Authors: Seamus Heaney
Sweeney Astray (7 page)
59Â Â Â The next morning Sweeney started again. He passed Moyfevin and the clear, green-wavering Shannon; he passed the inviting slopes of Aughty, the spreading pastures of Loughrea, the delightful banks of the River Suck, and landed on the shores of broad Lough Ree. He spent that night in the fork of Bile Tiobradain, which was one of his favourite hide-outs in the country. It was Creegaille, in the east of Connacht.
    Great sorrow and misery descended on him and he said:
    âIndeed I have suffered great trouble and distress. It was cold in the Mournes last night and it is no better to-night in the fork of Bile Tiobradain.
60Â Â Â It was snowing that night, and as fast as the snow fell, it was frozen. So he said:
    âI have endured purgatories since the feathers grew on me. And still there is no respite. I realize, he said, that even if it were to mean my death, it would be better to trust my people than to endure these woes forever.
    Then he recited the poem, proclaiming aloud his woes:
61 | Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â | Almighty God, I deserved this, my cut feet, my drained face, winnowed by a sheer wind and miserable in my mind. Â |
 |  | Last night I lay in Mourne plastered in wet; cold rain poured. To-night, in torment, in Glasgally I am crucified in the fork of a tree.  |
 |  | I who endured unflinchingly through long nights and long days since the feathers penned my frame foresee nothing but the same.  |
 |  | Hard weather has withered me, blizzards have buried me. As I wince here in cutting wind Glen Bolcain's heather haunts my mind.  |
 |  | Unsettled, panicky, astray, I course over the whole country from Liffey to Lower Bann, from Bannside to the banks of Lagan;  |
 |  | then over Rathmore to Roscommon, and fields that lie around Cruachan, above Moylurg's level plain and the brow of bushy Fews Mountain.  |
 |  | Or else I make a tough migration to the Knockmealdown mountains; or from Glasgally, a long glide eastward to a louth hillside.  |
 |  | All this is hard to thole, Lord! Still without bed or board, crouching to graze on cress, drinking cold water from rivers.  |
 |  | Alarmed out of the autumn wood, whipped by whins, flecked with blood, running wild among wolf-packs, shying away with the red stag.  |
 |  | Son of God, have mercy on us! Never to hear a human voice! To sleep naked every night up there in the highest thickets,  |
 |  | to have lost my proper shape and looks, a mad scuttler on mountain peaks, a derelict doomed to loneliness: Son of God, have mercy on us!  |
62Â Â Â âAll the same, Sweeney said, even if Donal, son of Aodh, were to kill me, I will still go to Dal-Arie and trust to the mercy of my own people. If the mill-hag had not duped me into that bout of leaping, I would still be sane enough.
63Â Â Â Then a glimmer of reason came back to him and he set out for his own country, ready to settle there and entrust himself to the people.
    Ronan heard of Sweeney's return to his senses and his decision to go back among his own, and cried out:
    âI beseech you, Lord, that the persecutor may not come near the church to torment it again; I beseech you, do not relent in your vengeance or ease his affliction until he is sundered body from soul in his death-swoon. Remember that you struck him for an example, a warning to tyrants that you and your people were sacred and not to be lightly dishonoured or outraged.
64Â Â Â God answered Ronan's prayer. When Sweeney was out on the uplands of the Fews he halted, stalk still: a strange apparition rose before him at midnight. Bleeding headless torsos and disembodied headsâfive scraggy, goat-bearded headsâscreamed and bounced this way and that over the road. When he got among them, they were talking to each other.
    âHe is a madman, said the first head.
    âA madman from Ulster, said the second.
    âFollow him well, said the third.
    âMay the pursuit be long, said the fourth.
    âUntil he reaches the sea, said the fifth.
    They rose in a flock, coming for him, but he soared away in front, skimming from thicket to thicket; and no matter how wide the glen that opened before him, he bounded from edge to edge, from the top of one hill to the top of the next.
65 | Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â | The heads were pursuing him, lolling and baying, snapping and yelping, whining and squealing. They nosed at his calves and his thighs, they breathed on his shoulder, they nuzzled the back of his neck, they went bumping off tree-trunks and rock-face, they spouted and plunged like a waterfall, until he gave them the slip and escaped in a swirling tongue of low cloud. Â |
66Â Â Â He had lost them, goat-head and dog-head and the whole terrifying pack he had sensed there. But his previous wandering and flying were nothing compared with what he suffered now, for he was startled into a fit which lasted six weeks until he perched one night in the top of a tree, on the summit of Slieve Eidhneach. In the morning he began lamenting:
67 | Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â | My dark night has come round again. The world goes on but I return to haunt myself. I freeze and burn. I am the bare figure of pain. Â |
 |  | Frost crystals and level ice, the scourging snow, the male-voiced storm assist at my requiem. My hearth goes cold, my fire dies.  |
 |  | Are there still some who call me prince? The King of Kings, the Lord of All revoked my title, worked my downfall, unhoused, unwived me for my sins.  |
 |  | Why did He spare my life at Moira? Why did He grudge me death in battle? Why ordained the hag of the mill His hound of heaven and my fury?  |
 |  | The mill-hag's millstone round my neck! Hell roast her soul! She dragged me down when I leaped up in agitation. I fell for that old witch's trick.  |
 |  | Then Lynchseachan was in full cry, a bloodhound never off my trail. I fell for his lies too and fell among captors out of the tree.  |
 |  | They made me face the love I'd lost. They tied me up and carried me back to the house. The mockery! I overheard their victory feast  |
 |  | yet gradually grew self-possessed, for there were decent people there, and gaming and constant laughter. My mind was knitting up at last  |
 |  | but soon unravelled into nightmare. I was for the high jump once more. The mill-hag spun her web and swore her innocence. I leaped for her  |
 |  | and leaped beyond the bounds of sense. She challenged me a second time. We kept in step like words in rhyme. I set the pace and led the danceâ  |
 |  | I cleared the skylight and the roof, I flew away beyond the fortress but she hung on. Through smooth and rough I raised the wind and led the chase.  |
 |  | We coursed all over Ireland then. I was the wind and she was smoke. I was the prow and she the wake. I was the earth and she the moon.  |
 |  | But always look before you leap! Though she was fit for bog and hill, Dunseverick gave her the spill. She followed me down off the top  |
 |  | of the fort and spread-eagled her bitch's body in the air. I trod the water, watching her hit the rocks. And I was glad  |
 |  | to see her float in smithereens. A crew of devils made a corpse of her and buried it. Cursed be the ground that housed her bones.  |
 |  | One night I walked across the Fewsâ the hills were dark, the starlight deadâ when suddenly five severed heads, five lantern ghouls, appeared and rose  |
 |  | like bats from hell, surrounding me. Then a head spokeâanother shock! âThis is the Ulster lunatic. Let us drive him into the sea.  |
 |  | I went like an arrow from a bow. My feet disdained that upland ground. Goat-head and dog-head cursed but found me impossible to follow.  |
 |  | I have deserved all this: night-vigils, terror, flittings across water, women's cried-out eyes.  |
68Â Â Â One time during his wild career Sweeney left Slieve Lougher and landed in Feegile. He stayed there for a year among the clear streams and branches of the wood, eating red holly-berries and dark brown acorns, and drinking from the River Feegile. At the end of that time, deep grief and sorrow settled over him because of his terrible life; so he came out with this short poem:
69 | Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â | Look at Sweeney now, alas! His body mortified and numb, unconsoled, sleepless in the rough blast of the storm. Â |
 |  | From Slieve Lougher I came to the border marches of Feegile, my diet still the usual ivy-berries and oak-mast.  |
 |  | I have spent a year on the mountain enduring my transformation, dabbing, dabbing like a bird at the holly-berries' crimson.  |
 |  | My grief is raw and constant. To-night all my strength is gone. Who has more cause to lament than Mad Sweeney of Glen Bolcain?  |
70Â Â Â One day Sweeney went to Drum Iarann in Connacht where he stole some watercress and drank from a green-flecked well. A cleric came out of the church, full of indignation and resentment, calling Sweeney a well-fed, contented madman, and reproaching him where he cowered in the yew tree:
71 | Â | Cleric: | Â | Aren't you the contented one? You eat my watercress, then you perch in the yew tree beside my little house. Â |
 |  | Sweeney: |  | Contented's not the word! I am so terrified, so panicky, so haunted I dare not bat an eyelid.  |
 |  |  |  | The flight of a small wren scares me as much, bell-man, as a great expedition out to hunt me down.  |
 |  |  |  | Were you in my place, monk, and I in yours, think: would you enjoy being mad? Would you be contented?  |
72Â Â Â Once when Sweeney was rambling and raking through Connacht he ended up in Alternan in Tireragh. A community of holy people had made their home there, and it was a lovely valley, with a turbulent river shooting down the cliff; trees fruited and blossomed on the cliff-face; there were sheltering ivies and heavy-topped orchards, there were wild deer and hares and fat swine; and sleek seals, that used to sleep on the cliff, having come in from the ocean beyond. Sweeney coveted the place mightily and sang its praises aloud in this poem:
73 | Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â | Sainted cliff at Alternan, nut grove, hazel-wood! Cold quick sweeps of water fall down the cliff-side. Â |
 |  | Ivies green and thicken there, its oak-mast is precious. Fruited branches nod and bend from heavy-headed apple trees.  |
 |  | Badgers make their setts there and swift hares have their form; and seals' heads swim the ocean, cobbling the running foam.  |
 |  | And by the waterfall, Colman's son, haggard, spent, frost-bitten Sweeney, Ronan of Drumgesh's victim, is sleeping at the foot of a tree.  |
