Domnall looked down again toward the thunderous base of the waterfall. Any attempt by man or beast to even set a foot in the turbulent pond was sure to meet with certain death! But before he could even get a word of objection out of his mouth, his two companions were out of sight down the steep incline.
Hastily Domnall scrambled down the ridge that banked the terrifying falls, the overwhelming sound of the water silencing every other sensation. Climbing down the side of a mossy slope and skirting a huge boulder, he found a space of a few yards where he could run for a few paces.
But catching Fidach and Cruithne was hopeless. Straining his ears, he could just barely hear their shouting voices ahead.
When next his eyes caught sight of them, they had nearly reached the ledge over the invisible pool. As he emerged from a thicket of close-growing pine he beheld the two, with the deafening fall seemingly now right beside them, and having already cast off every vestige of clothing from their well-formed bodies, sprinting side by side toward the turbulent, churning, lethal lake.
“Stop!” Domnall shouted, but in vain. The sound of his voice was swallowed in the fulminating pounding of water.
He raced after them.
Suddenly Cruithne halted, then Fidach, and both turned back.
“You must not do it!” cried Domnall. He ran to them and stopped. “The water is too dangerous! It will pound you underneath, and you will never see the surface again!”
“Nonsense!” returned Cruithne. “Do you not think I am able to swim strongly enough to meet the challenge?”
“No man can survive in such water!” insisted the youth, gesturing toward the falls.
“Off with your skins, Domnall,” now added Fidach with a smile. “We all will swim, and conquer the mighty Falls of Bruid!”
As he spoke he turned away and sprinted off. The next instant Cruithne followed.
“No, you mustn’t!” implored Domnall, chasing after them.
But he was too late.
Before he could reach them again, suddenly Fidach leapt from the path as if to make a running dive into the lake. Instead he disappeared from sight. Cruithne followed, flying into midair.
Domnall reached the spot of their departure just in time to see the ends of Cruithne’s feet disappear into the water of a deep pool positioned some twenty feet below that which received the falls, hidden from view until the last instant, and separated from the main course of the river by a sheer cliff of rock.
The two sons of Taran had been here many times since discovering the spot. Few things offered them as much pure animal pleasure as bounding off the ledge and shooting through the air headfirst into the frothy mass, out well beyond the tame fall of water that fed this tiny pond from the larger one above. Each time it was the same: they would attempt to swim up and under the small falls, yielding for a time to the sport of the bubbling water, allowing themselves to be tossed and tumbled about, before jumping out, panting and blowing, then scrambling up the cliff to begin all over again.
Out of the water two heads now rose, laughing in joyful abandon.
“Come, Domnall!” shouted Fidach. “The water here is deep. There are no stones or hidden ledges.”
“But I thought—” he began in consternation.
Cruithne climbed onto the bank and headed up the cliff to join him. “You do not think we are such fools as that!” he laughed, nodding to the other lake above. “Even the fish do not survive in Bruid’s Falls!”
“It looked like you were about to dive straight into it.”
“Ah, Domnall, we deceived you,” panted Cruithne as he reached the top. “An innocent joke played on our friend. It was for the hidden pond that we brought you here . . . for this!”
He dove again, arching his back perfectly as he floated out past the small falls, plunging in with a great splash. When his head again appeared, it was accompanied by a mighty whoop of pleasure and triumph.
“But is it not cold?” called out Domnall loudly.
“Like the very ice from which it comes!” replied Fidach, who had by now himself regained the summit and was readying himself for another leap. “Too cold for any but a wild man to enjoy!”
He darted back several paces, turned, and, shouting wildly, tore again toward the edge of the cliff. With a scream of delight, Fidach followed his brother and sailed off the ledge toward the frigid glacial pond. The next moment, Domnall’s skins lay in a heap on the ground and he was soaring through the morning air after them.
At one time the main course of the river had no doubt continued its downward plunge through this very spot, the pounding water hollowing out the deep basin in which the three now frolicked like children. But time had altered its path, and now, after its several-hundred-foot fall, the river bent sharply to the right, plunging and cascading on down the steep valley toward its destiny at Durcellach, while to the left but a trickle remained to spurt out over the ledge from which the youths leapt, feeding the chilly hole that now gave them such sport.
To one unaccustomed to the waters of this region, the clear brownness of the pool, with the white, frothing foam, natural enough in these mountain streams but made all the more bubbly and turbulent by the falls and the crashing of the river over and around the stones and boulders of its rocky course, might have appeared strange. Here surely was no ordinary water of blue or green, but water from some altogether strange and unknown source.
Indeed, the waters of these districts had not originated from mere snow and rain and ice. Because once they began their downward flow, either above the surface or beneath it, they flowed over and around, and most often through, great fields and bogs and mountains of peat, which stained their waters and lent them a radiant bronze luminescence. Loch Bruid itself for most of the year shone a pale blue from the melting snow that continually fed it. As its water emptied into the stream below, however, and as the stream was augmented by the burns draining the surrounding moors and hilly slopes, it gradually took on color. By the time it reached Bruid’s Falls, the water’s blue had been transformed into a rich, earthy, amber brown. Even the stones over which it rushed were no longer colored their natural gray, but brown from the stain.
As the earth loosed its ice-bound hold on the moisture that had fallen upon it throughout the winter, the channel filled every spring, and its contents poured kaleidoscopically down, through the deep-worn brown of the gorge—fierce, dark, wild, unable to rest until it reached the end of its journey in the glens far below.
In and out of these cold brown waters the three youths plunged and dove, shouted, laughed, and cavorted, relishing the perfect pleasure and safety of their merrymaking all the more because it was set within close proximity to such a terrifying display of nature’s power. But the cold was an aspect of nature’s character too, and one they could not easily ignore for long. After ten minutes of revelry, they were forced to assume once again the posture of their kind.
Up and down the path they ran several times to warm up and partially dry off before donning their skins and beginning the ascent back up the side of the falls the way they had come. They would stop in another clearing known to Cruithne and Fidach, one that opened up beside the very top of the falls themselves, so close that they could almost reach out and touch the mighty current as it shot over the cliff and into uninhibited space. There they would pause and rest and eat of their cakes of oat and their leftover bits of fish from the previous night.
Perhaps after they had warmed themselves, eaten, and rested, they would swim again. Then they would resume their journey, moving now in a northeasterly direction, hoping to reach the shore of Loch Craggie by nightfall.
Of course, everything depended on what they found that afternoon.
They would search Muigh-bhlaraidh Ecgfrith for signs. If the stag had indeed returned to the forest, they would know it.
Twelve
No two hunters in all Caldohnuill could locate the whereabouts of game with the skill and craft of the two sons of Taran.
Eithe
r alone would not have stood immeasurably above his peers of the tribe. Each was skilled in his own way, but not unusually so. Together, however, they were so capable of divining the other’s thoughts and actions ahead of time that scarcely a beast had a chance against them.
One of their hopes in bringing young Domnall with them on this occasion was to teach him what they could of their peculiar mode of stalking the creatures of the land—a method that relied not on the might of one’s arm nor the speed with which one hurled the spear, but rather on one’s ability to think as the creatures thought. For the rest of the day after leaving the falls, first Cruithne, then Fidach, spoke to the future bard, relating this technique or that, recounting stories of things they had seen and done on various hunts.
The eyes of Fidach were far-seeing and calm, those of Cruithne keen and eager. The connection between the two had always more resembled that of twins than half brothers. It took but a glance, a lift of the eyebrow, an imperceptible nod of the head, a wink, a slight curve of the lip to communicate worlds from one to the other. Their souls were one and thus required few words to hold communion.
With this love came trust. When Cruithne detected a certain look on the face of Fidach, he knew his brother had felt the presence of some animal. He would instantly drop into a crouch of utter stillness, watching Fidach’s face for further sign of what approached and what he should do.
Fidach, likewise, trusted absolutely in Cruithne’s marksmanship with the spear. It caused the pulse of his heart to quicken not a beat to find himself charged by boar or elk if his brother was near, for he knew he was in no danger.
The only dispute between them might have been in this—that Cruithne felt his brother cared more than was reasonable for what the beasts might feel, while Fidach worried that Cruithne too greatly enjoyed the conquest of killing. They resolved this difference by never killing for mere sport. What the sustenance of their people required, Fidach would gladly kill, and he allowed Cruithne the pleasure of the hunt when wolves or other predators threatened the hill-fort or the tamer beasts.
They had not yet spoken about whether they would actually kill the white stag if they came to such a moment. Cruithne spoke of hunting the great stag for the food it would bring Laoigh. Fidach knew, however, that his brother’s zeal lay in deeper regions. This was one of the few unspoken barriers that had arisen between them, and Fidach was not at peace concerning it. The time would come when a decision must be made. He wanted merely to set eyes on the great white stag. Cruithne desired to conquer it. Beyond that difference, however, Fidach’s so-called second sight could not see.
For the present, as they walked, they explained their methods to Domnall.
“The secret is in working together,” said Cruithne. “Beyond the necessity for food, most men hunt to satisfy their own thirst for power and supremacy. To their minds it is a competition. Thus they often work against themselves. To be against one’s fellow is to be against oneself.”
“This does not sound like Cruithne, the hunter.”
Cruithne laughed. “I have learned much from my brother the philosopher!” he replied. “He has taught me to hunt with more than my arm and my spear. He has taught me many things of the heart, of the mind. From him I have learned the advantage of cunning.”
“Is this true?” asked Domnall, turning with interest to the oldest son of Taran.
Fidach merely smiled. “It is not cunning that I have taught my brother,” he answerd. “I have merely helped him to see that we reach our greatest skill with others, not apart from them. The hearts of most brothers such as we, sons of a chief, of nearly equal age, would burn with rivalry, each attempting to better the other for his father’s attention.”
“Why does not such jealousy consume you?”
“Because we know that together we can become greater than either of us is on our own.”
“What has that to do with hunting?”
“It has to do with all of life. It may be Cruithne’s spear that finds the heart of the boar, but it may have been my stalking of the beast that drove him into Cruithne’s path. Attempting to outdo each other, perhaps neither of us would be successful. Together, we can outwit almost any animal.”
“And the stag?”
“Should we succeed in stalking the great beast, it will be because the two of us, working in harmony not separately, outsmart and outmaneuver him as no single hunter could.”
They continued to talk as they walked. By degrees the landscape changed from the wide treeless plateau they had been crossing into a vast forest of green, lush with undergrowth, shrubbery, grasses, and species of flora not found anywhere else in these northern latitudes. In some quirk of nature, having to do with the winds and the lay of the mountains surrounding Loch Bruid, as well as those to the north and the east, the region of Muigh-bhlaraidh Ecgfrith received perhaps twice the rainfall of any other place in all the east of this land, and the soil conditions were such—with more soil and less peat—that vegetation flourished in abundance.
The three young men followed no path as the forest of Muigh-bhlaraidh Ecgfrith closed round them. The brothers had been here many times, but always they sought a different route through the dense wood. Today they would go wherever the signs led them. Perhaps they would stay the night in the depths of the forest. If they saw no sign of the stag, they would reach the other end, continue on, and encamp near Loch Craggie.
Thirteen
As the trees grew taller and more close, the solemnity of the place deepened. Talk gave way to silence as the spell of the wood came over them.
The forest was alive with a presence of its own. To speak was to intrude upon the live conversation that was the very essence of the place.
“He is here,” whispered Fidach at length. “Do you not sense his presence, Cruithne?”
“Your second sight plays mischief with your brain, Fidach,” replied his brother. “You feel only the silence of the forest.”
“It is more than that,” Fidach answered back, still speaking softly. “I told you before that he was calling us.”
“So, Domnall,” laughed Cruithne, “do you see what I must put up with in this starry-eyed brother of mine? He gives all things a meaning that no one else can see. He feels and hears with senses not reserved for mere mortals. And now he hears the great stag calling us, as if the beast would hasten its own death.”
Fidach laughed too at his brother’s good-natured jests. They were accustomed to making sport of their differences rather than quarreling over them.
“My father says the stag’s presence in Caldohnuill portends a change,” said Domnall.
“The bard of our people seldom errs in his forecasts,” said Fidach seriously.
A brief silence followed.
“You will not kill the stag, Cruithne?” Fidach asked at length.
Cruithne hesitated.
“I am a hunter, my brother,” he finally replied. His voice too had grown reflective. “The Pritenae must hunt and kill to live.”
“Our quarry today is no ordinary beast.”
Cruithne was silent again as he thought about Fidach’s words. “I must hunt,” he said slowly. “I hope you will help me. What I will do if we find him, I cannot say. But I will allow nothing to drive division between my heart and yours. I care more for you than I do the stag.”
Fidach did not reply. For the moment the answer was sufficient, and they continued deeper into Muigh-bhlaraidh Ecgfrith.
Over their heads, the blue vault had receded behind a tangle of branches and trunks and newly greening foliage in the treetops above them. Underneath their feet, the softly carpeted forest floor was springy with moist mosses and brown fallen leaves. The trees of birch, aspen, alder, and rowan were not huge, though they passed an occasional old Caledonian pine of several feet in thickness. Neither were their trunks so dense as to make finding a course through them difficult, though thickly growing everywhere else was a great variety of highland heather and other woody shrubbery.
/> Whether there had been rain here recently it would have been difficult to tell. Even in high summer the place was unusually damp. Now, in early spring, every inch dripped with moisture. Wherever the sun could penetrate, millions of droplets hanging from every branch and leaf and slender shoot of green danced with the many colors of reflected miniature rainbows. In late afternoon, the fading sun made the place bewitchingly enchanting with infinite hues of light and shadow.
The whole was pervaded by the mingled odors of wetness, earth, wood, growth, and decay. Leaves and needles from millennia of past autumns lay under their feet with the moss. Here and there a rotting log, with new growth springing up from either around or within it, gave evidence of the continually dying, ever-renewing cycle of life and death and new life—the essence of creation itself. Flowers, too, could be found in their season—though scantily, and it took a watchful eye to know where to look for them. High wild rhododendron maintained a lofty perch but seemed stingy about bestowing too frequent a glimpse of their purple blossoms to would-be visitors. A few delicate ground flowers, where they could push their fragile way through the tangled mass, came and went. At this season some hardy breeds of primroses—yellow, purple, white, and blue—could occasionally be seen peeking up from the forest floor from amid their rough-textured protective leaves.
Truly it was a paradise, a quiet, somber, hidden, private world all its own. When the brothers had first walked inside its depths years before, an irresistible spell had come over them. Even the joy and laughter of the falls and the warm comfort of the fires back at the hill-fort could not match the quiet pleasure they felt here. Whether any man had set foot in the seductively wondrous wood before, they had no way of knowing, though they never encountered a human soul there. But both immediately felt it calling to them from its depths, I am yours to enjoy, and you are welcome to all my treasures!
Through the wood they now walked slowly, reverently. Domnall’s awe was evident. Both brothers took quiet pleasure in knowing what he felt, for neither had forgotten his first day here. They made their way gradually eastward and occasionally northward without specific intent of direction.
Legend of the Celtic Stone Page 28