A one-legged, one-armed, one-eyed man,
A bundle of rags upon a crutch,
Stumbled as windy Cruachan,
Cursing the wind. It was as much
As the one sturdy leg could do
To keep him upright while he cursed.
He counted, where long years ago
Queen Maeve’s nine Maines56 had been nursed,
A pair of lapwings, one old sheep
And not a house to the plains edge,
When close to his right hand a heap
Of grey stones and a rocky ledge
Reminded him that he could make,
If he but shifted a few stones,
A shelter till the daylight broke.
But while he fumbled with the stones
They toppled over; ‘Were it not
I have a lucky wooden shin
I had been hurt,’ the old beggar thought,
And thereon saw, where stones had been,
A dark deep hole in the rock’s face,
Trembled and gasped and should have run,
Being certain it was no right place,
But the Hell Mouth at Cruachan
And stuffed with all that’s old and bad;
And yet stood still, because inside
He had seen a red-haired jolly lad
In some outlandish coat beside
A ladle and a tub of beer,
Plainly no phantom by his look;
So with a laugh at his own fear
He crawled into that pleasant nook.
Young Red-head stretched himself to yawn
And murmured ‘May God curse the night
That’s grown uneasy near the dawn
So that it seems even I sleep light;
And who are you that wakens me?
Has one of Maeve’s nine brawling sons
Grown tired of his own company?
But let him keep his grave for once,
I have to find the sleep I have lost.’
And then at last, being wide awake,
‘I took you for a brawling ghost,
Say what you please, but from day-break
I’ll sleep another century.’
The beggar, deaf to all but hope,
Went down upon a hand and knee
And took the wooden ladle up
And would have dipped it in the beer,
But the other pushed his hand aside;
‘Before you have dipped it in the beer
That sacred Goban brewed,’ he cried,
‘I’ll have my say, till I am able
To judge if a light-sleeping fool
Would have his fill out of my ladle
To make a clatter in the hole
In the bad hour before dawn.
You’ve but to drink the beer and say
I’ll sleep until the winter’s gone,
Or maybe to Midsummer’s Day,
And so it will be. At the first
I waited so for that or this—
Because the weather was a-cursed
Or I’d no woman there to kiss,
And slept for half a year or so;
But year by year I found that less
Gave me such pleasure I’d forgo
Even a half hour’s nothingness,
And when at one year’s end I found
I had not waked a single minute,
I chose this burrow under ground
And sleep away all Time within it.
My sleep were now nine centuries
But for those mornings when I find
The lapwing at their foolish cries
And the sheep bleating at the wind
As when I also played the fool.’