The Green Hero

by Bernard Evslin

  Now the Sacred Salmon Net had come down from the earliest mists of time when the magic kings of the Tuatha da Danaan reigned in Ireland. Fashioned by Giobniu the great smith, it was spun of the beard of Mamos, the first Druid, and its handle was a rod of gold. When Finn snatched it off the shelf it seemed no implement at all but a living extension of his own arm, and he knew he could scoop up any swimming thing from any water in the world.

  Swiftly Finn left the cottage, bearing the net. Swiftly he circled the meadow where the Druids were matching verse while the Hag was mending, then darted through the hazel copse to the edge of the pool. And then, instead of dipping the net, stood there panting, watching the stars float upside down.

  Finn stood at the edge of the pool; it seemed like a gulf of shadow waiting to swallow him. He stood there at the edge of wisdom, between boyhood and manhood, and was taken by a creeping blood-sucking sadness in which Murtha’s face hung, now laughing, now cruel, garlanded by memory. And he stood there trying to fight the sadness and let the laughter and cruelty enter himself. He felt himself fill with a choking excitement. Now? he asked the night. Now! said the Salmon Net. Now! sighed the trees. Now! sang the drowning stars, and Finn dipped his net.

  He needed but one dip. The net had barely grazed the water when the Salmon flashed out, curved in the air, and landed in the mesh. Finn felt the net come alive with the sudden weight of the great fish. It twitched out of his hands. He bellowed with rage and smote his head.

  “Easy, Finn. Don’t go breaking your skull like that—with so many others ready to do it for you.”

  Finn looked about for the voice and saw the Salmon standing on the shore wearing the net like a cape.

  “Enough gawking, lad. You’ve caught me, now eat me.”

  “How shall I cook you, sir?”

  “No time for cooking.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Eat me raw. Knowledge doesn’t have to be palatable; it just has to be swallowed. And if you cannot stomach the truth, unflavored, why then you’re not meant to be wise.”

  “But I am,” said Finn.

  Then, at the edge of the pool in the weird pearly fire of the midsummer moon, Finn ate the Salmon raw from nose to tail—flesh, bone, scales, guts, eyes—he ate every bit, and a terrible griping slimy meal it was. No sooner had he swallowed the last of it than he jumped into the pool, clothes and all, to wash himself clean. When he climbed back onto the bank there stood the Salmon, taller than Finn, looking like a prince in his close-fitting armor of silver.

  “Now, Finn,” he said, “I will tell you what you need to know.”

  “How do I escape the Hag?”

  “Your first problem is this: having been eaten once, I am no longer available for the Druid feast, and our bearded friends are getting hungrier and hungrier. Listen, you can hear them railing at the Fish-hag.”

  Finn listened, and heard an angry chattering.

  “I hear them. Where is the Hag?”

  “At the cottage searching for the Salmon Net and not finding it. It won’t take her long to figure out who stole it.”

  “What shall I do, wise sir, what shall I do?”

  “Dip the net again. Catch the Loutish Trout.”

  “But the Druids have been eating salmon flesh for nine hundred years. Surely they know the difference between salmon and trout?”

  “Not if you follow this recipe. Baste the trout in vinegar and butter, parsley, scallions. Dust it with wheat crumbs and crumbled madragore. Then lay strips of bacon upon it and broil it until the skin is charred. Stuff it with sautéed crabmeat, and serve with a sauce of almonds seethed in cream and sprinkled with poppy. Can you remember that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do it, and so delicious will it be that the Druids will forget all distinction between salmon and trout, loutishness and wisdom, for they will be too busy cramming their gullet with both hands. Then, with bellies full and the drowsy fumes of madragore and poppy working, they will fall into a sleep so heavy nothing will wake them before breakfast.”

  “What of the Hag?”

  “Oh, she will partake of the feast too, and will grow drowsy enough for you to strike a blow—that is, if you have followed my recipe, selected each ingredient, and done your baking and broiling for the proper time.”

  “What of the scissors-bird?”

  “You’ll have to handle him on your own. But quickly now, lad, or you’ll flub the whole matter. Get cracking with that net and catch the Loutish Trout.”

  So saying, he dived into the pool.

  “Wait,” cried Finn. “I have questions to ask.”

  “No time left. I’ll give you an all-purpose answer. To break a curse, make a verse.”

  And he disappeared.

  Again Finn dipped his net and again it snared a fish—quite a different one this time, a fat trout with a speckled belly and a foolish face.

  Finn cooked the trout as instructed, following the Salmon’s recipe exactly. And exactly then did events befall as the wise fish had foretold. The Druids fell upon the savory dish and devoured it with gusto, smacking their lips and licking their fingers; and no sooner had each finished his portion than he stretched upon the grass in the deepest sleep he had ever slept, and the glade filled with the great snuffling drone of their snores.

  The Hag had eaten heavily of the trout too, but when she felt herself slipping into sleep, she knew that Finn had been taught to trick her. Summoning all her uncanny will she propped herself against a tree and with her last strength began to mutter into her workbasket. Finn, seeing her do this, knew that he would soon be attacked by a swarm of needles and pins, not to mention the terrible scissors-bird. He could not outrace them, he could not hide from them, he could not ward off their agonizing stings. Then the last words of the Salmon came to him. To break a curse, make a verse. And just as the shining swarm began to rise from the basket, he shouted:

  Needle and pin

  So bright and thin

  And sharp as sin

  Put a stitch

  in Mistress Witch

  Sew nose to chin

  And chin to tree.

  Heed young Finn

  He’ll set you free.

  And, not believing his own power, he watched in ballooning joy as the needles and pins turned in mid-air and flashed toward the warty face of the Fish-hag. Swerving in bright patterns, the pins basted her chin to the tree, and the needles sped after, trailing thread, and made it permanent. But then something sliced through Finn’s joy; it was the scissors-bird clacking viciously out of the basket, and, try as he might, Finn could not find a verse to turn this terror. He did not have to. The one verse was enough. For the faithful scissors-bird snapped about his mistress trying to cut the threads that bound her to the tree. As fast as he cut them, the needles sewed them up again.

  As his enemies were thus occupied, Finn strode away from the pool, through the hazel copse, and across the glade where he had suffered much and learned more. Nor did he walk alone; winners seldom do. The witch’s cat leaped upon his shoulder and perched there like a heavy shadow grinning wickedly at the squirrels, and greening his eyes at troubled birds.

  It was this huge black tom that Finn tried to give Murtha as a gift.

  “Keep your cat,” she said. “It was opals you promised, and opals I must have.”

  “I’ll keep looking,” said Finn.

  But if Murtha gained nothing from that adventure, Finn was given two gifts that were to be very important to him in later days. When cooking the trout some hot fat had spluttered from the pan, burning his thumb. Afterward, when faced with a puzzle, all he had to do was put that thumb in his mouth, and the answer would float into his head.

  One other thing came from burning himself in the fire of wisdom’s recipe. The scorch was magical, and magicked Finn’s hand in the presence of death. So that when anyone lay dying, or newly dead, Finn could revive the corpse by giving it water to drink out of his cupped hands. Such water would become, briefly, th
e water of life, and death would flee.

  But this gift, like all Finn’s gifts, was to cause him much trouble in time to come.

  The Winter Burning

  THE KING OF IRELAND lay asleep in his castle at Tara. Behind huge stone walls he slept, and the antechambers were full of armed men; even so, a dream slipped by and invaded his sleep. He was awakened by the sound of his own voice, bellowing. Sword in hand, the Royal Guards rushed in.

  “I do not want you,” said the king. “Here is a threat beyond violence. Send for my Druids.”

  The Druids came and the king told his dream.

  “A young lad walks along a shore I have never seen, but I know it is near. His hair is so black it seems blue and his eyes so blue they look black. He is attended by a fish in armor and a tomcat larger than a terrier. He stops to look upon the skeleton of a whale. The wind blows through the ribs, making a battle music; the boy sings with it, sings words of menace and mirth as the waves dance and the fish jigs on his tail and the cat bows and the moon wobbles in a ghastly dance. Read me the dream then, O men of wisdom.”

  The Druids deliberated among themselves, beards wagging. The eldest spoke.

  “Know this, High King, your dream is but the last in a series of signs that tell a doomful event—the coming of Finn McCool.”

  “The name means nothing to me.”

  “Finn McCool, son of Cuhal, leader of the Fianna, murdered by old Morna whose sons enjoy your favor.”

  “Son of Cuhal is he? And why was not the wolf-whelp killed along with his father?”

  “His mother hid him.”

  “Was no search made?”

  “High, low, over, under, middle, and across. But she hid him well.”

  “And was it young Finn I saw in my dream?”

  “Himself. It was a prophetic dream you had—as the best kings do—so that you might prepare yourself.”

  “Does he dare come here so young and ungrown to avenge his father and claim the leadership of the Fianna?”

  “He does so.”

  “Shall I fear a boy?”

  “You shall. He has learned of the Salmon and knows things it is well for one’s foe not to know. You must arm yourself, King. A living enemy has stepped out of the colored shadows of your sleep.”

  So the High King of Ireland prepared himself against the coming of Finn, and plotted deeply with the sons of Morna. Now by the Law of Hospitality the boy could not be killed while a guest at the castle, nor upon the road to it. The trick then would be to make him quit the court by his own choice, for the Law also said that a guest might not be forced to leave—but, once having left the king’s table he was fair game and could be sent to join his father upon the unthawing ice fields that lie in the Darkness Beyond Night.

  “What we must do is make him want to leave,” said the king to Goll McMorna, eldest of the cruel beautiful sons of Morna.

  “Well, let us think now,” said Goll. “If he was tutored by the Salmon, he will know full well that he is protected by the Law of Hospitality, and will leave only if it becomes too uncomfortable for him to stay.”

  “The Law also says he cannot be forced to leave.”

  “Who speaks of forcing? We will merely introduce him to an experience or two that no lad of mettle would care to miss. If the sport becomes too rough, or an accident befalls—well, no blame can attach to us for we will have warned him.”

  “You speak in riddles, Goll. How can we warn him against danger and still lead him into it?”

  “If he be son of Cuhal, O King, then he will be ridden by a pride that will gall him bloody when he shows fear. I remember well how his father spurred his gray stallion straight into our ambush, knowing that we couched there in our strength, but scorning to turn tail on a fight though he be outnumbered ten to one. Yes, if he be true son of Cuhal, our warnings will serve as joyous summons to a fatal task.”

  Castles then were not so grimly gray as they were later to become. The walls of Tara were cut out of a white cliff; its roof was striped crimson and blue. Chariots circled the walls, carrying two warriors each. They were drawn by matched stallions. Finn, seeing this blaze of color for the first time, forgot about his murdered father and his plans for vengeance and gawked joyously at the tall young charioteers whose yellow hair streamed in the speed of their going. And the magnificent war stallions took the rest of his breath, for if there was one thing Finn esteemed above another, it was a handsome animal—man, woman, dog, or horse.

  As the lad stood staring at the bright chariots, a man strolled up holding a falcon, not on his wrist as falconers do, but perched on his shoulder. This pleased Finn because the man had a hawk face himself and it was like seeing a man with two heads. Now riding on Finn’s shoulder was the Fish-hag’s black tom, who accompanied the lad everywhere since breaking with the witch. The man looked down at the boy. The falcon glared down at the cat, who swelled with rage, arching his back and greening his eyes. Finn laughed.

  “Something amuse you?” said the man.

  “Much amuses me, sir,” said Finn. “I am easily entertained.”

  “Are you now? But perhaps I do not care to be laughed at by a raw cub, whose name, estate, and parentage I do not know.”

  “My name is Finn McCool. I am my father’s son, as will be disclosed to those who knew him last. As for my estate, this I must discuss with the High King.”

  “And do you think the High King can listen to every vagabond who turns off the road?”

  “No, sir. But to Finn McCool, yes.”

  “Is there something special about you, Master McCool?”

  “I cannot tell. I am the only one of me I know.”

  “I have the liveliest kind of wish to beat you until you cannot walk,” said the tall man.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” said Finn.

  “You’d be sorrier yet, my lad, if you were not shielded by the Law of Hospitality.”

  “Seems a pity that a man like you should be balked by a little thing like a law,” said Finn.

  “Do not mock me,” gritted the man.

  “I know how you must feel not being able to beat me,” said Finn. “I see that you are a man of splendid wrath. I see the flaming coils of it springing from your head.”

  Now it was a deadly insult at that time to refer to anyone’s physical appearance, unless it were a lover, chieftain, or closest kin, or any combination of these. And Finn knew that he was walking a knife-edge. He was trying to provoke the man to attack, of course; for, without knowing the redhead’s name, he had recognized him immediately as a final foe, whom he must either destroy or be destroyed by. And since he was too young to engage him in physical combat, Finn was trying to goad him into losing his temper and violating the Law of Hospitality, thus incurring the death penalty. This was Finn’s plan, but, observing the man’s face gone suddenly cheese-white, and the huge writhing fingers, Finn saw that he might have gone too far, that he might have let himself in for immediate annihilation, which was not part of his plan at all. For the boy had met enemies before—snakes and hags and all the sore magic blades in a witch’s kit—but he had never yet angered mortal man, and he was amazed to see how totally savage was this wrath, lighted by intelligence, more urgent than hunger, closer than breathing.

  The man said nothing at all; his fingers were playing now with the ankle gyve of the bird. The huge falcon rose suddenly from the man’s shoulder, soared until it was blotted in the gray brightness, then dived. It dropped out of the sky in a heavy screaming stoop straight for Finn’s head. Finn looked up. Gaffing down upon him were the huge hooks that could tear the heart out of an arctic goose in mid-flight. Bigger than the sky they came clutching for his head.

  The cat on Finn’s shoulder yawned, flicking its coral tongue, grinning right into the hooks of death—then rose straight up in a great leap to meet the dropping falcon. Finn watched aghast, expecting to see his pet, twice beloved because it was taken from an enemy, smashed into a bloody rag of fur. But he had forgotten that it
was a witch’s cat, witness to spells and incantations. The black tom uttered a rhymed meow, and made a delicate pass with its paws. Finn saw the falcon dwindle into a wren, which had time for but one flutter before the cat pulled it in, and, dropping back onto Finn’s shoulder, began to chew.

  “I would sooner have lost my stable of horses,” said the man softly. “I took that hawk from the King of Aram after a fight that lasted three days and cost ten of my best men, not to mention a few of the worst. How shall I refrain from killing you where you stand despite all the Laws of Hospitality ever spoken by half-witted ancients?”

  “I put you under Obligation,” said Finn.

  He said a word to the cat, who spat feathers which floated on the air, thickening into the royal shape of the falcon. The bird spread its huge wings briefly and resumed its perch on the man’s shoulder.

  “That’s a clever cat you have there,” said the man.

  “He has had certain advantages,” said Finn. “Now sir, I have told you my name, will you tell me yours?”

  “Goll McMorna.”

  “How well things fall out. You are the man I most wanted to know, and I meet you first. You were the leader of those who killed my father, I believe.”

  “Still am.”

  “So I must kill you, of course.”

  “Of course you must try.”

  “But not quite yet. I need to grow to my full size first.”

  “You had better grow fast,” said McMorna. “That Hospitality nonsense shelters you only while you are a guest here, and the Law of Obligation lasts only one year thereafter.”

  “Oh, but I may abide here quite a while. Tara’s hospitality is famous.”