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 The Fourth Order of Francis and Clare |
Soldier's Heart
An Introduction
Of Suibhne,
son of Colman Cuar, king of Dal Araidhe,
who wandered out of battle at Mag Rath,
flying into the wilds to live a madman hovering in trees,
here are set forth the cause and occasion of his terror, his dread and the madness which came upon him.
Suibhne Geilt has awaked, trembling in the trees, his feathered cloak upon him. He is cold, cold from the battle, yet he moves to speak.
Listen and heed.
The Sweeney Lacunae
I. The Din of Battle
They call me madman of the trees, king gone astray, witless one, mimic of birds,
folly's friend. La-la-lee. La-la-loo. The wild mad king.
Sweeney? I am not Sweeney. Sweeney was a tall strong man who raised his
voice and his arms against anyone who slighted him.
He was a king, that tall man. A king by birth and battle. I knew him in his
youth. A frenzied man, that Sweeney, like every man who knows the
secret of war.
I learned that secret from him, in my youth. Lean forward: let me tell you. Let
me murmur to you what I cannot speak into the night's wide listening ear.
Let me tell you of the way, in slant evening light, wine shines like fresh blood.
The way, in mead-tinged candlelight, the gold hair of a woman glints like
the clash of weapons.
The way everything grows wild and fierce and vivid, the night before battle. The
blood pricking. The loins surging. The breath intoxicating. The stars
multiplying.
And then the dawn of battle, when nothing is more beautiful than the enemy,
shining with sweat, wanton with weapons. Everything gleaming silver,
swords, helmets, shields, small sharp daggers, gleaming.
Dazzled with the enemy, Sweeney would stand on the hillside, every line of
every warrior's face carved into his memory. Sweeney would know them
in that instant. Know their hardness. Feel them give way to his greater
hardness.
Legs pounding, arms flailing, lungs bursting. Red. Red. Screams like wild
frenzied birds. Red. Sweeney drinking blood from hacked limbs. Red
and sweet.
I knew that Sweeney, in my youth. Before Mag Rath. La-la-loo. Before that
battle, when the sound of death filled his ears, la-la-lee. I wonder where
he went, that Sweeney. The tall strong king. After Mag Rath.
Sweeney was a leader of men. I am a madman of the hills. Sweeney slept in the
bed of a queen. I sleep in treetops, surrounded by grackles and crows.
II. Before Mag Rath
In the bloody sunset, I saw her. We were camped beside Mag
Rath, the fort-ringed plain. We knew, our foes knew, that at
dawn we would hurl ourselves into each others' screaming
arms. We were stiff with eagerness.
And then she came.
In the bronze evening, a crow flew from the west. Then another.
Another. Beside small fires, warriors turned red faces to the
sun. The flock was a black river in flood. Each crow
screaming like a dying man.
It flowed down the center of the plain, that black river. Then a pool
opened in the center. We saw a hawk flying amid the crows.
A man cheered at the happy omen, a small sound against
the river's roar.
Then turbulence. The pool closing around the hawk. Eddies
appearing, water splashing over granite. Then, from that
river in the sky, a hawk dropping like a rock to earth.
Three times this happened. Three pools, three hawks, three deaths.
The men turned away. All men before battle seek omens. All men
before war are druids, full of subtle knowledge. This was no
omen they wished to see, no omen they wished to
remember.
I did not turn away. The hawks, I saw, were our enemies and we
the crows of battle, rending them. That was the way I
thought then, when I was Sweeney the king. I thought the
future was mine to grasp like the hilt of a sword.
And so I stood by the side of the fort-ringed plain and watched
the black river slow to a trickle. A final bird flew forth
from the west, the last drop in the river of death. It stopped
where three hawks lay like boulders in the center of dawn's
battlefield.
The crow circled, circled, circled. Then dove.
As it reached the ground, the bird changed, in the red light, into a
vast woman. A simple-looking one, of the kind who follow
armies to cook and clean. A dull hag, but huge, head like a
boulder, feet like rocks.
She reached for a hawk. As her hand closed on it, it whitened. She
lifted it up, no bird but a white garment that sunset streaked
red. She opened a bag at her thick waist and pushed the
bloody rag inside. She picked up each hawk, each bloody
rag.
She lifted her arms and rose into the air. She flew into the dark
eastern sky.
Exultation filled me. How we would destroy them, the enemy.
How we would tear their bodies. How we would pierce
their hearts. It would be my greatest battle. I did not sleep,
waiting for dawn's red signal to raise my sword over the
field of Mag Rath.
III. In the Sky 
Battle sounds inside the body. Heavy pounding of metal on metal, sword on
sword, shield against shield. The driving drums, the piercing pipes.
Screams of the dying.
At Mag Rath, that bitter clangorous music inside me like blood. No difference
between me and the air I sliced with my sword, between me and the men I
sliced with my sword. I became the stormy music of war.
I was on a small hill in the center of the storm. Men fell around me like rain. I
heard something like thunder. I looked up.
Five heads flew out of the sky at me. Faces twisted in anger and death. Mouths
open in the small circle of death. Blood streaming from their severed
necks, streaming like clouds at sunset.
They came from all directions, screaming my name. Each mouth, open in that
circle of death, screamed Sweeney, Sweeney. On that hillock in the midst
of the meadow, they circled my head.
A king, one screamed. A northern king, screamed the next. The third said, not a
king but a madman. The fourth said, let us torment the mad king. And
the fifth, let us chase him into the sea, let us torment him until he drowns
to escape our words, let us drown him.
Mad? I was not mad. I was Sweeney the king. A king knows how to deal with
enemies. I lifted my sword.
They flew at me, biting. One bit my knee, another the nape of my neck. I struck
and struck. They were swifter than swords.
There was nothing else to do: I rose into the air. The battle shrank beneath me. I
saw men knotted together, in life and in death. I saw the carrion crows
gather, drawn by the warm smell of blood. I saw, on the side of the
meadow, a woman leading away a white cow.
But I had not escaped. I flew to a high crag, but the heads flew with me. The
crash of a head against my thigh. Against my shoulder. Against my own
head. Blood streamed from them like water. I was red and wet with
blood.
They screamed Sweeney, Sweeney. You saw the light die in our eyes. Let us
have that moment with you, again. The light dying. Light. Dying. Light.
Again.
I did not know them. I had killed so many. All had names once, and histories. I
did not know them. How could they know me?
I rose again, higher. They said I would drown myself in the sea. No. I wrapped
myself in clouds. I hid there, brilliant and white and cold. No one
guessed, looking up from Mag Rath, that the king was there, high in the
clouds, singing his battle song like a new fledged bird.
IV.The Ivy-Tops
Dark has fallen. It grows cold. I have had no rest since meeting
my enemy. Aha, they are dead, they are dead, they could
not kill me. I rose above them and kicked until they rolled
away like rotten apples in a dying orchard. They are dead,
dead, they could not kill me.
I tear at crimson silk until I am free and naked in the red dusk.
Feathers, I say, feathers! My skin prickles in the high wind.
Now I fly, sleek and strong, high above that field. I see the
battle's dainty pattern: retreats, advances, the ragged lines
of war. I sing my victory song.
Men tire me. I want to sit in a crabapple and eat sour fruit. I want
to perch in a twisted oak and feast on acorns. Trees call out
to me, here, stop here, come down here. They wave their
offerings of fruit and seeds. Northwest I go, into the hills in
search of an ivy-topped tree.
In Bearaigh forest I alight, wings weary from flight. I sing softly,
my victory song. But I hear noise: men, armed men rushing
into the wood. I hear them calling. Sweeney, they say,
come down to us. Slender Sweeney, leader of hosts, comely
crystal-eyed king, come down. Lead us again into battle,
red-handed Sweeney, man of gore. Come back to us now,
Sweeney, Sweeney, they call.
My feathers rise and spread. Sweeney? Do I know that name? I
cannot fit my thin tongue around it. Why do they call
Sweeney, Sweeney? I knew someone of that name, once, in
a place called Mag Rath. I grow curious. I wish to meet him
again.
In my heart lies a map. It shows the way to a four-gapped glen
tumbling with waterfalls, green with cress and sorrel, black
with sloe. Clean banks where I can nest, great ivy-topped
trees where I can perch. I must fly there. I must not sleep
until I find that place without sword, without spear, without
mead, without warriors, without kings.
Glen Bolcan: Sweeny is there. In my heart is the map. The journey
is long from roost to roost. I must begin.
V. Rooks at Sunset 
Light softens to gold. Violet streaks the west. Night is gathering like mist,
calling to itself all hooded ghosts and phantoms on dark wings.
There was a time I heard screams in the dusky sky and walked on, never lifting
my eyes. There was a time I saw dark forms gather in skeleton trees and
walked on, thinking them only birds come home to roost.
I slept then, and dreamed. Dreamed of falling and falling, dreamed of dark
wolfish dogs, dreamed of narrow passes over high blue hills. I awoke in
those pale dawns and walked the world of men, daylit and kingly.
I no longer sleep. Sleep is for those who are not yet awake. I know the truth of
this world now, its dark forces searching for carrion. I will not lie down,
neck open to the sky, and let the birds of dreams peck out my eyes.
I watch as they gather, spiraling down in the dying light. I listen as they gather,
shrieking tales of dying warriors whose intestines they have eaten.
I know a roost by its reek of war. As those ghosts descend, I climb. They alight
around me, screaming. I scream out my own tales of dying warriors. The
sound is like the din of battle.
Ghosts cannot find those who hide among them. Slowly the gray phantoms
grow silent. Darkness blankets me. I too grow silent. Naked legs
wrapped around the tree's hard trunk, I stand watch through the long
night.
VI. Flights of Praise
Every dawn, I leave my roost and fly east into the pearling sky.
Before the sun rises I am on Knockaulin, there to greet her with
my little song. As she leaves night's embrace, I welcome
her, sun of the seasons, lady of light, mother of all.
And then fly southwest, to sweet Slieve Bloom, heart of the island,
mountain of secret springs. There I dance and twitter,
celebrating the warming air and the slant silver light of
morning as the sparrow welcomes me from thickets of
bramble.
And then further west, to dark Slieve Mis, heavy blue guardian of
waters. On her smooth steep sides I swoop and dive,
announcing the stark sun of noon. The duck and drake
welcome me from sleek lakes, and the loud call of the wild
goose echoes through the hills.
Along the rocky coast and high barren hills I trace the day's
progress. To Slieve Aughty I go with its flanking valleys,
then north to cloud-shadowed Beana Beol with hidden
heather islands on fingers of gray water. There the gray
ghosts of hoodie-crows carve patterns in the bogland as
their harsh call shatters the golding light.
North again, to the sharp sides of Cruachan Aige as the prophet
mountain shimmers in the declining light. There I sing
alone, a small stray bird on a snowy summit beside a great
circle of stone. There I bow and bow to the sun as she slips
blushing into the bright western waters and into the night's
waiting arms.
And then, in the gathering dark, I fly to a small northern hill where,
in silence, I listen to my beating bird's heart and thank the
sun and the earth for its lively rhythm. There I remember
the joys of other lives: spawning as a frog, dancing as a light-
haired maiden, carrying an immense leaf as an ant, hunting
in the hedgerows as a stoat.
Shadows of old nightmares come then, too, but distant, distant as
Slieve Mis from Emain Macha. I can outfly them now, as I
do each night when I make my solitary way to Glen Bolcan,
sweet refuge of ivy-topped oaks.
VII. Dark of the Moon
How she changes, my lady queen, how she changes. When she was fat and fair-
faced, I shed my feathered cloak and ran with wolves beneath her
gleaming glance. How we howled then, how we howled and ran.
But she grows lean and stern of late. Tonight she is a somber shadow, darkness
on darkness. We have all grown silent, we dwellers in cold forests. I
crouch against the hard bark and hear the yew breathe.
I remember warm heat and song, stone walls hung with fur, the sweetness of
mead. Huge men draping themselves against pale women. A harper
playing slow airs. Dogs beneath our feet, growling in sleep. Everything
dark with passion and gloom. Everything dark while fire blazed and
candles gleamed on metal.
In this forest, no fire. Only waiting, in cold darkness.
In that time I was a warrior. I fought the darkness. I demanded light, light, light.
I killed for light. I burned a fat slave alive, to illuminate my halls. I
pressed oil from a silkie, to light my bronze lamps.
Such light deepens shadows. I called for more light, more light. And the
shadows grew and deepened.
Beyond this forest are kings like that. I fear them. They would plunder the
forest for fuel. They would take this old yew and leave Sweeney no home.
They would steal my lady queen to burn in their braziers.
Then darkness would eat me. Cold would devour me. I would die naked
beneath a blackthorn, keening for the missing moon.
VIII. Invasion 
Snow is falling again. In my cloak of feathers, I shiver as ice rimes my face.
From my forked tree I watch the great stag pass. I have seen him push his horns
against those of other stags, seen him push antlered heads to the ground.
How splendid I would be, riding between his antlers, answering to Fer
Benn, king of the horned ones.
Next comes the wolf, long shadow on snow, gray against the glinting ice. I have
seen her take a lame doe, heard her call the pack to its red meal. How
splendid I would be, riding on her, hands twisted in her rough fur,
answering to Fer Fiach, king of the hunters.
And now that unruly animal whose call stills the forest. A large herd this time,
more raucous than crows. The voice of this beast makes me shiver until
the ice in my feathers tinkles.
I do not want to ride on their brazen backs, for they would not take me to the
mountains of wild Mis or the rocky peak of Callan, but to a plain near a
river that would soon smell of death. They would call me Sweeney and
take me to Mag Rath.
I am a bird now, cold and hungry and thin. I hold myself silent and still.
I know all bird languages. When the owl croons, I look up at the floating moon.
When the geese bray, I look for swelling buds. But I do not know this
creature's harsh tongue. It is empty of the sound of the sea, and the
breaking dawn, and the comfort of clear water.
They gather beneath me, tracing in the snow the shape of a carrion crow. Their
calls grow louder. They point west, north, east. They push each others'
shoulders. Their faces grow red.
The forest is silent. We are all watching. We shiver and wait.
XI. War Among the Birds
Loud screams. Harsh calls. Strange music in the dawn.
In half-dream I know the sound of battle. I remember it from long
ago, from a fort-ringed field. I have not heard it since.
I am cold. Under my skin, sleek with feathers, I am hollow. I could
feel my heart once, my blood, my flesh. I was a warm home
with a hot fire. Now I am a dark cave on a winter night.
The sounds grow louder. I hide my face in my wings. I have seen
enough of heads flying through the air and the shape of a
single hand, still grasping a sword, on the bright green
grass. I have seen enough of arms rising and falling.
Enough of blood, blood, blood, enough.
The sounds grow louder. Strident screaming from my left. A soft
croon to my right. Screaming, screaming, screaming.
I do not move. I close my eyes. If I see one more battle, my wits
will leave me. I will forget who I am and go, mad and
raving, from my yew-home.
Screaming. Screaming. Now should come the bronze sound of
weapons. The pounding of feet, the swish of flesh dividing,
the heavy sound of falling bodies. But no. No.
Twittering. Something like a melody. Moans again. The sounds
move, making patterns around my yew-home. The sounds
repeat and repeat and repeat.
In the loudness of battle there was one sound I remember above
all, a soft gurgle as life was released from the throat of a
man. If I could fly from here and not hear that sound again, I
would do so, but that would mean lifting my wings from
my eyes and seeing red again, red and hacked limbs and
twisted faces.
In my silent darkness, I await that sound.
It does not come. The sounds repeat, repeat, forming patterns
around my tree. They begin to seem like melodies. I begin
to find them beautiful.
Am I going mad? How can I think war beautiful? Enough of war
and your dreams become all screaming heads. Enough of
war and you forget all other beauties, the small spring
flowers and the yearning bend of willows and the sweet
taste of water.
Yet the song of battle has come again to me. We sing it at dawn,
we birds, when we define the boundaries of our kingdoms.
In repeating glissades, in wild crescendos, in syncopation,
in fierce trills, we do battle with each other.
I lift wings from eyes. My throat opens and I sing. La-la-lee, la-la-
loo. La-la-lee, la-la-loo. A simple song, for I am just a small
drab bird in a yew tree. Over and over. My heart returns.
My blood, my heart, my flesh, all become song. I sing and
sing and sing.
X. In the Cold Night
The fight has gone out of me. Cold pierces me, hunger pierces me, ceaseless
poverty pierces me. I am the wildman of the snow.
Other men judge me as no man: half-animal, half-naked, furred and clad in
tatters. But I am still Sweeney, still a man even if a mad one.
Look for me in the trackless places, for I will not set foot upon their paths. I stay
on the move, for terror finds the one who rests.
I look towards the proud prow-flooded sea. Safety lies beyond. Here, fear
claims my little strength, the little strength of Sweeney the madman.
Here, wind is my enemy, tearing at me; snow is my enemy, burning me; trees are
my enemy, scratching my bare cold flesh.
My hands are striped with red, my cold hands, cut by bare gray branches. My
feet are cold and bare, my cold feet, their coverings of cloth and flesh torn
off by briars.
My hands shake like an old man's. My mind is confused. I do not know if I am
in the southwest, on the dark looming mountain, or in the far north on a
cairn-crowned peak or on the gray mountains near the narrow sea.
I hear something. It is my voice. I am crying out from the mountain of eagles. I
am crying out from the blue island. From the great gray sea, a moan
comes forth: it is me, a sad mad man.
The night is long and cold. Day will come, no better. I will pull plants from the
side of a well and stuff my mouth with them. I will eat white flowers.
It is sad that I killed and was not killed. My old enemies, have no fear: I am
weak now, weak and mad and naked in the cold night.
Last night I slept in the cleft of an ancient yew that rose from rock to shake
gnarled fists at a low streaming sky.
The other trees on the hill-musclebound beech and dainty elm-were empty
ghosts of winter. Their branches no shelter.
No shelter from cold rain and wind stung with the sea's sharp salt. Only one
gray-tufted yew, cleft by storm, for a madman's bed.
When the sky turned in its bed and tugged at the cover of darkness, I awoke,
thirsty for fresh water.
My feet found rock after rock, a hidden path beneath dank ivy and the slime of
rotting leaves. I moved, a shadow in shadows, toward the sea.
Rock. Rock. Rock. The sky raising itself above me. Rock. Rock. The rock
graying. The forest graying. Rock. The sky graying and pearling and
yellowing.
In a cleft in a high rock hill, water hid itself from light until the red sun rose. As
light shattered on water, I drank the first cold drops of spring.
Beside me, a gorse bush shredded into bloom. At my feet, snowdrops opened
like winter memories.
The water laughed. I knew you then, well-guardian, fiery arrow. I knew you
waited to know me.
I am Sweeney the mad. I was once a king, eager to arms, my sword singing of
the hot blood of young men.
Battle was mead to me then. My sword drank the hot blood of young men.
Mothers wept when I sang my battle song, and I answered with laughter.
Was it you at Mag Rath? Was it you, generous woman of the gray laughing
eyes? Was it you I saw, leading a white cow beside a clear stream?
I remember that stream. I cut a man in half as he stood there. The water ran red.
I remember his eyes. An instant of knowing.
Was it you at Mag Rath? Woman who turns back the tides of war, was it you
drove me mad? And now offers sweet water? Water for mad Sweeney.
Sweet water and rock. Was it you at Mag Rath?
Snowdrops and watercress and cool well water: this is my feast.
Snowdrops my bread, watercress my meat, water my mead.
This is the way a king lives, in the forest. This is the way a
mad king lives.
This is my castle, this ivy-topped oak which has room for one mad
king who needs no warriors. And the cress-covered well, its
bank lined with snowdrops, this is my feasting hall.
A woman has come. I see her, walking on small feet into the
forest. She carries a basket decked with silk ribbons. She
sings as she walks on her small feet. She swings the silken
basket. She moves towards the well. She leans down to fill
her basket with cress.
Oh, woman, are you not someone's daughter? Is he a king? Does
he live in an ivy-top and drink from a well? Would you
leave him to die, starved and parched in the top of a tree?
I had a daughter. I remember her now. I came home from battle,
covered with gore, holding the head of a stranger. The eyes,
glazed in death, stared. The hair was stringy with blood. I
tossed the head at her feet, laughing.
She did not weep. She never wept. She was a fine proud girl. She
bowed to me, silent and stern. She turned and departed.
The next day came news: she had leapt to her death from
the cliffs near our home.
She was a fine proud girl. A girl like you, though not so merry. If I
had her back, I would feed her snowdrops and let her sip
cool water from my hands. If I had her back, I would teach
her my dawn-song. If I had her back, I would cover her at
night with my wings and croon her to sleep.
But she is dead, dead, dead from shame.
Oh, woman, take my little feast. Eat merrily. Sing as you leave the
forest. As for me, I will fly to the west. There are hard cliffs
there, a wall against the sea. Even a bird can die there, if he
is full enough of sorrow to plummet like a rock to the sea.
Why do your eyes shine, daughter of strangers? How has the well
come into my eyes? What is this softness against my face?
Name? Have I a name? Oh, daughter, how can I tell you? You
would turn from me, you would take your tender hand
from my cheek, you would stop catching my tears with
your tender fingers.
Have you ever heard stories of Sweeney the mad? I am someone
like him. Once a king, now a madman who sings like a bird.
I am someone like him.
What is this? Drink from your hands? Eat this small bunch of
cress? Oh woman, oh daughter. Such kindness. Such
kindness.
I must tell you the truth: I am Sweeney the mad. On the field at
Mag Rath I heard voices, saw visions. All the dead men
came to me, and I flew away like a bird in the sky. I live in
this tree and I eat from this well. I am Sweeney the mad.
Oh woman, oh daughter. Keep your fine cloak. My wings are
enough. Yes, I grow cold when winter snows come. Yes, I
grow hungry when cresses die back. But this is my home,
this ivy-topped oak.
Here daughter, a gift from mad Sweeney who has only feathers.
Let this one be yours.
Copyright © 2003 Patricia Monaghan
To be notified of upcoming publication of the Sweeney Lacunae with Preface and Notes by Patricia Monaghan
