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Conall
A law has been made that none shall sleep in this house to-night.
Young Man
Who made that law?
Conall
We made it, and who has so good a right?
Who else has to keep the house from the Shape-Changers till day?
Young Man
Then I will unmake the law, so get you out of the way.
[He pushes past Conall and goes into house]
Conall
Go out – if you have your wits, go out,
A stone’s throw further on you will find a big house where
Our wives will give you supper, and you’ll sleep sounder there,
For it’s a luckier house.
Laegaire
Go out – if you have your wits, go out, A stone’s throw further on you will find a big house where
Our wives will give you supper, and you’ll sleep sounder there,
For it’s a luckier house.
Young Man
I’ll eat and sleep where I will.
Laegaire
Go out or I will make you.
Young Man
[Forcing up Laegaire’s arm, passing him and putting his shield on the wall over the chair]
Not till I have drunk my fill.
But may some dog defend me for a cat of wonder’s up.
Laegaire and Conall are here, the flagon full to the top,
And the cups —
Laegaire
It is Cuchulain.
Cuchulain
The cups are dry as a bone.
[He sits on chair and drinks]
Conall
Go into Scotland again, or where you will, but begone From this unlucky country that was made when the devil spat.
Cuchulain
If I lived here a hundred years, could a worse thing come than that Laegaire and Conall should know me and bid me begone to my face?
Conall
We bid you begone from a house that has fallen on shame and disgrace.
Cuchulain
I am losing patience, Conall – I find you stuffed with pride,
The flagon full to the brim, the front door standing wide;
You’d put me off with words, but the whole thing’s plain enough,
You are waiting for some message to bring you to war or love
In that old secret country beyond the wool-white waves,
Or it may be down beneath them in foam-bewildered caves
Where nine forsaken sea queens fling shuttles to and fro;
But beyond them, or beneath them, whether you will or no,
I am going too.
Laegaire
Better tell it all out to the end;
He was born to luck in the cradle, his good luck may amend The bad luck we were born to.
Conall
I’ll lay the whole thing bare. You saw the luck that he had when he pushed in past me there.
Does anything stir on the sea?
Laegaire
Not even a fish or a gull.
Conall
You were gone but a little while.
We were there and the ale-cup full.
We were half drunk and merry, and midnight on the stroke When a wide, high man came in with a red foxy cloak,
With half-shut foxy eyes and a great laughing mouth,
And he said when we bid him drink, that he had so great a drouth
He could drink the sea.
Cuchulain
I thought he had come from one of you
Out of some Connaught rath, and would lap up milk and mew;
But if he so loved water I have the tale awry.
Conall
You would not be so merry if he were standing by,
For when we had sung or danced as he were our next of kin
He promised to show us a game, the best that ever had been;
And when we had asked what game, he answered, “Why, whip off my head!
Then one of you two stoop down, and I’ll whip off his,” he said.
“A head for a head,” he said, “that is the game that I play.”
Cuchulain
How could he whip off a head when his own had been whipped away?
Conall
We told him it over and over, and that ale had fuddled his wit,
But he stood and laughed at us there, as though his sides would split,
Till I could stand it no longer, and whipped off his head at a blow,
Being mad that he did not answer, and more at his laughing so,
And there on the ground where it fell it went on laughing at me.
Laegaire
Till he took it up in his hands —
Conall
And splashed himself into the sea.
Cuchulain
I have imagined as good when I’ve been as deep in the cup.
Laegaire
You never did.
Cuchulain
And believed it.
Conall
Cuchulain, when will you stop
Boasting of your great deeds, and weighing yourself with us two,
And crying out to the world whatever we say or do,
That you’ve said or done a better? – Nor is it a drunkard’s tale,
Though we said to ourselves at first that it all came out of the ale,
And thinking that if we told it we should be a laughing-stock,
Swore we should keep it secret.
Laegaire
But twelve months upon the clock.
Conall
A twelvemonth from the first time.
Laegaire
And the jug full up to the brim:
For we had been put from our drinking by the very thought of him.
Conall
We stood as we’re standing now.
Laegaire
The horns were as empty.
Conall
When
He ran up out of the sea with his head on his shoulders again.
Cuchulain
Why, this is a tale worth telling.
Conall
And he called for his debt and his right,
And said that the land was disgraced because of us two from that night
If we did not pay him his debt.
Laegaire
What is there to be said
When a man with a right to get it has come to ask for your head?
Conall
If you had been sitting there you had been silent like us.
Laegaire
He said that in twelve months more he would come again to this house
And ask his debt again. Twelve months are up to-day.
Conall
He would have followed after if we had run away.
Laegaire
Will he tell every mother’s son that we have broken our word?
Cuchulain
Whether he does or does not we’ll drive him out with the sword,
And take his life in the bargain if he but dare to scoff.
Conall
How can you fight with a head that laughs when you’ve whipped it off?
Laegaire
Or a man that can pick it up and carry it out in his hand?
Conall
He is coming now, there’s a splash and a rumble along the strand
As when he came last.
Cuchulain
Come, and put all your backs to the door.
[A tall, red-headed, red-cloaked man stands upon the threshold against the misty green of the sea; the ground, higher without than within the house, makes him seem taller even than he is. He leans upon a great two-handed sword]
Laegaire
It is too late to shut it, for there he stands once more
And laughs like the sea.
Cuchulain
Old herring – You whip off heads! Why, then
Whip off your own, for it seems you can clap it on again.
Or else go down in the sea, go down in the sea, I say,
Find that old juggler Manannan and whip his head away;
Or the Red Man of the Boyne, for they are of your own sort,
Or if the waves have vexed you and you would find a sport
Of a more Irish fashion, go fight without a rest