第77章

Then the hearts of the Fair Strangers were filled with grief and gall, for they distrusted the couriers, and having consulted the Ard-ri, they set forth themselves to find and conquer the invader; for the king told them that there was one other quicken-tree, more beautiful and more magical than that growing by the Fairy Palace, and that it was set in another part of the bright-blooming, sweet- scented old garden,--namely, in the heart of the labyrinthine maze of the Wise Woman of Wales; but as no one of them, neither the Gilla Dacker nor those who pursued him, had ever, even with the aid of the Magic Thread-Clue, reached the heart of the maze, there was no knowledge among them of the second quicken-tree. The king also told Sheela the Scribe, secretly, that one of his knights had found a money-piece and a breviary in the forest of Rosnaree; and the silver was unlike any ever used in the country of the Dedannans, and the breviary could belong only to a pious Gael known as Loskenn of the Bare Knees.

Now Sheela the Scribe, having fasted from midnight until dawn, gazed upon the Horn of Foreknowledge, and read there that it was wiser for her to remain on guard at the Fairy Palace, while her sisters explored the secret fastnesses of the labyrinth.

When Finola was apparelled to set forth upon her quest, Pearla thought her the loveliest maiden upon the ridge of the world, and wondered whether she meant to conquer the invader by force of arms or by the power of beauty.

The rose and the lily were fighting together in her face, and one could not tell which of them got the victory. Her arms and hands were like the lime, her mouth was as red as a ripe strawberry, her foot as small and as light as another one's hand, her form smooth and slender, and her hair falling down from her head under combs of gold.++ One could not look at her without being 'all over in love with her,' as Oisin said at his first meeting with Niam of the Golden Hair. And as for Pearla, the rose on her cheeks was heightened by her rage against the invader, the delicate blossom of the sloe was not whiter than her neck, and her glossy chestnut ringlets fell to her waist.

++Description of the Princess in Guleesh na Guss Dhu.

Then the Gilla Dacker unleashed Bran, the keen-scented terrier hound, and put a pearl-embroidered pillion on Enbarr of the Flowing Mane, and the two dauntless maidens leaped upon her back, each bearing a broad shield and a long polished, death-dealing spear.

When Enbarr had been given a free rein she set out for the labyrinth, trailing the Magic Thread-Clue behind her, cleaving the air with long, active strides; and if you know what the speed of a swallow is, flying across a mountain-side, or the dry wind of a March day sweeping over the plains, then you can understand nothing of the swiftness of this steed of the flowing mane, acquired by the day by the maydens of Devorgilla.

Many were the dangers that beset the path of these two noble champions on their quest for the Fairy Quicken Tree. Here they met an enormous white stoat, but this was slain by the intrepid Bran, and they buried its bleeding corse and raised a cairn over it, with the name 'Stoat' graven on it in Ogam; there a druidical fairy mist sprang up in their path to hide the way, but they pierced it with a note of their far-reaching, clarion-toned voices,--an art learned in their native land beyond the wave.