The King of Ireland's Son Part 27

The next day Baun and Deelish each plaited their hair, and they said to her who was foster-mother for the three of us: "No one will come to marry us in this far-away place. We will go into the world to seek our fortunes. So," said they, "bake a cake for each of us before the fall of the night."

The Spae-Woman put three cakes on the griddle and baked them. And when they were baked she said to Baun and Deelish: "Will you each take the half of the cake and my blessing, or the whole of the cake without my blessing?" And Baun and Deelish each said, "The whole of the cake will be little enough for our journey."

Each then took her cake under her arm and went the path down the knowe.

Then said I to myself, "It would be well to go after my foster-sisters for they might meet misfortune on the road." So I said to my foster-mother, "Give me the third cake on the griddle until I go after my foster-sisters."

"Will you have half of the cake and my blessing or the whole of the cake without my blessing?" said she to me.

"The half of the cake and your blessing, mother," said I.

She cut the cake in two with a black-handled knife and gave me the even half of it. Then said she:--

May the old sea's Seven Daughters They who spin Life's longest threads, Protect and guard you!

She put salt in my hand then, and put the Little Red Hen under my arm, and I went off.

I went on then till I came in sight of Baun and Deelish. Just as I caught up on them I heard one say to the other, "This ugly, freckled girl will disgrace us if she comes with us." They tied my hands and feet with a rope they found on the road and left me in a wood.

I got the rope off my hands and feet and ran and ran until I came in sight of them again. And when I was coming on them I heard one say to the other, "This ugly, freckled girl will claim relationship with us wherever we go, and we will get no good man to marry us." They laid hold of me again and put me in a lime-kiln, and put beams across it, and put heavy stones on the beams. But my Little Red Hen showed me how to get out of the lime-kiln. Then I ran and I ran until I caught up with Baun and Deelish again.

"Let her come with us this evening," said one to the other, "and to-morrow we'll find some way of getting rid of her."

The night was drawing down now, and we had to look for a house that would give us shelter. We saw a hut far off the road and we went to the broken door. It was the house of the Hags of the Long Teeth. We asked for shelter. They showed us a big bed in the dormer-room, and they told us we could have supper when the porridge was boiled.

The three Hags sat round the fire with their heads together. Baun and Deelish were in a corner plaiting their hair, but the Little Red Hen murmured that I was to listen to what the Hags said.

"We will give them to Crom Duv in the morning" one said. And another said, "I have put a sleeping-pin in the pillow that will be under each, and they will not waken."

When I heard what they said I wanted to think of what we could do to make our escape. I asked Baun to sing to me. She said she would if I washed her feet. I got a basin of water and washed Baun's feet, and while she sang, and while the Hags thought we were not minding them, I considered what we might do to escape. The Hags hung a pot over the fire and the three of them sat around it once more.

When I had washed my foster-sister's feet I took a besom and began to sweep the floor of the house. One of the Hags was very pleased to see me doing that. She said I would make a good servant, and after a while she asked me to sit at the fire. I sat in the corner of the chimney. They had put meal in the water, and I began to stir it with a pot-stick.

Then the Hag that had asked me to the fire said, "I will give you a good share of milk with your porridge if you keep stirring the pot for us."

This was just what I wanted to be let do. I sat in the chimney-corner and kept stirring the porridge while the Hags dozed before the fire.

First, I got a dish and ladle and took out of the pot some half-cooked porridge. This I left one side. Then I took down the salt-box that was on the chimney-shelf and mixed handfuls of salt in the porridge left in the pot.

When it was all cooked I emptied it into another dish and brought the two dishes to the table. Then I told the Hags that all was ready. They came over to the table and they gave my foster-sisters and myself three porringers of goat's milk. We ate out of the first dish and they ate out of the second. "By my sleep to-night," said one Hag, "this porridge is salty." "Too little salt is in it for my taste," said my foster-sister Deelish. "It is as salt as the depths of the sea," said another of the Hags. "My respects to you, ma'am," said Baun, "but I do not taste any salt on it at all." My foster-sisters were so earnest that the Hags thought themselves mistaken, and they ate the whole dishful of porridge.

The bed was made for us, and the pillows were laid on the bed, and I knew that the slumber-pin was in each of the pillows. I wanted to put off the time for going to bed so I began to tell stories. Baun and Deelish said it was still young in the night, and that I should tell no short ones, but the long story of Eithne, Balor's daughter. I had just begun that story, when one of the Hags cried out that she was consumed with thirst.

She ran to the pitcher, and there was no water in it. Then another Hag shouted out that the thirst was strangling her. The third one said she could not live another minute without a mouthful of water. She took the pitcher and started for the well. No sooner was she gone than the second Hag said she couldn't wait for the first one to come back and she started out after her. Then the third one thought that the pair would stay too long talking at the well, and she started after them.

Immediately I took the pillows off our bed and put them on the Hags'

bed, taking their pillows instead.

The Hags came back with a half-filled pitcher, and they ordered us to go to our bed. We went, and they sat for a while drinking porringers of water. "Crom Duv will be here the first thing in the morning," I heard one of them say. They put their heads on the pillows and in the turn of a hand they were dead-fast-sound asleep. I told my foster-sisters then what I had done and why I had done it. They were very frightened, but seeing the Hags so sound asleep they composed themselves and slept too.

Before the screech of day Crom Duv came to the house. I went outside and saw the Giant. I said I was the servant of the Hags, and that they were sleeping still. He said, "They are my runners and summoners, my brewers, bakers and candle-makers, and they have no right to be sleeping so late." Then he went away.

I knew that the three Hags would slumber until we took the pillows from under their heads. We left them sleeping while we put down a fire and made our break-fast. Then, when we were ready for our journey, we took the pillows from under their heads. The three Hags started up then, but we were out on the door, and had taken the first three steps of our journey.

V

Without hap or mishap we came at last to the domain of the King of Senlabor. Baun went to sing for the King's foster-daughters, and Deelish went to work at the little loom in the King's chamber. We were not long at the court of the King of Senlabor when two youths came there from the court of the King of Ireland--Dermott and Downal were their names. There was a famous sword-smith with the King of Senlabor and these two came to learn the trade from him. And my two foster-sisters fell so deeply in love with the two youths that every night the pillow on each side of me was wet with their tears.

I went to work in the King's kitchen. Now the King had a dish of such fine earthware and with such beautiful patterns upon it that he never let it be carried from the Kitchen to the Feast-Hall, nor from the Feast-Hall to the Kitchen without going himself behind the servant who carried it. One day the servant brought it into the Kitchen to be washed and the King came behind the servant. I took the dish and cleaned it with thrice-boiled water and dried it with cloths of three different kinds. Then I covered it with sweet-smelling herbs and left it in a bin where it was sunk in soft bran. The King was pleased to see the good care I took of his dish, and he said before his servant that he would do me any favor I would ask. There and then I told him about my two foster-sisters Baun and Deelish, and how they were in love with the two youths Dermott and Downal who had come from the court of the King of Ireland. I asked that when these two youths were being given wives, that the King should remember my foster-sisters.

The King was greatly vexed at my request. He declared that the two youths had on their b.r.e.a.s.t.s the stars that denoted the sons of Kings and that he intended they should marry his own two foster-daughters when the maidens were of age to wed. "It may be," he said, "that these two youths will bring what my Queen longs for--a berry from the Fairy Rowan Tree that is guarded by the Giant Crom Duv."

The next day the King's Councillor was feeding the birds and I was sifting the corn. I asked him what was the history of the Fairy Rowan Tree that the Giant Crom Duv guarded and why it was that the Queen longed for a berry of it. There and then he told me this story:--

The Story of the Fairy Rowan Tree

The history of the Fairy Rowan Tree (said the King's Councillor) begins with Aine', the daughter of Mananaun who is Lord of the Sea. Curoi, the King of the Munster Fairies loved Aine' and sought her in marriage. But the desire of the girl's heart was set upon Fergus who was a mortal, and one of the Fianna of Ireland. Now when Mananaun MacLir heard Curoi's proposals and learned how his daughter's heart was inclined, he said, "Let the matter be settled in this way: we will call a hurling-match between the Fairies of Munster and the Fianna of Ireland with Curoi to captain one side and Fergus to captain the other, and if the Fairies win, Aine' will marry Curoi and if the Fianna have the victory she will have my leave to marry this mortal Fergus."

So a hurling-match was called for the first day of Luna.s.sa, and it was to be played along the strand of the sea. Mananaun himself set the goal-marks, and Aine' was there to watch the game. It was played from the rising of the sun until the high tide of noon, and neither side won a goal. Then the players stopped to eat the refreshment that Mananaun had provided.

This is what Mananaun had brought from his own country, Silver-Cloud Plain: a branch of bright-red rowan berries. Whoever ate one of these rowan berries his hunger and his weariness left him in a moment. The berries were to be eaten by the players, Mananaun said, and not one of them was to be taken into the world of the mortals or the world of the Fairies.

When they stopped playing at the high tide of noon the mortal Fergus saw Aine' and saw her for the first time. A spirit that he had never felt before flowed into him at the sight of Mananaun's daughter. He forgot to eat the berry he was given and held it in his mouth by the stalk.

He went into the hurling-match again and now he was like a hawk amongst small birds. Curoi defended the goal and drove the ball back. Fergus drove it to the goal again; the two champions met and Curoi's hurl, made out of rhinoceros' horn, did not beat down Fergus's hurl made out of the ash of the wood. The hosts stood aside and left the game to Fergus and Curoi. Curoi's hurl jerked the ball upward; then Fergus gave it the double stroke first with the handle and then with the weighted end of the hurl and drove it, beautifully as a flying bird, between the goal-marks that Mananaun had set up. The match was won by the goal that Fergus had gained.

The Fianna then invited the Fairies of Munster to a feast that they were giving to Fergus and his bride. The Fairies went, and Mananaun and Aine'

went before them all. Fergus marched at the head of his troop with the rowan berry still hanging from his mouth. And as he went he bit the stalk and the berry fell to the ground. Fergus never heeded that.

When the feast was over he went to where Mananaun stood with his daughter. Aine' gave him her hand. "And it is well," said Conan, the Fool of the Fianna, "that this thick-witted Fergus has at last dropped the berry out of his mouth." "What berry?" said Curoi, who was standing by. "The rowan berry," said Conan, "that he carried across two townlands the same as if he were a bird."

When Mananaun heard this he asked about the berry that Fergus had carried. It was not to be found. Then the Fianna and the Fairies of Munster started back to look for a trace of it. What they found was a wonderful Rowan Tree. It had grown out of the berry that Fergus had let fall, but as yet there were no berries on its branches.

Mananaun, when he saw the tree said, "No mortal may take a berry that grows on it. Hear my sentence now. Fergus will have to guard this tree until he gets one who will guard it for him. And he may not see nor keep company with Aine' his bride until he finds one who will guard it better than he can guard it himself." Then Mananaun wrapped his daughter in his cloak and strode away in a mist. The Fairy Host went in one direction and the Fianna in another, and Fergus was left standing sorrowfully by the Fairy Rowan Tree.

Next day (said Morag), when the King's Councillor was feeding the birds and I was sifting the corn, he told me the rest of the history of the Fairy Rowan Tree. Fergus thought and thought how he might leave off watching it and be with Aine', his bride. At last he bethought him of a Giant who lived on a rocky island with only a flock of goats for his possessions. This Giant had begged Finn, the Chief of the Fianna, for a strip of the land of Ireland, even if it were only the breadth of a bull's hide. Finn had refused him. But now Fergus sent to Finn and asked him to bring the Giant to be the guardian of the Fairy Rowan Tree and to give him the land around it. "I mislike letting this giant Crom Duv have any portion of the land of Ireland," said Finn, "nevertheless we cannot refuse Fergus."

So Finn sent some of the Fianna to the Giant and they found him living on a bare rock of an island with only a flock of goats for his possessions. Crom Duv lay on his back and laughed when he heard what message the men of the Fianna brought to him. Then he put them and his flock of goats into his big boat and rowed them over to Ireland.

Crom Duv swore by his flock of goats he would guard the Fairy Rowan Tree until the red berries ceased to come on its branches. Fergus left his place at the tree then and went to Aine', and it may be that she and he are still together.