Scholars have claimed both Glencree and Bohernabreena as the location of the famous ‘hostel’ – Bruiden Dá Derga – where King Conaire met his death. The site was certainly somewhere in the Wicklow or Dublin mountains as this was the route of the Slí Cualann, one of the great roads from Tara. Eugene O’Curry was the first to suggest Bohernabreena, as, according to the story, the hostel was built over the Dodder and the place name incorporates ‘Brú’, or ‘hostel’, and Bóthar, or ‘road’. In 1935, Henry Morris made the case for Glencree as the site, with the hostel situated over Mareen’s Brook, which flows into the headwaters of the Dodder, while Ferguson had previously suggested Donnybrook. Given this uncertainty about the location, I have decided to take Glencree as the most likely situation – it is certainly the most atmospheric of the suggested locations and a perfect gateway to the Wicklow mountains. Its name means ‘The Glen of the Marshy Place’.
The county of Wicklow is the youngest in Ireland – it was established only in 1606 when it was ‘shired’, in an attempt to rout out the Gaelic rebels who lived in the hills and constantly raided the south and west of the Dublin suburbs. Wicklow, with its high mountains, deep glens and dark forests, was bandit country – the home of the rebel, the fugitive and the hermit. It was also a place of escape from the city of Dublin, and so it continues to this day; with its bogs and heather-covered hills, its isolation and its beauty. Much of the county is now preserved as a natural park, with woodland walks and trails through unspoilt countryside. The great woods of Wicklow have been re-planted and it is now one of the most forested areas in Ireland – although there is some concern that the mechanical planting and logging may have an adverse effect on the native wildlife and the archaeological remains of the county. Most of these prehistoric remains are situated in the gentler hills and valleys to the north-west of the county, towards the Kildare border. The wilder land of the high mountain ranges has always been less hospitable for settlement, which is why rebellion continued to be fomented here as late as the beginning of the nineteenth century. Glencree was so heavily wooded in medieval times that it was made a Royal Deer Park and enclosed in the thirteenth century, but by Tudor times it had fallen back to wildness, and a concentrated effort had been made to clear its forests so that they could not act as cover for the wood kerne, the Irish rebel soldiers. Later, the military road was built over the mountains – the same route which still links Glencree with Aughavannagh. At the same time, a barracks was built in the valley at Glencree – a building which later became a boys’ reformatory. Glencree is also the site of a burial ground for German airmen who crashed in Ireland during the Second World War, and an iron cross marks the site where the body of a young republican was left by his killers during Ireland’s Civil War. When swirling mists part to allow the strange conical top of Knockree, the Hill of the King, to be seen, the presence of the dead in this valley can feel more powerful than that of the living. In nearby Glenasmole, the lovely valley of thrushes, Oisín, the son of Fionn, fell from his horse on his return from the Land of Youth.
The Wicklow mountains.
The young king, Conaire, felled by the swords of his foster-brothers and their allies; Oisín, falling from his horse; airmen, falling from the sky; men and trees falling before the axe – these are dark stories for such a lovely place. But the Wicklow mountains are equally famous for another exile from society who came to these isolated glens in search of a different kind of refuge. St Kevin was a saint who loved wild things far more than humans. It was said that once he stood still for so long that a blackbird laid her eggs in his hand and he waited in that position until the young birds were hatched. After he had founded the great monastery of Glendalough, he grew tired of the crowds who followed him there, and made his way over the mountains to another lonely valley, north of Glencree – a place that is now known as Hollywood Glen. Here, he refused to cut any timber, either to clear his way or to build a shelter, and when he came to the great forest, the trees, out of love for him, moved aside and made a path for him through the wood.
DA DEARGA’S HOSTEL
Frost and ice covered the mountains from the glens of Dún Bolg to the sea. It was a hard, cold, black night with no lights showing in the vastness of the high moors of the mountains by Áth Cliath. A band of warriors travelled through the pitch darkness, guided only by the stars, for the moon was still no more than a faint bow in the sky, and it seemed reddish – soiled with blood. At their head was Conaire, the young, fair-haired king of Ireland. Despite his great youth and the fact that he had not been bred as a king but in exile, until very recently his reign had been one of plenty – poets said that from Bealtaine until Samhain, no wind strong enough to stir a cow’s tail disturbed the peace of the land. He was a kindly king, with sleepy grey eyes and an air of seriousness about him despite his youth. They said that his father had been a bird spirit of the Sídh, who had come to his mother in secret and lain with her. His mother, Mes Buachalla, was the granddaughter of the fair Étaín, the most beautiful woman in Ireland. Though Étaín had been taken into the mounds of the Sídh long ago, the poets still used her beauty as the ultimate standard of loveliness in women; and those who looked at Conaire saw that beauty take the form of a man.
However, recently, things had changed. It was said that the king had broken the geasa, the solemn prohibitions that had been put upon him at his coming to the kingship. Strange signs had been seen in the sky; crops had failed; and winter – a winter so bitterly cold that it froze every river and lake in Ireland – had set in. And, most ominous of all, ships had started to land on the east coast, coming from Britain and full of sea pirates. Incgel, the British marauder, had joined with Conaire’s foster-brothers, who had been sent into exile for their raping and raiding in Ireland. It was said that they were joining with others who did not want to see Conaire’s peaceful reign continue – for in times of peace, there is little loot for those who love war.
Conaire was now seeking shelter with an old friend and companion, Da Dearga, the Red One – the most generous host in the land. The king was weak and weary, but knew that he had to keep near the ocean to defend his land against the threat from the east. He already felt a sense of doom, for earlier that day, when they had been climbing steadily from the coast in the red glow of sunset, three riders had swept past them. At first, Conaire had thought that it was the sun that turned them to the colour of flame, but then he realised that everything about them was red – their hair, their skin, their clothes, their horses. He remembered yet another of his geasa – ‘Do not let the Three Reds go before you to the house of the Red One.’
Conaire sent a messenger to try to catch the horsemen and ask them to wait so that he could go ahead. The messenger had offered great gifts in exchange, but they had answered:
‘We are the sons of Donn, riding the horses of Donn. Though we are alive, we are dead. There shall be much feasting this night in the house of the one of the dark face; many shall come to partake of his feast. We ride together. The three red ones stop for no one, neither king nor peasant.’ And they spurred on their horses and rode even faster, westwards towards the hostel of Da Dearga.
Grotto at Glencree.
The march continued, interrupted only by the calling of the wolves in the hills. A strange pair passed the troop – a man and a woman, one more ugly and twisted than the other, and the man with a pig on his back, a pig that was half-roasted but still alive and squealing. Finally, they reached the hill where the hostel stood. Lights blazed from the window, for Da Dearga always welcomed travellers weary of the bleak terrain around his home. Mac Cécht, the king’s closest companion, looked fearfully at Conaire, for was that not yet another of the geasa – that his king should never spend the night in a dwelling where light showed outside the walls? But Conaire’s usually cheerful face was sunk into his cloak, and his grey eyes were dark. Da Dearga welcomed the company nobly, providing food and drink and warm fires, and they cheered a little as they sat by the glowing hearth. However, soon there was another interruption – a black, twisted woman, demanding entrance, though it was well after sunset. They brought her before Conaire, who asked her name. ‘Cailb,’ she said.
‘That is a short name,’ said Conaire.
‘I am also called Sind, and Sinann and many other names.’ And the woman began to give such a list of names – many of them people of the Sídh – that Conaire raised his hand to stop her.
‘And what is it that you want?’ he asked.
‘A night’s lodging, with the king’s company, which you will agree is not much to ask.’
‘I would give you anything but that, woman,’ said Conaire. ‘But it is my geis not to allow a visiting woman into my dwelling after sunset. Instead, let me send you good food and drink and a fire outside.’
‘Is that the way the king treats a poor old woman?’ asked the hag indignantly. ‘Indeed, it is a fine state Ireland has got into with a ruler like that.’
She continued to berate him in this vein, so that finally Conaire sighed and said, ‘Very well, come in then and stay.’
So was the last of his geasa broken. But as the servants led the crone away, she turned to Conaire and said, in a voice loud and clear for one so old and bent, ‘No flesh of yours shall escape this place you have come to – save what the birds carry away on their claws. Many will take the long drink of death this night in Da Dearga’s hall.’
The evening seemed long. Although the company was weary, they sat up together by the fires, fearful of the darkness outside; fearful also of attack from the east. Sometimes the wind rose up, and the company stirred, thinking of warriors creeping over the gorse of the hills; sometimes wolves called. Conaire remembered when he had last visited Da Dearga, when the hostel had been filled with the sound of birdsong and singing streams – a heavenly place in summer, full of life. Now all was death and stillness and frozen air.
While the king sat, he pondered on what had led him to this cold place in the hills. Was it the malice of the Sídh or his own weakness in allowing his foster-brothers to live? But why should the Sídh bear him malice, for surely he had done nothing against them? Conaire had never been told of the story of his mother and grandmother, the two Étaíns; and so he was powerless to understand the malice the Sídh bore him because of his grandfather’s crimes. It seemed to him that every geis he had broken had been unavoidable, through a wish to do good. He thought of his child, now being carried under Mac Cécht’s arm; of his sweet wife, who would surely mourn him and just as surely be courted and marry again. He had been touched with fate from the day he had followed the white speckled birds to the strand near Áth Cliath, and one had changed into human form and warned him against killing any of his father’s people, the bird spirits. If he could fly now, he thought, he could leave all this behind him – the misery of his tribe, the threat of the raiders. But he knew that even if he could fly, he would not do so, for he was a king, and a king remained with his people. He stirred restlessly. Why could he not get over the feeling that he was being watched, that there were spies peering in the windows of the lighted dún?
The wolves called louder and Conaire remembered that his foster-brothers had taken werewolves into their company. There was a sudden crashing on the doors of the house, and streams of warriors burst through, each one armed with a long, cruel spear of iron, each one as vicious as a wolf on the mountainside. As they entered, they set fire to the house, so that their swords were lit with a red glow and the walls flamed the colour of blood. The company sprang to arms, and the battle began. It is said that Conaire killed six hundred there, and would have killed many more, perhaps even routed the invaders, had it not been for the spells that the magicians of the enemy cast upon him. He was overcome with a great thirst, so that he sank to the ground in agony.
‘Who will bring me a drink this night?’ he called piteously.
Mac Cécht stood nearby, trying to comfort him and keep the attacking warriors away from his side. He looked around, frantic for a servant to send for water, but all were either dead or fled into the dark hills. He raced outwards into the darkness, but the stream next to the house was bound with frost; all that flowed from the house was red blood. Then he raced, with the speed of desperation, to every lake and river in Ireland, trying to fill his master’s drinking cup, but all their life-giving water was frozen under a coat of solid ice. Finally, in a sheltered valley, he found ice that he could break, and, having filled the cup with water, he raced back to the hostel.
A red dawn was rising over the hall, and, at the door, two men were savagely hacking the head from Conaire’s body. All around lay bodies, the crows beginning to battle over their flesh. Mac Cécht fought the two attackers – the last stand of the invading hordes – and killed them, though his arm was hacked off and his body gashed to ribbons with their spears. He took the cup to where the head of his master was, the grey eyes still open, the lips cracked and dry as is if still gasping for the water. He lifted the cup to Conaire’s lips and they sucked in the water thirstily. Then the head spoke: ‘Mac Cécht, my dear one, my flower of warriors, I would be generous to you in my gratitude, were I still living.’
The eyes closed, and Mac Cécht collapsed.
When the sun was high in the sky, a woman of the valley crept from her cave in the hills to see what had happened, for all seemed quiet now at the battlefield. She came upon the severed head of Conaire, and the mighty warrior lying beside it. A she-wolf was tearing at the flesh of the warrior, but ran off whimpering when the woman threw a well-aimed stone at her. She brought Mac Cécht some of the water from the cup that was beside him, and then went to fetch more water from the stream, for it seemed that the cold spell was over and the ice was beginning to melt.
As she wiped his brow, he awoke with a jolt and reached for his sword.
She laid her hand gently on his arm.
‘Stop now – there has been enough killing; so many warriors dead. Do you know that there was a wolf up to her shoulders in the wound in your side?’ she asked.
He shook his head dumbly. She wondered if his wits had left him in the carnage surrounding them.
‘Who are you?” she asked.
His voice came out, dry like old leaves rustling together, not that of the young man he seemed to be. ‘I am Mac Cécht, one of the warriors of Conaire, the sweetest and most just king ever to rule.’
He tried to struggle upwards, then fell back, in agony.
‘Let me take the king back with me to Tara, where he may lie with the bones of his ancestors, for never did a man deserve less the enmity of the Sídh or of mankind. Truly, tonight many have drunk the drink of death at this hostel.’
The reason for the Sídh’s revenge on Conaire can be read in ‘The Finding of Étaín’.