Chapter 1: Autumn, 58 B.C

“Out of sedgy fields I came on Stráid-na-Cuacha.
What did you see there? Castles white with lime;
Cuckoos in gold cages, and black queens feeding them;
Trees dropping moons into vats of mead;
A goat-fair--goats whose horns were double rainbows;
Goat-herds, fiddling, naked babies dancing;
Jugglers throwing gourds through the rings of brooches;
Old Father Time sitting drunken on a stone.
Out of Stráid-na-Cuacha I came on ferny hills.”
_Joseph Campbell._

Meromic turned over and blinked at the light; the sea-mist was streaming away, thinner and thinner, whitely luminous already with the sun behind. He stretched out his arms and threw back the blanket: it was going to be a fine day and he could do anything he liked with it. Then, waking more fully, he remembered the evening before, the feast, young men and girls dancing and singing, talk of his sister’s betrothal to Gandoc, the Briton, and after that the Council of the Cantons, his father and uncles speaking, the strength and glory of the Veneti! Turning over his father’s speech in his mind, he thought how he himself would have altered a phrase here and there, rounded the corners, put in more poetry. He wondered when he would make a speech first, compared occasions, considered an audience: grey heads nodding approval, admiring friends, bright faces of girls--oh, a whole crowd of them!

For a time his mind ran on girls, blue-eyed and fair-haired girls, running and dancing and swimming, the poise of a girl cousin of his reaching down nets from a high beam. At this he changed to fishing, then back, by way of mermaids, to that cousin of his; then off again to turn over all the rumours they had heard last night. The Gallic Council had asked the Roman General, Julius Cæsar, for help against the German king, Ariovistus; it was a good thing to set the bear and the dog at one another, cheer on whichever one chose, and in the end, turn out the bleeding victor with hardly enough breath left to growl! But the German bear had been conquered a little too easily, and the dog refused to be turned out. The central Cantons, even, seemed not to mind taking the dog as regent. Meromic thought scornfully of Ardorix of Curdun, that proud Arvernian who had lorded it so last year at the assembly with his hounds and horses and fine clothes, now under a Roman: never, never would that be said of him! Never of the Veneti, never of the coastwise Cantons! And it was in his mind that all these were brothers together, children of the Sealord, Mananaun, and that they must stand by one another always.

Still he lay there, his hands clasped under his head, dreaming big, beautiful, vague dreams of power and unity, the shining future and the gleaming past. The mist was melted away by now, the sun shone full on him; he heard the distant, repeated turning over and over of low-tide waves; the gulls cried and the cocks crew; a maid went by under his window, singing, towards the byres; the air was cool and fresh, just faintly touched with the familiar smell of sea-weed and wet ropes.

Suddenly the curtain over the doorway was swept aside, and Fiommar, his sister, stood over him, a fishing-line in one hand. “Lazy one, get up!” she said. “Come out with me. I want to talk. The boat’s down by the hollow rock; be quick or they’ll see us--I must have one more whole day with you!” He yawned and grinned at her, not inclined to get up, but liking to see her stand beside him, free and fair and upright, a picture of the Celtic genius. Quickly she stooped and pulled the blanket right off him; on arms and body the thick golden down shone in the sunlight. He sat up, clasping one bare knee; Fiommar slid her hand down back and side, admiring the faint ripple of movement that followed her under the smooth skin. He put on his clothes in a minute; they both went barefoot. “Are you sure you can go?” he asked. “Doesn’t father want you?” “I don’t care,” she said, “we’ll be back in time for this evening. Do hurry, Meromic--we’ll be caught!”

No one was about as they went down to the beach. Along the path there was a tangle of vetch and whin, old heather and brambles; the slope faced south and already the berries were colouring. At the very tip of a branch Fiommar found one ripe blackberry and gave it to her brother. “Do take it,” she said; “I--I don’t know, only this seems like the last time we shall be really alone.” But Meromic laughed at her: “Little silly, you’re not going to be married yet awhile; we’ll have lots more days.”

They turned down. The cove where their boat lay was still damp and shadowed, but as they pushed off they came out again into the light; Meromic stood up between the thwarts and held out his arms towards Lugh the sun. Fiommar, rowing behind him, shut her eyes at the leaping dazzle on the water. “Where shall we go?” she asked. “Right out beyond Crabland?” “We’ll see,” he answered, and began to hoist the sail. There was a light south-easterly wind; they went up past the islands in long tacks; in the lee of the westernmost, the one they called Crabland, they anchored and dropped a line overboard. Fiommar had brought food with her, a solid hunk of rye-bread, cheese, blaeberries in a dock-leaf, and two or three raw mushrooms; they shared them, trailing their sun-burnt arms in the water and smiling at each other.

They caught one fish and pulled him inboard with much splashing. Then they rowed over to Crabland and waded across the shallow little bay, where they could see the crabs and star-fish on the warm, light-dappled bottom. Fiommar threw herself down on the turf--it was grazed by a few half-wild goats--and stuck her hands into it, pulling up pieces of thyme and throwing them at her brother.

The island was rocky, full of little caves and pockets, and almost bare to the west; but farther round it was overgrown with tamarisk, all blown one way by the prevailing wind, and the rocks were covered, between the old gulls’ nests, with sea-pink and campion and samphire. Meromic and his sister knew it well; they had watched the beaches shift about as the sand buried or unburied this and that rock: they had caught young shags from their ragged, stinking nests, and brought them back to tame. They had often drunk at the spring which trickled out through a cleft in the rocks, not many feet above the highest tide-marks. It was a good spring: there was a rowan tree--the only one in the island--small, but always full of berries in autumn, growing out of the cleft above it: and below the harts-tongue ferns were forever bobbing in the drip; there were small flowers all about the rocks. Once, in a green summer dusk, Meromic had thought he had seen a fairy there; the next day he brought her milk and honey and a bunch of inland flowers: but he had not seen her again. When they were little they had always wanted to stay there for a whole night, but somehow they never had, and now they had almost forgotten about it.

“I should like to be buried here when I’m dead,” said Fiommar. “Will you do it, Meromic?”

“I expect I shall be dead myself.”

“But if you aren’t--I don’t want to be buried in Britain! I want to be brought back here: it’s the best place I know. It’s bad enough to have to go away in my life. Oh, think, this is the last day I shall be really free: after this evening he can send for me when he likes!”

“You’re not to be married till the spring after next, Fiommar, and not then unless we’ve good promises from Gandoc and his people.”

“Do you think you’ll ever need them?”

“It’s hard to say. If these Romans think that we in the North are going to give in to them----! _We_ never asked them to fight our battles because we were too lazy to do it ourselves! _We_ aren’t afraid of the Germans! Their General won’t attack us--not when he sees the Wolf showing his teeth: you heard what father said last night! But of course that’s not all; I don’t care what happens to the Southerners--Ardorix and his friends! They’ve brought it on themselves. But I do care very much what happens to some of the Cantons: there’s Molhir of the Carnutes; I should be sorry to see him or his folk under the hand of the Roman. If that were ever to come, father and I would be bound to help, and we might need your Britons with us.”

“I see. I liked Molhir. I wish it was him I was going to be betrothed to this evening.”

“So do I. But father knows best. And it’s not so far to Britain after all; if I go there for tin and hides I might just as well go to see my sister!”

“Oh, Meromic, you must! Promise to!” Her eyes were full of tears; never before had she seen quite so clearly all it would mean, the parting from home and friends and country; she would have to bear children to Gandoc, the stranger, suffer and grow old. She buried her face in the grass and threw out a hot, unhappy hand for Meromic to hold and stroke. In a minute or two he picked her up and petted her, and started talking about the islands and the sea and the fishing, all the familiar things they’d known together since they were babies.

By and by they were laughing, digging frantically for sand-eels, throwing water over one another, racing up and down the slopes, leaping the rocks, trying to catch the goats, screaming at the tops of their voices, and, when they were thoroughly hot, plunging into the sea, at high tide now, and swimming out to their boat. “I shan’t be able to do this when I’m married!” sighed Fiommar, putting on her clothes. “Oh, do stop about being married!” the brother answered. “It’s not that a bit, it’s getting old. Uncle’s not married, but he never goes swimming about--I wish he did!” It conjured up, for both of them, the infinitely ludicrous picture of their Druid uncle swimming very solemnly and completely in long white robes, with his mistletoe wreath just the tiniest bit on one side. “Singing hymns,” suggested Fiommar; “and excommunicating the sharks,” added her brother. They were fitfully religious, those two; sometimes it all took hold of them, very deeply, the ceremonial seemed part of the nature of things like tides and seasons, only more intimate, more beautiful: but not their own uncle!

The wind had veered round a little, but coming home they had to make short tacks, and row when they got under the lee of one of the islands. The sun set, flaming beyond the mouth of the bay, over those bigger, foamier waves, that went on and on for ever, till northward you came to Britain, and westward to that far Isle of the Dead, that they half believed in. They moored the boat and came lightly up the still path, where only yellow flowers yet showed colour; the shaggy horned cattle lowed at them over the turf walls; they saw the flicker of bats, always half out of the circle of vision; the sea swung darkly and sleepily behind them. “We shall be just in time,” whispered Fiommar, one hand on her hound’s smooth head as they passed through the stack-yard. “Oh, Meromic, I have been happy!”

Torches were alight down the hall that evening, adding another layer of smoke to the blackened rafters; they were carried by men-at-arms or servants, who sometimes whirled them round their heads and sent the sparks flying. One group of torch-bearers stood behind Meromic’s father, Kormiac the Wolf, who sat at the head of the feast, leaning forward with both elbows on the table to hear the harpers. His shirt and cloak were of tartan linen, blue and green and yellow, fastened with gold brooches; the hilt, scabbard and belt of his sword were inlaid with gold and coral, and there were bronze bracelets on his tough, hairy arms; under his thick grey hair and beard was more gold in a twisted collar. On his right sat his son-in-law to be, Gandoc the Briton, in a sleeveless coat of soft leather, fringed at the bottom and with patterns worked on it in black. He was very tall, with a reddish face, fair hair and beard, and the deep stain of woad across his forehead and the backs of his hands. Bracelets and rings and sword-hilt were bronze, but he wore a necklace of mixed boar’s tusks and mother-of-pearl, and, hanging from it on a loop, a little greyish round of bone from some enemy’s skull. Beside him was Fiommar in a long yellow dress, embroidered from neck to hem with fine curves of stem and leaf and the thin beaks of curlew; her hair was combed down her back and snooded with beads and gold; her brooches were bows of silver and coral, her necklaces of amber and blue glass beads, and her cheeks were flushed in the hot hall. She had wanted to have her brother next her, and there he was, the Pride of the Islands, in his father’s tartan, with gold on arms and neck, the plaid fastened on his left shoulder with a brooch of five interwoven circles of gold; for luck he had club-moss twisted over his hair, and one arm was round Fiommar’s waist.

At Kormiac’s other side was his elder brother, the Druid, robed and wreathed, beyond him two more brothers with their wives, and some other chiefs of the Veneti. Then, down both sides of the table, the fighting men in their order, many fully armed, most with cloaks of their lord’s tartan. Then the women, a mass of brilliant colours, with naked children sprawling about the floor and babies they suckled to keep them quiet through the noise. Then, towards the end, a tangle of slaves and hounds, a favourite horse or two, and people coming in and out with plates and jugs.

The feast was almost over: piles of bones under the table, on it pieces of bread and smears of honey, scraps of cheese and butter, one or two overturned cups, and what-not. Fiommar had mixed a great bowl with milk, wine from the south, sweet, sticky mead and herb leaves, and this was being passed round, while the harpers played, the hounds fought over the bones, and the kempery men quarrelled with one another.

“Sing something, Meromic!” she said, and the Briton seconded it, anxious to please this son of the Wolf. A harp was passed across to him, and he sang, one foot on the table:

“A thousand, thousand folk come up, come up,
Out of the South, the sun, the ships, the sea,
Their eagles scream for blood--red let it be!
But the Wolf, wolf, wolf shall tear the eagle!

We gather, gather, gather in the North,
The Wolf, red-hearted, baying to the pack!
He leaps, he strikes, we follow at his back,
And the Wolf, wolf, wolf has torn the eagle!”

The kempery men shouted: this was what they liked! Kormiac smiled but shook his head at his son: “Not yet,” he said, “wait till you’ve seen the blood run in earnest, Meromic.” “It is a very strong eagle,” said the Briton, “and the Gods that are helping it are strong Gods. The wolf may have his eyes torn by a snap of that beak; the wolf must go round, and wait till the eagle is asleep.” Meromic tossed his head: “It is clear you know little of wolves!” Fiommar took the harp hurriedly from his hands: “Let me sing--there are other wolves.”

“Moths fly round candles
And bats round the moon,
Dark after midnight
And dawn coming soon.
Wolf, wolf!
Bay at the moon!

Owls howl at midnight
And cocks crow at dawn,
Swift from his hill-top
Upstarting the fawn.
Wolf, wolf!
Bay at the dawn!

Over the hill-top
Comes leaping the sun,
Men waken, beasts waken,
Darkness is done.
Wolf, wolf!
Bay at the sun!”

Every one joined in at the end with echoing shouts of “Wolf! Wolf!” that made the harp strings sound, and Gandoc whispered to his bride, “It must be a song for me, next time!” He would have taken the harp himself then, but some one called from the bottom of the table, that a new story-teller had just come in. “Send him up!” shouted Kormiac, and up he came, a long, thin man, dressed in layer on layer of once bright-coloured rags, a cloak all tatters on his back, his little harp slung beside him in a patched bag, and a branch of green holly in his hand.

The story-teller looked round, bowed low to Kormiac, who handed him a cup of wine and bade him begin, took his harp out, struck a note, and began singing in a high voice so as to attract attention and get silence before his story.

“Oh, the bird is in the air,
The blossom is on the bough,
And I am harping in the hall,
A-harping to you now.

There was a king of Fach-na-Croich
He had one only daughter,
And all the words that she did say
Were sweet as running water.”

Meromic and Fiommar had their heads together, whispering and looking at him. “Oh, look,” said she, “there’s something--can’t you see it?--just by his head. A bird! But it can’t be.”

“It is,”--her brother leaned forward,--“I just got sight of a spread wing; at least I think so. Listen!”

The harp was full of over-tones, and sometimes there seemed to be birds’ voices among them. A tiny grey feather came floating through the air above the table; Meromic reached up to catch it, but it was swept high out of sight by the up-draught from the torches. Fiommar turned to her betrothed: “Can you see--birds, anywhere?”

“Birds? No. There are no birds here. This good wine has gone to your head.” She turned away; and all the time during the story she and her brother were intent on that little space round the teller’s head: for sometimes it was empty, yet always, just as they looked away, there came a fluttering, the glimpse of a linnet with its wings up, a settling thrush, two finches playing, or the dart of a sea swallow.

“Now the likeness of this princess, whose name was Esa of the Blue Mantle, was to the yellow-haired bride that I see sitting on the right hand of the head of this house. And she went walking out every day with her maidens behind her, to the back of the hill where there was an orchard of sweet apples. And there was a young man going about in those parts, and he was son to the King of the Country of Red-Haired men: and he had a white horse with one black tip to its ear, and a hound that was so quick-footed it would catch the wild geese before they rose in the air. He went hunting all those hills and glens after a deer with a gold collar, and it ran till it came to the hill of the orchard, and there it cried aloud to the young princess Esa, as she was washing her linen in the cold spring, ‘Oh, princess,’....”

Kormiac was thinking that if ever there was going to be war between them and the Romans he would do well to build another ship: he must see to having the timber cut and weathered, and the hides prepared for the sails. His brother the Druid was thinking of how some day he might be made Chief Druid of all the Druids of Gaul, and if that happened he would make a sacrifice of hares and geese and cattle and prisoners, and he himself would be there in the midst, with the chain of red stones about his neck and the golden sickle in his hand. Gandoc the Briton was thinking that before he brought his new bride into his house he would need to put away the woman he had there already and the young children he had by her; and his heart was sore at that, because she was a tall, fine woman, but yet it was very needful for their trade in tin and iron that he should be friendly with Kormiac. Fiommar was sometimes looking for the birds, and sometimes listening to the story, and sometimes thinking what a bad thing it was to be come to an age for marriage, and how she had never seen a man to compare with her brother for looks, but if she had she would sooner marry him than the Briton. And Meromic was looking for the birds too, and feeling the hilt of his sword and wishing the time was come to draw it in battle, and then he’d fall to making patterns on the table with the spilled wine or playing with the tips of Fiommar’s hair. The kempery men were some of them listening to the story, and some of them boasting of the hard blows they had struck, and some of them making love to the women. Kormiac’s own harpers were jealous of the man, and each was saying that he could play better than that thirty years ago, and now he could play five times as well. And the hounds and the slaves were asleep on the floor.

“ ... and when he had done that the iron chains that lay across the door parted with a noise like thunder, and there was Esa standing at the foot of the steps, and the deer with the golden collar beside her. And the King’s son took her by the hand and they stepped onto the broad back of the swan. Nine days and nights they were on the swan’s back, but the tenth day they came to the hill of the orchard, and there were all the maidens still making a great lamentation for Esa who had been stolen away from among them. And the King, her father, the old white-bearded King of Fach-na-Croich, came out of his high house in a long robe of scarlet, and he gave his daughter to the young champion, and with her a hundred horses and a hundred dun cattle, and a ring with power to make the wearer ever beautiful; and he took her home with him to the Country of Red-haired Men, and there was gladness there when they saw him coming with his young queen, and after that she was with him always.”

Kormiac spoke courteously to the story-teller and gave him a piece of gold, and Fiommar smiled at him.

“Now,” said the story-teller, “I will do some tricks for you. Here is a little old woman of mine; I will match her against any of your young men at the wrestling.” And he put his hand into his bag and drew out by the hair a little thin old woman, and he fixed his eye on Meromic. “Son of the head of this house,” he said, “I see by your arms that you are a good wrestler, and yet you will not be able to thrown down my champion.” At this, Meromic leapt over the table and came down scornfully to the middle of the room. “I can throw her over my shoulder with one hand!” said he, and went up to her. But she clutched him with her two skinny arms, and there was so much power in her that Meromic could not lift a finger against her, and, when all the hall had seen it, she let him go and the story-teller put her back into his bag. And he took another thing out of his bag, and it was a little stool about the height of a young hound. He said to Meromic, “I see by your foot you are a good leaper, yet you cannot leap this little stool of mine.” And Meromic could not leap it, no more than if it had been a haystack.

Then the story-teller said, “I thank you for the entertainment you have given me in this house; one day I will come back.” Kormiac would have bidden him stay longer, but he opened the bag again, and he took out of it a long, red rope with knots in it; he tossed it up to the rafters with one hand and there it stayed, and up he climbed and into the roof, and there he went out of sight like a blown candle flame and the end of the rope withered like the smoke of the candle, and there was nothing else, only a bird’s feather floating in the air.

Meromic went back to his place by Fiommar with his hand up to his head, and all that evening he was silent, and as if he was listening for something. The Briton filled his cup and drank, and turned to Kormiac. “Certainly that was a good story-teller,” he said, “but we have better in Britain.”