Gods and Fighting Men, Lady I. A Gregory [best e books to read TXT] 📗

low in graves, and many comely

men fell there in the stall of death. Pride and shame were there side by

side, and hardness and red anger, and there was red blood on the white

skin of young fighting men. And the dashing of spear against shield, and

sword against sword, and the shouting of the fighters, and the whistling

of casting spears and the rattling of scabbards was like harsh thunder

through the battle. And many slipped in the blood that was under their

feet, and they fell, striking their heads one against another; and the

river carried away bodies of friends and enemies together.

 

Then Lugh and Balor met in the battle, and Lugh called out reproaches to

him; and there was anger on Balor, and he said to the men that were with

him: "Lift up my eyelid till I see this chatterer that is talking to

me." Then they raised Balor's eyelid, but Lugh made a cast of his red

spear at him, that brought the eye out through the back of his head, so

that it was towards his own army it fell, and three times nine of the

Fomor died when they looked at it. And if Lugh had not put out that eye

when he did, the whole of Ireland would have been burned in one flash.

And after this, Lugh struck his head off.

 

And as for Indech, son of De Domnann, he fell and was crushed in the

battle, and blood burst from his mouth, and he called out for Leat Glas,

his poet, as he lay there, but he was not able to help him. And then the

Morrigu came into the battle, and she was heartening the Tuatha de

Danaan to fight the battle well; and, as she had promised the Dagda, she

took the full of her two hands of Indech's blood, and gave it to the

armies that were waiting at the ford of Unius; and it was called the

Ford of Destruction from that day.

 

And after that it was not a battle any more, but a rout, and the Fomor

were beaten back to the sea. And Lugh and his comrades were following

them, and they came up with Bres, son of Elathan, and no guard with him,

and he said: "It is better for you to spare my life than to kill me. And

if you spare me now," he said, "the cows of Ireland will never go dry."

"I will ask an advice about that from our wise men," said Lugh. So he

told Maeltine Mor-Brethach, of the Great Judgments, what Bres was after

saying. But Maeltine said: "Do not spare him for that, for he has no

power over their offspring, though he has power so long as they are

living."

 

Then Bres said: "If you spare me, the men of Ireland will reap a harvest

of corn every quarter." But Maeltine said: "The spring is for ploughing

and sowing, and the beginning of summer for the strength of corn, and

the beginning of autumn for its ripeness, and the winter for using it."

 

"That does not save you," said Lugh then to Bres. But then to make an

excuse for sparing him, Lugh said: "Tell us what is the best way for the

men of Ireland to plough and to sow and to reap."

 

"Let their ploughing be on a Tuesday, and their casting seed into the

field on a Tuesday, and their reaping on a Tuesday," said Bres. So Lugh

said that would do, and he let him go free after that.

 

It was in this battle Ogma found Orna, the sword of Tethra, a king of

the Fomor, and he took it from its sheath and cleaned it. And when the

sword was taken out of the sheath, it told all the deeds that had been

done by it, for there used to be that power in swords.

 

And Lugh and the Dagda and Ogma followed after the Fomor, for they had

brought away the Dagda's harp with them, that was called Uaitne. And

they came to a feasting-house, and in it they found Bres and his father

Elathan, and there was the harp hanging on the wall. And it was in that

harp the Dagda had bound the music, so that it would not sound till he

would call to it. And sometimes it was called Dur-da-Bla, the Oak of Two

Blossoms, and sometimes Coir-cethar-chuin, the Four-Angled Music.

 

And when he saw it hanging on the wall it is what he said: "Come summer,

come winter, from the mouth of harps and bags and pipes." Then the harp

sprang from the wall, and came to the Dagda, and it killed nine men on

its way.

 

And then he played for them the three things harpers understand, the

sleepy tune, and the laughing tune, and the crying tune. And when he

played the crying tune, their tearful women cried, and then he played

the laughing tune, till their women and children laughed; and then he

played the sleepy tune, and all the hosts fell asleep. And through that

sleep the three went away through the Fomor that would have been glad to

harm them. And when all was over, the Dagda brought out the heifer he

had got as wages from Bres at the time he was making his dun. And she

called to her calf, and at the sound of her call all the cattle of

Ireland the Fomor had brought away as tribute, were back in their fields

again.

 

And Ce, the Druid of Nuada of the Silver Hand, was wounded in the

battle, and he went southward till he came to Carn Corrslebe. And there

he sat down to rest, tired with his wounds and with the fear that was on

him, and the journey. And he saw a smooth plain before him, and it full

of flowers, and a great desire came on him to reach to that plain, and

he went on till he came to it, and there he died. And when his grave was

made there, a lake burst out over it and over the whole plain, and it

was given the name of Loch Ce. And there were but four men of the Fomor

left in Ireland after the battle, and they used to be going through the

country, spoiling corn and milk and fruit, and whatever came from the

sea, till they were driven out one Samhain night by the Morrigu and by

Angus Og, that the Fomor might never be over Ireland again.

 

And after the battle was won, and the bodies were cleared away, the

Morrigu gave out the news of the great victory to the hosts and to the

royal heights of Ireland and to its chief rivers and its invers, and it

is what she said: "Peace up to the skies, the skies down to earth, the

earth under the skies; strength to every one."

 

And as to the number of men that fell in the battle, it will not be

known till we number the stars of the sky, or flakes of snow, or the dew

on the grass, or grass under the feet of cattle, or the horses of the

Son of Lir in a stormy sea.

 

And Lugh was made king over the Men of Dea then, and it was at Nas he

had his court.

 

And while he was king, his foster-mother Taillte, daughter of Magh Mor,

the Great Plain, died. And before her death she bade her husband Duach

the Dark, he that built the Fort of the Hostages in Teamhair, to clear

away the wood of Cuan, the way there could be a gathering of the people

around her grave. So he called to the men of Ireland to cut down the

wood with their wide-bladed knives and bill-hooks and hatchets, and

within a month the whole wood was cut down.

 

And Lugh buried her in the plain of Midhe, and raised a mound over her,

that is to be seen to this day. And he ordered fires to be kindled, and

keening to be made, and games and sports to be held in the summer of

every year out of respect to her. And the place they were held got its

name from her, that is Taillten.

 

And as to Lugh's own mother, that was tall beautiful Ethlinn, she came

to Teamhair after the battle of Magh Tuireadh, and he gave her in

marriage to Tadg, son of Nuada. And the children that were born to them

were Muirne, mother of Finn, the Head of the Fianna of Ireland, and

Tuiren, that was mother of Bran.

 

CHAPTER IV. (THE HIDDEN HOUSE OF LUGH)

And after Lugh had held the kingship for a long time, the Dagda was made

king in his place.

 

And Lugh went away out of Ireland, and some said he died at Uisnech, the

place where the five provinces meet, and the first place there was ever

a fire kindled in Ireland. It was by Mide, son of Brath, it was kindled,

for the sons of Nemed, and it was burning through six years, and it was

from that fire every chief fire was kindled in Ireland.

 

But Lugh was seen again in Ireland at the time Conchubar and the Men of

the Red Branch went following white birds southward to the Boinn at the

time of Cuchulain's birth. And it was he came and kept watch over

Cuchulain in his three days' sleep at the time of the War for the Bull

of Cuailgne.

 

And after that again he was seen by Conn of the Hundred Battles, and

this is the way that happened.

 

Conn was in Teamhair one time, and he went up in the early morning to

the Rath of the Kings at the rising of the sun, and his three Druids

with him, Maol and Bloc and Bhuice; and his three poets, Ethain and Corb

and Cesarn. And the reason he had for going up there with them every

day, was to look about on every side, the way if any men of the Sidhe

would come into Ireland they would not come unknown to him. And on this

day he chanced to stand upon a stone that was in the rath, and the stone

screamed under his feet, that it was heard all over Teamhair and as far

as Bregia.

 

Then Conn asked his chief Druid how the stone came there, and what it

screamed for. And the Druid said he would not answer that till the end

of fifty-three days. And at the end of that time, Conn asked him again,

and it is what the Druid said: "The Lia Fail is the name of the stone;

it is out of Falias it was brought, and it is in Teamhair it was set up,

and in Teamhair it will stay for ever. And as long as there is a king in

Teamhair it is here will be the gathering place for games, and if there

is no king to come to the last day of the gathering, there will be

hardness in that year. And when the stone screamed under your feet," he

said, "the number of the screams it gave was a foretelling of the number

of kings of your race that would come after you. But it is not I myself

will name them for you," he said.

 

And while they were in the same place, there came a great mist about

them and a darkness, so that they could not know what way they were

going, and they heard the noise of a rider coming towards them. "It

would be a great grief to us," said Conn, "to be brought away into a

strange country." Then the rider threw three spears at them, and every

one came faster than the other. "It is the wounding of a king indeed,"

said the Druids, "any one to cast at Conn of Teamhair."

 

The rider stopped casting his spears on that, and he came to them and

bade Conn welcome, and