AE in the Irish TheosophistRussell, George William
Religion
AE in the Irish Theosophist
Russell, George William
Theosophy
"I see why he lies here so still," he continued, his voice strange
like one who is inspired while he speaks. "The Sidhe looked out
from their mountains. They saw a hero asleep. They saw a God
forgetful. They stirred him to shame by the hands of women. They
showed him the past. They said to Fand and Libau, 'Awake him.
Bring him to us. Let him come on the night of Samhain.' They
showed the chosen one from afar, in a vision while hid in their
mountains. The Tuatha de Danaans, the immortals, wish for Cuchullain
to aid them. The daughters of Aed Abrait are their messengers.
If Fand and Liban were here they would restore the hero."
"Who are you?" asked Laeg, who had joined them.
"I am Angus, son of Aed Abrait." While he spoke his form quivered
like a smoke, twinkling in misty indistinctness in the blue twilight,
and then vanished before their eyes.
"I wonder now," muttered Laeg to himself, "if he was sent by the
Sidhe, or by Liban and Fand only. When one has to deal with women
everything is uncertain. Fand trusts more in her beauty to arouse
him than in her message. I have seen her shadow twenty times cooing
about him. It is all an excuse for love-making with her. It is
just like a woman. Anything, however, would be better for him than
to lie in bed." He went off to join the others. Cuchullain was
sitting up and was telling the story of what happened last Samhain.
"What should I do?" he asked.
"Go to the wise King," said Laeg, and so they all advised, for ever
since the day when he was crowned, and the Druids had touched him
with fire, a light of wisdom shone about Concobar the King.
"I think you should go to the rock where the women of the Sidhe
appeared to you," said Concobar when appealed to.
So Laeg made ready the chariot and drove to the tarn. Night came
ere they reached it, but the moon showed full and brilliant. Laeg
waited a little way apart, while Cuchullain sat himself in the
black shadow of the rock. As the warrior gazed into the dark,
star-speckled surface of the waters, a brightness and a mist
gathered over them, and there, standing with her robe of green
down--dropping to her feet and trailing on the wave, her pale
flaxen hair blown around her head, was Liban. She smiled strangely
as before, looking through him with her subtle eyes.
"I am one of the Sidhe," she said, and her voice sounded like a
murmur of the water. "You also, O warrior, though forgetful, are
one of us. We did not indeed come to injure you, but to awaken
remembrance. For now the wild clouds of demons gathered from the
neighboring isles and we wish your aid. Your strength will come
back to you exultant as of old. Come with me, warrior. You will
have great companions. Labraid, who wields the rapid fires as you
the sword, and Fand, who has laid aside her Druid wisdom longing
for you."
"Whither must I go with you, strange woman?" asked Cuchullain.
"To Mag-Mell."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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