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diff --git a/old/53793-0.txt b/old/53793-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 7e2c055..0000000 --- a/old/53793-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,25346 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Literary History of Ireland, by Douglas Hyde - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: A Literary History of Ireland - From Earliest Times to the Present Day - -Author: Douglas Hyde - -Release Date: December 23, 2016 [EBook #53793] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LITERARY HISTORY OF IRELAND *** - - - - -Produced by Clare Graham, Madeleine Fournier and Marc -D'Hooghe at Free Literature (back online soon in an extended -version, also linking to free sources for education -worldwide ... MOOC's, educational materials,...) Images -generously made available by the Internet Archive. - - - - - - -A Literary History of Ireland - -_From Earliest Times to the Present Day_ - - -_By_ - -Douglas Hyde, LL.D., M.R.I.A. - -[An Craoibhín Aoibhinn] - - -[1899] - - -[Frontispiece: CASE OF MOLAISE'S GOSPELS] - - - - - DEDICATION. - - TO THE MEMBERS OF THE GAELIC LEAGUE, THE ONLY BODY IN IRELAND WHICH -APPEARS TO REALISE THE FACT THAT IRELAND HAS A PAST, HAS A HISTORY, HAS - A LITERATURE, AND THE ONLY BODY IN IRELAND WHICH SEEKS TO RENDER THE - PRESENT A RATIONAL CONTINUATION OF THE PAST, - - I DEDICATE - - THIS ATTEMPT AT A REVIEW OF THAT LITERATURE WHICH DESPITE ITS PRESENT - NEGLECTED POSITION THEY FEEL AND KNOW TO BE A TRUE POSSESSION OF - NATIONAL IMPORTANCE. - - - - - _DO CHONNRADH NA GAELDHEILGE._ - - _A Chonnradh chaoin, a Chonnradh chóir_, - _Rinn obair mhór gan ór gan cabhair_, - _Glacaidh an cíos a dlighim daoibh_, - _Guidhim, glacaidh go caoimh mo leabhar._ - - _A cháirde cléibh is iomdha lá_ - _D'oibrigheamar go breágh le chéile_, - _Gan clampar, agus fós gan éad_, - _'S dá mhéad ár dteas', gan puinn di-chéille._ - - _Chuireabhar súil 'san bhfear bhi dall_, - _Thugabhar cluas don fhear bhi bodhar_, - _Glacaidh an cíos do bheirim daoibh_, - _----Guidhim, glacaidh go caoimh mo leabhar._ - - - - -PREFACE - - -The present volume has been styled--in order to make it a companion -book to other of Mr. Unwin's publications--a "Literary History of -Ireland," but a "Literary History of Irish Ireland" would be a more -correct title, for I have abstained altogether from any analysis or -even mention of the works of Anglicised Irishmen of the last two -centuries. Their books, as those of Farquhar, of Swift, of Goldsmith, -of Burke, find, and have always found, their true and natural place in -every history of _English_ literature that has been written, whether by -Englishmen themselves or by foreigners. - -My object in this volume has been to give a general view of the -literature produced by the Irish-speaking Irish, and to reproduce -by copious examples some of its more salient, or at least more -characteristic features. - -In studying the literature itself, both that of the past and that -of the present, one of the things which has most forcibly struck me -is the marked absence of the purely personal note, the absence of -great predominating names, or of great predominating works; while -just as striking is the almost universal diffusion of a traditional -literary taste and a love of literature in the abstract amongst all -classes of the native Irish. The whole history of Irish literature -shows how warmly the efforts of all who assisted in its production -were appreciated. The greatest English bard of the Elizabethan age -was allowed by his countrymen to perish of poverty in the streets -of London, while the pettiest chief of the meanest clan would have -been proud to lay his hearth and home and a share of his wealth -at the disposal of any Irish "ollamh." The love for literature of -a traditional type, in song, in poem, in saga, was, I think, more -nearly universal in Ireland than in any country of western Europe, -and hence that which appears to me to be of most value in ancient -Irish literature is not that whose authorship is known, but rather -the mass of traditional matter which seems to have grown up almost -spontaneously, and slowly shaped itself into the literary possession of -an entire nation. An almost universal acquaintance with a traditional -literature was a leading trait amongst the Irish down to the last -century, when every barony and almost every townland still possessed -its poet and reciter, and song, recitation, music, and oratory were -the recognised amusements of nearly the whole population. That -population in consequence, so far as wit and readiness of language and -power of expression went, had almost all attained a remarkably high -level, without however producing any one of a commanding eminence. In -collecting the floating literature of the present day also, the unknown -traditional poems and the Ossianic ballads and the stories of unknown -authorship are of greater value than the pieces of bards who are known -and named. In both cases, that of the ancient and that of the modern -Irish, all that is of most value as literature, was the property and -in some sense the product of the people at large, and it exercised -upon them a most striking and potent influence. And this influence may -be traced amongst the Irish-speaking population even at the present -day, who have, I may almost say, one and all, a remarkable command of -language and a large store of traditional literature learned by heart, -which strongly differentiates them from the Anglicised products of the -"National Schools" to the bulk of whom poetry is an unknown term, and -amongst whom there exists little or no trace of traditional Irish -feelings, or indeed seldom of any feelings save those prompted by (when -they read it) a weekly newspaper. - -The exact extent of the Irish literature still remaining in manuscript -has never been adequately determined. M. d'Arbois de Jubainville has -noted 133 still existing manuscripts, all copied before the year 1600, -and the whole number which he has found existing chiefly in public -libraries on the Continent and in the British Isles amounts to 1,009. -But many others have since been discovered, and great numbers must be -scattered throughout the country in private libraries, and numbers more -are perishing or have recently perished of neglect since the "National -Schools" were established. Jubainville quotes a German as estimating -that the literature produced by the Irish before the seventeenth -century, and still existing, would fill a thousand octavo volumes. It -is hard to say, however, how much of this could be called literature -in a true sense of the word, since law, medicine, and science were -probably included in the calculation. O'Curry, O'Longan, and O'Beirne -Crowe catalogued something more than half the manuscripts in the Royal -Irish Academy, and the catalogue of contents filled thirteen volumes -containing 3,448 pages. To these an alphabetic index of the pieces -contained was made in three volumes, and an index of the principal -names, etc., in thirteen volumes more. From a rough calculation, based -on an examination of these, I should place the number of different -pieces catalogued by them at about ten thousand, ranging from single -quatrains or even single sentences to long poems and epic sagas. But -in the Academy alone, there are nearly as many more manuscripts which -still remain uncatalogued. - -It is probably owing to the extreme difficulty of arriving at any -certain conclusions as to the real extent of Irish literature that no -attempt at a consecutive history of it has ever previously been made. -Despite this difficulty, there is no doubt that such a work would long -ago have been attempted had it not been for the complete breakdown and -destruction of Irish Ireland which followed the Great Famine, and the -unexpected turn given to Anglo-Irish literature by the efforts of the -Young Ireland School to compete with the English in their own style, -their own language, and their own models. - - * * * * * - -For the many sins of omission and commission in this volume I must -claim the reader's kind indulgence; nobody can be better aware of -its shortcomings than I myself, and the only excuse that I can plead -is that over so much of the ground I have had to be my own pioneer. -I confidently hope, however, that in the renewed interest now being -taken in our native civilisation and native literature some scholar far -more fully equipped for his task than I, may soon render this volume -superfluous by an ampler, juster, and more artistic treatment of what -is really a subject of great national importance. - -National or important, however, it does not appear to be considered in -these islands, where outside of the University of Oxford--which has -given noble assistance to the cause of Celtic studies--sympathisers -are both few and far between. Indeed, I fancy that anybody who has -applied himself to the subject of Celtic literature would have a good -deal to tell about the condescending contempt with which his studies -have been regarded by his fellows. "I shall not easily forget," said -Dr. Petrie, addressing a meeting of the Royal Irish Academy upon that -celebrated example of early Celtic workmanship the Tara Brooch, "that -when in reference to the existence of a similar remain of ancient Irish -art, I had first the honour to address myself to a meeting of this -high institution, I had to encounter the incredulous astonishment of -the illustrious Dr. Brinkley" [of Trinity College, President of the -Academy] "which was implied in the following remark, 'Surely, sir, you -do not mean to tell us that there exists the slightest evidence to -prove that the Irish had any acquaintance with the arts of civilised -life anterior to the arrival in Ireland of the English?' nor shall I -forget that in the scepticism which this remark implied nearly all -the members present very obviously participated." Exactly the same -feeling which Dr. Petrie encountered was prevalent in my own _alma -mater_ in the eighties, where one of our most justly popular lecturers -said--in gross ignorance but perfect good faith--that the sooner the -Irish recognised that before the arrival of Cromwell they were utter -savages, the better it would be for everybody concerned! Indeed, it was -only the other day that one of our ablest and best known professors -protested publicly in the _Contemporary Review_ against the enormity -of an Irish bishop signing so moderate, and I am sure so reasonable -a document, as a petition asking to have Irish children who knew no -English, taught through the medium of the language which they spoke. -Last year, too, another most learned professor of Dublin University -went out of his way to declare that "the mass of material preserved -[in the Irish manuscripts] is out of all proportion to its value as -'literature,'" and to insist that "in the enormous mass of Irish MSS. -preserved, there is absolutely nothing that in the faintest degree -rivals the splendours of the vernacular literatures of the Middle -Ages," that "their value as literature is but small," and that "for -educational purposes save in this limited sense [of linguistic study] -they are wholly unsuited," winding up with the extraordinary assertion -that "there is no solid ground for supposing that the tales current at -the time of our earliest MSS. were much more numerous than the tales of -which fragments have come down to us." As to the civilisation of the -early Irish upon which Petrie insisted, there is no longer room for the -very shadow of a doubt; but whether the literature which they produced -is so utterly valueless as this, and so utterly devoid of all interest -as "literature," the reader of this volume must judge for himself. -I should be glad also if he were to institute a comparison between -"the splendours of the vernacular literatures" of Germany, England, -Spain, and even Italy and France, prior to the year 1000, and that of -the Irish, for I am very much mistaken if in their early development -of rhyme, alone, in their masterly treatment of sound, and in their -absolutely unique and marvellous system of verse-forms, the Irish will -not be found to have created for themselves a place alone and apart in -the history of European literatures. - -I hardly know a sharper contrast in the history of human thought than -the true traditional literary instinct which four years ago prompted -fifty thousand poor hard-working Irishmen in the United States to -contribute each a dollar towards the foundation of a Celtic chair in -the Catholic University of Washington in the land of their adoption, -choosing out a fit man and sending him to study under the great -Celticists of Germany, in the hope that his scholarship might one day -reflect credit upon the far-off country of their birth; while in that -very country, by far the richest college in the British Isles, one of -the wealthiest universities in the world, allows its so-called "Irish -professorship" to be an adjunct of its Divinity School, founded _and -paid_ by a society for--the conversion of Irish Roman Catholics through -the medium of their own language! - -This is the more to be regretted because had the unique manuscript -treasures now shut up in cases in the underground room of Trinity -College Library, been deposited in any other seat of learning in -Europe, in Paris, Rome, Vienna, or Berlin, there would long ago -have been trained up scholars to read them, a catalogue of them -would have been published, and funds would have been found to edit -them. At present the Celticists of Europe are placed under the great -disadvantage of having to come over to Dublin University to do the work -that it is not doing for itself. - -It is fortunate however that the spread of education within the last -few years (due perhaps partly to the establishment of the Royal -University, partly to the effects of Intermediate Education, and partly -to the numerous literary societies which working upon more or less -national lines have spontaneously sprung up amongst the Irish people -themselves) has, by taking the prestige of literary monopoly out of -the hands of Dublin University, to a great extent undone the damage -which had so long been caused to native scholarship by its attitude. -It was the more necessary to do this, because the very fact that it -had never taken the trouble to publish even a printed catalogue of its -Irish manuscripts--as the British Museum authorities have done--was by -many people interpreted, I believe, as a sort of declaration of their -worthlessness. - - * * * * * - -In dealing with Irish proper names I have experienced the same -difficulty as every one else who undertakes to treat of Irish history. -Some native names, especially those with "mortified" or aspirated -letters, look so unpronounceable as to prove highly disconcerting to -an English reader. The system I have followed is to leave the Irish -orthography untouched, but in cases where the true pronunciation -differed appreciably from the sound which an English reader would -give the letters, I have added a phonetic rendering of the Irish form -in brackets, as "Muighmheadhon [Mwee-va-on], Lughaidh [Lewy]." There -are a few names such as Ossian, Mève, Donough, Murrough and others, -which have been almost adopted into English, and these forms I have -generally retained--perhaps wrongly--but my desire has been to throw -no unnecessary impediments in the way of an English reader; I have -always given the true Irish form at least once. Where the word "mac" -is not part of a proper name, but really means "son of" as in Finn -mac Cúmhail, I have printed it with a small "m"; and in such names as -"Cormac mac Art" I have usually not inflected the last word, but have -written "Art" not "Airt," so as to avoid as far as possible confusing -the English reader. - -I very much regret that I have found it impossible, owing to the brief -space of time between printing and publication, to submit the following -chapters to any of my friends for their advice and criticism. I beg, -however, to here express my best thanks to my friend Father Edmund -Hogan, S.J., for the numerous memoranda which he was kind enough to -give me towards the last chapter of this book, that on the history of -Irish as a spoken language, and also to express my regret that the -valuable critical edition of the Book of Hymns by Dr. Atkinson and Dr. -Bernard, M. Bertrand's "Religion Gauloise," and Miss Hull's interesting -volume on "Cuchullin Saga," which should be read in connection with my -chapters on the Red Branch cycle, appeared too late for me to make use -of. - - - RÁTH-TREAGH, OIDHCHE SAMHNA - - MDCCCXCIX. - - - - -CONTENTS - - I. WHO WERE THE CELTS? - II. EARLIEST ALLUSIONS TO IRELAND FROM FOREIGN SOURCES - III. EARLY HISTORY DRAWN FROM NATIVE SOURCES - IV. HOW FAR CAN NATIVE SOURCES BE RELIED ON? - V. THE PRE-MILESIAN FABLE AND EARLY PANTHEON - VI. EVIDENCE OF TOPOGRAPHY AND GENEALOGY - VII. DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE - VIII. CONFUSION BETWEEN GODS AND MEN - IX. DRUIDISM - X. THE IRISH ELYSIUM AND BELIEF IN REBIRTH - XI. EARLY USE OF LETTERS, OGAM AND ROMAN - XII. EARLY IRISH CIVILISATION - XIII. ST. PATRICK AND THE EARLY MISSIONARIES - XIV. ST. BRIGIT - XV. COLUMCILLE - XVI. THE FIRST SCHOOLS OF CHRISTIAN IRELAND - XVII. THEIR FAME AND TEACHING - XVIII. CONFLICTS WITH THE CIVIL POWER - XIX. THE BARDIC SCHOOLS - XX. THE SUGGESTIVELY PAGAN ELEMENT IN IRISH LITERATURE - XXI. THE OLDEST BOOKS AND POEMS - XXII. EARLY SAGA AND ROMANCE - XXIII. THE MYTHOLOGICAL CYCLE - XXIV. THE HEROIC OR RED BRANCH CYCLE--CUCHULAIN - XXV. DÉIRDRE - XXVI. THE TÁIN BO CHUAILGNE - XXVII. THE DEATH OF CUCHULAIN - XXVIII. OTHER SAGAS OF THE RED BRANCH - XXIX. THE FENIAN CYCLE - XXX. MISCELLANEOUS ROMANCE - XXXI. PRE-DANISH POETS - XXXII. THE DANISH PERIOD - XXXIII. FROM CLONTARF TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST - XXXIV. SUDDEN ARREST OF IRISH DEVELOPMENT - XXXV. FOUR CENTURIES OF DECAY - XXXVI. DEVELOPMENT OF IRISH POETRY - XXXVII. THE OSSIANIC POEMS -XXXVIII. THE LAST OF THE CLASSIC POETS - XXXIX. RISE OF A NEW SCHOOL - XL. PROSE WRITERS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY - XLI. THE IRISH ANNALS - XLII. THE BREHON LAWS - XLIII. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY - XLIV. THE HISTORY OF IRISH AS A SPOKEN LANGUAGE - -INDEX - - - - - -Literary History of Ireland - - -CHAPTER I - -WHO WERE THE CELTS? - - -Who were those Celts, of whose race the Irish are to-day perhaps -the most striking representatives, and upon whose past the ancient -literature of Ireland can best throw light? - -Like the Greeks, like the Romans, like the English, this great people, -which once ruled over a fourth of Europe, sprang from a small beginning -and from narrow confines. The earliest home of the race from which -they spread their conquering arms may be said, roughly speaking, to -have lain along both banks of the upper Danube, and in that portion of -Europe comprised to-day in the kingdoms of Bavaria and Würtemberg and -the Grand Duchy of Baden, with the country drained by the river Maine -to the east of the Rhine basin. In other words, the Celtic race and the -Celtic language sprang from the heart of what is to-day modern Germany, -and issuing thence established for over two centuries a vast empire -held together by the ties of political unity and a common language over -all North-west and Central Europe. - -The vast extent of the territory conquered and colonised by the Celts, -and the unity of their speech, may be conjectured from an examination -of the place-names of Celtic origin which either still exist or figure -as having existed in European history.[1] - -The Celts seem to have been first known to Greek--that is, to European -history--under the semi-mythological name of the Hyperboreans,[2] -an appellation which remained in force from the sixth to the fourth -century before Christ. The name Celt or Kelt[3] first makes its -appearance towards the year 500 B.C., in the geography of Hecatæus of -Miletum, and is thereafter used successively by Herodotus, Xenophon, -Plato, and Aristotle, and from that time forward it seems to have been -employed by the Greek scholars and historians as a generic term whereby -to designate the Celts of the Continent. - -Soon afterwards the word Galatian came also into use,[4] and was -used as a synonym for Celt. In the first century B.C., however, -the discovery was made that the Germans and the Celts, who had -been hitherto confounded in the popular estimation, were really -two different peoples, a fact which Julius Cæsar was almost the -first to point out. Diodorus Siculus, accordingly, struck by this -discovery, translates Cæsar's _Gallus_ or Gaul by the word Celt, and -his _Germanus_ or German by the word Galatian, while the other Greek -historian, Dion Cassius, does the exact opposite, calling the Celts -"Galatians," and the Germans "Celts"! The examples thus set, however, -were the result of ignorance and were never followed. Plutarch treats -the two words as identical, as do Strabo, Pausanias and all other Greek -writers. - -The word Celt itself is probably of very ancient origin, and was, -no doubt, in use 800 or 1,000 years before Christ.[5] It cannot, -however, be proved that it is a generic Celtic name for the Celtic -race, and none of the present Celtic-speaking races have preserved it -in their dialects. Jubainville derives it, very doubtfully I should -think, from a Celtic root found in the old Irish verb "ar-CHELL-aim" -("I plunder") and the old substantive to-CHELL ("victory"); while he -derives Galatian from a Celtic substantive now represented by the Irish -_gal_[6] ("bravery"). This latter word "Galatian" is one which the -German peoples never adopted, and it appears to have only come into use -subsequently to their revolt against their Celtic masters. After the -break-up of the Celtic Empire it was employed to designate the eastern -portion of the race, while the inhabitants of Gaul were called Celtæ -and those of Spain Celtici or Celtiberi, but the Greeks called all -indifferently by the common name of Galatians. - -The Romans termed the Celts Galli, or Gauls, but they used the -geographical term Gallia, or Gaul, in a restricted sense, first for -the country inhabited by the Celts in North Italy upon their own side -of the Alps, and after that for the Celtic territory conquered by Rome -upon the other side of the Alps. - -The Germans appear to have called the Celts Wolah, a name derived from -the Celtic tribe the Volcæ, who were so long their neighbours, out of -which appellation came the Anglo-Saxon Wealh and the modern English -"Welsh." - -There is one curious characteristic distinguishing, from its very -earliest appearance, the Celtic language from its Indo-European -sisters: this is the loss of the letter _p_ both at the beginning of a -word and when it is placed between two vowels.[7] This dropping of the -letter _p_ had already given to the Celtic language a special character -of its own, at the time when breaking forth from their earliest home -the Celts crossed the Rhine and proceeded, perhaps a thousand years -before Christ, to establish themselves in the British Isles. The Celts -who first colonised Ireland said, for instance, _atir_ for _pater_, -but they had not yet experienced, nor did they ever experience, that -curious linguistic change which at a later time is assumed to have come -over the Celts of the Continent and caused them to not only recover -their faculty of pronouncing _p_, but to actually _change into a p_ the -Indo-European guttural _q_. Their descendants, the modern Irish, to -this very day retain the primitive word-forms which had their origin -a thousand years before Christ. So much so is this the case that the -Welsh antiquary Lhuyd, writing in the last century, asserted, and with -truth, that there were "scarce any words in the Irish besides what are -borrowed from the Latin or some other language that begin with _p_, -insomuch that in an ancient alphabetical vocabulary I have by me, that -letter is omitted."[8] Even with the introduction of Christianity and -the knowledge of Latin the ancient Irish persisted in their repugnance -to this letter, and made of the Latin _Pasch-a_ (Easter) the word -_Cásg_, and of the Latin _purpur-a_ the Irish _curcur_. - -But meantime the Continental Celts had either--as Jubainville seems to -think--recovered their faculty for pronouncing _p_, or else--as Rhys -believes--been overrun by other semi-Celts who, owing to some strong -non-Aryan intermixture, found _q_ repugnant to them, and changed it -into _p_. This appears to have taken place prior to the year 500 B.C., -for it was at about this time that they, having established themselves -round the Seine and Loire and north of the Garonne, overran Spain, -carrying everywhere with them this comparatively newly adopted _p_, -as we can see by their tribal and place-names. They appeared in Italy -sometime about 400 B.C.,[9] founded their colony in Galatia about 279 -B.C., and afterwards sent another swarm into Great Britain, and to all -these places they bore with them this obtrusive letter in place of the -primitive _q_, the Irish alone resisting it, for the Irish represented -a first off-shoot from the cradle of the race, an off-shoot which had -left it at a time when _q_ represented _p_, and not _p q_. Hence it -is that Welsh is so full of the _p_ sound which the primitive Irish -would never adopt, as a glance at some of the commonest words in both -languages will show. - - English: Son tree head person worm feather everyone. - Welsh: Ma_p_ _p_renn _p_en ne_p_ _p_ryv _p_luv _p_au_p_. - Irish: Ma_c_ _c_rann _c_enn ne_ch_ _c_ruiv _c_luv[10] _c_á_ch_. - -So that even the Irish St. Ciaran becomes Piaran in Wales.[11] - -The Celts invaded Italy about the year 400 B.C., and stormed Rome a few -years later. They were at this time at the height of their power. From -about the year 500 to 300 B.C. they appear to have possessed a very -high degree of political unity, to have been led by a single king,[12] -and to have followed with signal success a wise and consistent external -policy. The most important events in their history during this period -were the three successful wars which they waged--first against the -Carthaginians, out of whose hands they wrested the peninsula of Spain; -secondly in Italy against the Etruscans, which ended in their making -themselves masters of the north of that country; and thirdly against -the Illyrians along the Danube. All of these wars were followed by -large accessions of territory. One of the most striking features of -their external policy during this period was their close alliance with -the Greeks, whose commercial rivalry with the Phœnicians naturally -brought them into relations with the Celtic enemies of Carthaginian -power in Spain, relations from which they reaped much advantage, since -the necessity of making head against the Celtic invaders of Spain must -have seriously crippled the Carthaginian power, at the very time when, -as ally of the Persians, she attacked the Greeks in Sicily, and lost -the battle of Himera on the same day that the Persians lost that of -Salamis. Greek writers of the fourth century speak of the Celts as -practising justice, of having nearly the same manners and customs as -the Greeks, and they notice their hospitality to Grecian strangers.[13] -Their war with the Etruscans in North Italy completed the ruin of an -hereditary enemy of the Greeks,[14] and their war with the Illyrians -no doubt largely strengthened the hands of Philip, the father of -Alexander the Great, and enabled him to throw off the tribute which the -Illyrians had imposed upon Macedonia. Nor did Alexander himself embark -upon his expedition into Asia without having first assured himself -of the friendship of the Celts. He received their ambassadors with -cordiality, called them his friends, and received from them a promise -of alliance. "If we fulfil not our engagement," said they, "may the sky -falling upon us crush us, may the earth opening swallow us up, may the -sea overflowing its borders drown us," and we may well believe that -these were the very words used by the Celtic chieftains when we find in -an Irish saga committed to writing about the seventh century[15] the -Ulster heroes swearing to their king when he wished to leave his wing -of the battle to repel the attacks of a rival, and saying, "heaven is -over us and earth is under us and sea is round about us, and unless -the firmament fall with its star-showers upon the face of the earth, -or unless the earth be destroyed by earthquake, or unless the ridgy, -blue-bordered sea come over the expanse (?) of life, we shall not give -one inch of ground." - -While the ambassadors were drinking the young king asked them what -was the thing they most feared, thinking, says the historian, that -they would say himself, but their answer was quite different. "We -fear no one," they said; "there is only one thing that we fear, which -is, that the heavens may fall upon us; but the friendship of such a -man as you we value more than everything," whereat the king, no doubt -considerably astonished, remarked in a low voice to his courtiers what -a vainglorious people these Celts were.[16] - -All through the life of Alexander the Celts and Macedonians continued -on good terms, and amongst the many envoys who came to Babylon to -salute the youthful conqueror of Persia, appeared their representatives -also. Some forty years later, however, this good understanding came to -an end, and the Celts overthrew and slew in battle the Macedonian ruler -Ptolemy Keraunos about 280 B.C. - -With the Romans, as with the Greeks, the relations of the Celts were, -during the fifth and fourth century B.C., upon the whole friendly, and -their hostility to the Etruscans must have tended naturally to render -them and the Romans mutual allies. The battle of Allia, fought on the -18th of July, 390 B.C., and the storming of Rome three days later, were -a punishment inflicted on the Romans by the Celts in their exasperation -at seeing the Roman ambassadors, contrary to the right of nations, -assisting their enemies the Etruscans under the walls of Clusium, but -these events appear to have been followed by a long peace.[17] - -It is only in the third century B.C. that the hitherto victorious -and widely-colonising Celts appear to have laid aside their internal -political unity and to have lost their hitherto victorious tactics. The -Germans, over whom they had for centuries domineered and whom they had -deprived of their independence, rise against them about 300 B.C., and -drive out their former conquerors from between the Rhine and the Black -Sea, from between the Elbe and the Maine. The Celts fall out with the -Romans and are beaten at Sentinum in 295 B.C.; they ally themselves -with their former enemies the Etruscans, and are again beaten in 283 -B.C. and lose territory. They cease their alliance with the Greeks, and -are guilty of the shameful folly of pillaging the temple of Delphi, -an act of brigandage from which no good results could come, and from -which no acquisition of territory resulted. They established a colony -in Asia Minor in 278 B.C., successfully indeed, but absolutely cut -off from the rest of the Celtic Empire, and such as in any federation -of the Celtic tribes could only be a source of weakness. Again, about -the same time, we see Celts driving out and supplanting Celts in the -districts between the Rhine, the Seine, and the Marne. In 262 B.C. we -find a body of three or four thousand Celts assisting their former foes -the Carthaginians at the siege of Agrigentum, where they perish. Many -of the Celts now took foreign service. It was at their instigation that -the war of mercenaries broke out, which at one time brought Carthage to -the very verge of destruction. - -Only two centuries and a half, as Jubainville remarks, had elapsed -since the Celts had conquered Spain from the Phœnicians, and only -a hundred and thirty years since they had taken Rome, but their -victorious political unity had already begun to break up and crumble, -and now Rome and Carthage commenced that deadly duel in which the -victor was destined to impose his sway upon the ruins of the Celtic -Empire as well as on that of Alexander--impose it, in fact, upon all -the world then known to the Greeks, except only the extreme east. - -One of the circumstances which must have helped most materially to -break up the Celtic Empire was the successful revolt of the Germans -against their former masters. The relation of the German to the Celtic -tribes is very obscure and puzzling. The ancient Greek historians of -the sixth, fifth, and fourth centuries B.C., who tell us so much about -the Celts, know absolutely nothing of the Germans. As early as the -year 500 B.C. Hecatæus of Miletum is able to name three peoples and -two cities of India. But of the Germans, who were so much nearer to -Marseilles than the nearest point of India is to the most eastern Greek -colony, he says not a word. Ephorus, in the fourth century, knows of -only one people to the extreme west, and they are the Celts, and their -immediate neighbours are the Scythians. He knows of no intermediate -state or nation. Where, then, were the Germans? - -The explanation lies, according to Jubainville, in this, that even -before this period the German had been conquered by the Celt and become -subordinated to him. The Greek historians knew of no independent state -bordering upon the Scythians except the Celtic Empire alone, because -none such existed. In the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., and perhaps -as early as the seventh and sixth, the Germans had been subdued and -had lost their independence. How and when this took place we can only -conjecture, but we have philological reasons for believing that the two -races had come into mutual contact at a very early date, probably as -early as the eleventh century B.C. The early German name for the Rhine, -for instance, _Rīno-s_, comes directly from the primitive Indo-European -form _Reino-s_ and not from the Celtic _Rēno-s_, which shows that the -Germans had reached that river at a time when the Celts who lived along -it still called it Reinos, not Rēnos. The Celts afterwards changed the -primitive _ei_ into _ē_, and from their carrying the form _réin_[18] -with them into Ireland, they had probably done this as early as the -ninth or tenth century B.C., for, as we have shown, the Celts who -inhabited Ireland have preserved the very oldest forms of the Celtic -speech. - -On the other hand the Celts always called that Germanic tribe who -accompanied the Cimbri by the name of Teutoni, thus showing that they -first came in contact with them at a date anterior to the phonetic law -which introduced the so-called explosive consonants into German, and -which caused the root Teutono (preserved intact by the Celts) to be -turned into Theudono. From this it follows that the German and Celtic -peoples were in touch with one another at a very remote period. - -The long subordination of the German to the Celt has left its marks -deeply behind it, for his "language had remained uncultivated during -ages of slavery, had been reduced to the condition of a patois, and had -forced the explosive consonants to submit to modifications of sound, -the analogues of which appear in the Latin and Celtic languages during -their decadence many centuries after those modifications of sound had -deformed the language of the Germans."[19] - - "In fine the Germanic has created for itself a place apart, amongst - the other Indo-European languages, though the excessive poverty of - its conjugation, which only knows three tenses--the present tense and - two past tenses--and which has lost in particular the imperfect or - secondary present, the future, and the sigmatic aorist, and which has - not had strength to regain those losses by the aid of new composite - tenses, with the exception of its dental preterite. The Celtic has - preserved the three tenses which the Germanic has lost."[20] - -The Celtic language is in a manner allied to that of Italy, as is -shown by its _grammar_, and out of all the circle of Indo-European -languages the Latin comes nearest to it, and it and the Latin possess -certain grammatical characteristics in common which are absent from -the others.[21] To account for these we may assume what may be called -an Italo-Celtic period, prior, probably, to the establishment of the -Italian races in Italy, perhaps some twelve hundred years before Christ. - -On the other hand such mutual influence as Celtic and German have -exercised upon each other is restricted merely to the _vocabularies_ of -the languages, for when these races came in contact with each other the -two tongues had been already completely formed, and the grammar of the -one could no longer be affected by that of the other. - -That there existed a kind of Celto-Germanic civilisation is easily -proved by the number of words common to each language which are not -found in the other Indo-European tongues, or which if they occur in -them, are found bearing a different meaning. The two peoples, the -dominant Celts and the subject Germans, obeyed the same chiefs and -fought in the same armies, and naturally a certain number of words -became common to both. It is noticeable, however, that none of the -terms relating to either gods or priests or religious ceremonies bear -in either language the slightest resemblance to one another. It was -probably this difference of religion which preserved the conquered -people from being assimilated, and which was ultimately the cause of -the successful uprising of the servile tribes. - -The words which are common to the Germanic and the Celtic languages -belong either to the art of government, political institutions, and -law, or else to the art of war. These d'Arbois de Jubainville divides -into two classes--those which can be phonetically proved to be of -Celtic origin, and those which, though almost certainly of Celtic -origin, yet cannot be proved to be so to actual demonstration. Such -important German words[22] as _Reich_ and _Amt_ are beyond all doubt -Celtic loan-words, as are probably such familiar vocables as _Bann, -frei, Eid, Geisel, leihen, Erbe, Werth,_[23] all terms relating to -law and government, imposed on or borrowed by the conquered Germans. -From the Celts come also all such words concerning war and fighting as -are common to both nations, such as _Held, Heer, Sieg, Beute_. From -the Celts too come names of domiciles, as _Burg, Dorf, Zaun,_ also -of localities as _Land, Flur, Furt,_ and the English _wood_, and of -domestic aids as _Pferd, Beil,_ and the Anglo-Saxon _Vîr_ (a torque). -They too seem to have been the first in Northern Europe to have -practised the art of medicine, for from the Celtic comes the Gothic -_lēkeis_--English _leech_.[24] Certain other domestic words, such as -_Eisen, Loth,_ and _Leder_, both races have in common. - -Despite the long subjection of the Germans they never lost their -language, nor were they assimilated by the conquering race, a fate from -which they were probably preserved, as we have said, by the complete -difference of their sacred customs. There is hardly one name in all -the Teutonic theogony which even faintly resembles a Celtic one.[25] -Their funeral rites were different, the Germans burning, but the -Celts burying their dead. Their systems of priesthood were absolutely -different, that of the Celts being always an institution distinct from -the kingship, while that of the Germans was for centuries vested in the -head of the tribe or family. The priests of the Germans, even after the -functions of priesthood had been severed from those of kingship, still -exercised criminal jurisdiction, and even in the army a soldier could -not be punished without their sanction. On the other hand the milder -druids of the Celts appear to have never taken part in the judgment of -delinquents against the State. Cæsar makes no mention of their ever -acting as judges in criminal cases. The culprit guilty or treason was -not put to death by them but by the citizens--_ab civitate_.[26] - -It was about the year 300 B.C. that the German tribes, so long -incorporated with the Celts, at last rose against their masters and -broke their yoke from off their necks. They succeeded in dislodging -the Celts from the country which lies between the Rhine and the North -Sea, between the Elbe and the basin of the Maine. It was in consequence -of this blow that the Celtic Belgæ were obliged to withdraw from the -right bank of the Rhine to the left, and to occupy the country between -it, the Seine, and the Marne, whilst other tribes settled themselves -along the Rhine, and others again marched upon Asia Minor and founded -their famous colony of Galatia in the extreme east of Europe, to whom, -over three centuries later, St. Paul addressed his epistle, and whose -descendants were found by St. Jerome in the fourth century still -speaking Celtic.[27] - -It is no longer necessary to follow the fortunes of the Continental -Celts, to trace the history of their Galatian colony, to tell how they -lost Spain, to recount the exploits of Marius and Sylla, the wars of -Cæsar, the heroic struggle of Vercingetorix, the division of Gaul by -Octavius, the oppression of the Romans, and finally the inroads of the -barbaric hordes of Visigoths, Burgundians, and Francs. It is sufficient -to say that already in the third century of our era Gaul had lost every -trace of its ancient Celtic organisation, and in its laws, habits, and -civil administration had become purely Roman. The upper classes had, -like the Irish upper classes of this and of the last century, thrown -aside every vestige of Gaulish nationality, and piqued themselves upon -the perfection with which they had Romanised themselves, as the Irish -upper classes do upon the thoroughness with which they have become -Anglicised. They threw aside their Gaulish names to adopt others more -consonant to Latin ears, as the Irish are doing at this moment. Above -all they prided themselves upon speaking only the language of their -conquerors, and like so many of the Irish of to-day they derided their -ancient language as _lingua rustica_. It, however, banished from the -mouths of the nobles and officials, lived on in the villages and rural -parts of Gaul, as it has to this day done in Ireland, until the sixth -century, when it finally gave ground and retired into the mountains and -wastes of Armorica, where it coalesced with the Welsh which the large -colony of British brought in with them when flying from the Saxon, and -where it, in the Cymraeg form of it, is still spoken by a couple of -million people.[28] - -[1] Take, for instance, the Celtic word _dúno-n_, Latinised _dunum_, -which is the Irish _dún_ "castle" or "fortress," so common in Irish -topography, as in Dunmore, Dunsink, Shandun, &c. There are over a dozen -instances of this word in France, nearly as many in Great Britain, more -than half a dozen in Spain, eight or nine in Germany, three in Austria, -a couple in the Balkan States, three more in Switzerland, one at least -(Lug-dun, now Leyden) in the Low Countries, one in Portugal, one in -Piedmont, one in South Russia. - -Celtic was once spoken from Ireland to the Black Sea, although the -population who can now speak Celtic dialects is not more than three or -four millions. As for Celtic archæological remains "on les trouve tant -dans nos musées nationaux (en particulier au Musée de Saint Germain) -que dans les collections publiques de la Hongrie, de l'Autriche, de la -Hesse, de la Bohême, du Würtemburg, du pays de Bade, de la Suisse, de -l'Italie." (Bertrand and Reinach, p. 3). - -[2] ϒπερβορείος. - -[3] Κελτός. The Greeks, the Latins, and the Celts themselves pronounced -Kelt, as do the modern Germans. It is against the genius of the French -language to pronounce the _c_ hard, but not against that of the -English, who consequently had better say Kelt. - -[4] Γαλατης. - -[5] As is proved, according to Jubainville, by its having made its way -into German before the so-called Laut-verschiebung took place, to the -laws of which it submitted, for out of Celtis, the feminine form of it, -they have made Childis, as in the Frank-Merovingian Bruni-Childis or -Brunhild, and the old Scandinavian Hildr, the war-goddess. - -[6] This was actually a living word as recently as ten years ago. I -knew an old man who often used it in the sense of "spirit," "fire," -"energy": he used to say _cuir gal ann_, meaning do it bravely, -energetically. This was in the county Roscommon. I cannot say that I -have heard the word elsewhere. - -[7] Thus the Greek ὑπέρ, Latin s-uper, German über is _ver_ in ancient -Celtic (_for_ in Old Irish, _ar_ in the modern language), platanus -becomes litano-s (Irish leathan), παρά becomes _are_, and so on. - -[8] Lhuyd's "Comparative Etymology," title i. p. 21. Out of over 700 -pages in O'Reilly's Irish dictionary only twelve are occupied with the -letter _p_. - -[9] Probably for the second time. MM. Bertrand and Reinach seem to -have proved that the Cisalpine peoples of North Italy who were under -the dominion of the Etruscans were Celtic in manners and costume, and -probably in language also. _See_ "Les Celtes dans les vallées du Pô et -du Danube." Chapter on La Gaule Cisalpine. - -[10] Rather "cruimh" and "clumh," the _mh_ being pronounced _v_. - -[11] In this matter of labialism Greek stands to some small extent with -regard to Latin, as Welsh to Irish. Nor is Latin itself exempt from it; -compare the labialised Latin _sept-em_ with the more primitive Irish -_secht_. - -[12] See Livy's account of Ambicatus, who seems to have been a kind -of Celtic Charlemagne, or more probably the equivalent of the Irish -_ard-righ_. Livy probably exaggerates his importance. - -[13] Cf. the remarkable verses quoted by d'Arbois de Jubainville of -Scymnus of Chio, following Ephorus: - - "Χρῶνται δὲ Κελτοὶ τοῖς ἔθεσιν ῾Ελληνικοῖς - ἔχοντες οἰκειότατα πρὸς τὴν ῾Ελλάδα - διὰ τὰς ὑποδοχὰς τῶν ἐπιξενουμένων." - -[14] By this war the newly-arrived bands drove out the Etruscan -aristocracy and took its place, ruling over a population of what were -really their Celtic kinsmen. - -[15] The Táin Bo Chuailgne. - -[16] [Κελτοὺς] ἀπέπεμψε, τοσοῦτον ὑπειπὠν ὅτι ἀλαζόνεσ Κελτοί (Arrian, -bk. i. chap. iv.). - -[17] _See_ Livy, book v. chap, xxxvi.: "Ibi, jam urgentibus Romanam -urbem fatis, legati contra jus gentium arma capiunt, nec id clam esse -potuit, quum ante signa Etruscorum tres nobilissimi fortissimi-que -Romanæ juventutis pugnarent. Tantum eminebat peregrina virtus. Quin -etiam Q. Fabius erectus extra aciem equo, ducem Gallorum, ferociter in -ipsa signa Etruscorum incursantem, per latus transfixum hastâ, occidit: -spolia-que ejus legentem Galli agnovere, perque totem aciem Romanum -legatum esse signum datum est. Omissâ inde in Clusinos irâ, receptui -canunt minantes Romanis." It was the refusal of the Romans to give -satisfaction for this outrage that first brought the Gauls upon them. - -Jubainville rejects as fabulous the self-contradicting accounts of Livy -about Roman wars with the Celts during the next forty years after the -storming of Rome. - -[18] _Réin_=a primitive _rēni_. It occurs in the Amra Colum-cilli, -meaning "of the sea." - -[19] D'Arbois de Jubainville's "Premiers Habitants de l'Europe," book -iii. chap. iii. §15. - -[20] D'Arbois de Jubainville, _ibid._ - -[21] "Some of the oldest and deepest morphological changes in Aryan -speech are those which affect the Celto-Italic language. Such are the -formation of a new passive, a new future, and a new perfect. Hence it -is believed that the Celto-Italic languages may have separated from the -rest while the other Aryan languages remained united." Taylor's "Origin -of the Aryans," p. 257. Mr. Taylor is here alluding to the passive in -_r_ and the future in _bo_, but my friend, M. Georges Dottin, in his -laborious and ample volume published last year, "Les désinences en R," -has shown that the _r_-passives, at least, are, in Italic and Celtic, -independent creations. - -[22] These loan-words "can hardly be later than the time of the Gaulish -Empire founded by Ambicatus in the sixth century B.C. We gather from -them that at this or some earlier period the culture and political -organisation of the Teutons was inferior to that of the Celts, and that -the Teutons must have been subjected to Celtic rule. It would seem from -the linguistic evidence that the Teutons got from their Celtic and -Lithuanian neighbours their first knowledge of agriculture and metals, -of many weapons and articles of food and clothing, as well as the most -elementary social, religious, and political conceptions, the words for -nation, people, king, and magistrate being, for instance, loan-words -from Celtic or Lithuanian."--Taylor's "Origin of the Aryans," p. 234. - -[23] Also the Gothic word _magus_ ("a slave"), old Irish _mug_, or -_mogh, liugan_ ("to swear"), Irish _luigh, dulgs_ (a debt), Irish -_dualgus_, &c. - -[24] Irish _liaig_. The Finns again borrowed this word from the -Germans. It is the root of the name Lee, in most Irish families of that -surname, indicating that their ancestors practised leech-craft. - -[25] Rhys indeed compares the great Teutonic sky-god Woden with the -Welsh Gwydion and Thor with the Celtic Taranucus or Thunder-God, and -is of opinion that a good deal of Teutonic mythology was drawn from -Celtic sources--a theory which, when we consider how much the Germans -are indebted to the Celts for their culture-terms, may well be true -with regard to _later_ mythological conceptions and mythological saga. -However, it is now generally acknowledged that while all the nations of -Aryan origin possess a common inheritance of language, any inheritance -of a common mythology, if such exist at all, must be reduced to very -small proportions. The complete difference between the names of the -Indian, Hellenic, Italic, Teutonic, and Celtic gods is very striking. - -[26] "De Bello Gallico," book vii. chap. iv. - -[27] Which he speaks of as a mark of folly, in just the same tone -as an Anglicised Hibernian does of the Irish-speaking of the native -Celts. His words are worth quoting:--"Antiquæ stultitiæ usque hodie -manent vestigia. Unum est quod inferimus, et promissum in exordio -reddimus, Galatas excepto sermone Græco quo omnis Oriens loquitur -propriam linguam eamdem pene habere quam Treviros, nec referre si -aliqua exinde corrumperint, cum et Aphri Phœnicum linguam nonnullâ ex -parte mutaverint, et ipsa Latinitas et regionibus quotidie mutetur et -tempore." His insinuation that they spoke their own language badly -is also thoroughly Anglo-Hibernian, reminding one very much of Sir -William Petty and others. _See_ Jerome's preface to his "Commentary -on the Epistle to the Galatians," book vii. p. 429. Migne's edition. -In another passage he is more complimentary, and calls them the -Conquerors of the East and West--"Gallo-græcia [_i.e._, Galatia] in qua -consederunt Orientis Occidentisque victores." _See_ his "Epistle to -Rusticus," book i. p. 935. Migne. - -[28] Although Celtic has so long disappeared out of France with the -exception of Armorica, it has left its traces deeply behind it upon the -French language. This is also true even of linguistic sounds. "Tous les -sons simples du français se retrouvent dans le breton, et tous ceux -du breton à l'exception d'un seul (le _ch_ ou le _χ_) sont aussi dans -notre langue: l'_u_ et l'_e_ très-ouvert, l'_e_ muet si rare partout -ailleurs, le _j_ pur inconnu à toute l'Europe, les deux sons mouillés -du _n_ et du _l_ (comme dans les mots bataille et dignité) sont communs -à la langue française et aux idiomes celtiques," says Demogeot. Even -in French customary law there are "distinct and numerous traces" of -old Gaulish habits and legislation, as Laferrière has pointed out in -his history of the civil law of Rome and France. Nor is this to be -in the least wondered at, when we remember that nineteen-twentieths -of the modern French blood is computed to be that of the aboriginal -races--Aquitanians, Celts, and Belgæ; whilst out of the remaining -twentieth "the descendants of the Teutonic invaders--Franks, -Burgundians, Goths, and Normans doubtless contributed a more numerous -element to the population than the Romans, who, though fewer in number -than any of the others, imposed their language on the whole country" -(_see_ Taylor's "Origin of the Aryans," p. 204). The bulk of the French -nation is probably pre-Celtic. The modern Frenchman does not at all -resemble the Gallic type as described by the Greek and Roman writers. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -EARLIEST ALLUSIONS TO IRELAND FROM FOREIGN SOURCES - - -Of all the tribes of the Celts, and indeed of all their neighbours in -the west of Europe, the children of Milesius have been at once blessed -and cursed beyond their fellows, for on the shores of their island -alone did the Roman eagle check its victorious flight, and they alone -of the nations of western Europe were neither moulded nor crushed into -his own shape by the conqueror of Gaul and Britain. - -Undisturbed by the Romans, unconquered though shattered by the -Norsemen, unsubdued though sore-stricken by the Normans, and still -struggling with the Saxons, the Irish Gael alone has preserved a record -of his own past, and preserved it in a literature of his own, for a -length of time and with a continuity which outside of Greece has no -parallel in Europe. - -His own account of himself is that his ancestors, the Milesians, or -children of Miledh,[1] came to Ireland from Spain about the year 1000 -B.C.,[2] and dispossessed the Tuatha De Danann who had come from the -north of Europe, as these had previously dispossessed their kinsmen the -Firbolg, who had arrived from Greece. - -Such a suggestion, however, despite the continuity and volume of Irish -tradition which has always supported it, appears open to more than -one rationalistic objection, the chiefest being that the voyage from -Spain to Ireland would be one of some six hundred miles, hardly to be -attempted by the early Irish barks composed of wickerwork covered with -hides, fragile crafts which could hardly hope to live through the rough -waters of the Bay of Biscay and the Atlantic on a voyage from Spain, or -through the Mediterranean and the Atlantic on a voyage from Greece. - -On the other hand, if we assume that our ancestors passed over from -Gaul into Britain and thence into Ireland, we shall find it fit in -with many other facts. To begin with, the voyage from Gaul to Britain -is one of only some two and twenty miles, and from Britain to Ireland, -at its narrowest point, is hardly twelve. The splendid physique, -too, of the Irish,[3] which is now alas! sadly degenerated through -depression, poverty, famine, and the rooting out of the best blood, -but which has struck during the course of history such numerous foreign -observers, seems certainly to connect the Irish by a family likeness -with the Gauls, as these have been described to us by the Romans, and -not with the Greeks or the swarthy, sun-burnt Iberians. Tacitus also, -writing less than a century after Christ, tells us that the Irish in -disposition, temper, and habits, differ but little from the Britons, -and we find in Britain, North Gaul, and Germany, tribes of the same -nomenclature as several of those Irish tribes whose names are recorded -by Ptolemy about the year 150.[4] - -On the one hand, then, we have the ancient universal Irish traditions, -backed up by all the authority of the bards, the annalists and the -shanachies, that the Milesians--who are the ancestors of most of the -present Irish--came to Ireland direct from Spain; and, on the other -hand, we have these rationalistic grounds for believing that Ireland -was more probably peopled from Gaul and Britain. The question cannot -here be carried further, except to remark that in an age ignorant of -geography the term Spain may have been used very loosely, and may -rather have implied some land oversea, rather than any particular -land.[5] - -If Ireland were not--thanks to her native annalists, her autochtonous -traditions and her bardic histories--to a great extent independent -of classical and foreign authors, she would have fared badly indeed, -so far as history goes, lying as she does in so remote a corner of -the world, and having been untrodden by the foot of recording Greek -or masterful Roman. There are, however, some few allusions to the -island to be found, of which, perhaps, the earliest is the quotation -in Avienus, who writing about the year 380 mentions the account of -the voyage of Himilco, a Phœnician,[6] to Ireland about the year 510 -B.C., who said in his account that Erin was called "Sacra"[7] by the -ancients, that its people navigated the vast sea in hide-covered -barks, and that its land was populous and fertile. In the Argonautics -of the pseudo-Orpheus, which may have been written about 500 B.C., -the Iernian[8]--that is apparently the Irish--Isle is mentioned. -Aristotle knew about it too. Ierne, he says, is a very large island -beyond the Celts. Strabo, writing soon after the birth of Christ, -describes its position and shape, also calling it Ierne, but according -to his account--which he acknowledges, however, that he does not make -on good authority--it is barely habitable and its people are the -most utter savages and cannibals.[9] Hibernia, says Julius Cæsar, is -esteemed half the size of Britain and is as distant from it as Gaul -is. Diodorus, some fifty years before Christ, calls it Iris, and says -it was occupied by Britons.[10] Pomponius Mela, in the first century -of our era, calls Ireland Iverna, and says that "so great was the -luxuriance of grass there as to cause the cattle to burst"! Tacitus a -little later, about the year 82, telling us how Agricola crossed the -Clyde and posted troops in that part of the country which looked toward -Ireland, says that Hibernia "in soil and climate, in the disposition, -temper, and habits of its people, differed but little from Britain, and -that its approaches and harbours were better known through traffic and -merchants."[11] - -Ptolemy, writing about the year 150, unconsciously bears out to some -extent what Tacitus had said of Ireland's harbours being better known -than those of Britain, for he has left behind him a more accurate -account of Ireland than of Britain, giving in all over fifty Irish -names, about nine of which have been identified, and mentioning the -names of two coast towns, seven inland towns, and seventeen tribes, -some of which, as we have said, nearly resemble the names of tribes in -Britain and North Gaul. Solinus, about A.D. 238, is the first to tell -us that Hibernia has no snakes--observe this curious pre-Patrician -evidence which robs our national saint of one of his laurels--saying, -like Pomponius Mela, that it has luxurious pastures, and adding the -curious intelligence that, "warlike beyond the rest of her sex, the -Hibernian mother places the first morsel of food in her child's mouth -with the point of the sword." Eumenius mentions the Hibernians about -the year 306 in his panegyric on Constantine, saying that until now -the Britons had been accustomed to fight only Pictish and Hibernian -enemies. In 378 Ammianus Marcellinus mentions the Irish under the name -of Scots, saying that the Scotti and Attacotti[12] commit dreadful -depredations in Britain, and Claudian a few years later speaks rather -hyperbolically of the Irish invasion of Britain; "the Scot (_i.e._, the -Irishman)," he says, "moved all Ierne against us, and the Ocean foamed -under his hostile oars--a Roman legion curbs the fierce Scot, through -Stilicho's care I feared not the darts of the Scots--Icy Erin wails -over the heaps of her Scots."[13] The Irish expeditions against both -Gaul and Britain became more frequent towards the end of the fourth -century, and at last the unfortunate Britons, driven to despair, and -having in vain appealed to the now disorganised Romans to aid them, -sooner than stand the fury of the Irish and Picts threw themselves into -the arms of the Saxons.[14] - -It is towards the middle or close of the fourth century that we come -into much closer historical contact with the Irish, and indeed we know -with some certainty a good deal about their internal history, manners, -laws, language, and institutions from that time to the present. Of -course if we can trust Irish sources we know a great deal about them -for even seven or eight hundred years before this. The early Irish -annalist, Tighearnach,[15] who died in 1088, and who had of course -the records of the earliest Irish writers--so far as they had escaped -extinction by the Danes--before his eyes when he wrote, and who quotes -frequently and judiciously from Josephus, St. Jerome, Bede, and other -authors, was of opinion, after weighing evidence and comparing Irish -with foreign writers, that the _monumenta Scotorum_, or records of -the Irish prior to Cimbaeth (_i.e._, about 300 B.C.) were uncertain. -This means that from that time forwards he at least considered that -the substance of Irish history as handed down to us might, to say the -least of it, be more or less relied upon. Cimbaeth was the founder of -Emania, the capital of Ulster, the home of the Red Branch knights, -which flourished for 600 years and which figures so conspicuously in -the saga-cycle of Cuchulain. - -What then--for we pass over for the present the colonies of Partholan, -the Tuatha De Danann, and the Nemedians, leaving them to be dealt with -among the myths--have our native bards and annalists to say of these -six or seven centuries? As several of the best and greatest of Irish -sagas deal with events within this period, we can--if bardic accounts, -probably first committed to writing about the sixth or seventh century -may at all be trusted--to some extent recall its leading features, or -reconstruct them. - -[1] Milesius is the ordinary Latinised form of the Irish Miledh; the -real name of Milesius was Golamh, but he was surnamed Miledh Easpáin, -or the Champion of Spain. He himself never landed in Ireland. - -[2] 1016 according to O'Flaherty, in the eighth century B.C. according -to Charles O'Conor of Belanagare, but as far back as 1700 B.C. -according to the chronology of the "Four Masters." Nennius, the Briton -who wrote in the time of Charlemagne, gives two different accounts -of the landing of the Irish, one evidently representing the British -tradition, and the other that of the Irish themselves, of which he says -_sic mihi peritissimi Scotorum nunciaverunt_. Both these accounts make -the Irish come from Spain, the first being that three sons of a certain -Miles of Spain landed in Ireland from Spain at the third attempt. -According to what the Irish told him they reached Ireland from Spain -1,002 years after flying from Egypt. - -[3] Even Giraldus Cambrensis, that most bigoted of anti-Irishmen, -could nevertheless write thus of the natives in the twelfth century. -"In Ireland man retains all his majesty. Nature alone has moulded the -Irish, and as if to show what she can do has given them countenances -of exquisite colour, and bodies of great beauty, symmetry, and -strength." This testimony agrees with what Cæsar says of the Celts of -Gaul, whose large persons he compares with the short stature of the -Romans, and admires their _mirifica corpora_. Strabo says of a Celtic -tribe, the Coritavi, "to show how tall they are, I myself saw some of -their young men at Rome, and they were taller by six inches than any -one else in the city." The Belgic Gauls are uniformly described as -tall, large-limbed, and fair, and Silius Italicus speaks of the huge -limbs and golden locks of the Boii who gave their name to Bavaria -(Boio-varia) and to Bohemia (Boio-haims). They were probably the -ruling race in Gaul, but the type is now very rarely seen there, the -aristocratic Celts having been largely wiped out by war, as in Ireland, -and having when shorn of their power become amalgamated with the -Ligurians and other pre-Celtic peoples. - -[4] As the Brigantes, Menapii, and Cauci. - -[5] Buchanan the Scotchman (1506-81), having urged some of these -objections against the Irish tradition, is thus fairly answered by -Keating, writing in Irish, about half a century after Buchanan's death: -"The first of these reasons," says Keating (to prove that the Irish -came from Gaul), "he deduces from the fact that Gaul was formerly so -populous that the part of it called Gallia Lugdunensis would of itself -furnish 300,000 fighting men, and that it was therefore likely that it -had sent forth some such hordes to occupy Ireland, as were the tribes -of the Gauls. My answer to that is that the author himself knew nothing -of the specific time at which the Sons of Miledh arrived in Ireland, -and that he was consequently perfectly ignorant as to whether France -was populous or waste at that epoch. And even though the country were -as populous as he states, when the Sons of Miledh came to Ireland, it -does not follow that we must necessarily understand that _it_ was the -country whence they emigrated; for why should it be supposed to be more -populous at that time than Spain, the country they really did come -from?" - -[6] Aristotle, too, mentions the discovery by the Phoenicians, of an -island supposed to be Ireland, rich in forest and river and fruit, -which, however, this account would make out to have been uninhabited: -ἐν τῇ θαλάσσῃ τῇ ἔξω ῾Ηρακλείων στηλῶν φάσὶν ὑπό Καρχηδονίων νῆσον -εὑρεθῆναι ἐρήμην, ἔχουσαν ὕλην τε παντοδαπῇ καὶ ποταμὸυς πλωτὸυσ, καὶ -τοῖς λοιποῖς καρποῖς θαυμαστὴν, ἀπέχουσαν δὲ πλειόνων ἡμερῶν, etc. -Ireland was splendidly wooded until after the Cromwellian wars, and -not unfrequently we meet allusions in the old literature to the first -clearances in different districts, associated with the names of those -who cleared them. - -[7] Sacra is apparently a translation of ῾Ιερα = Eiriu, old form of -Eire now called Erin, which last is really an oblique case. - -[8] νήσοισιν ᾿Ιερνἰσιν, and νήσον ᾿Ιερνἰδα. The names by which Ireland -and its inhabitants were known to the writers of antiquity are very -various, as ᾿Ιουέρνια, ᾿Ιουέρνοι, Juverna, Juberna, Iverna, Hibernia, -Hibernici, Hibernienses, Jouvernia, Οὐερνία, ᾿Ιουρνία and even Vernia -and Βερνια. St. Patrick in his confessions calls the land Hyberione -and speaks of Hibernæ Gentes and "filii Scotorum." There can be little -doubt that Aristotle's ᾿Ιέρνη, the νῆσον ᾿Ιερνίδα of the Argonautics -and Diodorus' ῎Ιρις represent the same country. Here are Keating's -remarks on it: "An t-aonmhadh hainm déag Juvernia do réir Ptolomeus, no -Juverna do réir Sholinuis, no Ierna do réir Claudianus, no Vernia do -réir Eustatius; measaim nach bhfuil do cheill san deifir atá idir na -h-ughdaraibh sin do leith an fhocail-se Hibernia, acht nár thuigeadar -créad ó ttáinig an focal féin 7 dá réir sin go ttug gach aon fo leith -amus uaidh féin air, agus is de sin tháinig an mhalairt úd ar an -bhfocal." (_See_ Haliday's "Keating," p. 119.) - -[9] ᾿Ιέρνη περὶ ἧς οὐδὲν λέγειν σαφὲς, except that the inhabitants are -ἀνθρωποφάγοι and πολυφάγοι! Τούς τε πατέρας τελευτἧσαντας κατεσθίειν ἐν -καλᾡ τιθέμενοι. He adds, however, ταῦτα δ᾿ὁύτω λέγομεν ὡς οὐκ ἔχοντες -ἀξιοπίστους μάρτυρας (Book IV., ch. v.). In another passage he shows -how utterly misinformed he must have been by saying that Ἰερνη was -ἀθλίως δέ διὰ ψύχος ὀικουμένην ὥστε τὰ ἐπέκεινα νομίζειν ἀοίκητα (II. -5). Elsewhere he calls the inhabitants ἀγριώτεροι τῶν Βρετανῶν. - -[10] τῶν Βρεττανῶν, τοὺς κατοικοῦντας την ὀνομαζομένην Ἴριν. - -[11] "Solum cœlumque et ingenia cultusque hominum haud multum a -Britannia differunt; in melius aditus portusque per commercia et -negociatores cogniti." This employment of _in_ before _melius_ is -curious, and the passage, which Diefenbach in his Celtica malignly -calls the "Lieblings-stelle der irischen Schriftsteller," is not -universally accepted as meaning that the harbours of Ireland were -better known than those of Great Britain; but when we consider the -antiquarian evidence for ancient Irish civilisation, and that in -artistic treatment, and fineness of manufacture Irish bronzes are fully -equal to those of Great Britain, and her gold objects infinitely more -numerous and every way superior, there seems no reason to doubt that -the text of Tacitus must be translated as above, and not subjected to -such forced interpretations as that the harbours and approaches of -Ireland were better known _than the land itself!_ - -[12] "Picti Saxonesque et Scotti et Attacotti Britannos aerumnis -vexavere continuis." These Attacotti appear to have been an Irish -tribe. There is a great deal of controversy as to who they were. St. -Jerome twice mentions them in connection with the Scots (_i.e._, the -Irish): _Scotorum et Atticotorum ritu_, they have their wives and -children in common, as Plato recommends in his Republic! (Migne's -edition, Book I., p. 735.) He says that he himself saw some of them -when he was young, "_Ipse adolescens in Gallia viderim Attacottos, -Scotorum_ (one would expect _Attacotorum_) _natio uxores proprias -non habet._" The name strongly resembles Cæsar's Aduatuci and -Diodorus's Ατουατικοὶ and certainly appears to be same as the Gaelic -Aitheach-Tuatha, so well known in Irish history, a name which O'Curry -translates by "rent-paying tribes," probably of non-Milesian origin. -These rose in the first century against their Milesian masters and -massacred them. If as Thierry thinks the east and centre of Gaul were -Gaelic speaking, they too may have had their Aitheach-Tuatha, which -may have been a general name for certain non-Celtic tribes reduced by -the Celts. According to the Itinerarium of Ricardus Corinensis quoted -by Diefenbach, Book III., there were Attacotti along the banks of -the Clyde: "_Clottæ ripas accolebant Attacotti, gens toti aliquando -Britanniæ formidanda._" - -[13] "Scotorum cumulos flevit glacialis Ierne" ("glacialis," of course, -only when looked at from a southern point of view. Strabo, as we have -seen, said the island was scarcely habitable from cold). - - "--Totam quum Scotus Iernen - Movit et infesto spumavit remige Tethys." - -It is probably mere hyperbole of Claudian to say that the Roman chased -the Irish out to sea, - - "--nec falso nomine Pictos - Edomuit, Scotumque vago mucrone secutus - Fregit Hyperboreas velis audacibus undas." - -[14] These appear in Britain in the middle of the fifth century, in 449 -according to the Saxon Chronicle, which is probably _substantially_ -correct. - -[15] Pronounced "Teear-nach." - - - - -CHAPTER III - -EARLY HISTORY DRAWN FROM NATIVE SOURCES - - -The allusions to Ireland and the Irish from the third century before -to the fourth century after Christ, are, as we have seen, both few -and scanty, and throw little or no light upon the internal affairs or -history of the island; for these we must go to native sources. - -At the period when Emania was founded, that is, at the period when -according to the learned native annalist Tighearnach, the records -of the early Irish cease to be "uncertain," the throne of Ireland -was occupied by a High-king called Ugony[1] the Great, and a certain -body of saga, much of which is now lost, collected itself around -his personality, and attached itself to his two sons, Cobhthach -Caol-mBreagh and Leary[2] Lorc, and around Leary Lorc's grandson, -Lowry[3] the mariner. It was this Ugony who attempted to substitute a -new territorial division of Ireland in place of the five provinces into -which it had been divided by the early Milesians. He exacted an oath by -all the elements--the usual Pagan oath--from the men of Ireland that -they would never oppose his children or his race, and then he divided -the island into twenty-five parts, giving one to each of his children. -He succeeded in this manner in destroying the ancient division of -Ireland into provinces and in perpetuating his own, for several -generations, when Eochaidh Féidhleach[4] once more reverted to the -ancient system of the five provinces--Ulster, Connacht, Leinster, and -the two Munsters. This Eochaidh Féidhleach came to the throne about 140 -years before Christ, according to the "Four Masters,"[5] and it was his -daughter who is the celebrated heroine Mève,[6] queen of Connacht, who -reigned at Rathcroghan in Connacht, and who undertook the great Táin Bo -or Cattle Raid into Ulster, that has been celebrated for nigh on 2,000 -years in poem and annal among the children of the Gael; and her name -introduces us to Conor[7] mac Nessa, king of Ulster, to the palace of -Emania, to the Red Branch knights, to the tragedy of Déirdre and all -the vivid associations of the Cuchulain cycle. - -It was thirty-three years before Christ, according to the "Four -Masters," that Conairé the Great, High-king of all Ireland, was slain, -and he is the central figure of the famous and very ancient saga of the -Bruidhean Da Derga.[8] - -And now we come to the birth of Christ, which is thus recorded by the -"Four Masters": "The first year of the age of Christ and the eighth of -the reign of Crimhthan Niadhnair."[9] Crimhthan was no doubt one of the -marauding Scots who plundered Britain, for it is recorded of him that -"it was this Crimhthan who went on the famous expedition beyond the sea -from which he brought home several extraordinary and costly treasures, -among which were a gilt chariot and a golden chess-board, inlaid -with three hundred transparent gems, a tunic of various colours and -embroidered with gold, a shield embossed with pure silver," and many -other valuables. Curiously enough O'Clery's Book of Invasions contains -a poem of seventy-two lines ascribed to this king himself, in which he -describes these articles. He was fabled to have been accompanied on -this expedition by his "bain-leannán" or fairy sweetheart, one of an -interesting race of beings of whom frequent mention is made in Irish -legend and saga. - -The next event of consequence after the birth of Christ is the -celebrated revolt led by Cairbré Cinn-cait, of the Athach-Tuatha,[10] -or unfree clans of Ireland, in other words the serfs or plebeians, -against the free clans or nobility, whom they all but exterminated, -three unborn children of noble line alone escaping.[11] - -The people of Ireland were plagued--as though by heaven--with bad -seasons and lack of fruit during the usurper Cairbré's reign. As the -"Four Masters" graphically put it, "evil was the state of Ireland -during his reign, fruitless her corn, for there used to be but one -grain on the stalk; fishless her rivers; milkless her cattle; unplenty -her fruit, for there used to be but one acorn on the oak." The belief -that bad seasons were sent as a punishment of bad rulers was a very -ancient and universal one in Ireland, and continued until very lately. -The ode which the ollav or head-bard is said to have chanted in the -ears of each newly-inaugurated prince, took care to recall it to his -mind, and may be thus translated:-- - - "Seven witnesses there be - Of the broken faith of kings. - First--to trample on the free, - Next--to sully sacred things, - Next--to strain the law divine, - (This defeat in battle brings). - Famine, slaughter, milkless kine, - And disease on flying wings. - These the seven-fold vivid lights - That light the perjury of kings!"[12] - -According to the Book of Conquests the people of Ireland, plagued by -famine and bad seasons, brought in, on the death of Cairbré, the old -reigning families again, making Fearadach king, and the "Athach-Tuatha -swore by the heaven and earth, sun, moon, and all the elements, that -they would be obedient to them and their descendants, as long as the -sea should surround Ireland." The land recovered its tranquillity with -the reign of Fearadach. "Good was Ireland during his time. The seasons -were right tranquil; the earth brought forth its fruit. Fishful its -river mouths; milkful the kine; heavy-headed the woods." - -There was a second uprising of the Athach-Tuatha later on,[13] when -they massacred their masters on Moy Bolg. The lawful heir to the -throne was yet unborn at the time of this massacre and so escaped. -This was the celebrated Tuathal [Too-a-hal, now Toole], who ultimately -succeeded to the throne and became one of the most famous of all the -pre-Patrician kings. It was he who first established or cut out the -province of Meath. The name Meath had always existed as the appellation -of a small district near which the provinces of Ulster, Connacht, -Leinster, and the two Munsters joined. Tuathal cut off from each of the -four provinces the angles adjoining it, and out of these he constituted -a new province[14] to be thenceforth the special estate, demesne, -and inheritance of the High-kings of Ireland. He built, or rebuilt, -four palaces in the four quarters of the district he had thus annexed, -all of them celebrated in after times--of which more later on. It was -he also who, under evil auspices and in an evil hour, extorted from -Leinster the first Borumha,[15] or Boru tribute,--_nomen infaustum_--a -step which contributed so powerfully to mould upon lines of division -and misery the history of our unhappy country from that day until the -present, by estranging the province of Leinster, throwing it into the -arms of foreigners, and causing it to put itself into opposition to -the rest of Ireland. This unhappy tribute, of which we shall hear more -later on, was imposed during the reigns of forty kings. - -Thirteen years after the death of Tuathal, Cáthaoir [Cauheer], -celebrated for his Will or Testament,[16] reigned; he was of pure -Leinster blood, and the men of that province have always felicitated -themselves upon having given at least this one great king to Ireland. -It is from him that the great Leinster families--the O'Tooles, -O'Byrnes, Mac Morroughs or Murphys, O'Conor Falys, O'Gormans, and -others--descend. He was slain, A.D. 123, by Conn of the Hundred -Battles.[17] - -There are few kings during the three hundred years preceding and -following the birth of Christ more famous than this Conn, and there -is a very large body of saga collected round him and his rival Eoghan -[Owen], the king of Munster who succeeded in wresting half the -sovereignty from him. As the result of their conflicts that part of -Ireland which lies north of the Escir Riada,[18] or, roughly speaking, -that lies north of a line drawn from Dublin to Galway, has from that -day to this been known as Conn's Half, and that south of the same line -as Owen's Half. Owen was at last slain by him of the hundred battles at -the fight of Moy Léana. - -Owen, as we have seen, was never King of Ireland, but he left behind -him a famous son, Oilioll[19] Olum, who was married to Sadhbh,[20] the -daughter of his rival and vanquisher, Conn of the Hundred Battles, -and it is to this stem that nearly all the ruling families of Munster -trace themselves. From his eldest son, Owen Mór, come the Mac Carthys, -O'Sullivans, O'Keefes, O'Callaghans, etc.; from his second son come -the Mac Namaras and Clancys; and from his third son, Cian,[21] come -the so-called tribes of the Cianachts, the O'Carrolls, O'Meaghers, -O'Haras, O'Garas, Caseys, the southern O'Conors, and others. There is a -considerable body of romance gathered around this Oilioll and his sons -and wife, chiefly connected with the kingship of Munster. - -Conn's son, Art the Lonely--so-called because he survived after the -slaughter of his brothers--was slain by Mac Con, Sive's son by her -first husband, and the slayer ruled in his place, being the third king -of the line of the Ithians, of whom we shall read later on, who came to -the throne. - -He, however, was himself killed at the instigation of Cormac, son of -Art, or Cormac mac Art, as he is usually designated. This Cormac is a -central figure of the large cycle of stories connected with Finn and -the Fenians. He was at last slain in the battle of Moy Mochruime. His -advice to a prince, addressed to his son Cairbré of the Liffey, will -be noticed later on, and, so far as it may be genuine, bears witness -to his reputed wisdom, "as do the many other praiseworthy institutes -named from him that are still to be found among the books of the Brehon -Laws."[22] This Cormac it was who built the first mill in Ireland, -and who made a banqueting-place of the great hall of Mi-Cuarta,[23] -at Tara, which was one hundred yards long, forty-five feet high, one -hundred feet broad, and which was entered by fourteen doors. The site -is still to be seen, but no vestige of the building, which, like all -early Irish structures, was of wood. - -Cairbré of the Liffey succeeded his father Cormac, and it was he who -fought the battle of Gabhra (Gowra) with the Fenians, in which he -himself was slain, but in which he broke, and for ever, the power of -that unruly body of warriors. - -About the year 331 the great Ulster city and palace of Emania, which -had been the home of Conor and the Red Branch knights, and the capital -of Ulster for six hundred years, was taken and burnt to the ground by -the Three Collas, who thus become the ancestors of a number of the -tribes of modern Ulster. From one of them descend the Mac Mahons, the -ruling family of Monaghan; the Maguires, barons of Fermanagh; and the -O'Hanlons, chiefs of Orior; while another was the ancestor of the -Mac Donalds of Antrim and the Isles, of the Mac Dugalds, and the Mac -Rories. The old nobility of Ulster, whose capital had been Emania, were -thrust aside into the north-east corner of Ulster, whence most of them -were expelled by the planters of James I. - -We now come to Eochaidh [Yohee] Muigh-mheadhoin [Mwee-va-on] who was -father of the celebrated Niall of the Nine Hostages. From one of -his sons, Brian, come the Ui [Ee] Briain, that is, the collection -of families composed of the seed of Brian--the O'Conors, kings of -Connacht; the Mac Dermots, princes of Moylurg, afterwards of Coolavin; -the O'Rorkes, princes of Breffny; the O'Reillys, O'Flaherties, and Mac -Donaghs. From another son of his, Fiachrach, come the Ui Fiachrach, who -were for ages the rivals of the Ui Briain in contesting the sovereignty -of Connacht--the O'Shaughnesies were one of the principal families -representing this sept.[24] - -Eochaidh Muigh-mheadhoin was succeeded in 366[25] by Crimhthan -[Crivhan], who was one of those militant Scots at whose hands the -unhappy Britons suffered so sorely. He "gained victories," say the -annals, "and extended his sway over Alba, Britain, and Gaul," which -probably means that he raided all three, and possibly made settlements -in South-west Britain. He was poisoned by his sister in the hope -that the sovereignty would fall to her favourite son Brian. In this, -however, she was disappointed, and it is a noticeable fact in Irish -history that none of the Ui Briain, or great Connacht families, ever -sat upon the throne of Ireland, with the exception of Turlough O'Conor, -third last king of Ireland, ancestor of the present O'Conor Don, and -Roderick O'Conor, the last of all the High-kings of the island. - -Brian being set aside, Niall of the Nine Hostages ascended the throne -in 379. It was he who first assisted the Dál Riada clans to gain -supremacy over the Picts of Scotland. These Dál Riada were descended -from a grandson, on the mother's side, of Conn of the Hundred Battles. -There were two septs of these Dál Riada, one settled in Ulster and the -other in Alba [Scotland]. It was from the conquests[26] achieved by the -Scots [_i.e._ Milesians] of Ireland that Alba was called Lesser Scotia. -In course of ages the inconvenient distinction of the countries into -Lesser and Greater Scotia died away, but the name Scotia, or Scotland, -without any qualifying adjective, clung to the lesser country to the -frightful confusion of historians, while the greater remained known -to foreigners as Erin, or Hibernia.[27] This Niall was surnamed "of -the Nine Hostages," from his having extorted hostages from nine minor -kings. He mercilessly plundered Britain and Gaul. The Picts and Irish -Gaels combined had at one time penetrated as far as London and Kent, -when Theodosius drove them back.[28] It was probably against Niall -that Stilicho gained those successes so magniloquently eulogised by -Claudian, "when the Scot moved all Ierne against us and the sea foamed -under his hostile oars." Niall had eight sons, from whom the famous Ui -[Ee] Neill are all descended. One branch of these, the branch descended -from his son Owen, took the name of O'Neill in the eleventh century, -not from him of the Nine Hostages, but from King Niall of the Black -Knee, a less remote ancestor, of whom more later on. This was the great -family of the Tyrone O'Neills. So solidly did the posterity of Niall -establish itself, and upon so firm a basis was his power perpetuated, -that almost all the following kings of Ireland were descended from him, -besides multitudes of illustrious families, "nearly three hundred of -his descendants, eminent for their learning and the sanctity of their -lives," says O'Flaherty, "have been enrolled in the catalogue of the -saints."[29] He it was who, while plundering in Britain or Armorica, -led back amongst other captives the youth, then sixteen years old, who -was destined, under the title of the Holy Patrick, to revolutionise -Ireland. - -St. Patrick's own "Confession" and his Epistle to Coroticus have come -down to us--the former preserved in the Book or Armagh, a manuscript -copied by a scribe named Ferdomnach in 807 (or 812 according to a -truer chronology), apparently from St. Patrick's own copy, for at -the end of the Confession the scribe adds this note: "Thus far the -volume which Patrick wrote with his own hand."[30] In this ancient -manuscript (itself only a copy of older ones so damaged as to be almost -illegible[31] to the scribe who copied them in 807, a little more than -three hundred years after St. Patrick's death), we find nearly a dozen -mentions of Niall of the Nine Hostages, of his son Laeghaire [Leary], -and several more who lived before St. Patrick's arrival, and so find -ourselves for the first time upon tolerably solid historical ground, -which from this out never deserts us. St. Columcille, the evangeliser -of the Picts and the founder of Iona, was the great-great-grandson of -this Niall, and the great-grandson of Conall Gulban, so celebrated even -to this day in Irish romance and history.[32] - -Ascertainable authenticated Irish history, then, begins with Niall -and with Patrick, but in this chapter we have gone behind it to see -what may be learned from native sources--rather traditional than -historical--of Irish life and history, from the founding of Emania -three hundred years before Christ down to the coming of St. Patrick. -But for all the things which we have recounted we have no independent -external testimony, nor have we now any manuscripts remaining of which -we could say, "We have here documentary evidence fifteen or twenty -centuries old attesting the truth of these things." No; we are entirely -dependent for all that pre-Patrician history upon native evidence -alone, and that evidence has come down to us chiefly but not entirely -in manuscripts copied in the twelfth and in later centuries. - -[1] In Irish, Iugoine. - -[2] In Irish, Laoghaire. - -[3] In Irish, Labhraidh Loingseach. - -[4] Pronounced "Yo-hy Faylach." - -[5] Less than 100 years before, according to Keating. - -[6] In Irish, _Méadhbh_, pronounced Mève or Maev. In Connacht it is -often strangely pronounced "Mow," rhyming with "cow." This name dropped -out of use about 150 years ago, being Anglicised into Maud. - -[7] In Irish, Concobar, or Conchubhair, a name of which the English -have made Conor, almost in accordance with the pronunciation. - -[8] Pronounced "Breean Da Darga," _i.e._, the Mansion Da Derga. - -[9] Pronounced "Crivhan" or "Criffan Neeanār." Keating assigns the -birth of Christ to the twelfth year of his reign. - -[10] The Athach (otherwise Aitheach) Tuatha Dr. O'Conor translates -"giant-race," but it has probably no connection with the word -_[f]athach_, "a giant." O'Curry and most authorities translate it -"plebeian," or "rent-paying," and Keating expressly equates it with -_daor-chlanna_, or "unfree clans." These were probably largely if not -entirely composed of Firbolgs and other pre-Milesians or pre-Celtic -tribes. _See_ ch. XII, note 12. - -[11] These were Fearadach, from whom sprang all the race of Conn of -the Hundred Battles, _i.e._, most of the royal houses in Ulster and -Connacht, Tibride Tireach, from whom the Dal Araide, the true Ulster -princes, Magennises, etc., spring, and Corb Olum, from whom the kings -of the Eoghanachts, that is, the royal families of Munster, come. -O'Mahony, however, points out that this massacre could not have been -anything like as universal as is here stated, for the ancestors of the -Leinster royal families, of the Dál Fiatach of Ulster, the race of -Conairé, that of the Ernaans of Munster, and several tribes throughout -Ireland of the races of the Irians, Conall Cearnach, and Feargus Mac -Róigh, were not involved in it. - -[12] "Mos erat ut omni, qui in dignitatem elevatus fuerit, -philosopho-poeta Oden caneret," etc. (_See_ p. 10 of the "Institutio -Principis" in the Transactions of the Gaelic Society, 1808, for -O'Flanagan's Latin.) He does not give the original, nor have I ever met -it. Consonant with this is a verse from Tadhg Mac Dairé's noble ode to -Donogh O'Brien-- - - "Teirce, daoirse, díth ana, - Plágha, cogtha, conghala, - Díombuaidh catha, gairbh-shíon, goid, - Tre ain-bhfír flatha fásoid." - -_I.e._, "Dearth, servitude, want of provisions, plagues, wars, -conflicts, defeat in battle, rough weather, rapine, through the falsity -of a prince they arise." I find a curious extension of this idea in -a passage in the "Annals of Loch Cé" under the year 1568, which is -recorded as "a cold stormy year of scarcity, and this is little wonder, -for it was in it Mac Diarmada (Dermot) died"! - -[13] There is a rather suspicious parallelism between these two -risings, which would make it appear as though part at least of -the story had been reduplicated. First Cairbré Cinn-Cait, and the -Athach-Tuatha, in the year 10, slay the nobles of Ireland, but -Fearadach escapes in his mother's womb. His mother was daughter of the -King of Alba. After five years of famine Cairbré dies and Fearadach -comes back and reigns. Again, in the year 56, Fiachaidh, the legitimate -king, is slain by the provincial kings at the instigation of the -Athach-Tuatha, in the slaughter of Moy Bolg. His unborn son also -escapes in the womb of his mother. This mother is also daughter of the -King of Alba. Elim the usurper reigns, but God again takes vengeance, -and during the time that Elim was in the sovereignty Ireland was -"without corn, without milk, without fruit, without fish," etc. Again, -on the death of Elim the legitimate son comes to the throne, and the -seasons right themselves. Keating's account agrees with this except -that he misplaces Cairbré's reign. There probably were two uprisings of -the servile tribes against their Celtic masters, but some of the events -connected with the one may have been reduplicated by the annalists. -O'Donovan, in his fine edition of the "Four Masters," does not notice -this parallelism. - -[14] This would appear to have left six provinces in Ireland, but the -distinction between the two Munsters became obsolete in time, though -about a century and a half later we find Cormac levying war on Munster -and demanding a double tribute from it as it was a double province! So -late as the fourteenth century O'Dugan, in his poem on the kings of the -line of Eber, refers to the _two_ provinces of Munster. - - "Dá thir is áille i n-Éírinn - Dá chúige an Chláir léibhinn, - Tír fhóid-sheang áird-mhin na ngleann - Cóigeadh í d'Áird-righ Eireann"-- - -_i.e._, the two most beauteous lands in Ireland, the two provinces -of the delightful plain, the slender-sodded, high-smooth land of the -valleys, a province is she for the High-king of Ireland. - -[15] There is a town in Clare called Bórúmha [_gen._ "Bóirbhe," -according to O'Brien] from which it is said Brian Boru derived his -name. But the usual belief is that he derived it from having imposed -the _bóroimhe_ tribute again on Leinster. Bórúmha is pronounced -Bo-roo-a, hence the popular Boru[a] Boroimhe is pronounced Bo-rŭvă. It -is also said that the town of Borumha in Clare got its name from having -the Boroimhe tribute driven into it. The spelling Boroimhe [= Borŭvă] -instead of Borumha [Boru-a] has been a great crux to English speakers, -and I noticed the following skit, in a little Trinity College paper, -the other day-- - - "Says the warrior Brian Boroimhe, - I'm blest if I know what to doimhe---- - My favourite duck - In the chimney is stuck, - And the smoke will not go up the floimhe!" - -[16] _See_ "The Book of Rights," p. 172. - -[17] It was O'Beirne Crowe, I think, who first translated this name by -"Conn the Hundred-Fighter," "égal-à-cent-guerriers," as Jubainville has -it, a translation which, since him, every one seems to have adopted. -This translation makes the Irish adjective _céadcathach_ exactly -equivalent to the Greek ἑκατοντάμαχος, but it is certainly not correct, -for Keating says distinctly that Conn was called _céadcathach_, or of -the hundred battles, "from the hundreds of battles which he fought -against the pentarchs or provincial kings of Ireland," quoting a verse -from a bard by way of illustration. - -[18] Pronounced "Eskkir Reeada." - -[19] Pronounced "Ell-yull." - -[20] Pronounced "Sive," but as _Méadhbh_ is curiously pronounced like -"Mow" in Connacht, so is _Sadhbh_ pronounced "sow," rhyming to "cow." -I heard a Galway woman in America, the mother of Miss Conway, of the -_Boston Pilot_ quote these lines, which she said she had often heard in -her youth-- - - "_Sow, Mow_ [_i.e._, Sive and Mève], Sorcha, Síghle, - Anmneacha cat agus madah na tíre." - -_I.e._, "Sive, Mève, Sorcha and Sheela are the names of all the cats -and dogs in the country," and hence by implication unsuited for human -beings. This was part of the process of Anglicisation. - -[21] Pronounced "Keean." - -[22] Keating. - -[23] _I.e._, the hall of "the circulation of mead." - -[24] Also the O'Dowdas of Mayo, the O'Heynes, O'Clearys, and Kilkellies. - -[25] In 360 according to Keating. - -[26] One branch of the Dál Riada settled in Scotland in the third -century, and their kinsfolk from Ulster kept constantly crossing -over and assisting them in their struggles with the Picts. They were -recruited also by some other minor emigrations of Irish Picts and -Milesians. Their complete supremacy over the Picts was not obtained -till the beginning of the sixth century. It was about the year 502 that -Fergus the Great, leading a fresh and powerful army of the Dál Riada -into Scotland, first assumed for himself Royal authority which his -descendants retained for 783 years, down to the reign of Malcolm IV., -slain in 1285. It was not, however, till about the year 844 that the -Picts, who were almost certainly a non-Aryan race, were finally subdued -by King Keneth Mac Alpin, who completely Gaelicised them. - -[27] The name of Scotia was used for Ireland as late as the fifteenth -century upon the Continent, in one or two instances at least, and -"kommt noch am 15 Jahrhundert in einer Unkunde des Kaisers Sigismund -vor, und der Name Schottenklöster setzt das Andenken an diese -ursprüngliche Bezeichnung Irlands noch in mehreren Städten Deutschlands -(Regensburg, Wurtzburg, Cöln, &c), Belgien, Frankreich und der Schweiz -fort" (Rodenberg's "Insel der Heiligen." Berlin, 1860, vol. i. p. 321). - -[28] Bede describes the bitter complaints of the unfortunate Britons. -"Repellunt," they said, "Barbari ad mare, repellit mare ad Barbaros. -Inter hæc duo genera funerum oriuntur, aut jugulamur aut mergimur." - -[29] The Northern and Southern Ui Neill [_i.e._, the septs descended -from Niall] are so inextricably connected with all Irish history that -it may be as well to state here that four of his sons settled in -Meath, and that their descendants are called the Southern Ui Neill. -The so-called Four Tribes of Tara--O'Hart, O'Regan, O'Kelly of Bregia, -and O'Conolly--with many more subsepts, belong to them. The other -four sons are the ancestors of the Northern Ui Neill of Ulster, the -O'Neills, O'Donnells, and their numerous co-relatives. The Ui Neill -remained to the last the ablest and most powerful clan in Ireland, -only rivalled--if rivalled at all--by the O'Briens of Thomond, and -later by the Geraldines, who were of Italian lineage according to -most authorities. "Giraldini qui amplissimos et potentissimos habeunt -ditiones in Austro et Oriente, proxime quidem ex Britanniâ huc -venerunt, origine verò sunt Itali nempè vetustissimi et nobilissimi -Florentini sive Amerini" (Peter Lombard, "De Regno Hiberniæ." Louvain, -1632, p. 4). - -[30] "Hucusque volumen quod Patricius manu conscripsit suá. Septima -decima martii die translatus est Patricius ad cœlos." - -[31] See Father Hogan's preface to his admirable edition of St. -Patrick's life from the Book of Armagh edited by him for the -Bolandists, where he says of the MS. that though beautifully coloured -it is "tamen difficilis lectu, tum quod quaedam voces aut etiam paginæ -plus minus injuria temporum deletæ sunt, tum quod ipsum exemplar unde -exscriptus est jam videtur talem injuriam passum: quod indicant rursus -notæ subinde ad marginem appositæ, præsertim vero signum _h_ (vel -_in_ i.e. _incertum?_) et _Z_ (ζήτει) quæ dubitationem circa aliquot -vocum scriptionem prodere videntur." The words _incertus liber hic_, -"the book is not clear here," occur twice, and the zeta of inquiry -eight times. _See_ Dr. Reeves' paper, "Proceedings of the Royal Irish -Academy." August, 1891. - -[32] Heaven itself was believed to have reverenced this magnificent -genealogy, for in his life, in the Book of Lecan, we read how "each man -of the bishops used to grind a quern in turn, howbeit an angel from -heaven used to grind on behalf of Columcille. This was the honour which -the Lord used to render him because of the eminent nobleness of his -race"! _See_ Stokes' "Lives of the Saints, from the Book of Lecan," p. -173. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -HOW FAR CAN NATIVE SOURCES BE RELIED ON? - - -It must next be considered what amount of reliance can be placed upon -the Irish annals and annalists, who have preserved to us our early -history. If, in those few cases where we happen to have some credible -external evidences of early events, we find our native annalists -notoriously at variance with such evidences, our faith in them must of -necessity be shaken. If, on the other hand, we find them to coincide -fairly well with these other accounts taken from foreign sources, we -shall be inclined to place all the more reliance on their accuracy when -they record events upon which no such sidelights can be thrown. - -Now, from the nature of the case, it is exceedingly difficult, -considering how isolated Ireland was while evolving her own -civilisation, and considering how little in early ages her internal -affairs clashed with those of Europe, to find any specific events of -which we have early external evidence. We can, for instance, apart -from our own annals and poems, procure no corroborative evidence of -the division of Ireland between Conn and Owen, of the destruction of -Emania by the Three Collas, or of the battle of Gabhra. But despite the -silence upon Irish affairs of ancient foreign writers, we have luckily -another class of proof of the highest possible value, brought to light -by the discoveries of modern science, and powerfully strengthening -the credibility of our annals. This is nothing less than the record -of natural phenomena. If we find, on calculating backwards, as modern -science has enabled us to do, that such events as the appearance of -comets or the occurrence of eclipses are recorded to the day and hour -by the annalists, we can know with something like certainty that these -phenomena _were recorded at the time of their appearance by writers -who observed them_, whose writings must have been actually consulted -and seen by those later annalists, whose books we now possess. Nobody -could think of saying of natural phenomena thus accurately recorded, -as they might of mere historical narratives, that they were handed -down by tradition only, and reduced to writing for the first time many -centuries later. Now it so happens that the Annals of Ulster, annals -which treat of Ireland and Irish history from about the year 444, -but of which the written copy dates only from the fifteenth century, -contain from the year 496 to 884, as many as 18 records of eclipses -and comets which agree exactly even to the day and hour with the -calculations of modern astronomers. How impossible it is to keep such -records unless written memoranda are made of them by eye-witnesses, -is shown by the fact that Bede, born himself in 675, in recording the -great solar eclipse which took place only eleven years before his own -birth is yet two days astray in his date; while, on the other hand, the -Ulster annals give not only the correct day but the correct hour--thus -showing that Cathal Maguire, their compiler, had access either to the -original or to a copy of the original account of an eye-witness.[1] - -Again, we occasionally find the early records of the two great -branches of the Celtic race, the Gaelic and the Cymric, throwing a -mutual light upon each other. There exists, for instance, an ancient -Irish saga, of which several versions have come down to us, a saga -well known in Irish literature under the title of the Expulsion of -the Dési,[2] which, according to Zimmer--than whom there can be no -better authority--was, judging from its linguistic forms, committed -to writing in the eighth century. The Dési were a tribe settled in -Bregia, in Meath, and the Annals[3] tell us that the great Cormac mac -Art defeated them in seven battles, forcing them to emigrate and seek -new homes. This composition describes their wanderings in detail. Some -of the tribe we are told migrated to Munster, whilst another portion -crossed the Irish Sea and settled down in that part of South Wales -called Dyfed, under the leadership of one Eochaidh [Yohy], thence -called "from-over-sea." There Eochaidh with his sons and grand-children -lived and died, and propagated themselves to the time of the writer, -who states that they were then--at the time he wrote--ruled over by one -Teudor mac Regin, king of Dyfed, who was then alive, and whose pedigree -is traced in fourteen generations up to the father of that Eochaidh who -had led them over in Cormac mac Art's time. Taking a generation as 33 -years, and starting with the year 270, about the time of the expulsion -of the Dési, we find that Teudor Mac Regin should have reigned about -the year 730, and the Irish saga must have been written at this time, -which agrees with Zimmer's reckoning, although his computation is based -on purely linguistic grounds. That school of interpreters who decry -all ancient Irish history as a mixture of mythology and fiction, and -who can see in Cormac mac Art only a sun-god, would probably ascribe -the expulsion of the Dési and other records of a similar nature to -the creative imagination of the later Irish, who, they hold, invented -their genealogies as they did their history. But in this case it -happens by the merest accident that we _have_ collateral evidence of -these events, for in a Welsh pedigree of Ellen, mother of Owen, son -of Howel Dda, preserved in a manuscript of the eleventh century, this -same Teudor is mentioned, and his genealogy traced back by the Welsh -scribe; the names of eleven of his ancestors, corresponding--except for -inconsiderable orthographical differences--with those preserved in the -ancient Irish text. - - "When we consider," says Dr. Kuno Meyer, "that these Welsh names - passed through the hands of who knows how many Irish scribes, one must - marvel that they have preserved their forms so well;" and he adds, "in - the light of this evidence alone, I have no hesitation in saying that - the settlement of an Irish tribe in Dyfed during the latter half of - the third century must be considered a well-authenticated fact."[4] - -Dr. Reeves cites another remarkable case of undesigned coincidence -which strongly testifies to the accuracy of the Irish annalists. In -the Antiphonary of Bangor, an ancient service book still preserved on -the Continent, we find the names of fifteen abbots of the celebrated -monastery of Bangor--at which the heresiarch Pelagius was probably -educated--and these fifteen abbots are recorded by the same names and -in the same order as in the Annals; "and this undesigned coincidence," -says Reeves, "is the more interesting because the testimonies are -perfectly independent, the one being afforded by Irish records which -never left the kingdom, and the other by a Latin composition which has -been a thousand years absent from the country where it was written." - -Another incidental proof of the accuracy of early Irish literary -records is afforded by the fact that on the few occasions where the -Saxon Bede, when making mention of some Scot, _i.e._, Irishman, gives -also the name of his father, this name coincides with that given by the -annals. - -We may, then, take it, without any credulity on our part, that Irish -history as drawn from native sources may be very well relied upon -from about the middle of the fourth century. Beyond that date, going -backwards, we have no means at our disposal for checking its accuracy -or inaccuracy, no means of determining the truth of such events as -the struggle between Conn and Owen, between the Fenian bands and the -High-king, between Ulster under Conor and Connacht under Mève, no -means of determining the actual existence of Conairé the Great, or of -Cuchulain, or of the heroes of the Red Branch, or of Finn mac Cúmhail -[Cool] and his son Ossian and his grandson Oscar. Is there any solid -ground for treating these things as objective history? - -It has been urged that it is unphilosophic of us and was unphilosophic -of the annalist Tighearnach to fix the reign of Cimbaeth[5] [Kimbæ], -who built Emania, the capital of Ulster, some three hundred years -before Christ, as a terminus from which we may begin to place some -confidence in Irish accounts, seeing that the Annals carry back the -list of Irish kings with apparently equal certainty for centuries past -him, and back even to the coming of the Milesians, which took place -at the lowest computation some six or seven hundred years before. All -that can be said in answer to this, is to point out that there must -have been hundreds of documents existing at the time when Tighearnach -wrote, "the countless hosts of the illuminated books of the men of -Erin," as his contemporary Angus called them--records of the past which -he was able to examine and consult, but which we are not. Tighearnach -was a professed annalist, "a modern but cautious chronicler,"[6] and -for his age a very well-instructed man, and it seems evident that he -would not have placed the founding of Emania as a terminus _a quo_ if -he had not inferred rightly or wrongly that native accounts could be -fairly trusted from that forward. It certainly creates some feeling -of confidence to find him pushing aside as uncertain and unproven the -arid roll of kings so confidently carried back for hundreds of years -before his starting-point. The historic sense was well developed in -Tighearnach, and he no doubt discredited these far-reaching claims -either because he could not find sufficiently early documentary -evidence to corroborate them, or more likely because such accounts as -he had access to, began to contradict one another and were unable to -stand any scrutiny from this time backwards. With him it was probably -largely a question of documents. But this brings us at once to the -question, when did the Irish learn the use of letters and begin to -write, to which we shall turn our attention in a future chapter. - -[1] Nor is this mere conjecture; it is fully borne out by the annals -themselves, which actually give us their sources of information. Thus -under the year 439, we read that "Chronicon magnum (_i.e._, The Senchas -Mór) scriptum est"; at 467 and 468, the compiler quotes "Sic in Libro -Cuanach inveni"; at 482, "Ut Cuana scripsit"; in 507, "Secundum librum -Mochod"; in 628, "Sicut in libro Dubhdaleithe narratur," &c. - -[2] "Indarba inna nDési." - -[3] _See_ "Four Masters," A.D. 265. - -[4] See Kuno Meyer's paper on the "Early Relations between the Gael and -Brython," read before the Hon. Society of Cymmrodorion, May 28, 1896. - -[5] To start with Cimbaeth as Tighearnach does "is just as uncritical -as to take the whole tale of kings from the very beginning," says Dr. -Atkinson, in his preface to the Contents of the facsimile Book of -Leinster; and he adds, "if the kings who are supposed to have lived -about fifteen centuries before Christ are mere figments, which is -tolerably certain, there is little more reason for believing in the -kings who reigned after Christ prior to the introduction of writing -with Christianity (_sic_) into the island,"--an unconvincing _sorites!_ -One hundred and thirty-six pagan and six Christian kings in all reigned -at Tara according to the fictions of the Bards. - -[6] Dr. Whitley Stokes' "Tripartite Life of St. Patrick," vol. i. -p. cxxix. "That Tighearnach had access to some library or libraries -furnished with books of every description is manifest from his numerous -references; and the correctness of his citations from foreign authors, -with whose works we are acquainted may be taken as a surety for the -genuineness of his extracts from the writings of our own native authors -now lost." For the non-Irish portions of his annals Tighearnach used, -as Stokes has shown, St. Jerome's "Interpretatio Chronicæ Eusebii -Pamphili," the seven books of the history of Paulus Orosius, "The -Chronicon, or Account of the Six Ages of the World," in Bede's Works, -"The Vulgate," "The Etymologarium," "Libri XX of Isodorus Hispalensis," -Josephus' "Antiquities of the Jews," probably in a Latin translation, -and perhaps the lost Chronicon of Julius Africanus. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -THE PRE-MILESIAN FABLE AND EARLY PANTHEON - - -In investigating the very early history of Ireland we are met with a -mass of pseudo-historic narrative and myth, woven together into an -apparently homogeneous whole, and all now posing as real history. This -is backed up, and eked out, by a most elaborate system of genealogy -closely interwoven with it, which, together with a good share of the -topographical nomenclature of the island, is there to add its entire -influence to that of historian and annalist in apparently attesting the -truth of what these latter have recorded. - -If in seeking for a path through this maze we grasp the skirt of the -genealogist and follow his steps for a clue, we shall find ourselves, -in tracing into the past the ancestry of any Milesian chief, invariably -landed at the foot of some one of four persons, three of them, Ir, -Eber, Eremon,[1] being sons of that Milesius who made the Milesian -conquest, and the fourth being Lughaidh [Lewy], son of Ith, who was a -nephew of the same. On one or other of these four does the genealogy of -every chief and prince abut, so that all end ultimately in Milesius. - -Milesius' own genealogy and the wanderings of his ancestors are -also recounted for many generations before they land in Ireland, -but during this pre-Milesian period there are no side-genealogies, -the ancestors of Milesius himself alone are given, traced through -twenty-two apparently Gaelic names and thirteen Hebrew ones, passing -through Japhet and ending in Adam. It is only with the landing of the -three sons and the nephew of Milesius that the ramifications of Irish -genealogies begin, and they are backed up by the whole weight of the -Irish topographical system which is shot through and through with -places named after personages and events of the early Milesian period, -and of the period of the Tuatha De Danann. - -It will be well to give here a brief _résumé_ of the accounts of the -Milesians' wanderings before they arrived in Ireland. Briefly then the -Gaels are traced back all the way to Fenius Farsa, a king of Scythia, -who is then easily traced up to Adam. But beginning with this Fenius -Farsa we find that he started a great school for learning languages. -His son was Niul, who also taught languages, and his son again was -Gaedhal, from whom the Gaels are so called. This Niul went into Egypt -and married Scota, daughter of Pharaoh. This is a post-Christian -invention, which is not satisfied without bringing Niul into contact -with Aaron, whom he befriended, in return for which Moses healed his -son Gaedhal from the bite of a serpent. Since then says an ancient -verse-- - - "No serpent nor vile venomed thing - Can live upon the Gaelic soil, - No bard nor stranger since has found - A cold repulse from a son of Gaedhal." - -Gaedhal's son was Esru, whose son was Sru, and when the Egyptians -oppressed them he and his people emigrated to Crete. His son was Eber -Scot, from whom some say the Gaels were called Scots, but most of the -Irish antiquarians maintain that they are called Scots because they -once came from Scythia,[2] to which cradle of the race Eber Scot led -the nation back again. Expelled from Scythia a couple of generations -later the race plant themselves in the country of Gaethluighe, where -they were ruled over by one called Eber of the White Knee. The eighth -in descent from him emigrated with four ships to Spain. His son was -Breogan, who built Brigantia. His grandson was Golamh, called Miledh -Easpáin, _i.e._, Warrior of Spain,[3] whose name has been universally, -but badly, Latinised Milesius, and it was his three sons and his nephew -who landed in Ireland and who planted there the Milesian people. -Milesius himself never put foot in Ireland, but he seems in his own -person to have epitomised the wanderings of his race, for we find him -returning to Scythia, making his way thence into Egypt, marrying Scota, -a daughter of Pharaoh, and finally returning to Spain. - -Much or all of this pre-Milesian account of the race must be -unhesitatingly set down to the influence of Christianity, and to the -invention of early Christian bards who felt a desire to trace their -kings back to Japhet.[4] The native unchristianised genealogies all -converge in the sons and nephew of Milesius. The legends of their -exploits and those of their successors are the real race-heritage of -the Gael, unmixed with the fanciful Christian allusions and Hebraic -adulterations of the pre-Milesian story, which was the last to be -invented. - -The genuine and early combination of Irish myth and history centres not -on foreign but on Irish soil, in the accounts of the Nemedians, the -Firbolg, the Tuatha De Danann, and the early Milesians, accounts which -have been handed down to us in short stories and more lengthy sagas, -as well as in the bold brief chronicles of the annalists. No doubt the -stories of the landing of his race on Irish soil, and the exploits of -his first chieftains were familiar in the early days to every Gael. -They became, as it were, part and parcel of his own life and being, and -were preserved with something approaching a religious veneration. His -belief in them entered into his whole political and social system, the -holding of his tribe-lands was bound up with it, and a highly-paid and -influential class of bardic historians was subsidised with the express -purpose of propagating these traditions and maintaining them unaltered. - -Everything around him recalled to the early Gael the traditional -history of his own past. The two hills of Slieve Luachra in Kerry he -called the paps of Dana,[5] and he knew that Dana was the mother of -the gods Brian, Iuchar, and Iucharba, the story of whose sufferings, -at the hands of Lugh the Long-handed, has in later times so often -drawn tears from its auditors. When he beheld the mighty barrows piled -upon the banks of the Boyne,[6] he knew that it was over the Dagda--an -Irish Jupiter--and over his three sons[7] that they were heaped; and -one of these, Angus of the Boyne, was, down to the present century, -reverenced as the presiding genius of the spot. The mighty monuments of -Knock Áine in Limerick, and Knock Gréine, as well as those of Knowth, -Dowth, and New Grange, were all connected with his legendary past. It -was Lugh of the Tuatha De Danann, he knew, who had first established -the great fair of Tailltin,[8] to which he and his friends went from -year to year to meet each other, and contract alliances for their grown -children. The great funeral mound, round which the games were held, was -sacred to Talti, the foster-mother of Lugh, who had there been buried, -and in whose honour the games in which he participated were held upon -the day which he called--and still calls, though he has now forgotten -why--Lughnasa or Lugh's gathering.[9] His own country he called--and -still calls--by the various names of Eire, Fódhla [Fola], and Banba, -and they, as he knew, were three queens[10] of the Tuatha De Danann. -The Gael of Connacht knew that Moycullen, near Galway, was so named -from Uillin, a grandson of the Tuatha De Danann king Nuada; and Loch -Corrib from Orbsen, the other name of the sea-god Manannán, slain -there by this Uillin, and each of the provinces was studded with such -memorials. - -The early Milesian invaders left their names just as closely imprinted -upon our topography as did their predecessors the Tuatha De Danann. -The great plain of Bregia in Meath was so called from Brega, son of -that Breogan who built Brigantia. Slieve Cualann in Wicklow--now -hideously and absurdly called the Great Sugar Loaf!--is named from -Cuala, another son of Breogan; Slieve Bladhma, or Bloom, is called from -another son of the same; and from yet another is named the Plain of -Muirthemni, where was fought the great battle in which fell Cuchulain -"fortissimus heros Scotorum." The south of Munster is called Corca -Luighe from Lughaidh, son of Ith, nephew of Milesius. The harbour of -Drogheda was called Inver Colpa, from Colpa of the sword, another son -of Milesius, who was there drowned when trying to effect a landing. -The Carlingford Mountains were called Slieve Cualgni, and a well-known -mountain in Armagh Slieve Fuad, from two more sons of Breogan of -Brigantia, slain after the second battle with the Tuatha De Danann, -while they followed up the chase. The sandhills in the west of Munster, -where Donn, the eldest son of Milesius, was shipwrecked and lost his -life--as did his whole crew consisting as is said of twenty-four -warriors, five chiefs, twelve women, four servants, eight rowers, and -fifty youths-in-training--is called Donn's House. So vivid is this -tradition even still, that we find a Munster poet as late as the last -century addressing a poem to this Donn as the tutelary divinity of the -place, and asking him to take him into his sidh [shee] or fairy mound -and become his patron. This poem is remarkable, as showing that in -popular opinion the early Milesians shared the character of sub-gods, -fairies, or beings of supernatural power, in common with the Tuatha De -Danann themselves, for the poet treats him as still living and reigning -in state, as peer of Angus of the Boyne, and cousin of Cliona, queen -of the Munster fairies.[11] Wherever he turned the Gael was thus -confronted with scenes from his own past, or with customs--like the -August games at Tailltin--deliberately established to perpetuate them. - -In process of time, partly perhaps through the rationalising influences -of a growing civilisation, but chiefly through the direct action of -Christianity, with which he came into active contact in perhaps the -fourth, or certainly in the fifth century, the remembrance of the old -Gaelic theogony, and the old Gaelic deities and his religious belief -in them became blunted, and although no small quantity of matter that -is purely pagan, and an immense amount of matter, but slightly tinged -with Christianity, has been handed down to us, yet gods, heroes, and -men have been so far brought to a common level, that it is next to -impossible at first sight to disentangle them or to say which is which. - -Very probably there was, even before the introduction of Christianity, -no sharply-defined line of demarcation drawn between gods and heroes, -that, in the words of Pindar, ἓν ἀνδρῶν ἓν θεῶν γένος, "one was the -race of gods and men," and when in after times the early mythical -history of Ireland came to be committed to parchment, its historians -saw in the Irish pantheon nothing but a collection of human beings. It -is thus, no doubt, that we find the Fomorians and the Tuatha De Danann -posing as real people, whilst in reality it is more than likely that -they figured in the scheme of Gaelic mythology as races of beneficent -gods and of evil deities, or at least as races of superhuman power. - -The early Irish writers who redacted the mythical history of the -country were no doubt imbued with the spirit of the so-called Greek -"logographers," who, when collecting the Grecian myths from the poets, -desired, while not eliminating the miraculous, yet to smooth away all -startling discrepancies and present them in a readable and, as it were, -a historical series.[12] Others no doubt wished to rationalise the -early myths so far as they conveniently could, as even Herodotus shows -an inclination to do with regard to the Greek marvels; and the later -annalists and poets of the Irish went as far as ever went Euhemerus, -reducing gods and heroes alike to the level of common men. - -We find Keating, who composed in Irish his Forus Feasa or History, in -the first half of the seventeenth century, and who only re-writes or -abbreviates what he found before him in the ancient books of the Gaels -now lost, distracted between his desire to euhemerise--in other words, -to make mere men of the gods and heroes--and his unflinching fidelity -to his ancient texts. Thus he professes to give the names of "the most -famous and _noble persons_ of the Tuatha De Danann," and amongst them -he mentions "the six sons of Delbaeth, son of Ogma, namely, Fiacadh, -Ollamh, Indaei, _Brian, Iuchar,_ and _Iucharba_,"[13] but in another -place he quotes this verse from some of his ancient sources-- - - "Brian Iucharba and the great Iuchar, - The _three gods_ of the sacred race of Dana, - Fell at Mana on the resistless sea - By the hand of Lughaidh, son of Ethlenn." - -These whom the ancient verse distinctly designates as gods, Keating -makes merely "noble persons," but at the very same time in treating of -the De Danann he interpolates amongst his list of their notable men and -women this curious sentence:[14] "The following are the names of three -of their goddesses, viz., Badhbh [Bive], Macha, and Morighan."[15] - -There are many allusions to the old Irish pantheon in Cormac's -Glossary, which is a compilation of the ninth or tenth century -explanatory of expressions which had even at that early date become -obscure or obsolete, and many of these are evidently of pagan origin. -Cormac describes Ana as _mater deorum hibernensium_, the mother of the -Irish gods, and he adds, "Well used she to nourish the gods, it is from -her name is said 'anæ,' _i.e._, abundance, and from her name is called -the two paps of Ana." Buanann, says Cormac, was the "nurse of heroes," -as "Anu was mother of the gods, so Buanann was mother of the 'Fiann.'" -Etán was nurse of the poets. Brigit, of which we have now made a kind -of national Christian name, was in pagan times a female poet, daughter -of the Dagda. Her divinity is evident from what Cormac says of her, -namely, that "she was a goddess whom poets worshipped, for very great -and very noble was her superintendence, therefore call they her goddess -of poets by this name, whose sisters were Brigit, woman of smith-work, -and Brigit, woman of healing, namely, goddesses--from whose names -Brigit[16] was with all Irishmen called a goddess," _i.e._, the terms -"Brigit" and "goddess" were synonymous (?) The name itself he derives -fancifully from the words _breo-shaighit_, "fiery arrow," as though the -inspirations of a poet pierced like fiery arrows. Diancécht Cormac -calls "the sage of the leech-craft of Ireland," but in the next line -we read that he was so called because he was "Dia na cécht," _i.e._, -Deus salutis, or god of health. Zeuss quotes an incantation to this god -from a manuscript which is, he says, at least a thousand years old. -His daughter was Etán, an artificer, one of whose sayings is quoted -by Cormac. Néith was the god of battle among the Irish pagans, Nemon -was his wife. The euhemerising tendency comes out strongly in Cormac's -account of Manannán, a kind of Irish Proteus and Neptune combined, who -according to him was "a renowned trader who dwelt in the Isle of Man, -he was the best pilot in the West of Europe; through acquaintance with -the sky he knew the quarter in which would be fair weather and foul -weather, and when each of these two seasons would change. Hence the -Scots and Britons called him a god of the sea. Thence, too, they said -he was the sea's son--Mac Lir, _i.e._, son of the sea." - -Another ancient Irish gloss[17] alludes to the mysterious Mór-rígan or -war-goddess, of whom we shall hear more later on; and to Machæ, another -war-goddess, "of whom is said Machæ's mast-feeding," meaning thereby, -"the heads of men that have been slaughtered." - -From all that we have said it clearly appears that carefully as the -Christianised Irish strove to euhemerise their pantheon, they were -unable to succeed. If, as Keating acknowledges, Brian, Iuchar, and -Iucharba were gods, then _à fortiori_ much more so must have been the -more famous Lugh, who compassed their death, and the Dagda, and Angus -Óg. Keating himself, in giving us a list of the famous Tuatha De Danann -has probably given us also the names of a large number of primitive -Celtic deities--not that these were at all confined to the De Danann -tribes. - -It is remarkable that there is no mention of temples nor of churches -dedicated to these Irish gods, nor do we find any of those inscriptions -to them which are so common in Gaul, Belgium, Switzerland, and even -Britain, but they appear from passages in Cormac's Glossary[18] to have -had altars and images dedicated to them. - -We are forced, then, to come to the conclusion that the pagan Irish -once possessed a large pantheon, probably as highly organised as -that of the Scandinavians, but owing to their earlier and completer -conversion to Christianity only traces of it now remain. - -[1] In modern times spelt Eíbhear [Ævir] and Eireamhóin [Æra-vone]. - -[2] It is just as likely that, as the only name of any people known to -the early Irish antiquaries which bore some resemblance to their own -was Scythia, they said that the Scoti came from thence. - -[3] "The race of the warrior of Spain" continued until recent times -to be a favourite bardic synonym for the Milesians. There is a noble -war ode by one of the O'Dalys which I found preserved in the so-called -"Book of the O'Byrnes," in Trinity College Library, in which he -celebrates a victory of the O'Byrnes of Wicklow over the English about -the year 1580 in these words:-- - - "_Sgeul tásgmhar do ráinig fá chrióchaibh Fáil_ - _Dá táinig lán-tuile i nGaoidhiltigh (?) Chláir._ - _Do chloinn áird áithiosaigh Mhile Easpáin_ - _Toisg airmioch (?), ar lár an laoi ghil bháin._" - -It is to be observed that of the four great Irish stocks the -descendants of Ith are often called the Clanna Breógain. - -[4] Nennius, in the time of Charlemagne, quotes the Annals of the -Scots, and the narrative of the _peritissimi Scotorum_ as his -authorities for deducing the Scots, _i.e._ Irish, from a family of -Scythia, who fled out of Egypt with the children of Israel, which shows -that the original narrative had assumed this Christian form in the -eighth century. In the Book of Invasions--the earliest MS. of which is -of the twelfth century--the Christian invention has made considerable -strides, and we start from Magog, Japhet, and Noah, and from the Tower -of Babel pass into Egypt. Nel or Niul is called from the Plain of -Senaar to the Court of Pharaoh, and marries his daughter Scota, and -their son is named Gaedhal. They have their own exodus, and arrive in -Scythia after many adventures; thence into Spain, where Breogan built -the tower from whose top Ireland was seen. It would seem from this that -the later writer of the Book of Invasions enhanced the simpler account -which the Irish had given Nennius three or four centuries before. -Zimmer, however, thinks that Nennius quoted from a preceding Book of -Invasions now lost. - -[5] Dá chích Danainne. - -[6] Sidh an Bhrogha [Shee in Vrow-a]. - -[7] Aengus, Aedh, and Cermad. - -[8] Now monstrously called Telltown by the Ordnance Survey people, as -though to make it as like an English word as possible, quite heedless -of the remonstrance of the great topographer O'Donavan, and of the fact -that they are demolishing a great national landmark. - -[9] Or perhaps "Lugh's Memorial." Lúghnas is the 1st of August, and the -month has received its name in Irish from Lugh's gathering. - -[10] The Irish translation of Nennius ascribed to Giolla Caoimhghin -[Gilla Keevin], who died in 1012, calls them goddesses, "_tri bandé -Folla Banba ocus Eire_." - -[11] It is worth while to quote some of these hitherto unpublished -verses from a copy in my possession. The author, Andrew Mac Curtin, -a good scholar and poet of Munster, knew of course perfectly well -that Donn was a Milesian, yet he, embodying in his poem the popular -opinion on the subject, treats him as a god or superior being, calls -him brother or cousin of Áine and Aoife [Eefi] and "of the great son of -Lear [_i.e._ Manannán], who used to walk the smooth sea," and relates -him to Angus Óg, and Lugh the Long-handed, says that he witnessed the -tragedy of the sons of Usnach, the feats of Finn mac Cool, and the -battle of Clontarf, and treats him as still living and powerful. The -poem begins, _Beannughadh doimhin duit a Dhoinn na Dáibhche._ It goes -on to say-- - - "Nach tu bráthair Áine as Aoife - A's mic an Deaghadh do b' árd-fhlaith ar tíorthaibh, - A's móir-mhic Lir do ritheadh an mhín-mhuir - Dhoinn Chnuic-na-ndos agus Dhoinn Chnuic Fírinn'? - Nach tu gan doirbhe do h-oileadh 'san ríogh-bhrogh - Ag Aongus óg na Bóinne caoimhe, - Do bhi tu ag Lugha ad' chongnamh i gcaoinsgir [cath] - Ag claoidh Balair a dhanar 's a dhraoithe. - Do bhi tu ag maidhm anaghaidh mic Mhiledh - Ag teacht asteach thar neart na gaoithe: - 'S na dhiaigh sin i gciantaibh ag Naoise; - Do bhi tu ag Conall 'san gcosgar do bh' aoirde - Ag ceann de'n ghad de cheannaibh righteadh: - Budh thaoiseach treasa i gcathaibh Chuinn thu." - -The allusion in the last line but one is to the heads that Conall -Cearnach strung upon the gad or rod, to avenge the death of Cuchulain, -for which see later on. - -Curtin finally asks Donn to let him into his fairy mansion, if not as a -poet to enliven his feasts, then at least as a horse-boy to groom his -horses. - - "Munar bhodhar thu o throm ghuth na taoide - No mur bhfuarais bás mar chách a Dhoinn ghil," &c. - -_I.e._, "unless thou hast grown deaf by the constant voice of the tide, -or unless, O bright Donn, thou hast died like everybody else!" - -[12] Hellanikus, one of the best known of these, went so far as to give -the very year, and even the very day of the capture of Troy. - -[13] Mac Firbis, in his great MS. book of genealogies, marks the -mythical character of these personages still more clearly, for in -his short chapter on the Tuatha De Danann he describes them as of -light yellow hair, etc. [_monga finbuidhe orra_], and gives the -names of their three Druids and their three distributors, who were -called Enough, Plenty, Filling [_Sáith, Leór, Línad_]; their three -gillies, three horses, three hounds, three musicians; Music Sweet and -Sweetstring [Ceól Bind Tetbind], and so on, all evidently allegorical. -_See_ facsimile of the Book of Leinster, p. 30, col. 4, l. 40, and p. -187, col. 3, l. 55, for the oldest form of this. - -[14] The following is the whole quotation from O'Mahony's Keating -(for an account of this book see below, p. 556): "Here follows an -enumeration of the most famous and noble persons of the Tuatha Da -Danann, viz., Eochaidh the Ollamh called the Dagda, Ogma, Alloid, Bres, -and Delbaeth, the five sons of Elathan, son of Niad, and Manannán, son -of Alloid, son of Delbaeth. The six sons of Delbaeth, son of Ogma, -namely, Fiachadh, Ollamh, Indaei, Brian, Iuchar, and Iucharba. Aengus -Aedh Kermad and Virdir, the four sons of the Dagda. Lughaidh, son of -Cian, son of Diancécht, sons of Esary, son of Niad, son of Indaei. -Gobnenn the smith, Credni the artist, Diancécht the physician, Luchtan -the mason, and Carbni the poet, son of Tura, son of Turell. Begneo, -son of Carbni, Catcenn, son of Tabarn, Fiachadh, son of Delbaeth, with -his son Ollamh, Caicer and Nechtan, the two sons of Namath. Eochaidh -the rough, son of Duach Dall. Sidomel, the son of Carbri Crom, son of -Elcmar, son of Delbaeth. Eri Fodhla and Banba, the three daughters -of Fiachadh, son of Delbaeth, son of Ogma, and Ernin, daughter of -Edarlamh, the mother of these women. The following are the names of -their three goddesses, viz., Badhbh, Macha, and Morighan. Béchoil and -Danaan were their two Ban-tuathachs, or chief ladies, Brighid was -their poetess. Fé and Men were the ladies or ban-tuathachs of their -two king-bards, and from them Magh Femen in Munster has its name. Of -them also was Triathri Torc, from whom Tretherni in Munster is called. -Cridinbhél, Brunni, and Casmael were their three satirists." - -[15] O'Curry, who, like his great compeer O'Donovan, naturally took the -De Danann to be a real race of men, comically calls these goddesses -"three of the noble non-professional druidesses of the Tuatha De -Danann." ("M. and C.," vol. ii. p. 187). We have seen how the Irish -Nennius calls the three queens of the De Danann goddesses also. - -[16] The "g" of Brigit was pronounced in Old Irish so that the word -rhymed to English _spiggit_. In later times the "g" became aspirated -and silent, the "t" turned into "d," and the word is now pronounced -"B'reed," and in English very often "Bride," which is an improvement on -the hideous Brid-get. - -[17] H. 2, 16, col. 119. Quoted by Stokes, "Old Irish Glossaries," p. -xxxv. - -[18] See the word "Hindelba" in the Glossary which is thus explained, -"_i.e._, the names of the altars or of those idols from the thing -which they used to make (?) on them, namely, the _delba_ or images of -everything which they used to worship or of the beings which they -used to adore, as, for instance, the form or figure of the sun on the -altar." Again, the word "Hidoss" is explained as coming from "the Greek -εἶδος which is found in Latin, from which the word _idolum_, namely, -the shapes or images [_arrachta_] of the idols [or elements] which the -Pagans used formerly to make." - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -EVIDENCE OF TOPOGRAPHY AND GENEALOGY - - -The ramifications of early Irish literary history and its claims to -antiquity are so multiple, intricate, and inter-connected, that it is -difficult for any one who has not made a close study of it to form -a conception of the extent it covers and the various districts it -embraces. The early literature of Ireland is so bound up with the early -history, and the history so bound up and associated with tribal names, -memorial sites, patronymics, and topographical nomenclature, that -it presents a kind of heterogeneous whole, that which is recognised -history running into and resting upon suspected or often even evident -myth, while tribal patronymics and national genealogies abut upon both, -and the whole is propped and supported by legions of place-names still -there to testify, as it were, to the truth of all. - -We have already glanced at some of the marks left by the mysterious De -Danann race upon our nomenclature. Mounds, raths, and tumuli, called -after them, dot all Ireland. It is the same with the early Milesians. -It is the same with the men of the great pseudo-historic cycle of -story-telling, that of Cuchulain and the Red Branch, not to speak of -minor cycles. There is never a camping-ground of Mève's army on their -march a century B.C. from Rathcroghan in Roscommon to the plain of -Mochruime in Louth, and never a skirmish fought by them that has not -given its name to some plain or camping-ground or ford. Passing from -the heroes of the Red Branch to the history of Finn mac Cool and the -Fenians, we find the same thing. Finn's seat, the Hill of the Fenians, -Diarmuid and Gráinne's bed, and many other names derived from them or -incidents connected with them, are equally widely scattered. - -The question now arises, does the undoubted existence of these -place-names, many of them mentioned in the very oldest manuscripts -we have--these manuscripts being only copies of still more ancient -ones now lost--mentioned, too, in connection with the celebrated -events which are there said to have given them their names, do these -and the universally received genealogies of historic tribes which -trace themselves back to some ancestor who figured at the time when -these place-names were imposed, form credible witnesses to their -substantial truth? In other words, are such names as Creeveroe[1] (Red -Branch) given to the spot where the Red Branch heroes have been always -represented as residing; or Ardee (Ferdia's Ford) where Cuchulain -fought his great single fight with that champion--are these to be -accepted as collateral evidence of the Red Branch heroes of Ferdia and -of Cuchulain? Are See-finn (Finn's seat) or Rath Coole[2] (Cool's -rath) to be accepted as proving the existence of Finn and his father -Cool? - -In my opinion no stress, or very little, can be laid upon the argument -from topography, which weighed so heavily with Keating, O'Donovan, and -O'Curry, for if it is admitted at all it proves too much. If it proves -the objective existence of Finn and of Cuchulain, so does it that of -Dana, "the mother of the gods," and of divinities by the score. Besides -the Gaels brought their topographical nomenclature with them to Alba, -and places named from Finn and the Fenians, are nearly as plentiful -there as in Ireland. Wherever the early Gaels went they took with them -their heroic legends, and wherever they settled place-names relating -to their legends which were so much a part of their intellectual life, -grew up round them too. Something of the same kind may be seen in -Greece--a land which presents so many and so striking analogies to that -of the Gael; for wherever a Grecian colony settled, east or west, it -was full of memorials of the legendary past, and Jasonia, or temples of -Jason, and other memorials of the voyage of the Argonauts, are to be -found from Abdêra to Thrace, eastward along the coast of the Euxine and -in the heart of Armenia and Media, just as memorials of the flight of -Diarmuid and of Gráinne from before Finn mac Cool may be found wherever -the Gael are settled in Ireland, in Scotland, or the Isles. - -Having come to the conclusion that Irish topography is useless -for proving the genuineness of past history, let us look at Irish -genealogy. When the Mac Carthys, descendants of Mac Carthy Mór, trace -themselves through Oilioll Olum, king of Ireland in the second century, -to Eber Finn, son of Milesius; when the O'Briens of Thomond trace -themselves to the same through Oilioll Olum's second son; when the -O'Carrolls of Ely trace themselves to the same through Cian, the third -son; when the O'Neills trace themselves back through Niall of the Nine -Hostages, and Conn of the Hundred Battles to Eremon, son of Milesius; -when the O'Driscolls trace themselves to Ith, who was uncle of -Milesius; when the Magennises trace themselves through Conall Cearnach, -the Red Branch hero, back to Ir, the son of Milesius; and when every -sept and name and family and clan in Ireland fit in, and even in our -oldest manuscripts have always fitted in, each in its own place, with -universally mutual acknowledgment and unanimity, each man carefully -counting his ancestors through their hundredfold ramifications, and -tracing them back first to him from whom they get their surname, and -next to him from whom they get their tribe name, and from thence to the -founder of their house, who in his turn grafts on to one of the great -stems (Eremonian, Eberian, Irian, or Ithian)[3]; and when not only -political friendships and alliances, but the very holding of tribal -lands, depended upon the strict registration and observance of these -things--we ask again do such facts throw any light upon the credibility -of early Irish history and early Irish records? - -The whole intricate system of Irish genealogy, jealously preserved -from the very first, as all Irish literature goes to show,[4] played -so important a part in Irish national history and in Irish social -life, and is at the same time so intimately bound up with the people's -traditions and literature, and throws so much light upon the past, that -it will be well to try to get a grip of this curious and intricate -subject, so important for all who would attempt to arrive at any -knowledge of the life and feelings of the Irish and Scottish Gael, and -upon which so much formerly depended in the history and alliances of -both races. - -All Milesian families trace themselves, as I have said, to one or other -of the three sons of Milesius, who were Eremon, Eber, and Ir, or to -his uncle Ith, who landed in Ireland at any time between 1700 and 800 -years before Christ according to Irish computation.[5] But while they -all trace themselves back to this point, it is to be observed that long -before they reach it, in each of the four branches, some place in the -long row of ancestors is arrived at, some name occurs, in which all or -most of the various genealogies meet, and upon which all the branch -lines converge. Thus in the Eberian families it is found that they all -spring from the three sons of Oilioll [Ul-yul] Olum, who according to -all the annals lived in the second century--in this Oilioll all the -Eberian families converge. - -Again all, or nearly all, the Irians trace themselves to either Conall -Cearnach or Fergus Mac Roy, the great Red Branch champions who lived in -the North shortly before the birth of Christ. - -The tribes of the Ithians, the least numerous and least important of -the four, seem to meet in Mac Con, king of Ireland, who lived in the -second century, and who is the hero of the saga called the Battle of -Moy Mochruime, where Art, son of Conn of the Hundred Battles, was slain. - -In the line of Eremon only, the greatest of the four, do we find two -pedigrees which meet at points _considerably antecedent_ to the birth -of Christ, for the Dál Riada of Scotland join the same stem as the -O'Neills as much as 390 years before Christ, and the O'Cavanaghs at -a still more remote period, in the reign of Ugony Mór. But setting -aside these two families we find that all the other great reigning -houses, as the Mac Donnells of Antrim, Maguires of Fermanagh, O'Kellys -of Connacht, and others, either meet in the third century in Cairbré -of the Liffey, son of King Cormac mac Art, and grandson of Conn of -the Hundred Battles; or else like the O'Neills of Tyrone, O'Donnells -of Tirconnell, O'Dogherties of Inishowen, O'Conors of Connacht, -O'Flaherties of Galway, they meet in a still later progenitor--the -father of Niall of the Nine Hostages. - -It will be best to examine here some typical Irish pedigree that we may -more readily understand the system in its simplest form, and see how -families branch from clans, and clans from stems. Let us take, then, -the first pedigree of those given at the end of the Forus Feasa, that -of Mac Carthy Mór, and study it as a type. - -This pedigree begins with Donal, who was the first of the Mac Carthys -to be created Earl of Clancare, or Clancarthy, in 1565. Starting from -him the names of all his ancestors are traced back to Eber, son of -Milesius. Passing over his five immediate ancestors, we come to the -sixth. It was he who built the monastery of Irriallach on the Lake of -Killarney. The seventh ancestor was Donal, from whose brother Donagh -come the families of Ard Canachta and Croc Ornachta. The tenth was -Donal Roe, from whom come the Clan Donal Roe, and from whose brother, -Dermot of Tralee, come the family of Mac Finneens. The eleventh was -Cormac Finn, from whom come also the Mac Carthys of Duhallow and the -kings of Desmond; while from his brother Donal come the Mac Carthys -Riabhach, or Grey Mac Carthys. The thirteenth was Dermot of Kill -Baghani, from whom come the Clan Teig Roe na Sgarti. The fourteenth was -Cormac of Moy Tamhnaigh, from whose brother Teig come the Mac Auliffes -of Cork. The fifteenth was Muireadach, who was the first of the line -to assume the surname of Mac Carthy, which he did from his father -Carthach, from whom all the Síol Carthaigh [Sheeol Caurhy], or Seed of -Carthach, including the Mac Fineens, Mac Auliffes, etc., are descended. -The seventeenth was Saerbhrethach, from whose brother Murrough spring -the sept of the O'Callaghans. The nineteenth was Callaghan of Cashel, -king of Munster, celebrated in Irish romance for his warfare with -the Danes. The twenty-third was Snedgus, who had a brother named -Fogartach, from whose son Finguini sprang the Muinntir Finguini, or -Finguini's People. The twenty-eighth was Falbi Flann, who was king of -Munster from 622 to 633, from whose brother Finghin sprang the sept -of the O'Sullivans. The thirty-second was Angus, from one son of whom -Eochaidh [Yohy] Finn are descended the O'Keefes; while from another son -Enna, spring the O'Dalys of Munster--he was the first king of Munster -who became a Christian, and he was slain in 484. The thirty-fourth -was Arc, king of Munster, from whose son Cas, spring the following -septs: The O'Donoghue Mór--from whom branched off the O'Donoghue of -the Glen--O'Mahony Finn and O'Mahony Roe, _i.e._, the White and Red -O'Mahonys, and O'Mahony of Ui Floinn Laei, and O'Mahony of Carbery, -also O'Mullane[6] and O'Cronin; while from his other son, "Cairbré -the Pict," sprang the O'Moriarties, and from Cairbré's grandson came -the O'Garvans. The thirty-sixth ancestor was Olild Flann Beg, king of -Munster, who had a son from whom are descended the sept of O'Donovan, -and the O'Coiléains, or Collinses. And a grandson from whom spring the -O'Meehans, O'Hehirs, and the Mac Davids of Thomond. The thirty-seventh, -Fiachaidh, was well known in Irish romance; the thirty-eighth was -Eoghan, or Owen Mór, from whom all the septs of the Eoghanachts, or -Eugenians of Munster come, who embrace every family and sept hitherto -mentioned, and many more. They are carefully to be distinguished from -the Dalcassians, who are descended from Owen's second son Cas. It was -the Dalcassians who, with Brian Boru at their head, preserved Ireland -from the Danes and won Clontarf. For many centuries the history of -Munster is largely composed of the struggles between these two septs -for the kingship. The thirty-ninth is the celebrated Oilioll [Ulyul] -Olum, king of Munster, whose wail of grief over his son Owen is a -stock piece in Irish MSS. He is a son of the great Owen, better known -as Mogh Nuadhat, or Owen the Splendid, who wrested half the kingdom -from Conn of the Hundred Battles, so that to this very day Connacht -and Ulster together are called in Irish Conn's Half, and Munster and -Leinster Owen's Half. The forty-third ancestor is Dergthini, who is -known in Irish history as one of the three heirs of the royal houses -in Ireland, whom I have mentioned before as having been saved from -massacre when the Free Clans or Nobility were cut to pieces by the -Unfree or Rent-paying tribes at Moy Cro--an event which is nearly -contemporaneous with the birth of Christ. Hitherto there have been nine -kings of Munster in this line, but not a single king of Ireland, but -the forty-ninth ancestor, Duach Dalta Degadh, also called Duach Donn, -attains this high honour, and takes his place among the Reges Hiberniæ -about 172 years before Christ, according to the "Four Masters." After -this a rather bald catalogue of thirty-six more ancestors are reckoned, -no fewer than twenty-four being counted among the kings of Ireland, and -at last, at the eighty-sixth ancestor from the Earl of Clancarthy, the -genealogy finds its long-delayed goal in Eber, son of Milesius. - -It will be seen from this typical pedigree of the Mac Carthys--any -other great family would have answered our purpose just as well--how -families spring from clans and clans from septs--to use an English -word--and septs from a common stem; and how the nearness or remoteness -of some common ancestor bound a number of clans in nearer or remoter -alliance to one another. Thus all septs of the great Eberian stem had -some slight and faint tie of common ancestry connecting them, which -comes out most strongly in their jealousy of the Eremonian or northern -stem, but was not sufficient to produce a political alliance amongst -themselves. Of a much stronger nature was the tie which bound those -families descended from Eoghan Mór, the thirty-eighth ancestor from -the first earl. These went under the name of the Eoghanachts, and -held fairly together, always opposing the Dalcassians, descended from -Cas. But when it came to the adoption of a surname, as it did in the -eleventh century, those who descended from the ancestor who gave them -their name, were bound to one another by the common ties or a nearer -kinship and a common surname. - -It will be seen at a glance from the above pedigree, how, taking the -Mac Carthys as a stem, and starting from the first earl, the Mac -Finneens join that stem at the eleventh ancestor from the earl, the -Mac Auliffes at the fifteenth, the O'Callaghans at the eighteenth, the -O'Sullivans at the twenty-ninth, the O'Keefes at the thirty-second, the -O'Dalys[7] of Munster at the thirty-second, the O'Donoghues, O'Mahonys, -O'Mullanes, O'Cronins, O'Garvans, and Moriartys at the thirty-fourth, -the O'Donovans, Collinses, O'Meehans, O'Hehirs, and Mac Davids at the -thirty-sixth. - -Now each of these had his own genealogy equally carefully kept by his -own ancestral bardic historian. If, for instance, the Mac Carthys could -boast of nine kings of Munster amongst them, the O'Keefes could boast -of ten; and an O'Keefe reckoning from Donal Óg, who was slain at the -battle of Aughrim, would say that the Mac Carthys joined _his_ line at -the thirty-sixth ancestor from Donal. - -All the Gaels of Ireland of the free tribes trace back their ancestry, -as we have seen, to one or other of the four great stocks of Erimon, -Eber, Ir, and Ith. Of these the EREMONIANS were by far the greatest, -the EBERIANS coming next. The O'Neills, O'Donnells, O'Conors, -O'Cavanaghs, and almost all the leading families of the north, the -west, and the east were Erimonian; the O'Briens, Mac Carthys, and most -of the leading tribes of the south were Eberians.[8] It was nearly -always a member of one or the other of these two stems who held the -high-kingship of Ireland, but so much more powerful were the Eremonians -within historical times, that the Southern Eberians, although well able -to maintain themselves in the south, yet found themselves absolutely -unable to place more than one or two[9] high-kings upon the throne of -All-Ireland, from the coming of Patrick, until the great Brian Boru -once more broke the spell and wrested the monarchy from the Erimonians. -The Irians gave few kings to Ireland, and the Ithians still less--only -three or four, and these in very early, perhaps mythic, times. - -If now we trace the O'Neill pedigree back as we did that of the Mac -Carthys, we find the great Shane O'Neill who fought Elizabeth, traced -back step by step to the perfectly historical character Niall of the -Nine Hostages, son of Eochaidh Muigh-mheadhoin [Mwee-va-on], who was -grandson of Fiachaidh Sreabhtine [Sravtinna], son of Cairbré of the -Liffey, son of the great Cormac Mac Art, and grandson or Conn of the -Hundred Battles, all of whom are celebrated in history and endless -romance; and thence through a list containing in all forty-four -High-kings of Ireland back to EREMON, son of Milesius, brother of -that Eber from whom the Mac Carthys spring, and from whom he is -the eighty-eighth in descent. The O'Donnells join his line at the -thirty-sixth ancestor, the O'Gallaghers at the thirty-second, the -O'Conor Don and O'Conor Roe and the O'Flaherty at the thirty-seventh. -We find too, on examining these pedigrees, the most curious -inter-mixtures and crossing of families. Thus, for instance, the two -families of O'Crowley in Munster spring from the Mac Dermot Roe of -Connacht, who, with the Mac Donogh, sprang from Mac Dermot of Moylurg -in Roscommon, ancestor of the prince of Coolavin; while the O'Gara, -former lord of Coolavin in the same county, to whom the "Four Masters" -dedicated their annals, was of southern Eberian stock. - -The great warriors of the Red Branch, the men of the original kingdom -of Uladh [Ulla, _i.e._, Ulster], were of the third great stock, the -IRIANS or race of Ir,[10] but they are perhaps better known as the -Clanna Rudhraighe [Rury] or Rudricians, so named from Rudhraighe, a -great monarch of Ireland who lived nearly three hundred years before -Christ, or as Ulidians because they represented the ancient province -of Uladh. But the Three Collas, grandsons of Cairbré of the Liffey, -who was himself great-grandson of Conn of the Hundred Battles, and of -course of the Eremonian stock, overthrew the Irians in the year 332, -and burned their capital, Emania. The Irians were thus driven out by -the Eremonians, and forced back into the present counties of Down -and Antrim, where they continued to maintain their independence. So -bitterly, however, did they resent the treatment they had received at -the hands of the Eremonians, and so deeply did the burning of Emania -continue to rankle in their hearts, that after a period of nearly -900 years they are said to have stood sullenly aloof from the other -Irish, and to have refused to make common cause with them against the -Normans at the battle of Downpatrick in 1260, where the prince of the -O'Neills was slain.[11] So powerful, on the other hand, did the idea of -race-connection remain, that we find one of the bards so late as the -sixteenth century urging a political combination and alliance between -the descendants of the Three Collas who had burned Emania over twelve -hundred years before, and who were then represented by the Maguires of -Fermanagh, the Mac Mahons of Oriel[12] and the far-off O'Kellys of Ui -Máine[13] [Ee maana]. - -As for the fourth great stock, the ITHIANS,[14] they were gradually -pushed aside by the Eberians of the south, as the Irians had been by -the Eremonians of the north, and driven into the islands and coasts -of West Munster. Yet curiously enough the northern Dukes of Argyle -and the Campbells and MacAllans of Scotland spring from them. Their -chief tribes in Ireland were known as the Corca Laidhi [Corka-lee]; -these were the pirate O'Driscolls and their correlatives, but they -were pushed so hard by the Mac Carthys, O'Mahonys, and other Eberians, -that in the year 1615 their territory was confined to a few parishes, -and twenty years later even these are found paying tribute to the Mac -Carthy Reagh. There is one very remarkable peculiarity about their -genealogies, which is, that, though they trace themselves with great -apparent, and no doubt real, accuracy back to Mac Con, monarch of -Ireland and contemporary with Oilioll Olum in the end of the second -century, yet from that point back to Milesius a great number of -generations (some twenty or so) are missing, and no genealogist, so far -as I know, in any of the books of pedigrees which I have consulted, -has attempted to supply them by filling them up with a barren list of -names, as has been done in the other three stems.[15] - -Let us now consider how far these genealogies tend to establish the -authenticity of our early history, saga, and literature. The first -plain and obvious objection to them is this--that genealogies which -trace themselves back to Adam must be untrue inventions. - -We grant it. - -But all Gaelic genealogies meet, as we have shown in Milesius or -his uncle, Ith. Strike off all that long tale or pre-Milesian names -connecting him with Adam, and count them as a late excrescence--a -mixture of pagan myth and Christian invention added to the rest for -show. This leaves us only the four stems to deal with. - -The next objection is that pedigrees which trace themselves back to -the landing of the Milesians--a date in the computation of which Irish -annalists themselves differ by a few hundred years--must also be -untrue, especially as their own annalist, Tighearnach, has expressly -said that all their history prior to about 300 B.C. is uncertain. - -We grant this also. - -What, then, remains? - -This remains--namely the points in each of the four great race stems, -in which all or the most of the leading tribes and families belonging -to that stem converge, and, as we have seen, all of these with a few -exceptions take place within reach of the historical period. In the -lines of EBER and of ITH, this point is at the close of the second -century; in the race of IR it is about the time of Christ's birth,[16] -and in the fourth and perhaps most important stem, that of EREMON, the -two main points of convergence are in the historical Niall of the Nine -Hostages, who came to the throne in 356, and in Cairbré of the Liffey, -who became High-king in 267.[17] - -[1] Craobh-ruadh. - -[2] _I.e._, Ath-Fhirdia, Suidhe Fhinn, Rath Chúmhail. There are -See-finns or See-inns, _i.e._, Finn's seats in Cavan, Armagh, Down, -King's County, Galway, Mayo, Sligo, Tyrone, and perhaps elsewhere, and -there are many forts, flats, woods, rivers, bushes, and heaps, which -derive their name from the Fenians. - -[3] As the various Teutonic races of Germany traced themselves up to -one of the three main stems, Ingævones, Iscævones, and Herminones, who -sprang from the sons of Mannus, whose father was the god Tuisco. - -[4] A large part of the Books of Leinster, Ballymote, and Lecan, is -occupied with these genealogies, continued up to date in each book. -The MSS. H. 3. 18 and H. 2. 4 in Trinity College, Dublin, are great -genealogical compilations. Well-known works were the Book of the -genealogies of the Eugenians, the Book of Meath, the Book of the -Connellians (_i.e._, of Tirconnell), the genealogy of Brian, son of -Eochaidh's descendants (see above, p. 33), the Book of Oriel, the -Genealogies of the descendants of the Three Collas (see above, p. -33) in Erin and Scotland, the Book of the Maineach (men of O'Kelly's -country), the Leinster Book of Genealogies, the Ulster Book, the -Munster Book, and others. - -[5] See above, ch. II, note 2. - -[6] The great Daniel O'Connell's mother belonged to this sept of the -O'Mullanes, and the so-called typical Hibernian physiognomy of the -Liberator was derived from her people, whom he nearly resembled, and -not from the O'Connells. - -[7] Not to be confounded with the Síol nDálaigh, who were the -great northern family of the O'Donnells, who had also an ancestor -called Dálach, from whom they derived, not their surname, but their -race-patronymic. - -[8] Strange to say Daniel O'Connell was not an Eberian but an -Erimonian. The history of his tribe is very curious. It was descended -from the celebrated Ernaan, or Degadian tribe to which the hero Curigh -Mac Daire slain by Cuchulain belonged, who trace their genealogy back -to Aengus Tuirmeach, High-king of Ireland about 388 B.C. These tribes -were of Erimonian descent, but settled in the south. They were quite -conquered by the descendants of Oilioll Olum--_i.e._, the Eberians, who -owned nearly all the south--yet they continued to exist in the extreme -west of Munster. The O'Connells, from whom came Daniel O'Connell, the -O'Falveys and the O'Sheas were their chief families, but none of them -were powerful. - -[9] The Munster annals of Innisfallen themselves claim only five, but -the claims of some of them are untenable. Moore will not admit that any -Eberian was monarch of Ireland from the coming of St. Patrick to the -"usurpation" of Brian Boru. - -[10] Their greatest families were in later times the Magennises, now -Guinnesses, O'Mores, O'Farrells, and O'Connor Kerrys, with their -correlatives. - -[11] O'Donovan says that Brian O'Neill was not assisted by any of the -Ulidians at this battle, but of course they had more recent wrongs than -the burning of Emania to complain of, for battles between them and the -invading Eremonian tribes continued for long to be recorded in the -annals. _See_ p. 180, "Miscellany of the Celtic Society." - -[12] _I.e._ Monaghan. - -[13] Parts of the counties Galway and Roscommon. - -[14] In later times their chief families were the O'Driscolls, the -Clancys [Mac Fhlanchadhas] of the county Leitrim, the Mac Allans of -Scotland, the Coffeys and the O'Learys of Roscarberry, etc. They were -commonly called the Clanna Breogain, or Irish Brigantes, from Breogan, -father of Ith. - -[15] From Mac Con, son of Maicniad, king of Ireland, to the end of the -second century, Mac Firbis's great book of genealogies only reckons -twelve generations of Breogan, but in the smaller handwriting at the -foot of the page twenty-two generations are counted up. See under the -heading, "Do genealach Dairfhine agus shíl Luighdheach mic Iotha Mac -Breoghain," at p. 670 of O'Curry's MS. transcript. Michael O'Clery's -great book of genealogies counts twenty-three generations from Maic -Niad to Ith, both included, see p. 223 of O'Clery's MS. Keating's -pedigree, as given in the body of his history, gives twenty-three -generations also, but only seventeen in the special genealogy attached -to it. There are no such curious discrepancies in the other three -stems. I can only account for it by the impoverished and oppressed -condition of the Ithians, which in later times may have made them lose -their records. - -[16] The chief exceptions being, as we have seen, the Scottish Dál -Riada and the Leinster O'Cavanaghs, who do not join the Eremonian line, -one till the fourth and the other till the seventh century before -Christ. - -[17] Conall Cearnach, from whom, along with his friend Fergus mac Roigh -or Roy, the Irians claim descent, was first cousin of Cuchulain, and -Tighearnach records Cuchulain's death as occurring in the second year -after the birth of Christ, the "Chronicon Scotorum" having this curious -entry at the year 432, "a morte Concculaind herois usque ad hunc annum -431, a morte Concupair [Conor] mic Nessa 412 anni sunt." It is worth -noting that none of the Gaelic families trace their pedigree, so far -as I know, to either Cuchulain himself, or to his over-lord, King -Conor mac Nessa. Cuchulain was himself not of Ithian but of Eremonian -blood, although so closely connected with Emania, the Red Branch, and -the Clanna Rury. If Irish pedigrees had been like modern ones for -sale, or could in any way have been tampered with, every one would -have preferred Cuchulain for an ancestor. That no one has got him is a -strong presumption in favour of the genuineness of Irish genealogies. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE - - -We must now consider whether Irish genealogies were really traced or -not to those points which I have mentioned. Is there any documentary -evidence in support of such an assertion? - -There is certainly some such evidence, and we shall proceed to examine -it. - -In the Leabhar na h-Uidhre [Lowar na Heera], or Book of the Dun Cow, -the existing manuscript of which was transcribed about the year 1100, -in the Book of Leinster, transcribed about fifty years later, in the -Book of Ballymote and in the Book of Lecan, frequent reference is made -to an ancient book now lost called the Cin or Codex of Drom-sneachta. -This book, or a copy of it, existed down to the beginning of the -seventeenth century, for Keating quotes from it in his history, and -remarks at the same time, "and it was before the coming of Patrick to -Ireland the author of that book existed."[1] This evidence of Keating -might be brushed aside as an exaggeration did it stand alone, but -it does not, for in a partially effaced memorandum in the Book of -Leinster, transcribed from older books about the year 1150, we read: -"[Ernin, son of] Duach,[2] son of the king of Connacht, an ollav and -a prophet and a professor in history and a professor in wisdom; it was -he that collected the genealogies and histories of the men of Erin -into one, and that is the Cin Droma-sneachta." Now there were only two -Duachs according to our annals, one of these was great-grandson of -Niall of the Nine Hostages, and of course a pagan, who died in 379; -the other, who was an ancestor of the O'Flaherties, died one hundred -and twenty years later. It was Duach the pagan, whose second son was -Ernin; the other had only one son, whose name was Senach. If O'Curry -has read the half-effaced word correctly, then the book may have been, -as Keating says it was, written before St. Patrick's coming, and it -contained, as the various references to it show, a _repertoire_ of -genealogies collected by the son of a man who died in 379; this man, -too, being great-grandson of that Niall of the Nine Hostages in whose -son so large a number of the Eremonian genealogies converge.[3] - -There are many considerations which lead me to believe that Irish -genealogical books were kept from the earliest introduction of the art -of writing, and kept with greater accuracy, perhaps, than any other -records of the past whatsoever. The chiefest of these is the well-known -fact that, under the tribal system, no one possessed lawfully any -portion of the soil inhabited by his tribe if he were not of the -same race with his chief. Consequently even those of lowest rank in -the tribe traced and recorded their pedigree with as much care as -did the highest, for "it was from his own genealogy each man of the -tribe, poor as well as rich, held the charter of his civil state, his -right of property in the cantred in which he was born."[4] All these -genealogies were entered in the local books of each tribe and were -preserved in the verses of the hereditary poets. There was no incentive -to action among the early Irish so stimulative as a remembrance of -their pedigree. It was the same among the Welsh, and probably among all -tribes of Celtic blood. We find the witty but unscrupulous Giraldus, in -the twelfth century, saying of his Welsh countrymen that every one of -them, even of the common people, observes the genealogy of his race, -and not only knows by heart his grandfathers and great-grandfathers, -but knows all his ancestors up to the sixth or seventh generation,[5] -or even still further, and promptly repeats his genealogy as Rhys, son -of Griffith, son of Rhys, son of Teudor, etc.[6] - -The poet, Cuan O'Lochain, who died in the year 1024, gives a long -account of the Saltair of Tara now lost, the compilation of which he -ascribes to Cormac mac Art, who came to the throne in 227,[7] and -in which he says the synchronisms and chronology of all the kings -were written. The Book of Ballymote too quotes from an ancient book, -now lost, called the Book of the Uachongbhail, to the effect that -"the synchronisms and genealogies and succession of their kings and -monarchs, their battles, their contests, and their antiquities from -the world's beginning down to that time were written in it, and this is -the Saltair of Tara, which is the origin and fountain of the historians -of Erin from that period down to this time." This may not be convincing -proof that Cormac mac Art wrote the Saltair, but it is convincing proof -that what were counted as the very earliest books were filled with -genealogies. - -The subject of tribal genealogy upon which the whole social fabric -depended was far too important to be left without a check in the hands -of tribal historians, however well-intentioned. And this check was -afforded by the great convention or Féis, which took place triennially -at Tara,[8] whither the historians had to bring their books that under -the scrutiny of the jealous eyes of rivals they might be purged of -whatever could not be substantiated, "and neither law nor usage nor -historic record was ever held as genuine until it had received such -approval, and nothing that disagreed with the Roll of Tara could be -respected as truth."[9] - -"It was," says Duald Mac Firbis[10]--himself the author of probably the -greatest book of genealogies ever written, speaking about the chief -tribal historians of Ireland, "obligatory on every one of them who -followed it to purify the profession"; and he adds very significantly, -"Along with these [historians] the judges of Banba [Ireland] used to -be in like manner preserving the history, _for a man could not be a -judge without being a historian_, and he is not a historian who is not -a judge in the BRETHADH NIMHEDH,[11] that is the last book in the study -of the Shanachies and of the judges themselves." - -The poets and historians "were obliged to be free from theft, and -killing, and satirising, and adultery, and everything that would be -a reproach to their learning." Mac Firbis, who was the last working -historian of a great professional family, puts the matter nobly and -well. - - "Any Shanachie," he says, "whether an ollav or the next in rank, or - belonging to the order at all, who did not preserve these rules, lost - half his income and his dignity according to law, and was subject to - heavy penalties besides, so that it is not to be supposed that there - is in the world a person who would not prefer to tell the truth, if he - had no other reason than the fear of God and the loss of his dignity - and his income: and it is not becoming to charge partiality upon these - elected historians [of the nation]. However, if unworthy people did - write falsehood, and attributed it to a historian, it might become a - reproach to the order of historians if they were not on their guard, - and did not look to see whether it was out of their prime books of - authority that those writers obtained their knowledge. And that is - what should be done by every one, both by the lay scholar and the - professional historian--everything of which they have a suspicion, - to look for it, and if they do not find it confirmed in good books, - to note down its doubtfulness,[12] along with it, as I myself do - to certain races hereafter in this book, and it is thus that the - historians are freed from the errors of others, should these errors be - attributed to _them_, which God forbid." - -I consider it next to impossible for any Gaelic pedigree to have been -materially tampered with from the introduction of the art of writing, -because tribal jealousies alone would have prevented it, and because -each stem of the four races was connected at some point with every -other stem, the whole clan system being inextricably intertwined, and -it was necessary for all the various tribal genealogies to agree, in -order that each branch, sub-branch, and family might fit, each in its -own place. - -I have little doubt that the genealogy of O'Neill, for instance, which -traces him back to the father of Niall of the Nine Hostages who came -to the throne in 356 is substantially correct. Niall, it must be -remembered, was father of Laoghaire [Leary], who was king when St. -Patrick arrived, by which time, if not before, the art of writing was -known in Ireland. _À fortiori_, then, we may trust the pedigrees of the -O'Donnells and the rest who join that stem a little later on. - -If this be acknowledged we may make a cautious step or two backwards. -No one, so far as I know, has much hesitation in acknowledging the -historic character of that King Laoghaire whom St. Patrick confronted, -nor of his father Niall of the Nine Hostages. But if we go so far, it -wants very little to bring us in among the Fenians themselves, and -the scenes connected with them and with Conn of the Hundred Battles; -for Niall's great-grandfather was that Fiachaidh who was slain by the -Three Collas--those who burnt Emania and destroyed the Red Branch--and -his father is Cairbré of the Liffey, who overthrew the Fenians, and -his father again is the great Cormac son of Art, son of Conn of the -Hundred Battles who divided the kingdom with Owen Mór. But it is from -the three grandsons of this Owen Mór the Eberians come, and from their -half-brother come the Ithians, so that up to this point I think Irish -genealogies may be in the main accepted. Even the O'Kavanaghs and their -other correlations, who do not join the stem of Eremon till between -500 or 600 years before Christ, yet pass through Enna Cennsalach, king -of Leinster, a perfectly historical character mentioned several times -in the Book of Armagh,[13] who slew the father of Niall of the Nine -Hostages; and I believe that, however we may account for the strange -fact that these septs join the Eremonian stem so many hundreds of -years before the O'Neills and the others, that up to this point their -genealogy too may be trusted. - -If this is the case, and if it is true that every Gael belonging to -the Free Clans of Ireland could trace his pedigree with accuracy back -to the fourth, third, or even second century, it affords a strong -support to Irish history, and in my opinion considerably heightens -the credibility of our early annals, and renders the probability that -Finn mac Cool and the Red Branch heroes were real flesh and blood, -enormously greater than before. It will also put us on our guard -against quite accepting such sweeping generalisations as those of -Skene, when he says that the entire legendary history of Ireland prior -to the establishment of Christianity in the fifth century partakes -largely of a purely artificial character. We must not forget that -while no Irish genealogy is traced to the De Danann tribes, who were -undoubtedly gods, yet the ancestor of the Dalcassians--Cormac Cas, -Oilioll Olum's son--is said to have married Ossian's daughter. - -[1] _See_ Haliday's "Keating," p. 215. - -[2] See p. 15 of O'Curry's MS. Materials. There was some doubt in his -mind about the words in brackets, but as the sheets of his book were -passing through the press he took out the MS. for another look on a -particularly bright day, the result of which left him no doubt that he -had read the name correctly. - -[3] For a typical citation of this book see p. 28 of O'Donovan's -"Genealogy of the Corca Laidh," in the "Miscellany of the Celtic -Society." - -[4] _See_ "Celtic Miscellany," p. 144, O'Donovan's tract on Corca Laidh. - -[5] "Generositatem vero et generis nobilitatem præ rebus omnibus magis -appetunt. Unde et generosa conjugia plus longe capiunt quam sumptuosa -vel opima. Genealogiam quoque generis sui etiam de populo quilibet -observat, et non solum, avos, atavos, sed usque ad sextam vel septimam -et ultra procul generationem, memoriter et prompte genus enarrat in -hunc modum Resus filius Griffini filii Resi filii Theodori, filii -Aeneæ, filii Hoeli filii Cadelli filii Roderici magni et sic deinceps. - -"Genus itaque super omnia diligunt, et damna sanguinis atque dedecoris -ulciscuntur. Vindicis enim animi sunt et iræ cruentæ nec solum novas -et recentes injurias verum etiam veteres et antiquas velut instanter -vindicare parati" ("Cambriæ Descriptio," Cap. XVII.). - -[6] O'Donovan says--I forget where--that he had tested in every part of -Ireland how far the popular memory could carry back its ancestors, and -found that it did not reach beyond the seventh generation. - -[7] According to the "Four Masters"; in 213, according to Keating. - -[8] But see O'Donovan's introduction to "The Book of Rights," where he -adduces some reasons for believing that it may have been a septennial -not a triennial convocation. - -[9] _See_ Keating's History under the reign of Tuathal Teachtmhar. - -[10] In the seventeenth century. His book on genealogies would, O'Curry -computed, fill 1,300 pages of the size of O'Donovan's "Four Masters." - -[11] This was a very ancient law book, which is quoted at least a dozen -times in Cormac's Glossary, made in the ninth or tenth century. - -[12] Thus quaintly expressed in the original, for which see O'Curry's -MS. Materials, p. 576: "muna ffaghuid dearbhtha iar ndeghleabhraibh é, -a chuntabhairt fén do chur re a chois." - -[13] _See_ pp. 102, 113 of Father Hogan's "Documenta de S. Patricio ex -Libro Armachano," where he is called Endae. He persecuted Cuthbad's -three sons, "fosocart endae cennsalach fubîthin creitme riacâch," but -Patrick is said to have baptized his son, "Luid iarsuidiu cucrimthan -maccnêndi ceinnselich et ipse creditit." - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -CONFUSION BETWEEN GODS AND MEN - - -Of that part of every Irish pedigree which runs back from the first -century to Milesius nothing can be laid down with certainty, nor indeed -can there be any _absolute certainty_ in affirming that Irish pedigrees -from the eleventh to the third century are reliable--we have only an -amount of cumulative evidence from which we may draw such a deduction -with considerable confidence. The mere fact that these pedigrees are -traced back a thousand years further through Irish kings and heroes, -and end in a son of Milesius, need not in the least affect--as in -popular estimation it too often does--the credibility of the last -seventeen hundred years, which stands upon its own merits. - -On the contrary, such a continuation is just what we should expect. -In the Irish genealogies the sons of Milesius occupy the place that -in other early genealogies is held by the gods. And the sons of -Milesius were possibly the tutelary gods of the Gael. We have seen -how one of them was so, at least in folk belief, and was addressed in -semi-seriousness as still living and reigning even in the last century. - -All the Germanic races looked upon themselves as descended from gods. -The Saxon, Anglian, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish kings were traced -back either to Woden or to some of his companions or sons.[1] It was -the same with the Greeks, to whom the Celts bear so close a similitude. -Their Herakleids, Asklepiads, Æakids, Neleids, and Daedalids, are a -close counterpart to our Eremonians, Eberians, Ithians, and Irians, and -in each case all the importance was attached to the primitive eponymous -hero or god from whom they sprang. Without him the whole pedigree -became uninteresting, unfinished, headless. These beliefs exercised -full power even upon the ablest and most cultured Greeks. Aristotle -and Hippocratês, for instance, considered themselves descended from -Asklêpius, Thucidydes from Æakus, and Socrates from Daedalus; just as -O'Neill and O'Donnell did from Eremon, O'Brien from Eber, and Magennis -from Ir. It was to the divine or heroic fountain heads of the race, not -so much as to the long and mostly barren list of names which led up to -it, that the real importance was attached. It is not in Ireland alone -that we see mythology condensing into a dated genealogy. The same thing -has happened in Persian history, and the history of Denmark by Saxo -Grammaticus affords many such instances. In Greece the Neleid family -of Pylus traced their origin to Neptune, the Lacedæmonian kings traced -theirs to Cadmus and Danaüs, and Hekatæus of Miletus was the fifteenth -descendant of a god. - -Again we meet with in Teutonic and Hellenic mythology the same -difficulty that meets us in our own--that of distinguishing gods from -heroes and heroes from men. The legends of the Dagda and of Angus of -the Boyne and the Tuatha De Danann, of Tighearnmas and the Fomorians, -of Lugh the Long-handed and the children of Tuireann--all evidently -mythologic--were treated in the same manner, recited by the same -tongues, and regarded with the same unwavering belief, as the history -of Conor mac Nessa and Déirdre, of Cuchulain and Mève, or that of -Conn of the Hundred Battles, Owen Mór, Finn mac Cool, and the Fenians. -The early Greek, in the same way, treated the stories of Apollo and -Artemis, of Arês and Aphroditê, just as he did those of Diomede and -Helen, Meleager and Althæa, Achilles, or the voyage of the _Argo_. -All were in a primitive and uncritical age received with the same -unsuspicious credulity, and there was no hard-and-fast line drawn -between gods and men. Just as the Mórrígan, the war-goddess, has her -eye dashed out by Cuchulain, so do we find in Homer gods wounded by -heroes. Thus, too, Apollo is condemned to serve Admetus, and Hercules -is sold as a slave to Omphalê. Herodotus himself confesses that he is -unable to determine whether a certain Thracian god Zalmoxis, was a -god or a man,[2] and he finds the same difficulty regarding Dionysus -and Pan; while Plutarch refuses to determine whether Janus was a god -or a king;[3] and Herakleitus the philosopher, confronted by the same -difficulty, made the admirable _mot_ that men were "mortal gods," gods -were "immortal men."[4] - -In our literature, although the fact does not always appear distinctly, -the Dagda, Angus Óg, Lugh the Long-handed, Ogma, and their fellows are -the equivalents of the immortal gods, while certainly Cuchulain and -Conor and probably Curigh Mac Daire, Conall Cearnach, and the other -famous Red Branch chiefs, whatever they may have been in reality, are -the equivalent of the Homeric heroes, that is to say, believed to -have been epigoni of the gods, and therefore greater than ordinary -human beings; while just as in Greek story there are the cycles of -the war round Thebes, the voyage of the _Argo_ the fate of Œdipus, -etc., so we have in Irish numerous smaller groups of epic stories--now -unfortunately mostly lost or preserved in digests--which, leaving out -the Cuchulain and Fenian cycles, centre round such minor characters as -Macha, who founded Emania, Leary Lore, Labhraidh [Lowry] the Mariner, -and others. - -That the Irish gods die in both saga and annals like so many human -beings, in no wise militates against the supposition of their godhead. -Even the Greek did not always consider his gods as eternal. A study of -comparative mythology teaches that gods are in their original essence -magnified men, and subject to all men's changes and chances. They are -begotten and born like men. They eat, sleep, feel sickness, sorrow, -pain, like men. "Like men," says Grimm, "they speak a language, feel -passions, transact affairs, are clothed and armed, possess dwellings -and utensils." Being man-like in these things, they are also man-like -in their deaths. They are only on a greater scale than we. "This -appears to me," says Grimm,[5] "a fundamental feature in the faith -of the heathen, that they allowed to their gods not an unlimited -and unconditional duration, but only a term of life far exceeding -that of man." As their shape is like the shape of man only vaster, -so are their lives like the lives of men only indefinitely longer. -"With our ancestors [the Teutons]," said Grimm, "the thought of the -gods being immortal retires into the background. The Edda never -calls them 'eylifir' or 'ôdauðligir,' and their death is spoken of -without disguise." So is it with us also. The Dagda dies, slain in the -battle of North Moytura; the three "gods of the De Danann" die at the -instigation of Lugh; and the great Lugh himself, from whom Lugdunum, -now Lyons, takes its name, and to whom early Celtic inscriptions are -found, shares the same fate. Manannán is slain, so is Ogma, and so -are many more. And yet though recorded as slain they do not wholly -disappear. Manannán came back to Bran riding in his chariot across the -Ocean,[6] and Lugh makes his frequent appearances amongst the living. - -[1] These genealogies were in later times, like the Irish ones, -extended to Noah. - -[2] Herod, iv. 94-96. - -[3] Numa, ch. xix. - -[4] "θεοὶ θνητοὶ," "ἄνθρωποι ἀθάνατοι." It is most curious to find this -so academic question dragged into the hard light of day and subjected -to the scrutiny of so prosaic a person as the Roman tax-collector. -Under the Roman Empire all lands in Greece belonging to the immortal -gods were exempted from tribute, and the Roman tax-collector refused -to recognise as immortal gods any deities who had once been men. The -confusion arising from such questions offered an admirable target to -Lucian for his keenest shafts of ridicule. - -[5] "Deutsche Mythologie," article on the Condition of the Gods. - -[6] "Voyage of Bran mac Febail," Nutt and Kuno Meyer, vol. i. p. 16. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -DRUIDISM - - -Although Irish literature is full of allusions to the druids it is -extremely difficult to know with any exactness what they were. They -are mentioned from the earliest times. The pre-Milesian races, the -Nemedians and Fomorians, had their druids, who worked mutual spells -against each other. The Tuatha De Danann had innumerable druids amongst -them, who used magic. The invading Milesians had three druids with -them in their ships, Amergin the poet and two others. In fact, druids -are mentioned in connection with all early Irish fiction and history, -from the first colonising of Ireland down to the time of the saints. -It seems very doubtful, however, whether there existed in Ireland as -definitely established an order of druids as in Britain and on the -Continent.[1] They are frequently mentioned in Irish literature as -ambassadors, spokesmen, teachers, and tutors. Kings were sometimes -druids, so were poets. It is a word which seems to me to have been, -perhaps from the first, used with great laxity and great latitude. The -druids, so far as we can ascertain, do not seem to be connected with -any positive rites or worship; still less do they appear to have been -a regular priesthood, and there is not a shadow of evidence to connect -them with any special worship as that of the sun or of fire. In the -oldest saga-cycle the druid appears as a man of the highest rank and -related to kings. King Conor's father was according to some--probably -the oldest--accounts a druid; so was Finn mac Cool's grandfather. - -Before the coming of St. Patrick there certainly existed images, or, -as they are called by the ancient authorities, "idols" in Ireland, -at which or to which sacrifice used to be offered, probably with a -view to propitiating the earth-gods, possibly the Tuatha De Danann, -and securing good harvests and abundant kine. From sacrificial rites -spring, almost of necessity, a sacrificial caste, and this caste--the -druids--had arrived at a high state of organisation in Gaul and Britain -when observed by Cæsar, and did not hesitate to sacrifice whole -hecatombs of human beings. "They think," said Cæsar, "that unless a -man's life is rendered up for a man's life, the will of the immortal -God cannot be satisfied, and they have sacrifices of this kind as a -national institution." - -There appears nothing, however, that I am aware of, to connect the -druids in Ireland with human sacrifice, although such sacrifice appears -to have been offered. The druids, however, appear to have had private -idols of their own. We find a very minute account in the tenth-century -glossary of King Cormac as to how a poet performed incantations with -his idols. The word "poet" is here apparently equivalent to druid, as -the word "druid" like the Latin _vates_ is frequently a synonym for -"poet." Here is how the glossary explains the incantation called _Imbas -Forosnai_:-- - - "This," says the ancient lexicographer, "describes to the poet - whatsoever thing he wishes to discover,[2] and this is the manner - in which it is performed. The poet chews a bit of the raw red flesh - of a pig, a dog, or a cat, and then retires with it to his own bed - behind the door,[3] where he pronounces an oration over it and offers - it to his _idol gods_. He then _invokes the idols_, and if he has - not received the illumination before the next day, he pronounces - incantations upon his two palms and takes his idol gods unto him - [into his bed] in order that he may not be interrupted in his sleep. - He then places his two hands upon his two cheeks and falls asleep. - He is then watched so that he be not stirred nor interrupted by any - one until everything that he seeks be revealed to him at the end of - a _nomad_,[4] or two or three, or as long as he continues at his - offering, and hence it is that this ceremony is called Imbas, that - is, the two hands upon him crosswise, that is, a hand over and a hand - hither upon his cheeks. And St. Patrick prohibited this ceremony, - because it is a species of Teinm Laeghdha,[5] that is, he declared - that any one who performed it should have no place in heaven or on - earth." - -These were apparently the private images of the druid himself which are -spoken of, but there certainly existed public idols in pagan Ireland -before the evangelisation of the island. St. Patrick himself, in his -"Confession," asserts that before his coming the Irish worshipped -idols--_idola et immunda_--and we have preserved to us more than -one account of the great gold-covered image which was set up in Moy -Slaught[6] [_i.e._, the Plain of Adoration], believed to be in the -present county of Cavan. It stood there surrounded by twelve lesser -idols ornamented with brass, and may possibly have been regarded as a -sun-god ruling over the twelve seasons. It was called the Crom Cruach -or Cenn Cruach,[7] and certain Irish tribes considered it their special -tutelary deity. The Dinnseanchas, or explanation of the name of Moy -Slaught, calls it "the King Idol of Erin," "and around him were twelve -idols made of stones, but he was of gold. Until Patrick's advent he was -the god of every folk that colonised Ireland. To him they used to offer -the firstlings of every issue and the chief scions of every clan;" and -the ancient poem in the Book of Leinster declares that it was "a high -idol with many fights, which was named the Cromm Cruaich."[8] - -The poem tells us that "the brave Gaels used to worship it, and would -never ask from it satisfaction as to their portion of the hard world -without paying it tribute." - - "He was their God,[9] - The withered Cromm with many mists, - The people whom he shook over every harbour, - The everlasting kingdom they shall not have. - - To him without glory - Would they kill their piteous wailing offspring, - With much wailing and peril - To pour their blood around Cromm Cruaich. - - Milk and corn - They would ask from him speedily - In return for one-third of their healthy issue, - Great was the horror and scare of him. - - To him - Noble Gaels would prostrate themselves, - From the worship of him, with many manslaughters - The Plain is called Moy Sleacht. - - * * * * * - - In their ranks (stood) - Four times three stone idols - To bitterly beguile the hosts, - The figure of Cromm was made of gold. - - Since the rule - Of Heremon,[10] the noble man of grace, - There was worshipping of stones - Until the coming of good Patrick of Macha [Ardmagh]." - -There is not the slightest reason to distrust this evidence as far as -the existence of Crom Cruach goes. - - "This particular tradition," says Mr. Nutt, "like the majority of - those contained in it [the Dinnseanchas] must be of pre-Christian - origin. It would have been quite impossible for a Christian monk - to have invented such a story, and we may accept it as a perfectly - genuine bit of information respecting the ritual side of insular - Celtic religion."[11] - -St. Patrick overthrew this idol, according both to the poem in the Book -of Leinster and the early lives of the saint. The life says that when -St. Patrick cursed Crom the ground opened and swallowed up the twelve -lesser idols as far as their heads, which, as Rhys acutely observes, -shows that when the early Irish lives of the saint were written the -pagan sanctuary had so fallen into decay, that only the heads of the -lesser idols remained above ground, while he thinks that it was at this -time from its bent attitude and decayed appearance the idol was called -Crom, "the Stooper."[12] There is, however, no apparent or recorded -connection between this idol and the druids, nor do the druids appear -to have fulfilled the functions of a public priesthood in Ireland, and -the Introduction to the Seanchas Mór, or ancient Book of the Brehon -Laws, distinctly says that, "until Patrick came only three classes of -persons were permitted to speak in public in Erin, a chronicler to -relate events and to tell stories, a poet to eulogise and to satirise, -and a Brehon to pass sentence from precedents and commentaries," thus -noticeably omitting all mention of the druids as a public body. - -The idol Crom with his twelve subordinates may very well have -represented the sun, upon whom both season and crops and consequently -the life both of man and beast depend. The gods to whom the early Irish -seem to have sacrificed, were no doubt, as I think Mr. Nutt has shown, -agricultural powers, the lords of life and growth, and with these the -sun, who is at the root of all growth, was intimately connected, "the -object of that worship was to promote increase, the theory of worship -was--life for life."[13] That the Irish swore by the sun and the moon -and the elements is certain; the oath is quoted in many places,[14] -and St. Patrick appears to allude to sun-worship in that passage of his -"Confession," where he says, "that sun which we see rising daily at His -bidding for our sake, it will never reign, and its splendour will not -last for ever, but those who adore it will perish miserably for all -eternity:" this is also borne out by the passage in Cormac's Glossary -of the images the pagans used to adore, "as, for instance, the form or -figure of the sun on the altar."[15] - -Another phase of the druidic character seems to have been that he was -looked upon as an intermediary between man and the invisible powers. -In the story which tells us how Midir the De Danann, carries off the -king's wife, we are informed that the druid's counsel is sought as to -how to recover her, which he at last is enabled to do "through his keys -of science and Ogam," after a year's searching. - -The druids are represented as carrying wands of yew, but there is -nothing in Irish literature, so far as I am aware of, about their -connection with the oak, from the Greek for which, _δρῦς_,[16] they -are popularly supposed to derive their name. They used to be consulted -as soothsayers upon the probable success of expeditions, as by Cormac -mac Art, when he was thinking about extorting a double tribute from -Munster,[17] and by Dáthi, the last pagan king of Ireland, when -setting out upon his expedition abroad; they took auguries by birds, -they could cause magic showers and fires, they observed stars and -clouds, they told lucky days,[18] they had ordeals of their own,[19] -but, above all, they appear to have been tutors or teachers. - -Another druidic practice which is mentioned in Cormac's Glossary is -more fully treated of by Keating, in his account of the great pagan -convention at Uisneach, a hill in Meath, "where the men of Ireland were -wont to exchange their goods and their wares and other jewels." This -convention was held in the month of May, - - "And at it they were wont to make a sacrifice to the arch-god, whom - they adored, whose name was Bél. It was likewise their usage to light - two fires to Bél in every district in Ireland at this season, and - to drive a pair of each herd of cattle that the district contained - between these two fires, as a preservative, to guard them against all - the diseases of that year. It is from that fire thus made that the day - on which the noble feast of the apostles Peter and James is held has - been called Bealtaine [in Scotch Beltane], _i.e._, Bél's fire." - -Cormac, however, says nothing about a god named Bél--who, indeed, is -only once mentioned elsewhere, so far as I know[20]--but explains the -name as if it were Bil-tene, "goodly fire," from the fires which the -druids made on that day through which to drive the cattle.[21] - -Post-Christian accounts of the druids as a whole, and or individual -druids differ widely. The notes on St. Patrick, in the Book of Armagh, -present them in the worst possible light as wicked wizards and augurs -and people of incantations,[22] and the Latin lives of the Saints -nearly always call them "magi." Yet they are admitted to have been able -to prophecy. King Laoghaire's [Leary's] druids prophesied to him three -years before the arrival of Patrick that "adze-heads would come over a -furious sea," - - "Their mantles hole-headed, - Their staves crook-headed, - Their tables in the east of their houses."[23] - -In the lives of the early saints we find some of them on fair terms -with the druids. Columcille's first teacher was a druid, whom his -mother consulted about him. It is true that in the Lismore text he is -called not a druid but a _fáidh, i.e., vates_ or prophet, but this only -confirms the close connection between druid, prophet, and teacher, for -his proceedings are distinctly druidical, the account runs: "Now when -the time for reading came to him the cleric went to a certain prophet -who abode in the land to ask him when the boy ought to begin. When the -prophet had scanned the sky, he said 'Write an alphabet for him now.' -The alphabet was written on a cake, and Columcille consumed the cake -in this wise, half to the east of a water, and half to the west of -a water. Said the prophet through grace of prophecy, 'So shall this -child's territory be, half to the east of the sea, and half to the -west of the sea.'"[24] Columcille himself is said to have composed a -poem beginning, "My Druid is the son of God." Another druid prophesies -of St. Brigit before she was born,[25] and other instances connecting -the early saints with druids are to be found in their lives, which at -least show that there existed a sufficient number of persons in early -Christian Ireland who did not consider the druids wholly bad, but -believed that they could prophecy, at least in the interests of the -saints. - -From what we have said, it is evident that there were always druids in -Ireland, and that they were personages of great importance. But it is -not clear that they were an organised body like the druids of Gaul,[26] -or like the Bardic body in later times in Ireland, nor is it clear what -their exact functions were, but they seem to have been teachers above -everything else. It is clear, too, that the ancient Irish--at least in -some cases--possessed and worshipped images. That they sacrificed to -them, and even offered up human beings, is by no means so certain, the -evidence for this resting upon the single passage in the Dinnseanchas, -and the poem (in a modern style of metre) in the Book of Leinster, -which we have just given, and which though it is evidence for the -existence of the idol Crom Cruach, known to us already from other -sources, may possibly have had the trait of human sacrifice added as a -heightening touch by a Christian chronicler familiar with the accounts -of Moloch and Ashtarôth. The complete silence which, outside of these -passages,[27] exists in all Irish literature as to a proceeding so -terrifying to the popular imagination, seems to me a proof that if -human sacrifice was ever resorted to at all, it had fallen into -abeyance before the landing of the Christian missionaries. - -[1] Cæsar's words are worth repeating. He says that there were two -sorts of men in Gaul both numerous and honoured--the knights and the -Druids, "equites et druides," because the people counted for nothing -and took the initiative in nothing. As for the Druids, he says: "Rebus -divinis intersunt, sacrificia publica et privata procurant, religiones -interpretantur ... nam fere de omnibus controversiis publicis -privatisque constituunt, et si quod est admissum facinus, si cœdes -facta, si de hereditate, de finibus controversia est iidem decernunt -præmia, pœnasque constituunt." All this seems very like the duties -of the Irish Druids, but not what follows: "si qui, aut privatus aut -populus eorum decreto non stetit, sacrificiis interdicunt. Hæc pœna -apud eos est gravissima." Nor do the Irish appear to have had the -over-Druid whom Cæsar talks of. (_See_ "De Bello Gallico," book vi. -chaps. 13, 14). - -[2] "Cach raet bid maith lasin filid agus bud adla(i)c dó do -fhaillsiugad." - -[3] Thus O'Curry ("Miscellany of the Celtic Society," vol. ii. p. 208); -but Stokes translates, "he puts it then on the flagstone behind the -door." See the original in Cormac's Glossary under "Himbas." I have not -O'Donovan's translation by me. - -[4] O'Curry translates this by "day." It is at present curiously used, -I suppose by a kind of confusion with the English "moment," in the -sense of a minute or other short measure of time. At least I have often -heard it so used. - -[5] Another species of incantation mentioned in the glossary. - -[6] In Irish Magh Sleacht. - -[7] In O'Donovan's fragmentary manuscript catalogue of the Irish MSS., -in Trinity College, Dublin, he writes _apropos_ of the life of St. -Maedhog or Mogue, contained in H. 2, 6: "I searched the two Brefneys -for the situation of Moy Sleacht on which stood the chief pagan Irish -idol Crom Cruach, but have failed, being misled by Lanigan, who had -been misled by Seward, who had been blinded by the impostor Beauford, -who placed this plain in the county of Leitrim. It can, however, be -proved from this life of St. Mogue that Magh Sleacht was that level -part of the Barony of Tullaghan (in the county of Cavan) in which -the island of Inis Breaghwee (now Mogue's Island), the church of -Templeport, and the little village of Ballymagauran are situated." I -have been told that O'Donovan afterwards found reason to doubt the -correctness of this identification. - -[8] M. de Jubainville connects the name with _cru_ (Latin, _cruor_), -"blood," translating Cenn Cruach by _tête sanglante_ and Crom Cruach by -_Courbe sanglante_, or _Croissant ensanglanté_; but Rhys connects it -with Cruach, "a reek" or "mound," as in Croagh-Patrick, St. Patrick's -Reek. Cenn Cruach is evidently the same name as the Roman station -Penno-Crucium, in the present county of Stafford, the Irish "c" being -as usual the equivalent of the British "p." This would make it appear -that Cromm was no local idol. Rhys thinks it got its name Crom Cruach, -"the stooped one of the mound," from its bent attitude in the days of -its decadence. - -[9] Observe the exquisite and complicated metre of this in the -original, a proof, I think, that the lines are not very ancient. It -has been edited from the Book of Leinster, Book of Ballymote, Book -of Lecan, and Rennes MS., at vol. i. p. 301 of Mr. Nutt's "Voyage of -Bran," by Dr. Kuno Meyer-- - - "Ba hé a _nDia_ - In Cromm Crín co n-immud _cia_ - In lucht ro Craith ós each _Cúan_ - In flaithius _Búan_ nochos _Bia._" - -[10] _I.e._, Eremon or Erimon, Son of Milesius, see above, p. 59. - -[11] The details of this idol, and, above all, the connection in which -it stands to the mythic culture-king Tighearnmas, could not, as Mr. -Nutt well remarks, have been invented by a Christian monk; but nothing -is more likely, it appears to me, than that such a one, familiar with -the idol rites of Judæa from the Old Testament, may have added the -embellishing trait of the sacrifice of "the firstlings of every issue." - -[12] Sir Samuel Ferguson's admirable poem upon the death of Cormac -refers to the _priests_ of the idol, but there is no recorded evidence -of any such priesthood-- - - "Crom Cruach and his sub-gods twelve, - Saith Cormac, are but carven treene. - The axe that made them haft or helve, - Had worthier of your worship been. - - But he who made the tree to grow, - And hid in earth the iron stone, - And made the man with mind to know - The axe's use is God alone. - - Anon _to priests of Crom were brought--_ - _Where girded in their service dread_, - _They ministered_ in red Moy Slaught-- - Word of the words King Cormac said. - - They loosed their curse against the king, - They cursed him in his flesh and bones, - And daily in their mystic ring - They turned the maledictive stones." - -D'Arcy McGee also refers to Crom Cruach in terms almost equally poetic, -but equally unauthorised:-- - - "Their ocean-god was Manannán Mac Lir, - Whose angry lips - In their white foam full often would inter - Whole fleets of ships. - Crom _was their day-god and their thunderer_, - Made morning and eclipse; - Bride was their queen of song, and unto her - They prayed with fire-touched lips!" - -[13] Nutt's "Voyage of Bran," vol. ii. p. 250. - -[14] The elements are recorded as having slain King Laoghaire because -he broke the oath he had made by them. In the Lament for Patrick -Sarsfield as late as the seventeenth century, the unknown poet cries: - - "Go mbeannaigh' an ghealach gheal's an ghrian duit, - O thug tu an lá as láimh Righ 'Liam leat." - -_I.e._, May the white Moon and the Sun bless you, since thou hast taken -the Day out of the hand of King William. - -And a little later we find the harper Carolan swearing "by the light of -the sun." - - "Molann gach aon an té bhíos cráibhtheach cóir, - Agus molann gach aon an té bhíos páirteach leó, - _Dar solas na gréine_ sé mo rádh go deó - Go molfad gan spéis gan bhréig an t-áth mar geóbhad." - -[15] See above, ch. V, note 18. - -[16] The genitive of _drai_, the modern _draoi_ (_dhree_) is _druad_, -from whence no doubt the Latin _druidis_. It was Pliny who first -derived the name from _δρῦς_. The word with a somewhat altered meaning -was in use till recently. The wise men from the East are called druids -(_draoithe_) in O'Donnell's translation of the New Testament. The -modern word for enchantment (_draoidheacht_) is literally "druidism," -but an enchanter is usually _draoidheadóir_, a derivation from _draoi_. - -[17] See above, ch. III, note 14. - -[18] Cathbad, Conor mac Nessa's Druid, foretold that any one who took -arms--the Irish equivalent for knighthood--upon a certain day, would -become famous for ever, but would enjoy only a brief life. It was -Cuchulain who assumed arms upon that day. - -[19] O'Curry quotes a druidic ordeal from the MS. marked H. 3. 17 in -Trinity College, Dublin. A woman to clear her character has to rub her -tongue to a red-hot adze of bronze, which had been heated in a fire of -blackthorn or rowan-tree. - -[20] "Revue Celt.," vol. ii. p. 443. Is Bel to be equated with what -Rhys calls in one place "the chthonian divinity Beli the Great," of -the Britons, and in another "Beli the Great, the god of death and -darkness"? (_See_ "Hibbert Lectures," pp. 168 and 274.) - -[21] The Christian priests, apparently unable to abolish these cattle -ceremonies, took the harm out of them by transferring them to St. -John's Eve, the 24th of June, where they are still observed in most -districts of Ireland, and large fires built with bones in them, and -occasionally cattle are driven through them or people leap over -them. The cattle were probably driven through the fire as a kind of -substitute for their sacrifice, and the bones burnt in the fire are -probably a substitute for the bones of the cattle that should have been -offered up. Hence the fires are called "teine cnámh" (bone-fire) in -Irish, and bōne-fire (not bŏnfire) in English. - -[22] St. Patrick is there stated to have found around the king "scivos -et magos et auruspices, incantatores et omnis malæ artis inventores." - -[23] This means tonsured men, with cowls, with pastoral staves, with -altars in the east end of the churches. The ancient Irish rann is very -curious:--- - - "Ticcat Tailcinn - Tar muir meirceann, - A mbruit toillceann. - A crainn croimceann. - A miasa n-airrter tige - Friscerat uile amen." - -[24] _I.e._, one half in Ireland, the other in Scotland, alluding to -his work at Iona and among the Picts. - -[25] Stokes, "Lives of the Saints, from the Book of Lismore," p. 183. - -[26] Who were, according to Ammianus Marcellinus, quoting the Greek -historian, Timagenes, "sodaliciis adstricti consortiis." - -[27] There is one other instance of human sacrifice mentioned in the -Book of Ballymote, but this is recorded in connection with funeral -games, and appears to have been an isolated piece of barbarity -performed "that it might be a reproach to the Momonians for ever, and -that it might be a trophy over them." Fiachra, a brother of Niall of -the Nine Hostages, in the fourth century, carried off fifty hostages -from Munster, and dying of his wounds, the hostages were buried alive -with him, round his grave: "ro hadnaicead na geill tucadh a neass -ocus siad beo im fheart Fiachra comba hail for Mumain do gres, ocus -comba comrama forra." For another allusion to "human sacrifice" see -O'Curry's "Manners and Customs," vol. i. p. dcxli and cccxxxiii. The -"Dinnseanchas," quoted from above, is a topographical work explaining -the origin of Irish place-names, and attributed to Amergin mac -Amhalgaidh, poet to King Diarmuid mac Cearbaill, who lived in the sixth -century. "There seems no reason," says Dr. Atkinson, in his preface -to the facsimile Book of Leinster, "for disputing his claims to be -regarded as the original compiler of a work of a similar character--the -original nucleus is not now determinable." The oldest copy is the -Book of Leinster and treats of nearly two hundred places and contains -eighty-eight poems. The copy in the Book of Ballymote contains one -hundred and thirty-nine, and that in the Book of Lecan even more. The -total number of all the poems contained in the different copies is -close on one hundred and seventy. The copy in the Bodleian Library -was published by Whitley Stokes in "Folk-lore," December, 1892, and -that in the Advocates Library, in Edinburgh, in "Folk-lore," December, -1893. The prose tales, from a copy at Rennes, he published in the -"Revue Celtique," vols. xv. and xvi. An edition of the oldest copy in -the Book of Leinster is still a desideratum. The whole work is full of -interesting pagan allusions, but the different copies, in the case of -many names, vary greatly and even contradict each other. - - - - -CHAPTER X - -THE IRISH ELYSIUM AND BELIEF IN REBIRTH - - -Cæsar, writing some fifty years before Christ about the Gauls and -their Druids, tells his countrymen that one of the prime articles -which they taught was that men's souls do not die--_non interire -animas_--"but passed over after death from one into another," and -their opinion is, adds Cæsar, that this doctrine "greatly tends to the -arousing of valour, all fear of death being despised."[1] A few years -later Diodorus Siculus wrote that one of their doctrines was "that -the souls of men are undying, and that after finishing their term of -existence they pass into another body," adding that at burials of the -dead some actually cast letters addressed to their departed relatives -upon the funeral pile, under the belief that the dead would read them -in the next world. Timagenes, a Greek who wrote a history of Gaul now -lost, Strabo, Valerius Maximus, Pomponius Mela, and Lucan[2] in his -"Pharsalia," all have passages upon this vivid belief of the Gauls -that the soul lived again. This doctrine must also have been current -in Britain, where the Druidic teaching was, to use Cæsar's phrase, -"discovered, and thence brought into Gaul," and it would have been -curious indeed if Ireland did not share in it. - -There is, moreover, abundant evidence to show that the doctrine of -metempsychosis was perfectly familiar to the pagan Irish, as may -be seen in the stories of the births of Cuchulain, Etain, the Two -Swineherds, Conall Cearnach, Tuan Mac Cairill, and Aedh Sláne.[3] -But there is not, in our existing literature, any evidence that the -belief was ever elevated into a philosophical doctrine of general -acceptance, applicable to every one, still less that there was ever -any ethical stress laid upon the belief in rebirth. It is only the -mythological element in the belief in metempsychosis which has come -down to us, and from which we ascertain that the pagan Irish believed -that supernatural beings could become clothed in flesh and blood, -could enter into women and be born again, could take different shapes -and pass through different stages of existence, as fowls, animals, or -men. What the actual doctrinal form of the familiar idea was, or how -far it influenced the popular mind, we have no means of knowing. But -as Mr. Nutt well remarks, "early Irish religion must have possessed -some ritual, and what in default of an apter term must be styled -philosophical as well as mythological elements. Practically the latter -alone have come down to us, and that in a romantic rather than in -a strictly mythical form. Could we judge Greek religion aright if -fragments of Apollodorus or the 'Metamorphoses' were all that survived -of the literature it inspired?"[4] The most that can be said upon the -subject, then, is that the doctrine of rebirth was actually taught -with a deliberate ethical purpose--that of making men brave, since on -being slain in this life they passed into a new one--amongst the Celts -of Gaul, that it must have been familiar to the Britons between whose -Druids and those of Gaul so close a resemblance subsisted, and that the -idea of rebirth which forms part of half-a-dozen existing Irish sagas, -was perfectly familiar to the Irish Gael, although we have no evidence -that it was connected with any ritual or taught as a deliberate -doctrine. - -In reconstructing from our existing literature the beliefs and religion -of our ancestors, we can only do so incompletely, and with difficulty, -from passages in the oldest sagas and other antique fragments, mostly -of pagan origin, from allusions in very early poems, from scanty -notices in the annals, and from the lives of early saints. The -relatively rapid conversion of the island to Christianity in the fifth -century, and the enthusiasm with which the new religion was received, -militated against any full transmission of pagan belief or custom. We -cannot now tell whether all the ancient Irish were imbued with the -same religious beliefs, or whether these varied--as they probably -did--from tribe to tribe. Probably all the Celtic races, even in their -most backward state, believed--so far as they had any persuasion on -the subject at all--in the immortality of the soul. Where the souls of -the dead went to, when they were not reincarnated, is not so clear. -They certainly believed in a happy Other-World, peopled by a happy -race, whither people were sometimes carried whilst still alive, and to -gain which they either traversed the sea to the north-west, or else -entered one of the Sidh [Shee] mounds, or else again dived beneath -the water.[5] In all cases, however, whatever the mode of access, the -result is much the same. A beautiful country is discovered where a -happy race free from care, sickness, and death, spend the smiling hours -in simple, sensuous pleasures. - -There is a graphic description of this Elysium in the "Voyage of Bran," -a poem evidently pagan,[6] and embodying purely pagan conceptions. A -mysterious female, an emissary from the lovely land, appears in Bran's -household one day, when the doors were closed and the house full of -chiefs and princes, and no one knew whence she came, and she chanted -to them twenty-eight quatrains describing the delights of the pleasant -country. - - "There is a distant isle - Around which sea-horses glisten, - A fair course against the white-swelling surge, - Four feet uphold it.[7] - - Feet of white bronze under it, - Glittering through beautiful ages. - Lovely land throughout the world's age - On which the many blossoms drop. - - An ancient tree there is with blossoms - On which birds call to the Hours. - 'Tis in harmony, it is their wont - To call together every Hour. - - * * * * * - - Unknown is wailing or treachery - In the familiar cultivated land, - There is nothing rough or harsh, - But sweet music striking on the ear. - - Without grief, without sorrow, without death, - Without any sickness, without debility, - That is the sign of Emain, - Uncommon, an equal marvel. - - A beauty of a wondrous land - Whose aspects are lovely, - Whose view is a fair country, - Incomparable in its haze. - - * * * * - - The sea washes the wave against the land, - Hair of crystal drops from its mane. - - Wealth, treasures of every hue, - Are in the gentle land, a beauty of freshness, - Listening to sweet music, - Drinking the best of wine. - - Golden chariots on the sea plain - Rising with the tide to the sun, - Chariots of silver in the plain of sports - And of unblemished bronze. - - * * * * * - - At sunrise there will come - A fair man illumining level lands, - He rides upon the fair sea-washed plain, - He stirs the ocean till it is blood. - - * * * * * - - Then they row to the conspicuous stone - From which arise a hundred strains. - - It sings a strain unto the host - Through long ages, it is not sad, - Its music swells with choruses of hundreds. - They look for neither decay nor death. - - There will come happiness with health - To the land against which laughter peals. - Into Imchiuin [the very calm place] at every season, - Will come everlasting joy. - - It is a day of lasting weather - That showers [down] silver on the land, - A pure-white cliff in the verge of the sea - Which from the sun receives its heat." - -Manannán, the Irish Neptune, driving in a chariot across the sea, -which to him was a flowery plain, meets Bran thereafter, and chants to -him twenty-eight more verses about the lovely land of Moy Mell, "the -Pleasant Plain," which the unknown lady had described, and they are -couched in the same strain. - - "Though [but] one rider is seen - In Moy Mell of many powers, - There are many steeds on its surface - Although thou seest them not. - - * * * * * - - A beautiful game, most delightful - They play [sitting] at the luxurious wine, - Men and gentle women under a bush - Without sin, without crime. - - * * * * * - - A wood with blossom and fruit, - On which is the vine's veritable fragrance; - A wood without decay, without defect, - On which are leaves of golden hue." - -Then, prophesying of the death of Mongan, he sang-- - - "He will drink a drink from Loch Ló, - While he looks at the stream of blood; - The white hosts will take him under a wheel of clouds, - To the gathering where there is no sorrow." - -I know of few things in literature comparable to this lovely -description, at once so mystic and so sensuous, of the joys of the -other world. To my mind it breathes the very essence of Celtic glamour, -and is shot through and through with the Celtic love of form, beauty, -landscape, company, and the society of woman. How exquisite the idea of -being transported from this world to an isle around which sea-horses -glisten, where from trees covered with blossoms the birds call in -harmony to the Hours, a land whose haze is incomparable! What a touch! -Where hair of crystal drops from the mane of the wave as it washes -against the land; where the chariots of silver and of bronze assemble -on the plain of sports, in the country against which laughter peals, -and the day of lasting weather showers silver on the land. And then to -play sitting at the luxurious wine-- - - "Men and gentle women under a bush - Without sin, without crime!" - -I verily believe there is no Gael alive even now who would not in his -heart of hearts let drift by him the Elysiums of Virgil, Dante, and -Milton to grasp at the Moy Mell of the unknown Irish pagan. - -In another perhaps equally ancient story, that of the elopement of -Connla, son of Conn of the Hundred Battles,[8] with a lady who is a -denizen of this mysterious land, we find the unknown visitor giving -nearly the same account of it as that given to Bran. - -"Whence hast thou come, O Lady?" said the Druid. - -"I have come," said she, "from the lands of the living in which there -is neither death, nor sin, nor strife;[9] we enjoy perpetual feasts -without anxiety, and benevolence without contention. A large Sidh -[_Shee_, "fairy-mound"] is where we dwell, so that it is hence we are -called the Sidh [Shee] people." - -The Druids appear, as I have already remarked, to have acted as -intermediaries between the inhabitants of the other world and of -this, and in the story of Connla one of them chants against the lady -so that her voice was not heard, and he drives her away through his -incantation. She comes back, however, at the end of a month, and again -summons the prince. - -"'Tis no lofty seat," she chanted, "upon which sits Connla amid -short-lived mortals awaiting fearful death; the ever-living ones invite -thee to be the ruler over the men of Tethra." - -Conn of the Hundred Battles, who had overheard her speech, cried, "Call -me the Druid; I see her tongue has been allowed her to-day [again]." - -But she invisible to all save the prince replied to him-- - -"O Conn of the Hundred Battles, druidism is not loved, for little -has it progressed to honour on the great Righteous Strand, with its -numerous, wondrous, various families." - -After that she again invites the prince to follow her, saying-- - - "There is another land which it were well to seek. - I see the bright sun is descending, though far off we shall reach it - ere night. - 'Tis the land that cheers the mind of every one that turns to me. - There is no race in it save only women and maidens." - -The prince is overcome with longing. He leaps into her well-balanced, -gleaming boat of pearl. Those who were left behind upon the strand "saw -them dimly, as far as the sight of their eyes could reach. They sailed -the sea away from them, and from that day to this have not been seen, -and it is unknown where they went to." - -In the fine story of Cuchulain's sick-bed,[10] in which though the -language of the text is not so ancient, the conceptions are equally -pagan, the deserted wife of Manannán, the Irish Neptune, falls in love -with the human warrior, and invites him to the other-world to herself, -through the medium of an ambassadress. Cuchulain sends his charioteer -Laeg along with this mysterious ambassadress, that he may bring him -word again, to what kind of land he is invited. Laeg, when he returns, -repeats a glowing account of its beauty, which coincides closely with -those given by the ladies who summoned Bran and Connla. - - "There are at the western door, - In the place where the sun goes down, - A stud of steeds of the best of breeds - Of the grey and the golden brown. - - There wave by the eastern door - Three crystal-crimson trees, - Whence the warbling bird all day is heard - On the wings of the perfumed breeze. - - And before the central door - Is another, of gifts untold. - All silvern-bright in the warm sunlight, - Its branches gleam like gold."[11] - - * * * * * - -In the saga of the Wooing of Etain we meet with what is substantially -the same description. She is the wife of one of the Tuatha De Danann, -is reborn as a mortal, and weds the king of Ireland. Her former -husband, Midir, still loves her, follows her, and tries to win her -back. She is unwilling, and he chants to her this description of the -land to which he would lure her. - - "Come back to me, lady, to love and to shine - In the land that was thine in the long-ago, - Where of primrose hue is the golden hair - And the limbs are as fair as the wreathèd snow. - - To the lakes of delight that no storm may curl, - Where the teeth are as pearl, the eyes as sloes, - Which alight, whenever they choose to seek, - On the bloom of a cheek where the foxglove glows. - - Each brake is alive with the flowers of spring, - Whence the merles sing in their shy retreat; - Though sweet be the meadows of Innisfail, - Our beautiful vale is far more sweet. - - Though pleasant the mead be of Innisfail, - More pleasant the ale of that land of mine, - A land of beauty, a land of truth, - Where youth shall never grow old or pine. - - Fair rivers brighten the vale divine,-- - There are choicest of wine and of mead therein. - And heroes handsome and women fair - Are in dalliance there without stain or sin. - - From thence we see, though we be not seen, - We know what has been and shall be again, - And the cloud that was raised by the first man's fall, - Has concealed us all from the eyes of men. - - Then come with me, lady, to joys untold, - And a circlet of gold on thy head shall be, - Banquets of milk and of wine most rare, - Thou shalt share, O lady, and share with me."[12] - -The casual Christian allusion in the penultimate verse need not lead -us astray, nor does it detract from the essentially pagan character -of the rest, for throughout almost the whole of Irish literature the -more distinctly or ferociously pagan any piece is, the more certain -it is to have a Christian allusion added at the end as a make-weight. -There is great ingenuity displayed in thus turning the pagan legend -into a Christian homily by the addition of two lines suggesting that -if men were not sinful, this beautiful pagan world and the beautiful -forms that inhabited it would be visible to the human ken. This was -sufficient to disarm any hostility to the legend on the part of the -Church. - -From what we have said it is evident that the ancient Irish pagans -believed in the possibility of rebirth, and founded many of their -mythical sagas on the doctrine of metempsychosis, and that they had -a highly ornate and fully-developed belief in a happy other-world or -Elysium, to which living beings were sometimes carried off without -going through the forms of death. But it is impossible to say whether -rebirth with life in another world, for those whom the gods favoured, -was taught as a doctrine or had any ethical significance attached to it -by the druids of Ireland, as it most undoubtedly had by their cousins -the druids of Gaul. - -[1] "De Bello Gallico," vi. 14. - -[2] See "Voyage of Bran," vol. ii. pp. 107-111, where all these -passages have been lucidly collected by Mr. Nutt. - -[3] All of these have been studied by Mr. Nutt, chap. xiv. - -[4] Vol. ii. p. 121. - -[5] In a large collection of nearly sixty folk-lore stories taken down -in Irish from the lips of the peasantry, I find about five contain -allusions to the belief in another world full of life under water, -and about four in a life in the inside of the hills. The Hy Brasil -type--that of finding the dead living again on an ocean island--is, so -far as I have yet collected, quite unrepresented amongst them. An old -Irish expression for dying is going "to the army of the dead," used -by Déirdre in her lament, and I find a variant of it so late as the -beginning of this century, in a poem by Raftery, a blind musician of -the county Mayo, who tells his countrymen to remember that they must -go "to the meadow of the dead." _See_ Raftery's "Aithreachas," in my -"Religious Songs of Connacht," p. 266. - -[6] Admirably translated by Kuno Meyer, who says "there are a large -number of [word] forms in the 'Voyage of Bran,' as old as any to be -found in the Wurzburg Glosses," and these Professor Thurneysen ascribes -unhesitatingly to the seventh century. Zimmer also agrees that the -piece is not later than the seventh century, that is, was first written -down in the seventh century, but this is no criterion of the date of -the original composition. - -[7] I give Kuno Meyer's translation: in the original-- - - "Fil inis i n-eterchéin - Immataitnet gabra rein - Rith find fris tóibgel tondat - Ceitheóir cossa foslongat." - -In modern Irish the first two lines would run - - "[Go] bhfuil inis i n-idir-chéin - Urn a dtaithnigeann gabhra réin." - -_Réin_ being the genitive of _rian_, "the sea," which, according to M. -d'Arbois, the Gaels brought with them as a reminiscence of the Rhine, -see above p. 10. - -[8] Preserved in the Leabhar na h-Uidhre, a MS. compiled from older -ones about the year 1100. See for this story "Gaelic Journal," vol. ii. -p. 306. - -[9] "_Dodeochadsa for in ben a tirib beó áit inna bi bás na peccad na -imorbus, i.e._ [go], ndeachas-sa ar san bhean ó tíribh na mbeó, áit ann -nach mbionn bás ná peacadh ná immarbhádh." - -[10] Also contained in the Leabhar na h-Uidhre, a MS. transcribed about -the year 1100. - -[11] Literally: "There are at the western door, in the place where the -sun goes down, a stud of steeds with grey-speckled manes and another -crimson brown. There are at the eastern door three ancient trees of -crimson crystal, from which incessantly sing soft-toned birds. There is -a tree in front of the court, it cannot be matched in harmony, a tree -of silver against which the sun shines, like unto gold is its great -sheen." - -[12] A Befind in raga lim / I tír n-ingnad hifil rind / Is barr -sobairche folt and / Is dath snechtu chorp coind. Literally: "O lady -fair wouldst thou come with me to the wondrous land that is ours, where -the hair is as the blossom of the primrose, where the tender body is as -fair as snow. There shall be no grief there nor sorrow; white are the -teeth there, black are the eyebrows, a delight to the eye is the number -of our host, and on every cheek is the hue of the foxglove. - -"The crimson of the foxglove is in every brake, delightful to the eye -[there] the blackbird's eggs. Although pleasant to behold are the -plains of Innisfail, after frequenting the Great Plain rarely wouldst -thou [remember them]. Though heady to thee the ale of Innisfail, -headier the ale of the great land, a beauty of a land, the land I speak -of. Youth never grows there into old age. Warm, sweet streams traverse -the country with choicest mead and choicest wine, handsome persons [are -there], without blemish, conception without sin, without stain. - -"We see every one on every side, and no one seeth us; the cloud of -Adam's wrong-doing has concealed us from being numbered. O lady, if -thou comest to my brave land, it is a crown of gold shall be upon thy -head, fresh flesh of swine, banquets of new milk and ale shalt thou -have with me then, fair lady." - -_Apropos_ of the Irish liking for swine's flesh, Stanihurst tells a -good story: "'No meat,' says he, 'they fansie so much as porke, and -the fatter the better. One of John O'Nel's [Shane O'Neill's] household -demanded of his fellow whether beefe were better than porke. 'That,' -quoth the other, 'is as intricate a question as to ask whether thou art -better than O'Nell.'" - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -EARLY USE OF LETTERS, OGAM AND ROMAN - - -We now come to the question, When and where did the Irish get their -alphabet, and at what time did they begin to practise the art of -writing? The present alphabet of the Irish, which they have used in -all their books from the seventh century down, and probably for three -hundred years before that, is only a modification--and a peculiarly -beautiful one--of the Roman letters. This alphabet they no doubt -borrowed from their neighbours, the Romanised Britons, within whose -territory they had established themselves, and with whom--now in peace, -now in war--they carried on a vigorous and constant intercourse.[1] The -_general_ use of letters in Ireland is, however, to be attributed to -the early Christian missionaries. - -But there is no reason to believe that it was St. Patrick, or indeed -any missionary, who first introduced them. There probably were in -Ireland many persons in the fourth century, or perhaps even earlier, -who were acquainted with the art of writing. Already, at the beginning -of the third century at least, says Zimmer in his "Keltische Studien," -British missionaries were at work in the south of Ireland. Bede, in -his history, says distinctly that Palladius was sent from Rome in the -year 431 to the Irish "who believed in Christ"--"ad Scottos in Christum -credentes." Already, at the close of the third century, there was an -organised British episcopate, and three British bishops attended the -Council of Arles held in 314. It is quite impossible that the numerous -Irish colonies settled in the south of England and in Wales could -have failed to come into contact with this organised Church, and even -to have been influenced by it. The account in the Acta Sanctorum, of -Declan, Bishop of Waterford, said to have been born in 347, and of -Ailbe, another southern bishop, who met St. Patrick, may be looked -upon as perfectly true in so far as it relates to the actual existence -of these pre-Patrician bishops. St. Chrysostom, writing in the year -387, mentions that already churches and altars had been erected in -the British Isles. Pelagius, the subtle and persuasive heresiarch who -taught with such success at Rome about the year 400, and acquired -great influence there, was of Irish descent--"habet progeniem Scotticæ -gentis de Brittanorum vicinia," said St. Jerome. As St. Augustine -and Prosper of Aquitaine call him "Briton" and "British scribe," he -probably belonged to one of the Irish colonies settled in Wales or the -South-west of England. His success at Rome is a proof that some Irish -families at least were within reach of literary education in the fourth -century. His friend and teacher, Celestius, has also been claimed as an -Irishman, but Dr. Healy has shown that this claim is perhaps founded -upon a misconception.[2] - -"The influence of the ancient Irish on the Continent," says Dr. -Sigerson, "began in the works of Sedulius, whose 'Carmen Paschale,' -published in the fifth century, is the first great Christian epic -worthy of the name." Sedulius, the Virgil of theological poetry, -flourished in the first half of the fifth century, and seems to have -studied in Gaul, passed into Italy, and finally resided in Achaia in -Greece, which he seems to have made his home. There are at least eight -Irish Siadals (in Latin Sedulius, in English Shiel) commemorated by -Colgan. The strongest evidence of Sedulius's Irish nationality is that -the Irish geographer Dicuil, in the eighth century, quoting some of -his lines, calls him _noster Sedulius_. John of Tritenheim, towards -the close of the fifteenth century, distinctly calls him an Irishman -_natione Scotus_, but attributes to him the verses of a later Sedulius. -Dr. Sigerson, by a clever analysis of his verse-peculiarities confirms -this opinion.[3] - -In the "Tripartite Life of St. Patrick" we read that the druids at the -king's court, when St. Patrick arrived there, possessed books, and -when, at a later date, St. Patrick determined upon revising the Brehon -law code, the books in which it was written down were laid before him. -That there has come down to our time no written record earlier than the -seventh or eighth century[4] is chiefly due to the enormous destruction -of books by the Danes and English. The same causes produced a like -effect in Britain, for the oldest surviving British MSS. are not even -as old as ours, although the art of writing must have been known and -practised there since the Roman occupation. - -The Irish had, however, another system of writing which they -themselves invented. This was the celebrated Ogam script, consisting -of a number of short lines, straight or slanting,[5] and drawn either -below, above, or through one long stem-line, which stem-line is -generally the angle between two sides of a long upright rectangular -stone. These lines represented letters; and over two hundred stones -have been found inscribed with Ogam writing. It is a remarkable fact -that rude as this device for writing is, it has been applied with -considerable skill, and is framed with much ingenuity. For in every -case it is found that those letters which, like the vowels, are most -easily pronounced, are also in Ogam the easiest to inscribe, and the -simpler sounds are represented by simpler characters than those that -are more complex. To account for the philosophical character of this -alphabet[6] "than which no simpler method of writing is imaginable," -a German, Dr. Rethwisch, who examined it from this side, concluded -that "the natural gifts of the Celts and their practical genius for -simplicity and observation ripened up to a certain stage far earlier -than those of their Indo-European relations." This statement, however, -rests upon the as yet unproved assumption that Ogam writing is -pre-Christian and pagan. What is of more interest is that the author -of it supposed that with one or two changes it would make the simplest -conceivable universal-alphabet or international code of writing. It -is very strange that nearly all the Irish Ogam stones are found in -the south-west, chiefly in the counties of Cork and Kerry, with a few -scattered over the rest of the country--but one in West Connacht, -and but one or two at the most in Ulster. Between twenty and thirty -more have been found in Wales and Devonshire, and one or two even -farther east, thus bearing witness to the colonies planted by the -Irish marauders in early Britain, for Ogam writing is peculiar to -the Irish Gael and only found where he had settled. Ten stones more -have been found in Scotland, probably the latest in date of any, for -some of these, unlike the Irish stones, bear Christian symbols. Many -Ogams have been easily read, thanks to the key contained in the Book -of Ballymote; thanks also to the fact that one or two Ogams have been -found with duplicates inscribed in Latin letters. But many still defy -all attempts at deciphering them, though numerous efforts have been -made, treating them as though they were cryptic ciphers, which they -were long believed to be. That Ogam was, as some assert, an early -cryptic alphabet, and one intended to be read only by the initiated, -is both in face of the numbers of such inscriptions already deciphered -and in the face of the many instances recorded in our oldest sagas of -its employment, an absurd hypothesis. It is nearly always treated in -them as an ordinary script which any one could read. It may, however, -have been occasionally used in later times in a cryptic sense, names -being written backwards or syllables transposed, but this was -certainly not the original invention. Some of the latest Ogam pillars -are gravestones of people who died so late as the year 600, but what -proportion of them, if any, date from before the Christian era it is -as yet impossible to tell. Certain it is that the grammatical forms of -the language inscribed upon most of them are vastly older than those of -the very oldest manuscripts,[7] and agree with those of the old Gaulish -linguistic monuments. - -Cormac's Glossary--a work of the ninth or tenth century--the ancient -sagas, and many allusions in the older literature, would seem to show -that Ogam writing was used by the pagan Irish. Cormac, explaining the -word _fé_ says that "it was a wooden rod used by the Gael for measuring -corpses and graves, and that this rod used always to be kept in the -burial-places of the heathen, and it was a horror to every one even -to take it in his hand, and whatever was abominable to them they (the -pagans) used to inscribe on it in Ogam."[8] The sagas also are full of -allusions to Ogam writing. In the "Táin Bo Chuailgne," which probably -assumed substantially its present shape in the seventh century, we -are told how when Cuchulain, after assuming arms, drove into Leinster -with his charioteer and came to the dún or fort of the three sons of -Nechtan, he found on the lawn before the court a stone pillar, around -which was written in Ogam that every hero who passed thereby was bound -to issue a challenge. This was clearly no cryptic writing but the -ordinary script, meant to be read by every one who passed.[9] Cuchulain -in the same saga frequently cuts Ogam on wands, which he leaves in -the way of Mève's army. These are always brought to his friend Fergus -to read. Perhaps the next oldest allusion to Ogam writing is in the -thoroughly pagan "Voyage of Bran," which both Zimmer and Kuno Meyer -consider to have been committed to writing in the seventh century. We -are there told that Bran wrote the fifty or sixty quatrains of the poem -in Ogam. Again, in Cormac's Glossary[10] we find a story of how Lomna -Finn mac Cool's fool (drúth) made an Ogam and put it in Finn's way to -tell him how his wife had been unfaithful to him. A more curious case -is the story in the Book of Leinster of Corc's flying to the Court of -King Feradach in Scotland. Not knowing how he might be received he hid -in a wood near by. The King's poet, however, meets him and recognises -him, having seen him before that in Ireland. The poet notices an Ogam -on the prince's shield, and asks him, "Who was it that befriended you -with that Ogam, for it was not good luck which he designed for you?" -"Why," asked the prince, "what does it contain?" "What it contains," -said the poet, "is this--that if by day you arrive at the Court of -Feradach the king, your head shall be struck off before night; if it be -at night you arrive your head shall be struck off before morning."[11] -This Ogam was apparently readable only by the initiated, for the -prince did not himself know what he was bearing on his shield. - -All ancient Irish literature, then, is unanimous in attributing -a knowledge of Ogam to the pre-Christian Irish. M. d'Arbois de -Jubainville seems also to believe in its pagan antiquity, for when -discussing the story of St. Patrick's setting a Latin alphabet before -Fiach, and of the youth's learning to read the Psalms within the -following four-and-twenty hours, he remarks that the story is just -possible since Fiach should have known the Ogam alphabet, and except -for the form of the letters it and the Latin alphabet were the same.[12] - -St. Patrick, too, tells us in his "Confession" how after his flight -from Ireland he saw a man coming as it were from that country with -innumerable letters, a dream that would scarcely have visited him had -he known that there was no one in Ireland who could write letters.[13] - -The Ogam alphabet, however, is based upon the Roman. Of this there can -be no doubt, for it contains letters which, according to the key, -represents Q (made by five upright strokes above the stem line), Z, -and Y, none of which letters are used in even the oldest MSS., and two -of which at least must have been borrowed from the Romans. The most, -then, that can at present be said with absolute certainty is, as Dr. -Whitley Stokes cautiously puts it, that these Ogam inscriptions and the -language in which they are couched are "enough to show that some of the -Celts of these islands wrote their language before the fifth century, -the time at which Christianity is supposed to have been introduced into -Ireland."[14] The presence of these Roman letters never used by the -Irish on vellum, and the absence of any aspirated letters (which abound -even in the oldest vellum MSS.) are additional proofs of the antiquity -of the Ogam alphabet. - -The Irish themselves ascribed the invention of Ogam to [the god] Ogma, -one of the leading Tuatha De Danann,[15] and although it may be, as -Rhys points out, philologically unsound to derive Ogam from Ogma, yet -there appears to be an intimate connection between the two words, and -Ogma may well be derived from Ogam, which in its early stage may have -meant fluency or learning rather than letters. Certainly there cannot -be any doubt that Ogma, the Tuatha De Danann, was the same as the -Gaulish god Ogmios of whom Lucian, that pleasantest of Hellenes, gives -us an account so delightfully graphic that it is worth repeating in -its entirety as another proof of what I shall have more to speak about -later on, the solidarity--to use a useful Gallicism--of the Irish and -the Continental Gauls. - - "The Celts,"[16] says Lucian, "call Heracles in the language of their - country Ogmios, and they make very strange representations of the god. - With them he is an extremely old man with a bald forehead and his few - remaining hairs quite grey; his skin is wrinkled and embrowned by - the sun to that degree of swarthiness which is characteristic of men - who have grown old in a seafaring life; in fact, you would fancy him - rather to be a Charon or Japetus, one of the dwellers in Tartarus, or - anybody rather than Heracles. But although he is of this description - he is nevertheless attired like Heracles, for he has on him the lion's - skin, and he has a club in the right hand; he is duly equipped with - a quiver, and his left hand displays a bow stretched out, in these - respects he is quite Heracles.[17] It struck me then that the Celts - took such liberties with the appearance of Heracles in order to insult - the gods of the Greeks and avenge themselves on him in their painting, - because he once made a raid on their territory, when in search of the - herds of Geryon he harassed most of the Western peoples. I have not - yet, however, mentioned the most whimsical part of the picture, for - this old man Heracles draws after him a great number of men bound - by their ears, and the bonds are slender cords wrought of gold and - amber, like necklaces of the most beautiful make; and although they - are dragged on by such weak ties they never try to run away, though - they could easily do it, nor do they at all resist or struggle against - them, planting their feet in the ground and throwing their weight - back in the direction contrary to that in which they are being led. - Quite the reverse, they follow with joyful countenance in a merry - mood, and praising him who leads them, pressing on, one and all, and - slackening their chains in their eagerness to proceed; in fact, they - look like men who would be grieved should they be set free. But that - which seemed to me the most absurd thing of all I will not hesitate - also to tell you: the painter, you see, had nowhere to fix the ends - of the cords since the right hand of the god held the club and his - left the bow; so he pierced the tip of his tongue and represented the - people as drawn on from it, and the god turns a smiling countenance - towards those whom he is leading. Now I stood a long time looking at - these things and wondered, perplexed and indignant. But a certain - Celt standing by, who knew something about our ways, as he showed by - speaking good Greek--a man who was quite a philosopher I take it in - local matters--said to me: 'Stranger, I will tell you the secret of - the painting, for you seem very much troubled about it. We Celts do - not consider the power of speech to be Hermes as you Greeks do, but we - represent it by means of Heracles, because he is much stronger than - Hermes. Nor should you wonder at his being represented as an old man, - for the power of words is wont to show its perfection in the aged; - for your poets are, no doubt, right when they say that the thoughts - of young men turn with every wind, and that age has something wiser - to tell us than youth. And so it is that honey pours from the tongue - of that Nestor of yours, and the Trojan orators speak with a voice - of the delicacy of the lily, a voice well covered, so to say, with - bloom, for the bloom of flowers, if my memory does not fail me, has - the term lilies applied to it. So if this old man Heracles (the power - of speech) draws men after him, tied to his tongue by their ears, you - have no reason to wonder; as you must be aware of the close connection - between the ears and the tongue. Nor is there any injury done him by - the latter being pierced; for I remember, said he, learning, while - among you, some comic iambics to the effect that all chattering - fellows have the tongue bored at the tip. In a word, we Celts are of - opinion that Heracles himself performed everything by the power of - words, as he was a wise fellow, and that most of his compulsion was - effected by persuasion. His weapons, I take it, were his utterances, - which are sharp and well-aimed, swift to pierce the mind, and you too - say that words have wings.' Thus far the Celt." - -We see, then, that the Irish legend that it was Ogma (who is also said -to have been skilled in dialects and poetry) who invented the Ogam -alphabet, so useful as a medium through which to convey language, is -quite borne out by the account given to Lucian of the Gaulish god -Ogmios, the eloquent old man whose language was endowed with so great -a charm that he took his hearers captive. He turns, says Lucian, -towards his willing captives with a smiling face, and the Irish Ogma, -too, is called Ogma "of the shining countenance."[18] Nor does the -Gaul in dressing Ogma as a Hercules appear to have acted altogether -whimsically, because not only is Ogma skilled in poetry and dialects -and the inventor of Ogam, but he is also all through the battle of -Moytura actually depicted as the _strong man_ of the De Danann, strong -enough to push a stone which eighty pair of oxen could not have moved. - -The modern Irish names for books, reading, writing, letters, pens, and -vellum, are all derived from the Latin.[19] But there seem to have been -other names in use to designate the early writing materials of the -Irish. These were the Taibhli Fileadh, "poets' tablets," and Tamhlorg -Fileadh, which is translated by O'Curry as poets' "headless staves." -This latter word, whatever may be the exact meaning of it, is at least -pure Gaelic. We read in the "Colloquy of the Ancients" that St. Patrick -began to feel a little uneasy at the delight with which he listened -to the stories of the ancient Fenians, and in his over-scrupulous -sanctity he feared it might be wrong to extract such pleasure from -merely mundane narrations. Accordingly he consulted his two guardian -angels on the matter, but received an emphatic response from both of -them, not only to the effect that there was no harm in listening to -the stories themselves, but actually desiring him to get them written -down "in poets' _támhlorgs_ and in the words of ollavs, for it will -be a rejoicing to numbers and to the good people to the end of time, -to listen to those stories."[20] An ancient passage from the Brehon -Laws prescribes that a poet may carry a _tábhall-lorg_ or tablet-staff, -and O'Curry acutely suggests that these so-called tablet-staves were -of the nature of a fan which could be closed up in the shape of a -square stick, upon the lines and angles of which the poet wrote in -Ogam. We can well imagine the almost superstitious reverence which in -rude times must have attached itself, and which as we know did attach -itself, to the man who could carry about in his hand the whole history -and genealogy of his race, and probably the catchwords of innumerable -poems and the skeletons of highly-prized narratives. It was probably -through these means that the genealogies of which I have spoken were so -accurately transmitted and kept from the third or fourth century, and -possibly from a still earlier period. - -Amongst many other accounts of pre-Christian writing there is one so -curious that it is worth giving here _in extenso._[21] - - THE STORY OF BAILE MAC BUAIN, THE SWEET-SPOKEN. - - "Buain's only son was Baile. He was specially beloved by Aillinn,[22] - the daughter of Lewy,[23] son of Fergus Fairgé--but some say she was - the daughter of Owen, son of Dathi--and he was specially beloved not - of her only, but of every one who ever heard or saw him, on account of - his delightful stories. - - "Now Baile and Aillinn made an appointment to meet at Rosnaree, on the - banks of the Boyne in Bregia. And he came from Emania in the north to - meet her, passing over Slieve Fuad and Muirthuimhne to Tráigh mBaile - (Dundalk), and here he and his troops unyoked their chariots, sent - their horses out to pasture, and gave themselves up to pleasure and - happiness. - - "And while they were there they saw a horrible spectral personage - coming towards them from the South. Vehement were his steps and his - rapid progress. The way he sped over the earth might be compared to - the darting of a hawk down a cliff or to wind from off the green sea, - and his left was towards the land [_i.e._, he came from the south - along the shore]. - - "'Go meet him,' said Baile, 'and ask him where he goes, or whence he - comes, or what is the cause of his haste.' - - "'From Mount Leinster I come, and I go back now to the North, to the - mouth of the river Bann; and I have no news but of the daughter of - Lewy, son of Fergus, who had fallen in love with Baile mac Buain, and - was coming to meet him. But the youths of Leinster overtook her, and - she died from being forcibly detained, as Druids and fair prophets - had prophesied, for they foretold that they would never meet in life, - but that they would meet after death, and not part for ever. There is - my news,' and he darted away from them like a blast of wind over the - green sea, and they were not able to detain him. - - "When Baile heard this he fell dead without life, and his tomb and his - rath were raised, and his stone set up, and his funeral games were - performed by the Ultonians. - - "And a yew grew up through his grave, and the form and shape of - Baile's head was visible on the top of it--whence the place is called - Baile's Strand [now Dundalk]. - - "Afterwards the same man went to the South to where the maiden Aillinn - was, and went into her grianan or sunny chamber. - - "'Whence comes the man whom we do not know?' said the maiden. - - "'From the northern half of Erin, from the mouth of the Bann I come, - and I go past this to Mount Leinster.' - - "'You have news?' said the maiden. - - "'I have no news worth mentioning now, only I saw the Ultonians - performing the funeral games and digging the rath, and setting up - the stone, and writing the name of Baile mac Buain, the royal heir - of Ulster, by the side of the strand of Baile, who died while on his - way to meet a sweetheart and a beloved woman to whom he had given - affection, for it was not fated for them to meet, in life, or for one - of them to see the other living,' and he darted out after telling the - evil news. - - "And Aillinn fell dead without life, and her tomb was raised, etc. And - an apple tree grew through her grave and became a great tree at the - end of seven years, and the shape of Aillinn's head was upon its top. - - "Now at the end of seven years poets and prophets and visioners cut - down the yew which was over the grave of Baile, and they made a - _poet's tablet_ of it, and they wrote the visions and the espousals - and the loves and the courtships of Ulster in it. [The apple tree - which grew over the grave of Aillinn was also cut down] and in like - manner the courtships of Leinster were written in it. - - "There came a November eve long afterwards, and a festival was made - to celebrate it by Art, the son of Conn [of the Hundred Battles, - High-king of Ireland], and the professors of every science came to - that feast as was their custom, and they brought their tablets with - them. And these tablets also came there, and Art saw them, and when he - saw them he asked for them; and the two tablets were brought and he - held them in his hands face to face. Suddenly the one tablet of them - sprang upon the other, and they became united the same as a woodbine - round a twig, and it was not possible to separate them. And they were - preserved like every other jewel in the treasury at Tara until it was - burned by Dúnlang, son of Enna, at the time he burnt the Princesses at - Tara, as has been said - - "'The apple tree of noble Aillinn, - The yew of Baile--small inheritance-- - Though they are introduced into poems - Unlearned people do not understand them.' - - "and Ailbhé, daughter of Cormac, grandson of Conn [of the Hundred - Battles] said too - - "'What I liken Lumluine to - Is to the Yew of Baile's rath, - What I liken the other to - Is to the Apple Tree of Aillinn.'" - -So far this strange tale. But poetic as it is, it yields--unlike -most--its chief value when rationalised, for as O'Curry remarks, it -was apparently invented to account for some inscribed tablets in the -reign of King Art in the second century, which had--as we ourselves -have seen in the case of so many leaves of very old manuscripts at this -day--become fastened to each other, so that they clung inextricably -together and could not be separated. - -Now the massacre of the Princesses at Tara happened, according to the -"Four Masters," in the year 241, when the tablets were burnt. Hence one -of two things must be the case; the story must either have originated -_before_ that date to account for the sticking together of the tablets, -or else some one must have invented it long afterwards, that is, must, -without any apparent cause, have invented a story out of his own head, -as to how there were _once on a time_ two tablets made of trees which -_once_ grew on two tombs which were _once_ fastened together before -Art, son of Conn, and which were soon afterwards unfortunately burnt. -A supposition which, considering there were then, _ex hypothesi_, -no adhering tablets to prompt the invention, appears at first sight -improbable. - - * * * * * - -Brash, who made personal examination of almost every Ogam known to -exist, and whose standard work on the subject reproduces most of the -inscriptions discovered up to the date of writing, was of opinion that -no Ogam monument had anything Christian about it, and that if any -Christian symbol were discovered on an Ogam stone, it must be of later -date than the Ogam writing. Dr. Graves, however, has since shown that -Ogam was in some few cases at least used over the graves of Christians; -and he believes that all Ogam writing is really post-Christian, despite -the absence of Christian emblems on the stones, and that it belongs to -a comparatively modern period--"in fact, for the most part, to a time -between the fifth and seventh century."[24] Brash's great work was -supplemented by Sir Samuel Ferguson's, and since that time Professor -Rhys[25] and Dr. Whitley Stokes have thrown upon the inscriptions -themselves all the light that the highest critical acumen equipped with -the completest philological training could do, and have, to quote Mr. -Macalister, "between them reduced to order the confusion which almost -seemed to warrant the cryptical theories, and have thereby raised Ogam -inscriptions from the position of being mere learned playthings to a -place of the highest philological importance, not only in Celtic but -in Indo-European epigraphy." He himself--the latest to deal with the -subject--waves for the present as "difficult--perhaps in some measure -insoluble"--all "questions of the time, place, and manner of the -development of the Ogham script."[26] Rhys has traced in certain of -the inscriptions the influence exercised on the spoken language of the -Celtic people by an agglutinating pre-Celtic tongue.[27] This gives us -a glimpse at the pre-Aryan languages of the British Isles, which is in -the highest degree interesting. - -To me it seems probable that the Irish discovered the use of letters -either through trade with the Continent or through the Romanised -Britons, at any time from the first or second century onward. But how -or why they invented the Ogam alphabet, instead of using Roman letters, -or else Greek ones like the Gauls, is a profound mystery. One thing is -certain, namely, that the Ogam alphabet--at whatever time invented--is -a possession peculiar to the Irish Gael, and only to be found where he -made his settlements. - -[1] Dr. Jones, the Bishop of St. Davids, in his interesting book, -"Vestiges of the Gael in Gwynedd" (North Wales) has come to the -conclusion that the Irish occupied the whole of Anglesey, Carnarvon, -Merioneth, and Cardiganshire, with at least portions of Denbighshire, -Montgomery, and Radnor. Their occupation of part of the south and -south-west of England is attested by the area of Ogam finds. - -[2] "Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars," p. 39. I find Migne, in -his note on Pelagius, apparently confounding Scotia with Great Britain. - -[3] See for Dr. Sigerson's ingenious argument "Bards of the Gael and -Gaul," Introduction, p. 30. - -[4] Except perhaps on stone. There is an inscription on a stone in -Galway, "Lie Luguaedon Macc Lmenueh," for a facsimile of which see -O'Donovan's grammar, p. 411. O'Donovan says it was set up over a nephew -of St. Patrick's. Mr. Macalister reads it no doubt correctly, "Lie -Luguaedon macci Menueh." This is probably the oldest extant inscription -in Roman letters, and it shows that the old Ogam form _maqui_ had -already changed into mac[c]i. The "c" in place of "q" is only found on -the later Ogam stones, and only one stone is found to read "maic." - -[5] Thus four cuts to the right of or below the long line stand for -S, above it they mean C, passing through the long line half on one -side and half on the other they mean E. These straight lines, being -easily cut on stone with a chisel, continued long in use. The long -line, with reference to which all the letters are drawn, is usually the -right angle or corner of the upright stone between the two sides. The -inscription usually begins at the left-hand corner of the stone facing -the reader and is read upwards, and is sometimes continued down on the -right-hand angular line as well. The vowels are very small cuts on the -angle of the stone, but much larger than points. There is no existing -book written in Ogam, but various alphabets of it have been preserved -in the Book of Ballymote, and some small metal articles have been found -inscribed with it, showing that its use was not peculiar to pillar -stones. - -[6] See a curious monograph by Dr. Ernst Rethwisch entitled, "Die -Inschrift von Killeen Cormac und der Úrsprung der Sprache," 1886. -"Einfachere Schriftzeichen als das keltische Alphabet sind nicht -denkbar ... die Vocale haben die einfachsten Symbole und unter den -Vocalen haben wieder die am bequemsten auszusprechenden bequemer -zu machende Zeichen wie die Andern. Unter den Consonanten, hat die -Klasse die am schwierigsten gelingt ... die am wenigsten leicht -einzuritzenden Zeichen: die Gaumenlaute." He is greatly struck by "der -so verständig und sachgemäss erscheinende Trieb dem einfachsten Laut -das einfachste Symbol zu widmen." "Eine Erklärung [of the rational -simplicity of the Ogam script] ist nur möglich wenn man annimmt dass -die natürliche Begabung der Kelten, der praktische auf Einfachheit und -Beobachtungsgabe beruhende Sinn viel früher zŭ einer gewissen Reife -gediehen sind, als bei den Indogermanischen Verwandten" (p. 29). - -[7] As _Curci_ and _maqi_ for the genitives of Corc and mac. In later -times the genitive ending i, became incorporated in the body of the -word, making _Cuirc_ and _maic_ in the MSS., which latter subsequently -became attenuated still further into the modern _mic_. Another very -common and important form is _avi_, which has been explained as from a -nominative *avios [for (*p)avios], Old Irish _aue_, modern _ua_ or _o_. -Another extraordinary feature is the suffix _*gnos = cnos_, the regular -patronymic formative of the Gaulish inscriptions. Another important -word is _muco_, genitive _mucoi_, meaning "descendant," but in some -cases apparently "chief." The word _anm_ or even _ancm_, which often -precedes the genitive of the proper noun, as _anm meddugini_, has not -yet been explained or accounted for. All these examples help to show -the great age of the linguistic monuments preserved in Ogam. - -[8] "Ocus no bid in flesc sin dogres irelcib nangente ocus bafuath -la each a gabail inalaim ocus cach ni ba hadetchi leo dobertis [lege -nobentis] tria Ogam innti, _i.e._ Agus do bhíodh an fleasg sin do -ghnáth i reiligibh na ngente, agus budh fuath, le each a gabháil ann a -láimh, agus gach nidh budh ghránna leó do bhainidis [ghearradaois] tre -Ogham innti." - -[9] See Zimmer's "Summary of the Táin Bo Chuailgne," _Zeit. f. vgl., -Sprachforschung_, 1887, p. 448. - -[10] Under the word _orc tréith_. - -[11] The classical reader need hardly be reminded of the striking -resemblance between this and the σήματα λυγρά which, according to -Homer, Prœtus gave the unsuspecting Bellerophon to bring to the King of -Lycia, γράψας ἐν πἰνακι πτυκτῷ θυμοφθόρα πολλά. - -[12] The "alphabet" laid before Fiacc, however, was not a list of -letters, but a kind of brief catechism, in Latin "Elementa." St. -Patrick is said to have written a number of these "alphabets" with his -own hand. - -[13] The "Confession" and Epistles attributed to St. Patrick are, -by Whitley Stokes, Todd, Ussher, and almost all other authorities, -considered genuine. Recently J.V. Pflugk-Harttung, in an article in -the "Neuer Heidelberger Jahrbuch," Jahrgang iii., Heft. 1., 1893, has -tried to show by internal evidence that the "Confession" and Epistle, -especially the former, are a little later than St. Patrick's time, -and he relies strongly on this passage, saying that it is difficult -to imagine how St. Patrick came by the idea that a man could bring -him "innumerable letters from the heathen Ireland of that time, -where, except for Ogams and inscribed stones (_ausser Oghams und -Skulpturzeichen_), the art of writing was as yet unknown." But seeing -that Christian missionaries were almost certainly at work in Munster -as early as the third century this contention is ridiculous. It is -noteworthy, however, that even this critic seems to believe in the -antiquity of the Ogam characters. As to his main contention that the -"Confession" is not the work of Patrick, Jubainville writes, "Il ne -m'a pas convaincu" (_Revue Celtique_, vol. xiv. p. 215), and M. L. -Duchesne, commenting on Zimmer's view of St. Patrick's nebulousness, -writes, "Contestir l'authenticité de la Confession et de la lettre -à Coroticus me semble très aventuré" (Ibid., vol. xv. p. 188), and -Thurneysen also entirely refuses his credence. - -[14] Preface to "Three Old Irish Glossaries," p. lv. Zeuss had already -commented on the Ogams found in the St. Gall codex of Priscian, and -written thus of them, "Figuræ ergo vel potius liniæ ogamicæ non diversæ -ab his quæ notantur a grammaticis hibernicis, in usu jam in hoc vetusto -codice, quidni etiam inde a longinquis temporibus?" There are eight -Ogam sentences in a St. Gall MS. of the ninth century which have been -published by Nigra in his "Manoscritto irlandese di S. Gallo." - -[15] See above, ch. V, note 13. See O'Donovan's Grammar, p. xxviii, for -the original of the passage from the Book of Ballymote. - -[16] Translated by Rhys in his "Hibbert Lectures," from Bekker's -edition, No. 7, and Dindorf's, No. 55. - -[17] The Gauls assimilated their pantheon to those of the Greeks and -Romans in so far as they could, and as the Greek gods are by no means -always the equivalents of the Roman gods with whom popular opinion -equated them, still less were of course the Gaulish; and this is a good -case in point, for Ogmios has evidently nothing of a Hercules about -him, though the Gauls tried to make him the equivalent of Hercules by -giving him the classical club and lion's skin, yet his attributes are -perfectly different. - -[18] Grian-aineach, or "of the sunny countenance." See O'Curry MS. -Mat., p. 249. Ogma was, according to some accounts, brother of Breas, -who held the regency amongst the Tuatha De Danann for seven years, -while Nuada was getting his silver hand. - -[19] Leabhra, léigheadh, sgríobhadh, litreacha, pinn, meamram. - -[20] "A anam a naem-chleirigh ni mó iná trian a scél innisit na -senlaeich út, or dáig dermait ocus dichhuimne. Ocus sgribthar let-sa -i támlorgaibh filed ocus i mbriathraib ollamhan, or bud gairdiugad do -dronguibh ocus do degdáinib deirid aimsire eisdecht fris na scelaib -sin" ("Agallamh," p. 101. "Silva Gadelica," vol. ii.) O'Grady has here -translated it by "tabular staffs." _Táibhli_ is evidently a Latin loan -word, _tabella_. The thing to be remembered is that Ogam writing on -staves appears to be alluded to. - -[21] O'Curry found this piece in the MS. marked H. 3. 18 in Trinity -College, Dublin, and has printed it at page 472 of his MS. Materials. -Kuno Meyer has also edited it from a MS. in the British Museum, full -of curious word-equivalents or Kennings. (_See_ "Revue Celtique," vol. -xiii. p. 221. See also a fragment of the same story in Kuno Meyer's -"Hibernica Minora," p. 84.) - -[22] Pronounced "Bal-a," and "Al-yinn." - -[23] In Irish, _Lughaidh_. - -[24] "Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy," May, 1894. - -[25] See "Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland," vol. -xxvi. p. 263. - -[26] "Studies in Irish Epigraphy," London, 1897, part i., by R. -A. Stewart Macalister, who gives a most lucid study of the Ogam -inscriptions in the Barony of Corcaguiney and of a few more, with a -clear and interesting preface on the Ogam words and case-endings. - -[27] It is thus he explains such Ogam forms as "Erc maqi maqi-Ercias," -_i.e._, [the stone] of Erc, son of, etc. But "Erc" is nominative, -"maqi" is genitive, hence "Erc maqi" must be looked upon as one word, -agglutinated as it were, in which the genitive ending of the "maqi" -answers for both. As a rule, however, the name of the interred is in -the genitive case in apposition to "maqi." - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -EARLY IRISH CIVILISATION - - -It has been frequently assumed, especially by English writers, that the -pre-historic Irish, because of their remoteness from the Continent, -must have been ruder, wilder, and more uncivilised than the inhabitants -of Great Britain. But such an assumption is--to say nothing of our -literary remains--in no way borne out by the results of archæological -research. The contrary rather appears to be the case, that in point of -wealth, artistic feeling, and workmanship, the Irish of the Bronze Age -surpassed the inhabitants of Great Britain. - -When we read such accounts as that, for example, in the Book of -Ballymote, of Cormac mac Art, taking his seat at the assembly in -Tara, all covered with gold and jewels, we must not set it down to -the perfervid imagination of the chronicler without first consulting -what Irish archæology has to say upon the point. The appearance of -Cormac (king of Ireland in the third century, and perhaps greatest -of pre-Christian monarchs), is thus described. "Beautiful," says the -writer, quoting probably from ancient accounts now lost, "was the -appearance of Cormac in that assembly, flowing and slightly curling -was his golden hair. A red buckler with stars and animals of gold and -fastenings of silver upon him. A crimson cloak in wide descending -folds around him, fastened at his neck with precious stones. A torque -of gold around his neck. A white shirt with a full collar, and -intertwined with red gold thread upon him. A girdle of gold, inlaid -with precious stones, was around him. Two wonderful shoes of gold, -with golden loops upon his feet. Two spears with golden sockets in his -hands, with many rivets of red bronze. And he was himself, besides, -symmetrical and beautiful of form, without blemish or reproach." -The abundance of gold ornament which Cormac is here represented as -wearing, is no mere imagination of the writer's. It is founded upon the -undoubted fact that of all countries in the West of Europe Ireland was -pre-eminent for its wealth in gold. How much wealthier was Ireland than -Great Britain may be imagined from the fact that while the collection -in the British Museum of pre-historic gold from England, Scotland, -and Wales together amounted a couple of years ago to some three dozen -ounces, that in the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin weighs five hundred -and seventy ounces. And yet the collection in the Academy contains only -a small part of the gold-finds made in Ireland, for before 1861, when -the new law about treasure-trove came into force, great numbers of -gold objects are known to have been sold to the goldsmiths and melted -down. The wealth of Ireland in gold--some of it found and smelted in -the Wicklow mountains[1]--must have at an early period determined -continental trade in its direction, and we have seen that Tacitus -reported its harbours as being better known through trade than those -of Great Britain, or, on the most unfavourable reading of the passage, -as being "known by commerce and merchants."[2] This is also borne -out by archæologists. Professor Montelius, who has traced a close -connection in pre-historic times between Scandinavia and the West of -Europe,[3] regards much of the pre-historic gold found in the northern -countries as Irish. Speaking of certain gold ornaments found in Fünen, -which show, according to him, marked Irish influence, he writes: -"Gold ornaments like these have not been discovered elsewhere in -Scandinavia, while a great number of similar ornaments have been found -in the British Isles, especially in Ireland, whose wealth of gold in -the Bronze Age is amazing." Again he writes, "As certain of the gold -objects found in Denmark have been introduced demonstrably from the -British Islands, probably from Ireland, the thought is obvious--is not -a great part of the other gold objects found in Southern Scandinavia -also of Irish origin, and of the Bronze Age there?... for this island -[Ireland] was, during the Bronze Age, one of the lands of Europe -richest in gold." "No other country in Europe possesses so much -manufactured gold belonging to early and mediæval times," writes Mr. -Ernest Smith.[4] - -It is true that the Irish Celts, despite their mineral wealth, -never minted coin, a want which has been adduced to prove a lack of -civilisation on their part. But, as Mr. Coffey points out, coinage -is a comparatively late invention; the Egyptians--for all their -civilisation--never possessed a native coinage, and even such ancient -trading cities as Carthage and Gades did not strike coins until a -late period. "A little reflection," says Professor Ridgeway, "shows -us that it has been quite possible for peoples to attain a high -degree of civilisation without feeling any need of what are properly -termed coins." "The absence of coinage," adds Mr. Coffey, "does not -necessarily imply the absence of a currency system, and Professor -Ridgeway has shown that the ancient Irish possessed a system of of -currency or values, and a standard of weights." - -A most interesting paper by Mr. Johnson, a Dublin jeweller, recently -read before the Royal Irish Academy,[5] has shown with the authority -due to an expert, the marvellous skill with which the pre-historic -Irish worked their gold, and the wealth of proper appliances which they -must have possessed in order to turn out such unique and admirable -results.[6] - -The workmanship of Irish bronze articles is also very fine, and fully -equal to that of Britain, while Greenwell considers their clay urns -and food-vessels superior to the British. In Ireland he says the urns, -"and especially the food vessels, are of better workmanship, and more -elaborately and tastefully ornamented than in most parts of Britain. -Many of the food vessels found in Argyleshire, and in other districts -in the Southwest of Scotland, as might be perhaps expected, are very -Irish in character, and may claim to be equally fine in taste and -delicate in workmanship with those of Ireland."[7] - -The brilliant appearance of Cormac mac Art when presiding over the -assembly at Tara, covered with gold and jewels, receives enhanced -credibility from the proofs of early Irish wealth and culture that -I have just adduced. Let us glance at Tara itself, as it existed in -the time of Cormac, and see whether archæology can throw any light -upon the ancient accounts of that royal hill. It was round this hill -that the great Féis, or assemblage of the men of all Ireland, took -place triennially,[8] with a threefold purpose--to promulgate laws -universally binding upon all Ireland; to test, purge, and sanction -the annals and genealogies of Ireland, in the presence of all men, so -that no untruth or flaw might creep in; and, finally, to register the -same in the great national record, in later times called the Saltair -of Tara, so that cases of disputed succession might be peacefully -settled by reference to this central authoritative volume. The session -of the men of Ireland thus convened took place on the third day before -Samhain--November day--and ended the third day after it. We are told -that Cormac, who presided over these assemblies,[9] had ten persons -in constant waiting upon his person, who hardly ever left him. These -were a prince of noble blood, a druid, a physician, a brehon, a bard, -a historian, a musician, and three stewards. And Keating tells us that -the very same arrangement was observed from Cormac's time--in the -third century--to the death of Brian Boru in the eleventh, the only -alteration being that a Christian priest was substituted for the druid. - -To accommodate the chiefs and princes who came to the great Féis, -Cormac built the renowned Teach Míodhchuarta [Toch Mee-coo-ar-ta] which -was able to accommodate a thousand persons, and which was used at once -for a house of assembly, a banqueting hall, and a sleeping abode. We -have two accounts of this hall and of the other monuments of Tara, -written, the one in poetry, the other in verse, some nine hundred -years ago. The prose of the Dinnseanchus describes accurately the lie -of the building, "to the north-west of the eastern mound." "The ruins -of this house"--it lay in ruins then as now--"are thus situated: the -lower part to the north and the higher part to the south; and walls are -raised about it to the east and to the west. The northern side of it -is enclosed and small, the lie of it is north and south. It is in the -form of a long house with twelve doors upon it, or fourteen, seven to -the west and seven to the east. This was the great house of a thousand -soldiers."[10] Keating, following his ancient authorities, graphically -describes the Tara assembly. - - "The nobles," he writes, "both territorial lords and captains of - bands of warriors, were each man of them, always attended by his own - proper shield-bearer. Again their banquet-halls were arranged in the - following manner, to wit, they were long narrow buildings with tables - arranged along both the opposite walls of the hall; then along these - side walls there was placed a beam, in which were fixed numerous hooks - (one over the seat destined for each of the nobles), and between - every two of them there was but the breadth of one shield. Upon these - hooks the shanachy hung up the shields of the nobles previously to - their sitting down to the banquet, at which they all, both lords and - captains, sat each beneath his own shield. However, the most honoured - side of the house was occupied by the territorial lords, whilst the - captains of warriors[11] were seated opposite to them at the other. - The upper end of the hall was the place of the ollavs, while the lower - end was assigned to the attendants and the officers in waiting. It was - also prescribed that no man should be placed opposite another at the - same table, but that all, both territorial lords and captains, should - sit with their backs towards the wall, beneath their own shields. - Again, they never admitted females into their banquet-halls; these - had a hall of their own in which they were separately served. It was - likewise the prescribed usage to clear out the banquet-hall previous - to serving the assembled nobles therein. And no one was allowed to - remain in the building but three, namely, a Shanachy and a _bolsgaire_ - [marshal or herald], and a trumpeter, the duty of which latter officer - was to summon all the guests to the banquet-hall by the sound of his - trumpet-horn. He had to sound his horn three times. At the first - blast the shield-bearers of the territorial chieftains assembled - round the door of the hall, where the marshal received from them the - shields of their lords, which he then, according to the directions - of the shanachy, hung up each in its assigned place. The trumpeter - then sounded his trumpet a second time, and the shield-bearers of - the chieftains of the military bands assembled round the door of the - banquet-hall, where the marshal received their lords' shields from - them also, and hung them up at the other side of the hall according to - the orders of the shanachy, and over the table of the warriors. The - trumpeter sounded his trumpet the third time, and thereupon both the - nobles and the warrior chiefs entered the banquet-hall, and then each - man sat down beneath his own shield, and thus were all contests for - precedency avoided amongst them." - -These accounts of the Dinnseanchus and of Keating, taken from -authorities now lost, will be likely to receive additional credit when -we know that the statements made nine hundred years ago, when Tara -had even then lain in ruins for four centuries, have been verified in -every essential particular by the officers of the Ordnance Survey. The -statement in the Dinnseanchus made nearly nine hundred years ago that -there were either six or seven doors on each side, shows the condition -into which Tara had then fallen, one on each side being so obliterated -that now, also, it is difficult to say whether it was a door or not. -The length of the hall, according to Petrie's accurate measurements, -was _seven hundred and sixty feet_, and its breadth was nearly ninety. -There was a double row of benches on each side, running the entire -length of the hall, which would give four rows of men if we remember -that the guests were all seated on the same side of the tables, and -allowing the ample room of three feet to each man, this would just -give accommodation to a thousand. In the middle of the hall, running -down all the way between the benches, there was a row of fires, and -just above each fire was a spit descending from the roof, at which the -joints were roasted. There is a ground plan of the building, in the -Book of Leinster, and the figure of a cook is rudely drawn with his -mouth open, and a ladle in his hand to baste the joint. The king sat at -the southern end of the hall, and the servants and retainers occupied -the northern. - -The banqueting-hall and all the other buildings at Tara were of -wood, nor is the absence of stone buildings in itself a proof of low -civilisation, since, in a country like Ireland, abounding in timber, -wood could be made to answer every purpose--as in point of fact it -does at this day over the greater part of America, and in all northern -countries where forests are numerous.[12] All or most Irish houses, -down to the period of the Danish invasions, were constructed of wood, -or of wood and clay mixed, or of clay and unmortared stones, and their -strongholds were of wooden pallisades planted upon clay earth-works. -This is the reason why so few remains of pre-historic buildings -have come down to us, but it is no reason for believing that, as in -Cormac's banquet-hall, rude palatial effects were not often produced. -An interesting poem in the Dialogue of the Sages, from the Book of -Lismore, describes the house of the Lady Credé, said to have been a -contemporary of Finn mac Cúmhail in the third century.[13] Though the -poem may not itself be very old, it no doubt embodies many ancient -truths, and is worth quoting from. A poet comes to woo the lady, and -brings this poem with him. Finn accompanies him. When they reached her -fortress "girls, yellow-haired, of marriageable age, showed on the -balconies of her bowers." The poet sang to her-- - - "Happy is the house in which she is - Between men and children and women, - Between druids and musical performers, - Between cupbearers and doorkeepers.[14] - - Between equerries without fear, - And distributors who divide [the fare], - And, over all these, the command belongs - To Credé of the yellow hair. - - * * * * * - - The colour [of her house] is like the colour of lime, - Within it are couches and green rushes (?) - Within it are silks and blue mantles, - Within it are red, gold, and crystal cups. - - Of its many chambers the corner stones, - Are all of silver and yellow gold, - In faultless stripes its thatch is spread, - Of wings of brown, and of crimson red. - - Two door posts of green I see, - Door not devoid of beauty, - Of carved silver, long has it been renowned, - In the lintel that is over the door. - - Credé's chair is on your left hand, - The pleasantest of the pleasant it is, - All over, a blaze[15] of Alpine gold - At the foot of her beautiful couch. - - A splendid couch in full array - Stands directly above the chair; - It was made by _Tuile_ in the East, - Of yellow gold and precious stones. - - There is another bed on your right hand - Of gold and silver without defect, - With curtains with soft [pillows], - With graceful rods of golden-bronze. - - An hundred feet spans Credé's house - From one angle to the other, - And twenty feet are fully measured - In the breadth of its noble door. - - Its portico is covered, too, - With wings of birds, both yellow and blue, - Its lawn in front and its well - Of crystal and of Carmogel." - -The houses of the ancient Irish were either like Cormac's -banqueting-hall and Credé's house, built quadrilaterally of felled -trees or split planks planted upright in the earth, and thatched -overhead, or else, as was most usually the case, they were cylindrical -and made of wickerwork, with a cup-shaped roof, plastered with clay -and whitewashed. The magnificent dimensions of Cormac's palace, -verified as they are by the careful measurements of the Ordnance -Survey--a palace certainly erected in pagan times, since Tara was -deserted for ever about the year 550--bear evidence, like our wealth of -beautifully-wrought gold ornaments, and the superior workmanship of our -surviving articles of bronze and clay, to a high degree of civilisation -and culture amongst the pre-Christian Irish; I have here adduced them -as bearing indirect evidence in favour of the probability that a people -so civilised would have been likely to have seized on the invention of -writing when they first came in contact with it, and would have kept -their annals and genealogies all the more accurately from the very fact -that they were evidently so advanced in other matters. - -[1] In the Irish Annals gold is said to have been first smelted in -Leinster. As late as the last century native gold was discovered on -the confines of Wicklow and Wexford, and nuggets of 22, 18, 9, and -7 ounces are recorded as having been found there. Mr. Coffey quotes -a most interesting account by a Mr. Weaver, director of the works -established there by the Irish Government before the Union to look for -gold. "The discovery of native gold in Ballinvally stream, at Croghan -Kinshella," says Mr. Weaver, "was at first kept secret, but being -divulged, almost the whole population of the immediate neighbourhood -flocked in to gather so rich a harvest, actually neglecting at the -time the produce of their own fields. This happened about the autumn -of the year 1796, when several hundreds of people might be seen daily -assembled digging and searching for gold in the banks and bed of the -stream. Considerable quantities were thus collected; this being as -it subsequently proved the most productive spot; and the populace -remained in undisturbed possession of the place for nearly six weeks, -when Government determined to commence active operations.... Regular -stream works were soon established, and up to the unhappy time of the -rebellion in May, 1798, when the works were destroyed, Government had -been fully reimbursed its advances; the produce of the undertaking -having defrayed its own expenses and left a surplus in hand." The total -amount of gold collected from this place in the last hundred years -is valued at about £30,000. This particular spot had been probably -overlooked, as Mr. Coffey remarks, by the searchers of earlier days, -but no doubt other auriferous streams in the Wicklow mountains had -given up their gold long since in pre-historic times to the ancient -workers. (_See_ Coffey's "Origins of Pre-historic Ornament in Ireland," -p. 40.) Dr. Frazer, on the other hand, does not believe that any great -part of the gold found in Ireland is indigenous, and talks of Spain and -South Russia, and gold plundered from Britain. But if this be the case, -what an enormous pre-historic trade Ireland must have carried on, or -what a powerful invader she must have been to come by such quantities -of gold! (_See_ Dr. Frazer's paper in R.I.A. Proceedings, May, 1896). -He has since supplemented this by another in the Journal of the Royal -Society of Antiquaries in which he leans to the opinion that the Roman -_aurei_, the coins plundered from the Britons, were the real source of -Irish gold. - -[2] See above, ch. II, note 11. - -[3] "Verbindungen zwischen Skandinavien und dem westlichen Europa vor -Christi Geburt" ("Archiv für Anthropologie," vol. xix., quoted by Mr. -George Coffey in his "Origins of Pre-historic Ornament in Ireland," p. -63). - -[4] "Notes on the Composition of Ancient Irish Gold and Silver -Ornaments," by Ernest A. Smith, Assoc. R.S.M., F.C.S., Royal School of -Mines, London, R. I. A. Transactions, May, 1896. - -[5] "Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy," May, 1896. The tools and -appliances necessary for producing the fine gold fibulæ of a private -collector, which Mr. Johnson examined, would be, he says, "a furnace, -charcoal, crucible, mould for ingot, flux, bellows, several hammers, -anvil, swage anvil, swages, chisels for ornament, sectional tool for -producing concentric rings." On one of them, he says, "there is a -thickened edge and a beautiful moulded ornament on the outer side only, -which quite puzzles one as to how it was produced without suggesting -what are considered to be modern tools." - -[6] A splendid find of gold ornaments made last year near the -estuary of the Foyle river, of a golden model of a boat, evidently a -votive offering, fitted with seat, mast, oars, and punting poles, an -exquisitely-wrought gold collar, decorated in relief with the most -beautiful embossed work, torques, neckchains, etc., has been dated from -internal evidences as work of the second century, the neck-chains being -clearly provincial Roman work of that date. It is to be regretted that -these exquisite articles have found their way to the British Museum, -where they will be practically lost, instead of being added to the -unique Irish collection in Dublin, to which they properly belong. - -[7] Greenwell's "British Barrows," p. 62, quoted by Coffey. - -[8] O'Donovan, in his preface to "The Book of Rights," gives some -reasons for believing that it may have been held only septennially. - -[9] _See_ the Forus Feasa, p. 354 of O'Mahony's translation. - -[10] _See_ Petrie's "Antiquities of Tara Hill," p. 129. - -[11] This seems a plain allusion to the Fenians, believed in Ireland to -have been Cormac's militia. - -[12] Bede mentions, if I remember rightly--I forget where--a church -built in the north of Britain, _more Scotorum, robore secto,_ "of -cleft oak, in the Irish fashion." The Columban churches were also of -wood and wattles, contemporaneous with which were the beehive cells -of uncemented stone, probably less warm and less comfortable than the -thatched houses. "Ce que nous savons des anciens édifices irlandais," -says M. Jubainville, "donne le droit d'affirmer que la plupart des -constructions élevées à Emain macha [_i.e._, Emania, the capital -of Ulster, and of the Red Branch heroes, two miles west of Armagh] -pendant le période épique de l'histoire d'Irlande, ont dû être en bois; -cependant il y avait été employé au moins quelques pierres." Angus the -Culdee has a noble verse relating to the stones of Emania, the finest, -perhaps, in the whole Saltair na rann, "Emania's palace has vanished, -yet its stones still remain, but the Rome of the western world is now -Glendaloch of the gatherings," "is Ruam iarthair beatha Gleann dalach -dá locha." - -[13] _See_ "Silva Gadelica," p. 111, and O'Curry's MS. Materials, p. -595. - -[14] - - Aibhinn in tech in atá, - Idir fira is maca is mná, - Idir dhruidh ocus aes ceóil, - Idir dhailiumh is dhoirseoir. - -[15] Thus O'Curry translates _casair_ as if he had taken it to be -_lasair_. O'Grady translates "an overlay of Elpa's gold." - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -ST. PATRICK AND THE EARLY MISSIONARIES - - -Even supposing the Ogam alphabet to have been used in pre-Christian -times, though it may have been employed by ollavs and poets to -perpetuate tribal names and genealogies, still it was much too cumbrous -and clumsy an invention to produce anything deserving the name of real -literature. It is, so far as we know, only with the coming of Patrick -that Ireland may be said to have become, properly speaking, a literary -country. The churches and monasteries established by him soon became -so many nuclei of learning, and from the end of the fifth century a -knowledge of letters seems to have entirely permeated the island. So -suddenly does this appear to have taken place, and so rapidly does -Ireland seem to have produced a flourishing literature of laws, poems, -and sagas, that it is very hard to believe that the inhabitants had -not, before his coming, arrived at a high state of indigenous culture. -This aspect of the case has been recently strongly put by Dr. Sigerson. -"I assert," said he, speaking of the early Brehon laws, at the revision -of which in a Christian sense St. Patrick is said to have assisted, -"that, speaking biologically, such laws could not emanate from any -race whose brains have not been subject to the quickening influence of -education for many generations."[1] - -The usual date assigned for St. Patrick's landing in Ireland in the -character of a missionary is 432, and his work among the Irish is -said to have lasted for sixty years, during which time he broke down -the idol Crom Cruach, burnt the books of the druids at Tara, ordained -numerous missionaries and bishops, and succeeded in winning over to -Christianity a great number of the chiefs and sub-kings, who were in -their turn followed by their tribesmen. - -St. Patrick did not work alone, nor did he come to Ireland as a -solitary pioneer of a new religion; he was accompanied, as we learn -from his life in the Book of Armagh, by a multitude of bishops, -priests, deacons, readers, and others,[2] who had crossed over along -with him for the service. Several were his own blood relations, one -was his sister's son. Many likely youths whom he met on his missionary -travels he converted to Christianity, taught to read, tonsured, and -afterwards ordained. These new priests thus appointed worked in all -directions, establishing churches and getting together congregations -from amongst the neighbouring heathen. Unable to give proper attention -to the teaching of the youths whom he elected as his helpers, so -long as he himself was engaged in journeying through Ireland from -point to point, he, after about twenty years of peripatetic teaching, -established at Armagh about the year 450 the first Christian school -ever founded in Ireland, the progenitor of that long line of colleges -which made Ireland famous throughout Europe, and to which, two hundred -years later, her Anglo-Saxon neighbours flocked in thousands.[3] - -The equipments of these newly-made priests was of the scantiest. -Each, as he was sent forth, received an alphabet-of-the-faith or -elementary-explanation of the Christian doctrine, frequently written by -Patrick himself, a "Liber ordinis," or "Mass Book," a written form for -the administration of the sacraments, a psaltery, and, if it could be -spared, a copy of the Gospels.[4] A good-sized retinue followed Patrick -in all his journeyings, ready to supply with their own hands all things -necessary for the new churches established by the saint, as well as to -minister to his own wants. He travelled with his episcopal coadjutor, -his psalm-singer, his assistant priest, his judge--originally a Brehon -by profession, whom he found most useful in adjudicating on disputed -questions--a personal champion to protect him from sudden attack and to -carry him through floods and other obstacles, an attendant on himself, -a bellringer, a cook, a brewer, a chaplain at the table, two waiters, -and others who provided food and accommodation for himself and his -household. He had in his company three smiths, three artificers, and -three ladies who embroidered. His smiths and artificers made altars, -book-covers, bells, and helped to erect his wooden churches; the -ladies, one of them his own sister, made vestments and altar linens.[5] - -St. Patrick was essentially a man of work and not of letters, and yet -it so happens that he is the earliest Irish writer of whom we can say -with confidence that what is ascribed to him is really his. And here -it is as well to say something about the genuineness of St. Patrick's -personality and the authenticity of his writings, for the opinion -started by Ledwich has gone abroad, and has somehow become prevalent, -that St. Patrick's personality is nearly as nebulous as that of King -Arthur or of Finn mac Cúmhail, and at the best is made up of a number -of little Patricks lumped into one great one. That there was more -than one Patrick[6] is certain,[7] and that the great Saint Patrick -who wrote the "Confession" may have got credit in the early Latin and -later Irish lives for the acts of others, is perfectly possible, but -that most of the essential features of his life are true, is beyond all -doubt, and we have a manuscript 1091 years old, apparently copied from -his own handwriting, and containing his own confession and apologia. - -How this exquisite manuscript, consisting of 216 vellum leaves, written -in double columns, has happily been preserved to us, we shall not -lose time in inquiring; but how its exact date has been ascertained -through what Dr. Reeves has characterised as "one of the most elegant -and recondite demonstrations which any learned society has on record, -is worth mentioning." The Rev. Charles Graves, the present Bishop of -Limerick, made a thorough examination of the whole codex when, after -many vicissitudes and hair-breadth escapes from destruction, it had -been temporarily deposited in the Royal Irish Academy. Knowing, as -O'Curry pointed out, that it was the custom for Irish scribes to sign -their own names, with usually some particulars about their writing, -at the end of each piece they copied, he made a careful search and -discovered that this had actually been done in the Book of Armagh, and -in no less than eight places, but that on every spot where it occurred -it had been erased for some apparently inscrutable reason, with the -greatest pains. In the last place but one, however, where the colophon -occurred, the process of erasure had been less thorough than in the -others, and after long consideration, and treatment of the erasure -with gallic acid and spirits of wine, Dr. Graves discovered that the -words so carefully rubbed out were _Pro Ferdomnacho ores_, "Pray for -Ferdomnach." Turning to the other places, he found that the erased -words in at least one other place were evidently the same. This settled -the name of the scribe; he was Ferdomnach. The next step was to search -the "Four Masters," who record the existence of two scribes of that -name who died at Armagh, one in 726 and the other in 844. One of these -it must have been who wrote the Book of Armagh,--but which? This also -Dr. Graves discovered, with the greatest ingenuity. At the foot of -Fols. 52-6 he was, with extreme difficulty, able to decipher the words -_ ... ach hunc ... e dictante ... ach herede Patricii scripsit_. From -these stray syllables he surmised that Ferdomnach had written the book -at the bidding of some Archbishop of Armagh whose name ended in _ach_. -For this the Psalter of Cashel, Leabhar Breac, and "Four Masters," were -consulted, and it was found that one Archbishop Senaach died in 609; -it could not then have been by his commands the book was written by -the first Ferdomnach; then came, after a long interval, Faoindealach, -who died in 794, Connmach, who died in 806, and Torbach, who held the -primacy for one year after him. On examining the hiatus it was found -that the letter which preceded the fragment _ach_ could not have been -either an _l_ or an _m_, but might have been a _b_, thus putting out -of the question the names of Connmach and Faoindealach. Besides the -vacant space before the _ach_ was just sufficient to admit of the -letters _Tor_, but not _Conn_, much less _Faoindea_. The conclusion was -obvious: the passage ran, _Ferdomnach hunc librum e dictante Torbach -herede Patricii scripsit_, "Ferdomnach wrote this book at the dictation -(or command) of Torbach, Patrick's heir (successor)." Torbach, as we -have seen, became Archbishop in 806 and died in 807. The date was in -this way recovered.[8] - -I have been thus particular in tracing the steps by which the age of -this manuscript came to light, because it contains the earliest piece -of certain Irish literature we have, the "Confession of St. Patrick." -Now the usually accepted date of St. Patrick's death, as given in the -Annals of Ulster, is 492, about three hundred years before that, and -Ferdomnach, the scribe, after copying it, added these words: "_Huc -usque volumen quod patricius manu conscripsit sua. Septimadecima -martii die translatus est patricius ad cælos," i.e._, "thus far the -volume which Patrick wrote with his own hand. On the seventeenth day -of March was Patrick translated to the heavens." It would appear -highly probable from this that Ferdomnach actually copied from St. -Patrick's autograph,[9] which had become so defaced or faded during the -three previous centuries, that the scribe has written in many places -_incertus liber hic_, "the book is uncertain here," or else put a -note[10] of interrogation to indicate that he was not sure whether he -had copied the text correctly. It will be seen from this that there was -not the slightest trace of any concealment on the part of the scribe as -to who he himself was, or what he was copying; there was no attempt to -antedate his own writing, or to suggest that his copy was an original. -But long after the scribe's generation had passed away and the origin -of his work been forgotten, the volume which at first had been regarded -only as a fine transcript of early documents, became known as "Canon -Phádraig," or Patrick's Testament, and popular opinion, relying on the -colophon "thus far the book which Patrick wrote with his own hand," set -down the work as the saint's autograph. The belief that the volume was -St. Patrick's own autograph of course enhanced enormously its value, -and with it the dignity of its possessors, and the unscrupulous plan -was resolved on of erasing the signature of the actual scribe. The -veneration of the public was thus secured by interested persons at -the cost of truth, and the deception probably lasted so long as the -possession of such a volume brought with it either credit or dignity. -This same volume[11] has another interest attaching to it, so that -we cannot but felicitate ourselves that out of the wreck of so many -thousands of volumes, it has been spared to us--it was brought to Brian -Boru, when in the year 1004 he went upon his royal progress through -Ireland, the first man of the race of Eber who had attained the proud -position of monarch or Ard-righ for many centuries, and he, by the -hand of his secretary, made an entry which may still be seen to-day, -confirming the primacy of Armagh, and re-granting to it the episcopal -supremacy of Ireland which it had always enjoyed.[12] - -It is now time to glance at St. Patrick's "Confession," as it is -usually called, though in reality it is much more of the nature of an -apologia _pro vita sua_. The evidence in favour of its authenticity is -overwhelming, and is accepted by such cautious scholars as Stokes,[13] -Todd, and Reeves, no first-rate critic, with perhaps one exception, -having so far as I know ever ventured to question its genuineness. It -is impossible to assign any motive for a forgery, and casual references -to Decuriones, Slave-traffic, and to the "Brittaniæ," or Britains, -bear testimony to its antiquity. Again, the Latin in which it is -written is barbarous in the extreme, the periods are rude, sometimes -ungrammatical, often nearly unintelligible. He begins by telling us -that his object in writing this confession in his old age was to defend -himself from the charge of presumptuousness in undertaking the work he -tried to perform amongst the Irish. He tells us that he had many toils -and perils to surmount, and much to endure while engaged upon it. He -never received one farthing for all his preaching and teaching. The -people indeed were generous, and offered many gifts, and cast precious -things upon the altar, but he would not receive them lest he might -afford the unrighteous an occasion to cavil. He was still encompassed -about with dangers, but he heeded them not, looking to the success -which had attended his efforts, how "the sons of the Scots and the -daughters of their princes became monks and virgins of Christ," and -"the number of holy widows and of continent maidens was countless." It -would be tedious were he to recount even a portion of what he had gone -through. Twelve times had his life been endangered, but God had rescued -him, and brought him safe from all plots and ambuscades and rewarded -him for leaving his parents, and friends, and country, heeding neither -their prayers nor their tears, that he might preach the gospel in -Ireland. He appeals to all he had converted, and to all who knew him, -to say whether he had not refused all gifts--nay, it was he himself -who gave the gifts, to the kings and to their sons, and oftentimes -was he robbed and plundered of everything, and once had he been bound -in fetters of iron for fourteen days until God had delivered him, and -even still while writing this confession he was living in poverty and -misery, expecting death or slavery, or other evil. He prays earnestly -for one thing only, that he may persevere, and not lose the people whom -God has given to him at the very extremity of the world. - -Unhappily this "Confession" is a most unsatisfying composition, for -it omits to mention almost everything of most interest relating to -the saint himself and to his mission. What floods of light might -it have thrown upon a score of vexed questions, how it might have -set at rest for ever theories on druidism, kingship, social life, -his own birthplace, his mission from Rome,[14] his captors. Even of -himself he tells us next to nothing, except that his father's name was -Calpornus,[15] the son of Potitus, the son of Odissus, a priest, and -that he dwelt in the _vicus_ or township of Benaven Taberniæ; he had -also a small villa not far off, where he tells us he was made captive -at the age of about sixteen years. Because his Christian training was -bad, and he was not obedient to the priests when they admonished him -to seek for salvation, therefore God punished him, and brought him -into captivity in a strange land at the end of the world. When he was -brought to Ireland he tells us that his daily task was to feed cattle, -and then the love of God entered into his heart, and he used to rise -before the sun and pray in the woods and mountains, in the rain, the -hail, and the snow. Then there came to him one night a voice in his -sleep saying to him "Your ship is ready," and he departed and went for -two hundred miles, until he reached a port where he knew no one. This -was after six years' captivity. The master of the ship would not take -him on board, but afterwards he relented just as Patrick was about to -return to the cottage where he had got lodging. He succeeded at last -in reaching the home of his parents _in Britannis_ [_i.e._, in some -part of Britain, including Scotland], and his parents besought him, now -that he had returned from so many perils, to remain with them always. -But the angel Victor came in the guise of a man from Ireland, and gave -him a letter, in which the voice of the Irish called him away, and the -voices of those who dwelt near the wood of Focluth called him to walk -amongst them, and the spirit of God, too, urged him to return.[16] - -He says nothing of his training, or his ordination, or his long sojourn -in Gaul, or of St. Germanus, with whom he studied according to the -"Lives," but he alludes incidentally to his wish to see his parents and -his native Britain, and to revisit the brethren in Gaul, and to see the -face of God's saints there; but though he desired all this, he would -not leave his beloved converts, but would spend the rest of his life -amongst them.[17] - -From this brief _résumé_ of the celebrated "Confession" it will be -seen that it is the perfervid outpouring of a zealous early Christian, -anxious only to clear himself from the charges of worldliness or -carelessness, and absolutely devoid of those appeals to general -interest which we meet with in most of such memoirs, but there is a -vein of warm piety running through the whole, and an abundance of -scriptural quotations--all, of course, from the ante-Hieronymian or -pre-Vulgate version, another proof of antiquity--which has caused it -to be remarked that a forger might, perhaps, write equally bad Latin, -but could hardly "forge the spirit that breathes in the language which -is the manifest outpourings of a heart like unto the heart of St. -Paul."[18] - -There are two other pieces of literature assigned to St. Patrick, as -well as the "Confession"; these are the "Epistle to Coroticus" in -Latin, and the "Deer's Cry" in Irish. The Epistle is not found in -the Book of Armagh, but it is found in other MSS. as old as the tenth -or eleventh century, and bears such close resemblance in style and -language to the "Confession," whole phrases actually occurring in -both, that it also has generally been regarded as genuine.[19] There -is some doubt as to who Coroticus was, but he seems to have been a -semi-Christian king of Dumbarton who, along with some Scots, _i.e._, -Irish, and the Southern Picts who had fallen away from Christianity, -raided the eastern shores of Ireland and carried off a number of St. -Patrick's newly-converted Christians, leaving the white garments of the -neophytes stained with blood, and hurrying into captivity numbers upon -whose foreheads the holy oil of confirmation was still glistening. The -first letter was to ask Coroticus to restore the captives, and when -this request was derided the next was sent, excommunicating him and all -his aiders and abettors, calling upon all Christians neither to eat nor -drink in their company until they had made expiation for their crimes. -Patrick himself had, he here explains, preached the gospel to the Irish -nation for the sake of God, though they had made him a captive and -destroyed the men-servants and maids of his father's house. He had been -born a freedman and a noble, the son of a decurio or prefect, but he -had sold his nobility for others and regretted it not. His lament over -the loss of his converts is touching: "Oh! my most beautiful and most -loving brothers and children whom in countless numbers I have begotten -in Christ, what shall I do for you? Am I so unworthy before God and men -that I cannot help you? Is it a crime to have been born in Ireland?[20] -And have we not the same God as they have? I sorrow for you, yet I -rejoice, for if ye are taken from the world ye are believers through -me, and are gone to Paradise." - -The "Cry of the Deer," or "Lorica," as it is also called, is in Irish. -The saint is said to have made it when on his way to visit King -Laoghaire [Leary] at Tara, and the assassins who had been planted by -the king to slay him and his companions thought as he chanted this -hymn that it was a herd of deer that passed them by, and thus they -escaped. The metre of the original is a kind of unrhymed or half-rhymed -rhapsody, called in Irish a _Rosg_, and is perfectly unadorned. The -language, however, though very old, has of course been modified in the -process of transcription. Patrick calls upon the Trinity to protect him -that day at Tara, and to bind to him the power of the elements. - - I bind me to-day[21] - God's might to direct me, - God's power to protect me, - God's wisdom for learning, - God's eye for discerning, - God's ear for my hearing, - God's word for my clearing, - God's hand for my cover, - God's path to pass over, - God's buckler to guard me, - God's army to ward me, - Against snares of the devils, - Against vices, temptations, - Against wrong inclinations, - Against men who plot evils - To hurt me anew, - Anear or afar with many or few. - - * * * * * - - Christ near, Christ here, - Christ be with me, - Christ beneath me, - Christ within me, - Christ behind me, - Christ be o'er me, - Christ before me, - Christ in the left and the right, - Christ hither and thither, - Christ in the sight, - Of each eye that shall seek me,[22] etc. - -In the Book of Armagh, in the last chapter of Tirechan's life, St. -Patrick is declared to be entitled to four honours in every church and -monastery of the island. One of these honours was that the hymn written -by St. Seachnall, his nephew, in praise of himself, was to be sung in -the churches during the days when his festival was being celebrated, -and another was that "his Irish canticle" was to be always sung,[23] -apparently all the year through, in the liturgy, but perhaps only -during the week of his festival. The Irish canticle is evidently this -"Lorica," which was, as we see from this notice in the Book of Armagh, -believed to be his in the seventh century, and it has been sung under -that belief from that day almost to our own.[24] - -The other hymn, the singing of which at his festival is alluded -to as one of St. Patrick's "honours," was composed by Seachnall -[Shaughnal],[25] a nephew of St. Patrick's, in laudation of the -saint himself. It is a very interesting piece of rough latinity, and -is generally regarded as genuine. The occasion of its composition -deserves to be told, for it casts a ray of light on the prudential -and self-restrained side of St. Patrick's character, which no doubt -contributed largely to his success when working in the midst of his -wavering converts. Seachnall said that Patrick's preaching would be -perfect if he only insisted a little more on the necessity of giving, -for then more property and land would be at the disposal of the Church -for pious uses. This remark of his nephew was repeated to St. Patrick, -who was very much annoyed at it, and said beautifully, that "for the -sake of charity he forbore to preach charity," and intimated that the -holy men who should come after him might benefit by the offerings of -the faithful which he had left untouched. Then Seachnall, grieved at -having thus pained his uncle, and anxious to win his regard again, -composed a poem of twenty-two stanzas each beginning with a different -letter, with four lines of fifteen syllables in each verse.[26] When -he had done this he asked permission of Patrick to recite to him a -poem which he had composed in praise of a holy man, and when Patrick -said that he would gladly hear the praises of any of God's household, -the poet adroitly suppressing Patrick's name which occurs in the first -verse, recited it for him. Patrick was pleased, but interupted the -poet at one stanza when he said that the subject of his laudations -was _maximus in regno cælorum_,[27] "the greatest in the kingdom -of heaven," asking how could that be said of any man. _Maximus_, -ingeniously replied Seachnall, does not here mean "greatest," but -only "very great." He then disclosed to his uncle that he himself was -the object of the poem, and asked--like all bards--for the reward -for it, whereupon Patrick promised that to all who recited the hymn -piously morning and evening, God in His mercy might give the glory of -heaven. "I am content with that award," said the poet, "but as the hymn -is long and difficult to be remembered I wish you would obtain the -same reward for whosoever recites even a part of it." Whereupon St. -Patrick promised that the recitation of the last three verses would be -sufficient, and his nephew was satisfied, having proved himself the -first poet of Christian Ireland, and having obtained such a reward for -his verses as neither bard nor ollav had ever obtained before him. It -was probably this same Seachnall who was the author of the much finer -hymn of eleven verses which used to be sung in the old Irish churches -at communion-- - - "Sancti venite - Christi corpus sumite, - Sanctum bibentes - Quo redempti sanguinem. - - Salvati Christi - Corpore et sanguine, - A quo refecti - Laudes dicamus Deo. - - Hoc Sacramento - Corporis et sanguinis - Omnes exuti - Ab inferni faucibus," etc. - -The legend in the Leabhar Breac has it that this hymn was first -chanted during the holy communion by the angels in his church, on the -reconciliation between himself and Saint Patrick, whence the origin of -chanting it during the communion service. - -The Book of Armagh contains the two earliest lives of the national -saint that we have, probably the two earliest biographies of any -size ever composed in Ireland. They are written in rude Latin, with a -good deal of Irish place-names and Irish words intermixed, the first -by one Muirchu Maccu Machteni,[28] who tells us that he wrote at the -instigation of Aed, bishop of Sletty, who, as we know from the "Four -Masters," died about 698, and the second by Tirechan, who says he -received his knowledge of the saint from the lips and writings of -Bishop Ultan,[29] his tutor, who died in 656, and who, supposing him -to have been seventy or eighty years old at the time of his death, -must have been born only eighty or ninety years after the death of St. -Patrick himself. Both of these writers appear to have had older memoirs -to draw on, for Muirchu says that many had before them endeavoured to -write the history of St. Patrick from what their fathers and those who -were ministers of the Word from the beginning had told them, though -none had ever succeeded in producing a proper biography,[30] and in -Tirechan's life of him in the Book of Armagh--an evident patchwork--we -read that all his godly doings had been brought together[31] and -collected by the most skilful of the ancients. The first of these -lives consists of two books containing twenty-eight and thirteen short -chapters, respectively, the second, Tirechan's, of one book containing -fifty-seven chapters, in addition to which there are a number of minor -notes referring to St. Patrick in Latin and in Irish, which Ferdomnach, -who transcribed the book in 807, appears to have taken from other old -lives or memoirs of the saint. The Irish portions of these notes are of -peculiar interest, as showing what the Irish language was, as written -about the year 800.[32] - -If it is genuine the earliest life of Patrick ever written would -probably be the brief metrical life ascribed to Fiacc of Sletty, the -sixth or seventh in descent from Cáthaoir [Cauheer] Mór, who was -king of Leinster at the close of the second century.[33] His mother -was a sister of Dubhthach's [Duv-hach], the chief poet and Brehon of -Ireland, who, we are told, helped St. Patrick to review and revise the -Brehon Laws. Fiacc was a youthful poet in Dubhthach's train at Tara. -Afterwards he was tonsured by St. Patrick, became Bishop of Sletty, and -on Patrick's death is said to have written his life, and not forgetful -of his former training, to have written it in elaborate verse.[34] So -famous a critic as Zimmer believed half the poem to be genuine, but -Thurneysen rejects it because it does not fall in with his theories of -Irish metre.[35] - -But the longest and most important life of St. Patrick is that known -as the Tripartite, or Triply-divided Life, which is really a series -of three semi-historical homilies, or discourses, which were probably -delivered in honour of the saint on the three festival days devoted to -his memory, that is, the Vigil, the Feast itself, on March 17th, and -the day after, or else the Octave. This Tripartite life, which is a -fairly complete one, is written in ancient Irish, with many passages -of Latin interspersed. The monk Jocelin, who wrote a life of the -saint in the twelfth century, tells us that St. Evin[36]--from whom -Monasterevin, in Queen's County, is called, a saint of the early sixth -century--wrote a life of Patrick partly in Latin and partly in Gaelic, -and Colgan, the learned Franciscan who translated the Tripartite in his -"Trias Thaumaturga,"[37] believed that this was the very life which -St. Evin wrote. Colgan found the Tripartite life in three very ancient -Gaelic MSS., procured for him, no doubt, by the unwearied research of -Brother Michael O'Clery in the early part of the seventeenth century, -which he collated one with the other, and of which he gives the -following noteworthy account:-- - - "The first thing to be observed is that it has been written by its - first author and in the aforesaid manuscript, partly in Latin, partly - in Gaelic, and this in very ancient language, almost impenetrable by - reason of its very great antiquity, exhibiting not only in the same - chapter, but also in the same line, alternate phrases now in the - Latin, now in the Gaelic tongue. In the second place, it is to be - noticed that this life, on account of the very great antiquity of its - style, which was held in much regard, used to be read in the schools - of our antiquarians in the presence of their pupils, being elucidated - and expounded by the glosses of the masters, and by interpretations - of and observations on the more abstruse words; so that hence it - is not to be wondered at that some words--which certainly did - happen--gradually crept from these glosses into the texts, and thus - brought a certain colour of newness into this most ancient and - faithful author, some things being turned from Latin into Gaelic, some - abbreviated by the scribes, and some altogether omitted." - -Colgan further tells us that, "of the three MSS. above mentioned, -the first and chief is from very ancient vellums of the O'Clerys, -antiquarians in Ulster; the second from the O'Deorans, of Leinster; -the third taken from I know not what codex; and they differ from each -other in some respects; one relating more diffusely what is more close -in the others, and one relating in Latin what in the others was told in -Gaelic; but we have followed the authority of that which relates the -occurrences more diffusely and in Latin." O'Curry discovered in the -British Museum a copy of this life, made in the fifteenth century, and -it has since been admirably edited by Dr. Whitley Stokes, who, however, -does not believe for philological and other reasons, that it could -have been written before the middle of the tenth century. If so it is -no doubt a compilation of all the pre-existing lives of the saint, -and it mentions distinctly that six different writers, not counting -Fiacc the poet, had collected the events of St. Patrick's life and his -miracles, amongst whom were St. Columcille, who died in 592, and St. -Ultan, who died in 656.[38] It is hardly necessary, however, to say -that in the matter of all anonymous Gaelic writings like the present, -it is difficult to decide with any certainty as to age or date. The -occurrence, indeed, of very old forms, shows that the sentences -containing those old forms were first written at an early period; the -occurrence of more modern forms, however, is no proof that the passages -containing them were first written in modern times, for the words may -have been altered by later transcribers into the language they spoke -themselves; nor are allusions to events which we know were later than -the date of an alleged writer, _always_ conclusive proofs that the work -which contains them cannot be his work, for such allusions constantly -creep into the margin of books at the hands of copyists, especially if -those books were--as Colgan says the Tripartite life was--annotated -and explained in schools. In cases of this kind there is always -considerable latitude to be allowed to destructive and constructive -criticism, and at the end matters must still remain doubtful.[39] - -So much for the more important lives of St. Patrick, the first known -_littérateur_ of Ireland. - -[1] "Contemporary Review." - -[2] So Tirechan, in Book of Armagh, fol. 9. "Et secum fuit multitudo -episcoporum sanctorum et presbiterorum, et diaconorum, ac exorcistarum, -hostiarium, lectorumque, necnon filiorum quos ordinavit." - -[3] So many English were attracted to Armagh in the seventh century -that the city was divided into three wards, or thirds, one of which was -called the Saxon Third. - -[4] See Dr. Healy's "Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars," p. 64. - -[5] There is a curious poem on St. Patrick's family of artificers -quoted in the "Four Masters" under A.D. 278. - -[6] There were no less than twenty-two saints of the name of Colum, yet -that does not detract one iota from the genuineness of the life of the -great Colum, called Columcille. There were fourteen St. Brendans, there -were twenty-five St. Ciarans, and fifteen St. Brigits. - -How Ledwich--who, however, as O'Donovan remarks, looks at everything -Irish with a jaundiced eye--could have written down St. Patrick as a -myth is inconceivable, in the face of the fact that he was already -recognised in the sixth century as a great saint. The earliest mention -of him is probably St. Columba's subscription to the Book of Durrow, in -the sixth century, which runs: "Rogo beatitudinem tuam Sancte Presbyter -Patrici, ut quicumque hunc libellum manu tenuerit Columbæ Scriptoris, -qui hoc scripsi ... met evangelium per xii. dierum spatium." Here we -see a prayer already addressed to him as a national saint. - -[7] This is clearly shown by the 56th chap. of Tirechan's life fol. -16aa of the Book of Armagh, where he makes the following statement: -"XIII. Anno Teothosii imperatoris a Celestino episcopo papa Romæ -Patricius episcopus ad doctrinam Scottorum mittitur. Qui Celestinus -XLVII episcopus fuit a Petro apostolo in urbe Roma. Paladius episcopus -primus mittitur [in the year 430, according to Bede] qui Patricius -alio nomine appellabatur, qui martirium passus est apud Scottos, -ut tradunt sancti antiqui. Deinde Patricius secundus ab anguelo -Dei, Victor nomine, et a Celestino papa mittitur, cui Hibernia tota -credidit, qui eam pene totam bab[titzavit]." Also it is to be observed -that St. Patrick's life according to the usual computations, covers -120 years, which seems an improbably long period. According to the -Brussels Codex of Muirchu Maccu Machteni's life, he died _a passione -Domini nostri_ 436; the author, no doubt, imagined the passion to have -taken place in A.D. 34; this would fix Patrick's death as in 470. See -p. 20 of Father Hogan's "Documenta ex Libro Armachano," and with this -Tirechan also agrees, saying "A passione autem christi colleguntur anni -ccccxxxvi. usque ad mortem Patricii." Tirechan curiously contradicts -himself in saying, "Duobus autem vel v annis regnavit Loiguire post -mortem Patricii, omnis autem regni illius tempus xxxvi. ut putamus," in -chap. ii., and in chap. liii. he says that Patrick taught (_i.e._, in -Ireland) for 72 years! He evidently compiled badly from two different -documents. - -The only cogent reason for doubting about the reality of St. Patrick -is that he is not mentioned in the Chronicon of Prosper, which comes -down to the year 455, and which ascribes the conversion of Ireland to -Palladius, as does Bede afterwards. It is the silence of Prosper and -Bede about any one of the name of Patrick which has cast doubt upon his -existence. A most ingenious theory has been propounded by Father E. -O'Brien in the "Irish Ecclesiastical Record" to explain this. According -to him Patrick _is_ the Palladius of Prosper and Bede. The earliest -lives, and the scholiast on Fiacc's hymn, tell us that Patrick had four -names; one of these was Succat "_qui est deus belli_," but Palladius -is the Latin of Patrick's name (succat). The _Deus belli_ could only -be rendered into Latin by the words Arius Martius or Palladius, these -being the only names drawn from war-gods, and of these Palladius -was the commonest. It seems not unlikely that the Patrick who wrote -the "Confession" and converted Ireland is the Palladius of Bede and -Prosper, who also converted Ireland. The Paladius of Tirechan who -failed to convert Ireland is evidently another person altogether. - -It is to be remarked that although Bede never mentions Patrick in his -"Ecclesiastical History," nevertheless in the "Martyrology"--found -by Mabillon at Rheims, and attributed to Bede, Patrick is distinctly -commemorated-- - - "Patricius Domini servus conscendit ad aulam, - Cuthbertus ternas tenuit denasque Kalendas." - -[8] For the full particulars of this acute discovery, which sets -the date of the codex beyond doubt or cavil, see Dr. Graves' paper -read before the Royal Irish Academy, vol. iii. pp. 316-324, and a -supplementary paper giving other cogent reasons, vol. iii. p. 358. -According to O'Donovan, the "Four Masters" antedate here by five -years. It is worth remarking that Torbach, who caused this copy to be -made, was himself a noted scribe. His death in 807 is recorded in the -"Four Masters" and in the "Annals of Ulster," we read "Torbach, son of -Gorman, scribe, lector, and Abbot of Armagh, died." - -[9] There are several passages omitted in the Book of Armagh, which -are found in an ancient Brussels MS. of the eleventh century. These -were probably omitted from the Book of Armagh because they were -undecipherable. The Brussels MS. and others contain nearly as much -again as it, and there are many proofs that this extra matter is not -of later or spurious origin; thus Tirechan refers to Patrick's own -records, "_ut in scriptione sua affirmat,_" for evidence of a fact not -mentioned in the "Confession" as given in the Book of Armagh, but which -is supplied by the other MSS., namely, that Patrick paid the price of -fifteen "souls of men," or slaves, for protection on his missionary -journey across Ireland. The frequent occurrence of _deest, et cetera, -et reliqua_, show that the Armagh copy of the "Confession" is nothing -like a full one. The Brussels MS. formerly belonged to the Irish -monastery of Würzburg. - -[10] _See_ ch. III, note 31. - -[11] The other contents of the Book of Armagh, besides the Patrician -documents, are a copy of the New Testament, enriched with concordance -tables and illustrative matter from Jerome, Hilary, and Pelagius. It -includes the Epistle to the Laodiceans attributed to St. Paul, but it -is mentioned that Jerome denied its authenticity. There are some pieces -relating to St. Martin of Tours, and the Patrician pieces--the Life, -the Collectanea, the Book of the Angel, and the "Confession." - -[12] "Sanctus Patricus iens ad cœlum mandavit totum fructum laboris sui -tam baptismi tam causarum quam elemoisinarum deferendum esse apostolicæ -urbi quae scotice nominatur ardd-macha. Sic reperi in Bibliothics -Scotorum. Ego scripsi, id est Caluus Perennis, in conspectu Briain -imperatoris Scotorum, et quod scripsi finituit pro omnibus regibus -Maceriae [_i.e._, Cashel]." "Calvus Perennis" is the Latin translation -of Mael-suthain, Brian's scribe and secretary. For a curious story -about this Mael-suthain, _see_ p. 779 O'Curry's MS. Materials. - -[13] See above Ch. XI, note 13. It has been printed in Haddan and -Stubb's, "Councils," etc., vol. ii. p. 296, and also admirably in -Gilbert's facsimiles of National MSS. - -[14] It has often been said that the life of the saint in the Book -of Armagh ignores the Roman Mission. But while the life of Muirchu -Maccu Machteni does ignore it, Tirechan's his contemporary's, life, -in the same book, distinctly acknowledges it, in these words, "deinde -Patricius secundus ab anguelo dei, Victor nomine, _et a Celestino papa_ -mittitur cui Hibernia tota credidit, qui eam pene totam bap[titzavit]." -(_See_ chap. 56 of Tirechan's life.) - -[15] In Irish he is usually called Son of Alprann or Alplann, the -C of Calpornus being evidently taken as belonging to the Mac, thus -Mac Calprainn became Mac Alprainn. In the Brussels Codex of Muirchu -Maccu Machteni's life, however, he is called _Alforni filius_, and -the place of his birth is called _Ban navem thabur indecha_, supposed -to be Killpatrick, near Dumbarton, in Scotland, which is evidently a -corruption of his own Bannaven Taberniæ, which seems to mean River-head -Tavern; it may be from the two words _navem thabur_ that St. Fiacc's -hymn says that he was born in _nemthur_. Patrick himself only gives us -two generations of his ancestry, and it is very significant of Irish -ways to find Flann of Monasterboice, running it up to fourteen! - -[16] It is worth while to transcribe this passage as a fair specimen -of St. Patrick's style and latinity. "Et ibi scilicet in sinu noctis -virum venientem quasi de Hiberione cui nomen Victoricus, cum æpistulis -innumerabilibus vidi; et dedit mihi unam ex his et legi principium -æpistolæ continentem 'Uox Hiberionacum.' Et dum recitabam principium -æpistolæ, putabam enim ipse in mente audire vocem ipsorum qui -erant juxta silvam Focluti [in the county Mayo] quæ est prope mare -occidentale. Et sic exclamaverunt: 'Rogamus te sancte puer ut venias -et adhuc ambulas inter nos.' Et valde compunctus sum corde, et amplius -non potui legere. Et sic expertus [_i.e._ experrectus] sum. Deo gratias -quia post plurimos annos præstitit illis Dominus secundum clamorum -illorum" (Folio 23, 66, Book of Armagh, p. 126 of Father Hogan's -Bollandist edition). - -[17] The "Confession" ends with a certain rough eloquence: "Christus -Dominus pauper fuit pro nobis; ego vero miser et infelix, et si opes -voluero jam non habeo; neque me ipsum judico quia quotidie spero aut -internicionem aut circumveniri, aut redigi in servitatem, sive occassio -cujus-libet.... Et hæc est confessio mea antequam moriar." - -[18] Dr. Healy's "Ireland's Ancient Schools and Scholars," p. 68. - -[19] It is printed by Haddan and Stubbs, "Councils," etc., vol. ii. p. -314. - -[20] This is certainly the first time on record that this question--so -often repeated since in so many different forms--was asked. - -[21] See the original in Windsch's "Irische Texte," 1. p. 53, and -Todd's "Liber Hymnorum"-- - - "Atomrigh indiu niurt Dé dom luamaracht - Cumachta Dé dom chumgabail - Ciall Dé domm imthús - Rose Dé dom reimcíse, - Cluas Dé dom éstecht - Briathar Dé dom erlabrai, - Lám De domm imdegail - Intech Dé dom remthechtas. - Sciath Dé dom dítin - Sochraite Dé domm anucul - Ar intledaib demna - Ar aslaigthib dualche - Ar cech nduine míduthrastar dam, - ícéin _ocus_ i n-ocus - i n-uathed _ocus_ hi sochaide," etc. - -[22] Thus translated almost literally by Dr. Sigerson, "Bards of the -Gael and Gall," p. 138. This is not the only poem attributed to St. -Patrick, several others are ascribed to him in the "Tripartite Life," -and a MS. in the Bibliothèque Royale contains three others. Eight lines -of one of them is found in the Vatican Codex of Marianus Scotus and are -given by Zeuss in his "Grammatica Celtica," p. 961, second edition. The -lines there given refer to St. Brigit. There is also a rann attributed -to St. Patrick quoted by the "Four Masters," and the "Chronicon -Scotorum" attributes to him a rann on Bishop Erc. - -[23] "Canticum ejus scotticum semper canere," which a marginal note in -the book explains as _Ymnus Comanulo_, which Father Hogan interprets as -_protectio Clamoris_, adding "ac proinde synonyma voci Faith Fiada," -which has been interpreted _clamor custodis_ or "The Guardsman's Cry" -by Stokes. The poem, then, was extant in the seventh century, was -attributed to St. Patrick, and was sung in the churches--a strong -argument for its authenticity. - -[24] "Even to this day," says Dr. Healy, in "Ireland's Ancient Schools -and Scholars," p. 77, "the original is chanted by the peasantry of -the south and west in the ancestral tongue, and it is regarded as a -strong shield against all dangers natural or supernatural." I, myself, -however, in collecting the "Religious Songs of Connacht," have found no -trace of this, and I am not sure that the learned Bishop of Clonfert, -led astray by Petrie, is not here confounding it with the "Marainn -Phadraig," which mysterious piece is implicitly believed to be the -work of St. Patrick, and is still recited all over the west, with the -belief that there is a peculiar virtue attached to it. I have even -known money to have been paid for its recital in the west of Galway, as -a preventive of evil. For this curious piece, which is to me at least -more than half unintelligible, see my "Religious Songs of Connacht." It -appears to have been founded upon an incident similar to that recorded -by Muirchu Maccu Machteni, book i. chap. 26. - -[25] Of Dunshaughlin _recté_ Dunsaughnil (Domhnach Seachnaill) in Meath. - -[26] As this was probably the first poem in Latin ever composed in -Ireland, it deserves some consideration. It is a sort of trochaic -tetrameter catalectic, of the very rudest type. The _ictus_, or stress -of the voice, which is supposed to fall on the first syllable of the -first, third, fifth, and seventh feet, seldom corresponds with the -accent. The elision of "m" before a vowel is disregarded, no quantities -are observed, and the solitary rule of prosody kept is that the second -syllable of the seventh foot is always short, with the exception of one -word, _indutus_, which the poet probably pronounced as _indŭtus_. The -third verse runs thus, with an evident effort at vowel rhyme ("Liber -Hymnorum," vol. i. p. 11). - - "Beati Christi custodit mandata in omnibus - Cujus opera refulgent clara inter homines." - -Muratori printed this hymn, from the so-called Antiphonary of Bangor, a -MS. of the eight century preserved in the Ambrosian Library. The rude -metre is that employed by Hilary in his hymn beginning-- - - "Ymnum dicat turba fratrum, ymnum cantus personet," - -which, as Stokes points out, is the same as that of the Roman soldiers, -preserved in Suetonius, - - "Cæsar Gallias subégit, Nicomedes Cæsarem." - -The internal evidence of the antiquity of this hymn is "strong," says -Stokes, "first, the use of the present tense in describing the saint's -actions; secondly, the absence of all reference to the miracles with -which the Tripartite and other lives are crowded; and, thirdly, the -absence of all allusion to the Roman mission on which many later -writers from Tirechan downwards insist with much persistency." We may -then, I think, receive this hymn as authentic. - -[27] - - "Maximus namque in regno cælorum vocabitur, - Qui quod verbis docet sacris factis adimplet bonis; - Bono procedit exemplo formamque fidelium - Mundoque in corde habet ad Deum fiduciam." - -[28] In the "Martyrology of Tallaght" this curious name is written Mac -hui Machteni, _i.e._, the son of the grandson of Machtenus, or Muirchu, -_i.e._, Murrough, descendant of Machtenus, and the Leabhar Breac has -this note at the name of Muirchu: "_civitas ejus in uib Foelan, i.e., -mac hui Mathcene_," thereby giving us to understand that he was a -native of what is the present county of Waterford. Maccumachteni is -not a surname, for these were not introduced into Ireland for three -centuries later. - -[29] "Omnia quæ scripsi a principio libri hujus scitis quia in vestris -regionibus gesta sunt, nizi de eis pauca inveni in utilitatem laboris -mei a senioribus multis, ac ab illo Ultano episcopo Conchubernensi qui -nutrivit me, retulit sermo!" - -[30] "Multos jam conatos esse ordinare narrationem istam secundum quod -patres eorum et qui ministri ab initio fuerunt sermonis tradiderunt -illis; sed propter difficillimum narrationis opus diversasque opiniones -et plurimorum plurimas suspiciones nunquam ad unum certumque historiae -tramitem pervenisse." - -[31] "Omnia in Deo gesta ab antiquis peritissimis adunata atque -collecta sunt;" and again: "Post exitum Patricii alumpni sui valde -ejusdem libros conscripserunt;" but this may mean that they made copies -of the books left behind him. - -[32] Here is a specimen: "Dulluid pâtricc othemuir hicrîch Laigen -conrâncatar ocus dubthach mucculugir uccdomnuch mâr criathar la auu -censelich. Áliss pâtricc dubthach imdamnae .n. epscuip diadesciplib -dilaignib idôn fer soêr socheniûil cenon cenainim nadip ru becc -nadipromar bedasommae, toisclimm fer ôinsêtche dunarructhae -actoentuistiu," which would run some way thus in the modern language: -"Do luid (_i.e._, Chuaidh) Pádraic ó Theamhair i gcrích Laighean go -râncadar [fein] agus Dubhthach Mac Lugair ag Domhnach Mór Criathair le -uibh Ceinnsealaigh. Ailis (_i.e._, fiafruighis) Pádraic Dubhthach um -damhna (_i.e._, ádhbhar) easboig d' á dheiscioblaibh, eadhoin fear saor -sói-chineáil, gan on gan ainimh (_i.e._, truailiughadh), nâr 'bh ro -bheag [agus] nár 'bh rómhór, a shaidhbhreas (?). Toisg [riachtanus] liom -fear aon seitche [mná] d'á nach rugadh acht aon tuistui (gein)," etc. - -[33] For Cáthaoir Mór, _see_ p. 30. - -[34] The metre was called _Cetal nothi_, Thurneysen's "Mittelirische -Verslehren," p. 63. It scarcely differs in most parts from Little -Rannaigheacht. - -[35] _See_ "Keltische Studien," Heft ii., and the "Revue Celtique." The -first verses run thus:-- - - "Genair Patraicc in Nemthur - Is ed atfet hi scélaib - Maccan se mbliadan déac - In tan dobreth fo deraib. - - Succat a ainm itubrad - Ced a athair ba fissi - Mac Calpairn _maic_ Otide - Hoa deochain Odissi." - -[36] He was tenth in descent from that Owen Môr who wrested half the -sovereignty of Ireland from Conn of the Hundred Battles. - -[37] _I.e._, "The wonder-working Three," containing the lives of -Patrick, Brigit, and Columcille, translated by Colgan from Irish into -Latin. - -[38] Also St. Aileran the Wise, whose "Fragments" are published by -Migne; St. Adamnan, the author of the "Life of Columcille"; St. Ciaran -of Belach-Duin; and St. Colman. Jocelyn says that Benignus, who died in -468, wrote another life of Patrick, but of it nothing is known. - -[39] Here is a short passage from the Tripartite, which will show the -language in which it is written: "Fecht ann occ tuidhecht do Patraic -do Chlochur antuaith da fuarcaib a thren-fher dar doraid and, _i.e._, -Epscop mac Cairthind. Issed adrubart iar turcbail Patraic: uch uch. Mu -Debroth, ol Patraic ni bu gnath in foculsin do rad duitsiu. Am senoir -ocus am lobur ol Epscop Mac Cairthind," which would run some way thus -in the modern language: "Feacht [uair] do bhi ann, ag tigheacht do -Phádraig go Clochar (i gcondae, Tir-Eóghain) ón tuaidh, d' iomchair a -threán-fhear é thar sruth do bhi ann, eadhoin Easbog Mac Cairthind. Is -eadh adubhairt tar éis Padraig do thogbháil "Uch, uch!" Mo Dhebhroth -[focal do bhi ag Padraig, ionnann agus "dar mo láimh" no mar sin], níor -ghnáth an focal sin do rádh duit-se. Táim im sheanoir agus im lobhar ar -Easbog Mac Cairthind." _See_ O'Curry MS. Materials, p. 598. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - -ST. BRIGIT - - -St. Brigit was--after St. Patrick himself--probably the most noted -figure amongst Irish Christians in the fifth century. She must have -attained her extraordinary influence through sheer ability and -intellectuality, for she appears to have been the daughter of a -slave-woman,[1] employed in the mansion of a chief called Dubhthach -[Duv-hach, or Duffach], who was himself tenth in descent from Felimidh, -the lawgiver monarch of Ireland in the second century. The king's -wife, jealous of her husband's liking for his slave, threatened him -with these words, "Unless thou sellest yon bondmaid in distant lands I -will exact my dowry from thee and I will leave thee," and so had her -driven from the place and sold to a druid, in whose house her daughter, -Dubhthach's offspring, soon afterwards saw the light. She was thus -born into slavery, though not quite a slave; for Dubhthach, in selling -the mother into slavery, expressly reserved for himself her offspring, -whatever it might be. She must have been, at least, early inured to -hardship, as St. Patrick had been. The druid, however, did not prevent -her from being baptized. She grew up to be a girl of exceeding beauty, -and many suitors sought her in marriage. She returned to her father's -house, but refused all offers of matrimony. She aroused the jealousy of -her father's wife, as her mother had done before her, and Dubhthach, -indignant at her unbounded generosity with his goods, decided upon -selling her to the king of North Leinster. Her father's abortive -attempt to get rid of her on this occasion is thus quaintly described -in her Irish life in the Leabhar Breac. - - "Thereafter," says the life, "Dubhthach and his consort were minded to - sell the holy Brigit into bondage, for Dubhthach liked not his cattle - and his wealth to be dealt out to the poor, and that is what Brigit - used to do. So Dubhthach fared in his chariot and Brigit along with - him. - - "Said Dubhthach to Brigit, 'Not for honour or reverence to thee art - thou carried in a chariot, but to take thee, to sell thee to grind the - quern for Dunlang mac Enda, King of Leinster.' - - "When they came to the King's fortress Dubhthach went in to the king, - and Brigit remained in her chariot at the fortress door. Dubhthach had - left his sword in the chariot near Brigit. A leper came to Brigit to - ask an alms. She gave him Dubhthach's sword. - - "Said Dubhthach to the King, 'Wilt thou buy a bondmaid, namely, my - daughter?' says he. - - "Said Dunlang, 'Why sellest thou thine own daughter?' - - "Said Dubhthach, 'She stayeth not from selling my wealth and from - giving it to the poor.' - - "Said the King, 'Let the maiden come into the fortress.' - - "Dubhthach went to Brigit, and was enraged against her because she had - given his sword to the poor man. - - "When Brigit came into the King's presence the King said to her, - 'Since it is thy father's wealth that thou takest, much more wilt thou - take _my_ wealth and my cattle and give them to the poor.' - - "Said Brigit, 'The Son of the Virgin knoweth if I had thy might, with - all Leinster, and with all thy wealth, I would give them to the Lord - of the Elements.' - - "Said the King to Dubhthach, 'Thou art not fit on either hand to - bargain about this maiden, for her merit is higher before God - than before men,' and the King gave Dubhthach an ivory-hilted - sword (_Claideb dét_), et sic liberata est sancta Virgo Brigita a - captivititate.[2]" - -She at length succeeded in assuming the veil of a nun at the hands of -a bishop called Mucaille, along with seven virgin companions. With -these she eventually retired into her father's territory and founded a -church at Kildare, beside an ancient oak-tree, which existed till the -tenth century, and which gives its name to the spot.[3] Even at this -early period Kildare seems to have been a racecourse, and St. Brigit is -described in the ancient lives as driving across it in her chariot. - -It is remarkable that there is scarcely any mention of St. Brigit in -the lives of St. Patrick, although, according to the usual chronology -they were partly contemporaries, St. Brigit having become a nun -about the year 467, and St. Patrick having lived until 492. About -the only mention of her in the saint's life is that which tells how -she once listened to Patrick preaching for three nights and days, -and fell asleep, and as she dreamt she saw first white oxen in white -corn-fields, and then darker ones took their place, and lastly black -oxen. And thereafter, she beheld sheep and swine, and dogs and wolves -quarrelling with each other, and upon her waking up, St. Patrick -explained her dream as being symbolical of the history of the Irish -Church present and future. The life of Brigit herself in the Book of -Lismore tells the vision somewhat differently: - - "'I beheld,' said she, to Patrick, when he asked her why she had - fallen asleep, 'four ploughs in the north-east which ploughed the - whole island, and before the sowing was finished the harvest was - ripened, and clear well-springs and shiny streams came out of the - furrows. White garments were on the sowers and ploughmen. I beheld - four other ploughs in the north which ploughed the island athwart and - turned the harvest again, and the oats which they had sown grew up at - once and were ripe, and black streams came out of the furrows, and - there were black garments on the sowers and on the ploughmen.'" - -This vision Patrick explained to her, saying-- - - "'The first four ploughs which thou beheldest, those are I and thou, - who sow the four books of the gospel with a sowing of faith and belief - and piety. The harvest which thou beheldest are they who come unto - that faith and belief through our teaching. The four ploughs which - thou beheldest in the north are the false teachers and the liars which - will overturn the teaching which we have sown.'" - -St. Brigit's small oratory at Kildare, under the shadow of her -branching oak, soon grew into a great institution, and within her own -lifetime two considerable religious establishments sprang up there, -one for women and the other for men. She herself selected a bishop -to assist her in governing them, and another to instruct herself and -her nuns. Long before her death, which occurred about the year 525, a -regular city and a great school rivalling the fame of Armagh itself, -had risen round her oak-tree. Cogitosus, himself one of the Kildare -monks, who wrote a Latin life of St. Brigit at the desire of the -community, gives us a fine description of the great church of Kildare -in his own day, which was evidently some time prior to the Danish -invasion at the close of the eighth century,[4] but how long before is -doubtful. He tells us that the church was both large and lofty, with -many pictures and hangings, and with ornamental doorways, and that a -partition ran across the breadth of the church near the chancel or -sanctuary: - - "At one of its extremities there was a door which admitted the bishop - and his clergy to the sanctuary and to the altar; and at the other - extremity on the opposite side there was a similar door by which - Brigit and her virgins and widows used to enter to enjoy the banquet - of the Body and Blood of Christ. Then a central partition ran down - the nave, dividing the men from the women, the men being on the right - and the women on the left, and each division having its own lateral - entrance. These partitions did not rise to the roof of the church, but - only so high as to serve their purpose. The partition at the sanctuary - or chancel was formed with boards of wood decorated with pictures and - covered with linen hangings which might, it seems, be drawn aside at - the consecration, to give the people in the nave a better view of the - holy mysteries."[5] - -The two institutions--nuns and monks--planted by St. Brigit continued -long to flourish side by side, and Kildare is the only religious -establishment in Ireland, says Dr. Healy, which down to a comparatively -recent period preserved the double line of succession, of abbot-bishops -and of abbesses. The annalists always took care to record the names of -the abbesses with the same accuracy as those of the abbots, and to the -last the abbesses as successors of St. Brigit, were credited with, in -public opinion, and probably enjoyed in fact, a certain supremacy over -the bishops of Kildare themselves. - -Amongst other occupations the monks and scholars of Kildare seem to -have given themselves up to decorative art, and a school of metal -work under the supervision of Brigit's first bishop soon sprang into -existence, producing all kinds of artistically decorated chalices, -bells, patens, and shrines; and the impulse given thus early to -artistic work and to beautiful creations seems to have long propagated -itself in Kildare, as the description of the church by Cogitosus shows, -and as we may still conjecture from the exquisite round tower with its -unusually ornamented doorway and its great height of over 130 feet, the -loftiest tower of the kind in Ireland. - -No doubt several attributes of the pagan Brigit,[6] who, as we have -seen, was accounted by the ancient Irish to have been the goddess of -poets, passed over to her Christian namesake, who was also credited -with being the patroness of men of learning. On this, her life in the -Book of Lismore contains the following significant and rather obscure -passage: - - "Brigit was once with her sheep on the Curragh, and she saw running - past her a son of reading,[7] to wit Nindid the scholar was he. - - "'What makes thee unsedate, O son of reading?' saith Brigit, 'and what - seekest thou in that wise?' - - "'O nun,' saith the scholar, 'I am going to heaven.' - - "'The Virgin's son knoweth,' said Brigit, 'happy is he that goeth that - journey, and for God's sake make prayer with me that it may be easy - for me to go.' - - "'O nun,' said the scholar, 'I have no leisure, for the gates of - heaven are open now and I fear they may be shut against me. Or, if - thou art hindering me pray the Lord that it may be easy for me to go - to heaven, and I will pray the Lord for thee, that it may be easy - for thee, and that thou mayest bring many thousands with thee, into - heaven.' - - "Brigit recited a paternoster with him. And he was pious - thenceforward, and it is he that gave her communion and sacrifice when - she was dying. _Wherefore thence it came to pass that the comradeship - of the world's softs of reading is with Brigit, and the Lord gives - them through Brigit every perfect good they ask._"[8] - -As St. Patrick is pre-eminently the patron saint of Ireland, so is -Brigit its patroness, and with the Irish people no Christian name -is more common for their boys than Patrick, or for their girls than -Brigit.[9] She was universally known as the "Mary of the Gael," and -reverenced with a certain chivalric feeling which seems to have been -always present with the Gaelic nation in the case of women, for, says -her Irish life, her desire "was to satisfy the poor, to expel every -hardship, to spare every miserable man.... It is she that helpeth -every one who is in a strait or a danger; it is she that abateth the -pestilences; it is she that quelleth the anger and the storm of the -sea. She is the prophetess of Christ: she is the queen of the south: -_She is the Mary of the Gael_." The writer closes thus in a burst of -eloquence: - - "Her relics are on earth, with honour and dignity and primacy, with - miracles and marvels. Her soul is like a sun in the heavenly kingdom, - among the choir of angels and archangels. And though great be her - honour here at present, greater by far will it be when she shall arise - like a shining lamp, in completeness of body and soul at the great - Assembly of Doomsday, in union with cherubim and seraphim, in union - with the Son of Mary the Virgin, in the union that is nobler than - every union, in the union of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy - Spirit." - -As of St. Patrick, so of his great co-evangeliser St. Brigit, there -exist quite a number of various lives; the most ancient being probably -a metrical life in Irish contained in the Book of Hymns, of which there -still exists an eleventh century MS. It consists of fifty-three stanzas -of four lines each, and is ascribed to St. Broccan or Brogan Cloen, -who seems to have lived at the beginning of the seventh century.[10] -This life does little more than expatiate upon Brigit's miracles and -virtues. The next life of importance is that already mentioned, by -Cogitosus, the Kildare monk, whose date is uncertain, but is clearly -prior to the Danish invasions. This life, which is in very creditable -Latin, and four others, were printed by Colgan. The first of these four -is--probably falsely--attributed to St. Ultan, who died in the middle -of the seventh century; the next is by a monk who is called Animosus, -but of whom nothing is known, though, as St. Donatus, who became -bishop of Fiesole in 824, alludes to his works, he must have been an -early author; the third is a twelfth-century work, by Laurence of -Durham, an Englishman; and the last is in Latin verse, taken from a MS. -which the unwearied Colgan procured from Monte Cassino, and which is -attributed to Coelan, a monk of Iniscaltra, who probably lived in the -eighth century, while a prologue to this life is prefixed by a later -writer, the celebrated Irish bishop of Fiesole, Donatus, who, in the -early part of the ninth century, worked with great success in Italy. -There is something touching in the language with which this great and -successful child of the Gael reverts in his prologue to the home of his -childhood:-- - - "Far in the west they tell of a matchless land,[11] which goes in - ancient books by the name of Scotia [_i.e._, Ireland]; rich in - resources this land, having silver, precious stones, vestures and - gold, well suited to earth-born creatures as regards its climate, its - sun, and its arable soil; that Scotia of lovely fields that flow with - milk and honey, hath skill in husbandry, and raiments, and arms, and - arts, and fruits. There are no fierce bears there, nor ever has the - land of Scotia brought forth savage broods of lions. No poisons hurt, - no serpent creeps through the grass, nor does the babbling frog croak - and complain by the lake. In this land the Scottish race are worthy to - dwell, a renowned race of men in war, in peace, in fidelity." - -Whitley Stokes has published the Irish lives of St. Brigit from the -Leabhar Breac and the Book of Lismore, and Donatus alludes to other -lives by St. Ultan[12] and St. Eleran, so that Brigit has not lacked -biographers. She herself is said to have written a rule for her nuns -and some other things, and O'Curry prints one Irish poem ascribed to -her--in which she prays for the family of heaven to be present at her -feast: "I should like the men of heaven in my own house, I should like -rivers of peace to be at their disposal," etc.--which appears to be -alluded to in the preface to the Litany of Angus the Culdee, as the -"great feast which St. Brigit made for Jesus in her heart."[13] - -[1] Cogitosus, who probably wrote in the beginning of the eighth -century, makes no allusion to her slave-parentage, but this was to be -expected. - -[2] _See_ Stokes, "Three Middle Irish Homilies." - -[3] Cill-dara, the "Church of the Oak-tree," now Kildare. - -[4] He himself says, "Et quis sermone explicare potest maximum decorem -hujus ecclesiæ et innumera illius civitatis quî dicemus miracula ... -[hic] nullus carnalis adversarius nec concursus timetur hostium, sed -civitas est refugii tutissima ... et quis ennumerare potest diversas -turbas et innumerabiles populos de omnibus provinciis affluentes, alii -ad epularum abundantiam, alii languidi propter sanitates, alii ad -spectaculum turbarum, alii cum magnis donis venientes ad solemnitatem -Nativitatis S. Brigitæ quæ in die Calendarum est," etc. These are the -evident outcome of the piping times of peace which Ireland enjoyed in -the seventh and eighth centuries. It would have been impossible to have -written in this way after the close of the eighth century. See chap. 36 -of Cogitosus's life, "Trias Thaumaturga," p. 524 of the Louvain edition. - -[5] Thus well summarised by Dr. Healy from the more diffuse Latin of -Cogitosus. His description of the church is as follows: It was "solo -spatiosa et in altum minaci proceritate porrecta ac decorata pictis -tabulis, tria intrinsecus habens oratoria ampla, et divisa parietibus -tabulatis." One of the walls was "decoratus, et imaginibus depictus, ac -linteaminibus tectus." - -[6] This has not escaped Windisch. "Während," he writes, "Patrick nur -der christlichen Hagiologie angehört, scheint Brigit zugleich die Erbin -einer alten heidnischen Gottheit zu sein. Ihr Wesen enthält Ziige die -mehr als eine heilig gesprochen Nonne hinter ihr vermuthen lassen." -Windisch bases this chiefly upon the expressions in Broccan's hymn, -which calls her the mother of Christ, and calls Christ her son, and -equates her with Mary. The passage which I have adduced from the Irish -life is even more remarkable: - -"Brigit," writes Whitley Stokes "(cp. Skr. _bhargas_) was born at -sunrise neither within nor without a house, was bathed in milk, her -breath revives the dead, a house in which she is staying flames up to -heaven, cow-dung blazes before her, oil is poured on her head; she -is fed from the milk of a white red-eared cow; a fiery pillar rises -over her head; sun rays support her wet cloak; she remains a virgin; -and she was one of the two mothers of Christ the Anointed. She has, -according to Giraldus Cambrensis, a perpetual ashless fire watched by -twenty nuns, of whom herself was one, blown by fans or bellows only, -and surrounded by a hedge within which no male could enter" ("Top. -Hib." chaps. 34, 35 and 36), from all which Stokes declares that one -may without much rashness pick out certain of her life-incidents, as -having "originally belonged to the myth or the ritual of some goddess -of fire." (_See_ preface to "Three Middle Irish Homilies.") - -[7] "Mac-léighinn," which is to this day a usual Irish term for student. - -[8] Thus translated by Dr. Whitley Stokes in his "Lives of the Saints -from the Book of Lismore," p. 194. In the original: "Conid assein -dorala cumthanus mac leighinn in domuin re Brigit, co tabair in coimdhi -doibh tria atach Brigte gach maith fhoirbhthi chuinghid." - -[9] Or to speak more accurately no names _were_ more common, but owing -to the action of various influences, particularly of the National -Board, with unsympathetic persons at its head, and of the men who -direct the modern education of the Irish, the people who are not -allowed by the National Board to learn history, and who are taught to -despise the Irish language, are gradually being made ashamed of any -names that are not English, and Patrick and Brigit almost bid fair to -follow the way of Cormac, Conn, Felim, Art, Donough, Fergus, Diarmuid, -and a score of other Christian names of men in common use a century -ago, but now almost wholly extinct, and of Mève, Sive, Eefi, Sheela, -Nuala, and as many more female names now nearly or completely obsolete. -A woman of some education said to me lately, "God forbid I should -handicap my daughter in life by calling her Brigit;" and a Catholic -bishop said the other day that too often when an Irish parent abroad -did pluck up courage to christen his son "Patrick," he put it in, in -a shamefaced whisper, at the end of several other names. This is the -direct result of the teaching given by the National Board. - -[10] He is said to have written this hymn at the instigation of Ultan, -who died in 653, but, as Windisch remarks, mention is probably made of -Ultan only because he is said to have been the first to collect the -miracles of Brigit--"die Sprache," adds Windisch, "ist alterthümlich; -besonders beachtenswerth sind die ziemlich zahlreichen Perfectformen." -It is remarkable that the miracles attributed to Brigit are given in -the same order in this hymn and in Cogitosus' life of her. The metre is -irregular. - - "Ni bu Sanct Brigit suanach - Ni bu húarach im seirc Dé, - Sech ni chiuir ni cossena - Ind nóeb dibad bethath che." - -The life by Cogitosus is evidently pre-Danish, and it is more likely to -be an extension of the short metrical one, than that the metrical one -should be a _résumé_ of it. If this is so it bespeaks a considerable -antiquity for the Irish verses. - -[11] There is a fragment in the Irish MS. Rawlinson, B. 512, quoted -somewhere by Kuno Meyer, which reminds one of this passage. It begins: -"Now the island of Ireland, Inis Herenn, has been set in the west. As -Adam's Paradise stands at the sunrise, so Ireland stands at the sunset, -and they are alike in the nature of their soil," etc. - -[12] St. Ultan wrote a beautiful Irish hymn and also a Latin hymn to -her--at least they are attributed to him--beginning-- - - "Christus in nostra insola - Que vocatur hibernia - Ostensus est hominibus - Maximis mirabilibus. - - Que perfecit per felicem - Celestis vite virginem - Precellentem pro merito - Magno in mundi circulo." - -See Todd's "Liber Hymnorum," vol. ii. p. 58. The Latin orthography of -the Irish is seldom quite perfect. - -[13] This poem begins: - - "Ropadh maith lem corm-lind mór - Do righ na righ - Ropadh maith lem muinnter nimhe - Acca hol tre bithe shír." - -_I.e._, "I would like a great lake of ale for the King of the -kings, I would like the people of heaven to be drinking it through -eternal ages," which sounds curious, but Brigit probably meant it -allegorically. - - - - -CHAPTER XV - -COLUMCILLE - - -The third great patron Saint of Ireland, the man who stands out almost -as conspicuously as St. Patrick himself in the religious history -of the Gael, the most renowned missionary, scribe, scholar, poet, -statesman, anchorite, and school-founder of the sixth century is St. -Columcille.[1] Everything about this remarkable man has conspired to -fix upon him the imagination of the Irish race. He was not, like St. -Patrick, of alien, nor like St. Brigit, of semi-servile birth, but was -sprung from the highest and bluest blood of the Irish, being son of -Felemidh, son of Fergus, son of Conall Gulban--renowned to this day in -saga and romance--son of Niall of the Nine Hostages, that great monarch -of Ireland who ravaged Britain and exacted tributes far and wide from -his conquered enemies. - -He was born on the 7th of December, 521,[2] twenty-nine years after -the reputed death of St. Patrick, and four years before that of St. -Brigit, at Gartan[3] in Donegal, a wild but beautiful district of which -his father was the prince. The reigning monarch of Ireland was his -half-uncle, while his mother Ethne was the direct descendant of the -royal line of Cáthaoir [Cauheer] Mór, the regnant family of Leinster, -and he himself would have had some chance of the reversion of the -monarchy had he been minded to press his claims. Reared at Kilmacrenan, -near Gartan, the place where the O'Donnells were afterwards -inaugurated, he received his first teaching at the hands of St. Finnén -or Finnian in his famous school at Moville, for already since Patrick's -death Ireland had become dotted with such small colleges. It was here -at this early age that his school-fellows christened him Colum-cille, -or Colum of the Church, on account of the assiduity with which he -sought the holy building. At this period the Christian clergy and the -bardic order were the only two educational powers in Ireland, and after -leaving St. Finnian, Columcille travelled south into Leinster to a -bard called Gemmán[4] with whom he took lessons. From him he went to -St. Finnén or Finnian of Clonard. While studying at Clonard it was the -custom for each of the students to grind corn in his turn at a quern, -but Columcille's Irish life in the Book of Lismore tells us naïvely, in -true old Irish spirit, "howbeit an angel from heaven used to grind on -behalf of Columcille; that was the honour which the Lord used to render -him because of the eminent nobleness of his race." St. Ciaran [Keeran] -was at this time a fellow-student with him, and Finnian, says the Irish -life, saw one night a vision, "to wit, two moons arose from Clonard, -a golden moon and a silver moon. The golden moon went into the north -of the island, and Ireland and Scotland gleamed under it. The silver -moon went on until it stayed by the Shannon, and Ireland at her centre -gleamed." That, says the author, signified "Columcille with the grace -of his noble kin and his wisdom, and Ciaran with the refulgence of his -virtues and his good deeds." - -Leaving Clonard behind him, Columcille passed on to yet another -school--this time to that of Mobhí at Glasnevin, near Dublin, where -there were as many as fifty students at work, living in huts or cells -grouped round an oratory, some of whom were famous men in after-time, -for they included Cainnech and Comgall and Ciaran. A curious incident -is recorded of these three and of Columcille in the Irish life in the -Book of Lismore. - -Columcille was driven from Glasnevin by the approach of the great -plague which ravaged the country, and of which his teacher Mobhí died. - - "Once on a time," says the author, "a great church was built by Mobhí. - The clerics were considering what each of them would like to have in - the church. 'I should like,' said Ciaran, 'its full of church children - to attend the canonical hours.' 'I should like,' said Cainnech, 'to - have its full of books to serve the sons of life.' 'I should like,' - said Comgall, 'its full of affliction and disease to be in my own - body: to subdue me and repress me.' Then Columcille chose its full - of gold and silver to cover relics and shrines withal. Mobhí said it - should not be so, but that Columcille's community would be wealthier - than any community, whether in Ireland or in Scotland."[5] - -Betaking himself northward with a growing reputation, he was offered by -his cousin, then Prince of Aileach, near Derry, and afterwards monarch -of Ireland, the site of a monastery on the so-called island of Derry, -a rising ground of oval shape, covering some two hundred acres, along -the slopes of which flourished a splendid forest of oak-trees, which -gave to the oasis its name of Derry or the oak grove. Columcille, -like all Gaels--and indeed all Celts--was full of love for everything -beautiful in nature, both animate and inanimate, and so careful was he -of his beloved oaks that, contrary to all custom, he would not build -his church with its chancel towards the east, for in that case some -of the oaks would have had to be felled to make room for it. He laid -strict injunctions upon all his successors to spare the lovely grove, -and enjoined that if any of the trees should be blown down some of them -should go for fuel to their own guest-house, and the rest be given to -the people. - -This was Columcille's first religious institution, and, like every -man's firstling, it remained dear to him to the last. Years afterwards, -when the thought of it came back to him on the barren shores of Iona, -he expressed himself in passionate Irish poetry. - - "For oh! were the tributes of Alba mine - From shore unto centre, from centre to sea, - The site of one house, to be marked by a line - In the midst of fair Derry were dearer to me. - - That spot is the dearest on Erin's ground, - For the treasures that peace and that purity lend, - For the hosts of bright angels that circle it round, - Protecting its borders from end to end. - - The dearest of any on Erin's ground - For its peace and its beauty I gave it my love, - Each leaf of the oaks around Derry is found - To be crowded with angels from heaven above. - - My Derry! my Derry! my little oak grove, - My dwelling, my home, and my own little cell, - May God the Eternal in Heaven above - Send death to thy foes and defend thee well."[6] - -Columcille was yet a young man, only twenty-five years of age, when -he founded Derry, but both his own genius, and more especially his -great friends and kinsfolk, had conspired to make him famous. For the -next seventeen years he laboured in Ireland, and during this time -founded the still more celebrated schools of Durrow in the present -King's County, and of Kells in Meath, both of which became most -famous in after years. Durrow,[7] which, like Derry, was named from -the beautiful groves of oak which were scattered along the slope of -Druim-caín, or "the pleasant hill," seems to have retained to the last -a hold upon the affections of Columcille second only to that of Derry. -When its abbot, Cormac the voyager, visited him long years afterwards -in Iona, and expressed his unwillingness to return to his monastery -again, because, being a Momonian of the race of Eber, the southern -Ui Neill were jealous of him, and made his abbacy unpleasant or -impossible, Columcille reproached him in pathetic terms for abandoning -so lovely an abode-- - - "With its books and its learning, - A devout city with a hundred crosses." - -"O Cormac," he exclaimed-- - - "I pledge thee mine unerring word - Which it is not possible to impugn, - Death is better in reproachless Erin - Than perpetual life in Alba [Scotland]."[8] - -And on another occasion, when it strikes him how happy the son of Dima, -_i.e._, Cormac, must be at the approach of summer along the green -hillside of Rosgrencha--another name for Durrow--amid its fair slopes, -waving woods, and singing birds, compared with himself exiled to the -barren shores of rugged Iona, he bursts forth into the tenderest song-- - - "How happy the son is of Dima! no sorrow - For him is designed, - He is having, this hour, round his own cell in Durrow - The wish of his mind: - - The sound of the wind in the elms, like the strings of - A harp being played, - The note of the blackbird that claps with the wings of - Delight in the glade. - - With him in Rosgrencha the cattle are lowing - At earliest dawn, - On the brink of the summer the pigeons are cooing - And doves on his lawn," etc.[9] - -Columcille continued his labours in Ireland, founding churches and -monasteries and schools, until he was forty-two years of age. He was -at this time at the height of his physical and mental powers, a man of -a masterful but of a too passionate character, of fine physique, and -enjoying a reputation second to that of none in Erin. The commentator -in the Féilire of Angus describes his appearance as that of "a man -well-formed, with powerful frame; his skin was white, his face was -broad and fair and radiant, lit up with large, grey,[10] luminous eyes; -his large and well-shaped head was crowned, except where he wore his -frontal tonsure, with close and curling hair. His voice was clear and -resonant, so that he could be heard at the distance of 1,500 paces,[11] -yet sweet with more than the sweetness of the bards." His activity was -incessant. "Not a single hour of the day," says Adamnan, "did he leave -unoccupied without engaging either in prayer, or in reading, or in -writing, or in some other work;" and he laboured with his hands as well -as with his head, cooking or looking after his ploughmen, or engaged in -ecclesiastical or secular matters. All accounts go to show that he was -of a hot and passionate temperament, and endowed with both the virtues -and the faults that spring from such a character. Indeed this was, no -doubt, why in the "famous vision"[12] which Baithin saw concerning -him, he was seated only on a chair of glass; while Ciaran was on a -chair of gold, and Molaisse upon a chair of silver. The commentator -on the Féilire of Angus boldly states that, "though his devotion was -delightful, he was carnal and often frail even as glass is fragile." -Aware of this, he wore himself out with fastings and vigils,[13] and no -doubt-- - - "Lenior et melior fit accedente senectu," - -for Adamnan describes him, from the recollections of the monks who -knew him, as being angelic in aspect[14] and bright in conversation, -and despite his great labours yet "dear to all, displaying his holy -countenance always cheerful." A curious story is told in the Leabhar -Breac, of the stratagems to which his people resorted to checkmate his -self-imposed penance; for having one day seen an old woman living upon -pottage of nettles, while she was waiting for her one cow to calve and -give her milk, the notion came to him that he too would thenceforward -live upon the same, for if she could do so, much more could he, and it -would be profitable to his soul in gaining the kingdom of heaven. So, -said the writer, he called his servant-- - - "'Pottage,' saith he, 'from thee every night, and bring not the milk - with it.' - - "'It shall be done,' said the cook. - - "He (the cook) bores the mixing-stick of the pottage, so that it - became a pipe, and he used to pour the meat juice into the pipe, down, - so that it was mixed through the pottage. That preserves the cleric's - (Columcille's) appearance. The monks perceived the cleric's good - appearance, and they talked among themselves. That is revealed to - Columcille, so he said, 'May your successors be always murmuring.' - - "'Well now,' said Columcille, said he, to his servant, 'what dost thou - give me every day?' - - "'Thou art witness,' said the cook, 'unless it come out of the iron of - the pot, or out of the stick wherewith the pottage is mixed, I know - nought else in it save pottage!'" - -It was now, however, that events occurred which had the result of -driving Columcille abroad and launching him upon a more stormy and -more dangerous career, as the apostle of Scotland and the Picts. St. -Finnian of Moville, with whom he studied in former days, had brought -back with him from Rome a copy of the Psalms, probably the first -copy of St. Jerome's translation, or Vulgate, that had appeared in -Ireland, which he highly valued, and which he did not wish Columcille -to copy. Columcille however, who was a dexterous and rapid scribe, -found opportunity, by sitting up during several nights, to make a copy -of the book secretly,[15] but Finnian learning it claimed the copy. -Columcille refused it, and the matter was referred to King Diarmuid -at Tara. The monarch, to whom books and their surroundings were -probably something new, as a matter for legal dispute, could find in -the Brehon law no nearer analogy to adjudicate the case by, than the -since celebrated sentence _le gach boin a boinín_, "with every cow -her calf," in which terms he, not altogether unnaturally, decided in -favour of St. Finnian, saying, "with every book its son-book, as with -every cow her calf."[16] This alone might not have brought about the -crisis, but unfortunately the son of the king of Connacht, who had been -present at the great Convention or Féis of Tara, in utter violation of -the law of sanctuary which alone rendered this great meeting possible, -slew the son of the king's steward, and knowing that the penalty was -certain death, he fled to the lodging of the northern princes Fergus -and Domhnall [Donall] who immediately placed him under the protection -of St. Columcille. This however did not avail him, for King Diarmuid, -who was no respecter of persons, had him promptly seized and put to -death in atonement for his crime. This, combined with his unfortunate -judgment about the book, enraged the imperious Columcille to the last -degree. He made his way northward and appealed to his kinsmen to avenge -him. A great army was collected, led by Fergus and Domhnall, two first -cousins of Columcille, and by the king of Connacht, whose son had been -put to death. The High-king marched to meet this formidable combination -with all the troops he could gather. Pushing his way across the island -he met their combined forces in the present county of Sligo, between -Benbulbin and the sea. A furious battle was delivered in which he was -defeated with the loss of three thousand men. - -It was soon after this battle that Columcille decided to leave Ireland. -There is a great deal of evidence that he did so as a kind of penance, -either self-imposed or enjoined upon him by St. Molaíse [Moleesha], -as Keating says, or by the "synod of the Irish saints," as O'Donnell -has it. He had helped to fill all Ireland with arms and bloodshed, -and three thousand men had fallen in one battle largely on account -of him, and it was not the only appeal to arms which lay upon his -conscience.[17] He set sail from his beloved Derry in the year 593, -determined, according to popular tradition, to convert as many souls -to Christ as had fallen in the battle of Cooldrevna. Amongst the dozen -monks of his own order who accompanied him were his two first cousins -and his uncle. - -It was death and breaking of heart for him to leave the land of Erin, -and he pathetically expresses his sorrow in his own Irish verses. - - "Too swiftly my coracle flies on her way, - From Derry I mournfully turned her prow, - I grieve at the errand which drives me to-day - To the Land of the Ravens, to Alba, now. - - * * * * * - - How swiftly we travel! there is a grey eye - Looks back upon Erin, but it no more - Shall see while the stars shall endure in the sky - Her women, her men, or her stainless shore. - - From the plank of the oak where in sorrow I lie, - I am straining my sight through the water and wind, - And large is the tear of the soft grey eye - Looking back on the land that it leaves behind. - - To Erin alone is my memory given, - To Meath and to Munster my wild thoughts flow, - To the shores of Moy-linny, the slopes of Loch Leven, - And the beautiful land the Ultonians know." - -He refers distinctly to the penance imposed upon him by St. Moleesha. - - "To the nobles that gem the bright isle of the Gael - Carry this benediction over the sea, - And bid them not credit Moleesha's tale, - And bid them not credit his words of me. - - Were it not for the word of Moleesha's mouth - At the cross of Ahamlish that sorrowful day, - I now should be warding from north and from south - Disease and distemper from Erin away." - -His mind reverts to former scenes of delight-- - - "How dear to my heart in yon western land - Is the thought of Loch Foyle where the cool waves pour, - And the bay of Drumcliff on Cúlcinnê's strand, - How grand was the slope of its curving shore! - - * * * * * - - O bear me my blessing afar to the West, - For the heart in my bosom is broken; I fail. - Should death of a sudden now pierce my breast - I should die of the love that I bear the Gael!"[18] - -Columcille is the first example in the saddened page of Irish history -of the exiled Gael grieving for his native land and refusing to be -comforted, and as such he has become the very type and embodiment of -Irish fate and Irish character. The flag in bleak Gartan, upon which -he was born, is worn thin and bare by the hands and feet of pious -pilgrims, and "the poor emigrants who are about to quit Donegal for -ever, come and sleep on that flag the night before their departure -from Derry. Columcille himself was an exile, and they fondly hope that -sleeping on the spot where he was born will help them to bear with -lighter heart the heavy burden of the exile's sorrows."[19] He is the -prototype of the millions of Irish exiles in after ages-- - - "Ruined exiles, restless, roaming, - Longing for their fatherland,"[20] - -and the extraordinary deep roots which his life and poetry have struck -into the soil of the North was strikingly evidenced this very year -(1898) by the wonderful celebration of his centenary at Gartan, at -which many thousands of people, who had travelled all night over the -surrounding mountains, were present, and where it was felt to be so -incongruous that the life of such a great Irish patriot, prince, and -poet, in the diocese, too, of an O'Donnell, should be celebrated in -English, that--probably for the first time in this century--Irish poems -were read and Irish speeches made, even by the Cardinal-Primate and the -Bishop of the diocese. - -Of Columcille's life on the craggy little island of Iona, of his -splendid labours in converting the Picts, and of the monastery which -he established, and which, occupied by Irish monks, virtually rendered -Iona an Irish island for the next six hundred years, there is no need -to speak here, for these things belong rather to ecclesiastical than to -literary history. - -Columcille himself was an unwearied scribe, and delighted in poetry. -Ample provision was made for the multiplication of books in all the -monasteries which he founded, and his Irish life tells us that he -himself wrote "three hundred gifted, lasting, illuminated, noble -books." The life in the Book of Lismore tells us that he once went -to Clonmacnois with a hymn he had made for St. Ciaran, 'for he made -abundant praises for God's household, as said the poet, - - "Noble, thrice fifty, nobler than every apostle, - The number of miracles [of poems] are as grass, - Some in Latin, which was beguiling, - Others in Gaelic, fair the tale."' - -Of these only three in Latin are now known to exist, whilst of the -great number of Irish poems attributed to him only a few--half a dozen -at the most--are likely to be even partly genuine. His best known hymn -is the "Altus," so called from its opening word; it was first printed -by Colgan,[21] and its genuineness is generally admitted. It is a -long and rudely-constructed poem, of twenty-two stanzas, preserved in -the Book of Hymns, a MS. probably of the eleventh century. Each stanza -consists of six lines,[22] and each line of sixteen syllables. There -is a pause after the eighth syllable, and a kind of rhyme between -every two lines. The first verses run thus with an utter disregard of -quantity. - - "Altus prosător, vetustus dierum et ingenitus, - Erat absque origine primordii et crepidine, - Est et erit in sæcula sæculorum infinitus, - Cui est unigenitus Christus et Spiritus Sanctus," etc. - -The second Latin hymn is a supplement to this one, composed in praise -of the Trinity, because Pope Gregory who, as the legend states, -perceived the angels listening when the "Altus" was recited to him, -was yet of opinion that the first stanza of the original poem, despite -its additional line, was insufficient to express a competent laudation -of the mystery, consequently Columcille added, it was said, fifteen -rude-rhyming couplets of the same character as the "Altus," but it -is very doubtful whether they are genuine. The third hymn, the "Noli -Pater," is still shorter, consisting of only seven rhyming couplets -with sixteen syllables in each line. It was in ancient times considered -an efficient safeguard against fire and lightning. Some of his reputed -Irish poems we have already glanced at; three that Colgan considered -genuine were printed by Dr. Reeves in his "Adamnan;" and another, the -touching "Farewell to Ara," is contained in the "Gaelic Miscellany" -of 1808; and another on his escape from King Diarmuid, when the king -of Connacht's son was put to death for violating the Féis at Tara, is -printed in the "Miscellany" of the Irish Archæological Society.[23] -There are three verses, composed by him as a prayer at the battle of -Cooldrevna, ascribed to him in the "Chronicon Scotorum;" and there is -a collection of fifteen poems attributed to him in the O'Clery MSS. at -Brussels, and nearly a hundred more--mostly evident forgeries--in the -Bodleian at Oxford.[24] He does not seem to have ever written any work -in prose. - -There are six lives of Columcille still extant, the greatest of them -all being that in Latin by Adamnan,[25] who was one of his successors -in the abbacy of Iona, and who was born only twenty-seven years after -Columcille's death. This admirable work, written in flowing and -very fair Latin, was derived, as Adamnan himself tells us, partly -from oral and partly from written sources. A memoir of Columcille -had already been written by Cuimine Finn or Cummeneus Albus,[26] as -Adamnan calls him, the last Abbot of Iona but one before himself, -and that memoir he almost entirely embodied in his third book. He -had also some other written accounts before him, and the Irish -poems, both of the saint himself and of other bards, amongst them -Baithine Mór, who had enjoyed his personal friendship, and St. Mura, -who was a little his junior--poems now lost. He had also constant -opportunities of conversing with those who had seen the great saint -and had been familiar with him in life, and he was writing on the spot -and amidst the associations and surroundings wherein his last thirty -years had been spent, and which were inseparably connected with his -memory. The result was that he produced a work, which although not -ostensibly a history, and dealing only with the life of a single man, -and that rather from the transcendental than from the practical side, -is nevertheless of the utmost value to the historian on account not -only of the general picture of manners and customs, but still more -on account of its incidental references to contemporary history. "It -is," says Pinkerton, who, as Dr. Reeves remarks, was a writer not -over-given to eulogy, "the most complete piece of such biography that -all Europe can boast of, not only at so early a period but even through -the whole Middle Ages." Adamnan's other great work on Sacred Places is -mentioned by his contemporary, the Venerable Bede, but he is silent as -to Columcille's life. There is, however, abundant internal evidence of -its authenticity. This evidence, however it might satisfy the minds of -mere Irish students like Colgan and Stephen White, proved insufficient, -however, to meet the exacting claims of certain British scholars. "I -cannot agree," said Sir James Dalrymple, in the last century, "that -the authority of Adamnanus is equal, far less preferable to that of -Bede, since it was agreed on all hands to be a fabulous history lately -published in his name, and that he was remarkable for nothing, but -that he was the first abbot of that monastery who quit the _Scottish_ -institution, and became fond of the _English Romish_ Rites."[27] Dr. -Giles, too, who thought of editing it, tells us in his translation -of Bede's "Ecclesiastical History," that he had "strong doubts of -Adamnan's having written it."[28] And, finally, Schoell, a German, -professed to have convinced himself that Adamnan's preface could not -have been written by the same hand which wrote the life, so different -did the style of the two appear to him, and wholly rejected it as a -work of the seventh century written at Iona. - -But it so happened that shortly before the year 1851, when Schoell was -impugning the genuineness of this work, the ancient manuscript from -which it had been copied by the Irish Jesuit, Stephen White--and, from -his copy, printed by Colgan--actually came to light again, discovered -by Dr. Ferdinand Keller at the bottom of an old book-shelf in the -public library of Schaffhausen, into which it had been turned with -some other old manuscripts and books. A close examination of this -remarkable text written in a heavy round Irish hand, in nearly the same -type of script as the Books of Kells and Durrow, and of a more archaic -character than that of the Book of Armagh (written in 807), rendered -it certain that here was a codex of great value and antiquity. Nor was -the usual colophon containing the scribe's name and asking a prayer -for him missing. That name was Dorbene, a most rare one, of which only -two instances are known, both connected with Iona, the first of which -records the death of Faelcu, son of Dorbene, in 729, but as we know -that Faelcu died in his eighty-second year his father could hardly -have been the scribe. The other Dorbene was elected abbot of Iona -in 713 and died the same year, so that it may be regarded as almost -certain that this book was written by him and that this copy is in his -handwriting. We have in this codex, then, the actual handwriting[29] -of a contemporary of Adamnan himself, the handiwork of the generation -which succeeded Columcille, a volume a hundred years older than even -the Book of Armagh, a volume which had been carried over to some of the -numerous Irish institutions on the Continent after the break-up of Iona -by the Northmen. There are several corrections of the orthography in -a different and later hand, the date of which is fixed by Dr. Keller -at 800-820, and these are evidently the work of a German monk, who -was displeased with the peculiar orthography of the Irish school, and -who made these emendations after the MS. had been brought from Iona -to the Continent. The following passage describing the last hours of -Columcille will both serve as a specimen of Adamnan's style and also -afford a minutely particular account of the end of this great man. Its -accuracy can hardly be impugned as it is written by one who had every -minute particular from eye-witnesses, and as the actual manuscript from -which it is printed was copied from the author's own, either during his -life or within less than ten years after his death.[30] - -Adamnan first tells us of several premonitions which the saint had of -his approaching end, how he, "now an old man, wearied with age," was -borne in his waggon to view his monks labouring in the fields on the -western slope of the island, and intimated to them that his end was not -far off, but that lest their Easter should be one of grief, he would -not be taken from them until it was over. Later on in the year he went -out with his servant Diarmuid to inspect the granary, and was pleased -at the two large heaps of grain which were lying there, and remarked -that though he should be taken from his dear monks, yet he was glad to -see that they had a supply for the year. - - "And," says Adamnan, "when Diarmuid his servant heard this he began - to be sad, and said, 'Father, at this time of year you sadden us too - often, because you speak frequently about your decease.' When the - saint thus answered, 'I have a secret word to tell you, which, if you - promise me faithfully not to make it known to any before my death, I - shall be able to let you know more clearly about my departure.' And - when his servant, on bended knees, had finished making this promise, - the venerable man thus continued, 'This day is called in the sacred - volumes the Sabbath, which is interpreted Rest. And this day is indeed - to me a sabbath, because it is my last of this present laborious - life, in which, after the trouble of my toil, I take my rest; for in - the middle of this coming sacred Sunday night, I shall to use the - Scripture phrase, tread the way of my fathers; for now my Lord Jesus - Christ deigns to invite me, to whom, I say, at the middle of this - night, on His own invitation, I shall pass over; for it was thus - revealed to me by the Lord Himself.' His servant, hearing these sad - words, begins to weep bitterly: whom the saint endeavoured to console - as much as he was able. - - "After this the saint goes forth from the barn, and returning to the - monastery sits down on the way, at the place where afterwards a cross - let into a millstone, and to-day standing there, may be perceived on - the brink of the road. And while the saint, wearied with old age, - as I said before, sitting in that place was taking a rest, lo! the - white horse, the obedient servant who used to carry the milk-vessels - between the monastery and the byre, meets him. It, wonderful to - relate, approached the saint and placing its head in his bosom, by the - inspiration of God, as I believe, for whom every animal is wise with - the measure of sense which his Creator has bidden, knowing that his - master was about to immediately depart from him, and that he would - see him no more, begins to lament and abundantly to pour forth tears, - like a human being, into the saint's lap, and with beslavered mouth to - make moan. Which when the servant saw, he proceeds to drive away the - tearful mourner, but the saint stopped him, saying, 'Allow him, allow - him who loves me, to pour his flood of bitterest tears into this my - bosom. See, you, though you are a man and have a rational mind, could - have in no way known about my departure if I had not myself lately - disclosed it to you, but to this brute and irrational animal the - Creator Himself, in His own way, has clearly revealed that his master - is about to depart from him.' And saying this he blessed the sorrowful - horse [the monastery's] servant, as it turned away from him. - - "And going forth from thence and ascending a small hill, which rose - over the monastery, he stood for a little upon its summit, and as he - stood, elevating both his palms, he blessed his community and said, - 'Upon this place however narrow and mean, not only shall the kings of - the Scots [_i.e._, Irish] with their peoples, but also the rulers of - foreign and barbarous nations with the people subject to them, confer - great and no ordinary honour. By the saints of other churches also, - shall no common respect be accorded it.' - - "After these words, going down from the little hill and returning to - the monastery, he sat in his cell writing a copy of the Psalms, and - on reaching that verse of the thirty-third Psalm where it is written, - 'But they that seek the Lord shall lack no thing that is good;' - 'Here,' said he, 'we may close at the end of the page; let Baithin - write what follows.' Well appropriate for the parting saint was the - last verse which he had written, for to him shall good things eternal - be never lacking, while to the father who succeeded him [Baithin], the - teacher of his spiritual sons, the following [words] were particularly - apposite, 'Come, my sons, hearken unto me. I shall teach you the fear - of the Lord,' since as the departing one desired, he was his successor - not only in teaching but also in writing.[31] - - "After writing the above verse and finishing the page, the saint - enters the church for the vesper office preceding the Sunday; which - finished, he returned to his little room, and rested for the night on - his couch, where for mattress he had a bare flag, and for pillow a - stone, which at this day stands as a kind of commemorative monument - beside his tomb.[32] And there, sitting, he gives his last mandates to - the brethren, in the hearing of his servant only, saying, 'These last - words of mine I commend to you, O little children, that ye preserve - a mutual charity with peace, and a charity not feigned amongst - yourselves; and if ye observe to do this according to the example of - the holy fathers, God, the comforter of the good, shall help you, and - I, remaining with Him, shall make intercession for you, and not only - the necessaries of this present life shall be sufficiently supplied - you by Him, but also the reward of eternal good, prepared for the - observers of things Divine, shall be rendered you.' Up to this point - the last words of our venerable patron [when now] passing as it were - from this wearisome pilgrimage to his heavenly country, have been - briefly narrated. - - "After which, his joyful last hour gradually approaching, the saint - was silent. Then soon after, when the struck bell resounded in the - middle of the night,[33] quickly rising he goes to the church, and - hastening more quickly than the others he entered alone, and with bent - knees inclines beside the altar in prayer. His servant, Diarmuid, - following more slowly, at the same moment beholds, from a distance, - the whole church inside filled with angelic light round the saint; - but as he approached the door this same light, which he had seen, - swiftly vanished; which light a few others of the brethren, also - standing at a distance, had seen. Diarmuid then entering the church, - calls aloud with a voice choked with tears, 'Where art thou, Father?' - And the lamps of the brethren not yet being brought, groping in the - dark, he found the saint recumbent before the altar: raising him up - a little, and sitting beside him, he placed the sacred head in his - own bosom. And while this was happening a crowd of monks running up - with lights, and seeing their father dying, begin to lament. And as - we have learned from some who were there present, the saint, his soul - not yet departing, with eyes upraised, looked round on each side, with - a countenance of wondrous joy and gladness, as though beholding the - holy angels coming to meet him. Diarmuid then raises up the saint's - right hand to bless the band of monks. But the venerable father - himself, too, in so far as he was able, was moving his hand at the - same time, so that he might appear to bless the brethren with the - motion of his hand, what he could not do with his voice, during his - soul's departure. And after thus signifying his sacred benediction, - he straightway breathed forth his life. When it had gone forth from - the tabernacle of his body, the countenance remained so long glowing - and gladdened in a wonderful manner by the angelic vision, that it - appeared not that of a dead man but of a living one sleeping. In the - meantime the whole church resounded with sorrowful lamentations."[34] - -Besides the lives of Columcille, written by Adamnan and Cummene, at -least four more exist; an anonymous life in Latin, printed by Colgan -and erroneously supposed by him to be that of Cummene; a life by John -of Tinmouth, chiefly compiled from Adamnan, which is also printed -by Colgan; the old Irish life contained in four Irish MSS., namely, -in the Leabhar Breac, in the Book of Lismore, in a vellum MS. in -Edinburgh, and in an Irish parchment volume found by the Revolutionary -Commissioners, during the Republic, in a private house in Paris, and by -them presented to the Royal Library of that city-- - - "Quæ regio in terris nostri non plena laboris!" - -This life has been printed from the Book of Lismore by Dr. Whitley -Stokes. The last and most copious life is a compilation of all existing -documents and poems both in Latin and Old Irish, and was made by order -of O'Donnell in 1532. - - "Be it known," says the preface, "to the readers of this Life that - it was Manus, son of Hugh, son of Hugh Roe, son of Niall Garv, son - of Turlough of the wise O'Donnell, who ordered the part of this Life - which was in Latin to be put into Gaelic; and who ordered the part - that was in difficult Gaelic to be modified, so that it might be clear - and comprehensible to every one; and who gathered and put together - the parts of it that were scattered through the old Books of Erin; - and who dictated it out of his own mouth with great labour and a - great expenditure of time in studying how he should arrange all its - parts in their proper places, as they are left here in writing by - us; and in love and friendship for his illustrious saint, relative, - and patron, to whom he was devoutly attached. It was in the Castle - of Port-na-tri-námhad [Lifford] that his Life was indited, when were - fulfilled 12 years and 20 and 500 and 1000 of the age of the Lord." - -This life, written in a large vellum folio, is preserved in the -Bodleian Library at Oxford and has never yet been printed.[35] - -The remains of Columcille, which after a three days' wake were interred -in Iona, were left undisturbed for close upon a hundred years. They -were afterwards disinterred and placed within a splendid shrine of -gold and silver, which, in due time, became the prey of the marauding -Norsemen. The belief is very general that his remains found their last -resting-place in Downpatrick, along with those of St. Patrick and St. -Brigit. The present appearance of the spot where they are supposed to -lie, may be gathered from the indignant verses[36] of a member of a -now defunct literary body, to which I had the honour of belonging some -years ago, one of those numerous Irish literary societies which produce -verses as thick as leaves in Vallombrosa. - - "I stood at a grave by the outer wall - Of the Strangers' Church in Down, - All lorn and lost in neglect, and crossed - By the Church of the Strangers' frown. - All lorn and waste, and with footsteps crossed - The grave of our Patrons Three, - Not a leaf to wave o'er that lonely grave - That seemed not a grave to me! - - But a trench where some traitor was flung of yore-- - 'Twas "a sight for a foeman's eye"! - Where Patrick still and Saint Columbkille - And the Dove[37] of the Oak Tree lie. - - * * * * * - - Those men who spoke bravely of rending chains - (And never a fetter broke!) - Those men who adored the flashing sword - (When never a tocsin spoke!) - Those little men, who are very great - In marble and bronze, are still - The city's pride, whilst that trench holds Bride - And Patrick and Columbkille!" - -[1] Also often called St. Columba, to be strictly distinguished -from Columbanus, who laboured on the Continent. The name is written -sometimes Colomb Cille and Colum Kille or Columkille. It is pronounced -in Irish Cullum-killă, and means literally the "Dove of the Church," -but in English the name is generally pronounced Columkill. - -[2] As calculated by Dr. Reeves, who coincides with the "Four Masters" -and Dr. Lanigan. The other Annals waver between 518 and 523. - -[3] See the lines in O'Donnell's life of the saint, ascribed to St. -Mura: - - "Rugadh i nGartan da dheóin / S do h-oileadh i gCill mhic Neóin - 'S do baisteadh mac na maise / A dTulaigh De Dubhghlaise." - -[4] He is called "Germán the Master" in the Book of Lismore life. -In the life of Finnian of Clonard he is called _Carminator nomine -gemanus_, who brings to St. Finnian "quoddam carmen magnificum." - -[5] A similar story of Cummain the Tall, of Guaire the Connacht -king who still gives his name to the town of Gort, which is Gort -Inse-Guaire, and of Cáimine of Inisceltra, is told in the Leabhar na -h-Uidhre, and printed by Whitley Stokes in a note at p. 304 of his -"Lives from the Book of Lismore." Each of the three got as he had -desired, for, says the chronicler, "all their musings were made true. -The earth was given to Guaire. Wisdom was given to Cummain. Diseases -and sicknesses were inflicted on Cáimine, so that no bone of him joined -together in the earth, but melted and decayed with the anguish of every -disease and of every tribulation, so that they all went to heaven -according to their musings." (See for the same story the Yellow Book of -Lecan, p. 132, of facsimile.) - -[6] Literally, "Were the tribute of all Alba mine, from its centre -to its border, I would prefer the site of one house in the middle of -Derry. The reason I love Derry is for its quietness, for its purity, -and for the crowds of white angels from the one end to the other. The -reason why I love Derry is for its quietness, for its purity, crowded -full of heaven's angels in every leaf of the oaks of Derry. My Derry, -my little oak grove, my dwelling and my little cell, O Eternal God in -heaven above, woe be to him who violates it." - - "Is aire, caraim Doire - Ar a reidhe, ar a ghloine, - 's ar iomatt a aingel find - On chind go soich aroile." - -This poem is taken from a Brussels MS., copied by Michael O'Clery for -Father Colgan, and by him accepted apparently as genuine. Some of -it may very well be so, only, as usual, it has been greatly altered -and modified in transcription, as may be seen from the above verse. -(_See_ p. 288 of Reeves' "Adamnan.") Some of the verses are evidently -interpelations, but the Irish life in the Book of Lismore distinctly -attributes to him the verse which I have here given, going out of its -way to quote it in full, but the third line is a little different as -quoted in the life: "ár is lomlan aingeal bhfinn." - -[7] In Irish Dair-magh, "oak-plain." Columcille seems to have been -particularly fond of the oak, for his Irish life tells us that it was -under a great oak-tree that he resided while at Kells also. The writer -adds, "and it"--the great oak-tree--"remained till these latter times, -when it fell through the crash of a mighty wind. And a certain man took -somewhat of its bark to tan his shoes with. Now, when he did on the -shoes, he was smitten with leprosy from his sole to his crown." It is -well known to this day that it is unlucky, or worse, to touch a saint's -tree. I have been observing one that was, when in the last stage of -decrepitude, blown down a few years ago at the well of St. Aracht or -Atracta, a female saint of Connacht in the plains of Boyle; yet, though -the people around are nearly famished for want of fuel, not one twig -of it has yet been touched. In the Edinburgh MS. of Columcille's life -we read how on another occasion he made a hymn to arrest a fire that -was consuming the oak-wood, "and it is sung against every fire and -against every thunder from that time to this." (_See_ Skene's "Celtic -Scotland," vol. ii. pp. 468-507.) - -[8] - - "_Is sí mo cubhus gan col_ - _'s nocha conagar m' eiliughadh_ - _Ferr écc ind Eirind cen ail_ - _Ina sir beatha ind Aipuin._" - -For the whole of this poem, in the form of a dialogue between Cormac -and Columcille, see p. 264 of Reeves' "Adamnan." It is very hard to say -how much or how little of these poems is really Columcille's. Colgan -was inclined to think them genuine. Of course, as we now have them, -the language is greatly modernised; but I am inclined to agree with -Dr. Healy, who judges them rather from internal than from linguistic -evidence; and while granting, of course, that they have been retouched -by later bards, adds, "but in our opinion they represent substantially -poems that were really written by the saint. They breathe his pious -spirit, his ardent love for nature, and his undying affection for -his native land. Although retouched, perhaps, by a later hand, they -savour so strongly of the true Columbian spirit that we are disposed to -reckon them amongst the genuine compositions of the saint." ("Ireland's -Schools and Scholars," p. 329.) "The older pieces here preserved," says -Dr. Robert Atkinson in his preface to the contents of the _facsimile_ -of the Book of Leinster, "_and of whose genuineness and authenticity -there seems no room for doubt, ex. gr., the Poems of Colum Cille_, bear -with them the marks of the action of successive transcribers, whose -desire to render them intelligible has obscured the linguistic proofs -of their age." - -[9] Literally, "How happy the son of Dima of the devout church, when he -hears in Durrow the desire of his mind, the sound of the wind against -the elms when 'tis played, the blackbird's joyous note when he claps -his wings; to listen at early dawn in Rosgrencha to the cattle, the -cooing of the cuckoo from the tree on the brink of summer," etc. (_See_ -Reeves' "Adamnan," p. 274). - - "Fuaim na goithi ris in leman ardos peti - Longaire luin duibh conati ar mben a eti." - -[10] He himself refers to his "grey eye looking back to Erin" in one of -his best-known poems. - -[11] In token of which is the Irish quatrain quoted in his life-- - - "Son a ghotha Coluim cille, - mór a binne os gach cléir - go ceann cúig ceád déag céimeann, - Aídhbhle réimeann, eadh ba réill." - -[12] "So then Baithine related to him the famous vision, to wit, three -chairs seen by him in heaven, even a chair of gold and a chair of -silver and a chair of glass. Columcille explained the vision. Ciaran -the Great, the carpenter's son, is the chair of gold for the greatness -of his charity and his mercy. Molaisse is the chair of silver because -of his wisdom and his piety. I myself am the chair of glass because of -my affection, for I prefer the Gaels to the men of the world, and Kinel -Conall [his own tribe] to the [other] Gaels, and the kindred of Lughid -to the Kinel Conall." (Leabhar Breac, quoted by Stokes, "Irish Lives," -p. 303; but the reason here given for being seated on a chair of glass -is, as Stokes remarks, unmeaning.) - -[13] "Jejunationum quoque et vigiliarum indefessis laboribus sine -ulla intermissione, die noctu-que ita occupatus ut supra humanam -possibilitatem uniuscujusque pondus specialis videretur opens," says -Adamnan in the preface to his first book. - -[14] "Erat enim aspectu angelicus, sermone nitidus, opere sanctus, -ingenio optimus, consilio magnus ... et inter hæc omnibus carus, -hilarem semper faciem ostendens sanctam, spiritus sancti gaudio intimis -lætificabatur præcordiis." - -[15] This copy made by Columcille is popularly believed to be the -celebrated codex known as the Cathach or "Battler," which was an -heirloom of the saint's descendants, the O'Donnells. It was always -carried three times round their army when they went to battle, on -the breast of a cleric, who, if he were free from mortal sin, was -sure to bring them victory. The Mac Robartaighs were the ancestral -custodians of the holy relic, and Cathbar O'Donnell, the chief of the -race at the close of the eleventh century, constructed an elaborately -splendid shrine or cover for it. This precious heirloom remained with -the O'Donnells until Donal O'Donnell, exiled in the cause of James -II., brought it with him to the Continent and fixed a new rim upon the -casket with his name and date. It was recovered from the Continent in -1802 by Sir Neal O'Donnell, and was opened by Sir William Betham soon -after. This would in the previous century have been considered a deadly -crime, for "it was not lawful" to open the Cathach; as it was, Sir -Neal's widow brought an action in the Court of Chancery against Sir -William Betham for daring to open it. There turned out to be a decayed -wooden box inside the casket, and inside this again was a mass of -vellum stuck together and hardened into a single lump. By long steeping -in water however, and other treatment, the various leaves came asunder, -and it was found that what it contained was really a Psalter, written -in Latin, in a "neat but hurried hand." Fifty-eight leaves remained, -containing from the 31st to the 106th Psalm, and an examination of -the text has shown that it really does contain a copy of the second -revision of the Psalter by St. Jerome, which helps to strengthen the -belief that this may have been the very book for which three thousand -warriors fought and fell in the Battle of Cooldrevna. - -[16] Keating says that this account of the affair was preserved in the -Black Book of Molaga, one of his ancient authorities now lost. The king -decided, says Keating, "_gorab leis gach leabhar a mhaic-leabhar, mar -is le gach boinn a boinín_." - -[17] "These were," says the commentator on St. Columcille's hymn, -the "Altus," "the three battles which he had caused in Erin, viz., -the battle of Cúl-Rathain, between him and Comgall, contending for -a church, viz., Ross Torathair; and the battle of Bealach-fheda of -the weir of Clonard; and the battle of Cúl Dremhne [Cooldrevna] in -Connacht, and it was against Diarmait Mac Cerball [the High-king], -he fought them both." Keating's account also agrees with this, but -Reeves has shown that the two later battles in which he was implicated -probably took place after his exile. - -[18] Literally: "How rapid the speed of my coracle and its stern turned -towards Derry. I grieve at the errand over the proud sea, travelling to -Alba of the Ravens. There is a grey eye that looks back upon Erin: it -shall not see during life the men of Erin nor their wives. My vision -o'er the brine I stretch from the ample oaken planks; large is the -tear from my soft grey eye when I look back upon Erin. Upon Erin is my -attention fixed, upon Loch Leven [Lough Lene in West Meath], upon Linè -[Moy-linny, near Antrim], upon the land the Ultonians own, upon smooth -Munster, upon Meath.... Carry my benediction over the sea to the nobles -of the Island of the Gael, let them not credit Moleesha's words nor his -threatened persecution. Were it not for Moleesha's words at the Cross -of Ahamlish, I should not permit during my life disease or distemper -in Ireland.... Beloved to my heart also in the west is Drumcliff at -Cúlcinne's strand: to behold the fair Loch Foyle, the form of its -shores is delightful.... Take my blessing with thee to the west, broken -is my heart in my breast, should sudden death overtake me it is for my -great love of the Gael." - -[19] Dr. Healy's "Ireland's Schools and Scholars," p. 293. A fact which -is also confirmed by Dr. Reeves, p. lxviii of his "Adamnan," where he -says: "The country people believe that whoever sleeps a night on this -stone will be free from home-sickness when he goes abroad, and for this -reason it has been much resorted to by emigrants on the eve of their -departure." I cannot say whether the breaking up of old ties produced -by the National Board--which has elsewhere so skilfully robbed the -people of their birthright--may not have put an end to this custom -within the last few years. - -[20] - - "Deoraidhe gan sgith gan sos, - Mianaid a dtír 's a ndúthchas." - -This verse was either composed or quoted by John O'Mahony, the Fenian -Head-centre, when in America. - -[21] Also in the "Liber Hymnorum," vol. ii.; and again in 1882 with -a prose paraphrase and notes by the Marquis of Bute, who says: "the -intrinsic merits of the composition are undoubtedly very great, -especially in the latter _capitula_ [_i.e._, stanzas], some of which -the editor thinks would not suffer by comparison with the _Dies Iræ_." -Dr. Dowden, Bishop of Edinburgh, has printed, in his pleasant little -volume on the "Celtic Church in Scotland," p. 323, a most admirable -translation of it into English verse by the Rev. Anthony Mitchell. - -[22] Except the first stanza, which being in honour of the Holy Trinity -has seven lines. - -[23] This poem begins-- - - "M'œnuran dam is in sliab, - A rig grian rop sorad sed, - Nocha n-eaglaigi dam ní, - Na du mbeind tri ficit céd." - -I find other verses attributed to him in the MS marked H 1. 11. in -Trinity College, Dublin. - -[24] Laud, 615. - -[25] Edited in 1857 for the Irish Archæological Society by Dr. Reeves, -afterwards Bishop of Down, with all the perfection which the most -accurate scholarship and painstaking research could accomplish. It is -not too much to say that his name is likely to remain in the future -associated with those of Adamnan and Columcille. - -[26] Book iii., chapter 5 of Adamnan's "Life of Columcille." - -[27] Alluding to the fact that Adamnan tried to persuade his countrymen -to change their mode of calculating Easter, and to adopt the Roman -tonsure. Sir James Dalrymple is here engaged in defending the -Presbyterian view of church government. - -[28] "It is to be hoped," Dr. Reeves caustically remarked, "that the -doubts originated in a different style of research from that which made -Bede's _Columcilli_ an island, and Dearmach [Durrow] the same as Derry!" - -[29] "It may be objected," says Dr. Reeves, "that it was written -by another person of this name, or copied by a later hand from the -autograph of this Dorbene. The former exception is not probable, the -name being almost unique, and found so pointedly connected with the -Columbian society; the latter is less probable, as the colophon in -Irish MSS. is always peculiar to the actual scribe and likely to be -omitted in transcription, as is the case of later MSS. of the same -recension preserved in the British Museum." "Hoc ipsum MS. credi -posset authographum Dorbbenei," says Van der Meer, a learned monk, -"subscriptio enim illa in rubro vix ab alio descriptore addita fuisset; -characteres quoque antiquitatem sapiunt sæculi octavi." - -[30] He died in 704, and Dorbene the scribe in 713. It is necessary -to be thus particular, even at the risk of being tedious, to correct -the unlearned assertions of people who can write that in treating of -the "lives of St. Patrick and St. Columba, one's faith is tried to the -uttermost, leading not a few to deny the very existence of the two -missionaries" ("Irish Druids and Religions," Borwick, p. 304); or the -biassed dicta of men like Ledwich who says that all Irish MSS. "savour -of modern forgery." - -[31] "Post hæc verba de illo descendens monticellulo, et ad -monasterium revertens, sedebat in tugurio Psalterium scribens; et ad -ilium tricesimi tertii psalmi versiculum perveniens ubi scribitur, -Inquirentes autem Dominum non deficient omni bono, Hic, ait, in fine -cessandum est paginæ; quæ vero sequuntur Baitheneus scribat. Sancto -convenienter congruit decessori novissimus versiculus quem scripserat, -cui numquam bona deficient æterna: succesori vero sequens patri, -spiritalium doctori filiorum, Venite filii, audite me, timorem Domini -docebo vos, congruenter convenit; qui, sicut decessor commendavit, non -solo ei docendo sed etiam scribendo successit." - -[32] It is still shown at the east end of the Cathedral in Iona, -surrounded by an iron cage to keep off tourists. - -[33] "The saint had previously attended at the _vespertinalis Dominicæ -noctis missa_, an office equivalent to the nocturnal vigil, and now at -the turn of midnight the bell rings for matins, which were celebrated -according to ancient custom a little before daybreak."--_Reeves_. The -early bells were struck like gongs, not rung, hence the modern Irish -for "ring the bell" is _bain an clog_, "strike the bell." - -[34] This scene took place, as Dr. Reeves has shown, "just after -midnight between Saturday the 8th and Sunday the 9th of June, in the -year 597." - -[35] It is to be hoped that it may soon see the light as one of the -volumes whose publication is contemplated by the new Irish Texts -Society. The copy of it used by Colgan is now back in the Franciscans' -Library in Dublin, a beautiful vellum written for Niall óg O'Neill. - -[36] P. 50 of a little volume called "Lays and Lyrics of the Pan-Celtic -Society," long out of print, by P. O'C. MacLaughlin. - -[37] Evidently alluding to the passage in her Irish life which says, -"Her type among created things is as the Dove among birds, the vine -among trees, and the sun above stars." There is a Latin distich on this -grave in Downpatrick which I have seen somewhere, - - _In burgo Duno tumulo tumulantur in uno_ - _Brigida Patricius atque Columba pius._ - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - -THE FIRST SCHOOLS OF CHRISTIAN IRELAND - - -St. Patrick and the early Christians of the fifth century spent much of -their time and labour in the conversion of pagans and the building of -churches. Columcille and the leading churchmen of the sixth century, on -the other hand, gave themselves up more to the foundation of monastic -institutions and the conduct of schools. They belonged to what is well -known in Irish ecclesiastical history as the second Order of Saints. -The first Order was composed of Patrick and his associates, bishops -filled with piety, founders of churches, three hundred and fifty in -number, mostly Franks, Romans, and Britons, but with some Scots [_i.e._ -Irish] also amongst them. These worshipped, says the ancient "Catalogue -of the Saints," one head--Christ, and followed one leader--Patrick. -They had one tonsure, one celebration of the Mass, and one Easter. They -mixed freely in the society of women, because they feared not the wind -of temptation, and this first Order of Saints, as it is called, is -reckoned by the Irish to have lasted during four reigns. - -The next Order of Saints had few bishops but many priests, this was -the order to which Columcille belonged, and most of the saints who -founded the great schools of Ireland which in the following century -became so flourishing and spread their fame throughout Europe, as those -of Ciaran and Finnian and Brendan, and a score of others. This Order -shunned all association with women, and would not have them in their -monasteries.[1] These saints whilst worshipping God as their head, and -celebrating one Easter and having one tonsure, yet had different rites -for celebrating, and different rules for living. The rite with which -they celebrated Mass they are said to have secured from the British -saints, St. David, St. Gildas, and others. They also lasted for four -reigns, or, roughly speaking, during the last three quarters of the -sixth century. - -After these came what is called the third Order of Saints who appear -in their time to have been pre-eminent amongst the other Christians, -and to have been mostly anchorites, who lived on herbs and supported -themselves by such alms as they were given, despising all things -earthly and all things fleshly. They observed Easter differently, they -had different tonsures, they had different rules of life, and different -rites for celebrating Mass. They are said to have numbered about a -hundred and to have lasted down to the time of the great plague in 664. - -This third Order, says the writer of the "Catalogue of Saints," who -gives their names, was holy, the second holier, but the first Order -was most holy. "The first glowed like the sun in the fervour of their -charity, the second cast a pale radiance like the moon, the third shone -like the aurora. These three Orders the blessed Patrick foreknew, -enlightened by heavenly wisdom, when in prophetic vision he saw at -first all Ireland ablaze, and afterwards only the mountains on fire, -and at last saw lamps lit in the valleys." - -By the middle of the sixth century Ireland had been honeycombed from -shore to shore with schools, monasteries, colleges, and foundations -of all kinds belonging to the Christian community, and books had -multiplied to a marvellous extent. At the same time the professional -bards flourished in such numbers that Keating says that "nearly a -third of the men of Ireland belonged, about that period, to the poetic -order." Omitting for the present the consideration of the bards and the -non-Christian literature of poem and saga--mostly anonymous--which they -produced, we must, take a rapid survey of some of the most important of -the Christian schools, whose pious professors, whose number, and whose -learning, secured for Ireland the title of the Island of Saints. We -have already seen how the three patron saints of Ireland established -their schools in Armagh, Kildare, and Iona, and their example was -followed by hundreds. - -St. Enda, the son of a king of Oriel, after having studied at some -school in Great Britain (probably with St. Ninian--who is said to -have been himself an Irishman--at his noble monastery of Candida Casa -in Galloway, built about the year 400), and after travelling through -various parts of Ireland, settled down finally about the year 483 in -the rocky and inaccessible island of Aran Mór, and was the first of -those holy men who have won for it the appellation of Aran of the -Saints. "One hundred and twenty-seven saints sleep in the little -square yard around Killeany Church"[2] alone, and we are told that -the countless numbers of saints who have mingled their clay with the -holy soil of Aran will never be known until the day of Judgment. Here -most of the saints of the second Order repaired sooner or later, to -be instructed by, or to hold converse with St. Enda; amongst them -Brendan the Voyager, whose wanderings, under the title of _Navigatio -Brendani_, became so well known in later ages to all mediæval Europe. -To him also came St. Finnian of Clonard, who was himself celebrated in -later days as the "Tutor of the Saints of Erin." From the remote north -came Finnian of Moville, Columcille's first teacher, and Ciaran, the -carpenter's son, the illustrious founder of Clonmacnois. St. Jarlath of -Tuam was there too, with St. Carthach the elder, of Lismore, and with -St. Keevin of Glendalough. St. Columcille[3] himself was amongst Enda's -visitors, and tore himself away with the utmost difficulty, solacing -himself by recourse to the Irish muse as was his wont-- - - "Farewell from me to Ara's Isle, - Her smile is at my heart no more, - No more to me the boon is given - With hosts of heaven to walk her shore. - - How far, alas! how far, alas! - Have I to pass from Ara's view, - To mix with men from Mona's fen, - With men from Alba's mountains blue. - - Bright orb of Ara, Ara's sun, - Ah! softly run through Ara's sky, - To rest beneath thy beam were sweeter - Than lie where Paul and Peter lie. - - O Ara, darling of the West, - Ne'er be he blest who loves not thee, - O God, cut short her foeman's breath, - Let Hell and Death his portion be. - - O Ara, darling of the West, - Ne'er be he blest who loves not thee, - Herdless and childless may he go - In endless woe his doom is dree. - - O Ara, darling of the West, - Ne'er be he blest who loves thee not, - When angels wing from heaven on high - And leave the sky for this dear spot."[4] - -Another early school was that founded by St. Finnian at Cluain Eraird, -better known under its corrupt form Clonard, a spot hard by the river -Boyne, to which students from both north and south resorted in great -numbers. Finnian, who was of the Clanna Rury, or Irian race, had been -baptized by Bishop Fortchern, who--so quickly did the Christian cause -progress--was a grandson of King Laeghaire, who withstood St. Patrick. -This Fortchern, too, like Brigit's favourite bishop, was a skilled -artificer in bronze and metal, a calling to which many of the early -saints evinced a strong bias. Clonard even during Finnian's lifetime -became a great school, and three thousand students are said to have -been gathered round it, amongst them the so-called Twelve Apostles of -Erin. These are Ciaran of Clonmacnois and Ciaran of Saigher, who is -patron saint of Ossory; Brendan of Birr, the "prophet," and Brendan -of Clonfert, the "navigator"; Columba of Tir-da-glass and Columcille; -Mobhí of Glasnevin and--_infaustum nomen!_--Rodan of Lothra or Lorrha; -Senanus of Iniscathy, whose name is known to the lovers of the poet -Moore; Ninnidh of Loch Erne; Lasserian, and St. Cainnech of Kilkenny, -known in Scotland as Kenneth, and second in that country only to St. -Columcille and St. Brigit in popularity. The school of Clonard was -founded about the year 520, when, to quote the rather jingling hymn -from St. Finnian's office-- - - "Reversus in Clonardiam - Ad cathedram lecturæ - Opponit diligentiam - Ad studium scripturæ." - -The numbers who attended his teaching are given in another verse-- - - "Trium virorum millium - Sorte fit doctor humilis, - Verbi his fudit fluvium - Ut fons emanans rivulis." - -Like all the other early Irish foundations which attained to wealth -and dignity before the ninth century, Clonard suffered in proportion -to its fame. It was after that date plundered and destroyed twelve -times, and was fourteen times burnt down either wholly or in part. -That being so, it is not much to be wondered at that there only -remains a single surviving literary work of this school, which is the -"Mystical Interpretation of the Ancestry of our Lord Jesus Christ," -by St. Aileran the Wise, one of Finnian's successors, who died of the -great plague in 664. This piece, like so many others, was found in the -Swiss monastery of St. Gall, whither it had been brought by some monks -from Ireland. The editors who printed it for the Benedictines in the -seventeenth century say that, although the writer did not belong to -their Order, they publish it because he "unfolded the meaning of sacred -scripture with so much learning and ingenuity that every student of -the sacred volume, and especially preachers of the Divine Word, will -regard the publication as most acceptable." The learned editors could -have hardly paid the Irish writer a higher compliment. "A Short Moral -Explanation of the Sacred Names" is another still existing fragment -of Aileran's, and "whether we consider the style of the latinity, the -learning, or the ingenuity of the writer," says Dr. Healy, "it is -equally marvellous and equally honourable to the school of Clonard." -Aileran is said to have also written lives of St. Patrick, St. Brigit, -and St. Fechin of Fore, and to be the original author of a litany, part -Irish, part Latin, preserved in the Yellow Book of Lecan. - -Another great Irish college was Clonfert on the Shannon, founded about -the year 556 by Brendan the Navigator, who, like Finnian, came of the -Irian race, being descended from Fergus mac Roy.[5] He was born towards -the close of the fifth century, and his school, too, became very -famous, having, it is said, produced as many as three thousand monks. -The influence of the _Navigatio Brendani_, by whomsoever written, was -immense, and was felt through all Europe, so that in many of the great -continental libraries good MS. copies of it, sometimes very ancient, -may be found.[6] But perhaps Brendan's grand-nephew and pupil may have -indirectly influenced European literature in a still more important -manner. This was Fursa, afterwards St. Fursa, whose visions were known -all over Ireland, Great Britain, and France. There can be no doubt -about the substantial accuracy of St. Fursa's life, for Bede himself, -who dedicates a good deal of space to Fursa's visions,[7] refers to it. -It must have been written within ten or fifteen years after his death, -because it refers to the plague and the great eclipse of the sun which -_happened last year_, that is 664. Now Dante was acquainted with Bede's -writings, for he expressly mentions him, and Bede's account of Fursa -and Fursa's own life may have been familiar to him, and furnished him -with the groundwork of part of the Divine Comedy of which it seems a -kind of prototype.[8] - -Brendan's own adventures and his view of hell, which he was shown -by the devil, may also have been known to Dante. Brendan prepared -three vessels with thirty men in each, some clerics, some laymen, and -with these, says his Irish life in the Book of Lismore, he sailed to -seek the Promised Land, which, evidently influenced by the old pagan -traditions of Moy Mell[9] and Hy Brassil, he expected to find as an -island in the Western Sea, and so says his Irish life poetically-- - - "Brendan, son of Finnlug, sailed over the wave-voice of the - strong-maned sea, and over the storm of the green-sided waves, and - over the mouths of the marvellous awful bitter ocean, where they saw - the multitude of the furious red-mouthed monsters with abundance of - the great sea-whales. And they found beautiful marvellous islands, yet - they tarried not therein." - -Like Sindbad in the Arabian tales,[10] they land upon the back of a -great whale as if it had been solid land. There they celebrated Easter. -They endured much peril from the sea. "On a certain day, as they were -on the marvellous ocean"--this adjective is strongly indicative of the -spirit in which the Celt regards the works of nature--"they beheld the -deep bitter streams and the vast black whirlpools of the strong-maned -sea, and in them their vessels were being constrained to founder -because of the greatness of the storm." Brendan, however, cried to the -sea, "It is enough for thee, O mighty sea, to drown me alone, but let -this folk escape thee," and on hearing his cry the sea grew calm. It -was after this that Brendan got a view of hell. - - "On a certain day," says the Irish Life, "that they were on the sea, - the devil came in a form old, awful, hideous, foul, hellish, and sat - on the rail of the vessel before Brendan, and none of them saw him - save Brendan alone. Brendan asked him why he had come before his - proper time, that is, before the time of the great resurrection. - 'For this have I come,' said the devil, 'to seek my punishment in - the deep closes of this black, dark sea.' Brendan inquired of him, - 'What is this, where is that infernal place?' 'Sad is that,' said - the devil; 'no one can see it and remain alive afterwards.' Howbeit - the devil there revealed the gate of hell to Brendan, and Brendan - beheld that rough, hot prison full of stench, full of flame, full of - filth, full of the camps of the poisonous demons, full of wailing - and screaming and hurt and sad cries and great lamentations and - moaning and handsmiting of the sinful folks, and a gloomy, mournful - life in hearts of pain, in igneous prisons, in streams of the rows - of eternal fire, in the cup of eternal sorrow and death, without - limit, without end; in black, dark swamps, in fonts of heavy flame, - in abundance of woe and death and torments, and fetters, and feeble - wearying combats, with the awful shouting of the poisonous demons, in - a night ever-dark, ever-cold, ever-stinking, ever-foul, ever-misty, - ever-harsh, ever-long, ever-stifling, deadly, destructive, gloomy, - fiery-haired, of the loathsome bottom of hell. On sides of mountains - of eternal fire, without rest, without stay, were hosts of demons - dragging the sinners into prisons ... black demons; stinking fires; - streams of poison; cats scratching; hounds rending; dogs baying; - demons yelling; stinking lakes; great swamps; dark pits; deep glens; - high mountains; hard crags;... winds bitter, wintry; snow frozen, - ever-dropping; flakes red, fiery; faces base, darkened; demons swift, - greedy; tortures vast, various."[11] - -This is one of the earliest attempts in literature at the pourtrayal of -an Inferno. - -After a seven-years' voyage Brendan returned home to his own country -without having found his Earthly Paradise, and his people and his folic -at home "brought him," says the Irish Life, "treasures and gifts as if -they were giving them to God"! - -His foster-mother St. Ita now advised him not to put forth in search -of that glorious land in those dead stained skins which formed his -currachs, for it was a holy land he sought, and he should look for -it in wooden vessels. Then Brendan built himself "a great marvellous -vessel, distinguished and huge." He first sailed to Aran to consort -with St. Enda, but after a month he heaved anchor and sailed once more -into the West. - -He reaches the Isle of Paradise after many adventures, and is invited -on shore by an old man "without any human raiment, but all his body -full of bright white feathers like a dove or a sea-mew, and it was -almost the speech of an angel that he had." "O ye toilsome men," he -said, "O hallowed pilgrims, O folk that entreat the heavenly rewards, -O ever-weary life expecting this land, stay a little now from your -labour." The land is described in terms that forcibly record the -delights of the pagan Elysium of Moy Mell, and prove how intimately the -Brendan legend is bound up with primitive pre-Christian mythological -beliefs. "The delightful fields of the land" are described as "radiant, -famous, lovable,"--"a land odorous, flower-smooth, blessed, a land -many-melodied, musical, shouting-for-joy, unmournful." "Happy," said -the old man, "shall he be with well-deservingness and with good deeds, -whom Brandan, son of Finnlug, shall call into union with him on that -side to inhabit for ever and ever the island whereon we stand." - -But better known--at least in ecclesiastical history--than even St. -Brendan, is St. Cummian, surnamed "fada" or the Long, who was one -of his successors in the school of Clonfert, and who perished in or -a little before the great plague of 664. There are two hymns, one -by himself in Latin,[12] and one in Irish by his tutor, Colman Ua -Cluasaigh [Clooasy] of Cork, preserved in the "Liber Hymnorum." But his -great achievement was his celebrated letter on the Paschal question -addressed to his friend Segienus, the abbot of Iona. The question of -when to celebrate Easter day was one which long sundered the British -and Irish Churches from the rest of Europe, and has, as students of -ecclesiastical history know, given rise to all sorts of conjectures as -to the independence of these churches. The charge against the Irish -was that they celebrated Easter on any day from the fourteenth to -the twentieth day of the moon, even on the fourteenth if it should -happen to be Sunday, but the fourteenth was a Jewish festival and the -Council of Nice had, in 325, declared it to be unlawful to celebrate -the Christian Easter on a Jewish festival.[13] The Irish had obtained -their own doctrine of Easter from the East, through Gaul, which was -largely open to Eastern influence; also the Irish used the old Roman -cycle of 84 years, not the newer and more correct Alexandrian one of -19 years. The consequence was the scandal of having different Churches -of Christendom celebrating Easter on different days, and some mourning -when others were feasting, a scandal which the Epistle of Cummian was -designed to put an end to. - - "I call this letter," says Professor G. Stokes,[14] "a marvellous - composition because of the vastness of its learning; it quotes - besides the Scriptures and Latin authors, Greek writers like Origen, - and Cyril, Pachomius the head and reformer of Egyptian monasticism, - and Damascius the last of the celebrated neo-Platonic philosophers - of Athens, who lived about the year 500, and wrote all his works in - Greek. Cummian discusses the calendars of the Macedonians, Hebrews, - and Copts, giving us the Hebrew, Greek, and Egyptian names of months - and cycles, and tells us that he had been sent as one of a deputation - of learned men a few years before to ascertain the practice of the - Church of Rome. When they came to Rome they lodged in one hospital - with a Greek and a Hebrew, an Egyptian, and a Scythian, who told them - that the whole world celebrated the Roman and not the Irish Easter." - -Cummian throughout this letter displays the true spirit of a scholar, -he humbly apologises for his presumption in addressing such holy men, -and calls God to witness that he is actuated by no spirit of pride -or contempt for others. When the new cycle of 532 years was first -introduced into Ireland he did not at once accept it, but held his -peace and took no side in the matter, because he did not think himself -wiser than the Hebrews, Greeks, and Latins, nor did he venture to -disdain the food he had not yet tasted. So he retired for a whole year -into the study of the question, to examine for himself the facts of -history, the nature of the various cycles in use, and the testimony of -Scripture. - -There is another book, "De Mensura Pœnitentiarum," ascribed to Cummian -and printed in Migne; and there is a poem on his death by his tutor, -St. Colman, who was carried off by the same plague a short time after -him.[15] - -The great institution presided over by St. Cummian was flourishing in -full vigour at the time of the first incursions of the Northmen. It -is frequently mentioned in the Irish Annals as a place of note and -learning. Turgesius the Dane, attracted by so fair a booty, promptly -plundered and burnt it to the ground. Again and again it was rebuilt, -and again and again the same fate befell it. The monastery and the -school survived, however, until the coming of the Normans, and the -"Four Masters" under the year 1170 record the death of one of its -teachers, Cormac O'Lumlini, whom they pathetically designate "the -remnant of the sages of Erin," for by this time Clonfert had been six -times burnt and four times plundered. - -Even a greater school, however, than Clonfert, was that founded by St. -Ciaran [Keeran], the carpenter's son, beside a curve in the Shannon, at -Clonmacnois, not far from Athlone, about the year 544. He had himself -been educated by St. Finnian of Clonard, and he died at the early age -of thirty-three, immediately after laying the foundations of what was -destined to become the greatest Christian college in Ireland.[16] - -The monastery and cells of St. Ciaran rapidly grew into a city, to -which students flocked from far and near. In one sense the College -of Clonmacnois had an advantage over all its rivals, for it belonged -to no one race or clan. Its abbots and teachers were drawn from many -different tribes, and situated as it was, in almost the centre of -the island, all the great races, Erimonians, Eberians, Irians, and -Ithians, resorted to it impartially, and it became a real university. -There the O'Conors, kings of Connacht, had their own separate church; -there the Southern Ui Neill reared apart their own cathedral; there -the MacDermots, princes of Moylurg, and the O'Kellys, kings of Hy -Mainy, had each their own mortuary chapels; there the Southerns built -one round tower, the O'Rorkes another; and there too the Mac Carthys -of Munster had a burial-place. Who, even at this day, has not heard of -the glories of Clonmacnois, of its ruins, its graves, its crosses; of -its churchyard, which possesses a greater variety of sculptured and -decorated stones than perhaps all the rest of Ireland put together, and -of which the Irish poet beautifully sang so long ago-- - - "In a quiet watered land, a land of roses, - Stands St. Ciaran's city fair, - And the warriors of Erin in their famous generations, - Slumber there. - - There beneath the dewy hill-side sleep the noblest - Of the clan of Conn, - Each below his stone, with name in branching Ogham, - And the sacred knot thereon. - - There they laid to rest the seven kings of Tara, - There the sons of Cairbré sleep, - Battle-banners of the Gael that in Ciaran's Plain of Crosses, - Now their final hosting keep. - - And in Clonmacnois they laid the men of Teffia, - And right many a lord of Breagh. - Deep the sod above Clan Creidé and Clan Conaill, - Kind in hall and fierce in fray. - - Many and many a son of Conn the Hundred-Fighter - In the red earth lies at rest, - Many a blue eye of Clan Colman the turf covers, - Many a swan-white breast."[17] - -Some of the most distinguished scholars of Ireland, if not of Europe, -were educated at Clonmacnois, including Alcuin, the most learned man at -the French court, who remembered his alma mater so affectionately that -he extracted from King Charles of France a gift of fifty shekels of -silver, to which he added fifty more of his own, and sent them to the -brotherhood of Clonmacnois as a gift, with a quantity of olive oil for -the Irish bishops. His affectionate letter to "his blessed master and -pious father" Colgan, chief professor at Clonmacnois, is still extant. - -This Colgu, or Colgan, himself wrote a book in Irish, called "The -Besom of Devotion," which appears to be now lost. A litany of his -still remains. The great eleventh-century annalist, Tighearnach, was -an alumnus of Clonmacnois. So, too, was the reputed author of the -"Chronicon Scotorum," O'Malone, in 1123. The Annals of Clonmacnois was -one of the books in the hands of the "Four Masters," but it is now -lost, and a different book called by the same name (the original of -which has also perished) was translated into English by Macgeoghegan -in 1627.[18] The celebrated Leabhar na h-Uidhre [Lowar na Heera] or -"Book of the Dun Cow," compiled about the year 1100, emanated from -this centre of learning. Like Clonfert, and every other home of Irish -civilisation, the city of Clonmacnois fell a prey to the barbarians. -The Northmen plundered it or burnt it, or both, on ten separate -occasions. Turgesius, their leader, set up his wife Ota as a kind of -priestess to deliver oracles from its high altar;[19] and some of -the Irish themselves, reduced to a state of barbarism by the horrors -of the period, laid their sacrilegious hands upon its holy places; -and afterwards the English of Athlone stepped in and completed its -destruction. It now remains only a ruin and a name. - -Another very celebrated school was that of Bangor, on Belfast Loch, -founded by Comgall, the friend of Columcille, between 550 and 560. It -soon became crowded with scholars, and next to Armagh it was certainly -the greatest school of the northern province, and produced men of the -highest eminence at home and abroad. Its fame reached far across the -sea. St. Bernard called it "a noble institution, which was inhabited -by many thousands of monks;" and Joceline of Furness, in the twelfth -century, called it "a fruitful vine breathing the odour of salvation, -whose offshoots extended not only over all Ireland, but far beyond the -seas into foreign countries, and filled many lands with its abounding -fruitfulness." - -The most distinguished of Bangor's sons of learning were Columbanus, -the evangeliser of portions of Burgundy and Lombardy; St. Gall, the -evangeliser of Switzerland; Dungal, the astronomer; and later on, in -the twelfth century, Malachy O'Morgair, who, though not known as an -author, distinguished himself in the province of Church discipline. - -The lives of St. Columbanus and of St. Gall belong rather to foreign -than to Irish history, but we may glance at them again in another -place. Dungal, poet, astronomer, and theologian, was also like them, -for a time, an exile. His identity is uncertain; the "Four Masters" -mention twenty-two persons of the same name between the years 744 -and 1015, but his Irish nationality is certain, and he calls himself -"Hibernicus exul" in his poem addressed to his patron Charlemagne. He -appears to have died in the Irish monastery at Bobbio, in North Italy, -to which he left his library, and amongst other books the celebrated -Antiphonary of Bangor, his possession of which seems to warrant us in -supposing that Bangor was his original college. He appears to have been -a close friend of Charlemagne's, and in 811 he wrote him his celebrated -letter, explanatory of the two solar eclipses which had taken place -the year before. The emperor could apparently find at his court no -other astronomer of sufficient learning to explain the phenomena. -Later on we find Dungal, at the request of Lothaire, Charlemagne's -grandson, opening a school at Pavia to civilise the Lombards, to which -institution great numbers of students flocked from every quarter. -Dungal may, in fact, be regarded as the founder of the University -of Pavia. His greatest effort whilst in Pavia was his work against -the Iconoclasts. Dungal's attack upon the cultured Spanish bishop, -Claudius, who championed them, as it was the first, so it appears to -have been the ablest blow struck; and Western iconoclasm seemed to -have for the time received a mortal wound from his hand.[20] Besides -his long eulogy on his friend and patron Charlemagne, several other -smaller poems of his survive, showing him to have been--like almost -all Irishmen of that date--no mere pedant and student. - -Like almost all the more famous and attractive of the Irish colleges, -Bangor suffered fearfully from the attacks of the northern pirates, -who, according to St. Bernard, slew there as many as nine hundred -monks. "Not a cross, not even a stone," says Dr. Healy, "now remains to -mark the site of the famous monastery, whose crowded cloisters for a -thousand years overlooked the pleasant islets and broad waters of Inver -Becne." It has shared the fate of its compeers: - - _etiam periere ruinæ._ - -It would prove too tedious to enumerate the other Irish colleges -which dotted the island in the sixth and seventh centuries. The most -remarkable of them besides those that I have mentioned were Moville, at -the head of Loch Cuan or Strangford Lough, in the County Down, founded -by St. Finnian, who was born before 500, and who afterwards became -known as Frigidius, Bishop of Lucca, in Switzerland. Colman, whose -hymn is preserved in the "Liber Hymnorum," and Marianus Scotus, the -Chronicler, were _alumni_ of Moville. - -Cluain Eidnech, or Clonenagh, the "Ivy Meadow," was founded by St. -Fintan, near Maryborough, in the present Queen's County. Angus the -Culdee, who with its Abbot Maelruain is said to have composed the -Martyrology of Tallaght prior to 792, was its greatest ornament. Of his -Irish works we shall have more to say later on. Clonenagh suffered so -much from the Northmen, that its great foundation had already in the -twelfth century dwindled to a parochial church; in the nineteenth it is -a green mound. - -Glendalough, founded by the celebrated St. Kevin,[21] became also a -college of much note. St. Moling, to whom a great number of Irish -poems[22] are ascribed, was one of his successors in the seventh -century, and his life seems to have taken peculiar hold upon the -imagination of the populace, for he has more poems--many of them -evident forgeries--attributed to him than we find ascribed to any of -the saints except to Columcille; and he has a place amongst the four -great prophets of Erin.[23] It was he who procured the remission of -the Boru tribute from King Finnachta about the year 693. Glendalough -was plundered and destroyed by the Danes five times over, within a -period of thirty years, yet it to some extent recovered itself, and the -great St. Laurence O'Toole, who was Archbishop of Dublin at the coming -of the Normans, had been there educated. - -Lismore, the great college of the south-east, was founded by St. -Carthach in the beginning of the seventh century, who left behind him, -according to O'Curry, a monastic rule of 580 lines of Irish verse.[24] -Cathal, or Cathaldus, born in the beginning of the seventh century, who -afterwards became bishop and patron saint of Tarentum, in Italy, was -a student, and perhaps professor in this college. The office of St. -Cathaldus states that Gauls, Angles, Irish, and Teutons, and very many -people of neighbouring nations came to hear his lectures at Lismore, -and Morini's life of him expresses in poetic terms the tradition of -Lismore's greatness.[25] St. Cuanna, another member of Lismore, was -probably the author of the Book of Cuanach, now lost, but often quoted -in the Annals of Ulster. He died in 650, and the book is not quoted -after the year 628, which makes it more than probable that he was the -author. Lismore was burnt down by the Danes, but recovered itself in -the general revival of native institutions that took place prior to the -conquest of the Anglo-Normans. However, when these latter came upon the -Irish stage it fared ill with Lismore. Strongbow, indeed, was bought -off from burning its churches in 1173 by a great sum of money, but in -the following year his son, in spite of this, plundered the place. Four -years later the English forces again attacked it, plundered it, and -set it on fire. In 1207 the whole town and all about it was finally -consumed, so that at the present day not a vestige remains behind of -its schools, its cloisters, or its twenty churches. - -Cork college was founded by St. Finnbarr towards the end of the sixth -century. One of its professors, Colman O'Cluasaigh, who died in 664, -wrote the curious Irish hymn or prayer mixed with Latin, preserved in -the Book of Hymns.[26] The place was burned four times between 822 and -840, but in the twelfth century the ancient monastery which had fallen -into decay was rebuilt by Cormac Mac Carthy, king of Munster, and -builder of the celebrated Cormac's Chapel at Cashel. - -The school of Ross was founded by St. Fachtna for the Ithian tribes[27] -of Corca Laidhi [Cor-ka-lee] in South-west Munster. Ross is frequently -referred to in the Annals up to the tenth century. There is extant an -interesting geographical poem in Irish, of 136 lines, written by one -of the teachers there in the tenth century, and apparently intended as -a kind of simple text to be learned by heart by the students.[28] Ross -was plundered by the Danes in 840, but appears to have been flourishing -until North-west Munster was laid waste by the Anglo-Normans under -FitzStephen, after which no more is heard of its schools or colleges. - -Innisfallen was founded upon an exquisite site on the lower lake of -Killarney by St. Finan.[29] The well-known "Annals of Innisfallen," -preserved in the Bodleian Library, were probably written by Maelsuthain -[Calvus Perennis] O'Carroll, the "soul-friend" of Brian Boru, who -inserted the famous entry in the Book of Armagh.[30] It is probable -that Brian himself was also educated there. This monastery, owing to -its secure retreat in the Kerry mountains, appears to have remained -unplundered by the Norsemen, and to have been accounted "a paradise and -a secure sanctuary." - -Iniscaltra is a beautiful island in the south-west angle of Loch Derg, -between Galway and Clare, still famous for its splendid round tower. -It was here Columba of Terryglass, who died in 552, established a -school and monastery which became so famous that in the life of St. -Senan seven ships are mentioned as arriving at the mouth of the Shannon -crowded with students for Iniscaltra. It was this Columba who, when -asked by one of his disciples why the birds that frequented the island -were not afraid of him, made the somewhat dramatic answer, "Why should -they fear me? am I not a bird myself, for my soul always flies to -heaven as they fly through the sky." Columba had a celebrated successor -called Caimin, who died in 653. Ussher, who calls him St. Caminus, -tells us that part of his Psalter was extant in his own time, and that -he had himself seen it "having a collation of the Hebrew text placed -on the upper part of each page, and with brief scholia added on the -exterior margin."[31] - -A great number of lesser monastic institutions and schools seem to -have existed alongside of these more famous ones, and it is hardly too -much to say that during the sixth, seventh, eighth, and perhaps ninth -centuries Ireland had caught and held aloft the torch of learning in -the lampadia of mankind, and procured for herself the honourable title -of the island of saints and scholars. - -[1] It is a common tradition that Columcille would not allow a cow on -Iona, because, said he, "where there is a cow there will be a woman"! -This tradition is entirely contradicted, however, by Adamnan's life. - -[2] Dr. Healy's "Ireland's Schools and Scholars," p. 169. - -[3] There is a story of Columcille when in Aran discovering the grave -of an "abbot of Jerusalem" who had come to see Enda, and died there, -printed by Kuno Meyer from Rawlinson B. 512 in the "Gaelic Journal," -vol. iv. p. 162. - -[4] Literally: "Farewell from me to Ara, it is it anguishes my heart -not to be in the west among her waves, amid groups of the saints of -heaven. It is far, alas! it is far, alas! I have been sent from Ara -West, out towards the population of Mona to visit the Albanachs. Ara -sun, oh Ara sun, my affection lies buried in her in the west, it is the -same to be beneath her pure soil as to be beneath the soil of Paul and -Peter. Ara blessed, O Ara blessed, woe to him who is hostile to her, -may he be given for it shortness of life and hell. Ara blessed, O Ara -blessed, woe to him who is hostile to her, may their cattle decay and -their children, and be he himself on the other side (of this life) in -evil plight. O Ara blessed, O Ara blessed, woe to him who is hostile to -her," etc. - -[5] See ch. VII, note 1. - -[6] It has been edited both by a Frenchman, M. Jubinal, and a German, -Karl Schroeder, from eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth century MSS. -preserved in Paris, Leipsic, and Wolfenbuttel, and by Cardinal -Moran from, I believe, a ninth-century one in the Vatican. Giraldus -Cambrensis alludes to it as well known in his time, "Hæc autem si -quis audire gestierit qui de vita Brendani scriptus est libellum -legat" ("Top. Hib.," II. ch. 43). There is a copy of Brendan's acts in -the so-called Book of Kilkenny in Marsh's Library, Dublin, a MS. of -probably the fourteenth century. - -[7] "Eccles. Hist.," lib. iii. c. 19. He calls him "Furseus, verbo et -actibus clarus sedet egregiis insignis virtutibus," and dedicates five -pages of Mayer and Lumby's edition to an account of him and his visions. - -[8] Father O'Hanlon, in his great work on the Irish saints, has -pointed out a large number of close parallels between Fursa's vision -and Dante's poem which seem altogether too striking to be fortuitous. -(_See_ vol. i. pp. 115-120.) There are a poem and a litany attributed -to St. Fursa in the MS. H. 1. 11. in Trinity College, Dublin. The -visions of Purgatory seen by Dryhthelm, a monk of Melrose, as recorded -by Bede, which are later than St. Fursa's vision, are conceived -very much in the same style, only are much more doctrinal in their -purgatorial teaching. "Tracing the course of thought upwards," says -Sir Francis Palgrave ("History of Normandy and England"), "we have no -difficulty in deducing the poetic genealogy of Dante's 'Inferno' to the -Milesian Fursæus." - -[9] _See_ above, p. 97. - -[10] The same story, as Whitley Stokes points out, is told in two -ninth-century lives of St. Machut, so that a tenth-century version of -Sindbad's first voyage cannot have been the origin of it. - -[11] This is evidently the passage upon which Keating's description -of hell in the "Three Shafts of Death," Leabh. III. allt. ix., x., -xi., is modelled. He quite outdoes his predecessor in declamation and -exuberance of alliterative adjectives. Compare also the description in -the vision of Adamnan of the infernal regions as it is elaborated in -the copy in the Leabhar Breac, in contradistinction to the more sober -colouring of the older Leabhar na h-Uidhre. - -[12] Beginning:-- - - "Celebra Juda festa Christi gaudia - Apostulorum exultans memoria. - - Claviculari Petri primi pastoris - Piscium rete evangelii corporis - Alleluia." - -This hymn, says Dr. Todd, "bears evident marks of the high antiquity -claimed for it, and there seem no reasonable grounds for doubting its -authenticity." - -[13] "The correct system lays down three principles. First, Easter day -must be always a Sunday, never on but _next after_ the fourteenth day -of the moon; secondly, that fourteenth day of the full moon should be -that on or next after the vernal equinox; and thirdly, the equinox -itself was invariably assigned to the 21st of March" (Dr. Healy's -"Ireland's Schools and Scholars," p. 234). At Rome the 18th had been -regarded as the equinox; St. Patrick, however, rightly laid it down -that the equinox took place on the 21st. - -[14] Late professor of Ecclesiastical History in Dublin University. -_See_ "Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy," May, 1892, p. 195. - -[15] The first verse runs thus:-- - - "Ni beir Luimneach for a druim - Di sil Muimhneach i Leth Cuinn - Marbán in noi bu fiú do - Do Cuimmine mac Fiachno"-- - -"The lower Shannon bears not upon its surface, of Munster race in Leath -Cuinn, any corpse in boat, equal to him, to Cuimin, son of Fiachna." -His corpse was apparently brought home by water. - -[16] There is a verse ascribed to Ciaran in the "Chronicon Scotorum," -beginning "Darerca mo mháthair-si," and a poem ascribed to him in H. 1. -11. Trinity College, Dublin. - -[17] Thus admirably translated by my friend Mr. Rolleston in "Poems -and Ballads of Young Ireland," Dublin, 1888, a little volume which -seems to have been the precursor of a considerable literary movement in -Ireland. Literally: "The city of Ciaran of Clonmacnois, a dewy-bright -red-rose town, of its royal seed, of lasting fame, the hosts in the -pure-streamed peaceful town. The nobles of the clan of Conn are in the -flag-laid brown-sloped churchyard, a knot or a branch above each body -and a fair correct name in Ogam. The sons of Cairbré over the seven -territories, the seven great princes from Tara, many a sheltering -standard on a field of battle is with the people of Ciaran's Plain of -Crosses. The men of Teffia, the tribes of Breagh were buried beneath -the clay of Cluain[macnois]. The valiant and hospitable are yonder -beneath the sod, the race of Creidé and the Clan Conaill. Numerous are -the sons of Conn of the Battles, with red clay and turf covering them, -many a blue eye and white limb under the earth of Clan Colman's tomb." -The first verses run in modern spelling thus: - - "Cáthair Chiaráin Chluain-mic-Nóis - Baile drucht-solas, dearg-rois. - Da shíl rioghraidh is buan bládh - Sluaigh fá'n sith-bhaile sruth-ghlan. - - Atáid uaisle cloinne Chuinn - Fa'n reilig leacaigh learg-dhuinn - Snaoidhm no Craobh os gach cholain - Agus ainm caomh ceart Oghaim." - -The clan of Conn here mentioned are principally the Ui Neill and their -correlatives. Teffia is something equivalent to Longford, and Breagh to -Meath. Clan Creidé are the O'Conors of Connacht, and the Clan Colman -principally means the O'Melaughlins and their kin. "Colman mor, a quo -Clann Cholmáin ie Maoileachlain cona fflaithibh" (Mac Firbis MS. Book -of Genealogies, p. 161 of O'Curry's transcript). Colman was the brother -of King Diarmuid, who was slain in 552. - -[18] Published a couple of years ago by the late Father Murphy, S.J., -for the Royal Antiquarian Society of Ireland. - -[19] "Airgid cealla ardnaomh Ereann uile ocus as ar altoir Cluana mac -Nois do bhereadh Otta bean Tuirghes uirigheall do gach ae[n]" (Mac -Firbis MS. of Genealogies, p. 768 in O'Curry's transcript). Also "Gael -and Gall," p. 13. - -[20] Claudius was Bishop of Turin, and a man of much culture and -ability; so disgusted was he with the congregation of ignorant Italian -bishops--culture was then at the lowest ebb in Italy--before whom he -argued his case that he called them a _congregatio asinorum_, and -says Zimmer, "Ein Ire, Dungal, musste für sie die Vertheidigung des -Bilderdienstes übernehmen." - -[21] Pronounced "Keevin," not "Kĕvin." The Irish form is Caoimh-[= -keev, "aoi" being in Irish always pronounced like _ee_, and "mh" like -_v_] ghinn, the "g" being aspirated is scarcely pronounced. - -[22] The celebrated Evangelistarium, or Book of Moling, was, with -its case or cover, deposited in Trinity College, Dublin, in the last -century by the Kavanaghs of Borris. Giraldus Cambrensis classes Moling -as a prophet with Merlin, and as a saint with Patrick and Columba. One -of the prophecies assigned to him is given by O'Curry, MS. Mat., p. -427. The oldest copy of any of Moling's poems is in the monastery of -St. Paul in Carinthia, contained in a MS. originally brought from Augia -Dives, or Reichenau. It is in the most perfect metre, and runs:-- - - "Is en immo niada sás - Is nau tholl diant eslinn guas, - Is lestar fás, is crann crín - Nach digni toil ind rig tuas." - - ("He is a bird round which a trap closes, - He is a leaky bark in weakness of peril, - He is an empty vessel, he is a withered tree - Who doth not do the will of the King above.") - -_I.e._, "Is eán um a n-iadhann sás / is nau (long) thollta darb' -éislinn guais. Is leastar fas (folamh) is crann crion, [an te] nach -ndeanann toil an righ shuas." - -The poem is also given in the Book of Leinster, and contains eight -verses. One would perhaps have expected the third line to run, "is -crann crín is lestar fás." The St. Paul MS., which is of the eighth -century, contains two of Molling's poems, and they scarcely differ in -wording or orthography from copies in MSS. six hundred years later. - -[23] Patrick, Columcille, and Berchan of Clonsast, are the others. -Even the English settlers had heard of their fame. Baron Finglas, -writing in Henry VIII.'s reign, says, "The four saints, St. Patrick, -St. Columb, St. Braghane [_i.e._, Berchan], and St. Moling, which -many hundred years agone made prophecy that Englishmen should have -conquered Ireland, and said that the said Englishmen should keep their -owne laws, and as soon as they should leave, and fall to Irish order, -then they should decay, the experience whereof is proved true." (From -Ryan's "History and Antiquities of the co. Carlow," p. 93.) A still -more curious allusion to the four Irish prophets is one in the Book -of Howth, a small vellum folio of the sixteenth century, written in -thirteen different hands, published in the Calendar of State Papers. -"Men say," recounts the anonymous writer, "that the Irishmen had four -prophets in their time, Patrick, Marten [_sic_], Brahen [_i.e._, -Berchan], and Collumkill. Whosoever hath books in Irish written every -of them speak of the fight of this conquest, and saith that long strife -and oft fighting shall be for this land, and the land shall be harried -and stained with great slaughter of men, but the Englishmen fully shall -have the mastery a little before doomsday, and that land shall be -from sea to sea i-castled and fully won, but the Englishmen shall be -after that well feeble in the land and disdained; so Barcan [Berchan] -saith: that through a king shall come out of the wild mountains of St. -Patrick's, that much people shall slew and afterwards break a castle -in the wooden of Affayle, with that the Englishmen of Ireland shall be -destroyed by that." The prophecy that the Englishmen fully shall have -the mastery a little before Doomsday is amusingly equivocal! - -[24] Described in O'Curry's MS. Materials, p. 375, but I do not know -where the original is. - -[25] Quoted in O'Halloran's "History of Ireland," bk. ix. chap. 4. -"Celeres vastissima Rheni / jam vada Teutonici, jam deseruere Sicambri; -/ Mittit ab extremo gelidos Aquilone Boemos / Albis et Arvenni cöeunt, -Batavi-que frequentes, / Et quicunque colunt alta sub rupe Gehennas. -/ ... Certatim hi properunt diverso tramite ad urbem / Lesmoriam -[Lismore] juvenis primos ubi transigit annos." _See_ also corroborative -proof of the numbers of Gauls, Teutons, Swiss, and Italians visiting -Lismore about the year 700 in Ussher's "Antiquities," Works, vi., p. -303. - -[26] Reprinted by Windisch in his "Irische Texte," Heft 1., p. 5. The -first verse runs-- - - "Sén De don fe for don te - Mac maire ron feladar! - For a fhoessam dún anocht - Cia tiasam, cain temadar," - -which is in no wise easy to translate! There are fifty-six verses not -all in the same metre. Another acknowledges St. Patrick as a patron -saint, it would run thus, in modernised orthography-- - - "Beannacht ar erlám [pátrún] Pádraig - Go naomhaib Eireann uime - Beannacht ar an gcáthair-se - Agus ar chách bhfuil innti!" - -A three-quarter Latin verse runs thus-- - - "Regem regum rogamus / in nostris sermonibus - Anacht Noe a luchtlach / diluvi temporibus." - -[27] _See_ p. 67. - -[28] _See_ "Proceedings of R. I. Academy for 1884." - -[29] Whose name is preserved in O'Connell's residence, "Derrynane," -which is really "Derry-finan" (Doire-Fhionáin). - -[30] _See_ p. 140 and Ch. XIII note 12. - -[31] "Habebatur psalterium, cujus unicum tantum quaternionem mihi -videre contigit, obelis et asteriscis diligentissime distinctum; -collatione cum veritate Hebraica in superiore parte cujusque paginæ -posita, et brevibus scholiis ad exteriorem marginem adjectis." (_See_ -"Works," vol. vi. p. 544. Quoted by Professor G. Stokes, "Proceedings -R. I. Academy," May, 1892.) - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - -THEIR FAME AND TEACHING - - -It is very difficult to say what was exactly the curriculum of the -early Irish colleges, and how far they were patronised by laymen. -Without doubt their original design was to propagate a more perfect -knowledge of the Scriptures and of theological learning in general, -but it is equally certain that they must have, almost from the very -first, taught the heathen classics and the Irish language side by -side with the Scriptures and theology. There is no other possible -way of accounting for the admirable scholarship of the men whom they -turned out, and for their skill in Latin and often also in Irish -poetry. Virgil, Ovid, Terence, and most of the Latin poets must have -been widely taught and read. "It is sufficient," says M. d'Arbois -de Jubainville, talking of Columbanus who was born in 543, and who -was educated at Bangor, on Belfast Loch, "to glance at his writings, -immediately to recognise his marvellous superiority over Gregory of -Tours and the Gallo-Romans of his time. He lived in close converse with -the classical authors, as later on did the learned men of the sixteenth -century, whose equal he certainly is not, but of whom he seems a sort -of precursor." From the sixth to the sixteenth century is a long -leap, and no higher eulogium could be passed upon the scholarship of -Columbanus and the training given by his Irish college.[1] All the -studies of the time appear to have been taught in them through the -medium of the Irish language, not merely theology but arithmetic, -rhetoric, poetry, hagiography, natural science as then understood, -grammar, chronology, astronomy, Greek, and even Hebrew. - - "The classic tradition," sums up M. Darmesteter, "to all appearances - dead in Europe, burst out into full flower in the Isle of Saints, and - the Renaissance began in Ireland 700 years before it was known in - Italy. During three centuries Ireland was the asylum of the higher - learning which took sanctuary there from the uncultured states of - Europe. At one time Armagh, the religious capital of Christian - Ireland, was the metropolis of civilisation." - - "Ireland," says Babington in his "Fallacies of Race Theories,"[2] "had - been admitted into Christendom and to some measure of culture only in - the fifth century. At that time Gaul and Italy enjoyed to the full all - the knowledge of the age. In the next century the old culture-lands - had to turn for some little light and teaching to that remote and - lately barbarous land." - -When we remember that the darkness of the Middle Ages had already -set in over the struggles, agony, and confusion of feudal Europe, -and that all knowledge of Greek may be said to have died out -upon the Continent--"had elsewhere absolutely vanished," says M. -Darmesteter--when we remember that even such a man as Gregory the Great -was completely ignorant of it, it will appear extraordinary to find it -taught in Ireland alone, out of all the countries of Western Europe.[3] -Yet this is capable of complete and manifold proof. Columbanus for -instance, shows in his letter to Pope Boniface that he knows something -of both Greek and Hebrew.[4] Aileran, who died of the plague in 664, -gives evidence of the same in his book on our Lord's genealogy. -Cummian's letter to the Abbot of Iona has been referred to before, -and, as Professor G. Stokes puts it, "proves the fact to demonstration -that in the first half of the seventh century there was a wide range -of Greek learning, not ecclesiastical merely, but chronological, -astronomical, and philosophical, away at Durrow in the very centre of -the Bog of Allen." Augustine, an un-identified Irish monk of the second -half of the seventh century, gives many proofs of Greek and Oriental -learning and quotes the Chronicles of Eusebius. The later Sedulius, the -versatile abbot of Kildare, about the year 820 "makes parade of his -Greek knowledge," to quote a French writer in the "Revue Celtique," -"employs Greek words without necessity, and translates into Greek a -part of the definition of the pronoun."[5] St. Caimins's Psalter, seen -by Bishop Ussher with the Hebrew text collated, convinced Dr. Reeves -that Hebrew as well as Greek was studied in Ireland about the year -600. Nor did this Greek learning tend to die out. In the middle of the -ninth century John Scotus Erigena, summoned from Ireland to France by -Charles the Bald, was the only person to be found able to translate -the Greek works of the pseudo-Dionysius,[6] thanks to the training -he had received in his Irish school. The Book of Armagh contains the -Lord's Prayer written in Greek letters, and there is a Greek MS. of -the Psalter, written in Sedulius' own hand, now preserved in Paris. -Many more Greek texts, at least a dozen, written by Irish monks, are -preserved elsewhere in Europe. "These eighth and ninth century Greek -MSS.," remarks Professor Stokes, "covered with Irish glosses and Irish -poems and Irish notes, have engaged the attention of palæographers and -students of the Greek texts of the New Testament during the last two -centuries." They are indeed a proof that--as Dr. Reeves puts it--the -Irish School "was unquestionably the most advanced of its day in sacred -literature." - -This remarkable knowledge of Greek was evidently derived from an early -and direct commerce with Gaul, where Greek had been spoken for four -or five centuries, first alongside of Celtic, and in later times of -Latin also.[7] The knowledge of Hebrew may have been derived from -the Egyptian monks who passed over from Gaul into Ireland. Egypt -and the East were more or less in close communication with Gaul -in the fifth century, and the Irish Litany, ascribed to Angus the -Culdee, commemorates seven Egyptian monks amongst many other Gauls, -Germans, and Italians who resided in Ireland. The close and constant -intercommunication between Greek-speaking Gaul and Ireland accounts -for the planting and cultivation of the Greek language in the Irish -schools, and once planted there it continued to flourish more or less -for some centuries. There is ample evidence to prove the connection -between Gaul and Ireland from the fifth to the ninth century. We find -Gaulish merchants in the middle of Ireland at Clonmacnois, who had -no doubt sailed up the Shannon in the way of commerce, selling wine -to Ciaran in the sixth century. We find Columbanus, a little later -on, inquiring at Nantes for a vessel engaged in the Irish trade--_quæ -vexerat commercium cum Hibernia_. In Adamnan's Life of Columcille -we find mention of Gaulish sailors arriving at Cantire. Adamnan's -own treatise on Holy Places was written from the verbal account of a -Gaul. In the Old Irish poem on the Fair of Carman in Wexford--a pagan -institution which lived on in Christian times--we find mention of the - - "Great market of the foreign Greeks, - Where gold and noble clothes were wont to be;"[8] - -the foreign Greeks being no doubt the Greek-speaking Gaulish merchants. -Alcuin sends his gifts of money and oil and his letters direct from -Charlemagne's court to his friends in Clonmacnois, probably by a vessel -engaged in the direct Irish trade, for, as he himself tells us, the -sea-route between England and France was then closed. If more proof of -the close communication between Ireland and Gaul were wanted, the fact -that Dagobert II., king of France in the seventh century, was educated -at Slane,[9] in Ireland, and also that certain Merovingian and French -coins have been found here, should be sufficient. - -The fame of these early Irish schools attracted students in the -seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries from all quarters to Ireland, -which had now become a veritable land of schools and scholars. The -Venerable Bede tells us of the crowds of Anglo-Saxons who flocked over -into Ireland during the plague, about the year 664, and says that they -were all warmly welcomed by the Irish, who took care that they should -be provided with food every day, without payment on their part; that -they should have books to read, and that they should receive gratuitous -instruction from Irish masters.[10] Books must have already multiplied -considerably when the swarms of Anglo-Saxons could thus be supplied -with them gratis. This noble tradition of free education to strangers -lasted down to the establishment of the so-called "National" schools in -Ireland, for down to that time "poor scholars" were freely supported -by the people and helped in their studies. The number of scribes -whose deaths have been considered worth recording by the annalists -is very great, and books consequently must have been very numerous. -This plentifulness of books probably added to the renown of the Irish -schools. An English prince as well as a French one was educated by -them in the seventh century; this was Aldfrid, king of Northumbria, -who was trained in all the learning of Erin, and who always aided and -abetted the Irish in England, in opposition to Wilfrid, who opposed -them. That the king got a good education in Ireland may be conjectured -from the fact that Aldhelm, abbot of Malmesbury, dedicated to him a -poetic epistle on Latin metric and prosody, in which, says Dr. Healy, -"he congratulates the king on his good fortune in having been educated -in Ireland." Aldhelm's own master was also an Irishman, Mael-dubh, and -his abbacy of Malmesbury is only a corruption of this Irishman's name -Maeldubh's-bury.[11] In another place Aldhelm tells us that while the -great English school at Canterbury was by no means overcrowded, the -English swarmed to the Irish schools like bees. Aldfrid himself, when -leaving Ireland, composed a poem of sixty lines in the Irish language -and metre, which he must have learned from the bards, in which he -compliments each of the provinces severally, as though he meant to -thank the whole nation for their hospitality.[12] - - "I found in Inisfail the fair - In Ireland, while in exile there, - Women of worth, both grave and gay men, - Learned clerics, heroic laymen. - - I travelled its fruitful provinces round, - And in every one of the five I found, - Alike in church and in palace hall, - Abundant apparel and food for all." - -St. Willibrord, a Saxon noble educated in Ireland about the same time -with King Aldfrid, went out thence and ultimately became Archbishop of -Utrecht. Another noted scholar of the same period was Agilbert, a Frank -by birth, who spent a long time in Ireland for the purpose of study and -afterwards became Bishop of Paris.[13] We have seen how the Office of -St. Cathaldus states that the school of Lismore was visited by Gauls, -Angles, Scotti, Teutons, and scholars from other neighbouring nations. -The same was more or less the case with Clonmacnois, Bangor, and some -others of the most noted of the Irish schools. - -It was not in Greek attainments, nor in ecclesiastical studies, nor -in Latin verses alone, that the Irish excelled; they also produced -astronomers like Dungal and geographers like Dicuil. Dungal's -attainments we have glanced at, but Dicuil's book--_de mensura orbis -terrarum_--written about the year 825, is more interesting, although -nothing is known about the author's own life, nor do we know even -the particular Irish school to which he belonged.[14] His book was -published by a Frenchman because he found Dicuil's descriptions of the -measurements of the Pyramids a thousand years ago tallied with his own. - - "Antioch," writes Professor G. Stokes, "about A.D. 600, was the centre - of Greek culture and Greek erudition, and the chronicle of Malalas, - as embodied in Niebuhr's series of Byzantine historians, is a mine of - information on many questions; but compare it with the Irish work of - Dicuil and its mistakes are laughable." - -A great deal of his work is founded of course upon Pliny, Solinus, -and Priscian, but he shows a highly-developed critical sense in -comparing and collating various MSS. which he had inspected to ensure -accuracy. What he tells us at first-hand, however, is by far the most -interesting. In speaking of the Nile he says that:-- - - "Although we never read in any book that any branch of the Nile flows - into the Red Sea, yet Brother Fidelis told in my presence to my - master Suibhne [Sweeny]--to whom under God I owe whatever knowledge - I possess--that certain clerics and laymen from Ireland who went to - Jerusalem on pilgrimage sailed up the Nile a long way." - -They sailed thence by a canal into the Red Sea, and this statement -proves the accuracy of Dicuil, for this canal really existed and -continued in use until 767, when it was closed to hinder the people -of Mecca and Medina getting supplies from Egypt. The account of the -Pyramids is particularly interesting. "The aforesaid Brother Fidelis -measured one of them and found that the square face was 400 feet in -length." The same brother wished to examine the exact point where Moses -had entered the Red Sea in order to try if he could find any traces of -the chariots of Pharaoh or the wheel tracks, but the sailors were in -a hurry and would not allow him to go on this excursion. The breadth -of the sea appeared to him at this point to be about six miles. Dicuil -describes Iceland long before it was discovered by the Danes. - - "It is now thirty years," said he, writing in 825, "since I was told - by some Irish ecclesiastics, who had dwelt in that island from the 1st - of February to the 1st of August, that the sun scarcely sets there in - summer, but always leaves, even at midnight, light enough to do one's - ordinary business--_vel pediculos de camisia abstrahere_"! - -Those writers are greatly mistaken, he says, who describe the Icelandic -sea as always frozen, and who say that there is day there from spring -to autumn and from autumn to spring, for the Irish monks sailed thither -through the open sea in a month of great natural cold, and yet -found alternate day and night, except about the period of the summer -solstice. He also describes the Faroe Isles:-- - - "A certain trustworthy monk told me that he reached one of them by - sailing for two summer days and one night in a vessel with two benches - of rowers.... In these islands for almost a hundred years there dwelt - hermits who sailed there from our own Ireland [nostra Scottia], but - now they are once more deserted as they were at the beginning, on - account of the ravages of the Norman pirates." - -This is proof positive that the Irish discovered and inhabited -Iceland and the Faroe Islands half a century or a century before the -Northmen. Dicuil was distinguished as a grammarian, metrician, and -astronomer,[15] but his geographical treatise, written in his old age, -is the most interesting and valuable of his achievements. - -Fergil, or Virgilius, as he is usually called, was another great Irish -geometer, who eventually became Archbishop of Salzburg and died in -785. He taught the sphericity of the earth and the doctrine of the -Antipodes, a truth which seems also to have been familiar to Dicuil. -St. Boniface, afterwards Archbishop of Mentz, evidently distorting his -doctrine, accused him to the Pope of heresy in teaching that there was -another world and other men under the earth, and another sun and moon. -"Concerning this charge of false doctrine, if it shall be established," -said the Pope, "that Virgil taught this perverse and wicked doctrine -against God and his own soul, do you then convoke a council, degrade -him from the priesthood, and drive him from the Church." Virgil, -however, seems to have satisfactorily explained his position, for -nothing was done against him. - -These instances help to throw some light upon a most difficult -subject--the training given in the early Irish Christian schools, and -the cause of their undoubted popularity for three centuries and more -amongst the scholars of Western Europe. - -[1] Here are a few lines from the well-known Adonic poem which he, at -the age of 68, addressed to his friend Fedolius-- - - "_Extitit ingens_ _Impia quippe_ - _Causa malorum_ _Pygmalionis_ - _Aurea pellis,_ _Regis ob aurum_ - _Corruit auri_ _Gesta leguntur._ - _Munere parvo_ - _Cœna Deorum._ * * * * * - _Ac tribus illis_ - _Maxima lis est_ _Fœmina sœpe_ - _Orta Deabus._ _Perdit ob aurum_ - _Hinc populavit_ _Casta pudorem._ - _Trogugenarum_ _Non Jovis auri_ - _Ditia regna_ _Fluxit in imbre_ - _Dorica pubes._ _Sed quod adulter_ - _Juraque legum_ _Obtulit aurum_ - _Fasque fides que_ _Aureus ille_ - _Rumpitur aure._ _Fingitur imber_." - -Dr. Sigerson in "Bards of the Gael and Gaul," p. 407, prints as -Jubainville also does, the whole of this noted poem, and points out -that it is shot through and through with Irish assonance. "Not less -important than its assonance," writes Dr. Sigerson, "is the fact that -it introduces into Latin verse the use of returning words, or burthens -with variations, which supply the vital germs of the rondeau and the -ballad." I am not myself convinced of what Dr. Sigerson considers marks -of _intentional_ assonance in almost _every_ line. - -His chief remaining works are a Monastic Rule in ten chapters; a book -on the daily penances of the monks; seventeen sermons; a book on the -measure of penances; a treatise on the eight principal vices; five -epistles written to Gregory the Great and others; and a good many Latin -verses. His life is written by the Abbot Jonas, a contemporary of his -own. - -[2] P. 122. - -[3] "Grössere oder geringere Kenntniss klassischen Alterthums, vor -allem Kenntniss des Griechischen ist daher in jener Zeit ein Mazstab -sowohl für die Bildung einer einzelnen Persönlichkeit als auch fur den -Culturgrad eines ganzen Zeitalters" (Zimmer, "Preussische Jahrbûcher," -January, 1887). - -[4] He plays on his own name Columba, "a dove," and turns it into Greek -and Hebrew, περιστερά and הנוי. - -[5] Dr. Sigerson prints an admirably graceful poem either by this or -another Sedulius of the ninth century at p. 411 of his "Bards of the -Gael and Gaul." It shows how far from being pedants the Irish monks -were. This poem is a dispute between the rose and lily. - -[6] This translation which Charles sent to the Pope threw Anastasius, -the Librarian of the Roman Church, into the deepest astonishment. -"Mirandum est," he writes in his letter of reply, dated 865, "quomodo -vir ille barbarus in finibus mundi positus, talia intellectu capere -in aliamque linguam transferre valuerit" (_See_ Prof. Stokes, "R. I. -Academy Proceedings," May, 1892). - -[7] St. Jerome tells us that the people of Marseilles were in his day -trilingual, "Massiliam Phocæi condiderunt quos ait Varro trilingues -esse, quod et Græce loquantur, et Latine et Gallice" (Migne's edition, -vol. vii. p. 425). - -[8] _See_ appendix to O'Curry's "Manners and Customs," vol. iii. p. -547-- - - "Margaid mor na n-gall ngregach - I mbid or is ard étach." - -[9] He is said to have spent eighteen or twenty years there and to -have acquired all the wisdom of the Scots. The reason why he was sent -to Slane, as Dr. Healy well observes, was, not because it was the most -celebrated school of the time, but because it was in Meath where the -High-kings mostly dwelt, and it was only natural to bring the boy to -some place near the Royal Court. ("Ireland's Schools and Scholars," p. -590.) - -[10] "Quos omnes Scotti libentissime suscipientes victum eis -quotidianum sine pretio, libros quoque ad legendum, et magisterium -gratuitum, præbere curabant" ("Ecc. Hist.," book iii. chap. 27). -Amongst these were the celebrated Egbert, of whom Bede tells us so -much, and St. Chad. - -[11] He is called Mailduf by Bede, and Malmesbury Maildufi urbem, which -shows that the aspirated "b" in _dubh_ had twelve hundred years ago the -sound of "f" as it has to-day in Connacht. - -[12] O'Reilly states that the poem consisted of ninety-six lines, but -Hardiman, in his "Irish Minstrelsy," vol. ii. p. 372, gives only sixty. -Hardiman has written on the margin of O'Reilly's "Irish Writers" in my -possession, "I have a copy, the character is ancient and very obscure." -Aldfrid may well have written such a poem, of which the copy printed by -Hardiman may be a somewhat modernised version. It begins-- - - "Ro dheat an inis finn Fáil - In Eirinn re imarbháidh, - Iomad ban, ni baoth an breas, - Iomad laoch, iomad cleireach." - -It was admirably and fairly literally translated by Mangan for -Montgomery. His fourth line, however, runs, "Many clerics and many -laymen," which conveys no meaning save that of populousness. I have -altered this line to make it suit the Irish "many a hero, many a -cleric." - -[13] "Natione quidem Gallus," says Bede, "sed tunc legendarum gratiâ -scripturarum in Hibernia non parvo tempore demoratus." - -[14] Probably Clonmacnois. _See_ Stokes, "Celtic Church," p. 214, and -Dr. Healy's "Ireland's Schools and Scholars," p. 283. - -[15] His astronomical work, written in 814-16, remains as yet -unpublished. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - -CONFLICTS WITH THE CIVIL POWER - - -The extraordinary and abnormal receptivity of the Irish of the fifth -century, and the still more wonderful and unprecedented activity of -their descendants in the sixth and following ones had almost bid fair -to turn the nation into a land of apostles. This outburst of religious -zeal, glorious and enduring as it was, carried with it, like all sudden -and powerful movements, an element of danger. It was unfortunately -destined in its headlong course to overflow its legitimate barriers -and to come into rude contact with the civil power which had been -established upon lines more ancient and not wholly sympathetic. - -A striking passage in one of Renan's books dwells upon the obvious -religious inferiority of the Greeks and Romans to the Jews, while -it notes at the same time their immense political and intellectual -superiority over the Semitic nation. The inferiority of the Jew in -matters political and intellectual the French writer seems inclined to -attribute to his abnormally developed religious sense, which, absorbed -in itself, took all too little heed of the civic side of life and of -the necessities of the state. Nor can it, I think, be denied that -primitive Christianity in some cases took over from the Hebrews a -certain amount of this spirit of self-absorption and of disregard for -the civil side of life and social polity. "Quand on prend les choses -humaines par ce côté," remarks Renan, "on fonde de grands prosélytismes -universels, on a des apôtres courant le monde d'un bout à l'autre, et -le convertissant; mais on ne fonde pas des institutions politiques, une -indépendance nationale, une dynastie, un code, un peuple." - -We have already seen how the exaggerated pretensions of St. Columcille -had come almost at once into opposition with the established law of the -land, the law which enjoined death as the penalty for homicide at Tara, -and how the priest unjustifiably took upon himself to override the -civil magistrate in the person of the king. - -Of precisely such a nature--only with far worse and far more enduring -consequences--was the cursing of Tara by St. Ruadhan of Lothra. -The great palace where, according to general belief, a hundred and -thirty-six pagan and six Christian kings had ruled uninterruptedly, -the most august spot in all Ireland, where a "truce of God" had always -reigned during the great triennial assemblies, was now to be given -up and deserted at the curse of a tonsured monk. The great Assembly -or Féis of Tara, which accustomed the people to the idea of a centre -of government and a ruling power, could no more be convened, and a -thousand associations and memories which hallowed the office of the -High-king were snapped in a moment. It was a blow from which the -monarchy of Ireland never recovered, a blow which, by putting an end -to the great triennial or septennial conventions of the whole Irish -race, weakened the prestige of the central ruler, increased the power -of the provincial chieftains, segregated the clans of Ireland from one -another, and opened a new road for faction and dissension throughout -the entire island. - -There is a considerable amount of mystery attached to this whole -transaction, and all the great Irish annalists, the "Four Masters," -the "Chronicon Scotorum," the Annals of Ulster, Tighearnach, and -Keating, are absolutely silent upon the matter.[1] The "Four Masters," -indeed, under the year 554 record "the last Féis of Tara,"[2] as does -Tighearnach also; but why it was the last, or why Tara was deserted, -they do not say. Yet so great a national event was infinitely too -important to have been passed over in silence except for some special -reason, and I cannot help thinking that it was not alluded to because -the annalists did not care to recall it. The authorities for the -cursing of Tara are the lost "Annals of Clonmacnois," which were -translated into English by Connell Mac Geoghegan in 1627, and which -give a very long and full account of the matter;[3] an Irish MS. in -Trinity College, Dublin;[4] the Life of St. Ruadhan himself, in the -fourteenth century (?) codex the Book of Kilkenny, now in Marsh's -Library; and his life as published by the Bollandists; the ancient -scholiast on Fiach's hymn on the Life of St. Patrick; a fifteenth -century vellum in the British Museum, which professes to copy from the -lost Book of Sligo; the Book of Right,[5] and the Book of Lismore, -which last, though it turns the story into an _úrsgeul_, or romance, -yet agrees closely in essentials with the lost "Annals of Clonmacnois." -The story, as told in this manuscript, is worth producing as a specimen -of how the Irish loved to turn every great historical event into an -_úrsgeul_, seasoned with a good spice of the marvellous, and dressed -up dramatically. How much of such pseudo-histories is true, how much -invented for the occasion, and how much may be stock-in-trade of the -story-teller, is never easily determined. The story runs as follows:-- - -King Diarmuid's steward and spear-bearer had been ill and wasting -away for a year. On his recovery he goes to the King, and asks him -whether "the order of his discipline and peace" had been observed -during the time of his illness. The King answered that he had noticed -no breach or diminution of it. The spear-bearer said he would make -sure of the King's peace by travelling round Ireland with his spear -held transversely, and he would see whether the door of every liss and -fortress would be opened wide enough to let the spear pass--such on the -approach of the King's spear seems to have been the law--and "so shall -the regimen and peace of Ireland," said he "be ascertained." - - "From Tara, therefore, goes forth the spear-bearer,[6] and with him - the King of Ireland's herald, to proclaim Ireland's peace, and he - arrived in the province of Connacht, and made his way to the mansion - of Aedh [Æ] Guairè of Kinelfechin. And he at that time had round his - rath a stockade of red oak, and had a new house too, that was but just - built [no doubt inside the rath] with a view to his marriage feast. - Now, a week before the spear-bearer's arrival the other had heard that - he was on his way to him, and had given orders to make an opening - before him in the palisade [but not in the dwelling]. - - "The spear-bearer came accordingly, and Aedh Guairè bade him welcome. - The spear-bearer said that the house must be hewn [open to the right - width] before him. - - "'Give thine own orders as to how it may please thee to have it hewn,' - said Aedh Guairè, but, even as he spake it, he gave a stroke of his - sword to the spear-bearer, so that he took his head from off him. - - "Now at this time the discipline of Ireland was such that whosoever - killed a man void of offence, neither cattle nor other valuable - consideration might be taken in lieu of the slain, but the slayer must - be killed, unless it were that the King should order or permit the - acceptance of a cattle-price. - - "When King Diarmuid heard of the killing he sent his young men and his - executive to waste and to spoil Aedh Guairè. And he flees to Bishop - Senan, for one mother they had both, and Senan the bishop goes with - him to Ruadhan of Lothra, for it was two sisters of Lothra that nursed - Bishop Senan, Cael and Ruadhnait were their names. But Aedh Guairè - found no protection with Ruadhan, but was banished away into Britain - for a year, and Diarmuid's people came to seek for him in Britain, - so he was again sent back to Ruadhan. And Diarmuid himself comes to - Ruadhan to look for him, but he had been put into a hole in the ground - by Ruadhan, which is to-day called 'Ruadhan's Hole.' Diarmuid sent - his man to look in Ruadhan's kitchen whether Aedh Guiarè were there. - But on the man's going into the kitchen his eyes were at once struck - blind. When Diarmuid saw this, he went into the kitchen himself, but - he did not find Aedh Guiarè there. And he asked Ruadhan where he was, - for he was sure he would tell him no lie. - - "'I know not where he is,' said Ruadhan, 'if he be not under yon - thatch.' - - "After that Diarmuid departs to his house, but he remembered the - cleric's word and returns to the recluse's cell, and he sees the - candle being brought to the spot where Aedh Guairè was. And he sends a - confidential servant to bring him forth--Donnán Donn was his name--and - he dug down in the hiding place, but the arm he stretched out to take - Aedh withered to the shoulder. And he makes obeisance to Ruadhan after - that, and the two servants remained with Ruadhan after that in Poll - Ruadhain. After this Diarmuid [himself] carries off Aedh Guairè to - Tara." - -Upon this, we are told, Ruadhan made his way to Brendan of Birr, and -thence to the so-called twelve apostles of Ireland,[7] and they all -followed the King and came to Tara, and they fast upon the King that -night, and he, "relying on his kingly quality and on the justice of his -cause, fasts upon them."[8] - - "In such fashion, and to the end of a year they continued before Tara - under Ruadhan's tent exposed to weather and to wet, and they were - every other night without food, Diarmuid and the clergy, fasting on - each other." - -After this the story goes on that Brendan the Navigator had in the -meantime landed from his foreign expeditions, and hearing that the -other saints of Ireland were fasting before Tara, he also proceeds -thither. But King Diarmuid, learning of his coming, was terrified, -and consented to give up Aedh Guairè for "fifty horses, blue-eyed -with golden bridles." Brendan the Voyager, fresh from his triumphs on -the ocean, summons fifty seals and makes them look like horses, and -guaranteeing them for a year and a quarter, hands them over to the -King and receives Aedh Guairè. But when the time guaranteed was out, -they became seals again, and brought their riders with them into the -sea. And Diarmuid was very wroth at the deception, "and shut the seven -lisses of Tara to the end that the clergy should not enter into Tara, -lest they should leave behind malevolence and evil bequests." - -It appears that the clerics still continued fasting upon the King, and -he fasting upon them, - - "And people were assigned [by the King] to wait upon them and to keep - watch and ward over them until the clergy should have accomplished the - act of eating and consuming food in their presence. But on this night - Brendan gave them this advice--their cowls to be about their heads and - they to let their meat and ale pass by their mouths into their bosoms - and down to the ground, and this they did. Word was brought to the - King that the clergy were consuming meat and ale, so Diarmuid ate meat - that night, but the clerics on the other hand fasted on him through - stratagem. - - "Now Diarmuid's wife--Mughain was his wife--saw a dream, which dream - was this, that upon the green of Tara was a vast and wide-foliaged - tree, and eleven slaves hewing at it, but every chip which they - knocked from it would return into its place again and adhere to it - [as before], till at last there came one man that dealt the tree but - a stroke, and with that single cut laid it low, as the poet spoke the - lay-- - - "'An evil dream did she behold - The wife of the King of Tara of the heavy torques, - Although it brought to her grief and woe - She could not keep from telling it. - A powerful stout tree did she behold, - That might shelter the birds of Ireland, - Upon the hill-side, smitten with axes, - And champions hewing together at it, etc.' - (48 lines more.) - - "As for Diarmuid, son of Cerbhall [the King], after that dream he - arose early, so that he heard the clergy chant their psalms, and he - entered into the house in which they were. - - "'Alas!' he said, 'for the iniquitous contest which ye have waged - against me, seeing that it is Ireland's good that I pursue, and to - preserve her discipline and royal right, but 'tis Ireland's unpeace - and murderousness which ye endeavour after. For God Himself it is - who on such or such a one confers the orders of prince, of righteous - ruler, and of equitable judgment, to the end that he may maintain his - truthfulness, his princely quality, and his governance. Now that to - which a king is bound is to have mercy coupled with stringency of law, - and peace maintained in the sub-districts, and hostages in fetters; - to succour the wretched, but to overwhelm enemies, and to banish - falsehood, for unless on this hither side one do the King of Heaven's - will, no excuse is accepted by him on the other. And thou, Ruadhan,' - said Diarmuid, 'through thee it is that injury and rending of my mercy - and of mine integrity to Godward is come about, and I pray God that - thy diocese be the first in Ireland that shall be renounced, and thy - Church lands the first that shall be impugned.' - - "But Ruadhan said, 'Rather may thy dynasty come to nought, and none - that is son or grandson to thee establish himself in Tara for ever!' - - "Diarmuid said, 'Be thy Church desolate continually.' - - "Ruadhan said, 'Desolate be Tara for ever and for ever.' - - "Diarmuid said, 'May a limb of thy limbs be wanting to thee, and come - not with thee under ground, and mayest thou lack an eye! - - "'Have thou before death an evil countenance in sight of all; may - thine enemies prevail over thee mightily, and the thigh that thou - liftedst not before me to stand up, be the same mangled into pieces.' - - "Said Diarmuid, 'The thing [_i.e._, the man] about which is our - dispute, take him with you, but in thy church, Ruadhan, may the alarm - cry sound at nones always, and even though all Ireland be at peace be - thy church's precinct a scene of war continuously.' - - "And from that time to this the same is fulfilled."[9] - -There follows a poem of 88 lines uttered by the King. - -The same story in all its essential details is told in the MS. Egerton -1782, a vellum of the fifteenth century, which professes to follow the -lost Book of Sligo. It is quite as unbiassed and outspoken about the -result of the clerics' action as the Book of Lismore. It makes Diarmuid -address the clerics thus-- - - "'Evil is that which ye have worked O clerics, my kingdom's ruination. - For in the latter times Ireland shall not be better off than she is - at this present. But, however it fall out,' said he, 'may bad chiefs, - their heirs-apparent, and their men of war, quarter themselves in your - churches, and may it be their [_read_ your?] own selves that in your - houses shall pull off such peoples' brogues for them, ye being the - while powerless to rid yourselves of them.'" - -This codex sympathises so strongly with the king that it states that -one of Ruadhan's eyes burst in his head when the king cursed him. Beg -mac De, the celebrated Christian prophet, is made to prophecy thus, -when the king asks him in what fashion his kingdom should be after his -death, - - "'An evil world,' said the prophet, 'is now at hand, in which men - shall be in bondage, woman free; mast wanting; woods smooth; blossom - bad; winds many; wet summer; green corn; much cattle; scant milk; - dependants burdensome in every country, hogs lean, chiefs wicked; bad - faith; _chronic killing; a world withered, raths in number_.'" - -King Diarmuid died in 558, according to the "Four Masters;" it is -certain he never retreated a foot from Tara, but it was probably his -next successor who, intimidated at the clerics' curse and the ringing -of their bells--for they circled Tara ringing their bells against -it--deserted the royal hill for ever.[10] - -The palace of Cletty, not far from Tara, was also cursed by St. -Cairneach at the request of the queen of the celebrated Muircheartach -Mór mac Earca, and deserted in consequence.[11] - -Another, but probably more justifiable, instance of the clergy fasting -upon a lay ruler and cursing him, was that of the notorious Raghallach -(Reilly), king of Connacht, who made his queen jealous by his -infidelity, and committed other crimes. The story is thus recorded by -Keating-- - - "The scandal of that evil deed soon spread throughout all the land and - the saints of Ireland were sorrowful by reason thereof. St. Fechin of - Fobar [Fore is West Meath] came in person to Raghallach to reprehend - him, and many saints came in his company to aid him in inducing the - prince to discontinue his criminal amour. But Raghallach despised - their exhortations. Thereupon they fasted against him, and as there - were many other evil-minded persons besides him in the land, they made - an especial prayer to God that for the sake of an example he should - not live out the month of May, then next to come on, and that he - should fall by the hands of villains, by vile instruments, and in a - filthy place; and all these things happened to him," - -as Keating goes on to relate, for he was killed by turf-cutters. - -Sometimes the saints are found on opposite sides, as at the Battle of -Cooldrevna where Columcille prayed against the High-king's arms, and -Finian prayed for them; or as in the well-known case of the expulsion -of poor old St. Mochuda[12] and his monks in 631 from the monastery -at Rathain, where his piety and success had aroused the jealousy of -the clerics of the Ui Neill, who ejected him by force, despite his -malediction. It was then he returned to his own province and founded -Lismore, which soon became famous.[13] - -Led away by our admiration of the magnificent outburst of learning and -the innumerable examples of undoubted devotion displayed by Irishmen -from the sixth to the ninth century, we are very liable to overlook -the actual state of society, and to read into a still primitive social -constitution the thoughts and ideas of later ages, forgetting the real -spirit of those early times. We must remember that St. Patrick had -made no change in the social constitution of the people, and that the -new religion in no way affected their external institutions, and as a -natural consequence even saints and clerics took the side of their own -kings and people, and fought in battle with as much gusto as any of the -clansmen. Women fought side by side with men, and were only exempted -from military service in 590, through the influence of Columcille at -the synod of Druimceat--of which synod more hereafter, and Adamnan -had to get the law renewed over a hundred years later, for it had -become inoperative. The monks were of course as liable as any other of -the tribesmen to perform military duty to their lords, and were only -exempted[14] from it in the year 804. The clergy fought with Cormac mac -Culenain as late as 908 at the battle where he fell, and a great number -of them were killed.[15] The clergy often quarrelled among themselves -also. In 673 the monks of Clonmacnois and Durrow fought one another, -and the men of Clonmacnois slew two hundred of their opponents. In -816 four hundred men were slain in a fight between rival monasteries. -The clan system, in fact, applied down to the eighth or ninth century -almost as much to the clergy as to the laity, and with the abandonment -of Tara and the weakening of the High-kingship, the only power which -bid fair to override feud and faction was got rid of, and every man -drank for himself the intoxicating draught of irresponsibility, and -each princeling became a Cæsar in his own community. - -The saints with their long-accredited exercises of semi-miraculous -powers, formed an admirable ingredient wherewith to spice a historic -romance, such as the soul of the Irish story-tellers loved, and they -were not slow to avail themselves of it. - -A passage in the celebrated history of the Boru tribute, preserved in -the twelfth-century Book of Leinster, turns both Columcille and his -biographer Adamnan to account in this way, by introducing dialogues -between them and their contemporary kings of Ireland, which are -worth giving here, as they preserve some primitive traits, but more -especially as an example of how the later medievalists conceived their -own early saints. Aedh [Ae], the High-king of Ireland, had asked -Columcille how many kings of all whom he himself had come in contact -with, or had cognisance of, would win, or had won, to heaven; and -Columcille answered: - - "'Certainly I know of only three, Daimín King of Oriel, and Ailill - King of Connacht, and Feradach of Corkalee, King of Ossory.' - - "'And what good did they do,' said Aedh, 'beyond all other kings?' - - "'That's easy told,' said Columcille, 'as for Daimín no cleric ever - departed from him having met with a refusal, and he never reviled a - cleric, nor spoiled church nor sanctuary, and greatly did he bestow - upon the Lord. Afterwards he went to heaven, on account of his mild - dealing with the Lord's people; and the clerics still chant his litany. - - "'As for Ailill, moreover, this is how he found the Lord's clemency; - he fought the battle of Cúl Conairé with the Clan Fiacrach, and they - defeated him in that battle, and he said to his charioteer, "Look - behind for us, and see whether the slaying is great, and are the - slayers near us?" - - "'The charioteer looked behind him, and 'twas what he said: - - "'"The slaying with which your people are slain," said he, "is - unendurable." - - "'"It is not their own guilt that falls on them, but the guilt of my - pride and my untruthfulness," said he; "and turn the chariot for us - against [the enemy]," said he, "for if I be slain amidst them (?) it - will be the saving of a multitude.' - - "'Thereupon the chariot was turned round against the enemy, and - thereafter did Ailill earnestly repent, and fell by his enemies. So - that man got the Lord's clemency,' said Columcille. - - "'As for Feradach,[16] the King of Ossory, moreover, he was a covetous - man without a conscience, and if he were to hear that a man in his - territory had only one scruple of gold or silver, he would take it to - himself by force, and put it in the covers of goblets and crannogues - and swords and chessmen. Thereafter there came upon him an unendurable - sickness. They collect round him all his treasures, so that he had - them in his bed. His enemies came, the Clan Connla, after that, to - seize the house on him. His sons, too, came to him to carry away the - jewels with them [to save them for him]. - - "'"Do not take them away, my sons," said he, "for I harried many for - those treasures, and I desire to harry myself on this side the tomb - for them, and that my enemies may bring them away of my good will, so - that the Deity may not harry me on the other side." - - "'After that his sons departed from him, and he himself made earnest - repentance, and died at the hands of his enemies, and gains the - clemency of the Lord.' - - "'Now as for me myself,' said Aedh, 'shall I gain the Lord's clemency?' - - "'Thou shalt not gain it on any account,' said Columcille. - - "'Well, then, cleric,' said he, 'procure for me from the Deity that - the Leinster men [at least] may not overthrow me.' - - "'Well, now, that is difficult for me,' said Columcille, 'for my - mother was one of them, and the Leinstermen came to me to Durrow,[17] - and made as though they would fast upon me, till I should grant them a - sister's son's request, and what they asked of me was that no outside - king should ever overthrow them; and I promised them that too, but - here is my cowl for thee, and thou shalt not be slain while it is - about thee.'" - -Less clement is Adamnan depicted in his interview, over a century -later, with King Finnachta, who had just been persuaded by St. -Molling[18] to remit the Boru tribute (then leviable off Leinster), -until _luan_, by which the King unwarily understood Monday, but the -more acute saint Doomsday, the word having both significations. Adamnan -saw through the deception in a moment, and hastened to interrupt the -plans of his brother saint. - - "He sought therefore," says the Book of Leinster, "the place where - [king] Finnachta was, and sent a clerk of his familia to summon him to - a conference. Finnachta, at the instant, busied himself with a game of - chess, and the cleric said, 'Come, speak with Adamnan.' - - "'I will not,' he answered, 'until this game be ended.' - - "The ecclesiastic returned to Adamnan and retailed him this answer. - Then the saint said, 'Go and tell him that in the interval I shall - chant fifty psalms, in which fifty is a single psalm that will deprive - his children and grandchildren, and even any namesake of his, for ever - of the kingdom.'[19] - - "Again the clerk accosted Finnachta and told him this, but until his - game was played the King never noticed him at all. - - "'Come, speak with Adamnan,' repeated the clerk, 'and----' - - "'I will not,' answered Finnachta, 'till this [fresh] game, too, shall - be finished,' all which the cleric rendered to Adamnan, who said: - - "'A second time begone to him, tell him that I will sing other fifty - psalms, in which fifty is one that will confer on him shortness of - life.' - - "This, too, the clerk, when he was come back, proclaimed to Finnachta, - but till the game was done, he never even perceived the messenger, who - for the third time reiterated his speech. - - "'Till this new game be played out I will not go,' said the King, and - the cleric carried it to Adamnan. - - "'Go to him,' the holy man said, 'tell him that in the meantime I will - sing fifty psalms, and among them is one that will deprive him of - attaining the Lord's peace.' - - "This the clerk imparted to Finnachta, who, when he heard it, with - speed and energy put from him the chess-board, and hastened to where - Adamnan was. - - "'Finnachta,' quoth the saint, 'what is thy reason for coming now, - whereas at the first summons thou earnest not?' - - "'Soon said,' replied Finnachta. 'As for that which first thou didst - threaten against me; that of my children, or even of my namesakes, - not an individual ever should rule Ireland--I took it easily. The - other matter which thou heldest out to me--shortness of life--that - I esteemed but lightly, for Molling had promised me heaven. But the - third thing which thou threatenedst me--to deprive me of the Lord's - peace--that I endured not to hear without coming in obedience to thy - voice.' - - "Now the motive for which God wrought this was: that the gift which - Molling had promised to the King for remission of the tribute He - suffered not Adamnan to dock him of." - -It would be easy to multiply such scenes from the writings of the -ancient Irish. That they are not altogether eleventh or twelfth-century -inventions, but either the embodiment of a vivid tradition, or else, -in some cases, the working-up of earlier documents, now lost, is, I -think, certain, but we possess no criterion whereby we may winnow out -the grains of truth from the chaff of myth, invention, or perhaps in -some cases (where tribal honour is at stake) deliberate falsehood. -The only thing we can say with perfect certainty is that this is the -way in which the contemporaries of St. Lawrence O'Toole pictured for -themselves the contemporaries of St. Columcille and St. Adamnan. - -[1] The silence of Keating seems to me particularly strange, for he -devotes a good deal of space to King Diarmuid's reign, yet he must have -been perfectly well aware of the stories then current and the many -allusions in vellum MSS. to the cursing of Tara. - -[2] "Féis dedheanach Teamhra do deanamh la Diarmaitt righ Ereann." -Tighearnach calls it "Cena postrema." - -[3] Printed for the Royal Society of Antiquaries by the late Denis -Murphy, S.J., Dublin, 1896. _See_ p. 85. - -[4] H., 1. 15. - -[5] Pp. 53-57. - -[6] He is called Aedh Baclamh here, "Bacc Lonim" in the "Life." Baclamh -apparently indicates some office. I have here called him only the -spear-bearer. - -[7] _See_ above, p. 196. - -[8] "A niurt a fhlatha ocus a fhírinne." - -[9] There is a poem ascribed to Ruadhan in the MS. marked H. 4. in -Trinity College. O'Clery's Féilire na Naomh has a curious note on -Ruadhan which runs thus: Ruadhan of Lothra, "he was of the race of -Owen Mór, son of Oilioll Olum. A very old ancient book (sein leabhar -ró aosta) as we have mentioned at Brigit, 1st of February, states that -Ruadhan of Lothra was in manners and life like Matthew the Apostle." - -[10] After this the High-kings of Ireland belonging to the northern Ui -Neill resided in their own ancient palace of Aileach near Derry, and -the High-kings of the southern Ui Neill families resided at the Rath -near Castlepollard, or at Dún-na-sgiath ("the Fortress of the Shields") -on the brink of Loch Ennell, near Mullingar. Brian Boru resided at -Kincora in Clare. - -[11] See O'Donovan's letter from Navan on Brugh na Bóinne. - -[12] Also called Carthach. - -[13] See above, p. 211. - -[14] By Fothadh called "na Canóine" who persuaded Aedh Oirnide to -release them from this duty. - -[15] _See_ "Fragments of Irish Annals" by O'Donovan, p. 210, and his -note. - -[16] This story is also told in the "Three Fragments of Irish Annals," -p. 9. - -[17] _See_ above, p. 170. - -[18] For Molling, _see_ above, p. 209-10. The following translation is -by Standish Hayes O'Grady, "Silva Gadelica," p. 422. - -[19] For a description of the awful consequences of a saint's curse -that make a timid lunatic out of a valliant warrior see O'Donovan's -fragmentary "Annals," p. 233. - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - -THE BARDIC SCHOOLS - - -We must now, leaving verifiable history behind us, attempt a cautious -step backwards from the known into the doubtful, and see what in the -way of literature _is said_ to have been produced by the pagans. -We know that side by side with the colleges of the clergy there -flourished, perhaps in a more informal way, the purely Irish schools -of the Brehons and the Bards. Unhappily however, while, thanks to the -great number of the Lives of the Saints,[1] we know much about the -Christian colleges, there is very little to be discovered about the -bardic institutions. These were almost certainly a continuation of -the schools of the druids, and represented something far more antique -than even the very earliest schools of the Christians, but unlike -them they were not centred in a fixed locality nor in a cluster of -houses, but seem to have been peripatetic. The bardic scholars grouped -themselves not round a locality but round a personality, and wherever -it pleased their master to wander--and that was pretty much all round -Ireland--there they followed, and the people seem to have willingly -supported them. - -There seems to be some confusion as to the forms into which what must -have been originally the druidic school disintegrated itself in the -fifth and succeeding centuries, but from it we can see emerging the -poet, the Brehon, and the historian, not all at once, but gradually. -In the earliest period the functions of all three were often, if not -always, united in one single person, and all poets were _ipso facto_ -judges as well. We have a distinct account of the great occasion upon -which the poet lost his privilege of acting as a judge merely because -he was a poet. It appears that from the very earliest date the learned -classes, especially the "fĭlès," had evolved a dialect of their own, -which was perfectly dark and obscure to every one except themselves. -This was the Béarla Féni, in which so much of the Brehon law and many -poems are written, and which continued to be used, to some extent, -by poets down to the very beginning of the eighteenth century. Owing -to their predilection for this dialect, the first blow, according to -Irish accounts, was struck at their judicial supremacy by the hands of -laymen, during the reign of Conor mac Nessa, some time before the birth -of Christ. This was the occasion when the sages Fercertné and Neidé -contended for the office of arch-ollav of Erin, with its beautiful robe -of feathers, the Tugen.[2] Their discourse, still extant in at least -three MSS. under the title of the "Dialogue of the Two Sages,"[3] was -so learned, and they contended with one another in terms so abstruse -that, as the chronicler in the Book of Ballymote puts it:-- - - "Obscure to every one seemed the speech which the poets uttered in - that discussion, and the legal decision which they delivered was not - clear to the kings and to the other poets. - - "'These men alone,' said the kings, 'have their judgment and their - skill, and their knowledge. In the first place we do not understand - what they say.' - - "'Well, then,' said Conor, 'every one shall have his share therein - from to-day for ever.'"[4] - -This was the occasion upon which Conor made the law that the office of -poet should no longer carry with it, of necessity, the office of judge, -for, says the ancient writer, "poets alone had judicature from the time -that Amairgin Whiteknee delivered the first judgment in Erin" until -then. - -That the Bardic schools, which we know flourished as public -institutions with scarcely a break from the Synod of Drumceat in 590 -(where regular lands were set apart for their endowment) down to the -seventeenth century, were really a continuation of the Druidic schools, -and embodied much that was purely pagan in their curricula, is, I -think, amply shown by the curious fragments of metrical text-books -preserved in the Books of Leinster and Ballymote, in a MS. in Trinity -College, and in a MS. in the Bodleian, all four of which have been -recently admirably edited by Thurneysen as a continuous text.[5] He -has not however ventured upon a translation, for the scholar would be -indeed a bold one who in the present state of Celtic scholarship would -attempt a complete interpretation of tracts so antique and difficult. -That they date, partially at least, from pre-Christian times seems -to me certain from their prescribing amongst other things for the -poet's course in one of his years of study a knowledge of the magical -incantations called _Tenmlaida, Imbas forosnai,_[6] and _Dichetal do -chennaib na tuaithe_, and making him in another year learn a certain -poem or incantation called _Cétnad_, of which the text says that-- - - "It is used for finding out a theft. One sings it, that is to say, - through the right fist on the track of the stolen beast" [observe - the antique assumption that the only kind of wealth to be stolen is - cattle] "or on the track of the thief, in case the beast is dead. And - one sings it three times on the one [track] or the other. If, however, - one does not find the track, one sings it through the right fist, and - goes to sleep upon it, and in one's sleep the man who has brought it - away is clearly shown and made known. Another virtue [of this lay]: - one speaks it into the right palm and rubs with it the quarters of the - horse before one mounts it, and the horse will not be overthrown, and - the man will not be thrown off or wounded." - -Another _Cétnad_ to be learned by the poet, in which he desires length -of life, is addressed to "the seven daughters of the sea, who shape the -thread of the long-lived children." - -Another with which he had to make himself familiar was the _Glam -dichinn_,[7] intended to satirise and punish the prince who refused to -a poet the reward of his poem. The poet-- - - "was to fast upon the lands of the king for whom the poem was to be - made, and the consent of thirty laymen, thirty bishops"--a Christian - touch to make the passage pass muster--"and thirty poets should be had - to compose the satire; _and it was a crime to them to prevent it when - the reward of the poem was withheld_"--a pagan touch as a make-weight - on the other side! "The poet then, in a company of seven, that is, six - others and himself, upon whom six poetic degrees had been conferred, - namely a _focloc, macfuirmedh, doss, cana, clí, anradh,_ and _ollamh_, - went at the rising of the sun to a hill which should be situated on - the boundary of seven lands, and each of them was to turn his face to - a different land, and the _ollamh's_ (ollav's) face was to be turned - to the land of the king, who was to be satirised, and their backs - should be turned to a hawthorn which should be growing upon the top - of a hill, and the wind should be blowing from the north, and each - man was to hold a perforated stone and a thorn of the hawthorn in his - hand, and each man was to sing a verse of this composition for the - king--the _ollamh_ or chief poet to take the lead with his own verse, - and the others in concert after him with theirs; and each then should - place his stone and his thorn under the stem of the hawthorn, and if - it was they that were in the wrong in the case, the ground of the hill - would swallow them, and if it was the king that was in the wrong, the - ground would swallow him and his wife, and his son and his steed, and - his robes and his hound. The satire of the _macfuirmedh_ fell on the - hound, the satire of the _focloc_ on the robes, the satire of the - _doss_ on the arms, the satire of the _cana_ on the wife, the satire - of the _clí_ on the son, the satire of the _anrad_ on the steed,[8] - the satire of the _ollamh_ on the king." - -These instances that I have mentioned occurring in the books of the -poets' instruction, are evidently remains of magic incantations and -terrifying magic ceremonies, taken over from the schools and times -of the druids, and carried on into the Christian era, for nobody, I -imagine, could contend that they had their origin after Ireland had -been Christianised.[9] And the occurrence in the poets' text-books of -such evidently pagan passages, side by side with allusions to Athairné -the poet--a contemporary of Conor mac Nessa, a little before the birth -of Christ, Caoilte, the Fenian poet of the third century, Cormac -his contemporary, _Laidcend mac Bairchida_ about the year 400, and -others--seems to me to be fresh proof for the real objective existence -of these characters. For if part of the poets' text-books can be thus -shown to have preserved things taught in the pre-Christian times--to be -in fact actually pre-Christian--why should we doubt the reality of the -pre-Christian persons mixed up with them? - -The first poem written in Ireland by a Milesian is said to be the -curious rhapsody of Amergin the brother of Eber, Ir, and Erimon, who on -landing broke out in a strain of exultation:-- - - "I am the wind which breathes upon the sea, - I am the wave of the ocean, - I am the murmur of the billows, - I am the ox of the seven combats, - I am the vulture upon the rock, - I am a beam of the sun, - I am the fairest of plants, - I am a wild boar in valour, - I am a salmon in the water, - I am a lake in the plain, - I am a word of science, - I am the point of the lance of battle, - I am the god who creates in the head [_i.e._, of man] the fire - [_i.e._, the thought] - Who is it who throws light into the meeting on the mountain? - Who announces the ages of the moon [if not I]? - Who teaches the place where couches the sea [if not I]?"[10] - -There are two more poems attributed to Amergin of much the same nature, -very ancient and very strange. Irish tradition has always represented -these poems as the first made by our ancestors in Ireland, and no doubt -they do actually represent the oldest surviving lines in the vernacular -of any country in Europe except Greece alone. - -The other pre-Christian poets[11] of whom we hear most, and to whom -certain surviving fragments are ascribed, are Feirceirtné, surnamed -_filé_, or the poet, who is usually credited with the authorship of -the well-known grammatical treatise called _Uraicept na n-Éigeas_ or -"Primer of the Learned."[12] It was he who contended with Neidé for -the arch-poet's robe, causing King Conor to decide that no poet should -in future be also of necessity a judge. The Uraicept begins with this -preface or introduction: "The Book of Feirceirtné here. Its place -Emania; its time the time of Conor mac Nessa; its person Feirceirtné -the poet; its cause to bring ignorant people to knowledge." There -is also a poem attributed to him on the death of Curoi mac Daire, -the great southern chieftain, whom Cuchulain slew, and the Book of -Invasions contains a valuable poem ascribed to him, recounting how -Ollamh Fódla, a monarch who is said to have flourished many centuries -before, established a college of professors at Tara. - -There was a poet called Adhna, the father of that Neidé with whom -Feirceirtné contended for the poet's robe, who also lived at the court -of Conor mac Nessa, and his name is mentioned in connection with some -fragments of laws. - -Athairné, the overbearing insolent satirist from the Hill of Howth, -who figures largely in Irish romance, was contemporaneous with these, -though I do not know that any poem is attributed to him. But he and -a poet called Forchern, with Feirceirtné and Neidé, are said to have -compiled a code of laws, now embodied with others under the title of -_Breithe Neimhidh_ in the Brehon Law Books. - -There was a poet Lughar at the Court of Oilioll and Mève in Connacht -about the same time, and a poem on the descendants of Fergus mac Róigh -[Roy] is ascribed to him, but as he was contemporaneous with that -warrior he could not have written about his descendants. - -There is a prose tract called Moran's Will,[13] ascribed to Moran, a -well-known jurist who lived at the close of the first century. - -Several other authors, either of short poems or law fragments, are -mentioned in the second and third centuries, such as Feradach king of -Ireland, Modan, Ciothruadh the poet, Fingin, Oilioll Olum himself, -the great king of Munster, to whom are traced so many of the southern -families. Fithil, a judge, and perhaps some others, none of whom need -be particularised. - -At the end of the third century we come upon three or four names of -vast repute in Irish history, into whose mouths a quantity of pieces -are put, most of which are evidently of later date. These are the great -Cormac mac Art himself, the most striking king that ever reigned in -pagan Ireland, he who built those palaces on Tara Hill whose ruins -still remain; Finn mac Cúmhail his son-in-law and captain; Ossian, -Finn's son; Fergus, Ossian's brother; and Caoilte [Cweeltya] mac Ronáin. - -The poetry ascribed to Finn mac Cúmhail, Ossian, and the other Fenian -singers we will not examine in this place, but we must not pass by one -of the most remarkable prose tracts of ancient Ireland with which I am -acquainted, the famous treatise ascribed to King Cormac, and well known -in Irish literature as the "Teagasg ríogh," or Instruction of a Prince, -which is written in a curious style, by way of question and answer. -Cairbré, Cormac's son, he who afterwards fell out with and overthrew -the Fenians, is supposed to be learning kingly wisdom at his father's -feet, and that experienced monarch instructs him in the pagan morality -of the time, and gives him all kinds of information and advice. The -piece, which is heavily glossed in the Book of Ballymote, on account -of the antiquity of the language, is of some length, and is far too -interesting to pass by without quoting from it. - - THE INSTRUCTION OF A PRINCE. - - "'O grandson of Con, O Cormac,' said Cairbré, 'what is good for a - king.'[14] - - "'That is plain,' said Cormac, 'it is good for him to have patience - and not to dispute, self-government without anger, affability without - haughtiness, diligent attention to history, strict observance of - covenants and agreements, strictness mitigated by mercy in the - execution of laws.... It is good for him [to make] fertile land, - to invite ships to import jewels of price across sea, to purchase - and bestow raiment, [to keep] vigorous swordsmen for protecting his - territories, [to make] war outside his own territories, to attend the - sick, to discipline his soldiers ... let him enforce fear, let him - perfect peace, [let him] give much of metheglin and wine, let him - pronounce just judgments of light, let him speak all truth, for it is - through the truth of a king that God gives favourable seasons.' - - "'O grandson of Con, O Cormac,' said Cairbré, 'what is good for the - welfare of a country?' - - "'That is plain,' said Cormac, 'frequent convocations of sapient and - good men to investigate its affairs, to abolish each evil and retain - each wholesome institution, to attend to the precepts of the elders; - let every assembly be convened according to law, let the law be in the - hands of the nobles, let the chieftains be upright and unwilling to - oppress the poor,'" etc., etc. - -A more interesting passage is the following:-- - - "'O grandson of Con, O Cormac, what are the duties of a prince at a - banqueting-house?' - - "'A Prince on Samhan's [now All Souls] Day, should light his lamps, - and welcome his guests with clapping of hands, procure comfortable - seats, the cupbearers should be respectable and active in the - distribution of meat and drink. Let there be moderation of music, - short stories, a welcoming countenance, a welcome for the learned, - pleasant conversations, and the like, these are the duties of the - prince, and the arrangement of the banqueting-house.'" - -After this Cairbré puts an important question which was asked often -enough during the period of the Brehon law, and which for over a -thousand years scarce ever received a different answer. He asks, "For -what qualifications is a king elected over countries and tribes of -people?" - -Cormac in his answer embodies the views of every clan in Ireland in -their practical choice of a leader. - -"From the goodness of his shape and family, from his experience and -wisdom, from his prudence and magnanimity, from his eloquence and -bravery in battle, and from the number of his friends." - -After this follows a long description of the qualifications of a -prince, and Cairbré having heard it puts this question:--"O grandson of -Con, what was _thy_ deportment when a youth;" to which he receives the -following striking answer: - - "'I was cheerful at the Banquet of the Midh-chuarta [Mee-cuarta, - "house of the circulation of mead"], fierce in battle, but vigilant - and circumspect. I was kind to friends, a physician to the sick, - merciful towards the weak, stern towards the headstrong. Although - possessed of knowledge, I was inclined towards taciturnity.[15] - Although strong I was not haughty. I mocked not the old although I was - young. I was not vain although I was valiant. When I spoke of a person - in his absence I praised, not defamed him, for it is by these customs - that we are known to be courteous and civilised (_riaghalach_).'" - -There is an extremely beautiful answer given later on by Cormac to the -rather simple question of his son: - - "'O grandson of Con, what is good for me?' - - "'If thou attend to my command,' answers Cormac, 'thou wilt not - mock the old although thou art young, nor the poor although thou - art well-clad, nor the lame although thou art agile, nor the blind - although thou art clear-sighted, nor the feeble although thou art - strong, nor the ignorant although thou art learned. Be not slothful, - nor passionate, nor penurious, nor idle, nor jealous, for he who is so - is an object of hatred to God as well as to man.'" - - "'O grandson of Con,' asks Cairbré, in another place, 'I would fain - know how I am to conduct myself among the wise and among the foolish, - among friends and among strangers, among the old and among the young,' - and to this question his father gives this notable response. - - "'Be not too knowing nor too simple; be not proud, be not inactive, - be not too humble nor yet haughty; be not talkative but be not too - silent; be not timid neither be severe. For if thou shouldest appear - too knowing thou wouldst be satirised and abused; if too simple thou - wouldst be imposed upon; if too proud thou wouldst be shunned; if too - humble thy dignity would suffer; if talkative thou wouldst not be - deemed learned; if too severe thy character would be defamed; if too - timid thy rights would be encroached upon.'" - -To the curious question, "O grandson of Con, what are the most lasting -things in the world?" the equally curious and to me unintelligible -answer is returned, "Grass, copper, and yew." - -Of women, King Cormac, like so many monarchs from Solomon down, has -nothing good to say, perhaps his high position did not help him to -judge them impartially. At least, to the question, "O grandson of Con, -how shall I distinguish the characters of women?" the following bitter -answer is given: - - "'I know them, but I cannot describe them. Their counsel is foolish, - they are forgetful of love, most headstrong in their desires, fond - of folly, prone to enter rashly into engagements, given to swearing, - proud to be asked in marriage, tenacious of enmity, cheerless at - the banquet, rejectors of reconciliation, prone to strife, of much - garrulity. Until evil be good, until hell be heaven, until the sun - hide his light, until the stars of heaven fall, women will remain as - we have stated. Woe to him, my son, who desires or serves a bad woman, - woe to every one who has got a bad wife'"! - -This Christian allusion to heaven and hell, and some others of the same -sort, show that despite a considerable pagan flavouring the tract -cannot be entirely the work of King Cormac, though it may very well be -the embodiment and extension of an ancient pagan discourse, for, as we -have seen, after Christianity had succeeded in getting the upper hand -over paganism, a kind of tacit compromise was arrived at, by means of -which the bards and _fĭlès_ and other representatives of the old pagan -learning, were allowed to continue to propagate their stories, tales, -poems, and genealogies, at the price of incorporating with them a small -share of Christian alloy, or, to use a different simile, just as the -vessels of some feudatory nations are compelled to fly at the mast-head -the flag of the suzerain power. But so badly has the dovetailing of -the Christian and the pagan parts been managed in most of the older -romances, that the pieces come away quite separate in the hands of -even the least skilled analyser, and the pagan substratum stands forth -entirely distinct from the Christian accretion. - -[1] O'Clery notices, in his Féilĭrè na Naomh, the lives of thirty-one -saints written in Irish, all extant in his time, not to speak of Latin -ones. I fancy most of them still survive. Stokes printed nine from the -Book of Lismore; Standish Hayes O'Grady four more from various sources. - -[2] _See_ Cormac's glossary _sub voce._ - -[3] _See_ "Irische Texte," Dritte Serie, 1 Heft, pp. 187 and 204. - -[4] Agallamh an da Suadh. - -[5] "Irische Texte," Dritte serie, Heft i. - -[6] _See_ above, p. 84. - -[7] See O'Curry's "Manners and Customs," vol. ii. p. 217, and "Irische -Texte," Dritte serie, Heft. i. pp. 96 and 125. - -[8] It is curious to thus make the steed rank apparently next to the -king himself, and above the wife and son, for the _anrad_ who curses -the steed ranks next to the _ollamh._ - -[9] Thurneysen expresses some doubt about the antiquity of the last -citation. - -[10] See Text 1. paragraph 123 of Thurneysen's "Mittelirische -Verslehren" for three versions of this curious poem, printed side -by side from the Books of Leinster and Ballymote, and a MS. in the -Bodleian. The old Irish tract for the instruction of poets gives it -as an example of what it calls _Cetal do chendaib_. I have followed -D'Arbois de Jubainville's interpretation of it. He sees in it a -pantheistic spirit, but Dr. Sigerson has proved, I think quite -conclusively, that it is liable to a different interpretation, a -panegyric upon the bard's own prowess, couched in enigmatic metaphor. -(_See_ "Bards of the Gael and Gaul," p. 379.) - -[11] A number of names are mentioned--chiefly in connection with law -fragments--of kings and poets who lived centuries before the birth -of Christ, including an elegy by Lughaidh, son of Ith (from whom the -Ithians sprang), on his wife's death, Cimbaeth the founder of Emania, -before whose reign Tighearnach the Annalist considered _omnia monumenta -Scotorum_ to be _incerta_, Roigne, the son of Hugony the Great, who -lived nearly three hundred years before Christ, and some others. - -[12] The "Uraicept" or "Uraiceacht" is sometimes ascribed to Forchern. -It gives examples of the declensions of nouns and adjectives in Irish, -distinguishing feminine nouns from masculine, etc. It gives rules of -syntax, and exemplifies the declensions by quotations from ancient -poets. A critical edition of it from the surviving manuscripts that -contain it in whole or part is a _desideratum._ - -[13] Udacht Morain, H. 2, 7, T. C, D. - -[14] In the original in the Book of Ballymote: "A ua Cuinn a Cormaic, -ol coirbre cia is deach [_i.e._, maith], do Ri. Nin ol cormac [_i.e._, -Ni doiligh liom sin]. As deach [_i.e._, maith], do eimh ainmne [_i.e._, -foighde] gan deabha [_i.e._, imreasoin] uallcadi fosdadh [_i.e._, -foasdadh] gan fearg. Soagallamha gan mordhacht," etc. The glosses in -brackets are written _above_ the words. - -[15] Compare Henry IV.'s advice to his son, not to make himself too -familiar but rather to stand aloof from his companions. - - "Had I so lavish of my presence been, - So common-hackneyed in the eyes of men, - So stale and cheap to vulgar company-- - Opinion, that did help me to the crown, - Had still kept loyal to possession," etc. - -As for Richard his predecessor-- - - "The skipping king, he ambled up and down - With shallow jesters and rash bavin wits, - Soon kindled, and soon burned; carded his state; - Mingled his royalty with capering fools,' etc." - "Henry IV.," Part I., act iii., scene 2. - - - - -CHAPTER XX - -THE SUGGESTIVELY PAGAN ELEMENT IN IRISH LITERATURE - - -It is this easy analysis of early Irish literature into its -ante-Christian and its post-Christian elements, which lends to it its -absorbing value and interest. For when all spurious accretions have -been stripped off, we find in the most ancient Irish poems and sagas, -a genuine picture of pagan life in Europe, such as we look for in vain -elsewhere. - - "The Church," writes Windisch, "adopted towards pagan sagas, the same - position that it adopted towards pagan law.... I see no sufficient - ground for doubting that really genuine pictures of a pre-Christian - culture are preserved to us in the individual sagas, pictures which - are of course in some places faded, and in others painted over by a - later hand."[1] - -Again in his notes on the story of Déirdre, he remarks-- - - "The saga originated in pagan, and was propagated in Christian - times, and that too without its seeking fresh nutriment as a rule - from Christian elements. But we must ascribe it to the influence of - Christianity that what is specifically pagan in Irish saga is blurred - over and forced into the background. And yet there exist many whose - contents are plainly mythological. The Christian monks were certainly - _not the first_ who reduced the ancient sagas to fixed form, but later - on they copied them faithfully, and propagated them after Ireland had - been converted to Christianity." - -Zimmer too has come to the same conclusion. - - "Nothing," he writes, "except a spurious criticism which takes - for original and primitive the most palpable nonsense of which - Middle-Irish writers from the twelfth to the sixteenth century are - guilty with regard to their own antiquity, which is in many respects - strange and foreign to them: nothing but such a criticism can, on the - other hand, make the attempt to doubt of the historical character - of the chief persons of the Saga cycles.[2] For we believe that - Mève, Conor mac Nessa, Cuchulain, and Finn mac Cúmhail, are exactly - as much historical personalities as Arminius, or Dietrich of Bern, - or Etzel, and their date is just as well determined as that of the - above-mentioned heroes and kings, who are glorified in song by the - Germans, even though, in the case of Irish heroes and kings, external - witnesses are wanting.'" - -M. d'Arbois de Jubainville expresses himself in like terms. "We have no -reason," he writes, "to doubt of the reality of the principal _rôle_ -in this [cycle of Cuchulain];"[3] and of the story of the Boru tribute -which was imposed on Leinster about a century later; he writes, "Le -récit a pour base des faits réels, quoique certains détails aient été -créés par l'imagination;" and again, "Irish epic story, barbarous -though it is, is, like Irish law, a monument of a civilisation far -superior to that of the most ancient Germans; if the Roman idea of the -state was wanting to that civilisation, and, if that defect in it was -a radical flaw, still there is an intellectual culture to be found -there, far more developed than amongst the primitive Germans.'"[4] - - "Ireland, in fact," writes M. Darmesteter in his "English Studies," - well summing up the legitimate conclusions from the works of the great - Celtic scholars, "has the peculiar privilege of a history continuous - from the earliest centuries of our era until the present day. She - has preserved in the infinite wealth of her literature a complete - and faithful picture of the ancient civilisation of the Celts. Irish - literature is therefore the key which opens the Celtic world." - -But the Celtic world means a large portion of Europe, and the key to -unlock the door of its past history is in the Irish manuscripts of saga -and poem. Without them the student would have to view the past history -of Europe through the distorting glasses of the Greeks and Romans, to -whom all outer nations were barbarians, into whose social life they had -no motive for inquiring. He would have no other means of estimating -what were the feelings, modes of life, manners, and habits, of those -great races who possessed so large a part of the ancient world, Gaul, -Belgium, North Italy, parts of Germany, Spain, Switzerland, and the -British Isles; who burned Rome, plundered Greece, and colonised Asia -Minor. But in the Irish romances and historical sagas, he sees come to -light another standard by which to measure. Through this early Irish -peep-hole he gets a clear look at the life and manners of the race in -one of its strongholds, from which he may conjecture and even assume a -good deal with regard to the others. - -That the pictures of social life and early society drawn in the Irish -romances represent phases not common to the Irish alone, but to large -portions of that Celtic race which once owned so much of Europe, may be -surmised with some certainty from the way in which characteristics of -the Celts barely mentioned by Greek and Roman writers re-appear amongst -the Irish in all the intimate detail and fond expansion of romance. M. -d'Arbois de Jubainville has drawn attention to many such instances. - -Posidonius, who was a friend of Cicero, and wrote about a hundred years -before Christ, mentions a custom which existed in Gaul in his time of -fighting at a feast for the best bit which was to be given to the most -valiant warrior. This custom, briefly noticed by Posidonius, might be -passed by unnoticed by the ordinary reader, but the Irish one will -remember the early romances of his race in which the _curadh-mir_ or -"heroes' bit" so largely figures. He will remember that it is upon this -custom that one of the greatest sagas of the Cuchulain cycle, the feast -of Bricriu, hinges. Bricriu, the Thersites of the Red Branch, having -built a new and magnificent house, determines to invite King Conor and -the other chieftains to a feast, for the house was very magnificent. - - "The dining hall was built like that of the High-king at Tara. From - the hearth to the wall were nine beds, and each of the side walls - was thirty-five feet high and covered with ornaments of gilt bronze. - Against one of the side walls of that palace was reared a royal bed - destined for Conor,[5] king of Ulster, which looked down upon all - the others. It was ornamented with carbuncles and precious stones - and other gems of great price. The gold and silver and all sorts of - jewellery which covered that bed shone with such splendour that the - night was as brilliant as the day." - -He had prepared a magnificent _curadh-mir_ for the feast, consisting -of a seven-year old pig, and a seven-year old cow that had been fed on -milk and corn and the finest food since their birth, a hundred cakes of -corn cooked with honey--and every four cakes took a sack of corn to -make them--and a vat of wine large enough to hold three of the warriors -of the Ultonians. This magnificent "heroes' bit" he secretly promises -to each of three warriors in turn, Laeghaire [Leary], Conall Cearnach, -and Cuchulain, hoping to excite a quarrel among them. On the result of -his expedient the saga turns.[6] - -Again, Cæsar tells us that when he invaded the Gauls they did not -fight any longer in chariots, but it is recorded that they did so -fight two hundred years before his time, even as the Persians fought -against the Greeks, and as the Greeks themselves must have fought in -a still earlier age commemorated by Homer. But in the Irish sagas we -find this epic mode of warfare in full force. Every great man has his -charioteer, they fight from their cars as in Homeric days, and much -is told us of both steed, chariot and driver. In the above-mentioned -saga of Bricriu's feast it is the charioteers of the three warriors -who claim the heroes' bit for their masters, since they are apparently -ashamed to make the first move themselves. The charioteer was more than -a mere servant. Cuchulain sometimes calls his charioteer friend or -master (popa), and on the occasion of his fight with Ferdiad desires -him in case he (Cuchulain) should show signs of yielding, to "excite -reproach and speak evil to me so that the ire of my rage and anger -should grow the more on me, but if he give ground before me thou shalt -laud me and praise me and speak good words to me that my courage may -be the greater," and this command his friend and charioteer punctually -executes. - -The chariot itself is in many places graphically described. Here is -how its approach is pourtrayed in the Táin-- - - "It was not long," says the chronicler, "until Ferdiad's charioteer - heard the noise approaching, the clamour and the rattle, and the - whistling, and the tramp, and the thunder, and the clatter and the - roar, namely the shield-noise of the light shields, and the hissing - of the spears, and the loud clangour of the swords, and the tinkling - of the helmet, and the ringing of the armour, and the friction of - the arms; the dangling of the missive weapons, the straining of the - ropes, and the loud clattering of the wheels, and the creaking of the - chariot, and the trampling of the horses, and the triumphant advance - of the champion and the warrior towards the ford approaching him." - -In the romance called the "Intoxication of the Ultonians," it is -mentioned that they drave so fast in the wake of Cuchulain, that "the -iron wheels of the chariots cut the roots of the immense trees." -Here is how the romancist describes the advance of such a body upon -Tara-Luachra. - - "Not long were they there, the two watchers and the two druids, until - a full fierce rush of the first band broke hither past the glen. - Such was the fury with which they advanced that there was not left a - spear on a rack, nor a shield on a spike, nor a sword in an armoury - in Tara-Luachra that did not fall down. From every house on which was - thatch in Tara-Luachra it fell in immense flakes. One would think that - it was the sea that had come over the walls and over the corners of - the world upon them. The forms of countenances were changed, and there - was chattering of teeth in Tara-Luachra within. The two druids fell in - fits and in faintings and in paroxysms, one of them out over the wall - and the other over the wall inside." - -On another occasion the approach of Cuchulain's chariot is thus -described-- - - "Like a mering were the two dykes which the iron wheels of Cuchulain's - chariot made on that day of the sides of the road. Like flocks of - dark birds pouring over a vast plain were the blocks and round sods - and turves of the earth which the horses would cast away behind them - against the ... of the wind. Like a flock of swans pouring over a vast - plain was the foam which they flung before them over the muzzles of - their bridles. Like the smoke from a royal hostel was the dust and - breath of the dense vapour, because of the vehemence of the driving - which Liag, son of Riangabhra, on that day gave to the two steeds of - Cuchulain."[7] - -Elsewhere the chariot itself is described as "wythe-wickered, two -bright bronze wheels, a white pole of bright silver with a veining -of white bronze, a very high creaking body, having its firm sloping -sides ornamented with _cred_ (tin?), a back-arched rich golden yoke, -two rich yellow-peaked _alls_, hardened sword-straight axle-spindles." -Laeghaire's chariot is described in another piece as "a chariot -wythe-wickered, two firm black wheels, two pliant beautiful reins, -hardened sword-straight axle-spindles, a new fresh-polished body, a -back-arched rich silver-mounted yoke, two rich-yellow peaked _alls_ ... -a bird plume of the usual feathers over the body of the chariot."[8] - -Descriptions like these are constantly occurring in the Irish tales, -and enable us to realise better the heroic period of warfare and -to fill up in our imagination many a long-regretted lacuna in our -knowledge of primitive Europe. - - "Those philosophers," says Diodorus Siculus, a Greek writer of the - Augustan age, speaking of the Druids, "like the lyric poets called - bards, have a great authority both in affairs of peace and war, - friends and enemies listen to them. Also when the two armies are in - presence of one another and swords drawn and spears couched, they - throw themselves into the midst of the combatants and appease them - as though they were charming wild beasts. Thus even amongst the most - savage barbarians anger submits to the rule of wisdom, and the god of - war pays homage to the Muses." - -To show that the manners and customs of the Keltoi or Celts of whom -Diodorus speaks were in this respect identical with those of their -Irish cousins (or brothers), and to give another instance of the warm -light shed by Irish literature upon the early customs of Western Europe -I shall convert the abstract into the concrete by a page or two from -an Irish romance, not an old one,[9] but one which no doubt preserves -many original traditionary traits. In this story Finn mac Cúmhail or -Cool[10] at a great feast in his fort at Allen asks Goll about some -tribute which he claimed, and is dissatisfied at the answer of Goll, -who may be called the Ajax of the Fenians. After that there arose a -quarrel at the feast, the rise of which is thus graphically pourtrayed-- - - "'Goll,' said Finn, 'you have acknowledged in that speech that you - came from the city of Beirbhé to the battle of Cnoca, and that you - slew my father there, and it is a bold and disobedient thing of you to - tell me that,' said Finn. - - "'By my hand, O Finn,' said Goll, 'if you were to dishonour me as your - father did, I would give you the same payment that I gave Cool.' - - "'Goll,' said Finn, 'I would be well able not to let that word pass - with you, for I have a hundred valiant warriors in my following for - every one that is in yours.' - - "'Your father had that also,' said Goll, 'and yet I avenged my - dishonour on him, and I would do the same to you if you were to - deserve it of me.' - - "White-skinned Carroll O Baoisgne[11] spake, and 't is what he said: - 'O Goll,' said he, 'there is many a man,' said he, 'to silence you and - your people in the household of Finn mac Cúmhail.' - - "Bald cursing Conan mac Morna spake, and 't is what he said, 'I swear - by my arms of valour,' said he, 'that Goll, the day he has least men, - has a man and a hundred in his household, and not a man of them but - would silence you.' - - "'Are you one of those, perverse, bald-headed Conan?' said Carroll. - - "'I am one of them, black-visaged, nail-torn, skin-scratched, - little-strength Carroll,' says Conan, 'and I would soon prove it to - you that Cúmhail was in the wrong.' - - "It was then that Carroll arose, and he struck a daring fist, quick - and ready, upon Conan, and there was no submission in Conan's answer, - for he struck the second fist on Carroll in the middle of his face and - his teeth." - -Upon this the chronicler relates how first one joined in and then -another, until at last all the adherents of Goll and Finn and even the -captains themselves are hard at work. "After that," he adds, "bad was -the place for a mild, smooth-fingered woman or a weak or infirm person, -or an aged, long-lived elder." This terrific fight continued "from the -beginning of the night till the rising of the sun in the morning," and -was only stopped--just as Diodorus says battles were stopped--by the -intervention of the bards. - - "It was then," says the romancist, "that the prophesying poet of the - pointed words, that guerdon-full good man of song, Fergus Finnbheóil, - rose up, and all the Fenians' men of science along with him, and they - sang their hymns and good poems, and their perfect lays to those - heroes to silence and to soften them. It was then they ceased from - their slaughtering and maiming, on hearing the music of the poets, - and they let their weapons fall to earth, and the poets took up their - weapons and they went between them, and grasped them with the grasp of - reconciliation." - -When the palace was cleared out it was found that 1,100 of Finn's -people had been killed between men and women, and eleven men and fifty -women of Goll's party. - -Cæsar speaks of the numbers who frequented the schools of the druids -in Gaul; "it is said," he adds, "that they learn there a great number -of verses, and that is why some of those pupils spend twenty years in -learning. It is not, according to the druids, permissible to entrust -verses to writing although they use the Greek alphabet in all other -affairs public and private." Of this prohibition to commit their verses -to paper, we have no trace, so far as I know, in our literature, -but the accounts of the early bardic schools entirely bear out the -description here given of them by Cæsar, and again shows the solidarity -of custom which seems to have existed between the various Celtic -tribes. According to our early manuscripts it took from nine to twelve -years for a student to take the highest degree at the bardic schools, -and in many cases where the pupil failed to master sufficiently the -subjects of the year, he had probably to spend two over it, so that -it is quite possible that some might spend twenty years over their -learning. And much of this learning was, as Cæsar notes, in verse. -Many earlier law tracts appear to have been so, and even many of the -earliest romances. There is a very interesting account extant called -the "Proceedings of the Great Bardic Association," which leads up to -the Epic of the Táin Bo Chuailgne, the greatest of the Irish romances, -according to which this great tale was at one time lost, and the great -Bardic Institution was commanded to hunt for and recover it. The fact -of it being said that the perfect tale was lost for ever "and that only -a fragmentary and broken form of it would go down to posterity" perhaps -indicates, as has been pointed out by Sullivan, "that the filling up -the gaps in the poem by prose narrative is meant." In point of fact -the tale, as we have it now, consists half of verse and half of prose. -Nor is this peculiar to the Táin. Most of the oldest and many of the -modern tales are composed in this way. In most cases the verse is of -a more archaic character and more difficult than the prose. In very -many an expanded prose narrative of several pages is followed by a more -condensed poem saying the same thing. So much did the Irish at last -come to look upon it as a matter of course that every romance should -be interspersed with poetry, that even writers of the seventeenth and -eighteenth centuries who consciously invented their stories as a modern -novelist invents his, have interspersed their pieces with passages, in -verse, as did Comyn in his Turlough mac Stairn, as did the author of -the Son of Ill-counsel, the author of the Parliament of Clan Lopus, -the author of the Women's Parliament, and others. We may take it, -then, that in the earliest days the romances were composed in verse -and learned by heart by the students--possibly before any alphabet -was known at all; afterwards when lacunæ occurred through defective -memory on the part of the reciter he filled up the gaps with prose. -Those who committed to paper our earliest tales wrote down as much of -the old poetry as they could recollect or had access to, and wrote the -connecting narrative in prose. Hence it soon came to pass that if a -story pretended to any antiquity it had to be interspersed with verses, -and at last it happened that the Irish taste became so confirmed to -this style of writing that authors adopted it, as I have said, even in -the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. - -In spite of the mythological and phantastic elements which are -undoubtedly mingled with the oldest sagas, - - "the manners and customs in which the men of the time lived and moved, - are depicted," writes Windisch,[12] "with a naïve realism which leaves - no room for doubt as to the former actuality of the scenes depicted. - In matter of costume and weapons, eating and drinking, building and - arrangement of the banqueting-hall, manners observed at the feast, - and much more, we find here the most valuable information." "I insist - upon it," he says in another place, "that Irish saga is the only - richly-flowing source of unbroken Celtism." - -All the remaining linguistic monuments of Breton, Cornish, and Welsh, -"would form," writes M. d'Arbois de Jubainville, - - "un ensemble bien incomplet et bien obscur sans la lumière que la - littérature irlandaise projette sur ces débris. C'est le vieil - irlandais qui forme le trait d'union pour ainsi dire entre les - dialectes neo-celtiques de la fin du moyen âge ou des temps modernes, - et le Gaulois des inscriptions lapidaires, des monnaies, des noms - propres conservés par la littérature grecque et la littérature - romaine."[13] - -It may, then, be finally acknowledged that those of the great nations -of to-day, whose ancestors were mostly Celts, but whose language, -literature, and traditions have completely disappeared, must, if they -wish to study their own past, turn themselves first to Ireland. -When we find so much of the brief and scanty information given us by -the classics, not only borne out, but amply illustrated by old Irish -literature, when we find the dry bones of Posidonius and Cæsar rise up -again before us with a ruddy covering of flesh and blood, it is not too -much to surmise that in other matters also the various Celtic races -bore to each other a close resemblance. - -Much more could be said upon this subject, as that the four Gallo-Roman -inscriptions to Brigantia found in Great Britain are really to the -Goddess Brigit;[14] that the Brennus who burned Rome 390 years before -Christ and the Brennus who stormed Delphi 110 years later were only the -god Brian, under whose tutelage the Gauls marched; and that Lugudunum, -Lugh's Dún or fortress, is so-called from the god Lugh the Long-handed, -to whom two Celtic inscriptions are found, one in Spain and one in -Switzerland, as may be seen set forth at length in the volumes of -Monsieur d'Arbois de Jubainville. - -[1] "Ich sehe daher keinen genügenden Grund daran zu zweifeln dass uns -in den Einzelsagen wirklich echte Bilder einer _vorchristlichen_ Cultur -erhalten sind, allerdings Bilder die an einigen Stellen verblasst, an -andern von spaterer Hand übermalt sind" ("Irische Texte," 1., p. 253). - -[2] "Nur eine Afterkritik die den handgreiflichsten Unsinn durch den -mittelirische Schreiber des 12-16 Jahrh. sich am eigenem Altherthum -versündigen das ihnen in mancher Hinsicht fremd ist für urfängliche -Weisheit hält, nun eine solche Kritik kann, umgekehrt den Versuch -machen an dem historischen Character der Hauptperson beider Sagenkreise -zu zweifeln," etc. ("Kelt-Studien," Heft. II., p. 189). - -[3] "Introduction à l'étude de la littérature celtique," p. 217. - -[4] Preface to "L'Épopée Celtique en Irlande." - -[5] This name is written Concobar in the ancient texts, and Conchúbhair -in the modern language, pronounced Cun-hoo-ar or Cun-hoor, whence the -Anglicised form Conor. The "b" was in early times pronounced, but -there are traces of its being dropped as early as the twelfth century, -though with that orthographical conservatism which so distinguishes the -Irish language, it has been preserved down to the present day. Zimmer -says he found it spelt Conchor in the twelfth-century book the Liber -Landavensis. From this the form Crochor ("cr" for "cn" as is usual in -Connacht) followed, and the name is now pronounced either _Cun-a-char_ -or _Cruch-oor._ - -[6] The reminiscence of the hero-bit appears to have lingered on in -folk memory. A correspondent, Mr. Terence Kelly, from near Omagh, in -the county Tyrone, tells me that he often heard a story told by an old -shanachie and herb-doctor in that neighbourhood who spoke a half-Scotch -dialect of English, in which the hero-bit figured, but it had fallen -in magnificence, and was represented as bannocks and butter with some -minor delicacies. - -[7] _See_ "Revue Celtique," vol. xiv. p. 417, translated by Whitley -Stokes. - -[8] Leabhar na h-Uidhre, p. 122, col. 2, translated by Sullivan, -"Manners and Customs," vol. i. p. cccclxxviii. - -[9] In Irish Fionn mac Cúmhail, pronounced "Finn (or Fewn in Munster), -mac Coo-wil" or "Cool." - -[10] I translated this from manuscript in my possession made by one -Patrick O'Pronty (an ancestor, I think, of Charlotte Brontë) in 1763. -Mr. Standish Hayes O'Grady has since published a somewhat different -text of it. - -[11] Pronounced "Bweesg-na," the triphthong _aoi_ is always pronounced -like _ee_ in Irish. - -[12] "Irische Texte," 1., p. 252. - -[13] "Études grammaticales sur les langues Celtiques," 1881, p. vii. - -[14] _See_ above pp. 53 and 161. - - - - -CHAPTER XXI - -THE OLDEST BOOKS AND POEMS - - -The books of saga, poetry, and annals that have come down to our day, -though so vastly more ancient and numerous than anything that the rest -of Western Europe has to show, are yet an almost inappreciable fragment -of the literature that at one time existed in Ireland. The great native -scholar O'Curry, who possessed a unique and unrivalled knowledge of -Irish literature in all its forms, has drawn up a list of lost books -which may be supposed to have contained our earliest literature. - -We find the poet Senchan Torpéist--according to the account in the -Book of Leinster, a manuscript which dates from about the year -1150--complaining that the only perfect record of the great Irish epic, -the Táin Bo Chuailgne[1] or Cattle-spoil of Cooley, had been taken to -the East with the Cuilmenn,[2] or Great Skin Book. Now Zimmer, who -made a special and minute study of this story, considers that the -earliest redaction of the Táin dates from the seventh century. This -legend about Senchan--a real historical poet whose eulogy in praise of -Columcille, whether genuine or not, was widely popular--is probably -equally old, and points to the early existence of a great skin book -in which pagan tales were written, but which was then lost. The next -great book is the celebrated Saltair of Tara, which is alluded to in -a genuine poem of Cuan O'Lochain about the year 1000, in which he -says that Cormac mac Art drew up the Saltair of Tara. Cormac, being -a pagan, could not have called the book a Saltair or Psalterium, but -it may have got the name in later times from its being in metre. -All that this really proves, however, is that there then existed a -book about the prerogatives of Tara and the provincial kings so old -that Cuan O'Lochain--no doubt following tradition--was not afraid to -ascribe it to Cormac mac Art who lived in the third century. The next -lost book is called the Book of the Uacongbhail, upon which both the -O'Clerys in their Book of Invasions and Keating in his history drew, -and which, according to O'Curry, still existed at Kildare so late as -1626. The next book is called the Cin of Drom Snechta. It is quoted in -the Leabhar na h-Uidhre, or "Book of the Dun Cow"--a MS. of about the -year 1100--and often in the Book of Ballymote and by Keating, who in -quoting it says, "And it was before the coming of Patrick to Ireland -that that book existed,"[3] and the Book of Leinster ascribes it to the -son of a king of Connacht who died either in 379 or 499. The next books -of which we find mention were said to have belonged to St. Longarad, -a contemporary of St. Columcille. The scribe who wrote the glosses on -the Féilĭrè of Angus the Culdee, said that the books existed still in -his day, but that nobody could read them; for which he accounts by the -tale that Columcille once paid Longarad a visit in order to see his -books, but that his host refused to show them, and that Columcille then -said, "May your books be of no use after you, since you have exercised -inhospitality about them." On account of this the books became -illegible after Longarad's death. Angus the Culdee lived about the year -800, but Stokes ascribes the Féilĭrè to the tenth century; a view, -however, which Mr. Strachan's studies on the Irish deponent verb, which -is of such frequent occurrence in the Féilĭrè, may perhaps modify. At -what time the scholiast wrote his note on the text is uncertain, but -it also is very old. It is plain, then, that at this time a number of -illegible books--illegible no doubt from age--existed; and to account -for this illegibility the story of Columcille's curse was invented. The -Annals of Ulster quote another book at the year 527 under the name of -the Book of St. Mochta, who was a disciple of St. Patrick. They also -quote the Book of Cuana at the year 468 and repeatedly afterwards down -to the year 610, while they record the death of Cuana, a scribe, at the -year 738, after which no more quotations from Cuana's book occur. - -The following volumes, almost all of which existed prior to the -year 1100, are also alluded to in our old literature:--The Book of -Dubhdaleithe; the Yellow Book of Slane; the original Leabhar na -h-Uidhre, or "Book of the Dun Cow"; the Books of Eochaidh O'Flanagain; -a certain volume known as the book eaten by the poor people in the -desert; the Book of Inis an Dúin; the short Book of Monasterboice; the -Books of Flann of Monasterboice; the Book of Flann of Dungiven; the -Book of Downpatrick; the Book of Derry; the Book of Sábhal Patrick; -the Black Book of St. Molaga; the Yellow Book of St. Molling; the -Yellow Book of Mac Murrough; the Book of Armagh (not the one now so -called); the Red Book of Mac Egan; the Long Book of Leithlin; the -Books of O'Scoba of Clonmacnois; the "Duil" of Drom Ceat; the Book -of Clonsost; the Book of Cluain Eidhneach (the ivy meadow) in Leix; -and one of the most valuable and often quoted of all, Cormac's great -Saltair of Cashel, compiled by Cormac mac Culinan, who was at once king -of Munster and archbishop of Cashel,[4] and who fell in battle in -903, according to the chronology of the "Four Masters." The above are -certainly only a few of the books in which a large early literature was -contained, one that has now perished almost to a page. Michael O'Clery, -in the Preface to his Book of Invasions written in 1631, mentions the -books from which he and his four antiquarian friends compiled their -work--mostly now perished!--and adds:-- - - "The histories and synchronisms of Erin were written and tested in - the presence of those illustrious saints, as is manifest in the great - books that are named after the saints themselves and from their great - churches; for there was not an illustrious church in Erin that had - not a great book of history named from it or from the saints who - sanctified it. It would be easy, too, to know from the books which - the saints wrote, and the songs of praise which they composed in - Irish that they themselves and their churches were the centres of the - true knowledge, and the archives and homes of the manuscripts of the - authors of Erin in the elder times. But, alas! short was the time - until dispersion and decay overtook the churches of the saints, their - relics, and their books; for there is not to be found of them now - [1631] but a small remnant that has not been carried away into distant - countries and foreign nations--carried away so that their fate is - unknown from that time unto this." - -As far as actual existing documents go, we have no specimens of -Irish MSS. written in Irish before the eighth century. The chief -remains of the old language that we have are mostly found on the -Continent, whither the Irish carried their books in great numbers, -and unfortunately they are not books of saga, but chiefly, with the -exception of a few poems, glosses and explanations of books used -evidently in the Irish ecclesiastical schools.[5] A list of the -most remarkable is worth giving here, as it will help to show the -extraordinary geographical diversity of the Irish settlements upon the -Continent, and the keenness with which their relics have been studied -by European scholars--French, German, and Italian. The most important -are the glosses found in the Irish MSS. of Milan, published by Ascoli, -Zeuss, Stokes, and Nigra; those in St. Gall--a monastery in Switzerland -founded by St. Gall, an Irish friend of Columbanus, in the sixth -century--published by Ascoli and Nigra; those in Wurtzburg, published -by Zimmer and Zeuss; those in Carlsruhe, published by Zeuss; those in -Turin, published by Zimmer, Nigra, and Stokes in his "Goidelica"; those -in Vienna, published by Zimmer in his "Glossæ Hibernicæ" and Stokes -in his "Goidelica"; those in Berne, those in Leyden, those in Nancy, -and the glosses on the Cambrai Sermon, published by Zeuss.[6] Next in -antiquity to these are the Irish parts of the Book of Armagh, the poems -in the MSS. of St. Gall and Milan,[7] and some of the pieces published -by Windisch in his "Irische Texte." Next to this is probably the -Martyrology of Angus the Culdee. And then come the great Middle-Irish -books--the Leabhar na h-Uidhre, the Book of Leinster, and the rest. - -From a palæographic point of view the oldest books in Ireland are -probably the "Domhnach Airgid," a copy of the Four Gospels in a triple -shrine of yew, silver-plated copper, and gold-plated silver, which St. -Patrick was believed to have given to St. Carthainn when he told that -saint with a shrewd wisdom, which in later days aroused the admiration -of Mr. Matthew Arnold, to build himself a church "that should not -be too near to himself for familiarity nor too far from himself for -intercourse." It probably dates from the fifth or sixth century. The -Cathach supposed to have been surreptitiously written by Columcille -from Finnian's book[8]--a Latin copy of the Gospels in Trinity College, -Dublin; the Book of Durrow, a beautiful illuminated copy of the same; -the Book of Dimma, containing the Four Gospels, ritual, and prayers, -probably a work of the seventh century; the Book of Molling, of -probably about the same date; the Gospels of Mac Regol, the largest of -the Old Irish Gospel books, highly but not elegantly coloured, with -an interlinear Anglo-Saxon version in a late hand carried through -its pages; the Book of Kells, the unapproachable glory of Irish -illumination, and some other ecclesiastical books. After them come the -Leabhar na h-Uidre and the great books of poems and saga. - -Although the language of these sagas and poems is not that of the -glosses, but what is called "Middle-Irish," still it does not in the -least follow that the poems and sagas belong to the Middle-Irish -period. "The old Middle-Irish manuscripts," says Zimmer, "contain for -the most part only Old Irish texts re-written."[9] "Unfortunately," -says Windisch, "every new copyist has given to the text more or -less of the linguistic garb of his own day, so that as far as the -language of Irish texts goes, it depends principally upon the -age of the manuscript that contains them."[10] And again, in his -preface to Adamnan's vision, he writes: "Since we know that Irish -texts were rewritten by every fresh copyist more or less regularly -in the speech of his own day, the real age or a prose text cannot -possibly be determined by the linguistic forms of its language."[11] -It is much easier to tell the age of poetry than prose, for the -gradual modification of language, altering of words, shortening of -inflexions, and so on, must interfere with the metre, so that when -we find a poem in a twelfth-century manuscript written in Middle -Irish and in a perfect metrical form, we may--no matter to what age -it is _ascribed_--be pretty sure that it cannot be more than two or -three centuries older than the manuscript that contains it. Yet even -of the poems Dr. Atkinson writes: "The poem _may_ be of the eighth -century, but the forms are in the main of the twelfth."[12] Where poems -that really are of ancient date have had their language modified in -transcription so as to render them intelligible, the metre is bound -to suffer, and this lends us a criterion whereby to gauge the age of -verse, which is lacking to us when we come to deal with prose. - -This modification of language is not uncommon in literature and takes -place naturally, but I doubt if there ever was a literature in which -it played the same important part as in Irish. Thus let us take the -story of the Táin Bo Chuailgne, of which I shall have more to say later -on. Zimmer, after long and careful study of the text as preserved to -us in a manuscript of about the year 1100, came to the conclusion from -the marks of Old Irish inflexion, and so forth, which still remain -in the eleventh-century text, that there had been two recensions of -the story, a pre-Danish, that is, say, a seventh-century one, and a -post-Danish, that is a tenth-or eleventh-century one. Thus the epic -may have been originally committed to paper in the seventh century, -modified in the tenth, transcribed into the manuscripts in which we -have it in the eleventh and twelfth, and propagated from that down to -the eighteenth century, in copies every one of which underwent more or -less alteration in order to render it more intelligible; and it was -in fact in an eighteenth-century manuscript, yet one that differed, -as I subsequently discovered, in few essentials from the copy in the -Book of Leinster that I first read it. As the bards lived to please -so they had to please to live. The popular mind only receives with -pleasure and transmits with readiness popular poetry upon the condition -that it is intelligible,[13] and hence granting that Finn mac Cool -was a real historical personage, it is perfectly possible that some -of his poetry was handed down from generation to generation amongst -the conservative Gael, and slightly altered or modified from time to -time to make it more intelligible, according as words died out and -inflexions became obsolete. The Oriental philologist, Max Müller, in -attempting to explain how myths arose (according to his theory) from -a disease of language, thinks that during the transition period of -which he speaks, there would be many words "understood perhaps by -the grandfather, familiar to the father, but strange to the son, and -misunderstood by the grandson." This is exactly what is taking place -over half Ireland at this very moment, and it is what has always been -at work amongst a people whose language and literature go back with -certainty for nearly 1,500 years. Accordingly before the art of writing -became common, ere yet expensive vellum MSS. and a highly-paid class -of historians and schools of scribes to a certain extent stereotyped -what they set down, it is altogether probable that people who trusted -to the ear and to memory, modified and corrupted but still handed down, -at least some famous poems, like those ascribed to Amergin or Finn -mac Cool. That the Celtic memory for things unwritten is long I have -often proved. I have heard from peasants stanzas composed by Donogha -Mór O'Daly, of Boyle, in the thirteenth century; I have recovered from -an illiterate peasant, in 1890 in Roscommon, verses which had been -jotted down in phonetic spelling in Argyleshire by Macgregor, Dean of -Lismore, in the year 1512, and which may have been sung for hundreds -of years before it struck the fancy of the Highland divine to commit -them to paper;[14] and I have again heard verses in which the measure -and sense were preserved, but found on comparing them with MSS. that -several obsolete words had been altered to others that rhymed with them -and were intelligible.[15] For these reasons I should, in many cases, -refuse absolutely to reject the authenticity of a poem simply because -the language is more modern than that of the bard could have been to -whom it is ascribed, and it seems to me equally uncritical either -to accept or reject much of our earliest poetry, except what is in -highly-developed metre, as a good deal of it may possibly be the actual -(but linguistically modified) work of the supposed authors. - -This modifying process is something akin to but very different -in degree from Pope's rewriting of Donne's satires or Dryden's -version of Chaucer, inasmuch as it was probably both unconscious and -unintentional. To understand better how this modification may have -taken place, let us examine a few lines of the thirteenth-century -English poem, the "Brut" of Layamon:-- - - "And swa ich habbe al niht - Of mine swevene swithe ithoht, - For ich what to iwisse - Agan is al my blisse." - -These lines were, no doubt, intelligible to an ordinary Englishman at -the time. Gradually they become a little modernised, thus:-- - - "And so I have all night - Of min-e sweeven swith ythought, - For I wat to ywiss - Agone is all my bliss." - -Had these verses been preserved in folk-memory they must have undergone -a still further modification as soon as the words sweeven (dream), -swith (much), and ywiss (certainty) began to grow obsolete, and we -should have the verse modified and mangled, perhaps something in this -way:-- - - "And so I have all the night - Of my dream greatly thought, - For I wot and I wis - That gone is all my bliss." - -The words "I wot and I wis," in the third line, represent just about -as much archaism as the popular memory and taste will stand without -rebelling. Some modification in the direction here hinted at may be -found in, I should think, more than half the manuscripts in the Royal -Irish Academy to-day, and just in the same sense as the lines, - - "For I wot and I wis - That gone is my bliss," - -are Layamon's; so we may suppose, - - "Dubthach missi mac do Lugaid - Laidech lantrait - Mé ruc inmbreith etir Loegaire - Ocus Patraic,"[16] - -to be the fifth century O'Lugair's, or - - "Leathaid folt fada fraich, - Forbrid canach fann finn,"[17] - -to be Finn mac Cúmhail's. - -Of the many _poems_--as distinguished from sagas, which are a mixture -of poetry and prose--said to have been produced from pagan times down -to the eighth century, none can be properly called epics or even -épopées. There are few continued efforts, and the majority of the -pieces though interesting for a great many reasons to students, would -hardly interest an English reader when translated. Unfortunately, -such a great amount of our early literature being lost, we can only -judge of what it was like through the shorter pieces which have been -preserved, and even these short pieces read rather jejune and barren -in English, partly because of the great condensation of the original, -a condensation which was largely brought about by the necessity of -versification in difficult metres. In order to see beauty in the -most ancient Irish verse it is absolutely necessary to read it in -the original so as to perceive and appreciate the alliteration and -other _tours de force_ which appear in every line. These verses, for -instance, which Mève, daughter or Conan, is said to have pronounced -over Cuchorb, her husband, in the first century, appear bald enough in -a literal translation:-- - - "Moghcorb's son whom fame conceals [covers] - Well sheds he blood by his spears, - A stone over his grave--'tis a pity-- - Who carried battle over Cliú Máil. - - My noble king, he spoke not falsehood, - His success was certain in every danger, - As black as a raven was his brow, - As sharp was his spear as a razor," etc. - -One might read this kind of thing for ever in a translation without -being struck by anything more than some occasional _curiosa felicitas_ -of phrase or picturesque expression, and one would never suspect that -the original was so polished and complicated as it really is. Here are -these two verses done into the exact versification of the original, -in which interlinear vowel-rhymes, alliterations, and all the other -requirements of the Irish are preserved and marked:-- - - "Mochorb's son of Fiercest FAME, - KNown his NAME for bloody toil, - To his Gory Grave is GONE, - He who SHONE o'er SHouting Moyle. - - Kindly King, who Liked not LIES, - Rash to RISE to Fields of Fame, - Raven-Black his Brows of FEAR, - Razor-Sharp his SPEAR of flame," etc.[18] - -This specimen of Irish metre may help to place much of our poetry in -another light, for its beauty depends less upon the intrinsic substance -of the thought than the external elegance of the framework. We must -understand this in order to do justice to our versified literature, for -the student must not imagine that he will find long-sustained epics or -interesting narrative poems after the manner of the Iliad or Odyssey, -or even the Nibelungenlied, or the "Song of Roland;" none such now -exist: if they did exist they are lost. The early poems consist rather -of eulogies, elegies, historical pieces, and lyrics, few of them of any -great length, and still fewer capable of interesting an English reader -in a translation. Occasionally we meet with touches of nature poetry -of which the Gael has always been supremely fond. Here is a tentative -translation made by O'Donovan of a part of the first poem which Finn -mac Cúmhail is said to have composed after his eating of the salmon of -knowledge:-- - - "May-Day, delightful time! How beautiful the colour; the blackbirds - sing their full lay; would that Laighaig were here! The cuckoos sing - in constant strains. How welcome is ever the noble brilliance of the - seasons! On the margin of the branching woods the summer swallows skim - the stream. The swift horses seek the pool. The heath spreads out its - long hair, the weak, fair bog-down grows. Sudden consternation attacks - the signs, the planets, in their courses running, exert an influence; - the sea is lulled to rest, flowers cover the earth." - -The language of this poem is so old as to be in parts unintelligible, -and the broken metre points to the difficulties of transmission over -a long period of time, yet he would be a bold man who would ascribe -with certainty the authorship of it to Finn mac Cúmhail in the third -century, or the elegy on Cuchorb to Mève, daughter of Conan, a -contemporary of Virgil and Horace. And yet all the history of these -people is known and recorded with much apparent plausibility and many -collateral circumstances connecting them with the men of their time. -How much of this is genuine historical tradition? How much is later -invention? It is difficult to decide at present. - -[1] Pronounced "Taun Bo Hoo-il-n'ya." The "a" in Táin is pronounced -nearly like the "a" in the English word "Tarn." - -[2] Cuilmenn--it has been remarked, I think, by Kuno Meyer--seems -cognate with Colmméne, glossed _nervus_, and Welsh _cwlm_, "a knot or -tie." It is found glossed _lebar--i.e._, leabhar, or "book." - -[3] For the authorship of this book see above, p. 71. - -[4] "At what time this book was lost," says O'Curry, "we have no -precise knowledge, but that it existed, though in a dilapidated state, -in the year 1454 is evident from the fact that there is in the Bodleian -Library at Oxford (Laud 610) a copy of such portions of it as could be -deciphered at that time, made by Shawn O'Clery for Mac Richard Butler. -From the contents of this copy and from the frequent references to the -original for history and genealogies found in the Books of Ballymote, -Lecan, and others, it must have been an historical and genealogical -compilation of large size and great diversity." - -A legible copy of the Saltair appears, however, to have existed at a -much later date. I discovered a curious poem in an uncatalogued MS. in -the Royal Irish Academy by one David Condon, written apparently at some -time between the Cromwellian and Williamite wars, in which he says-- - - "Saltair Chaisill is dearbh gur léigheas-sa - Leabhar ghleanna-dá-locha gan gó ba léir dam, - Leabhar Buidhe Mhuigleann (?) obair aosta," &c. - -_I.e._," Surely I have read the Saltair of Cashel, and the Book of -Glendaloch was certainly plain to me, and the Yellow Book of Mulling (?) -(_see_ above, p. 210), an ancient work, the Book of Molaga, and the -lessons of Cionnfaola, and many more (books) along with them which are -not (now) found in Ireland." - -[5] Such, for example, is the fragment of a commentary on the Psalter -published by Kuno Meyer in "Hibernica Minora," from Rawlinson, B. 512. -The original is assigned by him, judging from its grammatical forms, -to about the year 750. It is very ample and diffuse, and tells about -the Shophetîm, or Sophtim, as the writer calls it, the Didne Haggamîm, -etc., and is an excellent example of the kind of Irish commentaries -used by the early ecclesiastics. - -[6] "Gram. Celt.," p. 1004-7. - -[7] Published by Zeuss in his "Grammatica Celtica." - -[8] _See_ above, p. 175. - -[9] "Keltische Studien," Heft i. p. 88. - -[10] Preface to Loinges Mac n-Usnig, "Irische Texte," i. 61. - -[11] "Irische Texte," i. p. 167. - -[12] Preface to the list of contents of the _facsimile_ Book of -Leinster. - -[13] With the exception of the ancient Irish prayers like Mairinn -Phádraig, preserved by tradition, which are for the most part not -intelligible to the reciters, but which owe their preservation to the -promise usually tacked on at the end that the reciters shall receive -some miraculous or heavenly blessing. _See_ my "Religious Songs of -Connacht." - -[14] _See_ my note on the Story of Oscar au fléau, in "Revue Celtique," -vol. xiii. p. 425. - -[15] Cf. my note on Bran's colour, at p. 277 of my "Beside the Fire." - -[16] In more modern Irish:-- - - "Dubhthach mise, mac do Lughaidh - Laoi-each lán-traith - Mé rug an bhreith idir Laoghaire - Agus Pádraig." - -_I.e._, "I am Dubhthach, son of Lewy the lay-full, full-wise. It is I -who delivered judgment between Leary and Patrick." _Traith_ is the only -obsolete word here. - -[17] In modern Irish, "Leathnuighidh folt fada fraoch," _i.e._, -"Leathnuighidh fraoch folt fada, foirbridh (fásaidh) canach -(ceannabhán) fann fionn," _i.e._, "Spreads heath its long hair, -flourishes the feeble, fair cotton-grass." - -[18] Here is the first verse of this in the original. The Old Irish -is nearly unintelligible to a modern. I have here modernised the -spelling:-- - - "Mac Mogachoirb Cheileas CLÚ - Cun fearas CRÚ thar a gháibh - Ail uas a Ligi--budh LIACH--- - Baslaide CHLIATH thar Cliú Máil." - -The rhyming words do not make perfect rhyme as in English, but pretty -nearly so--_clu cru, liath cliath, gáibh máil_. - - - - -CHAPTER XXII - -EARLY SAGA AND ROMANCE - - -During the golden period of the Greek and Roman genius no one ever -wrote a romance. Epics they left behind them, and history, but the -romance, the Danish saga, the Irish _sgeul_ or _úrsgeul_ was unknown. -It was in time of decadence that a body of Greek prose romance -appeared, and with the exception of Petronius' semi-prose "Satyricon," -and Apuleius' "Golden Ass," the Latin language produced in this line -little of a higher character than such works as the Gesta Romanorum. -In Greece and Italy where the genial climate favoured all kinds of -open-air representations, the great development of the drama took the -place of novelistic literature, as it did for a long time amongst the -English after the Elizabethan revival. In Ireland, on the other hand, -the dramatic stage was never reached at all, but the development of the -_úrsgeul_, romance, or novel, was quite abnormally great. I have seen -it more than once asserted, if I mistake not, that the dramatic is an -inevitable and an early development in the history of every literature, -but this is to generalise from insufficient instances. The Irish -literature which kept on developing--to some extent at least--for over -a thousand years, and of which hundreds of volumes still exist, never -evolved a drama, nor so much, as far as I know, as even a miracle play, -although these are found in Welsh and even Cornish. What Ireland did -produce, and produce nobly and well, was romance; from the first to the -last, from the seventh to the seventeenth century, Irishmen, without -distinction of class, alike delighted in the _úrsgeul_. - -When this form of literature first came into vogue we have no means -of ascertaining, but the narrative prose probably developed at a very -early period as a supplement to defective narrative verse. Not that -verse or prose were then and there committed to writing, for it is said -that the business of the bards was to learn their stories by heart. -I take it, however, that they did not actually do this, but merely -learned the incidents of a story in their regular sequence, and that -their training enabled them to fill these up and clothe them on the -spur of the moment in the most effective garments, decking them out -with passages of gaudy description, with rattling alliterative lines -and "runs" and abundance of adjectival declamation. The bards, no -matter from what quarter of the island, had all to know the same story -or novel, provided it was a renowned one, but with each the sequence -of incidents, and the incidents themselves were probably for a long -time the same; but the language in which they were tricked out and the -length to which they were spun depended probably upon the genius or -bent of each particular bard. Of course in process of time divergences -began to arise, and hence different versions of the same story. That, -at least, is how I account for such passages as "but others say that it -was not there he was killed, but in," etc., "but some of the books say -that it was not on this wise it happened, but," and so on. - -It is probable that very many novels were in existence before the -coming of St. Patrick, but highly unlikely that they were at that time -written down at full length. It was probably only after the country -had become Christianised and full of schools and learning that the -bards experienced the desire of writing down their sagas, with as much -as they could recapture of the ancient poetry upon, which they were -built. In the Book of Leinster, a manuscript of the twelfth century, -we find an extraordinary list of no less than 187 of those romances -with THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY of which an ollamh had to be acquainted. -The ollamh was the highest dignitary amongst the bards, and it took him -from nine to twelve years' training to learn the two hundred and fifty -prime stories and the one hundred secondary ones along with the other -things which were required of him. The prime stories--combinations of -epic and novel, prose and poetry--are divided in the manuscripts into -the following romantic catalogue:--Destructions of fortified places, -Cow spoils (_i.e._, cattle-raiding expeditions), Courtships or wooings, -Battles, Cave-stories, Navigations, Tragical deaths, Feasts, Sieges, -Adventures, Elopements, Slaughters, Water-eruptions, Expeditions, -Progresses, and Visions. "He is no poet," says the Book of Leinster, -"who does not synchronise and harmonise all the stories." We possess, -as I have said, the names of 187 such stories in the Book of Leinster, -and the names of many more are given in the tenth-or eleventh-century -tale of Mac Coisè; and all the known ones, with the exception of one -tale added later on, and one which, evidently through an error in -transcription, refers to Arthur instead of Aithirne, are about events -prior to the year 650 or thereabouts. We may take it, then, that this -list was drawn up in the seventh century. - -Now, who were the authors of these couple of hundred romances? It is -a natural question, but one which cannot be answered. There is not -a trace of their authorship remaining, if authorship be the right word -for what I suspect to have been the gradual growth of race, tribal, -and family history, and of Celtic mythology, told and retold, and -polished up, and added to; some of them, especially such as are the -descendants of a pagan mythology, must have been handed down for -perhaps countless generations, others recounted historical, tribal, -or family doings, magnified during the course of time, others again -of more recent date, are perhaps fairly accurate accounts of actual -events, but all PRIOR TO ABOUT THE YEAR 650. I take it that so soon as -bardic schools and colleges began to be formed, there was no class of -learning more popular than that which taught the great traditionary -stories of the various tribes and families of the great Gaelic race, -and the intercommunication between the bardic colleges propagated local -tradition throughout all Ireland. - -The very essence of the national life of Erin was embodied in these -stories, but, unfortunately, few out of the enormous mass have survived -to our day, and these mostly mutilated or in mere digests. Some, -however, exist at nearly full length, quite sufficient to show us what -the romances were like, and to cause us to regret the irreparable loss -inflicted upon our race by the ravages of Danes, Normans, and English. -Even as it is O'Curry asserts that the contents of the strictly -historical tales known to him would be sufficient to fill up four -thousand of the large pages of the "Four Masters." He computed that -the tales about Finn, Ossian, and the Fenians alone would fill another -three thousand pages. In addition to these we have a considerable -number of imaginative stories, neither historical nor Fenian, such as -the "Three Sorrows of Story-telling" and the like, sufficient to fill -five thousand pages more, not to speak of the more recent novel-like -productions of the later Irish.[1] - -It is this very great fecundity of the very early Irish in the -production of saga and romance, in poetry and prose, which best -enables us to judge of their early-developed genius, and considerable -primitive culture. The introduction of Christianity neither inspired -these romances nor helped to produce them; they are nearly all anterior -to it, and had they been preserved to us we should now have the most -remarkable body of primitive myth and saga in the whole western world. -It is probably this consideration which makes M. Darmesteter say of -Irish literature: "real historical documents we have none until the -beginning of the decadence--a decadence so glorious, that we almost -mistake it for a renaissance since the old epic sap dries up only to -make place for a new budding and bourgeoning, a growth less original -certainly, but scarcely less wonderful if we consider the condition of -continental Europe at that date." The decadence that M. Darmesteter -alludes to is the rise of the Christian schools of the fifth and sixth -centuries, which put to some extent an end to the epic period by -turning men's thoughts into a different channel. - -It is this "decadence," however, which I have preferred to examine -first, just because it does rest upon real historical documents, and -can be proved. We may now, however, proceed to the mass of saga, the -bulk of which in its earliest forms is pagan, and the spirit of which, -even in the latest texts, has been seldom quite distorted by Christian -influence. This saga centres around several periods and individuals: -some of these, like Tuathal and the Boru tribute, Conairé the Great -and his death, have only one or two stories pertaining to them. But -there are three cycles which stand out pre-eminently, and have been -celebrated in more stories and sagas than the rest, and of which -more remains have been preserved to us than of any of the others. -These are the Mythological Circle concerning the Tuatha De Dannan and -the Pre-Milesians; the Heroic, Ultonian, or Red-Branch Cycle,[2] in -which Cuchulain is the dominating figure; and the Cycle of Finn mac -Cúmhail, Ossian, Oscar, and the High-kings of Ireland who were their -contemporaries--this cycle may be denominated the Fenian or Ossianic. - -[1] O'Curry was no doubt accurate, as he ever is, in this computation, -but there would probably be some repetition in the stories, with lists -of names and openings common to more than one, and many late poor ones. - -[2] M. d'Arbois de Jubainville calls this the Ulster, and calls the -Ossianic the Leinster Cycle. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII - -THE MYTHOLOGICAL CYCLE - - -The cycle of the mythological stories which group themselves round the -early invasions of Erin is sparsely represented in Irish manuscripts. -Not only is their number less, but their substance is more confused -than that of the other cycles. To the comparative mythologist and the -folk-lorist, however, they are perhaps the most interesting of all, as -throwing more light than any of the others upon the early religious -ideas of the race. Most of the sagas connected with this pre-Milesian -cycle are now to be found only in brief digests preserved in the -Leabhar Gabhála,[1] or Book of Invasions of Ireland, of which large -fragments exist in the Books of Leinster and Ballymote, and which -Michael O'Clery (collecting from all the ancient sources which he could -find in his day) rewrote about the year 1630. - -This tells us all the early history of Ireland and of the races that -inhabited it before our forefathers landed. It tells us of how first -a man called Partholan made a settlement in Ireland, but how in time -he and his people all died of the plague, leaving the land deserted; -and how after that the Nemedians, or children of Nemed, colonised the -island and multiplied in it, until they began to be oppressed by the -Fomorians, who are usually described as African sea-robbers, but the -etymology of whose name seems to point to a mythological origin "men -from under sea."[2] A number of battles took place between the rival -hosts, and the Fomorians were defeated in three battles, but after the -death of Nemed, who, like Partholan, died of a plague, the Fomorians -oppressed his people again, and, led by a chief called Conaing, built a -great tower upon Tory, _i.e._, Tower Island, off the north-west coast -of Donegal. On the eve of every Samhain [Sou-an, or All Hallow's] -the wretched Nemedians had to deliver up to these masters two-thirds -of their children, corn, and cattle. Driven to desperation by these -exactions they rose in arms, stormed the tower, and slew Conaing, all -which the Book of Invasions describes at length. The Fomorians being -reinforced, the Nemedians fought them a second time in the same place, -but in this battle most of them were killed or drowned, the tide -having come in and washed over them and their foes alike. The crew -of one ship, however, escaped, and these, after a further sojourn of -seven years in Ireland, led out of it the surviving remnants of their -race with the exception of a very few who remained behind subject -to the Fomorians. Those who left Ireland divided into three bands: -one sought refuge in Greece, where they again fell into slavery; the -second went--some say--to the north of Europe; and the third, headed -by a chief called Briton Mael--Hence, say the Irish, the name of Great -Britain--found refuge in Scotland, where their descendants remained -until the Cruithni, or Picts, overcame them. - -After a couple of hundred years the Nemedians who had fled to Greece -came back again, calling themselves Firbolg,[3] _i.e._, "sack" or "bag" -men, and held Ireland for about thirty-five years in peace, when -another tribe of invaders appeared upon the scene. These were no less -than the celebrated Tuatha De Danann, who turned out to be, in fact, -the descendants of the second band of Nemedians who had fled to the -north of Europe, and who returned about thirty-six years later than -their kinsmen, the Firbolg. - -The Tuatha De Danann soon overcame the Firbolg, and drove them, after -the Battle of North Moytura,[4] into the islands along the coast, to -Aran, Islay, Rachlin, and the Hebrides,[5] after which they assumed the -sovereignty of the island to themselves. - -This sovereignty they maintained for about two hundred years, until -the ancestors of the present Irish, the Scots, or Gaels, or Milesians, -as they are variously called, landed and beat the Tuatha De Danann, and -reigned in their stead until they, too, in their turn were conquered -by the English. The Book of Conquests is largely concerned with their -landing and first settlements and their battles with the De Danann -people whom they ended in completely overcoming, after which the -Tuatha Dé assume a very obscure position. They appear to have for the -most part retired off the surface of the country into the green hills -and mounds, and lived in these, often appearing amongst the Milesian -population, and sometimes giving their daughters in marriage to them. -From this out they are confounded with the _Sidhe_ [Shee], or spirits, -now called fairies, and to this very day I have heard old men, when -speaking of the fairies who inhabit ancient raths and interfere -occasionally in mortal concerns either for good or evil, call them by -the name of the Tuatha De Danann. - -The first battle of Moytura was fought between the Tuatha De Danann -and the Firbolg, who were utterly routed, but Nuada, the king of the -Tuatha Dé, lost his hand in the battle. As he was thus suffering -from a personal blemish, he could be no longer king, and the people -accordingly decided to bestow the sovereignty on Breas [Bras],[6] whose -mother was a De Danann, but whose father was a king of the Fomorians, -a people who had apparently never lost sight of or wholly left Ireland -since the time of their battles with the Nemedians over two hundred -years before. The mother of Breas, Eiriu,[7] was a person of authority, -and her son was elected to the sovereignty on the understanding that -if his reign was found unsatisfactory he should resign. He gave seven -pledges of his intention of doing so. At this time the Fomorians again -smote Ireland heavily with their imposts and taxes, as they had done -before when the Nemedians inhabited it. The unfortunate De Dannan -people were reduced to a state of misery. Ogma[8] was obliged to carry -wood, and the Dagda himself to build raths for their masters, and they -were so far reduced as to be weak with hunger. - -In the meantime the kingship of Breas was not successful. He was hard -and niggardly. As the saga of the second battle of Moytura puts it-- - - "The chiefs of the Tuatha De Danann were dissatisfied, for Breas did - not grease their knives; in vain came they to visit Breas; their - breaths did not smell of ale. Neither their poets, nor bards, nor - druids, nor harpers, nor flute-players, nor musicians, nor jugglers, - nor fools appeared before them, nor came into the palace to amuse - them." - -Matters reached a crisis when the poet Coirpné came to demand -hospitality and was shown "into a little house, small, narrow, black, -dark, where was neither fire nor furniture nor bed. He was given three -little dry loaves on a little plate. When he rose in the morning he -was not thankful." He gave vent then to the first satire ever uttered -in Ireland, which is still preserved in eight lines which would be -absolutely unintelligible except for the ancient glosses. - -After this the people of the De Danann race demanded the abdication -of Breas, which he had promised in case his reign did not please -them. He acknowledged his obligation to them, but requested a delay -of seven years, which they allowed him, on condition that he gave -them guarantees to touch nothing belonging to them during that time, -"neither our houses nor our lands, nor our gold, nor our silver, nor -our cattle, nor anything eatable, we shall pay thee neither rent nor -fine to the end of seven years." This was agreed to. - -But the intention of Breas in demanding a delay of seven years was -a treacherous one; he meant to approach his father's kindred the -Fomorians, and move them to reinstate him at the point of the sword. -He goes to his mother who tells him who his father is, for up to that -time he had remained in ignorance of it; and she gives him a ring -whereby his father Elatha, a king of the Fomorians, may recognise him. -He departs to the Fomorians, discovers his father and appeals to him -for succour. By his father he is sent to Balor, a king of the Fomorians -of the Isles of Norway--a locality probably ascribed to the Fomorians -after the invasions of the Northmen--and there gathered together an -immense army to subdue the Tuatha De Danann and give the island to -their relation Breas. - -In the meantime Nuada, whose hand had been replaced by a silver one, -reascends the throne and is joined by Lugh of the Long-hand, the -"Ildana" or "man of various arts." This Lugh was a brother of the Dagda -and of Ogma, and is perhaps the best-known figure among the De Danann -personalities. Lugh and the Dagda and Ogma and Goibniu the smith and -Diancécht the leech met secretly every day at a place in Meath for -a whole year, and deliberated how best to shake off the yoke of the -Fomorians. Then they held a general meeting of the Tuatha De and spoke -with each one in secret. - - "'How wilt thou show thy power?' said Lugh, to the sorcerer Mathgen. - - "'By my art,' answered Mathgen, 'I shall throw down the mountains of - Ireland upon the Fomorians, and they shall fall with their heads to - the earth;' then told he to Lugh the names of the twelve principal - mountains of Ireland which were ready to do the bidding of the goddess - Dana[9] and to smite their enemies on every side. - - "Lugh asked the cup-bearer: 'In what way wilt thou show thy power?' - - "'I shall place,' answered the cup-bearer, 'the twelve principal lakes - of Ireland under the eyes of the Fomorians, but they shall find no - water in them, however great the thirst which they may feel;' and he - enumerated the lakes, 'from the Fomorians the water shall hide itself, - they shall not be able to take a drop of it; but the same lakes will - furnish the Tuatha De Danann with water to drink during the whole war, - though it should last seven years.' - - "The Druid Figal, the son of Mamos, said, 'I shall make three rains - of fire fall on the faces of the Fomorian warriors; I shall take - from them two-thirds of their valour and courage, but so often as - the warriors of the De Danann shall breathe out the air from their - breasts, so often shall they feel their courage and valour and - strength increase. Even though the war should last seven years it - shall not fatigue them.' - - "The Dagda answered, 'All the feats which you three, sorcerer, - cup-bearer, druid, say you can do, I myself alone shall do them.' - - "'It is you then are the Dagda,'[10] said those present, whence came - the name of the Dagda which he afterwards bore." - -Lugh then went in search of the three gods of Dana--Brian, Iuchar, -and Iucharba (whom he afterwards put to death for slaying his father, -as is recorded at length in the saga of the "Fate of the Children of -Tuireann"[11]) and with these and his other allies he spent the next -seven years in making preparations for the great struggle with the -Fomorians. - -This saga and the whole story of the Tuatha De Danann contending -with the Fomorians, who are in one place in the saga actually called -_sidhe_, or spirits, is all obviously mythological, and has usually -been explained, by D'Arbois de Jubainville and others, as the struggle -between the gods or good spirits and the evil deities. - -The following episode also shows the wild mythological character of the -whole. - - "Dagda," says the saga, "had a habitation at Glenn-Etin in the north. - He had arranged to meet a woman at Glenn-Etin on the day of Samhan - [November day] just a year, day for day, before the battle of Moytura. - The Unius, a river of Connacht, flows close beside Glenn-Etin, to the - south. Dagda saw the woman bathe herself in the Unius at [Kesh] Coran. - One of the woman's feet in the water touched Allod Eche, that is to - say Echumech to the south, the other foot also in the water touched - Lescuin in the north. Nine tresses floated loose around her head. - Dagda approached and accosted her. From thenceforth the place has been - named the Couple's Bed. The woman was the goddess Mór-rígu"-- - -the goddess of war, of whom we shall hear more in connection with -Cuchulain. - -As for the Dagda himself, his character appears somewhat contradictory. -Just as the most opposite accounts of Zeus are met with in Greek -mythology, some glorifying him as throning in Olympus supreme over -gods and men, others as playing low and indecent tricks disguised as -a cuckoo or a bull; so we find the Dagda--his real name was Eochaidh -the Ollamh--at one time a king of the De Danann race and organiser -of victory, but at another in a less dignified but more clearly -mythological position. He is sent by Lugh to the Fomorian camp to put -them off with talk and cause them to lose time until the De Danann -armaments should be more fully ready. The following account exhibits -him, like Zeus at times, in a very unprepossessing character:-- - - "When the Dagda had come to the camp of the Fomorians he demanded a - truce, and he obtained it. The Fomorians prepared a porridge for him; - it was to ridicule him they did this, for he greatly loved porridge. - They filled for him the king's cauldron which was five handbreadths - in depth. They threw into it eighty pots of milk and a proportionate - quantity of meal and fat, with goats and sheep and swine which they - got cooked along with the rest. Then they poured the broth into a hole - dug in the ground. 'Unless you eat all that's there,' said Indech to - him, 'you shall be put to death; we do not want you to be reproaching - us, and we must satisfy you.' The Dagda took the spoon; it was so - great that in the hollow of it a man and a woman might be contained. - The pieces that went into that spoon were halves of salted pigs and - quarters of bacon. The Dagda said, 'Here is good eating, if the broth - be as good as its odour,' and as he carried the spoonful to his mouth, - he said, 'The proverb is true that good cooking is not spoiled by a - bad pot.'[12] - - "When he had finished he scraped the ground with his finger to the - very bottom of the hole to take what remained of it, and after that - he went to sleep to digest his soup. His stomach was greater than the - greatest cauldrons in large houses, and the Fomorians mocked at him. - - "He went away and came to the bank of the Eba. He did not walk with - ease, so large was his stomach. He was dressed in very bad guise. He - had a cape which scarcely reached below his shoulders. Beneath that - cloak was seen a brown mantle which descended no lower than his hips. - It was cut away above and very large in the breast. His two shoes - were of horses' skin with the hair outside. He held a wheeled fork, - which would have been heavy enough for eight men, and he let it trail - behind him. It dug a furrow deep enough and large enough to become - the frontier mearn between two provinces. Therefore is it called the - 'track of the Dagda's club.'" - -When the fighting began, after the skirmishing of the first days, the -De Danann warriors owed their victory to their superior preparations. -The great leech Diancecht cured the wounded, and the smith Goibniu and -his assistants kept the warriors supplied with constant relays of fresh -lances. The Fomorians could not understand it, and sent one of their -warriors, apparently in disguise, to find out. He was Ruadan, a son of -Breas by a daughter of Dagda. - - "On his return he told the Fomorians what the smith, the carpenter, - the worker in bronze, and the four leeches who were round the spring, - did. They sent him back again with orders to kill the smith Goibniu. - He asked a spear of Goibniu, rivets of Credné the bronze-worker, a - shaft of Luchtainé the carpenter, and they gave him what he asked. - There was a woman there busy in sharpening the weapons. She was Cron, - mother of Fianlug. She sharpened the spear for Ruadan. It was a chief - who handed Ruadan the spear, and thence the name of chief-spear given - to this day to the weaver's beam in Erin. - - "When he had got the spear Ruadan turned on Goibniu and smote him with - the weapon. But Goibniu drew the javelin from the wound and hurled it - at Ruadan; who was pierced from side to side, and escaped to die among - the Fomorians in presence of his father. Brig [his mother, the Dagda's - daughter] came and bewailed her son. First she uttered a piercing cry, - and thereafter she made moan. It was then that for the first time in - Ireland were heard moans and cries of sorrow. It was that same Brig - who invented the whistle used at night to give alarm signals"-- - -the mythological genesis of the saga is thus obviously marked by the -first satire, first cry of sorrow, and first whistle being ascribed to -the actors in it. - -In the end the whole Fomorian army moved to battle in their solid -battalions, "and it was to strike one's hand against a rock, or thrust -one's hand into a nest of serpents, or put one's head into the fire, -to attack the Fomorians that day." The battle is described at length. -Nuada the king of the De Danann is killed by Balor. Lugh, whose counsel -was considered so valuable by the De Danann people that they put -an escort of nine round him to prevent him from taking part in the -fighting, breaks away, and attacks Balor the Fomorian king. - -"Balor had an evil eye, that eye only opened itself upon the plain -of battle. Four men had to lift up the eyelid by placing under it -an instrument. The warriors, whom Balor scanned with that eye once -opened,[13] could not--no matter how numerous--resist their enemies." - -When Lugh had met and exchanged some mystical and unintelligible -language with him, Balor said, "Raise my eyelid that I may see the -braggart who speaks with me." - -"His people raise Balor's eyelid. Lugh from his sling lets fly a stone -at Balor which passes through his head, carrying with it the venomous -eye. Balor's army looked on." The Mór-rígu, the goddess of war, -arrives, and assists the Tuatha De Danann and encourages them. Ogma -slays one of the Fomorian kings and is slain himself. The battle is -broken at last on the Fomorians; they fly, and Breas is taken prisoner, -but his life is spared. - - "It was," says the saga, "at the battle of Moytura that Ogma, the - strong man, found the sword of Tethra, the King of the Fomorians. Ogma - drew that sword from the sheath and cleaned it. It was then that it - related to him all the high deeds that it had accomplished, for at - this time the custom was when swords were drawn from the sheath they - used to recite the exploits[14] they had themselves been the cause of. - And thence comes the right which swords have, to be cleaned when they - are drawn from the sheath; thence also the magic power which swords - have preserved ever since"-- - -to which curious piece of pagan superstition an evidently later -Christian redactor adds, "weapons were the organs of the demon to speak -to men. At that time men used to worship weapons, and they were a magic -safeguard." - -The saga ends in the episode of the recovery of the Dagda's harp, -and in the cry of triumph uttered by the Mór-rígu and by Bodb, her -fellow-goddess of war, as they visited the various heights of Ireland, -the banks of streams, and the mouths of floods and great rivers, to -proclaim aloud their triumph and the defeat of the Fomorians. - -M. d'Arbois de Jubainville sees in the successive colonisations of -Partholan, the Nemedians, and the Tuatha De Danann, an Irish version -of the Greek legend of the three successive ages of gold, silver, and -brass. The Greek legend of the Chimæra, otherwise Bellerus, the monster -slain by Bellerophon, he equates with the Irish Balor of the evil eye; -the fire from the throat of Bellerus, and the evil beam shot from -Balor's eye may originally have typified the lightning.[15] - -[1] "L'yowar (rhyming to _hour_) gow-awla," the "book of the takings or -holdings of Ireland." - -[2] Keating derives it from _foghla_, "spoil," and _muir_, "sea," which -is an impossible derivation, or from _fo muirib_, as if "along the -seas," but it really means "under seas." - -[3] Also Fir Domnan and Fir Galeóin, two tribes of the same race. - -[4] When the oldest list of current Irish sagas was drawn up, probably -in the seventh century, only one battle of Moytura was mentioned; this -was evidently what is now known as the second battle. In the more -recent list contained in the introduction to the Senchus Mór there is -mention made of both battles. There is only a single copy of each of -these sagas known to exist. Of most of the other sagas of this cycle -even the last copy has perished. - -[5] Long afterwards, at the time that Ireland was divided into five -provinces, the Cruithnigh, or Picts, drove the Firbolg out of the -islands again, and they were forced to come back to Cairbré Niafer, -king of Leinster, who allotted them a territory, but placed such -a rack-rent upon them that they were glad to fly into Connacht, -where Oilioll and Mève--the king and queen who made the Táin Bo -Chuailgne--gave them a free grant of land, and there Duald Mac Firbis, -over two hundred and fifty years ago, found their descendants in -plenty. According to some accounts, they were never driven wholly -out of Connacht, and if they are a real race--as, despite their -connection with the obviously mythical Tuatha De Danann, they appear -to be--they probably still form the basis of population there. Máine -Mór, the ancestor of the O'Kellys, is said to have wrested from them -the territory of Ui Máiné (part of Roscommon and Galway) in the sixth -century. Their name and that of their fellow tribe, the Fir Domnan, -_appear_ to be the same as the Belgæ, and the Damnonii of Gaul and -Britain, who are said to have given its name to Devonshire. Despite -their close connection in the Book of Invasions and early history of -Ireland, the Firbolg stand on a completely different footing from the -De Danann tribes. Their history is recorded consecutively from that day -to this; many families trace their pedigree to them, and they never -wholly disappeared. No family traces its connection to the De Danann -people; they wholly disappear, and are in later times regarded as gods, -or demons, or fairies. - -[6] Bress in the older form. - -[7] When the Milesians landed they found a Tuatha De Danann queen, -called Eiriu, the old form of Eire or Erin, from whom the island was -believed to take its name. John Scotus is called in old authorities -Eriugena, not Erigena. - -[8] For him _see_ above, pp. 113-15. - -[9] Jubainville translates Tuatha De Danann by "tribes of the goddess -Dana." Danann is the genitive of Dana, and Dana is called the "mother -of the gods," but she is not a mother of the bulk of the De Danann -race, so that Jubainville's translation is a rather venturesome one, -and the Old Irish themselves did not take the word in this meaning; -they explained it as "the men of science who were as it were gods." -"Tuatha dé Danann, _i.e._, Dee in taes dána acus andé an taes trebtha," -_i.e._, "the men of science were (as it were) gods and the laymen -no-gods." - -[10] Whitley Stokes translates this by "good hand." It is explained -as--_Dago-dêvo-s_, "the good god." The "Dagda, _i.e._, daigh dé, -_i.e._, dea sainemail ag na geinntib é," _i.e._, "Dagda ie ignis -Dei," for "with the heathen he was a special god," MS. 16, Advocates' -Library, Edinburgh. - -[11] Paraphrased by me in English verse in the "Three Sorrows of -Story-telling." - -[12] Thus perilously translated by Jubainville; Stokes does not attempt -it. - -[13] A legend well known to the old men of Galway and Roscommon, -who have often related it to me, tells us that when Conan (Finn mac -Cúmhail's Thersites) looked through his fingers at the enemy, they were -always defeated. He himself did not know this, nor any one except Finn, -who tried to make use of it without letting Conan know his own power. - -[14] There is a somewhat similar passage ascribing sensation to swords -in the Saga of Cuchulain's sickness. - -[15] The First Battle of Moytura, the Second Battle of Moytura, and the -Death of the Children of Tuireann are three sagas belonging to this -cycle. Others, now preserved in the digest of the Book of Invasions, -are, the Progress of Partholan to Erin, the Progress of Nemed to Erin, -the Progress of the Firbolg, the Progress of the Tuatha De Danann, the -Journey of Mileson of Bile to Spain, the Journey of the Sons of Mile -from Spain to Erin, the Progress of the Cruithnigh (Picts) from Thrace -to Erin and thence into Alba. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV - -THE HEROIC OR RED BRANCH CYCLE--CUCHULAIN - - -The mythological tales that we have been glancing at deal with the folk -who are fabled as having first colonised Erin; they treat of peoples, -races, dynasties, the struggle between good and evil principles. The -whole of their creations are thrown back, even by the Irish annalists -themselves, into the dim cloud-land of an unplumbed past, ages before -the dawn of the first Olympiad, or the birth of the wolf-suckled twins -who founded Rome. There is over it all a shadowy sense of vagueness, -vastness, uncertainty. - -The Heroic Cycle, on the other hand, deals with the history of the -Milesians themselves, the present Irish race, within a well-defined -space of time, upon their own ground, and though it does not exactly -fall within the historical period, yet it does not come so far short -of it that it can be with any certainty rejected as pure work of -imagination or poetic fiction. It is certainly the finest of the three -greater saga-cycles, and the epics that belong to it are sharply drawn, -numerous, clear cut, and ancient, and for the first time we _seem_, -at least, to find ourselves upon historical ground, although a good -deal of this seeming may turn out to be illusory. Yet the figures of -Cuchulain, Conor mac Nessa, Naoise, and Déirdre, Mève, Oilioll, and -Conall Cearnach, have about them a great deal of the circumstantiality -that is entirely lacking to the dim, mist-magnified, and distorted -figures of the Dagda, Nuada, Lugh the Long-handed, and their fellows. - -The gods come and go as in the Iliad, and according to some accounts -leave their posterity behind them. Cuchulain himself, the incarnation -of Irish ἀριστέια, is according to certain authorities the son of -the god Lugh the Long-handed.[1] He himself, like another Anchises, -is beloved of a goddess and descends into the Gaelic Elysium,[2] -and the most important epic of the cycle is largely conditioned -by an occurrence caused by the curse of a goddess, an occurrence -wholly impossible and supernatural.[3] Yet these are for the most -part excrescences no more affecting the conduct of the history than -the actions of the gods affect the war round Troy. Events, upon the -whole, are motivated upon fairly reasonable human grounds, and there -is a certain air of probability about them. The characters who now -make their appearance upon the scene are not long prior to, or are -contemporaneous with, the birth of Christ; and the wars of the Tuatha -De Danann, Nemedians, and Fomorians, are left some seventeen hundred -years behind. - -This cycle, which I have called the "Heroic" or "Red Branch," might -also be named the "Ultonian," because it deals chiefly with the heroes -of the northern province. One saga relates the birth of Conor mac -Nessa. His mother was Ness and his father was Fachtna Fathach, king -of Ulster, but according to what is probably the oldest account, -his father was Cathba the Druid. This saga relates how, through the -stratagem of his mother Ness, Conor slipped into the kingship of -Ulster, displacing Fergus mac Róigh [Roy], the former king, who is -here represented as a good-natured giant, but who appears human enough -in the other sagas.[4] Conor's palace is described with its three -buildings; that of the Red Branch, where were kept the heads and arms -of vanquished enemies; that of the Royal Branch, where the kings -lodged; and that of the Speckled House, where were laid up the shields -and spears and swords of the warriors of Ulster. It was called the -Speckled or Variegated House from the gold and silver of the shields, -and gleaming of the spears, and shining of the goblets, and all arms -were kept in it, in order that at the banquet when quarrels arose the -warriors might not have wherewith to slay each other. - -Conor's palace at Emania contained, according to the Book of Leinster, -one hundred and fifty rooms, each large enough for three couples to -sleep in, constructed of red oak, and bordered with copper. Conor's -own chamber was decorated with bronze and silver, and ornamented with -golden birds, in whose eyes were precious stones, and was large enough -for thirty warriors to drink together in it. Above the king's head -hung his silver wand with three golden apples, and when he shook it -silence reigned throughout the palace, so that even the fall of a pin -might be heard. A large vat, always full of good drink, stood ever on -the palace floor. - -Another story tells of Cuchulain's mysterious parentage. His mother was -a sister of King Conor; consequently he was the king's nephew. - -Another again relates the wooing of Cuchulain, and how he won Emer for -his wife. - -Another is called Cuchulain's "Up-bringing," or teaching, part of -which, however, is found in the piece called the "Wooing of Emer." -This saga relates how he, with two other of the Ultonians, went abroad -to Alba to perfect their warlike accomplishments, and how they placed -themselves under the tuition of different female-warriors,[5] who -taught them various and extraordinary feats of arms. He traverses the -plain of Misfortune by the aid of a wheel and of an apple given him by -an unknown friend, and reaches the great female instructress Scathach, -whose daughter falls in love with him. - -An admirable example occurs to me here, of showing in the concrete that -which I have elsewhere laid stress upon, namely, the great elaboration -which in many instances we find in the modern versions of sagas, -compared with the antique vellum texts. It does not at all follow that -because a story is written down with brevity in ancient Irish, it was -also told with brevity. The oldest form of the saga of Cuchulain's -"Wooing of Emer" contains traces of a pre-Danish or seventh-century -text, but the condensed and shortened relation of the saga found in -the oldest manuscript of it, is almost certainly not the form in which -the bards and ollavs related it. On the contrary, I believe that the -stories now epitomised in ancient vellum texts were even then told, -though not written down, at full length, and with many flourishes -by the bards and professed story-tellers, and that the skeletons -merely, or as Keating calls it, the "bones of the history,"[6] were -in most instances all that was committed to the rare and expensive -parchments. It is more than likely that the longer modern paper -redactions, though some of the ancient pagan traits, especially those -most incomprehensible to the moderns, may be missing, yet represent -more nearly the _manner_ of the original bardic telling, than the -abridgments of twelfth or thirteenth-century vellums. - -In this case the ancient recension,[7] founded on a pre-Danish text, -merely mentions that Scathach's house, at which Cuchulain arrives, -after leaving the plain of Misfortune, - - "was built upon a rock of appalling height. Cuchulain followed the - road pointed out to him. He reached the castle of Scathach. He knocked - at the door with the handle of his spear and entered. Uathach, the - daughter of Scathach, meets him. She looked at him, but she spoke - not, so much did the hero's beauty make her love him. She went to her - mother and told her of the beauty of the man who had newly come. 'That - man has pleased you,' said her mother. 'He shall come to my couch,' - answered the girl, 'and I shall sleep at his side this night.' 'Thy - intention displeases me not,' said her mother." - -One can see at a glance how bald and brief is all this, because it is a -précis, and vellum was scarce. I venture to say that no bard ever told -it in this way. The scribes who first committed this to parchment, say -in the seventh or eighth century, probably wrote down only the leading -incidents as they remembered them. They may not have been themselves -either bards, ollavs, or story-tellers. It is chiefly in the later -centuries, after the introduction of paper, when the economising of -space ceased to be a matter of importance, that we find our sagas told -with all the redundancy of description, epithet, and incident with -which I suspect the very earliest bards embellished all those sagas -of which we have now only little more than the skeletons. Compare, -for instance, the ancient version which I have just given, with the -longer modern versions which have come down to us in several paper -manuscripts, of which I here use one in my own possession, copied about -the beginning of the century by a scribe named O'Mahon, upon one of the -islands on the Shannon. - -In the first place this version tells us that on his arrival at -Scathach's mansion he finds a number of her scholars and other warriors -engaged in hurling outside the door of her fortress. He joins in the -game and defeats them--this is a true folk-lore introduction. He finds -there Naoise, Ardan, and Ainnlè, the three sons of Usnach, celebrated -in perhaps the most touching saga of this whole cycle, and another -son of Erin with them. This is a literary touch, by one who knew his -literature.[8] Learning that he is come from Erin, they ask news of -their native country, and salute him with kisses. They then bring him -to the Bridge of the Cliffs, and show him what their work is during the -first year, which was learning to pass this bridge. - - "Wonderful," says the saga, "was the sight that bridge afforded when - any one would leap upon it, for it narrowed until it became as narrow - as the hair of one's head, and the second time it shortened until it - became as short as an inch, and the third time it grew slippery until - it was as slippery as an eel of the river, and the fourth time it rose - up on high against you until it was as tall as the mast of a ship." - -All the warriors and people on the lawn came down to see Cuchulain -attempting to cross this bridge. In the meantime Scathach's _grianán_ -or sunny house is described: "It had seven great doors, and seven -great windows between every two doors of them, and thrice fifty -couches between every two windows of them, and thrice fifty handsome -marriageable girls, in scarlet cloaks, and in beautiful and blue -attire, attending and waiting upon Scathach." - -Then Scathach's lovely daughter, looking from the windows of the -_grianán_, perceives the stranger attempting the feat of the bridge, -and she falls in love with him upon the spot. Her emotions are thus -described: "Her face and colour constantly changed, so that now she -would be as white as a little white flowret, and again she would become -scarlet," and in the work she was embroidering she put the gold thread -where the silver thread should be, and the silver thread into the place -where the gold thread should go; and when her mother notices it, she -excuses herself by saying beautifully, "I would greatly grieve should -he not return alive to his own people, in whatever part of the world -they may be, for I know that there is some one to whom it would be -anguish to know that he is thus." - -This refined reflection of the girl we may with certainty ascribe -to the growth of modern sentiment, and it is extremely instructive -to compare it with the ancient, and no doubt really pagan version; -but I strongly suspect that the bridge over the cliffs is no modern -embellishment at all, but part of the original saga, though omitted -from the pre-Norse text which only tells us that Scathach's house was -on the top of a rock of appalling height. - -It was during this sojourn of Cuchulain in foreign lands that he -overcame the heroine Aoife,[9] and forced her into a marriage with -himself. He returned home afterwards, having left instructions with her -to keep the child she should bear him, if it were a daughter, "for with -every mother goes the daughter," but if it were a son she was to rear -him until he should be able to perform certain hero-feats, and until -his finger should be large enough to fill a ring which Cuchulain left -with her for him. Then she was to send him into Erin, and bid him tell -no man who he was; also he desired her not to teach him the feat of -the Gae-Bulg, "but, however," says the saga, "it was ill that command -turned out, for it was of that it came to pass that Conlaoch [the son] -fell by Cuchulain."[10] - -I know of no prose saga of the touching story of the death of this -son, slain by his own father, except the _résumé_ given of it by -Keating,[11] but there exists a poem or épopée upon the subject which -was always a great favourite with the Irish scribes, and of which -numerous but not ancient copies exist. This is the Irish Sohrab and -Rustum, the Celtic Hildebrand and Hadubrand. The son comes into -Ireland, but in consequence of his mother's command, refuses to tell -his name. This is looked upon as indicating hostility, and many of -the Ultonians fight with him, but he overcomes them all, even the -great Conall Cearnach. Conor in despair sends for Cuchulain, who with -difficulty slays him by the feat of the Gae-Bolg, and then finds out -when too late that the dying champion is his own son. So familiar to -the modern Irish scribes was this piece that in my copy, in the last -verse, which ends with Cuchulain's lament over his son-- - - "I am the bark (buffeted) from wave to wave, - I am the ship after the losing of its rudder, - I am the apple upon the top of the tree - That little thought of its falling."[12] - -instead of the text of the third line stands a rough picture of a tree -with a large apple on the top! - -Another saga[13] tells of Cuchulain's _geasa_ [gassa] or restrictions. -It was _geis_ or tabu to him to narrate his genealogy to one champion, -as it was also to his son Conlaoch, to refuse combat to any one man, to -look upon the exposed bosom of a woman, to come into a company without -a second invitation, to accept the hospitality of virgins, to boast to -a woman, to let the sun rise before him in Emania, he must when there -rise before it, etc. There is in this saga a graphic description of the -pagan king's retinue journeying with him to be fed in the house of a -retainer. - - "All the Ultonian nobles set out; a great train of provincials, sons - of kings and chiefs, young lords and men-at-arms, the curled and - rosy youth of the kingdom, and the maidens and fair ringleted ladies - of Ulster. Handsome virgins, accomplished damsels, and splendid, - fully-developed women were there. Satirists and scholars were there, - and the companies of singers and musicians, poets who composed songs - and reproofs, and praising-poems for the men of Ulster. There came - also with them from Emania historians, judges, horse-riders, buffoons, - tumblers, fools, and performers on horseback. They all went by the - same way, behind the king."[14] - -Dismissing Cuchulain for the present, we pass on now to another -personality of the Red Branch saga--the Lady Déirdre. - -[1] _See_ "Compert Conculaind," by Windisch in "Irische Texte," t. i. -p. 134, and Jubainville's "Epopée Celtique en Irlande," p. 22. - -[2] _See_ the story of Cuchulain's sick-bed, translated by O'Curry -in the first volume of the "Atlantis," and by Mr. O'Looney in Sir J. -Gilbert's "Facsimiles of the National MSS. of Ireland," and by Windisch -in "Irische Texte," vol. i., pp. 195-234, and by M. de Jubainville in -his "Epopée Celtique," p. 174, and lastly, Mr. Nutt's "Voyage of Bran," -vol. ii., p. 38. - -[3] This is the periodic curse which overtook the Ulstermen at certain -periods, rendering them feeble as a woman in child-bed, in consequence -of the malediction of the goddess Macha, who was, just before the birth -of her children, inhumanly obliged by the Ultonians to run against the -king's horses. The only people of the northern province free from this -curse were the children born before the curse was uttered, the women, -and the hero Cuchulain. It transmitted itself from father to son for -nine generations, and is said to have lasted five nights and four days, -or four nights and five days. But one would think from the Táin Bo -Chuailgne that it must have lasted much longer. For this curse _see_ -Jubainville's "Epopée Celtique," p. 320. I was, not long ago, told a -story by a peasant in the county Galway not unlike it, only it was -related of the mother of the celebrated boxer Donnelly. - -[4] Except in one place in the Táin Bo Chuailgne, where his sword is -spoken of, which was like a thread in his hand, but which when he smote -with it extended itself to the size of a rainbow, with three blows of -which upon the ground he raised three hills. The description of Fergus -in the Conor story preserved in the Book of Leinster, is simply and -frankly that of a giant many times the size of an ordinary man. - -[5] The female warrior and war-teacher was not uncommon among the -Celts, as the examples of Boadicea and of Mève of Connacht show. - -[6] "Cnámha an tseanchusa." - -[7] Rawlinson, B. 512. - -[8] For Déirdre in her lament over the three does call them "three -pupils of Scathach." - -[9] Pronounced "Eefă." The triphthong _aoi_ has always the sound of -_ee_ in English. The stepmother of the Children of Lir was also called -Aoife. - -[10] I quote this from my paper version. The oldest text only says that -"Cuchulain told her that she should bear him a son, and that upon a -certain day in seven years' time that son should go to him; he told her -what name she should give him, and then he went away." - -[11] P. 279 of John O'Mahony's edition, translated also by M. de -Jubainville in his "Epopée Celtique," who comparing the Irish story -with its Germanic counterpart expresses himself strongly on their -relative merits: "Tout est puissant, logique, primitif, dans la pièce -irlandaise; sa concordance avec la piece persanne atteste une haute -antiquité. Elle peut remonter aux époques celtiques les plus anciennes, -et avoir été du nombre des _carmina_ chantés par les Gaulois à la -bataille de Clusium en 295 av. J.-C. Le poème allemand dont on a une -copie du huitième siècle est une imitation inintelligente et affaiblie -du chant celtique qui a dû retentir sur les rives du Danube et du Mein -mille ans plus tôt, et dont la rédaction germanique est l'œuvre de -quelque naïf Macpherson, prédécesseur honnêtement inhabile de celui du -dix-huitième siècle." - -[12] - - "Is mé an barc o thuinn go tuinn, - Is mé an long iar ndul d'á stiúr. - Is mé an t-ubhall i mbárr an chroinn - Is beag do shaoil a thuitim." - -_See_ Miss Brooke's "Reliques of Ancient Irish Poetry," 2nd ed. p. -393. See also Kuno Meyer's note at p. xv of his edition of _Cath -Finntragha_, in which he bears further evidence to the antiquity and -persistence of this story. - -[13] See the Book of Leinster, 107-111, a MS. copied about the year -1150. - -[14] Thus translated by my late lamented friend and accomplished -scholar Father James Keegan of St. Louis. - - - - -CHAPTER XXV - -DÉIRDRE - - -One of the key-stone stories of the Red Branch Cycle is Déirdre, or -the Fate of the Children of Usnach. Cuchulain, though he appears in -this saga, is not a prominent figure in it. This piece is perhaps the -finest, most pathetic, and best-conceived of any in the whole range of -our literature. But like much of that literature it exists in the most -various recensions, and there are different accounts given of the death -of all the principal characters. - -This saga commences with the birth of Déirdre. King Conor and his -Ultonians had gone to drink and feast in the house of Felim, Conor's -chief story-teller, and during their stay there Felim's wife gives -birth to a daughter. Cathba the Druid prophesies concerning the infant, -and foretells that much woe and great calamities shall yet come upon -Ulster because of her. He names her Déirdre.[1] The Ultonians are -smitten with horror at his prophecies, and order her to be instantly -put to death. The most ancient text, that of the twelfth-century Book -of Leinster, tells the beginning of this saga exceedingly tersely. - - "'Let the girl be slain,' cried the warriors. 'Not so,' said King - Conor, 'but bring ye her to me to-morrow; she shall be brought up - as I shall order, and she shall be the woman whom I shall marry.' - The Ultonians ventured not to contradict the King; they did as he - commanded. - - "Déirdre was brought up in Conor's house. She became the handsomest - maiden in Ireland. She was reared in a house apart: no man was allowed - to see her until she should become Conor's wife. No one was permitted - to enter the house except her tutor, her nurse, and Lavarcam,[2] whom - they ventured not to keep out, for she was a druidess magician whose - incantations they feared. - - "One winter day Déirdre's tutor slew a young tender calf upon the snow - outside the house, which he was to cook for his pupil. She beheld - a raven drinking the blood upon the snow. She said to Lavarcam, - 'The only man I could love would be one who should have those three - colours, hair black as the raven, cheeks red as the blood, body white - as the snow.' 'Thou hast an opportunity,' answered Lavarcam, 'the man - whom thou desirest is not far off, he is close to thee in the palace - itself; he is Naesi, son of Usnach.' 'I shall not be happy,' answered - Déirdre, 'until I have seen him.'" - -This famous story "which is known," as Dr. Cameron puts it, "over all -the lands of the Gael, both in Ireland and Scotland,"[3] has been more -fortunate than any other in the whole range of Irish literature, for -it has engaged the attention of, and been edited from different texts -by, nearly every great Celtic scholar of this century.[4] Yet I luckily -discovered last year in the museum in Belfast by far the amplest and -most graphic version of them all, bound up with some other pieces of -different dates. It was copied at the end of the last or the beginning -of the present century by a northern scribe, from a copy which must -have been fairly old to judge from the language and from the glosses -in the margin. I give here a literal translation of the opening of the -story from this manuscript, and it is an admirable example of the later -extension and embellishment of the ancient texts. - - THE OPENING OF THE FATE OF THE SONS OF USNACH, - FROM A MS. IN THE BELFAST MUSEUM. - - "Once upon a time Conor, son of Fachtna, and the nobles of the - Red Branch, went to a feast to the house of Feidhlim, the son of - Doll, the king's principal story-teller; and the King and people - were merry and light hearted, eating that feast in the house of the - principal story-teller, with gentle music of the musicians, and - with the melody of the voices of the bards and the ollavs, with the - delight of the speech and ancient tales of the sages, and of those - who read the keenes (?) (written on) flags and books; (listening) to - the prognostications of the druids and of those who numbered the - moon and stars. And at the time when the assembly were merry and - pleasant in general it chanced that Feidhlim's wife bore a beautiful, - well-shaped daughter, during the feast. Up rises expeditiously the - gentle Cathfaidh, the Head-druid of Erin, who chanced to be present - in the assembly at that time, and a bundle of his ancient ...? fairy - books in his left hand with him, and out he goes on the border of - the rath to minutely observe and closely scrutinise the clouds of - the air, the position of the stars and the age of the moon, to gain - a prognostication and a knowledge of the fate that was in store for - the child who was born there. Cathfaidh then returns quickly to all - in presence of the King and told them an omen and prophecy, that many - hurts and losses should come to the province of Ulster on account of - the girl that was born there. On the nobles of Ulster receiving this - prophecy they resolved on the plan of destroying the infant, and the - heroes of the Red Branch bade slay her without delay. - - "'Let it not be so done,' says the King; 'it is not laudable to fight - against fate, and woe to him who would destroy an innocent infant, - for agreeable is the appearance and the laugh of the child; alas! it - were a pity to quench her (life). Observe, O ye Nobles of Ulster, and - listen to me, O ye valiant heroes of the Red Branch, and understand - that I still submit to the omen of the prophecies and foretellings of - the seers, but yet I do not submit to, nor do I praise, the committing - of a base deed, or a deed of treachery, in the hope of quenching the - anger of the power of the elements. If it be a fate which it is not - possible to avoid, give ye, each of you, death to himself, but do - not shed the blood of the innocent infant, for it were not (our) due - (to have) prosperity thereafter. I proclaim to you, moreover, O ye - nobles of Emania, that I take the girl under my own protection from - henceforth, and if I and she live and last, it may be that I shall - have her as my one-wife and gentle consort. Therefore, I assure the - men of Erin by the securities of the moon and sun, that any one who - would venture to destroy her either now or again, shall neither live - nor last, if I survive her.' - - "The nobles of Ulster, and every one in general listened silent and - mute, until Conall Cearnach, Fergus mac Roigh, and the heroes of the - Red Branch rose up together, and 'twas what they said, 'O High-king - of Ulster, right is thy judgment, and it is (our) due to observe it, - and let it be thy will that is done.' - - "As for the girl, Conor took her under his own protection, and placed - her in a moat apart, to be brought up by his nurse, whose name was - Lavarcam, in a fortress of the Red Branch, and Conor and Cathfaidh - the druid gave her the name of Déirdre. Afterwards Déirdre was being - generously nurtured under Lavarcam and (other) ladies, perfecting her - in every science that was fitting for the daughter of a high prince, - until she grew up a blossom-bearing sapling, and until her beauty - was beyond every degree surpassing. Moreover, she was nurtured with - excessive luxury of meat and drink that her stature and ripeness might - be the greater for it, and that she might be the sooner marriageable. - This is how Déirdre's abode was (situated, namely) in a fortress of - the Branch, according to the King's command, every (aperture for) - light closed in the front of the dún, and the windows of the back - (ordered) to be open. A beautiful orchard full of fruit (lay) at the - back of the fort, in which Déirdre might be walking for a while under - the eye of her tutor at the beginning and the end of the day; under - the shade of the fresh boughs and branches, and by the side of a - running, meandering stream that was winding softly through the middle - of the walled garden. A high, tremendous difficult wall, not easy to - surmount, (was) surrounding that spacious habitation, and four savage - man-hounds (sent) from Conor (were) on constant guard there, and his - life were in peril for the man who would venture to approach it. For - it was not permitted to any male to come next nor near Déirdre, nor - even to look at her, but (only) to her tutor, whose name was Cailcin, - and to King Conor himself. Prosperous was Conor's sway, and valiant - was the fame (_i.e._, famous was the valour) of the Red Branch, - defending the province of Ulster against foreigners and against every - other province in Erin in his time, and there were no three in the - household of Emania or throughout all Banba [Ireland] more brilliant - than the sons of Uisneach, nor heroes of higher fame than they, Naoise - [Neeshă], Ainle, and Ardan. - - "As for Déirdre, when she was fourteen years of age she was found - marriageable and Conor designed to take her to his own royal couch. - About this time a sadness and a heavy flood of melancholy lay upon the - young queen, without gentle sleep, without sufficient food, without - sprightliness--as had been her wont. - - "Until it chanced of a day, while snow lay (on the ground), in the - winter, that Cailcin, Déirdre's tutor, went to kill a calf to get - ready food for her, and after shedding the blood of the calf out - upon the snow, a raven stoops upon it to drink it, and as Déirdre - perceives that, and she watching through a window of the fortress, - she heaved a heavy sigh so that Cailcin heard her. 'Wherefore thy - melancholy, girl?' said he. 'Alas that I have not yon thing as I see - it,' said she. 'Thou shalt have that if it be possible,' said he, - drawing his hand dexterously so that he gave an unerring cast of his - knife at the raven, so that he cut one foot off it. And after that he - takes up the bird and throws it over near Déirdre. The girl starts at - once, and fell into a faint, until Lavarcam came up to help her. 'Why - art thou as I see thee, dear girl,' said she, 'for thy countenance - is pitiable ever since yesterday?' 'A desire that came to me,' said - Déirdre. 'What is that desire?' said Lavarcam. 'Three colours that I - saw,' said Déirdre, 'namely, the blackness of the raven, the redness - of the blood, and the whiteness of the snow.' 'It is easy to get that - for thee now,' said Lavarcam, and arose (and went) out without delay, - and she gathered the full of a vessel of snow, and half the full of a - cup of the calf's blood, and she pulls three feathers out of the wing - of the raven. And she laid them down on the table before the girl. - Déirdre began as though she were eating the snow and lazily tasting - the blood with the top of the raven's feather, and her nurse closely - scrutinising her, until Déirdre asked Lavarcam to leave her alone by - herself for a while. Lavarcam departs, and again returns, and this - is how she found Déirdre--shaping a ball of snow in the likeness of - a man's head and mottling it with the top of the raven's feather out - of the blood of the calf, and putting the small black plumage as hair - upon it, and she never perceived her nurse examining her until she had - finished. 'Whose likeness is that?' said Lavarcam. Déirdre starts and - she said,'It is a work easily destroyed.' 'That work is a great wonder - to me, girl,' said Lavarcam, 'because it was not thy wont to draw - pictures of a man, (and) it was not permitted to the women of Emania - to teach thee any similitude but that of Conor only.' 'I saw a face - in my dream,' said Déirdre, 'that was of brighter countenance than - the King's face, or Cailcin's, and it was in it that I saw the three - colours that pained me, namely, the whiteness of the snow on his skin, - the blackness of the raven on his hair, and the redness of the blood - upon his countenance, and oh woe! my life will not last, unless I get - my desire.' 'Alas for thy desire, my darling,' said Lavarcam. 'My - desire, O gentle nurse,' said Déirdre. 'Alas! 'tis a pity thy desire, - it is difficult to get it,' said Lavarcam, 'for fast and close is the - fortress of the Branch, and high and difficult is the enclosure round - about, and [there is] the sharp watch of the fierce man-hounds in it.' - 'The hounds are no danger to us,' said Déirdre. 'Where did you behold - that face?' said Lavarcam. 'In a dream yesterday,' said Déirdre, and - she weeping, after hiding her face in her nurse's bosom, and shedding - tears plentifully. 'Rise up from me, dear pupil,' said Lavarcam, - 'and restrain thy tears henceforth till thou eatest food and takest - a drink, and after Cailcin's eating his meal we shall talk together - about the dream.' Her nurse raises Déirdre's head, 'Take courage, - daughter,' said she, 'and be patient, for I am certain that thou shalt - get thy desire, for according to human age and life, Conor's time - beside thee is not (to be) long or lasting.' - - "After Lavarcam's departing from her, she [Lavarcam] perceived a green - mantle hung in the front of a closed-up window on the head of a brass - club and the point of a spear thrust through the wall of the mansion. - Lavarcam puts her hand to it so that it readily came away with her, - and stones and moss fell down after it, so that the light of day, and - the grassy lawn, and the Champion's Plain in front of the mansion, and - the heroes at their feats of activity became visible. 'I understand, - now, my pupil,' said Lavarcam, 'that it was here you saw that dream.' - But Déirdre did not answer her. Her nurse left food and ale on the - table before Déirdre, and departed from her without speaking, for the - boring-through of the window did not please Lavarcam, for fear of - Conor or of Cailcin coming to the knowledge of it. As for Déirdre, she - ate not her food, but she quenched her thirst out of a goblet of ale, - and she takes with her the flesh of the calf, after covering it under - a corner of her mantle, and she went to her tutor and asks leave of - him to go out for a while (and walk) at the back of the mansion. 'The - day is cold, and there is snow darkening in (the air) daughter,' said - Cailcin, 'but you can walk for a while under the shelter of the walls - of the mansion, but mind the house of the hounds.' - - "Déirdre went out, and no stop was made by her until she passed down - through the middle of the snow to where the den of the man-hounds was, - and as soon as the hounds recognised her and the smell of the meat - they did not touch her, and they made no barking till she divided - her food amongst them, and she returns into the house afterwards. - Thereupon came Lavarcam, and found Déirdre lying upon one side of - her couch, and she sighing heavily and shedding tears. Her nurse - stood silent for a while observing her, till her heart was softened - to compassion and her anger departed from her. She stretched out her - hand, and 'twas what she said, 'Rise up, modest daughter, that we - may be talking about the dream, and tell me did you ever see that - black hero before yesterday?' 'White hero, gentle nurse, hero of the - pleasant crimson cheeks,' said Déirdre. 'Tell me without falsehood,' - said Lavarcam, 'did you ever see that warrior before yesterday, or - before you bored through the window-work with the head of a spear - and with a brass club, and till you looked out through it on the - warriors of the Branch when they were at their feats of activity on - the Champion Plain, and till you saw all the dreams you spoke of?' - Déirdre hides her head in her nurse's bosom, weeping, till she said, - 'Oh, gentle mother and nurturer of my heart, do not tell that to my - tutor; and I shall not conceal from thee that I saw him on the lawn of - Emania, playing games with the boys, and learning feats of valour, and - och! he had the beautiful countenance at that time, and very lovely - was it yesterday (too).' 'Daughter,' said Lavarcam, 'you did not see - the boys on the green of Emania from the time you were seven years of - age, and that is seven years ago.' 'Seven bitter years,' said Déirdre, - 'since I beheld the delight of the green and the playing of the boys, - and surely, too, Naoise surpassed all the youths of Emania.' 'Naoise, - the son of Uisneach?' said Lavarcam. 'Naoise is his name, as he told - me,' said Déirdre, 'but I did not ask whose son he was.' 'As he told - you!' said Lavarcam. 'As he told me,' said Déirdre, 'when he made - a throw of a ball, by a miss-cast, backwards transversely over the - heads of the band of maidens that were standing on the edge of the - green, and I rose from amongst them all, till I lifted the ball, and - I delivered it to him, and he pressed my hand joyously.' 'He pressed - your hand, girl!' said Lavarcam. 'He pressed it lovingly, and said - that he would see me again, but it was difficult for him, and I did - not see him since until yesterday, and oh, gentle nurse, if you wish - me to be alive take a message to him from me, and tell him to come to - visit me and talk with me secretly to-night without the knowledge of - Cailcin or any other person.' 'Oh, girl,' said Lavarcam, it is a very - dangerous attempt to gain the quenching of thy desire [being in peril] - from the anger of the King, and under the sharp watch of Cailcin, - considering the fierceness of the savage man-hounds, and considering - the difficulty of (scaling) the enclosure round about.' 'The hounds - are no danger to us,' said Déirdre. 'Then, too,' said Lavarcam, 'great - is Conor's love for the children of Uisneach, and there is not in the - Red Branch a hero dearer to him than Naoise.' 'If he be the son of - Uisneach,' said Déirdre, 'I heard the report of him from the women of - Emania, and that great are his own territories in the West of Alba, - outside of Conor's sway, and, gentle nurse, go to find Naoise, and you - can tell him how I am, and how much greater my love for him is than - for Conor.' 'Tell him that yourself if you can,' said Lavarcam, and - she went out thereupon to seek Naoise till he was found, and till he - came with her to Déirdre's dwelling in the beginning of the night, - without Cailcin's knowledge. When Naoise beheld the splendour of the - girl's countenance he is filled with a flood of love, and Déirdre - beseeches him to take her and escape to Alba. But Naoise thought - that too hazardous, for fear of Conor. But in the course (?) of the - night Déirdre won him over, so that he consented to her, and they - determined to depart on the night of the morrow. - - "Déirdre escaped in the middle of the night without the knowledge - of her tutor or her nurse, for Naoise came at that time and his two - brothers along with him, so that he bored a gap at the back of the - hounds' den, for the dogs were dead already through poison from - Déirdre. - - "They lifted the girl over the walls, through every rough impediment, - so that her mantle and the extremity of her dress were all tattered, - and he set her upon the back of a steed, and no stop was made by them - till (they reached) Sliabh Fuaid and Finn-charn of the watch, till - they came to the harbour and went aboard a ship and were driven by a - south wind across the ocean-waters and over the back-ridges of the - deep sea to Loch n-Eathaigh in the west of Alba, and thrice fifty - valiant champions [sailed] along with them, namely, fifty with each of - the three brothers, Naoise, Ainle, and Ardan." - -The three brothers and Déirdre lived for a long time happily in -Scotland and rose to great favour and power with the King, until he -discovered the existence of the beautiful Déirdre, whom they had -carefully kept concealed lest he should desire her for his wife. This -discovery drives them forth again, and they live by hunting in the -highlands and islands. - -It is only at this point that most of the modern copies, such as that -published by O'Flanagan in 1808, begin, namely, with a feast of King -Conor's, in which he asks his household and all the warriors of Ulster -who are present, whether they are aware of anything lacking to his -palace in Emania. They all reply that to them it seems perfect. "Not -so to me," answers Conor, "I know of a great want which presseth upon -you, namely, three renowned youths, the three luminaries of the valour -of the Gaels, the three beautiful, noble sons of Usnach, to be wanting -to you on account of any woman in the world." "Dared we say that," said -they, "long since would we have said it." - -Conor thereupon proposes to send ambassadors to them to solicit their -return. He takes Conall Cearnach apart and asks him if he will go, -and what would he do should the sons of Usnach be slain while under -his protection. Conall answers that he would slay without mercy any -Ultonian who dared to touch one of them. So does Cuchulain. Fergus mac -Róigh alone promises not to injure the King himself should he touch -them, but any other Ultonian who should wrong them must die. Fergus -and his two sons sailed to Alba, commissioned to proclaim peace to the -sons of Usnach and bring them home. Having landed, Fergus gives forth -the cry of a "mighty man of chace." Naoise and Déirdre were sitting -together in their hunting booth playing at chess. Naoise heard the -cry and said, "I hear the call of a man of Erin." "That was not the -call of a man of Erin," said Déirdre, "but the call of a man of Alba." -Twice again did Fergus shout, and twice did Déirdre insist that it was -not the cry of a man of Erin. At last Naoise recognises the voice of -Fergus, and sends his brother to meet him. Then Déirdre confesses that -she had recognised the call of Fergus from the beginning. "Why didst -thou conceal it then, my queen?" said Naoise. "A vision I had last -night," said Déirdre, "for three birds came to us from Emania having -three sups of honey in their beaks, and they left them with us, but -they took with them three sups of our blood." "And how readest thou -that, my queen," said Naoise. "It is," said Déirdre, "the coming of -Fergus to us with a peaceful message from Conor, for honey is not more -sweet than the peaceful message of the false man." - -But all is of no avail. Fergus and his sons arrive and spend the night -with the children of Usnach, and despite of all that Déirdre can do, -she sees them slowly win her husband round to their side, and inspire -him with a desire to return once more to Erin. - -Next morning they embark. Déirdre weeps and utters lamentations; she -sings her bitter regret at leaving the scenes where she had been so -happy. - - "Delightful land," she sang, "yon eastern land, Alba, with its - wonders. I had never come hither out of it had I not come with - Naoise.... - - "The Vale of Laidh, Oh in the Vale of Laidh, I used to sleep under - soft coverlet; fish and venison and the fat of the badger were my - repast in the Vale of Laidh. - - "The Vale of Masan, oh the Vale of Masan, high its harts-tongue, fair - its stalks, we used to enjoy a rocking sleep above the grassy verge of - Masan.[5] - - "The vale of Eiti, oh the vale of Eiti! In it I raised my first house, - lovely was its wood (when seen) on rising, the milking-house of the - sun was the vale of Eiti. - - "Glendarua, oh Glendarua! my love to every one who enjoys it; sweet - the voice of the cuckoo upon bending bough upon the cliff above - Glendarua. - - "Dear is Droighin over the strong shore. Dear are its waters over pure - sand; I would never have come from it had I not come with my love." - -She ceased to sing, the vessel approached the shore, and the fugitives -are landed once more in Erin. But dangers thicken round them. Through -a strategy of King Conor's Fergus is placed under _geasa_ or tabu by -a man called Barach to stay and partake of a feast with him, and thus -detached from the sons of Usnach, who are left alone with his two sons -instead. Then Déirdre again uses all her influence with her husband -and his brothers to sail to Rathlin and wait there until they can be -rejoined by Fergus, but she does not prevail. After that she has a -terrifying dream, and tells it to them, but Naoise answered lightly in -verse-- - - "Thy mouth pronounceth not but evil, - O maiden, beautiful, incomparable; - The venom of thy delicate ruby mouth - Fall on the hateful furious foreigners." - -Thereafter, as they advanced farther upon their way towards King -Conor's palace at Emania, the omens of evil grow thicker still, and -all Déirdre's terrors are re-awakened by the rising of a blood-red -cloud. - - "'O Naoise, view the cloud - That I see here on the sky, - I see over Emania green - A chilling cloud of blood-tinged red. - - I have caught alarm from the cloud - I see here in the sky, - It is like a gore-clot of blood, - The cloud terrific very-thin.'" - -And she urged them to turn aside to Cuchulain's palace at Dundalgan, -and remain under that hero's safeguard till Fergus could rejoin them. -But she cannot persuade the others that the treachery which she herself -sees so clearly is really intended. Her last despairing attempt is made -as they come in sight of the royal city; she tells them that if, when -they arrive, they are admitted into the mansion in which King Conor is -feasting with the nobles of Ulster round him, they are safe, but if -they are on any pretext quartered by the King in the House of the Red -Branch, they may be certain of treachery. They _are_ sent to the House -of the Red Branch, and not admitted among the King's revellers, on the -pretended grounds that the Red Branch is better prepared for strangers, -and that its larder and its cellar are better provided with food and -drink than the King's mansion. All now begin to feel that the net is -closing over them. Late in the night King Conor, fired with drink and -jealousy, called for some one to go for him and bring him word how -Déirdre looked, "for if her own form live upon her, there is not in the -world a woman more beautiful than she." Lavarcam, the nurse, undertakes -to go. She, of course, discloses to Déirdre and Naoise the treachery -that is being plotted against them, and returning to Conor she tells -him that Déirdre has wholly lost her beauty, whereat, "much of his -jealousy abated, and he continued to indulge in feasting and enjoyment -a long while, until he thought of Déirdre a second time." This time -he does not trust Lavarcam, but sends one of his retainers, first -reminding him that his father and his three brothers had been slain -by Naoise. But in the mean time the entrances and windows of the Red -Branch had been shut and barred and the doors barricaded by the sons of -Usnach. One small window, however, had been left open at the back and -the spy climbed upon a ladder and looked through it and saw Naoise and -Déirdre sitting together and playing at chess. Déirdre called Naoise's -attention to the face looking at them, and Naoise, who was lifting a -chessman off the board, hurled it at the head and broke the eye that -looked at them. The man ran back and told the King that it was worth -losing an eye to have beheld a woman so lovely. Then Conor, fired with -fury and jealousy, led his troops to the assault, and all night long -there is fighting and shouting round the Red Branch House, and Naoise's -brothers, helped by the two sons of Fergus, pass the night in repelling -attack, and in quenching the fires that break out all round the house. -At length one of Fergus's sons is slain and the other is bought off by -a bribe of land and a promise of power from King Conor, and now the -morning begins to dawn, but the sons of Usnach are still living, and -Déirdre is still untaken. At last Conor's druid, Cathba, consents to -work a spell against them if Conor will plight his faithful word that -having once taken Déirdre he will not touch or harm the sons of Usnach. -Conor plights his word and troth, and the spell is set at work. The -sons of Usnach had left the half-burnt house and were escaping in the -morning light with Déirdre between them when they met, as they thought, -a sea of thick viscid waves, and they cast down their weapons and -spread abroad their arms and tried to swim, and Conor's soldiers came -and took them without a blow. They were brought to Conor and he caused -them to be at once beheaded. It was then the druid cursed Emania, for -Conor had broken his plighted word, and that curse was fulfilled in -the misery that fell upon the province during the wars with Mève. -He cursed also the house of Conor, and prophesied that none of his -descendants should possess Emania for ever, "and that," adds the saga, -"has been verified, for neither Conor nor any of his race possessed -Emania from that time to this."[6] - -As for Déirdre, she was as one distracted; she fell upon the ground and -drank their blood, she tore her hair and rent her dishevelled tresses, -and the lament she broke forth into has long been a favourite of Irish -scribes. She calls aloud upon the dead, "the three falcons of the mount -of Culan, the three lions of wood of the cave, the three sons of the -breast of the Ultonians, the three props of the battalion of Chuailgne, -the three dragons of the fort of Monadh." - - "The High King of Ulster, my first husband, - I forsook him for the love of Naoise. - - * * * * * - - That I shall live after Naoise - Let no man on earth imagine. - - * * * * * - - Their three shields and their three spears - Have often been my bed. - - * * * * * - - I never was one day alone - Until the day of the making of the grave, - Although both I and ye - Were often in solitude. - - My sight has gone from me - At seeing the grave of Naoise." - -She remembers now in her own agony another woman who would lament with -her could she but know that Naoise had died. - - "On a day that the nobles of Alba [Scotland] were feasting, - And the sons of Usnach, deserving of love, - To the daughter of the lord of Duntrone - Naoise gave a secret kiss. - - He sent to her a frisking doe, - A deer of the forest with a fawn at its foot, - And he went aside to her on a visit - While returning from the host of Inverness. - - But when I heard that - My head filled full of jealousy, - I launched my little skiff upon the waves, - I did not care whether I died or lived. - - They followed me, swimming, - Ainnlé and Ardan, who never uttered falsehood, - And they turned me in to land again, - Two who would subdue a hundred. - - Naoise pledged me his word of truth, - And he swore in presence of his weapons three times, - That he would never cloud my countenance again - Till he should go from me to the army of the dead. - - Alas! if she were to hear this night - That Naoise was under cover in the clay, - She would weep most certainly, - And I, I would weep with her sevenfold."[7] - -After her lay of lamentation she falls into the grave where the three -are being buried, and dies above them. "Their flag was raised over -their tomb, and their names were written in Ogam, and their funeral -games were celebrated. Thus far the tragedy of the sons of Usnach." - -The oldest and briefest version of this fine saga, that preserved in -the Book of Leinster, ends differently, and even more tragically. On -the death of Naoise, who is slain the moment he appears on the lawn of -Emania, Déirdre is taken, her hands are bound behind her back and she -is given over to Conor. - - "Déirdre was for a year in Conor's couch, and during that year she - neither smiled nor laughed nor took sufficiency of food, drink, or - sleep, nor did she raise her head from her knee. When they used to - bring the musicians to her house she would utter rhapsody-- - - "'Lament ye the mighty warriors - Assassinated in Emania on coming,' etc. - - "When Conor would be endeavouring to sooth her, it was then she would - utter this dirge-- - - "'That which was most beauteous to me beneath the sky, - And which was most lovely to me, - Thou hast taken from me--great the anguish-- - I shall not get healed of it to my death,' etc. - - "'What is it you see that you hate most?' said Conor. - - "'Thou thyself and Eoghan [Owen] son of Duthrecht,'[8] said she. - - "'Thou shalt be a year in Owen's couch then,' said Conor. Conor then - gave her over to Owen. - - "They drove the next day to the assembly at Muirtheimhne. She was - behind Owen in a chariot. She looked towards the earth that she might - not see her two gallants. - - "'Well, Déirdre,' said Conor, 'it is the glance of a ewe between two - rams you cast between me and Owen.' - - "There was a large rock near. She hurled her head at the stone, so - that she broke her skull and was dead. - - "This is the exile of the sons of Usnach and the cause of the exile of - Fergus and of the death of Déirdre." - -It was in consequence of Conor's treachery in slaying the sons of -Usnach while under Fergus's protection that this warrior turned -against his king, burnt Emania, and then seceded into Connacht to -Oilioli [Ulyul] and Mève, king and queen of that province, where he -took service with about fifteen hundred Ultonians who, indignant at -Conor, seceded along with him. "It was he," says Keating, summing up -the substance of the sagas, "who carried off the great spoils from -Ulster whence came so many wars and enmities between the people of -Connacht and Ulster, so that the exiles who went from Ulster into -banishment with Fergus continued seven, or as some say, ten years in -Connacht, during which time they kept constantly spoiling, destroying -and plundering the Ultonians, on account of the murder of the sons of -Usnach. And the Ultonians in like manner wreaked vengeance upon them, -and upon the people of Connacht, and made reprisals for the booty which -Fergus had carried off, and for every other evil inflicted upon them -by the exiles and by the Connacht men, insomuch that the losses and -injuries sustained on both sides were so numerous that whole volumes -have been written upon them, which would be too long to mention or take -notice of at present." - -It was with the assistance of Fergus and the other exiles that Mève -undertook her famous expedition into Ulster, of which we must now speak. - -[1] Pronounced "Dare-dră," said to mean "alarm." Jubainville translates -it "Celle-qui-se-débat." - -[2] In the older form Leborcham. She is generally described as -Conor's messenger; in one place she is called his _bean-cainte_ or -"talking-woman"; this is the only passage I know of in which she is -credited with any higher powers. She is said elsewhere to have been the -daughter of two slaves of Conor's household, Oa or Aué and Adarc. - -[3] Yet when in Trinity College Dublin, a few years ago, the -subject--the first Irish subject for twenty-seven years--set for the -Vice-Chancellor's Prize in English verse was "Déirdre," it was found -that the students did not know what that word meant, or what Déirdre -was, whether animal, vegetable, or mineral. So true it is that, despite -all the efforts of Davis and his fellows, there are yet two nations in -Ireland. Trinity College might to some extent bridge the gap if she -would, but she has carefully refrained from attempting it. - -[4] O' Flanagan first printed two versions of it in the solitary volume -which comprises the "Transactions of the Gaelic Society," as early -as 1808. The older of these two versions agrees closely with that -contained in "Egerton, 1782," of the British Museum, but neither of the -MSS. which he used is now known to exist. Eugene O'Curry edited the -story from the text in the Yellow Book of Lecan, with a translation -in the "Atlantis," a long defunct Irish periodical. Windisch edited -the oldest existing version, that of the Book of Leinster, in the -first volume of "Irische Texte." None of these three versions differ -appreciably. In the second volume of the same, Dr. Whitley Stokes -edited a consecutive text from 56 and 53 of the MSS. in the Advocates' -Library at Edinburgh, the latter of which is a vellum of the fifteenth -century. Finally, the text of both these MSS. was published in full -in vol. ii. of Dr. Cameron's "Reliquiæ Celticæ," where he also gives -a translation of the first. Keating, too, in his history, retells the -story at considerable length. Windisch's, O'Curry's, and O'Flanagan's -texts were reprinted in 1883 in the "Gaelic Journal." In addition to -all these Mr. Carmichael published in Gaelic in 1887 an admirable -folk-lore version of the story from the Isles of Scotland in the -thirteenth volume of the "Transactions of the Inverness Gaelic -Society," and the tale is retold in English, chiefly from this version, -by Mr. Jacobs in the first series of his "Celtic Fairy Tales." M. -d'Arbois de Jubainville has given a French translation of the entire -story from the Book of Leinster, the older Edinburgh MS., and the -Highland Folktale, the latter two being translated by M. Georges -Dottin. Macpherson made this story the foundation of his "Darthula." -Dr. Dwyer Joyce published the story in America as an English poem. -Sir Samuel Ferguson, Dr. Todhunter, and the present writer have all -published adaptations of it in English verse, and Mr. Rolleston made -it the subject of the Prize Cantata at the Féis Ceóil in Dublin in -1897. Hence I may print here this new and full opening of a piece so -celebrated. For text see _Zeit. f. Celt. Phil._ II. 1, p. 142. - -[5] - - "Gleann Masáin, ón Gleann Masáin, - Árd a chneamh, geal a ghasáin, - Do ghnidhmís codladh corrach - Os inbhear mongach Masáin." - -[6] We have seen that none of the race of Ir claim descent from Conor; -all their great families O'Mores, O'Farrells, etc., descend from Fergus -mac Róigh [Roy] or Conall Cearnach (_see_ ch. VI note 17); yet Conor -had twenty-one sons, all of whom, says Keating, died without issue -except three--"Benna, from whom descended the Benntraidhe; Lamha, -from whom came the Lamhraidhe; and Glasni, whose descendants were the -Glasnaide; but even of these," adds Keating, "there is not at this day -a single descendant alive in Ireland." _See_ O'Mahony's translation, p. -278. - -[7] - - "Och! da gcluinfeadh sise anocht - Naoise bheith fá bhrat i gcré, - Do ghoilfeadh sise go beacht, - Acht do ghoilfinn-se fá seacht lé." - -[8] Who had slain Náoise at Conor's bidding, in the older version. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVI - -THE TÁIN BO CHUAILGNE - - -The greatest of the heroic sagas and the longest is that which is -called the Táin Bo Chuailgne,[1] or "Cattle-Raid of Cooley," a district -of Ulster contained in the present county of Louth, into which Oilioll -and Méadhbh [Mève], the king and queen of Connacht, led an enormous -army composed of men from the four other provinces, to carry off the -celebrated Dun Bull of Cooley. - -Although there is a great deal of verbiage and piling-up of rather -barren names in this piece, nevertheless there are also several finely -conceived and well-executed incidents. The saga which, according to -Zimmer, was probably first committed to writing in the seventh or -eighth century, is partially preserved in the Leabhar na h-Uidhre, a -manuscript made about the year 1100, and there is a complete copy of it -in the Book of Leinster made about fifty years later. I have chiefly -translated from a more modern text in my own possession, which differs -very slightly from the ancient ones. - -The story opens with a conversation between Mève, queen of Connacht, -and Oilioll her husband, which ends in a dispute as to which of them -is the richest. There was no modern Married Women's Property Act in -force, but Irish ladies seem to have been at all times much more -sympathetically treated by the Celtic tribes than by the harder and -more stern races of Teutonic and Northern blood, and Irish damsels -seem to have been free to enjoy their own property and dowries.[2] -The story, then, begins with this dispute as to which, husband or -wife, is the richer in this world's goods, and the argument at last -becomes so heated that the pair decide to have all their possessions -brought together to compare them one with another and judge by actual -observation which is the most valuable. They collected accordingly -jewels, bracelets, metal, gold, silver, flocks, herds, ornaments, -etc., and found that in point of wealth they were much the same, but -that there was one great bull called Finn-bheannach or White-horned, -who was really calved by one of Mève's cows, but being endowed with a -certain amount of intelligence considered it disgraceful to be under -a woman, and so had gone over to Oilioll's herds. With him Mève had -nothing that could compare. She made inquiry, however, and found out -from her chief courier that there was in the district of Cuailgne in -Louth (Mève lived at Rathcroghan in Roscommon) a most celebrated bull -called the Dun Bull of Cuailgne belonging to a chieftain of the name -of Darè. To him accordingly she sends an embassy requesting the loan -of the bull for one year, and promising fifty heifers in return. Darè -was quite willing, and promised to lend the animal. He was in fact -pleased, and treated the embassy generously, giving them good lodgings -with plenty of food and drink--too much drink in fact. The fate of -nations is said to often hang upon a thread. On this occasion that of -Ulster and Connacht depended upon a drop more or less, absorbed by one -of the ten men who constituted Mève's embassy. This man unfortunately -passed the just limit, and Darè's steward coming in at the moment -heard him say that it was small thanks to his master to give his bull -"for if he hadn't given it we'd have taken it." That word decided the -fate of provinces. The steward, indignant at such an outrage, ran and -told his master, and Darè swore that now he would lend no bull, and -what was more, but that the ten men were envoys he swore he would hang -them. With indignity they were dismissed, and returned empty-handed to -Mève's boundless indignation. She in her turn swore she would have the -bull in spite of Darè. She immediately sent out to collect her armies, -and invited Leinster and Munster to join her. She was in fact able to -muster most of the three provinces to march against Ulster to take -the bull from Darè, and in addition she had Fergus mac Roy and about -fifteen hundred Ulster warriors who had never returned to their homes -nor forgiven Conor for the murder of the sons of Usnach. She crossed -the Shannon at Athlone, and marched on to Kells, within a few miles of -Ulster, and there she pitched her standing camp. She was accompanied -by her husband and her daughter who was the fairest among women. Her -mother had secretly promised her hand to every leader in her army in -order to nerve them to do their utmost. - -At the very beginning Mève is forewarned by a mysterious female of -the slaughter which is to come. She had driven round in her chariot -to visit her druid and to inquire of him what would come of her -expedition, and is returning somewhat reassured in her mind by the -druid's promise which was-- - - "'Whosoever returneth or returneth not, thou shalt return,' and," says - the saga, "as Mève returned again upon her track she beheld a thing - which caused her to wonder, a single woman (riding) beside her, upon - the pole of her chariot. And this is how that maiden was. She was - weaving a border with a sword of bright bronze[3] in her right hand - with its seven rings of red gold, and, about her, a spotted speckled - mantle of green, and a fastening brooch in the mantle over her bosom. - A bright red gentle generous countenance, a grey eye visible in her - head, a thin red mouth, young pearly teeth she had. You would think - that her teeth were a shower of white pearls flung into her head. - Her mouth was like fresh coral? [_partaing_]. The melodious address - of her voice and her speaking tones were sweeter than the strings of - curved harp being played. Brighter than the snow of one night was the - splendour of her skin showing through her garments, her feet long, - fairy-like, with (well) turned nails. Fair yellow hair very golden - on her. Three tresses of her hair round her head, one tress behind - falling after her to the extremities of her ankles. - - "Mève looks at her. 'What makest thou there, O maiden?' said Mève. - - "'Foreseeing thy future for thee, and thy grief, thou who art - gathering the four great provinces of Ireland with thee to the land of - Ulster, to carry out the Táin Bo Chuailgne.' - - "'And wherefore doest thou me this?" said Mève. - - "'Great reason have I for it,' said the maiden. 'A handmaid of thy - people (am I),' said she. - - "'Who of my people art thou?' said Mève. - - "'Féithlinn, fairy-prophetess of Rathcroghan, am I,' said she. - - "'It is well, O Féithlinn, prophetess,' said Mève, 'and how seest thou - our hosts?' - - "'I see crimson over them, I see red,' said she. - - "'Conor is in his sickness[4] in Emania,' said Mève, 'and messengers - have reached me from him, and there is nothing that I dread from the - Ultonians, but speak thou the truth, O Féithlinn, prophetess,' said - Mève. - - "'I see crimson, I see red,' said she. - - "'Comhsgraidh Meann ... is in Innis Comhsgraidh in his sickness, and - my messengers have reached me, and there is nothing that I fear from - the Ultonians, but speak me truth, O Féithlinn, prophetess, how seest - thou our host?' - - "'I see crimson, I see red.' - - "'Celtchar, son of Uitheachar, is in his sickness,' said Mève, 'and - there is nothing I dread from the Ultonians, but speak truth, O - Féithlinn, prophetess.' - - "'I see crimson, I see red,' said she. - - "' ...?' said Mève, 'for since the men of Erin will be in one place - there will be disputes and fightings and irruptions amongst them, - about reaching the beginnings or endings of fords or rivers, and about - the first woundings of boars and stags, of venison, or matter of - venery, speak true, O Féithlinn, prophetess, how seest thou our host? - said Mève. - - "'I see crimson I see red,' said she." - -After this follows a long poem, wherein "she foretold Cuchulain to the -men of Erin." - -The march of Mève's army is told with much apparent exactness. The -names of fifty-nine places through which it passed are given; and many -incidents are recorded, one of which shows the furious, jealous, and -vindictive disposition of the amazon queen herself. She, who seems to -have taken upon herself the entire charge of the hosting, had made -in her chariot the full round of the army at their encamping for the -night, to see that everything was in order. After that she returned to -her own tent and sat beside her husband Olioill at their meal, and he -asks her how fared the troops. Mève then said something laudatory about -the Gaileóin,[5] or ancient Leinstermen, who were not of Gaelic race, -but appear to have belonged to some early non-Gaelic tribe, cognate -with the Firbolg. - - "'What excellence perform they beyond all others that they be thus - praised?' said Oilioll. - - "'They give cause for praise,' said Mève, 'for while others were - choosing their camping-ground, they had made their booths and - shelters; and while others were making their booths and shelters, they - had their feast of meat and ale laid out; and while others were laying - out their feasts of bread and ale, these had finished their food and - fare; and while others were finishing their food and fare, these were - asleep. Even as their slaves and servants have excelled the slaves - and servants of the men of Erin, so will their good heroes and youths - excel the good heroes and youths of the men of Erin in this hosting.' - - "'I am the better pleased at that,' said Oilioll, 'because it was with - me they came, and they are my helpers.'[6] - - "'They shall not march with thee, then,' said Mève, 'and it is not - before me, nor to me, they shall be boasted of.' - - "'Then let them remain in camp,' said Oilioll. - - "'They shall not do that either,' said Mève. - - "'What shall they do, then?' said Findabar, daughter of Oilioll and - Mève, 'if they shall neither march nor yet remain in camp.' - - "'My will is to inflict death and fate and destruction on them,' said - Mève." - -It is with the greatest difficulty that Fergus is enabled to calm -the furious queen, and she is only satisfied when the three thousand -Gaileóins have been broken up and scattered throughout the other -battalions, so that no five men of them remained together. - -Thereafter the army came to plains so thickly wooded, in the -neighbourhood of the present Kells, that they were obliged to cut down -the wood with their swords to make a way for their chariots, and the -next night they suffered intolerably from a fall of snow. - - "The snow that fell that night reached to men's legs and to the wheels - of chariots, so that the snow made one plain of the five provinces of - Erin, and the men of Ireland never suffered so much before in camp, - none knew throughout the whole night whether it was his friend or his - enemy who was next him, until the rise early on the morrow of the - clear-shining sun, glancing on the snow that covered the country." - -They are now on the borders of Ulster, and Cuchulain is hovering on -their flank, but no one has yet seen him. He lops a gnarled tree, -writes an Ogam on it, sticks upon it the heads of three warriors he had -slain, and sets it up on the brink of a ford. That night Oilioll and -Mève inquire from the Ultonians who were in her army more particulars -about this new enemy, and nearly a sixth part of the whole Táin -is taken up by the stories which are then and there related about -Cuchulain's earliest history and exploits, first by Fergus, and, when -he is done relating, by Cormac Conlingeas, and when he has finished, -by Fiacha, another Ultonian. This long digression, which is one of the -most interesting parts of the whole saga, being over, we return to the -direct story. - -Cuchulain, who knows every tree and every bush of the country, still -hangs upon Mève's flank, and without showing himself during the day, he -slays a hundred men with his sling[7] every night. - -Mève, through an envoy, asks for a meeting with him, and is astonished -to find him, as she thinks, a mere boy. She offers him great rewards in -the hope of buying him off, but he will have none of her gold. The only -conditions upon which he will cease his night-slaying is if Mève will -promise to let him fight with some warrior every day at the ford, and -will promise to keep her army in its camp while these single combats -last, and this Mève consents to, since she says it is better to lose -one warrior every day than one hundred every night. - -A great number of single combats then take place, each of which is -described at length. One curious incident is that of the war-goddess, -whom he had previously offended, the Mór-rígu,[8] or "great queen," -attacking him while fighting with the warrior Loich. She came against -him, not in her own figure, but as a great black eel in the water, who -wound itself around his legs, and as he stooped to disengage himself -Loich wounded him severely in the breast. Again she came against him in -the form of a great grey wolf-bitch, and as Cuchulain turned to drive -her off he was again wounded. A third time she came against him as a -heifer with fifty other heifers round her, but Cuchulain struck her and -broke one of her eyes, just as Diomede in the Iliad wounds the goddess -Cypris when she appears against him.[9] Cuchulain, thus embarrassed, -only rids himself of Loich by having recourse to the mysterious feat of -the Gae-Bolg, about which we shall hear more later on. His opponent, -feeling himself mortally hurt, cries out-- - - "'By thy love of generosity I crave a boon.' - - "'What boon is that?' said Cuchulain. - - "'It is not to spare me I ask,' said Loich, 'but let me fall forwards - to the east, and not backward to the west, that none of the men of - Erin may say that I fell in panic or in flight before thee.' - - "'I grant it,' said Cuchulain, 'for surely it is a warrior's request.'" - -After this encounter Cuchulain grew terribly despondent, and urged his -charioteer Laeg again to hasten the men of Ulster to his assistance, -but their pains were still upon them, and he is left alone to bear -the brunt of the attack as best he may. Mève also breaks her compact -by sending six men against him, but them he overcomes, and in revenge -begins again to slay at night. - -Thereafter follows the episode known in Irish saga as the Great Breach -of Moy Muirtheimhne. Cuchulain, driven to despair and enfeebled by -wounds, fatigue, and watching, was in the act of ascending his chariot -to advance alone against the men of the four provinces, moving to -certain death, when the eye of his charioteer is arrested by the -figure of a tall stranger moving through the camp of the enemy, -saluting none as he moved, and by none saluted. - -"That man," said Cuchulain, "must be one of my supernatural friends of -the shee[10] folk, and they salute him not because he is not seen." - -The stranger approaches, and, addressing Cuchulain, desires him to -sleep for three days and three nights, and instantly Cuchulain fell -asleep, for he had been from before the feast of Samhain till after -Féil Bhrighde[11] without sleep, "unless it were that he might sleep a -little while beside his spear, in the middle of the day, his head on -his hand, and his hand on his spear, and his spear on his knee, but all -the while slaughtering, slaying, preying on, and destroying, the four -great provinces." - -It was after this long sleep of Cuchulain's that, awaking fresh and -strong, the Berserk rage fell upon him. He hurled himself against -the men of Erin, he drove round their flank, he "gave his chariot -the heavy turn, so that the iron wheels of the chariot sank into -the earth, so that the track of the iron wheels was (in itself) a -sufficient fortification, for like a fortification the stones and -pillars and flags and sands of the earth rose back high on every side -round the wheels." All that day, refreshed by his three days' sleep, he -slaughtered the men of Erin. - -Other single combats take place after this, in one of which the druid -Cailitin and his twenty sons would have slain him had he not been -rescued by his countryman Fiacha, one of those Ultonians who with -Fergus had turned against their king and country when the children of -Usnach were slain. - -It was only at the last that his own friend Ferdiad was despatched -against him, through the wiles of Mève. Ferdiad was not a Gael, but of -the Firbolg or Firdomhnan race,[12] yet he proved very nearly a match -for Cuchulain. Knowing what Mève wanted with him, he positively refused -to come to her tent when sent for, and in the end he is only persuaded -by her sending her druids and ollavs against him, who threatened "to -criticise, satirise, and blemish him, so that they would raise three -blisters[13] on his face unless he came with them." At last he went -with them in despair, "because he thought it easier to fall by valour -and championship and weapons than to fall by [druids'] wisdom and by -reproach." - -The fight with Ferdiad is perhaps the finest episode in the Táin. The -following is a description of the conduct of the warriors after the -first day's conflict. - - THE FIGHT AT THE FORD.[14] - - "They ceased fighting and threw their weapons away from them into - the hands of their charioteers. Each of them approached the other - forthwith and each put his hand round the other's neck and gave him - three kisses. Their horses were in the same paddock that night, and - their charioteers at the same fire; and their charioteers spread beds - of green rushes for them with wounded men's pillows to them. The - professors of healing and curing came to heal and cure them, and they - applied herbs and plants of healing and curing to their stabs, and - their cuts, and their gashes, and to all their wounds. Of every herb - and of every healing and curing plant that was put to the stabs and - cuts and gashes, and to all the wounds of Cuchulain, he would send an - equal portion from him, westward over the ford to Ferdiad, so that the - men of Erin might not be able to say, should Ferdiad fall by him, that - it was by better means of cure that he was enabled to kill him. - - "Of each kind of food and of palatable pleasant intoxicating drink - that was sent by the men of Erin to Ferdiad, he would send a fair - moiety over the ford northwards to Cuchulain, because the purveyors of - Ferdiad were more numerous than the purveyors of Cuchulain. All the - men of Erin were purveyors to Ferdiad for beating off Cuchulain from - them, but the Bregians only were purveyors to Cuchulain, and they used - to come to converse with him at dusk every night. They rested there - that night." - -The narrator goes on to describe the next day's fighting, which was -carried on from their chariots "with their great broad spears," and -which left them both in such evil plight that the professors of healing -and curing "could do nothing more for them, because of the dangerous -severity of their stabs and their cuts and their gashes and their -numerous wounds, than to apply witchcraft and incantations and charms -to them to staunch their blood and their bleeding and their gory -wounds." - -Their meeting on the next day follows thus:-- - - "They arose early the next morning and came forward to the ford of - battle, and Cuchulain perceived an ill-visaged and a greatly lowering - cloud on Ferdiad that day. - - "'Badly dost thou appear to-day, O Ferdiad,' said Cuchulain, 'thy hair - has become dark this day and thine eye has become drowsy, and thine - own form and features and appearance have departed from thee.' - - "'It is not from fear or terror of thee that I am so this day,' said - Ferdiad, 'for there is not in Erin this day a champion that I could - not subdue.' - - "And Cuchulain was complaining and bemoaning and he spake these words, - and Ferdiad answered: - - CUCHULAIN. - Oh, Ferdiad, is it thou? - Wretched man thou art I trow, - By a guileful woman won - To hurt thine old companion. - - FERDIAD. - O Cuchulain, fierce of fight, - Man of wounds and man of might, - Fate compelleth each to stir - Moving towards his sepulchre."[15] - -The lay is then given, each of the heroes reciting a verse in turn, and -it is very possibly upon these lays that the prose narrative is built -up. The third day's fighting is then described in which the warriors -use their "heavy hand-smiting swords," or rather swords that gave -"blows of size. "[16] The story then continues-- - - "They cast away their weapons from them into the hands of their - charioteers, and though it had been the meeting pleasant and happy, - griefless and spirited of two men that morning, it was the separation, - mournful, sorrowful, dispirited, of the two men that night. - - "Their horses were not in the same enclosure that night. Their - charioteers were not at the same fire. They rested that night there. - - "Then Ferdiad arose early next morning and went forwards alone to the - ford of battle, for he knew that that day would decide the battle and - the fight, and he knew that one of them would fall on that day there - or that they both would fall. - - * * * * * - - "Ferdiad displayed many noble, wonderful, varied feats on high that - day, which he never learned with any other person, neither with - Scathach, nor with Uathach, nor with Aife, but which were invented by - himself that day against Cuchulain. - - "Cuchulain came to the ford and he saw the noble, varied, wonderful, - numerous feats which Ferdiad displays on high. - - "'I perceive these, my friend, Laeg' [said Cuchulain to his - charioteer], 'the noble, varied, wonderful, numerous feats which - Ferdiad displays on high, and all these feats will be tried on me in - succession, and, therefore, it is that if it be I who shall begin to - yield this day thou art to excite, reproach, and speak evil to me, so - that the ire of my rage and anger shall grow the more on me. If it be - I who prevail, then thou shalt laud me, and praise me, and speak good - words to me that my courage may be greater.'[17] - - "'It shall so be done indeed, O Cuchulain,' said Laeg. - - "And it was then Cuchulain put his battle-suit of conflict and of - combat and of fight on him, and he displayed noble, varied, wonderful, - numerous feats on high on that day, that he never learned from anybody - else, neither with Scathach, nor with Uathach, nor with Aife. Ferdiad - saw those feats and he knew they would be plied against him in - succession. - - "'What weapons shall we resort to, O Ferdiad?' said Cuchulain. - - "'To thee belongs thy choice of weapons till night,' said Ferdiad. - - "'Let us try the Ford Feat then,' said Cuchulain. - - "'Let us indeed,' said Ferdiad. Although Ferdiad thus spoke his - consent it was a cause of grief to him to speak so, because he knew - that Cuchulain was used to destroy every hero and every champion who - contended with him in the Feat of the Ford. - - "Great was the deed, now, that was performed on that day at the - ford--the two heroes, the two warriors, the two champions of Western - Europe, the two gift and present and stipend bestowing hands of the - north-west of the world; the two beloved pillars of the valour of the - Gaels, and the two keys of the bravery of the Gaels to be brought to - fight from afar through the instigation and intermeddling of Oilioll - and Mève. - - "Each of them began to shoot at other with their missive weapons from - the dawn of early morning till the middle of midday. And when midday - came the ire of the men waxed more furious, and each of them drew - nearer to the other. And then it was that Cuchulain on one occasion - sprang from the brink of the ford and came on the boss of the shield - of Ferdiad, son of Daman, for the purpose of striking his head over - the rim of his shield from above. And it was then that Ferdiad gave - the shield a blow of his left elbow and cast Cuchulain from him like - a bird on the brink of the ford. Cuchulain sprang from the brink of - the ford again till he came on the boss of the shield of Ferdiad, son - of Daman, for the purpose of striking his head over the rim of the - shield from above. Ferdiad gave the shield a stroke of his left knee - and cast Cuchulain from him like a little child on the brink of the - ford. - - "Laeg [his charioteer] perceived that act. 'Alas, indeed,' said Laeg, - 'the warrior who is against thee casts thee away as a lewd woman would - cast her child. He throws thee as foam is thrown by the river. He - grinds thee as a mill would grind fresh malt. He pierces thee as the - felling axe would pierce the oak. He binds thee as the woodbine binds - the tree. He darts on thee as the hawk darts on small birds, so that - henceforth thou hast nor call nor right nor claim to valour or bravery - to the end of time and life, thou little fairy phantom,' said Laeg. - - "Then up sprang Cuchulain with the rapidity of the wind and with the - readiness of the swallow, and with the fierceness of the dragon and - the strength of the lion into the troubled clouds of the air the third - time, and he alighted on the boss of the shield of Ferdiad, son of - Daman to endeavour to strike his head over the rim of his shield from - above. And then it was the warrior gave the shield a shake, and cast - Cuchulain from him into the middle of the ford, the same as if he had - never been cast off at all. - - "And it was then that Cuchulain's first distortion came on, and he - was filled with swelling and great fulness, like breath in a bladder, - until he became a terrible, fearful, many-coloured, wonderful Tuaig, - and he became as big as a Fomor, or a man of the sea, the great and - valiant champion, in perfect height over Ferdiad.[18] - - "So close was the fight they made now that their heads met above and - their feet below and their arms in the middle over the rims and bosses - of their shields. So close was the fight they made that they cleft and - loosened their shields from their rims to their centres. So close was - the fight which they made that they turned and bent and shivered their - spears from their points to their hafts. Such was the closeness of - the fight which they made that the Bocanachs and Bananachs, and wild - people of the glens, and demons of the air screamed from the rims of - their shields and from the hilts of their swords and from the hafts - of their spears. Such was the closeness of the fight which they made - that they cast the river out of its bed and out of its course, so that - it might have been a reclining and reposing couch for a king or for - a queen in the middle of the ford, so that there was not a drop of - water[19] in it unless it dropped into it by the trampling and the - hewing which the two champions and the two heroes made in the middle - of the ford. Such was the intensity of the fight which they made that - the stud of the Gaels darted away in fright and shyness, with fury and - madness, breaking their chains and their yokes, their ropes and their - traces, and that the women and youths, and small people, and camp - followers, and non-combatants of the men of Erin broke out of the camp - south-westwards. - - "They were at the edge-feat of swords during the time. And it was then - that Ferdiad found an unguarded moment upon Cuchulain, and he gave - him a stroke of the straight-edged sword, and buried it in his body - until his blood fell into his girdle, until the ford became reddened - with the gore from the body of the battle-warrior. Cuchulain would not - endure this, for Ferdiad continued his unguarded stout strokes, and - his quick strokes and his tremendous great blows at him. And he asked - Laeg, son of Riangabhra, for the Gae Bulg. The manner of that was - this: it used to be set down the stream and cast from between the toes - [_lit._ in the cleft of the foot], it made the wound of one spear in - entering the body, but it had thirty barbs to open, and could not be - drawn out of a person's body until it was cut open. And when Ferdiad - heard the Gae Bulg mentioned he made a stroke of the shield down to - protect his lower body. Cuchulain thrust the unerring thorny spear off - the centre of his palm over the rim of the shield, and through the - breast of the skin-protecting armour, so that its further half was - visible after piercing his heart in his body. Ferdiad gave a stroke - of his shield up to protect the upper part of his body, though it was - 'the relief after the danger.' The servant set the Gae Bulg down the - stream and Cuchulain caught it between the toes of his foot, and he - threw an unerring cast of it at Ferdiad till it passed through the - firm deep iron waistpiece of wrought iron and broke the great stone - which was as large as a millstone in three, and passed through the - protections of his body into him, so that every crevice and every - cavity of him was filled with its barbs. - - "'That is enough now, indeed,' said Ferdiad, 'I fall of that. Now - indeed may I say that I am sickly after thee, and not by thy hand - should I have fallen,' and he said [_here follow some verses_].... - - "Cuchulain ran towards him after that, and clasped his two arms about - him and lifted him with his arms and his armour and his clothes across - the ford northward, in order that the slain should lie by the ford on - the north, and not by the ford on the west with the men of Erin. - - "Cuchulain laid Ferdiad down there, and a trance and a faint and a - weakness fell then on Cuchulain over Ferdiad. - - "'Good, O Cuchulain,' said Laeg, 'rise up now for the men of Erin are - coming upon us, and it is not single combat they will give thee since - Ferdiad, son of Daman, son of Dare, has fallen by thee.' - - "'Servant,' said he, 'what availeth me to arise after him that hath - fallen by me.'" - -Cuchulain is carried away swooning after this fight and is brought by -the two sons of Géadh to the streams and rivers to be cured of his -stabs and wounds, by plunging him in the waters and facing him against -the currents, "for the Tuatha De Danann sent plants of grace and herbs -of healing (floating) down the streams and rivers of Muirtheimhne, to -comfort and help Cuchulain, so that the streams were speckled and green -overhead with them." The Finglas, the Bush, the Douglas, and eighteen -other rivers are mentioned as aiding to cure him. - -During the period of Cuchulain's leeching many events were happening in -Mève's camp, amongst others the tragic death of her beautiful daughter, -Finnabra.[20] Isolated bands of the men of Ulster were now beginning -to at last muster in front of Mève, and amongst them came a certain -northern chief, who was, as her daughter secretly confessed to Mève, -her own love and sweetheart beyond all the men of Erin. - -The prudent Mève immediately desires her to go to him, if he is -her lover, and do everything in her power to make him draw off his -warriors. This design, however, got abroad, and came to the ears of the -twelve Munster princes who led the forces of the southern province in -Mève's army. These gradually make the discovery that the astute queen -had secretly promised her daughter's hand to each one of the twelve, -as an inducement to him to take part in her expedition. Infuriated -at being thus trifled with and at Mève's treachery in now sending -her daughter to the Ultonian, they fall with all their forces upon -the queen's battalion and the whole camp becomes a scene of blood -and confusion. The warrior Fergus at last succeeds in separating the -combatants, not before seven hundred men have fallen. But when Finnabra -saw the slaughter that was raging, of which she herself was cause, "a -blood-torrent burst from her heart in her bosom through (mingled) shame -and generosity," and she was taken up dead. - -In the meantime Cuchulain is joined by another great Ultonian warrior, -who is also being leeched. He had fallen upon the men of Erin -single-handed, and received many wounds, one from Mève herself, who -fought, like Boadicea, at the head of her troops. He describes the -amazon who wounded him to Cuchulain-- - - "A largely-nurtured, white-faced, long-cheeked woman, with a yellow - mane on the top of her two shoulders, with a shirt of royal silk over - her white skin, and a speckled spear red-flaming in her hand; it was - she who gave me this wound, and I gave her another small wound in - exchange. - - "'I know that woman,' said Cuchulain, 'that woman was Mève, and it had - been glory and exultation to her had you fallen by her hand.'" - -Afterwards Sualtach, father of Cuchulain, heard the groans of his son -as he was being cured, and said, "Is it heaven that is bursting, or the -sea that is retiring, or the land that is loosening, or is it the groan -of my son in his extremity that I hear?" said he. Cuchulain despatches -him to urge the Ultonians to his assistance. "Tell them how you found -me," he said; "there is not the place of the point of a needle in me -from head to foot without a wound, there is not a hair upon my body -without a dew of crimson blood upon the top of every point, except my -left hand alone that was holding my shield." - -And now the Ultonians begin to rally and face the men of Erin. Troops -are seen to pour in from every quarter of Ulster, gathering upon the -plains of Meath for the great battle that was impending. Mève sends -out her trusted messenger to bring word of what is going on amongst -the hostile bands. His first report is that the noise of the Ultonians -hewing down the woods before their chariots with the edge of their -swords was "like nothing but as it were the solid firmament falling -upon the surface-face of the earth, or as it were the sky-blue sea -pouring over the superficies of the plain, as it were the earth being -rent asunder, or the forests falling [each tree] into the grasp and -fork of the other." - -Mac Roth, the chief messenger, is again sent out to observe the -gathering of the hosts and to bring word of what bands are coming in -to the hill where Conor, king of Ulster, has set up his standard. On -his return at nightfall there follows a long, minute, and tedious -account, something like the list of ships in the Iliad, only broken -by the questions of Mève and Oilioll, and the answers of Fergus. It -contains, however, some passages of interest. The scout describes the -arrival of twenty-nine different armaments around their respective -chiefs at the hill where King Conor is encamping. Incidentally he gives -us descriptions of characters of interest in the Saga-cycle. As he ends -his description of each band and its leaders, Oilioll turns to Fergus, -and Fergus from Mac Roth's description recognises and tells him who -the various leaders are. In this way we get a glimpse at Sencha, the -wise man, the Nestor of the Red Branch, whose counsel was ever good. -"That man," said Fergus, "is the speaker and peace-maker of the host -of Ulster, and I pledge my word that it is no cowardly or unheroic -counsel which that man will give to his lord this day, but counsel -of vigour and valour and fight." We see the arrival of Feirceirtné, -the arch-ollav of the Ultonians, of Cathbadh the Druid, he who had -prophesied of Déirdre at her birth, who was supposed, according to -the earliest accounts, to have been the real father of King Conor, -he who weakened the children of Usnach by his spells; and we see -also Aithirne, the infamous and overbearing poet of the Ultonians, -about whom much is related in other tales. "The lakes and rivers," -said Fergus, "recede before him when he satirises them, and rise up -before him when he praises them." "There are not many men in life more -handsome or more golden-locked than he," said Mac Roth, "he bears a -gleaming ivory[-hilted] sword in his right hand." With this sword he -amuses himself, something like the Norman trouvère Taillefer at the -battle of Hastings, by casting it aloft and letting it fall almost on -the heads of his companions but without hurting them. The arch-druid -is described as having scattered whitish-grey hair, and wearing a -purple-blue mantle with a large gleaming shield and bosses of red -brass, and a long iron sword of foreign look. Conor's leech, Finghin, -led a band of physicians to the field; "that man could tell," said -Fergus, "what a person's sickness is by looking at the smoke of the -house in which he is." Another hero whom we catch a glimpse of is the -mighty Conall Cearnach, the greatest champion of the north, whose name -was till lately a household word around Dunsevrick, he who afterwards -so bloodily avenged Cuchulain's death, "the sea over seas, the bursting -rock, the furious troubler of hosts," as Fergus calls him. - -We also see the youth Erc, son of Cairbré Niafer the High-king, who -comes from Tara to assist his grandfather King Conor. It is curious, -however, that in this catalogue of the Ultonians quite as much space is -given to the description of men whose names are now--so far, at least, -as I know--unknown to us, as to those who often and prominently figure -in our yet remaining stories. - -At last the great battle of the Táin comes off, when the men of Ulster -meet the men of Ireland fairly and face to face. Prodigies of valour -are performed on both sides, and Fergus--who after Cuchulain is -certainly the hero of the Táin--seconded by Oilioll, by Mève, by the -Seven Mainès, and by the sons of Magach, drives the Ultonians back on -his side of the battle three times. Conor, who is on the other flank, -perceives that the men of his far wing are being broken, and loudly - - "he shouts to the Household of the Red Branch, 'hold ye the place - in the battle where I am, till I go find who it is who has thrice - inclined the battle against us on the north.' - - "'We take that upon ourselves,' said they, 'for heaven is over us, - and earth is under us, and unless the firmament fall down upon the - wave-face of the earth, or the ocean encircle us, or the ground give - way under us, or the ridgy blue-bordered sea rise over the expanse[21] - of life, we shall give not one inch of ground before the men of Erin - till thou come to us again, or till we be slain.'" - -Conor hastens northward and finds himself confronted by the man he had -so bitterly wronged, whose hand had lain heavy on his province and -himself, Fergus, who now comes face to face with him after so many -years. Tremendous are the strokes of Fergus. - - "He smote his three enemy blows upon Conor's shield 'Eochain' so that - the shield screamed thrice upon him, and the three leading waves of - Erin answered it. - - "'Who,' cries Fergus, 'holds his shield against me in this battle?'[22] - - "'O Fergus,' cried Conor, 'one who is greater and younger and - handsomer, and more perfect than thyself is here, and whose father - and whose mother were better than thine; one who slew the three great - candles of the valour of the Gaels, the three prosperous sons of - Usnach, in spite of thy guarantee and thy protection, the man who - banished thee out of thy own land and country, the man who made of it - a dwelling-place for the deer and the roe and the foxes, the man who - never left thee as much as the breadth of thy foot of territory in - Ulster, the man who drove thee to the entertainment of women,[23] and - the man who will drive thee back this day in the presence of the men - of Erin, [I] Conor, son of Fachtna Fathach, High-king of Ulster, and - son of the High-king of Ireland." - -Despite this boasting he would certainly have been slain by his great -opponent had not one of his sons clasped his arms in supplication -around Fergus's knees and conjured him not to destroy Ulster, and -Fergus, melted by these entreaties, consented to remain passive if -Conor retired to the other wing of the battle, which he did. - -In the meantime Mève had sent away the Dun Bull with fifty heifers -round him and eight men, to drive him to her palace in Connacht, "so -that whoever reached Cruachan alive, or did not reach it, the Dun Bull -of Cuailgne should reach it as she had promised." - -Cuchulain, who had joined the Ultonians, and whose arms had been taken -from him, lest in his enfeebled condition he should injure himself by -taking part in the fray, unable to bear any longer the look of the -battle, the shouting and the war-cries, rushes into the fight with -part of his broken chariot for a weapon, and performs mighty feats. -At length he ceases to slay at Mève's solicitation, whose life he -spares, and the shattered remnants of her host begin slowly to withdraw -across the ford. "Oilioll draws his shield of protection behind the -host [_i.e._, covers the rear], Mève draws her shield of protection in -her own place, Fergus draws his shield of protection, the Mainès draw -their shield of protection, the sons of Magach draw their shield of -protection behind the host; and in this manner they brought with them -the men of Erin across the great ford westward," nor did they cease -their retreat till Mève and her army found themselves at Cruachan in -Connacht, whence they had set out. - -The long saga ends with a decided anti-climax, the encounter between -the Dun Bull, whom Mève had carried off, and her own bull, the -White-Horned.[24] These bulls, according to one of the most curious -of the short auxiliary sagas to the Táin, were really rebirths of two -men who hated each other during life, and now fought it out in the form -of bulls. When they caught sight of each other they pawed the earth -so furiously that they sent the sods flying across their shoulders, -"they rolled the eyes in their heads like flames of fiery lightning." -All day long they charged, and thrust, and struggled, and bellowed, -while the men of Ireland looked on, "but when the night came they could -do nothing but be listening to the noises and the sounds." The two -bulls traversed much of Ireland during that night.[25] Next morning -the people of Cruachan saw the Dun Bull coming with the remains of -his enemy upon his horns. The men of Connacht would have intercepted -him, but Fergus, ever generous, swore with a great oath that all that -had been done in the pursuit of the Táin was nothing to what he would -do if the Dun Bull were not allowed to return to his own country with -his kill. The Dun made straight for his home at Cuailgne in Louth. He -drank of the Shannon at Athlone, and as he stooped one of his enemy's -loins fell off from his horn, hence Ath-luain, the Ford of the Loin. -After that he rushed, mad with passion, towards his home, killing every -one who crossed his way. Arrived there, he set his back to a hill and -uttered wild bellowings of triumph, until "his heart in his breast -burst, and he poured his heart in black mountains of brown blood out -across his mouth." - -Thus far the Táin Bo Chuailgne. - -[1] Pronounced "Taun Bo Hooiln'ya." - -[2] Yet in the Brehon law a woman is valued at only the seventh part -of a man, three cows instead of twenty-one; but if she is young and -handsome she has her additional "honour price." - -[3] "Findruini." See Book of Leinster, f. 42, for the old text of this, -but I am here using a modern copy, not trusting myself to translate -accurately from the old text. - -[4] This is the mysterious sickness which seizes upon all the Ultonians -at intervals except Cuchulain. _See_ ch. XXIV, note 3. - -[5] For more about the Gaileóin see p. 598 of Rhys's Hibbert Lectures, -and O'Curry, "M. and C.," vol. ii. p. 260. - -[6] They were countrymen of Oilioll's. - -[7] Crann-tábhail; it is doubtful what kind of missile weapon this -really was. It was certainly of the nature of a sling, but was partly -composed of wood. - -[8] _See_ above, p. 54 and 291. _Rigú_ is the old form of _roghan_. - -[9] - - "ὁ δέ Κύπριν ἐπῴχετο νηλέι χαλκῷ - Γιγνώσκων ὅτ᾽ ἄναλκις ἔην θεός, οὐδὲ θεάων - Τάων αἵ τ᾽ ἀνδρῶν πόλεμον κατα κοιρανέουσιν, - Οὔτ᾽ ἄρ᾽ Ἀθηναίη, οὔτε πτολίπορθος Ἐνυώ. - Ἀλλ ὅτε δή ῥ᾽ ἐκίχανε πολὺν καθ᾽ ὅμιλον ὀπάζων, - Ἐνθ᾽ ἐπορεξάμενος, μεγαθύμου Τυδέος υἱὸς - Ἄκρην οὔτασε χεῖρα, μετάλμενος ὀξέϊ δουρὶ - Ἀβληχρήν. εἶθαρ δὲ δόρυ χροὸς ἀντετόρησεν - Ἀμβροσίου διὰ πέπλου, ὁν οἱ Χάριτες κάμον αὐταὶ, - Πρυμνὸν ὑπερ θέναρος ῥέε δ᾽ ἄμβροτον αἷμα θεοῖο - Ἰχώρ, οἷος πέρ τε ῥέει μακάρεσσι θεοῖσιν." - - _Iliad_, v. 330. - -A better instance except for the sex is where he afterwards wounds -Ares. (_See_ v. 855.) - -[10] In Irish, _sidh._ The stranger is really Cuchulain's divine father. - -[11] This is incredible, for the sickness of the Ultonians could not -have endured so long. - -[12] The prominence given to and the laudatory comments on the -non-Gaelic or non-Milesian races, such as the Gaileóins and Firbolg -in this saga is very remarkable. It seems to me a proof of antiquity, -because in later times these races were not prominent. - -[13] These are the three blisters mentioned in Cormac's Glossary under -the word _gaire_. Nede satirises--wrongfully--his uncle Caier, king -of Connacht; "Caier arose next morning early and went to the well. He -put his hand over his countenance, he found on his face three blisters -which the satire had caused, namely, Stain, Blemish, and Defect [_on, -anim, eusbaidh_], to wit, red and green and white." - -[14] I give here, for the most part, the translation given by Sullivan -in his Addenda to O'Curry's "Manners and Customs," but it is an -exceedingly faulty and defective one from a linguistic point of view. -However, even though some words may be mistranslated or their sense -mistaken, it is immaterial here. Windisch is said to have finished -a complete translation of the Táin, but it has not as yet appeared -anywhere. Max Netlau has studied the texts of the Ferdiad episode in -vols. x. and xi. of the "Revue Celtique." - -[15] This is the metre of the original. The last lines are literally, -"A man is constrained to come unto the sod where his final grave shall -be." The metre of the last line is wrong in the Book of Leinster. - -[16] Tortbullech = toirt-bhuilleach. - -[17] A common trait even in the modern Gaelic tales, as in the story -of Iollan, son of the king of Spain, whose sweetheart urges him to the -battle by chanting his pedigree; and in Campbell's story of Conall -Gulban, where the daughter of the King of Lochlann urges her bard to -exhort her champion in the fight lest he may be defeated, and to give -him "Brosnachadh file fir-ghlic," _i.e._, the urging of a truly wise -poet. - -[18] Compare this with the Berserker rage of the Northmen. - -[19] _Cf._ the common Gaelic folk-lore formula, "they would make soft -of the hard and hard of the soft, and bring cold springs of fresh water -out of the hard rock with their wrestling." - -[20] Or Findabar, the fair-eyebrowed one. - -[21] "Tulmuing." _See_ p. 7. - -[22] I do not think this is rightly translated, but the passage is -obscure to me. - -[23] Alluding to Fergus serving with Queen Mève. - -[24] The Finnbheannach, pronounced "Fin-van-ach." Both the bulls were -endowed with intelligence. One of the virtues of the Dun Bull was that -neither Bocanachs nor Bananachs nor demons of the glens could come into -one cantred to him. There emanated from him, too, when returning home -every evening, a mysterious music, so that the men of the cantred where -he was, required no other music. The war-goddess herself, the Mór-rigú, -speaks to him. - -[25] Every place in Ireland, says the saga, that is called -Cluain-na-dtarbh, Magh-na-dtarbh, Bearna-na-dtarbh, Druim-na-dtarbh, -Loch-na-dtarbh, _i.e._, the Bull's meadow, plain, gap, ridge, lake, -etc., has its name from them! - - - - -CHAPTER XXVII - -THE DEATH OF CUCHULAIN - - -Although Cuchulain won for himself in this war an imperishable fame, -yet he was not destined to enjoy it long, for he perished before -arriving at middle age.[1] The account of his death is preserved in the -Book of Leinster, a manuscript of the middle of the twelfth century, -which quotes incidentally from an Irish poet[2] of the seventh century, -thus showing that Cuchulain was at this early age the hero of the -poets. Unfortunately the opening of the story in the Book of Leinster -is lost, but many modern extensions of the saga still exist, from one -of which in my possession I shall supply what is missing.[3] - -Cuchulain had three formidable enemies, who were bent upon his life, -these were Lughaidh [Lewy] the son of the Momonian king Curigh,[4] -whom Cuchulain had slain, Erc, the son of Cairbré Niafer king of -all Ireland, who was slain in the battle of Rosnaree,[5] and the -descendants of the wizard Calatin, who with his twenty sons and his -son-in-law fell by Cuchulain in one of the combats at the Ford, during -the raid of the Táin. His wife, however, brought into the world three -posthumous children, daughters.[6] These unhappy creatures Mève -mutilated by cutting off their right legs and left arms, so that -they might be odious and horrible, and all the fitter for the dread -profession she proposed for them--evil wizardry. She reared them -carefully, and so soon as they were of a fitting age she sent them into -the world to gain a knowledge of charms and spells, and druidism, and -witchcraft, and incantations. In pursuit of this knowledge they roamed -throughout the world, and at last returned to the queen as perfect -adepts as might be. - -Thereupon she convened a second muster of the men of the four -provinces, and joined by Lewy the son of Curigh, and Erc the son of -Cairbré Niafer, both of whose parents had fallen by Cuchulain, and -having with her the odious but powerful children of Calatin, eager -to avenge the death of their father and their family, she again -marched upon Ulster during the sickness of their warriors, and began -to plunder and to burn and to drive away a mighty prey. King Conor -immediately surmised that it was against Cuchulain the expedition -was prepared, and without a moment's delay he depatched Lavarcam his -female messenger, to desire him instantly to leave his palace and his -patrimony at Dundealgan[7] in the plain of Muirtheimhne, and come to -himself at Emania, there to be under the King's immediate orders. -This command he gave, thinking to rescue Cuchulain from the possible -effects of his own valour and rashness, for there was scarcely a man -of distinction in any of the four provinces of Erin some of whose -relatives had not been slain by him. - -Lavarcam found the hero upon the shore, between sea and land, intent -upon the slaying of sea-fowl with his sling, but though birds many flew -over him and past him, not one could he bring down--they all escaped -him. And this was to him the first bad omen. Very reluctantly did he -obey the call of Conor, and sorely loath was he to leave his patrimony. -He accompanied Lavarcam, however, to Emania, and abode there in his own -bright-lighted crystal _grianán_. Then Conor consulted with his druids -as to how best to keep him there, and they sent the bright ladies of -Emania, and his wife Emer, and the poets and the musicians, and the men -of science, to surround and distract and amuse him, with conversation -and music and banquets. - -In the meantime, however, Mève's army had advanced upon and burned -Dundealgan, and the children of Calatin had promised that within three -days and three nights they would bring Cuchulain to his doom. - -And now ensues what is to my mind one of the most powerful incidents -in all this saga--the malignant ghoulish efforts of the children of -Calatin to draw forth Cuchulain from his place of safety, and on the -other side the anxiety of the druids and ladies, and the frenzied -heart-sick efforts of his wife, and his mistress, to detain him. The -loathsome wizards flew through the air and stationed themselves upon -the plain outside Emania-- - - "They smote the soil and beat and tore it up around them, so that they - made of fuz-balls, and of stalks of _sanna_, and of the fine foliage - of the oaks, as it were ordered battalions, and hosts, and multitudes - of men, and the confused shoutings of the battalions and of the - war-bands, and the battle array, were heard on all sides, as it were - striking and attacking the fortress." - -Geanan the druid, the son of old Cathbadh, was watching Cuchulain this -day. As soon as the sounds of war and shouting reached him Cuchulain -rose and "looked forth, and he saw the battalions smiting each other -unsparingly," as he thought, and he burned at once with fury and shame; -but the druid cast his two arms round him in time to prevent him from -bursting forth to relieve the apparently foe-beleaguered town. Over and -over again must the druid assure him that all he saw was blind-work -and magic, and unreal phantoms, employed by the clan Calatin to lure -him forth to his destruction.[8] It was impossible, however, to keep -Cuchulain from at least looking, and, the next time he looked forth, - - "he thought he beheld the battalions drawn up upon the plains, and the - next time he looked after that he thought he saw Gradh son of Lir upon - the plain, and it was a _geis_ (tabu) to him to see that, and then he - thought moreover that he heard the harp of the son of Mangur playing - musically, ever-sweetly, and it was a _geis_ to him to listen to those - pleasing fairy sounds, and he recognised from these things that his - virtue was indeed overcome, and that his _geasa_ (tabus) were broken, - and that the end of his career had arrived, and that his valour and - prowess were destroyed by the children of Calatin." - -After that one of the daughters of the wizard Calatin, assuming the -form of a crow, came flying over him and incited him with taunts -to go and rescue his homestead and his patrimony from the hands of -his enemies. And although Cuchulain now understood that these were -enchantments that were working against him, yet was he none the less -anxious to rush forth and oppose them, for he felt moved and troubled -in himself at the shouting of the imaginary hosts, and his memory, and -his senses, and his right mind were afflicted by the sounds of that -ever-thrilling harp. - -Then the druid used all his influence, explaining to him that if he -would only remain for three days more in Emania the spells would have -no power, and he would go forth again, "and the whole world would be -full of his victories and his lasting renown," and thereafter the -ladies of Emania and the musicians closed round him, and they sang -sweet melodies, and they distracted his mind, and the day drew to a -close:--the clan Calatin retired baffled, and Cuchulain was himself -once more. - -During that night the ladies and the druids took council together and -determined to carry him away to a glen so remote and lonely that it -was called the Deaf Valley, and to hide him there, preparing for him a -splendid banquet, with music, and poets, and delights of every kind. - -Next morning came the accursed wizards and inspected the city, and they -marvelled that they saw not Cuchulain, and that he was neither beside -his wife, nor yet amongst the other heroes of the Red Branch. Then -they understood that he had been hidden away by Cathbadh the druid, -"and they raised themselves aloft, lightly and airily, upon a blast of -enchanted wind, which they created to lift them," and went soaring over -the entire province of Ulster to discover his retreat. This they do by -perceiving Cuchulain's grey steed, the Liath Macha, standing outside at -the entrance to the glen. Then the three begin their wizardry anew, and -made, as it were, battalions of warriors to appear round the glen, and -they raised anew the sounds of arms and the shouts of war and conflict, -as they had done at Emania. - -The instant the ladies round Cuchulain heard it they also shouted, -and the musicians struck up--but in vain; Cuchulain had caught the -sound. They succeeded, however, in calming his mind, and in inducing -him to pay no heed to the false witcheries of the clan Calatin. These -continued for a long time waiting and filling the air with their unreal -battle tumult, but Cuchulain did not appear. Then they understood -that the druids had been more powerful than they. Mad with impotent -fury one of them enters the glen, and pushes her way right into the -very fortress where Cuchulain was feasting. Once there she changes -herself into the form of the beautiful Niamh [Nee-av], Cuchulain's -love and sweetheart. First she stood at the door in the likeness of -an attendant damsel, and beckoned to the lady to come to her outside. -Niamh, thinking she has something to communicate, follows her through -the door and out into the valley, and the other ladies follow Niamh. -Instantly she raises an enchanted fog between them and the dún, so that -they wander astray, and their minds are troubled. But she, assuming the -form of the lady Niamh herself, slips back into the fortress, comes -to Cuchulain, and cries to him: "Up, O Cuchulain, and meet the men -of Erin, or thy fame shall be lost for ever, and the province shall -be destroyed." At this speech Cuchulain is astounded, for Niamh had -bound him by an oath that he would not go forth or take arms until -she herself should give him leave, and this leave he never thought -to receive of her until the fatal time was over. "I shall go," said -Cuchulain, "and that is a pity, O Niamh," said he, "and after that it -is difficult to trust to woman, for I had thought thou hadst not given -me that leave for the gold of the world, but since it is thou who dost -let me go to face the men of Erin, I shall go." After that he rose and -left the dún. "I have no reason for preserving my life longer," said -Cuchulain, "for the end of my time is come, and all my _geasa_ (tabus) -are lost, and Niamh has let me go to face the men of Erin; and since -she has let me, I shall go." - -Afterwards the real Niamh overtakes him at the entrance to the glen, -and assured him with torrents of tears, and wild sobs, that it was not -she who had given him leave, but the vile enchantress who had assumed -her form, and she conjured him with prayers and piteous entreaties to -remain with her. But Cuchulain would not believe her, and urged Laeg to -catch his steeds and yoke them, for he thought that he beheld-- - - "The great battle-battalions ranged upon the green of Emania, and the - whole plain filled up and crowded with broad bands of hundreds of - men, with champions, and steeds, and arms, and armour, and he thought - he heard the awful shoutings, and [saw] the burnings extending, - widely-let-loose through the buildings of Conor's city, and him-seemed - that there was nor hill nor rising ground about Emania that was not - full of spoils, and it appeared to him that Emer's sunny-house was - overthrown and had fallen out over the ramparts of Emania, and that - the House of the Red Branch was in one blaze, and that all Emania was - one meeting-place of fire, and of black, dark, spacious, brown-red - smoke."[9] - -Then Cuchulain's brooch fell from his hand and pierced his foot, -another omen of ill. Nor would his noble grey war-horse allow himself -to be caught. It was only when Cuchulain addressed him with persuasive -words of verse that he consented to let himself be harnessed to the -chariot, and even then "he lets fall upon his fore feet, from his -eyes, two large tears of blood." In vain did the ladies of Emania try -to bar his passage, in vain did fifty queens uncover their bosoms -before him in supplication. "He is the first," says the saga, "of whom -it is recounted that women uncovered before him their bosoms."[10] - -Thereafter another evil omen overtook him, for as he pursued the high -road leading to the south, - - "and had passed the plain of Mogna, he perceived something, three hags - of the half-blind race,[11] who were on the track before him cooking a - poisoned dog's flesh upon spits of holly. Now it was a _geis_ (tabu) - to Cuchulain to pass a cooking-fire without visiting it and accepting - food. It was another _geis_ to eat of his own name" [_i.e._, a hound, - he is Cu-Chulain or Culan's hound], "so he pauses not, but passes the - three hags. Then one of them cries to him-- - - "'Come, visit us, Cuchulain.' - - "'I shall not visit you,' said Cuchulain. - - "'There is something to eat here,' replied the hag; 'we have a dog - to offer thee. If our cooking-place were great,' said she, 'thou - wouldst come, but because it is small thou comest not; a great man who - despises the small, deserves no honour.' - - "Cuchulain then moved over to the hag, and she with her left hand - offered him half the dog. Cuchulain ate, and it was with his left hand - he took the piece, and he placed part of it under his left thigh, and - his left hand and his left thigh were cursed, and the curse reached - all his left side, which from his head to his feet lost a great part - of its power." - -At last Cuchulain meets the enemy on his ancestral patrimony of Moy -Muirtheimhne, drawn up in battle array, with shield to shield as though -it were one solid plank that was around them. Cuchulain displays his -feats from his chariot, especially "his three thunder-feats--the -thunder of an hundred, the thunder of three hundred, the thunder of -thrice nine men." - - "He played equally with spear, shield, and sword, he performed all the - feats of a warrior. As many as there are of grains of sand in the sea, - of stars in the heaven, of dewdrops in May, of snowflakes in winter, - of hailstones in a storm, of leaves in a forest, of ears of corn in - the plains of Bregia, of sods beneath the feet of the steeds of Erin - on a summer's day, so many halves of heads, and halves of shields, and - halves of hands and halves of feet, so many red bones were scattered - by him throughout the plain of Muirtheimhne, it became grey with - the brains of his enemies, so fierce and furious was Cuchulain's - onslaught." - -The plan which Erc, son of the late High-king Cairbré Niafer had -adopted was to place two men pretending to fight with one another upon -each flank of the army and a druid standing near who should first make -Cuchulain separate the combatants, and should then demand from him his -spear, since there ran a prophecy to the effect that Cuchulain's spear -should kill a king, but if they could get the spear from him they at -least would be safe from the prophecy; it would not be one of them who -should be slain by it. - -Cuchulain separates the fighters as the druid asks him, by killing each -of them with a blow. - - "'You have separated them,' said the druid, 'they shall do each other - no more harm.' - - "'They would not be so silenced,' said Cuchulain, 'hadst thou not - prayed me to interfere between them.' - - "'Give me thy spear, O Cuchulain,' said the druid. - - "'I swear by the oath which my nation swears,' said Cuchulain, 'you - have no greater need of the spear than I. All the warriors of Erin are - come together against me, and I must defend myself.' - - "'If thou refuse me,' said the druid, 'I shall solemnly utter against - thee a magic curse.' - - "'Up to this time,' replied Cuchulain, 'no curse has ever been - levelled against me for any act of refusal on my part.'" - -And with that he reversed his spear and threw it at the druid butt -foremost, killing him and nine more. Lewy, the son of Curigh, -immediately picked it up. - -"'Whom,' said he to the children of Calatin, 'is this to overthrow?' - -"'It is a king whom that spear shall slay,' said they. - -"Lewy hurled it at Cuchulain's chariot, and it pierced Laeg, his -charioteer. - -"Cuchulain bade his charioteer farewell. - -"'To-day,' said Cuchulain, 'I shall be both warrior and charioteer.'" - -The same incident happens again. Cuchulain kills the second druid in -the same way, and his spear is picked up by Erc. - - "'Children of Calatin,' said Erc, 'what exploit shall this spear - perform?' - - "'It shall overthrow a king,' said they. - - "'You said this spear would overthrow a king when Lewy hurled it some - time ago,' said Erc. - - "'Nor were we deceived,' said they, 'that spear has brought down the - king of the charioteers of Ireland, Laeg, the son of Riangabhra, - Cuchulain's charioteer.'" - -Erc hurls the spear and it passes through the side of Cuchulain's noble -steed, the Liath Macha. Cuchulain took a fond farewell of the animal -who galloped with half the yoke around its neck to the lake from whence -he had first taken it, on the mountain of Fuad in far-off Armagh. - -The third time a druid demands his spear, and is killed by Cuchulain, -who throws it to him handle foremost. The spear is picked up this time -by Lewy son of Curigh. - - "'What feat shall this spear perform, ye children of Calatin?' said - Lewy. - - "It shall overthrow a king,' said they. - - "'Ye said as much when Erc hurled it this morning,' answered Lewy. - - "'Yes,' answered the children of Calatin, 'and our word was true. The - spear which Erc hurled has wounded mortally the king of the steeds of - Ireland, the Liath Macha.' - - "'I swear then,' said Lewy, 'by the oath which my nation swears, that - Erc's blow smote not the king which this spear is to slay.'" - -Then Lewy hurls the spear, and this time pierces Cuchulain through -the body, and Cuchulain's other steed burst the yoke and rushed off -and never ceased till he, too, had plunged into the lake from which -Cuchulain had taken him in far-off Munster.[12] Cuchulain remained -behind, dying in his chariot. With difficulty and holding in his -entrails with one hand, he advanced to a little lake hard by, and drank -from it, and washed off his blood. Then he propped himself against -a high stone a few yards from the lake, and tied himself to it with -his girdle. "He did not wish to die either sitting or lying, it was -standing," says the saga, "that he wished to meet death." - -But his grey steed, the Liath Macha,[13] returned once more to defend -his lord, and made three terrible charges, scattering with tooth and -hoof all who would approach the stone where Cuchulain was dying. At -last a bird was seen to alight upon his shoulder. "Yon pillar used not -to be a settling place for birds," said Erc. They knew then that he was -dead. Lewy, the son of Curigh, seized him by the back hair and severed -his head from his body. - - * * * * * - -But Cuchulain was too important an epic hero to thus finish with -him. Another very celebrated, but probably later épopée tells of how -his friend Conall Cearnach pursued the retreating army and exacted -vengeance for his death. A brief digest of Conall's revenge is -contained in the Book of Leinster, but modern copies of much longer and -more literary versions exist, and there was no more celebrated poem -amongst the later Gael than that called the Lay of the Heads in which -Conall Cearnach returns to Emer, Cuchulain's wife, to Emania, with a -large bundle of heads strung upon a gad, or withy-wand, thrust through -their mouths from cheek to cheek, and there explains in a lay to Emer -who they were. - -In the ancient version in the Book of Leinster it is only Lewy who -is slain by Conall. In my more modern recension he slays Erc and the -children of Calatin as well, and recovers the head of Cuchulain, which -he found being used as a football by two men near Tara. "If this city," -said he of Tara, "were Erc's own lordship and patrimony I would burn it -down, but since it is the very navel and meeting-point of the men of -Ireland, I shall affront it no more." - -Emer's joy and her grief on recovering her husband's head are -touchingly described. - - "She washed clean the head and she joined it on to its body, and she - pressed it to her heart and her bosom, and fell to lamenting and - heavily sorrowing over it, and began to suck in its blood and to drink - it,[14] and she placed around the head a lovely satin cloth. 'Ochone!' - said she, 'good was the beauty of this head, although it is low this - day, and it is many of the kings and princes of the world would be - keening it if they thought it was like this; and the men who demand - gold and treasure, and ask petitions of the men of Erin and Alba - [_i.e._, the poets and druids] thou wast their one love and their one - choice of the men of the earth, and woe for me that I remain behind - this day; for there was not of the women of Erin, nor in the whole - great world, a woman mated with a husband, or unmated, not a single - one, who, until this day, was not envious of me; for many were the - goods and jewels and rents and tributes from the countries of the - world that thou broughtest to me, with the valour and strength of thy - hand,' and she took his hand in hers and fell to making lamentations - over it, and to telling of its fame and its exploits, and 't was - what she said, 'Alas!' said she, 'it is many of the kings and of the - chieftains and of the strong men of the world that fell by this hand, - and it is many of the goods and treasures of this world that were - scattered by it upon poets and men of knowledge,' and she spake the - lay, - - "'Ochone O head, Ochone O head,'" etc. - -Afterwards Conall Cearnach arrives with his pile of heads and planted -them carefully "all round about the wide grass-green lawn" upon pointed -sticks, and relates to Emer who they were and how they fell.[15] - -"Thereafter," says the saga, "Emer desired Conall to make a wide very -deep tomb for Cuchulain," and she laid herself down in it along with -her gentle mate, and she set her mouth to his mouth, and she spake-- - - "'Love of my soul,' she said, 'O friend, O gentle sweetheart, and O - thou one choice of the men of the earth, many is the woman envied - me thee until now, and I shall not live after thee;' and her soul - departed out of her, and she herself and Cuchulain were laid in the - one grave by Conall, and he raised their stone over their tomb, and he - wrote their names in Ogam, and their funeral games were performed by - him and by the Ultonians. - - "THUS FAR THE RED ROUT OF CONALL CEARNACH." - -[1] He died at the age of twenty-seven years, according to the Annals -of Tighearnach, and also according to a note in the Book of Ballymote, -which Charles O'Conor of Belinagare identifies as an extract from -the Synchronisms of Flann of Monasterboice, who died in 1056. But an -account in a MS. H. 3. 17, in Trinity College, Dublin, which was copied -about the year 1460, asserts that Cuchulain died in his fifty-ninth -year. (_See_ O'Curry's MS. Mat., p. 507.) - -[2] Cennfaelad, son of Ailill. - -[3] This MS., which contains many of the Cuchulain sagas, was copied -about a hundred years ago by a scribe named Seághain O'Mathghamhna on -an island in the Shannon. - -[4] The older form of this name is Curoi. A detailed account of this -saga is given by Keating. _See_ p. 282 of O'Mahony's edition. The saga -is also told under the title of _Aided Conrui_, in Egerton 88, British -Museum. - -[5] The saga of the battle of Rosnaree has recently been published with -a translation by Rev. Ed. Hogan, S.J. - -[6] Some say six children--three daughters and three sons. The MS. H. -i. 8, in Trinity College, which dates from about 1460, according to -O'Curry, relates thus: "And the sons of Cailitin were eight years after -the Táin before they went to pursue their learning, for they were but -infants in cradles at the time their father was killed. Nine years for -them after that pursuing their learning. Seven years after finishing -their learning was spent in making their weapons, because there could -be found but one day in the year to make their spears. And three years -after that did the sons of Cailitin spend in assembling and marching -the men of Erin to Belach Mic Uilc in Magh Muirtheimhne (Cuchulain's -patrimony)." - -[7] Now Dundalk in the County Louth. - -[8] "Ni bhfuil acht saobh-lucht siabhartha ann súd, sian-sgarrtha -duaibh-siocha draoidheachta do dhealbhadar clann cuirpthe Chailitin -go claon-mhillteach fad' chómhair-se, dod' chealgadh, agus dod' -chomh-bhuaidh-readh, a churaidh chalma chath-bhuadhaigh." - -[9] Up to this I have followed the version of my own modern manuscript. -From this out, however, the version in the twelfth-century Book of -Leinster is used. Monsieur d'Arbois de Jubainville, in his introduction -to the fragment of the saga in the Book of Leinster, seems to think -that Emania was really besieged, and women and children slaughtered -round its walls by the men of Erin, whereas it would appear that the -lost part of the saga refers to some such version as I have given -from my manuscript, and that it was only the wizardry and sorcery -of the children of Calatin, who raised these phantasms. This is the -more evident because Cuchulain, when he issues forth, meets no enemy -until he has arrived at the plain of Muirtheimhne. Jubainville's words -are, "Cependant les cris de douleur des femmes et des enfants qu'on -massacrait jusqu'au pied des remparts d'Emain macha [Emania] parvinrent -à son oreille: on en verra un peu plus bas les conséquences, dont la -dernière fut la mort du heros." - -[10] It was _geis_, or tabu, to him to behold the exposed breast of a -woman. _See_ above, p. 301. - -[11] These are in my version the three daughters of Calatin. - -[12] The belief in water-horses is quite common even still amongst the -old people in all parts of Connacht, and, I think, over the most of -Ireland. - -[13] With the Liath Macha so renowned throughout the whole Cuchulain -saga compare Areiōn, the celebrated steed of Adrastus, who saved his -master at the rout of the Argeian chiefs round Thebes. The Liath Macha -returns to the _water_ from whence it came, and Areiōn, too, was -believed to have been the offspring of Poseidōn. He is alluded to by -Nestor in the Iliad xxiii. 346: - - κ ἔσθ᾿ ὅς κέ σ᾿ἕλῃσι μετάλμενος ὀυδὲ παρέλθῃ, - οὐδ᾿ εἴ κεν μετόπιφσθεν Ἀρείονα δῖον ἔλαυνοι, - Ἀδρήστου ταχύν ἵππον ὃς ἐκ θεόφιν γένος ἦεν. - -He appears, however, to have been black not grey. Hesiod alludes to him -as μέγαν ἵππον Ἀρείονα κυανοχαίτην. - -[14] "Do rinne an ceann do niamhghlanadh agus do chuir ar a chollain -féin é, agus do dhruid re na h-ucht agus n-a h-urbhruinne é, agus -do ghaibh ag tuirse agus ag trom-mhéala os a chionn, agus do ghaibh -ag sughadh a choda fola agus ag a h-ól," etc. This was to express -affection. Déirdre does the same when her husband is slain, she laps -his blood. - -[15] This is the celebrated Laoi na gceann, or Lay of the Heads, which -begins by Emer asking-- - - "A Chonaill cia h-iad na cinn? - Is dearbh linn gar dheargais h-airm, - Na cinn o thárla ar an ngad - Slointear leat na fir d'ar baineadh." - -It was popular in the Highlands also. There is a copy in the book of -the Dean of Lismore, published by Cameron in his "Reliquiæ Celticæ," -vol. i. p. 66. Also in the Edinburgh MSS. 36 and 38. See _ibid._ pp. -113 and 115. The piece consists of 116 lines. The oldest form of Emer's -lament over Cuchulain, "Nuallguba Emire," is in the Book of Leinster, -p. 123, _a._ 20. It is a kind of unrhymed chant. The lament I have -given is from my own modern manuscript. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVIII - -OTHER SAGAS OF THE RED BRANCH - - -Another saga belonging to this cycle affords so curious a picture of -pagan customs that it is worth while to give here some extracts from -it. This is the story of Mac Dáthó's Pig and Hound, which is contained -in the Book of Leinster, a MS. copied about the year 1150. It was first -published without a translation by Windisch in his "Irische Texte," -from the Book of Leinster copy collated with two others. It has since -been translated by Kuno Meyer from a fifteenth-century vellum.[1] The -story runs as follows. - -Mac Dáthó was a famous landholder in Leinster, and he possessed a hound -so extraordinarily strong and swift that it could run round Leinster -in a day. All Ireland was full of the fame of that hound, and every -one desired to have it. It struck Mève and Oilioll, king and queen of -Connacht, to send an embassy to Mac Dáthó to ask him for his hound, at -the same time that the notion came to Conor, king of Ulster, that he -also would like to possess it. Two embassies reach Mac Dáthó's house -at the same time, the one from Connacht and the other from Ulster, and -both ask for the hound for their respective masters. Mac Dáthó's house -was one of those open hostelries[2] of which there were five at that -time in Ireland. - - "Seven doors," says the saga, "there were in each hostelry, seven - roads through it, and seven fireplaces therein. Seven caldrons in the - seven fireplaces. An ox and a salted pig would go into each of these - caldrons, and the man that came along the road would (_i.e._, any - traveller who passed the way was entitled to) thrust the flesh fork - into the caldron, and whatever he brought up with the first thrust, - that he would eat, and if nothing were brought up with the first - thrust there was no other for him." - -The messengers are brought before Mac Dáthó to his bed, and questioned -as to the cause of their coming. - - "'To ask for the hound are we come,' said the messengers of Connacht, - 'from Oilioll and from Mève, and in exchange for it there shall be - given three score hundred milch cows at once, and a chariot with the - two horses that are best in Connacht under it, and as much again at - the end of the year besides all that.' - - "'We, too, have come to ask for it,' said the messengers of Ulster, - 'and Conor is no worse a friend than Oilioll and Mève, and the same - amount shall be given from the north (_i.e._, from the Ultonians) and - be added to, and there will be good friendship from it continually.' - - "Mac Dáthó fell into a great silence, and was three days and nights - without sleeping, nor could he eat food for the greatness of his - trouble, but was moving about from one side to another. It was then - his wife addressed him and said, 'Long is the fast in which thou art,' - said she; 'there is plenty of food by thee, though thou dost not eat - it.' - - "And then she said-- - - "'Sleeplessness was brought - To Mac Dáthó into his house. - There was something on which he deliberated - Though he speaks to none.[3] - - He turns away from me to the wall, - The Hero of the Féne of fierce valour, - His prudent wife observes - That her mate is without sleep.'" - -A dialogue in verse follows. The wife advises her husband to promise -the hound to both sets of messengers. In his perplexity he weakly -decides to do this. After the messengers had stayed with him for -three nights and days, feasting, he called to him first the envoys of -Connacht and said to them-- - - "'I was in great doubt and perplexity, and this is what is grown out - of it, that I have given the hound to Oilioll and Mève, and let them - come for it splendidly and proudly, with as many warriors and nobles - as they can get, and they shall have drink and food and many gifts - besides, and shall take the hound and be welcome.' - - "He also went with the messengers of Ulster and said to them, 'After - much doubting I have given the hound to Conor, and let him and the - flower of the province come for it proudly, and they shall have many - other gifts and you shall be welcome.' But for one and the same day he - made his tryst with them all." - -Accordingly on the appointed day the warriors and men of each province -arrive at his hostelry in great state and pomp. - - "He himself went to meet them and bade them welcome. ''Tis welcome ye - are, O warriors,' said he, 'come within into the close.' - - "Then they went over, and into the hostelry; one half of the house for - the men of Connacht and the other half for the men of Ulster. That - house was not a small one. Seven doors in it and fifty beds between - (every) two doors. Those were not faces of friends at a feast, the - people who were in that house, for many of them had injured other. - For three hundred years before the birth of Christ there had been war - between them.[4] - - "'Let the pig be killed for them,' said Mac Dáthó." - -This celebrated pig had been fed for seven years on the milk of three -score milch cows, and it was so huge that it took sixty men to draw it -when slain. Its tail alone was a load for nine men. - -"'The pig is good,'" said Conor, king of Ulster. - -"'It is good,'" said Oilioll, king of Connacht. - -Then there arose a difficulty about the dividing of the pig. As in -the case of the "heroes' bit" the best warrior was to divide it. King -Oilioll asked King Conor what they should do about it, when suddenly -the mischievous, ill-minded Bricriu spoke from a chamber overhead and -asked, "How should it be divided except by a contest of arms seeing -that all the valorous warriors of Connacht were there." - - "'Let it be so,' said Oilioll. - - "'We like it well,' said Conor, 'for we have lads in the house who - have many a time gone round the border.' - - "'There will be need of thy lads to-night, O Conor,' said a famous - old warrior from Cruachna Conalath in the west. 'The roads of Luachra - Dedad have often had their backs turned to them (as they fled). Many, - too, the fat beeves they left with me.' - - "''Twas a fat beef thou leftest with me,' said Munremar mac Gerrcind, - 'even thine own brother, Cruithne mac Ruaidlinde from Cruachna - Conalath of Connacht.' - - "'He was no better,' said Lewy mac Conroi, 'than Irloth, son of - Fergus, son of Leite, who was left dead by Echbél, son of Dedad, at - Tara Luachra.' - - "'What sort of man do ye think,' said Celtchair mac Uthechair, 'was - Conganchnes, son of (that same) Dedad, who was slain by myself, and me - to strike the head off him?' - - "Each of them brought up his exploits in the face of the other, till - at last it came to one man who beat every one, even Cet mac Mágach of - Connacht.[5] - - "He raised his prowess over the host, and took his knife in his hand, - and sat down by the pig. 'Now let there be found,' said he, 'among the - men of Ireland one man to abide contest with me, or let me divide the - pig.' - - "There was not at that time found a warrior of Ulster to stand up to - him, and great silence fell upon them. - - "'Stop that for me, O Laeghaire [Leary],' said Conor, [King of Ulster, - _i.e._, 'Delay, if you can, Cet's dividing the pig']. - - "Said Leary, 'It shall not be--Cet to divide the pig before the face - of us all!' - - "'Wait a little, Leary,' said Cet, 'that thou mayest speak with me. - For it is a custom with you men of Ulster that every youth among you - who takes arms makes us his first goal.[6] Thou, too, didst come to - the border, and thus leftest charioteer and chariot and horses with - me, and thou didst then escape with a lance through thee. Thou shalt - not get at the pig in that manner!' - - "Leary sat down upon his couch. - - "'It shall not be,' said a tall, fair warrior of Ulster, coming out of - his chamber above, 'that Cet divide the pig.' - - "'Who is this?' said Cet. - - "'A better warrior than thou,' say all, 'even Angus, son of Hand-wail - of Ulster.' - - "'Why is his father called Hand-wail?' said Cet. - - "'We know not indeed,' say all. - - "'But I know,' said Cet; 'once I went eastward (_i.e._, crossed the - border into Ulster), an alarm-cry is raised around me, and Hand-wail - came up with me, like every one else. He makes a cast of a large lance - at me. I make a cast at him with the same lance, which struck off his - hand, so that it was (_i.e._, fell) on the field before him. What - brings the son of that man to stand up to me?' said Cet. - - "Then Angus goes to his couch. - - "'Still keep up the contest,' said Cet, 'or let me divide the pig.' - - "'It is not right that thou divide it, O Cet,' said another tall, fair - warrior of Ulster. - - "'Who is this?' said Cet. - - "'Owen Mór, son of Durthacht,' say all, 'king of Fernmag.'[7] - - "'I have seen him before,' said Cet. - - "'Where hast thou seen me,' said Owen. - - "'In front of thine own house when I took a drove of cattle from thee; - the alarm cry was raised in the land around me, and thou didst meet - me and didst cast a spear at me, so that it stood out of my shield. I - cast the same spear at thee, which passed through thy head and struck - thine eye out of thy head, and the men of Ireland see thee with one - eye ever since.' - - "He sat down in his seat after that. - - "'Still keep up the contest, men of Ulster,' said Cet, 'or let me - divide the pig.' - - "'Thou shalt not divide it,' said Munremar, son of Gerrcend. - - "'Is that Munremar?' said Cet. - - "'It is he,' say the men of Ireland. - - "'It was I who last cleaned my hands in thee, O Munremar,' said Cet; - 'it is not three days yet since out of thine own land I carried off - three warriors' heads from thee, together with the head of thy first - son.' - - "Munremar sat down on his seat. - - "'Still the contest,' said Cet,' or I shall divide the pig.' - - "'Verily thou shalt have it,' said a tall, grey, very terrible warrior - of the men of Ulster. - - "'Who is this?' said Cet. - - "'That is Celtchair, son of Uithechar,' say all. - - "'Wait a little, Celtchair,' said Cet, 'unless thou comest to strike - me. I came, O Celtchair, to the front of thy house. The alarm was - raised around me. Every one went after me. Thou comest like every - one else, and going into a gap before me didst throw a spear at me. - I threw another spear at thee, which went through thy loins, nor has - either son or daughter been born to thee since." - - "After that Celtchair sat down on his seat. - - "'Still the contest,' said Cet, 'or I shall divide the pig.' - - "'Thou shalt have it,' said Mend, son of Sword-heel. - - "'Who is this?' said Cet. - - "'Mend,' say all. - - "'What! deem you,' said Cet, 'that the sons of churls with nicknames - should come to contend with me? for it was I was the priest,[8] who - christened thy father by that name, since it is I that cut off his - heel, so that he carried but one heel away with him. What should bring - the son of that man to contend with me?' - - "Mend sat down in his seat. - - "'Still the contest,' said Cet, 'or I shall divide the pig.' - - "'Thou shalt have it,' said Cumscraidh, the stammerer of Macha, son of - Conor. - - "'Who is this?' - - "'That is Cumscraidh,' say all. - - "He is the makings of a king, so far as his figure goes.... - - "'Well,' said Cet, 'thou madest thy first raid on us. We met on the - border. Thou didst leave a third of thy people with me, and camest - away with a spear through thy throat, so that no word comes rightly - over thy lips, since the sinews of thy throat were wounded, so that - Cumscraidh, the stammerer of Macha, is thy name ever since.' - - "In that way he laid disgrace and a blow on the whole province. - - "While he made ready with the pig and had his knife in his hand, they - see Conall _Ceârnach_ [the Victorious], coming towards them into the - house. He sprang on to the floor of the house. The men of Ulster gave - him great welcome. 'Twas then [King] Conor threw his helmet from his - head and shook himself [for joy] in his own place. 'We are glad,' said - Conall, 'that our portion is ready for us, and who divides for you?' - said Conall. - - "One man of the men of Ireland has obtained by contest the dividing of - it, to wit, Cet mac Mágach. - - "'Is that true, Cet?' said Conall, 'art thou dividing the pig?'" - -There follows here an obscure dialogue in verse between the warriors. - - "'Get up from the pig, Cet,' said Conall. - - "'What brings thee to it?' said Cet. - - "'Truly [for you] to seek contest from me,' said Conall, 'and I shall - give you contest; I swear what my people swear since I [first] took - spear and weapons, I have never been a day without having slain a - Connachtman, nor a night without plundering, nor have I ever slept - without the head of a Connachtman under my knee.' - - "'It is true,' said Cet, 'thou art even a better warrior than I, but - if Anluan mac Mágach [my brother] were in the house,' said Cet, 'he - would match thee contest for contest, and it is a pity that he is not - in the house this night.' - - "'Aye, is he, though,' said Conall, taking the head of Anluan from his - belt and throwing it at Cet's chest, so that a gush of blood broke - over his lips. After that Conall sat down by the pig and Cet went from - it. - - "'Now let them come to the contest,' said Conall. - - "Truly there was not then found among the men of Connacht a warrior - to stand up to him in contest, for they were loath to be slain on the - spot. The men of Ulster made a cover around him with their shields, - for there was an evil custom in the house, the people of one side - throwing stones at the other side. Then Conall proceeded to divide - the pig, and he took the end of the tail in his mouth until he had - finished dividing the pig." - -The men of Connacht, as might be expected, were not pleased with their -share. The rest of the piece recounts the battle that ensued both in -the hostelry, whence "seven streams of blood burst through its seven -doors," and outside in the close or _liss_ after the hosts had burst -through the doors, the death of the hound, the flight of Oilioll and -Mève into Connacht, and the curious adventures of their charioteer. - - * * * * * - -The Conception of Cuchulain,[9] the Conception of Conor,[10] the -Wooing of Emer,[11] the Death of Conlaoch,[12] the Siege of Howth,[13] -the Intoxication of the Ultonians,[14] Bricriu's Banquet,[15] Emer's -Jealousy and Cuchulain's Pining,[16] the Battle of Rosnaree,[17] -Bricriu's Feast and the Exile of the Sons of Dael Dermuit,[18] Macha's -Curse on the Ultonians,[19] the Death of King Conor,[20] the Wooing of -Ferb,[21] the Cattle Spoil of Dartaid, the Cattle Spoil of Flidais, the -Cattle Spoil of Regamon, the Táin bé Aingen, the Táin Bo Regamna,[22] -the Conception of the two Swineherds[23] the Deaths of Oilioll -(King of Connacht) and Conall Cearnach,[24] the Demoniac Chariot of -Cuchulain,[25] the Cattle Spoil of Fraich,[26] are some of the most -available of the many remaining sagas belonging to this cycle. - -[1] "Hibernica Minora," p. 57, from Rawlinson B. 512, in the Bodleian -Library. I have followed his excellent translation nearly verbatim. - -[2] In Old Irish, Bruiden; in modern, Bruidhean (Bree-an). - -[3] - - "Tucad turbaid chotulta / do Mac Dáthó co a thech. - Ros bói ni no chomairled / cen co labradar fri nech." - -[4] But especially since Fergus mac Róigh or Roy had deserted Ulster -and gone over to Connacht on the death of Déirdre. - -[5] He is well known in the Ultonian saga. Keating describes him in -his history as a "mighty warrior of the Connachtmen, and a fierce wolf -of evil to the men of Ulster." It was he who gave King Conor the wound -of which, after nine years, he died. He was eventually slain by Conall -Cearnach as he was returning in a heavy fall of snow from a plundering -excursion in Ulster, carrying three heads with him. See O'Mahony's -Keating, p. 274, and Conall Cearnach was taken up for dead and brought -away by the Connacht men after the fight, but recovered. This evidently -formed the plot of another saga now I think lost. - -[6] This is what Cuchulain also does the day he assumes arms for the -first time. The story of his doings on that day and his foray into -Connacht as recited by Fergus to Oilioll and Mève forms one of the most -interesting episodes of the Táin Bo Chuailgne. Every young Ultonian on -assuming arms made a raid into Connacht. - -[7] It was he who, in the oldest version of the Déirdre saga, slew -Naoise, and it was to him Conor made Déirdre over at the end of a year. -See above p. 317. - -[8] This phrase, introduced by a Christian reciter or copyist, need not -in the least take away from the genuine pagan character of the whole. - -[9] Windisch's "Irische Texte," Erste Serie, 134, and D'Arbois de -Jubainville's "L'Épopée Celtique en Irlande," p. 22. - -[10] D'Arbois de Jubainville's "Épopée Celtique," p. 3. - -[11] Translated by Kuno Meyer in "Revue Celtique," vol. xi., and "The -Archæological Review," vol. i., and Jubainville's "Épopée Celtique," p. -39. - -[12] A poem published by Miss Brooke in her "Reliques of Irish Poetry," -p. 393 of the 2nd Edition of 1816. There are fragmentary versions of -it in the Edinburgh MSS. 65 and 62, published in Cameron's "Reliquiæ -Celticæ," vol. i. pp. 112 and 161, and in the Sage Pope Collection from -the recitation of a peasant about a hundred years ago, p. 393. The -oldest form of the story is in the Yellow Book of Lecan, and it has -been studied in Jubainville's "Épopée Celtique," p. 52. - -[13] Edited and translated by Stokes in the "Revue Celtique," vol. -viii. p. 49. - -[14] Translated by Hennessy for Royal Irish Academy, Todd Lecture, Ser. -I. - -[15] The text published by Windisch, "Irische Texte," I. p. 235, and -translated by Jubainville in "Épopée Celtique," p. 81. - -[16] The text published by Windisch, "Irische Texte," I. p. 197, and by -O'Curry in "Atlantis," vol. i. p. 362, with translation, and by Gilbert -and O'Looney in "Facsimiles of National MSS. of Ireland." Translated -into French by MM. Dottin, and Jubainville in "Épopée Celtique en -Irlande," p. 174. - -[17] Translated and edited by Rev. Edward Hogan, S.J., for the Royal -Irish Academy, Todd, Lecture Series, vol. iv. - -[18] The text edited by Windisch, "Irische Texte," Serie II., i. Heft, -p. 164, and translated by M. Maurice Grammont, in Jubainville's "Épopée -Celtique en Irlande," p. 150. - -[19] Translated and edited by Windisch, "Dans les comptes rendus de la -classe de philosophie et d'histoire de l'Académie royale des sciences -de Saxe," says M. d'Arbois de Jubainville, who gives a translation from -Windisch's text at p. 320 of his "Épopée Celtique." - -[20] Edited and translated by O'Curry in Lectures on the MS. Mat. p. -637, and again by D'Arbois de Jubainville. - -[21] Edited and translated by Windisch in "Irische Texte," Dritte -Serie, Heft II., p. 445. - -[22] These are short introductory stories to the Táin Bo Chuailgne; -they have been edited and translated by Windisch in "Irische Texte," -Zweite Serie, Heft II., p. 185-255. - -[23] Edited and translated by Windisch, "Irische Texte," Dritte Serie, -Heft I., p. 230, and translated into English by Alfred Nutt, in his -"Voyage of Bran," vol. ii. p. 58. - -[24] Translated and edited by Kuno Meyer in the "Zeitschrift für -Celtische Philologie," I Band, Heft I., p. 102. - -[25] Edited by O'Beirne Crowe in the "Journal of the Royal Historical -and Archæological Association of Ireland," Jan., 1870. - -[26] Edited by O'Beirne Crowe in "Proceedings of the Royal Irish -Academy," 1871. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIX - -THE FENIAN CYCLE - - -Cuchulain's life and love and death entranced the ears of the great -for many centuries, and into hundreds of bright eyes tears of pity -had for a thousand years been conjured up by the pathetic tones of -bards reciting the fate of her who perished for the son of Usnach. The -wars of Mève and of Conor mac Nessa were household words in the hall -of Muirchertach of the leather cloaks, and in the palace at the head -of the weir--Brian Boru's Kincora. Whosoever loved what was great in -conception, and admired the broad sweep of the epic called upon his -bards to recite the loves, the wars, the valour, and the deaths of the -Red Branch knights.[1] - -But there was yet another era consecrated in story-telling, another -age of history peopled by other characters, in which the households -of many chieftains and some even of the chiefs themselves delighted. -These are pictured in the romances that were woven around Conn of the -Hundred Battles, his son Art the Lonely, his grandson Cormac mac Art, -and his great-grandson Cairbré of the Liffey. This cycle of romance -may be called the "Fenian" Cycle, as dealing to some extent with Finn -mac Cúmhail and his Fenian[2] militia, or the "Ossianic" Cycle since -Ossian, Finn's son, is supposed to have been the author of many of the -poems which belong to it. - -In point of time--as reckoned by the Irish annalists and -historians--the men of the Fenian Cycle lived something over two -hundred years later than those of the Cuchulain era[3] and in none -of the romances do we see even the faintest confusion or sign of -intermingling the characters belonging to the different cycles. One of -the surest proofs--if proof were needed--that Macpherson's brilliant -"Ossian" had no Gaelic original, is the way in which the men and -events of the two separate cycles are jumbled together. - -As the war between Ulster and Connacht, which followed the death of -the children of Usnach, is the great historic event which serves as -basis to so many of the Red Branch romances, so the principal thread -of history round which many of the Fenian stories are woven, is the -gradual and slowly increasing enmity which proclaimed itself between -the High-kings of Erin and their Fenian cohorts, resulting at last in -the battle of Gabhra, the fall of the High-king, and the destruction of -the Fenians. - -Thus in the battle of Cnucha is related how Cúmhail[4] [Cool], the -father of Finn, made war upon Conn of the Hundred Battles because he -had raised Criomhthan of the Yellow Hair to the throne of Leinster, -and how he obtained the aid of the Munster princes in the war. At the -battle of Cnucha or Castleknock, near Cool's rath--now Rathcoole some -ten miles from Dublin--Cool was routed and slain by the celebrated -Connacht champion Aedh mac Morna, who lost an eye in the battle and -was thenceforth called Goll (or the blind)[5] mac Morna. Many of the -Munster Fenians followed Cool in this battle, and we find here the -broadening rift between the Fenians of Munster and of Connacht which -ultimately tended to bring about the dissolution of the whole body. - -Again we find in the fine tale called the Battle of Moy Muchruime how -Finn, through spite at his father Cool being thus killed by Conn of the -Hundred Battles, kept out of the way when Conn's son Art was fighting -the great battle of Moy Muchruime and gave him no assistance. - -And again it was partly because Finn kept out of the way on that -occasion that Conn's great-grandson fought the battle of Gabhra -against Finn's son Ossian and his grandson Oscar, a battle which put an -end to Fenian power for ever. - -Of many of these tales we find two redactions, that of the old vellum -MSS. and that of the modern paper ones, the latter being as a rule much -longer and more decorative. Here, for instance, is the later version -of one passage out of many which is slurred over or disregarded in the -old one[6]; it is the sailing of Cúmhail, Finn's father, to Ireland to -take the throne of Leinster. I translate this from a modern manuscript -of the battle of Cnucha, in my own possession, as a good instance of -the decorative, and in places inflated style of the later redactions of -many of the Fenian sagas. - - THE SAILING OF CÚMHAIL. - - "Now the place where Cúmhail chanced to be at that time was between - the islands of Alba and the deserts of Fionn-Lochlan, for he was - hunting and deer-stalking there. And the number of those who were - with the over-throwing hero Cúmhail in that place, was thrice fifty - champions of his own near men. And he heard at that time that his - country was left without any good king to defend it, and that Cáthaoir - Mór [king of Leinster] had fallen in the pen of battle, and that there - was no hero to keep the country. Thereupon, those chieftains were - of a mind to proceed unto the isolated green isle of Erin, there to - maintain with valour and might the red-hand province of Leinster. And - joyfully they proceeded straight forwards towards their ship.[7] - - "And there they quickly and expeditiously launched the towering, - wide-wombed, broad-sailed bark, the freighted full-wide, fair-broad, - firm-roped vessel, and they grasped their shapely well-formed - broad-bladed, well-prepared oars, and they made a powerful - sea-great, dashing, dry-quick rowing over the broad hollow-deep, - full-foamed, pools [of the sea], and over the vast-billowed, vehement, - hollow-broken rollers, so that they shot their shapely ships under the - penthouse of each fair rock in the shallows nigh to the rough-bordered - margin of the Eastern lands, over the unsmooth, great-forming, - lively-waved arms of the sea, so that each fierce, broad, - constant-foaming, bright-spotted, white-broken drop that the heroes - left upon the sea-pool with that rapid rowing, formed [themselves] - like great torrents upon soft mountains. - - "When that valiant powerful company perceived the moaning of the - loud billow-waves and the breaking forth of the ocean from her - barriers, and the swelling of the abyss from her places, and the - loud convulsion of the sea from her smooth streams, it was then they - hoisted the variegated, tough-cordaged, sharp-pointed mast with - much speed. And when the great foundation-blasts of the angry wind - touched the even upright-standing, sword-straight masts, and when - the huge-flying, loud-voiced, broad-bordered sails swallowed the - wind attacking them suddenly with sharp voice, that stout, strong, - active, powerful crew rose up promptly and quickly, and every one went - straight to his work with speed and promptitude, and they stretched - forth their ready courageous, white-coloured, brown-nailed hands most - valiantly to the tackling, till they let the wind in loud, sharp, - fast, voice-bursts into the shrouds of the mast, so that the ship - gave an eager, very quick, vigorous leap forward, right straight - into the salt-ocean, till they arrived in the delightfully-clear, - cold-pooled, querulously-whistling, joyfully-calling reaches of the - sea, and the dark sea rose speedily around them in desperate-daring - floodful _doisleana_, in hardly-separated ridges and in rough-grey, - proud-tongued, gloomy-grim, blue-capacious valleys, and in - impetuous shower-topped wombs [of water]; and the great merriment - of the cold wind was answered by the chieftains, strong-workingly, - stout-enduringly, truly-powerfully, and they proceeded to manage - and attend the high-ocean, until at last the strong and powerful - sea overcame the intention of the high wind, and the murmur and - giddy voice of the deep was humbled by that great rowing, till the - sea became restful, smooth, and very calm behind them, until they - took port and harbour at Inver Cholpa, which is at this time called - Drogheda." - -The stories about Cormac mac Art, his grandfather Conn of the Hundred -Battles, and his son Cairbré of the Liffey, which are numerous, are -mostly more or less connected with the Fenians, and may, as they deal -with the same era and the same characters, be conveniently classed -along with the Fenian sagas. One of the best known of these sagas is -the Battle of Moy Léana[8] in which Conn of the Hundred Battles slew -his rival Owen, who had forced from him half his kingdom. Owen had -lived for six years in Spain, and had married a daughter of the Spanish -king. At the end of this time he was seized with great home-sickness -and he proposed to return to Ireland. When his father-in-law heard -this, he said to him:-- - -"If that Erin of which you speak, Owen, were a thing easily moved, -we would deem it easier to send the soldiers and warriors of Spain -with you thither to cut it from its foundation and lay it on wheels -and carry it after our ships and place it a one angle of Spain"--a -grandiloquent speech which Owen did not relish; "He did not receive it -with satisfaction, and it was not sweet to him," says the saga. - -The King perceived this however, and offered him just what he wanted, -two thousand warriors to help him and his exiles in acquiring the -kingdom. The account of their embarcation and voyage is perhaps as -good a specimen of exaggerated verbosity and of the rhetoric of the -professed story-teller as any other in these sagas, which abound with -such things, and it is perhaps worth while to give it at length. It -will be seen that the story-teller or prose-poet, passes everything -through the prism of his imagination, and aided by an extraordinary -exuberance of vocabulary and unbounded wealth of alliterative -adjectives, wraps the commonest objects in a hurricane of--to use -his own phrase--"misty-dripping" epithet. The Battle of Moy Léana is -recorded in the Annals of Ulster, by Flann in the eleventh century, and -by the Book of Leinster, and no doubt the essence of the saga is very -ancient, but the dressing-up of it, and especially the passage I am -about to quote, is, in its style--not to speak of the language which is -modern--almost certainly post-Norman. - - THE SAILING OF OWEN MÓR. - - "Then that vindictive unmerciful host went forward to the harbours - and ports where their vessels and their sailing ships awaited them; - and they launched their terrible wonderful monsters; their black, - dangerous, many-coloured ships; their smooth, proper-sided, steady, - powerful scuds, and their cunningly-stitched _Laoidheangs_ from - their beds and from their capacious, full-smooth places, out of the - cool clear-winding creeks of the coast, and from the calm, quiet, - well-shaped, broad-headed harbours, and there were placed upon - every swift-going ship of them free and accurately arranged tiers - of fully-smoothed, long-bladed oars, and they made a harmonious, - united, co-operating, thick-framed, eager-springing, unhesitating, - constant-going rowing against currents and wild tempests, so that - loud, haughty, proud-minded, were the responses of the stout, - fierce-fronted, sportive-topped billows in conversing with the scuds - and beautiful prows. - - "The dark, impetuous, proud, ardent waters became as white-streaked, - fierce-rolling, languid-fatigued _Leibhiona_, upon which to cast the - white-flanked, slippery, thick, straight-swimming salmon, among the - dark-prowling, foamy-tracked heads [of sea monsters] from off the - brown oars. - - "And upon that fleet, sweeping with sharp rapidity from the sides and - borders of the territories, and from the shelter of the lands, and - from the calm quiet of the shores, they could see nothing of the globe - on their border near them, but the high, proud, tempestuous waves of - the abyss, and the rough, roaring shore, shaking and quivering, and - the very-quick, swift motion of the great wind coming upon them, and - long-swelling, gross-springing, great billows rising over the swelling - sides of the [sea] valleys, and the savage, dangerous, shower-crested - sea, maintaining its strength against the rapid course of the vessels - over the expanse, until at last it became exhausted, subdued, - drizzling and misty, from the conflict of the waves and fierce winds. - - "The labouring crews derived increased spirits from the bounding - of the swift ships over the wide expanse, and the wind coming from - the rear, directly fair for the brave men, they arose manfully and - vigorously to their work, and lashed the tough, new masts to the - brown, smooth, ample, commodious bulwarks, without weakness, without - spraining, without overstraining. Those ardent, expert crews put their - hands to the long linen [sails] without shrinking, without mistake, - from _Eibhil_ to _Achtuaim_, and the swift-going, long, capacious - ships, passed from the hand-force of the warriors, and over the deep, - wet, murmuring pools of the sea, and past the winding, bending, - fierce-showery points of the harbours, and over the high-torrented, - ever-great mountains of the brine, and over the heavy, listless walls - of the great waves, and past the dark, misty-dripping hollows of the - shores, and past the saucy, thick-flanked, spreading, white-crested - currents of the streams, and over the spring-tide, contentious, - furious, wet, overwhelming fragments of the cold ocean, until the sea - became rocking like a soft, fragrant, proud-bearing plain, swelling - and heaving to the force of the anger and fury of the cold winds. - - "The upper elements quickly perceived the anger and fury of the - sea growing and increasing. Woe indeed was it to have stood - between those two powers, the sea and the great wind when mutually - attacking each other, and contending at the sides of strong ships - and stout-built vessels and beautiful scuds. So that the sea was in - showery-tempestuous, growling, wet, fierce, loud, clamorous, dangerous - stages after them, whilst the excitement of the murmuring dark-deeded - wind continued in the face and in the sluices of the ocean from its - bottom to its surface. And tremulous, listless, long-disjointed, - quick-shattering, ship-breaking, was the effect of the disturbance, - and treacherous the shivering of the winds and the rolling billows - upon the swift barks, for the tempest did not leave them a plank - unshaken, nor a hatch unstarted, nor a rope unsnapped, nor a nail - unstrained, nor a bulwark unendangered, nor a bed unshattered, nor a - lifting uncast-down, nor a mast unshivered, nor a yard untwisted, nor - a sail untorn, nor a warrior unhurt, nor a soldier unterrified, nor a - noble unstunned--excepting the ardour and sailorship of the brave men - who attended to the attacks and howlings of the fierce wind. - - "However, now, when the wind had exhausted its valour and had not - received reverence nor honour from the sea, it went forward, stupid - and crestfallen, to the uppermost regions of its residence; and the - sea was fatigued from its roarings and drunken murmurings, and the - wild billows ceased their motions, so that spirit returned to he - nobles and strength to the hosts, and activity to the warriors, and - strength to the champions. And they sailed onwards in that order - without delay or accident until they reached the sheltered smooth - harbour of Cealga and the shore of the island of Greagraidhe." - -Who or what the Fenians were, has given rise to the greatest diversity -of opinion. The school of Mr. Nutt and Professor Rhys would, I fancy, -recognise in them nothing but tribal deities, euhemerised or regarded -as men.[9] Dr. Skene and Mr. Mac Ritchie believed that they were an -altogether separate race of men from the Gaels, probably allied to, or -identical with, the Picts of history; and the latter holds that they -are the _sidhe_ [shee] or fairy folk of the Gaels. The native Irish, on -the other hand, who were perfectly acquainted with the Picts, and tell -us much about them, have always regarded the Fenians as being nothing -more or less than a body of janissaries or standing troops of Gaelic -and Firbolg families, maintained during several reigns by the Irish -kings, a body which tended to become hereditary. Nor is there in this -account anything inherently impossible or improbable, especially as the -Fenian régime synchronises with a time when the Irish were probably -aggressively warlike. Keating, writing in Irish about the year 1630, -gives the traditional account of them as he gathered it from ancient -books and other authorities now lost, and this certainly preserves -some ancient and unique traits. He begins by rejecting the ridiculous -stories told about them, such as the battle of Ventry and the like, as -well as the remarks of Campion and of Buchanan, who in his history of -Scotland had called Finn a giant. - - "It is proved," writes Keating, "that their persons were of no - extraordinary size compared with the men that lived in their own - times, and moreover that they were nothing more than members of a - body of _buanadha_ or retained soldiers, maintained by the Irish - kings for the purpose of guarding their territories and of upholding - their authority therein. It is thus that captains and soldiers are at - present maintained by all modern kings for the purpose of defending - their rule and guarding their countries. - - "The members of the Fenian Body lived in the following manner. They - were quartered on the people from November Day till May Day, and their - duty was to uphold justice and to put down injustice on the part of - the kings and lords of Ireland, and also to guard the harbours of the - country from the oppression of foreign invaders. After that, from May - till November, they lived by hunting and the chase, and by performing - the duties demanded of them by the kings of Ireland, such as - preventing robberies, exacting fines and tributes, putting down public - enemies, and every other kind of evil that might afflict the country. - In performing these duties they received a certain fixed pay.... - - "However, from May till November the Fenians had to content themselves - with game, the product of their own hunting, as this [right to hunt] - was their maintenance and pay from the kings of Ireland. That is, - the warriors had the flesh of the wild animals for their food, and - the skins for wages. During the whole day, from morning till night - they used to eat but one meal, and of this it was their wont to - partake towards evening. About noon they used to send whatever game - they had killed in the morning by their attendants to some appointed - hill where there were wood and moorland close by. There they used to - light immense fires, into which they put a large quantity of round - sandstones. They next dug two pits in the yellow clay of the moor, - and having set part of the venison upon spits to be roasted before - the fire they bound up the remainder with sugàns--ropes of straw or - rushes--in bundles of sedge, and then placed them to be cooked in one - of the pits they had previously dug. There they set the stones which - they had before this heated in the fire, round about them, and kept - heaping them upon the bundles of meat until they had made them seethe - freely, and the meat had become thoroughly cooked. From the greatness - of these fires it has resulted that their sites are still to be - recognised in many parts of Ireland by their burnt blackness. It is - they that are commonly called _Fualachta na bhFiann_, or the Fenians' - cooking-spots. - - "As to the warriors of the Fenians, when they were assembled at the - place where their fires had been lighted, they used to gather round - the second of those pits of which we have spoken above, and there - every man stripped himself to his skin, tied his tunic round his - waist, and then set to dressing his hair and cleansing his limbs, thus - ridding himself of the sweat and soil of the day's hunt. Then they - began to supple their thews and muscles by gentle exercise, loosening - them by friction, until they had relieved themselves of all sense of - stiffness and fatigue. When they had finished doing this they sat down - and ate their meal. That being over, they set about constructing their - _fiann-bhotha_ or hunting-booths, and preparing their beds, and so put - themselves in train for sleep. Of the following three materials did - each man construct his bed, of the brushwood of the forest, of moss, - and of fresh rushes. The brushwood was laid next the ground, over it - was placed the moss, and lastly fresh rushes were spread over all. It - is these three materials that are designated in our old romances as - the _tri Cuilcedha na bhFiann_--the three Beddings of the Fenians." - -Every man who entered the Fenian ranks had four _geasa_ [gassa, _i.e._, -tabus] laid upon him, - - "The first, never to receive a portion with a wife, but to choose her - for good manners and virtues; the second, never to offer violence to - any woman; the third, never to refuse any one for anything he might - possess; the fourth, that no single warrior should ever flee before - nine [_i.e._, before less than ten] champions." - -There was a curious condition attached to entrance into the brotherhood -which rendered it necessary that - - "Both his father and mother, his tribe, and his relatives should first - give guarantees that they should never make any charge against any - person for his death. This was in order that the duty of avenging his - own blood [wounds] should rest with no man other than himself, and in - order that his friends should have nothing to claim with respect to - him however great the evils inflicted upon him." - -All the Fenians were obliged to know the rules of poetry,[10] for no -figure in Irish antiquity, layman or cleric, could ever arrive at the -rank of a popular hero unless he could compose, or at least appreciate -a poem. - -The Fenian tales and poems are extraordinarily numerous, but their -conception and characteristics are in general distinctly different -from those relating to the Red Branch. They have not the same sweep, -the same vastness and stature, the same weirdness, as the older cycle. -The majority of them are more modern in conception and surroundings. -There is little or no mention of the war chariot which is so important -a factor in the older cycle. The Fenians fought on foot or horseback, -and we meet, too, frequent mention of helmets and mail-coats, which -are post-Danish touches. Things are on a smaller scale. Exaggeration -does not run all through the stories, but is confined to small parts of -them, and it is set off by much that is trivial or humorous. - -The Fenian stories became in later times the distinctly popular ones. -They were far more of the people and for the people than those of -the Red Branch. They were most intimately bound up with the life -and thought and feelings of the whole Gaelic race, high and low, -both in Ireland and Scotland, and the development of Fenian saga, -for a period of 1,200 or 1,500 years, is one of the most remarkable -examples in the world of continuous literary evolution. I use the word -evolution advisedly, for there was probably not a century from the -seventh to the eighteenth in which new stories, poems, and redactions -of sagas concerning Finn and the Fenians were not invented and put -in circulation, while to this very day many stories never committed -to manuscript are current about them amongst the Irish and Scotch -Gaelic-speaking populations. We have found no such steady interest -evinced by the people in the Red Branch romances, and in attempting to -collect Irish folk-lore I have found next to nothing about Cuchulain -and his contemporaries, but great quantities about Finn, Ossian, Oscar, -Goll, and Conan. The one cycle, then, antique in tone, language, and -surroundings, was, I suspect, that of the chiefs, the great men, -and the bards; the other--at least in later times--more that of the -un-bardic classes and of the people. - -I do not mean to say that many of the Cuchulain stories were not -copied into modern MSS. and circulated freely among the people all -over Ireland during the eighteenth century and the beginning of this, -especially Cuchulain's training, Conlaoch's (his son's) death, the -Fight at the Ford, and others, but these appear never to have put out -shoots and blossoms from themselves and to have generated new and -yet again new stories as did the ever-youthful Fenian tales; nor do -they appear to have equally entwined themselves at this day round the -popular imagination. - -A striking instance of how the Ossianic tale continued to develop down -to the eighteenth century was supplied me the other day when examining -the Reeves Collection.[11] I there came upon a story in a Louth MS., -written, I think, in the last century, which seemed to me to contain -one of the latest developments of Ossianic saga. It is called "The -Adventures of Dubh mac Deaghla," and tells us of how a prophet was born -of the race of Eiremóin, "and all say," adds the writer, "that it was -he was the druid who prophesied to Fiacha Sreabhtainne that he should -fall in the battle of Dubh-Cumair by the three brothers, Cairioll, -Muircath, and Aodh." He also "prophesied to the race of Tuathal that -Cairbré of the Liffey was that far-branching tree which was to spread -round about through the great circuit of Erin, around which smote -the powerful wind from the south-west, overthrowing it wholly to the -ground--which wind meant the Fenians, as had been announced by the -smith's daughter."[12] The Fenians it seems heard that this Torna had -prophesied about them and intended to kill him, and he and his family -had to emigrate to Britain. From there he sends a letter in true -epistolary style to an old friend of his, one Conor son of Dathach, -beginning "Dear Friend"--an evident mark of seventeenth or possibly -eighteenth century authorship, for there are no letters written in -this style in the older literature, and this piece evidently follows -a Latin or a Spanish, or possibly an English model. However this may -be, Torna's letter asks Conor for news of the situation, and in time -receives the following answer: - - "_To Torna son of Dubh, our dear friend in Glen Fuinnse in Britain in - Saxony._ - - "Thy affectionate missive was read by me as soon as it arrived, and it - had been a cause of joy to me, were it not for the way we are in at - Tara at this moment. - - "For we never felt until the Munster Fenians came and encamped at the - marsh of Old Raphoe and Treibhe to the south-west; the warriors of - Leinster also and _Baoisgnidh_, together with Clan Ditribh and Clan - Boirchne, were to the south of them, towards the bottom of the stream - of Gabhra and on the west towards the old fort of Mève; and that same - evening the King having received an account of the encamping of the - Fenians urges messengers secretly to Connacht to the Clan of Conal - Cruachna that they might come, along with all the king's friends from - the western border of Erin; and other messengers he despatches to - Scotland for the Clan of Garaidh Glúnmhar, desiring Oscar of the blue - Javelin, Aodh, Argal, and Airtre to come from abroad without delay, - and that secretly. - - "On the early morning of the morrow, before the stars of the air - retired, the King urged the druids of Tara against the Fenians to - argue with them, and ask what was the cause of their rebelling in this - guise, or who it was with whom they had now come to do battle, because - they appeared not in habiliments of peace or friendship, but a flush - of anger appeared in the face and countenance of every several man of - them. - - "'And there is another unlawful thing of which ye are guilty,' said - the druids, 'which shows that ye have broken the vow of allegiance - and obedience to your king, in that ye have come in array and garb - of battle to the door of his fortress without receiving his leave or - advice, without giving him notice or warning. To what point of the - compass do ye travel, or on what have ye set your mind [that ye act - not] as is the right and due of a prince's subjects, and as was always - before this the habitude of the bands that came before ye; and as - shall last with honest people till the end of the world.' - - "However, now the druids are a-preaching to them and casting at - them bold storm-showers of reproofs by way of retarding them till - the coming back of the messengers who went abroad, for Mac Cool is - not amongst them to excite them against us, and we hope that they - will remain thus until help come to us. For this is the eleventh day - since the druids went from us, and our watchmen who observe what - approaches and what goes, disclose all tidings to us, and they are - ever a-listening to the loud argument of the druids and the captains - against one another. Moreover, the desire of the Fenians to make a - rapid assault upon Tara is the less from their having heard that - Cairbré was gone on his royal round to Dun Sreabhtainne to visit - Fiacha,[13] though he is really not gone there, but to a certain place - under cover of night with his women and the royal jewels of Tara. And - it was lucky for him that he did not go to Dun Sreabhtainne, for the - Fenians had sent Cairioll and nine mighty men with him to plunder Dun - Sreabhtainne. In that, however, they miscarried, for his tutor was - gone off before that with Fiacha, by order of the King, to the same - place where the women were. That, however, we shall pursue no further - at present. - - "But it is easy for you who are knowledgeable to form a judgment upon - the state in which the inhabitants of a country must be, over which - such a whelming calamity is about to fall. Let me leave off. And here - we send our affectionate greeting to you, and to you all, with the - hope of some time seeing you in full health, but I have small hope of - it. - - "From your faithful friend till death, Conor, son of Dathach in Tara, - the royal fortress of Erin. Written the 20th day of the month of March - in the year of the age of the world ... " [The figures in the MS. are - not legible]. - -The romance, which is a long one, is chiefly occupied with events -relating to the family of Dubh mac Deaghla in Britain. But later on in -the book the Conor who despatched this letter turns up and gives in -person a most vivid description of the Battle of Gowra, and the events -which followed his letter. - -I have only instanced and quoted from this comparatively unimportant -story, as showing one of the very latest developments of Fenian -literature, and as proving how thoroughly even the seventeenth and -eighteenth century Gaels were imbued with, and realised the spirit -of, the Fenian Cycle, and also as a peculiar specimen of what rarely -happens in literature, but is always of great interest when it does -happen--a specimen of unconscious saga developing into semi-conscious -romance. - -There are comparatively few ancient texts belonging to the Finn saga, -compared with the wealth of old vellum books that contain the Red -Branch stories. There is, however, quite enough of documentary proof -to show that so early as the seventh century Finn was looked on as a -popular hero. - -The actual data that we have to go upon in estimating the genesis -and development of the Fenian tales have been lucidly collected by -Mr. Nutt. They are, as far as is known at present, as follows. Gilla -Caemhain, the poet who died in 1072, says that it was fifty-seven years -after the battle of Moy Muchruime that Finn was treacherously killed -"by the spear points of Urgriu's three sons."[14] This would make -Finn's death take place in 252, for Moy Muchruime was fought according -to the "Four Masters" in A.D. 195. Tighearnach the Annalist, who died -in 1088, writes that Finn was killed in A.D. 283, "by Aichleach, son of -Duibhdrean, and the sons of Urgriu of the Luaighni of Tara, at Ath-Brea -upon the Boyne." The poet Cinaeth O Hartagain, who died in A.D. 985, -wrote: "By the Fiann of Luagne was the death of Finn at Ath-Brea upon -the Boyne." All these men in the tenth and eleventh centuries certainly -believed in Finn as implicitly as they did in King Cormac. - -The two oldest miscellaneous Irish MSS. which we have, are the Leabhar -na h-Uidhre and the Book of Leinster. The Leabhar na h-Uidhre was -compiled from older MSS. towards the close of the eleventh century, -and the Book of Leinster some fifty years later. The oldest of them -contains a copy of the famous poem ascribed to Dallán Forgaill in -praise of St. Columcille, which was so obscure in the middle of the -eleventh century that it required to be glossed. In this gloss, made -perhaps in the eleventh century, perhaps long before, there is an -explanatory poem on winter, ascribed to Finn, grandson of Baoisgne, -that is our Finn mac Cool, and in the same commentary we find an -explanation of the words "diu" = long, and "derc" = eye, in proof -of which this verse is quoted, "As Gráinne," says the commentator, -"daughter of Cormac, said to Finn." - - "There lives a man - On whom I would love to gaze long, - For whom I would give the whole world, - O Son of Mary! though a privation!" - -This verse, quoted as containing two words which required explanation -in or before the eleventh century, pre-supposes the story of Diarmuid -and Gráinne. In addition to this we have the apparently historical -story of the "Cause of the Battle of Cnucha." We have also the story -of the Mongan, an Ulster king of the seventh century, according to -the annalists who declared that he was not what men took him to be, -the son of the mortal Fiachna, but of the god Mananán mac Lir, and a -re-incarnation of the great Finn, and calls back from the grave the -famous Fenian, Caoilte, who proves it. This account is strongly relied -upon by Mr. Nutt to prove the wild mythological nature of the Finn -story, but it is by no means unique in Irish literature, for we find -the celebrated Tuan mac Cairrill had a second birth also, and the -great Cuchulain too has his parentage ascribed to the god Lugh, not -to Sualtach, his reputed father. Consequently, supposing Finn to have -been a real historical character of the third century, there would be -nothing absolutely extraordinary in the story arising in half pagan -times that Mongan, also an historical character, was a re-incarnation -of Finn. - -In the second oldest miscellaneous manuscript, the Book of Leinster, -the references to Finn and the Fenians are much more numerous, -containing three poems ascribed to Ossian, Finn's son, five poems -ascribed to Finn himself, two poems ascribed to Caoilte the Fenian -poet, a poem ascribed to one of Finn's followers, allusions to Finn -in poems by one Gilla in Chomded and another, passages from the -Dinnsenchas or topographical tract about Finn, the account of the -battle of Cnámhross, in which Finn helps the Leinstermen against King -Cairbré, the genealogy of Finn, and the genealogy of Diarmuid O'Duibhne. - -Again, in the Glossary ascribed, and probably truly, to Cormac, -King-Bishop of Cashel, A.D. 837-903, there are two allusions to Finn, -one of which refers to the unfaithfulness of his wife. This, indeed, -is not contained in the oldest copy, but Whitley Stokes, than whom -there can be no better authority, believes these allusions to belong -to the older portion of the Glossary, a work which is probably much -interpolated. - -But there is yet another proof of the antiquity of the Finn stories -which Mr. Nutt does not note, and in some respects it is the most -important and conclusive of all. For if, as D'Arbois de Jubainville -has, I think, proved, the list of 187 historic tales contained in the -Book of Leinster was really drawn up at the end of the seventh or -beginning of the eighth century, we find that even then Finn or his -contemporaries were the subjects of, or figure in, several of them, as -in the story of "The Courtship of Ailbhe, daughter of King Cormac mac -Art, by Finn," "The Battle of Moy Muchruime," where King Art, Cormac's -father, was slain; "The Cave of Bin Edair," where Diarmuid and Gráinne -took shelter when pursued by Finn; "The Adventures of Finn in Derc -Fearna (the cave of Dunmore)," a lost tale; "The Elopement of Gráinne -with Diarmuid," and perhaps one or two more. - -Thus Finn is sandwiched in as a real person along with his other -contemporaries, not only in tenth and eleventh century annalists and -poets, but is also made the hero of historic romance as early as the -seventh or eighth century. Side by side in our list with the battle -of Moy Muchruime we have the battle of Moy Rath. Copies of both, -coloured with the same literary pigments, exist. The last we _know_ -to be historical, it can be proved; why should not the first be also? -It is true that the one took place 438 years before the other, but -the treatment of both is absolutely identical, and it is the merest -accident that we happen to have external evidence for the latter and -not for the former. I can see, then, no sufficiently cogent reasons for -viewing Finn mac Cúmhail with different eyes from those with which we -regard his king. Cormac mac Art is usually acknowledged to have been -a real king of flesh and blood, whose buildings are yet seen on the -site of Tara, after whose daughter Gráinne one of them is named, why -should Finn, his chief captain, who married that Gráinne, be a deity -euhemerised? I do not see any arguments sufficient to differentiate -this case of Finn, to whom no particular supernatural qualities (except -the knowledge he got when he chewed his thumb) are attributed, from -that of Cormac and other kings and heroes who were the subjects of -bardic stories, and whose deaths were recorded in the Annals, except -the accident that the creative imagination of the later Gaels happened -to seize upon him and make him and his contemporaries the nucleus of -a vast literature instead of some earlier or later group of perhaps -equally deserving champions. Finn has long since become to all ears a -pan-Gaelic champion just as Arthur has become a Brythonic one. - -Of the Fenian sagas the longest--though it is only fragmentary--is that -known as the Dialogue or Colloquy of the Ancients, which is preserved -in the Book of Lismore, and would fill about 250 of these pages. The -plot of it is simple enough. Caoilte [Cweeltya] the poet and Ossian, -almost sole survivors of the Fenians--who had lived on after the -battle of Gabhra, where Cairbré, the High-king, broke their power for -ever--meet in their very old age St. Patrick and the new preachers of -the gospel. Patrick is most desirous of learning the past history of -the island from them, and the legends connected with streams and hills -and raths and so forth, and these are willingly recounted to him, and -were all written[15] down by Brogan Patrick's scribe for posterity to -read hereafter. The saga describes their wanderings along with the -saint, the stories they relate to him, and the verses--over a couple -of thousand--sung or repeated by them to the clerics and others.[16] -Some of these pieces are exceedingly beautiful. Here is a specimen, the -lament which Credé made over her husband who was drowned at the battle -of Ventry. Caoilte repeats the verses to Patrick: - - "The haven roars, and O the haven roars, over the rushing race of - _Rinn-da-bharc_. The drowning of the warrior of _Loch-da-chonn_, - that is what the wave impinging on the strand laments.[17] Melodious - is the crane, and O melodious is the crane, in the marshlands of - _Druim-dá-thrén_. 'Tis she who may not save her brood alive. The wild - dog of two colours is intent upon her nestlings. A woful note, and O a - woful note is that which the thrush in Drumqueen emits, but not more - cheerful is the wail which the blackbird makes in Letterlee. A woful - sound, and O a woful sound, is that the deer utters in Drumdaleish. - Dead lies the doe of Drumsheelin,[18] the mighty stag bells after - her. Sore suffering, and O suffering sore, is the hero's death, his - death, who used to lie by me.... Sore suffering to me is Cael, and O - Cael is a suffering sore, that by my side he is in dead man's form; - that the wave should have swept over his white body, that is what hath - distracted me, so great was his delightfulness. A dismal roar, and - O a dismal roar, is that the shore's surf makes upon the strand.... - A woful booming, and O a boom of woe, is that which the wave makes - upon the northward beach, butting as it does against the polished - rock, lamenting for Cael now that he is gone. A woful fight, and O - a fight of woe, is that the wave wages with the southern shore. A - woful melody, and O a melody of woe, is that which the heavy surge of - Tullacleish emits. As for me the calamity which has fallen upon me - having shattered me, for me prosperity exists no more." - -Perhaps the Fenian saga, next in length and certainly in merit, is -the well-known "Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne."[19] Diarmuid of the -Love-spot unwittingly causes Gráinne, daughter of Cormac mac Art, the -High-king, to fall in love with him, just on the eve of her marriage -with his captain, Finn mac Cool. He is driven to elope with her, and -is pursued round Ireland by the vengeful Finn, who succeeds after many -years in compassing the death of the generous and handsome Diarmuid by -a wild boar, and then winning back to himself the love of the fickle -Gráinne. - -The Enchanted Fort of the Quicken Tree, the Enchanted Fort of Céis -Corann,[20] the Little Brawl at Allen,[21] the Enchanted Fort of -Eochaidh Beag the Red,[22] the Pursuit of Sive, daughter of Owen Óg, -the Pursuit of the Giolla Deacar,[23] the Death of the Great Youth -the King of Spain's son,[24] The Feast in the House of Conan,[25] -the Legend of Lomnochtan of Slieve Riffé,[26] the Legend of Ceadach -the Great,[27] the Battle of Tulach na n-each,[28] the Battle of -Ventry,[29] the Battle of Cnucha, the Battle of Moy Muchruime,[30] the -Battle of Moy Léana,[31] the youthful Exploits of Finn mac Cool,[32] -the Battle of Gabhra,[33] the Birth of King Cormac,[34] the Battle -of Crinna,[35] the Cause of the Battle of Cnucha,[36] the Invitation -of Maol grandson of Manannán to the Fenians of Erin,[37] the Legend -of the Clown in the Drab Coat,[38] the Lamentation of Oilioll after -his children,[39] Cormac's Adventure in the Land of Promise,[40] the -Decision about Cormac's Sword,[41] an ancient fragment about Finn and -Gráinne,[42] an ancient fragment on the Death of Finn[43]--are some of -the remaining prose sagas of this cycle. - -[1] Moore's genius has stereotyped amongst us the term Red Branch -knight, which, however, has too much flavour of the mediæval about -it. The Irish is _curadh_, "hero." The Irish for "Knight" in the -appellations White Knight, Knight of the Glen, etc., is Ridire -(pronounced "Rĭd-ĭr-yă," in Connacht sometimes corruptly "Rud-ir-ya"), -which is evidently the mediæval "Ritter," _i.e._, Rider. - -[2] Moore helped to bring this word into common use under the form of -Finnian in his melody, "The wine-cup is circling in Alvin's hall." -It is probable that he derived the word from Finn, and meant by it -"followers of Finn mac Cool." The Irish word is Fiann (pronounced -"Fee-an") and has nothing to do with Finn mac Cúmhail. In the genitive -it is nà Féine (na Fayna). It is a noun of multitude, and means the -Fenian body in general. The individual Fenian was called Féinnidhe, -_i.e._, a member of the Fenian force. The bands of militia were called -Fianna [Fee-ăn-a], The word is declined _An Fhiann, na Féinne, do'n -Fhéinn_ [In Eean, nă Fayn-a, don Aen] and its resemblance to the proper -name Finn is only accidental. The English translation of Keating made -early in the last century, by Dermot O'Conor, does not use the term -"Fenian" at all, but translates the word by "Irish Militia." Nor does -O'Halloran, in 1778, when he published his history, seem to have known -the term. The first person who appears to have used it is Miss Brooke, -as early as 1796: in her translation of some Ossianic pieces, I find -the lines-- - - "He cursed in rage the Fenian chief - And all the Fenian race." - -I have been told that Macpherson had already used the word, but I have -looked carefully through his Ossian and have not been able to find -it. Halliday in his edition of Keating, in 1808, talks in a foot-note -of "Fenian heroes." It was John O'Mahony the head-centre of the Irish -Republican Brotherhood, a brilliant Irish scholar and translator of -Keating, who succeeded in perpetuating the ancient historic memory by -christening the "men of '68" the "Fenians." - -[3] Cormac mac Art came to the throne, A.D. 227, according to the "Four -Masters"; A.D. 213, according to Keating. - -[4] See ch. XX, note 9. - -[5] The word is long obsolete. Goll is a stock character in Fenian -folk-lore, a kind of Ajax. - -[6] Contained in the Leabhar na h-Uidhre, a volume copied about the -year 1100, and printed in "Revue Celtique," vol. ii. p. 86. - -[7] With this thunderous description, all sound and fury, and -signifying very little, compare the Homeric description of a like -scene, clear, accurate, cut like a gem: - - τοῖσιν δ᾿ἴκμενον οὖρον ἵει ἑκάεργος Ἀπόλλων, - οἱ δ᾿ἱστὸν στήσαντ᾿, ἀνά θ᾿ ἱστία λευκὰ πέτασσαν - ἐν δ᾿άνεμος πρῆσεν μέσον ἱστίον, ἀμφὶ δὲ κῦμα - στείρῃ πορφύρεον μεγάλ᾿ ἴαχε, νηὸς ἰούσης - ῾η δ᾿ ἔθεεν κατὰ κῦμα, διαπρήσσυσα κέλευθα. - ILIAD I., p. 480. - -But the Irish passage, though quoted here to exemplify a common feature -of the Fenian tales, really dates from a time of decadence. - -[8] Published by Eugene O'Curry for the Celtic Society. I adhere to his -admirable, and at the same time perfectly literal, translation. - -[9] Mr. Nutt seems to believe that the whole groundwork of the Fenian -tales is mythical. His position with regard to them is fairly summed -up in this extract from his note on Mac Innes' Gaelic stories. "Every -Celtic tribe," he writes, "possessed traditions both mythical and -historical, the former of substantially the same character, the latter -necessarily varying. Myth and history acted and reacted upon each -other, and produced heroic saga which may be defined as myth tinged -and distorted by history. The largest element is as a rule suggested -by myth, so that the varying heroic sagas of the various portions of a -race, have always a great deal in common. These heroic sagas, together -with the official or semi-official mythologies of the pre-Christian -Irish are the subject-matter of the Annals. They were thrown into a -purely artificial chronological shape by men familiar with biblical and -classical history. A framework was thus created into which the entire -mass of native legend was gradually fitted, whilst the genealogies of -the race were modelled, or it may be remodelled in accord with it. -In studying the Irish sagas we may banish entirely from our mind all -questions as to the truth of the early portions of the Annals. The -subject matter of the latter is mainly mythical, the mode in which it -has been treated is literary. What residuum of historic truth may still -survive can be but infinitesimal." (_See_ Mr. Nutt's valuable essay on -Ossianic or Fenian Saga in "Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition," vol. -ii. p. 399.) - -[10] "Of all these," says, with true Celtic hyperbole, the -fifteenth-century vellum in the British Museum, marked "Egerton, 1782," -"not a man was taken until he was a prime poet versed in the twelve -books of poetry. No man was taken till in the ground a large hole had -been made such as to reach the fold of his belt, and he put into it -with his shield and a forearm's length of a hazel stick. Then must nine -warriors having nine spears, with a ten furrows' width between them and -him, assail him, and in concert let fly at him. If he were then hurt -past that guard of his, he was not received into the Fian-ship. Not a -man of them was taken until his hair had been interwoven into braids -on him, and he started at a run through Ireland's woods, while they -seeking to wound him followed in his wake, there having been between -him and them but one forest bough by way of interval at first. Should -he be overtaken he was wounded and not received into the Fian-ship -after. If his weapons had quivered in his hand he was not taken. Should -a branch in the wood have disturbed anything of his hair out of its -braiding he was not taken. If he had cracked a dry stick under his -foot [as he ran] he was not accepted. Unless that [at full speed] he -had both jumped a stick level with his brow, and stooped to pass under -one on a level with his knee, he was not taken. Unless also without -slackening his pace he could with his nail extract a thorn from his -foot he was not taken into the Fian-ship. But if he performed all this -he was of Finn's people." (_See_ "Silva Gadelica," p. 100 of English -vol.) - -[11] These MSS. volumes, fifty-four in number, had most of them -belonged to Mr. MacAdam, editor of the "Ulster Journal of Archæology," -from whom Bishop Reeves bought them. On the lamented death of that -great scholar they were put up to auction, when the Royal Irish Academy -bought some thirty volumes, the rest unfortunately were allowed to be -scattered again to the four winds of heaven. For his exertions and -generosity in securing even so many of these MSS., especially those -which at first sight looked least important, but which contained -treasures of folk-lore and folk-song, the Hon. Treasurer, the Rev. -Maxwell Close, has placed Irish-speaking Ireland under yet another debt -of gratitude to him. It is not always that which is most ancient which -is most valuable from a literary or a national point of view. The pity -of it is that any Irish MS. that comes into the market should not be -bought up for the nation with the money assigned by the Government and -confided to the Royal Irish Academy for Irish studies, unless a special -search should show _that the Academy already possesses a copy of each -piece in it_. I am convinced that many hundreds or thousands of pieces -have been through neglect to do this irreparably lost to the nation. Oh -the pity of it! - -[12] This is in allusion to the romance of Moy Muchruime, where we read -of the prophecy and what followed. For Cairbré _see_ above, p. 32. - -[13] Fiacha was the King's son, and succeeded him in the sovereignty. -He was finally slain by his nephews, the celebrated Three Collas--they -who afterwards burned Emania and caused the Ultonian dynasty and the -Red Branch knights, after a duration of more than seven hundred years, -to set in blood and flame, never to rise again. - -[14] "There were many among the Fenians," says Keating, "who were -more remarkable for their personal prowess, their valour, and their -corporeal stature than Finn. The reason why he was made king of the -Fiann, and set over the warriors, was simply because his father and -grandfather had held that position before him. Another reason also -why he had been made king of the Fiann was because he excelled his -contemporaries in intellect and learning, in wisdom and in subtlety, -and in experience and hardihood in battlefields. It was for these -qualities that he was made king of the Fiann, and not for his personal -prowess or for the great size or strength of his body." - -"Warrior better than Finn," says an old vellum MS. in the British -Museum, "never struck his hand into chiefs, inasmuch as for service he -was a soldier, a hospitaller for hospitality, and in heroism a hero. In -fighting functions he was a fighting man, and in strength a champion -worthy of a king, so that ever since and from that until this, it is -with Finn that every such is co-ordinated." - -And in another place the same vellum says, "A good man verily was he -who had those Fianna, for he was the seventh king ruling Ireland, that -is to say, there were five kings of the provinces, and the King of -Ireland, he being himself the seventh conjointly with the King of all -Ireland." - -In a MS. saga in my own possession, called "The Pursuit of Sadhbh -(Sive)," there is an amusing account of the truculence of the Fenians -about their exclusive right of hunting, and the way they terrorised the -people they were quartered on, but I have not space for this extract. - -[15] _See_ above, p. 116. - -[16] This has been edited by Standish Hayes O'Grady in his "Silva -Gadelica," from the Book of Lismore. - -[17] - - "Géisid cuan, ón géisid cuan - Os buinne ruad rinnda bharc, - Badad laeich locha dhá chonn - Is ed cháinios tonn re trácht." - -"Silva Gadelica," p. 113 of Gaelic volume, p. 122 of English volume. I -have not altered Dr. O'Grady's beautiful translation. - -[18] This passage and that about the crane are not explained in the -"Colloquy," but curiously enough I find the same passage in the saga -called the Battle of Ventry, which Kuno Meyer published in "Anecdota -Oxoniensia" from a fifteenth-century vellum in the Bodleian. The lady -is there called Gelges [white swan], and as she sought for Cael among -the slain "she saw the crane of the meadow and her two birds and the -wily beast yclept the fox a-watching of her birds, and when she covered -one of the birds to save it he would make a rush at the other bird, -so that the crane had to stretch herself out between them both, so -that she would rather have found and suffered death by the wild beast -than that her birds should be killed by him. And Gelges mused on this -greatly and said, 'I wonder not that I so love my fair sweetheart, -since this little bird is in such distress about its birdlets.'" She -heard, moreover, a wild stag on Drum Reelin above the harbour, and it -was vehemently bewailing the hind from one pass to the other, for they -had been nine years together and had dwelt in the wood that was at the -foot of the harbour, the wood of Feedesh, and the hind had been killed -by Finn, and the stag was nineteen days without tasting grass or water, -mourning for the hind. "It is no shame for me," said Gelges, "to find -death with grief for Cael, as the stag is shortening his life for grief -of the hind," etc. - -[19] Pronounced "Graan-ya." This story has been edited and translated -in the third volume of the Ossianic Society by Standish H. O'Grady, and -has been since reprinted from his text. Dr. Joyce also translated it -into English in his Old Celtic romances, but omits the cynical but most -characteristic conclusion. The story was only known to exist in quite -modern MSS., but I find an excellent copy written about the year 1660 -in the newly-acquired Reeves Collection in the Royal Irish Academy. -This saga was in existence in the seventh century, for it is mentioned -in the list in the Book of Leinster. It is the subject of a recent -cantata by the Marquis of Lome and Mr. Hamish Mac Cunn. - -[20] Published by O'Grady in his "Silva Gadelica." - -[21] Published by O'Grady in his "Silva Gadelica." - -[22] The Irish text published without a translation by Patrick O'Brien -in his _Bláithfleasg_. - -[23] Published by O'Grady in his "Silva Gadelica." - -[24] I published in a periodical a translation of this from a MS. in my -own possession. - -[25] Published in vol. ii. of Ossianic Society. - -[26] Is being published in the "Gaelic Journal" by the editor. - -[27] Mentioned by Standish H. O'Grady, but I have met no copies of it, -though I have heard a story of this name told orally. - -[28] Mentioned by Standish H. O'Grady. - -[29] Published from a fifteenth-century vellum in the Bodleian by Kuno -Meyer in a volume of the "Anecdota Oxoniensia." - -[30] Published by Standish H. O'Grady in "Silva Gadelica" from the Book -of Leinster. I have a seventeenth-century paper copy of the same saga -which is completely different. - -[31] Published by O'Curry for the Celtic Society. - -[32] Edited by O'Donovan for the Ossianic Society and by Mr. David -Comyn with a translation into modern Irish for the Gaelic League. - -[33] Edited by O'Kearney for the Ossianic Society, vol. i. - -[34] Published in "Silva Gadelica." - -[35] Published in "Silva Gadelica." - -[36] A brief tale in the Leabhar na h-Uidhre, published in "Revue -Celtique," vol. ii. - -[37] Mentioned by Standish H. O'Grady in his preface to Diarmuid and -Gráinne, but unknown to me. - -[38] Published without a translation by O'Daly of Anglesea Street in -"Irish Self-taught," and with a translation in the "Silva Gadelica." - -[39] Usually joined on to the modern version of the Battle of Mochruime. - -[40] Published by Standish H. O'Grady for the Ossianic Society, vol. -iii. p. 212, from a modern MS.; and by Whitley Stokes in "Irische -Texte," iii. Serie, Heft. i. p. 203, from the Book of Ballymote and -Yellow Book of Lecan. - -[41] Published by Stokes in the same place as the last. - -[42] "Zeitschrift für Celt Phil.," Band I. Heft. 3, p. 458, translated -by Kuno Meyer. - -[43] _Ibid._, and O'Grady, "Silva Gadelica." - - - - -CHAPTER XXX - -MISCELLANEOUS ROMANCE - - -In addition to the stories that centre round Cuchulain and round -Finn there are a number of miscellaneous ones dealing with episodes -or characters in Irish history; some are in short groups or minor -cycles, but others are completely independent tales. All are built -upon lines similar to those which we have been considering, and they -are composed for the most part in a mixture of both verse and prose. -Some of these sagas deal with pre-Christian times, and others with the -early mediæval period. Very few, if any, deal with post-Danish and -still fewer with post-Norman subjects. The seventh century was the -golden era of the Irish saga, and nothing that the race did in later -times improved on it. Out of the hundred and eighty-seven stories whose -names are preserved in the Book of Leinster, in a list which must have -been, as D'Arbois de Jubainville points out, drawn up in the seventh -century, about one hundred and twenty seem to have utterly perished. -Of the others--many of which, however, are preserved only in the -baldest and most condensed form--some four or five relate to the Fenian -Cycle, some eighteen are Red Branch stories, and some eight or nine, -mostly preserved in the colourless digests of the Book of Invasions, -are mythological. About twenty-one of the others belong to minor -groups, or are miscellaneous single tales. Some of them are of the -highest interest and antiquity. Of these the storming of the Bruidhean -[Bree-an] or Court of Dá Derga is, after the Táin Bo Chuailgne, -probably the oldest and most important saga in the whole range of Irish -literature. - -These two stories substantially dating from the seventh century, and -perhaps formed into shape long before that time, are preserved in the -oldest miscellaneous MSS. which we possess, and throw more light upon -pagan manners, customs, and institutions than perhaps any other.[1] - -The period in which the Court-of-Dá-Derga story is laid is about -coincident with that of the Red Branch Cycle, only it does not deal -with Emania, and the Red Branch, but with Leinster, Tara, and the -High-king of Erin, who was there resident. The High-king at this time -was the celebrated Conairè the "Great," and rightly, if we may believe -our Annals, was he so called, for he had been a just, magnanimous, and -above all fortunate ruler of all Ireland for fifty years.[2] So just -was he, and so strict, that he had sent into banishment a number of -lawless and unworthy persons who troubled his kingdom. Among these -were his own five foster brothers whom he was reluctantly compelled -to send into exile along with the others. These people all turned -to piracy, and plundered the coasts of England, Scotland, and even -Ireland, wherever they found an opportunity of making a successful -raid upon the unarmed inhabitants.[3] It so happened that the son -of the King of Britain, one Ingcel, also of Irish extraction, had -been banished by his father for his crimes, and was now making his -living in much the same way as the predatory Irishmen. These two -parties having met, being drawn together by a fellow-feeling and their -common lawlessness, struck up a friendship, and made a league with -one another, thus doubling the strength of each. Soon after this the -High-king found himself in Clare, called thither to settle, according -to his wont, some dispute between rival chiefs. His business ended, he -was leisurely taking his way with his retinue back to his royal seat -at Tara, when on entering the borders of Meath he beheld the whole -country in the direction of his city a sheet of flame and rolling -smoke. Terrified at this, and divining that the banished pirates had -made a descent on his capital during his absence, he turned aside and -took the great road that, leading from Tara to Dublin, passed thence -into the heart of Leinster. Pursuing this road the King crossed the -Liffey in safety and made for the Bruighean [Bree-an] or Court of Dá -Derg on the road close to the river Dothar or Dodder, called ever since -Boher-na-breena,[4] the "road of the Court," close to Tallacht, not -far from Dublin. This was one of the six great courts of universal -hospitality[5] in Erin, and Dá Derg, its master, was delighted and -honoured by the visit from the High-king. - -The pirates having plundered Tara, took to their vessels, and having -laden them with their spoils were now under a favourable breeze running -along the sea coast towards the Hill of Howth, when they perceived -from afar the King's company making in their chariots for Dublin along -the great high road. One of his own foster brothers was the first to -recognise that it was the High-king who was there. He was kept in view -and seen at last to enter Dá Derg's great court of hospitality. The -pirates ran their ships ashore to the south of the Liffey, and Ingcel -the Briton set off as a spy to examine the court and the number of -armed men about it; to see if it might not be possible to surprise -and plunder it during the night. On his return he is questioned by -his companions as to what he saw, and by this simple device--familiar -to all poets from Homer down--we are introduced to the principal -characters of his court, and are shown what the retinue of a High-king -consisted of in the sixth or seventh century, about which time the -saga probably took definite shape on parchment, or in the second or -third century if we are to suppose the traits to be more archaic than -the composition of the tale. We have here a minute account of the -King and the court and the company, with their costumes, insignia, -and appearance. We see the King and his sons, his nine pipers or -wind-instrument players, his cupbearers, his chief druid-juggler, -his three principal charioteers, their nine apprentice charioteers, -his hostages the Saxon princes, his equerries and outriders, his -three judges, his nine harpers, his three ordinary jugglers, his -three cooks, his three poets, his nine guardsmen, and his two private -table attendants. We see Dá Derg, the lord of the court, his three -doorkeepers, the British outlaws, and the king's private drink-bearers. -Here is the description of the King himself-- - - "'I saw there a couch,'[6] continued Ingcel, 'and its ornamentation - was more beautiful than all the other couches of the Court, it is - curtained round with silver cloth, and the couch itself is richly - ornamented. I saw three persons on it. The outside two of them were - fair both hair and eyebrows, and their skin whiter than snow. Upon the - cheek of each was a beautiful ruddiness. Between them in the middle - was a noble champion. He has in his visage the ardour and action of - a sovereign, and the wisdom of an historian. The cloak which I saw - upon him can be likened only to the mist of a May morning. A different - colour and complexion are seen on it each moment, more splendid than - the other is each hue. I saw in the cloak in front of him a wheel - broach of gold, that reaches from his chin to his waist. Like unto the - sheen of burnished gold is the colour of his hair. Of all the human - forms of the world that I have seen his is the most splendid.[7] I saw - his gold-hilted sword laid down near him. There was the breadth of a - man's hand of the sword exposed out of the scabbard. From that hand's - breadth the man who sits at the far end of the house could see even - the smallest object by the light of that sword.[8] More melodious is - the melodious sound of that sword than the melodious sounds of the - golden pipes which play music in the royal house.... The noble warrior - was asleep with his legs upon the lap of one of the men, and his head - in the lap of the other. He awoke up afterwards out of his sleep and - spake these words-- - - "'"I have dreamed of danger-crowding phantoms, - A host of creeping treacherous enemies, - A combat of men beside the Dodder, - And early and alone the King of Tara was killed."'" - -This man whom Ingcel had seen was no other than the High-king. - -The account of the juggler is also curious-- - - "'I saw there,' continued Ingcel, 'a large champion in the middle - of the house. The blemish of baldness was upon him. Whiter than the - cotton of the mountains is every hair that grows upon his head. He - had ear-clasps of gold in his ears and a speckled white cloak upon - him. He had nine swords in his hand and nine silvery shields and nine - balls of gold. He throws every one of them up into the air and not one - falls to the ground, and there is but one of them at a time upon his - palm, and like the buzzing of bees on a beautiful day was the motion - of each passing the other.' - - "'Yes,' said Ferrogain [the foster brother], 'I recognise him, he - is Tulchinne, the Royal druid of the King of Tara; he is Conairè's - juggler,[9] a man of great power is that man.'" - -Dá Derg himself is thus described-- - - "'I saw another couch there and one man on it, with two pages in front - of him, one fair, the other black-haired. The champion himself had red - hair and had a red cloak near him. He had crimson cheeks and beautiful - deep blue eyes, and had on him a green cloak. He wore also a white - under-mantle and collar beautifully interwoven, and a sword with an - ivory hilt was in his hand, and he supplies every couch in the Court - with ale and food, and he is incessant in attending upon the whole - company. Identify that man.' - - "'I know that man,' said he, 'that is Da Derg himself. It was by him - the Court was built, and since he has taken up residence in it, its - doors have never been closed except on the side to which the wind - blows; it is to that side only that a door is put. Since he has taken - to house-keeping his boiler has never been taken off the fire, but - continues ever to boil food for the men of Erin. And the two who are - in front of him are two boys, foster sons of his, they are the two - sons of the King of Leinster.'" - -Not less interesting is the true Celtic hyperbole in Ingcel's -description of the jesters: "I saw then three jesters at the fire. -They wore three dark grey cloaks, and if all the men of Erin were in -one place and though the body of the mother or the father of each man -of them were lying dead before him, not one of them could refrain from -laughing at them." - -In the end the pirates decide on making their attack. They marched -swiftly and silently across the Dublin mountains, surrounded and -surprised the court, slew the High-king caught there, as in a trap, and -butchered most of his attendants. - -After this tale of Dá Derg come a host of sagas, all calling for -a recognition, which with our limited space it is impossible to -grant them. Of these one of the most important, though neither the -longest nor the most interesting, is the account of the Boromean or -Boru tribute, a large fragment of which is preserved in the Book of -Leinster, a MS. of about the year 1150. - -When Tuathal or Toole, called Techtmhar, or the Possessor, was -High-king of Ireland, at the close of the first century, he had two -handsome daughters, and the King of Leinster asked one of them in -marriage and took and brought home to his palace the elder as his wife. -This was as it should be, for at that time it was not customary for the -younger to be married "before the face of the elder." The Leinster men, -however, said to their king that he had left behind the better girl of -the two. Nettled at this the King went again to Tara and told Tuathal -that his daughter was dead and asked for the other. The High-king -then gave him his second daughter, with the courteous assurance "had -I one and fifty daughters they were thine." When he brought back the -second daughter to his palace in Leinster she, like another Philomela, -discovered her sister alive and before her. Both died, one of shame -the other of grief. When news of this reached Tara steps were taken to -punish the King of Leinster. Connacht and Ulster led a great hosting -with 12,000 men into Leinster to plunder it. The High-king too marched -from Tara through Maynooth to Naas and encamped there. The Leinstermen -were at first successful; they beat the Ultonians and killed their -prince; but at last all the invading forces having combined defeated -them and slew the bigamist king. They then levied the blood-tax, which -was as follows:--Fifteen thousand cows, fifteen thousand swine, fifteen -thousand wethers, the same number of mantles, silver chains, and copper -cauldrons, together with one great copper reservoir to be set up in -Tara's house itself, in which would fit twelve pigs and twelve kine. In -addition to this they had to pay thirty red-eared cows with calves of -the same colour, with halters and spancels of bronze and bosses of gold. - -The consequences of this unfortunate tribute were to the last degree -disastrous for Ireland. The High-kings of Ireland continued for ages -to levy it off Leinster, and the Leinstermen continued to resist. -The Fenians took part in the conflict, for they followed Finn mac -Cúmhail in behalf of the men of Leinster against their own master the -High-king. The tribute continued to be levied, off and on, during the -reigns of forty kings, whenever Leinster seemed too weak to resist, or -whenever the High-king deemed himself strong enough to raise it: until -King Finnachta at last remitted it at the close of the seventh century, -at the request of St. Molling.[10] - - "It is beyond the testimony of angels, - It is beyond the word of recording saints, - All the kings of the Gaels - That make attack upon Leinster."[11] - -Of course the unfortunate province, thus plundered during generations, -lost in some measure its nationality, and no doubt it was partly owing -to this that it seemed more ready than any other district to ally -itself with the Danes. The great Brian is said to have gained his -title of Borumha or Boru through his having reimposed the tribute on -Leinster, but though he conquered that province and plundered it, I -am aware of no good authority for his actually re-imposing the Boru -tribute. - -Some of the early saints' lives, too, may be considered as belonging -almost as much to historico-romantic as to hagiological literature. -From one of these, at least, we must give an extract, so that this -voluminous side of Irish literature may not remain unrepresented. -Here is a fragment of the life of St. Ceallach [Kal-lach] which is -preserved in that ample repository of ecclesiastical lore the Leabhar -Breac, a great vellum manuscript written shortly after the year 1400. -The story[12] deals with the dispute between Guairé [Goo-ǎr-yǎ], a -well-known king of Connacht, and St. Ceallach, the latter of whom had -during his student life left St. Ciaran and his studies, and thus drawn -down upon himself the prediction of that great saint that he would die -by point of weapon. - -Guairé having banished Ceallach, against whom his mind had been -poisoned by lying tongues, the fugitive took refuge in an island in -Loch Con, where he remained for a long time. Guairé, still excited -against him through the lies of go-betweens, invited him to a feast -with intent to kill him. He refuses however to go. The King's -messengers then requested him to at least allow his four condisciples, -the only ones who had remained with him in his solitude, to go with -them to the feast, saying that they would bear the king's messages to -him when they returned. "I will neither prevent them from going nor -yet constrain them to go," answered Ceallach, the result of which was -that the four condisciples returned along with the envoys, and the king -was greatly pleased to see them come, and meat and drink, with good -welcome, were provided for them. After this the saga proceeds. - - DEATH OF CEALLACH. - - "Then a banqueting-house apart was set in order for them, and thither - for their use the fort's best liquor was conveyed. On Guairé's - either side were set two of them, and--with an eye to win them that - they might leave Ceallach--great gifts were promised to them; all - the country of Tirawley, four unmarried women such as themselves - should choose out of the province, and, with these, horses and kine, - sufficient marriage dowry for their wives (such gifts by covenant to - be secured to them), and an adequate equipment of arms to be furnished - to each one. - - "That night they abode there, but, at the morning's meal, with one - accord they consented to kill Ceallach. - - "Thence they departed to Loch Con, and where they had left the boat - they found it, and pulling off they reached Ceallach. They found him - with his psalter spread out before him, as he said the psalms, nor did - he speak to them. When he had made an end of his psalmody he looked at - them, and marked their eyes unsteady in their heads, and clouded with - the hue of parricide. - - "'Young men,' said Ceallach, 'ye have an evil aspect, since ye went - from me your natures ye have changed, and I perceive in you that for - King Guairé's sake ye have agreed to murder me.' - - "Never a tittle they denied, and he went on, 'An ill design it is, - but follow now no longer your own detriment, and from me shall be had - gifts, which far beyond all Guairé's promises shall profit you.' - - "They rejoined, 'By no means shall we do as thou wouldst have us, - Ceallach, seeing that if we acted so, not in all Ireland might - we harbour anywhere.' And, even as they spoke, at Ceallach they - drave with their spears in unison; yet he made shift to thrust - his psalter in between him and his frock. They stowed him then in - the boat amidships, two of themselves in the bow, and so gained a - landing-place. Thence they carried him into the great forest and into - the dark recesses of the wood. - - "Ceallach said: 'This that ye would do I count a wicked work indeed, - for in Clonmacnois [if ye spared me] ye might find shelter for ever, - or should it please you to resort rather to Bláthmac and to Dermot, - sons of Aedh Sláine, who is now King of Ireland [ye would be secure].'" - - [_Then Ceallach utters a poem of twenty-four lines._] - - "'To advise us further in the matter is but idle,' they retorted, 'we - will not do it for thee.' - - "'Well then,' he pleaded, 'this one night's respite grant to me for - God's sake.' - - "'Loath though we be to concede it, we will yield thee that,' they - said. Then they raised their swords which in their clothes they - carried hidden, and at the sight of them a mighty fear took Ceallach. - They ransacked the wood until they found a hollow oak having one - narrow entrance, and to this Ceallach was committed, they sitting at - the hole to watch him till the morning. They were so to the hour of - night's waning end, when drowsy longing came to them, and deep sleep - fell on them then. - - "Ceallach, in trouble for his violent death, slept not at all, at - which time it was in his power to have fled had it so pleased him, but - in his heart he said that it were misbelief in him to moot evasion of - the living God's designs. Moreover, he reflected that even were he so - to flee they must overtake him, he being but emaciated and feeble, - after the Lent. Morning shone on them now, and he (for fear to see it - and in terror of his death) shut to the door, yet he said: 'to shirk - God's judgment is in me a lack of faith, Ciaran, my tutor, having - promised me that I must meet this end,' and as he spoke he flung open - the tree's door. The Raven called then, and the Scallcrow, the Wren, - and all the other birds. The Kite of Cluain-Eó's yew tree came, and - the red Wolf of Drum-mic-dar, the deceiver whose lair was by the - island's landing-place. - - "'My dream of Wednesday's night last past was true,' said Ceallach, - 'that four wild dogs rent me and dragged me through the bracken, and - that down a precipice I then fell, nor evermore came up,' and he - uttered this lay:-- - - "'HAIL to the Morning, that as a flame falls on the ground; hail to - Him, too, that sends her, the Morning many-virtued, ever-new![13] - - "'O Morning fair, so full of pride, O sister of the brilliant Sun, - hail to the beauteous morning that lightest for me my little book! - - "'Thou seest the guest in every dwelling, and shinest on every tribe - and kin; hail O thou white-necked beautiful one, here with us now, - golden-fair, wonderful! - - "'My little book with chequered page tells me that my life has not - been right. Maelcróin, 't is he whom I do well to fear; he it is who - comes to smite me at the last. - - "'O Scallcrow, and O Scallcrow, small grey-coated, sharp-beaked fowl, - the intent of thy desire is apparent to me, no friend art thou to - Ceallach. - - "'O Raven that makest croaking, if hungry thou art now, O bird, depart - not from this same homestead until thou eatest a surfeit of my flesh! - - "'Fiercely the Kite of Cluain-Eó's yew tree will take part in the - scramble, the full of his grey talons he will carry off, he will not - part from me in kindness. - - "'To the blow [that fells me] the fox that is in the darkling wood - will make response at speed, he too in cold and trackless confines - shall devour a portion of my flesh and blood. - - "'The wolf that is in the rath upon the eastern side of Drum-mic-dar, - he on a passing visit comes to me, that he may rank as chieftain of - the meaner pack. - - "'Upon Wednesday's night last past I beheld a dream, I saw the wild - dogs dragging me together eastward and westward through the russet - ferns. - - "'I beheld a dream, that into a green glen they took me, four there - were that bore me thither, but methought, ne'er brought me out again. - - "'I beheld a dream, that to their house my condisciples brought me, - for me they poured out a drink, and to me did they a drink quaff. - - "'O tiny Wren most scant of tail, dolefully hast thou piped prophetic - lay, surely thou art come to betray me and to curtail my gift of - life![14] - - "'O Maelcróin and O Maelcróin, thou hast resolved upon an unrighteous - deed, for ten hundred golden ingots Owen's son[15] had ne'er consented - into thy death! - - "'O Maelcróin and O Maelcróin, pelf it is that thou hast taken to - betray me; for this world's sake thou hast accepted it, accepted it - for the sake of hell! - - "'All precious things that ever I had, all sleek-coated grey horses, - on Maelcróin I would have bestowed them, that he should not do me this - treason. - - "'But Mary's great Son up above me, thus addresses speech to me, - "Thou must leave earth, thou shalt have heaven; welcome awaits thee, - Ceallach."'" - -The saint is then, as soon as the morning had fully risen, taken out -of the tree by the four traitors, and put to death. The kite and the -wolf and the scallcrow tear his flesh. The remainder of what is really -a fine saga describes the hunt for the murderers and their final death -at the hands of Ceallach's brother, who wrested for himself all the -territory that Guairé had given them, marries Guairé's daughter, and -is, like Ceallach his brother, finally himself put to death by Guairé's -treachery. - -It would be quite impossible within the limits of a volume like this -to give any adequate study of the evolution of Irish saga. All Irish -romances are compositions upon which more or less care had evidently -been bestowed, in ancient times, as is evidenced by their being -all shot through and through with verse. These verses amount to a -considerable portion of the saga, often to nearly a quarter or even a -third of the whole, and Irish versification is usually very elaborate, -and not the work of any mere inventor or story-teller, but of a -highly-trained technical poet. Very few pieces indeed, and these mostly -of the more modern Fenian tales, are written in pure prose. It may be -that the reciter of the ancient sagas actually _sang_ these verses, -or certainly gave them in a different tone from the prose narrative -with which he filled up the gap between them. Whether the same man was -both the composer of the verse and the framer of the prose narrative, -in each particular story, is a difficult question to answer, but I -should think that in most cases, at least in the older saga, incidents -had been taken up by the bards and poets as themes for their verses, -for perhaps ages before they were brought together by somebody and -woven into one complete épopée with a prose intermixture. Dr. Sullivan -thought that the Táin Bo Chuailgne was all originally written in verse, -and has his own interpretation for the account given in the curious -tale, the "Proceedings of the Great Bardic Institution," which tells us -that the story was at one time lost, and that the Bardic Association -was commanded to search for and recover it. This, according to him, -meant that the verses had been lost, and that only a fragmentary form -of it had been saved, the gaps being filled with prose. I do not quite -know how far this is a probable suggestion, because it would appear -to be reversing the processes which produce epic poetry in other -literatures. The complete versified epic, the Iliad, the Odyssey, the -Mahābhārata, are indeed "the hatch and brood of time," embodying not -the first but the _last_ results of a long series of national poetry. -But to this last result, so close to them, so easily attainable, the -Irish never arrived, and hence the various ballads that compose the -books of their Red Branch Iliad, or Fenian Odyssey, remains separate to -this day, and find their unity, if at all, only by means of a bridge -of prose thrown across from poem to poem, by men who were not poets. -Had the internal development of the Irish not been so rudely arrested -by the Northmen towards the close of the eighth and the beginning of -the ninth century, there is every reason to believe that both the Red -Branch and the Fenian Cycle would have undergone a further development -and appeared in poems of continuous verse. - -The poems with which these sagas are intermixed are mostly of two -kinds, one kind, speeches in the form of lays, placed in the mouths of -the actors, prefaced by such words as "and he sang," "so that he spake -the lay," or the like, and the other kind, which occurs less often, is -as it were a _résumé_ in verse of what had been just told in prose. -In almost every case I should imagine that the narrative poems are -the oldest, and of them the prose is not unfrequently, as it were, an -explanation and an extension. - -That the Irish had already made some approach to the construction -of a great epic is evident from the way in which they attempted, -from a very early date, to group a number of minor sagas, which were -evidently independent in their origin, round their great saga the Táin -Bo Chuailgne. There are twelve minor tales which the Irish called -preface-stories to the Táin and which they worked into it by links, -some of which, at least, were evidently forged long after the story -which they were wanted to connect. Especially remarkable in this way -is the story of the metempsychosis of the two swineherds, whose souls -passed into the two bulls who occasioned the great war of the Táin,--a -story which is of a distinctly independent origin, and which was forced -to do duty as an outlying book, as it were, of the Táin Bo Chuailgne. - -How very great the number of Irish sagas must have been can be -conjectured from the fact that out of the list of one hundred and -eighty-seven contained in the Book of Leinster, at least one hundred -and twenty have completely disappeared, and of the majority of the -remainder we have only brief digests, whilst very many of the ones -still preserved, are not mentioned in the Book of Leinster at all, -thus proving that the list given in that manuscript is an imperfect -one. A perfect one would have contained at the very least two hundred -and fifty prime stories and one hundred secondary ones, for this was -the number which every ollamh or chief poet was obliged, by law, to -know. The following are some of the best known and most accessible -of the earlier sagas which we have not yet mentioned, and which do -not belong to any of the greater cycles. This list is drawn up, not -according to the age of the texts or the manuscripts which contain -them, but according to the date of the events to which they refer, and -round which they are constructed. - - SIXTH CENTURY B.C--The destruction of Dinn Righ, otherwise called the - exile of Labhraidh [Lowry] the Mariner. This appears to have been one - of a group of lost romances which centred round the children of Ugony - the Great,[16] of some of which Keating has given a _résumé_ in his - history.[17] - - SECOND CENTURY B.C--The King of the Leprechanes' journey to Emania, - and how the death of Fergus mac Léide, King of Ulster, was brought - about.[18] - - The triumphs of Congal Clàringneach, which deals with a revolution in - the province of Ulster, the death of the King of Tara, and accession - of Congal to the throne.[19] - - The Courtship of Etain by Eochaidh Aireach, King of Ireland, who came - to the throne 134 years B.C., according to the "Four Masters."[20] - - FIRST CENTURY B.C.--The Courtship of Crunn's wife.[21] To this century - belong the Red Branch tales. - - FIRST CENTURY A.D.--The Battle of Ath Comair, fought by the three - Finns, brothers of Mève, Queen of Connacht.[22] - - The Destruction of the Bruidhean [Bree-an] Da Choga, in West Meath, - where Cormac Conloingeas, the celebrated son of King Conor mac Nessa, - was killed about the year 33.[23] - - The Revolution of the Aitheach Tuatha, and the Death of Cairbré - Cinn-cait by the free clans of Ireland.[24] - - SECOND CENTURY A.D.--The Death of Eochaidh [Yohy], son of Mairid.[25] - - The progress of the Deisi from Tara.[26] - - The Courtship of Moméra, by Owen Mór.[27] (The Fenian tales and tales - of Conn of the Hundred Battles, and Cormac mac Art, relate to this and - the following century.) - - THIRD CENTURY.--The Adventures of Teig, son of Cian [Kee-an], son of - Oilioll Olum.[28] - - The Siege of Drom Damhgaire, where Cormac mac Art attempted to lay a - double tribute on the two provinces of Munster.[29] - - FOURTH CENTURY.--The History of the Sons of Eochaidh Muighmheadhon - [Mwee-va-on] father of Niall of the Nine Hostages.[30] - - Death of King Criomhthann [Criv-ban or Criffan] and of Eochaidh - Muighmheadhon's three sons.[31] - - FIFTH CENTURY.--The Expedition or Hosting of Dáithi, the last pagan - king of Ireland, who was killed by lightning at the foot of the - Alps.[32] - - SIXTH CENTURY.--Death of Aedh Baclamh.[33] - - Death of King Diarmuid--he who was cursed by St. Ruadhan.[34] - - The birth of Aedh [Ae] Sláine,[35] the son of Diarmuid, who came to - the throne in 595, according to the "Four Masters." - - The Wooing of Becfola, in the reign of Aedh Sláine's son.[36] - - The Voyage of the Sons of Ua Corra.[37] - - SEVENTH CENTURY.--The Proceedings of the Great Bardic Institution.[38] - - The Battle of Moyrath.[39] - - Suibhne's Madness, a sequel to the last.[40] - - The Feast of Dún na ngedh,[41] a preface tale to the Battle of Moyrath. - - The Voyage of Snedgus and Mac Riaghla.[42] - - The Love of Dubhlacha for Mongan.[43] - - The Death of Maelfathartaigh, son of Ronán,[44] who was King of - Leinster about the year 610. - - EIGHTH CENTURY.--The Voyage of Maelduin.[45] - -There are very few sagas, indeed, which deal with events posterior to -the eighth century, and among those which do (like the stories about -Callaghan of Cashel and the Danes, or the Leeching of Cian's leg, which -relates to the reign of Brian Boru, or O'Donnell's Kerne, which seems -as late as the sixteenth century) there are not many whose literary -merits stand high. It is evident from this, that, apart from the poets, -almost all the genuine literary activity of Ireland centred around -the days of her freedom, and embraced a vast range of time, from the -mythical De Danann period down to the birth of Christ, and from that -to the eighth century, and that after this period and the invasions of -the Northmen and Normans, Irish national history produced few subjects -stimulating to the national muse; so that the literary production which -still continued, though in narrower channels and in feebler volume, -looked for inspiration not to contemporaneous history, but to the -glories of Tara, the exploits of Finn mac Cúmhail, and the past ages of -Irish greatness. - -The number of sagas still surviving, though many of them are mere -skeletons, may be conjectured from the fact that O'Curry, in his -manuscript lectures on Irish history, quotes from or alludes to ninety -different tales, all of considerable antiquity, whilst M. d'Arbois de -Jubainville, in his "Essai d'un Catalogue de la littérature épique de -l'Irlande," gives the names of no less than about 540 different pieces. - -[1] There is an almost complete copy of this saga in the Leabhar na -h-Uidhre. Like the Táin Bo Chuailgne, it has never been published in a -translation. The language is much harder and more archaic than that of -the Táin. I have principally drawn upon O'Curry's description of it, -for I can only guess at the meaning of a great part of the original. -Were all Europe searched the scholars who could give an adequate -translation of it might be counted on the fingers of both hands--if not -of one. - -[2] According to the "Four Masters" he was slain in AM. 5161 [_i.e._, -43 B.C.], after a reign of seventy years. "It was in the reign of -Conairè," the "Four Masters" add, "that the Boyne annually cast its -produce ashore at Inver Colpa. Great abundance of nuts were annually -found upon the Boyne and the Buais. The cattle were without keeping -in Ireland in his reign on account of the greatness of the peace and -concord. His reign was not thunder-producing nor stormy. It was little -but the trees bent under the greatness of their fruit." It is from -Conairè the Ernaan tribes were descended. They were driven by the -Rudricians, _i.e._, the Ultonians of the Red Branch, into Munster, and -from thence they were driven by the race of Eber [the Mac Carthys, etc. -of Munster], into the western islands. - -[3] It appears to have been partly in order to check raids like this, -that the High-kings maintained the Fenians a couple of centuries later, -for their chief duty was "to watch the harbours." - -[4] A constant rendezvous for pedestrians and bicyclists from Dublin, -not one in ten thousand of whom knows the origin of the name or its -history. - -[5] For a description of another of these courts _see_ above p. 355. - -[6] Here is the original as given by O'Curry, "Manners and Customs," -vol. iii. p. 141. This will show the exceeding difficulty of the -language: "Atcondarc and imdae acas bacáimiu acomthach oldáta imdada -in tigi olchena. Seolbrat nairgdidi impe acas cumtaige isin dimdae. -Atcondarc triar ninni," etc. - -[7] Keating says that according to some Conairè reigned only 30 years. - -[8] The allusion appears to be to a bright steel sword in an age of -bronze. Perhaps the music referred to means the vibration of the -steel when struck. The "Sword of light" is a common feature in Gaelic -folk-lore. Of course iron was common in Ireland centuries before this -time, but the primitive description of _Sword of light_, transmitted -itself from age to age. - -[9] "Cleasamhnach," from _cleas_, "a trick," a living word still. - -[10] _See_ above p. 236. - -[11] Broccan's poem in the Book of Leinster translated by O'Neill -Russell, in an American periodical. - -[12] Translated by Standish Hayes O'Grady in "Silva Gadelica," whose -vigorous rendering I have closely followed. - -[13] - - "Is mochean in maiten bán - No taed for lár, mar lasán, - Is mochean do'n té rusfói - In maiten buadach bithnói" - -[14] Compare the legend of the wren's having betrayed the Irish to -the English, whence the universal pursuit of him made by boys on St. -Stephen's day. - -[15] Ceallach himself. - -[16] For him, _see_ above, p. 25. - -[17] Some account of this saga is given in O'Curry's MS. Materials, -p. 256, and by Keating, p. 253, of O'Mahony's translation. The entire -saga is preserved in the Yellow Book of Lecan. My friend, the late -Father James Keegan, made me a translation of another version, which he -afterwards published in a St. Louis paper. - -[18] Translated and edited by Standish Hayes O'Grady, p. 269 of his -"Silva Gadelica." - -[19] Only one copy of this tale was known to O'Curry in 205, Hodges and -Smith, R. I. A. - -[20] Edited without a translation by Windisch, in his "Irische Texte," -i. p. 117, and referred to at length by O'Curry, "Manners and Customs," -vol. ii. pp. 192-4; and summarised and examined by Alfred Nutt, in his -"Voyage of Bran." _See_ for this saga, p. 102, above. - -[21] This was Macha who pronounced the curse on the Ultonians. _See_ -above, ch. XXIV note 3. The story is preserved in the Harleian MS. -5280, British Museum. - -[22] There is a long extract from this battle given by O'Curry in his -"Manners and Customs," vol. ii. pp. 261-3. - -[23] Preserved in the Leabhar na h-Uidhre. _See_ O'Curry, "Manners and -Customs," vol. iii. p. 254. There is a full copy in H. 3. 18, T. C., D. - -[24] In H. 3. 18, T. C., D. _See_ above, p. 27. - -[25] Edited from the Leabhar na h-Uidhre by O'Beirne Crowe, in the -"Journal of the Royal Irish Historical and Archæological Association, -1870," and by Standish Hayes O'Grady, "Silva Gadelica," p. 265. - -[26] _See_ O'Curry, "Manners and Customs," vol. ii. p. 205. I think -Kuno Meyer has translated this saga somewhere. _See_ p. 40. - -[27] Published by O'Curry for the Celtic Society as an appendage to the -Battle of Moy Léana. _See_ above, p. 368. - -[28] Translated by O'Grady, "Silva Gadelica," p. 385, and studied at -length by Alfred Nutt, in his "Voyage of Bran," vol. i. p. 201. - -[29] _See_ O'Curry's "Manners and Customs," vol. ii. p. 212, and MS. -Materials p. 271. This saga is contained at length in the Book of -Lismore. - -[30] Translated in O'Grady's "Silva Gadelica," p. 368. _Ibid._, p. 373. - -[31] _Ibid.,_ p. 373. - -[32] This is one of the tales in the Book of Leinster list. Modern -versions are common. - -[33] _See_ above, ch. XVIII, note 6, translated in "Silva Gadelica," p. -70. - -[34] _Ibid._, p. 76. - -[35] _Ibid._, p. 88. - -[36] A short tale, translated in "Silva Gadelica," p. 91. - -[37] Translated in the "Revue Celtique." - -[38] Published by Professor Connellan for the Ossianic Society in 1860, -vol. v. - -[39] Published by O'Donovan in 1842 for the Irish Archæological Society. - -[40] MS. 60, Hodges and Smith, R. I. A. - -[41] Published by O'Donovan in 1842 for the Irish Archæological Society. - -[42] Edited, with English translation, by Whitley Stokes, in "Revue -Celtique," vol. ix., and translated into modern Irish by Father -O'Growney in the "Gaelic Journal," vol. iv. p. 85, from the Yellow Book -of Lecan. - -[43] Edited by Kuno Meyer in "Voyage of Bran," vol. i. p. 58, from -the Book of Fermoy. This version seems to have escaped the notice -of D'Arbois de Jubainville, who says in his "Essai d'un Catalogue," -"Cette pièce parait perdue." I have in my own possession a copy in a -MS. written by a scribe named O'Mahon in the last century, which is at -least twice as long as that published by Kuno Meyer. - -[44] The story of an Irish Hippolytus, whose death at his father's -hands is compassed by his step-mother, _spretæ injuria formæ_. O'Curry -mentions this tale, MS. Materials, p. 277. It is one of the stories in -the catalogue of the Book of Leinster, under the head of Tragedies. -Another Hippolytus story is that of the death of Comgan, son of the -King of the Decies, quoted by O'Curry, "Manners and Customs," vol. ii. -p. 204, but I do not know from what MS. - -[45] Translated, but not very literally, by Joyce in his "Early -Celtic Romances," and by M. Lot in D'Arbois de Jubainville's "Épopée -Celtique," critically edited by Whitley Stokes in the "Revue Celtique," -t. ix. p. 446, and x. pp. 50-95. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXI - -PRE-DANISH POETS - - -The sagas and historic tales, and the poetry that is mingled with -them, are of far greater importance from a purely literary point of -view than any of the other known productions during the pre-Norman -period. Although in almost every instance, I may say, their authorship -is unknown, they are of infinitely greater interest than those pieces -whose authorship has been carefully preserved. One of the first poets -of renown after St. Patrick's time was Eochaidh [Yohy], better known -as Dallán Forgaill. It is to him the celebrated "Amra," or elegy -on Columcille, whose contemporary he was, is ascribed,[1] and this -poem in the Béarla Feni, or Fenian dialect, has come down to us so -heavily annotated that the text preserved is the oldest miscellaneous -manuscript we have, the Leabhar na h-Uidhre, is almost smothered in -glosses and explanations, and indeed would be perfectly unintelligible -without them. The gloss and commentary is really far more interesting -than the poem, which indeed, considering the fame of Dallán, is -very disappointing; but no doubt it derived half its importance -from being in the Fenian dialect, and hence incomprehensible to the -ordinary reader. "He wrote," says the learned Colgan, who published -at Louvain the lives of the saints which O'Clery collected for him -at the beginning of the seventeenth century, "in the native speech, -and in ancient style, several little works which cannot in later ages -be easily penetrated by many otherwise well versed in the old native -idiom and antiquity, and hence they are illustrated by our more learned -antiquaries with scattered commentaries, and as rare monuments of our -ancient language and antiquity it is customary to lecture on them and -expound them in the schools of antiquaries of our nation. Among these -is one panegyric or poem always held in great esteem on the praises of -St. Colomb, and entitled 'Amra Choluim cille,'" etc. Colgan adds in a -note, "I have in my possession one copy of this work, but putting aside -a few scattered commentaries which it contains, it is penetrable to-day -to only a few, and these the most learned." - -This obscure poem is not, so far as I can see, composed in any metre -or rhythm. It, with its gloss, is divided into seven chapters and -an introduction. Here is the comment on the first words _Dia, Dia,_ -which will show better than anything that could be written, the very -high state of independent development which the Irish poets had early -attained in the technique of their art. We must remember that the -manuscript in which we find this was copied about the year 1100, and -the commentary may be much older. Irish is indeed the only vernacular -language of western Europe where poetic technique had reached so high -a perfection in the eleventh century. Fully to see the significance of -this one must remember that the English language had not at this time -even begun to emerge. Compare this highly-developed critical commentary -with anything of the same age that Germany, France, or Italy has to -show. - -"_Dia, Dia,_[2] God, God, etc.," says the commentator, "it is why he -doubles the first word on account of the rapidity[3] and avidity of the -praising, as _Deus, Deus meus,_ etc. But the name of that with the Gael -is 'Return-to-a-usual-sound,' for there be three similar standards of -expression with the poets of the Gaels, that is _re-return to a usual -sound_, and _renarration mode_ and _reduplication_, and this is the -mark of each of them. The _return_ indeed is a doubling of one word in -one place in the round, without adhering to it from that forth. The -_renarration_ mode again is renarrating from a like mode; that means -the one word--to say it frequently in the round, with an intervention -of other words between them, as this-- - - "'Came the foam which the plain filters,[4] - Came the ox through fifty warriors; - So came the keen active lad - Whom brown Cu Dinisc left.'" - -"But 'reduplication' is, namely 'refolding,' that is 'bi-geminating,' as -this-- - - "I fear fear / after long long / - Pains strong strong / without peace peace / - Like each each / until doom doom / - For gloom gloom / will not cease cease."[5] - -"There are two divisions of these in this fore-speech [to the -Amra]; that is, we have the 'Return-to-a-usual-sound' and the -'renarration-mode,' but in the body of the hymn we have the -'renarration-mode' only." - -Here is another passage which will show the difficulty that was found -so early as the eleventh century in explaining this Fenian dialect. - - "IT IS A HARP WITHOUT A _ceis_, it is a church without an - abbot--_i.e., ceis_ is a name for a small harp which is used as an - accompaniment to a large harp in co-playing; or it is a name for the - small pin which holds the cord in the wood of the harp; or for the - tacklings, or for the heavy cord. Or the _ceis_ in the harp is what - holds the side part with its chords in it, as the poet said--it was - Ros[6] mac Find who sang it, or Ferceirtné[7] the poet, - - The base-chord concealed not music from the harp of Crabtene, - Until it dropped sleep-deaths upon hosts. - - * * * * * - - Sweeter than any music, the harp - Which delighted Labhraidh [Lowry] Lorc the Mariner, - Though sullen about his secrets was the King, - The _ceis_, or base-chord of Craftiné concealed it not." - -This poem is an allusion to the sagas which grouped themselves round -the sons of Ugony the great and Lowry the Mariner, who reigned about -530 years B.C. - -In another place he quotes a poem of Finn mac Cúmhail's. - - "'AND SEA-COURSE'--_i.e._, he was skilful in the art of _renis_[8] - that is 'of the sea,' or it may be _rian_ that would be right in it, - as Finn, grandson of Baoisgne [Bweesgna] said-- - - 'A tale I have for you. Ox murmurs, - Winter roars, summer is gone. - Wind high cold, sun low, - Cry is attacking, sea resounding. - - Very red raying has concealed form. - Voice of geese [Barnacles] has become usual, - Cold has caught the wings of birds, - Ice-frost time; wretched, very wretched.[9] - A tale I have for you.'" - -Another verse quoted alludes to the chess-board of Crimhthann Nianáir, -who came to the throne eleven years before the birth of Christ.[10] - - "FECHT AFOR NIA NEM--_i.e._, the time when the champion would come, - that is Columcille, for _nia_ means a champion, as is said-- - - "'The chessboard of Crimhthann, brave champion, - A small child carries it not on his arm (?) - Half of its chessmen are of yellow gold. - The other half of white bronze. - One man of its chessmen alone - Would purchase six married couples.'" - -The ancient commentator quotes, thirty-five times in all, from various -poems, in explanation of his text, including poems ascribed to -Columcille himself, and to Gráinne, the daughter of Cormac mac Art, who -eloped from Finn mac Cúmhail. He quotes the satire made on Breas in the -time of the Tuatha De Danann, and a verse of St. Patrick (some of whose -Irish poetry is also quoted by the "Four Masters"), and a poet called -Colman mac Lenene, who was first a poet, but afterwards became a saint, -and founded the great school of Cloyne. - -Dallán wrote two other Amras, one on Senan of Innis Cathaigh, "which," -remarks Colgan, "on account of antiqueness of style and gracefulness -is amongst those fond of antiquity, always held in great esteem," -and another in praise of Conall of Inskeel in Donegal, in one grave -with whom he was buried. There has also come down to us in the same -inscrutable Fenian dialect a poem of his consisting of eighty-four -lines on the shield of Hugh, King of Oriel, which, unlike his Amra, is -in perfect rhyme and metre.[11] - -It was he who headed the bardic body when they were so nearly banished -from the kingdom, and were only saved by the intervention of St. -Columcille at the Synod of Drom Ceat [Cat], of which more hereafter. -There is a curious specimen of his overbearing truculence in a story -preserved in the same manuscript (of about the year 1100) that has -preserved his Amra; it is headed "A Story from which it is inferred -that Mongan was Finn mac Cúmhail." The poet was stopping with Mongan, -King of Ulster. - - "Every night the poet would recite a story to Mongan. So great was his - lore that they were thus from Halloweve till May-day. He had gifts and - food from Mongan. One day Mongan asked his poet what was the death - of Fothad Airgdech. Forgoll said he was slain at Duffry in Leinster. - Mongan said it was false. The poet [on hearing that] said he would - satirise him with his lampoons, and he would satirise his father and - his mother and his grandfather, and he would sing [spells] upon their - waters, so that fish should not be caught in their river-mouths. He - would sing upon their woods so that they should not give fruit, upon - their plains so that they should be barren for ever of any produce. - - "Mongan [thereupon] promised him his fill of precious things, so far - as [the value of] seven bondmaids, or twice seven bondmaids, or three - times seven. At last he offers him one-third, or one-half of his land, - or his whole land; at last [everything] save only his own liberty with - that of his wife Breóthigernd, unless he were redeemed before the end - of three days. - - "The poet refused all except as regards his wife. For the sake of his - honour Mongan consented. Thereat his wife was sorrowful, the tear was - not taken from her cheek. Mongan told her not to be sorrowful, help - would certainly come to them." - -Eventually the poet is very dramatically shown to be in the wrong.[12] - -Dallán Forgaill was succeeded in the Head Ollamhship of all the Irish -bards by his pupil Senchan Torpeist, who was equally overbearing, and -whose intolerable insolence is admirably satirised in the story called -the "Proceedings of the Great Bardic Association." Only two poems of -his have come down to us, one being his elegy on the death of his -master Dallán Forgaill. - -The next great lay poet of importance seems to have been Cennfaeladh, -who died in 678, whose verses are constantly cited by the "Four -Masters." He was originally an Ulster warrior who was wounded in -the battle of Moyrath, which was fought when Adamnan, Columcille's -biographer, was eleven years old, and he was brought to be cured -to the house of one Brian in Tuaim Drecain, where there were three -schools, one of classics,[13] one of law, and one of poetry. He used -to attend--apparently during his convalescence--these various schools, -and what he heard in the day he would repeat to himself at night, so -that "his brain of forgetfulness was extracted from his head after -its having been cloven in the battle of Moyrath." "And he put a clear -thread of poetry through them, and wrote them on flags and on tables, -and he put them into a vellum book." Hence he became a great lawyer as -well as a poet, and a considerable part of the celebrated Brehon Law -Book, called the Book of Acaill, is ascribed to him.[14] - -Angus Céile Dé[15] [Kail-a Day], or the Culdee, is the next poet of -note who claims our attention. He flourished about the year 800, and -is the author of the well-known Féilĭrè, or Calendar. In this work one -stanza in _rinn áird_ metre is devoted to each day of the year, in -connection with the name of some saint--an Irish one wherever possible. -The Féilĭrè is followed by a poem of five or six hundred lines, which -with its glosses and commentaries is probably the most extensive -piece of Old Irish poetry that we have. Whitley Stokes, who edited it -with great care, considers it to be of the tenth rather than the late -eighth or early ninth century. If so, this would leave its authorship -doubtful, but it has been shown, I think by Kuno Meyer, that the number -of deponental forms contained in it might point to a higher antiquity -than that which Whitley Stokes allows. It has certainly been always -hitherto accepted as the work of Angus, and as it cannot well, in any -case, be more than a century or so later, we may let it stand here, as -it has always done, under his name. In the ancient and curious Irish -notes and commentary on the Féilĭrè we find a great number of verses -quoted from the poet-saints, and these include St. Patrick, St. Ciaran -the elder, St. Comgall with St. Columcille his friend, St. Ité the -virgin, St. Kevin of Glendaloch, St. Ciaran of Clonmacnois, St. Molaise -[Moleesha] of Devenish (who sent Columcille to banishment), St. Mochuda -of Lismore, St. Molling, St. Fechin of Forc, St. Aireran of Clonard, -Maelruan of Tallaght, Adamnan (Columcille's biographer), and Angus -the Culdee himself, a goodly company of priests and poets; but no one -seems to have been anything esteemed in ancient Erin unless he either -was or was reputed to be a poet! Of true poetic spirit it contains not -much, but it is a wonderful example of technical difficulties overcome. -The metre is one of the most difficult, a six-syllable one, with -dissyllabic endings. The first stanzas, translated into the metre of -the original, run as follows:-- - - "Bless, O Christ, my speaking, - King of heavens seven, - Strength and wealth and POWER - In this HOUR be _given_. - - _Given_,[16] O thou brightest, - Destined chains to sever, - King of Angels GLORIOUS, - And victORIOUS _ever._ - - _Ever_ o'er us shining, - Light to mortals given, - Beaming daily, NIGHTLY, - BRIGHTLY out of heaven." - -The Saltair na Rann has also been usually ascribed to Angus, but it -can hardly be, as Dr. Whitley Stokes has shown, earlier than the year -1000,[17] for it mentions apparently as contemporaries Brian king of -Munster, and Dub-da-lethe archbishop of Armagh, appointed in 988. It -is a collection of one hundred and sixty-two poems in early Middle -Irish containing between eight and nine thousand lines, mostly composed -in Deibhidh [D'yevvee] metre. These poems are all of a more or less -religious cast, and most of them are based (like the Saxon Caedmon's) -on Old Testament history, but they also contain a prodigious deal of -curious matter. The opening poem begins-- - - "Mo rí-se rí nime náir."[18] - ("My king is the King of noble Heaven.") - -It tells of the creation of the world, of the sun, of heaven and earth, -light and darkness, day and night, of how the earth separated from -the primal material, and was surrounded by the firmament, the world -being "like an apple, goodly and round"; then the king created the -mists, the current of the cold watery air, the four chief winds, and -the eight sub-winds, with their colours, "the white, the clear purple, -the blue, the great green, the yellow, the red truly-bold, ... the -black, the grey, the speckled (?), the dark (?), the dull-black, the -dun-coloured."[19] The poet then discusses the distance from the earth -to the firmament, the seven planets, the distance from the earth to -the moon, from moon to sun, the windless ethereal heaven, the distance -between the firmament and the sun, the motionless Olympus or third -heaven, the distance from the firmament to heaven and from the earth -to the depths of hell, the five zones, the firmament round the earth, -like its shell round an egg, the seventy-two windows of the firmament, -with a shutter on each, the seventh heaven revolving like a wheel, with -the seven planets from the creation, the signs of the zodiac,[20] the -time (30 days 10½ hours) that the sun is in each, the day of the month -on which it enters each, the month in which it is in each, the division -of the firmament into twelve parts, and the five things which every -intelligent man should know--the day of the month, age of the moon, -height of the tide, day of the week, and saints' festivals![21] - -The attribution of colours to the winds in this poem is curious and -appears to be Irish. I have met traces of this fancy even amongst the -modern peasantry. There is a strange entry in the Great Brehon Law -Book, the Seanchas Mór, which quotes the colours of the winds in the -same order. - - "The colour of each," says this strange passage, "differs from the - other, namely, the white and the crimson, the blue[22] and the green, - the yellow and the red, the black and the grey, the speckled and the - dark, the _ciar_ (dull black) and the grisly. From the east comes the - crimson wind, from the south the white, from the north the black, from - the west the dun. The red and the yellow winds are produced between - the white and the crimson, the green and the grey between the grisly - and the white, the grey and the _ciar_ between the grisly and the - jet-black, the dark and the mottled between the black and the crimson. - And those are all the sub-winds contained in each and all the cardinal - winds." - -After thus describing the creation of the world in the first poem, we -are introduced in subsequent ones to heaven and the angels, who are -named for us, and then shown hell and Lucifer's abode, the description -of which, except that it is in verse, reminds us of that given by St. -Brendan. Next we are introduced to Adam and Eve, and it is stated that -Adam had spent a thousand years in the Garden of Eden. The jealousy -of Lucifer is described, and his temptation of Eve, whom he persuades -to open the door and let him into the garden. Then he makes her eat -the apple, and Adam takes half from her and eats also. The eleventh -poem describes the evil result, and is quite Miltonic and imaginative. -It tells us how for a week, after being driven out, Adam and his wife -remain without fire, house, drink, food, or clothing. He then begins -to lament to Eve over all his lost blessings and admits that he has -done wrong. Thereupon Eve asks Adam to kill her, so that God may pity -him the more. Adam refuses. He goes forth in his starvation to seek -food, and finds nothing but herbs, the food of the lawless beasts. He -proposes then to Eve to do penance and adore God in silence, Eve in the -Tigris for thirty days, and Adam in the Jordan for forty-seven days, -a flagstone under their feet and the water up to their necks. Eve's -hair fell dishevelled round her and her eyes were directed to heaven -in silent prayer for forgiveness. Then Adam prays the river Jordan "to -fast with him against God, with all its many beasts, that pardon may be -granted to him." Then the stream ceased to flow, and gathered together -every living creature that was in it, and they all supplicate the -angelic host to join with them in beseeching God to forgive Adam. They -obtain their request, and forgiveness is granted to Adam and to all his -seed except the unrighteous. When the devil, however, hears this, he, -"like a man in the shape of a white angel," goes to Eve as she stands -in the Tigris, and gets her to leave her penance, saying that he had -been sent by God. They then go to Adam, who at once recognises the -devil, and shows Eve how she has been deceived. Eve falls half dead -to the ground and reproaches Lucifer. He, however, defends himself, -and repeats to them at length the story of his expulsion from heaven -for refusing to worship Adam. He concludes by threatening vengeance -on him and his descendants. Adam and his wife then live alone for a -year on grass, without fire, house, music, or raiment, drinking water -from their palms, and eating green herbs in the shadows of trees and -in caverns. Eve brings forth a beautiful boy, who at once proceeds to -cut grass for his father, who calls him Cain. God at last pities Adam -and sends Michael to him with various seeds, and Michael teaches him -husbandry and the use of animals. Seven years afterwards Eve brings -forth Abel. In a vision she sees Cain drinking the blood of Abel. - -In this manner, with a free play of the imagination, the writer runs -through both Old and New Testaments, down to the denial of Peter and -the death of Christ, in 150 poems, to which are appended twelve more, -eleven of them in a different and more melodious metre, "rannaigheacht -mhór," on the resurrection. - -There were a number of other pre-Danish poets, but only occasional -pieces of theirs have been preserved. Their obits are often mentioned -by the annalists, but the few longer pieces of theirs that have -survived to our day being mostly historical or genealogical, and as -such devoid of much literary interest, we may neglect them. - -[1] Mr. Strachan, however, has lately cast doubts upon its genuineness -and ascribes it in its present form to a later date. - -[2] I follow here O'Beirne Crowe's imperfect rendering. If he -translates some words of this difficult piece inaccurately it does not -much matter for my purpose. - -[3] _Ar abela no ar lainni an molta._ This word _Abél_ for "quick," -"rapid," though neither in O'Reilly's nor Windisch's nor the Scotch -Gaelic dictionaries, is a common one in the spoken language of West -Connacht. It occurs twice in the "Three Shafts of Death," where it is -mistranslated by "awful," but it must be carefully distinguished from -M. I. _Abdul_, Keating's _Adhbhal_. The word is not known in Waterford, -and my friend the late Mr. Fleming, who was the chief authority in the -Royal Irish Academy on the spoken language, and who hailed from that -county, was, I believe, unacquainted with it. - -[4] This translation is evident nonsense, but I cannot better it. The -original is "Ric in sithbe sitlas mag." - -[5] Is é immoro adíabul, _i.e._, afhillind, _i.e._, doemnad, ut est -hoc, _i.e._, - - "Águr águr iar céin chéin - Bith i péin, phein ni síth síth, - Amail cách cách, co bráth bráth, - In cech tráth tráth, cid scíth scíth." - -My translation is in the exact metre of the original, and conveys -in English the manner in which the heptasyllabic Irish lines were -pronounced, in which, despite of what some continental scholars have -advanced, there is, I believe, _no alternation of beat or stress at -all_, and neither trochee nor iambus. O'Beirne Crowe mistranslates -_águr_ by "I ask." - -[6] Ros was chief poet of Erin in the time of St. Patrick, and is said -to have helped him in redacting the Brehon Law. - -[7] Ferceirtné was the poet at Conor mac Nessa's Court in the first -century B.C., who contended in the "Dialogue of the Two Sages," _see_ -above p. 240. - -[8] See above for _réin_ being used for sea, p. 10. - -[9] The translation is doubtful. Dr. Sigerson has well versified it in -his "Bards of the Gael and Gaul," p. 116. The original has a curious -metrical effect not unlike that other piece attributed to Finn, quoted -above p. 275. It might be printed thus-- - - Scél lém duib Roruad rath - Dordaid dam Rocleth cruth, - Snigid gaim Rogab gnath - Rofaith sam. Giugrand guth. - Gaeth ard huar, Rogab uacht - Isel grian Ete én, - Gair arrith Aigre ré - Ruthach rían. E, mosclé. - - -[10] _See_ above p. 27 for Crimhthann's chess-board. - -[11] Published by Professor Connellan, but without a translation, at -p. 258 of Vol. V. of Ossianic Society's publications. It, too, is in -the Féni dialect. The first verse, in honour of Dubh-Giolla, "the Black -Attendant," which was the name of the King's shield will show its -abstruseness. - - "Dub gilla dub, arm naise, - Eo Rosa raon slegh snaise, - Adeardius daib diupla gainde - d'Aodh do cinn lainne glaise." - -It would appear that Dallán could write Irish as well as Béarla Féni -from this verse, which is ascribed to him by the "Four Masters." -"Dallán Forgaill," they say, "dixit hoc do bhás Choluim Cille." - - "Is leigheas legha gan lés - Is dedhail smeara re smuais - Is abhran re cruit gan chéis - Sinne déis ar nargain uais." - -"It is the healing of a leech without light [_i.e._, in the dark]; it -is a dividing of the marrow from the bone; it is the song of a harp -without a base-string that we are, after being deprived of our noble." -This verse does not occur in the Amra, though the expression a "harp -without a base-string" does. - -[12] _See_ the whole story, carefully edited by Kuno Meyer, in "The -Voyage of Bran," p. 45, where the poet is called Forgoll, but this is -evidently the same as our Dallán Forgaill, though Kuno Meyer appears -not to think so, for he has the following note: "Forgoll seems to -have been an overbearing and exacting _filé_ of the type of Athirne -and Dallán Forgaill." But as the story synchronises with the life of -Dallán Forgaill, and there is, so far as I know, no second poet known -as Forgoll, it is evidently the same person. The "Dallán," _i.e._, -the "blind man" (for he lost his eyesight through overstudy), being -prefixed to Forgaill appears to inflect it in the genitive case, as An -Tighearna easbuig, "the Lord Bishop," _i.e._, the lord of a bishop, -"the blind man of a Forgall." - -[13] Scoil "legind." - -[14] _See_ one of the poems ascribed to him printed by Professor -Connellan from the Book of Ballymote, Ossianic Society, vol. v. p. 268. -If it is Cennfealadh's it has been greatly altered during the course of -transcription. - -[15] Céile Dé, or Culdee, _i.e._, "Servus Dei," was a phrase used with -much latitude, and in general denoted an ascetic, but occasionally also -a missionary, monk. We find the Dominicans of Sligo called Culdees in a -MS. of the year 1600. They seem to have arisen in the seventh or early -eighth century. The Scottish Culdees, becoming lax in later times, -married and established a spurious hereditary order. There is, of -course, no truth in the fable that they were the pre-Patrician or early -Scottish Christians, a notion which Campbell has propagated in his fine -poem "Reulura," _i.e._, "réull-úr":-- - - "Peace to their souls, the pure Culdees - Were Albyn's earliest priests of God, - Ere yet an island of her seas - By foot of Saxon monk was trod!" - -[16] This _tour de force_, which consists of laying stress in the -beginning of each succeeding stanza upon the word which ended the -last, is common in Irish and is called _conachlonn_. It is much used -by Angus. It seems to be self-evolved in Irish, whose prosody is full -of original terms unborrowed from the Latin, which, to my mind, tells -strongly in favour of pre-Christian culture. It is curious that Horace -who falls into _conachlonn_ in his second ode, never returned to a form -so well adapted to lyric purposes:-- - - "Dextera sacras jaculatus arces - _Terruit_ urbem. - _Terruit_ gentes," etc. - -[17] He has edited the text without a translation from the only MS. -that contains it--Rawlinson, B 502, in the Bodleian, in the "Anecdota -Oxoniensia" Series. Oxford deserves splendidly of Celtic scholars. If -only Dublin would follow her example! - -[18] - - "Mo rí-se rí nime náir - Cen huabur cen immarbáig, - Dorósat domun dualach, - Mo rí bith-beo bith-buadach." - -[19] - - "In gel in corcarda glan, - In glass ind uaine allmar, - In buidi in derg, derb dána, - Nisgaib fergg frisodála, - In dub, ind liath ind alad, - In t-emen in chiar chálad, - Ind odar doirchi datha - Nidat soirchi sogabtha." - -The hundred and fifty-second poem, which is a beautiful one, again asks -what are the colours of the winds. Line 7,948. - -[20] A good example of how Irish assimilates foreign words by cutting -off their endings:-- - - "Aquair, Pisc, Ariet, Tauir, Treb, - Geimin choir, ocus Cancer, - Leo Uirgo, Libru, Scoirp scrus, - Sagitair, Capricornus." - -Leo is pronounced _L'yo_ as a monosyllable. - -[21] _See_ Whitley Stokes' introduction for the analysis of the 1st, -the 11th, and the 12th poem. - -[22] "Glas" must be here translated "blue." It is a colour used by the -Irish with great latitude, and apparently means yellowish, or light -blue, or greenish grey. To this day a _grey_ eye is _súil ghlas_ and -_green_ grass is _feur glas_, yet the colour of grass is not that of a -grey or even of a grey-green eye. We want a study on colours and their -shades as at present used by the Irish and the Scotch Highlanders. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXII - -THE DANISH PERIOD - - -The first onfall of the Danes seems to have been made about the year -795, and for considerably over two centuries Erin was shaken from shore -to shore with ever-recurring alarms, and for many years every centre -of population lived in a state of terror, not knowing what a day might -bring forth. Monasteries and colleges were burnt again and again, and -built again and again, only to be reburnt. Numbers of invaluable books -were destroyed, gold and silver work was carried off in quantities, and -a state of unrest produced, which must have made learning in many parts -of the island well-nigh impossible. - -Strange to say, despite the troubled condition of Ireland during these -two or three centuries, she produced a large number of poets and -scholars, the impulse given by the enthusiasm of the sixth and seventh -centuries being still strong upon her. Unquestionably the greatest -name amongst her men of learning during this period is that of the -statesman, ecclesiastic, poet and scholar, Cormac mac Culinan, who was -at once king and bishop of Cashel,[1] and one of the most striking -figures in both the literary and political history of these centuries. - -To him we owe that valuable compilation, so often quoted already under -the title of "Cormac's Glossary," which is by far the oldest attempt -at a comparative vernacular dictionary made in any language of modern -Europe.[2] Of course it has been enlarged by subsequent writers, but -the idea and much of the matter remains Cormac's. In its original -conception, it was meant to explain and interpret words and phrases -which in the ninth century had become obscure to Irish scholars, and as -might be expected, it throws light on many pagan customs, on history, -law, romance, and mythology. Cormac's other literary effort was the -compilation of the Saltair of Cashel, now most unhappily lost, but it -appears to have been a great work. In it was contained the Book of -Rights,[3] drawn up for the readjustment of the relations existing -between princes and tribes, and still preserved. St. Benignus was -said to have originally composed in verse a complete statement of the -various rights, privileges, and duties of the High-king, the provincial -kings, and the local chieftains. This, like so much of ancient and -primitive law, was drawn up in verse so as to be thus stereotyped for -the future, and easily remembered at a time when books were scarce. -Cormac seems to have enlarged, modified, and brought it up to date to -suit the changing times, and it was subsequently redacted again in -Brian Boru's day in a sense favourable to Munster.[4] The king-bishop -was a most remarkable man and an excellent scholar. He appears to -have known Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Danish, and to have been one of -the finest Old Gaelic scholars of his day, and withal an accomplished -poet, though his verses are now lost. He was slain in battle in the -year 908,[5] under circumstances so curiously described in the -fragmentary annals edited by O'Donovan that it may be worth repeating -here. He was, as we know from other sources, betrothed to the Princess -Gormfhlaith or Gormly, daughter of Flann Sionna [Shinna], king of -Meath and High-king of Ireland, but determining to enter the Church -he returned her with her dowry to her father without consummating the -marriage; after this he took orders, and rose in time to be archbishop -of Cashel as well as king of Munster. Gormly, however, was married -against her will to Cearbhall [Caroll], king of Leinster. It was in -the year 908 that Flann, the High-king, with Caroll king of Leinster, -now his son-in-law, prepared to meet Munster and to assert by arms his -right to the presentation of the ancient church of Monasterevan, but it -seems probable that he also bore the king-archbishop a grudge for his -treatment of his daughter Gormly. Here is the annalistic account of the -sequel:-- - - DEATH OF CORMAC MAC CULINAN.[6] - - "The great host of Munster was assembled by the same two, that is, - Flaherty,[7] [abbot of Scattery Island, in the Shannon], and Cormac - [mac Culinan], to demand hostages of Leinster and Ossory, and all the - men of Munster were in the same camp.... And noble ambassadors came - from Leinster from Caroll, son of Muirigan [king of that province], - to Cormac first, and they delivered a message of peace from the - Leinstermen, _i.e._, one peace to be in all Erin until May following - (it being then the second week in autumn), and to give hostages into - the keeping of Maenach, a holy, wise, and pious man, and of other - pious men, and to give jewels and much property to Cormac and Flaherty. - - "Cormac was much rejoiced at being offered this peace, and he - afterward went to tell it to Flaherty and how he was offered it from - Leinster. When Flaherty heard this he was greatly horrified, and 't - was what he said, 'This shows,' said he, 'the littleness of thy mind - and the feebleness of thy nature, for thou art the son of a plebeian,' - and he said many other bitter and insulting words, which it would be - too long to repeat. - - "The answer which Cormac made him was, 'I am certain,' Cormac said, - 'of what the result of this [obstinacy of yours] will be, a battle - will be fought, O holy man,' said he, 'and [I] Cormac shall be under - a curse for it, and it is likely that it will be the cause of death - to thee [also].' And when he had said this he came into his own tent, - afflicted and sorrowful. And when he sat down he took a basketful of - apples and proceeded to divide them amongst his people and said, 'My - dear people,' he said, 'I shall never give you apples again from this - out for ever.' 'Is it so, O dear earthly lord?' said his people; 'why - art thou sorrowful and melancholy with us; it is often thou hast boded - evil for us?' 'It is,' [said Cormac,] 'as I say, and yet, dear people, - what melancholy thing have I said, for though I should not distribute - apples to you with my own hand, yet there shall be some one of you in - my place who will.' He afterwards ordered a watch to be set, and he - called to him the holy, pious, and wise man, Maenach, son of Siadhal - [Shiel], the chief co-arb or successor of Comhghall, and he made his - confession and will in his presence, and he took the body of Christ - from his hand, and he resigned the world in the presence of Maenach, - for he knew that he would be killed in battle, but he did not wish - that many others should know it. He also ordered that his body should - be brought to Cloyne if convenient, but if not to convey it to the - cemetery of Diarmuid, [grand]son of Aedh Roin, where he had studied - for a long time. He was very desirous, however, of being interred at - Cloyne of Mac Lenin. Maenach, however, was better pleased to have him - interred at Disert Diarmada, for that was one of [Saint] Comhghall's - towns, and Maenach was Comhghall's successor. This Maenach, son of - Shiel, was the wisest man of his time, and he now exerted himself much - to make peace, if it were possible, between the men of Leinster and - Munster. - - "Many of the forces of Munster deserted unrestrained. There was - great noise, too, and dissension in the camp of the men of Munster - at this time, for they heard that Fiann, son of Malachy [High-king - of Ireland], was in the camp of the Leinster men [helping them] with - great forces of foot and horse. It was then Maenach said, 'Good men of - Munster,' said he, 'you ought to accept of the good hostages I have - offered you to be placed in the custody of pious men till May next, - namely, the son of Caroll, king of Leinster, and the son of the king - of Ossory.' All the men of Munster were saying that it was Flaherty - [the abbot], son of Inmainên alone who compelled them to go [to fight] - into Leinster. - - "After this great complaint which they made, they came over Slieve - Mairgé from the west to Leithglinn Bridge. But Tibraidé, successor of - Ailbhé [of Emly], and many of the clergy along with him tarried at - Leithglinn, and also the servants of the army and the horses which - carried the provisions. - - "After this trumpets were blown and signals for battle were given - by the men of Munster, and they went forward till they came to - Moy-Ailbhé.[8] Here they remained with their back to a thick wood - awaiting their enemies. The men of Munster divided themselves into - three equally large battalions, Flaherty, son of Inmainên, and - Ceallach, son of Caroll, king of Ossory, over the first division; - Cormac mac Culinan, king of Munster, over the middle division; Cormac, - son of Mothla, King of the Deisi, and the King of Kerry, and the kings - of many other tribes of West Munster, over the third division. They - afterwards came on in this order to Moy-Ailbhe. They were querulous - on account of the numbers of the enemy and their own fewness. Those - who were knowledgeable, that is those who were amongst themselves, - state that the Leinstermen and their forces amounted to three times - or four times the number of the men of Munster or more. Unsteady - was the order in which the men of Munster came to the battle. Very - pitiful was the wailing which was in the battle--as the learned who - were in the battle relate--the shrieks of the one host in the act - of being slaughtered and the shouts of the other host exulting over - that slaughter. There were two causes for which the men of Munster - suffered so sudden a defeat; for Céileachar, the brother of Cingégan, - suddenly mounted his horse and said, 'Nobles of Munster,' said he, - 'fly suddenly from this abominable battle, and leave it between the - clergy themselves who could not be quiet without coming to battle,' - and afterwards he suddenly fled accompanied by great hosts. The - other cause of the defeat was: When Ceallach, son of Caroll, saw the - battalion in which were the chieftains of the King of Erin cutting - down his own battalion he mounted his horse and said to his own - people, 'Mount your horses and drive the enemy before you.' And though - he said this, it was not to really fight he said so but to fly. - Howsoever it resulted from these causes that the Munster battalion - fled together. Alas! pitiful and great was the slaughter throughout - Moy-Ailbhe afterwards. A cleric was not spared more than a layman, - there they were all equally killed. When a layman or a clergyman was - spared it was not out of mercy, it was done but out of covetousness, - to obtain a ransom from them, or to bring them into servitude. King - Cormac, however, escaped in the van of the first battalion, but the - horse leaped into a trench and he fell off it. When a party of his - people who were flying perceived this, they came to the King and put - him up on his horse again. It was then he saw a foster son of his own, - a noble of the Eoghanachts, Aedh by name, who was an adept in wisdom - and jurisprudence and history and Latin; and the King said to him, - 'Beloved son,' said he, 'do not cling by me, but take thyself out of - it as well as thou canst; I told thee that I should be killed in this - battle.' A few remained along with Cormac, and he came forward along - the way on horseback, and the way was besmeared throughout with much - blood of men and horses. The hind feet of his horse slipped on the - slippery way in the track of blood, and the horse fell right back and - [Cormac's] back and neck were both broken, and he said, when falling, - 'In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum,' and he gave up the - ghost; and the impious sons of malediction came and thrust spears - through his body, and cut off his head. - - "Although much was the slaying on Moy-Ailbhe to the east of the - Barrow, yet the prowess of Leinster was not satiated with it, but they - followed up the rout westwards across Slieve Mairgé, and slew many - noblemen in that pursuit. - - "In the very beginning of the battle Ceallach, son of Caroll, king - of Ossory, and his son were killed at once. Dispersedly, however, - others were killed from that out, both laity and clergy. There were - many good clergymen killed in this battle, as were also many kings and - chieftains. In it was slain Fogartach, son of Suibhne [Sweeny], an - adept in philosophy and divinity, King of Kerry, and Ailell, son of - Owen, the distinguished young sage and high-born nobleman, and Colman, - Abbot of Cenn-Etigh, Chief Ollav of the judicature of Erin, and hosts - of others also, quos longum est scribere.... - - "Then a party came up to Fiann, having the head of Cormac with them, - and 't was what they said to Fiann, 'Life and health, O powerful - victorious king, and Cormac's head to thee from us; and as is - customary with kings raise thy thigh and put this head under it and - press it with thy thigh.' Howsoever Flann spoke evil to them, it was - not thanks he gave them. 'It was an enormous act,' said he, 'to have - taken off the head of the holy bishop, but, however, I shall honour - it instead of crushing it.' Fiann took the head into his hand and - kissed it, and carried thrice round him the consecrated head of the - holy bishop and martyr. The head was afterwards honourably carried - away from him to the body where Meaenach, son of Shiel, successor of - Comhghall, was, and he carried the body of Cormac to Castledermot, - where it was honourably interred, and where it performs signs and - miracles. - - "Why should not the heart repine and the mind sicken at this enormous - deed; the killing and the mangling with horrid arms of this holy man, - the most learned of all who came or shall come of the men of Erin for - ever? The complete master in Gaedhlic and Latin, the archbishop most - pious, most pure, miraculous in chastity and prayer, a proficient in - law and in every wisdom, knowledge, and science, a paragon of poetry - and learning, a head of charity and every virtue, a sage of education, - and head-king of the whole of the two Munster provinces in his time!" - -Gormly, the betrothed, but afterwards repudiated wife of Cormac, was -also a poet, and there are many pieces ascribed to her. She was, as I -mentioned, married to Caroll king of Leinster, who was severely wounded -in this battle. He was carried home to be cured in his palace at Naas, -and Gormly the queen was constant in her attendance on him. One day, -however, as Caroll was becoming convalescent he fell to exulting over -the mutilation of Cormac at which he had been present. The queen, who -was sitting at the foot of his bed, rebuked him for it, and said that -the body of a good man had been most unworthily desecrated. At this -Caroll, who was still confined to bed, became angry and kicked her over -with his foot in the presence of all her attendants and ladies. - -As her father, the High-king, would do nothing for her when she -besought him to wipe out the insult, and procure her reparation from -so unworthy a husband, her young kinsman Niall Glún-dubh, or the -Black-Kneed, took up her cause, and obtained for her a separation -from her husband and restoration of her dowry. When her husband was -killed, the year after this, by the Danes, she married Niall, who in -time succeeded to the throne as High-king of all Ireland, and who was -one of the noblest of her monarchs. He was slain in the end by the -Danes, and the monarchy passed away from the houses both of her father -and her husband, and she, the daughter of one High-king, the wife of -another, bewails in her old age the poverty and neglect into which -she had fallen. She dreamt one night that King Niall stood beside her, -and she made a leap forwards to clasp him in her arms, but struck -herself against the bed-post, and received a wound from which she never -recovered.[9] Many of her poems are lamentations on her kinsman and -husband Niall. They seem to have been current amongst the Highland as -well as the Irish Gaels, for here is a specimen jotted down in phonetic -spelling by the Scotch Dean Macgregor about the year 1512: - - "Take, grey monk, thy foot away, - Lift it off the grave of Neill! - Too long thou heapest up the clay - On him who cannot feel.[10] - - Monk, why must thou pile the earth - O'er the couch of noble Neill? - Above my friend of gentle birth - Thou strik'st a churlish heel. - - Let him be, at least to-night, - Mournful monk of croaking voice, - Beneath thee lies my heart's delight, - Who made me to rejoice. - - Monk, remove thy foot, I say! - Tread not on the sacred ground - Where he is shut from me away, - In cold and narrow bound! - - I am Gormly--king of men - Was my father, Flann the brave. - I charge thee, stand thou not again, - Bald monk, upon his grave." - -Another poet of the ninth century was Flanagan, son of Ceallach, king -of Bregia. He is quoted by the "Four Masters."[11] One poem of his, of -112 lines, on the deaths of the kings of Ireland, is preserved in the -Yellow Book of Lecan. - -Mailmura, of Fahan, whom the "Four Masters" call a great poet, was a -contemporary of his, and wrote a poem on the Milesian Migrations.[12] - -Several other poets lived in the ninth century, the chief of whom was -probably Flann mac Lonáin, for the "Four Masters" in recording his -death style him "the Virgil of the Scottic race, the chief ollamh of -all the Gaels, the best poet that was in Ireland in his time." Eight of -his poems, containing about one thousand lines, have survived. He was -from the neighbourhood of Slieve Echtgé, or Aughty, in South Connacht. -One of his poems records how Ilbrechtach the harper was travelling over -these barren mountains along with the celebrated poet Mac Liag, and, -as they paused to rest on Croghan Head, Mac Liag surveyed the prospect -beneath him, and said, "Many a hill and lake and fastness is in this -range; it were a great topographical knowledge to know them all." "If -Mac Lonáin were here," said the harper, "he could name them all, and -give the origin of their names as well." "Let this fellow be taken and -hanged," said Mac Liag. The harper begged respite till next day, and in -the meantime Mac Lonáin comes up and recites a poem of one hundred and -thirty-two lines beginning--_Aoibhinn aoibhinn Echtgé árd_. - -Amongst other things, he relates that he met a Dalcassian--_i.e._, one -of Brian Boru's people from Clare--at Moy Finé in Galway, who had just -finished serving twelve months with a man in that place, from whom he -had received a cow and a cloak for payment. On his way home to the -Dalcassians with his cloak and his cow he met the poet, and said to -him-- - - "'Sing to me the history of my country, - It is sweet to my soul to hear it. - - Thereupon I sang for him the poem, - Nor did he show himself the least loath: - All that he had earned--not mean nor meagre-- - To me he gave it without deduction. - - The upright Dalcassians heard of this, - They received him with honour in their assembly; - They gave to him--the noble race-- - Ten cows for every quarter of his own cow.'" - -Mac Lonáin was the contemporary of Cormac mac Culinan, whom he -eulogises. - -Some other poets of great note flourished during the Danish period, -such as Cormac "an Eigeas," who composed the celebrated poem to -Muircheartach, or Murtagh of the Leather Cloaks,[13] son of the Niall -so bitterly lamented by Gormly, on the occasion of his marching round -Ireland, when he set out from his palace at ancient Aileach near -Derry, and returned to it again after levying tribute and receiving -hostages from every king and sub-king in Ireland. This great O'Neill -well deserved a poet's praise, for having taken Sitric, the Danish -lord of Dublin, Ceallachan of Munster, the king of Leinster, and -the royal heir of Connacht as hostages, he, understanding well that -in the interests of Ireland the High-kingship should be upheld, -positively refused to follow the advice of his own clan and march on -Tara, as they urged, to take hostages from Donagh the High-king. On -the contrary, he actually sent of his own accord all those that had -been given him during his circuit to this Donagh as supreme governor -of Ireland. Donagh, on his part, not to be out-done in magnanimity, -returned them again to Murtagh with the message that he, into whose -hands they had been delivered, was the proper person to keep them. It -was to commemorate this that Cormac wrote his poem of two hundred and -fifty-six lines:-- - - _"A Mhuircheartaigh Mheic Néill náir_ - _Ro ghabhais giallu Inse-Fáil."_[14] - -But the names of the poets Cinaeth or Kenneth O'Hartigan, and Eochaidh -O'Flynn, are the most celebrated amongst those of the tenth century. -Allusions to and quotations from the first, who died in 975, are -frequent, and nine or ten of his poems, containing some eight hundred -lines, have been preserved perfect for us. Of O'Flynn's pieces, -fourteen are enumerated by O'Reilly, containing in the aggregate -between seventeen and eighteen hundred lines. In them we find in -verse the whole early and mythical history of Ireland. We have, for -instance, one poem on the invasion of Partholan; one on the invasion -of the Fomorians; another on the division of Ireland between the sons -of Partholan; another on the destruction of the tower of Conaing and -the battles between the Fomorians and the Nemedians; another on the -journey of the Nemedians from Scithia and how some emigrated to Greece -and others to Britain after the destruction of Conairé's tower; another -on the invasion of the sons of Milesius; another on the history of -Emania built by Cimbaeth some three hundred years before Christ, up -to its destruction by the Three Collas in the year 331. This poet -in especial may be said to have crystallised into verse the mythic -history of Ireland with the names and reigns of the Irish kings, and -to have thrown them into the form of real history. O'Clery, in his -celebrated Book of Invasions, has drawn upon him very largely, quoting, -often at full length, no less than twelve of his poems. Hence many -people believe that he was one of the first to collect the floating -tribe-legends of very early Irish kings, and the race-myths of the -Tuatha De Danann and their contemporaries, and that he cast them into -that historical shape in which the later annalists record them, by -fitting them into a complete scheme of genealogical history like that -of the Old Testament. But whether all these things had taken solid -shape and form before he versified them anew we cannot now decide. -According to O'Reilly and O'Curry this poet died in 984, nine years -after O'Hartigan; but M. d'Arbois de Jubainville remarks that he has -been unable to find out any evidence for fixing upon this date. - -A little later lived Mac Liag, whom Brian Boru elevated to the -rank of Arch-Ollamh of Erin, and who lived at his court at Kincora -in the closest relationship to him and his sons. He has been -credited--erroneously according to O'Curry--with the authorship -of a Life of Brian Boru, which unfortunately has perished, only a -single ancient leaf, in the hand-writing of the great antiquary Mac -Firbis, surviving. Several of his poems, however, are preserved,[15] -containing between twelve and thirteen hundred lines in all, and are -of the highest value as throwing light both on the social state and -the policy of Ireland under Brian. One of his poems gives a graphic -description of the tribute of Ireland being driven to Brian at his -palace in Kincora in the present county of Clare. The poet went out -from the court to have a look at the flocks and herds, and when he -returned he said to the King, "Here comes Erin's tribute of cows to -thee, many a fat cow and fat hog on the plain before thee." "Be they -ever so many," said the King, "they shall be all thine, thou noble -poet." Amongst the other part of the tribute which the poet describes -as coming in to Brian were one hundred and fifty butts of wine from the -Danes of Dublin, and a tun of wine for every day in the year from the -Danes of Limerick. He describes Brian as sitting at the head of the -great hall of Kincora,[16] the king of Connacht sat on his right hand -and the king of Ulster on his left; the king of Tir-Eóghain [Tyrone] -sat opposite to him. At the door-post nearest to Brian sat the king -of Leinster, and at the other post of the open door sat Donough, son -of Brian, and Malachy,[17] king of Meath. Murrough, the king's eldest -son who died so valiantly at Clontarf, sat in front of his father with -his back turned to him, with Angus, a prince of Meath, and the king of -Tirconnell on his left. One of his poems ends with two complimentary -stanzas to Brian Boru, his son Murrough, his nephew Conaing, and Tadhg -[Teig] O'Kelly, the king of Ui Máine--all four of whom a short time -afterwards were left stiff and stark upon the field of Clontarf. - -The shadow of the bloody tragedy there enacted hangs heavily over all -Mac Liag's later poems and those of his contemporaries, and there are -few more pathetic pieces in the language than his wail over Kincora -left desolate by the death of almost every chieftain who had gone -forth from it to meet the Danes. - - "Oh where, Kincora, is Brian the great! - Oh, where is the beauty that once was thine! - Oh, where are the princes and nobles that sate - At the feast in thy halls, and drank the red wine.[18] - Where, oh, Kincora? - - * * * * * - - And where is the youth of majestic height, - The faith-keeping prince of the Scots? Even he - As wide as his fame was, as great as his might, - Was tributary, oh, Kincora, to me! - Me, oh, Kincora. - - They are gone, those heroes of royal birth, - Who plundered no churches, who broke no trust; - 'Tis weary for me to be living on earth - When they, oh, Kincora, lie low in the dust! - Low, oh, Kincora."[19] - -In the same strain does Mac Gilla Keefe,[20] another contemporary poet, -lament, in a piece which, according to a manuscript quoted by Hardiman, -called the "Leabhar Oiris," he composed when in the north of Greece, -whither he had travelled in the itinerant Milesian manner on his way to -try if he could find the site of Paradise. The poem begins:-- - - "Mournful night! and mournful WE! - Men we BE who know no peace. - We no GOLD for STRAINS of PRIDE - HOLD this SIDE the PLAINS of Greece."[21] - - "'I remember my setting my face to pay a visit to Brian (Boru) and he - at that time feasting with Cian, the son of Mulloy,[22] and he thought - it long my being absent from him.' - - "'God welcome you back to us,' cried Cian, 'O learned one, who comest - [back from the north] from the House of O'Neill. Poet, your wife is - saying that you have almost altogether forsaken your own house.' - - "'You have been away for three quarters of year, except from yesterday - to to-day.' 'Why that,' said Murrough, son of Brian, 'is the message - of the raven from the ark!' - - "'[Come now] tell us all the wealth you have brought from the north,' - said Brian, the High-king of the host of Carn i Neid, 'tell the nobles - of the men of Innisfail, and swear by my hand that you tell no lie.' - - "'By the King who is above me,' [said I], 'this is what I brought from - the north, twenty steeds, ten ounces of gold, and ten score cows of - cattle.' - - "'[Why] we, the two of us, shall give him more steeds and more cattle - [than that] without speaking of what Brian will give,' said Cian, the - son of Mulloy. - - "'[And] by the King of Heaven who has brought me into silence this - night, and who has darkened my brightness, I got ten times as much as - that at the banquet before Brian lay down. - - "'I got seven town-lands, Oh, King of the Kings, who hast sent me from - the west, and a half town-land [besides] near every palace in which - Brian used to be.' - - "Said Murrough, good son of Brian, 'To-morrow'--and it was scarce - sensible for him--'as much as you have got last night you shall get - from me myself, and get it with my love.'"[23] - -Mag Liag was not at Clontarf himself, but his friend and fellow-poet, -Errard mac Coisé [Cŭsha] was in the train of Malachy, king of Meath, -to whom he was then attached. This poet gave Mac Liag a minute account -of the battle, and Mac Liag himself visited the spot before the slain -had been interred, as we see from another of his poems. In a kind of -dialogue between him and Mac Coisé he makes the latter relate to him -the names of the fallen, and describe the positions in which their dead -bodies were found upon the battlefield. It is exceedingly probable -that it was Mac Liag, perhaps with Mac Coisé's aid, who compiled that -most valuable chronicle called the "Wars of the Gael with the Gaill," -_i.e._, of the Irish with the Northmen.[24] This narrative bears both -external and internal evidence of its antiquity, for there is a portion -of it preserved in the Book of Leinster, a MS. of about the year 1150. -"The author," says Dr. Todd, who has edited it,[25] "was either -himself an eye-witness of the battle of Clontarf, or else compiled his -narrative from the testimony of eye-witnesses." It is edited in 121 -chapters, and is sufficiently long to fill over a hundred of these -pages. Beginning with the earliest Danish invasion at the close of -the eighth century, it traces the progress of the Northmen in forty -chapters up to the time when Mathgamhain [Mahon] and Brian were ruling -over the Dalcassians. After that the book concerns itself chiefly with -the history of Brian, describing the deaths of his brother Mahon, and -the revenge he took, and his gradual but irregular attainment of the -High-kingship, he being the first of the race of Eber who had reached -this dignity for hundreds of years. The distress suffered by the Irish -at the hands of the white foreigners (the Norwegians) and the black -foreigners (the Danes)--who, by the way, were bitter enemies and often -fought with each other, even on Irish soil--is graphically described. -The Northmen put, says the writer, - - "a king [of their own] over every territory, and a chief over every - chieftaincy, and an abbot over every church, and a steward over every - village, and a soldier in every house, so that none of the men of Erin - had power to give even the milk of his cow, or as much as the clutch - of eggs of one hen in succour or in kindness to an aged man or to a - friend, but was forced to preserve them for this foreign steward or - bailiff or soldier. And though there were but one milk-giving cow in - the house, she durst not be milked for an infant of one night, nor for - a sick person, but must be kept for the steward or bailiff or soldier - of the foreigners. And however long he might be absent from the house - his share or his supply durst not be lessened: although there were in - the house but one cow, it must be killed for the meal of one night, if - the means of supply could not be otherwise procured.... - - "In a word," continues the writer in a strain of characteristic - hyperbole, "although there were an hundred sharp, ready, cool, - never-resting, brazen tongues in each head, and a hundred garrulous, - loud-unceasing voices from each tongue, they could not recount nor - narrate, nor enumerate, nor tell, what all the Gael suffered in - common, both men and women, laity and clergy, old and young, noble and - ignoble, of hardship and of injury, and of oppression in every house, - from these valiant, wrathful, foreign, purely-pagan people. - - "And though numerous were the oft-victorious clans of the - many-familied Erin," yet could they do nothing against the "untamed, - implacable hordes by whom that oppression was inflicted, because - of the excellence of their polished, ample, treble-heavy, trusty, - glittering corslets, and their hard, strong, valiant swords, and - well-rivetted long spears, and ready brilliant arms of valour, - besides; and because of the greatness of their achievements and of - their deeds, their bravery, their valour, their strength, their venom, - and their ferocity, and because of the excess of their thirst and - their hunger for the brave, fruitful, nobly-inhabited, smooth-plained, - sweet-grassy land of Erin, full of cataracts, rivers, bays." - -The book ends with the battle of Clontarf and the "return from -Fingall," _i.e._, the march of the Dalcassians to their homes in -Munster. The death of Brian in this great battle fought on Good Friday, -the 23rd of April,[26] 1014, is thus described:-- - - DEATH OF BRIAN BORUMHA AT CLONTARF. - - "As for Brian, son of Cenneidigh [Kennedy], when the battalions joined - arms in the battle, his skin was spread for him, and he opened his - psalter and joined his hands, and began to pray after the battle had - commenced, and there was no one with him but his own attendant, whose - name was Latean (from whom are the O'Lateans still in Munster.)[27] - Brian said to the attendant, 'Look thou at the battalions and the - combat whilst I sing the psalms.' He sang fifty psalms and fifty - prayers and fifty paternosters, and after that he asked the attendant - how were the battalions. And the attendant answered, 'Mixed and - closely confronted are the battalions, and each of them has come - within the grasp of the other, and not louder on my ears would be the - echo of blows from Tomar's wood if seven battalions were cutting it - down, than the thud-blows on heads and bones and sculls between them.' - And he asked how was Murchadh's [Murrough's son's] standard, and the - attendant said, 'It stands, and many of the banners of the Dál Cais - [North Munster, _i.e._, Brian's own men] around it, and many heads - thrown to it, and a multitude of trophies and spoils with heads of - foreigners are along with it.' 'That is good news indeed,' said Brian. - - "His skin cushion was readjusted beneath him, and he sang the psalms - and the prayers and the paters as before, and he again asked the - attendant how the battalions were, and the attendant answered and - said, 'There is not living on earth the man who could distinguish one - from the other, for the greater part of the hosts on each side are - fallen, and those who are alive are so covered with spatterings of - crimson blood and armour, that a man could not know his own son--they - are so intermingled.' He then asked how was Murchadh's standard. The - attendant said it was far from him, and that it passed through the - battalions westward, and was still standing. Brian said, 'The men of - Erin will be well,' said he, 'so long as that standard stands, for - their courage and valour shall remain in them all, so long as they can - see that standard.' - - "His cushion was readjusted under Brian, and he sang fifty psalms - and fifty prayers and fifty paters, and all that time the fighting - continued. After that he again asked the attendant how went the - battalions, and the attendant answered, 'It is like as if Tomar's wood - were after burning its undergrowth and young trees, and that seven - battalions had been for six weeks cutting them down, and it with its - stately trees and huge oaks still standing, just so are the battalions - on both sides, after the greater part of them have fallen leaving but - a few valiant heroes and great chieftains still standing. So are - the battalions on both sides pierced and wounded and scattered, and - they are disorganised all round like the grindings of a mill turning - the wrong way; and the foreigners are now defeated, and Murchadh's - standard is fallen.' 'That is piteous news,' said Brian; 'by my word,' - said he, 'the generosity and valour of Erin fell when that standard - fell; and truly Erin has fallen of that, for there shall never come - after him a champion like him. And what the better were I though I - should escape this, and though it were the sovereignty of the world I - should attain, after the fall of Murchadh and Conaing and the other - nobles of the Dál Cais.' - - "'Woe is me,' said the attendant, 'if thou wouldst take my advice thou - wouldst get thee to thy horse, and we would go to the camp and remain - there amongst the gillies, and every one who comes out of the battle - will come to us, and round us they will rally, for the battalions are - now mixed in confusion, and a party of the foreigners have rejected - the idea of retreating to the sea, and we know not who shall come to - us where we now are.' - - "'Oh God; boy,' said Brian, 'flight becomes me not, and I myself know - that I shall not go from here alive, and what should it profit me - though I did, for Aoibheall [Eevil][28] of Craig Liath [Lee-a], came - to me last night,' said he, 'and she told me that the first of my sons - whom I should see this day would be he who should succeed me in the - sovereignty, and that is Donough,[29] and go thou OLatean,' said he, - 'and take these steeds with thee, and receive my blessing and carry - out my will after me, that is to say, my body and soul to God and to - St. Patrick, and that I am to be carried to Armagh, and my blessing - to Donough for discharging my last bequests after me, that is to say, - twelve score cows to be given to the co-arb of Patrick and the Society - of Armagh, and their own proper dues to Killaloe and the Churches of - Munster, and he knows that I have not wealth of gold or silver, but - he is to pay them in return for my blessing and for his succeeding - me. Go this night to Sord [Swords] and desire them to come to-morrow - early for my body, and to convey it thence to Damhliag of Cianan, - and then let them carry it to Lughmhagh [Loo-wā, _i.e._, Louth], and - let Maelmuiré mac Eochadha, the co-arb of Patrick and the Society of - Armagh come to meet me at Lughmhagh.' - - "While they were engaged in this conversation the attendant perceived - a party of the foreigners approaching them. The Earl Brodar was there - and two warriors along with him. - - "'There are people coming towards us here,' said the attendant. - - "'What kind of people?' said Brian. - - "'Blue stark-naked people,' said the attendant. - - "'My woe,' said Brian, 'they are the foreigners of the armour, and it - is not for good they come.' - - "While he was saying this he arose and stepped off his cushion and - unsheathed his sword. Brodar passed him by and noticed him not. One - of the three who were there and who had been in Brian's service - said '_Cing, Cing_!' said he, that is, 'This is the king.' '_No, - no! but príst príst_,' says Brodar, 'not he,' said he, 'but a noble - priest.' 'By no means,' said the soldier, 'but it is the great king - Brian.' Brodar then turned round and appeared with a bright gleaming - battle-axe in his hand, with the handle set in the middle [of the - head]. When Brian saw him he looked intently at him, and gave him a - sword-blow that cut off the left leg at the knee and the right leg at - the foot. The foreigner gave Brian a stroke which crushed his head - utterly, and Brian killed the second man that was with Brodar, and - they fell mutually by each other. - - "There was not done in Erin, since Christianity--except the beheading - of Cormac mac Culinan--any greater deed than this. He was, in - sooth, one of the three best that ever were born in Erin, and one - of the three men who most caused Erin to prosper, namely, Lugh the - Long-handed, and Finn mac Cúmhail [Cool], and Brian, son of Kennedy; - for it was he that released the men of Erin and its women from the - bondage and iniquity of the foreigners and the pirates. It was he that - gained five-and-twenty battles over the foreigners, and who killed - them and banished them.... In short, Erin fell by the death of Brian." - -The "War of the Gael with the Gaill" appears to me to be a book which -throws a strong light upon the genesis and value of the historical -saga of Ireland. Here is a real historical narrative of unquestionable -authority, and of the very highest value for the history of these -countries, which is contemporaneous,[30] or almost so, with the events -which it relates. Its accuracy on matters of fact have been abundantly -proved from Danish as well as from Irish sources. And yet the whole -account is dressed up and bedizened in that peculiarly Irish garb which -had become stereotyped as the dress of Irish history. It contains the -exaggeration, the necessary touch of the marvellous, and above all the -poetry, without which no Irish composition could hope for a welcome. - -First as to the exaggeration: the whole piece is full of it. A good -example is the description of the armies meeting on Clontarf:-- - - "It will be one of the wonders of the day of judgment to relate the - description of this tremendous onset. There arose a wild, impetuous, - precipitate, furious, dark, frightful, voracious, merciless, - combative, contentious vulture, screaming and fluttering over their - heads. There arose also the Bocanachs and the Bananachs and the wild - people of the glens, and the witches and the goblins and the ancient - birds, and the destroying demons of the air and firmament, and the - feeble demoniac phantom host, and they were screaming and comparing - the valour and combat of both parties." - -The reader expected some traditional flourish such as this, and the -essential truth of the narrative is no whit impaired by it. - -Nor does the miraculous episode of Dunlang O'Hartigan, fresh from the -embraces of the fairy queen, foretelling to Murrough that he must fall, -detract from the truth that he does fall. Dunlang had promised Murrough -not to abandon him, and he appears beside him on the very eve of the -battle. Murrough gently reproaches him and says:-- - - "'Great must be the love and attachment of some woman for thee which - has induced thee to abandon me.' 'Alas, O King,' answered Dunlang, - 'the delight which I have abandoned for thee is greater, if thou didst - but know it, namely, life without death,[31] without cold, without - thirst, without hunger, without decay, beyond any delight of the - delights of the earth to me, until the judgment, and heaven after the - judgment, and if I had not pledged my word to thee I would not have - come here, and, moreover, it is fated for me to die on the day that - thou shalt die.' - - "'Shall I receive death this day then?' said Murrough. - - "'Thou shalt, indeed,' said Dunlang, 'and Brian and Conaing shall - receive it, and almost all the nobles of Erin, and Turlough thy son.' - - "'That is no good encouragement to fight,' said Murrough, 'and if we - had had such news we would not have told it to _thee_, and moreover,' - said Murrough, 'often was I offered in hills, and in fairy mansions, - this world and these gifts, but I never abandoned for one night my - country nor mine inheritance for them.'" - -Some such touch as this, of the weird and the miraculous, the reader -also expected. - -As for poetry, the whole piece is full of it. It contains over five -hundred lines of verse, in poems attributed to Brian Boru himself and -his brother Mahon, to Maelmhuadh or Molloy, who so treacherously slew -Mahon, to the sister of Aedh Finnliath [Finleea], king of Ireland in -869;[32] to Cormac mac Culinan, the king-bishop; to Cuan O'Lochain, -a great poet who died in 1024; to Beg mac Dé the prophet, and to -Columcille, his contemporary; to Colman mac Lenin, the poet-saint; to -Gilla Mududa O'Cassidy, a poet contemporaneous with Mac Liag; to Mac -Liag himself; to Gilla Comgaill O'Slevin, inciting O'Neill against -Brian; to a poet called Mahon's blind man; to St. Bercan the prophet; -to an unnamed cleric, and to at least six anonymous poets. - -I have dwelt at some length upon these peculiarities of composition, -because I wish to lay stress on the fact that the narrative form and -the romantic dress in which the early history of Ireland is preserved -(through the medium of sagas) need not detract from its substantial -veracity. We can prove the minute accuracy of the Clontarf story -and there seems scarcely more reason to doubt that of the battle of -Moyrath, fought in Adamnan's time, or possibly the _substantial_ -accuracy of the battles of Cnoca, or of Moy Léana; we must, however, -remember that with each fresh redaction, fresh miraculous agencies, and -fresh verbiage were added. - -The battle of Clontarf put an end to the dream of a Danish kingdom -in Ireland, and though numerous bodies of the Northmen remained in -their sea-coast settlements, and continued for many years after this -to give much trouble, yet it put a stop to all further invasion from -their mother country, and once more the centres of Irish learning and -civilisation could breathe freely. - -[1] It was not he, however, who built Cormac's Chapel at Cashel, but -Cormac Mac Carthy, in the twelfth century. I am not sure whether Cashel -had been formed into an archiepiscopal see at this time, but he is -certainly called bishop of Cashel. - -[2] The celebrated Vocabularius S. Galli was, according to Zimmer, the -work of an Irish monk. - -[3] Leabhar na gCeart. - -[4] It has been most carefully edited and translated in a large volume -by O'Donovan for the Celtic Society, in 1847. - -[5] 903 according to the "Four Masters." - -[6] From the fragment copied by Duald Mac Firbis in 1643 from a vellum -MS. of Mac Egan of Ormond, a chief professor of the old Brehon Law, -a MS. which was so worn as to be in places illegible at the time Mac -Firbis copied it; published by O'Donovan for the Archæological Society. -I have altered O'Donovan's translation very slightly. - -[7] In Irish, "Flaithbheartach." - -[8] The plain where this battle of Bealach Múghna or Ballaghmoon was -fought is in the very south of the county Kildare, about 2½ miles to -the north of the town of Carlow. - -[9] So it is stated in Mac Echagain's Annals of Clonmacnois, but -O'Curry thinks this is a mistake and that she did recover. - -[10] The first verse runs thus in modern Gaelic: - - "Beir a mhanaigh leat do chos - Tóg anois i de thaoibh Néill - Is ró mhór chuiris de chré - Ar an té le' luidhinn féin." - -See p. 75 of the Gaelic part of the book of the Dean of Lismore. - -Literally: "Monk, remove thy foot, lift it off the grave of Niall, too -long heapest thou the earth on him by whom I fain would lie! - -"Too long dost thou, O monk there, heap the earth on noble Niall. Go -gently, brown friend, press not the earth with thy sole. - -"Do not firmly close the grave; sorrowful, cleric, is thy office; lift -[thy foot] off the bright Niall Black-knee; monk, remove thy foot! - -"The son of the descendant of Niall of the white gold, 'tis not of my -will that he is bound [in the grave]; let his grave and stone be left: -monk, remove thy foot! - -"I am Gormly, who compose the verse; daughter of hardy Flann. Stand not -upon his grave! Monk, remove thy foot!" - -[11] One of his pieces, quoted by the "Four Masters," shows he was a -true poet. It is on the death of the king, Aedh Finnliath, who died in -877, and runs thus:-- - - "Long is the wintry night, - With fierce gusts of wind, - Under pressing grief we have to encounter it, - Since the red-speared king of the noble house lives no longer. - - It is awful to observe - The waves from the bottom heaving, - To these may be compared - All those who with us lament him." - -_See_ O'Curry's "Manners and Customs," vol. ii. p. 96, and "Four -Masters" _sub anno._ - -[12] Published by the Irish Archæological Society in the "Irish -Nennius," in 1847. - -[13] Na gcochal croicinn. - -[14] - - "O Muircheartach, son of noble Niall, - Thou hast taken hostages of Inisfail." - -[15] The "Four Masters" thought so highly of Mac Liag's poetry that -they actually go out of their way to record both the first verse he -ever composed and the last. An extraordinary compliment! - -[16] Or Kancora, in Irish _Ceann Coradh--i.e._, "the head of the weir." - -[17] In Irish "Maelsheachlainn," often contracted into the sound of -"M'louglinn," and now always Anglicised Malachy. - -[18] Thus Mangan; in the original-- - - "A Chinn-Choradh, caidhi Brian, - No caidhi an sciamh do bhi ort; - Caidhi maithe no meic righ - Ga n-ibhmís fín ad port?" - -[19] Literally: "O Kincora, where is Brian? or where is the splendour -that was upon thee? Where are the nobles and the sons of kings with -whom we used to drink wine in thy halls.... Where is the man most -striking of size, the son of the king of Alba who never forsook us? -Although great were his valour and his deeds, he used to pay tribute to -me (the poet), O Kincora.... They have gone, side by side, the sons of -kings who never plundered church; there shall never be their like in -the world again, so in my wisdom I testify, O Kincora." - -_See_ Hardiman's "Irish Minstrelsy," vol. ii. p. 196, where the text -of this poem is published, with a fearful metrical translation which, -under the influence of Macpherson, calls the Dalcassian princes "the -flower of Temora"! which, however, is advantageously used to rhyme with -Kincora! - -[20] In Irish: "Mac Giolla Caoimh." - -[21] This verse is an imitation of the original, which runs-- - - "Uathmhar [i] an oidhche _anocht_ - A chuideacht [fhíor-]_bhocht_ gan bhréig, - Crodh ni SA[O]ILTÎ dh[ao]ibh air DHUAN - Air an TTAOIBHSI THUAIDH do'n nGréig." - -_See_ Hardiman's "Irish Minstrelsy," vol. ii. p. 202, where a poetical -version of this lyric is given in the metre of Campbell's "Exile of -Erin"! He does not say from what MS. he has taken this poem. O'Curry is -silent on Mac Gilla Keefe, but O'Reilly mentions another poem of his on -the provinces of Munster. - -[22] In Irish, "Maolmhuadh." - -[23] I am not sure that I have translated this correctly. - - "Do rádh Murchadh deagh-mhac Bhriain - Air na mhárach, 's níor chiall uaidh - Uiriod a bhfuairís aréir - Geabhair uaim féin's ni air th-fhuath." - -[24] Charles O'Conor ascribes it to him, but neither Keating, the "Four -Masters," nor Colgan, who all make use of it, mention a word about the -author. - -[25] In the "Master of the Rolls" Series, in 1867. "That the work was -compiled from contemporary materials," says Dr. Todd, "may be proved -by curious incidental evidence. It is stated in the account given of -the Battle of Clontarf that the full tide in Dublin Bay on the day of -the battle (23rd April, 1014) coincided with sunrise, and that the -returning tide at evening aided considerably in the defeat of the -enemy. It occurred to the editor, on considering this passage, that a -criterion might be derived from it to test the truth of the narrative -and of the date assigned by the Irish Annals to the Battle of Clontarf. -He therefore proposed to the Rev. Samuel Haughton, M.D., Fellow of -Trinity College, and Professor of Geology in the University of Dublin, -to solve for him this problem: 'What was the hour of high water at the -shore of Clontarf in Dublin Bay on the 23rd of April, 1014.' The editor -did not make known to Dr. Haughton the object he had in view in this -question, and the coincidence of the result obtained with the ancient -narrative is therefore the more valuable and curious." - -Dr. Haughton read a paper on the mathematics of this complex and -difficult question before the Royal Irish Academy, in May, 1861, in -which he proved that the tide--a neap tide--was full along the Clontarf -shore at about 5h. 30m. a.m., and that the evening tide was full in -about 5h. 55m. p.m. "The truth of the narrative," says Dr. Todd, "is -thus most strikingly established. In the month of April the sun rises -at from 5h. 30m. to 4h.30m. The full tide in the morning therefore -coincided nearly with sunrise; a fact which holds a most important -place in the history of the battle, and proves that our author if not -himself an eye-witness, must have derived his information from those -who were. 'None others,' as Dr. Haughton observes, 'would have invented -the fact that the battle began at sunrise and that the tide was then -full in. The importance of the time of tide became evident at the close -of the day, when the returned tide prevented the escape of the Danes -from the Clontarf shore to the north bank of the Liffey.'" - -[26] An ancient Irish missal preserved in the Bodleian contains this -petition for the Irish king and his army, in its Litany for _Easter -Eve_: "Ut regem Hibernensium et exercitum ejus conservare digneris--ut -eis vitam et sanctitatem atque victoriam dones." If this missal is -posterior to 1014 it must have been the reminiscence of Clontarf which -inspired the prayer for the day following the battle. If the missal is -older than the battle, then the coincidence is curious. The prayer was -just a day late. The same missal mentions in its Litanies the names -Patrick, Brendan, Brigit, Columba, Finnian, Ciaran, and St. Fursa, and -contains collect, secret and post communion pro rege [for the Irish -king]. - -[27] Evidently the interpolation of a copyist. - -[28] The family _banshee_ of the Royal house of Munster. - -[29] In Irish, Donnchadh, pronounced "Dunnăχa," as Murchadh is -pronounced "Murrăχa," in English Murrough. - -[30] It is edited from the Book of Leinster, a MS. which was copied -about 1150, which contains the first 28 chapters, from a vellum of -about two centuries later, which wants five chapters at the beginning -and eight at the end, and from a perfect transcript made by the -indefatigable Brother Michael O'Clery in 1635 "out of the book of -Cuconnacht O'Daly," who died according to the "Four Masters," in 1139. - -[31] _I.e._, Beside his fairy lover. This incident is greatly expanded -in the modern MS. story of the Battle of Clontarf, of which there -exist numerous copies; in these the gliding of history into romance is -very apparent. In the modern version the fairy Aoibheall is introduced -begging O'Hartigan not to fight and promising him life and happiness -for two hundred years if he will put off fighting for only one day. - - "A Dhunlaing seachain an cath - Gus an mhaidin amárach. - Geobhair da chéad bliadhan de ré - Agus seachain cath aon-laé." - -[32] This is genuine, and is also quoted by the "Four Masters" and -O'Clery in his Book of Invasions. Probably all the poems are genuine -except the prophecies and the pieces put into the mouths of the actors, -that is of Brian, Mahon, Molloy, and the cleric. These were probably -composed by the writer of the history. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIII - -FROM CLONTARF TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST - - -Brian, semi-usurper though he was, was in every sense a great statesman -as well as a great warrior. He found almost every seat of learning -in ruins, and every town and palace in Ireland a shattered wreck. -Before he died he had gone far towards restoring them. He rebuilt the -monasteries, re-erected the churches, refounded the schools. "He sent -professors and masters to teach wisdom and knowledge," says the history -from which we have been quoting; but the schools had been hopelessly -broken up, the scribes had perished, the books--"the countless hosts -of the illuminated books of the men of Erin"--had been burned and -"drowned." Hence he found himself obliged to despatch his emissaries -and the few men of learning who had survived that awful time, "to buy -books beyond the sea and the great ocean, because," says the history, - - "their writings and their books in every church and in every sanctuary - where they were, were burnt and thrown into water by the plunderers - from beginning to end [of their invasions], and Brian himself gave the - price of learning, and the price of books, to every one separately who - went on this service." "By him were erected also noble churches and - sanctuaries in Erin ... many works also, and repairs were made by him. - By him were erected the church of Cell Dálua[1] and the church of Inis - Cealtra, and the round tower of Tuam Gréine, and many other works in - like manner. By him were made bridges and causeways and high roads. - By him were strengthened also the dúns and fortresses and islands and - celebrated royal forts of Munster.... The peace of Erin was proclaimed - by him, both of churches and people, so that peace throughout all - Erin was made in his time. He fined and imprisoned the perpetrators - of murders, trespass, robbery, and war. He hanged and killed and - destroyed the robbers and thieves and plunderers of Erin.... After - the banishment of the foreigners out of all Erin and after Erin was - reduced to a state of peace, a single woman came from Torach in the - north of Erin to Clíodhna in the south of Erin, carrying a ring of - gold on a horse-rod, and she was neither robbed nor insulted."[2] - -The bardic schools began to revive again, for the bards too had felt -the full pressure of the invasion, their colleges had been broken -up, and many of themselves been slain. One aim of the Norsemen was -to destroy all learning. "It was not allowed," writes Keating, "to -give instruction in letters." ... "No scholars, no clerics, no books, -no holy relics, were left in church or monastery through dread of -them. _Neither bard nor philosopher nor musician pursued his wonted -profession in the land._" - -The eleventh and twelfth centuries, however, witnessed a great revival -of art and learning. Indeed, from the reign of Brian until the coming -of the Normans, Irish metal-work, architecture, and letters flourished -wonderfully. It is from this brief period of comparative rest that -the three most important relics of Celtic literature now in the world -date, the Leabhar na h-Uidhre, the Book of Leinster, and the Book -of Hymns. The eleventh and twelfth centuries produced also many men -of literature, including the annalist Tighearnach who was Abbot of -Clonmacnois and died in 1088; and Dubdaléithe, Archbishop of Armagh, -who died in 1065, who wrote Annals of Ireland which are now lost, -but which are quoted both in the Annals of Ulster and in the "Four -Masters." The greatest scholar, chronologist, and poet of this period -is unquestionably Flann, the _fear-léighinn_ or head-teacher of the -school of Monasterboice, who died in 1056. Though he is called Flann -_Mainstreach_, or Flann of the Monastery, he was really a layman--one -proof out of many, that the schools and colleges which grew up round -religious institutions were as much secular as theological. He composed -a valuable series of synchronisms, in which he synchronised the kings -of the Assyrians, Medes, Persians, Greeks, and the Roman emperors, with -the kings of Ireland, in parallel columns century by century, and sums -up the most important portions of his teaching in a poem of some twelve -hundred lines intended evidently as a class-book for his pupils. A -piece of more value is one which synchronises the reigns of the Irish -monarchs with those of the Irish provincial kings and the kings of -Scotland, from the time of King Laeghaire who received St. Patrick, -down to the death of Murtough O'Brien in 1119, these later years having -been completed by some other hand. - -No fewer than two thousand lines of Flann's poetry were copied into -the Book of Leinster less than a hundred years after his own death, -and there are nearly as many more in other manuscripts. They are, -however, though composed in elaborate metres, anything but creative -and imaginative poems. The most of them consist of annals or history -versified, evidently with the intention of being committed to memory, -because the great ollamhs like Flann were really rather historians and -philosophers than what we call poets, and they used their metrical art, -very often though not always, to enshrine their knowledge. There is, -however--except to the historian--nothing particularly inspiriting in -a poem of 204 lines on the monarchs of Erin and kings of Meath who are -descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages, giving the names, length of -reign, and manner of death of each, despite the undoubted skill with -which the technical difficulties of a thorny metre are overcome.[3] -Some of his pieces, however, are of more living interest, as his poem -on the history of Oileach or Ailech, the palace of the O'Neills near -Derry, in which he takes us to the time of the Tuatha De Danann, and -in his poem on the battles fought by the Kinel Owen. Indeed as O'Curry -well puts it, - - "Many a name lying dead in our genealogical tracts and which has found - its way into our evidently condensed chronicles and annals, will be - found in these poems connected with the death or associated with - the brilliant deeds of some hero whose story we would not willingly - lose; while, on the other hand, many an obscure historical allusion - will be illustrated and many an historical spot as yet unknown to the - topographer will be identified, when a proper investigation of these - and other great historical poems preserved in the Book of Leinster, - shall be undertaken as part of the serious study of the history and - antiquities of our country."[4] - -This summing-up of O'Curry's as to the poems of Flann, is one which -may be also applied to several of his contemporaries and successors, -such as Coleman O'Seasnan who died in 1050, one of whose poems on the -kings of Emania and of Ulster contains 328 lines; Giolla Caomhghin -[Gilla Keevin], who died in 1072, some thirteen or fourteen hundred -lines of whose poetry has been preserved; Tanaidhe O'Mulconry, who died -in 1136; Giolla Moduda O'Cassidy, who died in 1143, and whose poems, -still extant, amount to nearly nine hundred lines; and Giolla-na-naomh -O'Dunn who died in 1160, and of whom we still possess fourteen hundred -verses.[5] - -The compositions of two rather earlier poets, Erard mac Coisé [Cŭsha] -and Cuan O'Lochain possess more interest. They died in 1023 and 1024 -respectively. Mac Coisé's four surviving poems and his prose allegory -are all of great interest. As for Cuan O'Lochain, he was chief poet -of Erin in his day, and according to Mac Echagain's "Annals of -Clonmacnois" and an entry in the Book of Leinster, he and a cleric -named Corcran were elected to govern Ireland during the interregnum -which succeeded the death of King Malachy, who quietly reassumed, after -the death of Brian Boru, the High-kingship of which that monarch had -deprived him. This is a convincing proof of the honour attached to the -office of "ollamh of all Ireland." - -One of O'Lochain's pieces is of special value, because it describes -and names every chief building, monument, rath, and remarkable spot in -and around Tara, both those erected in Cormac mac Art's time and those -added afterwards; both those which were in ruins when the poet wrote, -and those which had been described by former authors from the time of -Cormac till his own.[6] Another poem of his is on the _geasa_ [gassa] -or tabus of the king of Ireland, and on his prerogatives. It was tabu -for him to let the sun rise on him when in bed in the plains of Tara, -or for him to alight on a Wednesday on the plain of Bregia, or to -traverse the plain of Cuillenn after sunset, or to launch his ship on -the first Monday after May Day, etc. Another is a beautiful poem on the -origin of the river Shannon, called from a lady Sinann, who ventured -near Connla's well, a thing tabu to a female--to steal the nuts of -knowledge. There grew nine splendid mystical hazel trees around this -well, and they produced the most beautiful nuts of rich crimson colour, -and as these lovely nuts, filled full with all that was loveliest and -most refined in literature, poetry, and art, dropped off their branches -into the well, they raised a succession of red shining bubbles. The -salmon at the sound of the falling nuts darted forward to eat them and -afterwards made their way down the river, their lower side covered with -beautiful crimson spots from the effect of the crimson nuts. Whoever -could catch and eat these salmon were in their turn filled with the -knowledge of literature and art, for the power of the nuts had to some -extent passed into the fish that eat them. These were the celebrated -"eó feasa" [yo fassa], or salmon of knowledge, so frequently alluded -to by the poets. To approach this well was tabu to a woman, but Sinann -attempted it, when the well rose up and drowned her, and carried her -body down in a torrent of water to the river which was after her called -Shannon. - -Altogether about 1,200 lines of Cuan O'Lochain's poetry have been -preserved.[7] It would be useless for our purpose to go more minutely -into the history of those pre-Norman poets. It is not the known poetry -of early Irish poets which, as a rule, is of most interest to the -purely literary student, but rather the unknown and the traditional. - -We must now take a glance at the Irish of this later period upon the -Continent. - -Those brilliant names in the history of European scholarship who -distinguished themselves under Charlemagne, his son, and his grandsons, -Clemens, Dicuil, and Scotus Erigena, who all taught in the Court -schools, Dungal who taught in Pavia, Sedulius who worked in Lüttich, -Fergal, or Virgil who ruled in Salzburg, and Moengal, the teacher of -St. Gall, were not altogether without successors. It is true that -Ireland's great mission of instruction and conversion came to a close -with the eleventh century, yet for two centuries more, driven by that -innate instinct for travel and adventure which was so strong within -them, that it resembled a second nature, we find Irish monks creating -new foundations on the Continent, especially in Germany. One of the -most noteworthy of these was a monk from the present Donegal, Muiredach -mac Robertaigh, who assumed the Latin name of Marianus Scotus, or -Marian the Irishman. In 1076 he had succeeded in establishing an Irish -monastery at Ratisbon, or, as the Germans call it, Regensburg, the fame -of which rapidly spread, and attracted to it many of his countrymen -from Ulster, so many, that the parent monastery failed to accommodate -them; and a branch house, that of St. Jacob, was completed in 1111. -From these points Irish monks penetrated in all directions. Frederick -Barbarossa, in 1189, on his way from the Crusades, founded even at -Skribentium, in what is now Bulgaria, a monastery with an Irish abbot. -About the same time the Irish abbots of Ratisbon are found writing to -King Wratislaw of Bohemia to facilitate the passage of their emissaries -into Poland. Under the influence of these two Irish houses, St. James -of Ratisbon and St. Jacob, quite a number of other Irish monasteries -were founded, that of Wurzburg in 1134, Nürnberg in 1140, Constanz in -1142, St. George in Vienna in 1155, Eichstädt in 1183, St. Maria in -Vienna in 1200. - -These Irish monks who, in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth -centuries left the north of Ireland and thus planted themselves in -Germany, were, says Zimmer, worthy successors of those apostles and -scholars who laboured from the seventh to the tenth century in France, -Switzerland, and Burgundy, "full of religious zeal, piety, sobriety, -and a genuine love of earning."[8] A chronicle of the monastery of -Ratisbon, written in 1185, states that the greater part of all the -existing documents belonging to the different Irish monasteries which -sprang from it had been written by Marianus Scotus himself. A specimen, -writes Zimmer, of his beautiful script and the remarkable rapidity of -his work may be seen at the Court Library of Vienna, where is preserved -a copy of St. Paul's Epistles in 160 sheets, written by him in 1079, -between March 23rd and May 17th. Very many of the monks--Malachias, -Patricius, Maclan, Finnian, and others--who came to these monasteries -from Ireland brought books with them which they presented to the German -monasteries. The century which succeeded the Battle of Clontarf was -the most flourishing period of the Irish monks in Germany. In the -thirteenth century their influence visibly declines. Once the English -had commenced the conquest of Ireland the monasteries ceased to be -recruited by men of sanctity and learning, but were resorted to by men -who sought rather material comfort and a life of worldly freedom.[9] -The result was that towards the end of the thirteenth and the beginning -of the fourteenth century most of the Irish establishments in Germany -came to an end, being either made over to Germans, like of those of -Vienna and Würzburg, or else altogether losing their monastic character -like that of Nuremberg. - -As for the parent monastery, that of St. James of Ratisbon, its fate -was most extraordinary, and deserves to be told at greater length. It -had, of course, always been from its foundation inhabited by Irish -monks alone, and was known as the Monasterium Scotorum, or Monastery -of the Irishmen. But when in process of time the word Scotus became -ambiguous, or, rather, had come to be almost exclusively applied to -what we now call Scotchmen,[10] the Scotch prudently took advantage of -it, and claimed that they, and not the Irish, were the real founders -of Ratisbon and its kindred institutions, and that the designation -_monasterium Scotorum_ proved it, but that the Irish had gradually and -unlawfully intruded themselves into all these institutions which did -not belong to them. Accordingly it came to pass by the very irony of -fate--analogous to that which made English writers of the last century -claim Irish books and Irish script as Anglo-Saxon--that the great -parent monastery of St. James of Ratisbon was actually given up to the -Scotch by Leo X. in 1515, and all the unfortunate Irish monks there -living were driven out! The Scotch, however, do not seem to have made -much of their new abode, for though the monastery contained some able -men during the first century of its occupation by them-- - - "It exercised," says Zimmer, "no influence worth mentioning upon the - general cultivation of the German people of that region, and may - be considered but a small contributor towards mediæval culture in - general, for the only share the Scotch monks can really claim in a - monument like that of the Church of St. James of Ratisbon, is the fact - of their having collected the gold for its erection from the pockets - of the Germans. In comparison with these how noble appear to us those - apostles from Ireland, of whom we find so many traces in different - parts of the kingdom, of the monks from the beginning of the seventh - to the end of the tenth century"! - -This monastery was finally secularised in 1860. - -[1] Killaloe, Inniscaltra, and Tomgraney. - -[2] On this episode Moore wrote his melody, "Rich and rare were the gems -she wore." An Irish poet contemporaneous with this event celebrated it -less poetically-- - - "O Thoraigh co Clíodna cais - Is fail óir aice re a h-ais - I ré Bhriain taoibh-ghil nár thim - Do thimchil aoin-bhen Eirinn." - -[3] Compare the first verse in _Deibhidh_ metre-- - - "Midhe Maigen Chlainne Cuind, - Cáin-fhorod Clainne Neill Neart-luind, - _Cride_ [Cain] Banba Bricce, - _Mide_ Magh na Mór-chipe." - -_I.e._, "Meath, the place of the children of Conn, beautiful house of -the children of Niall, strength-renowned. The heart of celebrated Erin, -Meath, the place of the great battalions." - -[4] O'Curry's "Manners and Customs," vol. ii, p. 156. - -[5] There are a great number of other poets of whom only one or -two poems survive, and others are mentioned as great poets by the -annalists, of whom not a line has come down to us. - -[6] This piece has been published at full length in Petrie's "History -and Antiquities of Tara." - -[7] There are two different etymologies of the name in a poem on the -river Shannon of several hundred verses, made by a native of the county -Roscommon in the eventful year 1798. There is also a different version -of the origin of the river in a folk tale which I recovered this year -from a native of the same county. - -[8] "Sie waren noch würdige Epigonen jener Glaubensboten und Gelehrten -des 7-10 Jahrhunderts, die wir im Frankreich kennen lernten; voll -Glaubenseifer, Frömmigkeit, Enthaltsamkeit und Sinn für Studien" -("Preussisches Jahrbuch," January, 1887). - -[9] "Propter abundantiam et propter liberam voluntatem vivendi," quotes -Zimmer. - -[10] F. F. Warren, quoted by Miss Stokes in her "Six Months in the -Apennines," gives a list of twenty-nine Irish monasteries in France, -and eighteen in Germany and Switzerland, with many more in the -Netherlands and in Italy. Numberless others founded by the Irish passed -into foreign hands. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIV - -SUDDEN ARREST OF IRISH DEVELOPMENT - - -The semi-usurpation of Brian Boru, which broke through the old -prescriptional usage (according to which the High-kings of Ireland had, -for the preceding five hundred years, been elected only from amongst -the northern or southern Ui Neill, that is, from the descendants of -Niall of the Nine Hostages), produced no evil effects, but much good -so long as Brian himself lived; yet his action was destined to have -the worst possible influence upon the future of Ireland, an evil -influence comparable only to that caused by the desertion of Tara -four centuries and a half before. The High-kingship being thus thrown -open, as it were, to any Irish chief sufficiently powerful to wrest -it from the others, became an object of constant dispute and warfare, -the O'Neills kings of Ulster, the O'Conors of Connacht, the O'Briens -of Munster, and the princes of Leinster, all contended for it, so that -from the death of Malachy, Brian Boru's successor, there was scarcely a -single High-king who was not, as the Irish annalists call it, "a king -with opposition."[1] Hence despite the immediate revival of art and -literature which followed the defeat of the Northmen, the country was -in many ways politically weakened, the inherent defects of the clan -system accentuated, and the land, already much exhausted by the Danish -wars,[2] was left open to the invasion of the Normans. - -It was in May, 1169, that the first force of these new invaders landed, -and, aided by the incompetence of a particularly feeble High-king, -they had so thoroughly established themselves in Ireland by the close -of the century, that they succeeded in putting an end to the Irish -High-kingship, under which Ireland had subsisted for over a thousand -years. Then began that permanent war--very different, indeed, from what -the Irish tribes waged among themselves--which, almost from its very -commencement, _thoroughly arrested Irish development, and disintegrated -Irish life_. - -It is not too much to say that for three centuries after the Norman -Conquest Ireland produced nothing in art, literature, or scholarship, -even faintly comparable to what she had achieved before. With the -Normans came collapse; - - "Red ruin and the breaking up of laws," - -and all the horrors of chronic and remorseless warfare. - -We must now examine the history of Irish art, as displayed in -metal-work, buildings, and illuminated manuscripts. - -That peculiar class of design which Irish artists developed so -successfully in "the countless hosts of the illuminated books of -the men of Erin," is not really of Irish origin at all. It is not -even Celtic. The late researches of M. Solomon Reinach and others -into the genuine remains of the Celts of Gaul and the Continent have -discovered in their ornamentation scarcely a trace at all of the -so-called Irish patterns. They are in truth not Irish, but Eastern. -They seem to have started from Byzantium, spread over Dalmatia and -North Italy, and finally found their way into Ireland. The early -forms of pre-Christian Irish art show no trace whatsoever of those -peculiar interlaced patterns and convoluted figures which are usually -associated with the name of Celtic design. The engraved patterns on -the tumulus of New Grange, dating from probably about 800[3] years -before the Christian era, and the similar scribings upon sepulchral -chambers at Louchcrew, Telltown, and other places, do not show a -particle of interlaced work, but consist for the most part of circles -with rays, arrangements of concentric circles, patterns of double and -triple spirals, and lozenges. Indeed, it is the spiral, in countless -forms and applications, which seems to have been really indigenous to -the earliest inhabitants of Ireland, and with it the interlaced and -convoluted figures of non-Irish post-Christian art became blended, -gradually driving it out. These in their turn perished, degraded and -abased by admixture with Gothic forms introduced by the Normans, whose -invasion soon put an end to the development of all art in Ireland save -that of architecture. - -The so-called Celtic design of Ireland, with its interlaced bands, -its convolutions, its knots, its triquetras, is really a survival of -what once, starting from the East, spread over a large portion of -western and northern Europe, but which soon died out there overwhelmed -by Gothic and other influences; whilst in Ireland, where it was -applied with far truer artistic feeling and far finer elaboration -than elsewhere, it has been preserved in countless works of stone, -bronze, and parchment. A scrutiny of early Scandinavian art and of -the architectural styles of Italy known as the Latino-Barbaro and -Italo-Bizantino, with portions of the art of other countries, have -revealed traces of the so-called Celtic designs in places and under -circumstances which prove that they cannot be--as used to be generally -supposed--the work of exiled Irishmen. Nevertheless, there is a certain -individuality in the working out of these designs when brought to -perfection by Irish hands, which sufficiently distinguishes Irish art -from that of other countries. For in Ireland the interlaced decoration -was grafted on to the more archaic and pre-Christian style. - - "The peculiar spirals found on these bronzes of that [pre-Christian] - time," says Miss Stokes,[4] "the trumpet pattern, the even more - archaic single-line spirals, zigzags, lozenges, circles, dots, are all - woven in with interlaced designs, with marvellous skill and sense of - beauty and charm of varied surface, added to which is an unsurpassed - feeling for colour where the style admits of colour, as in enamels and - illumination. Besides all this, the interlacings, taken by themselves, - gradually undergo a change in character under the hand of an Irish - artist. They become more inextricable, more involved, more infinitely - varied in their twistings and knottings, and more exquisitely precise - and delicate in execution than they are ever seen to be on continental - work, so far as my experience goes." - -The original pre-Christian art of the Irish Celts, that known to -Cuchulain and Conor mac Nessa and the heroes of the Red Branch, -survives only upon a few bronzes and upon the stones of a few -sepulchral mounds. The tracings upon the sepulchral mounds are -rude--though we find in some instances evidences of designs -deliberately worked out to cover a given surface--and they mostly -consist of recognisable symbols of Sun and Fire worship. The bronze -sword-sheaths of Lisnacroghera, which are magnificent specimens of -early Irish art, are a development of these patterns, but bear no trace -of that interlaced work which was introduced with Christianity. There -are several other bronze ornaments, evidently pre-Christian, which -exhibit the same kind of designs, notably what appear to be two horns -of a radiated crown exquisitely decorated by spiral lines in relief, -and which, said Mr. Kemble, "for beauty of design and execution may -challenge comparison with any specimen of cast bronze-work that it has -ever been my fortune to see." Miss Stokes, however, has shown that -these pieces were not cast, but repoussé, and consequently, she writes-- - - "If not the finest pieces of casting ever seen, yet as specimens of - design and workmanship they are perhaps unsurpassed. The surface is - here overspread with no vague lawlessness, but the ornament is treated - with fine reserve, and the design carried out with the precision and - delicacy of a master's touch. The ornament on the cone flows round and - upwards in lines gradual and harmonious as the curves in ocean surf, - meeting and parting only to meet again in lovelier forms of flowing - motion. In the centre of the circular plate below--just at the point - or hollow whence all these lines flow round and upwards, at the very - heart, as it might seem, of the whole work--a crimson drop of clear - enamel may be seen." - -These beautiful fragments are almost certainly pre-Christian, and may -even have been worn by Conairé the Great or Conor mac Nessa. They -represent a variety of design which stands midway between the stone -engravings and the art of the early Christians. It is a remarkable -fact, amply proven and universally acknowledged, that the bronze-work -of the pre-Christian Irish was never surpassed by their post-Christian -metal-work. Indeed, while the pagan Irish are proved to have attained -great skill in the art of design, in working of metals, and especially -in the art of enamelling by various processes, the specimens of -the earliest Christian metal-work, such as St. Patrick's bell, are -exceedingly rude and barbarous--possibly because the skilled pagan -workmen did not turn their hands to such business, and the Christian -converts had themselves to do the best they could. - -Many of the monks, however, appear to have given themselves up to -metal-work, and reached a very high pitch of excellence in it, as -may be seen at a glance by the inspection of such master works as the -two-handed Ardagh chalice, the cross of Cong, and numerous shrines, -cúmhdachs [coodachs], or book-cases, and croziers. The ornamental -designs upon the later Christian metal-work reached their highest -perfection in the tenth and eleventh centuries, and the work of this -period exhibits about forty different varieties of design, in which -animal forms are only sparingly used, and in which there is no trace -of foliate pattern. Indeed, these are not found in Irish metal-work -before the period of decadence in the thirteenth century. Although the -best specimens of Christian art in metal-work belong to the tenth and -eleventh centuries, we are not to assume from this that the metal-work -of the earlier Christian artists did not keep pace with the work of -the early Christian scribes, who produced such magnificent specimens -of penmanship and colour in the seventh and eighth centuries. They may -have done so, but no relics of their work are left. According to Dr. -Petrie, few, if any, of the more distinguished churches of Ireland were -destitute of beautiful metal-work in the shape of costly shrines at the -coming of the Norseman, as the frequent allusions in the Irish annals -show; but scarcely one of these escaped their destructive raids, and -hence the finest surviving specimens are of a much later date than the -finest surviving manuscripts,[5] which were only destroyed whenever met -with, but were not, like the costly metal-work, an object of eager and -unremitting pursuit. - -In sculpture the Irish never produced anything finer than their tall, -shapely, richly but not over-richly ornamented Celtic crosses. The -Ogam-inscribed stones, of which over a couple of hundred remain, -are perfectly plain and undecorative. Some of the later inscribed -tombstones (of which some two hundred and fifty remain), contain, it is -true, fine chisel-work, but the numerous high Celtic crosses, covered -many of them with elaborate sculpture in relief, with undercutting, -and ornamented with the divergent and interlaced spiral pattern, show -the finest artistic instinct. Most of these beautiful works of art are -later than the year 900, but hardly one is posterior to the Norman -invasion, which soon put a stop to such artistic luxuries. - -The Irish were not a nation of builders. Most of the early Irish -houses, even at Tara, were, as we have seen, of wood. The ordinary -dwelling-house was either a cylindrical hut of wicker-work with a -cup-shaped roof, plastered with clay and thatched with reeds, or else -a quadrilateral house built of logs or of clay. The so-called city of -Royal Tara was, in fact, a vast enclosure, containing quite a number -of different raths, and houses inside the raths. The buildings seem to -have been constructed of the timbers of lofty trees planted side by -side, probably carved into fantastic shapes upon the outside, while the -inside walls were closely interwoven with slender rods, over which a -putty or plaster of loam was smoothly spread, which, when even and dry, -was painted in bright colours, chiefly red, yellow, and blue. The roofs -were formed of smooth joists and cross-beams, and probably thatched -with rods and rushes, much in the same manner as the houses of the -peasantry to-day. The floors appear to have been of earth, carefully -hardened and beaten down, and then covered with a coat of some kind -of hard and shiny mortar. No doubt some very fine barbaric effects -were realised in these buildings, some of which, as is evidenced by -the description of Cormac's Teach Midhchuarta, must have been immense. -There were as many as seven dúns, or raths, round Tara, each containing -within it many houses, and each surrounded by a mound, or vallum, -planted with a stockade like a Maori pah.[6] The finest house of -all, painted in the gayest colours, planted in the sunniest spot, and -provided overhead with a balcony, was reserved for the ladies of the -place, and was called the grianán [greeanawn], or sunny house. - -Stone, however, was used in places, at a very early date, long before -the first century, as may be seen from the stone forts of western -and south-western Ireland, huge structures of which one of the best -known is Dún-Angus, in the Isle of Arran, but there was no knowledge -of mortar. Masonry was also used occasionally by the early monks -in constructing their little clocháns, or beehive cells, and their -oratories, with rounded roofs, built without a vestige of an arch, the -whole surrounded by an uncemented stone wall, or cashel. - -The Irish do not seem to have done much in stone-work until the Danish -invasions forced them to construct the round towers in which to take -shelter when the enemy was upon them, saving thus their jewels, books, -and shrines. The Danes, who made rapid marches across the country, -could not burn these towers nor throw them down, nor could they spend -the time necessary to reduce them by famine, lest the country should -be roused behind them, and their retreat to their ships cut off. The -idea and form of the round tower the Irish almost certainly derived -from the East. In Lord Dunraven's "Notes on Irish Architecture" the -path of these buildings from Ravenna across Europe and into Ireland is -distinctly shown; but while only about a score of examples survive in -the rest of Europe, Ireland alone possesses a hundred and eighteen of -these curious structures. There are three well-marked styles of towers. -The doors and windows of the earlier ones are primitive and horizontal, -but in the later ones the rude entablature of the earlier towers has -given way to the decorated Romanesque arch, and the beauty and number -of the arched windows is greatly increased. - -The transition from the horizontal to the round-arched style is shown -in the Church of Iniscaltra, erected two years after the battle -of Clontarf, and many years before the true Romanesque appeared -in England. From that time till the coming of the Normans, Irish -ecclesiastical architecture--the only kind practised, for the Irish did -not live in or build castles--progressed enormously, and several fine -specimens belonging to the twelfth century still survive. - - "The remains," writes Miss Stokes, "of a great number of monuments - belonging to the period between the fifth and twelfth centuries - of the Christian era, have survived untouched by the hand either - of the restorer or of the destroyer, and in them, when arranged - in consecutive series, we can trace the development from an early - and rude beginning to a very beautiful result, and watch the - dovetailing, as it were, of one style into another, till an Irish - form of Romanesque architecture grew into perfection. The form of the - Irish Church points to an original type which has almost disappeared - elsewhere--that of the Shrine or Ark, not of the Basilica." - -The Norman invasion, however, put a complete stop to the natural -development of Irish Romanesque, and changed the building of churches -into that of castles, in which the Irish only copied, so far as they -built at all, the pattern of the invader. - -The art, however, in which the Irish earliest excelled, and in which -they have really no rivals in Europe, was in that of writing and -illuminating manuscripts. The most recent authority on the subject, -Johan Adolf Brunn in his "Inquiry into the Art of Illuminated MSS. of -the Middle Ages," acknowledges that the fame of the Celtic school, -"dating from the darker centuries of the Middle Ages, excels that of -any of its rivals." Westwood, the great British authority, declares -that were it not for Irishmen these islands would contain no primitive -works of art worth mentioning, and asserts that the Book of Kells -is "unquestionably the most elaborately executed manuscript of so -early a date, now in existence." Even Giraldus Cambrensis, who came -in with the early Normans, was struck dumb with admiration of the -exquisite book shown him at Kildare, which of all the miracles with -which Kildare was credited was to him the greatest. Here, he writes, -"you may see the visage of majesty divinely impressed, on one side -the mystic forms of the evangelists having now six, now four, now two -wings, on one side the eagle, on another the calf, on one side the face -of a man, on the other of a lion, and an almost infinite quantity of -other figures.... A careless glance at the whole," he goes on to say, -"reveals no particular excellence, but if, looking closer at it, the -spectator examined the work in detail he would see how extraordinarily -subtle and delicate were the knots and lines, how bright and fresh the -colours remained, how interlaced and bound together was the whole, so -that we would feel inclined to believe that it could hardly be a human -composition but the works of angels. In fact," writes Cambrensis, "the -oftener and closer I inspect it,[7] the more certain I am to be struck -with something new, with something ever more and more wonderful." -Indeed, the story ran, that such figures and such colouring were due -to no mere mortal invention, but that an angel had appeared to the -scribe in his sleep and taught him how to make these wondrous drawings, -"and thus," adds Cambrensis, "through the revelation of the angel, -the prayer of Brigit, and the imitation of the scribe, that book was -written." - -Now Giraldus Cambrensis, as Johan Adolf Brunn observes, "knew to -perfection the master-achievements of the non-Celtic schools of art of -contemporary date," and "although referring to a particular work of -especial merit," says Brunn, "the testimony of this mediæval writer may -well be placed at the head of an inquiry into the art in general of -the Celtic illuminated manuscripts, emphasising as it does the salient -characteristics of the style followed by this distinguished school -of illumination, its minute and delicate drawing, its brilliancy of -colouring, and, above all, that amazing amount of devoted and patient -labour, which underlies its intricate composition, and creates the -despair of any one who tries to copy them." - -Between six and seven centuries later Westwood expresses himself in -terms not unlike those of Cambrensis, of the now scanty remains of -ancient Irish illumination-- - - "Especially deserving of notice," he writes, "is the extreme delicacy - and wonderful precision, united with an extraordinary minuteness of - detail with which many of these ancient manuscripts were ornamented. - I have examined with a magnifying glass the pages of the Gospel of - Lindisfarne, and the Book of Kells, for hours together, without ever - detecting a false line or an irregular interlacement; and when it is - considered that many of these details consist of spiral lines, and are - so minute as to be impossible to have been executed without a pair of - compasses, it really seems a problem not only with what eyes but also - with what instruments they could have been executed.... I counted in - a small space, measuring scarcely three quarters of an inch by less - than half an inch in width, in the Book of Armagh, not fewer than one - hundred and fifty-eight interlacements of a slender ribbon pattern - formed in white lines edged with black ones upon a black ground."[8] - -The Book of Armagh, as we have seen, was written in 807, or perhaps, as -the "Four Masters" antedate at this period, in 812, while the Book of -Kells is ascribed, according to the best judges, to the close of the -seventh century. - -The seventh and eight centuries, before the island was disturbed by -the Danes, were the most flourishing period of the Irish illuminator -and scribe. But their schools continued to turn out very fine work as -late as the twelfth century, and Gilbert, in his "Facsimiles of the -National Manuscripts of Ireland," states that there are perhaps no -finer specimens of minute old writing extant than those in the margins -and interlineations of a copy of the Gospels written by Maelbrigte Ua -Maelruanaigh [Mulroony], in Armagh, in 1138, that is, seventeen years -after that city had for the last time been burnt and plundered by the -Danes. - -Like all the other arts of civilised life, that of the illuminator and -decorative scribe was brought to a standstill by the Norman warriors, -nor do the Irish appear after this period to have produced a single -page worth the reproduction of the artistic palæographer. The reason -of this, no doubt, was that the Irish artist in former days could--no -matter how septs fell out or warring tribes harried one another--count -upon the sympathy of his fellow countrymen even when they were hostile. -Under the new conditions caused by the Norman settlements in each of -the four provinces, he could count on nothing, not even on his own -life. All confidence was shaken, all peace of mind was gone, the very -name of so-called government produced a universal terror, and Ireland -became, to use a graphic expression of the Four Masters, a "trembling -sod." "No words," writes Mrs. Sophie Bryant, with perfect truth, "could -describe that arrest of development so eloquently or so lucidly as the -facts of Irish art-history." "Since then" [_i.e._, since the Norman -invasion], writes Miss Stokes, one of the highest living authorities -upon this subject, "the native character of Ireland has best found -expression in her music. No work of purely Celtic art, whether in -illumination of the sacred writings, or in gold, or bronze, or stone, -was wrought by Irish hands after that century and as we shall now see -this decay of Irish art is reflected in the falling off" of Irish -literature, which continued languishing until the great revival which -took place about the year 1600. - -[1] After Malachy reigned Donough O'Brien, son of Brian Boru; after him -Diarmuid of Leinster, of the race of Cáthaoir Mór; after him two other -O'Briens, then an O'Lochlainn king of Ulster, then O'Conor of Connacht, -then another O'Lochlainn, and then another O'Conor, King Roderick, in -whose time the Normans landed. - -[2] Although the backbone of the Danish power was broken at Clontarf, -desultory warfare with them did not cease for long after. Even so late -as 1021 they were able to penetrate into the city of Armagh for the -seventeenth time during two hundred years, and burnt the whole city to -the ground, with its churches and books. Within two years of the battle -of Clontarf they burned Glendalough and Clonard. - -[3] This is the minimum date assigned them by Mr. George Coffey in his -admirable monograph upon the subject. - -[4] "Six Months in the Apennines," Introductory Letter. - -[5] The earliest surviving book-shrine, that of Molaise's Gospels, was -made between the year 1001 and 1025; the earliest dated crozier is 967; -the earliest bell-shrine may be assigned to 954. The Cross of Cong -dates from about 1123. That the earlier Christian craftsmen must have -made good work, if only it had survived, may be inferred from the fine -silver chalice of Kremsmünster, in Lower Austria, dating from between -the years 757 and 781. - -[6] This was the case with most of those earthen circumvallations, -called in different parts of Ireland _raths_ and _lisses_, and in -Hibernian English _forts_ or _forths_. The houses were inside the -embankment, which was in most cases protected by a wall of stakes -planted round its summit. - -[7] The whole passage is worth transcribing in the original. "Inter -numerosa Kildariæ miracula nihil mihi miraculosius occurrit quam liber -ille mirandus, tempore Virginis [he means St. Brigit] ut aiunt, angelo -dictante, consumptus. Hic Majestatis vultum videas divinitus impressum, -hinc mysticas Evangelistarum formas, nunc senas, nunc quaternas, nunc -binas alas habentes: hinc aquilam, inde vitulum, hinc hominis faciem, -inde leonis, aliasque figuras fere infinitas. Quas si superficialiter -et usuali more minus acute conspexeris, litura potius videbitur quam -ligatura, nec ullam prorsus attendes subtilitatem. Sin autem ad -perspicacius intuendum oculorum aciem invitaveris, et longe penitius ad -artis arcana et transpenetraveris, tam delicatas et subtiles tam arctas -et artitas, tam nodosas et vinculatim colligatas, tam que recentibus -adhuc coloribus illustratas, notare poteris intricaturas, ut veré hæc -omnia potius angelica quam humana diligentia jam asseveraveris esse -composita. Hæc equidem quanto frequentius et diligentius intueor semper -quasi novis obstupeo semper magis ac magis admiranda conspicio." Master -of the Rolls series, vol. v., p. 123. - -[8] "The Miniatures and Ornaments of Anglo-Saxon and Irish MSS." - - - - -CHAPTER XXXV - -FOUR CENTURIES OF DECAY - - -For four centuries after the Anglo-Norman, or more properly the -Cambro-Norman invasion, the literature of Ireland seems to have -been chiefly confined to the schools of the bards, and the bards -themselves seem to have continued on the rather cut-and-dry lines -of tribal genealogy, religious meditations, personal eulogium, clan -history, and elegies for the dead. There reigns during this period a -lack of imagination and of initiative in literature; no new ground is -broken, no fresh paths entered on, no new saga-stuff unearthed, no -new metres discovered. There is great technical skill exhibited, but -little robust originality; great cleverness of execution, but little -boldness of conception. How closely the bards ran in the groove of -their predecessors is evident from the number of poems of doubtful -authorship, ascribed by some authorities to bards of the pre-Norman -or even Danish period, and by others to poets of the thirteenth, -fourteenth, or even fifteenth centuries, the work of the later period -being so very often both in style and language scarcely distinguishable -from the earlier which it imitates. - -Another characteristic of these four centuries is the number of -hereditary bards of the same name and family which we find generation -after generation, each one imitating his predecessor, and producing -his inauguration odes, his eulogies, and his elegies, for each -succeeding race of chiefs and patrons. - -This period is the post-epic, post-saga period. Probably not one of -the Red Branch stories was even materially altered during it. Stories -of the Fenian cycle, however, continued to be propagated and improved -upon, and no doubt many new ones were invented. But there is little or -no trace of the composition of fresh miscellaneous saga, and the only -poetry that seems to have flourished beside the classic metres of the -bards is the so-called "Ossianic," a good deal of which may, perhaps, -have assumed something of its present form during this period. - -Some attempt there was at the careful keeping of annals, but scarcely -any at writing regular history, though the fifteenth century produced -McCraith's "Exploits of Torlough," to be noticed further on. We shall -now briefly glance at this period age by age. - -The thirteenth century, that succeeding the coming of the Normans, is -far more barren in literature than the one which preceded them. Only -five or six poets are mentioned as belonging to it, and their surviving -poems amount to only a few hundred lines, with the exception of those -of the great religious bard Donogha Mór O'Daly, who died in 1244 "a -poet," record the "Four Masters," "who never was and never shall be -surpassed." All his poems extant are of a religious character. He was -buried in the abbey of Boyle, in the county of Roscommon, in which -county I have heard, up to a few years ago, verses ascribed to him -repeated by more than one old peasant. It is usually believed that -he was a cleric and abbot of the beautiful monastery of Boyle, but -there is no evidence for this, and he may have been in fact a layman. -Thirty-one poems of his, containing in all some four thousand two -hundred lines, have been preserved, and for their great smoothness -have earned for their author the not very happy title of the Ovid of -Ireland. Here is a specimen of one of his shorter pieces, written on -his unexpectedly finding himself unable to shed a tear after his -arriving at Loch Derg on a pilgrimage: - - "Alas, for my journey to Loch Derg, O King of the churches and the - bells; 'I have come' to weep thy bruises and thy wound, and yet from - my eye there cometh not a tear.[1] - - "With an eye that moistens not its pupil, after doing every evil, no - matter how great, with a heart that seeketh only (its own) peace, - alas! O king, what shall I do? - - "Without sorrowfulness of heart, without softening, without - contrition, or weeping for my faults,--Patrick head of the clergy, he - never thought that he could gain God in this way. - - "The one son of Calphurn, since we are speaking of him, 'alas! O - Virgin, sad my state!' he was never seen whilst alive without the - trace of tears in his eye. - - "In (this) hard, narrow stone-walled (cell), after all the evil I have - done, all the pride I have felt. Alas! my pity! that I find no tear, - and I buried alive in the grave. - - "O one-Son, by whom all were created, and who didst not shun the death - of the three thorns, with a heart than which stone is not more hard, - 'tis pity my journey to Loch Derg." - -Here is another specimen, a good deal of which I once heard from a poor -beggarman in the County Mayo, but it is also preserved in numerous -manuscripts: - - "My son, remember what I _say_, - That on the _Day_ of Judgment's shock, - When men go stumbling down the _Mount_, - The sheep may _count_ thee of their flock.[2] - - And narrow though thou find the path - To Heaven's high rath, and hard to gain, - I warn thee shun yon broad white road - That leads to the abode of pain. - - For us is many a snare designed, - To fill our mind with doubts and fears. - Far from the land where lurks no sin, - We dwell within our Vale of Tears. - - Not on the world thy love bestow, - Passing as flowers that blow and die; - Follow not thou the specious track - That turns the back on God most high. - - But oh! let faith, let hope, let love, - Soar far above this cold world's way, - Patience, humility, and awe-- - Make them thy law from day to day. - - And love thy neighbour as thyself, - (Not for his pelf thy love should be), - But a greater love than every love - Give God above who loveth thee. - - * * * * * - - The seven shafts wherewith the Unjust - Shoots hard to thrust us from our home, - Canst thou avoid their fiery path, - Dread not the wrath that is to come. - - Shun sloth, shun greed, shun sensual fires, - (Eager desires of men enslaved) - Anger and pride and hatred shun, - Till heaven be won, till man be saved. - - To Him, our King, to Mary's son - Who did not shun the evil death, - Since He our hope is, He alone, - Commit thy body, soul, and breath. - - Since Hell each man pursues each day, - Cleric and lay, till life be done, - Be not deceived as others may, - Remember what I say, my son."[3] - -The fourteenth century possesses exactly the same characteristics as -the thirteenth, only the poets are more numerous. O'Reilly mentions -over a score of them whose verses amount to nearly seven thousand -lines. Of these the best known is probably John Mór O'Dúgan of whom -about 2,600 lines survive--important rather for the information they -convey than for their poetry. His greatest, or at least his most -valuable piece, is about the tribes and territories of the various -districts in Meath, Ulster, and Connacht, on the arrival of the -Normans, and the names of the chiefs who ruled them.[4] In this poem -he devotes 152 lines to Meath, 354 to Ulster, 328 to Connacht, and -only 56 to Leinster, death having apparently carried him off (in the -year 1372) before he had finished his researches into the tribes -and territories of that district. But luckily for us his younger -contemporary--Gilla-na-naomh O'Huidhrin [Heerin]--took it up and -completed it,[5] so that the two poems, usually copied together, form -a single piece of 1,660 lines in _deibhidh_ [d'yĕvee] metre, which has -thrown more light upon names and territories than perhaps any other -of the same extent. It is, despite the difficult and recondite verse, -a work mainly of research and not of poetry. The same may be said of -nearly all O'Dugan's poems, another of which called the "Forus Focal," -is really a vocabulary in verse of obsolete words, which though of -similar orthography have different or even contrary meanings. It was -in this century the great miscellaneous collection called the Book of -Ballymote was compiled. - -The fifteenth century differs very little in character from the -preceding one. We find about the same number of poets with about the -same amount of verses--between six and seven thousand lines, according -to O'Reilly--still surviving, or as O'Reilly underrates the number, -probably about ten thousand lines. The poets were now beginning to feel -the rude weight of the prosaic Saxon, and Fergal O'Daly chief poet of -Corcamroe, Maurice O'Daly a poet of Breffhy, Dermot O'Daly of Meath, -Hugh Óg Mac Curtin, and Dubhthach [Duffach] son of Eochaidh [Yohee] -"the learned," with several more, are mentioned as having been cruelly -plundered and oppressed by Lord Furnival and the English. It was in -this century that those most valuable annals usually called the Annals -of Ulster were compiled from ancient books now lost, by Cathal Maguire -who was born in 1438. The great collection called the Book of Lecan was -copied at the beginning of this century, and another most important -work the "Caithréim, or warlike exploits of Turlough O'Brien," was -written about the year 1459 by John Mac Craith, chief historian of -North Munster. This though composed in a far more exaggerated and -inflated style than even the "War of the Gael with the Gaill," which -it resembles, yet gives the most accurate account we have of the -struggles of the Irish against the English in Munster from the landing -of Henry II. till the death of Lord de Clare in 1318. It was at the -very beginning of this century the hagiographical collection called the -Leabhar Breac was made. - -The sixteenth century cannot properly be said to mark a transition -period in Irish literature, as it does in the literature of so many -other European countries. It has, indeed, left far more numerous -documents behind it than the preceding one, but this is mainly due to -the fact that less time has elapsed during which they could be lost. -Their style and general contents differ little, until the very close -of the century, from those of their predecessors. O'Reilly chronicles -the names of about forty poets whose surviving pieces amount to over -ten thousand lines. But so many MSS. which were in O'Reilly's time -in private hands, or which, like the Stowe MSS., were unapproachable -by students, have since been deposited in public libraries or become -otherwise accessible, that it would, I think, be safe to add at least -half as much again to O'Reilly's computation. I have even in my own -possession poems by nearly a dozen writers belonging to the sixteenth -and seventeenth centuries whose names are not mentioned at all by -O'Reilly; and the O'Conor Don has shown me a manuscript copied at -Ostend, in Belgium, in 1631, for one Captain Alexander Mac Donnell, -from which O'Curry transcribed a thousand pages of poems "of which with -a very few exceptions," he writes, "no copies are known to me elsewhere -in Ireland." A considerable number of these poems, nearly all of them -unknown to O'Reilly, were composed in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and -sixteenth centuries, so that this one manuscript alone would largely -swell O'Reilly's estimate for this period. - -Enormous quantities of books however, belonging to the sixteenth -and seventeenth centuries, have been lost, and are still being lost -every day. It is an accident that Friar O'Gara's[6] and the O'Conor -Don's collection--both compiled abroad--have escaped. If, during the -middle of the sixteenth century, a collector of poetry had gone round -transcribing the classical poems of that age, he would have found large -collections preserved in the houses of almost every scion of the old -Gaelic nobility, with scarcely an exception. On the break-up of the -houses of the Irish chiefs the archives of their families and their -manuscript libraries were lost or carried abroad. An excellent example -of what may be called tribal poetry, such as every great Gaelic house -possessed, is contained in a manuscript in Trinity College, which a -Fellow of the last century, called O'Sullivan, luckily got transcribed -for himself, and which is now in the college library.[7] The collection -thus made, from about 1570 to 1615, goes under the title of the "Book -of the O'Byrnes," and contains sixty or seventy poems made by their -own family bards and by several of the leading bards of Ireland, for -the various members of the O'Byrnes of Ranelagh near Dublin, and of -the O'Byrnes of Wicklow, who for three generations maintained their -struggle with the English, only succumbing in the beginning of the -seventeenth century. - -Other family records of this nature, which were once possessed in every -county by the bardic families and by the chiefs, have perished by the -score. A glance at a few typical poems belonging to the O'Byrnes will -give a good idea of the functions of the sixteenth-century bards, and -the nature of their poems. They are composed on all kinds of subjects -connected with the wars, genealogy, and history of the tribe and its -chiefs. Many are eulogiums, some warnings, some political poems, some -elegies. Here are two or three specimens; the first a poem of fifty-six -lines, by Angus O'Daly, on the head of one of the chiefs of the clan -spiked on the battlements of Dublin. - - "O body which I see without a head, - It is the sight of thee which has withered up my strength, - Divided and impaled in Ath-cliath [Dublin], - The learned of Banba [Ireland] will feel its loss.[8] - - Who will relieve the wants of the poor? - Who will bestow cattle on the learned? - O body, since thou art without a head - It is not life which we care to choose after thee." - -Another poem, by John O'Hĭginn asks who[9] will buy nine verses -from him. By his hand he swears, though high the fame of the men of -Leinster, they are all cowed now. The O'Tooles of the once heavy gifts -have consented to the peace of the English, and till they revoke it -they will not give one white groat for twenty-marks-worth of a poem. -The Cavanaghs are as bad, the Fitzgeralds and the O'Mores, too, are -afraid of the foreigners to buy a poem. One man alone is not obedient -to foreign English custom, Aodh [O'Byrne] son of John, the true -sweetheart of the bardic schools of the race of the plain of Conn. -Except him, the grandson of Redmond alone, the poet sees not one who -will buy his nine stanzas--or if such exist, he knows them not.[10] - -Another poem of 180 lines by Eochaidh [Yohee] O'Hussey is on the -extreme winsomeness and beauty of a certain lady of the O'Byrnes, Rose -by name, probably the famous wife of Fiach O'Byrne, who, poor thing, -was afterwards captured by the English in 1595 and by them burned alive -in the yard of Dublin Castle. The English statesmen who record this -piece of work in the State Papers, did not in the least understand the -civilisation or customs of Lady Rose, her bards and her clan, and it -is only at the present day that it is possible for the scholar through -the medium of the State Papers on one side and native Irish documents -on the other, to put himself _en rapport_ with both parties; it is -a process both absorbing and painful. "What is troubling the ladies -of the Gael?" asks the poet, "is it want of gold or lack of jewels, -wherefore is the dear troop downcast? Why are the queens of princely -race disquieted? Why rise they up heavy at heart? Why lie they down -discomfited? Why are their spirits troubled? It is because one lady -so excels them all, she is the troubler of the hosts of the men of -Inisfail, the one cause of the sorrow of our ladies. Let me," adds the -poet gallantly, "have the singing of her."[11] - -Another is by Maoilsheachlainn [Malachy in English] O'Coffey, on seeing -one of the O'Byrnes' strongholds, probably Ballinacor, occupied by a -stranger.[12] Another by one of the O'Mulconrys warns Fiach O'Byrne, -that whether he likes to hear it or not, the axe of the English is -raised above his head to strike him down.[13] The poet points to the -Leinster septs who had been exterminated or escaped destruction by -making submission, and how is Fiach to escape, and specially how to -escape treachery? - -Another poem composed by Donough Mac Eochaidh, or Keogh, with high -political intent, is intended to bring about a closer feeling of -friendship between the sons of Fiach O'Byrne and John son of Redmond -O'Byrne, who had been alienated, designedly, as he intimates, by a -lying story propagated by a foreigner, whereas the O'Byrnes of Ranelagh -ever sought to avoid giving offence, and no evil story calculated to -increase enmity should be believed about one by the other.[14] - -Another poet of the Mac Eochaidhs, the household bards of the O'Byrnes, -sings the generosity of Torlagh, son of Fiacha, "their fame is the -wealth of the tribe of Ranelagh, that is the saying of every one who -knows them,[15] the bestowal of their jewels, that is the treasure of -the tribe of Ranelagh, of the numerous incursions." "Small is their -desire to amass treasures, nobler is the thing for which they conceive -a wish; every single man of the blood of Fiach O'Bryne has taken upon -himself to distribute his riches for Fiach!"[16] - -Another poem is a splendid war-song by Angus O'Daly on a victory -of the O'Byrnes over the English. "I rejoice that not one was left -of the remnant of the slaughter but the captive who is in hand in -bondage:"[17] "the blaze of the burning country makes day out of -midnight for them." - -A remarkable poet of the end of this century was another Angus O'Daly, -the Red Bard, or Angus of the Satires, as he was called. He seems to -have been employed by the English statesmen, Lord Mountjoy and Sir -George Carew, for the deliberate purpose of satirising all the Gaelic -families in the kingdom, and those Anglo-Normans who sympathised with -them. Angus travelled the island up and down on this sinister mission. -It was indeed an evil time. The awful massacres of Rathlin and Clanaboy -in Ulster, the hideous treachery of Mullaghmast in Leinster, the -revolting deeds of Bingham in the west, and the unspeakable horrors -that followed on the Geraldines rebellion in the south, had reduced -the Irish nobles to a condition of the direst poverty. This poverty -and the inhospitality which he connected with it--points on which -the Irish were particularly sore--were the mark at which Angus aimed -his arrows. He usually polished off each house or clan in a single -rann or quatrain. His Irish rhymes are peculiarly happy. Here are -some specimens of his satire. He says of Thomas Fitzgerald, Knight of -Glynn, that he looked so grudgingly at him as he ate his supper that -the piece half-chewed stuck in his throat at the very sight of the -other's eyes. Of Limerick he says the only thing he was thankful for -was the bad roads which would prevent him from ever seeing it again. Of -the Fitzmaurices he says that he will neither praise them nor satirise -them, for they are just poor gentlemen--admirable satire, and it cannot -be doubted that they keenly felt the point of it! Often, however, Angus -is only abusive--thus of Maguire of Enniskillen he says that "he is a -badger for roughness and greyness, an ape for stature and ugliness, a -lobster for the sharpness of his two eyes, a fox for the foulness of -his breath,"[18] a verse in which the happiness of the Irish rhyming -carries off the poverty of the sentiment. He harps on the blindness of -the Mac Ternans,[19] the misanthropy of the Mac Gillycuddy, the inborn -evil of the Fitzgibbons,[20] the poverty of the O'Callaghans, the bad -wines of the O'Sullivans, the decrepitude of the O'Reillys, and so on. - -The Red Bard went on with his satires on the men of the four provinces, -with none to say him nay, until he came to Tipperary, where he was -misguided enough to satirise the chief of the O'Meaghers, whose -servant, stung out of all control, forgot that the person of a bard was -sacred, and instantly thrust a knife into his throat, thus putting an -end to him and his satires. Angus, however, even as he died, uttered -one rann in which, for the good of his soul, he revoked all his former -verses: "All the false judgments I have passed upon the men of Munster -I recant them; the meagre servant of the grey Meagher has passed as -much of a false judgment upon me." - -So greatly had the literary production of Ireland passed into the hands -of the bards during the period we are now considering, that it will be -well to study the evolution of the bardic body down to the close of the -sixteenth century, in a separate chapter. - -[1] - - "Truagh mo thuras ar Loch Dearg - A righ na gceall a's na gclog, - Do chaoineadh do chneadh 's do chréacht - 'S nach dtig déar thar mo rosg." - -_See_ "Gaelic Journal," vol. iv. p. 190. - -[2] - - "Ná tréig mo theagasg a mhic - Cidh baogh'lach lá an chirt do chách - Ag sgaoileadh dhóib ó an tsliabh - Rachaidh tu le Dia na ngrás." - -_See_ my "Religious Songs of Connacht," p. 28. - -[3] Literally: "Do not forsake my teaching, my son, and although -dangerous be the Day of Right for all, on their scattering from the -Mount, thou shalt go with God of the graces. - -"The road to heaven of the saints though to thee it seem narrow, -slender, hard, yet shun the road of the house of the pains, many a one -has journeyed to it away from us. - -"Against us was treachery designed, to bring us down from the artificer -of the elements, in banishment from the land of the living in a Valley -of Tears art thou. - -"To the world give not love, is it not transient the blossom of the -branches? do not follow the track of those who are journeying to hell -from God of the Saints. - -"Hope, faith, and love, let thee have in God forever, humility, and -patience without anger, truth without deception in thy walk," etc. - -[4] It begins-- - - "Triallam timchioll na Fódhla, - Gluaisid fir ar furfhógra, - As na fóidibh a bhfuileam - Na Cóigeadha cuartuigheam." - -The whole has been most ably edited by Dr. O'Donovan for the Irish -Archæological Society. - -[5] His poem in continuation begins-- - - "Tuille feasa ar Erinn óigh, - Ni maith seanchaidh nach seanóir, - Seanchas cóir uaim don feadhain - Na slóigh ó'n Boinn báinealaigh." - -"More knowledge on virgin Ireland, not good is an historian unless he -be an elder, proper history from me to the tribe, the hosts from Boyne -of the white cattle." - -[6] Made in the Low Countries by an exiled friar of the County Galway, -a great collection of poetry in the classical metres. See "Transactions -of the Gaelic Society," 1808, p. 29. - -[7] H. 1. 14, in Trinity College. It is copied unfortunately by one -of the most incompetent of scribes, and is full of mistakes of all -kinds. The poets who wrote for the O'Byrnes were Rory Mac Craith, -Owen O'Coffey, Mahon O'Higinn, Donal Mac Keogh, Niall O'Rooney, Angus -O'Daly, John O'Higinn, Eochaidh O'Hussey, Maoileachlainn O'Coffey, -T. O'Mulconry, Donogha Mac Keogh, and others. A copy of the "Book of -the O'Byrnes" was in possession of the O'Byrnes of Cabinteely, near -Dublin, in the beginning of the century. Hardiman and O'Reilly each -had a copy, but as I have seen the scribe employed by the Royal Irish -Academy engaged for days in writing out of the wretched copy in Trinity -College, it is to be presumed that the Council of that body has assured -itself that these copies have since perished. - -[8] - - "A cholann do chím gun ceann - Sibh d' fhaicsin, do shearg mo bhrigh, - Rannta ar sparra a n-Athcliath, - D'éigsi Bhanba bhias a dhith." - (H. 1. 14, T. C., D., fol. 84 a.) - -[9] - - "Cia cheannchas ádhmad naoi rann, - Dá bhfághadh connra ar súd? - Ar Laighnibh cidh 'r b'ard a dteisd - Do m' aithne is cruaidh an cheisd úd." - -[10] - - "Acht ua Réamainn thuilleas bládh, - Ni h-aithne dham shoir no shiar, - Neach le ceannach [mo] naoi rann, - Ma tá ann, ni fheadar c' iad." - -[11] - - "Creud ag buaidhreadh ban ngaoidheal - An dith óir no iol-mhaoineadh, - Cuis aith-mheillte an diorma díl, - Ríoghna flaith-fréimhe fuinnidh." - (H. 1. 14, T. C., D., fol. 126 a.) - -[12] - - "Ni bhfuair mé 'na n-áitibh ann, - Acht lucht gan aithne orom [orm], - Mo chreach geur, mo chrádh croidhe, - An sgeul fá ttáim troithlidhe." - -[13] - - "Fuath gach fir fuighioll a thuaidhe, - Tuig a Fhiacha, duit is dual, - Má tá nach binn libh mo labhra, - Os cionn do chinn do thárla an tuath." - -O'Donovan, in his manuscript catalogue, quotes the last two lines of -the verse in note 12 above, and translates them, "My bitter woe my -heart's oppression is the news for which I grieve." Afterwards he -erased the words "for which I grieve" and wrote instead "it wastes my -vigour," thus showing that he did not understand the original, for one -translation is as bad as the other. The difficult word _troithlidhe_ -which perplexed him, is a common one in Roscommon, I have frequently -heard it in the sense of "chilly." The translation is, "the news which -chills me." - -[14] - - "Fréamh Raghnaill ni rabhadar - Acht ag seachnadh inbhéime - Sgeul meuduighthe faltanais - Doibh nior chreidte ar a chéile." - -[15] - - "A gelu is ionmhus d'fhuil Raghnaill - Rádh gach eólaigh is é sin." - -[16] - - "Beag a ndúil a ndéanamh ionmhais - Uaisle an nidh dá dtabhraid toil, - Do ghabh gach aon-fhear d'fhuil Fhiacha - Sgaoileadh a chruidh d'Fiacha, air." - -[17] - - "Thug gárda láidir mhic Aodha mhic Sheáin - Dochur ar barda (?) a n-aoil-chaisleán, - 'S báidh liom nár fágadh neach d'fhuighioll an áir - Acht an bráighe atá fá dhaoirse a[r] láimh." - -The second line of this is quite incomprehensible, and runs in the MS. -_do chur ar ar barda_. - -[18] - - "Broc ar ghairbhe 's ar ghlaise, - Apa ar mhéad 's ar mhio-mhaise, - Gliomach ar ghéire a dhá shúil, - Sionnach ar bhréine, an Bárún." - -[19] - - "Caoch an inghean, caoch an mháthair, - Caoch an t-athair, caoch an mac, - Caoch an capall bhíos fá 'n tsráthair, - Leath-chaoch an cú, caoch an cat." - -[20] - - "Ni fhuil fearg nach dtéid ar gcúl - Acht fearg Chriost le cloinn Ghiobun - Beag an t-iongnadh a mbeith mar tá - Ag fás i n-olc gach aon lá." - -This rann was often quoted in after days about Fitzgibbon, Lord Clare, -who passed the Union. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXVI - -DEVELOPMENT OF IRISH POETRY - - -Some of the very earliest Irish poems--of which we have specimens in -the verses attributed to Amergin, son of Milesius, and in the first -satire ever uttered in Ireland, and in many more pieces of a like -character[1]--appear to have been unrhymed, and to have depended for -their effect partly upon rapidity of utterance, partly on a tendency -towards alliteration, and in some cases on a strongly-marked leaning -towards dissyllabic words. - -Soon after the time of St. Patrick and the first Christian -missionaries, the Irish are found for certain using rhyme--how far -they had evolved it before the coming of the Latin missionaries is a -moot question. The Book of Hymns has preserved genuine specimens of -the Latin verses of Columcille and other early saints, which either -rhyme, or have a strong _tendency_ towards rhyme, though few of these -early verses are found wholly chiming on the accented syllables.[2] -It is a tremendous claim to make for the Celt that he taught Europe -to rhyme; it is a claim in comparison with which, if it could be -substantiated, everything else that he has done in literature pales -into insignificance. Yet it has been made for him by some of the -foremost European scholars. The great Zeuss himself is emphatic on -the point; "the form of Celtic poetry,"[3] he writes, "to judge both -from the older and the more recent examples adduced, appears to be -more ornate than the poetic form of any other nation, and even more -ornate in the older poems than in the modern ones; from the fact of -which greater ornateness it undoubtedly came to pass that at the very -time the Roman Empire was hastening to its ruin, the Celtic poems--at -first entire, afterwards in part--passed over not only into the song -of the Latins, but also into those of other nations and remained in -them." In another place he remarks the advance towards rhyme made in -the _Latin_ poetry of the Anglo-Saxons, and unhesitatingly ascribes -it to Irish influence. "We must believe," he writes, "that this form -was introduced among them by the Irish, as were the arts of writing -and of painting and of ornamenting manuscripts, since they themselves -in common with the other Germanic nations made use in their poetry of -nothing but alliteration."[4] Constantine Nigra expresses himself even -more strongly in his edition of the glosses in the Codex Taurinensis. -He says-- - - "The idea that rhyme originated amongst the Arabs must be absolutely - rejected as fabulous.... Rhyme, too, could not in any possible way - have evolved itself from the natural progress of the Latin language. - Amongst the Latins neither the thing nor the name existed. We first - meet with final assonance or rhyme at the close of the fourth or - beginning of the fifth century in the Latin hymns of the Milanese - Church, which are attributed to St. Ambrose and St. Augustine. The - first certain examples of rhyme, then, are found on Celtic soil and - amongst Celtic nations, in songs made by poets who are either of - Celtic origin themselves or had long resided amongst Celtic races. - It is most probable that these hymns of Middle Latin were composed - according to the form of Celtic poetry which was then flourishing, - and which exhibits final assonance in all the ancient remains of - it hitherto discovered. It is true that the more ancient Irish and - British poems which have come down to us do not appear to be of older - date than the seventh or eighth century [Nigra means, in their present - form], but it must not be rashly inferred that the Celtic races, who - were always tenacious of the manners and customs of their ancestors, - had not employed the same poetic forms already, long before, say in - the earliest centuries of our era."[5] - -After arguing that the Irish rule of "Slender-with-Slender and -Broad-with-Broad," a rule which was peculiar to the Celts alone of -all the Aryan races, contained in itself the germ of rhyme, he sums -up his argument thus positively: "We must conclude, then, that this -late Latin [Romanic] verse, made up of accent, and of an equal number -of syllables, may have arisen in a twofold way, first by the natural -evolution of the Latin language itself; or secondly, by the equally -efficacious example of neighbouring Celtic peoples, but we conclude -that _final assonance, or rhyme, can have been derived only from the -laws of Celtic phonology_."[6] - -Thurneysen, on the other hand, who has done such good service for -the study of Irish metric by his publication of the text of the -fragmentary Irish poets' books,[7] is of opinion that the Irish derived -their regular metres with a given number of syllables in each line, -from the Latins;[8] and Windisch agrees with him in saying that the -Irish verse-forms were influenced by Latin,[9] though he thinks that -Thurneysen presses his theory too far. The latter, in opposition to -Zimmer,[10] will not for instance allow the genuineness of St. Fiacc's -metrical life of St. Patrick because it is in a rhymed and fairly -regular metre, a thing which, according to him, the Irish had not -developed at that early period. It seems necessary to me, however, to -take into account the peculiar prosody of the Irish, especially the -_tour de force_ called _áird-rinn_ used in _Deibhidh_ [d'yevvee] metre, -which we find firmly established in their oldest poems,[11] and which -makes the rhyming word ending the second line contain a syllable more -than the rhyming word which ends the first, while if the accent fall in -the first line on the ultimate syllable it mostly falls in the second -line on the penultimate, if it falls on the penultimate in the first -line it generally falls on the antepenultimate in the second, as-- - - "Though men owe respect to t=hem=, - Presage of woe--a =poe=m. - - The slender free palms of =her= - Than gull on sea are =whi=ter. - - A far greater than ány - Man has killed my Cómpany."[12] - -This peculiarly Irish feature was not borrowed from the Latins, but is -purely indigenous. The oldest books of glosses on the Continent contain -verses formed on this model.[13] According to Thurneysen's theory the -Irish learned how to write rhymed verse with lines of equal syllables -sometime between, say, the year 500 and 700, but the _Deibhidh_ metre -with _áird-rinn_ is found in their oldest verses, bound up with rhyme -in their accurate seven-syllable lines. Why should two of these -ingredients, the rhyme and the stated number of verses have come from -the Romans when the _Deibhidh áird-rinn_ (which apparently implies -rhyme) did not? Besides is it credible, on the supposition that the -pre-Christian Irish neither counted their syllables nor rhymed, that -within less than a couple of hundred years after coming in contact -with the rude Latin verse of Augustin and Ambrose, they had brought -rhyming verses to such a pitch of perfection as we see, in, say, the -"Voyage of Bran," which according to both Kuno Meyer and Professor -Zimmer, was written in the seventh century, the very first verse of -which runs-- - - "Cróib dind _abaill_ a h-Emain - Dofed _samaill_ do _gnáthaib_ - Gésci findarggait _fora_ - Abrait _glano_ co _m-bláthaib_"? - -The whole of this poem, too, is shot through with verses of _Deibhidh_, -and the rhymes are extraordinarily perfect.[14] This at least is -clear, that already in the seventh century the Irish not only rhymed -but made intricate _Deibhidh_ and other rhyming metres,[15] when for -many centuries after this period the Germanic nations could only -alliterate--a thing which though sometimes used in Irish verse is in -no way fundamental to it. In England so late as the beginning of the -fifteenth century, the virile author of the book of Piers Ploughman -used alliteration in preference to rhyme, and, indeed, down to the -first half of the sixteenth century English poets, for the most part, -exhibit a disregard for fineness of execution and technique of which -not the meanest Irish bard attached to the pettiest chief could have -been guilty. After the seventh century the Irish brought their rhyming -system to a pitch of perfection undreamt of, even at this day, by -other nations. Perhaps by no people in the globe, at any period of -the world's history, was poetry so cultivated and, better still, so -remunerated, as in Ireland. The elaborateness of the system they -evolved, the prodigious complexity of the rules, the subtlety and -intricacy of their poetical code are astounding. - -The real poet of the early Gaels was the _filé_ [fillă]. The bard -was nothing thought of in comparison with him, and the legal price -of his poems was quite small compared with the remuneration of the -_filé_. It was the bard who seems to have been most affected by Latin -influence, and the metres which he used seem to have been of relatively -new importation. Where the _filé_ received his three milch cows for a -poem the bard only bore away a calf. The bards were divided into two -classes, the Saor and Daor bards, or the patrician and plebeian.[16] -There were eight grades in each class, one of the many examples of the -love of the Irish for minute classification, a quality with which they -are not usually credited, at least, not in modern times. Each of these -sixteen classes of bard has his own peculiar metre or framework for his -verses, and the lower bard was not allowed to encroach on the metres -sacred to the bard next in rank.[17] - -The fĭlés [fillăs] were, as we have said, the highest class of poets. -There were seven grades of Filé,[18] the most exalted being called -an ollamh [ollav], a name that has frequently occurred throughout -this book. They were so highly esteemed that the annalists give the -obituaries of the head-ollamhs as if they were so many princes. The -course of study was originally perhaps one of seven years. Afterwards -it lasted for twelve years or more.[19] When a poet had worked his way -up after at least twelve but perhaps sometimes twenty years of study, -through all the lower degrees, and had at last attained the rank of -ollamh, he knew, in addition to all his other knowledge, over three -hundred and fifty different kinds of versification, and was able to -recite two hundred and fifty prime stories and one hundred secondary -ones. The ancient and fragmentary manuscripts from which these details -are taken, not only give the names of the metres but have actually -preserved examples of between two and three hundred of them taken -from different ancient poems, almost all of which have perished to a -line, but they give a hint of what once existed. Nearly all the text -books used in the career of the poet during his twelve years' course -are lost, and with them have gone the particulars of a civilisation -probably the most unique and interesting in Europe. - -The bardic schools were at no time an unmixed blessing to Ireland. -They were non-productive in an economic sense, and as early as the -seventh century the working classes felt that these idle multitudes -constituted an intolerable drain upon the nation's resources. Keating -in his history says that at this time the bardic order contained a -third of the men of Ireland, by which he means a third of the free -clans or patricians. These quartered themselves from November to May -upon the chiefs and farmers. They had also reached an intolerable -pitch of insolence. According to the account in the Leabhar Breac -they went about the country in bands carrying with them a silver pot, -which the populace named the "pot of avarice," which was attached by -nine chains of bronze hung on golden hooks, and which was suspended on -the spears of nine poets, thrust through the links at the end of the -chains. They then selected some unfortunate victim, and approached in -state his homestead, having carefully composed a poem in his laudation. -The head poet entering chanted the first verse, and the last poet took -it up, until each of the nine had recited his part, whilst all the -time the nine best musicians played their sweetest music in unison -with the verses, round the pot, into which the unfortunate listener -was obliged to throw an ample guerdon of gold and silver. Woe to him -indeed, if he refused; a scathing satire would be the result, and -sooner than endure the disgrace of this, every one parted to them with -a share of his wealth. Aedh mac Ainmirech, the High-king of Ireland, -who reigned at the end of the seventh century--the same who afterwards -lost his life in the battle of Bolgdún in raising the thrice cursed -Boru tribute--"considering them," as Keating puts it, "to be too heavy -a burden upon the land of Ireland," determined to banish the whole -profession. This was the third attempt to put down the poets, who had -always before found a refuge in the northern province when expelled -from the others. But now King Aedh [Ae] summoned a great convention of -all Ireland at Drum Ceat [Cat] near Limavaddy in the north of Ireland, -to deliberate upon several matters of national interest, of which the -expulsion of the bards was not the least important. The fate of the -Bardic Institution was trembling in the balance, when Columcille, an -accomplished bard himself as we have seen, crossed over from Iona with -a retinue of 140 clerics, and by his eloquence and great influence -succeeded in checking the fury of the exasperated chieftains: the -issue of the great convention which lasted for a year and one month, -was--so far as the bards were concerned--that their numbers were indeed -reduced, but it was agreed that the High-king should retain in his -service one chief ollamh, and that the kings of the five provinces, the -chiefs of each territory, and the lords of each sub-district should all -retain an ollamh of their own. No other poets except those especially -sanctioned were to pursue the poetic calling. - -If the bards lost severely in numbers and prestige on this occasion -they were in the long run amply compensated for it by their acquiring -a new and recognised status in the state. Their unchartered freedom -and licentious wanderings were indeed checked, but, on the other hand, -they became for the first time the possessors of fixed property and of -local stability. Distinct public estates in land were set apart for -their maintenance,[20] and they were obliged in return to give public -instruction to all comers in the learning of the day, after the manner -of university professors. Rathkenry in Meath, and Masree in Cavan are -particularly mentioned as bardic colleges then founded, where any of -the youth of Ireland could acquire a knowledge of history and of the -sciences.[21] The High-king, the provincial kings, and the sub-kings -were all obliged by law to set apart a certain portion of land for -the poet of the territory, to be held by him and his successors free -of rent, and a law was passed making the persons and the property of -poets sacred, and giving them right of sanctuary in their own land from -all the men of Ireland. At the same time the amount of reward which -they were allowed to receive for their poems was legally settled. From -this time forward for nearly a thousand years the bardic colleges, as -distinct from the ecclesiastical ones, taught poetry, law, and history, -and it was they who educated the lawyers, judges, and poets of Ireland. - -As far as we can judge the bards continued to flourish in equal power -and position with the dignitaries of the Church, and their colleges -must have been nearly as important institutions as the foundations -of the religious orders, until the onslaught of the Northmen reduced -the country to such a state that "neither bard, nor philosopher, -nor musician," as Keating says, "pursued their wonted profession in -the land." It was probably at this time that the carefully observed -distinction between the bard and the _filé_ broke down, for in later -times the words seem to have been regarded as synonymous. - -For some time after the Norman conquest the bardic colleges seem to -have again suffered eclipse; and, as we have seen, the century that -succeeded that invasion appears to have produced fewer poets than any -other. But the great Anglo-Norman houses soon became Irishised and -adopted Irish bards of their own. There are many incidents recorded in -the Irish annals and many stories gathered from other sources which go -to show that the importance of the bards as individuals could not have -been much diminished during the Anglo-Norman régime. One of them is -worth recording. In the beginning of the thirteenth century the steward -of the O'Donnell went to Lisadill,[22] near Sligo, to collect rents, -and some words passed between him and the great poet Murrough O'Daly, -who, unaccustomed to be thwarted in anything, clove the head of the -steward with an axe. Then, fearing O'Donnell's vengeance, he fled to -Clanrickard and the Norman De Bourgos, and at once addressed a poem to -Richard De Burgo, son of William Fitzadelm, in which he states that he, -the bard, was used to visit the courts of the English, and to drink -wine at the hands of kings and knights, and bishops and abbots. He -tells De Bourgo that he has now a chance of making himself illustrious -by protecting him, O'Daly of Meath, who now throws himself on his -generosity and whose poems demand attention. As for O'Donnell, he had -given him small offence. - - "Trifling our quarrel with the man, - A clown to be abusing me, - Me to kill the churl, - Dear God! Is this a cause for enmity?" - -De Bourgo accordingly received and protected him, until O'Donnell, -coming in furious pursuit, laid waste his country with fire and -sword. Fitzadelm submitted, but passed on the poet to the O'Briens -of North Munster. But O'Donnell again pursuing with fury, these also -submitted, and secretly dispatched the poet to the people of Limerick -who received him. O'Donnell hurried on and laid siege to the city, -and its inhabitants in terror expelled the poet once more, who was -passed on from hand to hand until he came to Dublin. But the people of -Dublin, terrified at O'Donnell's threats, sent him away; and he crossed -over into Scotland where his fame rose higher than before, and where -his poems remained so popular that when the Dean of Lismore in Argyle -jotted down nearly four hundred years ago in phonetic spelling a number -of poems just as he heard them, they included a disproportionately -large number of this O'Daly's,[23] who was afterward known as Murrough -the Scotchman. At last in return for some fine laudatory verses upon -O'Donnell he was graciously pardoned by that chieftain and returned to -his native country. - -The Anglo-Normans not only kept bards of their own, but some of -themselves also became poets. The story of Silken Thomas and his bard -whose verses urged him on to rebellion, is well known. It is curious, -too, to find one of the Norman Nugents of Delvin in the sixteenth -century making the most perfect classical Irish verses, lamenting his -exile from Ireland, the home of _his_ ancestors, the Land of Fintan, -the old Plain of Ir, the country of Inisfail. - - "Loth to Leave, my _fain_ eyes swim, - I Part in P_ain_ from Erinn. - Land of the L_oud_ sea-rollers, - PRide of PR_oud_ steed-controllers."[24] - -After a few generations the Anglo-Normans had completely forgotten -Norman-French, and as they never, with few exceptions, learned English, -they identified themselves completely with the Irish past, so that -amongst the Irish poets we find numbers of Nugents, Englishes, Condons, -Cusacks, Keatings, Comyns, and other foreign names. - -It was only after the Anglo-Norman government had developed into an -English one that the bards began to feel its weight. The slaying of -the Welsh bards by Edward is now generally regarded as a political -fiction. There is no fiction, however, about the treatment meted out -to the Irish ones. The severest acts were passed against them over and -over again. The nobles were forbidden to entertain them, in the hope -that they might die out or starve, and the Act of Elizabeth alleges one -of the usual lying excuses of the Elizabethan period: "Item," it says, -"for that those rhymours by their ditties and rhymes made to divers -lords and gentlemen in Ireland to the commendation and high praise of -extortion, rebellion, rape, ravin, and other injustice, encourage those -lords and gentlemen rather to follow those vices than to leave them, -and for making of the said rhymes rewards are given by the said lords -and gentlemen, (let) for abolishing of so heinous an abuse, orders be -taken." Orders were taken, and taken so thoroughly that O'Brien, Earl -of Thomond, obliged to enforce them against the bards, hanged three -distinguished poets, "for which abominable, treacherous act," say -the "Four Masters," "the earl was satirised and denounced." I find a -northern bard about this time, the close of the sixteenth century, -thus lamenting the absence of his patron, Aedh [Ae] Mac Aonghasa:-- - - "If a S_age_ of Song should be - In the _wage_ of C_ourt_ or King. - HA! the Gallows Guards the WAY. - AH! since AE from _port_ took wing."[25] - -Spenser the poet was not slow in finding out what a power his Irish -rivals were in the land, and he at once set himself to malign and -blacken them. "There are," he writes, "amongst the Irish a certain -kind of people called bards, which are to them instead of poets,"--the -insinuation is that the bards are not real poets!--"the which are had -in so high regard and estimation among them, that none dare displease -them for fear to run into reproach through their offence, and to be -made infamous in the mouths of all men." On which, Eudoxus, his friend, -is made to remark innocently that he had always thought that poets were -to be rather encouraged than put down. "Yes," answers Spenser, "they -should be encouraged when they desire honour and virtue, but," he goes -on, "these Irish bards are for the most part of another mind, and so -far from instructing young men in moral discipline, that whomsoever -they find to be most licentious of life, most bold and lawlesse in his -doings, most dangerous and desperate in all parts of disobedience and -rebellious disposition, him they set up and glorify in their rhythmes, -him they praise to the people and to young men make an example to -follow." - -The allegation that the bards praised what was licentious is an untruth -on the part of the great poet. Few English Elizabethans, once they -passed over into Ireland, seem to have been able to either keep faith -or tell truth; there was never such a thoroughly dishonourable race, -or one so utterly devoid of all moral sense, as the Irish "statesmen" -of that period. The real reason why Spenser, as an undertaker, blackens -the character of the Irish poets is not because their poems were -licentious--which they were not--but because, as he confesses later on, -they are "tending for the most part to the hurt of the English or [the] -maintenance of their owne lewde libertie, they being most desirous -thereof." - -Spenser's ignorant and self-contradictory criticism on the merits of -the Irish bards has often been quoted as if it constituted a kind of -hall-mark for them! "Tell me, I pray you," said his friend, "have -they any art in their compositions, or be they anything wittie or -wellmannered as poems should be?" - -"Yea, truly," says Spenser, "I have caused divers of them to be -translated unto me, that I might understand them, and surely they -savoured of sweet art and good invention, but skilled not in the goodly -ornaments of poesie, yet were they sprinkled with some pretty flowers -of their natural device, which gave good grace and comeliness unto -them; the which it is a great pity to see abused to the gracing of -wickedness and vice, which with good usage would serve to adorn and -beautify virtue." - -The gentle poet is here almost copying the words of the Act, which -perhaps he himself helped to inspire, according to which the bardic -poems are in praise of "extortion, rebellion, rape, ravin, and other -injustice." I have, however, read hundreds of the poems of the -sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but have never come across a -single syllable in laudation of either "extortion, rape, ravin, or -other injustice," but numerous poems inciting to what the Act calls -"rebellion," and what Spenser terms "the hurt of the English and the -maintenance of their owne lewde libertie." - - * * * * * - -It would be difficult to overrate the importance of the colleges of -the hereditary bards and the influence they exercised in the life of -the sixteenth century. They fairly reflected public opinion, and they -also helped to make it what it was. There is a great difference between -their poems and the _memoria technicha_ verses of the ancient ollamhs, -whose historical and genealogical poems, which they composed in their -official capacity, are crowded with inorganic phrases and "chevilles" -of all kinds. The sixteenth-century poet was a man of wit and learning, -and frequently a better and more clear-seeing statesman than his -chief, who was in matters of policy frequently directed by his bard's -advice. They certainly had more national feeling than any other class -in Ireland, and were less the slaves of circumstances or of mere local -accidents, for they traversed the island from end to end, were equally -welcome north, south, east, and west, and had unrivalled opportunities -for becoming acquainted with the trend of public affairs, and with -political movements. - -Most people, owing to their comparative neglect of Irish history, seem -to be of opinion that the bards were harpers, or at least musicians of -some sort. But they were nothing of the kind. The popular conception -of the bard with the long white beard and the big harp is grotesquely -wrong. The bards were verse-makers, pure and simple, and they were no -more musicians than the poet laureate of England. Their business was -to construct their poems after the wonderful and complex models of the -schools, and when--as only sometimes happened--they wrote a eulogy or -panegyric on a patron, and brought it to him, they introduced along -with themselves a harper and possibly a singer to whom they had taught -their poem, and in the presence of their patron to the sound of the -harp, the only instrument allowed to be touched on such occasions, the -poem was solemnly recited or sung. The real name of the musician was -not _bard_--the bard was a verse-maker--but _oirfideadh_ [errh-fid-yă], -and the musicians, though a numerous and honourable class, were -absolutely distinct from the bards and _filés_. It was only after the -complete break-up of the Gaelic polity, after the wars of Cromwell -and of William, that the verse-maker merges in the musician, and the -harper and the bard become fused in one, as was the case with Carolan, -commonly called the last of the bards, but whom his patron, O'Conor -of Belanagare, calls in his obituary of him, not a _bard_, but an -_oirfideadh_. - -Down to the close of the sixteenth century and during the greater part -of the seventeenth, verse, with few exceptions, continued to be made -in the classical metres of Ireland, by specially trained poets, who -did not go outside these metres. In the ensuing century the classical -metres began to be discarded and a wonderful and far-reaching change -took place, which shall be made the subject of a future chapter. -We must now proceed to examine a species of popular poetry which -flourished during all this period side by side with the bardic schools, -although no trace remains to-day of its origin or its authors. This is -the so-called Ossianic poetry. - -[1] This is a kind of rhetoric; some of these unrhymed outbursts -were called _rosg_ by the Irish. Irish literature is full of such -pieces. Some of the Brehon Law though printed in prose seems to have -been composed in it. Other examples are the cry of the Mór-rígan, or -war-goddess, in the end of the Battle of Moytura. - - "Peace to heav'n "Sith go neim - Heav'n to earth Neamh go domhan, - Earth neath heav'n Domhan fá neim - Strength in each," etc. Neart i gcách," etc. - -or the description of the Dun Bull of Cuailgne in the Táin Bo, or part -of the first poem attributed to Finn mac Cool, or trie well-known -eulogy on Goll the Fenian, or Mac Mhurighs incitement at the battle of -Harlaw, or some of the verses in the preface to the Amra. About the -last specimen of unrhymed poetry, in a species of Droighneach metre, -I find in the Annals of Loch Cé on the death of Mac Dermot as late as -1568. - - "Gég iothmar fhineamhna na n-éigeas ocus na n-ollaman, - Craobh cumra cnuais na gcliar ocus na gcerbach, - Dóss díona na ndámh ocus na ndeóraidh - Bile buadha buan fhoscaidh na mbrughaidh ocus na mbiattach." - -[2] Thus the nearest approach that Columcille makes to Latin rhyme is -in the final unaccented syllable. See his "Altus" beginning - - "Altus prosator vetustus Sed et erit in sæcula - Dierum et ingenitus Sæculorum infinita - Erat absque origine Cui est unigenitus - Primordii et crepidine. Christus et sanctus spiritus," etc. - -[3] "Formam poesis celticæ, exemplis allatis, tarn vetustioribus quam -recentioribus vel hodiernis, magis ornatum esse apparet quam ullius -gentis formam poeticam, ac magis ornatam in vetustioribus carminibus -ipsis, quam in recentioribus. Quo majore ornatu, haud dubie effectum -est, ut jam inde ab illis temporibus quibus ad interitum ruebat Romanum -imperium, celtica forma, primum integra, deinde ex parte, non solum in -latina sed etiam (aliarum) linguarum carmina transferretur atque in iis -permanserit" ("Grammatica Celtica," Ebel's edition, p. 977). - -[4] "Magis progressa consonantia, cum frequentiore allitteratione, -amplior finalis sæpius trissyllaba invenitur in Anglo-Saxorum -carminibus latinis; ad quos, cum ipsi principio cum ceteris Germanis -non usi sint nizi allitteratione, ab Hibernis hanc formam esse -transgressam putandum est, ut transiit scriptura atque ars pingendi -codices et ornandi" (Ibid., p. 946). - -In another passage he expresses himself even more strongly; for of -rhyme he says: "Hanc formam orationis poeticæ quis credat esse ortam -primum apud poetas Christianos finientis imperii Romani et transisse ad -bardos Cambrorum et in carmina gentilia Scandinavorum" (Editio Ebel, p. -948). - -[5] "Origo enim rîmæ arabica inter fabulas omnino rejicienda est.... -Porro rîma ex solo naturali processu latinæ linguæ explicari nullo -modo potest. Apud Latinos nec res extitit nec nomen.... Assonantia -finalis vel rîma, sæculo quarto abeunte et quinto incipiente vulgaris -ævi, primus occurrit in hymnis latinis ecclesiæ mediolanensis qui -sancto Ambrosio et Sancto Augustino tribuuntur. Prima itaque rîmæ -certa exempla inveniuntur in solo celtico, apud celticas gentes, in -carminibus conditis a poetis, qui vel celticæ originis sunt, vel -apud celticas gentes diu commoraverunt. Verosimile ut hosce hymnos -mediæ latinitatis constructos esse juxta formam celticæ poesis quæ -tune vigebat, et quæ jam assonantiam finalem præbet in antiquis ejus -reliquiis huc-usque detectis. Profecto carmina hibernica et brittanica -vetustiora quæ ad nos pervenerunt sæculum octavum vel septimum superare -non videntur. Sed temere non est affirmare celticas gentes quæ moris -consuetudinisque majorum tertaces semper fuerunt, jam multo antea, -primis nempe vulgaris ævi sæculis, eamdem poeticam formam adhibuisse" -("Glossæ Hibernicæ Veteres Codicis Taurinensis." Lutetiæ. 1869. p. -xxxi.). - -[6] "Concludendum est igitur versum romanicum, accentu legatum et pari -syllabarum numero, oriri potuisse ex duplicis causæ concursu, nempe à -naturali explicatione latinæ linguæ, et ab exemplo pariter efficaci -affinium celticorum populorum; sed rîmam seu assonantiam finalem, a -solis celticæ phonologiæ legibus derivatam esse" (Ibid., p. xxxii.). - -[7] "Mittelirische Verslehren," "Irische Texte," iii. p. 1. - -[8] _See_ his article in "Revue Celtique," vi., p. 336. - -[9] "Dass die irische Versform von der lateinischen Versform -beeinflusst worden ist, scheint mir zweifellos zu sein. Es fragt sich -nur was die irischen Barden schon hatten als dieser Einfluss begann. -Das was Thurneysen ihnen zugestehen will ist mir etwas zu wenig" -("Irische Texte," iii. 2, p. 448). - -[10] "Wir haben," says Zimmer, of this hymn, "ein altes einfaches und -ehrwürdiges Monument vor uns, an das eine jüngere Zeit mit verändertem -Geschmack, passend und unpassend, an--und eingebaut hat." - -[11] _Deibhidh_, in Old Irish _Debide_, a neuter word, which Thurneysen -translates "cut in two," is not really a rhyme but a generic name for -a metre, containing twenty-four species. The essence of the principal -_Deibhidh_, however, is the peculiar manner of rhyming with words of -a different length, so that this system has sometimes been loosely -called _Deibhidh_ rhyme. In the oldest poetry a trisyllable instead of -a dissyllable rhyme could be used as the end word, of the second line -when the first line ended with a monosyllable, but in the strictness of -later times this was disallowed. - -[12] - - "Tús onóra cidh dual =di=, - Tuar anshógha an =eig=si. - - Glac bárr-lag mar chúbhair =ton=n - Do sháraigh dath na bh=faoi=lionn. - - Gníomh follus fáth na h-=each=tra - Fá'r ciorrbadh mo =chuid=eachta." - -These specimens are taken from unedited manuscripts in my own -possession, copied by O'Curry from I know not what originals. - -[13] Thus in the Codex St. Pauli we find these verses:-- - - "Messe ocus Pangur =ban= - Cechtar náthar fria =sain=dán - Bith a menma-sunn fri =seil=gg - Mu menma céin im =sain=-ceirdd. - - Caraim-se fos ferr gach =clu= - Oc mo lebran leir =ing=nu - Ni foirmtech frimm Pangur =ban= - Caraid sesin a =macc=-dán." - -[14] The end rhyming words in verses 6-10 for example are as -follows--fóe nóe, _bátha_ hil_blátha_, bláthaib thráthaib, gnáth tráth, -_datho_ moith_gretho, chéul_ Arggut_néul, mrath_ etar_gnath_, cruais -clúais, _bás_ ind_gás_, n-_Emne_ com_amre._ - -[15] Compare, too, the verses that the monk wrote in the margin of the -St. Gall MS. which he was copying, on hearing the blackbird sing-- - - "Dom farcai fidbaidae _fál_ - Fomchain lóid lain luad nad cél - Huas mo lebrán ind_linech_ - Fomchain _trírech_ inna nén;" - -the language of which is so ancient as to be nearly unintelligible to -a modern, though the metre is common from that day to this. "A thicket -of bushes surrounds me, a lively blackbird sings to me his lay, I shall -not conceal it, above my many-lined book he sings to me the trill of -the birds," etc. Commenting on these verses Nigra says feelingly, -"Mentre traduco questi versi amo figurarmi il povero monaco che, or -fá più di mille anni, stava copiando il manoscritto, e distratto un -istante dal canto dei merli contemplava dalla finestra della sua -cella la verde corona di boscaglie che circondava il suo monastero -nell Ulster o nel Connaught, e dopo avere ascoltato l'agile trillo -degli uccelli, recitava questi strofe, e rapigliava poi più allegro -l'interrotto lavoro." - -It has often been alleged that the word rhyme is derived from the Irish -_rím_, "number," _rímaire_, "a reckoner," and _rimim_, "I count;" -but in Anglo-Saxon _rím_ has the same meaning, so that unless the -Anglo-Saxons borrowed the word, as they certainly did the thing, from -the Irish, this is inconclusive. - -In fol. 8a of the "Liber Hymnorum" we read in the preface to the very -ancient hymn "In Trinitate spes mea," the following note: "Incertum -est hautem in quo tempore factus est, Trerithim dana doronadh ocus xi. -caiptell déac ann, ocus dalíni in cech caiptiull, ocus se sillaba déc -cechai. Is foi is rithim doreir in ómine dobit ann.," _i.e._, "in rhyme -it was made and eleven chapters thereon and two lines in every chapter, -and sixteen syllables in each. It is on _i_ the _rhyme_ is because of -the 'omine' that is in it." In the preface to the hymn, "Christus in -nostra insula," the scholiast writes, "Trerithim dana dorigned," which -Whitley Stokes translates by "in _rhythm_ moreover it was made," but -_rithim_ evidently means the same in both passages, namely, _rhyme_ -not rhythm, at least if the first passage is rightly translated by -Dr. Stokes himself. I doubt, however, if _rím_ or _rithim_ ever meant -"rhyme" in Irish. - -[16] The various Saor bards were called the _Anshruth-bairdne_ (great -stream of poetry?), the _Sruth di aill_ (stream down two cliffs?), the -_Tighearn-bhard_ (lord bard), the _Adhmhall_, the _Tuath-bhard_ (lay -bard), the _bo-bhard_ (cow-bard) and the _Bard áine_. The highest of -the Daor bards was called the _cúl-bhard_ (back bard), and after him -came the _Sruth-bhard_ (stream-bard), the _Drisiuc_, the _cromluatha_, -the _Sirti-uí_, the _Rindhaidh_, the _Long-bhard_, and the _bard -Loirrge_. - -[17] Thus the head of the patrician bards was entitled to make use of -the metres called _nath_, metres in which the end of each line makes -a vowel rhyme or an alliteration with the beginning of the next, -the number of syllables in the line and of lines in the verse being -irregular. There were six kinds of _náth_ metres, called _Deachna_. -All these the first bard practised with two honourable metres besides, -called the great and little _Séadna._ The ANSHRUTH used the two kinds -of metres called _Ottbhairdne_, the SRUTH DI AILL used _Casbhairdne_, -the TIGHEARN-BHARD used _Duanbhairdne_, a generic metre of which there -were six species called _Duan faidesin, duan cenátach, fordhuan, -taebh-chasadh, tul-chasadh,_ and _sreth-bhairdne_. All the metres which -these five employed were honourable ones, and went under the generic -name of _príomhfódhta._ Then came the ADHMHALL with seven measures -for himself, _bairdne faidessin, btogh-bhairdne, brac-bhairdne, -snedh-bhairdne, sem-bhairdne, imard-bhairdne,_ and _rathnuatt._ The -TUATH-BHARD had all the _Rannaigheacht_ metres and the BO-BARD all -the _Deibhidh_ metres, and these two, Rannaigheacht and Deibhidh, -though thus lowly thought of in early--probably pre-Danish--days, were -destined in later times, like the cuckoo birds, to oust their fellows -and reign in the forefront for many hundred years. The Tuath-bhard had -also two other metres _Seaghdha_ and _Treochair_, and the Bo-bhard in -addition to Deibhidh had long and short _deachubhaidh._ - -The classification of the Daor bards and their metres is just as minute. - -[18] The lowest grade of _filé_ was called the _fuctuc_ (word -maker?). In his first year he had to learn fifty ogams and straight -ogams amongst them. He had to learn the grammar called _Uraicept na -ti-éigsine_, and the preface to it, and that part of the book called -_réimeanna_, or courses, with twenty _dréachts_ (stories?), six -metres and other things. The six metres were the six _dians_ called -_air-sheang, midh-sheang, iar-sheang, air-throm, midh-throm_, and -_iar-throm._ - -[19] Each of the twelve years had its own course of the same nature as -the above. - -[20] I have seen it stated, but I do not know on what authority, that -their income derived from land, in what is the present county of -Donegal, was equal to £2,000 a year. - -[21] _See_ Keating's "Forus Feasa" under the reign of Aedh mac -Ainmireach. - -[22] Lios-an-doill _i.e._, the "blind man's fort." _See_ the preface to -O'Donovan's "Satires of Angus," for this story. - -[23] He preserved eight pieces of O'Daly, who is called Muireach -Albanach, and in one place Muireach Lessin Dall (_i.e._, Lios-an-Doill) -O'Daly. - -[24] - - "Diombuaidh _Triall_ o Thulchaibh Fáil - Diombuaidh _Iath_ Éireann d'fhágbháil, - Iath mhilis na _Mbeann_ Mbeachach, - Inis na _N-Eang_ N-Óig-eachach." - -Deibhidh metre. _See_ Hardiman, vol. ii. p. 226. - -[25] - - "Dá _ndimghiodh duine_ re dán - Fá _chiniodh_ don _chuire_ ríogh - Do bhiadh _croch roimhe_ ar gach _raon_ - _Och!_ gan _Aodh Doire_ dar ndíon." - -Rannaigheacht Mór metre. From a MS. poem. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXVII - -THE OSSIANIC POEMS - - -Side by side with the numerous prose sagas which fall under the title -of "Fenian," and which we have already examined in Chapter XXIX., there -exists an enormous mass of poems, chiefly narrative, of a minor epic -type, or else semi-dramatic épopées, usually introduced by a dialogue -between St. Patrick and the poet Ossian. Ossian[1] was the son of -Finn mac Cúmhail, vulgarly "Cool," and he was fabled to have lived -in Tír na n-og [T'yeer na nogue], the country of the ever-young, the -Irish Elysium, for three hundred years, thus surviving all his Fenian -contemporaries, and living to hold colloquy with St. Patrick. The -so-called Ossianic poems are extraordinarily numerous, and were they -all collected would probably (between those preserved in Scotch-Gaelic -and in Irish) amount to some 80,000 lines. My friend, the late -Father James Keegan, of St. Louis, once estimated them at 100,000. -The most of them, in the form in which they have come down to us at -the present day, seem to have been composed in rather loose metres, -chiefly imitations of Deibhidh and Rannaigheacht mór, and they were -even down to our fathers' time exceedingly popular both in Ireland -and the Scotch Highlands, in which latter country Iain Campbell, the -great folk-lorist, made the huge collection which he called Leabhar na -Féinne, or the Book of the Fenians. - -Some of the Ossianic poems relate the exploits of the Fenians, others -describe conflicts between members of that body and worms, wild beasts -and dragons, others fights with monsters and with strangers come from -across the sea; others detail how Finn and his companions suffered from -the enchantments of wizards and the efforts made to release them, one -enumerates the Fenians who fell at Cnoc-an-áir, another gives the names -of about three hundred of the Fenian hounds, another gives Ossian's -account of his three hundred years in the Land of the Young and his -return, many more consist largely of semi-humorous dialogues between -the saint and the old warrior; another is called Ossian's madness; -another is Ossian's account of the battle of Gabhra, which made an end -of the Fenians, and so on.[2] - -The Lochlannachs, or Norsemen, figure very largely in these poems, and -it is quite evident that most of them--at least in the modern form -in which we now have them--are post-Norse productions. The fact that -the language in which they have for the most part come down to us is -popular and modern, does not prove much one way or the other, for these -small epics which, more than any other part of Irish literature, were -handed down from father to son and propagated orally, have had their -language unconsciously adjusted from age to age, so as to leave them -intelligible to their hearers. As a consequence the metres have in -many places also suffered, and the old Irish system, which required a -certain number of syllables in each line, has shown signs of fusing -gradually with the new Irish system, which only requires so many -accented syllables. - -It is, however, perfectly possible--as has been supposed by, I think, -Mr. Nutt and others--that after the terrible shock given to the island -by the Northmen, this people usurped in our ballads the place of some -older mythical race; and Professor Rhys was, I believe, at one time of -opinion that Lochlann, as spoken of in these ballads, originally meant -merely the country of lochs and seas, and that the Lochlanners were a -submarine mythical people, like the Fomorians. - -The spirit of banter with which St. Patrick and the Church are treated, -and in which the fun just stops short of irreverence, is a mediæval, -not a primitive, trait, more characteristic, thinks Mr. Nutt, of the -twelfth than of any succeeding century. We may remember the inimitable -felicity with which that great English-speaking Gael, Sir Walter Scott, -has caught this Ossianic tone in the lines which Hector McIntyre -repeats for Oldbuck-- - - "Patrick the psalm-singer, - Since you will not listen to one of my stories, - Though you have never heard it before, - I am sorry to tell you - You are little better than an ass;" - -to which the saint, to the infinite contempt of the unbelieving -antiquary, is made to respond-- - - "Upon my word, son of Fingal, - While I am warbling the psalms, - The clamour of your old woman's tales - Disturbs my devotional exercises." - -Whereat the heated Ossian replies-- - - "Dare you compare your psalms - To the tales of the bare-armed Fenians, - I shall think it no great harm - To wring your bald head from your shoulders." - -Here, however, is a real specimen from the Irish, which will give some -idea of the style of dialogue between the pair. St. Patrick, with -exaggerated episcopal severity, having Ossian three-quarters starved, -blind, and wholly at his mercy, desires him to speak no more of Finn or -of the Fenians. - - "OSSIAN. - - "Alas, O Patrick, I did think that God would not be angered thereat; - I think long, and it is a great woe to me, not to speak of the way of - Finn of the Deeds. - - "PATRICK. - - "Speak not of Finn nor of the Fenians, for the Son of God will be - angry with thee for it, he would never let thee into his court and he - would not send thee the bread of each day. - - "OSSIAN. - - "Were I to speak of Finn and of the Fenians, between us two, O Patrick - the new, but only not to speak loud, he would never hear us mentioning - him. - - "PATRICK. - - "Let nothing whatever be mentioned by thee excepting the offering of - God, or if thou talkest continually of others, thou, indeed, shalt not - go to the house of the saints. - - "OSSIAN. - - "I will, O Patrick, do His will. Of Finn or of the Fenians I will not - talk, for fear of bringing anger upon them, O Cleric, if it is God's - wont to be angry." - -In another poem St. Patrick denounces with all the rigour of a new -reformer. - - "PATRICK. - - "Finn is in hell in bonds, 'the pleasant man who used to bestow gold,' - in penalty of his disobedience to God, he is now in the house of pain - in sorrow.... - - "Because of the amusement [he had with] the hounds and for attending - the (bardic) schools each day, and because he took no heed of God, - Finn of the Fenians is in bonds.... - - "Misery attend thee, old man, who speakest words of madness; God is - better for one hour than all the Fenians of Erin. - - "OSSIAN. - - "O Patrick of the crooked crozier, who makest me that impertinent - answer, thy crozier would be in atoms were Oscar present. - - "Were my son Oscar and God hand to hand on Knock-na-veen, if I saw my - son down it is then I would say that God was a strong man. - - "How could it be that God and his clerics could be better men than - Finn, the chief King of the Fenians, the generous one who was without - blemish? - - "All the qualities that you and your clerics say are according to the - rule of the King of the Stars, Finn's Fenians had them all, and they - must be now stoutly seated in God's heaven. - - "Were there a place above or below better than heaven, 'tis there Finn - would go, and all the Fenians he had.... - - "Patrick, inquire of God whether he recollects when the Fenians were - alive, or hath he seen east or west, men their equal in the time of - fight. - - "Or hath he seen in his own country, though high it be above our - heads, in conflict, in battle, or in might, a man who was equal to - Finn? - - "PATRICK. - - "(_Exhausted with controversy and curious for Ossian's story._) - - "'Ossian sweet to me thy voice, - Now blessings choice on the soul of Finn! - But tell to us how many deer - Were slain at Slieve-na-man finn.' - - "OSSIAN. - - "'We the Fenians never used to tell untruth, a lie was never - attributed to us; by truth and the strength of our hands we used to - come safe out of every danger. - - "'There never sat cleric in church, though melodiously ye may think - they chant psalms, more true to his word than the Fenians, the men who - shrank never from fierce conflicts. - - * * * * * - - "'O Patrick, where was thy God the day the two came across the sea who - carried off the queen of the King of Lochlann in ships, by whom many - fell here in conflict. - - "'Or when Tailc mac Treoin arrived, the man who put great slaughter - on the Fenians; 'twas not by God the hero fell, but by Oscar in the - presence of all. - - "'Many a battle victory and contest were celebrated by the Fenians of - Innisfail. I never heard that any feat was performed by the king of - saints, or that _he_ reddened his hand.' - - "PATRICK. - - "'Let us cease disputing on both sides, thou withered old man who art - devoid of sense; understand that God dwells in heaven of the orders, - and Finn and his hosts are all in pain.' - - "OSSIAN. - - "'Great, then, would be the shame for God not to release Finn from - the shackles of pain; for if God Himself were in bonds my chief would - fight on his behalf. - - "'Finn never suffered in his day any one to be in pain or difficulty - without redeeming him by silver or gold or by battle and fight, until - he was victorious. - - "'It is a good claim I have against your God, me to be amongst these - clerics as I am, without food, without clothing or music, without - bestowing gold on bards, - - "'Without battling, without hunting, without Finn, without courting - generous women, without sport, without sitting in my place as was my - due, without learning feats of agility and conflict,'" etc. - -Many of these poems contain lyrical passages of great beauty. Here, -as a specimen, is Ossian's description of the things in which Finn -used to take delight. It is a truly lyrical passage, in the very best -style, rhyme, rhythm and assonance are all combined with a most rich -vocabulary of words expressive of sounds nearly impossible to translate -into English. It might be thus attempted in verse, though not quite in -the metre of the original. Finn's pursuits as depicted here by Ossian -show him to have been a lover of nature, and are quite in keeping with -his poem on Spring; his are the tastes of one of Matthew Arnold's -"Barbarians" glorified. - - "FINN'S PASTIMES. - - "Oh, croaking Patrick, I curse your tale. - Is the King of the Fenians in hell this night? - The heart that never was seen to quail, - That feared no danger and felt no spite.[3] - - What kind of a God can be yours, to grudge - Bestowing of food on him, giving of gold? - Finn never refused either prince or drudge; - Can his doom be in hell in the house of cold.[4] - - The desire of my hero who feared no foe - Was to listen all day to Drumderrig's sound, - To sleep by the roar of the Assaroe, - And to follow the dun deer round and round. - - The warbling of blackbirds in Letter Lee, - The strand where the billows of Ruree fall, - The bellowing ox upon wild Moy-mee, - The lowing of calves upon Glen-da-vaul. - - The blast of a horn around Slieve Grot, - The bleat of a fawn upon Cua's plain, - The sea-birds scream in a lonely spot, - The croak of the raven above the slain. - - The wash of the waves on his bark afar, - The yelp of the pack as they round Drumliss, - The baying of Bran upon Knock-in-ar, - The murmur of fountains below Slieve Mis. - - The call of Oscar upon the chase,[5] - The tongue of the hounds on the Fenians' plain, - Then a seat with the men of the bardic race, - --Of these delights was my hero fain. - - But generous Oscar's supreme desire, - Was the maddening clashing of shield on shield, - And the hewing of bones in the battle ire, - And the crash and the joy of the stricken field."[6] - -In entire accordance with this enthusiastic love of nature is -Ossian's delightful address to the blackbird of Derrycarn, a piece -which was a great favourite with the scribes of the last century.[7] -Interpenetrated with the same almost sensuous delight at the sights -and sounds of nature, are the following verses which the Scotsman, Dean -Macgregor, wrote down--probably from the recitation of a wandering -harper or poet--some three hundred and eighty years ago. - - "Sweet is the voice in the land of gold,[8] - And sweeter the music of birds that soar, - When the cry of the heron is heard on the wold, - And the waves break softly on Bundatrore. - - Down floats on the murmuring of the breeze - The call of the cuckoo from Cossahun, - The blackbird is warbling amongst the trees, - And soft is the kiss of the warming sun. - - The cry of the eagle at Assaroe - O'er the court of Mac Morne to me is sweet; - And sweet is the cry of the bird below, - Where the wave and the wind and the tall cliff meet. - - Finn mac Cool is the father of me, - Whom seven battalions of Fenians fear, - When he launches his hounds on the open lea, - Grand is their cry as they rouse the deer." - -Caoilte [Cweeltya] too, the third great Fenian poet, was as -impressionable to the moods of nature as his friends Ossian and Finn. -Compare with the foregoing poems his lay on the Isle of Arran, in -Scotland.[9] - - THE ISLE OF ARRAN. - - "Arran of the many stags, the sea inpinges upon her very shoulders! An - isle in which whole companies were fed, and with ridges among which - blue spears are reddened. - - "Skittish deer are on her pinnacles, soft blackberries on her waving - heather; cool water there is in her rivers, and musk upon her russet - oaks.[10] - - "Greyhounds there were in her and beagles, blackberries and sloes of - the dark blackthorn, dwellings with their backs set close against her - woods, while the deer fed scattered by her oaken thickets. - - "A crimson crop grew on her rocks, in all her glades a faultless - grass; over her crags affording friendly refuge leaping went on, and - fawns were skipping. - - "Smooth were her level spots, fat her wild swine, cheerful her fields - ... her nuts hung on the boughs of her forest hazels, and there was - sailing of long galleys past her. - - "Right pleasant their condition, all, when the fair weather set in. - Under her river-banks trouts lie; the seagulls wheeling round her - grand cliff answer one the other--at every fitting time delectable is - Arran!" - -In another poem that Caoilte is fabled to have made after he met and -consorted with St. Patrick is a vivid description of a freezing night -as it appeared to a hunter. A great frost and heavy snow had fallen -upon the whole country, so that the russet branches of the forest were -twisted together, and men could no longer travel. "A fitting time it is -now," said Caoilte, "for wild stags and for does to seek the topmost -points of hills and rocks; a timely season for salmons to betake them -into cavities of the banks," and he uttered a lay. - - "Cold the winter is, the wind is risen, the high-couraged unquelled - stag is on foot, bitter cold to-night the whole mountain is, yet for - all that the ungovernable stag is belling.[11] - - "The deer of Slievecarn of the gatherings commits not his side to - the ground; no less than he, the stag of frigid Echtgé's summit who - catches the chorus of the wolves. - - "I, Caoilte, with Brown Diarmuid,[12] and with keen, light-footed - Oscar; we too in the nipping nights' waning end, would listen to the - music of the [wolf] pack. - - "But well the red deer sleeps that with his hide to the bulging rock - lies stretched, hidden as though beneath the country's surface, all in - the latter end of chilly night. - - "To-day I am an aged ancient, and but a scant few men I know; once on - time, though, on a cold and icebound morning I used to vibrate a sharp - javelin hardily. - - "To Heaven's King I offer thanks, to Mary Virgin's Son as well; often - and often I imposed silence on [daunted] a whole host, whose plight - to-night is very cold [_i.e._, who are all dead now]." - -It is curious that in the more modern Ossianic pieces, such as -the scribes of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries delighted -in transcribing, there is little mention made of Caoilte, and the -complaints about surviving the Fenians and being vexed by the clerics -are more usually put into the mouth of Ossian. - -Here is one of the moans of Ossian in his old age, when fallen on evil -times, and thwarted at every turn by St. Patrick and his monks. - - "Long was last night in cold Elphin,[13] - More long is to-night on its weary way, - Though yesterday seemed to me long and ill, - Yet longer still was this dreary day. - - And long for me is each hour new born, - Stricken, forlorn, and smit with grief - For the hunting lands and the Fenian bands, - And the long-haired, generous, Fenian chief. - - I hear no music, I find no feast, - I slay no beast from a bounding steed, - I bestow no gold, I am poor and old, - I am sick and cold, without wine or mead. - - I court no more, and I hunt no more, - These were before my strong delight, - I cannot slay, and I take no prey: - Weary the day and long the night. - - No heroes come in their war array, - No game I play, there is nought to win; - I swim no stream with my men of might, - Long is the night in cold Elphin. - - Ask, O Patrick, thy God of grace, - To tell me the place he will place me in, - And save my soul from the Ill One's might, - For long is to-night in cold Elphin." - -There is a considerable thread of narrative running through these poems -and connecting them in a kind of series, so that several of them might -be divided into the various books of a Gaelic epic of the Odyssic type, -containing instead of the wanderings and final restoration of Ulysses, -the adventures and final destruction of the Fenians, except that the -books would be rather more disjointed. There is, moreover, splendid -material for an ample epic in the division between the Fenians of -Munster and Connacht and the gradual estrangement of the High-king, -leading up to the fatal battle of Gabhra; but the material for this -last exists chiefly in prose texts, not in the Ossianic lays. It is -very strange and very unfortunate that notwithstanding the literary -activity of Gaelic Ireland before and during the penal times, no -Keating, or Comyn, or Curtin ever attempted to redact the Ossianic -poems and throw them into that epic form into which they would so -easily and naturally have fitted. These pieces appear to me of even -greater value than the Red Branch sagas, as elucidating the natural -growth and genesis of an epic, for the Irish progressed just up to -the point of possessing a large quantity of stray material, minor -episodes versified by anonymous long-forgotten folk-poets; but they -never produced a mind critical enough to reduce this mass to order, -coherence, and stability, and at the same time creative enough to -itself supply the necessary lacunæ. Were it not that so much light has -by this time been thrown upon the natural genesis of ancient national -epics, one might be inclined to lay down the theory that the Irish had -evolved a scheme of their own, peculiar to themselves, and different -altogether from the epic, a scheme in which the same characters figure -in a group of allied poems and romances, each of which, like one of -Tennyson's idylls, is perfect in itself, and not dependent upon the -rest, a system which might be taken to be a natural result of the -impatient Celtic temperament which could not brook the restraints of an -epic. - -The Ossianic lays are almost the only narrative poems which exist -in the language, for although lyrical, elegiac, and didactic poetry -abounds, the Irish never produced, except in the case of the Ossianic -épopées, anything of importance in a narrative and ballad form, -anything, for instance, of the nature of the glorious ballad poetry of -the Scotch Lowlands. - -The Ossianic metres, too, are the eminently epic ones of Ireland. It -was a great pity, and to my thinking a great mistake, for Archbishop -Mac Hale not to have used them in his translation of Homer, instead -of attempting it in the metre of Pope's Iliad--one utterly unknown to -native Ireland. - -I have already observed that great producers of literature as the -Irish always were--until this century--they never developed a drama. -The nearest approach to such a thing is in these Ossianic poems. -The dialogue between St. Patrick and Ossian--of which there is, in -most of the poems, either more or less--is quite dramatic in its -form. Even the reciters of the present day appear to feel this, and -I have heard the censorious self-satisfied tone of Patrick, and the -querulous vindictive whine of the half-starved old man, reproduced with -considerable humour by a reciter. But I think it nearly certain--though -I cannot prove it[14]--that in former days there was real acting and a -dialogue between two persons, one representing the saint and the other -the old pagan. It was from a less promising beginning than this that -the drama of Æschylus developed. But nothing could develop in later -Ireland. Everything, time after time, was arrested in its growth. Again -and again the tree of Irish literature put forth fresh blossoms, and -before they could fully expand they were nipped off. The conception -of bringing the spirit of Paganism and of Christianity together in -the persons of the last great poet and warrior of the one, and the -first great saint of the other, was truly dramatic in its conception, -and the spirit and humour with which it has been carried out in the -pieces which have come down to us are a strong presumption that under -happier circumstances something great would have developed from it. -If any one is still found to repeat Macaulay's hackneyed taunt about -the Irish race never having produced a great poem, let him ask himself -if it is likely that a country, where, for a hundred years after -Aughrim and the Boyne, teachers who for long before that had been in -danger, were systematically knocked on the head, or sent to a jail for -teaching; where children were seen learning their letters with chalk -on their father's tombstones--other means being denied them; where -the possession of a manuscript might lead to the owner's death or -imprisonment, so that many valuable books were buried in the ground, -or hidden to rot in walls[15]--whether such a country were a soil on -which an epic or anything else could flourish. How, in the face of all -this, the men of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries preserved in -manuscript so much of the Ossianic poetry as they did, and even rewrote -or redacted portions of it, as Michael Comyn is said to have done to -"Ossian in the Land of the Ever-Young," is to me nothing short of -amazing. - -Of the authorship of the Ossianic poems nothing is known. In the Book -of Leinster are three short pieces ascribed to Ossian himself, and -five to Finn, and other old MSS. contain poems ascribed to Caoilte, -Ossian's companion and fellow survivor, and to Fergus, another son -of Finn; but of the great mass of the many thousand lines which we -have in seventeenth and eighteenth century MSS. there is not much -which is placed in Ossian's mouth as first hand, the pieces as I -have said generally beginning with a dialogue, from which Ossian -proceeds to recount his tale. But this dramatic form of the lay shows -that no pretence was kept up of Ossian's being the singer of his own -exploits.[16] From the paucity of the pieces attributed to him in the -oldest MSS. it is probable that the Gaelic race only gradually singled -him out as their typical pagan poet, instead of Fergus or Caoilte or -any other of his alleged contemporaries, just as they singled out -his father Finn, as the typical pagan leader of their race; and it -is likely that a large part of our Ossianic lay and literature is -post-Danish, while the great mass of the Red Branch saga is in its -birth many centuries anterior to the Norsemen's invasion.[17] - -[1] In Irish Oisín, pronounced "Esheen," or "Ussheen." However, -the Scotch Gaelic form has, thanks to the genius of Macpherson, so -overshadowed the Irish one that it may be allowed to remain. - -[2] Standish Hayes O'Grady, in the third vol. of the Ossianic Society, -gives the names of thirty-five of these poems, amounting to nearly -11,000 lines. The Ossianic Society printed about 6,000 lines. The -Franciscans have shown me a MS. with over 10,000 lines, none of which -has been printed. - -[3] In the original Ossian asks-- - - "An éagcóir nár mhaith le Dia - Ór a's biadh do thabhairt do neach? - Nior dhiultaigh Fionn treun ná truagh - Ifrionn fuar má 's é a theach." - -[4] Irish writers always describe Hell as cold, not hot. This is so -even in Keating. The "cold flag of hell." - -[5] In the original-- - - "Glaodh Oscair ag dul do sheilg - Gotha gadhar ar leirg na bh Fiann - Bheith 'na shuidhe ameasg na ndámh - Ba h-é sin de ghnáth a mhian. - - Mian de mhianaibh Oscair fhéil - Bheith ag éisteacht re béim sgiath, - Bheith i gcath ag cosgar cnámh - Ba h-é sin de ghnáth a mhian." - -[6] Literally: "O Patrick, woful is the tale that the Fenian king -should be in bonds, a heart devoid of spite or hatred, a heart stern in -maintaining battles. - -"Is it an injustice at which God is not pleased to bestow gold and -food on any one? Finn never refused either the strong or the wretched, -although cold Hell is his house. - -"It was the desire of the son of Cúmhal of the noble mien to listen to -the sound of Drumderg, to sleep by the stream of the Assaroe, and to -chase the deer of Galway of the bays. - -"The warbling of the blackbird of Letter Lee, the wave of Ruree -[Dundrum Bay in the County Down] lashing the shore, the bellowing of -the ox of Moy Meen, the lowing of the calf of Glendavaul. - -"The cry of the hunting of Slieve Grot, the noise of the fawns around -Slieve Cua, the scream of the seagulls over yonder Irris, the cry of -the ravens over the host. - -"The tossing of the hulls of the barks by the waves, the yell of the -hounds at Drumlish, the voice of Bran at Knockinar, the murmur of the -streams around Slieve Mis. - -"The call of Oscar, going to the chase, the cry of the hounds at -Lerg-na-veen--(then) to be sitting amongst the bards: that was his -desire constantly. - -"A desire of the desires of generous Oscar, was to be listening to the -crashing of shields, to be in the battle at the hewing of bones: that -was ever _his_ desire." (_See_ Ossianic Society, vol. iv. The Colloquy -between Ossian and Patrick.) - -[7] Printed by O'Flanagan in the "Transactions of the Gaelic Society," -1808, and translated by Dr. Sigerson in his "Bards of the Gael and -Gall." I cannot refrain from the pleasure of quoting the following -verses from his beautiful translation:-- - - "The tuneful tumult of that bird, - The belling deer on ferny steep: - This welcome in the dawn he heard, - These soothed at eve his sleep. - - Dear to him the wind-loved heath, - The whirr of wings, the rustling brake; - Dear the murmuring glens beneath, - And sob of Droma's lake. - - The cry of hounds at early morn, - The pattering deer, the pebbly creek, - The cuckoo's call, the sounding horn, - The swooping eagle's shriek." - -[8] _See_ p. 59 of the Gaelic part of the book of the Dean of Lismore. -The first verse runs thus in modern Gaelic:-- - - "Binn guth duine i dtir an óir, - Binn an glór chanaid na h-eóin, - Binn an nuallan a gnidh an chorr, - Binn an tonn i mBun-da-treóir." - -[9] _See_ "Silva Gadelica," p. 109 of the English, p. 102 of the Irish -volume. I retain Mr. O'Grady's beautiful translation of this and the -following piece. - -[10] - - "Oighe _baetha_ ar a bennaib - Monainn _maetha_ ar a mongaib, - Uisce fuar ina _h-aibhnib_, - Mes ar a _dairghib_ donnaib." - -Note the exquisite metre of this poem of which the above verse is a -specimen. - -[11] This, like most of the couple of thousand verses scattered -throughout the "Colloquy of the Ancients," is in _Deibhidh_ metre, -which would thus run in English:-- - - "Cold the Winter, cold the =Wind=, - The Raging stag is =Rav=in'd, - Though in one Flag the Floodgates =cling=, - The Steaming Stag is =bell=ing." - -[12] This was Diarmuid of the Love-spot, who eloped with Gráinne, and -was killed by the wild boar, from whom the Campbells of Scotland claim -descent, as is alluded to in Flora Mac Ivor's song in "Waverley":-- - - "Ye sons of Brown Diarmuid who slew the wild boar." - -[13] - - "Is fada anocht i n-Ailfinn, - Is fada linn an oidhche aréir, - An lá andhiu cidh fada dham, - Ba leór-fhad an lá andé." - -_See_ p. 208 of my "Religious Songs of Connacht" for the original of -this poem, which I copied from a MS. in the Belfast Museum. The Dean -of Lismore in Argyle jotted this poem down in phonetic spelling nearly -four hundred years ago, but the name of Elphin, being strange to him, -he took the words to be _na neulla fúm_, "the clouds round me," _ni -nelli fiym_ he spells it. Elphin is an episcopal seat in the county -Roscommon, where St. Patrick abode for a while when in Connacht. I -often heard in that county the story of Ossian meeting St. Patrick -when drawing stones in Elphin, but always thought that the people of -Roscommon localised the legend in their own county. But the discovery -of the Belfast copy--and I believe there is another one in the British -Museum--shows that this was not so, and the Dean of Lismore's book -proves the antiquity of the legend. That Ailfinn (Elphin) was the -original word is proved by rhyming to _linn, sinn_ and _Finn_, which -_Fiym_ (= fúm) could not do. - -[14] I once saw a letter in an Irish-American paper by some one whose -name I forget, in which he alleged that in his youth he had actually -seen the Ossianic lays thus acted. - -[15] Like the Book of Lismore and others. _See_ Sullivan's preface to -O'Curry's "Manners and Customs." - -[16] "Ich vermuthe," says Windisch ("Irische Texte," I. i. p. 63), -"dass Ossin (Ossian) auf dieser Wege zu einer Dichtergestalt geworden -ist. Die Gedichte die ihm in der Sage in den Mund gelegt werden, -galten als sein Werk und wurden allmählig zum Typus einer ganzen -Literaturgattung." But the same should hold equally true of Caoilte, in -whose mouth an equal number of poems are placed. - -[17] The following Ossianic poems have been published in the -"Transactions of the Ossianic Society." In vol. iii., 1857, "The -Lamentation of Ossian after the Fenians," 852 lines. In vol. iv., 1859, -"The Dialogue between Ossian and Patrick," 684 lines: "The Battle of -Cnoc an Áir," 336 lines; "The Lay of Meargach," 904 lines; "The Lay -of Meargach's Wife," 388 lines; "The names of those fallen at Cnoc an -Áir," 76 lines; "The Chase of Loch Léin," 328 lines; "The Lay of Ossian -in the Land of the Ever-Young," 636 lines; and some smaller pieces. -Vol. vi., 1861, contains: "The Chase of Slieve Guilleann," 228 lines; -"The Chase of Slieve Fuaid," 788 lines; "The Chase of Glennasmóil," 364 -lines; "The Hunt of the Fenians on Sleive Truim," 316 lines; "The Chase -of Slieve-na-mon," 64 lines; "The Chase of the Enchanted Pigs of Angus -of the Boyne" [son of the Dagda], 280 lines; "The Hunt on the borders -of Loch Derg," 80 lines; "The Adventures of the Great Fool" [which, -however, is not an Ossianic poem], 632 lines. - -I have in my own possession copies of several other Ossianic poems, -one of which, "The Lay of Dearg," in Deibhidh metre, consisting of 300 -lines, is ascribed to Fergus, Finn's poet, not to Ossian. - - "Is mé Feargus, file Fhinn - De gnáith-fhéinn Fhinn mhic Cúmhail, - O thásg na bhfear sin nár lag - Trian a ngaisge ni inneósad." - -In the library of the Franciscans' Convent in Dublin there is a -seventeenth-century collection of Ossianic poems, all in regular -classical metres, containing, as I have computed, not less than -10,000 lines. Not one of these poems has been, so far as I know, ever -published. The poems printed by the Ossianic Society are not in the -classical metres, though I suspect many of them were originally so -composed, but they have become corrupted passing from mouth to mouth. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXVIII - -THE LAST OF THE CLASSIC POETS - - -The first half of the seventeenth century saw an extraordinary -re-awakening of the Irish literary spirit. This was the more curious -because it was precisely at this period that the old Gaelic polity with -its tribal system, brehon law, hereditary bards, and all its other -supports, was being upheaved by main force and already beginning to -totter to its ruin. This was the period when to aggravate what was -already to the last degree bitter--the struggle for the soil and racial -feuds--a third disastrous ingredient, polemics, stept in, and inflamed -the minds of the opposing parties, with the additional fanaticism of -religious hatred. Yet whether it is that their works have been better -preserved to us than those of any other century, or whether the very -nearness of the end inspired them to double exertions, certain it is -that the seventeenth century, and especially the first half of it, -produced amongst the Irish a number of most gifted men of letters. Of -these the so-called Four Masters, Seathrun or Geoffrey Keating, Father -Francis O'Mulloy, Lughaidh [Lewy] O'Clery, and Duald Mac Firbis were -the most important of the purely Irish prose writers, whilst Phillip -O'Sullivan Beare, Father Ward, and Father Colgan, John Lynch (Bishop -of Killala), Luke Wadding, and Peter Lombard (Archbishop of Armagh), -reflected credit upon their native country by their scholarship, and -elucidated its history chiefly through the medium of Latin, as did -Ussher and Sir James Ware, two great scholars of the same period -produced by the Pale. - -The century opened with an outburst of unexpected vigour on the part -of the old school of Irish classical bards, over whose head the sword -was then suspended, and whose utter destruction, though they knew -it not, was now rapidly approaching. This outburst was occasioned -by Teig mac Dairé,[1] the ollamh or chief poet of Donough O'Brien, -fourth Earl of Thomond, (whose star, thanks to English influence, was -at that time in the ascendant), making little of and disparaging in -elaborate verse the line of Eremon,[2] and the reigning families of -Meath, Connacht, Leinster, and Ulster, whilst exalting the kings of -the line of Eber, of whom the O'Briens were at that time the greatest -family. The form this poem took was an attack upon the poems of Torna -Eigeas, a poet who flourished soon after the year 400, and who was -tutor to Niall of the Nine Hostages, but whose alleged poems I have not -noticed, not believing those attributed to him to be genuine, as they -contain distinct Christian allusions, and as the language does not seem -particularly antique. The bards, however, accepted these pieces as the -real work of Torna, and Teig mac Dairé now attacks him on account of -his partiality for the Eremonian Niall one thousand two hundred years -before, and argues that he had done wrong, and that Eber, as the elder -son of Milesius, should have had the precedency over Ir and Eremon, -the younger children, and that consequently the princes of Munster, -who were Eberians, should take precedency of the O'Nialls, O'Conors, -and other Eremonians of the Northern provinces, and of Leinster. Teig -asserts that it was Eber or Heber, son of Milesius, from whom Ireland -was called Hiber-nia. This poem, which contained about one hundred -and fifty lines, began with the words _Olc do thagrais a Thorna_, -"Ill hast thou argued, O Torna," and was immediately taken up and -answered by Lughaidh [Lewy] O'Clery, the ollamh of the O'Donnells, in -a poem containing three hundred and forty lines, beginning "O Teig, -revile not Torna." To this Teig replied in a piece of six hundred and -eighty-eight lines, beginning _Eist-se a Lughaidh rem' labhradh_, -"Listen to my speech, O Lewy," and was again immediately answered in -a poem of about a thousand lines by O'Clery, beginning, _Do chuala ar -thagrais a Thaidhg_, "I have heard all that thou hast argued, O Teig." -In this poem O'Clery collects such facts as he can find in history -and in ancient authors, to prove that the Eremonians had always been -considered superior to the Eberians in past ages. This called forth -another rejoinder from his opponent of one hundred and twenty-four -lines, beginning _A Lughaidh labhram go séimh_, "Let us speak -courteously, O Lewy," which was in its turn answered by O'Clery in a -poem beginning _Ná broisd mise a Mhic Dhaire_, "Provoke me not, O son -of Dairé." - -By this time the attention of the whole Irish literary world had been -centred upon this curious dispute, and on the attacks and rejoinders of -these leading poets representing the two great races of Northern and -Southern Ireland respectively. Soon the hereditary poets of the other -great Gaelic houses joined in, as their own descent or inclination -prompted. Fearfeasa O'Cainte, Torlough O'Brien, and Art Og O'Keefe were -the principal supporters of Teig mac Daire and the Southern Eberians, -while Hugh O'Donnell, Robert Mac Arthur, Baoghalach ruadh Mac Egan, -Anluan Mac Egan, John O'Clery, and Mac Dermot of Moylurg, defended Lewy -and the Northern Eremonians. For many years the conflict raged, and the -verses of both parties collected into a volume of about seven thousand -lines, is known to this day as "The Contention of the Poets." - -There is something highly pathetic in this last flickering up of the -spirit of the hereditary classical bards, who conducted this dispute -in precisely the same metre, language, tone, and style, as their -forefathers of hundreds of years before would have done it, and who -chose for the subject-matter of dispute an hereditary quarrel of twelve -hundred years' standing. Just as the ancient history of the Irish began -with the distinction between the descendants of the sons of Milesius, -of which we read so much at the beginning of this volume, soon the -self-same subject does the literary spirit of the ancient time which -had lasted with little alteration from the days of St. Patrick, flare -up into light for a brief moment at the opening of the seventeenth -century, ere it expired for ever under the sword of Cromwell and of -William. - -It is altogether probable, however, that under the appearance of -literary zeal and genealogical fury, the bards who took part in this -contest were really actuated by the less apparent motive of rousing -the ardour of their respective chiefs, their pride of blood, and -their hatred of the intruder. If this, as I strongly suspect, were -the underlying cause of the "Contention," their expiring effort to -effect the impossible by the force of poetry--the only force at their -command--is none the less pathetic, than would have been on the very -brink of universal ruin, their quarrelling, in the face of their common -enemy, upon the foolish old genealogies of a powerless past. - -We know a good deal, however, about this Teig, son of Dairé, the -ollamh of the O'Briens, of whose poetry, all written in elaborate and -highly-wrought classical metres, we have still about three thousand -four hundred lines. He possessed down even to the middle of the -seventeenth century a fine estate and the castle of Dunogan with its -appurtenances, which belonged to him by right of his office, as the -hereditary _ollamh_ of Thomond. He was hurled over a cliff in his old -age by a soldier of Cromwell, who is said to have yelled after him with -savage exultation as he fell, "Say your rann now, little man."[3] A -beautiful inauguration ode to the English-bred Donogh O'Brien, fourth -Earl of Thomond, proclaims him a bard of no ordinary good sense and -merit. - - "Bring thy case before Him (God) every day, beseech diligently Him - from whom nothing may be concealed, concerning everything of which - thou art in care, Him from whom thou shalt receive relief. - - "Run not according to thine own desire, O Prince of the Boru tribute, - let the cause of the people be thy anxiety, and that is not the - anxiety of an idle man. - - "Be not thou negligent in the concerns of each: since it is thy due to - decide between the people, O smooth countenance, be easy of access, - and diligent in thine own interests. - - "Give not thyself up to play nor wine nor feast nor the delight of - music nor the caresses of maidens; measure thou the ill-deeds of each - with their due reward, without listening to the intervention of thy - council. - - "For love, for terror, for hatred, do not pass (be thou a not-hasty - judge) a judgment misbecoming thee, O Donough--no not for bribes of - gold and silver."[4] - -In another poem, Mac Dairé warns the O'Briens to be advised by him, -and not plunge the province into war, and to take care how they draw -down upon themselves his animosity. Here are a few of these verses, -translated into the exact equivalent of the Deibhidh metre in which -they are written. They will give a fair idea of a poet's arrogance. - - "'Tis not War we Want to =Wage= - With THomond THinned by =out=rage. - SLIGHT not Poets' Poignant =spur= - Of RIGHT ye Owe it =hOn=our. - - Can there Cope a Man with Me - In Burning hearts Bitterly, - At my BLows men BLUSH I =wis=, - Bright FLUSH their Furious =Fa=ces.[5] - - Store of blister-Raising =Ranns= - These are my Weighty =Wea=pons, - Poisoned, STriking STRONG through =men=, - They Live not LONG so =strick=en. - - SHelter from my SHafts or =rest= - Is not in Furthest =Fo=rest, - Far they FALL, words Soft as =Snow=, - No WALL can Ward my =ar=row.[6] - - * * * * * - - To QUench in QUarrels good =deeds=, - To Raise up WRongs in =hun=dreds, - To NAIL a NAME on a =man=, - I FAIL not--FAME my =wea=pon." - -The men who most distinguished themselves in the extraordinary -outburst of classical poetry that characterised the early seventeenth -century were Teig Dall O'Hĭginn, a poet of the county Sligo, brother -to the Archbishop of Tuam, and Eochaidh [Yohy] O'Hussey, the chief -bard of the Maguire of Fermanagh. Teig Dall O'Hĭginn has left behind -him at least three thousand lines, all in polished classical metres, -and O'Hussey nearly four thousand. Teig Dall was the author of the -celebrated poem addressed to Brian O'Rorke, urging him to take up -arms against Elizabeth on the principle "si vis pacem para bellum:" -it begins _D'fhior cogaidh comhailtear síothchain_ "to a man of war -peace is assured," and it had the desired effect. The verses of these -bards throw a great deal of light upon the manners customs and politics -of the age. There is a curious poem extant by this Teig Dall, in -which he gives a graphic account of a night he spent in the house of -Maolmordha Mac Sweeny, a night which the poet says he will remember for -ever.[7] He met on that memorable night in that hospitable house Brian -mac Angus Mac Namee, the poet in chief to Torlogh Luineach O'Neill, -Brian mac Owen O'Donnellan, the poet of Mac William of Clanrickard, -and Conor O'Hĭginn, the bard of Mac William-Burke. Not only did -the chieftain himself, Mac Sweeny, pay him homage, but he received -presents--acknowledgment evidently of his admitted genius--from the -poets as well. Mac Sweeny gave to him a dappled horse, one of the best -steeds in Ireland, Brian mac Angus gave him a wolf-dog that might be -matched against any; while from Brian mac Owen he received a book "a -full well of the true stream of knowledge,"--in which were writ "the -cattle-spoils, courtships, and sieges of the world, an explanation of -their battles and progress, it was the flower of the King-books of -Erin."[8] Where, he asks, are all those chiefs gone now? Alas! "the -like of the men I found before me in that perfect rath of glistening -splendour, ranged along the coloured sides of the purple-hung mansion, -no eye ever saw before,"[9] but they are scattered and gone, and -the death of four of them in especial seemed a loss from which Banba -[Ireland] thought she could never recover. This great poet, in my -opinion by far the finest of his contemporaries, came to a tragical -end. Six of the O'Haras of Sligo calling at his house, ate up his -provisions, and in return he issued against them a special satire. This -satire, consisting of twelve ranns in Deibhidh [D'yevvee] metre,[10] -stung them to such a pitch that they returned and cut out the tongue -that could inflict such exquisite pain, and poor O'Hĭginn died of their -barbarous ill-treatment some time prior to the year 1617. None of the -bardic race had ever thought that such an end could overtake the great -poet at the hands of the Gael themselves. It was only a short time -before that, when some bard envying him his position at Coolavin in the -west, far from the inroads of the murdering foreigner, had sung:-- - - "Would I Were in Cool-O-=vinn= - Where Haunteth Teig O =Hig=inn - There my LEASE of LIFE were =free= - From STRIFE in PEACE and =Plen=ty."[11] - -We find the poet O'Gnive, the author of the well-known poem, "The -Stepping-down of the Gael,"[12] bitterly lamenting in Deibhidh metre, -the death of O'Hĭginn, and that breaking-up of the Bardic schools which -was even then beginning. - - "Fallen the LAND of Learned =men=, - The Bardic BAND is =fal=len; - None now LEARN true SONG to =Sin=g, - How LONG our FERN is =Fad=ing! - - Fearful your Fates O'=Hi=ginn, - And Yohy Mac =Me=laughlinn, - Dark was the DAY through FEUD =Fel=l - The GOOD, the GAY, the =GEN=TLE.[13] - - Ye were Masters Made to =please= - O'Higinnses, O'=Da=lys; - GLOOMY ROCKS have WRought your =fates=, - Ye PLUMY FLOCKS of =Po=ets." - -O'Hussey, probably the greatest contemporary rival of Teig Dall, is -best known through Mangan's translation of his noble ode to Cuchonnacht -Maguire, lord of Fermanagh,[14] who was caught by the elements on some -warlike expedition and in danger of being frozen and drowned. - - "Where is my chief, my master, this black night? movrone! - Oh, cold, cold, miserably cold is this black night for Hugh, - Its showery, arrowy, speary sleet pierceth one through and through, - Pierceth one to the very bone. - - * * * * * - - An awful, a tremendous night is this, meseems, - The floodgates of the rivers of heaven I think have been burst wide, - Down from the overcharged clouds, like unto headlong ocean's tide, - Descends grey rain in roaring streams. - - Though he were even a wolf ranging the round green woods, - Though he were even a pleasant salmon in the unchainable sea, - Though he were a wild mountain eagle, he could scarce bear, he, - This sharp sore sleet, these howling floods."[15] - -When it is remembered that O'Hussey composed this poem in that most -difficult and artificial of metres, the Deibhidh, of which we have just -given specimens, it will be seen how much Mangan has gained by his -free and untrammelled metre, and what technical difficulties fettered -O'Hussey's art, and lent glory to his triumph over them. - -Both these great poets and their contemporaries had been reared in -the bardic colleges, which continued to exist, though with gradually -diminishing prestige, until near the close of the seventeenth century. -I doubt if a single college survived into the eighteenth, to come under -the cruel law which made it penal for a Catholic to teach a school. In -the seventeenth century, however, several famous colleges of poetry -are still found. They are frequently alluded to by the poets of that -century, both in Ireland and Scotland, and always under the generic -name of "the schools," by which they mean the bardic institutions. -Few or none of those persons who did not themselves come of a bardic -tribe were admitted into them, which accounts for the prevalence of -the same surnames among the poets for several centuries, O'Dalys, -O'Hĭginnses, O'Coffeys, Macgraiths, Conmees, Wards, O'Mulconrys,[16] -etc. None of the students were allowed to come from the neighbourhood -of the college, but only from far-away parts of Ireland, so as not -to be distracted by the propinquity of friends and relations. This -produced a certain unity of feeling among the bardic race, and to a -great extent broke down all class prejudice, so much so, that the bards -were almost the only people in later Ireland who belonged to their -country rather than to their lord, or tribe, or territory. It may very -well be, however, that the bardic race was not in the long run an -advantage to Ireland, and that the elaborate system of pedigrees which -they preserved, and their eulogies upon their particular patrons tended -to keep the clan spirit alive to the detriment of the idea of a unified -nationality, and to the exclusion of new political modes of thought. - -However this may be, it is absolutely necessary to study the poets of -the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries if one would come to a right -understanding of the great transformation scene then being enacted. -The feelings, aspirations, and politics of the Irish themselves are -faithfully reflected in them, and though no Irish historian, except -perhaps O'Halloran, has ever read them, yet no historian can afford -to utterly neglect them. It has become common of late years to deny -that there was any real national struggle of Ireland against England -in the seventeenth century, and my friend Mr. Standish O'Grady, in -particular, from a perusal of the English State Papers and other -documents, has striven with eloquence and brilliancy to prove that the -fight was a social and an economic one, a conflict between the smaller -gentry and the great upper lords. But such a view of the case is flatly -contradicted, indeed absolutely disproved, by a study of the Irish -bards. The names of Erin, Banba, Fódhla, the Plain of Conn, the Land -of the Children of Ir and Eber, are in their mouths at every moment, -and to the very last they persisted in their efforts to combine the -Gael against the Gall. Here, for instance, is a poem, one specimen out -of scores, by an unknown poet of the sixteenth century, exhorting the -Irish of all the provinces to resistance, and it would be impossible -to tell to what tribe or even to what province the poet belonged. I -translate the poem here into a modification of the Irish metre, and -one which, it seems to me, could be very well taken over and adapted -with a fairly good effect into English.[17] - - "Fooboon upon you, ye hosts of the Gael, - For your own Innisfail has been taken, - And the Gall is dividing the emerald lands - By your treacherous bands forsaken.[18] - - Clan Carthy of Munster from first unto last - Have forsaken the past of their sires, - And they honour no longer the men that are gone, - Or the song of the God-sent lyres. - - The O'Briens of Banba whom Murrough led on, - They are gone with the Saxon aggressor, - They have bartered the heirloom of ages away - And forgotten to slay the oppressor. - - The old race of Brian mac Yohy[19] the stern, - With gallowglass kerne and bonnacht,[20] - They are down on their knees, they are cringing to-day, - 'Tis the way through the province of Connacht. - - In the valleys of Leinster the valorous band - Who lightened the land with their daring, - In Erin's dark hour now shift for themselves, - The wolves are upon them and tearing. - - And O'Neill, who is throned in Emania afar, - And gave kings unto Tara for ages, - For the earldom of Ulster has bartered, through fear, - The kingdom of heroes and sages.[21] - - Alas for the sight! the O'Carrolls of Birr - Swear homage in terror, sore fearing, - Not a man one may know for a man, can be found - On the emerald ground of Erin. - - And O'Donnell[22] the chieftain, the lion in fight, - Who defended the right of Tirconnell, - (Ah! now may green Erin indeed go and droop!) - He stoops with them--Manus O'Donnell! - - "Fooboon for the court where no English was spoke, - Fooboon for the yoke of the stranger, - Fooboon for the gun in the foreigner's train, - Fooboon for the chain of danger. - - "Ye faltering madmen, God pity your case! - In the flame of disgrace ye are singeing. - Fooboon is the word of the bard and the saint, - Fooboon for the faint and cringing." - -The session of the bardic schools began about Michaelmas,[23] and the -youthful aspirants to bardic glory came trooping, about that season, -from all quarters of the four provinces to offer with trembling hearts -their gifts to the ollamh of the bardic college, and to take possession -of their new quarters. Very extraordinary these quarters were; for the -college usually consisted of a long low group of whitewashed buildings, -excessively warmly thatched, and lying in the hollow of some secluded -valley, or shut in by a sheltering wood, far removed from noise of -human traffic and from the bustle of the great world. But what most -struck the curious beholder was the entire absence of windows or -partitions over the greater portion of the house. - -According as each student arrived he was assigned a windowless room -to himself, with no other furniture in it than a couple of chairs, a -clothes rail, and a bed. When all the students had arrived, a general -examination of them was held by the professors and ollamhs, and all -who could not read and write Irish well, or who appeared to have an -indifferent memory, were usually sent away. The others were divided -into classes, and the mode of procedure was as follows: The students -were called together into the great hall or sitting-room, amply -illuminated by candles and bog-torches, and we may imagine the head -ollamh, perhaps the venerable and patriotic O'Gnive himself, addressing -them upon their chosen profession, and finally proposing some burning -topic such as O'Neill's abrogation of the title of O'Neill, for the -higher class to compose a poem on, in perhaps the Great or Little -Rannaigheacht [Ran-ee-ăcht] metre, while for the second class he sets -one more commonplace, to be done into Deibhidh [D'yevvee] or Séadna -[Shayna], or some other classic measure, and any student who does not -know all about the syllabification, quartans, concord, correspondence, -termination, and union, which go to the various metres, is turned over -to an inferior professor. - -The students retired after their breakfasts, to their own warm but -perfectly dark compartments, to throw themselves each upon his bed,[24] -and there think and compose till supper-hour, when a servant came -round to all the rooms with candles, for each to write down what he -had composed. They were then called together into the great hall, and -handed in their written compositions to the professors, after which -they chatted and amused themselves till bed-time. - -On every Saturday and the eve of every holiday the schools broke up, -and the students dispersed themselves over the country. They were -always gladly received by the landowners of the neighbourhood, and -treated hospitably until their return on Monday morning. The people of -the district never failed to send in, each in turn, large supplies to -the college, so that, what between this and the presents brought by the -students at the beginning of the year, the professors are said to have -been fairly rich. - -The schools always broke up on the 25th of March, and the holidays -lasted for six months, it not being considered judicious to spend the -warm half of the year in the close college, from which all light and -air-draughts had been so carefully excluded. - -I can hardly believe, however, that the students of law, history, -and classics--all the educated classes could speak Latin, which was -their means of communication with the English[25]--were treated as -here described, or enjoyed such long holidays. It was probably only -a special class of candidates for bardic degrees who were thus dealt -with, and the account above given may be somewhat exaggerated; the -students probably composed in their dark compartments only on certain -days. - -In the seventeenth century we find that the three or four hundred -metres taught in the schools of the tenth century had been practically -restricted to a couple of dozen, and these nearly all heptasyllabic. -It is quite probable, as Thurneysen asserts, that the metres of the -early Roman hymns--themselves probably largely affected by Celtic -models--exercised in their turn a reflex influence upon Irish poetry, -and especially on that of the bards, in contradistinction to that of -the _filés_. Indeed, it is pretty certain that if the Roman metres -had not before existed in Irish the bards would have made no scruple -about copying them; and they may thus have come by these octosyllabic -and heptasyllabic lines about which they were in after times so -particular. Of the metres chiefly in vogue in the schools of the -later centuries, the most popular was the Deibhidh, of which I have -already given so many examples.[26] It was, as it were, the official -metre--the hexameter of the Gael. All the seven thousand and odd lines -of the "Contention of the Bards," for instance, are written in it. -Great Rannaigheacht[27] [Ran-ee-ăcht] was another prime heptasyllabic -favourite. It ran thus-- - - "To Hear Handsome Women WEEP, - In DEEP distress Sobbing Sore, - Or Gangs of Geese scream for FAR, - They sweeter ARE than ARTS snore."[28] - -I may observe here that there has been on the part of Irish -Continental scholars an extraordinary amount of discordant theories as -to the scansion of the Irish classical metres. None of them seem to be -agreed as to how to scan them. Zimmer insists that the word-accent and -the metrical accent in Irish are identical, which, as Kuno Meyer has -shown, is plainly not the case. He would probably scan-- - - "Or wíld geese thát scream fróm fàr," - -while Kuno Meyer again would insist on reading-- - - "Ór wild geése that scréam from fár," - -because, as he says, all heptasyllabic lines are to be read as -trochaic, a theory which may apply very well to some lines, as to the -above, but which is almost certain to break down after a line or two, -as in the very next line of this verse which I have taken for a model-- - - "Théy sweet / ér are / thán Arts / snóre," - -a scansion which does extraordinary violence to the natural -pronunciation of the words. I, for my part, do not believe that there -was ever any real metrical accent, that is, any real alternation of -stressed and unstressed syllables in the classical Irish metres.[29] -The one thing certain about them is the fixed number of syllables and -the rhyme, but each verse was, as it were, separately scanned, if one -may use such a term, on its own merits. Thus the verse just quoted -would be read some way thus-- - - "To hear handsome - Women _weep_ - In _deep_ distress, - Sobbing sore, - Or gangs of geese - Scream from _far_, - They sweeter _are_ - Than Arts snore." - -I have frequently heard preserved in ranns or proverbs, even to this -day, isolated quatrains in these classic metres pronounced by the -people,[30] and they never dream of pronouncing them otherwise than -according to the natural stress of the voice upon the words themselves, -as if they were talking prose,--they never attempt to transform the -seven-syllable lines into trochees, as Kuno Meyer would, nor the -eight-syllable lines into iambics. Of this old Gaelic prosody there -appears to be a distinct reminiscence in Burns. Take this verse of his -for example-- - - "Blythe, blythe, and merry was she, - Blythe was she but and ben, - Blythe by the banks of Ern, - And blythe in Glenturit glen." - -This, supplying, say the syllable "and," in the second and third lines -makes a good Rannaigheacht mór quatrain, which the poet evidently -pronounced exactly as an old Irish bard would have done. - - "Blythe, blythe, - And merry was she, - And blythe was she - But and ben, - Blythe by - The banks of Ern, - And blythe in - Glenturit glen." - -Bonaventura O'Hussey was another fine classical poet of the beginning -of the seventeenth century. He was educated for a bard, but afterwards -became a Franciscan in Louvain, where he wrote and published an Irish -work on Christian Doctrine in 1608, which was reprinted in Antwerp -three years later. The Irish, having no press of their own in Ireland -(though they had some outside it), were obliged to print and set up all -their books abroad, chiefly at Louvain, Antwerp, Rome, and Paris. Any -attempt to introduce founts of Irish type in the teeth of the English -Government would, I think, have been futile, so that except for the -works she was able to print in Irish type abroad, and afterwards to -smuggle in, Ireland during the seventeenth century was thrown nearly -a couple of hundred years out of the world's course, by having to use -manuscripts instead of printed books. It is curious to find O'Hussey -compressing the Christian doctrine into two hundred and forty lines of -the most accurate Deibhidh metre. When leaving for his foreign home he -bade farewell to Erin in a poem of great beauty. - - "_Slowly_ pass my Aching =Eye=, - Her _Holy_ Hills of =beau=ty - Neath me TOSSING To and =fro=, - Hoarse CRies the CROSSING =bil=low."[31] - -In another poem he laments sorely at leaving the poets and the schools -"to try another trade," that of a cleric, which he says he does, not -because he thinks less of poetry, or because the glory that was once -to be had from it was departing amongst the people of Erin, but from -religious motives alone. - - "Now I _stand_ to Try a =Trade= - Mid Bardic B_and_ less =fa=mèd - Than the P_art_ of Poet =is= - Hacked is my H_eart_ in =pie=ces. - - - 'Tis not that I Veer from =Verse= - So Followed by my =Fa=thers, - Lest the _fame_ it Once did =Win= - In _vain_ be Asked in =Eri=n."[32] - -Fearfeasa O'Cainti was another well-known poet of this period who -attempted to rouse the Irish to action. Here are a few of his verses to -the O'Driscoll-- - - "Many a Mulct--requite their =sin=-- - Fetch from them heir of =Finn=in; - Spare not to SPURN the brute =Gall= - To BURN the BEAR and =jack=al.[33] - - Ruthless Rapine leads them on - Slaying CHief CHild CHampion! - BLood they BLINDLY _spilt_, no law - BINDING their _guilt_ in Banba. - - Pour their BLood to BLEND with blood, - Conor HAND of Hardihood, - CALL for ransom not my King; - Slay ALL, be Untransacting. - - Lies they Lie! their Love is one - With TReachery and TReason, - Nay! thou Needest NOT my spur; - Revenge is HOT, Remember!" - -The quantity of verse composed in these classic metres all through -the seventeenth century was enormous, and amounts to at least twenty -thousand lines of the known poets not to speak of the anonymous ones. -Not more than a dozen of them have ever been published,[34] and yet no -one can pretend to understand the inner history of Ireland at that -period without a reference to them. Their chief characteristic is an -intense compression which produces an air of weighty sententiousness. -This was necessitated by the laws of their composition, which required -at the end of every second line a break or suspension of the sense -(such as in English would be usually expressed by a semi-colon or -colon), and which absolutely forbade any carrying over of the sense -from one stanza into another. Hence the thought of the poet had with -each fresh quatrain to be concentrated into twenty-eight syllables -(thirty syllables in Séadna metre), with a break or pause at the end of -the fourteenth (or fifteenth). Accordingly O'Gnive calls the poets the -"schoolmen of condensed speech,"[35] and the Scotch bard Mac Muirich in -the Red Book of Clanranald speaks of Teig Dall O'Hĭginn as putting into -less than a half-rann what others would take a whole crooked stanza to -express.[36] The classical metres went, in Irish, under the generic -name of _Dán Direach_, or "straight verse;" and O'Molloy, who wrote -an Irish prosody in Latin in the seventeenth century, carried away -by a contemplation of its difficulties, exclaims that it is "Omnium -quæ unquam vidi vel audivi, ausim dicere quæ sub sole reperiuntur, -difficilimum." - -It was during the seventeenth century that the greatest change in the -whole poetical system of the Irish and Scotch Gaels was accomplished, -and that a new school of versification arose with new ideals, new -principles, and new methods, which we shall briefly glance at in the -following chapter. - -[1] His real name was Mac Brodin, "Daré" or Dairé being his father's -name. - -[2] _See_ above, p. 64. - -[3] See O'Flanagan's "Transactions of the Gaelic Society, 1808," p. 29. - -[4] - - "Ar ghrádh ar uamhan, ná ar =fhuath= - Ná beir (bi ad' bhreitheamh =nea=mh-luath) - Breith nár _chóir_, a _Dhonchadh_, =dhuit=, - Ar _chomhthaibh óir_ ná =ar=guit." - -This fine poem, containing in all 220 lines, was published by -O'Flanagan in 1808. - -[5] - - "Tig díom da ndearntaoi m'=fioghail= - Gríosadh bhur ngruadh =lasamh=ail, - Fios bhur gníomh a's gníomh bhur =sean= - Tig a sgrios díom no a n=di=dean." - -From a MS. of my own; this poem contains a hundred lines. - -[6] - - "Ni bhi díon i ndiamhraibh gleann - Ná i bhfíodh dhlúith uaignach fhairseang, - Ná i múr caomh _cneas-aolta_ cuir, - Ag fear m'_easaonta_ ó'm armuibh. - - Múchadh deigh-ghníomh, deargadh gruadh, - Toirmeasg ratha re diombuan, - Cur anma a's _eachta_ ar fhear - _Creachta_ ár n-airm-ne re n-áireamh." - -[7] - - "Tánac oidhche go h-Eas-Caoile - Budh cuimhin liom go lá an bhráith, - Mairfidh _choidhche_ ár _ndol_ do'n _dún-sa_ - _Cor_ na _h-oidhche_ a's _cúrsa_ cháich." - Metre Séadna. - -[8] - - "Tána, Tochmairc, Toghla an bheatha, - Do bhi 'san aiscidh fuair mé, - _Mineachadh_ a _gcath_, 's a _gcéimeann_ - _Sgath rí-leabhar Eireann_ é." - -[9] - - "Samhail na bhfear fuaireas rómham - 'San rath foirththe do b'úr niamh - Ar sleasaibh _datha_ an _dúin chorcra_ - Ni _fhaca súil rompa_ riamh." - -See Catalogue of Irish MSS. in British Museum. - -[10] It commences:-- - - "Sluagh seisir tháinig do m' thigh, - Béarfad uaim iúl an tseisir, - Tearc do lacht mé ar na mhárach - O thart na ré selánach (_i.e._, bitheamhnach);" - -and the last verse runs:-- - - "Guidhim Dia do dhóirt a fhuil - O sé a mbás bheith na mbeathaidh, - (Ni mhairid gar marthain sin!) - Nár marbhthar an sluagh seisir." - -_I.e._, "I pray to God who poured his blood, since it is their death to -be in life,--they do not live whose living is that of theirs!--may that -crew of six be never slain"! This last poem of the unfortunate Teig -Dall is preserved in H. 1. 17 T.C.D. f. 116, 6, whence I copied it, but -it has lately been printed in the brilliantly descriptive Catalogue of -the Irish MSS. in the British Museum. - -[11] I found this poem in a MS. in Trinity College, Dublin, written by -one of the Maguires about the year 1700, but I forget its numbering. I -quote the verse from memory:-- - - "Och gan mé i g Cúl O fhFinn - Mar a bhfuil Tadhg O h-Uiginn, - Dfheudfainn suan go seasgar ann - Gan uamhain easgair orom." - -[12] _See_ Hardiman's "Irish Minstrelsy," vol. ii. p. 102. But it may -not have been the same O'Gneev or O'Gnive, who laments Teig Dall, or if -it was, he must have been a very old man, seeing he accompanied Shane -O'Neill to London in 1562. His poem on the "Stepping-down of the Gael" -has been spiritedly translated by Sir Samuel Ferguson, beginning-- - - "My heart is in woe, - And my soul is in trouble, - For the mighty are low, - And abased are the noble." - -But the metre is the favourite and dignified Deibhidh. - -[13] - - "Oighidh Thaidhg dhuan-sgagtha Dhoill, - Eag Eochaigh mhic Mhaoilsheachlainn, - Tug draoithe Eireann fá oil, - Géibheann maoithe fa mhenmoin." - -From a manuscript of my own. _i.e._, "The tragic-fate of Teig Dall, the -Strainer-of-lays, the death of Eochaidh Mac Melaughlin has brought the -druids (_i.e._, learned poets) of Ireland under reproach, and fetters -of weakness on [their] spirits." - -[14] This prince had also been eulogised by Teig Dall O'Hĭginn in a -poem of 164 lines, beginning _Mairg fheuchas ar Inis Ceithlind_, "Alas -for him who beholds Enniskillen." - -[15] In the original-- - - "Fuar liom an oidhche-se d'Aodh! - Cúis tuirse troime a cith-bhraon! - Mo thruaighe sin d'ár seise [_i.e._, caraid!] - Nimh fuaire na h-oidhche-se. - - Anocht is nimh lem' chridhe, - Fearthar frasa teinntidhe, - I gcómhdháil na gclá seacta - Mar tá is orgráin aigeanta." - -The literal meaning of this last verse, which may be profitably -compared with Mangan's translation, is, "This night it is venom to my -heart how the fiery showers are rained down, in the company of the -frozen spikes; how it is, is a horror to the mind." The next verse is -also worth giving. - - "Do h-osgladh as ochtuibh neóil - Doirse uisgidhe an aidheóir, - Tug sé minlinnte ann a muir, - Do sgeith an firmiminta hurbhuidh." - -"There has been thrown open, out of the bosom of the clouds, the doors -of the waters of the air. It has made of little linns a sea; the -firmament has belched forth her destructiveness." The metre of the last -line in this verse is wrong, for it contains nine not seven syllables. - -[16] O'Reilly mentions eight Mac-an-bháirds or Wards, eleven O'Clerys, -seven O'Coffeys, eight O'Hĭginnses, nine O'Mulconrys and no less than -twenty-eight O'Dalys, who were by far the most numerous and perhaps the -ablest bardic tribe in all Ireland. - -[17] The metre of the original is hepta-syllabic, each line ending in a -dissyllable, and there is no regular beat or accentuation in the verse, -which though printed as a four-line stanza, would really run some way -thus-- - - "Foobon on ye, - Cringe _cowards_, - Are your _powers_ - Departed? - - Galls your country - Are _tearing_, - Over_bearing_, - Flint-hearted." - -The Irish themselves, either through the influence of English verse or -through the natural evolution of the Irish language, changed this metre -in the next century into one not unlike my English verses above. - -[18] This piece is taken from a manuscript of my own; I have never -met this fine poem elsewhere. The word _fooboon_, upon which the -changes are so rung, is new to me, and is not contained in any Irish -or Scotch-Gaelic dictionary, the nearest approach to it is O'Reilly's -_fúbta_, "humiliation"; but I find the words _fubub fubub_ in the sense -of "shame," "fy," in the Turner MS., "Reliquiæ Celticæ," vol. ii. p. -325. The metre of this poem is Little Rannaigheacht, and the first -verse runs thus-- - - "Fúbún fúibh a shluagh _Gaoidheal_ - Ni mhair _aoin-neach_ agaibh - Goill ag comh-roinn bhur _gcríche_ - Re sluagh _sithe_ mar [_i.e._ bhur] samhail." - -Literally: "Fooboon to you, O host of the Gaels, not a man of you -is alive: the Galls are together-dividing your lands, while ye are -[unsubstantial] like a fairy host. The Clan Carthy of Leath Mogha -[_i.e._, Southern Ireland], and to call them out down to one man, there -is not--and sad is the disgrace--one person of them imitating the [old] -Gaels," etc. - -[19] Yohy is the pronunciation of the Irish Eochaidh, genitive -Eochach, or even Eathach. The Eochaidh here alluded to is Eochaidh -Muigh-mhea-dhon [Mwee-va-on], father of Niall of the Nine Hostages. -He came to the throne in 356, and from his son Brian the O'Conors, -O'Rorkes, O'Reillys, MacDermots, etc., of Connacht are descended, who -all went under the generic name of the Ui Briain, as the families -descended from his other son, Niall of the Nine Hostages are the Ui -Neill. _See_ above, pp. 33 and 34. - -[20] Bonnacht is a "mercenary soldier." - -[21] - - "O Néill Oiligh a's _Eamhna_ - Ri _Teamhrach_ agus Tailltean, - Tugsad ar _iarlacht_ Uladh - _Ríoghacht_ go h-úmhal aimhghlic." - -_I.e._, "O'Neill of Aileach and of Emania, King of Tara and of -Tailtinn, they have given away for the earldom of Ulster, a kingdom -submissively unwisely." - -[22] Manus O'Donnell died in 1563, so that this poem must have been -composed somewhat earlier. - -[23] This account of the later bardic schools is chiefly derived from a -curious book, the "Memoirs of Clanrickard," printed in London in 1722. - -[24] Hence the bardic expression, "luidhe i leabaibh sgol," _i.e._, "to -lie in the beds of the schools," equivalent to becoming a poet. - -[25] Campion, who wrote in 1574, says of the Irish of his day: "They -speake Latine like a vulgar language learned in their schooles of -Leachcraft and law, whereat they begin children and holde on sixteene -or twentie yeares." After the Battle of the Curlew Mountains, -MacDermot, anxious to let the Governor know where the body of Sir -Conyers Clifford lay, wrote a note to him in Latin. - -[26] _See_ above, pp. 518-523. - -[27] Of Little Rannaigheacht I gave an example a few pages back in the -poem "Fooboon." Séadna [Shayna] was another great favourite, built on -the model of the following verse, with or without alliteration-- - - "Teig of herds the Gallant Giver, - Right receiver of our love, - Teig thy Name shall KNow no _ending_, - Branch un-B_ending_, Erin's glove." - -This verse runs rhythmically, but that it does so is only an accident. -The Irish could always have got their Séadna verses, at least, of eight -and seven syllables, to run smoothly if they had wished, but they did -not. Here is a more Irish-like stanza in the same metre-- - - "Of / lowliness / came a / daughter, - And / he who / brought her / was / God, - Noble / her / son and / stately, - Ennobling / greatly / this / sod." - -Great Séadna is the same metre as this, except that every verse ends -with a word of three syllables. In Middle Séadna the first and third -lines end in trisyllables, the second and fourth in dissyllables. -Ae-fri-Slighe is like Middle Séadna, except that instead of the first -and third lines being octosyllabic, they all have seven syllables, as-- - - "Ye who bring to slavery - Men of mind and reading, - God bring down your bravery, - Leave you vexed and bleeding." - -Little Deachna is a pretty metre with five syllables to each line, as-- - - "God gives me three _things_, - Them he _brings_ all three - When the soul is _born_ - Like a _corn_ in me." - -Great Deachna contained eight and six syllables, each line ending in -dissyllables-- - - "I believe this _wafer_ holy, - Which is _safer_ surely, - Flesh, blood, _Godhead_ strangely mingled, - In bread _bodied_ purely." - -The above metres are a few of the most favourite. - -[28] - - "Mná módhach' go ngoimh ag gul, - Gan árach ar sgur d'á mbrón, - Caoi chadhain an oidhche fhuar - Is binne 'ná fuaim do shrón." - -From a manuscript of my own, a comic poem by an anonymous bard, on a -snoring companion. - -[29] Windisch appears to me to have come closest to the truth: "If -we suppose," he says, "that the accented syllable coincides with the -natural accent of the word, if we consider that polysyllabic words, -besides having an accented syllable, can also have a semi-accented one -(neben den Hauptton auch einen Nebenton haben können), finally, if we -take it for granted that the syllables in which rhyme or alliteration -appear must also bear the accent or up-beat of the voice (in der Hebung -stehen mussen), we then at once come to the conclusion that each -half-verse contains a specified number of accented syllables, without, -however, any _regular_ interchange of up and down beats of accented and -unaccented syllables."--_See_ "Irische Texte," I. i. p. 157. - -[30] Thus when O'Carolan, in the last century, made the extempore -response to the butler who prohibited his entering the cellar - - "Mo chreach a Dhiarmuid Ui Fhloinn - Gan tu ar dorus ifrinn, - 'S tu nach leigfeadh neach ad' chó'r - 'San áit bheitheá do dhoirseóir." - -He spoke (perhaps unwittingly) an excellent Deibhidh stanza, but he -never scanned it, - - "Mó chreach / á Dhiar / múid Ui / Fhloínn - Gan tu / ár dor / us if / rinn." - -He said, - - "Mo chreách / a Dhíarmuid / Uí / Fhloínn - Gan tú / ar dórus / ifrinn." - -So, too, in a rann I heard from a friend in the county Mayo, and -printed in my "Religious Songs of Connacht," p. 232:-- - - "Ni meisge is miste liom - Acht leisg a feicsint orom [orm], - Gan digh meisge's miste an greann - Acht ni gnáth meisge gan mi-greann," - -which is not spoken as-- - - "Ní meis / gé is / míste liom," - -but as-- - - "Ni / méisge / is míste / liom." - -[31] - - "Do chuadar as rinn mo ruisg - Do tholcha is áluinn éaguisg, - Is _tuar orcra_ dá n-éisi - _Dromla fhuar_ na h-aibheisi." - From a manuscript of my own. - - -[32] - - "Ni fuath d'ealadhain m' _aithreach_ - Thug fúm _aigneadh_ aithrigheach, - No an _ghlóir_ do _gheibhthí_ dá chionn - Ar _neimhuidh ó phór_ Eirionn." - -From a manuscript of my own. This poem appears not to have been known -to O'Reilly. - -[33] - - "Iomdha eiric nach í sin - Agad a oighre Fhinghin, - Gan _séana_ ar _garbh-amhsaibh_ Gall - _Méala_ an _t-amhgar-soin_ d'fhulang." - -_I.e._, "Many an eric that is not that, [be] to thee, O heir of -Finneen, without refusing [to inflict loss] on the coarse-monsters of -Galls: a grief to endure that affliction!" From a manuscript of my -own. This poem was also unknown to O'Reilly. It consists of 180 lines, -and begins _Leó féin cuirid clann Iotha, i.e._ "By themselves go the -children of the Ithians," of whom the O'Driscolls were the chief tribe. -For an account of the little band of Ithians, the fourth division of -the Gaelic family see above, p. 67. - -[34] Since writing the above a German Celticist, Ludwig Christian -Stern, has written a most interesting account of a collection of bardic -poems, chiefly of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, now preserved -in the Royal Library at Copenhagen. This interesting collection is -chiefly dedicated to the praises of the Maguires of Fermanagh, and is -the work of a number of accomplished poets, most of whom are unknown to -O'Reilly, even by name. The whole collection contains 5,576 lines, of -which Herr Julius Stern has printed about a thousand, thus having the -honour of being the first to render accessible a fair specimen of the -work of the current poetry of the schools in the sixteenth century. The -characteristics of this poetry he appraises, very justly as I think, in -the following words, "The language is choice and difficult, the poetry -is of the traditional type, poor in facts, but elevated, stately, -learned, and _very artistic_." See for this interesting article the -"Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie," II. Band, 2 Heft., pp. 323-373, -"Eine Sammlung irischer Gedichte in Kopenhagen." - -[35] - - "Ni mhair sgoluidhe sgéil teinn - D'uibh nDálaigh ná d'uibh n-Uiginn." - From a manuscript of my own. - -[36] "Reliquiæ Celticæ," vol. ii. p. 297. Last stanza. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIX - -RISE OF A NEW SCHOOL - - -In poetry the external form, or framework, or setting of the poetic -thought--the word-building in which the thought is enshrined--has -varied vastly from age to age and from nation to nation. There is the -system of the Greeks and Romans, according to which every syllable -of every word is, as it were, hall-marked with its own "quantity," -counted, that is, (often almost independently of the pronunciation) to -be in itself either short or long, and their verse was made by special -collocations of these short or long syllables--a form highly artistic -and beautiful. - -Then there is the principle of the Anglo-Saxon, Icelandic, and Teutonic -peoples, which prevailed in England even down to the time of Chaucer, -in which verse is marked only by accent and staff-rhyme, in other words -is alliterative as in the "Book of Piers Ploughman." - -Lastly, there is the rhymed poetry of the later Middle Ages, of which -outside of Wales and Ireland there probably exists no example in -a European vernacular language older than the ninth century. This -system, apparently invented by the Celts, assumed in Ireland a most -extraordinary and artificial form of its own, the essence of which was -that they divided the consonants into _groups_,[1] and any consonant -belonging to a particular group was allowed to rhyme with any other -consonant belonging to the same. Thus a word ending in _t_ could rhyme -with a word ending in _p_ or _c_, but with no other; a word ending -in _b_ could rhyme with one ending in _g_ or _dy_ but with no other, -and so on. Thus "rap" would have been considered by the Irish to make -perfect rhyme with "sat" or "mac" but not with "rag"; and "rag" to make -perfect rhyme with "slab" or "mad," but not with "cap," "sat" or "mac." - -This classification of the consonants which was taught in the Irish -schools for very many hundred years, and which forms the basis of -the classical poetry which we spoke of in the last chapter, is to a -considerable extent--I do not quite know how far--founded upon really -sound phonological principles,[2] and the ear of the Irishman was so -finely attuned to it that no mistake was ever made, for while such -rhymes as "Flann" and "ram" fell agreeably on his ear, any Irish poet -for a thousand years would have shuddered to hear "Flann" rhymed with -"raff." This accurate ear for the classification of consonants is now -almost a lost sense, but even still traces of it may be found in the -barbarous English rhymes of the Irish peasantry, as in such rude verses -as this from the County Cavan-- - - "By loving of a maiD, - One Catherine Mac CaBe, - My life it was betrayeD, - She's a dear maid on me." - -Or this-- - - "I courted lovely _Mary_ at the _age_ of sixteeN - Slender was her _waist_ and her carriage genteeL." - -Or this from the County Dublin-- - - "When you were an acorn on the tree toP - Then was I an aigle[3] coCK, - Now that you are a withered ould bloCK - Still am I an aigle cock." - -Or this from the County Cork-- - - "Sir Henry kissed behind the bush - Sir Henry kissed the QuaKer; - Well and what if he did - Sure he didn't aTe her!" - -Upon the whole, however, that keen perception for the nuances of sound, -and that fine ear which insisted upon a liquid rhyming only with a -fellow liquid, and so on of the other classes, may be considered as -almost wholly lost. - -We now come to the great breaking up and total disruption of the Irish -prosody as employed for a thousand years by thousands of poets in the -bardic schools and colleges. The principles of this great change may -be summed up in two sentences; first, _the adoption of vowel rhyme in -place of consonantal rhyme_; second, _the adoption of a certain number -of accents in each line in place of a certain number of syllables_. -These were two of the most far-reaching changes that could overtake -the poetry of any country, and they completely metamorphosed that of -Ireland. - -It was only on the destruction of the great Milesian and Norman -families in the seventeenth century, that the rules of poetry, so long -and so carefully guarded in the bardic schools, ceased to be taught; -and it was the break up of these schools which rendered the success of -the new principles possible. A brilliant success they had. Almost in -the twinkling of an eye Irish poetry completely changed its form and -complexion, and from being, as it were, so bound up and swathed around -with rules that none who had not spent years over its technicalities -could move about in it with vigour, its spirit suddenly burst forth -in all the freedom of the elements, and clothed itself, so to speak, -in the colours of the rainbow. Now indeed for the first time poetry -became the handmaid of the many, not the mistress of the few; and -through every nook and corner of the island the populace, neglecting -all bardic training, burst forth into the most passionate song. Now, -too, the remnant of the bards--the great houses being fallen--turned -instinctively to the general public, and threw behind them the -intricate metres of the schools, and dropped too, at a stroke, several -thousand words, which no one except the great chiefs and those trained -by the poets understood, whilst they broke out into beautiful, and at -the same time intelligible verse, which no Gael of Ireland and Scotland -who has ever heard or learned it is likely ever to forget. This is to -my mind perhaps the sweetest creation of all Irish literature, the -real glory of the modern Irish nation, and of the Scottish Highlands, -this is the truest note of the enchanting Celtic siren, and he who has -once heard it and remains deaf to its charm can have little heart for -song or soul for music. The Gaelic poetry of the last two centuries -both in Ireland and in the Highlands is probably the most sensuous -attempt to convey music in words, ever made by man. It is absolutely -impossible to convey the lusciousness of sound, richness of rhythm, and -perfection of harmony, in another language. Scores upon scores of new -and brilliant metres made their appearance, and the common Irish of the -four provinces deprived of almost everything else, clung all the closer -to the Muse. Of it indeed they might have said in the words of Moore-- - - "Through grief and through danger thy smile has cheered my way - Till hope seemed to bud from each thorn that round about me lay." - -It is impossible to convey any idea of this new outburst of Irish -melody in another language. Suffice it to say that the principle of it -was a wonderful arrangement of vowel sounds, so placed that in every -accented syllable, first one vowel and then another fell upon the ear -in all possible kinds of harmonious modifications. Some verses are -made wholly on the Á sound, others on the Ó, Ú, É, Í sounds, but the -majority on a wonderful and fascinating intermixture of two, three, or -more. The consonants which played so very prominent a part under the -old bardic system were utterly neglected now, and vowel sounds alone -were sought for. - -The Scottish Gaels, if I am not mistaken, led the way in this great -change, which metamorphosed the poetry of an entire people in both -islands. The bardic system, outside of the kingdom of the Lord of the -Isles, had apparently scarcely taken the same hold upon the nobles, -in Scotland as in Ireland, and the first modern Scotch Gaelic poet to -start upon the new system seems to have been Mary, daughter of Alaster -Rua MacLeod, who was born in Harris in 1569, and who appears to have -possessed no higher social standing than that of a kind of lady nurse -in the chief's family. If the nine poems in free vowel metres, which -are attributed to her by Mackenzie in his great collection,[4] be -genuine, then I should consider her as the pioneer of the new school. -Certainly no Irishman nor Irishwoman of the sixteenth century has left -anything like Mary's metres behind them, and indeed I have not met more -than one or two of them used in Ireland during that century.[5] No one, -for instance, would have dreamt of vowel-rhyming thus, as she does over -the drowning of Mac'Illachallun: - - "My _grief_ my _pain_, - Re_lief_ was _vain_ - The _seething wave_ - Did _leap_ and _rave_, - And _reeve_ in _twain_, - Both _sheet_ and _sail_, - And _leave_ us _bare_ - And FOUNDERING. - - Alas, _indeed_, - For her you _leave_ - Your brothers _grief_ - To them will _cleave_. - It was on _Eas_ter - Monday's _feast_ - The branch of _peace_ - Went DOWN WITH YOU." - -The earliest intimations of the new school in Ireland which I have been -able to come across, occur towards the very close of the sixteenth -century, one being a war ode on a victory of the O'Byrnes,[6] and the -other being an abhran or song addressed by a bard unknown to me, one -John Mac Céibhfinn to O'Conor Sligo, apparently on his being blockaded -by Red Hugh in the country of the Clan Donogh in 1599. - -As for the classical metres of the schools they were already completely -lost by the middle of the eighteenth century, and the last specimen -which I have found composed in Connacht is one by Father Patrick -O'Curneen,[7] to the house of the O'Conors, of Belanagare, in 1734, -which is in perfect Deibhidh metre. - - "She who Rules the Race is =one= - SPrung from the sparring =Ter=non, - MARY MILD of MIEN O'=Rorke=, - Our FAIRY CHILD QUEEN =bul=wark.[8] - - Let me Pray the puissant =one= - To Mark them in their =Man=sion, - Guard from FEAR their FAME and =wed= - Each YEAR their NAME and =home=stead." - -In Munster I find the poet Andrew Mac Curtin some time between the year -1718 and 1743,[9] complaining to James Mac Donnell, of Kilkee, that he -had to frame "a left-handed awkward ditty of a thing," meaning a poem -of the new school; "but I have had to do it," he says, "to fit myself -in with the evil fashion that was never practised in Erin before, since -it is a thing that I see, that greater is the respect and honour every -dry scant-educated boor, or every clumsy _baogaire_ of little learning, -who has no clear view of either alliteration or poetry,[10] gets from -the noblemen of the country, than the courteous very-educated shanachy -or man of song, if he compose a well-made lay or poem." Nevertheless, -he insists that he will make a true poem, "although wealthy men of -herds, or people of riches think that I am a fool if I compose a lay or -poem in good taste, that is not my belief. Although rich men of herds, -merchants, or people who put out money to grow, think that great is -the blindness and want of sense to compose a _duan_ or a poem, they -being well satisfied if only they can speak the Saxon dialect, and are -able to have stock of bullocks or sheep, and to put redness [_i.e._, of -cultivation] on hills--nevertheless, it is by me understood that they -are very greatly deceived, because their herds and their heavy riches -shall go by like a summer fog, but the scientific work shall be there -to be seen for ever," etc. The poem which he composed on that occasion -was, perhaps, the last in Deibhidh metre composed in the province of -Munster.[11] - -In Scotland the Deibhidh was not forgotten until after Sheriffmuir, -in 1715. There is an admirable elegy of 220 lines in the Book of -Clanranald on Allan of Clanranald, who was there slain.[12] It is -in no way distinguishable from an Irish poem of the same period. -There are other poems in this book in perfect classical metres, for -in the kingdom of the Lord of the Isles the bards and their schools -may be said to have almost found a last asylum. Indeed, up to this -period, so far as I can see,--whatever may have been the case with -the spoken language--the written language of the two countries was -absolutely identical, and Irish bards and harpers found a second -home in North Scotland and the Isles, where such poems as those of -Gerald, fourth Earl of Desmond, appear to have been as popular as -they were in Munster. We may, then, place the generation that lived -between Sheriffmuir and Culloden as that which witnessed the end -of the classical metres in both countries, over all Ireland and -Gaelic-speaking Scotland, from Sutherland in the North, to the County -Kerry in the South, so that, from that day to this, vowel-rhyming -accented metres which had been making their way in both countries from -a little before the year 1600, have reigned without any rival. - -Wonderful metres these were. Here is an example of one made on the -vowels é [æ] and ó, but while the arrangement in the first half of the -verse is o/é, é/o, é/o, o; the arrangement in the second half is o é, -o é, o é, é. I have translated it in such a way as to mark the vowel -rhymes, and this will show better than anything else the plan of Irish -poetry during the last 250 years. To understand the scheme thoroughly -the vowels must not be slurred over, but be dwelt upon and accentuated -as they are in Irish. - - "The pOets with lAys are uprAising their nOtes - In amAze, and they knOw how their tOnes will delight, - For the gOlden-hair lAdy so grAceful, so pOseful, - So gAElic, so glOrious enthrOned in our sight - UnfOlding a tAle, how the sOul of a fAy must - Be clOthed in the frAme of a lAdy so bright, - UntOld are her grAces, a rOse in her fAce is - And nO man so stAid is but fAints at her sight."[13] - -Here is another verse of a different character, in which three words -follow each other in each line, all making a different vowel-rhyme. - - "O _swan_ brightly GLEAMING o'er _ponds_ whitely BEAMING, - Swim _on_ lightly CLEAVING and =_flashing_= through sea, - The _wan_ night is LEAVING my _fond_ sprite in GRIEVING - Be_yond_ sight, or SEEING thou'rt =_passing_= from me." - -Here is another typical verse of a metre in which many poems were made -to the air of Moreen ni [nee] Cullenáin. It is made on the sounds of o, -ee, ar--o, ar--o, repeated in the same order four times in every verse, -the second and third o's being dissyllables. It is a beautiful and -intricate metre. - - "AlOne with mE a bARd rOving - On guARd gOing ere the dawn, - Was bOld to sEE afAR rOaming - The stAR MOreen ni Cullenaun. - The Only shE the ARch-gOing - The dARk-flOwing fairy fawn, - With sOulful glEE the lARks sOaring - Like spARks O'er her lit the lawn."[14] - -Here is another metre from a beautiful Scotch Gaelic poem. The Scotch -Gaels, like the Irish, produced about the same time a wonderful -outburst of lyric poetry worthy to take a place in the national -literature beside the spirited ballads of the Lowlands. Unlike the -Lowlands, however, neither they nor the Irish can be said to have at -all succeeded with the ballad. - - "To a fAR mountain hARbour - Prince ChARlie came flYing, - The wInds from the HIghlands - Wailed wIld in the air, - On his breast was no stAR, - And no guARd was besIde him, - But a girl by him glIding - Who guIded him there. - - Like a rAy went the mAiden - Still fAithful, but mOurning, - For ChARlie was pARting - From heARts that adOred him, - And sIghing besIde him - She spIed over Ocean - The Oarsmen befOre them - ApprOaching their lair."[15] - - -These beautiful and recondite measures were meant apparently to imitate -music, and many of them are wedded to well-known airs. They did not -all come into vogue at the same time, but reached their highest pitch -of perfection and melody--melody at times exaggerated, too luscious, -almost cloying--about the middle of the eighteenth century, at a time -when the Irish, deprived by the Penal laws of all possibility of -bettering their condition or of educating themselves, could do nothing -but sing, which they did in every county of Ireland, with all the -sweetness of the dying swan. - -Dr. Geoffrey Keating, the historian, himself said to have been a casual -habitué of the schools of the bards, and a close friend of many of the -bardic professors, was nevertheless one of the first to wring himself -free from the fetters of the classical metres, and to adopt an accented -instead of a syllabic standard of verse. We must now go back and give -some account of this remarkable man, and of some of his contemporaries -of the seventeenth century. - -[1] - -Their classification was as follows:-- -S stood by itself because of the peculiar phonetic laws which it obeys. -P.C.T. called soft consonants [really hard not soft]. -B.G.D. called hard consonants [these are in fact rather soft than hard], -F. CH. TH. called rough consonants. -LL. M. NN. NG. RR. called strong consonants. -Bh. Dh. Ch. Mh. L.N.R. called light consonants. - -[2] "Diese Klasseneinteilung bekundet einen feinen Sinn für das Wesen -der Laute," says Herr Stern, in the article I have just quoted from. -See also the prosody in O'Donovan's grammar. - -[3] "Eagle." This English rann dramatically denotes the longevity of -that bird, as does also a well-known Irish one. - -[4] See for her poems "Sár-obair na mbárd Gaelach," by Mackenzie, p. -22. Unfortunately he gives us no full account of where the poems were -collected, all he says is, "We have the authority of several persons -of high respectability, and on whose testimony we can rely, that -Mary McLeod was the veritable authoress of the poems attributed to -her in this work." This is, in an important matter of the kind, very -unsatisfactory, but Mary's poem, "_An talla 'm bu ghná le MacLeód_," -seems to bear internal evidence of its own antiquity in its allusions -to the chief's bow-- - - "Si do lámh nach robh tuisleach, - Dol a chaitheadh a chuspair - Led' bhogha cruaidh ruiteach deagh-neóil," - -to which she alludes again in the line-- - - "Nuair leumadh an tsaighead ó do mheoir." - - ("When the arrow would leap from your fingers.") - -[5] There are some poems in the Book of Ballymote in almost the same -metre as the well-known "Seaghan O'Duibhir an Ghleanna." This metre -was technically called, "Ocht-foclach Corranach beag." O'Curry gives -a specimen in "Manners and Customs," vol. iii. p. 393, from the Book -of Ballymote which has an astonishingly modern air, and may well give -pause to those who claim that Irish accentual poetry is derived from an -English source. - -[6] This poem, which like O'Daly's war-song, is entirely accentual and -vowel-rhyming, begins thus-- - - "A _Bhratach_ ar a _bhfaicim-se_ in _gruaim_ ag fás - Dob' _annamh_ leat in _eaglais_ do _bhuan_-choimheád, - Da _mairfeadh_ [sin] fear-_seasta_ na _gcruadh-throdán_ - Feadh t'_amhairc_ do bhiadh _agat_ do'n _tuaith_ 'na h-áit. - - O Flag, upon whom I see the melancholy growing, - Seldom was it thy lot to constantly guard the church (shut up there); - If there lived the man-who-withstood the hard conflicts - Far-as-thy-eye-could-see thou wouldst have of the country in place - of it" [_i.e._, the church.] - - (See_ Catalogue of the MSS. in the British Museum.) - -[7] The O'Curneens were, according to Mac Firbis's great Book of -Genealogies, the hereditary poets and ollamhs of the O'Rorkes, with -whom the O'Conors were closely related. The O'Conors' ollamh was -O'Mulchonry. - -[8] This poem begins-- - - "Togha teaghlaigh tar gach tír - Beul átha na gcárr gclaidh-mhín - Múr is fáilteach re file - An dún dáilteach deigh-inigh." - -_I.e._, "A choice hearth beyond every country, is the mouth of the ford -of the cars [Belanagare], the smooth-ditched. A fortress welcome-giving -to poet, the bestowing homestead of good generosity." The accented -system had now been in vogue for nearly a century and a half, and if -O'Curneen had wished to preserve an even rise and fall of accent in -his verses (which he does do in his first line) he might have done so. -That he did not do so, and that none of the straight-verse or classical -poets attempted it, long after they had become acquainted with the -other system, seems to me a strong proof that they did not intend it, -and that they really possessed no system of "metrical accent" at all. - -It is noticeable that O'Curneen wrote this poem in the difficult bardic -dialect, so that Charles O'Conor of Belanagare, whose native language -was Irish, was obliged in his copy to gloss over twenty words of it -with more familiar ones of his own. These uncommon bardic terms were -wholly thrown aside by the new school. - -[9] His poem with its prose Irish preface is addressed to Sorley Mac -Donnell, and Isabel, his wife, who was an O'Brien. They were married in -1718, and Mac Donnell died in 1743. See a collection of poems written -by the Clare bards in honour of the Mac Donnells of Kilkee and Killone, -in the County of Clare, collected and edited by Brian O'Looney for -Major Mac Donnell, for private circulation in 1863. - -[10] "Nach léir dó _uaim_ no aisde." - -[11] I have since, however, found a poem by Micheál óg O'Longain, -written as late as 1800, which goes somewhat close to real Deibhidh. It -begins-- - - "Tagraim libh a Chlann Éibhir, - Leath bhur lúith nach lán léir libh - Méala dhaoibh thar aoin eile - A dul d'éag do'n gaoidheilge." - -[12] Cameron's "Reliquiæ Celticæ," vol. ii. p. 248. - -[13] This is a poem by the Cork bard, Tadhg Gaolach O'Sullivan, who -died in 1800. He wrote this poem in his youth, before his muse gave -itself up, as it did in later days, to wholly religious subjects. In -the original the rhymes are on é and ú. - - "Taid Éigse 'gus Úghdair go trÚpach ag plÉireacht - So sÚgach, go sglÉipeach 's a ndrÉachta dá snígheam - Ar SpÉir-bhruinnioll mhÚinte do phlÚr-sgoth na h-Éireann - Do Úr-chriostal gAOlach a's rÉiltion na righeacht; - Ta fiÚnn-lil ag plÉireacht mar dhÚbha ar an Éclips, - Go clÚdaighthe ag PhoÉbus, le AOn-ghile gnaoi, - 'Sgur'na gnÚis mhilis lÉightear do thÚirling Cupid caÉmh-ghlic - Ag mÚchadh 'sag milleadh lAOchra le trEan-neart a shaoighid." - -[14] - - "_D' easgadh_ an _pheacaidh, fóríor_, - Do _sheól sinn_ faoi dhlighthibh námhad, - Gan _flathas Airt_, ag _pór Gaoidheal_, - Gan _seóid puinn_, gan cion gan áird, - 'Sgach _bathlach bracach beól-bhuidhe_ - De'n _chóip chríon_ do rith thar sáil - I _gceannas flaîth 's_ i _gcóimh-thigheas_ - Le _Móirín_ ni Chuillionáin." - -This is a verse from the same poem, but not the one above translated. - -[15] _See_ "Eachtraidh a' Phrionnsa le Iain Mac Coinnich," p. 270. The -poem is by D. B. Mac Leóid. It looks like a later production, but will -exemplify a not uncommon metre. - - Gu cladach a' _chuàin_ - Ri _fuar_-ghaoth an Anmoich - Thriall TeArlach gan deAllradh - Air Allaban 's e sgìth, - Gun reull air a bhroIlleach - No freIceadan a fAlbh leis - Ach ainnir nan gòrm-shul - Bu dealbhaiche lìth. - Mar _dhaoimean_ 'san _oidhche_ - Bha(n) _mhaighdean_ fu _thùrsa_ - Si _cràiteach_ mu _Thearlach_ - Bhi _fàgail_ a _dhùthcha_; - Bu trom air a _h-osna_, - S bu _ghoirt_ deòir a _sùilean_ - Nuair chonnaic i 'n _iùbhrach_ - A' _dlùthadh_ re tìr. - - - - - -CHAPTER XL - -PROSE WRITERS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY - - -During the first half of the seventeeth century, the Irish, heavily -handicapped as they were, and deprived of the power of printing, -nevertheless made tremendous efforts to keep abreast of the rest of -Europe in science and literature. It was indeed an age of national -scholarship which has never since been equalled. It was this half -century that produced in rapid succession Geoffrey Keating, the Four -Masters, and Duald Mac Firbis, men of whom any age or country might be -proud, men who amid the war, rapine, and conflagration, that rolled -through the country at the heels of the English soldiers, still -strove to save from the general wreck those records of their country -which to-day make the name of Ireland honourable for her antiquities, -traditions, and history, in the eyes of the scholars of Europe. - -Of these men, Keating, as a prose writer, was the greatest. He was -a man of literature, a poet, professor, theologian, and historian, -in one. He brought the art of writing limpid Irish to its highest -perfection, and ever since the publication of his history of Ireland -some two hundred and fifty years ago, the modern language may be said -to have been stereotyped. - -Born in Tipperary, not of a native Irish, but of an ancient Norman -family, as he takes care to inform us, he was at an early age sent to -the Continent to be educated for the priesthood. There in the cloisters -of some foreign seminary his young heart was early rent with accounts -of robbery, plunder, and confiscation, as chieftain after chieftain -was driven from his home and patrimony, and compelled to seek asylum -and shelter from the magnanimous Spaniard. "The same to me," cries, in -the hexameter of the Gael, some unhappy wanderer contemporaneous with -Keating, driven to find refuge where he could, "the same to me are -mountain or ocean, Ireland or the West of Spain, I have shut and made -fast the gates of sorrow over my heart."[1] And there was scarcely a -noble family in any corner of the island whose members might not have -repeated the same. At this particular period there were few priests of -note who had not received a foreign education, and few of the great -houses who had not the most intimate relations with France and Spain: -indeed in the succeeding century these two countries, especially -France, stood to the Irish Celts in nearly the same familiar relation -as England does at present. - -After his return from Spain, Keating, now a doctor of divinity, was -appointed to a church in Tipperary, where his fame as a preacher soon -drew crowds together. Amongst these arrived one day--unluckily for -Keating, but luckily for Ireland--a damsel whose relations with the -English Lord President of Munster were said not to bear the strictest -investigation, and it so chanced that the preacher's subject that day -was the very one which, for good reasons, least commended itself to the -lady. All eyes were directed against her, and she, returning aggrieved -and furious, instigated Carew to at once put the anti-Popery laws in -execution against Keating. - -The difficulties which the learned men of Ireland had to fight their -way through, even from the first quarter of the seventeenth century, -have scarcely been sufficiently understood or appreciated, but they -are well illustrated in the case of Keating. It is usually assumed -that the Penal laws did not begin to operate to the intellectual ruin -of the Irish until the eighteenth century. But, in truth, the paths -of learning and progress were largely barred by them after the first -quarter of the seventeenth century. Already, as early as 1615, King -James had issued a commission to inquire into the state of education in -Ireland, and the celebrated Ussher, then Chancellor of St. Patrick's, -was placed at the head of it. Ussher was far and away the greatest -scholar of the Pale in the seventeenth century, and his efforts in -the cause of Irish antiquities have received deserved recognition -from all native writers, and yet even Ussher appears to have shut up -remorselessly the native schools wherever he found them, on the ground -that the teachers did not conform to the established religion. Here -is how he acted towards the father of the celebrated John Lynch, the -learned antiquarian and author of the "Cambrensis Eversus,"[2] who was -at the head of a native college in Galway. - - "We found," says Ussher, "at Galway a publique schoolmaster, named - Lynch, placed there by the cittizens, who had great numbers of - schollers not only out of the province [of Connacht] but (even), out - of the 'Pale' and other partes resorting to him. Wee had proofe during - our continuance in that citty, how his schollers proffitted under - him by the verses and orations which they presented us. Wee sent for - that schoolemaster before us, and seriously advised him to conform to - the religion established; and not prevailing with our advices, _we - enjoyned him to forbear teaching_; and I, the Chancellour, did take - recognizance of him and some others of his relatives in that citty, in - the sum of 400 _li_ sterling [at that time, fully equal to £2,000] to - his Majesty's use, that from thenceforth he should forbeare to teach - any more, without the speciall license of the Lord Deputy."[3] - -Twelve years later we find this enlightened and really great scholar -lending all his authority to a pronouncement headed: "The judgment of -divers of the Archbishops and Bishops of Ireland concerning toleration -of Religion," in which he thus delivers himself:-- - - "The religion of the Papists is superstitious and idolatrous, their - faith and doctrine erroneous and heretical; their church in respect of - both apostatical. To give them therefore a toleration is to consent - that they may freely exercise their religion and profess their faith - and doctrine, and is a grievous sin, and that in two respects: - - "1. It is to make ourselves accessory not only to their superstitious - idolatries and heresies, and in a word to all the abominations - of Popery, but also (which is a consequent of the former) to the - perdition of the seduced people which perish in the deluge of the - Catholick apostacy. - - "2. To grant them toleration in respect of any money to be given or - contribution to be made by them, is to set religion at sale, and with - it the souls of the people whom Christ our Saviour hath redeemed with - His most precious blood," etc. - -This document was signed by James Ussher, of Armagh, Primate, with -eleven other bishops, and promulgated on the 23rd of April, 1627.[4] - -It may have been in consequence of the fresh fillip thus given to -a policy which had till then been largely in abeyance--for fear of -provoking physical resistance--that Carew, already incited against -Keating by his lady friend, sent out a force of soldiers to seize -him and bring him a prisoner into Cork. Keating, however, received -information of the design, and fled into the famous Glen of Aherlow, -where he remained for some years effectually hidden. It was at this -time, that finding himself unable to continue his priestly labours, -he conceived the ambitious design of writing a history of Ireland -from the earliest times down to the Norman Conquest. In pursuance of -this intention he is said to have travelled in disguise up and down -through the island to consult the ancient vellum books, at that time -still preserved in the families of the hereditary brehons or in the -neighbourhood of the ancient monasteries, which are said to have been -everywhere gladly shown to him except in the province of Connacht and -parts of Ulster, where some of the old families refused to allow him to -inspect their books because he was a Norman by race and not a Gael! - - "I conceive," says Keating, in his preface, "that my testimony ought - the more readily to be admitted from the fact that I treat therein - more particularly of the Gaels, and if any man deem that I give them - too much credit, let him not imagine that I do so through partiality, - praising them more than is just through love of my own kindred, - for I belong, according to my own extraction, to the Old Galls or - the Anglo-Norman race. I have seen that the natives of Ireland are - maligned by every modern Englishman who speaks of the country. For - this reason, being much grieved at the unfairness those writers have - shown to Irishmen, I have felt urged to write a history of Ireland - myself." - -The value of Keating's history is very great to the student of Irish -antiquity, not because of any critical faculty on the part of Keating -himself, for (perhaps luckily) this was a gift he was not endowed -with, but on account of the very lack of it. What Keating found in the -old vellums of the monasteries and the brehons, as they existed about -the year 1630--they have, many of them, perished since--he rewrote -and redacted in his own language like another Herodotus. He invents -nothing, embroiders little. What he does not find before him, he does -not relate, οὐδε γαρ οὐν λέγεται, as is the formula of Herodotus. -He composed his history in the south of Ireland, at nearly the same -time that the Four Masters in the north of Ireland were collecting the -materials for their annals, and though he wrote _currente calamo_, and -is in matters of fact less accurate than they are, yet his history is -an independent compilation made from the same class of ancient vellums, -often from the very same books from which they also derived their -information, and it must ever remain a co-ordinate authority to be -consulted by historians along with them and the other annalists.[5] - -The opening words of his history may serve as a specimen of his style. -It begins thus-- - - "Whoever sets before him the task of inquiring into and investigating - the history and antiquity of any country, ought to adopt the mode - that most clearly explains its true state, and gives the most correct - account of its inhabitants. And because I have undertaken to write - and publish a history of Ireland, I deem myself obliged to complain - of some of the wrongs and acts of injustice practised towards its - inhabitants, as well towards the Old Galls [Anglo-Normans], who have - been in possession of the country for more than four centuries since - the English invasion, as towards the Gaels themselves, who have - owned it for three thousand years. For there is no historian who - has written upon Ireland since the English invasion, who does not - strive to vilify and calumniate both Anglo-Irish colonists and the - Gaelic natives. We have proofs of this in the accounts of the country - given by Cambrensis, Spenser, Stanihurst, Hanmer, Camden, Barclay, - Morrison, Davis, Campion, and all the writers of the New Galls - [_i.e._, later English settlers] who have treated of this country. - So much so that when they speak of the Irish one would imagine that - these men were actuated by the instinct of the beetle[6]; for it is - the nature of this animal, when it raises its head in the summer, - to flutter about without stooping to the fair flowers of the meadow - or to the blossoms of the garden--not though they be all roses and - lilies--but it bustles hurriedly around until it meets with some - disgusting ordure, and it buries itself therein. So it is with the - above-named writers. They never allude to the virtues and the good - customs of the old Anglo-Irish and Gaelic nobility who dwelt in - Ireland in their time. They write not of their piety or their valour, - or of what monasteries they founded, what lands and endowments they - gave to the Church, what immunities they granted to the ollamhs, their - bounty to the ecclesiastics and prelates of the Church, the relief - they afforded to orphans and to the poor, their munificence to men of - learning, and their hospitality to strangers, which was so great that - it may be said, in truth, that they were not at any time surpassed - by any nation of Europe in generosity and hospitality, in proportion - to the abilities they possessed. Witness the meetings of the learned - which they used to convene, a custom unheard of amongst other nations - of Europe. And yet nothing of all this can be found in the English - writers of the time, but they dwell upon the customs of the vulgar, - and upon the stories of ignorant old women, neglecting the illustrious - action of the nobility, and all that relates to the ancient Gaels that - inhabited this island before the invasion of the Anglo-Normans." - -Keating's history[7] was perhaps the most popular book ever written in -Irish, and, as it could not be printed, it was propagated by hundreds -of manuscript copies all over the island. He is the author of two other -voluminous books of a theological and moral nature, called the "Key -to the Shield of the Mass," and the "Three Shafts of Death." Keating -was witty, and very fond of a good story. Here is a specimen which I -translate from his latter work. Pirates were a familiar feature in the -life of Keating's day, and he tells the following amusing tale of one -engaged in this trade, probably an O'Driscoll. Talking of the fruit of -this world Keating remarks that though it tastes sweet it ends bitterly. - - THE STORY OF MAC RAICÍN. - - "I think it happens to many a one in this world as it did to the wild - and ignorant Kerne from the west of Munster who went aboard a warship - to seek spoils on the ocean. And he put ashore in England, and at - the first town that they met on land the townspeople came to welcome - them and bring them to their houses to entertain them, for the people - of the town were mostly innkeepers. And the Kerne wondered at their - inviting himself, considering that he did not know any of them. But he - himself and some of the people who were with him went to the house of - one of them, to the inn, and the people of the house were very kind to - them for a week, so that what between the cleanliness of the abode, - and the excellence of his bed, food, and drink, the Kerne thought his - position a delightful one. - - "However, when he and his company were taking their leave the - innkeeper called the accountant he had, saying, '_make reckoning_' - that means in Irish, 'pay your bill,' and with that the accountant - came, and he commenced to strip the people so that they were obliged - to give full payment for everything they had had in the house while - there, and they were left bare when they went away. And, moreover, - the Kerne wondered what was the cause of himself and the others being - plundered like that, for before this he had never known food to be - bought or sold. - - "And when he came to Erin his friends began asking him to give an - account of England. He began to tell them, and said that he never did - see a land that was better off for food and drink, fire and bedding, - or more pleasant people, and I don't know a single fault about it, - says he, except that when strangers are taking leave of the people who - entertain them, there comes down on them an infernal horrid wretch - that they call Mac Rakeen[8] (make reckoning) who handles strangers - rudely, and strips and spoils them." - -Keating then draws the moral in his own way, "that land of England is -the world; the innkeepers, the world, the flesh, and the devil; the -Kerne, people in general; and Mac Rakeen the Death." - -During the time when Keating was in hiding he is said to have visited -Cork and to have transcribed manuscripts which he required for the -purposes of his history almost under the very eyes of the Lord -President himself, and to have visited Dublin in the same manner. After -the departure of Carew he reappeared, and seems to have died quietly as -parish priest of Tubrid in Tipperary about the year 1650. - -Almost every native scholar produced by Ireland during the seventeenth -century seems to have been hampered by persecution in the same way as -Keating, and loud and bitter were the complaints of the Irish at the -policy of the English Government in cutting them off from education. -Peter Lombard, the Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, who died in 1625, -and who wrote in Latin and published--of course abroad, he would not -well do it at home--a "Commentary on the Kingdom of Ireland," assures -his countrymen and all Europe that it had been the steady plan of the -English Government to cut off education from the Irish, and to prevent -them having a university of their own, despite the keen longing which -his countrymen had for liberal studies, and the way in which they had -always hitherto distinguished themselves in them. Even, he asserts, -whilst England was still Catholic, her policy had been the same, and -when the question of an Irish university was being debated in the -English Council it had no bitterer enemy than a celebrated Catholic -bishop. When some one afterwards remonstrated with this dignitary for -opposing a work at once so holy and so salutary as the establishment of -a Catholic university in Ireland, the answer made him was that it was -not as a Catholic bishop he opposed it, but as an English senator.[9] -"Well for him," remarks Lombard grimly, "if in the council of God and -his saints, when the severe sentence of the Deity is passed upon the -bishop, the senator by a like display of nimble wit may escape it." - -When the university, so long and so anxiously sought for, was actually -founded, "most capacious, most splendid," as Lombard puts it, _at their -expense_, in the shape of Trinity College, Dublin, and they found -themselves excluded from its benefits, their indignation, as expressed -by Lombard and others, knew no bounds.[10] But their indignation was -of little use, because they could not back it by their arms, and -when they did so, they were beaten by Cromwell, and their last state -rendered twenty times worse than their first. - -Mac Firbis was another native Irish author of great learning who wrote -in Irish contemporaneously with Keating. He was himself descended from -Dathi, the last pagan monarch of Ireland, and his family had been for -time out of mind the hereditary historians of North Connacht. The great -Book of Lecan was compiled by one of his ancestors. His own greatest -surviving work is his Book of Genealogies which contains enough to fill -thirteen hundred pages of O'Donovan's edition of the "Four Masters." -This he compiled during the horrors of the Cromwellian war, simply as a -labour of love, and in the hope that at least the names and genealogies -of the nation might be saved to posterity out of what then seemed -the ruin of all things. Another book of his was a catalogue of Irish -writers.[11] Mac Firbis mentions that even in his own day he had known -Irish chieftains who governed their clans according to the "words of -Fithal and the Royal Precepts," that is, according to the books of the -Brehon law. He also compiled or wrote out the "Chronicon Scotorum," -apparently from old manuscripts preserved in his family. He compiled, -too, a glossary of the ancients laws, of which only a fragment exists, -and made copies of five other ancient glossaries and law tracts. -He says himself, in his Book of Genealogies, that he had compiled -a dictionary of the Brehon laws in which he had given extensive -explanations of them. His genealogical volume is divided into nine -books. The first treats of Partholan, the second of the Nemedians, the -third of the Firbolg, the fourth of the Tuatha De Danann, the fifth of -the Milesians, chiefly the Eremonians, the sixth of the Irians and the -Eremonian tribes that went under the generic name of the Dal Fiatach, -the seventh of the Eberians and of the Ithians of Munster, the eighth -of the Saints of Ireland, and the ninth and last treats ot the families -descended from the Fomorians, Danes, Saxons, and Anglo-Normans. - - "Here," says Mac Firbis, "is the distinction which the profound - historians draw between the three different races which are in Erin. - Every one who is white of skin, brown of hair, bold, honourable, - daring, prosperous, bountiful in the bestowal of property wealth - and rings, and who is not afraid of battle or combats, they are the - descendants of the sons of Milesius in Erin. - - "Every one who is fair-haired, vengeful, large, and every plunderer, - every musical person, the professors of musical and entertaining - performances, who are adepts in all druidical and magical arts, they - are the descendants of the Tuatha De Danann in Erin.[12] - - "Every one who is black-haired, who is a tattler, guileful, - tale-telling, noisy, contemptible, every wretched, mean, strolling, - unsteady, harsh, and inhospitable person, every slave, every mean - thief, every churl, every one who loves not to listen to music and - entertainment, the disturbers of every council and every assembly, and - the promoters of discord among people, these are of the descendants - of the Firbolg, of the Gailiuns,[13] of Liogairné, and of the Fir - Domhnann in Erin. But, however, the descendants of the Firbolg are the - most numerous of all these. - - "This is taken from an old book. And, indeed, that it is possible to - identify a race by their personal appearance and dispositions I do not - take upon myself positively to say, for it may have been true in the - ancient times, until the race became repeatedly intermixed. For we - daily see even in our own time, and we often hear it from our old men, - that there is a similitude of people, a similitude of form, character, - and names in some families of Erin compared with others." - -Mac Firbis's book, which is an enlarged continuation down to the -year 1650 or so, of the genealogical trees contained in the Books of -Leinster, Ballymote, and Lecan, is as O'Curry remarks, perhaps the -greatest national genealogical compilation in the world, and it is -sad to think that almost every tribe and family of the many thousands -mentioned in this great work has either been utterly rooted out and -exterminated, or else been dispersed to the four winds of heaven, and -the entire genealogical system and tribal polity, kept with such care -for fifteen hundred years, has disappeared off the face of the earth -with the men who kept it. - -Lughaidh [Lewy] O'Clery, the great northern poet, ollamh and historian -of the O'Donnells, who, in the "Contention of the Bards" opposed Mac -Dairé, lived somewhat earlier than Keating and Mac Firbis. He has left -behind him, written in the difficult archaic Irish of the professional -ollamhs, an interesting life of Red Hugh O'Donnell, giving the history -of the time from 1586 to 1602,[14] with a full account of his hero's -birth, his treacherous capture and confinement in Dublin Castle, -his escape and recapture, his second escape, and the hardships he -underwent in returning to his people in Donegal, his inauguration as -the O'Donnell, and his "crowded hour of glorious life," until his death -at Simancas in 1608, poisoned as we now know almost to a certainty, -from the publication of the State Papers, by an emissary of Mountjoy -the Lord Deputy, and Carew the President of Munster. Of this, however, -Lughaidh O'Clery had no suspicion, he only tells of the sudden and -unexpected sickness which overtook O'Donnell and killed him after -sixteen days, to the utter ruin of the cause of Ireland. Here is his -account, which I give as a specimen of his style, of O'Donnell's -preparations before the Battle of the Curlews: - - "The occupation of O'Donnell's forces during the time that he was in - this monastery was exercising themselves and preparing for the fight - and for the encounter which they were called to engage in. They were - cleaning and getting ready their guns, and drying and exposing to - the sun their grain powder, and filling their pouches, and casting - their leaden bullets and heavy spherical balls, sharpening their - strong-handled spears and their war-pikes, polishing their long - broadswords and their bright-shining axes, and preparing their arms - and armour and implements of war." - -O'Donnell's address to his soldiers is quite differently recorded from -the way in which O'Sullivan Beare relates it; it is much less ornate -and eloquent, but is probably far more nearly correct, for Lughaidh -O'Clery may very well have heard it delivered himself, and it had not -passed with him through the disfiguring medium of the Latin language. - - "We, though a small number," said O'Donnell, "are on the side of the - right as it seems to us, and the English whose number is large are - on the side of robbery, in order to rob you of your native land and - your means of living, and it is far easier for you to make a brave, - stout, strong fight for your native land and your lives whilst you - are your own masters and your weapons are in your hands, then when - you are put into prison and in chains after being despoiled of your - weapons, and when your limbs are bound with hard, tough cords of hemp, - after being broken and torn, some of you half dead, after you are - chained and taken in crowds on waggons and carts through the streets - of the English towns through contempt and mockery of you. My blessing - upon you, true men. Bear in your minds the firm resolution that you - had when such insults and violence were offered to you (as was done - to many of your race) that this day is the day of battle which you - have needed to make a vigorous fight in defence of your liberty by - the strength of your arms and by the courage of your hearts, while - you have your bodies under your own control and your weapons in your - hands. Have no dread nor fear of the great numbers of the soldiers of - London, nor of the strangeness of their weapons and arms, but put - your hope and confidence in the God of glory. I am certain if ye take - to heart what I say the foreigner must be defeated and ye victorious." - -O'Clery's summing up of the effects of the fatal battle of Kinsale, -almost the only battle in which the Irish were defeated throughout the -whole war, is pathetic. - - "Though there fell," he writes, "but so small a number of the Irish - in that battle of Kinsale, that they would not perceive their absence - after a time, and, moreover, that they did not perceive it themselves - then, yet there was not lost in one battle fought in the latter times - in Ireland so much as was lost then. - - "There was lost there, first, that one island which was the richest - and most productive, the heat and cold of which were more temperate - than in the greater part of Europe, in which there was much honey and - corn and fish, many rivers, cataracts, and waterfalls, in which were - calm productive harbours, qualities which the first man of the race - of Gaedhal Glas, son of Niall, who came to Ireland beheld in it.... - There were lost, too, those who escaped from it of the free, generous, - noble-born descendants of the sons of Milesius and of the prosperous, - impetuous chiefs, of the lords of territories and tribes, and of the - chieftains of districts and cantreds, for it is absolutely certain - that there were never in Erin at any time together men who were better - and more famous than the chiefs who were then, and who died afterwards - in other countries one after the other, after their being robbed of - their fatherland and their noble possessions which they left to their - enemies on that battlefield. Then were lost besides, nobility and - honour, generosity and great deeds, hospitality and goodness, courtesy - and noble birth, polish and bravery, strength and courage, valour and - constancy, the authority and the sovereignty of the Irish of Erin to - the end of time." - -An interesting prose work, evidently written by an eye-witness, exists -of the wanderings of O'Neill and O'Donnell upon the Continent after -they had fled from Ireland in 1607. It describes how they were driven -by a storm past Sligo harbour and past the Arran islands, where they -were unable to land for fear of the king's shipping then in Galway bay. -For thirteen days they were hurried along by a tremendous storm. The -narrator notes a curious incident which took place during the rough -weather at open sea: two merlin falcons descended and alit upon the -ship, which were caught by the sailors who kept and fed them; they were -ultimately given by O'Neill to the governor of a French town. After -long buffeting by the storm and after hopelessly losing their way they -fell in with three Danish ships who informed them that they were in -Flemish waters. They were afterwards nearly wrecked on the coast of -Guernsey, and finally, after twenty-one days at sea, they managed with -the utmost difficulty to put in at "Harboure de Grace," on the French -coast, just as their provisions had run out. Their reception by the -French king, the machinations of the English ambassador against them, -and their journey into Spain[15] are minutely described, evidently -by some one who had been in their own company, probably a Franciscan -friar. Their life and adventures in Spain are minutely recounted down -to the period of O'Donnell's death, who was treacherously poisoned by -an emissary from Carew, the President of Munster, with the sanction of -Mountjoy, the Lord Deputy. It is noticeable that the Irish biographer -entertained no suspicion of this foul crime, which has, as we have -said, only come to light through the publication of the State Papers -during the last few years.[16] - -Another curious piece of historical narrative by a religious is the -account given of the Irish wars from November, 1641, to January, 1647, -by a northern friar called O'Mellon, who was an eye-witness of much of -what he relates.[17] - -Of a somewhat similar nature is the interesting account of Montrose's -wars in the Book of Clanranald, a manuscript written in pure Irish and -in Irish characters, by a Gael from the Islands, Niall Mac Vurich, the -hereditary bard and historian of the Clanranald.[18] The Mac Vurichs, -who are descended from a celebrated bard, Muireach O'Daly,[19] who fled -into Scotland from O'Donnell about the year 1200, enjoyed the farm of -Stailgarry and the "four pennies of Drimsdale, in South Uist, down to -the middle of the last century, by virtue of their hereditary office." -The object of Mac Vurich in writing the history of Montrose's campaign -is to vindicate and extol the career of Alaster Mac Donald and the -Gael. "Nothing," says the writer, "is here written except of the people -whom I have seen myself and with a part of whose deeds I am acquainted -from my own recollection." He gives detailed accounts of several of -Montrose's battles in which the Gael, Irish and Scottish, were engaged. -His account of the fight of Auldearn is an interesting specimen of his -style. He tells us how Alaster Mac Donald, son of Coll Ciotach, son of -Gillespie,[20] commanded on the right of the army that day, and was in -the act of marshalling his foot when - - "a gentleman from Lord Gordon came with a message to him and spoke in - this manner: 'Mac Donald, we have heard that there was an agreement - and a friendship between our ancestors, and that they did not strike - a blow against one another, whatever strife might have been between - the other Scots and them; neither was the fame of any other tribe - for valour greater than theirs; therefore, by way of renewing the - agreement, I would wish to receive a favour from you, namely, an - exchange of foot on the first day of my service to my earthly king, - that is, you taking my foot forces and you sending me your own. - - "That (arrangement) was promptly carried out by Alaster, son of Colla. - He sent four score and ten of the veteran soldiers who had often been - tested in great dangers in many places; and there came in their stead - three hundred foot of the men of the Bog of Gight, Strathbogey, and - the Braes,[21] who were not accustomed to skirmishing, hard conflict, - or the loud, harsh noise of battle. Although that was a bad exchange - for Alaster it was good for his men, for they were never in any battle - or skirmish from which they came safer--it seemed to them that the - cavalry of the Gordons had no duty to perform but to defend the foot - from every danger! - - "Alaster drew up his men in a garden which they had come to, and - he found that there remained with him of his own men but two score - and ten of his gentlemen. He put live and twenty of these in the - first rank, and five and twenty of them in the rear rank, and drew - up his three hundred foot of the Gordons in their midst and marched - before them. The men who opposed him were the regiment of the laird - of Lawers, well-trained men, and the gentlemen of Lewis along with - them. The clamour of the fight began as is usual in every field of - battle, which the foot who were behind Alaster son of Colla, could not - well endure, for some of them would not hear the sough of an arrow - or the whistling of a ball without ducking their heads or starting - aside. Alaster's defence was to go backwards, beckoning to his - party with his hand to be of good courage and march on quickly while - his gentlemen were entirely engaged in keeping their companies in - order, but they failed to do it; and I knew men who killed some of - the Gordons' foot in order to prevent them from flying. And when the - enemy perceived this they prepared to attack them and charge. Alaster - ordered his men then to gain the garden which they had forsaken - before, but they were attacked with pikes and arrows and many of them - were slain on every side of the garden before the party got into it. - Alaster's sword broke, and he got another sword into his hand, and he - did not himself remember who gave it to him, but some persons supposed - it was his brother-in-law, Mac Cáidh [Davidson] of Ardnacross, who - gave him his own sword. Davidson [himself], Feardorcha Mackay, and - other good gentlemen fell at that time at the entrance of the garden - who were waiting to have Alaster in before them." - -Mac Vurich goes on to describe what happened to one of Alaster's -gentlemen, Ranald Mac Ceanain of Mull, who found himself assailed by -numbers of the enemy on the outside of this garden. - - "He turned his face to his enemy, his sword was round his neck, his - shield on his left arm, and a hand-gun in his right hand. He pointed - the gun at them, and a party of pikemen who were after him halted. - There happened to be a narrow passage before them, and on that account - there was not one of his own party that had been after him but went - before him. There was a great slaughter made of the Gordons' foot by - the bowmen.[22] It happened at that moment that a bowman was running - past Ranald, and he shooting at the Gordons. The bowman looked over - his shoulder and saw the halt to which Ranald had brought the pikemen, - and he turned his hand from the man that was before him, and aimed - his arrow at Ranald, which struck him on the cheek, and he sent a - handbreadth of it through the other cheek. Then Ranald fired the - shot, but not at the bowman. He threw the gun away and put the hand - to his sword, whilst his shield-arm was stretched far out from him - in front, to defend himself against the pikes. He made an effort to - get the sword, but it would not draw, for the belt turned round, and - the sword did not come out. He tried it the second time by laying - the shield-hand under his [other] armpit against the scabbard of the - sword, and he drew it out, but five pikes were driven into him between - the breast and chin on his thus exposing (?) himself. However, not - one of the wounds they gave him was an inch deep. He was for a while - at this work, cutting at the pikes, and at all that were stuck in - the boss of the shield. He set his back against the garden to defend - himself, and was with difficulty working his way towards the door. - The pikemen were getting daunted by all that were being cut, except - one man who was striking at him desperately and fiercely. That man - thought that he would keep his pike from being cut, and that his - opponent would fall by him. Ranald was listening all the time to - Alaster (inside the wall) rating the Gordons for the bad efforts they - were making to relieve himself from the position where he was, and he - was all the time step by step making for the door of the garden. At - last when he thought that he was near the door he gave a high ready - spring away from the pikeman, turning his back to him and his face to - the door, stooping his head. The pikeman followed him and stooped his - own head under the door, but Alaster was watching them and he gave the - pikeman a blow, so that though he turned quickly to get back, his head - struck against Ranald's thigh, from the blow Alaster gave him, and his - body falls in the doorway and his head in the garden, and when Ranald - straightened his back and looked behind him to the door, it was thus - he beheld his adversary. The arrow that was stuck in Ranald was cut, - and it was taken out of him, and he got it drawn away, and he found - the use of his tongue all right, and power of speech--a thing he never - thought to get again." - -This book, which is in pure Irish, was meant to be read not only by the -Highland Gaels, but by Irishmen as well, and indeed the Black Book of -Clanranald was picked up on a second-hand bookstall in Dublin. - -There were several other prose writers during the seventeenth century, -whose books, unlike those of Keating, Mac Firbis, O'Clery, and others -we have mentioned, had the good fortune to be printed, but their works -are mostly religious. Florence Conry published in 1626 at Louvain -a book called "the Mirror of the Pious"[23]; Hugh Mac Cathmhaoil, -Archbishop of Armagh, published in 1618, also at Louvain, a book called -"the Mirror of the Sacrament of Penance"[24]; Theobald Stapleton -published at Brussels in 1639, a "Book of Christian Doctrine," one -side Latin and the other Irish; Anthony Gernon published at Louvain -in 1645, a book called "The Paradise of the Soul"[25]; Richard Mac -Gilla Cody printed in 1667, a book on Miracles in Irish and English; -Father Francis O'Mulloy published a long book called "The Lamp of the -Faithful"[26] in Irish at Louvain in 1676, and in the following year -his rare and valuable Irish Grammar in Latin and Irish, one half of -which is dedicated to the subject of prosody, and is the fullest, most -competent, and most interesting account which we have of the Irish -classical metres as practised in the later schools, by one who was -fully acquainted both with them and their methods. - -Several minor romantic stories, mostly fabulous creations unconnected -with Irish history, seem to have been written during this century, and -many more were translated from French, Spanish, Latin, and possibly -English.[27] Of the more important works of Michael O'Clery, we shall -speak in the next chapter. - -[1] - - "Ionann dam sliabh a's sáile - Eire a's iarthar Easpáine, - Do chuireas dúnta go deas - Geata dlúth ris an doilgheas." - -Copied from a MS. in Trinity College. I forget its number. - -[2] Published by the Celtic Society in 1848, in 3 vols., with a -translation and copious notes. - -[3] Regal Visitation Book, A.D. 1622, MS. in Marsh's Library, Dublin, -quoted by D'Arcy McGee in his "Irish Writers of the Seventeenth -Century," p. 85; but Hardiman, in his "West Connaught," no doubt -rightly gives the date of this visitation as 1615. A writer in the -"Dublin Penny Journal," identified this schoolmaster with the author of -the "Cambrensis Eversus," but Hardiman shows that it, must have been -his father. _See_ "West Connaught," p. 420 note. - -[4] Elrington's great edition of Ussher's works in 17 vols., but I have -not noted volume or page. - -[5] The books of ancient authority which Keating quotes as still -existing in his own day, are the Psalter of Cashel, compiled by Cormac -mac Culinan; the Book of Armagh, apparently a different book from -that now so-called; the Book of Cluain-Aidnech-Fintan in Leix, the -Book of Glendaloch, the Book of Rights, the [now fragmentary] Leabhar -na h-Uidhre, the Yellow Book of Moling, the Black Book of Molaga. He -also mentions the Book of Conquests, the Book of the Provinces [a book -of the genealogies of the Gaelic tribes of each province], the Book -of Reigns [said to have been written by Gilla Kevin, a bard of the -eleventh century], the Book of Epochs, the Book of Synchronisms [by -Flann of the Monastery], the Dinnseanchus [a book of the etymologies, -and history of names and places, published from various MSS. by Whitley -Stokes, in the "Folklore Review"], the Book of the Pedigrees of Women, -and a number of others. - -[6] "Innus gur ab é nós, beagnach, an phrimpolláin do ghnid, ag -scríobhadh ar Eirionchaibh." - -[7] The first volume of Keating's History was published in Dublin -by Halliday, in 1811, but that brilliant young scholar did not live -to complete it. John O'Mahoney, the Fenian Head Centre, published a -splendid translation of the whole work from the best MSS. which in his -exile he was able to procure, in New York in 1866, but its introduction -into the United Kingdom was prohibited on the grounds that it infringed -copyright. Dr. Todd remarks on this translation, "notwithstanding the -extravagant and very mischievous political opinions avowed by Mr. -O'Mahoney, his translation of Keating is a great improvement upon -the ignorant and dishonest one published by Mr. Dermod O'Connor more -than a century ago,"--a foolish remark of Dr. Todd's, who must have -understood that most readers of Keating are to be found amongst men -to whom his own political opinions thus unnecessarily vented, were -equally "mischievous." Dr. Robert Atkinson published the Text of -the "Three Shafts of Death" without a translation, but with a most -carefully-compiled and admirable glossary in 1890. Keating's third work -has never been published, but I printed some extracts from a good MS. -of it lent me by the O'Conor Don in an American paper. My friend Mr. -John Mac Neill has pointed me out what is apparently a fourth work of -Keating's on the Blessed Virgin. - -[8] From the Kerne's, who was of course utterly ignorant of English, -mistaking "make" for the Irish "Mac," it is plain that the ancient -pronunciation of this word (Anglo-Saxon _macian_) had not then been -lost. - -[9] "Cum Hiberni et bene sint affecti, et insigniter idonei ad studia -literarum et liberalium artium, utpote ingeniis bonis et acutis passim -præditi, non potuit hactenus obtineri unquam à præfectis Anglis ut in -Hibernia Universitas studiorum erigeretur. Imò dum aliquando de eâ -re etiam, Catholico tempore, in Concilio Angliæ propositio fieret, -obstitit acerrimé unus e primariis Senatoribus, et ipse quidem celebris -episcopus, quem cum postea alius quidam admoneret, mirari se quod is -utpote episcopus Catholicus tam sanctum atque salutare opus impediret. -Respondit ille se non ut Episcopum Catholicæ Ecclesiæ sed ut Senatorem -regni Angliæ sententiam istam in concilio protulisse, quâ opus istud -impediretur. - -"Quod bene forte se haberet si in Concilio Dei et Sanctorum ejus quando -de Episcopo severior daretur sententia, ab eâ, pari posset acumine -Senator liberari" ("De Hibernia Commentarius." Louvain, 1632). - -[10] "Toties requisita studiorum Universitas ante annos aliquot -erectum fuit decreto Reginæ (tametsi sumptibus Indigenarum) juxta -civitatem Dubliniensem, capacissimum et splendidissimum collegium, -in quo ordinatum est ut disciplinæ omnes liberales traderentur, sed -ab hæreticis magistris, quales cùm Hibernia nequaquam subministraret -ex Anglia submissi sunt. Qui pro sua etiam propaganda et confirmanda -religione, insuper acceperunt, et munus prædicandi doctrinam suam -Evangelicam in civitate Dublinensi et mandatum exigendi juramentum, -supremæ potestatis Reginæ in rebus ecclesiasticis, ab adolescentibus -quos in literis instituebant," etc. - -These extracts show the light in which the native Irish regarded the -foundation of Trinity College. - -[11] The late Mr. Hennessy I believe discovered and made a transcript -of a portion of this book, which is in the Royal Irish Academy, but I -have been unable to lay my hands on it. - -[12] It must be observed that no Irish family is traced to a Tuatha De -Danann ancestry. - -[13] O'Curry. MS. Mat. p. 224. For a very different estimate of the -Gailiuns or Gaileóins, _see_ above p. 323. - -[14] It is a mere accident that this valuable work has survived. The -only known copy of it is in the handwriting of Lughaidh's son Cucogry, -and the book was unknown to O'Reilly when he compiled his "Irish -Writers." It was handed down in the O'Clery family until it came to -Patrick O'Clery who lent it to O'Reilly, the lexicographer, some time -after 1817, and, O'Reilly dying, the book was sold at his auction in -spite of the protests of poor O'Clery. It is now in the Royal Irish -Academy and has been edited by the late Father Denis Murphy, S.J., in -1893, whose translation I have for the most part followed. The text of -this biography would fill about 150 pages of this book. - -[15] This interesting work, though drawn on by Father Meehan, seems to -be unknown to Irish scholars. It contains 135 closely written pages. It -was discovered in Colgan's cell at Louvain after his death, and is now -amongst the uncatalogued manuscripts in the Franciscans' Monastery in -Dublin, where it escaped the research of the late Sir John Gilbert, who -catalogued their books for the Government, and of M. de Jubainville, -who also spent some days in examining their MSS. I owe its discovery -to the courtesy of the learned librarian, Father O'Reilly, who has -permitted me to make a transcript of it for future publication. - -[16] Here is a specimen of the language of this book: "Do rala -ambasadoir rig Saxan sa geath_raigh_ in tan sin. Bui ag dénomh a -landithill aidhmhillte _ocus_ urchoide do na maithip dia madh eidir -leiss. Teid sin a ndimhaoineass _ocus_ a mitharbha, oir ni thug in Ri -audiens no eisteacht go _feadh tri_ lá do _acht_ ag dhol dfiadhach gach -laithe." - -[17] Here is a specimen of the language of this work which is much -shorter than the account of O'Neill's and O'Donnell's wanderings; there -is a fine copy of it made by O'Curry from the original in the Royal -Irish Academy, which fills one hundred pages: "Fagbadh na croidheachta -[what the English called _creaghts_] bochta, rugadar leo a ttoil féin -diobh, an chuid do imthigh dona croidheachtaibh sios suas sair siar. -Ann do marbhadh Cormac Ua Hagan mac Eoghain, oc oc as bocht! S do bhi -Sior Feidhlinn a Cill Cainnigh an tan so. Do cuaidh cuid dinn don -Breifni, cuid dinn go Conndae Arda Macha, co Conndae Tir Eoghain, co -condae Luth," etc. - -[18] Published in "Reliquiæ Celticæ," vol ii. p. 149, with an -interesting introduction, but a most inaccurate translation. - -[19] _See_ pp. 491-2 for an account of this O'Daly. - -[20] These are the names alluded to by Milton in his famous sonnet, -on his _Tetrachordon_, which name, he says, the public could not -understand. - - "Cries the stall-reader, 'Bless us! what a word on - A title-page is this!' and some in file - Stand spelling false while one might walk to Mile- - End Green. Why it is harder, sirs, than _Gordon_, - _Colkitto_ or _Macdonnel_ or _Galasp!_" - -"Colkitto" is for Colla Ciotach, "left-handed Coll or Colla," and -"Galasp" is Giolla-easpuig, now Gillespie. Alaster Mac Donald was -killed at the battle of Cnoc na ndos by the renegade Murough O'Brien in -1647. - -[21] "Do mhuinntir bhug na gaoithe, agus srathabhalgaidh agus bhraighe -an mhachuire." - -[22] "Do bhi marbhadh tiugh ag lucht bóghadh ga dhénamh ar na -coisidhibh Gordonac[ha]." Readers of the "Legend of Montrose" will -recollect the surprise and scorn with which Major Dugald Dalgetty -learns that some of the Highlanders carried bows, but here we see the -execution they wrought even in the hands of the Covenanters. - -[23] "Sgathán an chrábhaidh." - -[24] "Sgathán Sacrameinte na h-Aithrighe." - -[25] "Párrthas an Anma." - -[26] "Lóchran na gcreidhmheach." - -[27] In the MS. marked H. 2. 7. in Trinity College there is a story -of Sir Guy, Earl of Warwick and Bocigam [Buckingham], and p. 348 of -the same MS. another about Bibus, son of Sir Guy of Hamtuir. These -must have been taken from English sources. Of the same nature, but of -different dates, are Irish redactions of Marco Polo's travels, the -Adventures of Hercules, the Quest of the Holy Grail, Maundeville's -Travels, the Adventures of the Bald Dog, Teglach an bhuird Chruinn, -_i.e._, the Household of the Round Table, the Chanson de geste of -Fierabras, Barlaam and Josaphat, the History of Octavian, Orlando and -Melora, Meralino Maligno, Richard and Lisarda, the Story of the Theban -War, Turpin's Chronicle, the Triumphs of Charlemagne, the History of -King Arthur, the Adventures of Menalippa and Alchimenes, and probably -many others. - - - - -CHAPTER XLI - -THE IRISH ANNALS - - -We have already at the beginning of this book had occasion to discuss -the reliability of the Irish annals,[1] and have seen that from the -fifth century onward they record with great accuracy the few events -for which we happen to have external evidence, drawn either from -astronomical discovery or from the works of foreign authors. We shall -here enumerate the most important of these works, for though the -documents from which they are taken were evidently of great antiquity, -yet they themselves are only comparatively modern compilations mostly -made from the now lost sources of the ancient vellum chronicles which -the early Christian monks kept in their religious houses, probably -from the very first introduction of Christianity and the use of Roman -letters. - -The greatest--though almost the youngest--of them all is the -much-renowned "Annals of the Four Masters." This mighty work is chiefly -due to the herculean labours of the learned Franciscan Brother, Michael -O'Clery, a native of Donegal, born about the year 1580, who was himself -descended from a long line of scholars.[2] He and another scion of -Donegal, Aedh Mac an Bháird, then guardian of St. Anthony's in Louvain, -contemplated the compilation and publication of a great collection of -the lives of the Irish saints. - -In furtherance of this idea Michael O'Clery, with the leave and -approbation of his superiors, set out from Louvain, and, coming to -Ireland, travelled through the whole length and breadth of it, from -abbey to abbey and priory to priory. Up and down, high and low, he -hunted for the ancient vellum books and time-stained manuscripts whose -safety was even then threatened by the ever-thickening political shocks -and spasms of that most destructive age. These, whenever he found, -he copied in an accurate and beautiful handwriting, and transmitted -safely to Louvain to his friend Mac an Bháird, or "Ward" as the name -is now in English. Ward unfortunately died before he could make use of -the material thus collected by O'Clery, but it was taken up by another -great Franciscan, Father John Colgan, who utilised the work of his -friend O'Clery by producing, in 1645, the two enormous Latin quartos, -to which we have already frequently alluded, the first called the -"Trias Thaumaturga," containing the lives of Saints Patrick, Brigit, -and Columcille; the second containing all the lives which could be -found of all the Irish saints whose festivals fell between the first of -January and the last of March. Several of the works thus collected by -O'Clery and Colgan still happily survive.[3] On the break-up of the -Convent of Louvain, they were transferred to St. Isidore's, in Rome, -and in 1872 were restored to Ireland and are now in the Convent of the -Franciscans, on Merchant's Quay, Dublin, a restoration which prompted -the fine lines of the late poet John Francis O'Donnell. - - From Ireland of the four bright seas - In troublous days these treasures came, - Through clouds, through fires, through darknesses, - To Rome of immemorial name, - Rome of immeasurable fame: - The reddened hands of foes would rive - Each lovely growth of cloister--crypt-- - Dim folio, yellow manuscript, - Where yet the glowing pigments live; - But a clear voice cried from Louvain - "Give them to me for they are mine," - And so they sped across the main - The saints their guard, the ship their shrine. - -Before O'Clery ever entered the Franciscan Order he had been by -profession an historian or antiquary, and now in his eager quest for -ecclesiastical writings and the lives of saints, his trained eye fell -upon many other documents which he could not neglect. These were the -ancient books and secular annals of the nation, and the historical -poems of the ancient bards. He indulged himself to the full in this -unique opportunity to become acquainted with so much valuable material, -and the results of his labours were two voluminous books, first the -"Réim Rioghraidhe," or Succession of Kings in Ireland, which gives -the name, succession, and genealogy of the kings of Ireland from the -earliest times down to the death of Malachy the Great in 1022, and -which gives at the same time the genealogies of the early saints of -Ireland down to the eighth century, and secondly the "Leabhar Gabhála," -or Book of Invasions,[4] which contains an ample account of the -successive colonisations of Ireland which were made by Partholan, the -Nemedians, and the Tuatha De Danann, down to the death of Malachy, all -drawn from ancient books--for the most part now lost--digested and put -together by the friar. - -It was probably while engaged on this work that the great scheme of -compiling the annals of Ireland occurred to him. He found a patron and -protector in Fergal O'Gara, lord of Moy Gara and Coolavin, and with -the assistance of five or six other antiquaries, he set about his task -in the secluded convent of Donegal, at that time governed by his own -brother, on the 22nd of January, 1632, and finished it on the 10th of -August, 1636, having had, during all this time, his expenses and the -expenses of his fellow-labourers defrayed by the patriotic lord of Moy -Gara. - -It was Father Colgan, at Louvain, who first gave this great work the -title under which it is now always spoken of, that is, "The Annals of -the Four Masters." Father Colgan in the preface to his "Acta Sanctorum -Hiberniæ,"[5] after recounting O'Clery's labours and his previous -books goes on to give an account of this last one also, and adds: - - "As in the three works before mentioned so in this fourth one, three - [helpers of his] are eminently to be praised, namely, Farfassa - O'Mulchonry, Perigrine[6] O'Clery, and Peregrine O'Duigenan, men of - consummate learning in the antiquities of the country and of approved - faith. And to these was subsequently added the co-operation of other - distinguished antiquarians, as Maurice O'Mulconry who for one month, - and Conary O'Clery who for many months, laboured in its promotion. But - since those annals which we shall very frequently have occasion to - quote in this volume and in the others following, have been collected - and compiled by the assistance and separate study of so many authors, - neither the desire of brevity would permit us always to quote them - individually, nor would justice permit us to attribute the labour of - many to one, hence it sometimes seemed best to call them the Annals - of Donegal, for in our convent of Donegal they were commenced and - concluded. But afterwards for other reasons, chiefly for the sake - of the compilers themselves who were four most eminent masters in - antiquarian lore, we have been led to call them the ANNALS OF THE FOUR - MASTERS. Yet we said just now that more than four assisted in their - preparation; however, as their meeting was irregular, and but two of - them during a short time laboured in the unimportant and later part of - the work, while the other four were engaged on the entire production, - at least up to the year 1267 (from which the first part and the most - necessary one for us is closed), we quote it under their name." - -Michael O'Clery writes in his dedication to Fergal O'Gara, after -explaining the scope of the work-- - - "I explained to you that I thought I could get the assistance of the - chroniclers for whom I had most esteem in writing a book of annals - in which these matters might be put on record, and that should the - writing of them be neglected at present they would not again be bound - to be put on record or commemorated even to the end of the world. All - the best and most copious books of annals that I could find throughout - all Ireland were collected by me--though it was difficult for me to - collect them into one place--to write this book in your name and to - your honour, for it was you who gave the reward of their labour to the - chroniclers by whom it was written, and it was the friars of Donegal - who supplied them with food and attendance." - -The book is also provided with a kind of testimonium from the -Franciscan fathers of the monastery where it was written, stating who -the compilers were, and how long they had worked under their own eyes, -and what old books they had seen with them, etc. In addition to this, -Michael O'Clery carried it to the two historians of greatest eminence -in the south of Ireland, Flann Mac Egan, of Ballymacegan, in the Co. -Tipperary, and Conor mac Brody of the Co. Clare, and obtained their -written approbation and signature, as well as those of the Primate of -Ireland and some others, and thus provided he launched his book upon -the world. - -It has been published, at least in part, three times; first down to -the year 1171--the year of the Norman Invasion--by the Rev. Charles -O'Conor, grandson of Charles O'Conor, of Belanagare, Carolan's patron, -with a Latin translation, and secondly in English by Owen Connellan -from the year 1171 to the end. But the third publication of it--that -by O'Donovan--was the greatest work that any modern Irish scholar ever -accomplished. In it the Irish text with accurate English translation, -and an enormous quantity of notes, topographical, genealogical, and -historical, are given, and the whole is contained in seven great quarto -volumes--a work of which any age or country might be proud. So long -as Irish history exists, the "Annals of the Four Masters" will be read -in O'Donovan's translation, and the name of O'Donovan be inseparably -connected with that of the O'Clerys. - -As to the contents of these annals, suffice it to say that like so many -other compilations of the same kind, they begin with _the Deluge_: -they end in the year 1616. They give, from the old books, the reigns, -deaths, genealogies, etc., not only of the high-kings but also of the -provincial kings, chiefs, and heads of distinguished families, men -of science and poets, with their respective dates, going as near to -them as they can go. They record the deaths and successions of saints, -abbots, bishops, and ecclesiastical dignitaries. They tell of the -foundation and occasionally of the overthrow of countless churches, -castles, abbeys, convents, and religious institutions. They give -meagre details of battles and political changes, and not unfrequently -quote ancient verses in proof of facts, but none prior to the second -century.[7] Towards the end the dry summary of events become more -garnished, and in parts elaborate detail takes the place of meagre -facts. There is no event of Irish history from the birth of Christ -to the beginning of the seventeenth century that the first inquiry -of the student will not be, "What do the 'Four Masters' say about -it?" for the great value of the work consists in this, that we have -here in condensed form the pith and substance of the old books of -Ireland which were then in existence but which--as the Four Masters -foresaw--have long since perished. The facts and dates of the Four -Masters are not their own facts and dates. From confused masses of very -ancient matter, they, with labour and much sifting, drew forth their -dates and synchronisms and harmonised their facts. - -As if to emphasise the truth that they were only redacting the Annals -of Ireland from the most ancient sources at their command, the Masters -wrote in an ancient bardic dialect full at once of such idioms and -words as were unintelligible even to the men of their own day unless -they had received a bardic training. In fact, they were learned men -writing for the learned, and this work was one of the last efforts of -the _esprit de corps_ of the school-bred shanachy which always prompted -him to keep bardic and historical learning a close monopoly amongst -his own class. Keating was Michael O'Clery's contemporary, but he -wrote--and I consider him the first Irish historian and trained scholar -who did so--for the masses not the classes, and he had his reward in -the thousands of copies of his popular History made and read throughout -all Ireland, while the copies made of the Annals were quite few in -comparison, and after the end of the seventeenth century little read. - -The valuable but meagre _Annals of Tighearnach_, published by the -Rev. Charles O'Conor with a rather inaccurate Latin translation, and -now in process of publication by Dr. Whitley Stokes, were compiled -in the eleventh century. Clonmacnois of which Tighearnach was abbot -was founded in 544, and the Annals had probably for their basis, as -M. d'Arbois de Jubainville remarks, some book in which from the very -foundation of the monastery the monks briefly noted remarkable events -from year to year. Tighearnach declares that all Irish history prior -to the founding of Emania is uncertain.[8] Tighearnach himself died in -1088. - -Another valuable book of Annals is the _Chronicon Scotorum_, of -uncertain origin, edited for the Master of the Rolls in one volume -by the late Mr. Hennessy, from a manuscript in the handwriting of -the celebrated Duald Mac Firbis. It begins briefly with the legended -Fenius Farsa, who is said to have composed the Gaelic language, "out -of seventy-two languages." It then jumps to the year 353 A.D., merely -remarking "I pass to another time and he who is will bless it, in this -year 353 Patrick was born." At the year 432 we meet the curious record, -"a morte Concculaind [Cuchulain] herois usque ad hunc annum 431, a -morte Concupair [Conor] mic Nessa 412 anni sunt." Columcille's prayer -at the battle of Cul Dremhne is given under the year 561, and consists -of three poetic ranns. Cennfaeladh is another poet frequently quoted, -and as in the "Four Masters," we meet with numerous scraps of poems -given as authorities. On the murder of Bran Dubh, king of Leinster, -which took place in 605, two verses are quoted curiously attributed to -"an old woman of Leinster," "de quo anus Laighen locutus rand." - -The _Annals of Ulster_ cover the period from the year 431 to 1540. -Three large volumes of these have been published for the Master of -the Rolls, the first by Mr. Hennessy, the second and third by Dr. Mac -Carthy. Some verses, but not many, are quoted as authorities in these -annals also, from the beginning of the sixth century onward. - -The _Annals of Loch Cé_ begin at 1014 and end in 1590, though they -contain a few later entries. They also are edited for the Master of the -Rolls in two volumes by Mr. Hennessy. They contain scarcely more than -half a dozen poetic quotations. - -The _Annals of Boyle_ contained in a thirteenth-century manuscript, -begin with the Creation and are continued down to 1253. The fragmentary -Annals of Boyle contain the period from 1224 to 1562. - -The _Annals of Innisfallen_ were compiled about the year 1215, but -according to O'Curry were commenced at least two centuries before that -period. - -The _Annals of Clonmacnois_ were a valuable compilation continued down -to the year 1408. The original of these annals is lost, but an English -translation of them made by one Connla Mac Echagan, or Mageoghegan, -of West Meath, for his friend and kinsman Torlough Mac Cochlan, lord -of Delvin, in 1627, still exists, and was recently edited by the late -Father Denis Murphy, S.J. - -These form the principal books of the annals of Ireland, and though of -completely different and independent origin they agree marvellously -with each other in matters of fact, and contain the materials for a -complete, though not an exhaustive, history of Ireland as derived from -internal sources. - -It is very much to be regretted that no Irish writer before Keating -ever attempted, with these and the many lost books of annals before -him, to throw their contents into a regular and continuous history. But -this was never done, and the comparatively dry chronicles remain still -the sources from which must be drawn the hard facts of the nation's -past, with the exception of those brief periods which have engaged the -pens of particular writers, such as the history of the wars of Thomond, -compiled about 1459 by Rory Mac Craith, or the Life of Red Hugh written -a century and a half later by Lughaidh O'Clery, and the many historical -sagas and "lives" dealing with particular periods, which are really -history romanticised. - -[1] _See_ above pp. 38-43. - -[2] For an account of how these O'Clerys came to Donegal see the -interesting preface to Father Murphy's edition of the "Life of Red Hugh -O'Donnell." - -[3] Copies of the lives of the following saints are still preserved -in the Burgundian Library at Brussels, copied by Michael O'Clery, no -doubt from vellum MSS. preserved at that time in Ireland. The Life of -_Mochua_ of Balla, the Life of St. Baithin (fragmentary), the Life of -St. Donatus (fragmentary), the Life of St. _Finchua_ of Bri Gabhan, the -Life of St. Finnbharr of Cork, the Life of St. Creunata the Virgin, the -Life of _St. Moling_ (see above p. 210), the Life of _St. Finian_ (see -p. 196), the Life of St. Ailbhe, the Life of St. Abbanus, the Life of -St. Carthach (p. 211), the Life of St. Fursa (see above p. 198), the -Life of St. Ruadhan (who cursed Tara, see p. 229), the Life of _St. -Ceallach_ (_see_ p. 395), the Life of St. Maodhog or Mogue, the Life of -St. Colman, the Life of _St. Senanus_ (see p. 213), the Miracles of St. -Senanus after his death, the Life of St. Caimin (see p. 214) in verse, -the Life of St. Kevin in prose, another Life of St. Kevin in verse, -a third and different Life of St Kevin, the Life of St. Mochaomhog, -the Life of _St. Caillin_, his poems and prophecies, the Poems of St. -Senanus, _St. Brendan_, St. Columcille, and others, the Life of St. -Brigid, the Life of St. Adamnan, the Life of St. Berchan, the Life -of St. Grellan, the Life of St. Molaise, who banished St. Columcille -(see above, p. 177), the Life of St. Lassara the Virgin, the Life of -St. Uanlus, the Life of St. Ciaran of Clonmacnois and of St. Ciaran -of Saighir, the Life of St. Declan, the Life of St. Benin, the Life -of St. Aileran (see p. 197) the Life of _St. Brendan._ The lives of -those saints which I have printed in italics are preserved on vellum -elsewhere. Many more lives of saints doubtless exist. The father of the -present Mac Dermot, the Prince of Coolavin, who was a good and fluent -Irish speaker, had a voluminous Life of St. Atracta, or Athracht, and -I believe of other saints' lives, on vellum, but on inquiring for it -recently at Coolavin, I found it had been lent and lost. Many other old -vellums have doubtless shared its fate. - -[4] There are several large fragments of other "Books of Invasions" in -the Book of Leinster and other old vellum MSS., but when the Book of -Invasions is now referred to, O'Clery's compilation is the one usually -meant. It contains (1) the invasion of Ceasair before the flood; (2) -the invasion of Partholan after it; (3) the invasion of Nemedh; (4) the -invasion of the Firbolg; (5) that of the Tuatha De Danann; (6) that of -the Milesians and the history of the Milesian race down to the reign of -Malachy Mór. - -[5] This great work was not the only one of the indefatigable Colgan. -At his death, which occurred at the convent of his order in Louvain in -1658, he left behind him the materials of three great unpublished works -which are described by Harris. The first was "De apostulatu Hibernorum -inter exteras gentes, cum indice alphabetico de exteris sanctis," -consisting of 852 pages of manuscript. The next was "De Sanctis in -Anglia in Britannia, Aremorica, in reliqua Gallia, in Belgio," and -contained 1,068 pages. The last was "De Sanctis in Lotharingia et -Burgundia, in Germania ad sinistrum et dextrum Rheni, in Italia," and -contained 920 pages. None of these with the exception of a page or -two have found their way back to the Franciscans' establishment in -Dublin, nor are they--where many of the books used by Colgan lie--in -the Burgundian Library in Brussels. It is to be feared that they have -perished. - -[6] In Irish Cucoigcriche, which, meaning a "stranger," has been -latinised Peregrinus by Ward. I remember one of the l'Estrange family -telling me how one of the O'Cucoigrys had once come to her father and -asked him if he had any objection to his translating his name for the -future into l'Estrange, both names being identical in meaning! - -[7] It is noteworthy that no poem is quoted previous to the reign of -Tuathal Teachtmhar in the second century. After that onward we find -verses quoted at the year 226 on the Ferguses, A.D. 284 on the death of -Finn, A.D. 432 a poem by Flann on St. Patrick, at 448 another poem on -Patrick, at 458 a poem on the death of King Laoghaire, in 465 a poem -on the death of the son of Niall of the Nine Hostages, at 478 on the -Battle of Ocha, which gave for five hundred years their supremacy to -the House of Niall, and then more verses under the years 489, 493, 501, -503, 504, 506, 507, and so on. The poet-saint Beg mac Dé [_see_ p. 232] -is frequently quoted, as is Cennfaeladh, [p. 412] but the usual formula -used in introducing verses is "of which the poet said," or "of which -the rann was spoken," or "as this verse tells." - -[8] See above, p. 42. - - - - -CHAPTER XLII - -THE BREHON LAWS - - -Although treatises on law are not literature in the true sense of the -word, yet those of Ireland are too numerous and valuable not to claim -at least some short notice. When it was determined by the Government, -in 1852, to appoint a Royal Commission to publish the Ancient Laws and -Institutions of Ireland, those great native scholars O'Donovan and -O'Curry (the only men who had arisen since the death of Mac Firbis -who were competent to undertake the task) set about transcribing such -volumes of the Irish law code as had escaped the vicissitudes of time, -and before they died--which they did, unhappily, not long after they -had begun this work--O'Donovan had transcribed 2,491 pages of text, -of which he had accomplished a preliminary translation in twelve -manuscript volumes, while his fellow labourer O'Curry had transcribed -2,906 pages more, and had accomplished a tentative translation of them -which filled thirteen volumes. Four large volumes of these laws have -been already published, and two more have been these very many years in -preparation, but have not as yet seen the light. - -The first two of the published volumes[1] contain the Seanchus Mór -[Shanăχus more], which includes a preface to the text, in which we -are told how and where it was put together and purified, and the law -of Athgabhail or Distress. The second volume contains the law of -hostage-sureties, of fosterage, of Saer-stock tenure and Daer-stock -tenure, and the law of social connexions. The third volume contains -the so-called Book of Acaill, which is chiefly concerned with the law -relating to torts and injuries. It professes to be a compilation of -the dicta and opinions of King Cormac mac Art, who lived in the third -century, and of Cennfaeladh, who lived in the seventh.[2] The fourth -volume of the Brehon law consists of isolated law-tracts such as that -on "Taking possession," that containing judgments on co-tenancy, right -of water, divisions of land, and the celebrated _Crith Gabhlach_ which -treats of social ranks and organisation. - -The text itself of the Seanchus Mór, which is comprised in the first -two published volumes, is comparatively brief, but what swells it to -such a size is the great amount of commentary in small print written -upon the brief text, and the great amount of additional annotations -upon this commentary itself. Whatever may have been the date of the -original laws, the bulk of the text is much later, for it consists of -the commentaries added by repeated generations of early Irish lawyers -piled up as it were one upon the other. - -Most of the Brehon law tracts derive their titles not from individuals -who promulgated them, but either from the subjects treated of or else -from some particular locality connected with the composition of the -work. They are essentially digests rather than codes, compilations, -in fact, of learned lawyers. The essential idea of modern law is -entirely absent from them, if by law is understood a command given -by some one possessing authority to do or to forbear doing, under -pains and penalties. There appears to be, in fact, no sanction laid -down in the Brehon law against those who violated its maxims, nor -did the State provide any such. This was in truth the great inherent -weakness of Irish jurisprudence, and it was one inseparable from a -tribal organisation, which lacked the controlling hand of a strong -central government, and in which the idea of the State as distinguished -from the tribe had scarcely emerged. If a litigant chose to disregard -the brehon's ruling there was no machinery of the law set in motion -to force him to accept it. The only executive authority in ancient -Ireland which lay behind the decision of the judge was the traditional -obedience and good sense of the people, and it does not appear that, -with the full force of public opinion behind them, the brehons had -any trouble in getting their decisions accepted by the common people. -Not that this was any part of their duty. On the contrary, their -business was over so soon as they had pronounced their decision, and -given judgment between the contending parties. If one of these parties -refused to abide by this decision, it was no affair of the brehon's, it -was the concern of the public, and the public appear to have seen to it -that the brehon's decision was always carried out. This seems to have -been indeed the very essence of democratic government with no executive -authority behind it but the will of the people, and it appears to have -trained a law-abiding and intelligent public, for the Elizabethan -statesman, Sir John Davies, confesses frankly in his admirable essay on -the true causes why Ireland was never subdued, that "there is no nation -or people under the sunne that doth love equall and indifferent justice -better than the Irish; or will rest better satisfied with the execution -thereof although it be against themselves, so that they may have the -protection and benefit of the law, when uppon just cause they do desire -it." - -The Irish appear to have had professional advocates, a court of -appeal, and regular methods of procedure for carrying the case before -it, and if, a brehon could be shown to have delivered a false or -unjust judgment he himself was liable to damages. The brehonship was -not elective; it seems indeed in later times to have been almost -hereditary, but the brehon had to pass through a long and tedious -course before he was permitted to practise; he was obliged to be -"qualified in every department of legal science," says the text; and -the Brehon law was remarkable for its copiousness, furnishing, as Sir -Samuel Ferguson remarks, "a striking example of the length to which -moral and metaphysical refinements may be carried under rude social -conditions." As a makeweight against the privileges which are always -the concomitant of riches, the penalties for misdeeds and omissions of -all kinds were carefully graduated in the interests of the poor, and -crime or breach of contract might reduce a man from the highest to the -lowest grade. - -There is little intimation in the laws as to their own origin. Like the -Common Law of England, to which they bear a certain resemblance, they -appear to have been in great part handed down from time immemorial, -probably without undergoing any substantial change. It is curious -to observe how some of the typical test-cases carry us back as far -as the second century. Thus the very first paragraph in the Law of -Distress--one of the most important institutions among the Irish, -for Distress was the procedure by which most civil claims were made -good--runs thus:[3] - - "Three white cows were taken by Asal from Mogh, son of Nuada, by an - immediate seizure. And they lay down a night at Lerta on the Boyne. - They escaped from him and they left their calves, and their white - milk flowed upon the ground. He went in pursuit of them, and seized - six milch cows at the house at daybreak. Pledges were given for them - afterwards by Cairpre Gnathchoir for the seizure, for the distress, - for the acknowledgment, for triple acknowledgment, for acknowledgment - by one chief, for double acknowledgment." - -But these things are supposed to have happened in the days of Conn -of the Hundred Battles, yet the case remained a leading one till the -sixteenth century. - -The Brehon laws probably embody a large share of primitive Aryan -custom. Thus it is curious to meet the Indian practice of sitting -"dharna" or fasting on a debtor in full force amongst the Irish as one -of the legal forms by which a creditor should proceed to recover his -debt.[4] "Notice," says the text of the Irish law, - - "precedes every distress in the case of inferior grades, except it be - by persons of distinction or upon persons of distinction; _fasting_ - precedes distress in their case. He who does not give a pledge to - fasting is an evader of all. He who disregards all things shall not - be paid by God or man. He who refuses to cede what should be accorded - to fasting, the judgment upon him according to the Feini [brehon] is - that he pay double the thing for which he was fasted upon, [but] he - who fasts notwithstanding the offer of what should be accorded to him, - forfeits his legal right to anything according to the decision of the - Feini." - -There were, according to Irish history, four periods at which special -laws were enacted by legislative authority, first during the reign of -Cormac mac Art in the third century, secondly when St. Patrick came, -thirdly by Cormac mac Culinan the king-bishop of Cashel, who died in -903, and lastly by Brian Boru about a century later. But the great mass -of the Brehon Code appears to have been traditionary, or to have grown -with the slow growth of custom. None of the Brehon Law books so far as -they have as yet been given to the public, shows any attempt to grapple -with the nature of law in the abstract, or to deal with the general -fundamental principles which underlie the conception of jurisprudence. -A great number of the cases, too, which are raised for discussion -in the law-books, appear to be rather possible than real, rather -problematical cases proposed by a teacher to his students to be argued -upon according to general principles, than as actual serious subjects -for legal discussion. This is particularly the case with a great part -of the Book of Acaill. - -The part of the Brehon Law called the Seanchus Mór was redacted in the -year 438, according to the Four Masters, "the age of Christ 438, the -tenth year of Laeghaire, the Seanchus and Feineachus of Ireland were -purified and written." Here is how the book itself treats of its own -origin: - - "The Seanchus of the men of Erin--what has preserved it? The joint - memory of two seniors; the tradition from one ear to another; the - composition of poets; the addition from the law of the letter; - strength from the law of nature; for these are the three rocks by - which the judgments of the world are supported." - -The commentary says that the Seanchus was preserved by Ross, a doctor -of the Béarla Feini or Legal dialect, by Dubhthach [Duffach], a doctor -of literature, and by Fergus, a doctor of poetry. - - "Whoever the poet was that connected it by a thread of poetry - before Patrick, it lived until it was exhibited to Patrick. The - preserving shrine is the poetry, and the Seanchus is what is preserved - therein."[5] - -Dubhthach exhibited to Patrick-- - - "The judgments and all the poetry of Erin, and every law which - prevailed among the men of Erin through the law of nature and the law - of the seers, and in the judgments of the island of Erin and in the - poets.... 'The judgments of true nature,' it tells us, 'which the Holy - Ghost had spoken through the mouths of the brehons and just poets of - the men of Erin from the first occupation of this island down to the - reception of the faith, were all exhibited by Dubhthach to Patrick. - What did not clash with the Word of God in the written law and in the - New Testament and with the consensus of the believers, was confirmed - in the laws of the brehons by Patrick and by the ecclesiastics and the - chieftains of Erin; for the law of nature had been quite right, except - the faith and its obligations, and the harmony of the church and the - people--and this is the Seanchus Mór." - -M. d'Arbois de Jubainville,[6] however, has shown that the Seanchus Mór -is really made up of treatises belonging to different periods, of which -that upon Immediate Seizure is the oldest. While some of the other -treatises must be of much later date, this tract, he has proved, cannot -in its present form be later than the close of the sixth century, -because it contains no trace of the right of succession accorded to -women by an Irish council of about the year 600, while at the same time -it cannot be anterior to the introduction of Christianity, because -it contains mention of altar furniture amongst things seizable, -and contains two Latin words, _altoir_ (altar) and _cîs_ (cinsus = -census).[7] This, however, does not wholly discredit the tradition -that St. Patrick had a hand in the final redaction of at least a part -of the Seanchus Mór, for altars were certainly known in Ireland before -Patrick, and the insertion of the clause about altar furniture may even -have been due to the apostle himself. How far certain parts of the law -may have reached back into antiquity and become stereotyped by custom -before they became stereotyped by writing there is no means of saying. -But, as M. d'Arbois de Jubainville has pointed out, the Seanchus Mór -is closely related to the Cycle of Conor and Cuchulain, as the various -allusions to King Conor, and to his arch-brehon Sencha, and to Morann -the Judge, and to Ailill, and to the custom of the Heroes' Bit, show, -while the cycle of Finn and Ossian is passed over. - -There are many allusions to the Seanchus Mór in Cormac's Glossary, -always referring to the glossed text, which must have been in existence -before the year 900.[8] Again the text of the Seanchus Mór relies -upon _judgments_ delivered by ancient brehons such as Sencha, in the -time of King Conor mac Nessa, but there is no allusion in its _text_ -to books or treatises. The gloss, on the other hand, is full of such -allusions, and it is evident that in early times the names of the -Irish Law Books were legion. Fourteen different books of civil law are -alluded to by name in the glosses on the Seanchus, and Cormac in his -Glossary gives quotations from five such books. It is remarkable that -only one of the five quoted by Cormac is among the fourteen mentioned -in the glosses on the Seanchus Mór, and this alone goes to show the -number of books upon law which were in use amongst the ancient Irish, -most of which have long since perished. - -[1] Published in 1865 and 1869. - -[2] For him see above p. 412. - -[3] This passage was already so old in the time of Cormac mac -Cuilennáin or Culinan, who died in 907, that it required a gloss, for -Cormac in his Glossary refers to the gloss on the passage. - -[4] See p. 229 for a case of fasting on a person. - -[5] Vol. i. p. 31. - -[6] "Cours de Littérature celtique," tome vii. "Études sur le droit -Celtique," II. partie, chap. 2. - -[7] Modern _cíos_, "rent." "Census," according to M d'Arbois de -Jubainville, was pronounced "kêsus," and had a variant _cinsus_ in Low -Latin pronounced "cîsus," whence Irish _cîs_ and German _Zins_. - -[8] _See_ under the words Athgabail, Flaith, Ferb, Ness, as Jubainville -has pointed out. - - - - -CHAPTER XLIII - -THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY - - -The Irish of the eighteenth century being almost wholly deprived by -law of all possibilities of bettering their condition, and having the -necessary means of education rigidly denied them, turned for solace to -poetry, and in it they vented their wrongs and bitter grief. I have -met nothing more painful in literature than the constant, the almost -unvarying cry of agony sent out by every one of the Irish writers -during the latter half of the seventeenth and the first half of the -eighteenth century. - -There seems to have been very great literary activity amongst the -natives in almost every county of Ireland during this period, and the -poets it produced were countless; during this period, too, the Irish -appear to have translated many religious books from French and Latin -into Irish. In one way the work of the eighteenth century is of even -more value to us than that of any earlier age, because it gives us the -thoughts and feelings of men who, being less removed from ourselves -in point of time, have probably more fully transmitted their own -nature to their descendants--the Irish of the present day. Unhappily, -however, though many volumes of the work of the eighteenth century -have survived, yet countless others have been lost during the last -fifty years, and the only body in Ireland competent to secure Irish -manuscripts by purchase, takes unfortunately not the slightest heed of -any modern Irish writings, which are daily perishing in numbers. - -Of the poets of what I have called the New School, towards the end of -the seventeenth century, the most noted was certainly David O'Bruadar, -or Broder, whose extant poems would fill a volume. They are in the most -various forms of the new metres, but their vocabulary and word-forms -are rather those of the more ancient bards, which renders his poetry -by no means easy of translation. He appears to have been the bard _par -excellence_ of the Williamite wars, and bitter is his cry of woe after -the Boyne and Aughrim. - - "One single foot of land there is not left to us, even as alms from - the State; no, not what one may make his bed upon, but the State will - accord us the grace--strange! of letting us go safe to Spain to seek - adventures! - - "They [the English] will be in our places, thick-hipped, mocking, - after beating us from the flower of our towns, full of pewter, brass, - plates, packages--English-speaking, shaven, cosy, tasteful.[1] - - "There will be a beaver cape on each of their hags, and a silk gown - from crown to foot; bands of churls will have our fortresses, full of - Archys (?), cheeses and pottage. - - "These are the people--though it is painful to relate it--who are - living in our white moats, 'Goody Hook' and 'Mother Hammer,' 'Robin,' - 'Saul,' and 'Father Salome'! - - "The men of the breeches a-selling the salt,[2] Gammer,' 'Ruth,' and - 'Goodman Cabbage,' 'Mistress Capon,' 'Kate and Anna,' 'Russell Rank,' - and 'Master Gadder'! - - "[They are now] where Déirdre, that fair bright scion used to roam, - where Emer[3] and the Liath Macha[4] used to be, where Eevil[5] used - to be beside the Crag, and the elegant ladies of the Tuatha De Danann. - - "Where the poet-schools, the bards, and the damsels were, with - sporting, dance, wine and feasts, with pastime of kings and active - champions." - -For a moment, after the accession of James II. and during the -viceroyalty of Tyrconnel, courage and hope returned to the natives. -Their poetry, wherever preserved, is a veritable mirror wherein to read -their transitions of feeling. - - "Thanks be to _God_, this _sod_ of misery - Is changed as _though_ by a _blow_ of wizardry; - James can _pass_ to _Mass_ in livery, - With priests in _white_ and _knights_ and chivalry."[6] - - "Where goes John [_i.e._, John Bull], he has no red coat on him [now], - and no 'who goes there' beside the gate, seeking a way [to enrich - himself], contentiously, in the teeth of law, putting me under rent in - the night of misfortune.[7] - - "Where goes Ralph and his cursed bodyguard, devilish prentices, the - rulers of the city, who tore down on every side the blessed chapels, - banishing and plundering the clergy of God. - - "They do not venture [now] to say to us, 'You Popish rogue;' but our - watchword is, 'Cromwellian Dog.' - - "The cheese-eating clowns are sorrowful, returning every greasy lout - of them to their trades, without gun, or sword, or arm exercise; their - strength is gone, their hearts are beating.... - - "After transplanting us, and every conceivable treachery, after - transporting us over-sea to the country of Jamaica, after all whom - they scattered to France and Spain. - - "All who did not submit to their demands, how they placed their heads - and hearts on stakes! and all of our race who were valiant in spirit, - how they put them to death, foully, disgustingly! - - "After all belonging to our church that the Plot hanged, and after the - hundreds that have died in fetters from it, and all whom they had - deep down in the jail of every town, and all who were bound in the - tower of London. - - "After all their disregard for right, full of might and injustice, - without a word [for us] in the law, who would not even write your - name, but ever said of us 'Teigs and Diarmuids,' disrespectfully. - - "There is many a Diarmuid _now_, both sensible and powerful! and many - a Teig, too, both merry and jubilant! in the county of Eber, who is - strong on the battlefield--the foreigners all everlastingly hated that - name.... - - "Friends of my heart, after all the thousands we lost, I cry - impetuously to God in the heavens, giving thanks every day without - forgetting, that it is in the time of this king[8] we have lived.... - - "Having the fear of God, be ye full of almsgiving and friendliness, - and forgetting nothing do ye according to the commandments; shun ye - drunkenness and oaths and cursing, and do not say till death 'God - damn' from your mouths," etc. - -But Aughrim and the Boyne put an end to the dream that the Irish would -ever again bear sway in their own land, and the carefully-devised Penal -laws proceeded to crush all remaining independence of spirit out of -them, and to grind away their very life-blood. Once more their poets -fell back into lamentations over the past and impotent prophecies of -the return of the Stuarts and the resurrection of Erin. Despite their -sentimental affection for the paltry Stuarts, who ever used them as -their tools, many of the poets were perfectly clear-sighted about them. - - "It is the coming of King James that took Ireland from us, - With his one shoe English and his one shoe Irish. - He would neither strike a blow nor would he come to terms, - And that has left, so long as they shall exist, misfortune upon the Gaels."[9] - - "Our case," says another poet, "is like the plague of Egypt; whoever - chooses to break your lease, breaks it, and there is no good for you - to go arguing your right." - - "King's rent, country's rent, clergy's rent, rent for your nose, rent - for your back, rent for warming yourself, head-money at the head of - every festival, hearth money, and money for readying roads![10] - - "His goods are not taken from any one all at once, at one time; he - must pay for being allowed to keep them first, and be forced to sell - them afterwards. - - "If you happen to be alive, then you are the 'Irish rogue,' if you - happen to be dead, then there's no more about you, except that your - soul is [of course] in the fetters of pain, like the bird-flock that - is among the clouds. - - "It is the King of Kings--and King James, the Pope, the friars, and - the fasting, and King Louis, who put Christendom under a settlement, - that sent this ban upon the children of Milesius." - -Every poet describes the condition of the native Irish in almost the -same strains. - - "Their warriors are no better off than their clergy; they are being - cut down and plundered by them [the English] every day. See all that - are without a bed except the furze of the mountains, the bent of the - curragh, and the bog-myrtle beneath their bodies. - - "Under frost, under snow, under rain, under blasts of wind, without a - morsel to eat but watercress, green grass, sorrel of the mountain, or - clover of the hills. Och! my pity to see their nobles forsaken! - - "Their estates were estimated for, and are now in the hands of - robbers, their towns are under the control of English-speaking - bastards, their title deeds which were firm for a while, are now in - the hands of foreigners, whose qualities are not mild. - - "Their forts are under the sway of tradespeople; none of their - fortresses is to be seen remaining for them, but black prisons and - the houses of the fetters, and some of their heads parted from their - tender bodies. - - "And some of them in the clutch of famine so that they die, and some - of them hunted to Connacht of the slaughter, [shut in], under the lock - of the Shannon, not easy to open, and without provision to feed their - mouths there--their warm dwellings under the control of the perjurers." - -The feelings of the native Irish, smarting under the cowardice, -selfishness, and incompetence of James II., were but moderately excited -by the rather feeble attempt of his son to regain his father's kingdom -by the sword. One or two stray bards, however, saluted his undertaking -with poems: - - "Long in misery were we, - No man free from English gall, - Now our James is on the sea - We shall see revenge for all.[11] - - Flowering branch of royal blood, - Soon his bud shall burst to flame, - James our friend is on the flood, - Learned and good and first in fame. - - Luther's louts, and Calvin's clan, - Every man who loved to lie, - Boar-hounds of the bloody fang - We shall see them hang on high." - -But this and its fellows were only spasmodic rhapsodies. The Irish kept -their real enthusiasm for the gallant attempt of Charles Edward, and -the Jacobite poems of Ireland would, if collected, fill a large-sized -volume.[12] So popular did Jacobite poetry become that it gave rise to -a conventional form of its own,[13] which became almost stereotyped, -and which seems to have been adopted as a test subject in bardic -contests, and by all new aspirants to the title of poet. This form -introduces the poet as wandering in a wood or by the banks of a river, -where he is astonished to perceive a beautiful lady approaching him. -He addresses her, and she answers. The charms of her voice, mien, and -bearing are portrayed by the poet. He inquires who and whence she is, -and how comes she to be thus wandering. She replies that she is Erin, -who is flying from the insults of foreign suitors and in search of her -real mate. Upon this theme the changes are rung in every conceivable -metre and with every conceivable variation, by the poets of the -eighteenth century. Some of the best of these allegorical pieces are -distinctly poetic, but they soon degenerated into conventionalism, so -much so that I verily believe they continued to be written even after -the death of the last Stuart. The possibility of a Jacobite rebellion -gave rise to some fine war-songs also, calling upon the Irish to break -their slumbers, but they were too exhausted and too thoroughly broken -to stir, even in the eventful '45. - -One of the earliest writers of Jacobite poetry, and perhaps the most -voluminous man of letters of his day amongst the native Irish, was JOHN -O'NEAGHTAN of the county Meath, who was still alive in 1715. One of -his early poems was written immediately after the battle of the Boyne, -when the English soldiery stripped him of everything he possessed in -the world, except one small Irish book. Between forty and fifty of -his pieces are enumerated by O'Reilly, and I have seen others in a -manuscript in private hands.[14] These included a poem in imitation -of those called "Ossianic," of 1296 lines, and a tale written about -1717 in imitation of the so-called Fenian tales, an amusing allegoric -story called the "Adventures of Edmund O'Clery," and a curious but -extravagant tale called the "Strong-armed Wrestler." Hardiman had -in his possession a closely-written Irish treatise by O'Neaghtan of -five hundred pages on general geography, containing many interesting -particulars concerning Ireland, and a volume of Annals of Ireland from -1167 to about 1700.[15] He also translated a great many church hymns -and, I believe, prose books from Latin. His elegy on Mary D'Este, widow -of James II., is one of the most musical pieces I have ever seen, even -in Irish-- - - "_SLOW cause_ of my fear - _NO pause_ to my tear. - The br_I_ghtest and wh_I_test - _LOW_ l_I_es on her bier. - - _FAIR I_slets of green, - _RARE_ s_I_ghts to be seen, - Both h_I_ghlands and _I_slands - _THERE_ s_I_gh for the Queen." - -TORLOUGH O'CAROLAN, born in 1670, and usually called "the last of -the bards," was one of the best known poets of the first half of -the eighteenth century. He was really a musician, not a bard, and -his advent marked the complete break-down of the old Gaelic polity, -according to which bard and harper were different persons. Carolan -was born in Meath, but usually resided in Connacht, and having become -blind from small-pox in his twenty-second[16] year he was educated -as a harper, and achieved in his day an enormous renown. He composed -over two hundred airs, many of them very lively, and usually addressed -to his patrons, chiefly to those of the old Irish families. He -composed his own words to suit his music, and these have given him the -reputation of a poet. They are full of curious turns and twists of -metre to suit his airs, to which they are admirably wed, and very few -are in regular stanzas. They are mostly of a Pindaric nature, addressed -to patrons or to fair ladies; there are some exceptions, however, such -as his celebrated ode to whiskey, one of the finest bacchanalian songs -in any language, and his much more famed but immeasurably inferior -"Receipt for Drinking." Very many of his airs and nearly all his poetry -with the exception of about thirty pieces are lost.[17] He died in 1737 -at Alderford, the house of the Mac Dermot Roe. - - "When his death was known," says Hardiman, "it is related that upwards - of sixty clergymen of different denominations, a number of gentlemen - from the surrounding counties, and a vast concourse of country people, - assembled to pay the last mark of respect to their favourite bard. All - the houses in Ballyfarnon[18] were occupied by the former, and the - people erected tents in the fields round Alderford House. The harp was - heard in every direction. The wake lasted four days. On each side of - the hall was placed a keg of whiskey, which was replenished as often - as emptied. Old Mrs. Mac Dermot herself joined the female mourners - who attended, 'to weep,' as she expressed herself, 'over her poor - gentleman, the head of all Irish music.' On the fifth day his remains - were brought forth, and the funeral was one of the greatest that for - many years had taken place in Connacht." - -Another good poet was TEIG O'NAGHTEN, who lived in Dublin, and is well -known for a voluminous manuscript Irish-English dictionary, at which he -worked from 1734 to 1749. Some twenty or thirty of his poems remain. -Another learned poet and lexicographer was HUGH MAC CURTIN of the -County Clare. With the assistance of his friend, a priest called Conor -O'Begley, he produced a great English-Irish dictionary in Paris in -1732. He had previously published a grammar at Louvain in small octavo -in 1728. This was no work to commend him to the powers that were, and -he appears to have been cast into prison, for in a touching note at p. -64 of the last edition of his grammar he asks the reader's pardon for -confounding an example of the imperative with the potential mood, which -he was caused to do "by the great bother of the brawling company that -is round about me in this prison."[19] What became of him eventually I -do not know. - -Contemporaneous with him lived O'GALLAGHER, bishop of Raphoe, who -had the unique distinction of publishing a book--a volume of Irish -sermons--which went through over twenty editions. He, also, pursued -letters in the midst of difficulties, at one time escaping from the -English soldiers who were sent out to take him by the start of only a -few minutes, the parish priest O'Hegarty of Killygarvan being captured -in his stead, and promptly shot dead by the officer in command so soon -as a rescue was attempted. His Irish is remarkable for its simplicity -and its careless use of English and foreign words, carefully eschewed -by men like Mac Curtin and O'Neaghtan. - -Amongst the Southerns JOHN "CLÁRACH" MAC DONNELL was perhaps the finest -poet of the first half of the eighteenth century, but his pieces -have never been collected. It was in his house, near Charleville in -the County Cork, that the poets of the south used to meet in bardic -session to exercise their genius in public. He wrote part of a history -of Ireland in Irish and translated a portion of Homer into Irish -verse, but these are probably lost. He, too, cultivated letters under -difficulty, and had, according to Hardiman, "on more occasions than one -to save his life by hasty retreats from his enemies the bard-hunters." -Some of his poems give dreadful descriptions of the state of the Irish -and the savage cruelty of their new masters. Here is how he describes -one of them:-- - - "Plentiful is his costly living in the high-gabled lighted-up mansion - of Brian, but tight-closed is his door, and his churlishness shut up - inside with him, in Aherlow of the fawns, in an opening between two - mountains, until famine cleaves to the people, putting them under its - sway. - - "His gate he never opens to the moan of the unhappy wretches, he never - answers their groans nor provides food for their bodies; if they were - to take so much as a little faggot or a scollop or a crooked rod, he - would beat streams of blood out of their shoulders. - - "The laws of the world, he used to tear them constantly to pieces, the - ravening, stubborn, shameless hound, ever putting in fast fetters the - church of God, and Oh! may heaven of the saints be a red-wilderness - for James Dawson!"[20] - -It would be impossible to enumerate here all the admirable and -melodious poets produced--chiefly by the province of Munster--during -the latter half of the eighteenth century and the beginning of this. A -few of them, however, I must notice. - -MICHAEL COMYN, of the County Clare, was the author of the prose story -called "The Adventures of Torlogh, son of Starn, and the Adventures of -his Three Sons,"[21] and he revived the Ossianic muse by his exquisite -version--evidently based upon traditional matter--of "Ossian in the -Land of the Young."[22] - -BRIAN MAC GIOLLA MEIDHRE, or Merriman, whose poem of the "Midnight -Court," contains about a thousand lines with four rhymes in each -line, was another native of the County Clare. This amusing and witty -poem, one certainly not intended "virginibus puerisque," is a vision -of Aoibhill [Eevil], queen of the Fairies of Munster, holding a -court, where, when the poet sees it, a handsome girl is in the act of -complaining to the queen that in spite of her beauty and fine figure -and accomplishments she is in danger of dying unwed, and asking for -relief. She is opposed by an old man, who argues against her. She -answers him again, and the court finally pronounces judgment. Standish -Hayes O'Grady once characterised this poem as being "with all its -defects, perhaps the most tasteful piece in the language,"[23] and it -is certainly a wonderful example of sustained rhythm and vowel-rhyme. -It was written in 1781. - -TADHG [TEIG] GAOLACH O'SULLIVAN, of the County Cork, was another -of the most popular poets in his day. His earlier poems contained -certain indiscretions for which, in later life, he made ample amends -by devoting himself solely to religious poetry, and attempting to turn -the force of public opinion against vice in every shape, especially -drunkenness and immorality. A small volume of his religious poems, -probably the best of the kind produced by any of the New School, was -printed during his own lifetime in Limerick, and repeatedly afterwards, -at Cappoquin, and I believe elsewhere, in Roman letters, and finally by -O'Daly, of Anglesea Street, in Dublin, 1868. His poems are very musical -and mellifluous, but abound in "Munsterisms," which make them difficult -to readers from other provinces. He died in 1800. - -Another fine poet of the County Clare was DONOUGH MAC CONMARA, or -Macnamara, as he is usually called in English. He was educated at Rome -for the priesthood, but being of a wild disposition he was expelled -from the ecclesiastical college there, and returning to Ireland, made -his way to a famous school in the county Waterford at Slieve Gua, in -the neighbourhood of which the people of the surrounding districts had -for over a hundred years been accustomed to support "poor scholars" -free of charge. He himself also opened a successful school, but a young -woman of the neighbourhood, whom he had satirised, put a coal in the -thatch and burnt him out. He led a rambling existence after that. He -went to America and spent two summers and a winter in Newfoundland, -which was then largely planted by the Irish. He appears to have also -wandered a good deal about the Continent. The longest of his poems is -a kind of mock Aeneid, describing his voyage to America and how the -ship was chased by a French cruiser. Eevil, the fairy queen of Munster, -brings him away in a dream to Elysium, where instead of Charon he finds -"bald cursing Conan" the Fenian acting as ferryman. But he is best -known by his beautiful lyric, "The Fair Hills of Holy Ireland," which -he composed apparently when on the Continent. He led a ranting, roving, -wild life, changed his religion a couple of times with unparalleled -effrontery, but becoming blind in his old age, he repented of his sins -and his misspent life, and died some time about the beginning of this -century.[24] He was, like all these poets, a good scholar, as a Latin -epitaph of fourteen verses, which he wrote over the pious Teig Gaolach -proves-- - - "Plangite Pierides, vester decessit alumnus, - Eochades[25] non est, cuncta-que rura silent." - -Perhaps the best known at the present day of all the Munster poets is -the witty, wicked OWEN ROE O'SULLIVAN from Slieve Luachra, in Kerry, -whose sayings and songs have been proverbial for three generations, and -whose fame has penetrated into many counties besides his own. All the -poets I have mentioned hitherto, except perhaps the pious Teig Gaolach, -were almost professional wits, but Owen Roe, to judge from the number -of his _bons mots_ that are still preserved, must have surpassed them -all. All the poets I have mentioned were also Jacobite poets, but in -elaboration of the usual Jacobite theme of the Lady Erin, Owen Roe -is easily first. His denunciations of the foreigner were incessant. -He was originally a working man, and laboured hard with plough and -spade. His poem called the "Mower" is well known. His explanation of -a Greek passage, which puzzled his employer's son fresh from a French -college,[26] first brought him into repute, and he opened a school in -the neighbourhood of Charleville as a teacher of Latin and Greek. As -was the case with very many of the Munster bards, his passion for the -frail sex was the undoing of him. He was denounced from the altar, and -his school was given up. He died, still young, about the year 1784. - -WILLIAM DALL O'HEFFERNAN, JOHN O'TOOMY "the Gay," ANDREW MAC GRATH -(surnamed the Mangairè Súgach, or Merry Merchant, the frailest and -wildest of all the bards), EGAN O'RAHILLY, of Slieve Luachra in -Kerry, OWEN O'KEEFE, parish priest of Doneraile, and JOHN MURPHY, of -Rathaoineach, are a few of the names that instantly suggest themselves -to all readers of the Irish manuscripts of Munster.[27] - -The north of Ireland produced a great number of poets also during the -eighteenth century, of whom PATRICK LINDON and ART MAC CÚMHAIDH, both -of the County Armagh, PHILLIP BRADY, of the County Cavan, and JAMES MAC -CUAIRT, of the County Louth, a friend of Carolan's, were some of the -best known, but owing to the fatal loss of Irish manuscripts, chiefly -those of the northern half of Ireland, and the apparent determination -of the Royal Irish Academy not to use any of the funds (granted by -Government for the prosecution of Irish studies) in the preservation -of any modern texts, it is to be feared that a great portion of -their works and of those of at least a hundred other writers of the -eighteenth century is now lost for ever. - -It would be interesting to take a retrospect of the splendid -lyrical outburst produced by our brothers of the Scotch Highlands -contemporaneously with that of the poets I have just mentioned, but it -would extend the scope of this work too much. There seems to me to be -perhaps more substance and more simplicity and straightforward diction -in the poems of the Scotch Gaels, and more melody and word play, -purchased at the expense of a good deal of nebulousness and unmeaning -sound, in those of the Irish Gaels; both, though they utterly fail in -the ballad, have brought the lyric to a very high pitch of perfection. - -In Connacht during the eighteenth century the conditions of life were -less favourable to poetry, the people were much poorer, and there was -no influential class of native schoolmasters and scribes to perpetuate -and copy Irish manuscripts, as there was all over Munster, consequently -the greater part of the minstrelsy of that province is hopelessly lost, -and even the very names of its poets with the exception of CAROLAN, -NETTERVILLE, MAC CABE, MAC GOVERN, and a few more of the last century, -and MAC SWEENY, BARRETT, and RAFTERY of this century, have been lost. -That there existed, however, amongst the natives of the province a -most widespread love of song and poetry, even though most of their -manuscripts have perished, is certain, for I have collected among -them, not to speak of Ossianic lays and other things, a volume of love -poems and two volumes of religious poems,[28] almost wholly taken -from the mouths of the peasantry. This love of poetry and passion for -song, which seems to be the indigenous birthright of every one born in -an Irish-speaking district promises to soon be a thing of the past, -thanks, perhaps partly, to the apathy of the clergy, who in Connacht -almost always preach in English, and partly to the dislike of the -gentry to hear Irish spoken, but chiefly owing to the far-reaching and -deliberate efforts of the National Board of Education to extirpate the -national language. - -Upon the present century I need not touch. Its early years, during -which Irish was the general language of the nation, witnessed little -or no attempts at its literary cultivation, except amongst the people -themselves, who, too poor to call the press to their aid, kept on -copying and re-copying their beautiful manuscripts with a religious -zeal, and producing poetry--but of no very high order--over the greater -part of the country. Then came the famine, and with it collapse. In the -_sauve-qui-peut_ that followed, everything went by the board, thousands -of manuscripts were lost, and the old literary life of Ireland may be -said to have come to a close amidst the horrors of famine, fever, and -emigration. - -The advent of Eugene O'Curry and John O'Donovan, however, gave a great -impetus to the work begun by O'Reilly and Hardiman, and men arose like -Petrie and Todd to take a _literary_ interest in the nation's past, -and in the language that enshrined it. Meanwhile that language was -fast dying as a living tongue without one effort being made to save -it. It is only the last few years that have seen a real re-awakening -of interest amongst the people in their hereditary language, and the -establishment of a monthly and a weekly paper, chiefly written in -Irish.[29] The question whether the national language is to become -wholly extinct like the Cornish, is one which must be decided within -the next ten years. There are probably a hundred and fifty thousand -households in Ireland at this moment where the parents speak Irish -amongst themselves, and the children answer them in English. If a -current of popular feeling can be aroused amongst these, the great -cause--for great it appears even now to foreigners, and greater it -will appear to the future generations of the Irish themselves--of the -preservation of the oldest and most cultured vernacular in Europe, -except Greek alone, is assured of success, and Irish literature, the -production of which--though long dribbling in a narrow channel--has -never actually ceased, may again, as it is even now promising to do, -burst forth into life and vigour, and once more give that expression -which in English seems impossible, to the best thoughts and aspirations -of the Gaelic race. - -[1] - - "Béidhid féin 'n ár n-áit go másach magaidh - D'éis ár sáruighthe, i mbláth ár mbailteadh, - Go péatrach, prásach, plátach, pacach, - Go béarla, beárrtha, bádhach (?) blasta." - -[2] _I.e._, Refusing hospitality except for payment. - -[3] Cuchulain's wife. - -[4] Cuchulain's grey steed. See ch. XXVI, note 13. - -[5] Aoibhioll [Eevil] of the Grey Crag, a queen of the Munster fairies. -See ch. XXXII, notes 28, and 31. - -[6] This is the metre of the poem, a very common one among the New -School. The poet is one Diarmuid Mac Carthy. I forget whence I -transcribed his poem. - -[7] - - "Cá ngabhann Seón? ní'l cóta dearg air, - Ná "who goes there" re taebh an gheata 'ge, - Ag iarraidh slighe anaghaidh dlighe go spairneach, - Dom' chur fá chíos i n-oidhche an acarainn." - -[8] James II. - -[9] - - "'Sé tigheacht Righ Séamas do bhain dínn Éire - Le n-a leath-bhróig gallda 's a leath-bhróig gaedhealach. - Ni thiubhradh sé buille uaidh ná réidhteacht - 'S d'fág sin, fhad's mairid, an donas ar Ghaedhealaibh." - -[10] - - "Cíos righ, cíos tire, cíos cléire, - Cíos sróna, cíos tóna, cios teighte - Airgiod ceann i gceann gach féile - Airgiod teallaigh as bealaigh do réightiughadh." - -I forget whence I copied this, but such pieces are innumerable. - -[11] - - "Fada sinn i ngalar buan - Faoi smacht cruaidh measg na nGall - O tá Séamas óg ar cuan - Bhéarfaid uatha díol d'á cheann," etc. - From a manuscript of my own. - -[12] Hardiman printed about fifteen Jacobite poems in the second volume -of his "Irish Minstrelsy," and O'Daly about twenty-five more in his -"Irish Jacobite Poetry," 2nd edition. - -[13] Or rather to the resurrection of an ancient theme long lost, for -as Dr. Sigerson has shown, one of the Monks of St. Gall had already -treated it in Latin nine hundred years before. See Constantine Nigra's -"Reliquiæ Celticæ," and Dr. Sigerson's "Bards of the Gael and Gall," p. -413. - -[14] Bought by my friend Mr. David Comyn at the sale of the late Bishop -Reeves's MSS. - -[15] In a MS. note by Hardiman in my copy of O'Reilly, he attributes to -him a piece called "Jacobidis and Carina," and the "Battle of the Gap -of the Cross of Brigit," which are unknown to me. - -[16] In his fifteenth year, according to O'Reilly; his eighteenth, -according to Hardiman's "Irish Minstrelsy," but Hardiman seems to have -changed his opinion, for I have a note in his handwriting in which he -states that Carolan was twenty-two years old when he became blind. - -[17] Hardiman has printed twenty-four of his poems in his "Ancient -Irish Minstrelsy," and I printed about twelve more, mostly from -manuscripts in my own possession. The late bookseller, John O'Daly, of -Anglesea Street, had, I believe, a number of poems of Carolan in his -possession, but the Royal Irish Academy did not buy them--or indeed any -other of his unique stock of manuscripts--at his sale, and I fear they -are now hopelessly lost. - -[18] A small village on the border of the County Sligo. - -[19] O'Curtin's note runs--"As tré shiothbhuaireadh na cuideachtan -cullóidighe atá timchioll orm annsa gcarcairse, do chuir mé an sompla -déigheanach so do bheanas ris an Modh gcomhachtach so ionar ndiaigh, -annso, san Modh foláirimh." This note was pointed out to me by my -friend, Father Ed. Hogan, S.J., who has also been unable to trace the -cause of Curtin's imprisonment, or his subsequent fate. - -[20] I printed the whole of this ferocious poem in the _Cork -Archæological Journal_. - -[21] Recently printed without a translation by Patrick O'Brien, of 46, -Cuffe Street, Dublin. - -[22] First printed nearly forty years ago by the Ossianic Society, -and since then by my friend Mr. David Comyn, with a prose translation -and glossary, and recently by my friend Mr. O'Flannghaoile, with -translations in verse and prose. - -[23] _See_ Ossianic Society, vol. iii. p. 36. It was printed with the -following curious title-page, "Mediæ noctis consilium, auctore Briano -Mac-Gilla-Meidhre, de comitatu Clarensi, in Momonia, A.D. MDCCLXXX. -Poema heroico-comicum, quo nihil aut magis gracile aut poeticum aut -magis abundans in hodierno Hiberniæ idiomati exolescit. Curtha a gclódh -le Tomás mhic Lopuis ag Loch an chonblaigh Oghair, MDCCC." But both -place and date are fictitious. It was almost certainly printed by -O'Daly of Anglesea Street, for after his death I found amongst some -papers of his the proof-sheets corrected with his own hand! My friend, -Mr. Patrick O'Brien, of Cuffe Street, has since printed another edition -with a brief vocabulary. - -[24] His "Eachtra Giolla an Amarain" was published in 1853 by "S. -Hayes," and recently with a number of his other poems translated into -English, and republished with the late John Fleming's Irish life of the -poet, by my friend Tomás O'Flannghaoile. - -[25] _I.e._, the descendant of Eochaidh Muighmheadhoin, father of Niall -of the Nine Hostages. _See_ above, p. 33. - -[26] All the Irish of the eighteenth century had, when not _secretly_ -educated at home, to go abroad in pursuit of knowledge. - -[27] Specimens of their poetry may be found in O'Daly's two excellent -volumes, "The Poetry of Munster," and in his "Jacobite Relics" and in -Walsh's "Popular Songs," but most of them are still in manuscript. - -[28] These are my "Religious Songs of Connacht," quoted more than -once in this book as though published. They were meant to have been -published simultaneously with it, but unfortunately the plates of both -volumes were melted down, while I was revising these proofs, in the -great fire at Sealy, Bryers and Walker's, Dublin. - -[29] Conducted by the Gaelic League. - - - - -CHAPTER XLIV - -THE HISTORY OF IRISH AS A SPOKEN LANGUAGE - - -We must now follow the fortunes of the Irish language as a spoken -tongue, "questo linguaggio difficile e davvero stupendo," as Ascoli -calls it,[1] which after imposing itself upon both Dane and Norman, -was brought face to face as early as the fourteenth century with its -great competitor English, before which, despite its early victory in -the contest, it has at last nearly but not quite gone down, after an -unremitting struggle of nearly five centuries. - -As early as the year 1360, the English appear to have taken the alarm -at the inroads which the Irish language--at that time a much more -highly-cultured form of speech than their own--had made upon the -colonists, and we find King Edward issuing orders to the Sheriff of the -Cross and Seneschal of the Liberty of Kilkenny in these terms[2]-- - - "As many of the English nation in the Marches and elsewhere have - again become like Irishmen, and refuse to obey our laws and customs, - and hold parliaments after the Irish fashion, and learn to speak the - Irish tongue, and send their children among the Irish to be nursed and - taught the Irish tongue, so that the people of English race have for - the greater part become Irish; now we order (1) that no Englishman of - any state or condition shall ... [under forfeiture of life, limbs, and - everything else] follow these Irish customs, laws, and parliaments; - (2) that any one of English race shall forfeit English liberty, if - after the next feast of St. John the Baptist he shall speak Irish with - other Englishmen and meantime _every Englishman must learn English_ - and must not have his children at nurse amongst the Irish." - -In 1367, the last year of the administration of the Duke of Clarence, -third son of Edward III, a parliament held at Kilkenny passed the -famous act that inter-marriage with the Irish should be punished as -high treason, and that any man of English race using the Irish language -should forfeit all his land and tenements to the Crown, and forbidding -also the entertainment of bards, ministrels, and rhymers. - -These first attacks upon the language cannot possibly have produced -much effect, for we find the English power within a hundred years after -their passing, reduced to the lowest point, and there was scarcely -an English or Norman noble in Ireland who had not adopted an Irish -name, Irish speech, and Irish manners. The De Bourgo had became Mac -William, and minor branches of the same stem had become Mac Philpins, -Mac Gibbons, and Mac Raymonds; the Birminghams had became Mac Feóiris, -the Stauntons Mac Aveeleys, the Nangles Mac Costellos, the Prendergasts -Mac Maurices, the De Courcys Mac Patricks, the Bissetts of Antrim Mac -Keons, etc. - -A hundred years after the Statute of Kilkenny, the English, driven back -into the Pale, which then consisted of less than four counties, passed -a law in 1465, enjoining all men of Irish names within the Pale to -take an English name, "of one towne as Sutton, Chester, Trym, Skryne, -Corke, Kinsale; or colour as White, Black, Brown; or art or science as -Cooke, Butler," and he and his issue were ordered to use these names -or forfeit all their goods. This, however, the parliament was unable -to carry through, none of the great Irish names within or alongside -the Pale, Mac Murroughs, O'Tooles, O'Byrnes, O'Mores, O'Ryans, O'Conor -Falys, O'Kellys, etc., seem to have been in the least influenced by it. - -Next an attempt was made to maintain English in at least the seaports -and borough towns, for we find an enactment of the year 1492-93 amongst -the Archives of the Urbs Intacta, commanding that in Waterford, "no -manner of man, freeman or foreign, of the city or suburb's dwellers, -shall emplead nor defend in Irish tongue against any man in the court, -but all they that any matters shall have in court to be administered, -shall have a man that can speak English to declare his matter, except -one party be of the country [_i.e._, of Irish race] then every such -dweller shall be at liberty to speak Irish."[3] Galway followed suit -in 1520, and enacted that "no Irish judge or lawyer shall plead in no -man's cause nor matter within this our court, for it agreeth not with -the king's laws."[4] - -How far these petty attempts were successful may be judged from the -fact that Captain Ap Harry, a Welsh officer, describing in October, -1535, Lord Butler's march for the recovery of Dungarvan Castle, says, -"We were met by his lordship's brother-in-law, Gerald Mac Shane, -(Fitzgerald) Lord of the Decies, who, though a very strong man in his -country, could speak never a word of English, but made the troops good -cheer after the gentilest fashion that could be. All this journey from -Dungarvan forth there is none alive that can remember that English -man of war was ever in these parts." Still more striking is the -statement that in the Dublin parliament of 1541, all the peers except -Mac Gillapatric were of Norman or English descent, and yet not one -except the Earl of Ormond could understand English.[5] A letter to -the English Privy Council, written in 1569, by Dominicke Linche, of -Galway, confirms this. "Even they of the best houses," he writes, "the -brothers of the Erle of Clanrickarde, yea and one of his uncles, and -he a bysshop, can neither speak nor understand in manner any thinge of -their Prince's language, which language by the old Statutes of Galway, -every man ought to learn and must speak before he can be admitted to -any office within the Corporation."[6] - -Nor had the extirpating policy succeeded even in the Pale, for we read -in the State Papers that in the county of Kildare in 1534, "there -is not one husbandman in effect that speaketh English nor useth any -English sort nor manner, and their gentlemen be after the same sort."[7] - -The great Earl of Kildare had nearly as many volumes of Irish as he had -of English in his library. A catalogue of his books was drawn up in -1518. Amongst the Irish manuscripts were St. Berachán's book,[8] the -Speech of Oyncheaghis (?) Cuchuland's Acts, the History of Clone Lyre, -etc. Murchadh O'Brien, king of Thomond, promised Henry VIII. as early -as 1547, when in London, that he and his heirs should use the English -habit and manner, and to their knowledge the English language, and to -their power bring up their children in the same.[9] And indeed that -family seems to have been always the greatest prop of the English power -in the South of Ireland. Thomas Moore, settling in Ireland in 1575, got -his lands in King's County on the condition that his sons and servants -"should use for the most the English tongue, habit, and government," -and make no appeals to the Brehon law. Three years after this, in 1578, -we find Lord Chancellor Gerard affirming that all the English, and the -most part with delight, _even in Dublin_ speak Irish, and greatly are -spotted in manners, habit, and conditions with Irish stains.[10] - -In the Vatican Library my friend Father Hogan found a MS. of about the -year 1580 with a memorandum concerning certain Franciscan friars, three -of whom spoke Irish only, including the Provincial who _preached all -over Ireland_, five more knew Irish better than English, while five -are entered as knowing English better than Irish, none are entered as -knowing English only. - -In 1585 the Irish chieftains of Hy Many, the O'Kellys country, agreed -that "Teige mac William O'Kelly and Conor Oge O'Kelly shall henceforth -behave themselves like good subjects and shall bring up their children -after the English fashions and in the use of the English tongue."[11] -Of course such enforced promises had no effect. We find in the State -Papers that at St. Douay in 1600 were sixty young gentlemen, eldest -sons of the principal gentlemen of the Pale, and that they all spoke -Irish.[12] - -In 1608 it was found that the superior of the Irish Jesuits, apparently -a Pales-man, Father Christopher Holywood of Artane, near Dublin, could -speak no Irish, and a document was sent at once to the General of the -Jesuits, pointing out how this destroyed his usefulness in the Irish -mission. Care was taken that the same mistake should not be made in -appointing his successor, Robert Nugent.[13] - -In 1609 we find Richard Conway, a Jesuit, writing that the English in -Ireland took care that all [their own] children are taught English and -chastise them if they speak their own native tongue[14] (_sic_). Five -or six years later Father Stephen White writes, "Scarcely one in a -thousand of the old Irish know even three words of any tongue except -Irish, the modern Irish learn to speak Irish and English."[15] - -Nevertheless the cause of the English language cannot have much -progressed during the next fifty years, for we find in 1657 a petition -presented to the Municipal Council of Dublin to the effect that -"whereas by the laws all persons ought to speak and use the English -tongue and habit,--contrary whereunto and in open contempt thereof, -there is Irish commonly and usually spoken and the Irish habit worn not -only in the streets and by such as live in the country and come to this -city on market days, but also by and in several families in this city, -to the scandalising of the inhabitants and magistrates of this city. -And whereas there is much of swearing and cursing used and practised -(as in the English tongue too much, so also in the Irish tongue)," etc. -Irish, indeed, seems to have been the commonest language in Dublin at -this time. James Howel in a letter written August 9, in 1630, says: - - "Some curious in the comparisons of tongues, say Irish is a dialect of - the ancient British, and the learnedest of that nation in a private - discourse I happened to have with him seemed to incline to this - opinion, but I can assure your Lordship I found a great multitude of - their radical words the same with the Welsh, both for sense and sound. - The tone also of both nations is consonant, for when I first walked up - and down the Dublin markets methought I was in Wales when I listened - to their speech. I found the Irish tone a little more querulous and - whining than the British, which I conjecture proceeded from their - often being subjugated by the English." - -During the Cromwellian wars most of the members of the Confederation -of Kilkenny who took the side of the Nuncio Rinuccini knew little if -anything of the English language, "qui," says Rinuccini in his MSS., -"boni publici zelo flagrarent, plerique linguam quidem Ibernicam -quia vernaculam, bene, sed Anglicam male vel nullo modo callerent." -When an order was issued by the Supreme Council for the new oath of -association to be translated from English into Irish by each bishop -for his diocese, it was found upon inquiry that some of the bishops -did not understand a word of English. The Nuncio appears to have been -very much impressed by the sweetness of the Irish language, but he -had not leisure to devote himself to the study of it. Some of the -Italian members of his household, however, became complete masters of -it. Numbers of the poor people who had been plundered by the soldiery -came to complain to him of their losses, and he notes in his diary -that their wail and lamentation in Irish was far more plaintive and -expressive than any music of the great masters which he had ever heard -among the more favoured nations of the Continent.[16] - -Irish was at this time the usual "vehicle of business and of -negociation with the natives, even amongst the learned," as we see in -Carte's life of the Duke of Ormond, who was born in England in 1607 and -educated as a Protestant by the Archbishop of Canterbury. - - "The Duke," says Carte, "when about twenty or twenty-four years of age - learned the Irish language by conversing with such Irish gentlemen as - spoke it in London; he understood it perfectly well and could express - himself well enough in familiar conversation, but considered himself - not so well qualified as to discourse about serious matters; he - afterwards on many occasions found himself at a great loss, as he had - to negociate business of national importance with gentlemen who were - far less intelligent in the English language than he was in the Irish. - On such occasions he would use the same methods which he took with - the titular bishop of Clogher, the great favourite of Owen O'Neil, - and successor to that general in the command of the Ulster forces. - This bishop he brought over to the king's interest, and gained his - entire confidence by a conversation carried on between both parties in - private. The Duke always spoke in English and the bishop in Irish, as - neither understood the language of the other so as to venture upon - communicating his sentiments in it with any degree of accuracy or - precision."[17] - -The Irish themselves never neglected literature, and whenever their -political star was in the ascendant the fortunes of their bards and -learned men rose with it. Thus we find Rory O'More, the close friend -of Owen Roe O'Neill, and the chief of the O'Mores of Leix, engaged -in 1642 in an attempt to re-establish Irish schools and learning, -and writing on the 20th of September, 1642, to Father Hugh de Bourgo -at Brussels, "If we may, before Flan Mac Egan dies, we will see an -Irish school opened, and therefore would wish heartily that these -learned and religious fathers in Louvain would come over in haste with -their monuments (?) and an Irish and Latin press." The Mac Egan here -alluded to was the eminent Brehon and Irish antiquarian who lived -at Bally-mac-Egan in the county Tipperary in Lower Ormond, whose -imprimatur was considered so valuable that the Four Masters procured -for their work his written approbation.[18] Seven years after this -letter, the town of Wexford, from which O'More wrote in the interests -of humanity and learning, sank in fire and ruin and its inhabitants -both men and women were put to the sword in one universal massacre. - -There were in the year 1650, forty-seven Jesuit priests in Ireland, -according to a memorandum given me by Father Hogan, S.J., of these -two--one from Meath the other from Kerry--spoke Irish only: and four -from Dublin, all of course of English extraction, spoke English only, -while the remaining forty-one spoke both languages. Seven of these -bi-linguists were from Dublin and ten from Meath. - -These instances show that Irish was the usual spoken language of the -country, even in Dublin, but there are indications that the ardour -with which it had been cultivated and the respect with which its -professors had been regarded was dying out. Even as early as 1627 we -find one Connla Mac Echagan of West Meath, translating the "Annals of -Clonmacnois" into English,[19] and in his dedication to his friend and -kinsman Torlogh Mac Cochlan, lord of Delvin, he says that formerly many -septs lived in Ireland whose profession it was to chronicle and keep -in memory the state of the kingdom, but, he adds, "now as they cannot -enjoy that respect and gain by their profession, as heretofore they -and their ancestors received, they set nought by the said knowledge, -neglect their books, and choose rather to put their children to -learn English than their own native language, insomuch that some of -them suffer tailors to cut the leaves of the said books (which their -ancestors held in great account) and sew them in long pieces to make -their measures of, [so] that the posterities are like to fall into more -ignorance of many things which happened before their time." - -A little later, in 1639, Father Stapleton, in his "Doctrina -Christiana," published in Irish and Latin--the first Irish book ever -printed in Roman characters--throws the blame for the neglect of Irish -literature first upon the Irish antiquarians "who have placed it -under difficulties and hard words,[20] writing it in mysterious ways, -and in dark difficult language," and secondly upon the upper classes -"who bring their native natural language (which is powerful, perfect, -honourable, learned, and sharply-exact in itself) into contempt and -disrespect, and spend their time cultivating and learning other foreign -tongues."[21] - -Peter Lombard, Archbishop of Armagh, in his book printed at Louvain in -1632, says that Irish is the language of the whole of Hibernia, but -there were some differences of pronunciation in the various provinces, -and between the learned and the common people, the universal opinion -being that the people of Connacht spoke it best, they having both power -of expression and propriety of phrase, while the men of Munster had the -power of expression without the propriety, and the people of Ulster the -propriety without the power of expression. The people of Leinster were -considered deficient in both.[22] - -O'Molloy in his "Lochrann na gCreidmheach," published in 1675, says -that "no language is well understood by the common people of the island -except Irish alone."[23] The students of the Irish College at Rome were -at this time bound by rule to speak Irish, and an Irish book was to be -read in the refectory during dinner and supper,[24] and all candidates -for the priesthood were directed by the Synod of Tuam, in 1660, to -learn to read and write Irish well. - -Sir William Petty, writing in 1672, has an interesting passage on the -people of Wexford and of Fingal: "The language of Ireland is like that -of the North of Scotland, in many things like the Welsh and Manques, -but in Ireland the Fingallians" [the dwellers along the coast some -miles north of Dublin] "speak neither English, Irish, nor Welsh, and -the people about Wexford, though they speak in a language differing -from English, Welsh, and Irish, yet it is not the same with that of -the Fingallians near Dublin. Both these sorts of people are honest and -laborious members of the kingdom." Petty's strictures upon the Irish -language, of which he was utterly ignorant, and which he ludicrously -asserts "to have few words," need not here be noticed. He appears to -show, however, that the Irish had already begun to borrow some words -from English, and expressed many of the "names of artificial things" -in "the language of their conquerors by altering the termination and -language only." - - * * * * * - -It need hardly be said that once the English Government got the upper -hand in the seventeenth century, and placed bishops and clergy of -its own in the sees and dioceses throughout Ireland, they made it -a kind of understood bargain with their nominees that they should -have no dealings and make no terms with the national Irish language. -Bedell, who was an Englishman and had been created an Irish bishop, -neglected this unwritten compact far enough to learn Irish himself and -to translate, with the help of a couple of Irishmen, the Bible into -Irish, and he also circulated a catechism in English and Irish amongst -the natives. He reaped his reward in the undying gratitude of the -Irish and the equally bitter animosity of his own colleagues. Ussher, -then primate, in answer to a pathetic letter of Bedell's asking what -were the charges against him, said in his reply, "the course which -you took with the Papists was generally cried out against, neither do -I remember in all my life that anything was done here by any of us, -at which the professors of the gospel did take more offense, or by -which the adversaries were more confirmed in their superstitions and -idolatry, whereas I wish you had advised with your brethren before -you would aventure to pull down that which they have been so long a -building,"[25] meaning the discrediting and destruction of the Irish -language. The Irish, however, did not forget the efforts Bedell had -made in behalf of their tongue, for, having taken him prisoner in the -war of 1648, they treated him with every courtesy in their power, and -when he died their troops fired a volley over his grave, crying out, -_Requiescat ultimus Anglorum_, while a priest who was present was heard -to exclaim with fervour, "_Sit anima mea cum Bedelo_." - -Indeed, the attitude adopted by the Government and the bishops who were -its loyal henchmen, placed the defenders of the Established Church in a -very awkward and embarrassing position. They wanted to make Protestants -of the people, but they could not talk to them nor preach to them. The -only possible course for the bishops to pursue, supposing them to have -been in earnest, and to have been ecclesiastics and not Government -place-men, would have been to appoint Irish-speaking clergy under them, -a thing which with scarcely an exception they utterly and obstinately -refused to do. So that for a hundred and fifty years the native -inhabitants of Ireland were obliged to pay a tenth of their produce to -a foreign clergy whom they could not understand and who never troubled -themselves to understand them. How gentlemen and scholars like Ussher -could take up the position they did, is marvellous. He declares with -one breath that "the religion of the Papists is superstitious and -idolatrous, their faith and doctrines erroneous and heretical, their -church in respect of both apostatical, to give them therefore a -toleration, or to consent that they may freely exercise their religion -and profess their faith and doctrine is a grievous sin,"[26] and with -the next breath he tells Bedell when he circulated books in the Irish -language meant to convert these same Papists, that nothing was ever -done "at which the professors of the gospel did take more offense." -This can only be accounted for, so far as I can see, by strong social -prejudice and race hatred. The desire to see the Irish and their -language crushed and _in extremis_ was stronger than the desire to make -Protestants of them, and this feeling continued for at least a hundred -and fifty years.[27] Even so late as the latter half of the eighteenth -century we find Dr. Woodward, Protestant bishop of Cloyne, stating that -"the difference of language is a very general (and where it obtains an -_insurmountable_) object to any intercourse with the people," on the -part of the Protestant clergy, but, he adds coolly, "if it be asked why -the clergy do not learn the Irish language, I answer that it should -be the object of Government rather to take measures to bring it into -entire disuse,"[28] one of the most cynical avowals I can remember on -the part of an Irish prelate as to what he was there for--not for the -spiritual good of the people who paid him tithes, but as the official -tool of the Government to crush their nationality. - -Even Dean Swift, so clear-sighted a politician where Ireland's -financial wrongs were concerned, was in his policy towards the people's -language quite at one with men like Ussher and Woodward. Yet he knew -perfectly well that over three-fourths of the island he and his -_confrères_ were, so far as polemical arguments or conversion went, -powerless either for good or evil. He was, like the other Protestant -dignitaries of his day, a declared enemy of the Gaelic speech, which -he considered prevented "the Irish from being tamed," and at one time -he said he had a scheme by which their language "might _easily_ be -abolished and become a dead one in half an age, with little expense -and less trouble." In another place he says, "it would be a noble -achievement to abolish the Irish language in the kingdom, so far at -least as to oblige all the natives to speak only English on every -occasion of business, in shops, markets, fairs, and other places of -dealing: yet I am wholly deceived if this might not be effectually -done in less than half an age and at a very trifling expense; for such -I look upon a tax to be, of only six thousand pounds to accomplish -so great a work." Whatever the Dean's plan was, he did not further -enlighten the public upon it, and the scheme appears to have died with -him. - -The absorbing power of Irish nationality continued so strong all -through the seventeenth century that according to Prendergast many of -the children of Oliver Cromwell's soldiers who had settled in Ireland -could not speak a word of English.[29] It was the same all over the -country. In 1760 Irish was so universally spoken in the regiments of -the Irish Brigade that Dick Hennessy, Edmund Burke's cousin, learnt -it on foreign service.[30] Still later, during the Peninsular War, the -English officers in one of the Highland regiments attempted to abolish -the speaking of Gaelic at the mess table, but the Gaelic-speaking -officers completely outvoted them. Irish was spoken at this time by -_all the Milesian families of high rank_, except when they wished -to deliberately Anglicise themselves. Michael Kelly, the musical -composer and vocalist, who was born in Dublin in 1764, tells us in his -"Reminiscences:"[31]-- - - "I procured an audience of the Emperor of Germany at Schoenbrunn, - and found him with a half-dozen of general officers, among whom were - Generals O'Donnell and Kavanagh, my gallant countrymen. The latter - [he was from Borris in the Queen's County] said something to me in - Irish which I did not understand, consequently made him no answer. The - Emperor turned quickly on me and said, 'What! O'Kelly, don't you speak - the language of your own country?' I replied, 'Please, your Majesty, - none but the lower orders of the Irish people speak Irish.' The - Emperor laughed loudly. The impropriety of the remark made before two - Milesian Generals flashed into my mind in an instant, and I could have - bitten off my tongue. They luckily did not, or pretended not to hear." - -It is from the middle of the eighteenth century onward that the Irish -language begins to die out. I doubt whether before that period any -Milesian family either in Ireland or the Scotch Highlands spoke English -in its own home or to its own children. - -I have been at much pains to trace the decay of the language, and -the extent to which it has been spoken at various periods from that -day to this, and have consulted all the volumes of travellers and -statisticians upon which I have been able to lay hands. The result, -however, has not been very satisfactory so far as information goes. It -is simply amazing that most Irish and many English writers, who have -had to deal with Ireland from that day to this, have in their sketchy -and generally unreliable accounts of the island, its people, and its -social conditions, simply ignored the fact that any other language -than English was spoken in it at all. Perhaps the most trustworthy -accounts of the anomalous condition of the Irish-speaking race in their -own island are by foreigners who have recorded what they saw without -prejudice one way or the other, whereas one cannot help thinking that -English and Irish writers who, while going over the same ground, have -yet absolutely ignored[32] all allusion to the question of language, -did so because they found it a difficult and awkward question to deal -with. - -The first authorities I know of who speak of Irish as dying out are -Dr. Samuel Madden, who, writing in 1738, states that not one in -twenty was ignorant of English, and Harris, who, in his description -of the county Down six years later, says that Irish prevailed only -amongst the poorer Catholics. Both these statements, however, are -preposterously exaggerated. In the very year that Madden wrote died -O'Neill of Clanaboy, one of the best-known and most influential men of -the county Down, and I found in the Belfast Museum the Irish manuscript -of the funeral oration pronounced over his body,[33] and any O'Neill -would probably at that period have turned in his grave had his funeral -discourse been spoken in English. - -Madden's statement that in 1738 nineteenth-twentieths of the population -knew English is an incredible one and so utterly disproved by all -the other evidence, that it is astonishing that so sound and careful -a historian as Mr. Lecky should have accepted it as substantially -true. The evidence upon the other side is overwhelming. Forty-seven -years after Madden wrote this the German, Küttner, travelling through -Ireland, wrote a series of letters in which he distinctly says that -he found the common people either did not understand English at all or -understood it imperfectly.[34] - -More than two generations had passed away after Madden's statement -that nineteen-twentieths of the population knew English, when we find -a Scotchman, Daniel Dewar, in a book entitled "Observations on the -Character, Customs and Superstitions of the Irish," writing thus in -1812:-- - - "The number of people who speak this language [Irish] is much greater - than is generally supposed. It is spoken throughout the province of - Connaught by all the lower orders, a great part of whom scarcely - understand any English, and some of those who do, understand it only - so as to conduct business. They are incapable of receiving moral - or religious instruction through its medium. The Irish is spoken - very generally through the other three provinces except amongst the - descendants of the Scotch in the north. It cannot be supposed that - calculations on this subject should be perfectly accurate, but it has - been concluded on good grounds that there are about two millions of - people in Ireland [out of about six millions] who are incapable of - understanding a continued discourse in English." - -"I have always found," says Dewar, with much shrewdness, "that in -places where gentlemen hostile to this tongue assured me there was -not a word of it spoken, in these very districts I heard very little -English." He gives an amusing account of the various contradictory -objections that he found at that time urged against it. - - "Some of the Anglo-Hibernians at that time (1808) strongly maintained - that this dialect is so barbarous that it cannot answer the purpose - of instruction, others that it would awaken the enthusiasm of the - _Wild Irish_ (as they call them) to make any attempt of this kind, - and consequently that it might prove dangerous to the Government, and - others, that they had no desire to be taught in Irish, and that it - would be useless to send teachers among them for this purpose." - -Dutton, in his statistical history of the county Clare, published in -1808, says that almost all the gentlemen of that county spoke Irish -with the country people, but he adds, "scarcely one of their sons is -able to hold a conversation in this language. The children of almost -all those who cannot speak English are proud of being spoken to in -English and answering in the same, even although you may question them -in Irish. No Irish is spoken in any of the schools, and the peasants -are anxious to send their children to them to learn English." This -apparently does not refer to the hedge schools of the natives, but -to the charter and other English schools. "I think the diversity of -language and not the diversity of religion," writes Grattan, in 1811, -"constitutes a diversity of people. I should be very sorry that the -Irish language should be forgotten, but glad that the English language -should be generally understood."[35] This seems to have been also the -position taken up by his great rival Flood, who, when dying, left some -£50,000 to Trinity College for the cultivation of the Irish language. -Trinity College, however, never secured the money, and its so-called -Irish professorship, lately established, in the fifties, is only an -adjunct of its Divinity School, and paid and practically controlled, -not by the college, nor by people in the least interested in the -cultivation of Celtic literature, but by a society for the conversion -of Irish Papists through the medium of their own language. - -In 1825, that is eighty-seven years after Madden's statement that -nineteen-twentieths of the population knew English, the Commissioners -of Education in Ireland, in their first report laid before Parliament, -state "it has been estimated that the number of Irish who employ the -ancient language of the country exclusively is not less than 500,000, -and that at least a million more, although they have some understanding -of English and can employ it for the ordinary purposes of traffic, -make use of their [own] tongue on all other occasions as the natural -vehicle of their thoughts." - -Lappenberg, a German who travelled in Ireland, reckoned that out of -a population of seven millions of inhabitants in 1835, four millions -spoke Irish "als ihre Muttersprache." - -In 1842 Mac Comber's "Christian Remembrancer," discussing the -possibility of "converting" the Irish, says, "there are about 3,000,000 -of Irish who still speak the Irish language and love it as their mother -tongue," and "that part of the Irish population which still speaks and -understands little else than Irish" is "nearly a third of the entire -population of Ireland." - -A German, J. C. Kohl, who travelled extensively in Ireland in 1843, -shortly before the famine, says that in Clare the "children would run -by the side of the car crying, 'Burnocks[36] halfpenny,' burnocks being -an appellation applied to every stranger, and 'halfpenny' the only -English that the little rogues seemed to know." The neglect of the use -of Irish in the churches, which had even then set in, largely owing to -the teaching and wishes of O'Connell and his parliamentarians, struck -the German spectator as something astonishing, for apparently he could -not understand how an ancient nation with whose fame all Europe had -recently been filled owing to the exertions of O'Connell, should be -casting away its national birthright. "The great city of Cork," he -notes, "which lies in a district where much Irish is still spoken, -contains only two churches where sermons are preached in Irish. A short -time ago the Irish prisoners in Cork gaol petitioned the chaplain that -he would preach his Sunday sermon to them in Irish." - -This acute foreign observer gives a very interesting account of the -state of the Irish language round Drogheda, a coast town some twenty -miles north of Dublin, which is worth quoting here since it accurately -describes the condition of affairs over the greater part of Leinster -sixty years ago, but which is now so absolutely extinct that few modern -Irishmen could believe it except on the most unimpeachable testimony. -"Drogheda," he writes, "is the last genuine Irish town, the suburbs -of Drogheda are genuine Irish suburbs ... and a great many people are -to be found in the neighbourhood who speak the old Irish tongue more -fluently and more frequently than the English." Kohl was hospitably -entertained by a priest in Drogheda--whose name unfortunately he -does not mention, but who appears to have been a man of superior -intelligence. His house had several harps in it, and he was delighted -by a young blind harper who first played Brian Boru's march for him, -and then an air called the Fairy Queen. At Kohl's request the priest -also sent for a reciter of Irish poetry, who asked what he would wish -recited. "If you were to repeat all you know," said the priest, "we -should have to listen all night, I suppose, and many other nights as -well." - -"The man," says Kohl, "began to recite and went on uninterruptedly for -a quarter of an hour. His story, of which I, of course, understood not -a word, but which my friendly host afterwards explained to me, treated -of a Scottish enchantress named Aithura,[37] who forsaken by her -Irish lover, Cuchullin, laid a cruel spell upon his son Konnell which -compelled him by an irresistible enchantment, and entirely against his -will, to follow, to persecute, to fight, and at last to destroy his -father, Cuchullin. At the last moment, after stabbing his father to -the heart in spite of the efforts by which he struggled to resist the -horrible impulse of his destiny, his own heart broke in the struggle, -and he and his father died together, while the revengeful spirit of the -cruel enchantress hovered in exultation over the dying, repeating to -her treacherous lover the story of his inconstancy and her revenge." -"I was glad," adds Kohl, "of assuring myself by oral demonstration -of the actual existence of Ossianic poetry like this, at the present -day. The reciter was, as I have said, a simple and ignorant man, with -a good deal of the clown about him, and his recitation was as simple, -unadorned, and undeclamatory as himself. Sometimes, however, when -carried away by the interest of his story his manner and voice were -animated and moving. At such times he fixed his eyes on his hearers -as if demanding their sympathy and admiration for himself and his -poem. Sometimes I noticed that the metre completely changed, and I was -told that this was the case with all Irish poems, for that the metre -was always made to suit the subject.[38] I also heard that the most -beautiful part of this ballad was the dialogue of father and son upon -the battlefield, but that a prose translation would give me no idea at -all of its beauty." - -The priest told him that "Ossianic poetry was very abundant in the -neighbourhood of Drogheda." "This," he says, "I had heard before, and -from all I heard in Ireland I am much inclined to believe--which indeed -many have also conjectured--that Macpherson obtained the materials for -his version of Ossian's poems from popular tradition and ballads of the -North of Ireland. The whole Irish nation both in the south and north, -is certainly much more imbued with the spirit of this poetry and still -possesses many more traces of it than the Scottish people, whether of -the Highlands or Lowlands."[39] - -Another very acute German traveller, Rodenberg, describes the people of -Kerry as always speaking Irish among themselves in 1860, while their -English was so bad that he could hardly understand it. He notices, -however, that several words of corrupted English were interwoven with -their Irish conversation, which so disgusted him that he remarks, -"everything about these people is patchwork, their clothing, their -dwellings, their language."[40] He reports at full length a most -interesting conversation which he had with a priest near Limerick, who -assured him that they had to pull down in order to build up, that is, -pull down the edifice of the Irish language in which the people were -denied education in order to build up a new education in the English -language. "Nor is it," said the priest, "the first time that the -Irishman has had to turn his hand against his most sacred things. Red -Hugh of Donegal destroyed the house of his forefathers that the enemy -might not make of it a fortress against his own people, but he wept -while he destroyed it."[41] - -In the Galway fish market Rodenberg could not hear a single word of -English spoken. The population of Connacht was at this time a little -unnder a million, and the census of 1861 showed that about one-tenth of -the whole population were ignorant of English. The population of the -city of Galway in this year was 23,787, of whom 3,511 were ignorant of -English. - -According to the census of 1891 something over three-quarters of a -million people in Ireland were bi-linguists, and 66,140 could speak -Irish only, thus showing that in thirty years Irish was killed off so -rapidly _that the whole Island contained fewer speakers in 1891 than -the small province of Connacht alone did thirty years before_. - -This extinguishing of the Irish language has not been the result of a -natural process of decay, but has been chiefly caused by the definite -policy of the Board of "National Education," as it is called, backed -by the expenditure every year of many hundreds of thousands of pounds. -This Board, evidently actuated by a false sense of Imperialism, and -by an overmastering desire to centralise, and being itself appointed -by Government chiefly from a class of Irishmen who have been steadily -hostile to the natives, and being perfectly ignorant of the language -and literature of the Irish, have pursued from the first with unvarying -pertinacity the great aim of utterly exterminating this fine Aryan -language. - -The amount of horrible suffering entailed by this policy, and the -amount of hopeless ignorance stereotyped in hundreds of thousands -of children, and the ruination of the life-prospects of hundreds of -thousands more, by insisting upon their growing up unable to read or -write, sooner than teach them to read and write the only language they -knew, has counted for nothing with the Board of National Education, -compared with their great object of the extermination of the Irish -language, and the attainment of one Anglified uniformity. In vain have -their own inspectors time after time testified to the ill results -of denying the Irish-speakers education in their own language, in -vain have disinterested visitors opened wide eyes of astonishment at -schoolmasters who knew no Irish being appointed to teach pupils[42] who -know no English. In vain have the schoolmasters themselves petitioned -to be allowed to change the system, in vain did Sir Patrick Keenan -(afterwards himself Chief Commissioner of National Education) address -the Board saying, "the shrewdest people in the world are those who are -bi-lingual, borderers have always been remarkable in this respect, but -_the most stupid children I have ever met with_ are those who were -learning English while endeavouring to forget Irish. The real policy of -the educationist would in my opinion be to teach Irish grammatically -and soundly to the Irish-speaking people, _and then_ to teach them -English through the medium of their native language."[43] All in vain! -Against the steady, unwavering, unrelenting determination to stamp out -the Irish language which has been paramount in the Board ever since the -days of Archbishop Whately, every representation passed unheeded, and -it would appear that in another generation the Board--at the cost of -unparalleled suffering--will have attained its object. - -This is not the place to discuss the bearings of this question still -less to drag in the names of individuals, but the reader who has -followed the history of Irish literature to this will be perhaps -anxious to have it continued up to date, and so I may as well here -place on record what I and many others have seen with our own eyes over -and over again. - -An Irish-speaking family, endowed with all the usual intelligence of -the Irish-speaking population, with a gift for song, poetry, Ossianic -lays, traditional history, and story, send their children to school. -A rational education, such as any self-governing country in Europe -would give them, would teach them to read and write the language that -they spoke, and that their fathers had read and spoken for fifteen -hundred years before them. The exigencies of life in the United Kingdom -would then make it necessary to teach them a second language--English. -The basis of knowledge upon which they started, and which they had -acquired as naturally as the breath of life, would in any fair system -of education be kept as a basis, and their education would be built up -upon it. They would be taught to _read_ the Ossianics lays which they -knew by heart before, they would be given books containing more of the -same sort, they would be taught to read the poems, and they would have -put into their hands books of prose and poetry of a kindred nature. -They had picked up many items of information about the history of -Ireland from their fathers and mothers, they would be given a simple -history of Ireland to read. All this they would assimilate naturally -and quickly because it would be the natural continuation of what they -already in part possessed. But the exigencies of life in the United -Kingdom makes it necessary to read English poems and English books, and -to know something of English history also, this they would learn after -the other. - -Will it be believed, the Board of National Education insists upon the -Irish-speaking child starting out from the first moment _to learn to -read a language it does not speak_.[44] It is forbidden to be taught -one syllable of Irish, easy sentences, poems, or anything else. It is -forbidden to be taught one word of Irish history. Advantage is taken of -_nothing_ that the child knew before or that came natural to it, and -the result is appalling. - -Bright-eyed intelligent children, second in intelligence, I should -think, to none in Europe, with all the traditional traits of a people -cultured for fifteen hundred years, children endowed with a vocabulary -in every-day use of about three thousand words[45] (while the ordinary -English peasant has often not more than five hundred) enter the schools -of the Chief Commissioner, to come out at the end with all their -natural vivacity gone, their intelligence almost completely sapped, -their splendid command of their native language lost for ever, and a -vocabulary of five or six hundred English words, badly pronounced and -barbarously employed, substituted for it, and this they in their turn -will transmit to their children, while everything that they knew on -entering the school, story, lay, poem, song, aphorism, proverb, and the -unique stock-in-trade of an Irish speaker's mind, is gone for ever, -_and replaced by nothing_. - -I have long looked and inquired in vain, on all hands, for any -possible justification of this system, and the more I have looked and -inquired the more convinced I am that none such exists unless it be -an unacknowledged political one. Its results at all events are only -too obvious. The children are taught, if nothing else, to be ashamed -of their own parents, ashamed of their own nationality, ashamed of -their own names. The only idea of education they now have is connected -not with the literary past of their own nation, but with the new -board-trained schoolmaster and his school, which to them represent the -only possible form of knowledge. They have no idea of anything outside -of, or beyond, this. Hence they allow their beautiful Irish manuscripts -to rot[46]--because the schoolmaster does not read Irish. They never -sing an Irish song or repeat an Irish poem--the schoolmaster does -not; they forget all about their own country that their parents told -them--the schoolmaster _is not allowed to teach Irish history_; they -translate their names into English--probably the schoolmaster has done -the same; and what is the use of having an Irish name now that they are -not allowed to speak Irish! Worst of all they have not only dropped -their Irish Christian names, but they are becoming ashamed of the -patron saints of their own people, the names even of Patrick and of -Brigit.[47] It is a remarkable system of education, and one well worth -the minutest study that can be paid it, which is able to produce these -effects, but with even the smallest philological regard for the meaning -of words, it cannot be called "education." - - * * * * * - - Ar n-a críochnughadh ag Ráth-Treagh anaice le Dungar, i bparráiste -Tigh-Baoithin i gcondae Roscomáin, an ficheadh lá Lúghnasa, le Dúbhglas - de h-Íde, d'á ngoirthear go coitchionn an Craoibhín Aoibhinn, de phór - na nGall-Ghaedhal i n-Eirinn. - - Buidheachas le Dia! - - CRÍOCH. - -[1] Preface to "Glossarium Palaeo-Hibernicum." - -[2] Red Book in Archives of Diocese of Ossory. The statute is in the -barbarous law-French of the period, "et si nul Engleys ou Irroies -conversant entre Engleys use la lang Irroies entre eux-mesmes encontre -cest ordinance, et de ceo soit attient, soint sez terrez," etc. - -[3] Municipal Archives of Waterford. Hist. MSS. Commission, 10th -report. Appendix v. p. 323. - -[4] Galway Archives. - -[5] "Ulster Journal of Archæology." - -[6] _See_ "Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland," -1897, p. 192. - -[7] State Papers, part iii. vol. ii. p. 502. - -[8] One of the four prophets of Ireland, _see_ ch. XVI, note 23. - -[9] Archdale ii, 27. - -[10] Cal. of State Papers, p. 130. - -[11] "Tribes of Hy Many," p. 20. - -[12] State Papers, Dom. Eliz. an. 1600, p. 496. - -[13] This was that Father Nugent who improved and developed the powers -of the Irish harp. A letter in Irish to him from Maelbrighte O'Hussey -is printed by Father Hogan, S.J., in "Ibernia Ignatiana," p. 167. - -[14] Father Hogan's "Distinguished Irishmen of the Sixteenth Century," -p. 38. - -[15] MS. in Royal Library of Brussels of Stephen White's "Vindiciæ," -fo. 62. Consulted by Father Hogan, S.J. - -[16] "Transactions of the Ossory Arch. Society," vol. ii. p. 350. - -[17] Preface to Halliday's edition of Keating's "Forus Feasa," p. xi. -The fine poet, David Bruadar (p. 592), wrote a satiric poem on the -haste the Irish made to speak English when the Duke of Ormond was in -power, two lines of which I quote from memory: - - "_Is mairg atá gan Béarla binn_ - _Ar dteacht an Iarla go h-Eirinn._" - -[18] _See_ above p. 578. - -[19] Published by the late Father Denis Murphy, S.J., for the Irish -Antiquarian Society. - -[20] I fear many of our moderns are also more or less open to this -reproach. - -[21] "Ar an adhbhar sin as cóir agus as iommochuibhe dúinne na Herenaig -bheith ceanamhail gradhach onórach an ar dteangain ndúchais nádurtha -féin, an ghaoilag, noch atá chomhfuelethach chomhmúchta soin, nach -mór na deacha si as coimhne na nduine; a mhileán so as féidir a -chur ar an aois ealathain noch as udair don teangain, do chuir i fá -fórdhoreatheacht agus cruos focal, da scribha a modaibh agus fhocalaibh -deamhaire doracha, dothuicseanta, agus ni fhoilid saor mórán d'ár -nduinibh uaisle dobheir a tteanga dhuchais nadurtha (noch ata fortill -fuirithe onórach fólamtha géarchuiseach inti féin) a ttarcuisne agus -a neamhchionn, agus chaitheas a n-aimsir á saorthudh agus á foghlaim -teangtha coimhtheach ele" (pp. 10 and 11, preface). - -[22] "Tertio notandum quod hoc ipsum idioma sit vernaculum toti in -primis Hiberniæ, tamsetsi cum aliquo discrimine turn quoad dialectum -nonnihil variantem inter diversas provincias, turn quoad artificii -observationem inter doctos et vulgares.... Et dialecti quidem variatio -ita se habere passim æstimatur, ut cum sint quatuor Hiberniæ provinciæ -Momonia Ultonia Lagenia Conactia, penes Conactes sit et potestas rectæ -pronunciationis et phraseos vera proprietas, penes Momonienses potestas -sine proprietate, penes Ultones proprietas sine potestate, penes -Lagenos nec potestas pronunciationis nec phraseos proprietas."--"De -Hibernia Commentarius," p. 7. Louvain, 1632. This shows the antiquity -of the Irish saying, "tá ceart gan bias ag an Ulltach, ta blas gan -ceart ag an Muimhneach, ni'l bias ná ceart ag an Laighneach, tá blas -agus ceart ag an gConnachtach." - -[23] "Ní maith tuigthear leis an bpobal gcoitcheann éinteangadh acht -an ghaoidhealg amháin" (see p. 11). _See_ also a mandate of the "Sacra -Congregatio Visitationis." - -[24] "Quando aderit Rector Hibernicus val alius linguæ peritus, -legantur ad mensam ter in hebdomada, libri spirituales, in idiomati -Hibernico compositi, ne alumni ejus obliviscantur."--Extracted from the -"Archiv. Coll. Hib. Romæ.," lib. xxiii., by Father Hogan, S.J. - -[25] Ellington's "Life and Writings of Ussher." - -[26] _See_ above, p. 555. - -[27] It was not, I think, until the tithe war took place, that the -established clergy began to see anything irrational in their attitude. -In 1834, however, the Hon. Power Trench, Archbishop of Tuam, wrote to -Phillip Barron, of Waterford, editor of _Ancient Ireland_, a weekly -magazine for the cultivation of the Irish language, regretting that -in the whole of his diocese (where probably not one in twenty at that -period understood a word of English) he had not outside of his own -brother, a single clergyman who had "acquired a proficiency in the -Irish language." - -[28] "Present State of the Irish Church," seventh edition, 1787, p. 43, -quoted by Anderson, in his "Native Irish." - -[29] Robert Molesworth's "True Way to Make Ireland Happy," printed in -1697, is also quoted as an authority for this statement, but I have -not been able to discover a copy of this book even in the Library of -Trinity College. - -[30] Roche's "Memoirs of an Octogenarian." - -[31] Vol. i. p. 263. - -[32] Thus on referring to a recent history of the County Sligo in two -volumes by a distinguished author to see how far Irish prevailed in a -certain barony, I find the fact that any other language than English -either was or is spoken in Sligo, so far as I could see, quietly -ignored. It is the same with most authors of local and county histories. - -[33] I published this with a translation in the "Journal of Ulster -Archæology." - -[34] "Das Englische wird vom gemeinen Volke entweder gar nicht oder -sehr unvolkommen erlernt" ("Briefe Aus Irland," Leipzig, 1785, p. 214). - -[35] Grattan's "Miscellaneous Works," p. 321, edition of 1822. - -[36] "Burnocks" does not look like a real word. I have no idea what it -means or it is meant for. - -[37] This is a singular distortion of the story of Aoife [Eefy] and the -coming of her and Cuchulain's son, Conlaoch to Erin. _See_ above p. 300. - -[38] This of course is a misapprehension. - -[39] It is curious to observe that Kohl found the race of harpers by no -means extinct in Ireland, and his testimony appears quite disinterested -and trustworthy. "I afterwards heard," he says, "that piece (The Fairy -Queen) on the pianoforte, but it did not sound half so soft and sweet -as from the instrument of this blind young harper.... We were very much -delighted with our harper who was certainly an accomplished artist, yet -Ireland contains many of still greater ability and celebrity. The most -celebrated of all, however, is a man named Byrne, blind also if I do -not mistake. When, therefore, Moore sings-- - - "'The harp that once through Tara's hall - The soul of music shed - Now hangs as mute on Tara's wall - As if the soul were fled,' - -"his lamentation must not be literally understood." He also mentions -that when he was in Drogheda "a concert was in preparation to be given -next week at which seven harpers, mostly blind, were to play together." - -An English tourist, C. R. Wild ["Vacations in Ireland," London, -1857], mentions meeting a harper at Leenane in Connemara in 1857, who -requested permission to play to him during his meal. He describes him -as "an ancient man bearing a small Irish harp such as were common in -olden days; ... the music produced was, for the most part, plaintive -and slow, and the tones particularly soft and melodious." The priest -who entertained Kohl had a number of harps in his house, but, -unfortunately, the German says nothing of their size or shape. From -these instances it would appear that the race of Irish harpers did not -quite die out with those who assembled at Belfast at the close of the -last century when Bunting secured so many of their airs, but that some -lingered on till after the famine. How far these latter harpers could -be regarded as the genuine descendants of the old race is doubtful. - -[40] "Wenn sie unter sich sind so sprechen sie immer das naturale -Irisch, aber auch das nicht mehr rein sondern mit corrumpirtem English -durchwoben. Alles an diesem Volke ist Fetzenwerk, ihre Kleidung, ihre -Wohnung, ihre Sprache" ("Insel der Heiligen," vol. i. p. 185. Berlin, -1860). - -[41] See Vol. ii. p. 9 for this interesting conversation in which the -attitude of the typical Catholic priest towards his national language -is shown. - -[42] In spite of the well-known opposition of the National Board the -National Schoolmasters themselves as early as 1874 in their Congress -unanimously passed the following resolution:--"The peasants in -Irish-speaking districts have not English enough to convey their ideas, -except such as relate to the mechanical business of their occupation. -Hence they are not able in any degree to cultivate or impress the -minds of their children (though often very intelligent themselves), -who consequently grow up dull and stupid if they have been suffered to -lose the Irish language or to drop out of the constant practice of it." -This is _exactly_ what I and every other spectator have found, and it -means that the Board of National Education is engaged in replacing an -intelligent generation of men by an utterly stupid and unintelligent -one. - -[43] Sir Patrick Keenan, C.B., K.C.M.G., who was for a time head of -the Educational system in Ireland, and was employed by the Government -to report upon the plan of teaching the people of Malta in Maltese, -reported to Parliament that the attempt to substitute English or -Italian for Maltese in the schools was a fatal one. "Such a course -would simply mean that the people are to get no chance, much less -choice, of acquiring a knowledge either of their own or any other -language." This is exactly true of spots in Ireland, and after his -experiences in Donegal, Sir Patrick Keenan drew up the following -memorial:--"1. That the Irish-speaking people ought to be taught the -Irish language grammatically, and that school books in Irish should -be prepared for the purpose. 2. That English should be taught to all -Irish-speaking children through the medium of the Irish. 3. That if -this system be pursued the people will be very soon better educated -than they are now, or possibly can be _for many generations_ upon the -present system. And 4. That the English language will in a short time -be more generally and purely spoken than it can be by the present -system for many generations." When he became head of the National -System of Education, Sir Patrick found himself unable to carry out his -own recommendations without personal inconvenience, being probably -afraid to offend his colleagues, and nothing has been since done to -remove the scandal. - -[44] For many years the schoolmaster was not even allowed to explain -anything in Irish to a child who knew no English! This, rule, however, -has been abrogated. - -[45] Dr. Pedersen, a Dane, who recently resided for three -months in the Arran Islands to learn the language that is there -banned--at the present moment the only inhabitant in one of these -islands, not counting coastguards, who does not speak Irish is the -schoolmaster!--took down about 2,500 words. I have written down a -vocabulary of 3,000 words from people in Roscommon who could neither -read nor write, and I am sure I fell 1,000 short of what they actually -used. I should think the average in Munster, especially in Kerry, would -be between 5,000 and 6,000. It is well known that many of the English -peasants use only 300 words, or from that to 500. - -[46] A friend of mine travelling in the County Clare sent me three -Irish MSS. the other day, which he found the children tearing to pieces -on the floor. One of these, about one hundred years old, contained a -saga called the "Love of Dubhlacha for Mongan," which M. d'Arbois de -Jubainville had searched the libraries of Europe for in vain. It is -true that another copy of it has since been discovered, and printed -and annotated with all the learning and critical acumen of two such -world-renowned scholars as Professor Kuno Meyer and Mr. Alfred Nutt, -both of whom considered it of the highest value as elucidating the -psychology of the ancient Irish. The copy thus recovered and sent to -me is twice as long as that printed by Kuno Meyer, and had the copy -from which he printed been lost it would be unique. These things are -happening every day. A man living at the very doors of the Chief -Commissioner of National Education writes to me thus: "I could -read many of irish Fenian tales and poems, that was in my father's -manuscripts, he had a large collection of them. I was often sorry for -letting them go to loss, but I could not copy the 1/20th of them.... -The writing got defaced, the books got damp and torn while I was away, -I burned lots of them twice that I came to this country.... I was -learning to write the old irish at that time; I could read a fair share -of it and write a little." That man should have been taught to read and -write his native language, and not practically encouraged to burn the -old books, every one of which probably contained some piece or other -not to be found elsewhere. - -Even where the people had no manuscripts in common use amongst them, -their minds were well-stored with poems and lays. A friend wrote to me -from America the other day to interview a man who lived in the County -Galway, who he thought had manuscripts. Not finding it convenient to do -this, I wrote to him, and this is his reply: "Dear sir, about twenty -years since I was able to tell about two Dozen of Ossian's Irish poems -and some of Raftery's, and more Rymes composed by others, but since -that time no one asked me since to tell one Irish story at a wake or by -the fireside sine the old people died. Therefore when I had no practice -I forgot all the storys that ever I had. I am old. Your most Humble -Servant, Michael B." - -Another writes: "I have no written manuscript. I had three poems about -the dareg more [Dearg Mor] the first when he came to Ireland in search -of his wife that shewed (?) him, when Gaul [Goll] faught him and tied -him he come to Ireland, a few years after, when he got older and -stronger, and faught Gaul for 9 days in succession the ninth day Gaul -killed him then in 18 years after his son called Cun [Conn] came to -Ireland to have revenge and faught Gaul, and after eleven days fighting -he was killed by Gaul. I had a poem called Lee na mna mora [Laoi na mná -móire] or the poem of the big woman who faught Gaul for five days, but -Osker [Oscar] kills her. I had the baptism of Ossian by St. Patrick the -best of all and many others of Ossians' to numerous to mention now, I -also had some poemes of Cucullan the death and the lady in English and -in Irish I had the beettle in English and Irish and when fin [Finn] -went to denmark in English and Irish and many other rymes of modern -times. I seen some address in the Irish times last year where to write -to some place in Dublin where Ossians poems Could be got but I forget -the Number. The people that is living Now a days could not understand -the old Irish which made me drop it altogether their parents is -striving to learn their children English what themselves never learned -so the boys and girls has neither good english or good Irish. Hoping -your friends and well wishers are well, fare well old stock. M...." - -[47] This is the direct result of the system pursued by the National -Board, which refuses to teach the children anything about Patrick -and Brigid, but which is never tired of putting second-hand English -models before them. Archbishop Whately, that able and unconventional -Englishman, who had so much to do with moulding the system, despite his -undoubted sense of humour, saw nothing humorous in making the children -learn to repeat such verses as-- - - "I thank the goodness and the grace - Which on my birth have smiled, - And made me in these Christian days - A happy English child!" - -and the tone of the Board may be gathered from this passage, I believe, -which occurred in one of their elementary books: "On the east of -Ireland is England, where the Queen lives. Many people who live in -Ireland were born in England, _and we speak the same language, and are -called one nation_." The result of this teaching is apparent to every -one who lives in Ireland, and does not shut his eyes. "God forbid I -should handicap my daughter in life by calling her Brigid," said a -woman to me once. "It was with the greatest difficulty I could make any -of the Irish christen their children Patrick," said Father O'Reilly of -Louisburgh to me, talking of his Australian mission. For the wholesale -translation of names, such as O'Gara into Love, O'Lavin into Hand, Mac -Rury into Rogers, and so on, which is still going on with unabated -vigour, see an article by me in "Three Irish Essays," published by -Fisher Unwin. - - - - -INDEX - -(Not retained for this plain text version.—Transcribers' note.) - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's A Literary History of Ireland, by Douglas Hyde - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LITERARY HISTORY OF IRELAND *** - -***** This file should be named 53793-0.txt or 53793-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/7/9/53793/ - -Produced by Clare Graham, Madeleine Fournier and Marc -D'Hooghe at Free Literature (back online soon in an extended -version, also linking to free sources for education -worldwide ... MOOC's, educational materials,...) 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