Irish Folk Tales (57 page)

Well, there was not much sleep in the rath that night. The friendly strangers on the other bank where the chief’s sick daughter still stayed were provided with everything they wanted. Other things were looked to, and a little after sunrise the men of the rath were pouring out of their gates, and the men of the woods landing from their curraghs, and forming their battle ranks.

Before they met, a shower of darts flew from the woody hill down on the
Irish, but pits were ready, lined with yellow clay, and filled with milk and Slaney water, and the moment a man found himself struck he made to the bath.

The ranks were on the point of engaging, when a great shout was heard from the hill, and the Woodmen were seen running down to the bank, pursued by the strange young chief and his men, that were slaughtering them like sheep. They were nearly all killed before they could get to the boats. And into these boats leaped the friendly strangers and rowed across.

So between themselves and the men of the fort rushing down hill, the Woodmen were killed to a man. No quarter was given to the people that were so wicked as to use poisoned arms, and no keen was made, and no cairn piled over them, and no inscription cut on an upright stone to tell their names or how they perished. Their bodies were burned, and the ashes flung into the river. And the next night, though there was some lamentation in the fort, there was much rejoicing along with it.

The Druid did not allow his people to remain long there. He said that Scotland was to be their resting-place. Some of them stayed all this time in a little harbor near the place now called River Chapel, and there they set sail again. But the young chief and two friends would not leave without the three widowed princesses, and the only return he made was to leave his sick sister, that was now as well as ever she was, with the son of the chief of Enniscorthy. The lady whose life he saved was not hard to be persuaded to marry him after he risked his life for her, and her sisters did not like to let her go alone among strange people. Maybe that’s the reason that the Irish and the Highlanders like one another still, and can understand one another when they meet and begin a conversation.

T
HE BATTLE OF THE FORD OF BISCUITS

Well.

I have heard a gooddeal about the Ford of Biscuits battle.

Do ye see: at that time there was no town in Enniskillen. There was only a fort.

Do you know, when you’d stand there in Henry Street, and look across the lough, you see two things like round towers. Well, that was a fort on the
edge of the lake, in the middle of the sixteenth century; that’d be somewhere in the fifteen-hundreds. Aye.

Well, there was an English garrison.

Do you see, the Plantation of Ulster, it took place in the early part of the seventeenth century. That would be very early, about sixteen hundred and nine.

It ’twas after the Flight of the Earls. They were Irish gentry that had position and owned the property, the land like, in this country. So then they lost in the wars with the British, and they had to leave Ireland.

And then, James the First was the king at that time. And he brought over a very large contingent. And he gave them the lands that these
earls
owned, do you know. So that was what they called the Plantation of Ulster.

Well then, there was a garrison here at Enniskillen in days before that, while the O’Neills and the O’Donnells was in prominence.

There was an English garrison here on the island of Enniskillen.

So this garrison was attacked be Red Hugh O’Donnell; he was a Donegal chief.

They were attacked.

And nothing could get in or out because there was an army surrounded the castle.

So finally, in the long run, there was a soldier got out.

And he got into a boat.

And he rowed the boat from Enniskillen to Belturbet up Lough Erne.

Well, do ye see, the way it was at that time, the southern part of the country was in English hands, but the North wasn’t, because these earls that I have told you about, they held Ulster.

And it was only an odd place that the English could get in—like getting in on this island in Lough Erne,
Enniskillen
.

So he got to Belturbet anyway, and he got word sent to Dublin about this attack on Enniskillen
castle
.

And it was ten weeks from the castle was attacked till the chief secretary got the word about it in Dublin.

So anyway, when he heard the news, he formed a powerful great army, all over the other three
provinces
.

There was Irish men on it too from Ulster, that started marching for Enniskillen.

So then O’Donnell then, he raised an army in the
North
here for to intercept the Lord Lieutenant’s army.

So they came on out through this country, O’Donnell’s army.

And they took up their positions

   along the
banks
of the Arney River,

      from Drumane
all
up to Arney.

So they waited there for the arrival of their opponents.

And there went a man on a horse on as far up as Belturbet for to see was there any sign of the Lord Lieutenant’s army coming.

And he came back,

   and there was a song about it,

   and his answer was put in
verse
.

He told O’Donnell—there was a general the name of Duke, and he was leading the Lord Lieutenant’s forces, do ye see—so he told him:

So anyway, they remained here through this country, and all along the banks of the Arney River.

And finally the Lord Lieutenant’s army arrived on the
other side
.

That would be from Derryhowlaght down to Clontymullan, and all along there.

And they wanted to get across the Arney River and get on to Enniskillen.

So the other ones gave them battle there.

And the battle, it was a running fight, along the banks of both sides.

The English forces couldn’t get across the river because it was all fords; there was no bridges, do ye see, in them days.

It was
all fords
.

Every ford that they came to, they were guarded, do ye see, and they couldn’t get
across
.

So there was one ford there in particular. It’d be a wee piece up from Drumane Bridge. According to tradition, the battle finished up there.

It’s called the Biscuit Ford.

The English had all sorts of food with them, do ye know, including a terrible go of biscuits.

So the battle finished up there.

And the English was beaten back.

And a lot of the provisions that they had with them went into the river.

So that’s known to this day as the Biscuit Ford.

Aye.

C
ROMWELL

Cromwell was a big English general and a bad man. He’d stick the bayonet in the child and hold it up in the air until one of his officers would fire a shot through it. When he came into the County Clare, he never halted until he came as far as Spancel Hill and ’twas Cromwell that started the first horse fair in Spancel Hill on June twenty-third.

Cromwell and his soldiers were marching along the road this day in some part of the County Clare and didn’t he see this poor countryman coming along the road and he having a creel of turf. The creel was made of rods in them times.

He ordered the man to empty the creel on the side of the road. He did. Cromwell then put his hand in his pocket and gave him a good price for the turf. He ordered his soldiers to spill a barrelful of tar on the turf and they did as he told them. In a while’s time, they saw the crowd of people coming along the road, and Cromwell waited there for a while and he told his men to be ready and if it was an army that was coming to kill every one of them.

They stood there with their swords in their hands until the crowd came closer to them and when it did, they saw that it was a funeral that was in it and four out in front and they carrying a crochar and a corpse above on it.

“Halt,” says Cromwell.

They halted and the terror of the world on them.

“Leave down that corpse,” says he.

They laid it down on the ground. Cromwell put his hand down in his pocket and pulled up a fistful of gold coins. He had English men and French men and Scotch men in his army. He turned to the English regiment.

“Here,” says he, “is a fistful of gold for any one of ye that’ll throw that corpse on the tar and set fire to it.”

None of them took the offer.

“We’ll fight the living,” says they, “but we won’t molest the dead.”

Then he made the same offer to the French regiment and it was the same story. They all refused to burn the corpse.

Then he turned to the Scotch men and they said that they was soldiers as well as the other two regiments and that they would not molest the dead.

“Here,” says Cromwell, turning to the friends of the dead person, “here is a handful of gold for any one of ye that’ll set fire to that corpse.”