Kaleidoscope III 
Sliocht an Dobharchú (The Otter’s Descendants)*
Buile Suibhne has had its fair share of retellings, including Seamus Heaney’s remarkable version, Sweeney Astray. It’s a beguiling tale: On hearing that a monk is marking out a church in his territory, Sweeney, King of Dal Araidhe, sets out from his home in a rage. His wife clutches his cloak to restrain him and it unravels. Now naked, he catches up with Ronan and casts the holy man’s psalter in the lake. Although an other-worldly otter returns the book to Ronan, he still curses the King, condemning him to wander the world eternally in the form of a bird.
The otter’s miraculous feat is beautifully recounted:
Duidh laoi co n-oidhche iarsin doriacht dobarchú robúi isin loch dochum Rónáin & a pshaltair leis gan milledh líne ná litri inte.
At the end of a day and a night, an otter from the lake returns the psalter to Ronan – neither line nor letter of it has been injured.
In the poem below, ‘Sliocht an Dobharchú’, the world fires and refires itself with its own kindling. Cleric and madman fight it out on the shore. And still, the word-rescuer lives on.
Sliocht an Dobharchú*
do Maureen Kennelly
Mar a bhfuil treibh na mbánta
agus cruit an mhadra uisce,
tá ina mbrosna féin
athdhó na gcoillte.
Fíon nimhe atá i gcroí an tslua
nach dtugann ach silleadh
súl faoina dhéin
le caolú na hoíche —
An cléireach a lasfadh
bolcán tine lá socair,
an ghealt nach gceilfeadh
coinnle corra ar a mhuirnín.
* * * *
Ní árchú éill ach dúil shuairc
rúnmhar lutra lutra
a chosnaíonn na línte gan leá,
airgead scoit na gcuilithíní.
Tá a shliocht neamhlíonmhar
faoin gcraobh chnuais
feadh na slite nach bhfuil aindlite fós
d’aos cneá ná d’éin cheoil na mbruach.
The Otter’s Trace
for Maureen Kennelly
Where the men of the fallow fields
live in the otter’s shadow
is found the burnoff of woods
that are their own kindling.
In the heart of the host
is a poison wine that barely
glances at him out of doors
as the daylight narrows –
the cleric who starts a fierce
fire on a calm day,
the madman who does not conceal
from his darling a stray candle.
*
Not a mad dog on a leash but
the otter’s genial, furtive desire
who guards the unmelting lines,
offsetting the ripples.
Their posterity can be traced
under the laden branch, the spreading
ways still open to the walking
wounded or the musical shorebirds.
— Trans. David Wheatley
*I am grateful to Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin for first publishing this poem in Cyphers 100.
This text, 'Sliocht an Dobharchú', is licensed under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license. No part of the Work may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purposes of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems. The Work is protected and reserved from text and data mining.
Kaleidoscope III