The Mythology of Ancient Britain and Ireland/Chapter 7
Chapter VII
The Fenian, or Ossianic, Sagas
The second of the two Gaelic heroic cycles presents certain striking contrasts to the first. It depicts a quite different stage of human culture; for, while the Ulster stories deal with chariot-driving chiefs ruling over settled communities from fortified dúns, the Fenian sagas mirror, under a faint disguise, the lives of nomad hunters in primeval woods. The especial possession, not of any one tribal community, but of the folk, it is common to the two Goidelic countries, being as native to Scotland as to Ireland. Moreover, it has the distinction, unique among early literatures, of being still a living tradition. So firmly rooted are the memories of Finn and his heroes in the minds of the Gaelic peasantry that there is a proverb to the effect that if the Fenians found that they had not been spoken of for a day, they would rise from the dead.
It may be well here to remove a few possible misconceptions concerning these sagas and their heroes. The word ' Fenian' in popular parlance is applied to certain political agitators of recent notoriety. But those 'Fenians' merely assumed their title from the tradition that the original Fianna (Fēna) were a band of patriots sworn to the defence of Ireland. With regard, too, to the second title of 'Ossianic' which the romances and poems which make up the cycle bear, it must not be taken that the Fenian hero Ossian was their author, an idea perhaps suggested by the prosepoem of James MacPherson, which, though doubtless founded upon genuine Gaelic material, was almost certainly that writer's own composition. Some of the poetical pieces are, indeed, rightly or wrongly attributed to Ossian, as some are to Finn himself, but the bulk of the poems and all the prose tales are, like the sagas of the Ulster cycle, by unknown authors. A few of them are found in the earliest Irish manuscripts, but there has been a continuous stream of literary treatment of them, and they have also been handed down as folk-tales by oral tradition.
The cycle as a whole deals with the history and adventures of a band of warriors who are described as having formed a standing force, in the pay of the High Kings of Tara, to protect Ireland, both from internal trouble and foreign invasion. The early annalists were quite certain of their historical reality, and dated their existence as a body from 300 B.C. to 284 A.D., while even so late and sound a scholar as Eugene O'Curry gave his opinion that Finn himself was as undoubtedly historical a character as Julius Caesar.
Modern Celtic students, however, tend to reverse this view. The name Fionn or Finn, meaning 'white,' or 'fair,' appears elsewhere as that of a mythical ancestor of the Gaels. His father's name Cumhal (Coul), according to Professor Rhŷs, is identical with Cămŭlos and the German Himmel (Heaven). The same writer is inclined to equate Fionn mac Cumhail with Gwyn ab Nûdd, a White son of Sky' who, we have seen, was a British god of the Other World, and, afterwards, king of the Welsh fairies.[1] But there may have been a historical nucleus of the Fenian cycle into which myths of gods and heroes became incorporated.
This possible starting-point would show us a roving hand of picked soldiers, following the chase in summer, quartered on the towns in winter, but always ready to march, at the bidding of the High King of Ireland, to quell any disturbance or to meet any foreign foe. For a time all goes smoothly. But at last their exactions. rouse the people against them, and their pride affronts the king. Dissensions leading to internecine strife break out among themselves, and, taking advantage of these, king and people make common cause and destroy them.
In the romances, this seed of decay is sown before the birth of Finn. His father Cumhal banishes Goll (Gaul), head of the powerful clan of Morna. Goll goes into exile but returns, defeats and kills Cumhal, and disperses the clan of Baoisgne (Baskin), his tribe. But Cumhal's posthumous son is brought up in secret, is trained to manly feats, and, as the reward of a deed of prowess, is called upon by the High King to claim a boon. 'I ask only for my lawful inheritance,' says the youth, and tells his name. The king insists upon Goll admitting Finn's rights, and so he becomes leader of the Fenians. But, in the end, the smouldering enmity breaks out, and, after the death of Goll, the rest of the clan of Morna go over to the High King of Ireland—Cairbré, son of the Cormac who had restored Finn to his heritage. The disastrous battle of Gavra is fought, in which Cairbré himself falls, while the Fenians are practically annihilated.
But attached to this possibly historical nucleus is a mass of tales which may well have once been independent of it. Their actors are the principal figures of the Fenian chivalry—Fionn (Finn) himself, his son Oisin (Ossian), and his grandson Osgur (Oscar); his cousin Caoilte (Kylta), swiftestfooted of men, and his nephew Diarmait (Dermat), the lover of women; with the proud Goll and his braggart brother Conan, leaders of the clan of Morna. They consist of wonderful adventures, sometimes with invaders from abroad, but oftener upon 'perilous seas' and 'in faery lands forlorn' with wild beasts, giants, witches and wizards, and the Tuatha Dé Danann themselves. The Fenians have the freedom of the sídhe, the palaces under the fairy hills, and help this god or that against his fellows. Even Bodb Derg (Red Bove) a son of the Dagda, gives his daughter to Finn and sends his son to enlist with the Fenians. The culmination of these exploits is related in the tale called Cath Finntraighe[2] (the Battle of Ventry), in which Dairé Donn, the High King of the World, leads all his vassals against Ireland, and is defeated by the joint efforts of the Fenians and the Tuatha Dé Danann.
Ossian takes, of course, a prominent part in the stories which are so much associated with his name. But he is especially connected with what might be called the 'post-Fenian ballads,' in which the heroic deeds of Finn and his men are told in the form of dialogues between Ossian and St. Patrick. They hinge upon the legend that Ossian escaped the fate of the rest of his kin by being taken to Tir nan Og, the 'Land of Youth,'—the Celtic Paradise of old and the Celtic Fairyland of to-day—by the fairy, or goddess, Niamh (Neeave), daughter of Manannán mac Lir. Here he enjoyed three hundred years of divine youth, while time changed the face of the world outside. In the end he longs to see his own country again, and Niamh mounts him upon a magic horse, warning him not to put foot upon earthly soil. But his saddle-girth breaks, Ossian falls to earth, and rises up, a blind old man, stripped of the gifts of the gods.
The ballad 'Dialogues' recite the arguments held between the saint and the hero. Saint Patrick presses the new creed and culture upon his unwilling guest, who answers him with passionate laments for the days that are dead. Patrick tells of God and the Angels, Ossian retorts with tales of Finn and the Fenians. It is the clash of two aspects of life, the heathen ideal of joy and strength, and the Christian ideal of service and sacrifice. 'I will tell you a little story about Finn,' replies Ossian to the saint's praises of the heaven of the elect, and relates some heroic exploit of chase or war. Nor is he more ready to listen to Patrick's exhortations to repent and weep over his pagan past. 'I will weep my fill,' he answers, 'but not for God, but because Finn and the Fenians are no longer alive.'