The Tale of Conary Mor
The continuation of the tale of Etain and Eochy, and the wrath of the fae on their descendant.
What follows are descriptions and a tale from an old source:
The continuation of the tale of Etain and Eochy, and the wrath of the fae on their descendant.
What follows are descriptions and a tale from an old source:
Fairy Queen Etain is reincarnated, but without her memory. She falls in love with Eochy, High King of Ireland and marries him. Her Fairy king Midir finds her and takes her back. Eochy declares war on the fae, to win his wife back. He succeeds, however the fae swear to take revenge, and the fae are patient... (Read the full story on Etain, Eochy and Midir.) Eochy regained his queen, who lived with him till his death, ten years afterwards, and bore him one daughter, who was named Etain, like herself.
From this Etain
ultimately sprang the great king Conary Mor, who shines in Irish legend as the
supreme type of royal splendour, power, and beneficence, and whose overthrow
and death were compassed by the Danaans in vengeance for the devastation of
their sacred dwellings by Eochy. The tale in which the death of Conary is
related is one of the most antique and barbaric in conception of all Irish
legends, but it has a magnificence of imagination which no other can rival. To
this great story the tale of Etain and Midir may be regarded as what the Irish
called a priomscel, "introductory tale," showing the more remote
origin of the events related.
The Law of the Geis
The tale of Conary
introduces us for the first time to the law or institution of the geis,
which plays hence-forward a very important part in Irish legend, the violation
or observance of a geis being frequently the turning-point in
a tragic narrative. We must therefore delay a moment to explain to the reader
exactly what this peculiar institution was.
Dineen's "Irish
Dictionary" explains the word geis as meaning "a bond, a spell,
a prohibition, a taboo, a magical injunction, the violation of which led to
misfortune and death." Every Irish chieftain or personage of note had
certain geise peculiar to himself which he must not
transgress. These geise had sometimes reference to a code of
chivalry - thus Dermot of the Love-spot, when appealed to by Grania to take her
away from Finn, is under geise not to refuse protection to a
woman. Or they may be merely superstitious or fantastic - thus Conary, as one
of his geise, is forbidden to follow three red horsemen on a
road, nor must he kill birds (this is because, as we shall see, his totem was a
bird). It is a geis to the Ulster champion, Fergus mac Roy,
that he must not refuse an invitation to a feast ; on this turns the Tragedy of
the Sons of Usnach. It is not at all clear who imposed these geise or
how anyone found out what his personal geise were-all that was
doubtless an affair of the Druids. But they were regarded as sacred
obligations, and the worst misfortunes were to be apprehended from breaking
them. Originally, no doubt, they were regarded as a means of keeping oneself in
proper relations with the other world-the world of Faery - and were akin to the
well-known Polynesian practice of the "taboo." I prefer, however, to
retain the Irish word as the only fitting one for the Irish practice.
The Cowherd's Fosterling
We now return to follow
the fortunes of Etain's great-grandson, Conary. Her daughter, Etain Oig, married Cormac, King of Ulster. She bore
her husband no children save one daughter only. Embittered by her barrenness
and his want of an heir, the king put away Etain and ordered her infant to be
abandoned and thrown into a pit. "Then his two thralls take her to a pit,
and she smiles a laughing smile at them as they were putting her into it."
After that they cannot leave her to die, and they
carry her to a cowherd of Eterskel, King of Tara, by whom she is fostered and
taught "till she became a good embroidress and there was not in Ireland a
king's daughter dearer than she." Hence the name she bore, Messbuachalla, which
means "the cowherd's foster-child". For fear of her being
discovered, the cowherds keep the maiden in a house of wickerwork having only a
roof-pening. But one of King Eterskel's folk has the curiosity to climb up and look
in, and sees there the fairest maiden in Ireland. He bears word to the king,
who orders an opening to be made in the wall and the maiden fetched forth, for
the king was childless, and it had been prophesied to him by his Druid that a
woman of unknown race would bear him a son. Then said the king: "This is
the woman that has been prophesied to me."
Parentage and Birth of
Conary
So Conary was born, and
grew up into a wise and noble youth, and he was fostered with a lord named
Desa, whose three great-grandsons grew up with him from childhood. Their names
were Ferlee and Fergar and Ferrogan; and Conary, it is said, loved them well
and taught them his wisdom.
Conary the High King
Then King Eterskel died,
and a successor had to be appointed. In Ireland the eldest son did not succeed
to the throne or chieftaincy as a matter of right, but the ablest and best of
the family at the time was supposed to be selected by the clan. In this tale we
have a curious account of this selection by means of divination. A
"bull-feast" was held - i.e., a bull was slain, and
the diviner would "eat his fill and drink its broth"; then he went to
bed, where a truth-compelling spell was chanted over him. Whoever he saw in his
dream would be king. So at Aegira, in Achaea, the
priestess of Earth drank the fresh blood of a bull before descending into the
cave to prophesy. The dreamer cried in his sleep that he saw a naked man going towards
Tara with a stone in his sling. The bull-feast was held
at Tara, but Conary was then with his three foster-brothers playing a game on
the Plains of Liffey. They separated, Conary going towards Dublin, where he saw
before him a flock of great birds, wonderful in colour and beauty. He drove
after them in his chariot, but the birds would go a spear-cast in front and
light, and fly on again, never letting him come up with them till they reached
the sea-shore. Then he lighted down from his chariot and took out his sling to
cast at them, whereupon they changed into armed men and turned on him with
spears and swords. One of them, however, protected him, and said: "I am
Nemglan, king of thy father's birds; and thou hast been forbidden to cast at
birds, for here there is no one but is thy kin."
"Till to-day,"
said Conary, "I knew not this."
"Go to Tara
to-night," said Nemglan; "the bull-feast is there, and through it
thou shalt be made king. A man stark naked, who shall go at the end of the
night along one of the roads to Tara, having a stone and a sling-'tis he that
shall be king."
So Conary stripped off
his raiment and went naked through the night to Tara, where all the roads were
being watched by chiefs having changes of royal raiment with them to clothe the
man who should come according to the prophecy. When Conary meets them they
clothe him and bring him in, and he is proclaimed King of Erin.
Conary's Geise
A long list of his geise is
here given, which are said to have been declared to him by Nemglan. "The
bird-reign shall be noble," said he, "and these shall be thy geise:
"Thou shalt not go
right.handwise round Tara, nor left-handwise round Bregia, [Bregia was the
great plain lying eastwards of Tara between Boyne and Liffey]
Thou shalt not hunt the evil-beasts of Cerna,
Thou shalt not go out every ninth night beyond Tan.
Thou shalt not sleep in a house from which firelight shows after sunset, or in
which light can be seen from without.
No three Reds shall go before thee to the house of Red.
No rapine shall be wrought in thy reign.
After sunset, no one
woman alone or man alone shall enter the house in which thou art.
Thou shalt not interfere in a quarrel between two of thy thralls."
Conary then entered upon
his reign, which was marked by the fair seasons and bounteous harvests always
associated in the Irish mind with the reign of a good king. Foreign ships came
to the ports. Oak-mast for the swine was up to the knees every autumn; the
rivers swarmed with fish. "No one slew another in Erin during his reign,
and to everyone in Erin his fellow's voice seemed as sweet as the strings of
lutes. From mid-spring to mid-autumn no wind disturbed a cow's tail."
Beginning of the
Vengeance
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| 1 |
Disturbance, however,
came from another source. Conary had put down all raiding and rapine, and his
three foster-brothers, who were born reavers, took it ill. They pursued their
evil ways in pride and wilfulness, and were at last captured red-handed. Conary
would not condemn them to death, as the people begged him to do, but spared
them for the sake of his kinship in fosterage. They were, however, banished
from Erin and bidden to go raiding overseas, if raid they must. On the seas
they met another exiled chief, Ingcel the One-Eyed, son of the King of Britain,
and joining forces with him they attacked the fortress in which Ingcel's
father, mother, and brothers were guests at the time, and all were destroyed in
a single night. It was then the turn of Ingcel to ask their help in raiding the
land of Erin, and gathering a host of other outlawed men, including the seven
Manés, sons of Ailell and Maev of Connacht, besides Fence, Fergar, and
Ferrogan, they made a descent upon Ireland, taking land on the Dublin coast
near Howth.
Meantime Conary had been
lured by the machinations of the Danaans into breaking one after another of
his geise. He settles a quarrel between two of his serfs in
Munster, and travelling back to Tara they see the country around it lit with
the glare of fires and wrapped in clouds of smoke. A host from the North, they
think, must be raiding the country, and to escape it Conary's company have to
turn right-handwise round Tara and then left-handwise round the Plain of
Bregia. But the smoke and flames were an illusion made by the Fairy Folk, who
are now drawing the toils closer round the doomed king. On his way past Bregia
he chases the evil beasts of Cerna - whatever they were - "but
he saw it not till the chase was ended."
Da Derga's Hostel and
the Three Reds
Conary had now to find a
re sting-place for the night, and he recollects that he is not far from the
Hostel of the Leinster lord, Da Derga, which gives its name to this bardic
tale. [The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel] Conary had been
generous to him when Da Derga came visiting to Tara, and he determined to seek
his hospitality for the night. Da Derga dwelt in a vast hall with seven doors
near to the present town of Dublin, probably at Donnybrook, on the high-road to
the south. As the cavalcade are Journeying thither an ominous incident occurs -
Conary marks in front of them on the road three horsemen clad all in red and
riding on red horses. He remembers his geis about the
"three Reds," and sends a messenger forward to bid them fall behind.
But however the messenger lashes his horse he fails to get nearer than the
length of a spear-cast to the three Red Riders. He shouts to them to turn back
and follow the king, but one of them, looking over his shoulder, bids him
ironically look out for "great news from a Hostel." Again and again
the messenger is sent to them with promises of great reward if they will fail
behind instead of preceding Conary. At last one of them chants a mystic and
terrible strain. "Lo, my son, great the news. Weary are the steeds we ride
- the steeds from the fairy mounds. Though we are living, we are dead. Great
are the signs : destruction of life sating of ravens ; feeding of crows;
strife of slaughter; wetting of sword-edge; shields with broken bosses after
sundown. Lo, my son !" Then they ride forward, and, alighting from their
red steeds, fasten them at the portal of Da Derga's Hostel and sit down inside.
Derga, it
may be explained, means red. Conary had therefore been preceded by
three red horsemen to the House of Red.
"All my geise," he remarks forebodingly, "have seized me to-night."
"All my geise," he remarks forebodingly, "have seized me to-night."
Gathering of the Hosts
From this point the story
of Conary Mor takes on a character of supernatural vastness and mystery, the
imagination of the bardic narrator dilating, as it were, with the approach of
the crisis. Night has fallen, and the pirate host of Ingcel is encamped on the
shores of Dublin Bay. They hear the noise of the royal cavalcade, and
along-sighted messenger is sent out to discover what it is. He brings back word
of the glittering and multitudinous host which has followed Conary to the
Hostel. A crashing noise is heard - Ingcel asks of Ferrogan what it may be - it
is the giant warrior mac Cecht striking flint on steel to kindle fire for the
king's feast. "God send that Conary be not there to-night," cry the
sons of Desa; "woe that he should be under the hurt of his foes." But
lngcel reminds them of their compact - he had given them the plundering of his
own father and brethren ; they cannot refuse to stand by him in the attack he
meditates on Conary in the Hostel. A glare of the fire lit by mac Cecht is now
perceived by the pirate host, shining through the wheels of the chariots which
are drawn up around the open doors of the Hostel. Another of the geise of
Conary has been broken. lngcel and his host now
proceed to build a great cairn of stones, each man contributing one stone, so
that there may be a memorial of the fight, and also a record of the number
slain when each survivor removes his stone again.
The Morrigan
The scene now shifts to
the Hostel, where the king's party has arrived and is preparing for the night.
A solitary woman comes to the door and seeks admission.
"As long as a
weaver's beam were each of her two shins, and they were as dark as the back of
a stag-beetle. A greyish, woolly mantle she wore. Her hair reached to her knee.
Her mouth was twisted to one side of her head." It was the Morrigan, the
Danaan goddess of Death and Destruction. She leant against the doorpost of the
house and looked evilly on the king and his company.
"Well, O woman," said Conary, " if thou art a witch, what seest thou for us?"
"Well, O woman," said Conary, " if thou art a witch, what seest thou for us?"
"Truly I see for
the;" she answered, "that neither fell nor flesh of thine shall
escape from the place into which thou hast come, save what birds will bear away
in their claws."
She asks admission.
Conary declares that his geise forbids him to receive a
solitary man or woman after sunset.
"If in sooth,"
she says, "it has befallen the king not to have room in his house for the
meal and bed of a solitary woman, they will be gotten apart from him from some
one possessing generosity."
"Let her in,
then," says Conary, "though it is a geis of
mine."
Conary and his Retinue
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| 2. |
Champions at the House
lngcel and the sons of
Desa then march to the attack and surround the Hostel:
"Silence a while !
" says Conary, what is this ?"
"Champions at the
house," says Conall of the Victories.
"There are warriors
for them here," answers Conary.
"They will be
needed to-night," Conall rejoins.
One of Desa's sons
rushes first into the Hostel. His head is struck off and cast out of it again.
Then the great struggle begins. The Hostel is set on fire; but the fire is
quenched with wine or any liquids that art in it. Conary and his people sally
forth - hundreds are slain, and the reavers, for the moment, are routed. But
Conary, who has done prodigies of fighting, is athirst and can do no more till
he gets water. The reavers by advice of their wizards have cut off the river
Dodder, which flowed through the Hostel, and all the liquids in the house had
been spilt on the fires.
Death of Conary
The king, who is
perishing of thirst, asks mac Cecht to procure him a drink, and mac Cecht turns
to Conall and asks him whether he will get the drink for the king or stay to
protect him while mac Cecht does it. "Leave the defence of the king to
us," says Conall, "and go thou to seek the drink, for of thee it is
demanded." Mac Cecht then, taking Conary's golden cup, rushes forth,
bursting through the surrounding host, and goes to seek for water. Then Conall,
and Cormac of Ulster, and the other champions, issue forth in turn, slaying
multitudes of the enemy; some return wounded and weary to the little band in
the Hostel, while others cut their way through the ring of foes. Conall,
Sencha, and Duftach stand by Conary till the end; but mac Cecht is long in
returning, Conary perishes of thirst, and the three heroes then fight their way
out and escape, "wounded, broken, and maimed."
Meantime mac Cecht has
rushed over Ireland in frantic search for the water. But the Fairy Folk, who
are here manifestly elemental powers controlling the forces of nature, have
sealed all the sources against them. He tries the Well of Kesair in Wicklow in
vain; he goes to the great rivers, Shannon and Slayney, Bann and Barrow - they
all hide away at his approach; the lakes deny him also; at last he finds a
lake, Loch Gara in Roscommon, which failed to hide itself in time, and thereat
he fills his cup. In the morning he returned to the Hostel with the precious
and hard-won draught, but found the defenders all dead or fled, and two of the
reavers in the act of striking off the head of Conary. Mac Cecht struck off the
head of one of them, and hurled a huge pillar stone after the other, who was
escaping with Conary's head. The reaver fell dead on the spot, and mac Cecht,
taking up his master's head, poured the water into its mouth. Thereupon the head
spoke, and praised and thanked him for the deed.
Mac Cecht's Wound
A woman then came by and
saw mac Cecht lying exhausted and wounded on the field.
"Come hither, O
woman," says mac Cecht.
"I dare not go
there," says the woman, "for horror and fear of thee."
But he persuades her to
come, and says: "I know not whether it is a fly or gnat or an ant that
nips me m the wound."
The woman looked and saw
a hairy wolf buried as far as the two shoulders in the wound. She seized it by
the tail and dragged it forth, and it took "the full of its jaws out of
him."
"Truly," says
the woman, "this is an ant of the Ancient Land."
And mac Cecht took it by
the throat and smote it on the forehead, so that it died.
"Is thy Lord
Alive?"
The tale ends in a truly
heroic strain. Conall of the Victories, as we have seen, had cut his way out
after the king's death, and made his way to Teltin, where he round his father,
Amorgin, in the garth before the dun. Conall's shield-arm had been wounded by
thrice fifty spears, and he reached Teltin now with half a shield, and his
sword, and the fragments of his two spears.
"Swift are the
wolves that have hunted thee, my son," said his father.
"'Tis this that has
wounded us, old hero, an evil conflict with warriors," Conall replied.
"Is thy lord
alive?" asked Amorgin.
"He is not alive,"
says Conall.
"I swear to God what the great tribes of Ulster
swear: he is a coward who goes out of a fight alive having left his lord with
his foes in death."
"My wounds are not
white, old hero," says Conall. He showed him his shield-arm, whereon were
thrice fifty spear-wounds. The sword-arm, which the shield had not guarded, was
mangled and maimed and wounded and pierced, save that the sinews kept it to the
body without separation.
"That arm fought
to-night, my son, says Amorgin.
"True is that, old hero," says Conall
of the Victories. "Many are they to whom it gave drinks of death to-night
in front of the Hostel."
So ends the story of
Etain, and of the overthrow of Fairyland and the fairy vengeance wrought on the
great-grandson of Eochy the High King.
Myths of the Celtic Race, by T. W. Rolleston, 1911
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