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

"our three

leaders to be bound this way, and we not able to loose them." "What way

did that young man go from you?" said the woman. "It was late last

night he left us," they said, "and we do not know where is he gone." "I

give you my word," she said, "it was Diarmuid himself that was in it;

and take your hounds now and lay them on his track, and I will send Finn

and the Fianna of Ireland to you."

 

They left a woman-Druid then attending on the three champions that were

bound, and they brought their three hounds out of the ship and laid them

on Diarmuid's track, and followed them till they came to the opening of

the cave, and they went into the far part of it and found the beds where

Diarmuid and Crania had slept. Then they went on westward till they came

to the Carrthach river, and to the bog of Finnliath, and so on to the

great Slieve Luachra.

 

But Diarmuid did not know they were after him till he got sight of them

with their banners of soft silk and their three wicked hounds in the

front of the troop and three strong champions holding them in chains.

And when he saw them coming like that he was filled with great hatred of

them.

 

There was one of them had a well-coloured green cloak on him, and he

came out far beyond the others, and Grania gave the knife back to

Diarmuid. "I think you have not much love for that young man of the

green cloak, Grania," said Diarmuid. "I have not indeed," said Grania;

"and it would be better if I had never given love to any man at all to

this day." Diarmuid put the knife in the sheath then, and went on; and

Muadhan put Grania on his back and carried her on into the mountain.

 

It was not long till a hound of the three hounds was loosed after

Diarmuid, and Muadhan said to him to follow Grania, and he himself would

check the hound. Then Muadhan turned back, and he took a whelp out of

his belt, and put it on the flat of his hand. And when the whelp saw the

hound rushing towards him, and its jaws open, he rose up and made a leap

from Muadhan's hand into the throat of the hound, and came out of its

side, bringing the heart with it, and he leaped back again to Muadhan's

hand, and left the hound dead after him.

 

Muadhan went on then after Diarmuid and Grania, and he took up Grania

again and carried her a bit of the way into the mountain. Then another

hound was loosened after them, and Diarmuid said to Muadhan: "I often

heard there is nothing can stand against weapons of Druid wounding, and

the throat of no beast can be made safe from them. And will you stand

now," he said, "till I put the Gae Dearg, the Red Spear, through that

hound."

 

Then Muadhan and Grania stopped to see the cast. And Diarmuid made a

cast at the hound, and the spear went through its body and brought out

its bowels; and he took up the spear again, and they went forward.

 

It was not long after that the third hound was loosed. And Grania said

then: "This is the one is fiercest of them, and there is great fear on

me, and mind yourself now, Diarmuid."

 

It was not long till the hound overtook them, and the place he overtook

them was Lic Dhubhain, the flag-stone of Dubhan, on Slieve Luachra. He

rose with a light leap over Diarmuid, as if he had a mind to seize on

Grania, but Diarmuid took him by the two hind legs, and struck a blow of

his carcase against the side of the rock was nearest, till he had let

out his brains through the openings of his head and of his ears. And

then Diarmuid took up his arms and his battle clothes, and put his

narrow-topped finger into the silken string of the Gae Dearg, and he

made a good cast at the young man of the green cloak that was at the

head of the troop that killed him. Then he made another cast at the

second man and killed him, and the third man in the same way. And as it

is not the custom to stand after leaders are fallen, the strangers when

they saw what had happened took to flight.

 

And Diarmuid followed after them, killing and scattering, so that unless

any man of them got away over the forests, or into the green earth, or

under the waters, there was not a man or messenger of them left to tell

the news, but only the Woman-messenger of the Black Mountain, that kept

moving around about when Diarmuid was putting down the strangers.

 

And it was not long till Finn saw her coming towards him where he was,

her legs failing, and her tongue muttering, and her eyes drooping, and

he asked news of her. "It is very bad news I have to tell you," she

said; "and it is what I think, that it is a person without a lord I am."

Then she told Finn the whole story from beginning to end, of the

destruction Diarmuid had done, and how the three deadly hounds had

fallen by him. "And it is hardly I myself got away," she said. "What

place did the grandson of Duibhne go to?" said Finn. "I do not know

that," she said.

 

And when Finn heard of the Kings of the Green Champions that were bound

by Diarmuid, he called his men to him, and they went by every short way

and every straight path till they reached the hill, and it was torment

to the heart of Finn to see the way they were. Then he said: "Oisin," he

said, "loosen those three kings for me." "I will not loosen them," said

Oisin, "for Diarmuid put bonds on me not to loosen any man he would

bind." "Loosen them, Osgar," said Finn then. "I give my word," said

Osgar, "it is more bonds I would wish to put on them sooner than to

loosen them." Neither would Conan help them, or Lugaidh's Son. And any

way, they were not long talking about it till the three kings died under

the hardness of the bonds that were on them.

 

Then Finn made three wide-sodded graves for them, and a flag-stone was

put over them, and another stone raised over that again, and their names

were written in branching Ogham, and it is tired and heavy-hearted Finn

was after that; and he and his people went back to Almhuin of Leinster.

 

CHAPTER IV. (THE WOOD OF DUBHROS)

And as to Diarmuid and Grania and Muadhan, they went on through Ui

Chonaill Gabhra, and left-hand ways to Ros-da-Shoileach, and Diarmuid

killed a wild deer that night, and they had their fill of meat and of

pure water, and they slept till the morning of the morrow. And Muadhan

rose up early, and spoke to Diarmuid, and it is what he said, that he

himself was going away. "It is not right for you to do that," said

Diarmuid, "for everything I promised you I fulfilled it, without any

dispute."

 

But he could not hinder him, and Muadhan said farewell to them and left

them there and then, and it is sorrowful and downhearted Diarmuid and

Grania were after him.

 

After that they travelled on straight to the north, to Slieve Echtge,

and from that to the hundred of Ui Fiachrach; and when they got there

Grania was tired out, but she took courage and went on walking beside

Diarmuid till they came to the wood of Dubhros.

 

Now, there was a wonderful quicken-tree in that wood, and the way it

came to be there is this:

 

There rose a dispute one time between two women of the Tuatha de Danaan,

Aine and Aoife, daughters of Manannan, son of Lir, for Aoife had given

her love to Lugaidh's Son, and Aine had given her love to a man of her

own race, and each of them said her own man was a better hurler than the

other. And it came from that dispute that there was a great hurling

match settled between the Men of Dea and the Fianna of Ireland, and the

place it was to be played was on a beautiful plain near Loch Lein.

 

They all came together there, and the highest men and the most daring of

the Tuatha de Danaan were there, the three Garbhs of Slieve Mis, and the

three Mases of Slieve Luachra, and the three yellow-haired Murchadhs,

and the three Eochaidhs of Aine, and the three Fionns of the White

House, and the three Sgals of Brugh na Boinne, and the three Ronans of

Ath na Riogh, and the Suirgheach Suairc, the Pleasant Wooer from Lionan,

and the Man of Sweet Speech from the Boinn, and Ilbrec, the

Many-Coloured, son of Manannan, and Neamhanach, son of Angus Og, and

Bodb Dearg, son of the Dagda, and Manannan, son of Lir.

 

They themselves and the Fianna were playing the match through the length

of three days and three nights, from Leamhain to the valley of the

Fleisg, that is called the Crooked Valley of the Fianna, and neither of

them winning a goal. And when the Tuatha de Danaan that were watching

the game on each side of Leamhain saw it was so hard for their hurlers

to win a goal against the Fianna, they thought it as well to go away

again without playing out the game.

 

Now the provision the Men of Dea had brought with them from the Land of

Promise was crimson nuts, and apples, and sweet-smelling rowan berries.

And as they were passing through the district of Ui Fiachrach by the

Muaidh, a berry of the rowan berries fell from them, and a tree grew up

from it. And there was virtue in its berries, and no sickness or disease

would ever come on any person that would eat them, and those that would

eat them would feel the liveliness of wine and the satisfaction of mead

in them, and any old person of a hundred years that would eat them would

go back to be young again, and any young girl that would eat them would

grow to be a flower of beauty.

 

And it happened one time after the tree was grown, there were messengers

of the Tuatha de Danaan going through the wood of Dubhros. And they

heard a great noise of birds and of bees, and they went where the noise

was, and they saw the beautiful Druid tree. They went back then and told

what they had seen, and all the chief men of the Tuatha de Danaan when

they heard it knew the tree must have grown from a berry of the Land of

the Ever-Living Living Ones. And they enquired among all their people,

till they knew it was a young man of them, that was a musician, had

dropped the berry.

 

And it is what they agreed, to send him in search of a man of Lochlann

that would guard the tree by day and sleep in it by night. And the women

of the Sidhe were very downhearted to see him going from them, for there

was no harper could play half so sweetly on his harp as he could play on

an ivy leaf.

 

He went on then till he came to Lochlann, and he sat down on a bank and

sleep came on him. And he slept till the rising of the sun on the

morrow; and when he awoke he saw a very big man coming towards him, that

asked him who was he. "I am a messenger from the Men of Dea," he said;

"and I am come looking for some very strong man that would be willing to

guard a Druid tree that is in the wood of Dubhros. And here are