Cormac and the Silver Branch

I The Stranger on Múr Tea

In the time of Cormac, grandson of Conn, the world was full of every good thing. There was mast in the woods and fatness on the land and plenty out of the sea. There was peace, and ease, and happiness. No one was murdered and nothing was stolen, and everyone kept to his own place.

And Cormac had a cup of gold. This is how he found it. ¹

At dawn one morning in May, Cormac was alone on Múr Tea, the rampart at Tara, and he saw a grey-haired warrior coming towards him. He wore a purple mantle with a fringe, and next to his skin a ribbed shirt threaded with gold, and between his feet and the earth two blunt shoes of white bronze. On his shoulder was a branch of silver with three golden apples on it. ²

When the branch was shaken it made music, and it was a delight to hear. Men sore with wounds, women in childbed, the sick: whoever heard that music fell asleep.

They greeted each other. Where have you come from? Cormac asked him.

From a land, said the warrior, where there is nothing but truth. There is no age there and no decay, no gloom, no sadness, no envy or jealousy, no hatred and no pride. ³

It is not so with us, said Cormac. Will we make an alliance, you and I?

Gladly, said the warrior, and they made it.

Then give me the branch, said Cormac.

It is yours, said the warrior, if you will grant me three boons, which I will ask of you in Tara.

They are granted, said Cormac.

The warrior bound him to that. Then he left him the branch and went away, and where he went, Cormac could not tell. He had not asked what the three boons would be.

II Three Boons

Cormac went back into the palace, and his household gathered to marvel at the branch. He shook it over them, and they slept from that hour until the same hour the next day.

A year went by. At the end of it the warrior came to him and asked for the price of the branch.

You will have it, said Cormac.

Then I will take your daughter Ailbhe today, said the warrior.

He took the girl away with him, and the women of Tara raised three great cries after the daughter of the king of Ireland. But Cormac shook the branch at them, and it drove the grief out of them all, and they slept.

A month later to the day, the warrior came again. This time he took Cairbre Lifechair, Cormac’s son. After the boy was gone, the weeping in Tara would not stop. No one ate that night, and no one slept; they were sunk in grief and in deep gloom. Cormac shook the branch at them, and their sorrow left them.

Then the warrior came a third time.

What do you ask for today? said Cormac.

Your wife, said the warrior: Eithne the Long-sided, daughter of Dúnlang, king of Leinster. And he took her away with him.

That, Cormac would not bear. He went after them, and all Tara went after Cormac. But in the middle of the plain a great mist came down on them, and when it was gone, Cormac was standing on a wide plain, alone.

III The House Thatched with Wings

In the middle of that plain stood a great fortress, with a wall of bronze all round it. Inside the wall was a house of white silver, and half its roof was thatched with the wings of white birds.

Riders of the sí were busy about the house. Every one of them carried a lapful of white wings at the breast, to thatch the roof with. And again and again a gust of wind came, and again and again the wind carried off all that they had thatched.

Then Cormac saw a man kindling a fire. He threw a whole oak on it, thick in the trunk, top and butt together. By the time he came back with the next oak, the first had burned away to nothing.

These were strange sights, and no one told Cormac what they meant. He went on.

IV The Fountain of Five Streams

Further on he came to a second fortress, greater and more royal than the first, with another wall of bronze about it and four houses inside. He went in. There stood the great palace, with beams of bronze and walls wattled with silver, and a thatch of the wings of white birds.

In the enclosure was a shining fountain. Five streams flowed out of it, and hosts of people came in turn to drink from it.

Nine hazels of Buan grew over that well. They were purple hazels, and they dropped their nuts into the fountain, where five salmon split them open and sent the husks floating away down the streams.

And the sound of those streams as they fell was sweeter than any music that people sing.

Cormac went into the palace. A man and a woman were inside, waiting for him.

V A Pig for a Noble Guest

The man was fair in shape and form, and his face was a wonder. Beside him was a woman grown, yellow-haired, with a helmet of gold: the loveliest of all the women of the world.

There was a bath in that house, and no one tended it. The hot stones went into the water by themselves and came out again by themselves. Cormac bathed.

Then, after the hour of none, ⁴ a man came into the house with a wood-axe in his right hand and a log in his left, and a pig walking behind him.

It is time to make ready, said the warrior. There is a noble guest here.

The man struck the pig and killed it. He split his log, and the pig went into the cauldron.

It is time to turn it, said the warrior.

There would be no use in that, said the cook. That pig will never be boiled, never while the world lasts, until a truth is told for every quarter of it.

Then you tell us the first, said the warrior.

So the cook told his. One day, he said, when he was going round his land, he found another man’s cows on it, and drove them into a pound. The owner came after him and offered a reward if he would let them go. He let them go, and the reward was a pig, an axe and a log. Every night the axe kills the pig and splits the log, and there is firewood enough to boil the pig, and plenty over for the palace. And in the morning the pig is alive again, and the log is whole.

They turned the pig in the cauldron. One quarter of it was cooked.

VI Four Truths

Now I will tell one, said the warrior. When ploughing time came, and we went to plough that field out there, we found it ploughed already, harrowed, and sown with wheat. When we went to reap it, there it was, stacked in the field. When we went to bring it in, there it was in the enclosure, all in one thatched rick. We have been eating from it ever since, and it is no bigger and no smaller.

They turned the pig, and another quarter was cooked.

Then the woman spoke. I have seven cows, she said, and seven sheep. The milk of the seven cows is enough for all the people of Tír Tairngire, the Land of Promise. The wool of the seven sheep gives them every stitch of clothing they need.

At that the third quarter was cooked.

Your turn, they said to Cormac.

So Cormac told the truth of his own trouble: how his wife and his son and his daughter had been taken from him, and how he had followed them until he came to that very house. And with that the whole pig was cooked.

They carved it and set his portion before him. But Cormac said: I never eat a meal without fifty in my company.

The warrior sang to him and put him to sleep. When he woke, there were fifty warriors round him, and with them his son, and his wife, and his daughter. His heart rose in him. Ale and food went round, and the whole company was glad and merry.

VII The Cup of Gold

Then a cup of gold was put into the warrior’s hand, and Cormac marvelled at it: there were so many shapes worked on it, and the work was so strange.

There is a stranger thing in it than that, said the warrior. Let three lies be spoken under it, and it breaks in three. Let three truths be spoken under it, and it is whole again.

He spoke three false words under the cup, and it broke into three.

Better to tell the truth now, said the warrior, and mend it. Here is my word, Cormac: from the day they were taken out of Tara until this day, your wife and your daughter have not seen the face of a man, and your son has not seen the face of a woman.

And the cup was whole.

Take your family now, said the warrior. Take the cup, so that you can tell truth from falsehood. Keep the branch, for music and for delight. But on the day you die, they will all be taken from you.

Then he told Cormac his name. I am Manannán mac Lir, he said, king of Tír Tairngire. I brought you here so that you would see the Land of Promise.

VIII The Green of Tara

Then Manannán told him the meaning of what he had seen on the way.

The riders thatching the house, he said, are the men of art in Ireland, gathering cattle and wealth that comes to nothing. The man feeding the fire is a young lord, and all he consumes he pays for out of his own housekeeping. ⁵

The fountain with the five streams is the Fountain of Knowledge, and the streams are the five senses, through which knowledge comes. No one will have knowledge who has not drunk from the fountain itself and from the streams, and the people of many arts are those who drink from both. ⁶

When Cormac rose the next morning, he was on the green of Tara, with his wife and his son and his daughter, and his branch and his cup.

That cup was known as Cormac’s Cup after that, and it judged between truth and falsehood among the Gael. But as Manannán had promised him, it did not remain after Cormac’s death. ⁷