Old Friends: The Lost Tales of Fionn Mac Cumhaill Read online

  Mac Cumhaill felt bad. He wasn’t in the habit of taking his temper out on the defenceless. He made a purring sound to call the cat back.

  ‘It’s just that you’re upset about this other business,’ said Úna, reaching out to stroke Beatha.

  Beatha chose Úna and curled himself around her leg.

  Mac Cumhaill called Conán and Diarmuid to his home. They each came with five of their commanders, all of them soaked from the incessant rain. None of them had the inclination, on such a miserable evening, to devise a complicated plan when a simple one might do just as well. They would go the next night and surround the nice, stone house that the seven troublemakers had built. They would tell them that their game was known. Guessing that they were not yet prepared for a war, Mac Cumhaill expected that the bandraois would give up sensibly and accept a deal that exiled them to some remote island. At least it was worth hoping for that.

  The next morning, a group of 13 soldiers moved across the mountains to the miserable village of Bré. The cailleachs were mostly nocturnal and the only souls moving at the hour they got there were a mangy dog and a mean east wind blowing in from the cold, dark sea. They went to the new stone house on the hill above the village. They approached carefully. But they needn’t have bothered. There was no life. No sounds. On the door they could see a jack-daw flapping, one leg tied to the door bolt.

  Mac Cumhaill went to free it and it repeated the message it had been given.

  ‘The deal you’ve come to propose, we regret we have to refuse. But why don’t you offer it to your mothers? Send them off on a boat to some freezing island. You see, we know everything you think, even before you think it, you bunch of lúdramáns. Our advice to you is to get away from this place as fast as your thick legs will carry you. If you are still here when we come back, the raven of death will peck your eyes and we will have your livers for supper this very evening.’

  Mac Cumhaill let the bird go.

  Mac Cumhaill was angry. Most of the men, including Diarmuid, were not. They were nervous. They looked around them all the time, thinking they were being watched and that the bandraois were about to reappear at any minute. The threats were one thing. All bandraois, good, bad or in-between, were renowned for the eloquence of their threats.

  But Diarmuid asked the question that was really worrying them all.

  ‘How did they know we were coming today?’

  ‘Don’t be getting all shaky now,’ shouted Conán, irritated with the pale quietness that had descended. ‘It was probably just a good guess on their part.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Diarmuid. ‘But what about the bit about the island?’

  ‘It’s hardly the first time that has been done with witches. And that foul wizard was sent off to Achill only ten years back,’ said Conán.

  ‘Maybe they can read our minds,’ said one of the younger men.

  ‘Maybe, maybe,’ said Mac Cumhaill. ‘But not unless they have surpassed the powers of any bandraoi I’ve known.’

  When he got home, Mac Cumhaill decided not to think about the possibility that one of his commanders might have informed the bandraois. He knew all of them on each team. He didn’t even want to imagine any of them being in league with dark bandraois.

  But Úna re-awoke the worry when she said to him the next morning, in her usual, matter-of-fact way, ‘Of course you realise it must have been one of those people of yours.’

  ‘No person of the Fianna would ever betray us like that.’

  ‘What about that Liath one? She’s much too sweet to be true.’

  This was an old tune. Úna never thought good of Liath Ní Choinchin, though she was easily the most promising young commander in the Fianna, fearless, smart and true. Úna thought Mac Cumhaill had a special liking for her because she reminded him of Liath Luachra, the warrior woman who had helped bring him up and taught him much of what he knew.

  ‘I don’t believe there is a fair reason for you to suggest her over any of the others,’ said Mac Cumhaill.

  ‘Except that she’s a wily little vixen, you mean? I have never trusted a woman with red hair and she has boatloads of it.’

  ‘Now, Úna,’ said Mac Cumhaill.

  ‘Well, even if she hasn’t turned on you yet, there is someone who has. A spy there must be.’

  Mac Cumhaill reluctantly agreed that he had to start suspecting a spy. Maybe the bandraois were holding information or a threat over one of his people.

  Later that day, Mac Cumhaill called Conán and his commanders back to his house, but did not call Diarmuid’s people. He explained that nobody from the group should talk to any other soul about the plan he was about to lay before them. They all swore to that. The plan involved trapping one of the witches who was known to collect two buckets of dirty green water from the Bré pond just before dusk every evening.

  Mac Cumhaill, Conán and his five commanders laid in wait, with nets. They also had a flask of praiseach pollen – most bandraois were so addicted to this stuff that a good whiff of it blown at them would send them into a blind reverie, making it much easier to approach them without having a lump of flesh or an eye ripped off. But the bandraoi never showed up. Eventually, after dark had fallen, a whisk of wind flew across their heads and they were sure they heard hoarse laughter as the flying bandraoi disappeared beyond a thicket of woods.

  Apparently, again, the bandraois had known in advance.

  Next day he planned with only Diarmuid and his men present. This time the plan was to create a haze of bandraoi bait by heating a mixture of foxglove petals and honey. When the bandraois from all over the region descended on the place, Mac Cumhaill would call out to them all that there were seven bad ones amongst them. He hoped that the others would know which were the Bré women and would give them up because they were giving all of the rest of them a bad name. And he intended to threaten all bandraois with expulsion unless they helped him catch the seven bad ones. It wasn’t an idle threat. If there weren’t ways of selecting bandraois for expulsion, there were always ways of expelling every bandraoi. Nobody would want that because the good ones did a lot of healing and helping in their clans. But if the good ones let the bad ones hide behind their cloaks, he would have no choice.

  He started the fire. He started cooking the concoction. The sickly smell wafted all over. Soon strange women of every size and shape started appearing. When no more seemed to be arriving, Mac Cumhaill said his say to the hundreds assembled there.

  But he got no help. They all just giggled and sniggered. One old woman came forward and told him that every one of them knew who the bad ones were, but that they were all absent tonight.

  She continued, ‘They said to me, “When Mac Cumhaill sets his clever little trap tonight, send him our regards and tell him if he keeps going the way he’s going, his remaining days in this world will be few and unpleasant.”’

  Mac Cumhaill went home, furious and confused. It seemed almost impossible that the bandraois could have a spy in Conán’s group as well as someone in Diarmuid’s group.

  Liath came to him. She informed him quietly that some of the men in both groups felt quite offended that they had been suspected.

  The next day, Mac Cumhaill could think of no new plan. He just sat by the fire in his big chair. The day after, he didn’t leave his home either. He sat stroking the cat, which must have sensed his distress as it stayed close and provided a consoling distraction to him.

  Mac Cumhaill felt at a loss. More days passed. People were getting anxious. Every death now, whether natural or not, was attributed to the bandraois. And when you attribute a death or misfortune to a bandraoi, it is not the bandraoi who gets the primary blame. People immediately start to wonder which of their neighbours or family paid the bandraoi for the curse. And when they think they’ve figured it out, they start considering going to a bandraoi themselves to do harm to the person who may never have done them any harm at all. And so, the contagion of evil started to take hold of people.

  After a while an unpleasa
nt murmur arose from some corners of the land. One of Diarmuid’s men was the first to say it out loud: ‘Mac Cumhaill, of course, was the only one present at both planning sessions.’

  And then, ‘Mac Cumhaill, of course, has always had a soft spot for women with powers.’

  And, ‘Mac Cumhaill, you know, was brought up by herb women – even if we are told that they were good, how do we know for sure?’

  The rumours were getting even bolder: ‘And anyway, don’t you know that Mac Cumhaill has a few special tricks of his own. Of course, we all know that he sold his soul to a black bandraoi in return for them.’

  It is part of the way of rumours that if they are repeated often enough they become facts.

  ‘Oh, there’s no smoke without fire,’ people would say.

  To his discredit, the king himself had heard these rumours and when the tests with Diarmuid and Conán failed the king also started to wonder about Mac Cumhaill.

  ‘Well,’ he reasoned, ‘if there aren’t any truths there, why is Mac Cumhaill just sitting by his fire while things get worse?’

  Conán heard this and said to the king, ‘Cormac, if you really believe that, then on my heart I will leave down my sword and spear this day and I will never fight in defence of this kingdom again.’

  Cormac had wine taken, and he continued: ‘Of course I don’t believe that he is in cahoots with them. But you do have to wonder if he is not just turning a blind eye. There are things you don’t know about Mac Cumhaill, Conán; things that none of us really know. On those long, dark forest and mountain days of his outcast childhood there was a lot of time for bitterness to build up. It would only be natural that he might have a well of anger against normal people, buried deep inside him. And when he goes off wandering in the hills, he spends time with some people who we wouldn’t really have much in common with and who he would be better keeping at sword’s length away from.’

  Angered though he was, Conán did not tell Mac Cumhaill of this conversation then, as he suspected he would never fully forgive Cormac.

  After several more days sitting listlessly by the fire, Fionn heard Úna crying from the garden one morning, ‘Come and see Beatha!’

  What was she wailing about? Beatha was right here, sprawled under the table – his new favourite spot since Mac Cumhaill had taken back permanent occupancy of the chair. He recalled the way that Beatha would run to take his chair the minute he stood from it.

  ‘You don’t do that anymore,’ he said to the cat.

  And then other thoughts were coming into his head. He remembered being puzzled that the old woman who died while revealing the secret of the bandraois had talked about seven women, but everyone he’d talked to since spoke of only six.

  And he said to himself, for the thousandth time, shaking his head, ‘there was no one else in the room when I talked to my commanders.’

  As he said this, he looked down again at the cat who, as usual, was now looking straight up at him. The cat realised too slowly that Mac Cumhaill had finally understood what was happening. He had it by the tail as it tried to scurry out the door. It was screeching and scrawbing like the world was falling down.

  In the meantime, Úna had made it back into the house, holding a little body. Despite the mud on its skinny pelt, it was clear immediately that this was the real Beatha. The cat in Mac Cumhaill’s hand squealed even more ferociously and curled itself up to put deep scratches in Mac Cumhaill’s arm but Mac Cumhaill didn’t pay any attention.

  Their poor little Beatha looked dead to Mac Cumhaill. But Úna claimed she could still feel a faint heartbeat. She took him to the fire to warm him and to try to get little drops of sugar water into him to give him some energy. She cuddled him and sang him a lullaby that sounded beautiful even above the complaining of the other cat.

  Mac Cumhaill took the other cat outside and held it over the deep well in their back yard.

  ‘Bandraoi, you can choose. Die as a cat in this well, or help me catch your friends.’

  The cat looked at him and spoke: ‘Anything you ask, I’ll do,’ she rasped, probably thinking she could change her mind once he let her go and she got out of his spear range.

  ‘That’s good,’ said Mac Cumhaill, taking out a knife and slicing off the end of her tail. ‘Because you’ll be stuck as a cat forever if you let me down.’

  Mac Cumhaill knew that when a piece is missing from the form that a bandraoi has changed into, she is trapped.

  The cat squealed and stomped, more in anger than in pain.

  Mac Cumhaill told her to tell her friends that he and Úna would be away tonight and that this would be a good time to enter Teach Mhic Cumhaill and lie in wait for him.

  The cat disappeared sulkily but quickly. Clearly, all the great vows of loyalty to her friends meant quite a bit less to this lady cat than her own well-being did.

  Mac Cumhaill called for Conán and Diarmuid. When he told them the bandraois would be calling to his house this evening, the tone of his voice told them not to question him. They helped him to prepare a huge net smeared with lard that was laden with praiseach pollen.

  They lay in wait. Sure enough, by dusk the bandraois started arriving. They were so sure of their information now that they had become completely brazen. They did not take the slightest bit of caution. They walked right up to the house and started trying to open the door. When all six of them clustered at this task, the net fell on them. They squealed and squawked as they were winched up in a great bundle with legs and arms sticking out in every direction.

  That very night, they were taken on a boat and deposited on one of the coldest and most desolate islands in the northerly sea.

  As for the seventh, when she came back to look for her tail, Mac Cumhaill had decided that she was safer in the form she was in. He kept his word and told her where the tail was. It was in the lake. The bandraoi now swore at the cat’s body which she occupied, because she knew that every sinew of it would resist any adventure in water. There was no way she was going to get into that lake. So she spent the rest of her days as a half-tailed cat. And what’s more, she had to learn to catch mice. And to eat them. For there were no people willing to give scraps or show kindness to a treacherous creature like her.

  Soon enough, the real Beatha was drinking milk and sitting up. It was only a few days before he had his strength back and was back to his old ways – sleeping all day in Mac Cumhaill’s chair and catching mice and rats with great enthusiasm at night.

  Mac Cumhaill had always hated to see the way Beatha would play with the little creatures before he killed them; even though he had seen it a thousand times with other cats and knew it was just nature’s harsh way. He would give out to Beatha, saying, ‘Kill the little fellow, Beatha, can’t you see the terror in its little eyes? There’s enough misery in the world. Kill the poor thing or let it go about its business.’

  The strange part was that he soon started to think that Beatha understood him. Beatha became a curiosity to visitors. Mac Cumhaill would make them wait up to see Beatha hunt. It was a thing that none of them had ever seen before in a cat. Beatha would prowl like a normal cat; pounce like a normal cat; but he would take hold of his prey by the back of the neck, as he’d seen Bran doing with hares. He would give one or two hard shakes. And that would be the end of it. Of course, nobody now dared to repeat what many of them again started thinking – that Mac Cumhaill had taken more than his meals from the good women who had brought him up. For it was widely known that cats took instructions from nobody other than those with the powers of a bandraoi.

  Up to that time, it was true what the Old Man had said, that the only hassle was at school and that things were grand at home. But that day, home started to close in on Arthur too.

  He woke up that morning and remembered there would be more hassle at school today. Magill didn’t take kindly to being disobeyed.

  Arthur wasn’t really scared about it all, but thought he just didn’t want to bother with it. And he couldn’t go mitching anymore.
So he just told his mother, ‘Mam, I think I won’t go to school today.’

  ‘What? Arthur, love, I’m sorry, but you can’t do that.’

  ‘I could stay home and work on the farm and do something useful instead of sitting around in school all day.’

  ‘You need your education, Arthur. And besides, it’s the law, and we’d both get in trouble. You heard what those men said.’

  ‘The school wouldn’t report me, though, I’m fairly sure. It’s only Saltee. You can talk to him, tell him to mind his own business.’

  ‘I’m sure you are wrong there Arty. The school has got to report you.’

  ‘David Cash is allowed to stay home. They’re not following him up.’

  ‘Well, they should be. And they most definitely would follow us up. Besides, you’re alone too much already. It worries me. You need to be with people your age.’

  ‘I can go up then and spend part of the day with Cash,’ said Arthur, ‘once I’ve helped Brian with the farm work.’

  ‘Well, now that you’ve raised it, that’s another issue I’ve wanted us to talk about.’

  Arthur did not like the sound of this.

  She looked out the window and started talking in a shaky rehearsed way, not like herself.

  ‘I think I’ve been a little unfair on you, allowing you to do so much farm work. If we went on like this your teen years could entirely pass you by.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that, Mam. I wanted to do it. I still want to do it. I’m not missing a thing.’

  ‘I know. You insisted. But I shouldn’t have listened to you. It’s too much.’

  ‘So what are you saying?’ said Arthur. ‘We can’t leave the farm idle. It has to be kept going so it’s running fine when Connie comes back.’

  ‘No, it won’t go idle. But I’ve been getting a bit of advice on it.’

  ‘From who?’ Arthur was starting to panic as the penny dropped.

  ‘And the advice seems to make sense. We couldn’t sell the ground. But we can lease it out to someone else who could farm it productively.’