The hawk of achill by Gabriel Rosenstock

THE HAWK OF ACHILL

The Hawk of Achill is a new radio play by Gabriel Rosenstock, inspired by a legendary, classic text written in Old Irish by an unknown cleric who flourished sometime around the 8th or 9th century. It is known in English as The Colloquy Between Fintan and The Hawk of Achill and can claim to be the oldest Irish play. The story goes that Fintan, a sage, accompanied Cessair, Noah’s grand-daughter, to Ireland. When the Flood came, Fintan survived in the form of a salmon. After a year in the waters, he turned into an eagle, then into a hawk before finally becoming human again. A magical hawk (named Seabhag, i.e. Seabhac Acla, or The Hawk of Achill) was born around the same time as the sage. Fintan lived on for five and a half thousand years after the Flood. He and the bird didn’t meet until it was time for them both to leave this earth in the era of the coming of the Christian faith. Fintan has become Christianised but is still halfpagan, between two worlds. The drama is one of life and death, the antiquity and longevity of Celtic civilisation, touching upon concepts such as memory, oblivion, metempsychosis or transmigration of souls, religious upheaval and the seismic changes to civilisation which mass conversions bring about. Old Irish and medieval Irish texts (such as Laoithe na Fiannaíochta) frequently highlight the conflict between the pagan world and the new religion, i.e. Christianity, a conflict often acted out verbally in colloquies or dramatic conversation between St Patrick and Oisín, the last of the warrior band, the

Fianna. The Hawk of Achill is in that unique dramatic mode. Many Irish, British, German and Scandinavian scholars and artists were fascinated by these dramatic colloquies as they give us an insight into the minds, hearts and beliefs of pre-Christian peoples, and their relationship with the physical and psychic world around them. These poetic colloquies are a precious part of our heritage and are fertile ground for contemporary artists in all fields to explore and adapt. Rosenstock's aim was to capture the beauty and the drama of this unique genre as Ireland in the 21st century experiences a similar shift of faith, moving into a post-Christian society.

3 Scene: 1 1 SOUND: HAWK CRY AND A FAINT SOUND OF CHURCH BELL 2 FINTAN I say, Bird? Who are you, now? Who or what the devil are you? 3 THE HAWK Me? 4 FINTAN Yes you, strange bird. 5 HAWK: Strange bird? What’s strange about me, if I might ask? 6 FINTAN: That’s what I’m tryin’ to figure out. Are you of this world at all? 7 HAWK: There’s only one world, isn’t there? 8 FINTAN: Do you always answer a question with a question? 9 HAWK: You don’t know me so at all? 10 FINTAN: Don’t know you from Adam. 11 HAWK:

I am the Hawk of Achill.

12 FINTAN: Hah? 13 HAWK:

I’m Seabhag, the Hawk of Achill. Is it deaf you are?

14 FINTAN: It’s a wonder I’m not blind, deaf and dumb and all the years that are upon me. Fintan is my name. For now. Anyways, what’s the story with you, Hawkie? (MORE)

FINTAN: (cont’d) Feel free to talk in your native tongue. I understand Hawkspeak. 15 HAWK:

You do, do you?

16 SOUND: WHISPERS ECHO IN AN UNKNOWN BIRDLIKE LANGUAGE 17 FINTAN: Can’t you see I do. 18 HAWK:

Can’t you see I do!? Can’t you hear you mean.

19 FINTAN: Go on with yer story, Seabhag. 20 HAWK:

How long have ye got?

21 FINTAN: How long have - ? - It’s twiddling me thumbs I’ve been for the past couple of thousand years, so don’t be askin’ me how long I’ve got. Then again, come to think of it, I mightn’t have all that long to go. Know what I mean?

5 22 HAWK: It comes to us all. Sooner or later. Most of us remember nothing of previous lives. Nothing at all. The day the earth shook, yawned and stretched her limbs. Who remembers that? Who talks about that? When it rained red snow. When the leaves fell in the Spring. When a great star shot across the heavens wagging its tail behind it. How could people not remember such signs and wonders? What fog is it that descends on them? And the big blubbery whale that was stranded down below in Trá an Fhíona - a pity I wasn’t there myself to pluck its eye out; and when it was opened up, wasn’t there a woman inside and out she comes, singing, as if nothing at all had happened her. 23 SOUND: WHISTLE I’ll whistle it. They call it The Whale of Trá an Fhíona. Have you a fondness for music? I guess not. Unless you call what ye be doing music, do ye? The chantin’ ye do be doin’? Hah? 24 SOUND: HE WHISTLES A BIT MORE I’ve never tasted the eye of a whale.

25 FINTAN: What? What are you jabbering about? State your business. Get on with it. Will you? 26 THE HAWK: I will. 27 FINTAN: Today? 28 HAWK:

As good a time as any. [Pause] You’re studyin’ me, I see.

6 29 FINTAN: You have what you might call pagan airs about you. Not many still clinging on to them. 30 HAWK:

What do you mean?

31 FINTAN: Brazen too. 32 HAWK:

Brazen is it?

7 33 SOUND: WHISTLES A BIT 34 FINTAN: No whistlinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;! 35 HAWK:

8 Where was I? 36 FINTAN: Nowhere. You were nowhere. You haven’t begun yet. 37 THE HAWK: I had to be somewhere. How can you be nowhere? 38 (SNIFFS) Hmmm . . . There’s a bit of a fishy smell off ya, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so. 39 FINTAN: There may well be. I was once a salmon. 40 THE HAWK: Fair enough. We all have our troubles.

41 FINTAN: And an eagle. 42 HAWK:

An eagle. My!

43 FINTAN: And a hawk. 44 HAWK:

A hawk is it? One of our own so.

45 FINTAN: You might say that. 46 THE HAWK: You don’t have the eye of a hawk though. Or a salmon for that matter. 47 FINTAN: I’m human now. For the moment. What do you want? Food is it? There’s none here. Hunt for your own. 48 HAWK:

I no longer hunt, holy man. But don’t worry about me. I’m not hungry. Hunger has left me, too, along with everything else. [Pause]

49 FINTAN: Maybe it’s fasting you are for the good of your soul, is it? No answer, I see. Well? 50 HAWK:

9 Well

what?

51 FINTAN: Well... tell us. What’s your business? Start talkin’. 52 HAWK:

What?

53 FINTAN: Start talkin’. Say somethin’. Somethin’. Anythin’. 54 HAWK:

Anything?

55 FINTAN: Anything at all. Within reason. No gibberish, mind, I don’t want to hear any gibberish out of you, no scandals, prophecies, curses or the like. No magical formulae. No poetry out of you, or shadow-talk. Or whistlin’. Plain talk, Seabhag. Out in the open. Say something about the weather. Those mackerel clouds. Maybe we’ll get some good weather soon, what do you think? There could be six days of it. Or six weeks! No, no that would be prophecy! Forget I ever said it. Stop lookin’ at the clouds, will ya? Just talk. Will you? If I don’t talk to someone soon this ould tongue will wither on me. 56 HAWK:

You’re doin’ alright so far seems to me.

57 FINTAN: You’re the Hawk of Achill, is that it? 58 HAWK:

Correct.

59 FINTAN: What’s so special about it anyway? 60 HAWK:

About what? About Achill is it?

61 FINTAN: Achill, Achill yes. Is it Rome you think I’m talking about? 62 HAWK:

Something . . . something about the air.

63 FINTAN: The air? 64 THE HAWK: Yes. 65 FINTAN: Is that all you’re goin’ to say? 66 THE HAWK: What d’ye want me to say? 67 FINTAN: The air? 68 HAWK:

The air, yes.

69 FINTAN: What about it?

11 70 HAWK:

Something . . . light about it.

71 FINTAN: That’s it? Something ... light about it? Sure isn’t the air the same everywhere. 72 HAWK:

What a crazy thing to say. Are you mad?

73 FINTAN: I could be, Seabhag. 74 HAWK:

The air is the same everywhere?

75 FINTAN: It is. Unless . . . Unless you’re talking about heaven. 76 HAWK:

Stop looking at the clouds.

77 FINTAN: I was lookin’ beyond the clouds. 78 HAWK:

I’ve been there. Nothin’! Nothin’ beyond the clouds.

79 FINTAN: Foolish bird. 80 HAWK:

Foolish bird you say. And you sayin’ all air is the same.

81 FINTAN: That’s what I say. 82 HAWK:

Same air? No, no; not at all, man. You know nothing about air.

83 FINTAN: What’s there to know? 84 HAWK:

Lots.

85 FINTAN: Such as? 86 HAWK:

You don’t remember much - for someone that was once a bird. The air today isn’t what it was like five thousand years ago. Is it?

87 FINTAN: I’ll grant you that, Hawk. 88 HAWK:

You’ll grant me that, Fintan will you?

89 FINTAN: I will. I’ll grant you that alright. You may be right. 90 HAWK:

Much obliged.

91 FINTAN: I said you may be right. Carry on. 92 HAWK:

The incredible lightness of air, the lightness and the brightness of the air of Achill. That’s the first thing of note. Secondly: something gentle about its inlets and havens. That also must be said. Know what I mean?

93 FINTAN: Gentle inlets and havens? Not quite. Speak plainly now. No druidic talk out of you. 94 HAWK:

Gentle inlets. (Spells it out for him) G-e-n-t-l-e ... i-n-l-e-t-s! That’s plain enough for any man, isn’t it?

95 FINTAN: In what way . . . g-e-n-t-l-e? 96 HAWK:

You’re talkin’ for the sake of talkin’ now, aren’t you? Never mind. Gentle inlets. You wouldn’t be battered around that much. You know that class of a way. Not like in some places.

97 FINTAN: Such as? 98 HAWK:

We needn’t go into them other places now. There’s a few inlets, estuaries and creeks down in Kerry. Cuas na Caillí? Do you know it? I’d stay away from there. That’s all I’m sayin’. I’ll say no more.

99 FINTAN: In a bit of a hurry or somethin’, are we? Goin’ somewhere?

100 HAWK:

Not to Cuas na Caillí anyways. We’ll stick to Achill for the moment. If that’s OK with you?

101 FINTAN: Achill? Grand. Achill it is. So, what have we got then, Seabhag? A lightness and a brightness in the air. Gentle havens and inlets. Continue. 102 HAWK:

I will, Fintan. Something nice and warm and cosy about its thickets.

103 FINTAN: Thickets. 104 HAWK:

Clumps of little trees and hedges.

105 FINTAN: I know what thickets are. 106 HAWK:

Boscage.

107 FINTAN: Boscage, is it? You have a lot of quare words for a bird. 108 HAWK:

I suppose I have, Fintan. And would ’boscage’ be one of them?

109 FINTAN: It would, Hawkie. It would. You’ll be speaking Latin next. 110 HAWK:

No fear of that now. Well, anyway, what I’m sayin’ is, you wouldn’t go cold and hungry there.

111 FINTAN: Where? 112 HAWK:

Where do you think? Rome, is it? Achill.

113 FINTAN: We’re still talking about Achill so.

114 HAWK:

We are. I was sayin’ you’d never go hungry there.

115 FINTAN: If you were some class of a bird you mean. I’m human now, remember. You wouldn’t say no to a rabbit, I suppose. 116 HAWK:

No.

117 FINTAN: No what? 118 HAWK:

No, I wouldn’t say no to a rabbit.

119 FINTAN: Or a mouse? What would you say to a mouse? 120 HAWK:

I wouldn’t say no to it. A mouse would be fine. Perfectly fine. I’ve had better. But a nice plump little grain-fed mouse ...

121 FINTAN: Grain-fed ... 122 HAWK:

You’re lickin’ your lips! It must be a very hard fasting you’re doing if a mouse has you lickin’ your lips.

123 FINTAN: If I licked them it was because they were dry. 124 HAWK:

They’d never be dry in Achill. You’d like the streams there, Fintan. Something terribly noble about them. And the lonesome estuaries.

125 FINTAN: The lonesome estuaries. Why would I like lonesome estuaries? 126 HAWK:

Isn’t that where ye find the wisdom and the grace and the peace - or whatever it is ye’re all hankerin’ after, with all yer prayer books and yer tinklin’ bells? There’ll be no lonesome places left the way ye’re after spreadin’ out in all directions. Ye’ve gone as far as Skelligs, I hear.

127 FINTAN: If the wisdom and the grace and the peace aren’t within you - lonesome places won’t provide them, Hawkie. 128 HAWK:

(UNDER HIS BREATH, IN SUDDEN PAIN) I’ve nothing but a barb within me. (to Fintan) The streams, Fintan. All the beloved little streams. You’d get plenty fish in them, to be sure. Do you like fish?

129 FINTAN: Are you in some kind of pain? Is it pain of the body or the spirit? 130 HAWK:

Do you like fish, I said.

131 FINTAN: I wouldn’t say no to a speckled trout on a Friday. 132 HAWK:

Why would you! Or any day of the week for that matter. I like the wiggly eel myself. Wild game?

133 FINTAN: Needless to say. 134 HAWK:

A bit of rabbit. Oh yes! Venison?

135 FINTAN: Grand altogether. You’re makin’ me hungry now, Hawkie, when my hunger should be for God’s grace and God’s grace only. 136 HAWK:

Aren’t the gods in and of and part of everything? Aren’t they in a hazel nut as much as on the cold mountains that reach to the clouds?

137 FINTAN: (SHOCKED. PRAYS TO HIMSELF) Pater noster, qui es in caelis: sanctificetur Nomen Tuum;

adveniat Regnum Tuum; fiat voluntas Tua, sicut in caelo, et in terra. Panem nostrum cotidianum da nobis hodie; et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris; et ne nos inducas in tentationem; sed libera nos a Malo. 138 MUSIC: [MUSICAL INTERLUDE] 139 HAWK:

Tell me, Fintan, how old were you when the tsunami struck?

140 FINTAN: Ah sure I was nothing but an ungodly gossoon of fifteen. 141 HAWK:

Is that all?

142 FINTAN: Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all I was. And lived for five thousand five hundred years to tell the tale. 143 HAWK:

Terrible long time.

144 FINTAN: Terrible altogether. 145 HAWK:

What were the gods thinkinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; at all?

146 FINTAN: Sure if we knew that . . . How long is it since your good self peeped out of an egg shell, Hawk out of cold Achill? 147 HAWK:

Same as yerself, dear boy. Same as yerself. You must have a few quare stories to tell, have you? You being some class of a poet, or prophet, or priest, or sage.

148 FINTAN: Do you want the good news or the bad news first?

149 HAWK:

It’s all the same.

150 FINTAN: The good news is the Gospel of our Saviour. The bad news? I lost all of my kith and kin. Cessair, she’d lovely soft white hands. Grand-daughter of you know who. 151 HAWK:

Noah. Noah of the Tsunami.

152 FINTAN: That’s right. Lovely soft white hands she had. I can see them in my mind’s eye, Seabhag, massaging my two feet. I hope to God it’s not wringing her hands she is now in Purgatory. 153 HAWK:

Perish the thought.

154 FINTAN: Tell me, Hawk, were you ever in Assaroe? 155 HAWK:

Assaroe? I might have been. I’m like the wind. I’ve been everywhere.

156 FINTAN: Assaroe. ’Tis there you’d hear the incessant moaning of seals. 157 SOUND: FX SEALS,WAVES CRASHING 158 HAWK:

Is that a fact? Seals? Moaning? I wouldn’t want to be listening to them fellas for too long. I had a seal’s eye once for breakfast. Juicy. Bit of a tang to it.

159 FINTAN: Sweet Jesus, pure torment it was, Hawkie. 160 HAWK:

Was it not in your own mind, Fintan, the torment?

161 FINTAN: Whether it was or not, before I lost my wits entirely, Spring arrived and the gods moulded me into a salmon. That was before I knew of the one true God, you understand. 162 HAWK:

Yes yes, continue.

163 FINTAN: The rivers of Ireland, Hawkie, how well do you known them all? Do you know the majestic Boyne? Once there (MORE)

FINTAN: (cont’d) were two white cows from India grazing on her green banks. Where are they now, Hawkie? Where are they now? The two white cows from India. Do you know the Boyne? 164 HAWK:

No one knows the Boyne, Fintan. Not even Finnéigeas the druid and he out of his mind in search of the Salmon of Knowledge.

165 FINTAN: You may be right, Hawk of Achill. Know you the Suck, the Suir, the Shannon? Don’t talk to me of rivers, I know every bend in every stream, their shallows and depths. It’s a strange life, I can tell you, the life of a salmon. 166 HAWK:

I’m sure it is. But isn’t the life of a human stranger still?

167 FINTAN: Well now, I suppose it is, Hawkie, when you come to think about it. But isn’t all life strange and wonderful? 168 HAWK:

It is surely. Very strange entirely. You swam all the rivers then, Fintan, did you?

169 FINTAN: There’s There’s shining Mourne, God! 170 HAWK:

not a river unknown to me. The Maigue. fine music in the Maigue. Eithne... like crystal. A dazzling river! The Moy, the the Muir, the Solán, the Lee, the Laune. My

A lot of water.

171 FINTAN: That’s not half of it. The Shannon, the Dael, the Dubh and all the way up to the Erne Estuary. 172 HAWK:

You’ve done your fair bit of travelin’ to be sure, Fintan son of Bóchra.

173 FINTAN: That I have, Hawk of Achill. That I have. 174 HAWK:

And a fair bit of spawning too, I wager.

175 FINTAN: It may well be so. I’ve a bit of an aversion to water ever since, except for the holy water, or maybe a drop from the well to wet my lips from time to time. Oh... I nearly forgot, the tsunami - the tsunami didn’t help matters. 176 HAWK:

Of course. An aversion to water? That I can understand.

177 FINTAN: But can you? Can you? When you’re trying to take a great leap out of your skin - a mighty exertion that tests you like nothing else - and the waterfall above you is all ice. Ice, ice, ice! No, Hawkie, you’ll never know what it’s like. No one will. Ice at night, Hawkie. Ice in the middle of the night. A woeful thing. Ice. A cold wind blowin’. Wolves howlin’. 178 HAWK:

I can imagine.

179 FINTAN: And then, what do you know! Out of cold Achill comes this hawk, a shadowy fluttering in the air, a most wicked beak on him, a beak that has wrought much evil in this world. And what does he do, this noble bird? Snatches the eye out of my head. 180 HAWK:

I’m very sorry to hear it.

181 FINTAN: I’m without the eye ever since. The Blind One of Assaroe is what they called me. 182 HAWK:

Truly sorry.

183 FINTAN: You said that. You needn’t be sorry . . . (SIGHS) But I’ll tell you one thing, it’s not good to be without an eye. 184 HAWK:

Sorry.

185 FINTAN: Why would you be sorry?

186 HAWK:

It was myself that swallowed it, Fintan.

187 FINTAN: What? 188 HAWK:

The eye.

189 FINTAN: You? 190 HAWK:

The Grey Hawk of Time am I, Seabhag, In the middle of Achill, desolate, alone.

191 FINTAN: Well, well, well. Aren’t you the quare hawk after all. So, it was you all along, was it? I should have known. What brings you here? To torment me more? Too late to ask for it back, I suppose. What about some form of ... 192 HAWK:

Compensation?

193 FINTAN: Compensation. Exactly! Isn’t it my right? 194 HAWK:

Maybe if I swallow the other one, Fintan, son of mild-mannered Bóchra. What would you say to that!

195 FINTAN: Huh! I wouldn’t put it past you. What kind of a creature are you at all or what kind of scrying do you be doing with the eyes of others? 196 HAWK:

Don’t tempt me now. I have a great weakness for eyes and the one that you’ve left in your head, shrunk and all as it is, would be a dainty morsel. But as for scryin’ and looking into the future, I’ve seen the past and the future - and they’re the same. Go on now with your story, will you.

197 FINTAN: Where was I? You have me addled with your blasted talk of past and future. Is there no present for you at all?

21 198 HAWK:

Continue, holy man.

199 FINTAN: There I was, half-blind, a salmon, after you’d taken the eye out of my head. But my body knew where to go and how to travel. I’ve mentioned all the rivers, haven’t I? 200 HAWK:

You’ve mentioned a fair share of them anyway.

201 FINTAN: Don’t get me started on the loughs and seas. 202 HAWK:

I won’t so.

203 FINTAN: Then I roamed the skies for fifty years as an eagle; another hundred years as a blue-eyed falcon. 204 HAWK:

You’ve certainly been around.

205 FINTAN: I’ve been around alright. Oh - have I ever! I thought the day would never dawn but dawn it did and the great King of the Sun - Rí na Gréine - decided to return me to my original shape. We spend so much time in our wanderings from birth to birth, do we not, my feathery friend? 206 HAWK:

No one knows the half of it. But riddle me this, my good man. Are you any better off in human form, if I may ask?

207 FINTAN: I understand suffering more, now that I am a man. I understand Christ’s suffering. 208 HAWK:

I’ve seen suffering as bad - and worse.

209 FINTAN: What could be worse than 210 HAWK:

I’ve seen your own twelve sons fall on the battlefield.

211 FINTAN (GROANS) Indeed I have and I plucked a hand here, a foot there, a piece of liver, a heart still faintly (MORE)

FINTAN (cont’d) throbbing, I spied and picked a glistening eye out of the gore. 212 FINTAN: You have a fondness for the eye. 213 HAWK:

The hand of Nuada I found, High King of the Tuatha Dé Danann.

214 FINTAN: The hand of Nuada? A rare hand, a famous hand. 215 HAWK:

Most illustrious hand in the whole of Ireland.

216 FINTAN: Nuada Lámh Airgid. You’d be nicely rewarded for that hand today, Hawkie. 217 HAWK:

Don’t I know it. But the reward I seek is not of this world, Fintan.

218 FINTAN: There’s hope for you so! Tell us more, Bird. More! Your stories churn memories long buried in my chest. 219 FINTAN: (cont’d) Tell us more. 220 HAWK:

King of all the birds of Ireland I was, in the time of Connor.

221 FINTAN: A good time it was too. Was it not? 222 HAWK:

A time like any other - men and women in each other’s arms, talking, whispering, eatin’, feastin’, drinkin’, buckleppin’. Isn’t that what they do? And a druid lookin’ at a faraway star.

223 FINTAN: Speak not of druids. Move with the times. 224 HAWK:

A time of peace. For some. A time for great games and feats of strength and speed and endurance. A time for magic. Fishin’. Huntin’. Great fires that lit up the night. A cow lowing, a quernstone grinding, a child crying. Berries and nuts ripening sweetly in their time. Songs a plenty. The endless telling of stories and (MORE)

HAWK: (cont’d) singing of poems, mighty tales about strange adventures on land and at sea. The clang clang clang of the sparkling smithy. The glint of sunlight on the grain. The building of forts, and cairns, dolmens and crannógs. Young girls capturing the moon in a bowl of water, asking about their future. A great gathering of starlings at dusk. Swans on the horizon. The sight of a white sow in the morning... 225 FINTAN: Beware now, Hawk, let you beware! You tread on thin ice! 226 HAWK:

The music of the sí. Loeg heard it, Cúchulainn’s charioteer, the music of the sí. I thought I heard it once myself but I don’t know rightly if I did or not: it seemed to me, Fintan, that the merry musicians of the sí were playing their instruments in harmony with the birds.

227 MUSIC: [MUSICAL INTERLUDE. ETHEREAL, BLENDING WITH BIRD SONG]. 228 FINTAN: Talk no more of pagan rituals and the ways of druids, Hawk out of cold Achill. 229 HAWK: (cont’d) What is it I can talk about then? I am not a bell that sounds your vespers . . . 230 FINTAN: Do not bewitch me, Seabhag. 231 HAWK:

It was a time, too, of treachery. Jealousy. Lust. Pillage. Revenge. Cattle raids. War. I am the Grey Hawk of Time. What have I not seen? What have I not heard? Did I dream it all? Have I not seen Cúchulainn himself, with his hurley of ash and his ball, tripping lightly over the plain? He brought down the King of Clann Degad whose blood I drank until I nearly burst. And Garbh fell, too, by the hand of the Hound and the scald-crows fed on him until his bones were picked clean. They left the eyes for me, of course.

232 FINTAN: Of course. 233 HAWK:

How I would have liked to have tasted the flesh of Naisi! But none could ever wound him, or even get near him, a fighter like none other. Never will I forget the awful bloody head of Cet. I nearly choked on his swollen eyes, eyes that were already staring at me from the next world. Who else did I eat? That enormous heap of a man, Monodhar mac Cecht - a bloody mountain of flesh was he. I tore his every limb apart and stuffed my belly with him. His flesh was sour. His kidneys revolting. No part of him was sweet. His marrow I can taste still.

234 FINTAN: There are many inside you, I fear. 235 HAWK:

Aha! Thanks to the likes of Fergus mac Roich, a great corpse provider. None better.

236 FINTAN: How many are inside you? 237 HAWK:

Too many! Who’s counting? Who alive or dead could count the host of the Táin? How many fell at the Rout of the Plain of Muirtheimhne?

238 SOUND: FX BATTLE. SHOUTS. RUNNING. CLASH OF SWORDS. DYING GROANS. RAVENS, CROWS, HAWKS IN THE SKIES. THE LAMENTATION AND KEENING OF WOMEN. 239 FINTAN: You were there at the death of the Hound? 240 HAWK:

Cú Chulainn was thoroughly mangled, drowned in blood, his own and the blood of another, and what could be seen of his face had grown shadowy as dusk; but I lusted for his eyes nonetheless.

241 SOUND: (SOUND OF EATING) 242 HAWK: (cont’d) When I came with my ready beak to his eyes, Fintan, Oh! Had you heard the outcry! For all his countless wounds and agonies, for all his death-throes, he knew the Hawk of Achill was there on his face; he could sense me there, probing; he could feel the look of my eye penetrating his, about to pluck it out; and still he had strength to lift one arm and jab my flesh with the Hero’s Dart. (MORE)

HAWK: (cont’d) I made my way, best as I could, to Inis Gé, over the ever-restless waves; there I drew out the shaft of his cruel weapon. But the barb remained in my flesh, deep, deep in my flesh, and remains there until this day and is the cause of all my weakness and debilitation. The Hound’s barb. A heart-scald like none other, I tell you, holy man, a pain and an anguish indescribable, throbbing ceaselessly in me like an ocean of the world’s pain, ebbing and flowing. I cannot close an eye in sleep. 243 FINTAN: You have much that is inside you. 244 HAWK:

I do. I do. And had I only the sacred balm of bees, the dead within me, all the dead that I’ve eaten, could be resurrected here before us.

245 FINTAN: You are at it again with the balm of bees! 246 HAWK:

You can’t deny it! Though your religion forbids you to even think of such things! You cannot deny that the balm of bees was used in resurrections?

247 FINTAN: (GROANING).) There were no resurrections! There are no resurrections. There is the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ and no other resurrection. Those that are within you, they will not resurrect but on the Last Day, the trumpet will sound and ... I grow tired, bird, tired. Tell me, who or what else is in you? 248 HAWK:

The solitary crane of Magh Léana is in me, the eagle of Druim Brice; the lone crane of Inis Gé: ha ha, chewed it to death I did, ha ha, and the two plump birds of Leithin. And I tell you Fintan, I taught my daughters well, so I did, for the ousel of watery Druim Seghsa perished in their eager claws! I reared them like royalty, my wee nestlings, and in the time of Lugh - smiling hero of old - the flesh of brave warriors was their supper each night. It was no bother to me once upon a time to carry off a year-old boar.

21 249 FINTAN: More strength to you, Hawkie. 250 HAWK:

Strength? I fear my strength is gone, Fintan but when Conn was alive, Conn of the Hundred Battles, a six-month old fawn was no great burden to me. Not at all, man. When Cormac breathed, King Cormac mac Airt, wasn’t it often I’d snatch a piglet - or a pig itself. Did you ever see a pig flyin’, Fintan? Fintan: (a soft chuckle) I don’t know if I did.

251 HAWK: (cont’d) But by the time of Niall of the Nine Hostages, my weakness was beginning to show. My slow decline. And in the days of Diarmuid Donn, sure it was weariness itself to carry off a blackbird. The Hound’s barb in me all the while ... were it not for that. 252 FINTAN: We all grow weak. 253 HAWK:

So we do, so we do. Anoint me now Fintan like a good man, anoint me before I depart again for Achill, the cold cliffs of Achill. Intercede with all the gods on my behalf. Tomorrow it will be over.

254 FINTAN: Tomorrow it will be over, you say? No, Hawkie, it is not so. It will not be over. It will never be over. It is not the end you sense. Be not afraid. It is a beginning. A new beginning. 255 HAWK:

I hear you, holy man. It was only testing you I was all the time, with talk of dolmens, the balm of bees, the sight of a white sow at morning . . . [INSERT: Extra material if needed for length]

But . . . but . . . FINTAN: Prepare yourself for Heaven! HAWK: But will there be field mice in Heaven? FINTAN: Field mice? You talk of field mice with your dying breath? There is no hunger in heaven, Hawkie. All hungers, all desires are fulfilled. There is no hunger or thirst.

Hard it is to imagine. HAWK: FINTAN: Stop your imagining then – and trust. HAWK: Is there no imagining there? FINTAN: What is there to imagine? Heaven is the Real, Hawkie, beyond all your imaginings. It is all - and more - than you ever imagined. HAWK: All and more than I ever imagined? How do you know all these things? FINTAN: It is the gift of faith, Hawkie, beyond understanding. HAWK: There are many things beyond understanding – the work of the bees. The ebb and flow of the tide . . . there are no seas in Heaven, I take it. No oceans. No estuaries or sandbanks. No islands or islets where a heron might rest, or an osprey, when the day is done. FINTAN: No. HAWK: No boats or currachs or coracles. had my strength, holy man, I would fly westwards into the evening sun and that Heaven for me and the memory of the sun down was always with me in the darkness the sun rose again in the east.

When I was going until

FINTAN: Heaven is beyond the sun, Hawkie. The days of sun-worshipping are over and the Son, the Son of God, God made flesh, has taken its place. HAWK: And there’s no moon in Heaven’s sky? No stars. It is a barren place you describe. FINTAN: You are all caught up in the world of the senses, Hawkie, what your eyes – or your eye – what that eye of yours sees - and that which delights your hearing and your taste. But you have had enough of blood and gore and death, is that not so? HAWK: But there is music there, no?

FINTAN: We are told of a heavenly choir, singing God’s praises, yes. Cherubim and Seraphim. HAWK: And that is all? FINTAN: Is that not enough? HAWK: If that is all, I would hear them one last time, then, the autumn winds; spring rains; the Shannon in flood; the roar of the falls in Eas na Rí; the clash of antlers’ horns; wild duck rising in the reeds; poetry and harp music by a crackling fire; a long tale of a battle, or a tale of love, or a wonder tale of other lands and other climes; the lowing of cattle, the bleating of lambs; mice scurrying here and there. Do you hear me, holy man? FINTAN: I hear you indeed, Hawkie. There is a lot going on in your mind. I do not know how you can hold it all. Will you not be relieved to be rid of it once and for all? HAWK: Be rid of it, you say? Like yourself throwing out the dirty water after washing your feet? Is that it? There’s nothing dirty about what I have just described to you. There is nothing dirty in the flame of rowan berries, each one glistening like a sun. FINTAN: Too much of you stretches back to the days of sun worship. You are an old pagan at heart, Hawkie. But I’m not going to give up on you now. God loves the black sheep. HAWK: Why would he make a heaven with no seasons in it, no hailstones or snow, no apple blossom, no hives for the honey bee? Does he not love the last leaf on a branch, does he not love the clarity of an icicle, the roundness of a hazel nut, the greenness of holly, the redness of its berries? FINTAN: There are no seasons because there is no change in his divine realm. Here on earth, here only do we have change, birth, growth, death and salvation. You don’t want to go through all that again. Do you? HAWK: I have gone through it many times before, holy man. I am Seabhag, the grey hawk of time.

FINTAN: You are imagining it. I was not here before and when I go I shall not be returning. Be assured of that. HAWK: This is what you say, this is what you believe. But you cannot know it for sure. I know what I was before. I was a salmon. FINTAN: And what was I? A horse? [laughs] HAWK: Laugh away, holy man. Perhaps you were a horse. And what would be wrong with that? I saw him once on a great strand in Donegal, Enbarr, the sea-god’s horse, swifter than the wind; he galloped along the strand, his white mane billowing, and then he was gone. But I knew it was him. It was Enbarr, holy man, and this eye saw him, as I see you now. FINTAN: The mind plays tricks. HAWK: It was him. It was! No ordinary horse. Enbarr, the horse of Manannán Mac Lir. FINTAN: Your head is full of old nonsense. Mannanán and his horse are gone now. Their day is over. HAWK: How can you say that? What I saw – and what I heard – his thundering hooves – what I saw and what I heard will live forever. FINTAN: You may have seen something. I do not doubt it. But the eye deceives, the ear deceives, the mind deceives. The world deceives, Hawkie. Come into the Fold of Truth where all deceptions and illusions fade and melt away. HAWK: I could be going into a fold of an even greater deception. How do I know that your fold is not a fold of illusion? FINTAN: We have the word of the Lord. HAWK: There are many words and many lords. FINTAN: I speak of the Lord of All.

HAWK: Ah, I’m weary of it, weary, weary. It brings me no joy, no relief. You will send me to a place where there are no clouds. I am to perch there and not spread my wings? Hear nothing but angels? Never to hear a frog? A belling stag? Never to see swallows coming and going, or hear their chirp? I have heard it is a place without moths. He created everything, this God of yours, only to deprive us of his creation for all eternity? It sounds like hell to me, holy man. FINTAN: You’re a stubborn tough old bird, that is what you are. HAWK: I don’t deny it. Look, look up at those clouds. Will you not miss clouds in heaven? FINTAN: No, Hawkie. I’m looking at those clouds, as you are, but do we see the same thing? I see clouds drifting aimlessly, not knowing where they are going, souls in ignorance. What do you see? HAWK: I see them drifting too. But not in ignorance. FINTAN: What then? HAWK: In wisdom. FINTAN: What wisdom is there in aimless drifting? HAWK: I found wisdom in aimless drifting. FINTAN: You are playing with me. Playing with words. HAWK: As the wind plays with the clouds. Now look. See the shadow of that cloud on a hill? What do you see? A dark soul that has not fouind the light of Christ? FINTAN: Precisely. You took the words out of my mouth. What do you see? HAWK: I see the shadow of a cloud on a hill and it is beautiful. And now – it is gone. And that is beautiful too. FINTAN: What is beautiful about that? Where is it gone?

HAWK: Where do shadows go? FINTAN: Do you know? HAWK: When I had my strength I used to go shadow-chasing. FINTAN: And? HAWK: And what? FINTAN: What was it all about? Did you find out where they go? Shadows? HAWK: No. FINTAN: So! HAWK: So? FINTAN: So, it was a pointless exercise. HAWK: Why must there be a point to everything? FINTAN: Otherwise

. . .

HAWK: Otherwise you would have nothing to argue about. I’m weary of arguing, holy man. [sighs] FINTAN: Your sighs – like those shadows – are going nowhere, Hawkie. Direct them to your Creator who is waiting to listen to them. HAWK: Does he not hear them anyway? FINTAN: Yes he does, but will you not send your sighs heavenwards to him, so that he can take them to his bosom. HAWK: If I do not direct my sighs to him, he will not take them to his bosom? [agitated flutterings] FINTAN: Hawkie, what is it? Are you -? HAWKIE: It is over for me now. My strength is fading, time is falling away. Shall I become a salmon again?

27 256 FINTAN: Your strength and vigour will return. But not as a salmon. Full of undying love, sweet-voiced angels will melt the Hound’s cruel barb. I hear their singing already. Hawkie, do you not hear their singing? 257 HAWK: I do, I do. I hear it! And the barb hurts no more! 258 FINTAN: Then we’ll go, Hawkie, we’ll go together into the light, you and I, Hawkie, into the good and the true and the bright and the everlasting. 259 HAWK:

260 FINTAN

And just turn our backs on our past? Our old ways? Everything we know? Y TIMES. NOW THE BLOOD OF OUR SAVIOUR HAS WASHED AWAY THE OLD BLOOD. THE BAD OLD BLOOD FLOWS AWAY IN TORRENTS, ENOUGH BLOOD TO FILL THE BOYNE - THE EVIL BLOOD FLOWS AWAY,ENOUGH W TO FILL THE SHANNON. NEW BLOOD FLOWS NOW IN H OUR VEINS, THE BLOOD OF ETERNAL A REDEMPTION.AND THE WATER THAT FLOWED FROM T HIS SIDE WILL CLEANSE YOU FOREVER! D DO YOU WISH TO BE BAPTISED? I HAWKIE? D HAWKIE? W DO YOU WISH ME TO EXORCISE YOUR DEMONS? E HAWKIE? K HAWKIE! N DO YOU WISH TO BE BAPTISED? O DO YOU ... W [FX: A Fluttering, death-throes.] , HAWKIE? H Ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nomine A Patris, et Filli, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen. W K261 [MUSIC] I E , O N L Y B L O O D Y T I M E S , B L O O D