Irish Folk Tales

by Henry Glassie

  Then Diarmuid settled himself, and sent his spear through the middle of Míogach’s side.

  “A pity,” said the son of the King of Lochlann, “for the man who set the cast of that spear, and it is the spear of Diarmuid that struck me.”

  “It is, indeed,” said Diarmuid, “and to keep Fia from death.”

  “I will take his head from him,” said Míogach, “for what he did to my people.”

  With that he struck the head from Fia’s body.

  Diarmuid rushed up then and closed with Míogach. There was a fierce battle, and fought without gain to either side, till at last Diarmuid’s spirit rose, and he slew the son of the King of Lochlann. Next he went at the two hundred of the five hundred, and did not leave one without killing to give an account of the battle. Then Diarmuid and Fatha Conán brought the head of the son of the King of Lochlann, and spoke at the door of the house.

  “Is that Diarmuid?” asked Finn.

  “It is,” said Diarmuid.

  “Who made that dreadful shouting outside?” asked Finn.

  “Your son made most of it, and he felled three hundred strong champions.”

  “How is my son now?” asked Finn.

  “He is killed,” replied Diarmuid. “Fatha Conán and I slew the two hundred more who were against your son.”

  “Did you see his enemy killing my son?”

  “I did,” said Diarmuid, “but he was killed before I could go to him.”

  “Who killed my son?”

  “Míogach Mac Colgáin.”

  “Did you see Míogach go away after killing my son?”

  “He did not go away, for I took the head off him.”

  “My blessing on you,” said Finn. “We are here under your protection, and we have never been in peril but you released us.”

  “I will protect you till morning,” said Diarmuid.

  “Do you and Fatha Conán defend the ford till my son Oisín and the others come.”

  “Is it going you are, Diarmuid?” asked Conán.

  “It is, indeed,” said Diarmuid.

  “I don’t like that,” said Conán, “because the clay that is under me is colder than the coldest snow in the morning. Though I think what I am suffering from hunger and thirst is far worse than the cold. The best of food and drink that Míogach had is saved for his men and the foreigners. Do you bring some of it hither.”

  “It is a pity to ask that of me, and the best men of the world coming to destroy us and nobody watching but Fatha Conán and myself.”

  “Ah, Diarmuid of the Women,” said Conán. “If it was a young beauty who asked, you would bring her the food, but you do not care to bring it to me or any man here.”

  “Conán,” said Diarmuid, “you took four women from me in your time, and you would take more if you could. Vex me no further, and I will bring you food if I find it.”

  The two went to the ford.

  “Fatha Conán,” said Diarmuid, “it was prophesied that you would bind the whole world. If you do not begin well you will do well at the end of the night. Watch the ford till I get food for Conán.”

  “You have never found food so easily as you will now,” said Fatha Conán, “because there is food for three hundred men at the brink of the ford, and they did not eat it. They had not time.”

  “If I were to carry that to Conán he would dispraise it, call it the food of dead men, but I will take it to him in any case.”

  Diarmuid went to Conán and called through the door: “I have brought food, and know not how to give it to you.”

  “It was a mistake in you, Diarmuid, to bring me the food of dead men. Provoke me no further.”

  “If it causes my death I will go,” said Diarmuid. “And, Fatha Conán, do you watch the ford while I go to the house on the island.”

  Diarmuid went and found Borb Mac Sinnsior with his men and they eating supper outside. Diarmuid saw the King drinking out of vessels of gold, and every man there had a beautiful vessel. Diarmuid went past Borb and seized the goblet that had been in his hand. He went next to the High King of the World, struck him in the pit of the stomach, and knocked him to the floor.

  “If there were men looking on I would take your head,” cried Diarmuid, seizing the dish from before the King, and it full of food.

  Diarmuid departed so quickly that there was no man inside or outside who could stop him. He escaped without blood or wound, and stopped not nor halted till he went to the ford. Fatha Conán was fast asleep among the dead bodies.

  When Diarmuid saw Fatha sleeping he said:

  “There must be something against you to be sleeping tonight. I wish not to leave you, and if I stop to rouse you, Conán will dispraise me. I will take the food first.”

  Diarmuid went to the house and said: “I have food for you now, but I know not how I can place it before you.”

  “I am just opposite the door. You have never yet failed in making a cast,” said Conán.

  Diarmuid threw the dish to where Conán was, struck him between breast and mouth, so that his face was covered with the food on the plate.

  “I am afraid I have soiled you!” said Diarmuid.

  “That is all one to me,” said Conán. “A hound never runs from a bone.”

  “I have a goblet of drink here. How am I to take that to you?”

  “You must go to the housetop,” said Conán. “There is no enchantment outside. Make a hole in the roof and pour the drink into my mouth.”

  Diarmuid rose with one leap to the housetop, made a hole, and spilled most of the drink on both sides of Conán’s mouth.

  “Ah, Diarmuid,” said Conán, “if it was a young woman that was in it, in place of me, you would put the drink in her mouth, but you care not to put it in mine.”

  When Diarmuid heard this he grew in dread of Coán’s talk, poured the rest of the drink into his mouth, sprang down, and went to guard the ford.

  Now the three kings of the Island of the Flood spoke, and this is what they said: “It is bad that anyone went to Quicken Fort before us.”

  After that they rose up and said: “We must get liberty to go and strike their heads off the Fenians.”

  The kings took six hundred stout warriors and went to the ford. There they saw Diarmuid.

  “Is that Diarmuid we see?”

  “It is,” said Diarmuid.

  Then the kings spoke to one another, but in Diarmuid’s hearing.

  “We love Diarmuid,” said they, “because we are nearly related to him, and the man is a hero. Never have we been in any place learning deeds of valor, but Diarmuid was with us.”

  “Give us liberty, O Diarmuid, for friendship’s sake, to cross the ford.”

  “If you will give me liberty to go to the King of the World and bring his head with me I will let you cross the ford.”

  “We will not do that,” replied they, “because we wish not mishap to our lord.”

  “Neither do I wish mishap to my lord.”

  “Leave the ford to us,” said the kings, and they moved against Diarmuid. He fell on them furiously, and great heavy blows were exchanged, so that bodies were full of wounds and many men fell by Diarmuid in the battle, and Fatha Conán fast asleep. Then Fatha Conán rose up and was frightened at the shouting of men, the breaking of shields, and the sighing and groaning of champions and heroes who had fallen by the hand of Diarmuid. He seized his weapons, rushed forward, and thought to put his spear through Diarmuid for not waking him. Diarmuid dodged the blow and said:

  “There is not a second man on earth from whom I would suffer such conduct.”

  Fatha Conán then met the kings’ forces, and felled every man that he met. Diarmuid closed with the three kings, and he and the three fought against one another, and that was a dangerous and terrible battle for Diarmuid, he giving each king a blow and each king giving him a blow, but after a while he rose in courage in the way that he took the three heads off the kings.

  The remnant of the six hundred fell by the hand of Fatha Conán.r />
  Diarmuid and Fatha Conán took the three heads to the house then, and rubbed the blood of the kings on Finn and the men. All were freed except Conán. The blood was gone when they came to him.

  “Is it here you will leave me?” asked Conán.

  “It is not, indeed,” said Diarmuid, giving a great pull to Conán, but he could not tear him free.

  “Fatha,” said Diarmuid, “help me to raise this man and take him forth.”

  Then Diarmuid and Fatha put their hands under Conán, and hardly were they able to take him from the ground, and if they did he left behind him the skin and the hair of his poll, the skin of his two shoulders, and the skin of the lower part of his body, and it is from that he was called “Conán, the cursed bald son of Mórna.”

  All the Fenians seemed near death, they looked so haggard, wretched, and weak.

  “We are not fit to give battle till morning,” said Finn. “Do you, Diarmuid, go to the ford with Fatha till morning, when some of our friends may come.”

  The two went to the ford, and by that time there were tidings from the fort on the island. The son of the King of the World, Borb Mac Sinnsior na gCath, rose up, and twenty hundred strong champions with him, and went to the ford.

  “I think it too long to wait for news,” said Oisín on Sliabh na mBan. “I must go myself.”

  And he went swiftly till he came near the ford and heard the sound of the great battle. Then he rushed on himself and met Borb, and Oisín got vexed so that his spirits rose and his strength grew in the way that he put the son of the King of the World under him and made him sigh, and then he took the head off his body.

  Oisín was proud of the deed, and showed the head to his friend and the enemy. Finn and the Fenians came now from the Quicken Fort and slew those of the twenty hundred who had not fallen at the hands of Oisín, Diarmuid, and Fatha Conán.

  When the people on the island discovered that all the men sent forward were slain they gave three heavy shouts of wailing. The King of the World moved and all his men with him, a great multitude, to give final battle.

  When Oisín left Sliabh na mBan he commanded the Fenians to follow him to the Quicken Fort. All assembled in haste with their standards, and at the head of them Finn’s standard, Scáil Gréine, Shadow of the Sun. They went forward speedily, but in good order of battle, and were nearing the ford at the same time with the High King of the World. The two forces met with spears and swords, and were slaying each other till the front half of each army was lying on the earth.

  Goll, son of Mórna, and Sinnsior na gCath met then in the center of the field. Goll struck the head off his enemy and raised it aloft, boasting of the deed. The King’s forces trembled at the sight and fled. The Fenians followed and hunted them. They left not a man to give account of the battle, but the man who escaped through forests or under rocks or who went by the swiftness of his feet to a ship. Those who escaped to the ships raised sails and hastened homeward, making no halt on the way. Many a strong hero was left dead on the field, and many a woman was weeping for a son, and many a woman was bewailing her husband, and many a woman lost her mind through terror and fled to the forests.

  The Fenians themselves suffered greatly. Many were slain and many terribly wounded.

  This is what came of the war of Colgán Mac Teine and of the revenge of Míogach his son, and of the invasion of Sinnsior na gCath, High King of the World. They thought to destroy Finn and the Fenians with slaughter and enchantments, and this was the end of their efforts.

  USHEEN’S RETURN TO IRELAND

  GALWAY

  LADY GREGORY 1926

  Usheen was the last of the Fianna and the greatest of them. It’s he was brought away to Tir-Nan-Oge, that place where you’d stop for a thousand years and be as young as the first day you went.

  Out hunting they were, and there was a deer came before them very often, and they would follow it with the hounds, and it would always make for the sea, and there was a rock a little way out in the water, and it would leap on to that, and they wouldn’t follow it.

  So one day they were going to hunt, they put Usheen out on the rock first, the way he could catch a hold of the deer and be there before it. So they found it and followed it, and when it jumped on to the rock Usheen got a hold of it. But it went down into the sea and brought him with it to some enchanted place underground that was called Tir-Nan-Oge, and there he stopped a very long time, but he thought it was only a few days he was in it.

  It is in that direction, to the west he was brought, and it was to the Clare coast he came back. And in that place you wouldn’t feel the time passing, and he saw the beauty of heaven and kept his youth there a thousand years.

  It is a fine place, and everything that is good is in it. And if anyone is sent there with a message he will want to stop in it, and twenty years of it will seem to him like one half-hour. But as to where Tir-Nan-Oge is, it is in every place, all about us.

  Well, when he thought he had been a twelvemonth there, he began to wish to see the strong men again, his brothers; and he asked whoever was in authority in that place to give him a horse and to let him go.

  And they told him his brothers were all dead, but he wouldn’t believe it.

  So they gave him a horse, but they bade him not to get off it or to touch the ground while he would be away; and they put him back in his own country.

  And when he went back to his old place, there was nothing left of the houses but broken walls, and they covered with moss; and all his friends and brothers were dead, with the length of time that had passed.

  And where his own home used to be he saw the stone trough standing that used to be full of water, and where they used to be putting their hands in and washing themselves.

  And when he saw it he had such a wish and such a feeling for it that he forgot what he was told and got off the horse.

  And in a minute it was as if all the years came on him, and he was lying there on the ground, a very old man and all his strength gone.

  FAIR, BROWN, AND TREMBLING

  GALWAY

  JEREMIAH CURTIN 1887

  King Aedh Cúrucha lived in Tir Conal, and he had three daughters, whose names were Fair, Brown, and Trembling.

  Fair and Brown had new dresses, and went to church every Sunday. Trembling was kept at home to do the cooking and work. They would not let her go out of the house at all; for she was more beautiful than the other two, and they were in dread she might marry before themselves.

  They carried on in this way for seven years. At the end of seven years the son of the king of Omanya fell in love with the eldest sister.

  One Sunday morning, after the other two had gone to church, the old henwife came into the kitchen to Trembling, and said: “It’s at church you ought to be this day, instead of working here at home.”

  “How could I go?” said Trembling. “I have no clothes good enough to wear at church. And if my sisters were to see me there, they’d kill me for going out of the house.”

  “I’ll give you,” said the henwife, “a finer dress than either of them has ever seen. And now tell me what dress will you have?”

  “I’ll have,” said Trembling, “a dress as white as snow, and green shoes for my feet.”

  Then the henwife put on the cloak of darkness, clipped a piece from the old clothes the young woman had on, and asked for the whitest robes in the world and the most beautiful that could be found, and a pair of green shoes.

  That moment she had the robe and the shoes, and she brought them to Trembling, who put them on. When Trembling was dressed and ready, the henwife said: “I have a honey-bird here to sit on your right shoulder, and a honey-finger to put on your left. At the door stands a milk-white mare, with a golden saddle for you to sit on, and a golden bridle to hold in your hand.”

  Trembling sat on the golden saddle. And when she was ready to start, the henwife said: “You must not go inside the door of the church, and the minute the people rise up at the end of Mass, do you make off, and ride
home as fast as the mare will carry you.”

  When Trembling came to the door of the church there was no one inside who could get a glimpse of her but was striving to know who she was; and when they saw her hurrying away at the end of Mass, they ran out to overtake her. But no use in their running; she was away before any man could come near her. From the minute she left the church till she got home, she overtook the wind before her, and outstripped the wind behind.

  She came down at the door, went in, and found the henwife had dinner ready. She put off the white robes, and had on her old dress in a twinkling.

  When the two sisters came home the henwife asked: “Have you any news today from the church?”

  “We have great news,” said they. “We saw a wonderful, grand lady at the church door. The like of the robes she had we have never seen on woman before. It’s little that was thought of our dresses beside what she had on. And there wasn’t a man at the church, from the king to the beggar, but was trying to look at her and know who she was.”

  The sisters would give no peace till they had two dresses like the robes of the strange lady; but honey-birds and honey-fingers were not to be found.

  Next Sunday the two sisters went to church again, and left the youngest at home to cook the dinner.

  After they had gone, the henwife came in and asked: “Will you go to church today?”

  “I would go,” said Trembling, “if I could get the going.”

  “What robe will you wear?” asked the henwife.

  “The finest black satin that can be found, and red shoes for my feet.”

  “What color do you want the mare to be?”

  “I want her to be so black and so glossy that I can see myself in her body.”

  The henwife put on the cloak of darkness, and asked for the robes and the mare. That moment she had them. When Trembling was dressed, the henwife put the honey-bird on her right shoulder and the honey-finger on her left. The saddle on the mare was silver, and so was the bridle.