Ireland, Historic and Picturesque Part 3

Sreng of the Firbolgs retraced his path some four-score miles among the central forests, and came to the Beautiful Eminence, where the Firbolgs had their settlement. Eocaid, Erc's son, their chieftain, called the lesser chiefs around him, and Sreng made full report of what he had seen and heard. The Firbolgs, pressed on by their fate, decided to refuse all terms with the De Danaans, but to give them battle, and drive them from the island. So they made ready, each man seeing to the straps of his s.h.i.+eld, the burnis.h.i.+ng of his thick sword and heavy spear. Eyes gleamed out beneath lowering brows all about the dwellings of Tara, and hot words were muttered of the coming fight. The dark faces of the Firbolgs were full of wrath.

Breas, returning to the camp of the Tuata De Danaan, gave such account of the fierceness and strength of Sreng, and the weight and st.u.r.diness of his weapons, that the hearts of the golden-haired newcomers misgave them, and they drew away westward to the strip of land that lies between the lakes of Corrib and Mask. There, tradition tells us, they made an encampment upon the hill of Belgadan, near the stream that flows through caverns beneath the rocks from the northern to the southern lake. From their hill-top they had clear view of the plain stretching eastward, across which the Firbolg warriors must come; to the right hand and to the left were spread the great white waters of the lakes, stretching far away to the northern and southern verge of the sky. Islands dotted the lakes, and trees mirrored themselves in the waters. Behind them, to the westward, rose a square-topped mountain, crowned by a clear tarn; and, behind that, tier upon tier of hills, stretching dark and sombre along Lough Mask to the north, and spreading westward to the twelve crystal hills of Connemara.

Across the plain to the east, then called the Plain of Nia, but thereafter Mag Tuiread or Moytura, the Plain of the Pillars, lay the forests, and thence issued forth the hosts of the Firbolgs, encamping on the eastern verge of the open s.p.a.ce. Nuada, the De Danaan king, once more sought a peaceful issue to their meeting, but Erc's son Eocaid refused all terms, and it was plain to all that they must fight.

It was midsummer. The air was warm about them, the lake-sh.o.r.es and the plain clothed in green of many gently blended shades. The sun shone down upon them, and the lakes mirrored the clear blue above. From their hill of encampment descended the De Danaans, with their long slender spears gleaming like bright gold, their swords of golden bronze firmly grasped, their left hands griping the thong of their s.h.i.+elds. Golden-haired, with flowing tresses, they descended to the fight; what stately battle-song they chanted, what Powers they called on for a blessing, we cannot tell; nor in what terms the dark-browed Firbolgs answered them as they approached across the plain. All that day did the hosts surge together, spear launched against spear, and bronze sword clas.h.i.+ng against s.h.i.+eld; all that day and for three days more, and then the fate of the Firbolgs was decided. Great and dire was the slaughter of them, so that Erc's son Eocaid saw that all was lost. Withdrawing with a hundred of his own men about him, Eocaid was seeking water to quench his thirst, for the heat of the battle was upon him, when he was pursued by a greater band of the De Danaans, under the three sons of Nemed, one of their chieftains.

Eocaid and his bodyguard fled before Nemed's sons, making their way northeastward along the Moy river, under the shadow of the Mountains of Storms, now wrongly named Ox Mountains. They came at last to the great strand called Traig Eotaile, but now Ballysadare, the Cataract of the Oaks,--where the descending river is cloven into white terraces by the rocks, and the sea, retreating at low tide, leaves a world of wet sand glinting under the moonlight. At the very sea's margin a great battle was fought between the last king of the Firbolgs with his men, and the De Danaans under Nemed's sons; so relentless was the fight along the tideways that few remained to tell of it, for Erc's son Eocaid fell, but Nemed's three sons fell likewise, The three De Danaan brothers were buried at the western end of the strand, and the place was called The Gravestones of the Sons of Nemed, in their memory. The son of Erc was buried on the strand, where the waves lap along the sh.o.r.e, and his cairn of Traig Eotaile still stands by the water-side, last resting-place of the last ruler of the Firbolgs.

Meanwhile the fighting had gone on at Mag Tuiread by the lakes, till but three hundred of the Firbolgs were left, with Sreng, the fierce fighter, at their head. Sreng had gained enduring fame by meeting Nuada, the De Danaan king, in combat, and smiting him so that he clove the s.h.i.+eld-rim and cut down deep into Nuada's shoulder, disabling him utterly from the battle. Seeing themselves quite outnumbered, therefore, the survivors of the Firbolgs with Sreng demanded single combat with De Danaan champions, but the victors offered them worthy terms of peace.

The Firbolgs were to hold in lords.h.i.+p and freedom whichever they might choose of the five provinces; the conquerors were to have the rest.

Sreng looked around among his band of survivors,--a little band, though of great valor,--and he remembered the hosts of his people that had entered the battle three days before, but now lay strewn upon the plain; and thinking that they had done enough for valor he accepted the offered terms, choosing the Western Province for his men. In memory of him it was called Cuigead Sreing for generations, until Conn of the Five-Score Battles changed the name for his own, calling the province Connacht, as it is to this day.

It fared less well with the victors, and with their victory were sown seeds of future discord. For Nuada, the king, being grievously wounded, was in no state to rule, so that the chief power was given to Breas, first envoy of the De Danaans. Now Breas was only half De Danaan, half Fomor, and would not recognize the De Danaan rites or laws of hospitality, but was a very tyrannous and overbearing ruler, so that much evil came of his government. Yet for seven years he was endured, even though meat nor ale was dispensed at his banquets, according to De Danaan law.

Mutterings against Breas were rife among the chiefs and their followers when the bard Cairbre, whose mother Etan was also a maker of verses, came to the a.s.sembly of Breas. But the bard was shown little honor and given a mean lodging,--a room without fire or bed, with three dry loaves for his fare. The bard was full of resentment and set himself to make songs against Breas, so that all men repeated his verses, and the name of Breas fell into contempt. All men's minds were enkindled by the bard, and they drove Breas forth from the chieftains.h.i.+p. Breas fled to his Fomor kindred in the isles, with his heart full of anger and revenge against the De Danaans.

He sought help of his kindred, and their design was told to the Fomorian chieftains--to Balor of the Evil Eye, and to Indec, son of De Domnand, chiefs of the Isles. These two leaders gathered s.h.i.+ps from all the harbors and settlements of the Fomorians, from the Hebrides, the Shetlands, and far-distant Norway, so that their fleet was thick as gulls above a shoal of fish along the north sh.o.r.es of Erin.

Coming down from the northern isles, they sighted the coast of Erin, the peaks of the northwestern mountains rising purple towards the clouds, with white seas foaming around them. Past towering headlands they sailed; then, drawing in towards the sh.o.r.e, they crept under the great cliffs of Slieve League, that rose like a many-colored wall from the sea to the sky--so high that the great eagles on their summits were but specks seen from beneath, so high that the s.h.i.+ps below seemed like sea-sh.e.l.ls to those who watched them from above. With the wall of the cliffs on their left hand, and the lesser headlands and hills of Sligo on their right, they came to that same strand of Ballysadare, the Cataract of the Oaks, where the last of the Firbolgs fell. Drawing their long s.h.i.+ps up on the beach, with furled sail and oars drawn in, they debarked their army on the sh.o.r.e. It was a landing of ill-omen for the Fomorians, that landing beside the cairn of Eocaid; a landing of ill-omen for Indec, son of De Domnand, and for Balor of the Evil Eye.

It was the fall of the leaf when they came; the winds ran crying through the forests, tearing the leaves and branches from the oaks, and mourning among the pines of the uplands. The sea was gray as a gull's back, with dark shadows under the cliffs and white tresses of foam along the headlands. At evening a cold wind brought the rain beating in from the ocean. Thus the Fomorians landed at the Cataract of the Oaks, and marched inland to the plain now called Tirerril in Sligo. The murky sky spread over the black and withered waste of the plain, hemmed in with gloomy hills, wild rocks and ravines, and with all the northern horizon broken by distant mountains. Here Indec and Balor, and Breas the cause of their coming, fixed their camp. They sent a message of defiance to the De Danaans, challenging them to fight or surrender. The De Danaans heard the challenge and made ready to fight.

Nuada, now called the chieftain of the Silver Arm, because the mischief wrought by Sreng's blow on his shoulder had been hidden by a silver casing, was once more ruler since Breas had been driven out. Besides Nuada, these were De Danaan chieftains: Dagda, the Mighty; Lug, son of Cian, son of Diancect, surnamed Lamfada, the Long Armed; Ogma, of the Sunlike Face; and Angus, the Young. They summoned the workers in bronze and the armorers, and bid them prepare sword and spear for battle, charging the makers of spear-haft and s.h.i.+eld to perfect their work. The heralds also were ready to proclaim the rank of the warriors, and those skilled in healing herbs stood prepared to succor the wounded. The bards were there also to arouse valor and ardor with their songs.

Then marching westward to the plain of the battle among the hills, they set their camp and advanced upon the Fomorians. Each man had two spears bound with a thong to draw them back after the cast, with a s.h.i.+eld to ward off blows, and a broad-bladed sword of bronze for close combat.

With war-chants and invocations the two hosts met. The spears, well poised and leveled, clove the air, hissing between them, and under the weight of the spear-heads and their sharp points many in both hosts fell. There were cries of the wounded now, mingled with battle-songs, and hoa.r.s.e shouting for vengeance among those whose sons and brothers and sworn friends fell. Another cast of the spears, seaming the air between as the hosts closed in, and they fell on each other with their swords, s.h.i.+elds upraised and gold-bronze sword-points darting beneath like the tongues of serpents. They cut and thrust, each with his eyes fixed on the fierce eyes of his foe.

They fought on the day of the Spirits, now the Eve of All Saints; the Fomorians were routed, and their chieftains slain. But of the De Danaans, Nuada, once wounded by Sreng of the Firbolgs, now fell by the hand of Balor; yet Balor also fell, slain by Lug, his own daughter's son.

Thus was the might of the Fomorians broken, and the De Danaans ruled unopposed, their power and the works of their hands spreading throughout the length and breadth of the land.

Many monuments are accredited to them by tradition, but greatest and most wonderful are the pyramids of stone at Brugh on the Boyne. Some nine miles from the sandy seash.o.r.e, where the Boyne loses itself in the waves, there is a broad tongue of meadowland, shut in on three sides southward by the Boyne, and to the northeast cut off by a lesser stream that joins it. This remote and quiet headland, very famous in the annals, was in old days so surrounded by woods that it was like a quiet glade in the forest rimmed by the clear waters of the Boyne. The Mourne Mountains to the north and the lesser summits on the southern sky-line were hidden by the trees. The forest wall encircled the green meadowland, and the river fringed with blue forget-me-nots.

In this quiet spot was the sacred place of the De Danaans, and three great pyramids of stone, a mile apart along the river, mark their three chief sanctuaries. The central is the greatest; two hundred thousand tons of stone heaped up, within a circular wall of stone, itself surrounded by a great outer circle of standing stones, thirty in number, like gray sentinels guarding the shrine. In the very heart of the pyramid, hushed in perpetual stillness and peace, is the inmost sanctuary, a chamber formed like a cross, domed with a lofty roof, and adorned with mysterious tracings on the rocks. Shrines like this are found in many lands, whether within the heart of the pyramids of Egypt or in the recesses of India's hills; and in all lands they have the same purpose. They are secret and holy sanctuaries, guarded well from all outward influence, where, in the mystic solitude, the valiant and great among the living may commune with the spirits of the mighty dead. The dead, though hidden, are not pa.s.sed away; their souls are in perpetual nearness to ours. If we enter deep within ourselves, to the remote shrine of the heart, as they entered that secluded shrine, we may find the mysterious threshold where their world and our world meet.

In the gloom and silence of those pyramid-chambers, the De Danaans thus sought the souls of their mighty ones--the Dagda, surnamed the Mighty, and Lug the Long-Armed, and Ogma of the Sunlike Face, and Angus the Young. From these luminous guardians they sought the inbreathing of wisdom, drawing into themselves the might of these mightier ones, and rising toward the power of their immortal world. And to these sacred recesses they brought the ashes of their mighty dead, as a token that they, too, had pa.s.sed through the secret gateway to the Land of the Ever Young.

Some thirty miles to the west of Brugh, on the Boyne, a low range of hills rises from the central plain, now bearing the name of Slieve na Calliagh, the Witch's Hill. In the days of the great forest this was the first large open s.p.a.ce to the west coming from Brugh, and, like it, a quiet and remote refuge among the woods. On the hillsides of Slieve na Calliagh are other pyramids of stone, in all things like those of Brugh, and with the same chambered sanctuaries, but of lesser size; belonging, perhaps, to a later age, when the De Danaans were no longer supreme in the land, but took their place beside newcome invaders. These lesser shrines were also sacred places, doorways to the hidden world, entrance-gates to the Land of the Ever Young. There also was beheld the vision of the radiant departed; there also were fonts of baptism, basins wrought of granite brought hither from the distant hills of Mourne or Wicklow. As in all lands, these fonts were used in the consecration of the new birth, from which man rises conscious of his immortality.

In harmony with this faith of theirs, our present tradition sees in the De Danaans a still haunting impalpable presence, a race invisible yet real, dwelling even now among our hills and valleys. When the life of the visible world is hushed, they say, there is another life in the hidden, where the Dagda Mor and Ogma and Lug and Angus still guard the De Danaan hosts. The radiance of their nearness is all through the land, like the radiance of the sun hidden behind storm-clouds, glimmering through the veil.

[Ill.u.s.tration: White Rocks, Portrush]

In the chambers of those pyramid-shrines are still traces of the material presence of the De Danaans; not only their baptismal fonts, but more earthly things--ornaments, beads of gla.s.s and amber, and combs with which they combed their golden locks. These amber beads, like so many things in the De Danaan history, call us to far northern lands by the Baltic, whence in all likelihood the De Danaans came; for in those Baltic lands we find just such pyramid shrines as those at Brugh and on the hillsides of Slieve na Calliagh, and their ornaments are the same, and the fas.h.i.+on of their spear-heads and s.h.i.+elds. The plan of the Danish pyramid of Uby is like the pyramids of Newgrange and Nowth and Dowth by the Boyne, and the carvings on King Gorm's stone by the Baltic are like the carvings of stones in our own island. On the Baltic sh.o.r.es, too, of most ancient date and belonging to forgotten times, are still found fragments and even perfect hulls of just such long s.h.i.+ps as were needed for the Danaans' coming, like the s.h.i.+ps they burnt along the reaches of the Foyle.

By the Baltic, too, and nowhere else, were there races with hair yellow as their own amber, or, as our island bards say, "so bright that the new-molten gold was not brighter; yellow as the yellow flag-lilies along the verges of the rivers." Therefore, in character of race, in face and feature, in color and complexion, in the form and make of sword and spear and s.h.i.+eld, in their knowledge of s.h.i.+ps and the paths of the sea, as in their ornaments and decorative art, and in those majestic pyramids and shrines where they sought mystic wisdom, and whither they carried the ashes of their dead, as to a place of sacred rest--in all these the life of the De Danaans speaks of the Baltic sh.o.r.es and the ancient race of golden-haired heroes who dwelt there. The honoring of bards, the heraldic keeping of traditions and the names of ancestors, also speak of the same home; and with a college of heraldic bards, well-ordered and holding due rank and honor, we can well see how the stories of their past have come down even to our days, lingering among our hills and valleys, as the De Danaan themselves linger, hidden yet not departed.

The traditional time of their coming, too, agrees well with all we know.

Without bronze tools they could not have carved the beautifully adorned stones that are built into the pyramids by the Boyne; yet there is a certain early ruggedness about these stones that falls far short of the perfection of later times. Early in the bronze age, therefore, they must be placed; and the early bronze age, wherever its remoteness can be measured, as in the Swiss lakes or the peat-mosses of Denmark, cannot be less than four thousand years ago, thus well agreeing with our De Danaan tradition. We are, therefore, led to believe that the tale told by these traditions is in the main a true one; that the races recorded by them came in the recorded order; that their places of landing are faithfully remembered; that all traditions pointing to their earlier homes are worthy of belief, and in full accord with all our other knowledge.

V.

EMAIN OF MACA.

B.C. 50--A.D. 50.

The battles of Southern and Northern Moytura gave the De Danaans sway over the island. After they had ruled for many centuries, they in their turn were subjected to invasion, as the Firbolg and Fomorian had been before them. The newcomers were the Sons of Milid, and their former home was either Gaul or Spain. But whether from Gaul or Spain, the sons of Milid were of undoubted Gaelic race, in every feature of character and complexion resembling the continental Gauls.

We must remember that, in the centuries before the northward spread of Rome, the Gauls were the great central European power. Twenty-six hundred years ago their earlier tribal life was consolidated into a stable empire under Ambigatos; Galicia in Eastern Austria and Galicia in Western Spain mark their extreme borders towards the rising and setting sun.

Several centuries before the days of Ambigatos, in the older period of tribal confederation, was the coming of the Gaelic Sons of Milid to Ireland. Tradition places the date between three and four thousand years ago. Yet even after that long interval of isolation the resemblance between the Irish and continental Gaels is perfect; they are tall, solidly built, rather inclined to stoutness; they are fair-skinned, or even florid, easily browned by sun and wind. Their eyes are gray, greenish or hazel, not clear blue, like the eyes of the Baltic race; and though fair-haired, they are easily distinguished from the golden-haired Nors.e.m.e.n. Such are the descendants of the Sons of Milid. Coming from Gaul or Spain, the Sons of Milid landed in one of the great fiords that penetrate between the mountains of Kerry--long after so named from the descendants of Ciar. These same fiords between the hills have been the halting-place of continental invaders for ages; hardly a century has pa.s.sed since the last landing there of continental soldiers; there was another invasion a century before that, and yet another a hundred years earlier. But the Sons of Milid showed the way. They may have come by Bantry Bay or the Kenmare River or Dingle Bay; more probably the last, for tradition still points to the battlefield where they were opposed, on the hills of Slieve Mish, above the Dingle fiord.

But wherever they debarked on that southwestern coast they found a land warm and winning as the south they had left behind--a land of ever-green woods, yew and arbutus mingling with beech and oak and fir; rich southern heaths carpeting the hillsides, and a soft drapery of ferns upon the rocks. There were red ma.s.ses of overhanging mountain, but in the valleys, sheltered and sun-warmed, they found a refuge like the Isles of the Blest. The Atlantic, surging in great blue rollers, brought the warmth of tropical seas, and a rich and vivid growth through all the glens and vales responded to the sun's caress.

The De Danaans must ere this have spread through all of the island, except the western province a.s.signed to the Firbolgs; for we find them opposing,--but vainly opposing,--the Sons of Milid, at the very place of their landing. Here again we find the old tradition verified; for at the spot recorded of old by the bards and heralds, among the hills by the pa.s.s that leads from Dingle to Tralee Bay, numberless arrow-heads have been gathered, the gleanings after a great combat. The De Danaans fought with sword and spear, but, unless they had added to their weapons since the days of Breas and Sreng, they did not shoot with the bow; this was, perhaps, the cause of their defeat, for the De Danaans were defeated among the hills on that long headland.

From their battlefield they could see the sea on either hand, stretching far inland northward and southward; across these arms of the sea rose other headlands, more distant, the armies of hills along them fading from green to purple, from purple to clear blue. But the De Danaans had burned their boats; they sought refuge rather by land, retreating northward till they came to the shelter of the great central woods. The Sons of Milid pursued them, and, overtaking them at Tailten on the Blackwater, some ten miles northwest of Tara, they fought another battle; after it, the supremacy of the De Danaans definitely pa.s.sed away.

Yet we have no reason to believe that, any more than the Fomorians or Firbolgs, the De Danaans ceased to fill their own place in the land.

They seem, indeed, to have been preponderant in the north, and in all likelihood they hold their own there even now; for every addition to our knowledge shows us more and more how tenacious is the life of races, how firmly they cling to their earliest dwellings. And though we read of races peris.h.i.+ng before invaders, this is the mere boasting of conquerors; more often the newcomers are absorbed among the earlier race, and nothing distinctive remains of them but a name. We have abundant evidence to show that at the present day, as throughout the last three thousand years, the four races we have described continue to make up the bulk of our population, and pure types of each still linger unblended in their most ancient seats; for, though races mingle, they do not thereby lose their own character. The law is rather that the type of one or other will come out clear in their descendants, all undefined forms tending to disappear.

Nor did any subsequent invasion add new elements; for as all northern Europe is peopled by the same few types, every newcomer,--whether from Norway, Denmark, Britain or Continental Europe,--but reinforced one of these earlier races. Yet even where the ethnical elements are alike, there seems to be a difference of destiny and promise--as if the very land itself brooded over its children, transforming them and molding them to a larger purpose. The spiritual life of races goes far deeper than their ethnic history.

It would seem that with the coming of the Sons of Milid the destiny of Ireland was rounded and completed; from that time onward, for more than two thousand years, was a period of uniform growth and settled life and ideals; a period whose history and achievements we are only beginning to understand. At the beginning of that long epoch of settled life the art of working gold was developed and perfected; and we have abundance of beautiful gold-work from remote times, of such fine design and execution that there is nothing in the world to equal it. The modern work of countries where gold is found in quant.i.ties is commonplace, vulgar and inartistic, when compared with the work of the old Irish period.

Torques, or twisted ribbons of gold, of varying size and shape, were worn as diadems, collars, or even belts; crescent bands of finely embossed sheet-gold were worn above the forehead; brooches and pins of most delicate and imaginative workmans.h.i.+p were used to catch together the folds of richly colored cloaks, and rings and bracelets were of not less various and exquisite forms.

We are at no loss to understand the abundance of our old goldsmiths'

work when we know that even now, after being worked for centuries, the Wicklow gold-mines have an average yearly yield of some five hundred ounces, found, for the most part, in nuggets in the beds of streams flowing into the two Avons. One mountain torrent bears the name of Gold Mines River at the present day, showing the unbroken presence of the yellow metal from the time of its first discovery, over three thousand years ago. It seems probable that a liberal alloy of gold gave the golden bronze its peculiar excellence and beauty; for so rich is the l.u.s.tre, so fine the color of many of our bronze axes and spears, that they are hardly less splendid than weapons of pure gold. From the perfect design and workmans.h.i.+p of these things of gold and bronze, more than from any other source, we gain an insight into the high culture and skill in the arts which marked that most distinctively Irish period, lasting, as we have seen, more than two thousand years.

Early in this same epoch we find traditions of the clearing of forests, the sowing of cornfields, the skill of dyers in seven colors, earliest of which were purple, blue and green. Wells were dug to insure an easily accessible supply of pure water, so that we begin to think of a settled population dwelling among fields of golden grain, pasturing their cattle in rich meadows, and depending less on the deer and wild oxen of the forest, the salmon of lake and river, and the abundant fish along the sh.o.r.es.

Tradition speaks persistently of bards, heralds, poets and poetesses; of music and song; of cordial and generous social life; and to the presence of these bards, like the skalds of the Northmen, we owe pictures, even now full of life and color and movement, of those days of long ago.

At a period rather more than two thousand years ago, a warrior-queen, Maca by name, founded a great fort and citadel at Emain, some two miles west of Armagh, in the undulating country of green hills and meadows to the south of Lough Neagh. The ramparts and earthworks of that ancient fortress can still be traced, and we can follow and verify what the ancient bards told of the greatness of the stronghold of Maca. The plans of all forts of that time seem to have been much the same--a wide ring of earthwork, with a deep moat, guarded them, and a stockade of oak stakes rose above the earthwork, behind which the defenders stood, firing volleys of arrows at the attacking host. Within this outer circle of defence there was almost always a central stronghold, raised on a great mound of earth; and this was the dwelling of the chief, provincial ruler, or king. Lesser mounds upheld the houses of lesser chiefs, and all alike seem to have been built of oak, with plank roofs. Safe storehouses of stone were often sunk underground, beneath the chief's dwelling. In the fort of Emain, as in the great fort of Tara in the Boyne Valley, there was a banqueting-hall for the warriors, and the bards thus describe one of these in the days of its glory: "The banquet-hall had twelve divisions in each wing, with tables and pa.s.sages round them; there were sixteen attendants on each side, eight for the star-watchers, the historians and the scribes, in the rear of the hall, and two to each table at the door,--a hundred guests in all; two oxen, two sheep and two hogs were divided equally on each side at each meal.

Beautiful was the appearance of the king in that a.s.sembly--flowing, slightly curling golden hair upon him; a red buckler with stars and beasts wrought of gold and fastenings of silver upon him; a crimson cloak in wide descending folds upon him, fastened at his breast by a golden brooch set with precious stones; a neck-torque of gold around his neck; a white s.h.i.+rt with a full collar, and intertwined with threads of gold, upon him; a girdle of gold inlaid with precious stones around him; two wonderful shoes of gold with runings of gold upon him; two spears with golden sockets in his hand."

We are the more disposed to trust the fidelity of the picture, since the foundations of the Tara banquet-hall are to be clearly traced to this day--an oblong earthwork over seven hundred feet long by ninety wide, with the twelve doors still distinctly marked; as for the brooches and torques of gold, some we have surpa.s.s in magnificence anything here described, and their artistic beauty is eloquent of the refinement of spirit that conceived and the skill that fas.h.i.+oned them. Spear-heads, too, are of beautiful bronze-gold, with tracings round the socket of great excellence and charm.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Powerscourt Waterfall, Co. Wicklow]

For a picture of the life of that age, we cannot do better than return to Emain of Maca, telling the story of one famous generation of warriors and fair women who loved and fought there two thousand years ago. The ideal of beauty was still the golden hair and blue eyes of the De Danaans, and we cannot doubt that their race persisted side by side with the Sons of Milid, retaining a certain predominance in the north and northeast of the island, the first landing-place of the De Danaan invaders. Of this mingled race was the great Rudraige, from whom the most famous rulers of Emain descended. Ros was the son of Rudraige, and from Roeg and Ca.s.s, the sons of Ros, came the princes Fergus and Factna. Factna, son of Ca.s.s, wedded the beautiful Nessa, and from their union sprang Concobar, the great hero and ruler of Ulster--in those days named Ulad, and the dwellers there the Ulaid. Factna died while Concobar was yet a boy; and Nessa, left desolate, was yet so beautiful in her sadness that Fergus became her slave, and sued for her favor, though himself a king whose favors others sued. Nessa's heart was wholly with her son, her life wrapt up in his. She answered, therefore, that she would renounce her mourning and give her widowed hand to Fergus the king, if the king, on his part, would promise that Nessa's son Concobar should succeed him, rather than the children of Fergus. Full of longing, and held in thrall by her beauty, Fergus promised; and this promise was the beginning of many calamities, for Nessa, the queen, feeling her sway over Fergus, and full of ambition for her child, won a promise from Fergus that the youth should sit beside him on the throne, hearing all pleadings and disputes, and learning the art of ruling. But the spirit of Concobar was subtle and strong and masterful, and he quickly took the greater place in the councils of the Ulaid, until Nessa, still confident in her charm, took a promise from Fergus that Concobar should reign for one year.

Fergus, great-hearted warrior, but tender and gentle and fond of feasts and merrymaking, was very willing to lift the cares of rule from his shoulders to the younger shoulders of Nessa's son, and the one year thus granted became many years, so that Fergus never again mounted his throne. Yet for the love he bore to Nessa, Fergus willingly admitted his stepson's rule, and remained faithfully upholding him, ever merry at the banquets, and leading the martial sports and exercises of the youths, the sons of chieftains, at the court. Thus Concobar, son of Nessa, came to be ruler over the great fort of Emain, with its citadel, its earthworks and outer forts, its strong stockade and moat; ruler of these, and of the chiefs of the Ulaid, and chief commander of all the fighting-men that followed them. To him came the tribute of cattle and horses, of scarlet cloaks and dyed fabrics, purple and blue and green, and the beryls and emeralds from the mountains of Mourne where the sea thunders in the caves, near the great fort of Rudraige. Fergus was lord only of the banqueting-hall and of the merrymakings of the young chiefs; but in all else the will of Concobar was supreme and his word was law.

It happened that before this a child had been born, a girl golden-haired and with blue eyes, of whom the Druids had foretold many dark and terrible things. That the evil might not be wrought through this child of sad destiny, the king had from her earliest childhood kept her securely hidden in a lonely fort, and there Deirdre grew in solitude, daily increasing in beauty and winsomeness. She so won the love of those set in guard over her that they relaxed something of the strictness of their watch, letting her wander a little in the meadows and the verges of the woods, gathering flowers, and watching the life of birds and wild things there.