dogfaceboy
sewings
In the Irish he’s called Suibhne Geilt—Mad Sweeney. He was the king of Dál nAraid on the northern shores of Lough Neagh, was Sweeney, in the 7th century. Awoken one morning by the ringing of a bell and the chanting of verses by one of the newcomer Christian priests, the pagan Sweeney rushed naked from his bed, seized the man and threw him and his psalter into a lake. The priest cursed Sweeney and later that very same day, at the battle of Magh Rath, the king was struck down—not by the weapons of his enemies, but by madness. He believed he’d become a bird.
Poor man, he lived from that day on as a bird, shy of people, in the branches of ivy trees and dense thickets of briars, naked and thorn-pricked, eating berries and acorns, sheltering from frosty winds in rocky clefts, and never the touch of a kind hand did he feel for seven years.
But he conversed in soft terms with the dove, and spoke of sundry things with the mountain-grouse; from the tree-tops he chided the last of the shaggy wolves of Ireland and teased the fox and the sinuous snake. He drank the sweetest water known to the creatures of the sky and earth, and felt on his grimy skin the cleansing rain and each drop that struck his flesh was a benediction.
A high price he paid, did Sweeney, for his rash behavior. He died mad at the hands of a stupid and unfeeling man. And if the same could be said of birds of less royal lineage, surely no other king—pagan or Christian—could claim such intimate acquaintance of the birds of the air, who neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns.
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