Heroic Romances of Ireland Part 9

Labra, who of speed is son, Comes, and comes not slowly; Crowded hosts together run, Bent on warfare wholly.

Soon upon the Forest Plain Shall be set the killing; For the hour when men are slain Fidga's[FN#29] Fields are filling![FN#30]

[FN#29] p.r.o.nounced, nearly, Feega.

[FN#30] Irish metre approximately imitated in these stanzas.

They entered then into the palace, and they saw there thrice fifty couches within the palace, and three times fifty women upon the couches, and the women all bade Laeg welcome, and it was in these words that they addressed him:

Hail! for the guide, Laeg! of thy quest: Laeg we beside Hail, as our guest!

"What wilt thou do now?" said Liban; "wilt thou go on without a delay, and hold speech with Fand?"

"I will go," he answered, "if I may know the place where she is."

"That is no hard matter to tell thee," she answered; "she is in her chamber apart." They went therein, and they greeted Fand, and she welcomed Laeg in the same fashion as the others had done.

Fand is the daughter of Aed Abra; Aed means fire, and he is the fire of the eye: that is, of the eye's pupil: Fand moreover is the name of the tear that runs from the eye; it was on account of the clearness of her beauty that she was so named, for there is nothing else in the world except a tear to which her beauty could be likened.

Now, while they were thus in that place, they heard the rattle of Labraid's chariot as he approached the island. "The spirit of Labraid is gloomy to-day," said Liban, "I will go and greet him." And she went out, and she bade welcome to Labraid, and she spoke as follows:

Hail! the man who holdeth sword, the swift in fight!

Heir of little armies, armed with javelins light; Spears he drives in splinters; bucklers bursts in twain; Limbs of men are wounded; n.o.bles by him slain.

He for error searcheth, streweth gifts not small, Hosts of men destroyeth; fairer he than all!

Heroes whom he findeth feel his fierce attack; Labra! swiftest Sword-Hand! welcome to us back!

Labraid made no reply to her, and the lady spoke again thus:

Welcome! swift Labra, Hand to sword set!

All win thy bounty, Praise thou shalt get; Warfare thou seekest, Wounds seam thy side; Wisely thou speakest, Law canst decide; Kindly thou rulest, Wars fightest well; Wrong-doers schoolest, Hosts shalt repel.

Labraid still made no answer, and she sang another lay thus:

Labra! all hail!

Sword-wielder, swift: War can he wage, Warriors can sift; Valiant is he, Fighters excels; More than in sea Pride in him swells; Down in the dust Strength doth he beat; They who him trust Rise to their feet Weak ones he'll raise, Humble the strong; Labra! thy praise Peals loud and long!

"Thou speakest not rightly, O lady," said Labraid; and he then spoke to her thus:

O my wife! naught of boasting or pride is in me; No renown would I claim, and no falsehood shall be: Lamentation alone stirs my mind, for hard spears Rise in numbers against me: dread contest appears: The right arms of their heroes red broadswords shall swing; Many hosts Eochaid Juil holds to heart as their king: Let no pride then be ours; no high words let there be; Pride and arrogance far should be, lady, from me!

"Let now thy mind be appeased," said the lady Liban to him. "Laeg, the charioteer of Cuchulain, is here; and Cuchulain hath sent word to thee that he will come to join thy hosts."

Then Labraid bade welcome to Laeg, and he said to him: "Welcome, O Laeg! for the sake of the lady with whom thou comest, and for the sake of him from whom thou hast come. Do thou now go to thine own land, O Laeg!" said Labraid, "and Liban shall accompany thee."

Then Laeg returned to Emain, and he gave news of what he had seen to Cuchulain, and to all others beside; and Cuchulain rose up, and he pa.s.sed his hand over his face, and he greeted Laeg brightly, and his mind was strengthened within him for the news that the lad had brought him.

[At this point occurs the break in the story indicated in the preface, and the description of the Bull-Feast at which Lugaid Red-Stripes is elected king over all Ireland; also the exhortation that Cuchulain, supposed to be lying on his sick-bed, gives to Lugaid as to the duties of a king. After this insertion, which has no real connection with the story, the story itself proceeds, but from another point, for the thread is taken up at the place where Cuchulain has indeed awaked from his trance, but is still on his sick-bed; the message of Angus appears to have been given, but Cuchulain does not seem to have met Liban for the second time, nor to have sent Laeg to inquire. Ethne has disappeared as an actor from the scene; her place is taken by Emer, Cuchulain's real wife; and the whole style of the romance so alters for the better that, even if it were not for the want of agreement of the two versions, we could see that we have here two tales founded upon the same legend but by two different hands, the end of the first and the beginning of the second alike missing, and the gap filled in by the story of the election of Lugaid.

Now as to Cuchulain it has to be related thus: He called upon Laeg to come to him; and "Do thou go, O Laeg!" said Cuchulain, "to the place where Emer is; and say to her that women of the fairies have come upon me, and that they have destroyed my strength; and say also to her that it goeth better with me from hour to hour, and bid her to come and seek me;" and the young man Laeg then spoke these words in order to hearten the mind of Cuchulain:

It fits not heroes lying On sick-bed in a sickly sleep to dream: Witches before thee flying Of Trogach's fiery Plain the dwellers seem: They have beat down thy strength, Made thee captive at length, And in womanish folly away have they driven thee far.

Arise! no more be sickly!

Shake off the weakness by those fairies sent: For from thee parteth quickly Thy strength that for the chariot-chiefs was meant: Thou crouchest, like a youth!

Art thou subdued, in truth?

Have they shaken thy prowess and deeds that were meet for the war

Yet Labra's power hath sent his message plain: Rise, thou that crouchest: and be great again.

And Laeg, after that heartening, departed; and he went on until he came to the place where Emer was; and he told her of the state of Cuchulain: "Ill hath it been what thou hast done, O youth!" she said; "for although thou art known as one who dost wander in the lands where the fairies dwell; yet no virtue of healing hast thou found there and brought for the cure of thy lord. Shame upon the men of Ulster!" she said, "for they have not sought to do a great deed, and to heal him.

Yet, had Conor thus been fettered; had it been Fergus who had lost his sleep, had it been Conall the Victorious to whom wounds had been dealt, Cuchulain would have saved them." And she then sang a song, and in this fashion she sang it:

Laeg! who oft the fairy hill[FN#31]

Searchest, slack I find thee still; Lovely Dechtire's son shouldst thou By thy zeal have healed ere now.

Ulster, though for bounties famed, Foster-sire and friends are shamed: None hath deemed Cuchulain worth One full journey through the earth.

Yet, if sleep on Fergus fell, Such that magic arts dispel, Dechtire's son had restless rode Till a Druid raised that load.

Aye, had Conall come from wars, Weak with wounds and recent scars; All the world our Hound would scour Till he found a healing power.

Were it Laegaire[FN#32] war had pressed, Erin's meads would know no rest, Till, made whole from wounds, he won Mach's grandchild, Conna's son.

Had thus crafty Celthar slept, Long, like him, by sickness kept; Through the elf-mounds, night and day, Would our Hound, to heal him, stray.

Furbaid, girt by heroes strong, Were it he had lain thus long; Ah! our Hound would rescue bear Though through solid earth he fare.

[FN#31] The metre of these verses is that of the Irish.

[FN#32] p.r.o.nounced Leary.