Irish Fairy Tales | Page 8

intolerable anguish of memory,
and all of these people were gone: the place that knew them was silent:
in the land where they had moved there was nothing of them but their

bones that glinted in the sun.
"Old age came on me there. Among these bones weariness crept into
my limbs. My head grew heavy, my eyes dim, my knees jerked and
trembled, and there the wolves dared chase me.
"I went again to the cave that had been my home when I was an old
man.
"One day I stole from the cave to snatch a mouthful of grass, for I was
closely besieged by wolves. They made their rush, and I barely escaped
from them. They sat beyond the cave staring at me.
"I knew their tongue. I knew all that they said to each other, and all that
they said to me. But there was yet a thud left in my forehead, a deadly
trample in my hoof. They did not dare come into the cave.
"'To-morrow,' they said, 'we will tear out your throat, and gnaw on your
living haunch'."


CHAPTER VII
"Then my soul rose to the height of Doom, and I intended all that might
happen to me, and agreed to it.
"'To-morrow,' I said, 'I will go out among ye, and I will die,' and at that
the wolves howled joyfully, hungrily, impatiently.
"I slept, and I saw myself changing into a boar in dream, and I felt in
dream the beating of a new heart within me, and in dream I stretched
my powerful neck and braced my eager limbs. I awoke from my dream,
and I was that which I had dreamed.
"The night wore away, the darkness lifted, the day came; and from
without the cave the wolves called to me: "'Come out, O Skinny Stag.

Come out and die.'
"And I, with joyful heart, thrust a black bristle through the hole of the
cave, and when they saw that wriggling snout, those curving tusks, that
red fierce eye, the wolves fled yelping, tumbling over each other,
frantic with terror; and I behind them, a wild cat for leaping, a giant for
strength, a devil for ferocity; a madness and gladness of lusty,
unsparing life; a killer, a champion, a boar who could not be defied.
"I took the lordship of the boars of Ireland.
"Wherever I looked among my tribes I saw love and obedience:
whenever I appeared among the strangers they fled away. And the
wolves feared me then, and the great, grim bear went bounding on
heavy paws. I charged him at the head of my troop and rolled him over
and over; but it is not easy to kill the bear, so deeply is his life packed
under that stinking pelt. He picked himself up and ran, and was
knocked down, and ran again blindly, butting into trees and stones. Not
a claw did the big bear flash, not a tooth did he show, as he ran
whimpering like a baby, or as he stood with my nose rammed against
his mouth, snarling up into his nostrils.
"I challenged all that moved. All creatures but one. For men had again
come to Ireland. Semion, the son of Stariath, with his people, from
whom the men of Domnann and the Fir Bolg and the Galiuin are
descended. These I did not chase, and when they chased me I fled.
"Often I would go, drawn by my memoried heart, to look at them as
they moved among their fields; and I spoke to my mind in bitterness:
"When the people of Partholon were gathered in counsel my voice was
heard; it was sweet to all who heard it, and the words I spoke were wise.
The eyes of women brightened and softened when they looked at me.
They loved to hear him when he sang who now wanders in the forest
with a tusky herd."

CHAPTER VIII
"OLD age again overtook me. Weariness stole into my limbs, and
anguish dozed into my mind. I went to my Ulster cave and dreamed my
dream, and I changed into a hawk.
"I left the ground. The sweet air was my kingdom, and my bright eye
stared on a hundred miles. I soared, I swooped; I hung, motionless as a
living stone, over the abyss; I lived in joy and slept in peace, and had
my fill of the sweetness of life.
"During that time Beothach, the son of Iarbonel the Prophet, came to
Ireland with his people, and there was a great battle between his men
and the children of Semion. Long I hung over that combat, seeing every
spear that hurtled, every stone that whizzed from a sling, every sword
that flashed up and down, and the endless glittering