Fantasy fiction; Ireland -- Social life and customs -- Fiction; Mythology, Celtic -- Fiction
The lay brother found Brother Kevin, Brother Dove, Brother Little Wolf,
Brother Bald Patrick, Brother Bald Brandon, Brother James and Brother
Peter sitting up in bed, and he made them get up. Then they bound
Cumhal, and they dragged him to the river, and they dipped him in it at
the place which was afterwards called Buckley's Ford.
'Gleeman,' said the lay brother, as they led him back to the
guest-house, 'why do you ever use the wit which God has given you to
make blasphemous and immoral tales and verses? For such is the way of
your craft. I have, indeed, many such tales and verses well nigh by
rote, and so I know that I speak true! And why do you praise with rhyme
those demons, Finvaragh, Red Aodh, Cleena, Aoibhell and Donn? I, too, am
a man of great wit and learning, but I ever glorify our gracious abbot,
and Benignus our Patron, and the princes of the province. My soul is
decent and orderly, but yours is like the wind among the salley gardens.
I said what I could for you, being also a man of many thoughts, but who
could help such a one as you?'
'Friend,' answered the gleeman, 'my soul is indeed like the wind, and it
blows me to and fro, and up and down, and puts many things into my mind
and out of my mind, and therefore am I called the Swift, Wild Horse.'
And he spoke no more that night, for his teeth were chattering with the
cold.
The abbot and the friars came to him in the morning, and bade him get
ready to be crucified, and led him out of the guest-house. And while he
still stood upon the step a flock of great grass-barnacles passed high
above him with clanking cries. He lifted his arms to them and said, 'O
great grass-barnacles, tarry a little, and mayhap my soul will travel
with you to the waste places of the shore and to the ungovernable sea!'
At the gate a crowd of beggars gathered about them, being come there to
beg from any traveller or pilgrim who might have spent the night in the
guest-house. The abbot and the friars led the gleeman to a place in the
woods at some distance, where many straight young trees were growing,
and they made him cut one down and fashion it to the right length, while
the beggars stood round them in a ring, talking and gesticulating. The
abbot then bade him cut off another and shorter piece of wood, and nail
it upon the first. So there was his cross for him; and they put it upon
his shoulder, for his crucifixion was to be on the top of the hill where
the others were. A half-mile on the way he asked them to stop and see
him juggle for them; for he knew, he said, all the tricks of Aengus
the Subtle-hearted. The old friars were for pressing on, but the young
friars would see him: so he did many wonders for them, even to the
drawing of live frogs out of his ears. But after a while they turned on
him, and said his tricks were dull and a shade unholy, and set the cross
on his shoulders again. Another half-mile on the way, and he asked them
to stop and hear him jest for them, for he knew, he said, all the jests
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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