Pagan Ireland.

by Eleanor Hull

1923

PAGAN IRELAND

BY ELEANOR HULL AUTHOR or "THE CUCHCLLIN SAGA IN IKISH LITERATURE. Dublin M. H. GILL AND SON, LTD. 50 UPPER O'CONNELL STREET :: 1923

THERE is an old tale told in Ireland of & loveablc anu bright and handsome youth named Donn- Bo, who was the best singer of " songs of idleness," and the best teller of " King-stories" in the world.

He could tell a tale of each King who reigned at Tara from the Tale of the Destruction of Dind Righ, when Cobthach Coel- breg was killed, down to the Kings who reigned in his own time.

One night before a battle, the warriors said : " Make minstrelsy for us, O Donn- Bo. " But Donn- Bo said: " No word at all will come on my lips to-night; there- fore, for this night let the King-buffoon of Ireland amuse you. But to-morrow at this hour, in whatever place they and I shall be, I will make minstrelsy for the fighting-men." For the warriors had said that unless Donn-bo went with them on that hosting, not one of them would go.

On the evening of the morrow Donn- Bo lay dead, his fair young body stretched across the body of the King of Erin, for he had died in defending his chief. But his head had rolled away and lay Amongst a wisp of growing rushes by the water-side. At the feasting of the army on that night, a warrior said : " Where is Donn- Bo, that he may make minstrelsy for us, and tell us the King-stories of Erin?"

A valiant champion of the men of Munster answered : FOREWORD. "I will go over the battlefield and find him." He enquired among the living for Donn- Bo, but he found him not, and then he searched hither and thither among the dead. At last he came where the body of the King of Erin lay, and a young, fair corpse beside it.

In ill the air about was a low, sweet sound of minstrelsy, and the faint whisper of poets and bards reciting tales and poems, and the wild clear note of the dord fiansa, like the echo of an echo, in the clump of rushes hard by; and above them all a voice, very faint and still, that sang a tune that was sweeter than all the tunes of the whole world.

The voice that sang was the voice of the head of Donn- Bo. The warrior stooped to pick up the head. " Do not touch me," said the head, " for we are commanded by the King of the Plains of Heaven to make music to-night for our lord, the King of Erin, the shining one who lies dead beside us; and though all of us are lying dead, no faintness or feebleness shall prevent us from obeying that command. Disturb me not.

The hosts of Leinster are asking for thee to make minstrelsy for them," said the messenger. " When my minstrelsy here is done, I will go with you," said the head, " but only if Christ, the Son of God, in whose presence I now am, go with me, and if you take me to my body again." "That shall be done, indeed," said the messenger, and he carried away the head.

When the messenger came again amongst the warriors, they stopped their feasting and gathered round him. " Hast thou brought anything from the battlefield?" they cried. "I have brought the head of Donn- Bo," said the man. "Set it up upon a pillar, that we may see and hear it," cried they all; and they said, "It is no luck for thee to be like that, Donn- Bo, and thou the most beautiful minstrel and the best in Erin.

Make music for the love of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Amuse the Leinstermen to-night, as thou didst amuse thy lord awhile ago." Then Donn- Bo turned his face to the wall, that the darkness might be around him, and he raised his melody in the quiet night; and the sound of that minstrelsy was so piteous and sad, that all the host sat weeping at the sound of it. Then was his head taken to his body, and the neck joined itself to the shoulders again, and Donn-bo was satisfied. The old King-stories that Donn-bo loved have been forgotten by Erin's children.

Even the few of them to whom the tales of Finn and of Cuchulain are not quite unknown, know little of the old romances of Cormac mac Airt, or of Niall of the Nine Hostages, or of Conn of the Hundred Fights; nor have they any remembrance how the House of Dd Derga was destroyed, nor why Tara fell, nor yet why men still say of an open-handed man "He is like Guaire the Hospitable." Yet from the tale of Bind Righ which Donn- Bo knew, down to the times of the Northmen in Ireland, there is

No great King of Erin but has his own romance, and some fine tale told of his doings. These stories I havr told in this little book, and in the one that is to follow; not in a critical way for the learned or for wise people, but simply, as the old story-tellers told them at the kingly feasts, for the pleasure of the young folk of Ire- land. It was for some young people of the Gaelic League I wrote these chapters, and it seemed to me that perhaps other Irish men or women and children might like to know them too.

For if on the Plains of Heaven an Irish king wearied for the stories of his ancestors, why should not the children of Erin care to hear them in the Valleys of Earth? So we will set Donn-bo's head on the pillar again, and bid him tell us tales. To make them easier to understand, I have tried, in the first part of this book, to explain what sort of place to live in Ireland was in those early days, and how people managed things, and how they thought, and talked and acted.

Since these lessons were written, there is a book come out which tells all this much more fully than I have been able to do. It is called "Social Life in Ancient Ireland," and if anyone wants to know more than is in these little lessons, he will find it in Dr. Joyce's book. I have to thank Dr. Joyce for looking over my proofs, which has been a great help to me, and also to thank my cousin, Mr. Trevor J. D. Hull, for reading them also, and saving me from some errors. And now we pray Donn-bo to make minstrelsy for us.