How Cormac Mac Art Went to Faery

Cormac, son of Art, son of Conn of the Hundred Battles, was High King of Ireland and held his court at Tara. One day he saw a young man on the green holding a shining fairy branch hung with nine red apples. Whenever the branch was shaken, the apples gave out such sweet fairy music that wounded men and women weak with sickness were lulled to sleep, and nobody on earth who heard it could remember any need, sorrow or weariness of spirit.

“Is that branch yours?” asked Cormac.

“It is indeed.”

“Would you sell it? What would you want for it?”

“Will you give me whatever I ask?” said the young man.

The king promised, and the young man claimed his wife, his daughter and his son. The king was heartbroken, and his wife and children were filled with grief when they heard they must leave him. But Cormac shook the branch among them, and when they heard its soft sweet music they forgot all their care and sorrow and went out to meet the young man. He and they departed together and were seen no more. When the news spread, there was loud weeping and mourning all over Ireland, but Cormac shook the branch, and no one felt grief or heaviness of heart any longer.

After a year Cormac said, “A year ago today my wife, my son and my daughter were taken from me. I will follow them by the road they took.”

Cormac set out, and a dark magic mist rose around him, and he came upon a wonderful plain. Many horsemen were there, busy thatching a house with the feathers of foreign birds. When one side was done, they rode off to look for more, and by the time they came back, not a feather was left on the roof. Cormac watched them for a while and then went on.

Next he saw a young man dragging trees together to make a fire, but before he could find a second tree, the first had burned away, and it seemed to Cormac that his work would never end.

Cormac travelled on until he saw three enormous wells at the edge of the plain, with a head on each well. Two streams flowed out of the mouth of the first head and one stream flowed into it. The second head had one stream flowing out of its mouth and one flowing in. Three streams poured from the mouth of the third head. Cormac was filled with wonder. “I would stay and gaze at these wells,” he said, “but I would find no one to tell me your story.” So he went on until he came to a house in the middle of a field.

He went in and greeted the people there. Inside sat a tall man and woman dressed in clothes of many colours, and they greeted the king and invited him to stay the night. The wife told her husband to fetch some food, and he went out and came back with a huge wild boar on his back and a log in his hand. He threw the boar and the log on the floor. “There is meat,” he said. “Cook it yourselves.”

“How can I do that?” asked Cormac.

“I will show you,” said the young man. “Split this great log into four pieces, and cut the boar into four quarters. Put a piece of log under each quarter, and tell a true story, and the meat will be cooked.”

“You tell the first story,” said Cormac.

“I have seven pigs like the one I brought, and I could feed the whole world with them. For if a pig is killed, I only have to put its bones into the sty, and it will be found alive the next morning.” The story was true, and one quarter of the boar was cooked.

Then Cormac asked the woman of the house for a story. “I have seven white cows, and every day they fill seven cauldrons with milk. I give you my word that they give enough milk to satisfy everyone in the world, if they were all out on that plain drinking it.” That story was true, and a second quarter was cooked.

Now Cormac was asked to tell a story for his own quarter. He told them that he was searching for his wife, his son and his daughter, who had been carried off a year ago by a young man with a fairy branch.

“If what you say is true,” said the man of the house, “you are indeed Cormac, son of Art, son of Conn of the Hundred Battles.”

“I truly am,” said Cormac. That story was true, and a quarter of the boar was cooked.

“Eat your meal now,” said the man of the house.

“I have never eaten with only two people for company,” said Cormac.

“Would you eat it with three others?”

“If they were dear to me, I would,” said Cormac.

Then the door opened, and in came Cormac’s wife and children, and great was his joy. Then Manannan mac Lir, lord of the fairy host, stood before him in his true shape and said, “It was I, Cormac, who took these three from you. It was I who gave you the branch, all so that I could bring you here. Now eat and drink.”

“I would,” said Cormac, “if I could learn the meaning of the wonders I saw today.”

“You shall learn them,” said Manannan. “The horsemen thatching the roof with feathers stand for people who go out into the world seeking wealth and fortune. When they come home, their houses are bare, and so it goes on for ever. The young man dragging trees for the fire stands for those who work for others. They have plenty of toil, but they never warm themselves at the fire. The three heads in the wells are three kinds of people. Some give freely when they get freely. Some give freely though they get little. And some get much and give little, and they are the worst of the three, Cormac.”

Then Cormac, his wife and his children sat down, and a tablecloth was spread before them. “That is a very precious thing in front of you,” said Manannan. “Whatever food is asked of it, however fine, it will provide without fail.”

“That is good,” said Cormac.

Then Manannan put his hand into his belt, drew out a goblet and set it on his palm. “This cup has a special power,” he said. “When a false story is told in front of it, it breaks into four pieces, and when a true story is told, it becomes whole.”

“Those are very precious things you have, Manannan,” said the king.

“They shall all be yours,” said Manannan, “the cup, the branch and the tablecloth.”

Then they ate, and it was a fine meal, for whatever food they thought of appeared on the tablecloth, and whatever drink they thought of appeared in the cup. They thanked Manannan warmly. When they had finished, a bed was made ready for them, and they lay down to a sweet sleep. When they woke next morning, they were in Tara of the Kings, with the tablecloth, the cup and the branch beside them. That is how Cormac fared at the court of Manannan, and how he came to have the fairy branch.

About this tale

Jacobs’s condensed text divides the boar into four quarters but recounts only three truth-telling turns before inviting Cormac to eat. It also leaves the three wells’ stream counts imperfectly matched to Manannan’s three kinds of giver. This retelling preserves those abrupt details rather than inventing a missing episode or changing the symbolism.

Jacobs’s notes in More Celtic Fairy Tales say this tale was condensed for him by Alfred Nutt from S. H. O’Grady’s English version. Jacobs’s nineteenth-century source note describes a version printed from fourteenth-century manuscripts and argues for an earlier form from a tale catalogue in the Book of Leinster. Those are his bibliographic conclusions, not a fresh survey of all surviving manuscripts.

Manannan mac Lir is, as Jacobs notes, the Celtic sea-god. Cormac is the grandson of Conn of the Hundred Battles, whose son Connla was carried off by a fairy maiden in another tale Jacobs retold.

Read the original: Joseph Jacobs, More Celtic Fairy Tales (Gutenberg #34453, Cormac Mac Art)

Best for ages 9–12 with discussion: a king trades away his wife and children, and magic suppresses their distress. Their return does not make the original decision consensual. The extraordinary household and truth-testing objects belong to legend.

Reading the story closely

The branch makes people forget grief without restoring the missing family. A year later Cormac acts on the loss, showing the difference between easing a feeling and repairing its cause. Manannan calls the removal a way to bring Cormac to Faery, but the wife and children receive little chance to explain what the year meant to them.

Compare the three treasures by what each changes: mood, access to food, or the telling of truth. Then draw the roof and the fire as repeating work cycles. How does endless labor without a lasting benefit differ from the feast’s effortless abundance? Treat Manannan’s explanations as the character’s interpretation of the sights, and test them against the details given.

Questions to ask

• What does Cormac promise before he knows the price, and whose wishes are left out of that bargain?
• How did the true stories cook the boar in Manannan’s house?
• What did the three heads in the wells stand for, according to Manannan?

You may also like

• Connla and the Fairy Maiden — the story of Cormac’s uncle Connla and the fairy maiden
• Elidore — another visitor to a hidden fairy land
• How Fin Went to the Kingdom of the Big Men — an Irish hero’s journey to a land of wonders