In the sea-loch now known as that of Tarbert of Loch Fyne, but in the old far-off days named the Haven of the Foray, there was once a grianÂn, a sunbower, of so great a beauty that thereto the strings of the singing men’s clarsachs vibrated even in far-away Ireland. This was in the days before the yellow-haired men out of Lochlin came swarming in their galleys, along the lochs and fjords of the west. So long ago was it that none knows if Ulad sang his song to Fand before Diarmid the Fair was slain on the narrow place between the two lochs, or if it were when Colum’s white-robes were wont to come out of the open sea up the Loch of the Swans, that is now West Loch Tarbert, so as to reach the inlands. But of what import is the whitherset of bygone days, where the tale of the years and Ulad was there, the poet-king: and Fand, whom he loved: and Life and Death. Ian MÒr, of whom I have written, told me the tale many years ago. I cannot recall all he said, and I know well that the echo of ancient music that was below his words, as he spoke in the gloaming before the peats, and in the ancient tongue of our people, is not now what it was then. None knows whence Ulad came. In the Isles of the West men said he was a prince out of the realm of the Ultonians; but there, in the north of EirÉ, they said he was a king in the southlands. Art the White, the wise old Ardrigh of the peoples who dwelt among the lake-lands far south, spoke of Ulad as one born under a solitary star on the night of the Festival of Beltane, and told that he came out of an ancient land north or south of Muirnict, the sea which has the feet of Wales and Cornwall upon its sunrise side and the rocks and sands of Armorica upon that where the light reddens the west. But upon Ioua, that is now Iona, there was one wiser And of Fand, who knows aught? BÊl the Harper, whose songs and playing made women’s hearts melt like wax, and in men wrought either intolerable longing or put sudden swift flames into the blood, sang of her. And what he sang was this: that Ulad had fared once to Hy BrÀsil and had there beheld a garth of white blooms, fragrant and wonderful, under the hither base of a rainbow. These flowers he had gathered, and warmed all night against his breast, and at dawn breathed into them. When the sunbreak slid a rising line Who, then, can tell whether Ulad were old or young when he came to the Haven of the Foray. He had the old ancient wisdom, and mayhap knew how to wrap himself round with the green life that endures. None knew of his being in that place, till, one set of a disastrous day, a birlinn drove in before the tempest sweeping from the isle of Arran up the great sea-loch of Fionn. The oarsmen drew breath when the headlands were past, and then stared with amaze. Overagainst the bay in the little rocky promontory on the north side was a house built wondrously, and that where no house had stood, and after a fashion that not one of them had seen, and all marvelled with wide eyes. The sunset flamed upon it, so that its shining walls were glorious. A small round grianÂn it was, but built all of blocks and stones of hill-crystal, and upborne upon four great pine-boles driven deep into the tangled grass and sand, with Before this grianÂn the men in the birlinn, upon whom silence had fallen, and whose listless oars made no lapping upon the foam-white small leaping waves of the haven, beheld a man lying face downward. For a time they thought the man was dead. It was one, they said, some great one, who had perished at the feet of his desire. Others thought he was a king who had come there to die alone, as Conn the Solitary had done, when he had known all that man can know. And some feared that the prone man was a demon, and the shining grianÂn a dreadful place of spells. The howling of a wolf, in the opposite glen that is called Strathnamara, brought sweat upon their backs: for when the half-human wish evil upon men they hide their faces, and the howling of a she-wolf is heard. But of a sudden the helmsman made a sign. “It is Ulad,” he whispered hoarsely, because of the salt in his throat after that day of flight and long weariness: “It is Ulad the Wonder-Smith.” Then all there were glad, for each man knew Nevertheless they marvelled much that he was there alone, and in that silence, with his face prone upon the wilderness, while the sunset flamed overagainst the grianÂn that was now like wine, or like springing blood light and wonderful. But as tide and wind brought the birlinn close upon the shore, they heard a twofold noise, a rumour of strange sound. One looked at the other, with amaze that grew into fear. For the twofold sound was wrought of the muffled sobs and prayers of the man that lay upon the grass and of the laughter of the woman that was unseen, but who was within the grianÂn. Connla, the helmsman and leader of the seafarers, waved to his fellows to pull the birlinn close in among the weedy masses which hung from the rocks. When the galley lay there, all but hidden, and each man’s head was beneath the wrack, Connla rose. Slowly he moved to where Ulad lay, face downward, upon the silt of sand and broken rock that was in front of the grianÂn. But, before he could Then, when he had raised his arms, song was upon his lips. It was a strange chant that Connla heard, and had the sound in it of the wind far out at sea, or of a tempest moving across treeless moors, mournful, wild, filled with ancient sorrow and a crying that none can interpret. And the words of it, familiar to the helmsman, and yet with a strange lip-life upon them, were as these:— Ah you in the grianÂn there, whose laughter is on me as fire-flames, What of the sorrow of sorrows that is mine because of my loving— You that came to me out of the place where the rainbows are builded, Is it woman you are, O Fand, who laughest up there in thy silence? Sure, I have loved thee through storm and peace, through the day and the night; Sure, I have set the singing of songs to a marvellous swan-song for thee, And death I have dared, and life have I dared, and gloom and the grave, And yet, O Fand, thou laughest down on my pain, on my pain, O Fand. All things have I thrown away gladly only to win thee— Kingship and lordship of men, the fame of the sword, and all good things— For in thee at the last, I dreamed, in thee, O Fand, Queen of Women, I had found all that a man may find, and was as the gods who die not. But what of all this to me, who am Ulad the King, the Harper, Ulad the Singer of Songs that are fire in the hearts of the hearers, Ulad the Wonder-Smith, who can bridle the winds and the billows, Can lay waste the greatest of DÛns or build grianÂns here in the wilds— What of all this to me, who am only a man that seeketh, That seeketh for ever and ever the Soul that is fellow to his— The Soul that is thee, O Fand, who wert born of flowers ’neath the rainbow, Breathed with my breath, warmed at my breast, O Fand, whom I love and I worship? For all things are vain unto me, but one thing only, and that not vain is— My Dream, my Passion, my Hope, my Fand, whom I won from Hy BrÀsil: O Dream of my life, my Glory, O Rose of the World, my Dream, Lo, death for Ulad the King, if thou failest, for all that I am of the Danann who die not. And when he had chanted these words, Ulad, “Then, if even not yet at the setting of the day,” the king muttered, “patience shall be upon me till the coming of a new day, and then it may be that Fand will hear my prayer.” And so the night fell. But when the screaming of the gulls came over the loch, and the plaintive crying of the lapwings was upon the moorland, and the smell of loneroid and bracken was heavy in the wind-fallen stillness, Ulad turned, for he felt a touch upon his shoulder. It was Connla who touched him, and he knew the man. He had the old wisdom of knowing all that is in the mind by looking into the eyes, and he knew how the man had come there. “Let the men who are your men, O Connla, move away from here in their birlinn, and go farther up into the haven.” And because he was a Wonder-Smith, and knew all, the islander did as Ulad bade, and without question. But when they were alone again he spoke. “Ulad, great lord, I am a man who is as “If you will tell me one thing that I do not know, O Connla, you shall have your heart’s desire.” Connla laughed at that. “Not even you, O Ulad, can give me my heart’s desire.” “And what will that desire be then, you whom the islesmen call Connla the Wise?” “That one might see in the dew the footsteps of old years returning.” “That thing, Connla, I cannot do.” “And yet thou wouldst do what is a thing as vain as that?” “Speak. I will listen.” Then Connla drew close to Ulad, and whispered in his ear. Thereafter he gave him a hollow reed with holes in it, such as the shepherding folk use on the hills. And with that he went away into the darkness. When the moon rose, Ulad took the reed Come forth, Fand, come forth, beautiful Fand, my woman, my fawn, The smell of thy falling hair is sweet as the breath of the wild-brier— I weary of this white moonshine who love better the white discs of thy breasts, And the secret song of the gods is faint beside the craving in my blood. Fand, Fand, Fand, white one, who art no dream but a woman, Come forth from the grianÂn, or lo by the word of me, Ulad the King, Forth shalt thou come as a she-wolf, and no more be a woman, Come forth to me, Fand, who am now as a flame for thy burning! Thereupon a low laugh was heard, and Fand came forth out of the grianÂn. White and beautiful she was, the fairest of all women, and Ulad was glad. When near, she whispered in his ears, and hand-in-hand they went back into the grianÂn. At dawn Ulad looked upon the beauty of Fand, and he saw she was as a flower. “O fair and beautiful Dream,” he whispered—but of a sudden Fand laughed in her sleep, “Woman,” Ulad muttered then, “I see well that thou art not my Dream, but only a woman.” And with that he half-rose from her. Fand opened her eyes, and the beauty of them was greater for the light that was there. “Then thou art only Ulad, a man?” she cried, and she put her arms about him, and kissed him on the lips and on the breast, sobbing low as with a strange gladness—“I will follow thee, Ulad, to death, for I am thy woman.” “Ay,” he said, looking beyond her, “if I feed thee, and call thee my woman, and find pleasure in thee, and give thee my manhood.” “And what else wouldst thou, O Ulad?” Fand asked, wondering. “I am Ulad the Lonely,” he answered: this, and no more. Then, later, he took the hollow reed again, and again played. And when he had played he looked at Fand. He saw into her heart, and into her brain. “I have dreamed my dream,” he said; “but I am still Ulad the Wonder-Smith.” With that he blew a frith across the palm of his left hand, and said this thing:— “O woman that would not come to me, when I called out of that within me which is I myself, farewell!” And with that Fand was a drift of white flowers there upon the deerskins. Then once more Ulad spoke. “O woman, that heeded no bitter prayer which I made, but at the last came only as a she-wolf to the wolf, farewell!” And with that a wind-eddy scattered the white flowers upon the deerskins, and they wavered hither and thither, and some were stained by the pale wandering fires of a rainbow that drifted over that place, then as now the haunt of these cloudy splendours, forever woven there out of sun and mist. At noon, the seafarers came towards the grianÂn with songs, and offerings. But Ulad was not there. |