[CHAPTER XXVIII]
The Hound at Bay
Yet all this while Cuchulain’s foes drew closer round him, watching their opportunity, and the land was filled with smoke and flame, and omens foretold that the Hound was at bay at last, and that the King of the Heroes of Erin was doomed to die. For though Meave entered not again into open war with Ulster, never had she forgotten the disgrace put upon her armies by Cuchulain, in that he alone had beaten and held back her troops during the whole winter’s length, slaying and destroying her chosen men. His kindness to her in her weakness she soon forgot, or if she remembered it, it was made bitter by the laugh of Fergus; she felt humiliated that she, the mighty warrior queen, and leader of her forces, had stooped to ask help from the hands of her enemy. So she awaited the moment of revenge.
Throughout all Ireland she sent messengers to stir up strife against Cuchulain, so that he was harassed and pursued on every hand; nor did he ever sleep a night in peace. To all those men whose fathers or brothers or sons Cuchulain had slain she whispered of revenge, and glad and pleased she was when one and another fell upon him unawares or led a raid into the country of Murthemne, to burn and spoil the land. Above all, she stirred up Luga, son of Curoi, prince of Munster, and Erc, the son of Tara’s royal king; and these awaited but a chance to fall upon Cuchulain unawares.
But worst of all, she sent a brood of monstrous, ill-shaped sprites, half-women, half-goblins, in their forms and minds, to learn throughout the whole wide distant world some secret way to bring Cuchulain to his death. Monstrous they were, for but one single eye was in their foreheads, and their right legs and left arms were lopped off at the stump. They did not move along the earth like men, but on the broad back of the whistling winds and wrapped in magic clouds of their own making, they sped o’er land and sea.
Hideous and frightful were they to behold, and hideous were their thoughts and their designs. When they drew near, a poisonous ill-wind preceded them, and all the sky was dark with venomous clouds about them and above, so that although they saw them not, men shrank with fear and felt but ill at ease. These creatures then she sent through the wide spaces of the universe to learn all cruel magic arts that hurt and trouble men. And for five years they wandered through the earth, until they reached the fearful realm where Vulcan forged his weapons in the fire.
The secret of all poisonous herbs they learned, the use of every charm that spoils men’s lives and drives them to despair; they learned to raise a magic stormy sea upon dry land, in which men might be drowned; and out of forest twigs and fluttering leaves they learned to form a host of fighting-men and armed them with the spiked thorn of the thistle leaves or with the blackthorn’s barb.
From Vulcan’s hand three cruel spears they took, their names, ‘Wind,’ ‘Good-luck,’ and ‘Cast’; three swords of magic power, too, they got, the ‘Wounder,’ and the ‘Hacker,’ and the ‘Hewer.’ “By these three spears or these three swords the splendid Hound shall die,” was Vulcan’s word; “each one of them shall kill a king of Erin, and among those kings will be the mighty king of Erin’s hero-chiefs, the triumphant, heavy-smiting, noble youth, whom men call ‘Ulster’s Hound.’”
Then with a fierce and cruel glee those hideous children of the storm bade Vulcan and his crew farewell, and on the rough and whistling blast that blows keen from the east, they rose on high and made their way to Erin’s coasts, alighting on the plain before the fort of Meave. She, rising early on the morrow, looked forth out of her bower, and saw them resting, each upon one leg perched on the rampart’s top. Her five-fold crimson mantle flung about her, straightway she stepped forth and made them welcome, and with a cruel joy she heard their news. The venomed spears and hard-wrought swords she took into her hands, and waved and brandished them to try their power, but though from point to hilt she bent them back, no sign of crack or failure could she find. “Well-tempered swords are these, indeed,” she cried, “by these my deadly foe shall fall at last.”
Then straight to Ulster she sent forth the brood of ill-formed goblin women. “Seek out Cuchulain where he lies,” she said, “and on him try your spells. Set right before his face your magic tide of ocean-waves that he may rush into the flood and come thus to his death; or, if that fail, tempt him with magic troops and armed battalions made out of puff-balls or of fluttering leaves and armed with sharp and prickly thistle-spikes. Thus lure him forth, for I have heard it said that Emer and her women hold him with their gentle wiles within his own strong fort, till he be healed of all his pain and wounds. Tempt you him out into the open plain, and there his foes will find and speak with him and utterly and for ever strike him down. My hosts are there, and Luga’s hosts and Erc’s. Give to each one of them your magic spears, that he may not escape. Thus shall the strength of Ulster fall at last! Thus shall our vengeance come! Within the space of three short days bring in his head to me.”
So with deep wiles Meave laid her cruel plans, plotting Cuchulain’s death; Murthemne and Cuchulain’s country she filled with war-bands, marching through the land wasting and marauding, and they burned the villages and the forests of the plain, so that the whole region was a cloud of fire about them. Now the friends of Cuchulain, and Emer, his dear wife, had taken the hero away with them from his own home at Dun Dalgan to a secret glen in Ulster, that is called the Glen of the Deaf, because no sound of war or tumult reached it, where was a pleasant summer palace retired from mankind. There they entertained him with sweet music and pleasant tales and games of chess, to hold him back from rushing to meet the foe; and they took from him his chariot and his weapons, and turned his chariot-steeds out into the fenced green, for they knew that if he should go forth at this time, he must surely fall. But the hero was restless and unhappy, and save that he had plighted his word to Emer and to all his friends he would not have entered the Glen. For Emer’s sake and theirs he went with them to the lightsome summer palace, and sat down with the poets and artists and the women-folk to listen to sweet beguiling music and tales of ancient deeds to while away the time.