The King of Ireland's Son

by Padraic Colum

Sheen held the white grouse to her breast. The man came near to her and spoke to her and his voice made her stand. He wore the dress of a hunter. His face was brown and lean and his eyes were bright-blue like gentian-flowers. No word did Sheen say to him and he passed on with the hawk on his shoulder. Then with the grouse held at her breast she went back to the Spae-Woman’s house.

That night when she spun her thread she thought of the blue-eyed, brown-faced man. Would any of her brothers be like him, she wondered, when they were restored to their human shapes. She fed the white grouse with grains of corn and left it to rest in the window-niche above her bed. And then she lay awake and tried to know the meaning in the song the Spae-Woman sang when she sat spinning wool in the chimney Corner—

You would not slumber
If laid at my breast!
Little sister,
I’ll rock you to rest!
The flood on the river beats
The swan from its nest!
You would not slumber
If laid at my breast!
The rain-drops encumber
The hawthorn’s crest:
My thoughts have no number:
You would not slumber
If laid at my breast,
Little sister,
I’ll rock you to rest.

She passed the night between sleeping and waking, and when the light grew she saw the white grouse crouching against the window-opening. She opened the door and stepped outside to let the grouse fly from her hands.

And there, on the ground before her was a sword! Sheen knew it to be the sword of the man she had seen yesterday, and she knew the man had been before the door in the night-time. She knelt on the ground to look at the bright blue blade. O my listeners, if I was there I was in the crows that flew down heavily and cawed as they picked up something that pleased them, in the wood-cushats that cooed in the trees, in the small birds that quarreled in the thatch of the house, and in the breeze that blew round—the first breeze of the day.

The Spae-Woman came outside and saw what Sheen was looking at—the sword on the ground. “It is wrought with cunning that only the smiths of Kings possess,” she said. She took the sword and hung it on the branch of a tree so that the dews of the ground might not rust it. “I think the one who owns it is the stranger who is seen in the wild places hereabouts—the man whom the neighbors call the Hunter-King,” she said to Sheen.

On another day Sheen went to gather bog-down. This time she crossed the river by the stepping-stones and went into a country where there were many cattle. She stood wondering at their numbers and wishing that such a cow and such a calf might belong to the Spae-Woman. Then the next thing she saw was two black horses striving with each other. They showed their teeth at each other and bit and kicked. Then they came racing towards her. “Oh,” said Sheen to herself, “they are Breogan’s wild stallions.” She ran, but the horses were able to make circles round her. “Breogan’s wild stallions,” said she, “they will rush in and trample me to death.” Then she heard someone shouting commands to the horses. She saw a man strike one of the stallions with a staff, making him rear high. She saw him make the other stand with the command that was in his voice. She ran to the river, but she slipped on the stepping-stones; she fell down and she felt the water flowing upon her. The man came and lifting her up carried her to her own side of the river. Across the bog he carried her, and when she looked at him she saw the lean face and eyes blue like gentian-flowers—she saw the face of the man who was called the Hunter-King. He left her on the ground when they passed the bog, and she went on her way without speaking.

Nothing of this no more than of anything else that happened to her, or anything that she thought of, did Sheen tell the Spae-Woman. But she wished and she wished that the Hunter-King might come past while there was a light in the house and step within and talk to the Spae-Woman, so that she herself, while spinning the thread, could hear his voice and listen to the things he talked about. She often stood at the door and watched across the bog to see if anything was coming to her.

A neighbor-woman came across the door-step one evening and Sheen went into the house after her, for she felt that something was going to be told. There was a dead man in a house. He had been found in the wood. He was known as the Hunter-King. Sheen stood at her bed and heard what the neighbor-woman said.

The Hunter-King was being waked in the neighbor-woman’s house, and her eldest daughter had been the corpse-watcher the first night. In the morning they found that the girl’s hand had been withered. The woman’s second daughter was the corpse-watcher the second night and her right hand had been left trembling. This was the third and last night that the Hunter-King would be waked, and to-night there was no one to watch his corpse.