Everyone in the church had by now fallen silent, and all the guests were hanging on the Irishman’s words and staring at him and at his brother, who was sitting on the other side of Father Willibald with a contented look on his face, slowly moving his large ears backwards and forwards. All agreed that the like of these men had never before been seen in these parts.
“You speak well,” said Gudmund of Uvaberg, “and yet it is not easy to believe that all you say is true; for if you are both such great masters in your own land, why have you come to the north, where kings are few and live far apart?”
Felimid smiled and nodded his head. “You may well ask that,” he said, “for Ireland is a land that no man willingly leaves; and I will gladly tell you how we came to do so, even if what I say may sound like boasting. I must tell you all that my brother and I are exiles from our land on account of a feat which, I think, none but we could have performed. When we were young, but already expert in our art, we were jesters to the good King Domnal of Leighlin. He was a man who loved laughter and music, the word of God, and legends of heroes, poetry, women’s beauty, and the wisdom of old men; and he showed us great honor, rewarding our skill with silver and cattle and fine pastures in which to keep them. Because of this we loved him dearly and were well content to be his servants; and our only worry was lest in our contentment we should grow too fat, for that is the worst thing that can happen to any man who practices our art. His neighbor was King Colla of Kilkenny, a dangerous man, very proud, and cunning at planning ways to discomfort those who lived too near him. One Whitsun, King Domnal held a great feast, and his priests, his poets, and we, his jesters, were kept busier than usual; for the King was to wed Emer, the daughter of the King of Cashel. She looked as a princess should, clear-eyed, purple-mouthed, and white of skin, high-breasted, slender of waist, and broad of hip, and with hair so long that she could sit on the ends of it; so that even you, Ylva, would hardly have known which was the lovelier, you or she, if you could have seen her. This marriage was a source of great joy, not only to King Domnal, but to all his men, so that it was as merry a feast as a man could wish for. Then, on the second evening of the feast, when we were all drunk, King Colla descended upon us. King Domnal was killed as he hewed naked about him at his chamber door; many of his men fell with him; his Queen was taken from her bridal bed and carried off with the rest of the booty; and my brother and I suffered the same fate, for such was our fame. When King Colla saw Queen Emer, his lips grew moist and he leered like a hound, but us he threw into one of his dungeons until his wedding-day; for he had set his mind on marrying the woman he had stolen. Then he told us that we were to jest at his wedding feast. At first we refused to do this, for we were still heavy with grief at the death of our master; but when he swore that he would have us flogged with sharp-twigged birches unless we obeyed his bidding, we changed our tone and promised to appear before him and exhibit our finest arts. And that we kept that promise I do not think he could well deny.”
Felimid smiled thoughtfully to himself as he drank long and slowly from his cup. All the guests drank to him, crying that he was a fine story-teller and that they were eager to hear about this great feat that he had performed. He nodded, and continued:
“There he sat on his royal throne as we entered his presence, and already he was drunk; and never have I seen any man who looked so well at peace with himself and the world. As he saw us enter, he roared in a loud voice to his guests that the two masters from Leighlin would now display their quality as conjurors of mirth and merriment. Nor did she who sat beside him in her bridal jewels wear a sad face; for young women soon accustom themselves to a change of man, and perchance King Colla seemed to her to be an even finer match than our lord, King Domnal, had been. We began with simple jests, though we spoke them well, and with tricks that we were wont to perform on common occasions; and King Colla was in such a capital humor that he began at once to bellow with laughter. The whole hall laughed with him; and when Ferdiad stood on his head and played the flute, while I danced the bear-dance round him, uttering growls, the applause became tremendous, and the King flung himself backwards on his throne with his mouth wide open, splashing mead from his stoup over his lady’s robe. He gasped for breath and shrieked that he had never before set eyes on jesters to compare with us. At this, we pricked up our ears and bethought ourselves and exchanged a word in whispers; for if he had never seen jesters like us, it was no less true that we had never before heard anyone laugh like him at the simple antics which were all that we had yet performed for him. So we turned to more difficult feats and meatier jests, and at these the King laughed like a magpie in May when the sun appears through an Irish mist. Then we began to feel merrier ourselves, and displayed our rarest arts and told our most uproarious jests, such as contort the bellies and pain the jaws even of men who are weighed down with grief or plagued with sickness. All the while, King Colla’s laughter grew louder and more breathless until it sounded like the ninth wave breaking upon the coast of Donegal when the spring tide is at its height. Then, of a sudden, his face turned black and he fell from his throne to the floor, where he remained lying; for he had burst inwardly with the violence of his laughter. When this happened, Ferdiad and I glanced at each other and nodded, remembering our master Domnal and thinking that we had now repaid, in some measure, the gifts and kindnesses that he had showered upon us. The Queen screamed wildly with terror, and all those in the hall rushed toward him, save we, who headed for the door; but before we reached it, we heard the cry go up that he was dead. We did not wait to hear more, but took to our heels and fled northwards across the heath as speedily as Bishop Asaph fled across the fields at Magh Slecht when the red ghosts were after him. We sought sanctuary with King Sigtrygg of Dublin, supposing we should be safe there; but Queen Emer sent armed men after us, who told King Sigtrygg that we were slaves whom she had inherited from her former husband, King Domnal, and that now, with evil and malicious intent, we had caused the death of her new husband, thereby doing great damage to her and her good name, and that she therefore wished to kill us. But we escaped in a trading ship and fled to King Harald of Denmark, into whose service we entered; and there we prospered. But never, as long as he was alive, did we tell anyone of what we had done to King Colla, for we did not want King Harald to hear of it. For it might have caused him to worry lest he might suffer a similar fate.”
When Felimid had finished telling his story, there was a tremendous uproar at the tables; for many of the guests were now beginning to be drunk, and they cried that, though the Irishman had spoken well, it was not talk that they wanted but an exhibition of the antics that had killed King Colla. Orm himself agreed with this viewpoint.
“You have already heard,” he said to the jesters, “that our curiosity has been great from the first moment that we learned your identity; and that curiosity is now much greater, as a result of the story you have just told us. Nor need you be alarmed lest any man or woman here should burst with laughter; for if this should happen, nobody will seek to be revenged upon you, and it will provide an excellent climax to my feast and cause it to be long remembered throughout the border country.”