INTRODUCTION. (continued 2)

From Slainge, the first king of the Firbolgs, who began to reign 1934 years B.C., and ruled only one year, or even from Eremon, the first monarch of all Ireland of the Milesian race, who began to reign 1700 years B.C., down to Dathy, who was killed by a flash of lightning at the foot of the Alps in the year 428, and Laogare, his successor, who was slain by the elements for refusing obedience to St. Patrick’s mission which is said to have taken place during his reign, every reign is stamped with the same character; and what to accept and what to reject is a problem, for the solution of which the history itself affords no materials.

If this narrative is to be submitted to historic criticism, is the later portion less an object of such criticism than the earlier? There seems no reason why we should accept the history of Neill of the nine hostages, who reigned from 379 to 405, and had subjected all Britain and part of France to his sway, and reject that of Ugony More, who reigned 1000 years earlier, and whose conquests were equally extensive and equally unknown to European history, or why Ugony’s twenty-five sons are less worthy of credit than the thirty sons of Cathoirmor, who reigned 750 years later. Why the division of Ireland into the two great portions of north and south, between Conn of the hundred battles and Modha Nuadhat, in the second century, is to be accepted in preference to the original division into the same districts between Eremon and Eber, the sons of Milesius; or which of the divisions of Ireland into five provinces, that by Tuathal the acceptable, or Eochaddh, called Feidhlioch, from the deep sighs which he constantly heaved from his heart, or that by Slainge, the first king of the Firbolgs, is to be held to represent the event which produced it.

Are the conquests in Scotland by Crimthan mor, and Dathy in the fourth and fifth centuries, to be accepted, and these equally detailed battles of Aongus olmucadha and Rechtgidh righ-derg, some centuries earlier, to be rejected because they occupy a different place in this succession of unreal monarchs? Are we to accept the reign of Conchobar Mac Nessa in the first century—to whom the death of Christ upon the cross was revealed by a Druid at the time it happened, and who became Christian in consequence, and died from over-exertion in attacking a forest of trees with his sword which he mistook for the Jews; and the reign of Cormac Mac Art, called Ulfada, either from the length of his beard and hair, or because he drove the Uladh or Ultonians far from their country, where, however, they are ever after found notwithstanding; who was also miraculously converted to Christianity two centuries before the supposed arrival of St. Patrick, the apostle of Ireland, and died by choking upon the bone of an enchanted fish, or, according to other accounts, was strangled by a number of infernal fiends,—as history, in preference to the reigns of scores of older monarchs, the events of whose reigns cannot be said to be less probable.

Must we hold that the chronology of Cuchullin and Corroi, of Finn Mac Cumhal and Goll Mac Morn, is fixed, because the two former are placed in the reign of Conchobar Mac Nessa, and the two latter in that of Cormac Ulfada, or that their Irish character is demonstrated because they are woven into this Milesian fable?[33]

In fact, the whole of this history presents a structure so artificial, so compact, and so alike in all its features, that it is impossible for any one, like Samson, to withdraw any two pillars without bringing the whole edifice about his ears, and crushing the entire bead-roll of unbaptized monarchs beneath its ruins.

The truth is, that notwithstanding the claims of the Irish to an early cultivation and to a knowledge of letters in Pagan times, the art of writing was unknown in Ireland till after the introduction of Christianity, and written history there was none. The only materials that existed for it were poems, legends, historic tales, and pedigrees, handed down by tradition; and from these, at a subsequent period, when, as in all countries, the leisure hours of monks and ecclesiastics were employed in constructing a history of ante-Christian times, in imitation of more classical histories, a highly artificial system was by degrees constructed, embodying the substance of traditions and myths, real facts and imaginative poems, with bardic and monkish creations, and the whole based upon the classical model, by which the different ethnological elements which entered into the population of the country were cloaked under an artificial and symbolical genealogy.

But it is not chronological history. The dates are quite artificial, and the whole creation melts and resolves itself into its original elements upon investigation. The pre-Milesian colonies are found existing and occupying large tracts of the country down to a late period of the ante-Christian history. The provincial kings, when closely examined, lose their Milesian name, and are found ruling over Firbolgs, Firdomnan and Cruithne; and notwithstanding that the Milesians had been for 1600 years in possession of the country, and a flourishing monarchy is supposed to have existed for so long a period, we find, as late as the second century after Christ, the Attachtuatha, as the descendants of the Firbolg, Firdomnan, and Tuatha De Danann were termed during the Milesian monarchy, in full possession of the country for nearly a century, and in close alliance with the Cruithne of Ulster; during which time the Milesian kings were in exile, and the process of subjugating these tribes, supposed to be completed 1600 years before by Eremon and Eber, is again repeated by Tuathal teachtmhar, who arrives with an army from Alban.

The descendants of the different sons of Milesius likewise assume foreign characteristics. The race of Ir, son of Milesius, who possessed the whole of Ulster till the Heremonian settlements almost within the domain of history, are found calling themselves on all occasions Cruithne. The descendants of Ith called themselves Clanna Breogan, and occupy the territory where Ptolemy, in the second century, places an offshoot of British Brigantes. Eremon and Eber seem to represent the northern and southern Scots distinguished by Bede, a distinction reproduced in Conn of the hundred battles, and Modha Nuadha.

The legend of St. Patrick, too, in its present shape, is not older than the ninth century; and, under the influence of an investigation into older authorities, he dissolves into three personages; Sen-Patricius, whose day in the calendar is the 24th August; Palladius qui est Patricius, to whom the mission in 432 properly belongs, and who is said to have retired to Alban or Scotland, where he died among the Cruithne; and Patricius, whose day is the 17th of March, and to whom alone a certain date can be assigned,—for he died, in the chronological period, in the year 493,—and from the acts of these three saints the subsequent legend of the great apostle of Ireland was compiled, and an arbitrary chronology applied to it.

The Feine also, when looked at a little more closely, emerge from under the guise of a Milesian militia, and assume the features of a distinct race. Cuchullin, Conall cearnach, and the children of Uisneach belong to the race of Ir, and are Cruithne. Goll Mac Morn and his Clanna Moirne are Firbolg; Curigh Mac Daire and his Clanna Deaghadh are Ernai; and though they are called Heremonians in Irish history, yet they are also said to be a Firbolg tribe of the same race with the Clanna Morna; and in the poem of Maolmura, who died in 884, they are said to be of the race of Ith, and, therefore, probably Britons,—a conjecture singularly corroborated by the fact that there exists, in Welsh, a poem on the death of Curigh Mac Daire; and, finally, Finn Mac Cumhal and his Clanna Baiosgne, although a Heremonian pedigree is given to them, it is not the only one known to the old Irish MSS. There is a second, deducing him from the Clanna Deaghaidh, the same race with that of Curigh Mac Daire; and a third, and probably the oldest, states that he was of the Ui Tairsigh, and that they were of the Attachtuatha, as the descendants of the non-Milesian tribes were called, a fact corroborated by Maolmura, who says—

The fact is, when the fictitious catalogue of Milesian kings was extended over so many centuries, and the Milesian monarchy drawn back to so remote a period, it became necessary to account for the appearance of non-Milesian races in the old traditional stories, and they were either clothed with a Milesian name and pedigree, or some device hit upon to account for their separate existence; and thus the Feinne, a pre-Milesian warrior race they could not account for, appear under the somewhat clumsy guise of a standing body of Milesian militia, having peculiar privileges and strange customs.

The Irish Ossianic poems, as well as those in the Dean’s MS., indicate that the Feinne were not a body of troops confined to Ireland, but belonged, whoever they were, to a much wider extent of territory.

Thus, the poem on the battle of Gabhra, published in the first volume of the Transactions of the Ossianic Society—a battle in which Oscar the son of Ossian was slain, and the Feinne from all quarters took part—we find the following verses:

Again—

There were thus in this battle, besides Feinne of Erin, Feinne of Alban, Breatan, and Lochlan.

Alba or Alban was Scotland, north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde.

Breatan was not Wales, but the southern districts of Scotland, of which Dunbreatan, now Dumbarton, was the chief seat.

Lochlan was the north of Germany, extending from the Rhine to the Elbe;[34] and the name of Lochlanach was originally applied to the ancient traditionary pirates termed the Fomorians. When the Norwegian and Danish pirates appeared in the ninth century, they were likewise called Lochlanach; and the name of Lochlan was transferred to Norway and Denmark, from whence they came. There is every reason to believe that the Low German race were preceded, in the more ancient Lochlan, by a Celtic people.

The Feinne then belonged to the pre-Milesian races, and were connected, not only with Erin, but likewise with Alban, Breatan, and Lochlan. Now, there are just two people mentioned in the Irish records who had settlements in Ireland, and who yet were connected with Alban, Breatan, and Lochlan. These were the people termed the Tuatha De Danann, and the Cruithne.

The traditionary migration of the Tuatha De Danann brings them from Lochlan, where they possessed four cities, to Alban, where they inhabited a district termed Dobhar and Jr Dobhar; and from thence they went to Erin, where they drove out the Firbolg, to be subdued in their turn by the Milesian Scots.

The Cruithne are likewise brought from Lochlan to Erin and from Erin to Alban, where they founded a kingdom, which included, till the seventh century, the Cruithne of Ulster, and which was subverted in the ninth century by the Milesian Scots.

These two tribes were thus the prior race in each country. Both must have been prior to the Low German population of Lochlan. The Cruithne were the race prior to the Scots in Alban, and the Tuatha De Dannan the prior colony to the Milesian Scots in Erin. The Feinne are brought by all the old historic tales into close contact with the Tuatha De Danann; a portion of them were avowedly Cruithne; and if they were, as we have seen, in Erin, not of the Milesian race, but of the prior population, and likewise connected with Alban, Breatan, and Lochlan, the inference is obvious, that, whether a denomination for an entire people or for a body of warriors, they belonged to the previous population which preceded the Germans in Lochlan and the Scots in Erin and Alban.

This view is corroborated by the fact, that in the old poems and tales the Feinne appear, as we have said, in close connexion with the Tuatha De Danann. They are likewise connected with the Cruithne, as in the Lamentation of Cuchullin over the body of his son Conlaoch, in Miss Brooke’s collection, where he says—

While the traditions of the Cruithne, in narrating their migration and the names of their leaders, mention, as the mythic poet of their race, a name singularly like that of Ossian—

In answering, then, the preliminary questions of who were the Feinne? and to what period do they belong? we may fairly infer that they were of the population who immediately preceded the Scots in Erin and in Alban, and that they belong to that period in the history of both countries, before a political separation had taken place between them, when they were viewed as parts of one territory, though physically separated, and when a free and unrestrained intercourse took place between them; when race and not territory was the great bond of association, and the movements of their respective populations from one country to the other were not restrained by any feeling of national separation.

It was natural that the deeds and events connected with this warrior race, associated as they must have been with the physical features of the country in which they dwelt, should have formed the subject of the early poems and legendary tales of their successors, and that a body of popular poetry should have sprung up in each country, which occupied itself with adventures, expeditions, and feats of bravery of this previous race, which were common to both countries, and which, attributed to their mythic poets, and full of the names of heroes, and of the scenes of their exploits, would be appropriated by the bards of each country to their own districts. The names of the places connected in tradition with these events would, as they were localized in the respective countries, be identified with its scenery and physical features, and thus a species of Fenian topography would spring up in each country, which, having a common origin, would bear the same character, and possess a mutual resemblance. Each country would thus claim the Feinne as their exclusive property, and could point to a body of popular Ossianic poetry in support of their claim, and to the Fenian names of their localities, in proof of the events which form the subject of the poems having there occurred.

The allusions to Fingal in the older Scottish historians who wrote long before Macpherson’s Ossian appeared, or the controversy arose, show that stories of the Feinne were current in Scotland, and that they were regarded as belonging to this country as much as to Ireland, while the Fenian names of localities in charters and other documents evince that a Fenian topography likewise existed in Scotland before that period.[35]

Kirke, in his Psalter, published in 1684, adds the following address:—

That is,—

The Roughbounds were the districts from Morvaren to Glenelg, which, with the Isles, are thus called the land of the Feinne.

The districts in which the Fenian names enter most largely into the topography of the Highlands are Atholl, Lochaber, Lorn, and Morvaren, Glenelg, and the districts about Loch Ness; and the antiquity of this topography in the Highlands of Scotland is proved by an old gloss to a charter by Alexander the Second to the monks of Kinloss of the lands of Burgyn, within the ancient Celtic province of Moray, which is preserved in the Chartulary of the Bishopric. The boundary of the lands passes by a place called Tuber na Fein, meaning literally the well of the Feinne, and the gloss is “or feyne, of the grett or kempis men callit ffenis, is ane well.”

Cuchullin was of the race of the Cruithne, and belongs both to Ulster and to Scotland. In Ulster his seat was Dundealgan, and the scene of his exploits the district of Cuailgne and the mountains of Sleave Cuillin; but even Irish tradition admits that he was reared by Sgathaig, in the Isle of Skye, and here we have Dunsgathaig and the Cuillin Hills.

The children of Uisneach were likewise Cruithne, and must have preceded the Scots, for the great scene of their Scotch adventures are the districts of Lorn, Loch Aw, and Cowall, afterwards the possessions of the Dalriadic Scots; thus, in the vicinity of Oban, we have Dun mhic Uisneachan, now corruptly called in guide-books Dun mac Sniachan, a fort with vitrified remains; and here we have on Loch Etive, Glen Uisneach, and Suidhe Deardhuil. The names of the three sons of Uisneach were Ainle, Ardan, and Naoise; and it is remarkable that Adomnan, in his life of St. Columba, written in the seventh century, appears to mention only three localities in connexion with St. Columba’s journey to the palace of the king of the Picts, near Loch Ness, and these are Cainle, Arcardan, and the flumen Nesae. Two vitrified forts in the neighbourhood of Lochness are called Dundeardhuil.[36]

The hunt of Diarmed O’Duine after the boar on Bengulbain, and his death by measuring his length against the bristles, enters into Scotch topography in three different localities; in Glenshee, where there is a hill called Bengulbain, also in Glenroy, where we have also a Bengulbain and an Eassroy, and also on the south bank of Loch Ness. Daire donn, who appears in the Cath Finntragha identified by the Irish with Ventry, has also deposited his name on a mountain in Ardgour, close to the west sea, called Meall Dayre donn.

The mountain streams and lakes in these districts of the Highlands are everywhere redolent of names connected with the heroes and actions of the Feinne, and show that a body of popular legends connected with them, whether in poetry or in prose, preserved by oral recitation or committed to writing, must have existed in the country when this topography sprung up, though it does not follow that the events, though now associated with the scenery of the country, originally happened there any more than does the Fenian topography of Ireland.

These legendary poems and tales seem to have passed through three different stages.

In the first and oldest form they were pure poems, of more or less excellence, narrating the adventures and deeds of these warrior bands, whose memory still lingered in the country; each poem being complete in itself, and constructed upon a metrical system which brought the aid of alliteration and of rhyme, or correspondence of sounds, to assist the memory in retaining what had been received by oral recitation, and to render it less easy to forget or lose a part. These poems seem generally to have been attributed to one mythic poet of the race they celebrate.

Then, as the language in which these poems were composed became altered or modified, or as the reciters were less able to retain the whole, they would narrate, in ordinary prose, the events of the part of the poem they had forgotten, and merely recite the poetry of what they recollected; and thus they would pass into the second stage of prose tales, interspersed with fragments of poetry.

Bards who were themselves composers as well as reciters, besides composing poems on the subjects of the day in which they lived, would likewise select the Fenian legends as their themes, and become imitators of the older Ossianic poetry. The prose narrative would form the basis of their poem; and thus would arise the third stage of their poems, in which they were reconstructed from the prose tales, and again appear as long poems, the names and incidents being the same as in the older poems, and the fragments of them preserved in the prose tale, imbedded in the new poem.

The poems of the first stage were probably common to Ireland and to Scotland, and traces of them are to be found wherever the Feinne were supposed to have once existed; though, in countries where their successors were of a different race, and spoke a different language, the continuity of the tradition would be at once broken.

Among the ancient poems in the Welsh language which have been preserved, there exists an Ossianic poem called Marwnad Coire map Daire, or the death-song of Curoi, son of Daire, the traditionary head, according to Irish history, of the Fenian militia of Munster, but who, as we have seen, appears to belong to the body called the Feinne of Breatan; and the poem, no doubt, belongs to the northern Cumbrian kingdom, which had Dunbreatan for its chief seat. Curoi is called Chief of the Southern Sea, and the contest between him and Cuchullin is mentioned.[37]

Poems of the same character seem also to have been known in the Isle of Man, as O’Connor, in his catalogue of the Stow ms., mentions a MS. containing “Finn and Ossian,—a Manx coronach, with Manx on one side of the page, and Irish on the other.”

The oldest which has been found in any MSS. preserved in the Highlands is a poem of five quatrains, at the end of a glossary contained in a MS. written prior to the year 1500. It is in old Gaelic, and there is an interlineal gloss, explaining the meaning of the expressions in more familiar language. At the end there is a line stating that Ossian was the author of the poem.

It may be not uninteresting to insert here the text of the poem, with its glosses:—

Ossian sung this at the shore of the sea of Tallann, for the champion of the sow.[38]

The tales of Cuchullin and Conlaoch, and the tale of the Sons of Uisneach, are good specimens of the second class. The latter is one of three tales, called the Three Woes, the two others relating to families of the Tuatha De Danann; but though these tales may be Irish, and of this period, they contain fragments of poems probably much older, and which may have been derived from another source. One of the poems in the tale of the Children of Uisneach contains such a tender recollection of and touching allusion to Highland scenery, that it is hardly possible to suppose that it was not originally composed by a genuine son of Alban.

It is the lament of Deirdre or Darthula over Alban, and the following is a translation:—

The third class of Ossianic poems belongs principally to that period when, during the sway of the Lords of the Isles, Irish influence was so much felt on the language and literature of the Highlands, and when the Highland bards and sennachies were trained in bardic schools, presided over by Irish bards of eminence. It was at this period mainly that the Irish poems assumed so much the shape of a dialogue between the Ossianic poets and St. Patrick, the apostle of Ireland; and the Highland bards imitated this form, often adding or prefixing a few sentences of such dialogue to older poems, or composing poems in imitation of Ossian in this form; but the imitation, in this respect, of Irish poems by native bards is apparent from this, that Patrick is in the Irish poems correctly called Mac Calphurn or M’Alphurn, his father, according to his own “Confessio,” having been Calphurnius, but the Highland bards, to whom Patrick’s history was strange, and this epithet unintelligible, have substituted the peculiarly Scotch form of Alpine, and styled him Patrick Mac Alpine.

One of the poems in Macpherson’s fragments has been one of these—the sixth fragment,—which begins and ends with a dialogue between Ossian and the son of Alpin.

It was at the same period that the collection of Gaelic poems was made by the Dean of Lismore, and it includes many poems in which this dialogue occurs, but in most the saint is termed Macalpine, showing its non-Irish source.

The Ossianic poems in this collection attributed to Ossian, Fergus Filidh, and Caoilte, the three Fenian bards, and those which are either anonymous or composed by imitators, as Gillecalum Mac an Olla and Allan Mac Ruadhri, with the other poems which are not Ossianic, afford a fair specimen of the poetic literature current in the Highlands of Scotland at the close of this period, and before the fall of the Lords of the Isles, and the Reformation again severed that country from Ireland, and ushered in a period of reaction and return towards the native dialect and literature.

On the whole, then, we fully admit the claims of Ireland to Fenian legends and tales, and their attendant poems, but not to an exclusive possession of them.

We admit that its Fenian topography is authentic, but it is not the only one.

We admit its claim to an early written and cultivated speech, but not to the only dialect of Gaelic in which such poems once existed.

We hold that Scotland possesses likewise Fenian legends and Ossianic poetry derived from an independent source, and a Fenian topography equally genuine; and we consider her dialect of the common Gaelic tongue not undeserving of the attention of philologers.

W. F. S.