The Wooing of Étaín

I A Fly on the Wind

Midir of Brí Léith was a lord of the síd, and he had two wives. The first was Fuamnach. The second was Étaín, daughter of Ailill, and she was the one he loved.

Fuamnach went to the druid Bressal Etarlam. Between his spells and her own sorcery they put Étaín out of Midir’s house, not dead but changed: into a fly, a small winged thing that takes its delight among flowers. ¹ Then Fuamnach raised a wind, and the wind took her. For seven years it carried her up and down Ireland.

At the end of the seven years it brought her to Aengus, the Mac Óc, son of the Dagda. Aengus was Midir’s foster-son, though there was enmity between them then. He knew the fly on the wind for what she was. He made her a grianán, a sun-bower with clear windows that she could pass in and out of, and laid a purple cloth over her, and filled the bower with sweet-smelling flowers. She lived on their scent and their bloom, and grew strong. Wherever Aengus went, the bower went with him, and at night she slept in it at his side.

Word of it came to Fuamnach. She went to Midir. Send for your foster-son, she said, and let me make peace between you. And while Aengus was away with Midir making peace, Fuamnach came to the Brú, and she sent the same wind under Étaín and blew her out of the bower.

Seven more years she was blown about Ireland, weak and wretched. Then the wind drove her over a house in Ulster where the company was drinking, and she fell down through the roof into a golden cup that stood beside the wife of Étar, a champion of Inber Cíchmaine. The woman drank, and swallowed her with the drink.

So Étaín was conceived again, and born again, as the daughter of Étar. From her first begetting to her last, a thousand and twelve years had gone by. ²

Aengus came home to an empty bower. He followed Fuamnach to the house of Bressal Etarlam, and there he struck off her head. ³

II A Queen for Tara

The child grew up at Inber Cíchmaine among fifty girls, the daughters of chiefs, and she remembered nothing of any other life. Once, when the girls were bathing at the mouth of the river, a young horseman came riding down to the water: golden-haired, on a brown horse that pranced and curvetted. He looked at them a long while. Then he sang. Étaín is here today, the song went. A king who will rule in Mide will make war for her. And in the end she will rest among our people.

Then he rode away, and none of them knew where he had come from, or where he went.

In those days Eochaid Airem took the kingship of Ireland at Tara. In his first year he called the men of Ireland to the Feast of Tara, and they would not come. There was no feast at Tara, they said, for a king without a queen.

So Eochaid sent his messengers into every province to find him the most beautiful woman in Ireland, one who had never been any other man’s wife. They found her at Inber Cíchmaine.

Eochaid went himself to fetch her. He came on her beside a spring, with a silver comb worked in gold in her hand and a silver basin before her, loosening her hair to wash it. Her arms were as white as snow that has fallen in a single night. Her cheeks were as red as foxglove, and her eyes as blue as the hyacinth.

Who are you? said Eochaid. Étaín, she said, daughter of the king of Echrad. And she told him a strange thing. Kings of the síd had asked for her, and she had refused them all, because she had loved him since she was a small child, from the stories told of him, without ever seeing his face.

He paid her bride-price and brought her home to Tara. Then the men of Ireland came to the feast, and Eochaid’s brother came with them.

III Ailill’s Sickness

The Feast of Tara ran from a fortnight before Samhain to a fortnight after it, and every chief in Ireland came, with his wife beside him. ⁴ At that feast the king’s brother, Ailill Ánguba, looked at Étaín, and could not stop looking.

His wife saw it. Why do you stare at her from so far off? she said. Long looking is a sign of love. Ailill was ashamed, and he turned his eyes away.

It was too late. When the feast broke up, a sickness came on him that had no name. They carried him to Frémainn in Tethba, the fort the king loved best, and there he lay for a whole year, wasting, and told no one why.

Eochaid came and asked him how he was. Worse every day, said Ailill, and worse every night. So the king sent his own physician, Fachtna. One of the two pains that kill a man is on you, said Fachtna: the pain of envy, or the pain of love. Ailill was too ashamed to say which, and Fachtna left him.

Then the king set out on his royal circuit of Ireland. He left Étaín at Frémainn with his brother. Be good to him while he lives, he told her. And if he dies, raise his mound, and set up his stone, and cut his name on it in ogham.

So Eochaid rode away, and the queen was left in the house with a man who was dying for love of her.

IV The Hill beyond the Fort

Étaín went to him every day, and her talk eased him, and every day his eyes followed her about the house. At last she asked him straight out what his sickness was.

It is my love for you, said Ailill.

A pity you did not tell me sooner, said Étaín. You would have been well long ago.

For three weeks she tended him. She cut his food for him and poured water over his hands, and he mended. Then he asked her when his cure would be finished. Tomorrow, she said. But not here, in the house of the king of Ireland. Come to the hill beyond the fort at first light, and I will meet you there.

All that night Ailill lay awake. And at the very hour of the meeting, sleep came down on him, and he did not wake until the third hour of the day.

Étaín went up the hill. A man was waiting for her there in Ailill’s shape, who complained of his weakness just as Ailill did. She came down again, and found the real Ailill awake and in despair. There will be another day, she told him.

The next night he sat up with a great fire in front of him and water beside him to throw in his eyes. At the hour of the meeting he slept. And again Étaín met the man in his shape on the hill.

The third time, she spoke to him. It is not you I came to meet, she said. And I did not come to meet that other man out of any wickedness, only to heal him of the sickness he took for love of me.

It would be more fitting, said the man, for you to come and meet me.

V Midir of Brí Léith

When you were Étaín of the Horses, he said, the daughter of Ailill, I was your husband. I paid a great price for you: the best plains and rivers of Ireland, and as much gold and silver as you were worth.

Who are you? said Étaín.

Midir of Brí Léith.

Then what parted us?

The sorcery of Fuamnach, said Midir, and the spells of Bressal Etarlam. Will you come away with me now?

And he told her of his own country. The people there are fair and without blemish, he said. The young do not grow old there. Warm streams of mead and wine run through the land. And they see everyone, and no one sees them.

I will not give up the king of Ireland, said Étaín, for a man whose kin and clan no one knows.

It was I, said Midir, who put that love for you into Ailill’s mind. It was I who kept him from coming to you, so that your honour would not be spoiled. Then he asked her: If Eochaid should tell you to go with me, would you come?

I would come then, said Étaín.

She went down to the fort, and Ailill was waiting for her, well and whole. This has turned out well for us both, he said. I am cured of my sickness, and your honour is unhurt. And when Eochaid came home from his circuit and heard the whole story, he thanked his wife for the good she had done his brother.

For a while nothing more was heard of Midir.

VI The Stranger at Tara

On a fine summer’s day Eochaid Airem climbed the high ground of Tara to look out over the plain of Breg, all in bloom and every colour. And there beside him was a young warrior he had never seen. He had not been in Tara the night before, and the gates had not yet been opened.

He wore a purple tunic. His hair was golden and fell to his shoulders, and his grey eyes shone. In one hand he held a five-pointed spear, and in the other a shield with a white boss, set with gold.

You are welcome, said Eochaid, whoever you are.

My name is not a famous one, said the stranger. I am Midir of Brí Léith. I have come to play fidchell with you. ⁵

The queen is asleep, said Eochaid, and the board is in her house.

I have a board here as good as yours, said Midir, and he brought it out: a board of silver with pieces of gold, and precious stones in it that threw their light on every side, and a bag for the pieces woven of links of brass.

They would not play without a stake. If you win, said Midir, you will have fifty dark-grey horses with dappled red heads, broad in the chest, keen and high-stepping.

They played, and Midir never put out his whole strength, and the king won the game and the fifty horses with it. They played again, and again the king won, and this time he asked for work. Midir was to clear the stones off the plains of Mide, and cover Tethba with rushes, and plant a wood. And he was to lay a causeway over the bog of Lámraige, so that men could cross it.

Midir agreed to all of it.

VII The Road over the Bog

Eochaid sent his steward to watch how the work was done. After sunset the steward looked out over the bog, and he saw Midir and the host of the síd at work on the causeway, with oxen of the síd to help them.

Until that night the men of Ireland had always yoked their oxen by a strap across the forehead. The people of the síd put the yoke on the shoulders. Eochaid yoked his oxen that way ever after, the first man in Ireland to do it, and that is why he is called Eochaid Airem, Eochaid the Ploughman. And this is what the host sang as they worked:

Thrust it in hand! force it in hand!
Nobles this night, as an ox-troop, stand ⁶

There would not have been a better road in all the world, if only no one had been watching them. But someone was, and so there is a flaw in it. ⁷

The steward went to the king and told him what he had seen: a working host so great that there was no power under the sky to match it.

Then Midir came before the king, belted high, with an ill look on his face. You have been hard with me, he said, and unreasonable, and you have put great hardship and suffering on me.

I will not answer anger with anger, said Eochaid. What you wish shall be done.

Then play me one more game, said Midir, and let the winner name the stake.

They played. This time Midir won.

What do you want? said Eochaid.

To put my arms around Étaín, said Midir, and to have one kiss from her.

Come back a month from today, said Eochaid, and you will have it.

VIII Two Swans over Tara

Midir named his day, at the end of the month, and Eochaid gathered the best warriors of Ireland to Tara. They stood round the hill ring within ring, and the doors of the king’s house were barred, with the queen inside.

In spite of the barred doors, there was Midir in the middle of the hall. He had always been beautiful. He was more beautiful than ever now.

I have come for what was promised me, he said.

I had not thought about it until now, said Eochaid.

You promised me Étaín herself, said Midir.

Étaín blushed red. Do not be ashamed, Midir told her. There is no disgrace in this for you. For a year I have been seeking you with the finest treasures in Ireland, and I would not take you until Eochaid allowed it.

I told you, said Étaín, that I would not come unless Eochaid gave me up. Take me, if he gives me.

I will not give you up, said Eochaid. He may put his arms round you here on the floor of the house, as you are, and that is all.

So be it, said Midir.

He took his weapons in his left hand and put his right arm round Étaín, and he rose with her through the smoke-hole in the roof.

The warriors sprang up around the king in their shame and ran out. Above them two swans were circling Tara. Then the swans turned south, the way that leads to Síd ar Femen.

IX The Digging of Brí Léith

For a year Eochaid searched Ireland for his wife and found no trace of her. At last a druid cut ogham on wands of yew, and read them, and the wands said: Brí Léith.

So the king brought the men of Ireland to Brí Léith, and they began to dig. Nine years they were at it, the old poem says, and it was slow work. When at last they broke through to the edge of Midir’s house, Midir sent out sixty women to meet them, every one of them in the shape of Étaín, and so like her that no one could tell which was the queen. ⁸

Choose, said Midir.

Eochaid chose. And the woman he chose was not his wife. She was his own daughter, Ésa, Étaín’s child, who had been living in the hill as Midir’s foster-daughter.

Then Étaín called out to him, and he knew her, and he brought her home to Tara.

So Lady Gregory tells it. The old poem brings her home too, but not for good. At the last, it says, Étaín was carried away into the west, to a síd beyond the water, and she has not come back. She rests among the people the horseman sang of at the mouth of the river.

And the digging was not forgotten. The people of the síd did not forgive the breaking of their hill. Long afterwards a king of Étaín’s own line, Conaire Mór, ruled at Tara, and they saw to it that he broke his geasa, one after another, until they had brought him to his death at Da Derga’s Hostel.