DeDanaan

Filed by Aine MacDermot

Cormac’s Adventures in the Land of Promise

King Cormac, the hero of the present narrative, was the son of Airt (Art). This piece is not a single narrative story; it is a collection of narratives based on an ancient account of various legal ordeals, and later expanded into a story of a visit to the faery world. Here we see illustrated the strong tendency toward moralizing and social criticism exhibited by Irish literature of the middle period. These stories, of course, are not told entirely for the purpose of expounding the legal or social ideas to which they refer; they merely capitalize upon an already established interest and follow the usual literary habit of furnishing a narrative to explain every well-known fact.

Cormac’s cup was a cup of gold which he had. The way in which it was found was thus:

One day, at dawn in Maytime, Cormac son of Airt son of Conn of the Hundred Battles was alone on Mur Tea in Tara. He saw coming towards him a calm, greyhaired warrior, with a purple fringed mantle around him, a ribbed, gold-threaded shirt next his skin, and two blunt shoes of white bronze between his feet and the earth. A branch of silver with three golden apples was on his shoulder. Delight and amusement enough it was to listen to the music made by the branch, for men sore-wounded, or women in child-bed, or folk in sickness would fall asleep at the melody which was made when that branch was shaken. The warrior saluted Cormac. Cormac saluted him.

“Whence hast thou come, O warrior?” said Cormac.

“From a land,” he replied, “wherein there is nought save truth, and there is neither age nor decay nor gloom nor sadness nor envy nor jealousy nor hatred nor haughtiness.”

“It is not so with us,” said Cormac. “A question, O warrior: shall we make an alliance?”

“I am well pleased to make it.” So they became allies.

“Give me the branch!” said Cormac.

“I will give it,” said the warrior, “provided the three boons which I shall ask in Tara be granted to me in return.”

“They shall be granted,” said Cormac.

Then the warrior bound Cormac to his promise, and left the branch and went away; and Cormac knew not whither he had gone. Cormac returned to the palace, and the household marveled at the branch. Cormac shook it at them, and cast them into a slumber from that hour to the same time on the following day.

At the end of a year the warrior came and asked of Cormac the consideration agreed upon for his branch. “It shall be given,” said Cormac.

“I will take thy daughter Ailbe today,” said the warrior. So he took the girl with him. The women of Tara uttered three loud cries after the daughter of the king of Erin. But Cormac shook the branch at them, so that he banished grief from them all and cast them into sleep.

A month later the warrior returned and took with him Cairbre Liffecair the son of Cormac. Weeping and sorrow ceased not in Tara at the loss of the boy, and that night no one ate or slept, and they were in grief and exceeding gloom. But Cormac shook the branch at them, and their sorrow left them.

The same warrior came a third time.

“What askest thou today?” said Cormac.

“Thy wife,” said he, “even Ethne Taebfada daughter of Dunlang king of Leinster.” Then he took the woman away with him.

That thing Cormac could not endure. He went after them, and every one followed him. A great mist was brought upon them in the midst of the plain, and Cormac found himself alone. There was a large fortress in the midst of the plain with a wall of bronze around it. In the fortress was a house of white silver, and it was half-thatched with the wings of white birds. A faery host of horsemen were at the house, with lapfuls of the wings of white birds in their bosoms to thatch the house. A gust of wind would blow and would carry away all of it that had been thatched. Cormac saw a man kindling a fire, and the thick-boled oak was cast upon it, top and butt. When the man came again with another oak, the burning of the first oak had ended. Then he saw another royal stronghold, and another wall of bronze around it. There were four palaces therein. He entered the fortress and saw the vast palace with its beams of bronze, its wattling of silver, and its thatch of the wings of white birds. Then he saw in the enclosure a shining fountain, with five streams flowing out of it, and the hosts in turn drinking its water. Nine hazels of Buan grew over the well. The purple hazels dropped their nuts into the fountain, and the five salmon which were in the fountain severed them and sent their husks floating down the streams. Now the sound of the falling of those streams was more melodious than any music that men sing.

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