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diff --git a/8109.txt b/8109.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e81c2ad --- /dev/null +++ b/8109.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2436 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Early Bardic Literature, Ireland, by Standish O'Grady + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 + + +Title: Early Bardic Literature, Ireland + +Author: Standish O'Grady + +Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8109] +Release Date: August 4, 2009 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EARLY BARDIC LITERATURE, IRELAND *** + + + + +Produced by Ar dTeanga Fein + + + + + +EARLY BARDIC LITERATURE, IRELAND. + + +By Standish O'Grady + +11 Lower Fitzwilliam Street, Dublin + + + +Scattered over the surface of every country in Europe may be found +sepulchral monuments, the remains of pre-historic times and nations, and +of a phase of life will civilisation which has long since passed away. +No country in Europe is without its cromlechs and dolmens, huge earthen +tumuli, great flagged sepulchres, and enclosures of tall pillar-stones. +The men by whom these works were made, so interesting in themselves, and +so different from anything of the kind erected since, were not strangers +and aliens, but our own ancestors, and out of their rude civilisation +our own has slowly grown. Of that elder phase of European civilisation +no record or tradition has been anywhere bequeathed to us. Of its +nature, and the ideas and sentiments whereby it was sustained, nought +may now be learned save by an examination of those tombs themselves, and +of the dumb remnants, from time to time exhumed out of their soil--rude +instruments of clay, flint, brass, and gold, and by speculations and +reasonings founded upon these archaeological gleanings, meagre and +sapless. + +For after the explorer has broken up, certainly desecrated, and perhaps +destroyed, those noble sepulchral raths; after he has disinterred +the bones laid there once by pious hands, and the urn with its +unrecognisable ashes of king or warrior, and by the industrious labour +of years hoarded his fruitless treasure of stone celt and arrow-head, of +brazen sword and gold fibula and torque; and after the savant has rammed +many skulls with sawdust, measuring their capacity, and has adorned them +with some obscure label, and has tabulated and arranged the implements +and decorations of flint and metal in the glazed cases of the cold gaunt +museum, the imagination, unsatisfied and revolted, shrinks back from all +that he has done. Still we continue to inquire, receiving from him no +adequate response, Who were those ancient chieftains and warriors for +whom an affectionate people raised those strange tombs? What life did +they lead? What deeds perform? How did their personality affect the +minds of their people and posterity? How did our ancestors look upon +those great tombs, certainly not reared to be forgotten, and how did +they--those huge monumental pebbles and swelling raths--enter into and +affect the civilisation or religion of the times? + +We see the cromlech with its massive slab and immense supporting +pillars, but we vainly endeavour to imagine for whom it was first +erected, and how that greater than cyclopean house affected the minds +of those who made it, or those who were reared in its neighbourhood +or within reach of its influence. We see the stone cist with its great +smooth flags, the rocky cairn, and huge barrow and massive walled +cathair, but the interest which they invariably excite is only +aroused to subside again unsatisfied. From this department of European +antiquities the historian retires baffled, and the dry savant is alone +master of the field, but a field which, as cultivated by him alone, +remains barren or fertile only in things the reverse of exhilarating. An +antiquarian museum is more melancholy than a tomb. + +But there is one country in Europe in which, by virtue of a marvellous +strength and tenacity of the historical intellect, and of filial +devotedness to the memory of their ancestors, there have been preserved +down into the early phases of mediaeval civilisation, and then committed +to the sure guardianship of manuscript, the hymns, ballads, stories, and +chronicles, the names, pedigrees, achievements, and even characters, of +those ancient kings and warriors over whom those massive cromlechs were +erected and great cairns piled. There is not a conspicuous sepulchral +monument in Ireland, the traditional history of which is not recorded +in our ancient literature, and of the heroes in whose honour they were +raised. In the rest of Europe there is not a single barrow, dolmen, or +cist of which the ancient traditional history is recorded; in Ireland +there is hardly one of which it is not. And these histories are in many +cases as rich and circumstantial as that of men of the greatest eminence +who have lived in modern times. Granted that the imagination which for +centuries followed with eager interest the lives of these heroes, beheld +as gigantic what was not so, as romantic and heroic what was neither one +nor the other, still the great fact remains, that it was beside and in +connection with the mounds and cairns that this history was elaborated, +and elaborated concerning them and concerning the heroes to whom they +were sacred. + +On the plain of Tara, beside the little stream Nemanna, itself famous +as that which first turned a mill-wheel in Ireland, there lies a barrow, +not itself very conspicuous in the midst of others, all named and +illustrious in the ancient literature of the country. The ancient hero +there interred is to the student of the Irish bardic literature a +figure as familiar and clearly seen as any personage in the Biographia +Britannica. We know the name he bore as a boy and the name he bore as +a man. We know the names of his father and his grandfather, and of the +father of his grandfather, of his mother, and the father and mother of +his mother, and the pedigrees and histories of each of these. We know +the name of his nurse, and of his children, and of his wife, and the +character of his wife, and of the father and mother of his wife, and +where they lived and were buried. We know all the striking events of his +boyhood and manhood, the names of his horses and his weapons, his own +character and his friends, male and female. We know his battles, and the +names of those whom he slew in battle, and how he was himself slain, and +by whose hands. We know his physical and spiritual characteristics, +the device upon his shield, and how that was originated, carved, and +painted, by whom. We know the colour of his hair, the date of his birth +and of his death, and his relations, in time and otherwise, with the +remainder of the princes and warriors with whom, in that mound-raising +period of our history, he was connected, in hostility or friendship; and +all this enshrined in ancient song, the transmitted traditions of the +people who raised that barrow, and who laid within it sorrowing their +brave ruler and, defender. That mound is the tomb of Cuculain, once king +of the district in which Dundalk stands to-day, and the ruins of whose +earthen fortification may still be seen two miles from that town. + +This is a single instance, and used merely as an example, but one out +of a multitude almost as striking. There is not a king of Ireland, +described as such in the ancient annals, whose barrow is not mentioned +in these or other compositions, and every one of which may at the +present day be identified where the ignorant plebeian or the ignorant +patrician has not destroyed them. The early History of Ireland clings +around and grows out of the Irish barrows until, with almost the +universality of that primeval forest from which Ireland took one of +its ancient names, the whole isle and all within it was clothed with +a nobler raiment, invisible, but not the less real, of a full and +luxuriant history, from whose presence, all-embracing, no part was free. +Of the many poetical and rhetorical titles lavished upon this country, +none is truer than that which calls her the Isle of Song. Her ancient +history passed unceasingly into the realm of artistic representation; +the history of one generation became the poetry of the next, until the +whole island was illuminated and coloured by the poetry of the bards. +Productions of mere fancy and imagination these songs are not, +though fancy and imagination may have coloured and shaped all their +subject-matter, but the names are names of men and women who once lived +and died in Ireland, and over whom their people raised the swelling rath +and reared the rocky cromlech. In the sepulchral monuments their names +were preserved, and in the performance of sacred rites, and the holding +of games, fairs, and assemblies in their honour, the memory of their +achievements kept fresh, till the traditions that clung around these +places were inshrined in tales which were finally incorporated in the +Leabhar na Huidhre and the Book of Leinster. + +Pre-historic narrative is of two kinds--in one the imagination is at +work consciously, in the other unconsciously. Legends of the former +class are the product of a lettered and learned age. The story floats +loosely in a world of imagination. The other sort of pre-historic +narrative clings close to the soil, and to visible and tangible +objects. It may be legend, but it is legend believed in as history never +consciously invented, and growing out of certain spots of the earth's +surface, and supported by and drawing its life from the soil like a +natural growth. + +Such are the early Irish tales that cling around the mounds and +cromlechs as that by which they are sustained, which was originally +their source, and sustained them afterwards in a strong enduring life. +It is evident that these cannot be classed with stories that float +vaguely in an ideal world, which may happen in one place as well as +another, and in which the names might be disarrayed without changing +the character and consistency of the tale, and its relations, in time or +otherwise, with other tales. + +Foreigners are surprised to find the Irish claim for their own country +an antiquity and a history prior to that of the neighbouring countries. +Herein lie the proof and the explanation. The traditions and history of +the mound-raising period have in other countries passed away. Foreign +conquest, or less intrinsic force of imagination, and pious sentiment +have suffered them to fall into oblivion; but in Ireland they have been +all preserved in their original fulness and vigour, hardly a hue has +faded, hardly a minute circumstance or articulation been suffered to +decay. + +The enthusiasm with which the Irish intellect seized upon the grand +moral life of Christianity, and ideals so different from, and so hostile +to, those of the heroic age, did not consume the traditions or destroy +the pious and reverent spirit in which men still looked back upon those +monuments of their own pagan teachers and kings, and the deep spirit +of patriotism and affection with which the mind still clung to the +old heroic age, whose types were warlike prowess, physical beauty, +generosity, hospitality, love of family and nation, and all those noble +attributes which constituted the heroic character as distinguished from +the saintly. The Danish conquest, with its profound modification of +Irish society, and consequent disruption of old habits and conditions +of life, did not dissipate it; nor the more dangerous conquest of the +Normans, with their own innate nobility of character, chivalrous daring, +and continental grace and civilisation; nor the Elizabethan convulsions +and systematic repression and destruction of all native phases of +thought and feeling. Through all these storms, which successively +assailed the heroic literature of ancient Ireland, it still held itself +undestroyed. There were still found generous minds to shelter and shield +the old tales and ballads, to feel the nobleness of that life of which +they were the outcome, and to resolve that the soil of Ireland should +not, so far as they had the power to prevent it, be denuded of its +raiment of history and historic romance, or reduced again to primeval +nakedness. The fruit of this persistency and unquenched love of country +and its ancient traditions, is left to be enjoyed by us. There is not +through the length and breadth of the country a conspicuous rath or +barrow of which we cannot find the traditional history preserved in +this ancient literature. The mounds of Tara, the great barrows along +the shores of the Boyne, the raths of Slieve Mish, and Rathcrogan, and +Teltown, the stone caiseals of Aran and Innishowen, and those that alone +or in smaller groups stud the country over, are all, or nearly all, +mentioned in this ancient literature, with the names and traditional +histories of those over whom they were raised. + +There is one thing to be learned from all this, which is, that we, at +least, should not suffer these ancient monuments to be destroyed, whose +history has been thus so astonishingly preserved. The English farmer may +tear down the barrow which is unfortunate enough to be situated within +his bounds. Neither he nor his neighbours know or can tell anything +about its ancient history; the removed earth will help to make his +cattle fatter and improve his crops, the stones will be useful to pave +his roads and build his fences, and the savant can enjoy the rest; but +the Irish farmer and landlord should not do or suffer this. + +The instinctive reverence of the peasantry has hitherto been a great +preservative; but the spread of education has to a considerable extent +impaired this kindly sentiment, and the progress of scientific farming, +and the anxiety of the Royal Irish Academy to collect antiquarian +trifles, have already led to the reckless destruction of too many. I +think that no one who reads the first two volumes of this history would +greatly care to bear a hand in the destruction of that tomb at Tara, +in which long since his people laid the bones of Cuculain; and I think, +too, that they would not like to destroy any other monument of the same +age, when they know that the history of its occupant and its own name +are preserved in the ancient literature, and that they may one day learn +all that is to be known concerning it. I am sure that if the case were +put fairly to the Irish landlords and country gentlemen, they would +neither inflict nor permit this outrage upon the antiquities of their +country. The Irish country gentleman prides himself on his love of +trees, and entertains a very wholesome contempt for the mercantile boor +who, on purchasing an old place, chops down the best timber for the +market. And yet a tree, though cut down, may be replaced. One elm tree +is as good as another, and the thinned wood, by proper treatment, will +be as dense as ever; but the ancient mound, once carted away, can never +be replaced any more. When the study of the Irish literary records is +revived, as it certainly will be revived, the old history of each of +these raths and cromlechs will be brought again into the light, and +one new interest of a beautiful and edifying nature attached to the +landscape, and affecting wholly for good the minds of our people. + +Irishmen are often taunted with the fact that their history is yet +unwritten, but that the Irish, as a nation, have been careless of their +past is refuted by the facts which I have mentioned. A people who alone +in Europe preserved, not in dry chronicles alone, but illuminated and +adorned with all that fancy could suggest in ballad, and tale, and rude +epic, the history of the mound-raising period, are not justly liable +to this taunt. Until very modern times, history was the one absorbing +pursuit of the Irish secular intellect, the delight of the noble, and +the solace of the vile. + +At present, indeed, the apathy on this subject is, I believe, without +parallel in the world. It would seem as if the Irish, extreme in all +things, at one time thought of nothing but their history, and, at +another, thought of everything but it. Unlike those who write on +other subjects, the author of a work on Irish history has to labour +simultaneously at a two-fold task--he has to create the interest to +which he intends to address himself. + +The pre-Christian period of Irish history presents difficulties from +which the corresponding period in the histories of other countries is +free. The surrounding nations escape the difficulty by having nothing to +record. The Irish historian is immersed in perplexity on account of the +mass of material ready to his hand. The English have lost utterly all +record of those centuries before which the Irish historian stands with +dismay and hesitation, not through deficiency of materials, but through +their excess. Had nought but the chronicles been preserved the task +would have been simple. We would then have had merely to determine +approximately the date of the introduction of letters, and allowing a +margin on account of the bardic system and the commission of family and +national history to the keeping of rhymed and alliterated verse, fix +upon some reasonable point, and set down in order, the old successions +of kings and the battles and other remarkable events. But in Irish +history there remains, demanding treatment, that other immense mass of +literature of an imaginative nature, illuminating with anecdote and tale +the events and personages mentioned simply and without comment by +the chronicler. It is this poetic literature which constitutes the +stumbling-block, as it constitutes also the glory, of early Irish +history, for it cannot be rejected and it cannot be retained. It cannot +be rejected, because it contains historical matter which is consonant +with and illuminates the dry lists of the chronologist, and it cannot +be retained, for popular poetry is not history; and the task of +distinguishing In such literature the fact from the fiction--where there +is certainly fact and certainly fiction--is one of the most difficult to +which the intellect can apply itself. That this difficulty has not been +hitherto surmounted by Irish writers is no just reproach. For the last +century, intellects of the highest attainments, trained and educated +to the last degree, have been vainly endeavouring to solve a similar +question in the far less copious and less varied heroic literature of +Greece. Yet the labours of Wolfe, Grote, Mahaffy, Geddes, and Gladstone, +have not been sufficient to set at rest the small question, whether it +was one man or two or many who composed the Iliad and Odyssey, while the +reality of the achievements of Achilles and even his existence might be +denied or asserted by a scholar without general reproach. When this is +the case with regard to the great heroes of the Iliad, I fancy it will +be some time before the same problem will have been solved for the minor +characters, and as it affects Thersites, or that eminent artist who +dwelt at home in Hyla, being by far the most excellent of leather +cutters. When, therefore, Greek still meets Greek in an interminable and +apparently bloodless contest over the disputed body of the Iliad, and +still no end appears, surely it would be madness for any one to sit down +and gaily distinguish true from false in the immense and complex mass +of the Irish bardic literature, having in his ears this century-lasting +struggle over a single Greek poem and a single small phase of the +pre-historic life of Hellas. + +In the Irish heroic literature, the presence or absence of the +marvellous supplies _no test whatsoever_ as to the general truth or +falsehood of the tale in which they appear. The marvellous is supplied +with greater abundance in the account of the battle of Clontarf, and +the wars of the O'Briens with the Normans, than in the tale in which +is described the foundation of Emain Macha by Kimbay. Exact-thinking, +scientific France has not hesitated to paint the battles of Louis XIV. +with similar hues; and England, though by no means fertile in angelic +interpositions, delights to adorn the barren tracts of her more popular +histories with apocryphal anecdotes. + +How then should this heroic literature of Ireland be treated in +connection with the history of the country? The true method would +certainly be to print it exactly as it is without excision or +condensation. Immense it is, and immense it must remain. No men living, +and no men to live, will ever so exhaust the meaning of any single tale +as to render its publication unnecessary for the study of others. The +order adopted should be that which the bards themselves deter mined, any +other would be premature, and I think no other will ever take its place. +At the commencement should stand the passage from the Book of Invasions, +describing the occupation of the isle by Queen Keasair and her +companions, and along with it every discoverable tale or poem dealing +with this event and those characters. After that, all that remains of +the cycle of which Partholan was the protagonist. Thirdly, all +that relates to Nemeth and his sons, their wars with curt Kical the +bow-legged, and all that relates to the Fomoroh of the Nemedian epoch, +then first moving dimly in the forefront of our history. After that, the +great Fir-bolgic cycle, a cycle janus-faced, looking on one side to the +mythological period and the wars of the gods, and on the other, to the +heroic, and more particularly to the Ultonian cycle. In the next place, +the immense mass of bardic literature which treats of the Irish gods +who, having conquered the Fir-bolgs, like the Greek gods of the age of +gold dwelt visibly in the island until the coming of the Clan Milith, +out of Spain. In the sixth, the Milesian invasion, and every accessible +statement concerning the sons and kindred of Milesius. In the seventh, +the disconnected tales dealing with those local heroes whose history +is not connected with the great cycles, but who in the _fasti_ fill +the spaces between the divine period and the heroic. In the eighth, the +heroic cycles, the Ultonian, the Temairian, and the Fenian, and after +these the historic tales that, without forming cycles, accompany the +course of history down to the extinction of Irish independence, and +the transference to aliens of all the great sources of authority in the +island. + +This great work when completed will be of that kind of which no other +European nation can supply an example. Every public library in the world +will find it necessary to procure a copy. The chronicles will then +cease to be so closely and exclusively studied. Every history of ancient +Ireland will consist of more or less intelligent comments upon and +theories formed in connection with this great series--theories which, in +general, will only be formed in order to be destroyed. What the present +age demands upon the subject of antique Irish history--an exact +and scientific treatment of the facts supplied by our native +authorities--will be demanded for ever. It will never be supplied. The +history of Ireland will be contained in this huge publication. In it the +poet will find endless themes of song, the philosopher strange workings +of the human mind, the archeologist a mass of information, marvellous in +amount and quality, with regard to primitive ideas and habits of life, +and the rationalist materials for framing a scientific history of +Ireland, which will be acceptable in proportion to the readableness +of his style, and the mode in which his views may harmonize with the +prevailing humour and complexion of his contemporaries. + +Such a work it is evident could not be effected by a single individual. +It must be a public and national undertaking, carried out under the +supervision of the Royal Irish Academy, at the expense of the country. + +The publication of the Irish bardic remains in the way that I have +mentioned, is the only true and valuable method of presenting the +history of Ireland to the notice of the world. The mode which I have +myself adopted, that other being out of the question, is open to many +obvious objections; but in the existing state of the Irish mind on the +subject, no other is possible to an individual writer. I desire to +make this heroic period once again a portion of the imagination of the +country, and its chief characters as familiar in the minds of our people +as they once were. As mere history, and treated in the method in which +history is generally written at the present day, a work dealing with +the early Irish kings and heroes would certainly not secure an audience. +Those who demand such a treatment forget that there is not in the +country an interest on the subject to which to appeal. A work treating +of early Irish kings, in the same way in which the historians of +neighbouring countries treat of their own early kings, would be, to the +Irish public generally, unreadable. It might enjoy the reputation +of being well written, and as such receive an honourable place in +half-a-dozen public libraries, but it would be otherwise left severely +alone. It would never make its way through that frozen zone which, on +this subject, surrounds the Irish mind. + +On the other hand, Irishmen are as ready as others to feel an interest +in a human character, having themselves the ordinary instincts, +passions, and curiosities of human nature. If I can awake an interest +in the career of even a single ancient Irish king, I shall establish a +train of thoughts, which will advance easily from thence to the state +of society in which he lived, and the kings and heroes who surrounded, +preceded, or followed him. Attention and interest once fully aroused, +concerning even one feature of this landscape of ancient history, could +be easily widened and extended in its scope. + +Now, if nothing remained of early Irish history save the dry _fasti_ of +the chronicles and the Brehon laws, this would, I think, be a perfectly +legitimate object of ambition, and would be consonant with my ideal +of what the perfect flower of historical literature should be, to +illuminate a tale embodying the former by hues derived from the Senchus +Mor. + +But in Irish literature there has been preserved, along with the _fasti_ +and the laws, this immense mass of ancient ballad, tale, and epic, whose +origin is lost in the mists of extreme antiquity, and in which have been +preserved the characters, relationships, adventures, and achievements of +the vast majority of the personages whose names, in a gaunt nakedness, +fill the books of the chroniclers. Around each of the greater heroes +there groups itself a mass of bardic literature, varying in tone +and statement, but preserving a substantial unity as to the general +character and the more important achievements of the hero, and also, +a fact upon which their general historical accuracy may be based with +confidence, exhibiting a knowledge of that same prior and subsequent +history recorded in the _fasti_. The literature which groups +itself around a hero exhibits not only an unity with itself, but an +acquaintance with the general course of the history of the country, and +with preceding and succeeding kings. + +The students of Irish literature do not require to be told this; for +those who are not, I would give a single instance as an illustration. + +In the battle of Gabra, fought in the third century, and in which Oscar, +perhaps the greatest of all the Irish heroes heading the Fianna Eireen, +contended against Cairbry of the Liffey, King of Ireland, and his +troops, Cairbry on his side announces to his warriors that he would +rather perish in this battle than suffer one of the Fianna to survive; +but while he spoke-- + + "Barran suddenly exclaimed-- + 'Remember Mall Mucreema, remember Art. + + "'Our ancestors fell there + By force of the treachery of the Fians; + Remember the hard tributes, + Remember the extraordinary pride.'" + +Here the poet, singing only of the events of the battle of Gabra, shows +that he was well-acquainted with all the relations subsisting for a long +time between the Fians and the Royal family. The battle of Mucreema +was fought by Cairbry's grandfather, Art, against Lewy Mac Conn and the +Fianna Eireen. + +Again, in the tale of the battle of Moy Leana, in which Conn of +the Hundred Battles, the father of this same Art, is the principal +character, the author of the tale mentions many times circumstances +relating to his father, Felimy Rectmar, and his grandfather, Tuhall +Tectmar. Such is the whole of the Irish literature, not vague, nebulous, +and shifting, but following the course of the _fasti_, and regulated and +determined by them. This argument has been used by Mr. Gladstone +with great confidence, in order to show the substantial historical +truthfulness of the Iliad, and that it is in fact a portion of a +continuous historic sequence. + +Now this being admitted, that the course of Irish history, as laid down +by the chroniclers, was familiar to the authors of the tales and heroic +ballads, one of two things must be admitted, either that the events and +kings did succeed one another in the order mentioned by the chroniclers, +or that what the chroniclers laid down was then taken as the theme of +song by the bards, and illuminated and adorned according to their wont. + +The second of these suppositions is one which I think few will adopt. +Can we believe it possible that the bards, who actually supported +themselves by the amount of pleasure which they gave their audiences, +would have forsaken those subjects which were already popular, and those +kings and heroes whose splendour and achievements must have affected, +profoundly, the popular imagination, in order to invent stories to +illuminate fabricated names. The thing is quite impossible. A practice +which we can trace to the edge of that period whose historical character +may be proved to demonstration, we may conclude to have extended on +into the period immediately preceding that. When bards illuminated with +stories and marvellous circumstances the battle of Clontarf and the +battle of Moyrath, we may believe their predecessors to have done the +same for the earlier centuries. The absence of an imaginative literature +other than historical shows also that the literature must have followed, +regularly, the course of the history, and was not an archaeological +attempt to create an interest in names and events which were found +in the chronicles. It is, therefore, a reasonable conclusion that the +bardic literature, where it reveals a clear sequence in the order of +events, and where there is no antecedent improbability, supplies a +trustworthy guide to the general course of our history. + +So far as the clear light of history reaches, so far may these tales be +proved to be historical. It is, therefore, reasonable to suppose that +the same consonance between them and the actual course of events which +subsisted during the period which lies in clear light, marked also that +other preceding period of which the light is no longer dry. + +The earliest manuscript of these tales is the Leabhar [Note: Leabar na +Heera.] na Huidhre, a work of the eleventh century, so that we may +feel sure that we have them in a condition unimpaired by the revival of +learning, or any archaeological restoration or improvement. Now, of some +of these there have been preserved copies in other later MSS., which +differ very little from the copies preserved in the Leabhar na Huidhre, +from which we may conclude that these tales had arrived at a fixed +state, and a point at which it was considered wrong to interfere with +the text. + +The feast of Bricrind is one of the tales preserved in this manuscript. +The author of the tale in its present form, whenever he lived, composed +it, having before him original books which he collated, using his +judgment at times upon the materials to his hand. At one stage he +observes that the books are at variance on a certain point, namely, that +at which Cuculain, Conal the Victorious, and Laery Buada go to the lake +of Uath in order to be judged by him. Some of the books, according +to the author, stated that on this occasion the two latter behaved +unfairly, but he agreed with those books which did not state this. + +We have, therefore, a tale penned in the eleventh century, composed at +some time prior to this, and itself collected, not from oral tradition, +but from books. These considerations would, therefore, render it +extremely probable that the tales of the Ultonian period, with which the +Leabhar na Huidhre is principally concerned, were committed to writing +at a very early period. + +To strengthen still further the general historic credibility of these +tales, and to show how close to the events and heroes described must +have been the bards who originally composed them, I would urge the +following considerations. + +With the advent of Christianity the mound-raising period passed away. +The Irish heroic tales have their source in, and draw their interest +from, the mounds and those laid in them. It would, therefore, be +extremely improbable that the bards of the Christian period, when the +days of rath and cairn had departed, would modify, to any considerable +extent, the literature produced in conditions of society which had +passed away. + +Again, with the advent of Christianity, and the hold which the new faith +took upon the finest and boldest minds in the country, it is plain that +the golden age of bardic composition ended. The loss to the bards was +direct, by the withdrawal of so much intellect from their ranks, and +indirect, by the general substitution of other ideas for those whose +ministers they themselves were. It is, therefore, probable that the age +of production and creation, with regard to the ethnic history, ceased +about the fifth and sixth centuries, and that, about that time, men +began to gather up into a collected form the floating literature +connected with the pagan period. The general current of mediaeval +opinion attributes the collection of tales and ballads now known as the +Tan-Bo-Cooalney to St. Ciaran, the great founder of the monastery of +Clonmacnoise. + +But if this be the case, we are enabled to take another step in the +history of this most valuable literature. The tales of the Leabhar na +Huidhre are in prose, but prose whose source and original is poetry. The +author, from time to time, as if quoting an authority, breaks out with +verse; and I think there is no Irish tale in existence without these +rudimentary traces of a prior metrical cycle. The style and language +are quite different, and indicate two distinct epochs. The prose tale is +founded upon a metrical original, and composed in the meretricious style +then in fashion, while the old metrical excerpts are pure and simple. +This is sufficient, in a country like Ireland in those primitive times, +to necessitate a considerable step into the past, if we desire to get at +the originals upon which the prose tales were founded. + +For in ancient Ireland the conservatism of the people was very great. It +is the case in all primitive societies. Individual, initiative, +personal enterprise are content to work within a very small sphere. In +agriculture, laws, customs, and modes of literary composition, primitive +and simple societies are very adverse to change. + +When we see how closely the Christian compilers followed the early +authorities, we can well believe that in the ethnic times no mind would +have been sufficiently daring or sacrilegious to alter or pervert those +epics which were in their eyes at the same time true and sacred. + +In the perusal of the Irish literature, we see that the strength of +this conservative instinct has been of the greatest service in the +preservation of the early monuments in their purity. So much is this the +case, that in many tales the most flagrant contradictions appear, the +author or scribe being unwilling to depart at all from that which he +found handed down. For instance, in the "Great Breach of Murthemney," +we find Laeg at one moment killed, and in the next riding black +Shanglan off the field. From this conservatism and careful following of +authority, and the _littera scripta_, or word once spoken, I conclude +that the distance in time between the prose tale and the metrical +originals was very great, and, unless under such exceptional +circumstances as the revolution caused by the introduction of +Christianity, could not have been brought about within hundreds of +years. Moreover, this same conservatism would have caused the tales +concerning heroes to grow very slowly once they were actually formed. +All the noteworthy events of the hero's life and his characteristics +must have formed the original of the tales concerning him, which would +have been composed during his life, or not long after his death. + +I have not met a single tale, whether in verse or prose, in which it is +not clearly seen that the author was not following authorities before +him. Such traces of invention or decoration as may be met with are not +suffered to interfere with the conduct of the tale and the statement of +facts. They fill empty niches and adorn vacant places. For instance, +if a king is represented as crossing the sea, we find that the causes +leading to this, the place whence he set out, his companions, &c., are +derived from the authorities, but the bard, at the same time, permits +himself to give what seems to him to be an eloquent or beautiful +description of the sea, and the appearance presented by the many-oared +galleys. And yet the last transcription or recension of the majority of +the tales was effected in Christian times, and in an age characterised +by considerable classical attainments--a time when the imagination might +have been expected to shake itself loose from old restraints, and freely +invent. _A fortiori_, the more ancient bards, those of the ruder ethnic +times, would have clung still closer to authority, deriving all their +imaginative representations from preceding minstrels. There was no +conscious invention at any time. Each cycle and tale grew from historic +roots, and was developed from actual fact. So much may indeed be said +for the more ancient tales, but the Ultonian cycle deals with events +well within the historic period. + +The era of Concobar Mac Nessa and the Red Branch knights of Ulster was +long subsequent to the floruerunt of the Irish gods and their Titan-like +opponents of this latter period, the names alone can be fairly held to +be historic. What swells out the Irish chronicles to such portentous +dimensions is the history of the gods and giants rationalised by +mediaeval historians. Unable to ignore or excide what filled so much of +the imagination of the country, and unable, as Christians, to believe +in the divinity of the Tuatha De Danan and their predecessors, they +rationalised all the pre-Milesian record. But the disappearance of the +gods does not yet bring us within the penumbra of history. After the +death of the sons of Milesius we find a long roll of kings. These were +all topical heroes, founders of nations, and believed, by the tribes and +tribal confederacies which they founded, to have been in their day +the chief kings of Ireland. The point fixed upon by the accurate and +sceptical Tiherna as the starting-point of trustworthy Irish history, +was one long subsequent to the floruerunt of the gods; and the age of +Concobar Mac Nessa and his knights was more than two centuries later +than that of Kimbay and the foundation of Emain Macha. The floruit of +Cuculain, therefore, falls completely within the historical penumbra, +and the more carefully the enormous, and in the main mutually consistent +and self-supporting, historical remains dealing with this period are +studied, the more will this be believed. The minuteness, accuracy, +extent, and verisimilitude of the literature, chronicles, pedigrees, +&c., relating to this period, will cause the student to wonder more and +more as he examines and collates, seeing the marvellous self-consistency +and consentaneity of such a mass of varied recorded matter. The age, +indeed, breathes sublimity, and abounds with the marvellous, the +romantic, and the grotesque. But as I have already stated, the presence +or absence of these qualities has no crucial significance. Love and +reverence and the poetic imagination always effect such changes in +the object of their passion. They are the essential condition of the +transference of the real into the world of art. AEval, of Carriglea, the +fairy queen of Munster, is one of the most important characters in the +history of the battle of Clontarf, the character of which, and of the +events that preceded and followed its occurrence, and the chieftains and +warriors who fought on one side and the other, are identical, whether +described by the bard singing, or by the monkish chronicler jotting down +in plain prose the fasti for the year. The reader of these volumes can +make such deductions as he pleases, on this account, from the bardic +history of the Red Branch, and clip the wings of the tale, so that it +may with him travel pedestrian. I know there are others, like myself, +who will not hesitate for once to let the fancy roam and luxuriate in +the larger spaces and freer airs of ancient song, nor fear that their +sanity will be imperilled by the shouting of semi-divine heroes, and the +sight of Cuculain entering battles with the Tuatha De Danan around him. + +I hope on some future occasion to examine more minutely the character +and place in literature of the Irish bardic remains, and put forward +here these general considerations, from which the reader may presume +that the Ultonian cycle, dealing as it does with Cuculain and his +contemporaries, is in the main true to the facts of the time, and that +his history, and that of the other heroes who figure in these volumes, +is, on the whole, and omitting the marvellous, sufficiently reliable. +I would ask the reader, who may be inclined to think that the principal +character is too chivalrous and refined for the age, to peruse for +himself the tale named the "Great Breach of Murthemney." He will there, +and in many other tales and poems besides, see that the noble and +pathetic interest which attaches to his character is substantially the +same as I have represented in these volumes. But unless the student +has read the whole of the Ultonian cycle, he should be cautious in +condemning a departure in my work from any particular version of an +event which he may have himself met. Of many minor events there are more +than one version, and many scenes and assertions which he may think +of importance would yet, by being related, cause inconsistency and +contradiction. Of the nature of the work in which all should be +introduced I have already given my opinion. + +For the rest, I have related one or two great events in the life of +Cuculain in such a way as to give a description as clear and correct as +possible of his own character and history as related by the bards, of +those celebrated men and women who were his contemporaries and of his +relations with them, of the gods and supernatural powers in whom the +people then believed, and of the state of civilisation which then +prevailed. If I have done my task well, the reader will have been +supplied, without any intensity of application on his part--a condition +of the public mind upon which no historian of this country should +count--with some knowledge of ancient Irish history, and with an +interest in the subject which may lead him to peruse for himself that +ancient literature, and to read works of a more strictly scientific +nature upon the subject than those which I have yet written. But until +such an interest is aroused, it is useless to swell the mass of valuable +critical matter, which everyone at present is very well content to leave +unread. + +In the first volume, however, I have committed this error, that I did +not permit it to be seen with sufficient clearness that the characters +and chief events of the tale are absolutely historic; and that much +of the colouring, inasmuch as its source must have been the centuries +immediately succeeding the floruerunt of those characters, is also +reliable as history, while the remainder is true to the times and the +state of society which then obtained. The story seems to progress too +much in the air, too little in time and space, and seems to be more +of the nature of legend and romance than of actual historic fact seen +through an imaginative medium. Such is the history of Concobar Mac Nessa +and his knights--historic fact seen through the eyes of a loving wonder. + +Indeed, I must confess that the blaze of bardic light which illuminates +those centuries at first so dazzled the eye and disturbed the judgment, +that I saw only the literature, only the epic and dramatic interest, and +did not see as I should the distinctly historical character of the age +around which that literature revolves, wrongly deeming that a literature +so noble, and dealing with events so remote, must have originated +mainly or altogether in the imagination. All the borders of the epic +representation at which, in the first volume, I have aimed, seem to +melt, and wander away vaguely on every side into space and time. I have +now taken care to remedy that defect, supplying to the unset picture the +clear historical frame to which it is entitled. I will also request the +reader, when the two volumes may diverge in tone or statement, to +attach greater importance to the second, as the result of wider and more +careful reading and more matured reflection. + +A great English poet, himself a severe student, pronounced the early +history of his own country to be a mere scuffling of kites and crows, as +indeed are all wars which lack the sacred bard, and the sacred bard is +absent where the kites and crows pick out his eyes. That the Irish kings +and heroes should succeed one another, surrounded by a blaze of bardic +light, in which both themselves and all those who were contemporaneous +with them are seen clearly and distinctly, was natural in a country +where in each little realm or sub-kingdom the ard-ollav was equal in +dignity to the king, which is proved by the equivalence of their cries. +The dawn of English history is in the seventh century--a late dawn, dark +and sombre, without a ray of cheerful sunshine; that of Ireland dates +reliably from a point before the commencement of the Christian era +luminous with that light which never was on sea or land--thronged +with heroic forms of men and women--terrible with the presence of the +supernatural and its over-arching power. + +Educated Irishmen are ignorant of, and indifferent to, their history; +yet from the hold of that history they cannot shake themselves free. It +still haunts the imagination, like Mordecai at Haman's gate, a cause +of continual annoyance and vexation. An Irishman can no more release +himself from his history than he can absolve himself from social and +domestic duties. He may outrage it, but he cannot placidly ignore. +Hence the uneasy, impatient feeling with which the subject is generally +regarded. + +I think that I do not exaggerate when I say that the majority of +educated Irishmen would feel grateful to the man who informed them that +the history of their country was valueless and unworthy of study, that +the pre-Christian history was a myth, the post-Christian mere annals, +the mediaeval a scuffling of kites and crows, and the modern alone +deserving of some slight consideration. That writer will be in Ireland +most praised who sets latest the commencement of our history. Without +study he will be pronounced sober and rational before the critic opens +the book. So anxious is the Irish mind to see that effaced which it is +conscious of having neglected. + +There are two compositions which affect an interest comparable to that +which Ireland claims for her bardic literature, One is the Ossian of +MacPherson, the other the Nibelungen Lied. + +If we are to suppose Macpherson faithfully to have written down, +printed, and published the floating disconnected poems which he found +lingering in the Scotch highlands, how small, comparatively, would be +their value as indications of antique thought and feeling, reduced then +for the first time to writing, sixteen hundred years after the time of +Ossian and his heroes, in a country not the home of those heroes, and +destitute of the regular bardic organisation. The Ossianic tales and +poems still told and sung by the Irish peasantry at the present day in +the country of Ossian and Oscar, would be, if collected even now, quite +as valuable, if not more so. Truer to the antique these latter are, +for in them the cycles are not blended. The Red Branch heroes are not +confused with Ossian's Fianna. + +But MacPherson's Ossian is not a translation. In the publications of the +Irish Ossianic poetry we see what that poetry really was--rude, homely, +plain-spoken, leagues removed from the nebulous sublimity of MacPherson. + +With regard to the other, the Germans, who naturally desire to refer +its composition to as remote a date as possible, and who arguing from +no scientific data, but only style, ascribe the authorship of the +Nibelungen to a poet living in the latter part of the twelfth century. +Be it remembered, that the poem does not purport to be a collection of +the scattered fragments of a cycle, but an original composition, then +actually imagined and written. It does not even purport to deal with the +ethnic times. _Its heroes are Christian heroes. They attend Mass._ The +poem is not true, even to the leading features of the late period of +history in which it is placed, if it have any habitat in the world of +history at all. Attila, who died A.D. 450, and Theodoric, who did not +die until the succeeding century, meet as coevals. + +Turn we now from the sole boast of Germany to one out of a hundred in +the Irish bardic literature. The Tan-bo-Cooalney was transcribed into +the Leabhar na Huidhre in the eleventh century a manuscript whose date +has been established by the consentaneity of Irish, French, and German +scholarship. Mark, it was transcribed, not composed. The scribe records +the fact:-- + + "Ego qui scripsi hanc historian aut vero fabulam, quibusdam fidem + in hac historia aut fabula non commodo." + +The Tan-bo-Cooalney was therefore _transcribed_ by an ancient penman to +the parchment of a still existing manuscript, in the century before +that in which the German epic is presumed, from style only, and in the +opinion of Germans, to have been _composed_. + +The same scribe adds this comment with regard to its contents:-- + + "Qaedam autem poetica figmenta, quaedam ad delectationem + stultorum." + +Such scorn could not have been felt by one living in an age of bardic +production. That independence and originality of thought, which caused +Milton to despise the poets of the Restoration, are impossible in +the simple stages of civilisation. The scribe who appended this very +interesting comment to the subject of his own handiwork must have been +removed by centuries from the date of its compilation. That the tale +was, in his time, an ancient one, is therefore rendered extremely +probable, the scribe himself indicating how completely out of sympathy +he is with this form of literature, its antiquity and peculiar +archaeological interest being, doubtless, the cause of the +transcription. + +Again, a close study of its contents, as of the contents of all the +Irish historic tales, proves that in its present form, whenever +that form was superadded, it is but a representation in prose of a +pre-existing metrical original. Under this head I have already made some +remarks, which, I shall request the reader to re-peruse [Note: Pages 23 +to 27] + +Once more, it deals with a particular event in Irish history, and with +distinct and definite kings, heroes, and bards, who flourished in +the epoch of which it treats. In the synchronisms of Tiherna, in the +metrical chronology of Flann, in all the various historical compositions +produced in various parts of the country, the main features and leading +characters of the Tan-bo-Cooalney suffer no material change, while the +minor divergencies show that the chronology of the annals and annalistic +poems were not drawn from the tale, but owe their origin to other +sources. Moreover, this epic is but a portion of the great Ultonian or +Red Branch cycle, all the parts of which pre-suppose and support one +another; and that cycle is itself a portion of the history of Ireland, +and pre-supposes other preceding and succeeding cyles, preceding and +succeeding kings. The event of which this epic treats occurred at the +time of the Incarnation, and its characters are the leading Irish kings +and warriors of that date. Such is the Tan-bo-Cooalney. + +This being so, how have the English literary classes recognised, or +how treated, our claim to the possession of an antique literature of +peculiar historical interest, and by reason of that antiquity, a matter +of concern to all Aryan nations? The conquest has not more constituted +the English Parliament guardian and trustee of Ireland, for purposes of +legislation and government, than it has vested the welfare and fame +of our literature and antiquities in the hands of English scholarship. +London is the headquarters of the intellectualism and of the literary +and historical culture of the Empire. It is the sole dispenser of fame. +It alone influences the mind of the country and guides thought and +sentiment. It can make and mar reputations. What it scorns or ignores, +the world, too, ignores and scorns. How then has the native literature +of Ireland been treated by the representatives of English scholarship +and literary culture? Mr. Carlyle is the first man of letters of the +day, his the highest name as a critic upon, and historian of, the +past life of Europe. Let us hear him upon this subject, admittedly of +European importance. + +Miscellaneous Essays, Vol. III., page 136. "Not only as the oldest +Tradition of Modern Europe does it--the Nibelungen--possess a high +antiquarian interest, but farther, and even in the shape we now see +it under, unless the epics of the son of Fingal had some sort of +authenticity, it is our oldest poem also." + +Poor Ireland, with her hundred ancient epics, standing at the door of +the temple of fame, or, indeed, quite behind the vestibule out of the +way! To see the Swabian enter in, crowned, to a flourish of somewhat +barbarous music, was indeed bad enough, but Mr. MacPherson! + +They manage these things rather better in France, _vide passim_ "La +Revue Celtique." + +Of the literary value of the bardic literature I fear to write at all, +lest I should not know how to make an end. Rude indeed it is, but +great. Like the central chamber of that huge tumulus [Note: New Grange +anciently Cnobgha, and now also Knowth.] on the Boyne, overarched with +massive unhewn rocks, its very ruggedness strikes an awe which the +orderly arrangement of smaller and more reasonable thoughts, cut smooth +by instruments inherited from classic times, fails so often to inspire. +The labour of the Attic chisel may be seen since its invention in every +other literary workshop of Europe, and seen in every other laboratory of +thought the transmitted divine fire of the Hebrew. The bardic literature +of Erin stands alone, as distinctively and genuinely Irish as the race +itself, or the natural aspects of the island. Rude indeed it is, but +like the hills which its authors tenanted with gods, holding dells +[Note: Those sacred hills will generally be found to have this +character.] of the most perfect beauty, springs of the most touching +pathos. On page 33, Vol. I., will be seen a poem [Note: Publications +of Ossianic Society, page 303, Vol. IV.] by Fionn upon the spring-time, +made, as the old unknown historian says, to prove his poetic powers--a +poem whose antique language relegates it to a period long prior to the +tales of the Leabhar na Huidhre, one which, if we were to meet side +by side with the "Ode to Night," by Alcman, in the Greek anthology, we +would not be surprised; or those lines on page 203, Vol. I., the song of +Cuculain, forsaken by his people, watching the frontier of his country-- + + "Alone in defence of the Ultonians, + Solitary keeping ward over the province" + +or the death [Note: Publications of Ossianic Society, Vol. I.] of Oscar, +on pages 34 and 35, Vol. I., an excerpt condensed from the Battle of +Gabra. Innumerable such tender and thrilling passages. + +To all great nations their history presents itself under the aspect +of poetry; a drama exciting pity and terror; an epic with unbroken +continuity, and a wide range of thought, when the intellect is satisfied +with coherence and unity, and the imagination by extent and diversity. +Such is the bardic history of Ireland, but with this literary defect. A +perfect epic is only possible when the critical spirit begins to be +in the ascendant, for with the critical spirit comes that distrust and +apathy towards the spontaneous literature of early times, which permit +some great poet so to shape and alter the old materials as to construct +a harmonious and internally consistent tale, observing throughout a +sense of proportion and a due relation of the parts. Such a clipping +and alteration of the authorities would have seemed sacrilege to earlier +bards. In mediaeval Ireland there was, indeed, a subtle spirit of +criticism; but under its influence, being as it was of scholastic +origin, no great singing men appeared, re-fashioning the old rude epics; +and yet, the very shortcomings of the Irish tales, from a literary point +of view, increase their importance from a historical. Of poetry, as +distinguised from metrical composition, these ancient bards knew little. +The bardic literature, profoundly poetic though it be, in the eyes of +our ancestors was history, and never was anything else. As history it +was originally composed, and as history bound in the chains of metre, +that it might not be lost or dissipated passing through the minds +of men, and as history it was translated into prose and committed +to parchment. Accordingly, no tale is without its defects as poetry, +possessing therefore necessarily, a corresponding value as history. +But that there was in the country, in very early times, a high and rare +poetic culture of the lyric kind, native in its character, ethnic in +origin, unaffected by scholastic culture which, as we know, took a +different direction; that one exquisite poem, in which the father +of Ossian praises the beauty of the springtime in anapaestic [Note: +Cettemain | cain ree! | ro sair | an cuct | "He, Fionn MacCool, learned +the three compositions which distinguish the poets, the TEINM LAEGHA, +the IMUS OF OSNA, and the DICEDUE DICCENAIB, and it was then Fionn +composed this poem to prove his poetry." In which of these three forms +of metre the Ode to the spring-time is written I know not. Its form +throughout is distinctly anapaestic.--S. O'G.] verse, would, even though +it stood alone, both by the fact of its composition and the fact of its +preservation, fully prove. + +Much and careful study, indeed, it requires, if we would compel these +ancient epics to yield up their greatness or their beauty, or even their +logical coherence and imaginative unity--broken, scattered portions as +they all are of that one enormous epic, the bardic history of Ireland. +At the best we read without the key. The magic of the names is gone, +or can only be partially recovered by the most tender and sympathetic +study. Indeed, without reading all or many, we will not understand +the superficial meaning of even one. For instance, in one of the many +histories of Cuculain's many battles, we read this-- + +"It was said that Lu Mac AEthleen was assisting him." + +This at first seems meaningless, the bard seeing no necessity for +throwing further light on the subject; but, as we wander through the +bardic literature, gradually the conception of this Lu grows upon the +mind--the destroyer of the sons of Turann--the implacably filial--the +expulsor of the Fomoroh--the source of all the sciences--the god of the +Tuatha De Danan--the protector and guardian of Cuculain--Lu Lamfada, +son of Cian, son of Diancect, son of Esric, son of Dela, son of Ned the +war-god, whose tomb or temple, Aula Neid, may still be seen beside the +Foyle. This enormous and seemingly chaotic mass of literature is found +at all times to possess an inner harmony, a consistency and logical +unity, to be apprehended only by careful study. + +So read, the sublimity strikes through the rude representation. +Astonished at himself, the student, who at first thinks that he has +chanced upon a crowd of barbarians, ere long finds himself in the august +presence of demi-gods and heroes. + +A noble moral tone pervades the whole. Courage, affection, and truth are +native to all who live in this world. Under the dramatic image of +Ossian wrangling with the Talkend, [Note: St. Patrick, on account of +the tonsured crown.] the bards, themselves vainly fighting against the +Christian life, a hundred times repeat through the lips of Ossian like a +refrain-- + + "We, the Fianna of Erin, never uttered falsehood, + Lying was never attributed to us; + By courage and the strength of our hands + We used to come out of every difficulty." + +Again: Fergus, the bard, inciting Oscar to his last battle--in that poem +called the Rosc Catha of Oscar:-- + + "Place thy hand on thy gentle forehead + Oscar, who never lied." +[Note: Publications of Ossianic Society, p. 159; vol. i.] + +And again, elsewhere in the Ossianic poetry:-- + + "Oscar, who never wronged bard or woman." + +Strange to say, too, they inculcated chastity (see p. 257; vol. i.), an +allusion taken from the "youthful adventures of Cuculain," Leabhar na +Huidhre. + +The following ancient rann contains the four qualifications of a bard:-- + + "Purity of hand, bright, without wounding, + Purity of mouth, without poisonous satire, + Purity of learning, without reproach, + Purity, as a husband, in wedlock." + +Moreover, through all this literature sounds a high clear note of +chivalry, in this contrasting favourably with the Iliad, where no man +foregoes an advantage. Cuculain having slain the sons of Neara, "thought +it unworthy of him to take possession of their chariot and horses." +[Note: P. 155; vol. i.] Goll Mac Morna, in the Fenian or Ossianic cycle, +declares to Conn Cedcathah [Note: Conn of the hundred battles.] that +from his youth up he never attacked an enemy by night or under any +disadvantage, and many times we read of heroes preferring to die rather +than outrage their geisa. [Note: Certain vows taken with their arms on +being knighted.] + +A noble literature indeed it is, having too this strange interest, +that though mainly characterised by a great plainness and simplicity of +thought, and, in the earlier stages, of expression, we feel, oftentimes, +a sudden weirdness, a strange glamour shoots across the poem when the +tale seems to open for a moment into mysterious depths, druidic secrets +veiled by time, unsunned caves of thought, indicating a still deeper +range of feeling, a still lower and wider reach of imagination. A youth +came once to the Fianna Eireen encamped at Locha Lein [Note: The Lakes +of Killarney.], leading a hound dazzling white, like snow. It was the +same, the bard simply states, that was once a yew tree, flourishing +fifty summers in the woods of Ioroway. Elsewhere, he is said to have +been more terrible than the sun upon his flaming wheels. What meant this +yew tree and the hound? Stray allusions I have met, but no history. +The spirit of Coelte, visiting one far removed in time from the great +captain of the Fianna, with a different name and different history, +cries:-- + + "I was with thee, with Finn"-- + +giving no explanation. + +To MacPherson, however, I will do this justice, that he had the merit +to perceive, even in the debased and floating ballads of the highlands, +traces of some past greatness and sublimity of thought, and to +understand, he, for the first time, how much more they meant than what +met the ear. But he saw, too, that the historical origin of the ballads, +and the position in time and place of the heroes whom they praised, had +been lost in that colony removed since the time of St. Columba from its +old connection with the mother country. Thus released from the curb of +history, he gave free rein to the imagination, and in the conventional +literary language of sublimity, gave full expression to the feelings +that arose within him, as to him, pondering over those ballads, their +gigantesque element developed into a greatness and solemnity, and their +vagueness and indeterminateness into that misty immensity and weird +obscurity which, as constituent factors in a poem, not as back-ground, +form one of the elements of the false sublime. Either not seeing the +literary necessity of definiteness, or having no such abundant and +ordered literature as we possess, upon which to draw for details, +and being too conscientious to invent facts, however he might invent +language, he published his epics of Ossian--false indeed to the +original, but true to himself, and to the feelings excited by meditation +upon them. This done, he had not sufficient courage to publish also +the rude, homely, and often vulgar ballads--a step which, in that hard +critical age, would have been to expose himself and his country to swift +contempt. The thought of the great lexicographer riding rough-shod +over the poor mountain songs which he loved, and the fame which he had +already acquired, deterred and dissuaded him, if he had ever any such +intention, until the opportunity was past. + +MacPherson feared English public opinion, and fearing lied. He declared +that to be a translation which was original work, thus relegating +himself for ever to a dubious renown, and depriving his country of +the honest fame of having preserved through centuries, by mere oral +transmission, a portion, at least, of the antique Irish literature. To +the magnanimity of his own heroes he could not attain:-- + + "Oscar, Oscar, who feared not armies-- + Oscar, who never lied." + +Of some such error as MacPherson's I have myself, with less excuse, been +guilty, in chapters xi. and xii., Vol. I., where I attempt to give +some conception of the character of the Ossianic cycle. The age and the +heroes around whom that cycle revolves have, in the history of Ireland, +a definite position in time; their battles, characters, several +achievements, relationships, and pedigrees; their Duns, and +trysting-places, and tombs; their wives, musicians, and bards; their +tributes, and sufferings, and triumphs; their internecine and other +wars--are all fully and clearly described in the Ossianic cycle. They +still remain demanding adequate treatment, when we arrive at the age of +Conn [Note: See page 20.], Art, and Cormac, kings of Tara in the second +and third centuries of the Christian era. All have been forgotten for +the sake of a vague representation of the more sublime aspects of the +cycle, and the meretricious seductions of a form of composition easy to +write and easy to read, and to which the unwary or unwise often award +praise to which it has no claim. + +On the other hand, chapter xi. purports only to be a representation of +the feelings excited by this literature, and for every assertion there +is authority in the cycle. Chapter xii., however, is a translation from +the original. Every idea which it contains, except one, has been taken +from different parts of the Ossianic poems, and all together expressthe +graver attitude of the mind of Ossian towards the new faith. That idea, +occurring in a separate paragraph in the middle of the page, though +prevalent as a sentiment throughout all the conversations of Ossian with +St. Patrick, has been, as it stands, taken from a meditation on life by +St. Columbanus, one of the early Irish Saints--a meditation which, +for subtle thought, for musical resigned sadness, tender brooding +reflection, and exquisite Latin, is one of the masterpieces of mediaeval +composition. + +To the casual reader of the bardic literature the preservation of an +ordered historical sequence, amidst that riotous wealth of imaginative +energy, may appear an impossibility. Can we believe that forestine +luxuriance not to have overgrown all highways, that flood of +superabundant song not have submerged all landmarks? Be the cause what +it may, the fact remains that they did not. The landmarks of history +stand clear and fixed, each in its own place unremoved; and through that +forest-growth the highways of history run on beneath over-arching, not +interfering, boughs. The age of the predominance of Ulster does not +clash with the age of the predominance of Tara; the Temairian kings are +not mixed with the contemporary Fians. The chaos of the Nibelungen is +not found here, nor the confusion of the Scotch ballads blending all the +ages into one. + +It is not imaginative strength that produces confusion, but imaginative +weakness. The strong imagination which perceives definitely and realises +vividly will not tolerate that obscurity so dear to all those who +worship the eidola of the cave. Of each of these ages, the primary +impressions were made in the bardic mind during the life-time of the +heroes who gave to the epoch its character; and a strong impression made +in such a mind could not have been easily dissipated or obscured. For it +must be remembered, that the bardic literature of Ireland was committed +to the custody of guardians whose character we ought not to forget. The +bards were not the people, but a class. They were not so much a class +as an organisation and fraternity acknowledging the authority of one +elected chief. They were not loose wanderers, but a power in the State, +having duties and privileges. The ard-ollav ranked next to the king, and +his eric was kingly. Thus there was an educated body of public opinion +entrusted with the preservation of the literature and history of the +country, and capable of repressing the aberrations of individuals. + +But the question arises, Did they so repress such perversions of history +as their wandering undisciplined members might commit? Too much, of +course, must not reasonably be expected. It was an age of creative +thought, and such thought is difficult to control; but that one of the +prime objects and prime works of the bards, as an organisation, was to +preserve a record of a certain class of historical facts is certain. The +succession of the kings and of the great princely families was one of +these. The tribal system, with the necessity of affinity as a ground of +citizenship, demanded such a preservation of pedigrees in every family, +and particularly in the kingly houses. One of the chief objects of the +triennial feis of Tara was the revision of such records by the general +assembly of the bards, under the presidency of the Ard-Ollav of Ireland. +In the more ancient times, such records were rhymed and alliterated, and +committed to memory--a practice which, we may believe on the authority +of Caesar, treating of the Gauls, continued long after the introduction +of letters. Even at those local assemblies also, which corresponded to +great central and national feis of Tara, the bards were accustomed to +meet for that purpose. In a poem [Note: O'Curry's Manners and Customs, +Vol. I., page 543.], descriptive of the fair [Note: On the full meaning +of this word "fair," see Chap. xiii., Vol. I.] of Garman, we see this-- + + "Feasts with the great feasts of Temair, + Fairs with the fairs of Emania, + Annals there are verified." + +In the existing literature we see two great divisions. On the one hand +the epical, a realm of the most riotous activity of thought; on the +other, the annalistic and genealogical, bald and bare to the last +degree, a mere skeleton. They represent the two great hemispheres of +the bardic mind, the latter controlling the former. Hence the orderly +sequence of the cyclic literature; hence the strong confining banks +between which the torrent of song rolls down through those centuries in +which the bardic imagination reached its height. The consentaneity +of the annals and the literature furnishes a trustworthy guide to the +general course of history, until its guidance is barred by _a priori_ +considerations of a weightier nature, or by the statements of writers, +having sources of information not open to us. For instance, the +stream of Irish history must, for philosophical reasons, be no further +traceable than to that point at which it issues from the enchanted land +of the Tuatha De Danan. At the limit at which the gods appear, men +and history must disappear; while on the other hand, the statement of +Tiherna, that the foundation of Emain Alacha by Kimbay is the first +certain date in Irish history, renders it undesirable to attach more +historical reality of characters, adorning the ages prior to B.C. 299, +than we could to such characters as Romulus in Roman, or Theseus in +Athenian history. + +I desire here to record my complete and emphatic dissent from the +opinions advanced by a writer in Hermathena on the subject of the Ogham +inscriptions, and the introduction into this country of the art of +writing. A cypher, i.e., an alphabet derived from a pre-existing +alphabet, the Ogham may or may not have been. I advance no opinion upon +that, but an invention of the Christian time it most assuredly was not. +No sympathetic and careful student of the Irish bardic literature can +possibly come to such a conclusion. The bardic poems relating to +the heroes of the ethnic times are filled with allusions to Ogham +inscriptions on stone, and contain some references to books of timber; +but in my own reading I have not met with a single passage in that +literature alluding to books of parchment and to rounded letters. + +If the Ogham was derived from the Roman characters introduced by +Christian missionaries, then these characters would be the more ancient, +and Ogham the more modern; books and Roman characters would be the more +poetical, and inscriptions on stone and timber in the Ogham characters +the more prosaic. The bards relating the lives and deeds of the ancient +heroes, would have ascribed to their times parchment books and the Roman +characters, not stone and wood, and the Ogham. + +In these compositions, whenever they were reduced to the form in which +we find them to-day, the ethnic character of the times and the ethnic +character of the heroes are clearly and universally observed. The +ancient, the remote, the archaic clings to this literature. As Homer +does not allude to writing, though all scholars agree that he lived in +a lettered age, so the old bards do not allude to parchment and +Roman characters, though the Irish epics, as distinguished from their +component parts, reached their fixed state and their final development +in times subsequent to the introduction of Christianity. + +When and how a knowledge of letters reached this island we know not. +From the analogy of Gaul, we may conclude that they were known for some +time prior to their use by the bards. Caesar tells us that the Gaulish +bards and druids did not employ letters for the preservation of their +lore, but trusted to memory, assisted, doubtless, as in this country, by +the mechanical and musical aid of verse. Whether the Ogham was a native +alphabet or a derivative from another, it was at first employed only to +a limited extent. Its chief use was to preserve the name of buried kings +and heroes in the stone that was set above their tombs. It was, perhaps, +invented, and certainly became fashionable on this account, straight +strokes being more easily cut in stone than rounded or uncial +characters. For the same reason it was generally employed by those who +inscribed timber tablets, which formed the primitive book, ere they +discovered or learned how to use pen, ink, and parchment. The use of +Ogham was partially practised in the Christian period for sepultural +purposes, being venerable and sacred from time. Hence the discovery of +Ogham-inscribed stones in Christian cemeteries. On the other hand, +the fact that the majority of these stones are discovered in raths and +forts, i.e., the tombs of our Pagan ancestors, corroborates the fact +implied in all the bardic literature, that the characters employed in +the ethnic times were Oghamic, and affords another proof of the close +conservative spirit of the bards in their transcription, compilation, or +reformation of the old epics. + +The full force of the concurrent authority of the bardic literature to +the above effect can only be felt by one who has read that literature +with care. He will find in all the epics no trace of original invention, +but always a studied and conscientious following of authority. This +being so, he will conclude that the universal ascription of Ogham, and +Ogham only, to the ethnic times, arises solely from the fact that such +was the alphabet then employed. + +If letters were unknown in those times, the example of Homer shows how +unlikely the later poets would have been to outrage so violently the +whole spirit of the heroic literature. If rounded letters were then +used, why the universal ascription of the late invented Ogham which, +as we know from the cemeteries and other sources, was unpopular in the +Christian age. + +Cryptic, too, it was not. The very passages quoted in Hermathena to +support this opinion, so far from doing so prove actually the reverse. +When Cuculain came down into Meath on his first [Note: Vol. I., page +155.] foray, he found, on the lawn of the Dun of the sons of Nectan, a +pillar stone with this inscription in Ogham--"Let no one pass without an +offer of a challenge of single combat." The inscription was, of course, +intended for all to read. Should there be any bardic passage in which +Ogham inscriptions are alluded to as if an obscure form of writing, the +natural explanation is, that this kind of writing was passing or had +passed into desuetude at the time that particular passage was composed; +but I have never met with any such. The ancient bard, who, in the +Tan-bo-Cooalney, describes the slaughter of Cailitin and his sons by +Cuculain, states that there was an inscription to that effect, written +in Ogham, upon the stone over their tomb, beginning thus--"Take +notice"--evidently intended for all to read. The tomb, by the way, was a +rath--again showing the ethnic character of the alphabet. + +In the Annals of the Four Masters, at the date 1499 B.C., we read these +words:-- + +"THE FLEET OF THE SONS OF MILITH CAME TO IRELAND TO TAKE IT FROM THE +TUATHA DE DANAN," i.e., the gods of the ethnic Irish. + +Without pausing to enquire into the reasonableness of the date, it will +suffice now to state that at this point the bardic history of Ireland +cleaves asunder into two great divisions--the mythological or divine on +the one hand, and the historical or heroic-historical on the other. +The first is an enchanted land--the world of the Tuatha De Danan--the +country of the gods. There we see Mananan with his mountain-sundering +sword, the Fray-garta; there Lu Lamfada, the deliverer, pondering over +his mysteries; there Bove Derg and his fatal [Note: Every feast to which +he came ended in blood. He was present at the death of Conairey Mor, +Chap. xxxiii., Vol. I.] swine-herd, Lir and his ill-starred children, +Mac Manar and his harp shedding death from its stricken wires, Angus Og, +the beautiful, and he who was called the mighty father, Eochaidht [Note: +Ay-o-chee, written Yeoha in Vol. I.] Mac Elathan, a land populous with +those who had partaken of the feast of Goibneen, and whom, therefore, +weapons could not slay, who had eaten [Note: In early Greek literature +the province of history has been already separated from that of poetry. +The ancient bardic lore and primaeval traditions were refined to suit +the new and sensitive poetic taste. No commentator has been able to +explain the nature of ambrosia. In the genuine bardic times, no such +vague euphuism would have been tolerated as that of Homer on this +subject. The nature of Olympian ambrosia would have been told in +language as clear as that in which Homer describes the preparation of +that Pramnian bowl for which Nestor and Machaon waited while Hecamede +was grating over it the goat's milk cheese, or that in which the Irish +bards described the ambrosia of the Tuatha De Danan, which, indeed, was +no more poetic and awe-inspiring than plain bacon prepared by Mananan +from his herd of enchanted pigs, living invisible like himself in the +plains of Tir-na-n-Og, the land of the ever-young. On the other hand, +there is a vagueness about the Feed Fia which would seem to indicate the +growth of a more awe-stricken mood in describing things supernatural. +The Faed Fia of the Greek gods has been refined by Homer into "much +darkness," which, from an artistic point of view, one can hardly help +imagining that Homer nodded as he wrote.] at the the table of Mananan, +and would never grow old, who had invented for themselves the Faed Fia, +and might not be seen of the gross eyes of men; there steeds like Anvarr +crossing the wet sea like a firm plain; there ships whose rudder was the +will, and whose sails and oars the wish, of those they bore [Note: Cf. +The barks of the Phoenicians in the Odyssey.]; there hounds like that +one of Ioroway, and spears like fiery flying serpents. These are the +Tuatha De Danan [Note: A mystery still hangs over this three-formed +name. The full expression, Tuatha De Danan, is that generally employed, +less frequently Tuatha De, and sometimes, but not often, Tuatha. Tuatha +also means people. In mediaeval times the name lost its sublime meaning, +and came to mean merely "fairy," no greater significance, indeed, +attaching to the invisible people of the island after Christianity had +destroyed their godhood.], fairy princes, Tuatha; gods, De; of Dana, +Danan, otherwise Ana and the Moreega, or great queen; mater [Note: +Cormac's Glossary] deorum Hibernensium--"well she used to cherish [Note: +Scholiast noting same Glossary.] the gods." Limitless, this divine +population, dwelling in all the seas and estuaries, river and lakes, +mountains and fairy dells, in that enchanted Erin which was theirs. + +But they have not started into existence suddenly, like the gods of +Rome, nor is their genealogy confined to a single generation like those +of Greece. Behind them extends a long line of ancestors, and a history +reaching into the remotest depths of the past. As the Greek gods +dethroned the Titans, so the Irish gods drove out or subjected the +giants of the Fir-bolgs; but in the Irish mythology, we find both gods +and giants descended from other ancient races of deities, called the +Clanna Nemedh and the Fomoroh, and these a branch of a divine cycle; yet +more ancient the race of Partholan, while Partholan himself is not the +eldest. + +The history of the Italian gods is completely lost. For all that the +early Roman literature tells us of their origin, they may have been +either self-created or eternal. Rome was a seedling shaken from some +old perished civilisation. The Romans created their own empire, but they +inherited their gods. They supply no example of an Aryan nation evolving +its own mythology and religion. Regal Rome, as we know from Niebuhr, was +not the root from which our Rome sprang, but an old imperial city, from +whose ashes sprang that Rome we all know so well. The mythology of the +Latin writers came to them full-grown. + +The gods of Greece were a creation of the Greek mind, indeed; but of +their ancestry, i.e., of their development from more ancient divine +tribes, we know little. Like Pallas, they all but start into existence +suddenly full-grown. Between the huge physical entities of the Greek +theogonists and the Olympian gods, there intervenes but a single +generation. For this loss of the Grecian mythology, and this +substitution of Nox and Chaos for the remote ancestors of the Olympians, +we have to thank the early Greek philosophers, and the general diffusion +of a rude scientific knowledge, imparting a physical complexion to the +mythological memory of the Greeks. + +In the theogony of the ancient inhabitants of this country, we have an +example of a slowly-growing, slowly-changing mythology, such as no other +nation in the world can supply. The ancestry of the Irish gods is not +bounded by a single generation or by twenty. The Tuatha De Danan of the +ancient Irish are the final outcome and last development of a mythology +which we can see advancing step by step, one divine tribe pushing out +another, one family of gods swallowing up another, or perishing under +the hands of time and change, to make room for another. From Angus +Og, the god of youth and love and beauty, whose fit home was the woody +slopes of the Boyne, where it winds around Rosnaree, we count fourteen +generations to Nemedh and four to Partholan, and Partholan is not the +earliest. As the bards recorded with a zeal and minuteness, so far as I +can see, without parallel, the histories of the families to which they +were adscript, so also they recorded with equal patience and care the +far-extending pedigrees of those other families--invisible indeed, but +to them more real and more awe-inspiring--who dwelt by the sacred lakes +and rivers, and in the folds of the fairy hills, and the great raths and +cairns reared for them by pious hands. + +The extent, diversity, and populousness of the Irish mythological +cycles, the history of the Irish gods, and the gradual growth of that +mythology of which the Tuatha De Danan, i.e., the gods of the historic +period, were the final development, can only be rightly apprehended by +one who reads the bardic literature as it deals with this subject. That +literature, however, so far from having been printed and published, has +not even been translated, but still moulders in the public libraries of +Europe, those who, like myself, are not professed Irish scholars, being +obliged to collect their information piece-meal from quotations and +allusions of those who have written upon the subject in the English or +Latin language. For to read the originals aright needs many years +of labour, the Irish tongue presenting at different epochs the +characteristics of distinct languages, while the peculiarities of +ancient caligraphy, in the defaced and illegible manuscripts, form of +themselves quite a large department of study. Stated succinctly, the +mythological record of the bards, with its chronological decorations, +runs thus:-- + +AGE OF KEASAIR. + +2379 B.C. the gods of the KEASAIRIAN cycle, Bith, Lara, and Fintann, +and their wives, KEASAIR, Barran and Balba; their sacred places, Carn +Keshra, Keasair's tomb or temple, on the banks of the Boyle, Ard Laran +on the Wexford Coast, Fert Fintann on the shores of Lough Derg. + +About the same time Lot Luaimenich, Lot of the Lower Shannon, an ancient +sylvan deity. + +AGE OF PARTHOLAN AND THE EARLIEST FOMORIAN GODS. + +2057 B.C. a new spiritual dynasty, of which PARTHOLAN was father and +king. Though their worship was extended over Ireland, which is shown by +the many different places connected with their history, yet the hill +of Tallaght, ten miles from Dublin, was where they were chiefly adored. +Here to the present day are the mounds and barrows raised in honour of +the deified heroes of this cycle, PARTHOLAN himself, his wife Delgna, +his sons, Rury, Slaney, and Laighlinni, and among others, the father of +Irish hospitality, bearing the expressive name of Beer. Now first appear +the Fomoroh giant princes, under the leadership of curt Kical, son of +Niul, son of Garf, son of U-Mor--a divine cycle intervening between +KEASAIR and PARTHOLAN, but not of sufficient importance to secure a +separate chapter and distinct place in the annals. Battles now between +the Clan Partholan and the Fomoroh, on the plain of Ith, beside the +river Finn, Co. Donegal, so called from Ith [Note: See Vol. I, p. 60], +son of Brogan, the most ancient of the heroes, slain here by the Tuatha +De Danan, but more anciently known by some lost Fomorian name; also at +Iorrus Domnan, now Erris, Co. Mayo, where Kical and his Fomorians first +reached Ireland. These battles are a parable--objective representations +of a fact in the mental history of the ancient Irish--typifying the +invisible war waged between Partholanian and Fomorian deities for the +spiritual sovereignty of the Gael. + +AGE OF THE NEMEDIAN GODS AND SECOND CYCLE OF THE FOMORIANS. + +1700 B.C. age of the NEMEDIAN divinities, a later branch of the +PARTHOLANIAN _vide post_ NEMEDIAN pedigree. NEMEDH, his wife Maca (first +appearance of Macha, the war goddess, who gave her name to Armagh, i.e., +Ard Macha, the Height of Macha), Iarbanel; Fergus, the Red-sided, and +Starn, sons of Nemedh; Beothah, son of Iarbanel; Erglann, son of Beoan, +son of Starn; Simeon Brac, son of Starn; Ibath, son of Beothach; Britan +Mael, son of Fergus. This must be remembered, that not one of the +almost countless names that figure in the Irish mythology is of fanciful +origin. They all represent antique heroes and heroines, their names +being preserved in connection with those monuments which were raised for +purposes of sepulture or cult. + +Wars now between the Clanna Nemedh and the second cycle of the Fomoroh, +led this time by Faebar and More, sons of Dela, and Coning, son of +Faebar; battles at Ros Freachan, now Rosreahan, barony of Murresk, +Co. Mayo, at Slieve Blahma [Note: Slieve Blahma, now Slieve Bloom, a +mountain range famous in our mythology; one of the peaks, Ard Erin, +sacred to Eire, a goddess of the Tuatha De Danan, who has given her name +to the island. The sites of all these mythological battles, where they +are not placed in the haunted mountains, will be found to be a place +of raths and cromlechs.] and Murbolg, in Dalaradia (Murbolg, i.e., the +stronghold of the giants,) also at Tor Coning, now Tory Island. + +FIRBOLGS AND THIRD CYCLE OF THE FOMOROH. + +1525 B.C. Age of the FIRBOLGS and third cycle of the Fomorians, once +gods, but expulsed from their sovereignty by the Tuatha De Danan, after +which they loom through the heroic literature as giants of the elder +time, overthrown by the gods. From the FIRBOLGS were descended, or +claimed to have descended, the Connaught warriors who fought with Queen +Meave against Cuculain, also the Clan Humor, appearing in the Second +Volume, also the heroes of Ossian, the Fianna Eireen. Even in the time +of Keating, Irish families traced thither their pedigrees. The great +chiefs of the FIR-BOLGIC dynasty were the five sons of Dela, Gann, +Genann, Sengann, Rury, and Slaney, with their wives Fuad, Edain, Anust, +Cnucha, and Libra; also their last and most potent king, EOCAIDH MAC +ERC, son of Ragnal, son of Genann, whose tomb or temple may be seen +to-day at Ballysadare, Co. Sligo, on the edge of the sea. + +The Fomorians of this age were ruled over by Baler Beimenna and his wife +Kethlenn. Their grandson was Lu Lamada, one of the noblest of the Irish +gods. + +The last of the mythological cycles is that of the Tuatha De Danan, +whose character, attributes, and history will, I hope, be rendered +interesting and intelligible in my account of Cuculain and the Red +Branch of Ulster. + +Irish history has suffered from rationalism almost more than from +neglect and ignorance. The conjectures of the present century are +founded upon mediaeval attempts to reduce to verisimilitude and +historical probability what was by its nature quite incapable of such +treatment. The mythology of the Irish nation, being relieved of the +marvellous and sublime, was set down with circumstantial dates as a +portion of the country's history by the literary men of the middle ages. +Unable to excide from the national narrative those mythological beings +who filled so great a place in the imagination of the times, and unable, +as Christians, to describe them in their true character as gods, or, as +patriots, in the character which they believed them to possess, namely, +demons, they rationalized the whole of the mythological period with +names, dates, and ordered generations, putting men for gods, flesh and +blood for that invisible might, till the page bristled with names and +dates, thus formulating, as annals, what was really the theogony and +mythology of their country. The error of the mediaeval historians is +shared by the not wiser moderns. In the generations of the gods we seem +to see prehistoric racial divisions and large branches of the Aryan +family, an error which results from a neglect of the bardic literature, +and a consequently misdirected study of the annals. + +As history, the pre-Milesian record contains but a limited supply of +objective truths; but as theogony, and the history of the Irish gods, +these much abused chronicles are as true as the roll of the kings of +England. + +These divine nations, with their many successive generations and +dynasties, constitute a single family; they are all inter-connected and +spring from common sources, and where the literature permits us to see +more clearly, the earlier races exhibit a common character. Like a human +clan, the elements of this divine family grew and died, and shed forth +seedlings which, in time, over-grew and killed the parent stock. Great +names became obscure and passed away, and new ones grew and became +great. Gods, worshipped by the whole nation, declined and became +topical, and minor deities expanding, became national. Gods lost their +immortality, and were remembered as giants of the old time--mighty men, +which were of yore, men of renown. + + "The gods which were of old time rest in their tombs," + +sang the Egyptians, consciously ascribing mortality even to gods. +Such was Mac Ere, King of Fir-bolgs. His temple [Note: Strand near +Ballysadare, Co. Sligo], beside the sea at Iorrus Domnan [Note: +Keating--evidently quoting a bardic historian], became his tomb. Daily +the salt tide embraces the feet of the great tumulus, regal amongst its +smaller comrades, where the last king of Fir-bolgs was worshipped by +his people. "Good [Note: Temple--vide post.] were the years of the +sovereignty of Mac Ere. There was no wet or tempestuous weather +in Ireland, nor was there any unfruitful year." Such were all the +predecessors of the children of Dana--gods which were of old times, +that rest in their tombs; and the days, too, of the Tuatha De Danan were +numbered. They, too, smitten by a more celestial light, vanished from +their hills, like Ossian lamenting over his own heroes; those others +still mightier, might say:-- + + "Once every step which we took might be heard throughout the + firmament. Now, all have gone, they have melted into the air." + +But that divine tree, though it had its branches in fairy-land, had +its roots in the soil of Erin. An unceasing translation of heroes +into Tir-na-n-og went on through time, the fairy-world of the bards, +receiving every century new inhabitants, whose humbler human origin +being forgotten, were supplied there with both wives and children. The +apotheosis of great men went forward, tirelessly; the hero of one epoch +becoming the god of the next, until the formation of the Tuatha De +Danan, who represent the gods of the historic ages. Had the advent of +exact genealogy been delayed, and the creative imagination of the bards +suffered to work on for a couple of centuries longer, unchecked by the +historical conscience, Cuculain's human origin would, perhaps, have been +forgotten, and he would have been numbered amongst the Tuatha De Danan, +probably, as the son of Lu Lamfada and the Moreega, his patron deities. +It was, indeed, a favourite fancy of the bards that not Sualtam, but +Lu Lamfada himself, was his father; this, however, in a spiritual or +supernatural sense, for his age was far removed from that of the Tuatha +De Danan, and falling well within the scope of the historic period. +Even as late as the time of Alexander, the Greeks could believe a great +contemporary warrior to be of divine origin, and the son of Zeus. + +When the Irish bards began to elaborate a general history of their +country, they naturally commenced with the enumeration of the elder +gods. I at one time suspected that the long pedigrees running between +those several divisions of the mythological period were the invention of +mediaeval historians, anxious to spin out the national record, that it +might reach to Shinar and the dispersion. Not only, however, was such +fabrication completely foreign to the genius of the literature, but in +the fragments of those early divine cycles, we see that each of these +personages was at one time the centre of a literature, and holds a +definite place as regards those who went before and came after. +These pedigrees, as I said before, have no historical meaning, being +pre-Milesian, and therefore absolutely prehistoric; but as the genealogy +of the gods, and as representing the successive generations of that +invisible family, whose history not one or ten bards, but the whole +bardic and druidic organisation of the island, delighted to record, +collate, and verify--those pedigrees are as reliable as that of any of +the regal clans. They represent accurately the mythological panorama, as +it unrolled itself slowly through the centuries before the +imagination and spirit of our ancestors accurately that divine +drama, millennium--lasting, with its exits and entrances of gods. +Millennium-lasting, and more so, for it is plain that one divine +generation represents on the average a much greater space of time than +a generation of mortal men. The former probably represents the period +which would elapse before a hero would become so divine, that is, so +consecrated in the imagination of the country, as to be received into +the family of the gods. Cuculain died in the era of the Incarnation, +three hundred years, if not more, before the country even began to be +Christianised, yet he is never spoken of as anything but a great hero, +from which one of two things would follow, either that the apotheosis of +heroes needed the lapse of centuries, or that, during the first, +second, third, and fourth centuries, the historical conscience was so +enlightened, and a positive definite knowledge of the past so universal, +that the translation of heroes into the divine clans could no longer +take place. The latter is indeed the more correct view; but the +reader will, I think, agree with me that the divine generations, taken +generally, represent more than the average space of man's life. To what +remote unimagined distances of time those earlier cycles extend has been +shown by an examination of the tombs of the lower Moy Tura. The ancient +heroes there interred were those who, as Fir-bolgs, preceded the reign +of the Tuath De Danan, coming long after the Clanna Nemedh in the divine +cycle, who were themselves preceded by the children of Partholan, who +were subsequent to the Queen Keasair. Such then being the position in +the divine cycle of the Fir-bolgs, an examination of the Firbolgic +raths on Moy Tura has revealed only implements of stone, proving +demonstratively that the early divine cycles originated before the +bronze age in Ireland, whenever that commenced. Those heroes who, as +Fir-bolgs, received divine honours, lived in the age of stone. So far is +it from being the case, that the mythological record has been extended +and unduly stretched, to enable the monkish historians to connect the +Irish pedigrees with those of the Mosaic record, that it has, I believe, +been contracted for this purpose. + +The reader will be now prepared to peruse with some interest and +understanding one or two of the mythological pedigrees. To these I have +at times appended the dates, as given in the chronicles, to show how the +early historians rationalised the pre-historic record. + +Angus Og, the Beautiful, represents the Greek Eros. He was surnamed +Og, or young; Mac-an-Og, or the son of youth; Mac-an-Dagda, son of the +Dagda. He was represented with a harp, and attended by bright birds, +his own transformed kisses, at whose singing love arose in the hearts +of youths and maidens. To him and to his father the great tumulus of New +Grange, upon the Boyne, was sacred. + + "I visited the Royal Brugh that stands + By the dark-rolling waters of the Boyne, + Where Angus Og magnificently dwells." + +He was the patron god of Diarmid, the Paris of Ossian's Fianna, and +removed him into Tir-na-n-Og, when he died, having been ripped by the +tusks of the wild boar on the peaks of Slieve Gulban. + +Lu Lamfada was the patron god of Cuculain. He was surnamed Ioldana, as +the source of the sciences, and represented the Greek Apollo. The latter +was argurgurotoxos [Transcriber's Note: Greek in the original], but Lu +was a sling bearing god. Of Fomorian descent on the mother's side, +he joined his father's people, the Tuatha De Danan, in the great war +against the Fomoroh. He is principally celebrated for his oppression of +the sons of Turann, in vengeance for the murder of his father. + + ANGUS OG, (circa 1500 B.C.) LU LAMFADA, (circa 1500 B.C.) + son of son of + THE DAGDA, (Zeus) Cian, + son of son of + Elathan, Diancect, (god the healer) + son of son of + Dela, Esric, + son of son of + Ned, Dela, + son of son of + Indaei, Ned, + son of son of + Indaei, + son of ALLDAEI. + +Amongst other Irish gods was Bove Derg, who dwelt invisible in the +Galtee mountains, and in the hills above Lough Derg. The transformed +children alluded to in Vol. I. were his grand-children. It was his +goldsmith Len, who gave its ancient name to the Lakes of Killarney, +Locha Lein. Here by the lake he worked, surrounded by rainbows and +showers of fiery dew. + +Mananan was the god of the sea, of winds and storms, and most skilled +in magic lore. He was friendly to Cuculain, and was invoked by seafaring +men. He was called the Far Shee of the promontories. + + BOVE DERG (circa 1500 B.C.) MANANAN (circa 1500 B.C.) + son of son of + Eocaidh Garf, Alloid, + son of son of + Duach Temen, Elathan, + son of son of + Bras, Dela, + son of son of + Dela, Ned, + son of son of + Ned, Indaei, + son of son of + Indaei, + son of ALLDAEI. + +The Tuatha De Danan maybe counted literally by the hundred, each with a +distinct history, and all descended from Alldaei. + +From Alldaei the pedigree runs back thus:-- + + Alldaei + son of + Tath, + son of + Tabarn, + son of + Enna, + son of + Baath, + son of + Ebat, + son of + Betah, + son of + Iarbanel, + son of + NEMEDH (circa 1700 B.C.) + +Nemedh, as I have said, forms one of the great epochs in the +mythological record. As will be seen, he and the earlier Partholan have +a common source:-- + + NEMEDH + son of + Sera, + son of + Pamp, + son of + Tath, PARTHOLAN (2000 B.C.) + son of son of + Sera, + son of + Sru, + son of + Esru, + son of + Pramant. + +The connection between Keasair, the earliest of the Irish gods, and +the rest of the cycle, I have not discovered, but am confident of its +existence. + +How this divine cycle can be expunged from the history of Ireland I am +at a loss to see. The account which a nation renders of itself must, and +always does, stand at the head of every history. + +How different is this from the history and genealogy of the Greek gods +which runs thus:-- + + The Olympian gods, + Titans, + Physical entities, Nox, Chaos, &c. + +The Greek gods, undoubtedly, had a long ancestry extending into the +depths of the past, but the sudden advent of civilisation broke up +the bardic system before the historians could become philosophical, or +philosophers interested in antiquities. + +But the Irish history corrects our view with regard to other matters +connected with the gods of the Aryan nations of Europe also. + +All the nations of Europe lived at one time under the bardic and druidic +system, and under that system imagined their gods and elaborated their +various theogonies, yet, in no country in Europe has a bardic literature +been preserved except in Ireland, for no thinking man can believe Homer +to have been a product of that rude type of civilisation of which he +sings. This being the case, modern philosophy, accounting for the origin +of the classical deities by guesses and _a priori_ reasonings, has +almost universally adopted that explanation which I have, elsewhere, +called Wordsworthian, and which derives them directly from the +imagination personifying the aspects of nature. + + "In that fair clime, the lonely herdsman, stretched + On the soft grass through half a summer's day, + With music lulled his indolent repose, + And in some fit of weariness if he, + When his own breath was silent, chanced to hear + A distant strain far sweeter than the sounds + Which his poor skill could make, his fancy fetched, + Even from the blazing chariot of the sun, + A beardless youth who touched a golden lute + And filled the illumined groves with ravishment-- + *** + "Sunbeams upon distant hills, + Gliding apace with shadows in their train, + Might, with small help from fancy, be transformed + Into fleet oreads, sporting visibly." + +This is pretty, but untrue. In all the ancient Irish literature we find +the connection of the gods, both those who survived into the historic +times, and those whom they had dethroned, with the raths and cairns +perpetually and almost universally insisted upon. The scene of the +destruction of the Firbolgs will be found to be a place of tombs, the +metropolis of the Fomorians a place of tombs, and a place of tombs the +sacred home of the Tuatha along the shores of the Boyne. Doubtless, they +are represented also as dwelling in the hills, lakes, and rivers, but +still the connection between the great raths and cairns and the gods +is never really forgotten. When the floruit of a god has expired, he +is assigned a tomb in one of the great tumuli. No one can peruse this +ancient literature without seeing clearly the genesis of the Irish gods, +_videlicet_ heroes, passing, through the imagination and through the +region of poetic representation, into the world of the supernatural. +When a king died, his people raised his ferta, set up his stone, and +engraved upon it, at least in later times, his name in ogham. They +celebrated his death with funeral lamentations and funeral games, and +listened to the bards chanting his prowess, his liberality, and his +beauty. In the case of great warriors, these games and lamentations +became periodical. It is distinctly recorded in many places, for +instance in connection with Taylti, who gave her name to Taylteen and +Garman, who gave her name to Loch Garman, now Wexford, and with Lu +Lamfada, whose annual worship gave its name to the Kalends of August. +Gradually, as his actual achievements became more remote, and the +imagination of the bards, proportionately, more unrestrained, he would +pass into the world of the supernatural. Even in the case of a hero +so surrounded with historic light as Cuculain we find a halo, as of +godhood, often settling around him. His gray warsteed had already passed +into the realm of mythical representation, as a second avatar of the +Liath Macha, the grey war-horse of the war-goddess Macha. This could be +believed, even in the days when the imagination was controlled by the +annalists and tribal heralds. + +The gods of the Irish were their deified ancestors. They were not the +offspring of the poetic imagination, personifying the various aspects of +nature. Traces, indeed, we find of their influence over the operations +of nature, but they are, upon the whole, slight and unimportant. +From nature they extract her secrets by their necromantic and magical +labours, but nature is as yet too great to be governed and impelled by +them. The Irish Apollo had not yet entered into the sun. + +Like every country upon which imperial Rome did not leave the impress +of her genius, Ireland, in these ethnic times, attained only a +partial unity. The chief king indeed presided at Tara, and enjoyed the +reputation and emoluments flowing to him on that account, but, upon the +whole, no Irish king exercised more than a local sovereignty; they were +all reguli, petty kings, and their direct authority was small. This +being the case, it would appear to me that in the more ancient times +the death of a king would not be an event which would disturb a very +extensive district, and that, though his tomb might be considerable, it +would not be gigantic. + +Now on the banks of the Boyne, opposite Rosnaree, there stands a +tumulus, said to be the greatest in Europe. It covers acres of ground, +being of proportionate height. The earth is confined by a compact stone +wall about twelve feet high. The central chamber, made of huge irregular +pebbles, is about twenty feet from ground to roof, communicating with +the outer air by a flagged passage. Immense pebbles, drawn from the +County of Antrim, stand around it, each of which, even to move at +all, would require the labour of many men, assisted with mechanical +appliances. It is, of course, impossible to make an accurate estimate of +the expenditure of labour necessary for the construction of such a work, +but it would seem to me to require thousands of men working for years. +Can we imagine that a petty king of those times could, after his +death, when probably his successor had enough to do to sustain his new +authority, command such labour merely to provide for himself a tomb. If +this tomb were raised to the hero whose name it bears immediately after +his death, and in his mundane character, he must have been such a king +as never existed in Ireland, even in the late Christian times. +Even Brian of the Tributes himself, could not have commanded such a +sepulture, or anything like it, living though he did, probably, two +thousand years later than that Eocaidh Mac Elathan, whenever he did +live. There is a _nodus_ here needing a god to solve it. + +Returning now to what would most likely take place after the interment +of a hero, we may well imagine that the size of his tomb would be in +proportion to the love which he inspired, where no accidental causes +would interfere with the gratification of that feeling. Of one of his +heroes, Ossian, sings-- + + "We made his cairn great and high + Like a king's." + +After that there would be periodical meetings in his honour, the +celebration of games, solemn recitations by bards, singing his aristeia +[Transcriber's Note: Greek in the original]. Gradually the new wine +would burst the old bottles. The ever-active, eager-loving imagination +would behold the champion grown to heroic proportions, the favourite of +the gods, the performer of superhuman feats. The tomb, which was once +commensurate with the love and reverence which he inspired, would seem +so now no longer. The tribal bards, wandering or attending the great +fairs and assemblies, would disperse among strangers and neighbours a +knowledge of his renown. In the same cemetery or neighbourhood their +might be other tombs of heroes now forgotten, while he, whose fame was +in every bardic mouth in all that region, was honoured only with a tomb +no greater than theirs. The mere king or champion, grown into a topical +hero, would need a greater tomb. + +Ere long again, owing to the bardic fraternity, who, though coming from +Innishowen or Cape Clear, formed a single community, the topical hero +would, in some cases, where his character was such as would excite +deeper reverence and greater fame, grow into a national hero, and a +still nobler tomb be required, in order that the visible memorial might +prove commensurate with the imaginative conception. + +Now all this time the periodic celebrations, the games, and +lamentations, and songs would be assuming a more solemn character. Awe +would more and more mingle with the other feelings inspired by his name. +Certain rites and a certain ritual would attend those annual games +and lamentations, which would formerly not have been suitable, and +eventually, when the hero, slowly drawing nearer through generations, +if not centuries, at last reached Tir-na-n-Og, and was received into +the family of the gods, a religious feeling of a different nature would +mingle with the more secular celebration of his memory, and his rath or +cairn would assume in their eyes a new character. + +To an ardent imaginative people the complete extinction by death of a +much-loved hero would even at first be hardly possible. That the tomb +which held his ashes should be looked upon as the house of the hero must +have been, even shortly after his interment, a prevailing sentiment, +whether expressed or not. Also, the feeling must have been present, +that the hero in whose honour they performed the annual games, and +periodically chanted the remembrance of whose achievements, saw and +heard those things that were done in his honour. But as the celebration +became greater and more solemn, this feeling would become more strong, +and as the tomb, from a small heap of stones or low mound, grew into an +enormous and imposing rath, the belief that this was the hero's house, +in which he invisibly dwelt, could not be avoided, even before they +ceased to regard him as a disembodied hero; and after the hero had +mingled with the divine clans, and was numbered amongst the gods, the +idea that the rath was a tomb could not logically be entertained. As +a god, was he not one of those who had eaten of the food provided by +Mananan, and therefore never died. The rath would then become his house +or temple. As matter of fact, the bardic writings teem with this idea. +From reason and probability, we would with some certainty conclude that +the great tumulus of New Grange was the temple of some Irish god; but +that it was so, we know as a fact. The father and king of the gods +is alluded to as dwelling there, going out from thence, and returning +again, and there holding his invisible court. + + "Behold the _Sid_ before your eyes, + It is manifest to you that it is a king's mansion." +[Note: O'Curry's Manuscript Materials of Irish History, page 505.] + + "Bove Derg went to visit the Dagda at the Brugh of Mac-An-Og." +[Note: "Dream of Angus," Revue Celtique, Vol. III., page 349.] + +Here also dwelt Angus Og, the son of the Dagda. In this, his spiritual +court or temple, he is represented as having entertained Oscar and +the Ossianic heroes, and thither he conducted [Note: Publications of +Ossianic Society, Vol. III., page 201.] the spirit of Diarmid, that he +might have him for ever there. + +In the etymology also we see the origin of the Irish gods. A grave in +Irish is Sid, the disembodied spirit is Sidhe, and this latter word +glosses Tuatha De Danan. + +The fact that the grave of a hero developed slowly into the temple of +a god, explains certain obscurities in the annals and literature. As +a hero was exalted into a god, so in turn a god sank into a hero, +or rather into the race of the giants. The elder gods, conquered and +destroyed by the younger, could no longer be regarded as really divine, +for were they not proved to be mortal? The development of the temple +from the tomb was not forgotten, the whole country being filled with +such tombs and incipient temples, from the great Brugh on the Boyne to +the smallest mound in any of the cemeteries. Thus, when the elder gods +lost their spiritual sovereignty, and their destruction at the hands of +the younger took the form of great battles, then as the god was forced +to become a giant, so his temple was remembered to be a tomb. Doubtless, +in his own territory, divine honours were still paid him; but in the +national imagination and in the classical literature and received +history, he was a giant of the olden time, slain by the gods, and +interred in the rath which bore his name. Such was the great Mac Erc, +King of Fir-bolgs. + +Again, when the mediaeval Christians ceased to regard the Tuatha De +Danan as devils, and proceeded to rationalise the divine record as the +ethnic bards had rationalised the history of the early gods; the Tuatha +De Danan, shorn of immortality, became ancient heroes who had lived +their day and died, and the greater raths, no longer the houses of the +gods, figure in that literature irrationally rational, as their tombs. +Thus we are gravely informed [Note: Annals of Four Masters.] that "the +Dagda Mor, after the second battle of Moy Tura, retired to the Brugh on +the Boyne, where he died from the venom of the wounds inflicted on him +by Kethlenn"--the Fomorian amazon--"and was there interred." Even in +this passage the writer seems to have been unable to dispossess his mind +quite of the traditional belief that the Brugh was the Dagda's house. + +The peculiarity of this mound, in addition to its size, is the +spaciousness of the central chamber. This was that germ which, but for +the overthrow of the bardic religion, would have developed into a temple +in the classic sense of the word. A two-fold motive would have impelled +the growing civilisation in this direction. A desire to make the house +of the god as spacious within as it was great without, and a desire to +transfer his worship, or the more esoteric and solemn part of it, from +without to within. Either the absence of architectural knowledge, or +the force of conservatism, or the advent of the Christian missionaries, +checked any further development on these lines. + +Elsewhere the tomb, instead of developing as a tumulus or barrow, +produced the effect of greatness by huge circumvallations of earth, and +massive walls of stone. Such is the temple of Ned the war-god, called +Aula Neid, the court or palace of Ned, near the Foyle in the North. Had +the ethnic civilisation of Ireland been suffered to develop according to +its own laws, it is probable that, as the roofed central chamber of the +cairn would have grown until it filled the space occupied by the mound, +so the open-walled temple would have developed into a covered building, +by the elevation of the walls, and their gradual inclination to the +centre. + +The bee-hive houses of the monks, the early churches, and the round +towers are a development of that architecture which constructed the +central chambers of the raths. In this fact lies, too, the explanation +of the cyclopean style of building which characterizes our most ancient +buildings. The cromlech alone, formed in very ancient times the central +chamber of the cairn; it is found in the centre of the raths on Moy +Tura, belonging to the stone age and that of the Firbolgs. When the +cromlech fell into disuse, the arched chamber above the ashes of the +hero was constructed with enormous stones, as a substitute for the +majestic appearance presented by the massive slab and supporting pillars +of the more ancient cromlech, and the early stone buildings preserved +the same characteristic to a certain extent. + +The same sentiment which caused the mediaeval Christians to disinter and +enshrine the bones of their saints, and subsequently to re-enshrine +them with greater art and more precious materials, caused the ethnic +worshippers of heroes to erect nobler tombs over the inurned relics +of those whom they revered, as the meanness of the tomb was seen to +misrepresent and humiliate the sublimity of the conception. But the +Christians could never have imagined their saints to have been anything +but men--a fact which caused the retention and preservation of the +relics. When the Gentiles exalted their hero into a god, the charred +bones were forgotten or ascribed to another. The hero then became +immortal in his own right; he had feasted with Mananan and eaten his +life-giving food, and would not know death. + +When the mortal character of the hero was forgotten, his house or temple +might be erected anywhere. The great Raths of the Boyne--a place grown +sacred from causes which we may not now learn--represented, probably, +heroes and heroines, who died and were interred in many different parts +of the country. + +To recapitulate, the Dagda Mor was a divine title given to a hero named +Eocaidh, who lived many centuries before the birth of Christ, and in the +depths of the pre-historic ages. He was the mortal scion or ward of +an elder god, Elathan, and was interred in some unknown grave--marked, +perhaps, by a plain pillar stone, or small insignificant cairn. + +The great tumulus of New Grange was the temple of the divine or +supernatural period of his spiritual or imagined career after death, and +was a development by steps from that small unremembered grave where once +his warriors hid the inurned ashes of the hero. + +What is true of one branch of the Aryan family is true of all. +Sentiments of such universality and depth must have been common to all. +If this be so, the Olympian Zeus himself was once some rude chieftain +dwelling in Thrace or Macedonia, and his sublime temple of Doric +architecture traceable to some insignificant cairn or flagged cist in +Greece, or some earlier home of the Hellenic race, and his name not +Zeus, but another; and Kronos, that god whom he, as a living wight, +adored, and under whose protection and favour he prospered. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Early Bardic Literature, Ireland, by +Standish O'Grady + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EARLY BARDIC LITERATURE, IRELAND *** + +***** This file should be named 8109.txt or 8109.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/1/0/8109/ + +Produced by Ar dTeanga Fein + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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