Translated by Whitely Stokes, D.C.L.
Epic and Saga, Harvard Classics no. 49
New York, P. F. Collier & son
[1910]
Introductory Note
The vast and interesting epic literature of Ireland has remained, for
the most part, inaccessible to English readers until these last sixty
years. In 1853, Nicholas O'Kearney published the Irish text and an
English translation of "The Battle of Gabra," and since
that date the volume of printed texts and English versions has
steadily increased. Now there lies open to the ordinary reader a
considerable mass of material illustrating the imaginative life of
medieval Ireland.
Of these Irish epic tales, "The Destruction of Dá Derga's
Hostel" is a specimen of remarkable beauty and power. The
primitive aspects of the story are made evident in the way that the
plot turns upon the disasters that follow on the violation of taboos,
by the monstrous nature of many of the warriors, and by the absence
of any attempt to explain the beliefs implied or the marvels related
in it. The powers and achievements of the heroes are fantastic and
extraordinary beyond description. The natural and extra-natural
constantly mingle, yet nowhere does the narrator express surprise.
The technical method of the tale, too, is curiously and almost
mechanically symmetrical, after the manner of savage art. Both
description and narration are marked by a high degree of freshness
and vividness.
The following translation is, with slight modification, that of Dr.
Whitley Stokes, from a text constructed by him on the basis of eight
manuscripts, the oldest going back to about 1100 A.D. The story
itself is, without doubt, from several centuries earlier and belongs
to the oldest group of extant Irish sagas.
THE DESTRUCTION OF DÁ DERGA'S HOSTEL
There was a famous and noble king over Erin, named Eochaid Feidlech.
Once upon a time he came over the fairgreen of Bri Leith, and he saw
at the edge of a well a woman with a bright comb of silver adorned
with gold, washing in a silver basin wherein were four golden birds
and little, bright gems of purple carbuncle in the rims of the basin.
A mantle she had, curly and purple, a beautiful cloak, and in the
mantle silvery fringes arranged, and a brooch of fairest gold. A
kirtle she wore, long, hooded, hard-smooth, of green silk, with red
embroidery of gold. Marvellous clasps of gold and silver in the
kirtle on her breasts and her shoulders and spaulds on every side.
The sun kept shining upon her, so that the glistening of the gold
against the sun from the green silk was manifest to men. On her head
were two golden-yellow tresses, in each of which was a plait of four
locks, with a bead at the point of each lock. The hue of that hair
seemed to them like the flower of the iris in summer, or like red
gold after the burnishing thereof.
There she was, undoing her hair to wash it, with her arms out through
the sleeve-holes of her smock. White as the snow of one night were
the two hands, soft and even, and red as foxglove were the two
clear-beautiful cheeks. Dark as the back of a stag-beetle the two
eyebrows. Like a shower of pearls were the teeth in her head. Blue as
a hyacinth were the eyes. Red as rowan-berries the lips. Very high,
smooth and soft-white the shoulders. Clear-white and lengthy the
fingers. Long were the hands. White as the foam of a wave was the
flank, slender, long, tender, smooth, soft as wool. Polished and
warm, sleek and white were the two thighs. Round and small, hard and
white the two knees. Short and white and rulestraight the two shins.
Justly straight and beautiful the two heels. If a measure were put on
the feet it would hardly have found them unequal, unless the flesh of
the coverings should grow upon them. The bright radiance of the moon
was in her noble face: the loftiness of pride in her smooth eyebrows:
the light of wooing in each of her regal eyes. A dimple of delight in
each of her cheeks, with a dappling (?) in them, at one time, of
purple spots with redness of a calf's blood, and at another with the
bright lustre of snow. Soft womanly dignity in her voice; a step
steady and slow she had: a queenly gait was hers. Verily, of the
world's women 'twas she was the dearest and loveliest and justest
that the eyes of men had ever beheld. It seemed to King Eochaid and
his followers that she was from the elfmounds. Of her was said:
"Shapely are all till compared with Etáin," "Dear are
all till compared with Etáin."
A longing for her straightway seized the king; so he sent forward a
man of his people to detain her. The king asked tidings of her and
said, while announcing himself: "Shall I have an hour of
dalliance with thee?"
"'Tis for that we have come hither under thy safeguard,"
quoth she.
"Query, whence art thou and whence hast thou come?" says
Eochaid.
"Easy to say," quoth she. "Etáin am I, daughter of
Etar, king of the cavalcade from the elfmounds. I have been here for
twenty years since I was born in an elfmound. The men of the
elfmound, both kings and nobles, have been wooing me: but nought was
gotten from me, because ever since I was able to speak, I have loved
thee and given thee a child's love for the high tales about thee and
thy splendour. And though I had never seen thee, I knew thee at once
from thy description: it is thou, then, I have reached."
"No 'seeking of an ill friend afar' shall be thine," says
Eochaid. "Thou shalt have welcome, and for thee every other
woman shall be left by me, and with thee alone will I live so long as
thou hast honour."
"My proper bride-price to me!" she says, "and
afterwards my desire."
"Thou shalt have both," says Eochaid.
Seven cumals[1] are given to her.
[1. I. e., twenty-one cows.]
Then the king, even Eochaid Feidlech, dies, leaving one daughter
named, like her mother, Etáin, and wedded to Cormac, king of Ulaid.
After the end of a time Cormac, king of Ulaid, "the man of the
three gifts," forsakes Eochaid's daughter, because she was
barren save for one daughter that she had borne to Cormac after the
making of the pottage which her mother--the woman from the
elfmounds--gave her. Then she said to her mother: "Bad is what
thou hast given me: it will be a daughter that I shall bear."
"That will not be good," says her mother; "a king's
pursuit will be on her."
Then Cormac weds again his wife, even Etáin, and this was his
desire, that the daughter of the woman who had before been abandoned
[i. e. his own daughter] should be killed. So Cormac would not leave
the girl to her mother to be nursed. Then his two thralls take her to
a pit, and she smiles a laughing smile at them as they were putting
her into it. Then their kindly nature came to them. They carry her
into the calfshed of the cowherds of Etirscél, great-grandson of
Iar, king of Tara, and they fostered her till she became a good
embroideress; and there was not in Ireland a king's daughter dearer
than she.
A fenced house of wickerwork was made by the thralls for her, without
any door, but only a window and a skylight. King Etercél's folk espy
that house and suppose that it was food the cowherds kept there. But
one of them went and looked through the skylight, and he saw in the
house the dearest, beautifullest maiden! This is told to the king,
and straightway he sends his people to break the house and carry her
off without asking the cowherds. For the king was childless, and it
had been prophesied to him by his wizards that a woman of unknown
race would bear him a son.
Then said the king: "This is the woman that has been prophesied
to me!"
Now while she was there next morning she saw a Bird on the skylight
coming to her, and he leaves his birdskin on the floor of the house,
and went to her, and possessed her, and said: "They are coming
to thee from the king to wreck thy house and to bring thee to him
perforce. And thou wilt be pregnant by me, and bear a son, and that
son must not kill birds.[2] And 'Conaire, son of Mess Buachalla'
shall be his name," for hers was Mess Buachalla, "the
Cowherds' fosterchild."
[2. This passage indicates the existence in Ireland of totems, and of
the rule that the person to whom a totem belongs must not kill the
totem-animal.--W.S.]
And then she was brought to the king, and with her went her
fosterers, and she was betrothed to the king, and he gave her seven
cumals and to her fosterers seven other cumals. And afterwards they
were made chieftains, so that they all became legitimate, whence are
the two Fedlimthi Rechtaidi. And then she bore a son to the king,
even Conaire son of Mess Buachalla, and these were her three urgent
prayers to the king, to wit, the nursing of her son among three
households, that is, the fosterers who had nurtured her, and the two
Honeyworded Mainès, and she herself is the third; and she said that
such of the men of Erin as should wish to do aught for this boy
should give to those three households for the boy's protection.
So in that wise he was reared, and the men of Erin straightway knew
this boy on the day he was born. And other boys were fostered with
him, to wit, Fer Le and Fer Gar and Fer Rogein, three great-grandsons
of Donn Désa the champion, an army-man of the army from Muc-lesi.
Now Conaire possessed three gifts, to wit, the gift of hearing and
the gift of eyesight and the gift of judgment; and of those three
gifts he taught one to each of his three foster-brothers. And
whatever meal was prepared for him, the four of them would go to it.
Even though three meals were prepared for him each of them would go
to his meal. The same raiment and armour and colour of horses had the
four.
Then the king, even Eterscéle, died. A bull-feast is gathered by the
men of Erin, in order to determine their future king; that is, a bull
used to be killed by them and thereof one man would eat his fill and
drink its broth, and a spell of truth was chanted over him in his
bed. Whosoever he would see in his sleep would be king, and the
sleeper would perish if he uttered a falsehood.
Four men in chariots were on the Plain of Liffey at their game,
Conaire himself and his three foster-brothers. Then his fosterers
went to him that he might repair to the bullfeast. The bull-feaster,
then in his sleep, at the end of the night beheld a man stark-naked,
passing along the road of Tara, with a stone in his sling.
"I will go in the morning after you," quoth he.
He left his foster-brothers at their game, and turned his chariot and
his charioteer until he was in Dublin. There he saw great,
white-speckled birds, of unusual size and colour and beauty. He
pursues them until his horses were tired. The birds would go a
spearcast before him, and would not go any further. He alighted, and
takes his sling for them out of the chariot. He goes after them until
he was at the sea. The birds betake themselves to the wave. He went
to them and overcame them. The birds quit their birdskins, and turn
upon him with spears and swords. One of them protects him, and
addressed him, saying: "I am Némglan, king of thy father's
birds; and thou hast been forbidden to cast at birds, for here there
is no one that should not be dear to thee because of his father or
mother."
"Till today," says Conaire, "I knew not this."
"Go to Tara tonight," says Némglan; "'tis fittest for
thee. A bull feast is there, and through it thou shalt be king. A man
stark-naked, who shall go at the end of the night along one of the
roads of Tara, having a stone and a sling--'tis he that shall be
king."
So in this wise Conaire fared forth; and on each of the four roads
whereby men go to Tara there were three kings awaiting him, and they
had raiment for him, since it had been foretold that he would come
stark-naked. Then he was seen from the road on which his fosterers
were, and they put royal raiment about him, and placed him in a
chariot, and he bound his pledges.
The folk of Tara said to him: "It seems to us that our bullfeast
and our spell of truth are a failure, if it be only a young,
beardless lad that we have visioned therein."
"That is of no moment," quoth he. "For a young,
generous king like me to be in the kingship is no disgrace, since the
binding of Tara's pledges is mine by right of father and grandsire."
"Excellent! excellent!" says the host. They set the
kingship of Erin upon him. And he said: "I will enquire of wise
men that I myself may be wise."
Then he uttered all this as he had been taught by the man at the
wave, who said this to him: "Thy reign will be subject to a
restriction, but the bird-reign will be noble, and this shall be thy
restriction, i. e. thy tabu.
"Thou shalt not go righthandwise round Tara and lefthandwise
round Bregia.
"The evil-beasts of Cerna must not be hunted by thee.
"And thou shalt not go out every ninth night beyond Tara.
"Thou shalt not sleep in a house from which firelight is
manifest outside, after sunset, and in which light is manifest from
without.
"And three Reds shall not go before thee to Red's house.
"And no rapine shall be wrought in thy reign.
"And after sunset a company of one woman or one man shall not
enter the house in which thou art.
"And thou shalt not settle the quarrel of thy two thralls.
Now there were in his reign great bounties, to wit, seven ships in
every June in every year arriving at Inver Colptha,[3] and oakmast up
to the knees in every autumn, and plenty of fish in the rivers Bush
and Boyne in the June of each year, and such abundance of good will
that no one slew another in Erin during his reign. And to every one
in Erin his fellow's voice seemed as sweet as the strings of lutes.
From mid-spring to mid-autumn no wind disturbed a cow's tail. His
reign was neither thunderous nor stormy.
[3. The mouth of the river Boyne.--W.S.]
Now his foster-brothers murmured at the taking from them of their
father's and their grandsire's gifts, namely Theft and Robbery and
Slaughter of men and Rapine. They thieved the three thefts from the
same man, to wit, a swine and an ox and a cow, every year, that they
might see what punishment therefor the king would inflict upon them,
and what damage the theft in his reign would cause to the king.
Now every year the farmer would come to the king to complain, and the
king would say to him. "Go thou and address Donn Désá's three
great grandsons, for 'tis they that have taken the beasts."
Whenever he went to speak to Donn Désá's descendants they would
almost kill him, and he would not return to the king lest Conaire
should attend his hurt.
Since, then, pride and wilfulness possessed them, they took to
marauding, surrounded by the sons of the lords of the men of Erin.
Thrice fifty men had they as pupils when they (the pupils) were
were-wolfing in the province of Connaught, until Maine Milscothach's
swineherd saw them, and he had never seen that before. He went in
flight. When they heard him they pursued him. The swineherd shouted,
and the people of the two Mainès came to him, and the thrice fifty
men were arrested, along with their auxiliaries, and taken to Tara.
They consulted the king concerning the matter, and he said: "Let
each (father) slay his son, but let my fosterlings be spared."
"Leave, leave!" says every one: "it shall be done for
thee."
"Nay indeed," quoth he; "no 'cast of life' by me is
the doom I have delivered. The men shall not be hung; but let
veterans go with them that they may wreak their rapine on the men of
Alba."
This they do. Thence they put to sea and met the son of the king of
Britain, even Ingcél the One-eyed, grandson of Conmac: thrice fifty
men and their veterans they met upon the sea.
They make an alliance, and go with Ingcél and wrought rapine with
him.
This is the destruction which his own impulse gave him. That was the
night that his mother and his father and his seven brothers had been
bidden to the house of the king of his district. All of them were
destroyed by Ingcél in a single night. Then the Irish pirates put
out to sea to the land of Erin to seek a destruction as payment for
that to which Ingcél had been entitled from them.
In Conaire's reign there was perfect peace in Erin, save that in
Thomond there was a joining of battle between the two Carbres. Two
foster-brothers of his were they. And until Conaire came it was
impossible to make peace between them. 'Twas a tabu of his to go to
separate them before they had repaired to him. He went, however,
although to do so was one of his tabus, and he made peace between
them. He remained five nights with each of the two. That also was a
tabu of his.
After settling the two quarrels, he was travelling to Tara. This is
the way they took to Tara, past Usnech of Meath; and they saw the
raiding from east and west, and from south and north, and they saw
the warbands and the hosts, and the men stark-naked; and the land of
the southern O'Neills was a cloud of fire around him.
"What is this?" asked Conaire. "Easy to say," his
people answer. "Easy to know that the king's law has broken down
therein, since the country has begun to burn."
"Whither shall we betake ourselves?" says Conaire.
"To the Northeast," says his people.
So then they went righthandwise round Tara, and lefthandwise round
Bregia, and the evil beasts of Cerna were hunted by him. But he saw
it not till the chase had ended.
They that made of the world that smoky mist of magic were elves, and
they did so because Conaire's tabus had been violated.
Great fear then fell on Conaire because they had no way to wend save
upon the Road of Midluachair and the Road of Cuálu.
So they took their way by the coast of Ireland southward.
Then said Conaire on the Road of Cuálu: "whither shall we go
tonight?"
"May I succeed in telling thee! my fosterling Conaire,"
says Mac cecht, son of Snade Teiched, the champion of Conaire, son of
Eterscél. "Oftener have the men of Erin been contending for
thee every night than thou hast been wandering about for a
guesthouse."
"Judgment goes with good times," says Conaire. "I had
a friend in this country, if only we knew the way to his house!"
"What is his name?" asked Mac cecht.
"Dá Derga of Leinster," answered Conaire. "He came
unto me to seek a gift from me, and he did not come with a refusal. I
gave him a hundred kine of the drove. I gave him a hundred fatted
swine. I gave him a hundred mantles made of close cloth. I gave him a
hundred blue-coloured weapons of battle. I gave him ten red, gilded
brooches. I gave him ten vats good and brown. I gave him ten thralls.
I gave him ten querns. I gave him thrice nine hounds all-white in
their silvern chains. I gave him a hundred race-horses in the herds
of deer. There would be no abatement in his case though he should
come again. He would make return. It is strange if he is surly to me
tonight when reaching his abode."
"When I was acquainted with his house," says Mac cecht,
"the road whereon thou art going towards him was the boundary of
his abode. It continues till it enters his house, for through the
house passes the road. There are seven doorways into the house, and
seven bedrooms between every two doorways; but there is only one
doorvalve on it, and that valve is turned to every doorway to which
the wind blows."
"With all that thou hast here," says Conaire, "thou
shalt go in thy great multitude until thou alight in the midst of the
house."
"If so be," answers Mac cecht, "that thou goest
thither, I go on that I may strike fire there ahead of thee."
When Conaire after this was journeying along the Road of Cuálu, he
marked before him three horsemen riding towards the house. Three red
frocks had they, and three red mantles: three red bucklers they bore,
and three red spears were in their hands: three red steeds they
bestrode, and three red heads of hair were on them. Red were they
all, both body and hair and raiment, both steeds and men.
"Who is it that fares before us?" asked Conaire. "It
was a tabu of mine for those Three to go before me--the three Reds to
the house of Red. Who will follow them and tell them to come towards
me in my track?"
"I will follow them," says Lé fri flaith, Conaire's son.
He goes after them, lashing his horse, and overtook them not. There
was the length of a spearcast between them: but they did not gain
upon him and he did not gain upon them.
He told them not to go before the king. He overtook them not; but one
of the three men sang a lay to him over his shoulder:
"Lo, my son, great the news, news from a hostel . . . Lo, my
son!"
They go away from him then: he could not detain them.
The boy waited for the host. He told his father what was said to him.
Conaire liked it not. "After them, thou!" says Conaire,
"and offer them three oxen and three bacon-pigs, and so long as
they shall be in my household, no one shall be among them from fire
to wall."
So the lad goes after them, and offers them that, and overtook them
not. But one of the three men sang a lay to him over his shoulder:
"Lo, my son, great the news! A generous king's great ardour
whets thee, burns thee. Through ancient men's enchantments a company
of nine yields. Lo, my son!"
The boy turns back and repeated the lay to Conaire.
"Go after them," says Conaire, "and offer them six
oxen and six bacon pigs, and my leavings, and gifts tomorrow, and so
long as they shall be in my household no one to be among them from
fire to wall."
The lad then went after them, and overtook them not; but one of the
three men answered and said:
"Lo, my son, great the news. Weary are the steeds we ride. We
ride the steeds of Donn Tetscorach from the elfmounds. Though we are
alive we are dead. Great are the signs: destruction of life: sating
of ravens: feeding of crows, strife of slaughter: wetting of
sword-edge, shields with broken bosses in hours after sundown. Lo, my
son!"
Then they go from him.
"I see that thou hast not detained the men," says Conaire.
"Indeed it is not I that betrayed it," says Lé fri flaith.
He recited the last answer that they gave him. Conaire and his
retainers were not blithe thereat: and afterwards evil forebodings of
terror were on them.
"All my tabus have seized me tonight," says Conaire, "since
those Three Reds are the banished folks."[4]
[4. They had been banished from the elfmounds, and for them to
precede Conaire was to violate one of his taboos.--W.S.]
They went forward to the house and took their seats therein, and
fastened their red steeds to the door of the house.
That is the Forefaring of the Three Reds in the Bruden Dá Derga.
This is the way that Conaire took with his troops, to Dublin.
No comments:
Post a Comment