English Literature For Boys and Girls | Page 5

the chief of Ulster.
"Go then,' said Meav, "and ask Dawra to lend me the Bull for a year. Tell him that he
shall be well repaid, that he shall receive fifty heifers and Brown Bull back again at the
end of that time. And if Dawra should seem unwilling to lend Brown Bull, tell him that
he may come with it himself, and that he shall receive here land equal to his own, a
chariot worth thirty- six cows, and he shall have my friendship ever after."
So taking with him nine others, the messenger set out and soon arrived at Cooley. And
when Dawra heard why the messengers had come, he received them kindly, and said at
once that they should have Brown Bull.
Then the messengers began to speak and boast among themselves. "It was well," said one,
"that Dawra granted us the Bull willingly, otherwise we had taken it by force."
As he spoke, a servant of Dawra came with food and drink for the strangers, and hearing
how they spoke among themselves, he hastily and in wrath dashed the food upon the
table, and returning to his master repeated to him the words of the messenger.
Then was Dawra very wrathful. And when, in the morning, the messengers came before
him asking that he should fulfill his promise, he refused them.
So, empty-handed, the messengers returned to Queen Meav. And she, full of anger,
decided to make good the boastful words of her messenger and take Brown Bull by force.
Then began a mighty war between the men of Ulster and the men of Connaught. And
after many fights there was a great battle in which Meav was defeated. Yet was she
triumphant, for she had gained possession of the Brown Bull.
But the Queen had little cause for triumph, for when Brown Bull and White-horned met
there was a fearful combat between them. The whole land echoed with their bellowing.
The earth shook beneath their feet and the sky grew dark with flying sods of earth and
with flecks of foam. After long fighting Brown Bull conquered, and goring White-horned
to death, ran off with him impaled upon his horns, shaking his shattered body to pieces as
he ran.
But Brown Bull, too, was wounded to death. Mad with pain and wounds, he turned to his
own land, and there
"He lay down Against the hill, and his great heart broke there, And sent a stream of blood
down all the slope; And thus, when all the war and Tain had ended, In his own land,
'midst his own hills, he died."*
*The Tain, by Mary A. Hutton.
The Cattle Raid of Cooley is a strange wild tale, yet from it we can learn a great deal
about the life of these old, far-away times. We can learn from it something of what the
people did and thought, and how they lived, and even of what they wore. Here is a
description of a driver and his war chariot, translated, of course, into English prose. "It is
then that the charioteer arose, and he put on his hero's dress of charioteering. This was the
hero's dress of charioteering that he put on: his soft tunic of deer skin, so that it did not
restrain the movement of his hands outside. He put on his black upper cloak over it

outside. . . . The charioteer took first then his helm, ridged like a board, four-cornered. . . .
This was well measured to him, and it was not an over weight. His hand brought the
circlet of red- yellow, as though it were a plate of red gold, of refined gold smelted over
the edge of the anvil, to his brow as a sign of his charioteering, as a distinction to his
master.
"He took the goads to his horses, and his whip inlaid in his right hand. He took the reins
to hold back his horses in his left hand. Then he put the iron inlaid breast-plate on his
horses, so that they were covered from forehead to fore-foot with spears, and points, and
lances, and hard points, so that every motion in this chariot was war-near, so that every
corner, and every point, and every end, and every front of this chariot was a way of
tearing."*
*The Cattle Raid of Cualnge, by L. W. Faraday.
We can almost see that wild charioteer and his horses, sheathed in bristling armor with
"every front a way of tearing," as they dash amid the foe. And all through we come on
lines like these full of color and detail, which tell us of the life of those folk of long ago.



Chapter III
ONE OF THE SORROWS OF STORY-TELLING
The Tain gives