Lost in a Land of Fantasy

In ancient Irish mythology, the epic saga of “The Cattle Raid of Cooley” takes place in a misty, mountainous peninsula with a great lake to one side. The province of Ulster lays to the north of the water, while all the rest of Ireland is to the south and the west. The hero Cu Cúchulainn (pronounced “Koo Hoo-lin”) kept a castle just south of the peninsula, and he rose to the defense of the Ulstermen when Queen Maeve of Connaught arrived with the might of her armies. The queen, with all of Ireland behind her, wanted a magical bull from where it grazed in the king of Ulster’s lands. Cu Cúchulainn, only seventeen years old but already a supernatural warrior, stood with the lake at his back between Maeve’s hordes and Ulster’s property. So commences the Táin Bó Cúailnge, the greatest of the Ulster Cycle’s mythology.

Cu Cúchulainn’s castle rests in Dundalk, roughly thirty winding minutes from the peninsula, the mountains, and the lake. At least, the map of Dundalk outside the train station advertised it that way. There might’ve been a happy little cartoon castle to signify its place under the plastic of the display. At the bus station I browsed the available maps of the surrounding areas, seeking out my destination before my bus pulled in out of the rainy street. Cooley. A little peninsula jutting out into the Irish Sea, cradling a tiny village called Carlingford at the base of the Cooley mountain range. To the north, Carlingford Lough in a calm gray expanse of fog-topped water. Across the waves, Northern Ireland, with its own mountain range. They’re called the Mourne Mountains, and the name fits the rainy landscape which the Irish once imbued with so much magic and heroism.

Hiking the mountain range demonstrated exactly why people might attribute magic to it. The height of the trees laced the sodden ground with shadows, like the forests of all those fairytales we’ve inherited. In the rain, everything kept disappearing before my eyes. Up ahead, the slope was enveloped in mist which obscured the top. Across the lough, rolling mist hid the opposite shore entirely. At the bus stop, the flock of crows wheeling around against the slate clouds disappeared with a certain angle, before reappearing in a swirling black mass. How else could disappearing peaks, landforms, and birds be explained to the ancients, if not magic?

The duels of the Táin are said to have occurred in the very slope I huffed and puffed through, lowering my head as the rain worked through my beanie and coat. Scores of warriors supposedly fought and fell where I hopped puddles and breathed out steam; the juxtaposition was just a little bit funny. Just as a cartoon castle is, when it advertises the hold of a giant, mythical warrior. Naturally, I became lost somewhere on the mountain and needed a paved road to let myself out of the tall, shadowing trees. But from that road I could see a trail down at the foot of the lough, separated by only a fence or two. As a lover of lakes and staunch law-abider, I promptly scrambled over the gate and crossed that field. Whatever crop filled the field was thigh-high and laden with rainwater, so that when I dashed through it I came out soaked from the thighs down. Let’s just say that on that one, I made my bed. But I was able then to walk along the calm waters as the rain lessened to a cooling drizzle. Ancient Irish warriors used to deposit swords in loughs like that one, in rituals that honored the gods these warriors imagined. To the ancients, the water was the portal between this world and the next, one to be plied with gifts and sacrifice. I saw no ghosts as I stood on the stones of the shore, but I could surely imagine them under those waves.

Not to say that I believe any of it. Carlingford Lough is gorgeous and serene, hardly divine. But this is the landscape for dreaming. When I hike through it, or touch the frigid waters with my bare fingers, I can understand how its people once believed so much of it. They needed stories to explain what they could see and not understand; it’s a lovely, human instinct.