Irish Fairy Tales by James Stephens (best ereader for academics .txt) 📕
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- Author: James Stephens
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CHAPTER XI
Duv Laca wanted to know where the cows came from, and Mongan told her that the King of Leinster had given them to him. She fell in love with them as Mongan had done, but there was nobody in the world could have avoided loving those cows: such cows they were! such wonders! Mongan and Duv Laca used to play chess together, and then they would go out together to look at the cows, and then they would go in together and would talk to each other about the cows. Everything they did they did together, for they loved to be with each other.
However, a change came.
One morning a great noise of voices and trampling of horses and rattle of armour came about the palace. Mongan looked from the window.
“Who is coming?” asked Duv Laca.
But he did not answer her.
“The noise must announce the visit of a king,” Duv Laca continued.
But Mongan did not say a word. Duv Laca then went to the window.
“Who is that king?” she asked.
And her husband replied to her then.
“That is the King of Leinster,” said he mournfully.
“Well,” said Duv Laca surprised, “is he not welcome?”
“He is welcome indeed,” said Mongan lamentably.
“Let us go out and welcome him properly,” Duv Laca suggested.
“Let us not go near him at all,” said Mongan, “for he is coming to complete his bargain.”
“What bargain are you talking about?” Duv Laca asked. But Mongan would not answer that.
“Let us go out,” said he, “for we must go out.”
Mongan and Duv Laca went out then and welcomed the King of Leinster. They brought him and his chief men into the palace, and water was brought for their baths, and rooms were appointed for them, and everything was done that should be done for guests.
That night there was a feast, and after the feast there was a banquet, and all through the feast and the banquet the King of Leinster stared at Duv Laca with joy, and sometimes his breast was delivered of great sighs, and at times he moved as though in perturbation of spirit and mental agony.
“There is something wrong with the King of Leinster,” Duv Laca whispered.
“I don’t care if there is,” said Mongan.
“You must ask what he wants.”
“But I don’t want to know it,” said Mongan. “Nevertheless, you musk ask him,” she insisted.
So Mongan did ask him, and it was in a melancholy voice that he asked it.
“Do you want anything?” said he to the King of Leinster.
“I do indeed,” said Branduv.
“If it is in Ulster I will get it for you,” said Mongan mournfully.
“It is in Ulster,” said Branduv.
Mongan did not want to say anything more then, but the King of Leinster was so intent and everybody else was listening and Duv Laca was nudging his arm, so he said: “What is it that you do want?” “I want Duv Laca.”
“I want her too,” said Mongan.
“You made your bargain,” said the King of Leinster, “my cows and their calves for your Duv Laca, and the man that makes a bargain keeps a bargain.”
“I never before heard,” said Mongan, “of a man giving away his own wife.”
“Even if you never heard of it before, you must do it now,” said Duv Laca, “for honour is longer than life.”
Mongan became angry when Duv Laca said that. His face went red as a sunset, and the veins swelled in his neck and his forehead.
“Do you say that?” he cried to Duv Laca.
“I do,” said Duv Laca.
“Let the King of Leinster take her,” said Mongan.
CHAPTER XII
Duv Laca and the King of Leinster went apart then to speak together, and the eye of the king seemed to be as big as a plate, so fevered was it and so enlarged and inflamed by the look of Duv Laca. He was so confounded with joy also that his words got mixed up with his teeth, and Duv Laca did not know exactly what it was he was trying to say, and he did not seem to know himself. But at last he did say something intelligible, and this is what he said.
“I am a very happy man,” said he.
“And I,” said Duv Laca, “am the happiest woman in the world.”
“Why should you be happy?” the astonished king demanded.
“Listen to me,” she said. “If you tried to take me away from this place against my own wish, one half of the men of Ulster would be dead before you got me and the other half would be badly wounded in my defence.”
“A bargain is a bargain,” the King of Leinster began.
“But,” she continued, “they will not prevent my going away, for they all know that I have been in love with you for ages.”
“What have you been in with me for ages?” said the amazed king.
“In love with you,” replied Duv Laca.
“This is news,” said the king, “and it is good news.”
“But, by my word,” said Duv Laca, “I will not go with you unless you grant me a boon.”
“All that I have,” cried Branduv, “and all that every-body has.”
“And you must pass your word and pledge your word that you will do what I ask.”
“I pass it and pledge it,” cried the joyful king.
“Then,” said Duv Laca, “this is what I bind on you.”
“Light the yolk!” he cried.
“Until one year is up and out you are not to pass the night in any house that I am in.”
“By my head and hand!” Branduv stammered.
“And if you come into a house where I am during the time and term of that year, you are not to sit down in the chair that I am sitting in.”
“Heavy is my doom!” he groaned.
“But,” said Duv Laca, “if I am sitting in a chair or a seat you are to sit in a chair that is over against me and opposite to me and at a distance from me.”
“Alas!” said the king, and he smote his hands together, and then he beat them on his head, and then he looked at them and at everything about, and he could not tell what anything was or where anything was, for his mind was clouded and his wits had gone astray.
“Why do you bind these woes on me?” he pleaded.
“I wish to find out if you truly love me.”
“But I do,” said the king. “I love you madly and dearly, and with all my faculties and members.”
“That is the way! love you,” said Duv Laca. “We shall have a notable year of courtship and joy. And let us go now,” she continued, “for I am impatient to be with you.”
“Alas!” said Branduv, as he followed her. “Alas, alas!” said the King of Leinster.
CHAPTER XIII
“I think,” said the Flame Lady, “that whoever lost that woman had no reason to be sad.”
Mongan took her chin in his hand and kissed her lips.
“All that you say is lovely, for you are lovely,” said he, “and you are my delight and the joy of the world.”
Then the attendants brought him wine, and he drank so joyously of that and so deeply, that those who observed him thought he would surely burst and drown them. But he laughed loudly and with enormous delight, until the vessels of gold and silver and bronze chimed mellowly to his peal and the rafters of the house went creaking.
Said he:
Mongan loved Duv Laca of the White Hand better than he loved his life, better than he loved his honour. The kingdoms of the world did not weigh with him beside the string of her shoe. He would not look at a sunset if he could see her. He would not listen to a harp if he could hear her speak, for she was the delight of ages, the gem of time, and the wonder of the world till Doom.
She went to Leinster with the king of that country, and when she had gone Mongan fell grievously sick, so that it did not seem he could ever recover again; and he began to waste and wither, and he began to look like a skeleton, and a bony structure, and a misery.
Now this also must be known.
Duv Laca had a young attendant, who was her foster-sister as well as her servant, and on the day that she got married to Mongan, her attendant was married to mac an Da’v, who was servant and foster-brother to Mongan. When Duv Laca went away with the King of Leinster, her servant, mac an Da’v’s wife, went with her, so there were two wifeless men in Ulster at that time, namely, Mongan the king and mac an Da’v his servant.
One day as Mongan sat in the sun, brooding lamentably on his fate, mac an Da’v came to him.
“How are things with you, master?” asked Mac an Da’v.
“Bad,” said Mongan.
“It was a poor day brought you off with Mananna’n to the Land of Promise,” said his servant.
“Why should you think that?” inquired Mongan.
“Because,” said mac an Da’v, “you learned nothing in the Land of Promise except how to eat a lot of food and how to do nothing in a deal of time.”
“What business is it of yours?” said Mongan angrily.
“It is my business surely,” said mac an Da’v, “for my wife has gone off to Leinster with your wife, and she wouldn’t have gone if you hadn’t made a bet and a bargain with that accursed king.”
Mac an Da’v began to weep then.
“I didn’t make a bargain with any king,” said he, “and yet my wife has gone away with one, and it’s all because of you.”
“There is no one sorrier for you than I am,” said Mongan.
“There is indeed,” said mac an Da’v, “for I am sorrier myself.”
Mongan roused himself then.
“You have a claim on me truly,” said he, “and I will not have any one with a claim on me that is not satisfied. Go,” he said to mac an Da’v, “to that fairy place we both know of. You remember the baskets I left there with the sod from Ireland in one and the sod from Scotland in the other; bring me the baskets and sods.”
“Tell me the why of this?” said his servant.
“The King of Leinster will ask his wizards what I am doing, and this is what I will be doing. I will get on your back with a foot in each of the baskets, and when Branduv asks the wizards where I am they will tell him that I have one leg in Ireland and one leg in Scotland, and as long as they tell him that he will think he need not bother himself about me, and we will go into Leinster that way.”
“No bad way either,” said mac an Da’v.
They set out then.
CHAPTER XIV
It was a long, uneasy journey, for although mac an Da’v was of stout heart and goodwill, yet no man can carry another on his back from Ulster to Leinster and go quick. Still, if you keep on driving a pig or a story they will get at last to where you wish them to go, and the man who continues putting one foot in front of the other will leave his home behind, and will come at last to the edge of the sea and the end of the world.
When they reached Leinster the feast of Moy Life’ was being held, and they pushed on by forced marches and long stages so as to be in time, and thus they came to the Moy of Cell Camain, and they mixed with the crowd that were going to the feast.
A great and joyous concourse of people streamed about them. There were young men and young girls, and when these were not holding each other’s hands it was because their arms were round each other’s necks. There were old, lusty women going by, and when these were not talking together it was because their mouths were mutually filled with apples
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