Old Friends: The Lost Tales of Fionn Mac Cumhaill

by Tom O'Neill

  ‘Stop the nonsense talk. Why... have... you... not... done... your... homework?’

  ‘Honestly, Miss, to tell the God’s honest truth, I just didn’t want to do it.’

  The entire class, silent up to now, nervous about the familiar sarcastic vein that Miss Sullivan was starting into, burst out laughing.

  ‘Shut up, the lot of you!’ yelled the teacher. ‘Go and stand out in the corridor, you brazen monkey.’

  ‘OK, Miss.’

  The rest of the class clapped as Dark walked out. He was amazed. Before now, the school piled new worries on top of his old ones every day and expected him to carry the extra load. Now he saw that there was nothing they could say to him that really mattered. He had enough work dealing with his own troubles and he was not willing to carry extra worries for anyone else anymore. There was nothing she could have said to him. When she opened the door with dramatic politeness waving him out, he heard himself saying in a calm voice, ‘Thank you, Miss’.

  ‘And you can stay out there all day, not just for my lessons,’ she said.

  He spent the day looking out into the goings-on in the blackthorn hedge near the corridor window, seeing things he’d never noticed before. There were two rats cleverly checking that the coast was clear before hurrying out of their home to attend to a discarded chunk of bread. There was a crazy starling coming back every ten minutes to pick a new fight with his reflection in the bottom of a Coke can. There was a black cat that occasionally peered lazily through the nettles but that the other animals somehow knew was off duty. And there was a little rusty brown bird with a cocky tail that fussed into the picture every now and then, surveying the scene. Dark was sure that he recognised the bird and that it was looking in the window at him.

  For some reason, Sullivan sent out two of the others with a message to him. The two best in the class. She was always praising them for getting over ninety per cent in every test. What was going on in her mind when she picked the two of them out to talk to him, Dark didn’t even care to think about. Neither of them had ever talked to him. Tadhg was small with blond hair. Ciara was very tall and thin, nearly as tall as Dark himself. She had straight, black hair and greenish eyes.

  ‘She says to tell you, you are to stay out here in the corridor during break too,’ she said.

  ‘OK,’ said Dark.

  They were about to go back in when she turned and said, ‘The way she’s treating you is not right.’

  Dark was surprised. He thought Ciara had never even noticed he existed.

  ‘Thanks,’ Dark said. It probably sounded a bit awkward.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Tadhg quietly, ‘I’m sorry, Art.’

  Ciara continued, still looking at Dark, ‘I’ll tell my dad. He’s on the school board. Maybe he can talk to them.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Dark. Then he added, ‘But don’t worry. It’s grand now. I don’t mind if she sends me out every day. I’ve got friends out here looking after me.’

  They both looked at each other, puzzled, and then went back in. Dark wished he had said that differently, in case she thought he was a bit crazy or something.

  That night, before he gathered with his curious company around the fire, the Old Man asked him how things had gone with his teacher.

  ‘The finest,’ said Dark.

  ‘Good enough,’ said the Old Man, looking closely at Dark.

  ‘And today,’ said the Old Man, ‘do you want the work done or do you want to stay not bothered about it?’

  ‘I want to stay not worried about anything,’ said Dark.

  ‘Good enough,’ said the Old Man again.

  The little people seemed in high spirits tonight. Many of them came forth and there was music, not really Dark’s style, but it crept into your brain. It was issuing from somewhere in the earth. They danced and frolicked with abandon, the goblet girl amongst them. Dark didn’t know what to make of it. The Old Man’s ever - present companion Conán saw his confusion and pointed up. There was a full moon overhead.

  When things quietened a little, the goblet was brought. Again she sat down near him – maybe only an arm’s reach away. And the proceedings began as usual. The Old Man’s voice went lower and quieter as he started into his next tale.

  ‘Now,’ he said with a wry look, ‘did you ever hear of the time Mac Cumhaill could have married into a great kingdom?’ The woman with the long, red hair shifted uneasily next to him.

  Courting Fionn

  The ship that brought Her Highness Tizzie, Queen of Thinlia, to Éirinn was a fussy, fancy, frilly affair. With all its dainty satin streamers and brightly painted masts, it caused quite a stir when it arrived at a bay in Baile Cumain, on the east coast. It looked like a delicate toy next to the rough and ready mongrels that were the ships in which the Fianna addressed the seas. For those who knew Thinlia – a slightly excitable place – the excess of colour and pomp was no surprise.

  As the noisy entourage slowly approached Tara, Cormac grumbled. He didn’t care much for etiquette and formal niceties. He would rather be out wandering around with his horses or talking nonsense to his fairy woman than be formally entertaining. But the brehon s reminded him that as king, he was required to make an effort to at least maintain Éire’s relations with Thinlia, which were neither bad nor good.

  He organised a middling-sized welcome for them and called a few people together for a bit of a formal banquet to welcome them to Tara.

  Tizzie was very slim, pale and, in her own opinion, beautiful. In the opinion of Cormac’s human wife, Dearbhla, who did not warm greatly to Tara’s visitor, Tizzie was ‘under-fed, overdressed and brittle like a clay doll’. Brittle she turned out to be – like cold flint.

  When the haughty demands started, Dearbhla stormed off to visit a sister in the north. Tizzie didn’t notice or care. She demanded various foods that had to be collected from afar. These included a particular kind of mushroom that sent her into spasms of dance and jerky behaviour when she ate them. She demanded poets all day and musicians and dancers all night, and then turned up her nose at their performances.

  The court was surprised at Cormac. His initial grumpiness had been replaced with a definite eagerness to please her. The tiresome celebration went on for two weeks. Eventually Cormac got around to enquiring as to the reason he had been honoured with her ladyship’s visit.

  ‘You mean you don’t know?’ she said sniftly. ‘With all respects to your efforts at entertaining and celebrating, had I craved a purgative of coarse shows and plain foods, I could have gone to one of the small, rustic dwellings of a peasant chieftain in my own country.’

  Diarmuid, the most polished member of Cormac’s court, was the one who had organised the hospitality to the finest detail. His temper slipped momentarily.

  ‘What?! The same mouth that has eaten, drank and tittered to excess now wants to mock the hospitality she so clearly enjoyed!’

  Tizzie was too absorbed in her own performance to even hear what Diarmuid said and the king nudged Diarmuid to hold his temper.

  ‘Er, what is it then, that Her Majesty desires?’ asked Cormac.

  ‘Why, to see Fionn Mac Cumhaill, of course. I’ve heard he possesses unnatural qualities and want to see him tested.’

  This struck King Cormac as a very peculiar request. He supposed she was a little mentally elevated as a result of the beakers of barley wine she had with her breakfast or that a recent feed of mushrooms had muddled her agenda. Whatever unusual brand of diplomatic canniness was at work in his own head at the time, Cormac decided to go along with it.

  Cormac sent an instruction for Mac Cumhaill to come from his home, where he had been resting and tending his and Úna’s mountain garden. Mac Cumhaill was very sulky when he arrived in the king’s private chambers.

  ‘Cormac, you want me to perform like a monkey for the entertainment of some spoilt royal? This is a humiliation that I respectfully decline.’

  ‘It’s not really performing – could you think of it more as showing your mighty sk
ills?’ said the king awkwardly.

  ‘It is not my intention to satisfy your requests on this, Chief,’ said Mac Cumhaill.

  ‘Well, think of the positive side of it – Tizzie and her crew will go back to Thinlia with the message that there are ferocious and mighty fighting men in Éire and so any thought they might have in the future of bothering us will be quickly put aside.’

  ‘That seems to me a very weak excuse for you not being able to say no to this person,’ said Mac Cumhaill sharply.

  The king reddened.

  ‘Listen, Fionn,’ he said, flustered and slightly angry. ‘Listen, old comrade, why don’t you take a month off to go hunting after this? You can go down to the Derg and fish away on your own, the way you like. I might even go with you for a couple of days. That’d be the medicine for me. Just the two of us out stalking boar and sitting around a fire.’

  Cormac was never insincere when he said things like this. When he was in a pickle, his thoughts would genuinely turn to comradeship and escape. It was just that once he had talked his way through whatever crisis he was currently in, other matters would take priority over plans to head into the country with Fionn. Nevertheless, they understood each other. This kind of plea was as close as Cormac usually got to a direct command to Mac Cumhaill. And besides, Mac Cumhaill rarely valued human company when he was wandering the lough.

  And so the shows started. The queen was told that she would have one day in which to ask Fionn to perform feats of strength and another in which she could set him to do tasks requiring great speed.

  Tizzie started the first day with her nose pointed to the sky, sending her manservant with messages commanding Mac Cumhaill to lift small rocks. By the end of that day, she was red-faced and excitedly squeaking instructions.

  ‘Now Fionn, can you lift that hill? Right, now lift this cabin with me in it. Ooohhh!’

  Mac Cumhaill was rather tired by the time the sun set.

  The second day went much the same, with snooty little requests in the morning, sending Mac Cumhaill to the top of the Comeragh mountains and back. Then, by late after-noon she was so worked up that she was asking him to do laps of the country, collecting shells from every beach on the coast as proof that he’d made it.

  Mac Cumhaill went home that night, still disgusted with Cormac for having put him through this, but at least consoled that it was over. Or so he thought.

  The next day, a messenger from Cormac entered his cabin with a blessing and asked him to come back to Tara – for one last performance. Mac Cumhaill was enraged, but still was bound to Cormac’s command.

  When Fionn got back to Tara, the king said, ‘Just one last thing before she goes?’

  ‘What?’ said Mac Cumhaill.

  ‘Well, since you’re a warrior she wants to see you in combat.’

  Mac Cumhaill laughed, but Cormac didn’t.

  ‘I’m sorry, my brother. She wants to set you up against another member of the Fianna, to see how you fare.’

  Diarmuid looked at Mac Cumhaill, anticipating that this would not go down well.

  Mac Cumhaill looked straight at the king. There was silence for a moment. Then Mac Cumhaill spoke in cold, deliberate tones, ‘Given the history of blood between our fathers, you should not carelessly invite the day I break my vow never to use arms against one of my own.’

  Diarmuid the diplomat intervened, ‘What’s taken hold of you, Cormac? Do not let this straoil become the cause of further hard words between you and your most loyal friend here.’

  As he flustered off to break the news to Tizzie, Cormac mumbled, ‘May Daghda look down on me, surely there’s no other king who puts up with such insubordination… Alright then, alright, but there’s no need to talk about her disrespectfully; that could be bad for relations.’

  When the king had left the hall, Diarmuid said to Mac Cumhaill, ‘I’m afraid his old weakness is playing up on him again. A few days in the company of any fancy woman and he starts losing his sense and fantasising about having a family with her. He’ll deny it high and low, but that’s what’s making him stupid now.’

  ‘Well, he’s going to be a disappointed man by this evening because I’m sorely tempted to put this woman and her crew back onto the sea within an hour if this carries on. With or without their boats,’ said Mac Cumhaill.

  Mac Cumhaill himself was in for a small surprise. When Cormac told Tizzie the news, she stomped a bit.

  But then she said, ‘Oh well, I suppose I’ve seen enough. He’ll do.’

  ‘What do you mean, Tizzie, you wonderful, wiry creature from heaven?’ said Cormac, who hadn’t ever quite mastered the art of flattery.

  ‘Call him here,’ she said.

  Mac Cumhaill was sent for, and Tizzie duly informed the astonished assembly that she thought her last husband was too weak and that she’d had him smothered in feather pillows. She wanted a stronger man. She had heard about Fionn Mac Cumhaill. And now that she’d tested him, she had decided to take Fionn home for a trial period as her husband.

  Silence followed. Nobody knew whether to laugh. The king’s colour changed to scarlet.

  Mac Cumhaill stepped forward biting his cheek as he said through his teeth, ‘To marry a queen of your stature would be an honour, Your Ladyship. However, this is a request I cannot meet.’

  ‘Excuse me!’ she shrieked. ‘Many’s the European prince who would kill or die for the chance I have just offered you, a lowly soldier.’ She paused and tried to calm herself. ‘Look, you probably don’t realise what it would be like to live in a real palace with treasures aplenty and with gates that keep commoners outside. Where they belong,’ she said, looking around sniftly.

  ‘With respect, Queen Tizzie,’ said Mac Cumhaill still very politely, ‘it’s a pity that in your time here you didn’t observe the benefits of a royalty which serves its people rather than turning them into slaves.’

  Cormac was lifted up a little at this sideways compliment.

  ‘Besides,’ continued Mac Cumhaill, ‘I am happily married to the finest woman I have ever known and could never consider a request like yours.’

  ‘WHAT?!’ Tizzie screamed in rage. ‘How dare you even address me in the same sentence as you talk about some common mare you tether back at your cabin, the base comfort that ensures you have a big feed of cabbage and pig fat on the rare occasions you decide to call in at home! My people have done their research. Please withdraw your insult this instant!’

  Mac Cumhaill calmly offered to call his wife to the castle so that Tizzie could speak to her in person. Cormac and Diarmuid both laughed. They knew that Úna was the kindest soul on earth, but also the deadliest if anyone crossed her or her family. She had a tongue that could tear anyone to shreds and flying fists that would pulverise Queen Tizzie if she got to hear of today’s transactions.

  ‘My patience has run out with this,’ said Tizzie, turning to Cormac. ‘Please instruct him to pack his few things and have him escorted down to my ship within the hour.’

  Cormac had recovered his senses.

  ‘I’m afraid, Your Ladyship, there appears little chance that Fionn Mac Cumhaill will change his mind, so it is probably pointless for you to stay with us much longer. I have organised for a good stock of food, drink and, of course, our special mushrooms to be loaded onto your ship in preparation for the journey back.’

  Everyone laughed now. The king raised his hand for silence and continued: ‘I do hope that the good relations existing between our two countries will be improved by the extended hospitality we have shown you during your stay here.’

  She became even more furious at the king’s quiet disrespect. She suddenly reached into the folds of her dress and took out a glass bottle. She removed the cork. As a green fume wisped out of it, she blew it towards the king. She announced, with taut laughter, that the vapour caused terrible sickness and sometimes death for anyone who hadn’t met it before.

  ‘This little gift from us to your treasured king and his pathetic soldier will serve as a per
manent reminder to Éirinn of the day that you made the mistake of insulting Thinlia.’

  Even as she spoke, Mac Cumhaill was lifting Cormac away. But several other people, the cook and helpers who had been clearing tables to the side of the great hall, hadn’t realised the danger and in seconds sat curled up with cramps and then started sweating and vomiting. The unpleasant Tizzie laughed.

  Cormac now became furious. ‘Lock her up,’ he ordered.

  ‘What?’ she screamed. ‘Do you dare incur a war with Thinlia?’

  Cormac’s advisers and brehon s whispered to him urgently that maybe he should let her go. The country would be wise to avoid a war over injured pride.

  Cormac said, ‘I don’t care. She’s committed a malicious crime against my people. She is no longer a queen in this country. She will pay like any common criminal.’

  Tizzie was thrown in a hut, screaming and protesting.

  Dreoilín came to see what help and comfort he could bring to the sick. He tried various spells and concoctions and quickly found one that seemed to give the affected people more strength to fight the sickness. They still suffered enormous pain and one person who had already been sick couldn’t be saved. But the rest recovered.

  At the same time, a debate was going on about what should happen to Tizzie’s ship and her gaggle of servants. Cormac’s advisers and brehon s pleaded that he not let them go.

  ‘If they get back with the message that their queen is jailed here, the armies of Thinlia will be obliged to attack,’ they warned.

  Mac Cumhaill, as on virtually all matters, disagreed with the advice of the brehons. He argued that the servants had caused nobody any harm and that the king should let them go or stay as they pleased. Cormac agreed, and it was with great anxiety that people watched Tizzie’s ship depart from the shores of Éirinn.

  Within three weeks, panic spread in coastal villages as the feared news arrived of ships approaching Baile Cumain bay. With a heavy heart, Mac Cumhaill sent the word around to the already prepared battalions to get ready to fend off the invasion. Thinlia armies were known to be very large and well trained. They specialised in nimble-footed manoeuvres and trick sword movements that would get past the more mullocking moves of some of Éirinn’s soldiers of destiny, whose strengths were in heart, might and fearlessness rather than dexterity. Mac Cumhaill hoped that the Fianna would be able to hold out against them, but he knew it would not be without much bloodshed.