Irish Fairy Tales, James Stephens [ebook reader browser .txt] 📗
- Author: James Stephens
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Mongan pointed at Tibraide’.
“Don’t you know who that is?” he cried.
“I know who he says he is,” said the Chamberlain.
“Well, he is Mongan,” said Mongan, “and these twenty-nine men are twenty-nine of his nobles from Ulster.”
At that news the men of the household picked up clubs and cudgels and every kind of thing that was near, and made a violent and woeful attack on Tibraide’s men The King of Leinster came in then, and when he was told Tibraide’ was Mongan he attacked them as well, and it was with difficulty that Tibraide’ got away to Cell Camain with nine of his men and they all wounded.
The King of Leinster came back then. He went to Duv Laca’s room.
“Where is Tibraide’?” said he.
“It wasn’t Tibraide was here,” said the hag who was still sitting on the spike, and was not half dead, “it was Mongan.”
“Why did you let him near you?” said the king to Duv Laca.
“There is no one has a better right to be near me than Mongan has,” said Duv Laca, “he is my own husband,” said she.
And then the king cried out in dismay: “I have beaten Tibraide’s people.” He rushed from the room.
“Send for Tibraide’ till I apologise,” he cried. “Tell him it was all a mistake. Tell him it was Mongan.”
CHAPTER XVIII
Mongan and his servant went home, and (for what pleasure is greater than that of memory exercised in conversation?) for a time the feeling of an adventure well accomplished kept him in some contentment. But at the end of a time that pleasure was worn out, and Mongan grew at first dispirited and then sullen, and after that as ill as he had been on the previous occasion. For he could not forget Duv Laca of the White Hand, and he could not remember her without longing and despair.
It was in the illness which comes from longing and despair that he sat one day looking on a world that was black although the sun shone, and that was lean and unwholesome although autumn fruits were heavy on the earth and the joys of harvest were about him.
“Winter is in my heart,” quoth he, “and I am cold already.”
He thought too that some day he would die, and the thought was not unpleasant, for one half of his life was away in the territories of the King of Leinster, and the half that he kept in himself had no spice in it.
He was thinking in this way when mac an Da’v came towards him over the lawn, and he noticed that mac an Da’v was walking like an old man.
He took little slow steps, and he did not loosen his knees when he walked, so he went stiffly. One of his feet turned pitifully outwards, and the other turned lamentably in. His chest was pulled inwards, and his head was stuck outwards and hung down in the place where his chest should have been, and his arms were crooked in front of him with the hands turned wrongly, so that one palm was shown to the east of the world and the other one was turned to the west.
“How goes it, mac an Da’v?” said the king.
“Bad,” said mac an Da’v.
“Is that the sun I see shining, my friend?” the king asked.
“It may be the sun,” replied mac an Da’v, peering curiously at the golden radiance that dozed about them, “but maybe it’s a yellow fog.”
“What is life at all?” said the king.
“It is a weariness and a tiredness,” said mac an Da’v. “It is a long yawn without sleepiness. It is a bee, lost at midnight and buzzing on a pane. It is the noise made by a tied-up dog. It is nothing worth dreaming about. It is nothing at all.”
“How well you explain my feelings about Duv Laca,” said the king.
“I was thinking about my own lamb,” said mac an Da’v. “I was thinking about my own treasure, my cup of cheeriness, and the pulse of my heart.” And with that he burst into tears.
“Alas!” said the king.
“But,” sobbed mac an Da’v, “what right have I to complain? I am only the servant, and although I didn’t make any bargain with the King of Leinster or with any king of them all, yet my wife is gone away as if she was the consort of a potentate the same as Duv Laca is.”
Mongan was sorry then for his servant, and he roused himself.
“I am going to send you to Duv Laca.”
“Where the one is the other will be,” cried mac an Da’v joyously.
“Go,” said Mongan, “to Rath Descirt of Bregia; you know that place?”
“As well as my tongue knows my teeth.”
“Duv Laca is there; see her, and ask her what she wants me to do.”
Mac an Da’v went there and returned.
“Duv Laca says that you are to come at once, for the King of Leinster is journeying around his territory, and Kevin Cochlach, the charioteer, is making bitter love to her and wants her to run away with him.”
Mongan set out, and in no great time, for they travelled day and night, they came to Bregla, and gained admittance to the fortress, but just as he got in he had to go out again, for the King of Leinster had been warned of Mongan’s journey, and came back to his fortress in the nick of time.
When the men of Ulster saw the condition into which Mongan fell they were in great distress, and they all got sick through compassion for their king. The nobles suggested to him that they should march against Leinster and kill that king and bring back Duv Laca, but Mongan would not consent to this plan.
“For,” said he, “the thing I lost through my own folly I shall get back through my own craft.”
And when he said that his spirits revived, and he called for mac an Da’v.
“You know, my friend,” said Mongan, “that I can’t get Duv Laca back unless the King of Leinster asks me to take her back, for a bargain is a bargain.”
“That will happen when pigs fly,” said mac an Da’v, “and,” said he, “I did not make any bargain with any king that is in the world.”
“I heard you say that before,” said Mongan.
“I will say it till Doom,” cried his servant, “for my wife has gone away with that pestilent king, and he has got the double of your bad bargain.”
Mongan and his servant then set out for Leinster.
When they neared that country they found a great crowd going on the road with them, and they learned that the king was giving a feast in honour of his marriage to Duv Laca, for the year of waiting was nearly out, and the king had sworn he would delay no longer.
They went on, therefore, but in low spirits, and at last they saw the walls of the king’s castle towering before them, and a noble company going to and fro on the lawn.
CHAPTER XIX
THEY sat in a place where they could watch the castle and compose themselves after their journey.
“How are we going to get into the castle?” asked mac an Da’v.
For there were hatchetmen on guard in the big gateway, and there were spearmen at short intervals around the walls, and men to throw hot porridge off the roof were standing in the right places.
“If we cannot get in by hook, we will get in by crook,” said Mongan.
“They are both good ways,” said Mac an Da’v, “and whichever of them you decide on I’ll stick by.”
Just then they saw the Hag of the Mill coming out of the mill which was down the road a little.
Now the Hag of the Mill was a bony, thin pole of a hag with odd feet. That is, she had one foot that was too big for her, so that when she lifted it up it pulled her over; and she had one foot that was too small for her, so that when she lifted it up she didn’t know what to do with it. She was so long that you thought you would never see the end of her, and she was so thin that you thought you didn’t see her at all. One of her eyes was set where her nose should be and there was an ear in its place, and her nose itself was hanging out of her chin, and she had whiskers round it. She was dressed in a red rag that was really a hole with a fringe on it, and she was singing “Oh, hush thee, my one love” to a cat that was yelping on her shoulder.
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She had a tall skinny dog behind her called Brotar. It hadn’t a tooth in its head except one, and it had the toothache in that tooth. Every few steps it used to sit down on its hunkers and point its nose straight upwards, and make a long, sad complaint about its tooth; and after that it used to reach its hind leg round and try to scratch out its tooth; and then it used to be pulled on again by the straw rope that was round its neck, and which was tied at the other end to the hag’s heaviest foot.
There was an old, knock-kneed, raw-boned, one-eyed, little-winded, heavy-headed mare with her also. Every time it put a front leg forward it shivered all over the rest of its legs backwards, and when it put a hind leg forward it shivered all over the rest of its legs frontwards, and it used to give a great whistle through its nose when it was out of breath, and a big, thin hen was sitting on its croup. Mongan looked on the Hag of the Mill with delight and affection.
“This time,” said he to mac an Da’v, “I’ll get back my wife.”
“You will indeed,” said mac an Da’v heartily, “and you’ll get mine back too.”
“Go over yonder,” said Mongan, “and tell the Hag of the Mill that I want to talk to her.”
Mac an Da’v brought her over to him.
“Is it true what the servant man said?” she asked.
“What did he say?” said Mongan.
“He said you wanted to talk to me.”
“It is true,” said Mongan.
“This is a wonderful hour and a glorious minute,” said the hag, “for this is the first time in sixty years that any one wanted to talk to me. Talk on now,” said she, “and I’ll listen to you if I can remember how to do it. Talk gently,” said she, “the way you won’t disturb the animals, for they are all sick.”
“They are sick indeed,” said mac an Da’v pityingly.
“The cat has a sore tail,” said she, “by reason of sitting too close to a part of the hob that was hot. The dog has a toothache, the horse has a pain in her stomach, and the hen has the pip.”
“Ah, it’s a sad world,” said mac an Da’v.
“There you are!” said the hag.
“Tell me,” Mongan commenced, “if you got a wish, what it is you would wish for?”
The hag took the cat off her shoulder and gave it to mac an Da’v.
“Hold that for me while I think,” said she.
“Would you like to be a lovely young girl?” asked Mongan.
“I’d sooner be that than a skinned eel,” said she.
“And would you like to marry me or the King of Leinster?” “I’d like to marry either of you, or both of you, or whichever of you came first.”
“Very well,” said Mongan, “you shall have your wish.”
He touched her with his finger, and the instant he touched her all dilapidation and wryness and age went from her, and she became so beautiful that one dared scarcely look on her, and so young that she seemed but sixteen years of age.
“You are not the Hag of the Mill any longer,” said Mongan, “you are Ivell of the Shining Cheeks, daughter of the King of Munster.”
He touched the dog too, and it became a little silky lapdog that could nestle in your palm. Then he changed the old mare into a
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