Myths & Legends of the Celtic Race Part 22

The implacable Finn then comes up, and stands over Dermot in his agony.

It likes me well to see thee in that plight, O Dermot, he says, and I would that all the women in Ireland saw thee now; for thy excellent beauty is turned to ugliness and thy choice form to deformity. Dermot reminds Finn of how he once rescued him from deadly peril when attacked during a feast at the house of Derc, and begs him to heal him with a draught of water from his hands, for Finn had the magic gift of restoring any wounded man to health with a draught of well-water drawn in his two hands. Here is no well, says Finn. That is not true, says Dermot, for nine paces from you is the best well of pure water in the world. Finn, at last, on the entreaty of Oscar and the Fianna, and after the recital of many deeds done for his sake by Dermot in old days, goes to the well, but ere he brings the water to Dermots side he lets it fall through his fingers. A second time he goes, and a second time he lets the water fall, having thought upon Grania, and Dermot gave a sigh of anguish on seeing it.

Oscar then declares that if Finn does not bring the water promptly either he or Finn shall never leave the hill alive, and Finn goes once more to the well, but it is now too late; Dermot is dead before the healing draught can reach his lips. Then Finn takes the hound of Dermot, the chiefs of the Fianna lay their cloaks over the dead man, and they return to Rath Grania. Grania, seeing the hound led by Finn, conjectures what has happened, and swoons upon the rampart of the Rath. Oisin, when she has revived, gives her the hound, against Finns will, and the Fianna troop away, leaving her to her sorrow. When the people of Granias household go out to fetch in the body of Dermot they find there Angus Og and his company of the People of Dana, who, after raising three bitter and terrible cries, bear away the body on a gilded bier, and Angus declares that though he cannot restore the dead to life, I will send a soul into him so that he may talk with me each day.

*The End of Grania*

To a tale like this modern taste demands a romantic and sentimental ending; and such has actually been given to it in the retelling by Dr. P.

W. Joyce in his Old Celtic Romances, as it has to the tale of Deirdre by almost every modern writer who has handled it.(190) But the Celtic story-teller felt differently. The tale of the end of Deirdre is horribly cruel, that of Grania cynical and mocking; neither is in the least sentimental. Grania is at first enraged with Finn, and sends her sons abroad to learn feats of arms, so that they may take vengeance upon him when the time is ripe. But Finn, wily and far-seeing as he is portrayed in this tale, knows how to forestall this danger. When the tragedy on Ben Bulben has begun to grow a little faint in the shallow soul of Grania, he betakes himself to her, and though met at first with scorn and indignation he woos her so sweetly and with such tenderness that at last he brings her to his will, and he bears her back as a bride to the Hill of Allen. When the Fianna see the pair coming towards them in this loving guise they burst into a shout of laughter and derision, so that Grania bowed her head in shame. We trow, O Finn, cries Oisin, that thou wilt keep Grania well from henceforth. So Grania made peace between Finn and her sons, and dwelt with Finn as his wife until he died.

*Two Streams of Fian Legends*

It will be noticed that in this legend Finn does not appear as a sympathetic character. Our interest is all on the side of Dermot. In this aspect of it the tale is typical of a certain cla.s.s of Fian stories. Just as there were two rival clans within the Fian organisationthe Clan Bascna and the Clan Mornawho sometimes came to blows for the supremacy, so there are two streams of legends seeming to flow respectively from one or other of these sources, in one of which Finn is glorified, while in the other he is belittled in favour of Goll mac Morna or any other hero with whom he comes into conflict.

*End of the Fianna*

The story of the end of the Fianna is told in a number of pieces, some prose, some poetry, all of them, however, agreeing in presenting this event as a piece of sober history, without any of the supernatural and mystical atmosphere in which nearly all the Fian legends are steeped.

After the death of Cormac mac Art his son Cairbry came to the High-Kings.h.i.+p of Ireland. He had a fair daughter named _Sgeimh Solais_ (Light of Beauty), who was asked in marriage by a son of the King of the Decies. The marriage was arranged, and the Fianna claimed a ransom or tribute of twenty ingots of gold, which, it is said, was customarily paid to them on these occasions. It would seem that the Fianna had now grown to be a distinct power within the State, and an oppressive one, exacting heavy tributes and burdensome privileges from kings and sub-kings all over Ireland. Cairbry resolved to break them; and he thought he had now a good opportunity to do so. He therefore refused payment of the ransom, and summoned all the provincial kings to help him against the Fianna, the main body of whom immediately went into rebellion for what they deemed their rights. The old feud between Clan Bascna and Clan Morna now broke out afresh, the latter standing by the High King, while Clan Bascna, aided by the King of Munster and his forces, who alone took their side, marched against Cairbry.

*The Battle of Gowra*

All this sounds very matter-of-fact and probable, but how much real history there may be in it it is very hard to say. The decisive battle of the war which ensued took place at Gowra (Gabhra), the name of which survives in Garristown, Co. Dublin. The rival forces, when drawn up in battle array, knelt and kissed the sacred soil of Erin before they charged. The story of the battle in the poetical versions, one of which is published in the Ossianic Societys Transactions, and another and finer one in Campbells The Fians,(191) is supposed to be related by Oisin to St. Patrick. He lays great stress on the feats of his son Oscar:

My son urged his course Through the battalions of Tara Like a hawk through a flock of birds, Or a rock descending a mountain-side.

*The Death of Oscar*

The fight was _ outrance_, and the slaughter on both sides tremendous.

None but old men and boys, it is said, were left in Erin after that fight.

The Fianna were in the end almost entirely exterminated, and Oscar slain.

He and the King of Ireland, Cairbry, met in single combat, and each of them slew the other. While Oscar was still breathing, though there was not a palms breadth on his body without a wound, his father found him:

I found my own son lying down On his left elbow, his s.h.i.+eld by his side; His right hand clutched the sword, The blood poured through his mail

Oscar gazed up at me Woe to me was that sight!

He stretched out his two arms to me, Endeavouring to rise to meet me.

I grasped the hand of my son And sat down by his left side; And since I sat by him there, I have recked nought of the world.

When Finn (in the Scottish version) comes to bewail his grandson, he cries:

Woe, that it was not I who fell In the fight of bare sunny Gavra, And you were east and west Marching before the Fians, Oscar.

But Oscar replies:

Were it you that fell In the fight of bare sunny Gavra, One sigh, east or west, Would not be heard for you from Oscar.

No man ever knew A heart of flesh was in my breast, But a heart of the twisted horn And a sheath of steel over it.

But the howling of dogs beside me, And the wail of the old heroes, And the weeping of the women by turns, Tis that vexes my heart.

Oscar dies, after thanking the G.o.ds for his fathers safety, and Oisin and Keelta raise him on a bier of spears and carry him off under his banner, The Terrible Sheaf, for burial on the field where he died, and where a great green burial mound is still a.s.sociated with his name. Finn takes no part in the battle. He is said to have come in a s.h.i.+p to view the field afterwards, and he wept over Oscar, a thing he had never done save once before, for his hound, Bran, whom he himself killed by accident. Possibly the reference to the s.h.i.+p is an indication that he had by this time pa.s.sed away, and came to revisit the earth from the oversea kingdom of Death.

There is in this tale of the Battle of Gowra a melancholy grandeur which gives it a place apart in the Ossianic literature. It is a fitting dirge for a great legendary epoch. Campbell tells us that the Scottish crofters and shepherds were wont to put off their bonnets when they recited it. He adds a strange and thrilling piece of modern folk-lore bearing on it. Two men, it is said, were out at night, probably sheep-stealing or on some other predatory occupation, and telling Fian tales as they went, when they observed two giant and shadowy figures talking to each other across the glen. One of the apparitions said to the other: Do you see that man down below? I was the second door-post of battle on the day of Gowra, and that man there knows all about it better than myself.

*The End of Finn*

As to Finn himself, it is strange that in all the extant ma.s.s of the Ossianic literature there should be no complete narrative of his death.

There are references to it in the poetic legends, and annalists even date it, but the references conflict with each other, and so do the dates.

There is no clear light to be obtained on the subject from either annalists or poets. Finn seems to have melted into the magic mist which enwraps so many of his deeds in life. Yet a popular tradition says that he and his great companions, Oscar and Keelta and Oisin and the rest, never died, but lie, like Kaiser Barbarossa, spell-bound in an enchanted cave where they await the appointed time to reappear in glory and redeem their land from tyranny and wrong.

CHAPTER VII: THE VOYAGE OF MAELDUN

Besides the legends which cl.u.s.ter round great heroic names, and have, or at least pretend to have, the character of history, there are many others, great and small, which tell of adventures lying purely in regions of romance, and out of earthly s.p.a.ce and time. As a specimen of these I give here a summary of the Voyage of Maeldun, a most curious and brilliant piece of invention, which is found in the ma.n.u.script ent.i.tled the Book of the Dun Cow (about 1100) and other early sources, and edited, with a translation (to which I owe the following extracts), by Dr. Whitley Stokes in the Revue Celtique for 1888 and 1889. It is only one of a number of such wonder-voyages found in ancient Irish literature, but it is believed to have been the earliest of them all and model for the rest, and it has had the distinction, in the abridged and modified form given by Joyce in his Old Celtic Romances, of having furnished the theme for the Voyage of Maeldune to Tennyson, who made it into a wonderful creation of rhythm and colour, embodying a kind of allegory of Irish history. It will be noticed at the end that we are in the unusual position of knowing the name of the author of this piece of primitive literature, though he does not claim to have composed, but only to have put in order, the incidents of the Voyage. Unfortunately we cannot tell when he lived, but the tale as we have it probably dates from the ninth century. Its atmosphere is entirely Christian, and it has no mythological significance except in so far as it teaches the lesson that the oracular injunctions of wizards should be obeyed. No adventure, or even detail, of importance is omitted in the following summary of the story, which is given thus fully because the reader may take it as representing a large and important section of Irish legendary romance. Apart from the source to which I am indebted, the Revue Celtique, I know no other faithful reproduction in English of this wonderful tale.

The Voyage of Maeldun begins, as Irish tales often do, by telling us of the conception of its hero.

There was a famous man of the sept of the Owens of Aran, named Ailill Edge-of-Battle, who went with his king on a foray into another territory.

They encamped one night near a church and convent of nuns. At midnight Ailill, who was near the church, saw a certain nun come out to strike the bell for nocturns, and caught her by the hand. In ancient Ireland religious persons were not much respected in time of war, and Ailill did not respect her. When they parted, she said to him: Whence is thy race, and what is thy name? Said the hero: Ailill of the Edge-of-Battle is my name, and I am of the Owenacht of Aran, in Th.o.m.ond.

Not long afterwards Ailill was slain by reavers from Leix, who burned the church of Doocloone over his head.

In due time a son was born to the woman and she called his name Maeldun.

He was taken secretly to her friend, the queen of the territory, and by her Maeldun was reared. Beautiful indeed was his form, and it is doubtful if there hath been in flesh any one so beautiful as he. So he grew up till he was a young warrior and fit to use weapons. Great, then, was his brightness and his gaiety and his playfulness. In his play he outwent all his comrades in throwing b.a.l.l.s, and in running and leaping and putting stones and racing horses.

One day a proud young warrior who had been defeated by him taunted him with his lack of knowledge of his kindred and descent. Maeldun went to his foster-mother, the queen, and said: I will not eat nor drink till thou tell me who are my mother and my father. I am thy mother, said the queen, for none ever loved her son more than I love thee. But Maeldun insisted on knowing all, and the queen at last took him to his own mother, the nun, who told him: Thy father was Ailill of the Owens of Aran. Then Maeldun went to his own kindred, and was well received by them; and with him he took as guests his three beloved foster-brothers, sons of the king and queen who had brought him up.

After a time Maeldun happened to be among a company of young warriors who were contending at putting the stone in the graveyard of the ruined church of Doocloone. Maelduns foot was planted, as he heaved the stone, on a scorched and blackened flagstone; and one who was by, a monk named Briccne,(192) said to him: It were better for thee to avenge the man who was burnt there than to cast stones over his burnt bones.

Who was that? asked Maeldun.

Ailill, thy father, they told him.

Who slew him? said he.

Reavers from Leix, they said, and they destroyed him on this spot.

Then Maeldun threw down the stone he was about to cast, and put his mantle round him and went home; and he asked the way to Leix. They told him he could only go there by sea.(193)

At the advice of a Druid he then built him a boat, or coracle, of skins lapped threefold one over the other; and the wizard also told him that seventeen men only must accompany him, and on what day he must begin the boat and on what day he must put out to sea.

So when his company was ready he put out and hoisted the sail, but had gone only a little way when his three foster-brothers came down to the beach and entreated him to take them. Get you home, said Maeldun, for none but the number I have may go with me. But the three youths would not be separated from Maeldun, and they flung themselves into the sea. He turned back, lest they should be drowned, and brought them into his boat.

All, as we shall see, were punished for this transgression, and Maeldun condemned to wandering until expiation had been made.

Irish bardic tales excel in their openings. In this case, as usual, the _mise-en-scne_ is admirably contrived. The narrative which follows tells how, after seeing his fathers slayer on an island, but being unable to land there, Maeldun and his party are blown out to sea, where they visit a great number of islands and have many strange adventures on them. The tale becomes, in fact, a _cento_ of stories and incidents, some not very interesting, while in others, as in the adventure of the Island of the Silver Pillar, or the Island of the Flaming Rampart, or that where the episode of the eagle takes place, the Celtic sense of beauty, romance, and mystery find an expression unsurpa.s.sed, perhaps, in literature.