Chapter I: Front Matter

Re-issue of the Shorter
Stories of Fiona Macleod
rearranged, with
additional
tales

COPYRIGHTED IN THE UNITED
STATES: ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Volume one
Spiritual Tales

BY
Fiona Macleod

PATRICK GEDDES & COLLEAGUES
THE OUTLOOK TOWER·CASTLEHILL·EDINBURGH

_To LILAVAN_

_... For I have seen
In lonely places, and in lonelier hours,
Beyond the involving veils of day and night
Circumfluent o’er the shadowy drift of years,
My vision of the rainbow-aureoled face
Of her whom men name Beauty: proud, austere,
Inviolate, immortal, undismayed
By the swift-eddying dust of wandering Time—
Dim vision of the flawless, perfect Face,
Divinely fugitive, that haunts the world
And lifts man’s spiral thought to lovelier dreams._

SPIRITUAL TALES

“I like to think that these spiritual chronicles might as well, in substance, have been told a thousand years ago or be written a thousand years hence. That Fisher still haunts the invisible shadowy stream of human tears; those mystic Spinners still ply their triple shuttles, and the fair Weaver of Hope now as of yore and for ever sends his rainbows adrift across the hearts and through the minds of men.... These tales, let me add, are not legendary mysteries but legendary moralities. They are reflections from the mirror that is often obscured but is never dimmed. There is no mystery in them, or anywhere; except the eternal mystery of beauty.” (From the Prologue to _The Washer of the Ford_.)

CONTENTS

PAGE
St Bride of the Isles 11
The Three Marvels of Iona 55
The Melancholy of Ulad 85
Ula and Urla 101
The Dark Nameless One 115
The Smoothing of the Hand 129
The Anointed Man 139
The Hills of Ruel 151
The Fisher of Men 159
The Last Supper 179
The Awakening of Angus Ogue 197

_NOTE_

The tales in this volume which have not hitherto appeared are “The Melancholy of Ulad” and “The Hills of Ruel.” “The Awakening of Angus Ogue” is also for the first time printed in book form, though it appeared in the Winter number of _The Evergreen_. Of the re-issued stories “The Anointed Man” is from _The Sin-Eater_, and the others are from _The Washer of the Ford_. As these tales have not been re-set, they are, except in the matter of pagination and re-arrangement, necessarily unaltered.

_ST BRIDE OF THE ISLES_

_NOTE_

_This legendary romance is based upon the ancient and still current (though often contradictory) legends concerning Brighid, or Bride, commonly known as “Muime Chriosd”—i.e. the Foster-Mother of Christ. From the universal honour and reverence in which she was and is held—second only in this respect to the Virgin herself—she is also called “Mary of the Gael.” Another name, frequent in the West, is “Brighde-nam-Brat”—i.e. St Bride of the Mantle, a name explained in the course of my legendary story. Brighid the Christian saint should not, however, be confused with a much earlier and remoter Brighid, the ancient Celtic Muse of Song._

ST BRIDE OF THE ISLES

SLOINNEADH BRIGHDE, MUIME CHRIOSD

Brighde nighean Dughaill Duinn,
’Ic Aoidth, ’ic Arta, ’ic Cuinn.
Gach la is gach oidhche
Ni mi cuimhneachadh air sloinneadh Brighde.
Cha mharbhar mi,
Cha ghuinear mi,
Cha ghonar mi,
Cha mho dh’ fhagas Criosd an dearmad mi;
Cha loisg teine gniomh Shatain mi;
’S cha bhath uisge no saile mi;
’S mi fo chomraig Naoimh Moire
’S mo chaomh mhuime, Brighde.
_The Genealogy of St Bridget or St Bride, Foster-Mother of Christ_

St Bridget, the daughter of Dùghall Donn,
Son of Hugh, son of Art, son of Conn.
Each day and each night
I will meditate on the genealogy of St Bridget.
[Whereby] I will not be killed,
I will not be wounded,
I will not be bewitched;
Neither will Christ forsake me;
Satan’s fire will not burn me;
Neither water nor sea shall drown me;
For I am under the protection of the Virgin Mary,
And my gentle foster-mother, St Bridget.