I am the strongest thing in the whole world. I can crack a rock between my fingers as
if it were a nut. I can split a tree with my spit, which goes like sheet lightning.’

  ‘Still the sea is more than that, for it has helped to shape the world and turned rocks to powder—only by licking them. The sea could even swallow you,’ said Pidge.

  ‘You’re very smart,’ The Glomach said crossly. ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘I heard it somewhere,’ said Pidge.

  ‘But there is one skill I have,’ boasted The Glomach. ‘No one can overcome me in battle for I can’t be killed. In battle against me—all must fail. What do you think of that, Mister?’

  ‘I think it’s frightening—if it’s true,’ Pidge replied.

  ‘It’s true, Mister. And as well—the swords that I make, thirst for blood. Now—can you say that of the sea?’

  There was silence then, until The Glomach spied Brigit’s brooch that was still pinned to her cardigan. He recognized it as the work of a smith and he was instantly jealous of the craftsmanship.

  ‘What is that little metal yoke that you wear?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s mine,’ said Brigit smartly, for she had completely recovered herself during Pidge’s duel of words with the Giant. ‘It’s my brooch. It was made for me by a great smith whose name is Tom Cusack.’

  ‘I could make one like that if I wanted to; but you can give me that one instead,’ The Glomach suggested.

  ‘Indeed I won’t,’ she said.

  ‘I must have it. It must be mine. I’ll play you for it.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean. Play what?’

  ‘I’ll play you at Knucklestones. I always play that with whatever walks in here on two legs.’

  ‘What do you mean—Knucklestones?’

  ‘It’s a game where you throw little stones up in the air—pick one or two up from the ground quickly, and catch the others on the back of your hand.’

  ‘Oh, you mean Jackstones,’ Brigit shrugged in belittlement.

  ‘You’ve played before, have you?’ The Glomach said, taken aback.

  ‘Oh yes. Lots of times. Auntie Bina showed me how ages ago.’

  ‘Play me for that little thing.’

  ‘What if I don’t want to?’

  The Glomach smiled.

  His eyes went to the huge cauldron that steamed on the cooking fire and then he looked at the children with a horrible sideways look, in which his eyeballs slid to the corners as if moving on grease.

  The look was baleful, sly, beastly, poisonous, vicious, spiteful, malign, artful, brutal and treacherous. The look was all of these things in quick succession and then he finally managed to look amiable; but too late. It was all related to the cauldron. Pidge saw it and knew it.

  ‘Brigit will play you—go on, Brigit,’ he said in a choked voice.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ she grumbled, wondering why he seemed to be on The Glomach’s side.

  ‘Go on,’ he urged.

  ‘How can we play when we haven’t got any pebbles?’ she said in a derisory way.

  A laugh burst out of The Glomach that made all the nasty bits of him shake and tremble, the neck being the worst; and it blew the dust motes that were floating in the shaft of light into small whirlwinds and waltzes.

  ‘I’ve got my own. I always carry them,’ he said, and he unhooked a bag from his belt. His hands were particularly ugly; his finger-joints were like connected small white vegetable marrows, while the backs of his hands looked exceptionally bony with deep hollows between the bones. Despite his stubby fingers, however, he deftly opened the drawstring of his bag and tipped a small pile of stones onto the ground.

  ‘These are my treasures—my little treasures,’ he said. ‘I have two moonstones, a blue turkey stone, a stone with a hole in it and many others. This is my favourite one,’ he said, and he picked one up in his fingers and laid it on the palm of his huge hand.’

  Pidge and Brigit looked at it with astonishment.

  On the pebble was the bloody print of an eye.

  Chapter 7

  ‘IF I win, I want that pebble!’ Brigit said presently, her face absolutely wooden.

  ‘You win? If you win—you can have it,’ said The Glomach, and he got down on his knees.

  He divided the stones into small piles of five each, keeping the prettiest ones for himself.

  ‘Me first,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’ asked Brigit.

  ‘They’re my stones, aren’t they?’

  ‘I suppose so. That’s fair!’

  He began to play, using his left hand. The pebble with the blood on, he kept carefully in his right hand. Because of the hollows between his bony knuckles, he caught the stones very well, and only once did one drop off when it hopped off a bone and spun away.

  ‘Now you, you sweet dote,’ he said and he sat back on his haunches.

  ‘We’ll play six games,’ Brigit said authoritatively and picked up her stones and weighed them in her hand.

  She was quite unconcerned. Pidge watched with his heart up in his mouth, as she began. Almost immediately, there was a rapt look on her face as though she were in a dream. The dream was one of deep concentration and her hands moved in a rhythm as if an intelligence had lodged itself in her wrist. She made no wrong move. It seemed to Pidge that she moved to a sleepy music and there was no hurry and no mistake in what she did. She muttered to herself as she played but Pidge could not hear what she said. In all, they played the six games, The Glomach getting flustered and angry as Brigit’s nimble hands won every time. During her last go, Pidge managed to hear what she was saying and realized that each time she tossed the little stones up in the air, she was muttering: ‘Ups-a-Daisy!’; and he wondered if Angus Óg, who was their good friend Patsy and the God of Love, knew that Brigit called his flower; and he remembered how she had once worn daisy chains on that wrist, calling them her handcuffs and how powerful they became when they had turned to metal.

  ‘There!’ she said, at the end. ‘I’m the winner. You must give me the pebble now and I keep my brooch.’

  Pidge almost burst with pride as he looked at her.

  ‘Never! One more game to decide once and for all!’ The Glomach demanded.

  ‘One more game, me granny!’ said Brigit. ‘I won fair and square.’

  ‘Never!’ The Glomach said again. ‘You’re a cheat. You cheated! You must have; nobody ever beat me before.’

  Pidge lost his temper. He knew that he had nothing to lose.

  ‘You’re a liar—she didn’t cheat,’ he shouted. ‘You’re the cheat!’

  ‘See?’ Brigit said, scornfully. ‘I’ve beaten you now—so you can just cough up, you bloody liar!’

  ‘No,’ The Glomach said. ‘I’ll cut you up in a minute and pop you in the soup. Two cows, eight rabbits, four chickens, a duck, two goats and a nonion and a carrot. And now I have two noodles! I don’t like carrots, by the way—but me mother said they were good for me!’

  Brigit treated all this with scorn. She had grown used to The Glomach and now regarded him as a spoilt child.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said crossly, ‘we’re people—not ingredients. You’re only saying all that rubbish because you lost and you’re a rotten cry-baby!’

  The Glomach went behind his fire and when he came back, he carried a knife in his hands. Bending for a few moments over his cauldron, he stirred the contents with his knife and then he leaned his back against the part of the wall that formed the arch and he looked at them with glittering eyes.

  Brigit got even crosser. She stamped her foot.

  ‘Stop acting the maggot just because you lost,’ she said. ‘And you shouldn’t play with knives—don’t you know that? What would your mother say if she saw you messing about with a thing like that?’

  The Glomach burst into tears at once.

  And Pidge realized that although the Giant had lied and cheated about everything else, he had really loved his mother, perhaps because only a mother could love him.

  He shouted at him again.

  ‘You are a damned
fool,’ he said sternly. ‘We could have liked you if you’d let us. We were getting used to how ugly you are—but you’re so stupid—you’d rather be lonely.’

  He looked behind them then at the way out of the cave and thought that they should take a chance and make a run for it—make any attempt to get away; because, unlike Brigit, he knew that The Glomach had meant what he said. He could hear his own blood hissing as it travelled through the canals in his head.

  The Glomach stopped crying and eyed them both, as if he willed them to just have a try.

  What happened next was astonishing, even though Pidge thought that he was well past surprising.

  There was a rushing sound and before they could know what was happening, a furious whirlwind burst into the cave and The Mórrígan, Macha and Bodbh, stood between Pidge and Brigit and the way out.

  The children drew together in fear.

  Chapter 8

  FOR some moments the women stood as still as statues. Their hair was unbound and fell in great waves over their crimson-cloaked shoulders, and swept on to well below the golden cords that held their crimson dresses at the waists, to ripple with strange life about their knees. Then a hoarse, exulting cry broke from deep within The Mórrígan, and exactly the same sound was expelled from Macha and Bodbh. The echoes of these cries filled the second cavern and seemed never-ending. The women’s faces were twisted with an ugly unspeakable joy and their eyes were terrible. They were so exalted that they could not speak at first.

  Behind the children, The Glomach laughed in his turn and, rigid with horror, they realized that they were in a most terrifying trap; caught—with The Glomach behind them and the Three Goddesses before them—and no way out that they knew of.

  ‘Oh, I’m afraid, Pidge,’ Brigit moaned quietly, her face white. Pidge tried to give her hand a comforting squeeze, but he was past being able to move once he had heard the cry of the women. He thought that surely everyone could hear the furious pounding of his heart. It felt swollen, as big as a football; and it banged away painfully inside him, thumping against his ribs and filling his head repeatedly with its echoes. It made his body shake violently.