The Coming of Lugh

The following is a translation from a poem written in around 1357 by Gograidh Fionn O Dálaigh (Translated by Máire MacNeil) and found in the 1962 publication Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review.

From dream leapt Lugh, Tara’s darling,
East in Avin,
Reached then after wide exploring
High-walled Tara.     

Found the fortress closed before him,
Our most honoured,
went round by the smooth stone rampart,
banged on the knocker.

Said the doorman to the young lad,
short of temper,
Whence come you, my fine tall
strapping red-cheeked fellow?

To the doorman
answered Lugh: Where yew-trees shadow
The gliding swans in appled Avin
Poet I am.

That won’t help, said Tara’s door-man,
You can’t enter.
We’ve already in the palace
one good ranter.

Tara’s ancients for their banquet
Have a ruling:
Order in this fair rotunda
Needs ensuring.

By the rule of our great feast-hall
And environs
more than one guest of one calling
Get denial.

Many skills have our good god-folk
in perfection.
you must be one to astonish
if you’d best them!

I am artful.
Don’t conceal it from the comp’ny
I can leap on an unburst bubble.
Tell them that one!

Aery swimming;
Carrying vats on my back elbows;
These two tricks are easy winners.
Go and tell them!

I can do what’s far beyond them.
That needs saying.
Nothing they do I find daunting.
Put it plainly.

Hearing that song from the young lad
shook the doorman.
To the god-folk he went rushing
In a ferment.

There’s no one outside, said the doorman,
Beyond matching!
Every trick he has could floor you!
And he is handsome!

If this be Lugh, Ireland’s darling,
From the Island,
to each other said the god-folk,
T’would be timely!

Who dare face him in the hallway
without flinching?
Not one born on earth or water
if right thinking!

In body, cheek and curling hair
this unlocker
three colours has, limewhite, bloodred
burnished copper.

Sweetly speaks he
as strings hum on lutes made shapely,
to sleep lulling
by skilled artists softly playing.

Tis he! cried those in the palace,
Our beloved!
Eithne’s one son!
The freeborn who goes unchallenged!

Hurry, Hurry! said the god-folk
to the doorman,
usher in the fragrant conquering
guest from Avin.

If you are the famous All-skilled
flashing bright blade,
my love to you, the doorman said,
here is a handshake!

Enter, enter! said the doorman,
we welcome you!
Hold! Don’t open!
Cried the brave lad, we’ve forgotten.

Tara’s tabu: after sunset
you can’t open
the big doorway until sunrise
once you have closed it.

This tabu of Tara’s courtyard
he respected
but back-stepping
leapt right over the main entrance.

It would break the river’s ripple,
his light touching
ground in jumping,
each foot in its slim brown slipper.

This arrived he at the banquet.
Crowds hurrahing.
To the wall his bright hair lighting
the halls of Tara