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- Herausgeber: The O'Brien Press
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
This beautiful book visits twenty-eight richly atmospheric sites and tells the mythological stories associated with them. Woven into these landscapes are tales of love and betrayal, greed and courage, passion and revenge, featuring the famous characters of Celtic lore, such as Cú Chulainn, the children of Lír and Queen Maeve. The historical and archaeological facts and the folk traditions of each ancient site are explored. Some are famous, such as Tara and Newgrange; others are less well known but equally captivating such as the Béara Peninsula in Cork. In a world where many have lost touch with the land and their past, the legendary Irish landscape still survives and the stories are never quite over as long as there are people to tell them.
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Seitenzahl: 382
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013
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‘The hunger that we feel at the loss of contact with the natural world and its ancient stories is not a physical one, but a kind of spiritual and emotional starvation. Yet feeding this hunger may involve nothing more difficult than walking out into the landscape and looking at it with the eye of the imagination. The power of the human capacity to imagine, to see beyond, reaches us through century after century, and draws us again and again into the indivisible trinity of story, place and people. A landscape will survive as long as there are people to love it, and a story is never quite over as long as there are people to tell it.’
Legendary IRELAND
A Journey through Celtic Places and Myths
EITHNE MASSEY
This book is for my parents, William and Eileen Massey
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the Head of the Department of Irish Folklore, University College Dublin for permission to use material from IFC S 575: 172–356 in the section on Lough Muskry. Thanks are due also to the staff of the Department, the staff of the National Library, UCD Library and Dublin City Library Service for their assistance during the research for this project. The staff at O’Brien Press and, in particular, Susan Houlden have my gratitude for their support during the making of LegendaryIreland.
I would like to thank the following people for their hospitality: Frances Crickard, and Davy and Leon Mc Govan in Antrim; the Murphy family in Cork; the Poole family in Donegal and Maureen Massey and Johnnie Doyle in Kerry. Thanks are also due to those who accompanied us on various site visits: Maura Leahy, Catherine Groves, Conall Mac Riocard, and Maureen, William and Donal Massey. I would also like to thank all those unknown people who assisted us on our travels during the past year. We encountered nothing but kindness from Tory Island to Béara. A special thank you is due to Michael Lavelle, and Michael James Gaughan and crew, for getting us to Inis Glora when we thought the cause was lost.
Finally, I would like to thank my sister Fidelma Massey for her perceptive comments on the introduction, and indeed all my family and friends, who helped us out with everything from advice and encouragement to dog-minding during the time this book was written.
Picture Credits
The author and publisher would like to thank the following for permission to reproduce photographs: Dúchas The Heritage Service: p55; The Irish Image Collection: p22, 46, 134, 175, 185; Jacques Le Goff: pp2 (author and self photographs), 18, 84, 99, 112, 139, 146, 158, 191, 197, 203, 211; Peter Mulryan: p39; Pip Sides: pp1, 2–3 (background and self photographs), 6–7, 8, 31, 34, 62, 68, 77, 79, 91, 92–3, 105, 119, 126, 152, 169, 218.
The engravings reproduced in this book were taken from Hall’s Ireland vols I–III and Grose’s Antiquities, Vols I and II. The author and publisher have endeavoured to establish the origin of all images used, and they apologise if any name has been omitted.
Table of Contents
Statue of Cú Chulainn carrying the dead Ferdia, Ardee, County Louth.
Introduction
Ireland is an island of stories, some of which stretch back over many centuries and have their roots in a tradition that goes back even further. Many of these legends have close associations with particular places. This book retells just some of these legends and links them with the places from which they grew. Place and story are inextricably bound together, and so in the arrangement of the stories I have followed a geographical sequence rather than the traditional division into four cycles.
However, these traditional divisions do provide a useful context in which to gain a sense of the richness of the world of the Celtic legends. The first of these, the Mythological Cycle, tells the tale of the very origins of human life in Ireland. The stories deal with the successive invasions of the island, the great battles between the tribes of the Tuatha Dé Danann (the divine people of the goddess Danu) and the Fomorians, the demonic tribe who competed with them for control of Ireland. They also include the stories of the Sídh (those mythical beings which share human passions but not human sickness and age), such as that of the lovers Midhir and Étaín. The second cycle is the Ulster Cycle, which has at its heart the great epic of the Táin Bó Cuailgne, (The Cattle Raid of Cooley). The central story of the battle between Conchobhar, king of Ulster, and Maeve, queen of Connacht, encompasses the exploits of the great hero, Cú Chulainn. This cycle includes associated stories such as that of Deirdre. There has been much dispute between scholars about the period in which the Ulster Cycle is set. Conchobhar, King of Ulster, was said to have lived in the first century AD, and the nature of the society portrayed – warrior-like and tribal – seems close to our perceptions of the Celtic Iron Age. But Maeve, for example, has her roots as a goddess figure much further back in time, as do many of the figures woven into the tapestry of the stories. Similar uncertainty surrounds the stories of the Fianna Cycle. These stories deal with Fionn and his hunter companions, including the epic pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne. The Fianna Cycle stories take place in the natural world rather than in the courts of the kings, and the ‘fian’ actually existed as a group of young warriors who lived in small groups outside society. The stories are set at the time of Cormac Mac Airt, who was said to have reigned as high king in the third century AD, but the genesis of the figure of Fionn is probably far older than this. The fourth cycle, known as the Historical Cycle or the Cycle of the Kings, has its stories set in a later period, and some of the characters involved are based on actual historical characters living in a Christian society. However, here, as in all the legends, different worlds and different periods intertwine and historical characters drift in and out of the landscape of legend. It is impossible to establish a clear and consistent chronology, all the more so as the stories were written down many centuries after they had already had a long history as part of an oral tradition. This oral tradition indicates that while extant texts date from no earlier than the eleventh and twelfth centuries, many of the stories were originally written down up to four centuries earlier. The Ulster Cycle tales may have been written down as early as the seventh century and they portray a world that is undeniably pre-Christian in its ethos. Irish literature is the earliest vernacular literature in western Europe and, while scholars have argued over the historical existence of its heroes, and queens and kings, whatever human existence these characters may have had has long been concealed under the layers of a thousand re-tellings. I therefore make no apologies for telling these stories once again in contemporary language, or for the slight liberties I have taken with some of the texts. Every society retells its myths in a slightly different form and the texts we have of the tales are the products of a medieval Christian society where the stories were recorded by clerics who added their own gloss to the versions they wrote.
Having said this, I must add that the amount of loving effort the scribes put into producing and preserving these beautiful manuscripts indicates how important these stories were to their society. And through all their re-tellings the stories retain a distinctive sense of the sacredness of the natural, sensual world; they celebrate it in its entirety, from the joy of the blackbird’s song in spring to the cold beauty of winter. St Colmcille is said to have been more frightened by the sound of the axe in his beloved oak grove at Derry than of death and hell, and early Irish lyrics, many written by monks, include many lovely celebrations of the natural world. This close connection with the natural world and with the features of the landscape is also found in the poems of the Dindshenchas, the lore of places, which gives us the stories associated with the names of particular places and is a major source for Irish legends. Other important sources are the Leabhar Gabhála Éireann – commonly known as The Book of Invasions, and the Leabhar Laighean – The Book of Leinster, both compiled in the twelfth century, together with the Leabhar na hUidhre or The Book of the Dun Cow which is late eleventh or very early twelfth century. The original texts are inaccessible to all but Gaelic scholars but it is worth looking at some of the translations to get a sense of the complexity and beauty of the original language.
Although one might hope to be on firmer ground when dealing with the physical places and the man-made structures associated with the stories, in reality the situation is almost as confusing. Structures such as burial chambers and earthen mounds have been neatly classified by archaeologists, but as in the stories, scholarship can classify but cannot fully explain. Some of the sites visited in this book show evidence of settlement as far back as 5,000 years ago, dating from the New Stone Age or Neolithic period; while in other cases the structures are as late as the tenth century. A great many of the sites show evidence of layer upon layer of settlement, and in many cases there is no consensus as to what their purpose was. The only generalisations that can be made are that many of the structures mentioned in the book were used as tombs of one kind or another, or at least show evidence that burials were carried out there, while others seem to be places where the community gathered for defence or celebration.
The categories used by archaeologists divide the period of prehistory into various time spans. These divisions are based on cultural change rather than strictly on timescale, and sometimes vary from place to place – for example, one community might still be living a Neolithic (i.e. New Stone Age) existence while another nearby might be using bronze and have developed corresponding social structures.
Human occupation in Ireland dates from 9,000 years ago when people lived by hunting, fishing and gathering wild plants. This way of life was fairly widespread over Ireland at sites such as Mount Sandel, County Derry, and Ballyferriter, County Kerry. The hunter-gatherers left no traces of field monuments although a controversial date from a passage-grave in Carrowmore in Sligo suggests that they may have begun to build monuments for their dead by the end of the Mesolithic period.
It was the people of the Neolithic period who left their mark on the early landscape, as they settled down to till the land and rear cattle. The great walled fields in north Mayo known as the Céide Fields indicate how they organised their land and how important stock-rearing was to their society. They honoured their ancestors and the dead, and some of the most spectacular Megalithic tombs in Europe are the work of the early farming community in Ireland. There are about 1,450 of these monuments, and many of them became the focus of the lore of places and of the stories which are the subjects of this book. The most famous of them are at the Bend of the Boyne (Brú na Bóinne), now a UNESCO World Heritage site with the greatest collection of Neolithic art in Europe. The great cult centre at Tara, County Meath, also has its origins in Neolithic times and has continued for millennia to be a sacred place and a setting for stories of gods and kings. The hundreds of portal dolmens which dot the landscape and are often known locally as Leaba Dhiarmada agus Gráinne, are another legacy of the Stone Age builders.
The Bronze Age from c.2000BC brought to Ireland’s society the use of metal and the beginnings of trade. This was a warlike society, but also a very creative one, which crafted exquisite weapons and jewellery in gold and bronze. Such wealth needs to be defended, so structures such as the great hill-forts began to be built – Dún Aonghusa on the Aran Islands had its beginnings in this period. Standing stones and stone circles were ritual sites for these Bronze Age people and the first crannógs, or defensive lake-dwellings were built.
Around 300BC the first Celts arrived in Ireland and ushered in the Iron Age. Hillforts continued to be built and the coast was fringed with defensive promontory forts. Royal sites which also served as great cult and tribal centres were built and are still impressive today. These are at Tara in County Meath, Rathcroghan in County Roscommon, Dún Ailinne in County Kildare and Emhain Macha in County Armagh. They are the buildings of an aristocratic, tribal and violent society which has clear connections with the world portrayed in the Táin. This society is one where certain values are held in common, particularly courage, strength, generosity and faithfulness to one’s companions and to one’s tribe. It is a multi-theistic society, where heroes swear by the gods their people swear by. It is one where music, poetry and rich colours were held in high regard, as were feasting, fighting, racing, hunting and hospitality. In general, however, the attempts that have been made to match the evidence of archaeology or actual historical events with the accounts of the history of Ireland in the Leabhar Gabhála or the Táin have met with little success. There are no clear patterns and neat correspondences; rather, the world of the stories is a world that is larger inside than it is outside, and where time may be circular as well as linear, possessing the shape-shifting, mutable qualities of the Sídh.
Because of this, a mental shift is needed to enter fully the world of the legends. The stories are the myths created by people – many people over a very long time – from their history and geography, from time and place. Myths have been described as the dreams of the tribe and, like dreams, they take what happens in time – history – and transfigure it. In this world, events may be inconsistent, even contradictory. Because they do not fit into a rational world view, in the light of day their importance can be denied. However, to live without myth is to live without the healing power of dreams and the imagination.
At the same time, the raw material on which the imagination works is rooted in time, in a specific place and in the physical features of the landscape. In the stories, this natural world merges with the world of the collective imagination. So, the emotional power of the stories adds resonance to our encounters with place, and place itself can embody a story in a similar way to that in which the ancient Irish could see a hill as a goddess, or a lake as the embodiment of a god. The word sídh can thus mean both a magical being and the mound in the earth where that being lives. A further shift in perception is needed to accept that the same member of the Sídh can have his or her home in many different places – the guardian spirits are very local ones. Many of the people of Ireland, well into the twentieth century, believed that certain trees and wells and hills were under the guardianship of their local otherworld being and each of these enchanted places was protected accordingly. There was an element of fear as well as awe in this relationship, for at certain times, notably at Samhain (Halloween) and Bealtaine (May Eve), you could slip easily from one world into the other.
Celtic wheel of the year.
This feeling of respect for the natural landscape and the ancient remains it holds is under threat. WB Yeats once said that ‘places may begin to seem the only hieroglyphics that cannot be forgotten’, but in present-day Ireland, the letters are being erased from the landscape. Driving through Ireland during the first two years of the new millennium, there were times when it felt as if the entire countryside had been placed under siege – home-made posters protested against plans for super-dumps, or satellite masts on historic hills, or road-widening schemes set to destroy ancient sites. Nor was all the violence against the landscape on the part of outsiders; land improvement is a particular threat to earthen monuments such as raths and we saw more than one beautiful place hosting its own private super-dump with its antiquities defaced by mindless vandalism. In some cases too, attempts to ‘develop’ a site as a tourist attraction had in fact damaged it beyond repair. There is a definite irony in encouraging people to visit sites which at present owe much of their appeal to the fact that they are largely unvisited. However, unless there is a deep communal appreciation of the worth of the places in this book, we can no longer afford the luxury of assuming that they will resist destruction. Recent reports indicate that, in spite of the legislation introduced to protect these monuments, the rate of their destruction is increasing rather than decreasing. In order for these places to survive, those with power over the landscape – whether they are local landowners or government departments – need to become guardians as well as exploiters, and this relationship needs to be supported by the whole community. There is a Greek myth about a character called Erysicthon, the Earth-Tearer. Erysicthon cut down a grove of sacred trees in order to build his banqueting hall. Demeter, goddess of the fertile fields, at first warned him gently against this sacrilege, but when he threatened her with his axe, she cursed him. He became eternally hungry, and never satisfied. In his greed, he ate filth and became thinner and thinner, hungrier and hungrier, poisoned by his own waste.
The hunger that we feel at this loss of contact with the natural world and its ancient stories is not a physical one, but a kind of spiritual and emotional starvation. Yet feeding this hunger may involve nothing more difficult than walking out into the landscape and looking at it with the eye of the imagination. The power of the human capacity to imagine, to see beyond, reaches us through century after century, and draws us again and again into the indivisible trinity of story, place and people. A landscape will survive as long as there are people to love it, and a story is never quite over as long as there are people to tell it.
When the Sons of Míl, one of the early peoples of Ireland, came to its shores, they asked their poet Amairgen to quiet the waves which were preventing them from landing. The poem with which he did this is an invocation of Ireland:
I invoke the land of Ireland:
Much-coursed be the fertile sea,
Fertile be the fruit-strewn mountain,
Fruit-strewn be the showery wood,
Showery be the river of waterfalls,
Of waterfalls be the lake of deep pools,
Deep-pooled be the hill-top well,
A well of tribes be the assembly,
An assembly of kings be Tara,
Tara be the hill of the tribes,
The tribes of the sons of Míl,
Of Míl the ships, the barks,
Let the lofty bark be Ireland,
Lofty Ireland, darkly sung …
I invoke the land of Ireland.
From Ancient Irish Tales, Cross and Slover
LEINSTER
WH Bartlett’s nineteenth-century engraving depicting the ‘Head of Glenmalure’, County Wicklow.
Aideen’s tomb, a portal tomb in the grounds of Howth Castle.
Howth Head, Dublin
BEANN ÉADAIR
Despite its proximity to Dublin, Howth Head retains its sense of being a place apart, particularly if you choose the time of your visit carefully. The best time to visit Howth is on a weekday when the weather is dull and the place is not full of crowds of people trying to get away from the city. This rocky peninsula, once an island, is steeped in history and legend. The original name for the peninsula, Beann Éadair, ‘the Peak of Étar’, is said to come from the name of the great warrior, Étar, who died for the love of Áine, the goddess of Knockainey. Diarmaid and Gráinne came here, fleeing from Fionn, and Deirdre and the sons of Usna rested here during their flight from the jealous king Conchobhar.
Howth is an attractive village and the harbour still functions as a fishing port, although these days you are more likely to meet a golfer than a fisherman as you make your way through its streets. However, to find the real Howth, leave the manicured lawns and expensive restaurants behind you and take one of the many walks by the cliffs or up into the rocky hills. The sites mentioned here are only focal points for a district which has the potential for hours of exploration.
One major site is that of Aideen’s Tomb. This is a portal tomb, situated in the grounds of Howth Castle, the traditional home of the St Lawrence family and now the site of the Deerpark Hotel. The tomb is in the forested area to the right of the hotel and easily accessible from the edge of the golf course. This wilderness is particularly beautiful during late May and early June when the rhododendrons and the azaleas are in bloom. The forest on the hilly land behind is worth a visit in its own right, and those who do not mind a scramble can follow a trail to the top of the hills; from the top there are magnificent views. Tradition has it that there is a cave on the hill where Diarmuid and Gráinne slept during their travels.
The tomb itself is a huge structure, partially collapsed, with one of the largest capstones in Ireland, estimated to weigh 90 tonnes (1,771 hundredweight). Portal tombs in Ireland are among the very earliest of Megalithic remains, many dating from before 3000BC. Twisted trees and ferns grow around the tomb, lichen covers the stones, and children climb through it, fascinated by something at once so obviously man-made and at the same time on a scale massive enough to seem the work of giants. Legend tells us that Aideen, or Étaín Fholtfhinn, was a beautiful princess of the Sídh, a famous runner who was also the lover and later the wife of Oscar, grandson of Fionn. When Oscar was killed in battle, Aideen died from grief at his loss. Her home had been the sídh of Beann Éadair, and this was where she was taken to be buried. Other traditions state that this was the tomb of Crimthan, a king of the first century AD, and others still that the tomb is that of Étar himself. Whatever the truth of the legends, the tomb in the forest remains a potent, if silent, guardian of Howth’s mysterious past.
Howth was a place of many battles, and the promontory fort of Dún Griffin, (also traditionally associated with Crimthan) which surrounds the Baily Lighthouse, shows how important this site was as a defence against invasion. It is generally accepted that such forts, found all around the coast of Ireland, were built for defence against invasion by sea. They may also have been used as ceremonial centres for the gathering of the tribes for fairs or religious purposes. To reach the fort, take the trail leading down from the left of the car park on the summit. Within moments you will see the lighthouse below you. The trail leads through gorse and brambles, ferns and heather, and in early summer it is full of wild garlic. It goes down steeply to the small promontory where the lighthouse stands. Although there is no entry allowed to the grounds of the lighthouse and it is not easy to distinguish the original ditches and ramparts of the fort, it is obvious that this was an ideal defensive site. Sea and high cliffs surround it on three sides, and on the fourth, a narrow neck of rock connects it to the land. To the south is Dublin Bay and the mountains; to the north and east, nothing but sea.
Find a sheltered spot and look down steep slopes covered in sea-pinks to the twisted rocks and green water. There will be no sound but the waves lapping on the pale grey shingle far below, and the cry of the sea birds. The hectic city of Dublin will seem like another world.
Howth is a place of both escape and defence, of the beginning of exile and of coming home, and many of the tales associated with it mirror these themes of the journey outwards and the return. Imagine the warriors watching here, guarding their people from attack from the unknown lands beyond the horizon. Or think of a solitary king who once stood here, listening to the birds crying and watching in astonishment as a figure came towards him over the sea, bringing death and famine in her wake …
BÉCUMA OF THE FAIR SKIN
The Baily Lighthouse, Howth Head.
The High King of Ireland, Conn of the Hundred Battles, stood on a pebbly beach at Beann Éadair, and looked to the sea for comfort. It was a bright morning and the waves danced onto the seashore, but Conn was as weary and heartsick as it is possible for a man to be. For despite his wealth, his power, and all his prowess in battle, and the great prosperity and peace that had come to the land under his rulership, he had been unable to defeat the greatest enemy of all. Death had come and taken his beloved wife, Eithne, away, and without her he felt lost and dejected, a man wandering in a mist. He had left the feasts of Tara and had come to be alone with his thoughts, looking out over the sea where his son, Connla, had been taken away by a beautiful woman of the Sídh many years before. At the time, he had wept, but his wife had consoled him, saying: ‘Yes, it is hard to lose a child to the land of the Sídh; but look you, we have yet one son, Art the Lone One, who is as clever and brave and good as ever a child could be, and likely to be a great king when you and I are gone.’
Howth Head and Dublin Bay.
However, now that his wife too had left him, Conn found no comfort in his son’s company. Art reminded him too much that strength was with youth and that he himself was no longer young; that there were to be no more great battles and marvellous adventures in love and war. His skills now were those of an old man – diplomacy and wiliness. Conn looked eastwards into the rising sun, as if it could bring him salvation with the daybreak. He thought of his wife’s wise words and of her even temper that had saved him from many a hasty action; and he thought, most painfully of all, of her arms around him in their bed, and her small feet wrapping themselves around his legs for warmth during the cold nights of winter. The king blinked through his tears and rubbed his eyes. Coming towards him over the silver waves was a coracle, a coracle that seemed to move without oar or sail, and standing in it was a figure that glowed in the light of dawn. As it came nearer, Conn realised that it was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
Bécuma of the Sídh, she of the Fair Skin, smiled her secret smile as she watched the figure on the shore shade his eyes with his hand to watch her approach. She knew who he was, and although she found his son, Art, more to her liking, she had decided that she was in no position to be choosy. She would start with the father and, in time, no doubt the son would come to her. Bécuma had never left herself in want of anything, which was why she had been banished from the Many-Coloured Land; she had betrayed her husband and the choice had been death by fire or banishment to the mortal realm. She had chosen banishment, but her people had warned her not to attempt to enter any of the sídh of Ireland, for their doors were closed against her. Her silver coracle brought her to land, and she heard Conn’s gasp as she stepped onto the shore, lifting her red satin cloak and grass-green gown out of the water as she did so. Her hair was yellow-gold, her eyes a clear grey, her skin like the first snow of winter. Now she was close enough for him to smell her perfume, which seemed to Conn like the scent of whitethorn on a warm summer’s day. He opened his mouth to ask her who she was, but before the words were out of his mouth, she said: ‘I am Dealbhchaem. The fame of your son Art has spread to the Many-Coloured Land and I have come to seek his love.’
Conn frowned. ‘You wish to marry my son then? Indeed, that is not good news to me.’
‘Who shall I marry then?’ she asked softly.
‘Why, none but myself,’ said Conn.
Bécuma bowed her head and put her hand in his.
‘If it is your wish, so it shall be,’ she said. ‘But grant me something in return. It would not be right to have Art at Tara so soon after we are wed, for I would wish to forget him. Send him away for a year.’
The king was perturbed. ‘I would not wish to banish my own son for no reason,’ he said.
Bécuma sighed and raised innocent grey eyes to the king’s. Conn paused. Perhaps the maiden was right; his son, so young and strong, might not be a good person to have around them so soon after their marriage.
‘It could hurt him to see you in the place of his mother,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I will do as you wish.’
The pair travelled to Tara; there, Conn made the order to send his son from the kingdom, not even stopping to bid him farewell. For the first few months, he was deliriously happy with his beautiful young wife. Every day, Bécuma charmed him further. So enchanted was he that at first he did not notice how badly things were going with the land of Ireland. The cows gave no milk, the corn did not grow, the bees made no honey. Blight fell on all of nature so that even the women bore no children and the people began to murmur that there was a curse on the land. The poets and magicians met together and by their arts discovered that their new queen was not, in fact, Dealbhchaem, but Bécuma who had been banished from the Many-Coloured Land for her misdeeds; they told the king that he must send her away.
‘I do not care if her name is Dealbhchaem or Bécuma or the Morrigan itself,’ said Conn. ‘She is my beloved wife and I will not send her away. Find another way to rid the land of this blight.’
So the magicians conferred again, and they came back to the king with the news that if the son of a sinless couple could be found, and his blood mixed with the soil of Tara, the land would be made fertile again. Conn said that he would go on a quest to seek the sinless one. His magicians told him that it might be better to send his son, Art. But Conn had grown so tired of looking at the sad faces and listening to the hungry, crying children who surrounded him that he said angrily: ‘No – it is my task to save the land.’ He went to Beann Éadair, where he found Bécuma’s coracle and went away over the sea. He left the rule of Ireland under the stewardship of Art.
Conn returned, after many months, with a young boy from a magic island; Segda was the child of a sinless couple and the king had tricked him into coming with him back to Ireland, planning to murder him so that the land might prosper once again. However, there was much dissension that a sinless child should suffer for the fault of the king, and, at the last moment, Segda was rescued by his mother, a woman of the Sídh. She appeared before the king and the nobles and said, ‘I tell you that it will make no difference whether you kill the boy or not; your evils will not leave you until the cause of evil herself has left.’
At this, the old woman fixed a steely eye on Bécuma, so lovely in her green robe and red-golden crown.
‘As long as Bécuma stays in the land, it will have no luck.’
Then she took Segda’s hand and they both disappeared.
Ireland continued to suffer, and Conn, though he still was enslaved by Bécuma, grew greyer and more disconsolate. Meanwhile, Bécuma thought more and more of how handsome his son was in comparison, and how nobly he had ruled the land during his father’s absence, so that she began to seek him out, to ask him to ride with her, to sing with her, to play chess. However, Art avoided her all he could, and when he looked at her there was nothing but coldness in his eyes, for he saw her as the blight of the land and the destroyer of his father’s honour. Things went on thus until, one day, Bécuma came upon Art playing chess with Cromdes the Magician on the lawn before Tara. She demanded a game with Art, for stakes to be chosen after the match. Then she deliberately lost the first game. As a prize, Art demanded from her the wand of the great magician, Cú Roí. With the help of her foster sister, Áine, Bécuma managed to get the wand. When she brought it to Art, she asked, ‘Are you impressed, then, with my power?’ but he said nothing.
So Bécuma said, ‘Well then, sulky boy, I demand a return game.’
Art had no choice but to agree, and, as they played, Áine of the Sídh moved one of his pieces so that he lost.
‘I did not move that piece,’ he said angrily.
‘Nor did I,’ said Bécuma, still smiling her secret smile. ‘But now I have won, and my task for you, as the loser, is to find Dealbhchaem, daughter of Morgan, and bring her back to Tara.’
‘Where is she?’ asked Art.
‘She is to the west,’ said Bécuma.
As Art took a coracle out from Inver Colpa, the Boyne estuary, Bécuma watched him, sure that he would never come back. When Conn heard that Art had left Tara to seek the giant Morgan, he went to his room and stayed there. He did not speak to Bécuma and Bécuma did not come to speak to him, and all around them, the land of Ireland turned to grey ash.
Art travelled for a long time, staying for some time with a woman of the Sídh, Crede, who loved him and wished to keep him with her on her island, but Art had promised to return with Dealbhchaem and rout Bécuma from Tara. So, Crede decided that she would help Art to rescue Dealbhchaem, for she said, ‘Even if you do not wish to stay with me, I do not want you to finish with your head stuck on a picket outside Morgan’s house, like the others who have tried to save the princess.’
Crede told Art that Dealbhchaem’s mother, the Dog Head, would try her best to kill him even before Morgan discovered that he was there, as it was fated that she would die the day her daughter was wed. She advised him on how to defeat Morgan and sent him on his way, watching him as he sailed out of sight beyond the blue horizon, and fearful that he was leaving her to meet his death.
No sooner had Crede’s island disappeared out of Art’s sight than the sea became rough and the wind began to howl, and out of the depths great sea-monsters raised their heads, ready to attack him, but Art fought them off. When at last he came to land, it was a place no more comforting than the sea that he had left behind him. Here he had to make his way through a dark, dense forest where the thorns seemed to jump out to bite his flesh. In the forest, he was attacked by seven hags who wanted to bury him in a bath of molten lead; he killed them and left them lying in that same bath. After the forest came a mountain of ice where he almost froze to death; and he had no sooner reached its base than he found himself in a glen, full of giant toads which spat venom at him. He slew the toads, and the giant Ailill of the Black Teeth and the lions who guarded the way to Morgan’s dún. Finally he reached the dún, and there, on a high pillar, was Dealbhchaem, imprisoned in a tiny glass chamber. When he saw her looking out at him, Art realised that all the dangers he had passed through had been worthwhile, for here was a girl even more beautiful than Bécuma, and without the knowing, mocking eyes of that lady. Two girls approached Art and offered him a drink, but he remembered Crede’s warning and drank only from the right-hand cup, for Crede had told him that the left-hand one was poison. Then, Dog Head came out, in her armour and ready for the fight – and a horrible sight she was, for she had the head of a wicked black dog. It was a savage battle, but finally Art prevailed and he placed Dog Head’s own head on a spike of the palings of the dún. There was a crashing of the trees and a roaring in the forest and the giant Morgan approached; Art made himself ready for battle again. As the pair fought, they shifted shape so many times that the creatures of the place looked on in amazement and Dealbhchaem could hardly bear to look at all. As the sun began to set and it seemed to all who looked on that the battle could continue no longer, Art raised his sword and with a great blow chopped the head from the giant’s shoulders and let it join his wife’s on the palings. He stood at the bottom of the tower and smiled up at Dealbhchaem. When he begged her to come and be his queen in Ireland, this was very much to her taste, for she was tired of being imprisoned in her glass tower.
When they returned to Tara, it was sunset. Where Dealbhchaem walked, the grass sprang up green under her feet, and small birds sang around her head, as if she herself was the spring come again to the land. They could see Bécuma standing on the ramparts, her face a study in rage and fear, for she had never expected Art to return. In the red glow of the evening sun, her beauty seemed somehow distorted. And Dealbhchaem put her hand gently on Art’s arm to prevent him from going forward. Instead, she herself went up to Bécuma and said, ‘Get you hence, you who have made Ireland a wasteland. A new king comes to take up power, and a new queen, and your day is done here. We care not where you go, for every sídh in Ireland is closed to you, and you may never return to the Many-Coloured Land; but wherever you go, let it be far away from us and from all of Ireland.’
Bécuma said nothing. She turned and walked out of the portals of Tara, dressed in the green gown and red cloak that she had worn the day she came to Beann Éadair. She walked proudly into the darkness that was falling over the land of Ireland, and never once looked back.
Ardee, Louth
BAILE ÁTH FHIRDIA
The eye of faith is needed to appreciate the connection of Ardee with one of the most moving stories of the Táin Bó Cuailgne (The Cattle Raid of Cooley), the great epic of the Celtic Iron Age. The tale tells of the efforts of Maeve, queen of Connacht, to gain possession of the Brown Bull of Cooley. Great battles were fought and many heroes died, but at Ardee there is not much to see of the old heroic days, apart from the small River Dee and a few stones marking a ford. However, as the poet Patrick Kavanagh said when he talked of the hills around his home, ‘gods make their own importance’, and so too do heroes. Ardee lies at the centre of Muirtheimhne, the territory of Cú Chulainn’s birth and one that played an important part in the power struggles of the Iron Age.
The stream flowing on the outskirts of this comfortable and prosperous town was once the site of the epic battle between Cú Chulainn and his foster brother, the great hero of Connacht, Ferdia, who is commemorated in the town’s name, Baile Áth Fhirdia, ‘The Town of Ferdia’s Ford’.
Ardee Castle, County Louth.
It marked one of the boundaries of Ulster – a province cut off from the counties to the south by bogs and mountains – and for many centuries was one of the heartlands of the Gaelic tribes. By the reign of Elizabeth I, Ulster was a separate, impenetrable area, almost immune to the English monarch’s control. By this time, however, the town of Ardee had become a town of the Pale – a community which existed well within the borders of English control. The walls, gates and castles of the new settlers had replaced whatever settlement had been there in pre-Norman times.
The county of Louth has preserved much of its medieval heritage, and the castle in Ardee, built in the thirteenth century by Robert de Pippart, has recently been restored. Both James II and William of Orange lodged at the castle on their way to the momentous Battle of the Boyne in 1690.
The ford is easily reached by following the left bank of the river from the Dublin side of the bridge on the N2. Close one eye to block out the modern houses and factories and try to hear the noise of the battle above the roar of traffic going through the town – not an easy task. To be fair to the good people of Ardee, a park has been made on the banks of the river and the fine stone bridge has been carefully preserved, unlike many Irish towns where the demands of traffic have
