Magic and Myth Read online

  The racecourse had been laid out and marked with red flags. It led from the field of tents, around the palace on the Hill of Tara, along the banks of the river Boyne, and then back into the village of tents. The first horse to finish the long course would be the winner.

  Ten horses were entered for the race. The horses and their riders—including Colman and his horse, Ban—waited nervously as the shadows crept along the ground, growing shorter as it neared midday. The race would begin at noon.

  Prince Fintan crept out from behind one of the tents, leading Capall behind him, and then stopped. He looked around carefully, half expecting to see his mother or one of the guards come running after him. He knew that they would soon find out that someone had taken the fairy-horse from the stables.

  Prince Fintan was going to race the fairy-horse in the race. No matter what his mother said. He hoped that, with all the fuss and excitement, no one would notice that the horse was missing until it was too late.

  When it was very close to noon, the ten riders and their horses trotted up to the starting point. Fintan threw a blanket over the fairy-horse’s back and pulled himself up onto it. The creature whickered a little, but then it was quiet. Fintan urged the horse close to the tent’s opening with his knees.

  At exactly noon, when the sun was directly overhead and the shadows had disappeared, the starter brought his arm up—and dropped it. The race was off!

  The horses set off at a steady gallop, running down the long stretch that led toward the banks of the river. At the same time, Fintan dug his heels in and the fairy-horse took off with a sudden lunge that sent him shooting through the tent’s opening and out into the crowded field. The people who had gathered to watch the race threw themselves to one side as the prince urged the horse forward. Some shouted and screamed as they went tumbling backward into yet more people; stalls with fruit and vegetables went crashing to the ground, and some of the animals—the sheep, goats, and pigs—stampeded, causing even more chaos.

  But all this was happening behind Fintan. In a few long strides the fairy-horse had reached the proper racecourse and had set off after the other riders.

  Queen Scota, who had been watching everything from a small platform, suddenly stood up. Her left arm shot out and she shouted, “Stop him! That’s the prince! Don’t let him ride!”

  A guardsman stepped into Fintan’s path and raised his hand, but the fairy-horse kept barreling forward. The man threw himself to one side only at the very last moment.

  Soon, Fintan and Capall passed some of the other riders. They looked around in astonishment to see a young boy suddenly appear from behind them riding a fairy-horse—and, while they were gawking, Fintan and Capall overtook them in the race! Soon, only Colman and another man were ahead of him, and they were racing neck and neck as they approached the river.

  “Come on,” Fintan panted, “come on, boy.” He felt the rush of adrenaline as he urged his horse on faster. He knew if he could manage to cross the river before the other two, he would have a clear run around the Hill of Tara and back to the finishing post. He would win. “Come on.”

  Colman and the other man pushed their horses on as they saw the sparkling blue waters of the river Boyne approach. Colman glanced over his shoulder, just to see how far behind the rest of the riders were—and almost fell off his horse with shock.

  “Fintan!” he gasped.

  The prince waved at the Captain of the Guard with one hand. “I’m going to win!” he called proudly. He whooped with delight as the wind raced through Capall’s mane.

  “No!” Colman shouted.

  “I am. I am!” Fintan laughed and, with a sudden burst of speed, the fairy-horse dashed between the other two horses and began to pull away in the lead.

  “Stop!” Colman called, but Fintan either didn’t hear him or just didn’t listen. The captain turned to the other man. “We must stop him. That’s a fairy-horse he’s riding—he doesn’t know what’s going to happen…”

  His opponent nodded. “I’ll try and cut him off,” he shouted, turning his horse to the right and heading for a narrow spot in the river where he might be able to cross and rejoin the racecourse ahead of Fintan. Colman, meanwhile, raced after the prince, but the magical fairy-horse was faster, much faster than any mortal beast.

  Fintan laughed aloud. He was going to win this race! There was only the river to cross now…

  The fairy-horse splashed into the shallows—and stopped! Fintan was nearly thrown over its head with the shock, but he managed to cling on by holding tightly to its mane. “Come on, come on,” he shouted, digging his heels in and attempting to make the creature move. But the only thing that moved was the horse’s ears, as if it were listening to something.

  “They’re going to catch up!” Fintan cried, and looked around. He could only see Colman behind him now. His arms were waving and he was shouting, but the prince couldn’t make out what he was saying. He only heard the word water.

  Suddenly, the fairy-horse moved—but not across the river and up onto the bank to continue the race, as he should have. Instead it began to move downriver, walking on the surface of the water. Fintan shivered, frightened now. He decided he would jump into the river and swim for the banks.

  But when the prince attempted to let go of the horse’s silver mane, he found that his hands were stuck fast. He tried to lift his legs, but they wouldn’t move.

  He couldn’t let go!

  And when the fairy-horse reached the center of the wide river, it began to sink, slowly, slowly, slowly beneath the waves, carrying the young prince with it.

  Prince Fintan never returned from those watery depths.

  However, on dark winter nights when the moon is full, the fairy-horses will sometimes come up from the quiet lakes and old rivers and feed in the fields of men. And people who have seen them say that they are led by a young boy, one who rides the noblest of the animals and wears clothing from another age.

  The King’s Secret

  This is a tale with two endings, about a strange and famous king of Ireland named Labhra Loingse. He had once been known as Labhra the Dumb King, because he swallowed a field mouse in his drink one day and could no longer speak. Some time later, he received a terrible blow on the back during a fight, and he coughed up the mouse—which was still alive. Suddenly, the king found he could talk again.

  But Labhra Loingse was unusual in another way, as you’ll discover in this tale. You see, he had a very strange secret…

  The king sat under the shade of an old oak tree and dangled his feet in the water. It was a very warm day, and he was hot, sticky, and tired. He had stripped off most of his heavy armor, wrapped it into a bundle in his cloak, and tied it to the saddle of his horse, and now he only wore a light shirt and breeches—and his heavy horned helmet.

  Even on the hottest day, Labhra Loingse never removed his helmet. No one knew why, and if anyone ever did find out, the king had them killed. Because the king had a dark and terrible secret…

  He had the tall, hairy ears of a horse.

  An old fairy-woman had cursed him with them one day when he was still a young man because she had found him beating his horse to make it run faster. She had suddenly appeared in front of him, standing beside a stone, and his horse had reared up in fright, throwing him backward, leaving him shaken and dazed on the ground. He had looked up to find the small, gray-haired, gray-eyed, gray-clad woman staring down at him.

  “You are a cruel man, Labhra Loingse,” she had said coldly.

  “But it’s only a horse,” Labhra had protested.

  “Only a horse? Only a horse?” The old woman had smiled then, and her smile was hard and bitter. “I do not have much power left, but I do have enough magic left to do this!” She closed her left hand into a fist and pointed at him. The king felt his head tingle and buzz, and his ears began to burn. He clapped his h
ands to his head—but instead of covering his own small, rounded ears, he felt the tall, thin shapes of a horse’s ears. And when he looked up, the old fairy-woman had gone.

  The king visited many of the magicians and doctors in the land, but no one could remove the spell. They said that it was fairy-magic—the oldest and most powerful magic in the world.

  So Labhra Loingse grew out his hair until it covered his horse’s ears. And he always wore a horned helmet with two holes cut on the inside of the helmet, so that the tips of his ears could stick up inside the horns.

  However, twice a year the king would have his hair cut, because if it grew too long he suspected that people would begin to wonder what he was hiding. The barber always came from far away, and once he had cut the king’s hair—and seen his ears—the king would have him killed before he could tell anyone his secret.

  One Midsummer’s Eve, the king sent his guards across his kingdom to find a barber to cut his hair. Of course, by this time, there were very few barbers left in Erin, and the few that remained went into hiding about this time of year in case they should be chosen to cut the king’s hair. And so, the only barber they could find was a young man who worked in a tiny village in the southwest corner of Erin.

  Now this young man was the only son of a widow. When the king’s soldiers took him away, she traveled to the Hill of Tara, where King Labhra had his court, and she begged the king to spare the life of her son.

  The king didn’t want to, but at last he agreed—on the condition that the young man would keep the king’s secret for the rest of his life. The woman swore that her son would never betray the king’s confidence. Then the young man—whose name was Marcan—was brought in. When everyone had left the room, the king took off his helmet and ordered the barber to cut his hair.

  Marcan had only made a few cuts when the tops of the ears appeared. He stopped cutting and, with a gasp of astonishment, carefully parted the hair, revealing the king’s ears.

  Labhra swiveled around in his chair and stared up at the barber. “So now you know my secret—and you should die because you know it. But your mother has made me swear not to kill you because you are her only son and all she has left in the world.” The king paused and then continued. “So I will not kill you—on the condition that you swear an oath here and now never to tell anyone what you have seen this day. Well?”

  “I swear it,” Marcan said quickly. “I will tell no living man.”

  The king nodded. “Good. Now, you may continue cutting my hair—and I will appoint you the royal barber. Twice a year you will come to the palace and cut my hair. But remember your promise.”

  “I will never forget,” Marcan swore.

  * * *

  —

  Because Marcan had not been killed by the king and because he had been appointed the royal barber, most people assumed he must be the best in the land. And so Marcan soon became a wealthy man and moved to Tara, where he would cut the hair of all the lords and ladies of the court.

  Of course, people would often ask him why the king wore that strange horned helmet or why he had always killed the barbers before him. Marcan would just shake his head and say he didn’t know. But they kept pestering him for the answer, and the weight of the secret became unbearable.

  Over time, Marcan grew despondent. He felt that if he didn’t tell the secret to someone he would burst. So he went to one of the holy men of the time, a druid, and he asked him for advice. The druid told him to repeat the oath he had sworn to the king, and Marcan said, “I swore I would tell no living man.”

  The druid then threw back his head and laughed. “Why then, all you have to do is to go out and tell your secret to the first thing you meet, be it bird or beast, bush or tree. Your problems will be solved.”

  Marcan thanked the druid and hurried out beyond Tara’s walls. He stopped at the first tree he came to, looked around and, after making sure no one was near, he leaned close to the bark of the tree. The man whispered softly, “Labhra Loingse has horse’s ears.” And now, having told something his secret, Marcan went home happy and relieved. The secret never again troubled him.

  * * *

  —

  Some months later, a woodsman came along and cut down that tree. The woodsman sent it off to one of the greatest craftsmen in Erin, and he, in turn, made it into a harp for an illustrious musician, Craftne the Harper.

  * * *

  —

  There was to be a great feast in Tara that night, and Craftne had composed a new song in celebration of the king. The great hall was silent as the harper approached the king’s throne. Craftne was a small, richly dressed man, and he carried his harp in a specially made leather bag slung over his shoulder.

  Craftne bowed to the king and then to the assembled lords and ladies. He sat down on a low three-legged stool and slowly removed the cover from his harp. It was a beautiful instrument, tall and slim, and with tiny precious stones set into the richly polished wood.

  King Labhra raised a hand at the harpist and gestured for him to begin.

  Craftne ran his long fingers down the golden strings and a delicate shivery sound drifted out over the hall. He touched the strings again and then swept his hand from one end of it to the other. The sounds it made should have been lovely—but instead, in a high-pitched squeaky voice, it shouted, “Labhra Loingse has horse’s ears…Labhra Loingse has horse’s ears…Labhra Loingse has horse’s ears…”

  Craftne dropped the harp in fright, and it shattered into pieces. The king roared and stood up so suddenly that his horned helmet fell off.

  The crowd gasped—his ears were exposed for all to see.

  The king made a grab for his helmet, but he slipped on the steps to his throne and fell to the ground with a cry, breaking his neck. As he died, his ears turned back to normal. And, with that, everyone in the court knew that he had been cursed by the fairies for some evil deed, and they turned their faces away from the dead king in horror.

  But there is another ending to this tale. It is said that when Marcan whispered his secret to the tree, he was overheard by two magpies who were perched on the branches above his head. Once he had gone, the magpies flew off in two different directions, where they met two more magpies.

  “Labhra Loingse has horse’s ears,” they said, and then the four magpies flew off in all directions—north, south, west, and east.

  “Labhra Loingse has horse’s ears,” they said to every bird they met. By morning all the birds knew the king’s secret.

  Labhra Loingse woke early the following morning. He got out of bed and went to the window to watch the sun rise over his kingdom. A magpie came and perched on the windowsill and looked at the king with its hard bright eyes.

  “Labhra Loingse has horse’s ears,” the bird said, and the king was so shocked—at the sound of both the bird’s voice and his secret coming from its beak—that he died of fright on the spot.

  The Changeling’s Song

  In the old times, the fairies would sometimes creep into a house where there was a newborn child and exchange it for one of their own. These children were called changelings and were often ugly and mischievous. But they usually had a gift—and if you could find that gift, you would be able to use it to send them back to fairy-land and bring back the human child…

  Grania O’Neill stood by the side of the wooden cradle and looked down into it. Her neighbor and friend, Sheila, looked over her shoulder.

  “What are you going to call him?” Sheila asked.

  Grania tucked the blue blanket in around the tiny baby’s chin and slipped his arms beneath the covers. “We’ll call him Brian, I think,” she said.

  Sheila nodded. “His grandfather is called Brian, isn’t he?” She peeped into the cot again. “Who do you think he looks like?”

  Grania shook her head. “I don’t know.” She frowned slightly.
“When he was born I thought he looked like me, and I could have sworn he had reddish hair then.” She ran her fingers through the child’s mop of dark hair. “I must have been mistaken.”

  Sheila glanced down into the cot again. “His hair is black,” she said uneasily. “Are you sure it was red when he was born—it wasn’t just the light?”

  Grania shook her head. “No, I remember thinking that his hair was the same color as mine…” She paused. “You don’t think anything’s wrong?” she asked.

  Her neighbor quickly shook her head. “No…no, of course not.”

  The tiny baby whimpered in his sleep and turned over.

  * * *

  —

  As the years passed, it became very clear that young Brian O’Neill was different from his two brothers and father. They were big and broad, and all three had heads of bright red hair. Brian was thin and spindly and his hair was black. He was a difficult boy—always breaking things and telling lies. His mother didn’t know what to do with him.

  One day, just before Brian’s sixth birthday, an old blind harper came to the village. He was called Turlough O’Carolan, and he was the finest harper in all Ireland, if not the world.