© Margret
Powell-Joss
Fionn’s Adventure
In the old days, long before tourism, people feared the mountains and stayed away if they could help it. It was only on very special occasions that strong young men dared to venture into what their people deemed to be the lairs of mountain monsters. The following is the story of an exceptional young man who risked his life and returned triumphant.
One fine morning in midwinter, just before the time when at last
the days will grow longer again, young Fionn prepared for his great
adventure. He and his family lived in a low-slung, oval stone dwelling
called a blackhouse in a small village below the white peaks of
An Teallach, the Forge.
He had dressed carefully, wrapping his feet warm in layers of fine
wool and tough seal skin. His legs, arms and body were sheathed
in sealskins, too, held together with ties and embroidered with
his mother’s red, blue and green stitching. Having crawled
through the door he offered only his face and hands to the fierce
wind which bore down from the north and ruffled his flame-red curls,
making them dance a merry jig.
Fionn squinted his blue eyes into the bright morning before he ducked back inside. A moment later he returned, holding a sturdy pole in his left hand. A large bundle was slung over his right shoulder. None of his family, no-one from the village waved to him as he strode off alone. Nor did he ever look back, or notice the presence of a yellow-taloned chough soaring a few steps above and behind him.
It followed him first along the wagon-rutted track towards the chapel situated at the cross-roads. When he reached it Fionn briefly bent his knee and inclined his head, unburdened and crossed himself, then shifted pole and bundle before proceeding on the narrower track which led towards the peaks looming up ahead. His step was steady.
The chough’s wings had beaten many, many times when Fionn
came to a place where the track rose sharply. Unhurried he climbed,
doing what dozens of young men did before him. Unlike him, however,
few of them ever returned. The villagers were too scared of what
they thought must be monsters lurking up there to find out what
had happened to their young men.
His goal was the inky loch at the foot of Ben Lochan, where he wanted
to prove his manhood. When the sun reached its highest point in
the sky, he reached the icy waters of the loch. His plan was to
swim deep in search of the treasure that might lie at the lowest
point of what many believed to be a bottomless abyss and the lair
of a fearful presence.
Would he find the treasure? Would he manage to bring it back to his village? Would he win the maid he had long ago secretly chosen to be his?
*
The chough winged her way ahead and waited for Fionn to appear
over the crest of snow-covered boulders. The stillness was perfect.
Not wanting to betray her presence, the bird stifled an impulse
to open her beak and claim that bleak land with her cry.
Fionn's red curls, his flushed face and furry shoulders emerged
from the whiteness. Carefully and slowly he placed one foot in front
of the other as he made his way down to the icy rim of the loch.
He drove his pole deep into the snow, sat down and opened his bundle. He had brought some food: strips of dried deer meat, some oatcakes, a handful of dried berries, a pouchful of cider. Chewing slowly, he looked around. The black face of An Teallach loomed above him to his left. From its rounded, wind-scoured peak there was a sheer drop into the inky water at its feet. That is where Fionn would have to dive.
His eyes, however, were drawn to a great brightness off to his right, the sloping eastern flank of An Teallach. Little did Fionn know how treacherous it can be with its thunderous, all-engulfing avalanches. At that moment, he drew in all the light coming off of this mountain as if to fill his heart with its brilliance.
Having finished eating, he washed down his food with a great gulp of cider. Then he undid the ties of his fur wraps and leggings, slipped off his boots and woollens, and stood rosy and god-like and splendidly naked before the mountainous splendour, his hair a flame in the whiteness. He bent to his bundle to pull out two large, river-rounded rocks. Unbending, he weighed them, one in each fist, nodded and drew a deep breath.
He took one, two, three steps through the ice rimming the loch, into the water. One blink, two, three – he had gone.
*
In her mind's eye the chough followed his descent. She could feel the icy grip on his feet and his loins, his hands growing numb. His heart was frantically pumping warm blood through him, keeping him safe. Pulled down by the weight of the rocks he sank deeper and deeper. Daylight dusked and grew inky about him. The cold seeped into him, gnawing at his heart. He choked. Deeper still he must sink if he is to find the treasure that may be waiting for him.
Just as he felt he could stand it no longer, Fionn's weighted
hands touched bottom. He sank wrist-deep into softness. Instantly,
warmth coursed up through his arms and into his body. He saw a shimmer
of light. Heartened and hopeful he made towards it, careful not
to drop his rocks.
Faint with the need to draw breath, he deposits one of the rocks
by the star. Grabbing one of its five luminous arms, he drops the
other rock, pushes off from the ground and shoots back to the surface.
*
The chough’s heart thrummed with pride as she saw the flame of his hair breaking the water’s still mirror. He had returned to life and was swimming back to the shore. Clumsy with cold he stumbled up onto the snow, his heart beating a reel. Having stowed his treasure in the bundle he donned his skins. He was barely dressed when snow-laden fog descended upon him and the bird. Stumbling he groped his way down the steep hillside, back to the chapel where he found shelter.
The next morning he returned to his village, exhausted but jubilant. The chough was still with him, calling out until all his clanspeople gathered on the village square to welcome him back: from then on, he was Fionn the Starfinder.
When the days were longest, he and his beautiful, dark-haired Solveig were married. And lived happily ever after.
© Margret Powell-Joss, Iona/Bern,
April-July 2006 –
inspired by a painting by James Hawkins, An Teallach from Loch Toll
an Lochan, 2002
(reprinted with the artist’s permission with my poem of the
same title)