King Cormac had faults. They were not what would be faults in you or me, but they were faults in a King. In the first place, he believed every tale that was told him. In the second place, he would give anything he had for anything that was brought to him. And in the third place, he governed his men of lore and learning so slackly that they neither did things nor explained things. The first of his faults led to the spread of lying among his people. The second led to the people seeking after new things instead of getting to like the things they had already. And the third fault led to the spread of light-mindedness and want of sense among the people. So now you know King Cormac's faults.
But he was a good King, and in those days people knew whether they had or whether they hadn't a good King over them. If they had, wheat grew heavily in the ear, acorns fell thickly in the forest, nuts grew plentifully in the dells, milk poured into the pails, and bees filled their hives with honey. And if they hadn't a good King, they lacked much wheat, acorns, nuts, milk, and honey. In Cormac's day, people had full benefit of field and forest, of dell, dairy and hive. And he was as fine a figure of a King as you would see in a year and a day's traveling. He stood six feet tall; he had clear gray eyes and a golden beard worn in the fashion that the Kings of Ireland wore their beards.
Well, there stood Cormac, son of Art, looking over the ramparts of Tara on a day of May. So clear and quiet was that first of May that although he was listening to a person who was telling him about the Blue Men of Africa he could have heard the bees humming in the clover-bloom only for the way that his men of lore and learning were arguing with each other and complaining of the ways others had treated them.
Cormac should have worn a royal mantle of crimson fringed with gold, but he had given it to someone in exchange for the mantle he had on now -- one of green fringed with silver. On his body was a tunic embroidered with gold, and on his feet were sandals of bronze laced with golden thongs, and on his head was his golden crown. Under that crown were the twists and pleats and tassels of his golden beard, and so anyone would know that he was not only a King of Ireland, but the High King of Ireland, and had a right to be standing there and looking over the ramparts of Tara on that May-day.
He saw one coming across the plain who wore the garb and carried the bag of a juggler. And when this one came to the rampart he saluted the King and the men of lore and learning, and then, by the King's favor, opened his bag. He took out, not the balls they were expecting him to toss up and catch, but a silver branch on which were golden apples. He held it up; it was lovely to look at. He shook it. The golden apples made a peal, and in that peal there was such music that it seemed to Cormac that all he ever longed for was beside him. The men of lore and learning ceased asking riddles and answering them and they listened, every man of them entranced. The King cried out "No!" when the juggler was about to put the silver branch back into his bag. "The Bell-branch must remain with me," he said. "Anything you ask as payment for leaving it shall be given you -- it will be all that a King can give."
"I shall ask for three things in exchange," said the juggler, "and I shall ask for the first of them when you see me again." He took up his bag; none were able to tell what direction he took when he left the ramparts of Tara; he was gone when they came out of their enchantment.
The King had the Bell-branch. When he shook it everyone who heard the peal that was made, no matter what misery they were in before, felt happy with a happiness that they never thought they could have. And if anyone in Tara were wounded or troubled with disease, the King had only to shake the Bell-branch and he or she would fall into an untroubled sleep, and would be sound and well again upon awakening. And so it was in King Cormac's court from May-day to May-day.
And on a May-day he was standing on the ramparts and looking over the plain that stretches from Tara when he saw the juggler coming towards him. He carried no bag, but he wore a very full cloak. The King stepped down to meet him and said, "A payment is due to you on account of the Bell-branch you left me, and this day it shall be given you."
Then said the juggler, "Three boons are due me, and I shall ask for one of them today -- Ailbe, your fair young daughter." |
