Field Programmable Gate Array and Applications

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Field Programmable Gate Arrays
and Applications

S.S.S.P. Rao

α
Alpha Science International Ltd.
Oxford, U.K.
Field Programmable Gate Arrays
and Applications
372 Pags. | 203 Figs. | 41 Tabls.

S.S.S.P. Rao
Department of Computer Science & Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Powai
Mumbai

Copyright © 2016
ALPHA SCIENCE INTERNATIONAL LTD.

7200 The Quorum, Oxford Business Park North

Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2JZ, U.K.

www.alphasci.com

ISBN 978-1-78332-215-2
E-ISBN 978-1-78332-324-1

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written
permission of the publisher.
 Dedicated to
Srikantam Krishna Rao
and
Srikantam Saradamba
 Preface

As Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay,

I started teaching Architectural details and design methodologies of Field Programmable
gate Arrays (FPGAs) since their introduction in 1983. My students at undergraduate
and postgraduate levels did projects during my tenure of Professorship using right from
Xilinx XC 2000 to Spartan 6. Public and Private sectors in India sponsored projects to me
to do FPGA based embedded systems and my project engineers successfully completed
them to the satisfaction of the sponsor. After my retirement from IIT-Bombay, I got an
opportunity to join Xilinx Centre established in Hyderabad by Akshya Prakash of Xilinx,
USA as their Chief Technology Officer. After my tenure in this organization I joined CMC
Limited, Hyderabad and advised CMC engineers in their FPGA projects in the Embedded
Systems Group. Then I thought of putting all my academic and industrial experience in a
book form and with the help of some experts finalized the contents of the book. Since Field
Programmable gate arrays belong to the family of programmable devices and designing
with FPGAs require knowledge of Digital design, Chapter 1 was devoted to cover an
overview of Boolean Algebra and Logic Design. This chapter covers gates, minimization
techniques of Boolean expressions and combinational and sequential logic circuits and state
machines with design examples. The next topic is on Programmable Logic Devices which is
covered in Chapter 2. In this chapter; SPLDs and CPLDs are explained and their internal
organization is presented which include ROM, PAL and PLA. PLD Design methodologies
with tools are covered with design examples. Introduction to Field programmable devices
(FPGAs) are then explained right from the basic FPGA which was used as glue logic to
present day very advanced FPGA used in Embedded Systems. Design flow for FPGA is
then given and applications of FPGAs are listed. Comparison of Microcontrollers, FPGAs
and ASIC is discussed. Chapter 3 is completely devoted to evolution of Xilinx FPGAs and
their architectural features. Chapter 4 covers Altera FPGAs and Actel/Microsemi FPGAS
are reviewed in Chapter 5. Since designing with FPGAs require knowledge of hardware
description languages, Verilog and VHDL with many design examples in Verilog and
VHDL and brief introduction to System Verilog form the chapter 6. In chapter 7 complete
Xilinx FPGA design flow is covered right from architectural specification to obtaining bit
viii Preface

stream to be loaded into FPGA and testing methodologies. Chapter 8 completely covers
design exercises using Spartan Series that include an ALU, Multiplier unit and Arbiter
using round robin algorithm. These applications give the reader good understanding of
designing systems using FPGAs with design tools. Having seen SRAM, Antifuse, Flash
FPGA Programming Technologies, a comparison of these technologies would greatly help
the designer to choose the right one for his application based on conditions under which
his product functions reliably and safely. In chapter 9, this comparison is given along with
the important research issues of FPGA Security and Future of FPGAs for the next decade.

S.S.S.P. Rao
 Foreword-1

Advent of digital logic systems was facilitated by VLSI technology. It is interesting that one
can implement even a complex system such as a digital computer by using only AND, OR,
and NOT gates, further, we can implement using only NAND or NOR gates. A transistor
is basically an inverter and as such synthesis using only NAND or NOR gates, is possible,
but one needs a large number of transistors. VLSI made it possible to have large number of
gates on a chip. Difference between different systems was in the interconnection between
the gates. Technology produced a gate array which is an array of large number of gates.
It led to field programmable gate array chips with a matrix of interconnects which can be
modified to suit the required logic by removing undesirable inter connects by selectively
burning out chosen ones.
They number of gates on a FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) can be in thousands
and one can fabricate in the lab even a small special purpose computer in a short time.
Early advertisements mentioned that “one can conceive a special purpose chip at breakfast
and have the chip ready by dinner time! FPGA’s have made it easy for students to fabricate
their projects and have the satisfaction of building the desired system. FPGA is a boon to
remote colleges teaching digital design.
Dr. SSSP Rao has over 30 years of experience in teaching and design of digital systems
and is welcome that he has chosen to write a book on FPGA. It is like “hearing from the
horse’s mouth”! Coverage is comprehensive and the book is suited for a textbook as well
as for self-study, and It is appropriate that it is based on XILINX technology, which is
easily available in India.
I thank Dr. Rao for the book and wish all success to the book.

Prof. H N Mahabala
(Retd.) Professor
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Madras
Chennai
 Foreword-2

Ever since the transistor was invented in the middle years of the 20th century an era of
miniaturization in electronics has been heralded worldwide based on silicon technology
and the resulting microchip revolution. These have now become the corner stone in almost
every product/service developed for the benefit of mankind and enabled the launching of
new industries like design, technology, packaging, testing, applications, leading to the
present-day Information Age. The Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) constitute
an important class of microchips that can be programmed in the laboratory or on the shop
floor to perform specific electronic functions in digital logic form. Since their inception
in the 1980s decade, FPGAs have grown in capacity and complexity to include millions
of logic gates, megabytes of memory and high speed interfaces in microchip form in the
current versions and have become the preferred choice in a wide range of applications,
such as consumer products, computing/communication/control/instrumentation areas as
well as military/space systems.
As a result, good knowledge/expertise in “FPGAs and Applications” is now expected
from graduating engineers in electrical/electronic/computer and related branches so that
they can exploit the emerging opportunities and prepare themselves for good careers in
this subject area. But, the absence of a comprehensive/contemporary text/reference book
covering this subject matter has been a long felt limitation at Indian Universities and
Institutions. Recognizing this, Prof. SSSP Rao, a senior computer science academic and
researcher with high expertise and long experience in working with FPGAs at the Indian
Institute of Technology, Mumbai has prepared this Book entitled, “Field Programmable
Gate Arrays and Applications” which can serve as text/reference source for engineering
& technology students at both UG/PG levels and professionals alike.
The book is well planned and organized to provide the reader with a good insight into
the fascinating world of FPGAs. Beginning with an Overview of Boolean Algebra and Logic
Design in Chapter 1 followed by state of the art coverage on Programmable Logic Devices
in Chapter 2, An Introduction to FPGAs, XILINX, ALTERA, ACTEL/MICROSEMI and
Overview of Hardware Descriptive Languages are covered in the next four Chapters.
xii Foreword-2

The FPGA Design Flow is then described in Chapter 7 followed by a range of Selected
Applications of Xilinx FPGAs to provide a flavour of the potential uses of FPGAs in present
day electronic product and services in chapter 8. The last Chapter covers the important
issue of FPGA Security and Future of FPGAs. An excellent Bibliography given at the end
of the chapter is very helpful to the reader in learning and gaining more experience in
this subject area. On the whole, the Book is an excellent addition to text/reference sources
now available in the broad area of VLSI Design and Applications of considerable use
in both learning/teaching and R&D/industry. I would like to compliment the author for
undertaking this commendable task and making a significant contribution to the world of
academic and research endeavour.

Prof. B. S. Sonde
Former Vice Chancellor
University of Goa
 Acknowledgment

Since the introduction of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) in around 1982, as
Faculty member of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Bombay, I started teaching and
offering FPGA based projects from 1982 to 2005, using Xilinx XC 2000 to Spartan 6, to
Undergraduate, Post Graduate students of Electrical and Computer Science Engineering
Departments. Also FPGA based sponsored projects from public and private sectors were
successfully completed by project engineers under my guidance in IIT-Bombay. After my
retirement in IIT-Bombay, I joined Xilinx Centre established in Hyderabad in 2005 as
their Chief Technology Officer. This centre is established initially in CMC -Hyderabad
by Akshya Prakash from Xilinx, USA. After my tenure in Xilinx Centre, I joined CMC
Limited Hyderabad as their Chief Advisor and mentor and handled FPGA based projects
in the Embedded Systems Group. At that time I thought of putting all my academic and
industrial experience in designing with FPGAs in the form of a book and drafted the
contents. The contents of the book were reviewed by experts Akshya Prakash of Xilinx,
USA, Ms Usha Priyadharshini of IBM-Bangalore and Dr. Vamsi Srikantam of AMCC, USA
and contents of the book were finalized. My sincere thanks to all these experts. I should
place on record my sincere thanks to N.K. Mehra of Narosa Publishing House, Delhi who
on my communication readily agreed to publish the book. I should then place on record
my sincere thanks and appreciation to my colleagues from IIT-Bombay retired Professor
M.R Bhujade and Professor M.P. Desai for providing some excellent subject matter
for chapter 1 on Boolean Algebra and Logic Design: an Overview. Their help is greatly
acknowledged. Ron Wilson of ALTERA, USA and Gautam Sachin of MICROSEMI greatly
helped me in writing the chapters on ALTERA and ACTEL/MICRSEMI FPGAS by
providing technical information on their Company FPGAs. I would like to place on record
my sincere thanks and appreciation to both the experts. My interaction with Sachin Gupta
of Microsemi was excellent and I would like to sincerely thank him once again for his
untiring efforts to make this chapter on Actel/Microsemi FPGAs look highly technical
and informative. The contribution of Ms. Saambhavi of Xilinx Centre, Hyderabad needs
special mention of excellence in contributing to the chapter 6 on Hardware description
xiv Acknowledgment

Languages (Verilog/VHDL). Her assistance is highly appreciated and I am very grateful

for her help.. In writing Chapter 7 on FPGA Design Flow, I got immense help from Akshya
Prakash of Xilinx, USA, Dr. Sudip Nag of Xilinx, USA and Mrinal Sarmah of Xilinx
Centre, Hyderabad. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Mrinal Sarmah for
the excellent support he gave me in writing this chapter and also providing the subject
matter for this very important chapter. Special and sincere thanks to Mrinal for his great
contribution in shaping this design flow chapter. His untiring and excellent support is
gratefully acknowledged. Chapter 8 deals with Design Exercises using FPGAs. In this
chapter, instead of giving pure academic material, I thought of giving projects really
implemented and tested so that readers get real experience and understanding in FPGA
designs. Towards this end I sought help from a FPGA training Institute. Xilinx, USA has
given approval to an Institute in Bangalore, India called Sandeepani-School of Embedded
System Design, CG-CoreEl Technologies, Bangalore to give training to students and
practicing engineers in Xilinx FPGA based designs. On my request Sandeepani-CG-
coreEl Technologies agreed to provide FPGA based designs right from specifications to
implementation and test results done by students of the training Institute under the
supervision of Ms. Deepa and Padmanabhan in consultation with me. I am very confident
that these design projects give readers very good understanding of FPGA design practices. I
am highly grateful for all the assistance given by Deepa and Padmanabhan of Sandeepani-
CG Core El Technologies for giving material for this chapter a picture of reality. After
these three simple design exercises, a complex project involving design of High Speed
Telescope Data Acquisition System using FPGAs is explained. This design illustrates
how a complex FPGA design is translated from high level specifications to detailed micro-
architecture and how a self-checking test bench architecture is designed for a complex
FPGA design. This complex Project was done by Sunil Puranik of Computational Research
Laboratory, Pune and
Dr. Subrahmanya of Raman Research Institute, Bangalore. On my request they provided
me this information so that reader will understand how complex projects could be designed
using FPFGAs. I would like to thank both of them profusely for their untiring efforts
to help me in presenting this design. My sincere thanks to both the experts. I thank
profusely Prof. H.N. Mahabala, Retired Professor from the Department of Computer
Science and Engineering, IIT-Madras for writing Foreword -1. Now I would like to thank
and express my gratitude to Prof. Sonde, retired Professor from IISc, Bangalore and
former Vice Chancellor of Goa University who while writing Foreword-2 for my book after
going through some chapters he suggested to me to include some research oriented issues
related to FPGAs like FPGA security since FPGAs are being used in very sensitive and
very confidential projects in industrial and military applications. Dr. Trimberger of Xilinx,
USA presented a paper on FPGA security which is published by IEEE proceedings. With
the permission of the author and publisher IEEE, I included this research oriented topic
in chapter 9. I hereby express my thanks and gratitude to Dr.Trimberger and IEEE for
giving permission to take material from the paper ` FPGA Security: Motivations, Features,
and Applications, Proceedings of IEEE, Vol. 102, No.8, August 2014, pp 1248-1265.. In
a ACM work shop, industry people like Xilinx CTO and Senior Vice President Dr. Ivo
Bolsens and Altera CTO and senior vice president of Research and Development, Misha
Acknowledgment xv

Burich etc and academicians like Prof. Peter Cheung, Head of Department of Electrical
and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College, London debated on Future of FPGS till 2032
which gives very interesting topics for research. The discussion that took place in this ACM
conference was published by Ron Wilson, Editor-in Chief of Altera. I met him in Altera
and had discussions on this topic and with his permission I included this topic in Chapter
9 which will help research scholars to do further research on this. My sincere thanks to
Ron Wilson for all the help he gave in writing this material on Future of FPGAs till 2032.
I am extremely thankful to Ms N.P. Shravya of CMC Limited for drawing diagrams for this
book with a fine comb. Finally I should express my sense of appreciation and gratitude to
my wife Mrs. Rajeswari who gave me immense encouragement and support while I was
busy with my writing at home. I hope with all the material in this book it will greatly help
students and practicing engineers in understanding FPGA based designs and research
scholars to do further research on future of FPGAs and FPGA Security methods.

S.S.S.P. Rao
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
“And what will that desire be then, you whom the islesmen call
Connla the Wise?”

“That one might see in the dew the footsteps of old years returning.”

“That thing, Connla, I cannot do.”

“And yet thou wouldst do what is a thing as vain as that?”

“Speak. I will listen.”

Then Connla drew close to Ulad, and whispered in his ear.

Thereafter he gave him a hollow reed with holes in it, such as the
shepherding folk use on the hills. And with that he went away into
the darkness.

When the moon rose, Ulad took the reed and played upon it. 97
While he played, scales fell from his eyes, and dreams passed
from his brain, and his heart grew light. Then he sang:

Come forth, Fand, come forth, beautiful Fand, my woman, my

fawn,
The smell of thy falling hair is sweet as the breath of the wild-brier
—
I weary of this white moonshine who love better the white discs of
thy breasts,
And the secret song of the gods is faint beside the craving in my
blood.

Fand, Fand, Fand, white one, who art no dream but a woman,
Come forth from the grianân, or lo by the word of me, Ulad the
King,
Forth shalt thou come as a she-wolf, and no more be a woman,
Come forth to me, Fand, who am now as a flame for thy burning!

Thereupon a low laugh was heard, and Fand came forth out of the
grianân. White and beautiful she was, the fairest of all women, and
Ulad was glad. When near, she whispered in his ears, and hand-in-
hand they went back into the grianân.

At dawn Ulad looked upon the beauty of Fand, and he saw she was
as a flower.

“O fair and beautiful Dream,” he whispered—but of a sudden Fand

laughed in her sleep, and he remembered what Connla the 98
Wise had told him.

“Woman,” Ulad muttered then, “I see well that thou art not my
Dream, but only a woman.” And with that he half-rose from her.

Fand opened her eyes, and the beauty of them was greater for the
light that was there.

“Then thou art only Ulad, a man?” she cried, and she put her arms
about him, and kissed him on the lips and on the breast, sobbing
low as with a strange gladness—“I will follow thee, Ulad, to death,
for I am thy woman.”

“Ay,” he said, looking beyond her, “if I feed thee, and call thee my
woman, and find pleasure in thee, and give thee my manhood.”

“And what else wouldst thou, O Ulad?” Fand asked, wondering.

“I am Ulad the Lonely,” he answered: this, and no more.

Then, later, he took the hollow reed again, and again played.

And when he had played he looked at Fand. He saw into her heart,
and into her brain.

“I have dreamed my dream,” he said; “but I am still Ulad the

Wonder-Smith.”

With that he blew a frith across the palm of his left hand, and 99
said this thing:—
“O woman that would not come to me, when I called out of that
within me which is I myself, farewell!”

And with that Fand was a drift of white flowers there upon the
deerskins.

Then once more Ulad spoke.

“O woman, that heeded no bitter prayer which I made, but at the

last came only as a she-wolf to the wolf, farewell!”

And with that a wind-eddy scattered the white flowers upon the
deerskins, and they wavered hither and thither, and some were
stained by the pale wandering fires of a rainbow that drifted over
that place, then as now the haunt of these cloudy splendours,
forever woven there out of sun and mist.

At noon, the seafarers came towards the grianân with songs, and
offerings.

But Ulad was not there.

101
 ULA AND URLA

“Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World! 102

You, too, have come where the dim tides are hurled
Upon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ring
The bell that calls us on: the sweet far thing.
Beauty grown sad with its eternity
Made you of us, and of the dim grey sea.”

103
 ULA AND URLA

Ula and Urla were under vow to meet by the Stone of Sorrow. But
Ula, dying first, stumbled blindfold when he passed the Shadowy
[3]
Gate; and, till Urla’s hour was upon her, she remembered not.

These were the names that had been given to them in the north
isles, when the birlinn that ran down the war-galley of the vikings
brought them before the Maormor.

No word had they spoken that day, and no name. They were of the
Gael, though Ula’s hair was yellow, and though his eyes were blue as
the heart of a wave. They would ask nothing, for both were in love
with death. The Maormor of Siol Tormaid looked at Urla, and his
desire gnawed at his heart. But he knew what was in her mind,
because he saw into it through her eyes, and he feared the 104
sudden slaying in the dark.

Nevertheless, he brooded night and day upon her beauty. Her skin
was more white than the foam of the moon: her eyes were as a
star-lit dewy dusk. When she moved, he saw her like a doe in the
fern: when she stooped, it was as the fall of wind-swayed water. In
his eyes there was a shimmer as of the sunflood in a calm sea. In
that dazzle he was led astray.

“Go,” he said to Ula, on a day of the days. “Go: the men of Siol
Torquil will take you to the south isles, and so you can hale to your
own place, be it Eirèann or Manannan, or wherever the south wind
puts its hand upon your home.”
It was on that day Ula spoke for the first time.

“I will go, Coll mac Torcall; but I go not alone. Urla that I love goes
whither I go.”

“She is my spoil. But, man out of Eirèann—for so I know you to be,

because of the manner of your speech—tell me this: Of what clan
and what place are you, and whence is Urla come; and by what
shore was it that the men of Lochlin whom we slew took you 105
and her out of the sea, as you swam against the sun, with
waving swords upon the strand when the viking-boat carried you
away?”

“How know you these things?” asked Ula, that had been Isla, son of
the king of Islay.

“One of the sea-rovers spake before he died.”

“Then let the viking speak again. I have nought to say.”

With that the Maormor frowned, but said no more. That eve Ula was
seized, as he walked in the dusk by the sea, singing low to himself
an ancient song.

“Is it death?” he said, remembering another day when he and Eilidh,

that they called Urla, had the same asking upon their lips.

“It is death.”

Ula frowned, but spake no word for a time. Then he spake.

“Let me say one word with Urla.”

“No word canst thou have. She, too, must die.”

Ula laughed low at that.

“I am ready,” he said. And they slew him with a spear.

When they told Urla, she rose from the deerskins and went 106
down to the shore. She said no word then. But she stooped,
and she put her lips upon his cold lips, and she whispered in his
unhearing ear.

That night Coll mac Torcall went secretly to where Urla was. When
he entered, a groan came to his lips and there was froth there: and
that was because the spear that had slain Ula was thrust betwixt his
shoulders by one who stood in the shadow. He lay there till the
dawn. When they found Coll the Maormor he was like a seal speared
upon a rock, for he had his hands out, and his head was between
them, and his face was downward.

“Eat dust, slain wolf,” was all that Eilidh, whom they called Urla, said,
ere she moved away from that place in the darkness of the night.

When the sun rose, Urla was in a glen among the hills. A man who
shepherded there took her to his mate. They gave her milk, and
because of her beauty and the frozen silence of her eyes, 107
bade her stay with them and be at peace.

They knew in time that she wished death. But first, there was the
birthing of the child.

“It was Isla’s will,” she said to the woman. Ula was but the shadow
of a bird’s wing: an idle name. And she, too, was Eilidh once more.

“It was death he gave you when he gave you the child,” said the
woman once.

“It was life,” answered Eilidh, with her eyes filled with the shadow of
dream. And yet another day the woman said to her that it would be
well to bear the child and let it die: for beauty was like sunlight on a
day of clouds, and if she were to go forth young and alone and so
wondrous fair, she would have love, and love is best.
“Truly, love is best,” Eilidh answered. “And because Isla loved me, I
would that another Isla came into the world and sang his songs—the
songs that were so sweet, and the songs that he never sang,
because I gave him death when I gave him life. But now he shall live
again, and he and I shall be in one body, in him that I carry now.”

At that the woman understood, and said no more. And so the 108
days grew out of the nights, and the dust of the feet of one
month was in the eyes of that which followed after; and this until
Eilidh’s time was come.

Dusk after dusk, Ula that was Isla the Singer, waited by the Stone of
Sorrow. Then a great weariness came upon him. He made a song
there, where he lay in the narrow place; the last song that he made,
for after that he heard no trampling of the hours.

The swift years slip and slide adown the steep;

The slow years pass; neither will come again.
Yon huddled years have weary eyes that weep,
These laugh, these moan, these silent frown, these plain,
These have their lips acurl with proud disdain.

O years with tears, and tears through weary years,

How weary I who in your arms have lain:
Now, I am tired: the sound of slipping spears
Moves soft, and tears fall in a bloody rain,
And the chill footless years go over me who am slain.

I hear, as in a wood, dim with old light, the rain,

Slow falling; old, old, weary, human tears:
And in the deepening dark my comfort is my Pain,
Sole comfort left of all my hopes and fears,
Pain that alone survives, gaunt hound of the shadowy years.

But, at the last, after many days, he stirred. There was a 109
song in his ears.
He listened. It was like soft rain in a wood in June. It was like the
wind laughing among the leaves.

Then his heart leaped. Sure, it was the voice of Eilidh!

“Eilidh! Eilidh! Eilidh!” he cried. But a great weariness came upon

him again. He fell asleep, knowing not the little hand that was in his,
and the small, flower-sweet body that was warm against his side.

Then the child that was his looked into the singer’s heart, and saw
there a mist of rainbows, and midway in that mist was the face of
Eilidh, his mother.

Thereafter, the little one looked into his brain that was so still, and
he saw the music that was there: and it was the voice of Eilidh his
mother.

And, again, the birdeen, that had the blue of Isla’s eyes and the
dream of Eilidh’s, looked into Ula’s sleeping soul: and he saw that it
was not Isla nor yet Eilidh, but that it was like unto himself, who was
made of Eilidh and Isla.

For a long time the child dreamed. Then he put his ear to 110
Isla’s brow, and listened. Ah, the sweet songs that he heard.
Ah, bitter-sweet moonseed of song! Into his life they passed, echo
after echo, strain after strain, wild air after wild sweet air.

“Isla shall never die,” whispered the child, “for Eilidh loved him. And
I am Isla and Eilidh.”

Then the little one put his hands above Isla’s heart. There was a
flame there, that the Grave quenched not.

“O flame of love!” sighed the child, and he clasped it to his breast:

and it was a moonshine glory about the two hearts that he had, the
heart of Isla and the heart of Eilidh, that were thenceforth one.
At dawn he was no longer there. Already the sunrise was warm upon
him where he lay, new-born, upon the breast of Eilidh.

“It is the end,” murmured Isla when he waked. “She has never
come. For sure, now, the darkness and the silence.”

Then he remembered the words of Maol the Druid, he that was a

seer, and had told him of Orchil, the dim goddess who is under the
brown earth, in a vast cavern, where she weaves at two 111
looms. With one hand she weaves life upward through the
grass; with the other she weaves death downward through the
mould; and the sound of the weaving is Eternity, and the name of it
in the green world is Time. And, through all, Orchil weaves the weft
of Eternal Beauty, that passeth not, though its soul is Change.

And these were the words of Orchil, on the lips of Maol the Druid,
that was old, and knew the mystery of the Grave.

When thou journeyest towards the Shadowy Gate take neither Fear
with thee nor Hope, for both are abashed hounds of silence in that
place; but take only the purple nightshade for sleep, and a vial of
tears and wine, tears that shall be known unto thee and old wine of
love. So shalt thou have thy silent festival, ere the end.

So therewith Isla, having, in his weariness, the nightshade of sleep,

and in his mind the slow dripping rain of familiar tears, and deep in
his heart the old wine of love, bowed his head. 112

It was well to have lived, since life was Eilidh. It was well to cease to
live, since Eilidh came no more.

Then suddenly he raised his head. There was music in the green
world above. A sunray opened the earth about him: staring upward
he beheld Angus Ogue.
“Ah, fair face of the god of youth,” he sighed. Then he saw the white
birds that fly about the head of Angus Ogue, and he heard the music
that his breath made upon the harp of the wind.

“Arise,” said Angus; and, when he smiled the white birds flashed
their wings and made a mist of rainbows.

“Arise,” said Angus Ogue again, and, when he spoke, the spires of
the grass quivered to a wild, sweet haunting air.

So Isla arose, and the sun shone upon him, and his shadow passed
into the earth. Orchil wove it into her web of death.

“Why dost thou wait here by the Stone of Sorrow, Isla that was
called Ula at the end?”

“I wait for Eilidh, who cometh not.” 113

At that the wind-listening god stooped and laid his head upon the
grass.

“I hear the coming of a woman’s feet,” he said, and he rose.

“Eilidh! Eilidh!” cried Isla, and the sorrow of his cry was a moan in
the web of Orchil.

Angus Ogue took a branch, and put the cool greenness against his
cheek.

“I hear the beating of a heart,” he said.

“Eilidh! Eilidh! Eilidh!” Isla cried, and the tears that were in his voice
were turned by Angus into dim dews of remembrance in the babe-
brain that was the brain of Isla and Eilidh.

“I hear a word,” said Angus Ogue, “and that word is a flame of joy.”
Isla listened. He heard a singing of birds. Then, suddenly, a glory
came into the shine of the sun.

“I have come, Isla my king!”

It was the voice of Eilidh. He bowed his head, and swayed; for it was
his own life that came to him.

“Eilidh!” he whispered.

And so, at the last, Isla came into his kingdom. 114

But are they gone, these twain, who loved with deathless love? Or is
this a dream that I have dreamed?

Afar in an island-sanctuary that I shall not see again, where the wind
chants the blind oblivious rune of Time, I have heard the grasses
whisper: Time never was, Time is not.

115
THE DARK NAMELESS ONE

117
 THE DARK NAMELESS ONE

One day this summer I sailed with Padruic Macrae and Ivor McLean,
boatmen of Iona, along the south-western reach of the Ross of Mull.

The whole coast of the Ross is indescribably wild and desolate. From
Feenafort (Fhionnphort), opposite Balliemore of Icolmkill, to the
hamlet of Earraid Lighthouse, it were hardly exaggeration to say that
the whole tract is uninhabited by man and unenlivened by any green
thing. It is the haunt of the cormorant and the seal.

No one who has not visited this region can realise its barrenness. Its
one beauty is the faint bloom which lies upon it in the sunlight—a
bloom which becomes as the glow of an inner flame when the sun
westers without cloud or mist. This is from the ruddy hue of the
granite, of which all that wilderness is wrought.

It is a land tortured by the sea, scourged by the sea-wind. A 118

myriad lochs, fiords, inlets, passages, serrate its broken
frontiers. Innumerable islets and reefs, fanged like ravenous wolves,
sentinel every shallow, lurk in every strait. He must be a skilled
boatman who would take the Sound of Earraid and penetrate the
reaches of the Ross.

There are many days in the months of peace, as the islanders call
the period from Easter till the autumnal equinox, when Earraid and
the rest of Ross seem under a spell. It is the spell of beauty. Then
the yellow light of the sun is upon the tumbled masses and
precipitous shelves and ledges, ruddy petals or leaves of that vast
Flower of Granite. Across it the cloud shadows trail their purple
elongations, their scythe-sweep curves, and abrupt evanishing
floodings of warm dusk. From wet boulder to boulder, from crag to
shelly crag, from fissure to fissure, the sea ceaselessly weaves a
girdle of foam. When the wide luminous stretch of waters beyond—
green near the land, and farther out all of a living blue, interspersed
with wide alleys of amethyst—is white with the sea-horses, there is
such a laughter of surge and splash all the way from Slugan-dubh to
the Rudha-nam-Maol-Mòra, or to the tide-swept promontory 119
of the Sgeireig-a’-Bhochdaidh, that, looking inland, one sees
through a rainbow-shimmering veil of ever-flying spray.

But the sun spell is even more fugitive upon the face of this wild
land than the spell of beauty upon a woman. So runs one of our
proverbs: as the falling of the wave, as the fading of the leaf, so is
the beauty of a woman, unless—ah, that unless, and the
indiscoverable fount of joy that can only be come upon by hazard
once in life, and thereafter only in dreams, and the Land of the
Rainbow that is never reached, and the green sea-doors of Tir-na-
thonn, that open now no more to any wandering wave!

It was from Ivor McLean, on that day, I heard the strange tale of his
kinsman Murdoch, the tale of “The Ninth Wave” that I have told
elsewhere. It was Padruic, however, who told me of the Sea-witch of
Earraid.

“Yes,” he said, “I have heard of the each-uisge (the sea-beast, sea-

kelpie, or water-horse), but I have never seen it with the eyes. My
father and my brother knew of it. But this thing I know, and this
what we call an-cailleach-uisge (the siren or water-witch); 120
the cailliach, mind you, not the maighdeann-mhàra (the
mermaid), who means no harm. May she hear my saying it! The
cailliach is old and clad in weeds, but her voice is young, and she
always sits so that the light is in the eyes of the beholder. She seems
to him young also, and fair. She has two familiars in the form of
seals, one black as the grave, and the other white as the shroud that
is in the grave; and these sometimes upset a boat, if the sailor
laughs at the uisge-cailliach’s song.

“A man netted one of those seals, more than a hundred years ago,
with his herring-trawl, and dragged it into the boat; but the other
seal tore at the net so savagely, with its head and paws over the
bows, that it was clear no net would long avail. The man heard them
crying and screaming, and then talking low and muttering, like
women in a frenzy. In his fear he cast the nets adrift, all but a small
portion that was caught in the thwarts. Afterwards, in this portion,
he found a tress of woman’s hair. And that is just so: to the Stones
be it said.

“The grandson of this man, Tòmais McNair, is still living, a 121

shepherd on Eilean-Uamhain, beyond Lunga in the Cairnburg
Isles. A few years ago, off Callachan Point, he saw the two seals,
and heard, though he did not see, the cailliach. And that which I tell
you—Christ’s Cross before me—is a true thing.”

All the time that Phadruic was speaking, I saw that Ivor McLean
looked away: either as though he heard nothing, or did not wish to
hear. There was dream in his eyes; I saw that, so said nothing for a
time.

“What is it, Ivor?” I asked at last, in a low voice. He started, and

looked at me strangely.

“What will you be asking that for? What are you doing in my mind,
that is secret?”

“I see that you are brooding over something. Will you not tell me?”

“Tell her,” said Phadruic quietly.

But Ivor kept silent. There was a look in his eyes which I
understood. Thereafter we sailed on, with no word in the boat at all.
That night, a dark, rainy night it was, with an uplift wind beating
high over against the hidden moon, I went to the cottage where Ivor
McLean lived with his old deaf mother, deaf nigh upon twenty 122
years, ever since the night of the nights when she heard the
women whisper that Callum, her husband, was among the drowned,
after a death-wind had blown.

When I entered, he was sitting before the flaming coal-fire; for on

Iona now, by decree of MacCailin Mòr, there is no more peat burned.

“You will tell me now, Ivor?” was all I said.

“Yes; I will be telling you now. And the reason why I did not tell you
before was because it is not a wise or a good thing to tell ancient
stories about the sea while still on the running wave. Macrae should
not have done that thing. It may be we shall suffer for it when next
we go out with the nets. We were to go to-night; but no, not I, no
no, for sure, not for all the herring in the Sound.”

“Is it an ancient sgeul, Ivor?”

“Ay. I am not for knowing the age of these things. It may be as old
as the days of the Féinn for all I know. It has come down to us.
Alasdair MacAlasdair of Tiree, him that used to boast of having all
the stories of Colum and Brighde, it was he told it to the 123
mother of my mother, and she to me.”

“What is it called?”

“Well, this and that; but there is no harm in saying it is called the
Dark Nameless One.”

“The Dark Nameless One!”

“It is this way. But will you ever have been hearing of the
MacOdrums of Uist?”
“Ay: the Sliochd-nan-ròn.”

“That is so. God knows. The Sliochd-nan-ròn ... the progeny of the
Seal.... Well, well, no man knows what moves in the shadow of life.
And now I will be telling you that old ancient tale, as it was given to
me by the mother of my mother.”

On a day of the days, Colum was walking alone by the sea-shore.

The monks were at the hoe or the spade, and some milking the kye,
and some at the fishing. They say it was on the first day of the
Faoilleach Geamhraidh, the day that is called Am fheill Brighde.

The holy man had wandered on to where the rocks are, opposite to
Soa. He was praying and praying, and it is said that 124
whenever he prayed aloud, the barren egg in the nest would
quicken, and the blighted bud unfold, and the butterfly cleave its
shroud.

Of a sudden he came upon a great black seal, lying silent on the

rocks, with wicked eyes.

“My blessing upon you, O Ròn,” he said with the good kind
courteousness that was his.

“Droch spadadh ort,” answered the seal. “A bad end to you, Colum
of the Gown.”

“Sure, now,” said Colum angrily, “I am knowing by that curse that

you are no friend of Christ, but of the evil pagan faith out of the
north. For here I am known ever as Colum the White, or as Colum
the Saint; and it is only the Picts and the wanton Normen who
deride me because of the holy white robe I wear.”

“Well, well,” replied the seal, speaking the good Gaelic as though it
were the tongue of the deep sea, as God knows it may be for all
you, I, or the blind wind can say; “Well, well, let that thing be: it’s a
wave-way here or a wave-way there. But now if it is a Druid you are,
whether of Fire or of Christ, be telling me where my woman is, and
where my little daughter.”

At this, Colum looked at him for a long while. Then he knew. 125

“It is a man you were once, O Ròn?”

“Maybe ay and maybe no.”

“And with that thick Gaelic that you have, it will be out of the north
isles you come?”

“That is a true thing.”

“Now I am for knowing at last who and what you are. You are one of
the race of Odrum the Pagan.”

“Well, I am not denying it, Colum. And what is more, I am Angus

MacOdrum, Aonghas mac Torcall mhic Odrum, and the name I am
known by is Black Angus.”

“A fitting name too,” said Colum the Holy, “because of the black sin
in your heart, and the black end God has in store for you.”

At that Black Angus laughed.

“Why is there laughter upon you, Man-Seal?”

“Well, it is because of the good company I’ll be having. But, now,

give me the word: Are you for having seen or heard aught of a
woman called Kirsteen McVurich?”

“Kirsteen—Kirsteen—that is the good name of a nun it is, and 126

no sea-wanton!”

“Oh, a name here or a name there is soft sand. And so you cannot
be for telling me where my woman is?”
“No.”

“Then a stake for your belly, and the nails through your hands, thirst
on your tongue, and the corbies at your eyne!”

And, with that, Black Angus louped into the green water, and the
hoarse wild laugh of him sprang into the air and fell dead against the
cliff like a wind-spent mew.

Colum went slowly back to the brethren, brooding deep. “God is

good,” he said in a low voice, again and again; and each time that
he spoke there came a fair sweet daisy into the grass, or a yellow
bird rose up, with song to it for the first time wonderful and sweet to
hear.

As he drew near to the House of God he met Murtagh, an old monk

of the ancient old race of the isles.

“Who is Kirsteen McVurich, Murtagh?” he asked.

“She was a good servant of Christ, she was, in the south 127
isles, O Colum, till Black Angus won her to the sea.”

“And when was that?”

“Nigh upon a thousand years ago.”

At that Colum stared in amaze. But Murtagh was a man of truth, nor
did he speak in allegories. “Ay, Colum, my father, nigh upon a
thousand years ago.”

“But can mortal sin live as long as that?”

“Ay, it endureth. Long, long ago, before Oisìn sang, before Fionn,
before Cuchullin was a glorious great prince, and in the days when
the Tuatha-De Danànn were sole lords in all green Banba, Black
Angus made the woman Kirsteen McVurich leave the place of prayer