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

if there was but a

child of us sitting before them, they would not think that too small a

cause for killing him." "By my word," said Lugh, "there is a great

desire coming on me to kill themselves." "That is a thing would bring

harm on us," said the king, "for we would meet our own death and

destruction through it." "It is too long a time you have been under this

oppression," said Lugh. And with that he started up and made an attack

on the Fomor, killing and wounding them, till he had made an end of

eight nines of them, but he let the last nine go under the protection of

Nuada the king. "And I would kill you along with the others," he said,

"but I would sooner see you go with messages to your own country than my

own people, for fear they might get any ill-treatment."

 

So the nine went back then till they came to Lochlann, where the men of

the Fomor were, and they told them the story from beginning to end, and

how a young well-featured lad had come into Ireland and had killed all

the tax-gatherers but themselves, "and it is the reason he let us off,"

they said, "that we might tell you the story ourselves."

 

"Do you know who is the young man?" said Balor of the Evil Eye then.

 

"I know well," said Ceithlenn, his wife; "he is the son of your

daughter and mine. And it was foretold," she said, "that from the time

he would come into Ireland, we would never have power there again for

ever."

 

Then the chief men of the Fomor went into a council, Eab, son of Neid,

and Seanchab, grandson of Neid, and Sital Salmhor, and Liath, son of

Lobais, and the nine poets of the Fomor that had learning and the gift

of foreknowledge, and Lobais the Druid, and Balor himself and his twelve

white-mouthed sons, and Ceithlenn of the Crooked Teeth, his queen.

 

And it was just at that time Bres and his father Elathan were come to

ask help of the Fomor, and Bres said: "I myself will go to Ireland, and

seven great battalions of the Riders of the Fomor along with me, and I

will give battle to this Ildanach, this master of all arts, and I will

strike his head off and bring it here to you, to the green of Berbhe."

"It would be a fitting thing for you to do," said they all. "Let my

ships be made ready for me," said Bres, "and let food and provisions be

put in them."

 

So they made no delay, but went and got the ships ready, and they put

plenty of food and drink in them, and the two swift Luaths were sent out

to gather the army to Bres. And when they were all gathered, they made

ready their armour and their weapons, and they set out for Ireland.

 

And Balor the king followed them to the harbour, and he said: "Give

battle to that Ildanach, and strike off his head; and tie that island

that is called Ireland to the back of your ships, and let the destroying

water take its place, and put it on the north side of Lochlann, and not

one of the Men of Dea will follow it there to the end of life and time."

 

Then they pushed out their ships and put up their painted sails, and

went out from the harbour on the untilled country, on the ridges of the

wide-lying sea, and they never turned from their course till they came

to the harbour of Eas Dara. And from that they sent out an army through

West Connacht and destroyed it altogether, through and through. And the

King of Connacht at that time was Bodb Dearg, son of the Dagda.

 

CHAPTER II. (THE SONS OF TUIREANN)

And Lugh of the Long Hand was at that time at Teamhair with the King of

Ireland, and it was showed to him that the Fomor were after landing at

Eas Dara. And when he knew that, he made ready Manannan's horse, the

Aonbharr, at the time of the battle of the day and night; and he went

where Nuada the king was, and told him how the Fomor had landed at Eas

Dara and had spoiled Bodb Dearg's country; "and it is what I want," he

said, "to get help from you to give battle to them." But Nuada was not

minded to avenge the destruction that was done on Bodb Dearg and not on

himself, and Lugh was not well pleased with his answer, and he went

riding out of Teamhair westward. And presently he saw three armed men

coming towards him, his own father Cian, with his brothers Cu and

Ceithen, that were the three sons of Cainte, and they saluted him. "What

is the cause of your early rising?" they said. "It is good cause I have

for it," said Lugh, "for the Fomor are come into Ireland and have robbed

Bodb Dearg; and what help will you give me against them?" he said.

 

"Each one of us will keep off a hundred from you in the battle," said

they. "That is a good help," said Lugh; "but there is a help I would

sooner have from you than that: to gather the Riders of the Sidhe to me

from every place where they are."

 

So Cu and Ceithen went towards the south, and Cian set out northward,

and he did not stop till he reached the Plain of Muirthemne. And as he

was going across the plain he saw three armed men before him, that were

the three sons of Tuireann, son of Ogma. And it is the way it was

between the three sons of Tuireann and the three sons of Cainte, they

were in hatred and enmity towards one another, so that whenever they met

there was sure to be fighting among them.

 

Then Cian said: "If my two brothers had been here it is a brave fight we

would make; but since they are not, it is best for me to fall back."

Then he saw a great herd of pigs near him, and he struck himself with a

Druid rod that put on him the shape of a pig of the herd, and he began

rooting up the ground like the rest.

 

Then Brian, one of the sons of Tuireann, said to his brothers: "Did you

see that armed man that was walking the plain a while ago?" "We did see

him," said they. "Do you know what was it took him away?" said Brian.

"We do not know that," said they. "It is a pity you not to be keeping a

better watch over the plains of the open country in time of war," said

Brian; "and I know well what happened him, for he struck himself with

his Druid rod into the shape of a pig of these pigs, and he is rooting

up the ground now like any one of them; and whoever he is, he is no

friend to us." "That is bad for us," said the other two, "for the pigs

belong to some one of the Tuatha de Danaan, and even if we kill them

all, the Druid pig might chance to escape us in the end."

 

"It is badly you got your learning in the city of learning," said Brian,

"when you cannot tell an enchanted beast from a natural beast." And

while he was saying that, he struck his two brothers with his Druid

rod, and he turned them into two thin, fast hounds, and they began to

yelp sharply on the track of the enchanted pig.

 

And it was not long before the pig fell out from among the others, and

not one of the others made away but only itself, and it made for a wood,

and at the edge of the wood Brian gave a cast of his spear that went

through its body. And the pig cried out, and it said: "It is a bad thing

you have done to have made a cast at me when you knew me." "It seems to

me you have the talk of a man," said Brian. "I was a man indeed," said

he; "I am Cian, son of Cainte, and give me your protection now." "I

swear by the gods of the air," said Brian, "that if the life came back

seven times to you, I would take it from you every time." "If that is

so," said Cian, "give me one request: let me go into my own shape

again." "We will do that," said Brian, "for it is easier to me to kill a

man than a pig."

 

So Cian took his own shape then, and he said: "Give me mercy now." "We

will not give it," said Brian. "Well, I have got the better of you for

all that," said Cian; "for if it was in the shape of a pig you had killed

me there would only be the blood money for a pig on me; but as it is in

my own shape you will kill me, there never was and never will be any

person killed for whose sake a heavier fine will be paid than for

myself. And the arms I am killed with," he said, "it is they will tell

the deed to my son."

 

"It is not with weapons you will be killed, but with the stones lying on

the ground," said Brian. And with that they pelted him with stones,

fiercely and roughly, till all that was left of him was a poor,

miserable, broken heap; and they buried him the depth of a man's body in

the earth, and the earth would not receive that murder from them, but

cast it up again. Brian said it should go into the earth again, and they

put it in the second time, and the second time the earth would not take

And six times the sons of Tuireann buried the body, and six times it

was cast up again; but the seventh time it was put underground the earth

kept it. And then they went on to join Lugh of the Long Hand for the

battle.

 

Now as to Lugh; upon parting with his father he went forward from

Teamhair westward, to the hills that were called afterwards Gairech and

Ilgairech, and to the ford of the Shannon that is now called Athluain,

and to Bearna nah-Eadargana, the Gap of Separation, and over Magh Luirg,

the Plain of Following, and to Corr Slieve na Seaghsa, the Round

Mountain of the Poet's Spring, and to the head of Sean-Slieve, and

through the place of the bright-faced Corann, and from that to Magh Mor

an Aonaigh, the Great Plain of the Fair, where the Fomor were, and the

spoils of Connacht with them.

 

It is then Bres, son of Elathan, rose up and said: "It is a wonder to me

the sun to be rising in the west to-day, and it rising in the east every

other day." "It would be better for us it to be the sun," said the

Druids. "What else is it?" said he. "It is the shining of the face of

Lugh, son of Ethlinn," said they.

 

Lugh came up to them then and saluted them. "Why do you come like a

friend to us?" said they. "There is good cause for that," he said, "for

there is but one half of me of the Tuatha de Danaan, and the other half

of yourselves. And give me back now the milch cows of the men of

Ireland," he said. "May early good luck not come to you till you get

either a dry or a milch cow here," said a man of them, and anger on him.

 

But Lugh stopped near them for three days and three nights, and at the

end of that time the Riders of the Sidhe came to him. And Bodb Dearg,

son of the Dagda, came with twenty-nine