Irish Fairy Tales - James Stephens (to read list .txt) 📗

as two giant stags, and the crash of their monstrous onslaught rolled and lingered on the air long after their skulls had parted. Then as two lions, long-clawed, deep-mouthed, snarling, with rigid mane, with red-eyed glare, with flashing, sharp-white fangs, they prowled lithely about each other seeking for an opening. And then as two green-ridged, white-topped, broad-swung, overwhelming, vehement billows of the deep, they met and crashed and sunk into and rolled away from each other; and the noise of these two waves was as the roar of all ocean when the howl of the tempest is drowned in the league-long fury of the surge.

But when the wife’s time has come the husband is doomed. He is required elsewhere by his beloved, and Morgan went to rejoin his queen in the world that comes after the Many-Coloured Land, and his victor shore that knowledgeable head away from its giant shoulders.

He did not tarry in the Many-Coloured Land, for he had nothing further to seek there. He gathered the things which pleased him best from among the treasures of its grisly king, and with Delvcaem by his side they stepped into the coracle.

Then, setting their minds on Ireland, they went there as it were in a flash.

The waves of all the world seemed to whirl past them in one huge, green cataract. The sound of all these oceans boomed in their ears for one eternal instant. Nothing was for that moment but a vast roar and pour of waters. Thence they swung into a silence equally vast, and so sudden that it was as thunderous in the comparison as was the elemental rage they quitted. For a time they sat panting, staring at each other, holding each other, lest not only their lives but their very souls should be swirled away in the gusty passage of world within world; and then, looking abroad, they saw the small bright waves creaming by the rocks of Ben Edair, and they blessed the power that had guided and protected them, and they blessed the comely land of Ir.

On reaching Tara, Delvcaem, who was more powerful in art and magic than Becuma, ordered the latter to go away, and she did so.

She left the king’s side. She came from the midst of the counsellors and magicians. She did not bid farewell to anyone. She did not say goodbye to the king as she set out for Ben Edair.

Where she could go to no man knew, for she had been banished from the Many-Coloured Land and could not return there. She was forbidden entry to the Shí by Angus Og, and she could not remain in Ireland. She went to Sasana and she became a queen in that country, and it was she who fostered the rage against the Holy Land which has not ceased to this day.

Mongan’s Frenzy I

The abbot of the Monastery of Moville sent word to the storytellers of Ireland that when they were in his neighbourhood they should call at the monastery, for he wished to collect and write down the stories which were in danger of being forgotten.

“These things also must be told,” said he.

In particular he wished to gather tales which told of the deeds that had been done before the Gospel came to Ireland.

“For,” said he, “there are very good tales among those ones, and it would be a pity if the people who come after us should be ignorant of what happened long ago, and of the deeds of their fathers.”

So, whenever a storyteller chanced in that neighbourhood he was directed to the monastery, and there he received a welcome and his fill of all that is good for man.

The abbot’s manuscript boxes began to fill up, and he used to regard that growing store with pride and joy. In the evenings, when the days grew short and the light went early, he would call for some one of these manuscripts and have it read to him by candlelight, in order that he might satisfy himself that it was as good as he had judged it to be on the previous hearing.

One day a storyteller came to the monastery, and, like all the others, he was heartily welcomed and given a great deal more than his need.

He said that his name was Cairidè, and that he had a story to tell which could not be bettered among the stories of Ireland.

The abbot’s eyes glistened when he heard that. He rubbed his hands together and smiled on his guest.

“What is the name of your story?” he asked.

“It is called ‘Mongan’s Frenzy.’ ”

“I never heard of it before,” cried the abbot joyfully.

“I am the only man that knows it,” Cairidè replied.

“But how does that come about?” the abbot inquired.

“Because it belongs to my family,” the storyteller answered. “There was a Cairidè of my nation with Mongan when he went into Faery. This Cairidè listened to the story when it was first told. Then he told it to his son, and his son told it to his son, and that son’s great-great-grandson’s son told it to his son’s son, and he told it to my father, and my father told it to me.”

“And you shall tell it to me,” cried the abbot triumphantly.

“I will indeed,” said Cairidè.

Vellum was then brought and quills. The copyists sat at their tables. Ale was placed beside the storyteller, and he told this tale to the abbot.

II

Said Cairidè:

Mongan’s wife at that time was Brótiarna, the Flame Lady. She was passionate and fierce, and because the blood would flood suddenly to her cheek, so that she who had seemed a lily became, while you looked upon her, a rose, she was called Flame Lady. She loved Mongan with ecstasy and abandon, and for that also he called her Flame Lady.

But there may have been something of calculation even in her wildest moment, for if she was delighted in her affection she was tormented in it also,