They said they would hold up the flag. So Connal himself went down into the grave and whatever squealing that they heard, they let go the flagstone and they ran off home. So there Connal was, in the grave on top of the bishop. When the five foster brothers reached the house, their mother was somewhat more sorrowful for Connal than she would have been for the five.
At the end of seven mornings, a company of lads went to take the gold out of the bishop’s grave, and when they reached the grave they threw the flat flagstone to the side of the further wall. Connal stirred below, and when he stirred, they ran, leaving their armaments and their dress. Connal arose and took the gold with him, and the armaments and dress, and he reached his foster-mother with them. They were all merry and light-hearted as long as the gold and silver lasted.
Now there was a great giant near the place, who had a great deal of gold and silver hidden in the foot of a rock, and he always promised a bag of gold to any being who dared to go down into the hole inside a creel and get some. Many were lost in that way: when the giant would let them down and they would fill the creel, the giant would not let down the creel more till they died in the hole.
On a day of days, Connal met with the giant, and the giant promised him a bag of gold if he agreed to go down into the hole to fill a creel with the gold. Connal went down, and the giant was letting him down with a rope. Connal filled the giant’s creel with the gold, but the giant did not let down the creel to fetch Connal, so Connal was stuck in the cave amongst the dead men and the gold.
When the giant failed to get any other man who would go down into the hole, he sent his own son into the hole giving him the sword of light in his lap so that he might see his way before him. When the young giant reached the bottom of the cave and when Connal saw him, he immediately grabbed the sword of light before he realised what was happening, and he took off the head of the young giant.
Then Connal put gold in the bottom of the creel, and he climbed in and then he covered himself with the rest of the gold and gave a pull at the rope. Up above, the giant drew up the creel, and when he did not see his son he threw the creel over the top of his head. Connal leapt out of the creel as it flew behind the giant’s great black back, laid a swift hand on the sword of light which he’d taken with him and cut the head off the giant. Then he took himself to his foster mother’s house with a creelful of gold and the giant’s sword of light.
After this, one day he went to hunt on Sliabh na Leirge. He was going forwards till he went into a great cave. He saw, at the upper part of the cave, a fine fair young woman who was thrusting the flesh-stake at a big lump of a baby. And every thrust she would give the spit the babe would give a laugh and she would begin to weep.
Connal spoke, and he said, ‘Woman, what ails thee at the child without reason?’
‘Oh,’ said she, ‘since you are an able man, kill the baby and set it on this stake so that I can roast it for the giant.’
Connal caught hold of the baby, and he put the plaid he had on about the baby and hid the baby at the side of the cave. There were a great many dead bodies at the side of the cave, and so he set one of these on the stake, and the woman began roasting it.
Then was heard underground trembling and thunder coming, enough to terrify the life out of any living soul. So Connal sprang in the place of the corpse that was at the fire, in the very midst of the bodies.
The giant came and asked, ‘Is the roast ready?’ He began to eat, complaining, ‘Fiu fiu haogrich. No wonder your body is rough, woman. This child of yours is tough to eat.’
When the giant had eaten that one, he went over to count the bodies; the way he had of counting them was to catch hold of them by the ankles and to fling them over his head, and he counted them backwards and forwards like that three or four times, and as he found that Connal was somewhat heavier than the corpses, and that he was soft and fat, he took that slice out of him that stretched from the back of his head to his groin. He roasted this at the fire, and he ate it, and then he fell asleep.
Connal winked at the woman to set the flesh-stake in the fire. She did this, and when the spit grew white after it was red, he thrust the white-hot spit right through the giant’s heart, and the giant was dead.
Then Connal went and he set the woman on her path homewards, and then he went home himself.
His stepmother sent him and her own son to steal the white-faced horse from the king of Italy, and they went together to steal the white-faced horse, and every time they would lay hands on him, the white-faced horse would let out a cry. Guards came out, and they were caught. They were imprisoned and their ankles put in tight, painful chains.
‘Hey you, you big red-haired man,’ the king said to Connal, ‘were you ever in such dire straits as this?’
‘Make the chains a little tighter for me, and a little looser for my comrades, and I will tell you,’ said Connal.
The queen of Italy was looking at Connal. Then Connal said:
‘Seven morns so sadly mine,
As I dwelt on the bishop’s top,
That visit was longest for me,
Though I was the strongest myself.
At the end of the seventh morn
An opening grave was seen,
And I would be up before
The one that was soonest down.
They thought I was a dead man,
As I rose from the mould of the earth;
At the first of the harsh bursting
They left their arms and their dresses.
I gave the leap of the nimble one,
As I was naked and bare.
’Twas sad for me, a vagabond,
To enjoy the bishop’s gold.’
‘Tighten his chains well, and right well,’ said the king of Italy. ‘He was never in any good place. He has done great ill.’
Then his chains were tightened tighter and tighter, and the king said, ‘You big red-haired man, were you ever in such dire straits?’
‘Tighten my chains even further, but let a little slack with this one beside me, and I will tell you,’ said Connal.
They tightened even further. ‘I was,’ said he:
‘Nine morns in the cave of gold;
My meat was the body of bones,
Sinews of feet and hands.
At the end of the ninth morn
A descending creel was seen;
Then I caught hold of the creel,
And laid gold above and below;
I made my hiding within the creel;
I took with me the glaive of light,
The best thing that I ever did.’
They gave him the next tightening, and the king asked him, ‘Now, were you ever in such dire straits, in such extremity as hard as this?’
‘A little more tightening for myself, and a slack for my comrade, and I’ll tell you that.’
They tightened his chains, and loosened his comrade’s, and Connal said:
‘On a day in Sliabh na Leirge,
As I went into a cave,
I saw a smooth, fair, mother-eyed wife,
Thrusting the stake for the flesh
At a young unreasoning child. “Then,” said I,
“What causes thy grief, of wife,
At that unreasoning child?”
“Though he’s tender and comely,” said she,
“Set this baby at the fire.”
Then I caught hold of the boy,
And wrapped my cloak around him,
Then I brought up the great big corpse
That was up in front of the heap;
Then I hear Turstar, Tarstar, and Turaraich,
The very earth mingling together;
But when it was his to be fallen
Into the soundest of sleep,
There fell, by myself, the forest fiend;
I drew back the stake of the roast,
And I thrust it into his maw.’
There was the queen, and she was listening to each thing that Connal suffered and said. And when she
heard this final truth, she sprang and cut each binding that was on Connal and on his comrade and she said, ‘I am the woman that was there.’ And to the king: ‘And thou art the son that was yonder.’
Connal married the king’s daughter, and together they rode the white-faced horse home.
And as he lay there, telling himself that ancient story, Archie was encouraged. ‘Hah!’ he laughed to himself – and a real laugh it was, even though it has to be written down as ‘Hah!’ here, in just exactly the same way as Ted Hah’s very different ‘Hah!’
The giant was Capitalism, Archie knew, and the hole was where the bodies of the poor lay scattered in the Cave of Profit where all the gold lay. They were the ones daily sent down in creels to labour for the giant. They were the ones eaten alive. Roasted on the spits. Even their corpses consumed. And this, of course, was to be his job here: to go down daily in that creel to find the gold, and bring it to the surface. To dig for oil in this virginal landscape. To bring the fat baby up so that his blood could be used as fuel to feed the giant.
If he were Connal, what would he do? Run? Uh-uh. Forsake the contest? No way. Hide beneath the blanket, pretending the giant didn’t exist? What was it all but a story anyway, of little use nowadays? A foolish pastime which belonged to the olden days when folk believed such nonsense? Even though the smell of roasting flesh was in their nostrils, even though they could hear the giant’s rumblings, even though they could clearly see him on their computers? All that cynical blogging out there where no one believed anyone else.
And poetry! Remarkable how poetry caused Connal to be released. Believe that if you will, you fool. Dream on, MacDuff. As if that could happen! Oh aye. Pull the other one, son. You try that on the next time you’re taken captive by al-Qaida. Just stand there and start chanting this to them – ‘My love is like a red, red rose, that’s newly sprung in June…’
Archie listened to Brawn breathing steadily in the next room: like the soft breathing of a child. How thin the walls between beings. As long as you could hear someone else, you were alive. He was talking in his sleep. ‘Snow. White. Soft.’
Archie recalled all the corpse-strewn caves he’d ever seen on television. Those earthquake-heaved streets of Port-au-Prince. The oiled beaches of Louisiana, and the long poisoning of the Niger Delta. The jutting elbows and knees and shoulders in Uganda. The black and white skeletons of Auschwitz. The giant’s creel suspended halfway down in the deep-cast mines of New South Wales.
But he had no sword of light.
‘Now, who had the sword of light,’ he asked, ‘in the story, I mean. Who had the sword of light?’ And, of course, he remembered that the giant’s son had the sword of light. Given him by his father. ‘Ah,’ said Archie ‘So it was the giant himself who first had the sword of light!’
‘What is it?’ he asked himself. ‘What is this sword of light?’
‘Iron or steel,’ he heard Gobhlachan say. ‘Remember, son – iron and steel were so hard to come by, so anyone who had them was already halfway to victory. Anyone who had a gleaming sword was already well on the way!’
‘But that was then,’ Archie said. ‘What is it now, though? What’s the material which gives the giant the advantage now? What is it, Gobhlachan?’
But Gobhlachan was silent.
Wasn’t that the entire point? Connal worked it out for himself. No manual. No exposition. No clues beforehand, except the stories he carried within himself. His mental knowledge of the giant. The death of his mother. A grasping foster mother wanting to kill him. Bereavement and fear. The bag of gold and the comfort and security it offered. A penitent banker laughing round every corner.
No clues as to the sword of light. Who made it, and how, and was there another of its kind? Was there a market for it, or was it kept secretly, hidden? Could you just download it? What could the sword do? That was the sword which could upwards and downwards, cutting the nine ties on its way across, and nine ties on its way back. It’s just that the giant had it. And Connal managed to get hold of it.
What was it? Oil? Wealth? Knowledge? Power?
And to grasp it, Connal had to enter the cave. The cave of gold. With all the danger and sorrow it carried. Into the darkness. Where the stench of death lay. Lazarus, come forth.
Connal didn’t just text or email the giant:
Dear Mister Giant – I hope you’re well, and I’m very sorry to bother you, but it would be really lovely if you could – please – release those people you have captive in your cave.
PS And the gold as well.
PPS Happy Christmas and a Guid New Year to yin an a’.
But he was so tired, exhausted after such a journey. And Angelina almost dead on his shoulders, where was she? How was she? And Brawn – big, beautiful, courageous Brawn – forever marching on ahead. And the bed now so sweet and soft, the room so warm, the flowers so bright.
Yet all he wanted to do was sleep and none of that sword up and down stuff, and then that hot shower in the morning and the bacon and eggs, and keep his mouth shut and stay quiet and mum, and just go out daily to dig or drill or extract – whatever was asked of him – without raising any awkward questions, without being difficult and bolshie, without making trouble, without putting himself – and, for that matter, Brawn and Angelina and Jewel and Sergio and Ludo and John the Goblin and Olga and Gobhlachan and Yukon Joe and all the rest of them – at risk. At risk of being sacked, thrown on the scrapheap, turned out into the blizzard and snow, to fend for themselves again or die, alone, unwanted, uncounted in these endless Arctic wastes.
And who would give a damn?
The whole circus would just roll on anyway, without their futile, deadly gesture. What was the point? He was no Connal. And he settled lower into the duck-feathered pillow. To sleep, he thought. To sleep. To sleep. Perchance.
‘Grip. Nail. Frost,’ Brawn was saying in his sleep next door and as he drifted off to sleep Archie remembered his own wife and son endlessly sitting in front of the television, also ceaselessly channel-surfing.
‘Maybe, really, I’m the giant,’ Archie thought, as he finally fell asleep. All night he dreamed that someone had taken his wife and son captive and they were being held prisoner in two creels suspended halfway between the earth and the grave, between today and tomorrow.
7
HE WAS WOKEN in the morning by a quiet knock on the door, and a woman’s voice saying, ‘Good Morning, Mr Grierson.’ A woman entered dressed as a bunny-girl, bearing a big hearty breakfast on a tray – fresh coffee and croissants with a basket of fruits.
‘Sponsorship,’ she said. ‘You know how it is. The world’s gone to rack and ruin if you ask me. You can hardly go to the loo nowadays without sponsorship. Here’s your breakfast, thanks to Playboy Inc. The misogynistic bastards. But then it’s a good wage, isn’t it?’ She put the tray down on his table. ‘Oh – and I’d better say it,’ she said. She smiled beautifully. ‘Have a nice day.’ She left, leaving the sweet fragrance of coffee in her wake. But then she opened the door again and stuck her lovely face back inside. She was covered in freckles. ‘Oh – I’m Barbara. But you can call me Babs.’ She waved her fingers. ‘Cheers.’
That was only the bed-breakfast. After his second, real breakfast – ham and eggs and sausage and black and white puddings and mushrooms and all the rest of the cholesterol killers – he signed the contract as part of the Alaskan Oil Company Drilling Team, who had been given the franchise to explore The Great Northern Field, as it was known.
Big Ted Hah himself did the presentation for all the new workers hired: an all-gizmo, all-singing, all-dancing PowerPoint presentation which beautifully demonstrated, through remarkable figures and graphs and sliding photographic and video shows, how the Alaskan Oil Company Drilling Team, along with their partners, BP, Statoil, Ruskoil, Chinoil, ExxonMobil, Amoco, Conoco, Texaco and PetroCanada were involved in what he called the Great Project.
‘A Great Project in a Great Petroleum Field from a Great Company with a Great Workforce!�
�� he enthused, flicking one button after another, displaying oil wells in full flow, rigs sparkling like gorgeous Christmas trees, an African woman carrying wood on her head to light a fire, and an all-white Rolls-Royce purring down through some mythic sleepy Swiss Village. ‘Fuel,’ said Ted, ‘that’s what binds us all together. Oil and wood and gas, keeping the world turning.
‘Contentment,’ continued Big Ted Hah softly, as he pressed the PowerPoint slides: happy Chinese children eating from full rice-bowls; Putin playing ice-hockey in Siberia; Italian women pouring waterfalls of spaghetti on to plates; old Highland men in kilts driving through whitewashed villages in their Fordson Majors. ‘The whole world on the move,’ declared Ted. ‘This is not Capitalism with a Capital C, but capitalism with a small c and Co-operation with a Capital C! This has nothing to do with Oil Companies and Profit,’ he purred, warming to the Great Theme, ‘but Everything to do with Developing the Global Economy, Protecting the Environment, Ensuring the Wellbeing of All World Citizens, Caring for the Poor, Shielding the Weak, Restraining the Strong. As the Great Old Testament Prophet Isaiah put it, in far more mellifluous words than I could ever put it: “The Lord Himself has anointed me to preach Good News to the Poor. He has sent Me to bind up the Brokenhearted, to proclaim Freedom for the Captives, and Release for the Prisoners, to Proclaim the Year of the Lord’s Favour and the day of Vengeance of our God, to Comfort All who Mourn, and to Provide for those who Grieve in Zion – to Bestow on Them a Crown of Beauty Instead of Ashes, the Oil of Gladness, instead of Mourning, and Garment of Praise instead of a Spirit of Despair. You will be called Oaks of Righteousness, a Planting of the Lord, for the Display of His Splendour!”
‘That is why,’ he added with a tearful flourish, ‘we will be calling the oil that comes from this Pioneer Field “The Oil of Gladness”. Now, all I say, to All of you, as we enter Together on this Great Venture, is what the Great Roman said when the legions set out to conquer the world: “Each man is the smith of his own fortune; but together, we are the forge of the world!”’
Good God, Archie thought, how Gobhlachan would puke at the notion of it all.
Archie and the North Wind Page 12