Irish Fairy Tales by James Stephens (best ereader for academics .txt) 📕
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- Author: James Stephens
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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 Dare’.”
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 Shi’ ruled over by Eogabal, and although this lord would not admit her, his daughter Aine’, who was her foster-sister, let her into Faery.
She made inquiries and was informed where the dun of Curoi mac Dare’ was, and when she had received this intelligence she set out for Sliev Mis. By what arts she coaxed Curoi to give up his wand it matters not, enough that she was able to return in triumph to Tara. When she handed the wand to Art, she said:
“I claim my game of revenge.”
“It is due to you,” said Art, and they sat on the lawn before the palace and played.
A hard game that was, and at times each of the combatants sat for an hour staring on the board before the next move was made, and at times they looked from the board and for hours stared on the sky seeking as though in heaven for advice. But Becuma’s foster-sister, Aine’, came from the Shi’, and, unseen by any, she interfered with Art’s play, so that, suddenly, when he looked again on the board, his face went pale, for he saw that the game was lost.
“I didn’t move that piece,” said he sternly.
“Nor did I,” Becuma replied, and she called on the onlookers to confirm that statement.
She was smiling to herself secretly, for she had seen what the mortal eyes around could not see.
“I think the game is mine,” she insisted softly.
“I think that your friends in Faery have cheated,” he replied, “but the game is yours if you are content to win it that way.”
“I bind you,” said Becuma, “to eat no food in Ireland until you have found Delvcaem, the daughter of Morgan.”
“Where do I look for her?” said Art in despair.
“She is in one of the islands of the sea,” Becuma replied, “that is all I will tell you,” and she looked at him maliciously, joyously, contentedly, for she thought he would never return from that journey, and that Morgan would see to it.
CHAPTER IX
Art, as his father had done before him, set out for the Many-Coloured Land, but it was from Inver Colpa he embarked and not from Ben Edair.
At a certain time he passed from the rough green ridges of the sea to enchanted waters, and he roamed from island to island asking all people how he might come to Delvcaem, the daughter of Morgan. But he got no news from any one, until he reached an island that was fragrant with wild apples, gay with flowers, and joyous with the song of birds and the deep mellow drumming of the bees. In this island he was met by a lady, Crede’, the Truly Beautiful, and when they had exchanged kisses, he told her who he was and on what errand he was bent.
“We have been expecting you,” said Crede’, “but alas, poor soul, it is a hard, and a long, bad way that you must go; for there is sea and land, danger and difficulty between you and the daughter of Morgan.”
“Yet I must go there,” he answered.
“There is a wild dark ocean to be crossed. There is a dense wood where every thorn on every tree is sharp as a spear-point and is curved and clutching. There is a deep gulf to be gone through,” she said, “a place of silence and terror, full of dumb, venomous monsters. There is an immense oak forest—dark, dense, thorny, a place to be strayed in, a place to be utterly bewildered and lost in. There is a vast dark wilderness, and therein is a dark house, lonely and full of echoes, and in it there are seven gloomy hags, who are warned already of your coming and are waiting to plunge you in a bath of molten lead.”
“It is not a choice journey,” said Art, “but I have no choice and must go.”
“Should you pass those hags,” she continued, “and no one has yet passed them, you must meet Ailill of the Black Teeth, the son of Mongan Tender Blossom, and who could pass that gigantic and terrible fighter?”
“It is not easy to find the daughter of Morgan,” said Art in a melancholy voice.
“It is not easy,” Crede’ replied eagerly, “and if you will take my advice—”
“Advise me,” he broke in, “for in truth there is no man standing in such need of counsel as I do.”
“I would advise you,” said Crede’ in a low voice, “to seek no more for the sweet daughter of Morgan, but to stay in this place where all that is lovely is at your service.”
“But, but—” cried Art in astonishment.
“Am I not as sweet as the daughter of Morgan?” she demanded, and she stood before him queenly and pleadingly, and her eyes took his with imperious tenderness.
“By my hand,” he answered, “you are sweeter and lovelier than any being under the sun, but—”
“And with me,” she said, “you will forget Ireland.”
“I am under bonds,” cried Art, “I have passed my word, and I would not forget Ireland or cut myself from it for all the kingdoms of the Many-Coloured Land.”
Crede’ urged no more at that time, but as they were parting she whispered, “There are two girls, sisters of my own, in Morgan’s palace. They will come to you with a cup in either hand; one cup will be filled with wine and one with poison. Drink from the right-hand cup, O my dear.”
Art stepped into his coracle, and then, wringing her hands, she made yet an attempt to dissuade him from that drear journey.
“Do not leave me,” she urged. “Do not affront these dangers. Around the palace of Morgan there is a palisade of copper spikes, and on the top of each spike the head of a man grins and shrivels. There is one spike only which bears no head, and it is for your head that spike is waiting. Do not go there, my love.”
“I must go indeed,” said. Art earnestly.
“There is yet a danger,” she called. “Beware of Delvcaem’s mother, Dog Head, daughter of the King of the Dog Heads. Beware of her.”
“Indeed,” said Art to himself, “there is so much to beware of that I will beware of nothing. I will go about my business,” he said to the waves, “and I will let those beings and monsters and the people of the Dog Heads go about their business.”
CHAPTER X
He went forward in his light bark, and at some moment found that he had parted from those seas and was adrift on vaster and more turbulent billows. From those dark-green surges there gaped at him monstrous and cavernous jaws; and round, wicked, red-rimmed, bulging eyes stared fixedly at the boat. A ridge of inky water rushed foaming mountainously on his board, and behind that ridge came a vast warty head that gurgled and groaned. But at these vile creatures he thrust with his lengthy spear or stabbed at closer reach with a dagger.
He was not spared one of the terrors which had been foretold. Thus, in the dark thick oak forest he slew the seven hags and buried them in the molten lead which they had heated for him. He climbed an icy mountain, the cold breath of which seemed to slip into his body and chip off inside of his bones, and there, until he mastered the sort of climbing on ice, for each step that he took upwards he slipped back ten steps. Almost his heart gave way before he learned to climb that venomous hill. In a forked glen into which he slipped at night-fall he was surrounded by giant toads, who spat poison, and were icy as the land they lived in, and were cold and foul and savage. At Sliav Saev he encountered the long-maned lions who lie in wait for the beasts of the world, growling woefully as they squat above their prey and crunch those terrified bones. He came on Ailill of the Black Teeth sitting on the bridge that spanned a torrent, and the grim giant was grinding his teeth on a pillar stone. Art drew nigh unobserved and brought him low.
It was not for nothing that these difficulties and dangers were in his path. These things and creatures were the invention of Dog Head, the wife of Morgan, for it had become known to her that she would die on the day her daughter was wooed. Therefore none of the dangers encountered by Art were real, but were magical chimeras conjured against him by the great witch.
Affronting all, conquering all, he came in time to Morgan’s dun, a place so lovely that after the miseries through which he had struggled he almost wept to see beauty again.
Delvcaem knew that he was coming. She was waiting for him, yearning for him. To her mind Art was not only love, he was freedom, for the poor girl was a captive in her father’s home. A great pillar an hundred feet high had been built on the roof of Morgan’s palace, and on the top of this pillar a tiny room had been constructed, and in this room Delvcaem was a prisoner.
She was lovelier in shape than any other princess of the Many-Coloured Land. She was wiser than all the other women of that land, and she was skilful in music, embroidery, and chastity, and in all else that pertained to the knowledge of a queen.
Although Delvcaem’s mother wished nothing but ill to Art, she yet treated him with the courtesy proper in a queen on the one hand and fitting towards the son of the King of Ireland on the other. Therefore, when Art entered the palace he was met and kissed, and he was bathed and clothed and fed. Two young girls came to him then, having a cup in each of their hands, and presented him with the kingly drink, but, remembering the warning which Credl had given him, he drank only from the right-hand cup and escaped the poison. Next he was visited by Delvcaem’s mother, Dog Head, daughter of the King of the Dog Heads, and Morgan’s queen. She was dressed in full armour, and she challenged Art to fight with her.
It was a woeful combat, for there was no craft or sagacity unknown to her, and Art would infallibly have perished by her hand but that her days were numbered, her star was out, and her time had come. It was her head that rolled on the ground when the combat was over, and it was her head that grinned and shrivelled on the vacant spike which she had reserved for Art’s.
Then Art liberated Delvcaem from her prison at the top of the pillar and they were affianced together. But the ceremony had scarcely been completed when the tread of a single man caused the palace to quake and seemed to jar the world.
It was Morgan returning to the palace.
The gloomy king challenged him to combat also, and in his honour Art put on the battle harness which he had brought from Ireland. He wore a breastplate and helmet of gold, a mantle of blue satin swung from his shoulders, his left hand was thrust into the grips of a purple shield, deeply bossed with silver, and in the other hand he held the wide-grooved, blue hilted sword which had rung so often into fights and combats, and joyous feats and exercises.
Up to this time the trials through which he had passed had seemed so great that they could not easily be added to. But if all those trials had been gathered into one vast calamity they would not equal one half of the rage and catastrophe of his war with Morgan.
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