Irish Fairy Tales, James Stephens [first color ebook reader TXT] 📗

me what is hidden in the bags that are lying across the back of my cow.”

But no magician could tell it, nor did they try to.

“Questions are not answered thus,” they said. “There is formulae, and the calling up of spirits, and lengthy complicated preparations in our art.”

“I am not badly learned in these arts,” said the woman, “and I say that if you slay this cow the effect will be the same as if you had killed the boy.”

“We would prefer to kill a cow or a thousand cows rather than harm this young prince,” said Conn, “but if we spare the boy will these evils return?”

“They will not be banished until you have banished their cause.”

“And what is their cause?”

“Becuma is the cause, and she must be banished.”

“If you must tell me what to do,” said Conn, “tell me at least to do something that I can do.”

“I will tell you certainly. You can keep Becuma and your ills as long as you want to. It does not matter to me. Come, my son,” she said to Segda, for it was Segda’s mother who had come to save him; and then that sinless queen and her son went back to their home of enchantment, leaving the king and Fionn and the magicians and nobles of Ireland astonished and ashamed.

VIII

There are good and evil people in this and in every other world, and the person who goes hence will go to the good or the evil that is native to him, while those who return come as surely to their due. The trouble which had fallen on Becuma did not leave her repentant, and the sweet lady began to do wrong as instantly and innocently as a flower begins to grow. It was she who was responsible for the ills which had come on Ireland, and we may wonder why she brought these plagues and droughts to what was now her own country.

Under all wrongdoing lies personal vanity or the feeling that we are endowed and privileged beyond our fellows. It is probable that, however courageously she had accepted fate, Becuma had been sharply stricken in her pride; in the sense of personal strength, aloofness, and identity, in which the mind likens itself to god and will resist every domination but its own. She had been punished, that is, she had submitted to control, and her sense of freedom, of privilege, of very being, was outraged. The mind flinches even from the control of natural law, and how much more from the despotism of its own separated likenesses, for if another can control me that other has usurped me, has become me, and how terribly I seem diminished by the seeming addition!

This sense of separateness is vanity, and is the bed of all wrongdoing. For we are not freedom, we are control, and we must submit to our own function ere we can exercise it. Even unconsciously we accept the rights of others to all that we have, and if we will not share our good with them, it is because we cannot, having none; but we will yet give what we have, although that be evil. To insist on other people sharing in our personal torment is the first step towards insisting that they shall share in our joy, as we shall insist when we get it.

Becuma considered that if she must suffer all else she met should suffer also. She raged, therefore, against Ireland, and in particular she raged against young Art, her husband’s son, and she left undone nothing that could afflict Ireland or the prince. She may have felt that she could not make them suffer, and that is a maddening thought to any woman. Or perhaps she had really desired the son instead of the father, and her thwarted desire had perpetuated itself as hate. But it is true that Art regarded his mother’s successor with intense dislike, and it is true that she actively returned it.

One day Becuma came on the lawn before the palace, and seeing that Art was at chess with Cromdes she walked to the table on which the match was being played and for some time regarded the game. But the young prince did not take any notice of her while she stood by the board, for he knew that this girl was the enemy of Ireland, and he could not bring himself even to look at her.

Becuma, looking down on his beautiful head, smiled as much in rage as in disdain.

“O son of a king,” said she, “I demand a game with you for stakes.”

Art then raised his head and stood up courteously, but he did not look at her.

“Whatever the queen demands I will do,” said he.

“Am I not your mother also?” she replied mockingly, as she took the seat which the chief magician leaped from.

The game was set then, and her play was so skilful that Art was hard put to counter her moves. But at a point of the game Becuma grew thoughtful, and, as by a lapse of memory, she made a move which gave the victory to her opponent. But she had intended that. She sat then, biting on her lip with her white small teeth and staring angrily at Art.

“What do you demand from me?” she asked.

“I bind you to eat no food in Ireland until you find the wand of Curoi, son of Darè.”

Becuma then put a cloak about her and she went from Tara northward and eastward until she came to the dewy, sparkling Brugh of Angus mac an Og in Ulster, but she was not admitted there. She went thence to the Shí ruled over by Eogabal, and although this lord would not admit her, his daughter Ainè, who was her foster-sister, let her into Faery. She made inquiries and was informed where the dun of Curoi mac Darè was, and when she had received this intelligence she set out for Sliev Mis. By what