THE NORSE BALLADS.
The Norse ballads constitute another class. The wars between the Féinn and the Lochlins are the theme of many of the ancient Ossianic ballads. It is impossible to say exactly to what age they severally belong. The Vikings, or sea-rovers, began their visits to the Western Isles and Ireland as early as the first century, and continued these visits for more than a thousand years. The name Viking has no connection with King being derived from vic, a bay—vicing, baysman—as Mr Robertson has clearly shown. The erroneous translation sea-kings has been used by several writers. It is the same word as the Gaelic Uig, the name of places on the west sides of Skye and Lewis. In English it assumes the form of Wick—Innerwick. It also means a bay or creek in Gaelic, as found in the words of a poet, “uigean saile.” In 794 the Western Isles were ravaged and Iona destroyed. The monastery of Iona was burnt in 802 by these Vikings; and in 806 the family of Iona, sixty-eight in number, were slain. The abbot of Iona then retired to Kells, Ireland, and Iona ceased to be the centre of Gaelic learning, while all relics of Gaelic culture were removed to Dunkeld and other places.
The Gaelic people of Albin and Erin call the Danes and the Vikings Lochlins. The Vikings were originally half Celtic, if not altogether a Celtic race. Indeed the substrata of many of the Germanic tribes were originally Celtic.
The following ballad probably relates to the wars of the eleventh century:—
THE FINIAN BANNERS.
The Norland King stood on the height
And scanned the rolling sea;
He proudly eyed his gallant ships
That rode triumphantly.
And then he looked where lay his camp,
Along the rocky coast,
And where were seen the heroes brave
Of Lochlin’s famous host.
Then to the land he turn’d, and there
A fierce-like hero came;
Above him was a flag of gold,
That waved and shone like flame.
“Sweet Bard,” thus spoke the Norland King,
“What banner comes in sight?
The valiant chief that leads the host,
Who is that man of might?”
“That,” said the bard, “is young MacDoon
His is that banner bright;
When forth the Féinn to battle go,
He’s foremost in the fight.”
“Sweet bard, another comes; I see
A blood-red banner toss’d
Above a mighty hero’s head
Who waves it o’er a host?”
“That banner,” quoth the bard, “belongs
To good and valiant Rayne;
Beneath it feet are bathed in blood
And heads are cleft in twain.”
“Sweet bard, what banner now I see
A leader fierce and strong
Behind it moves with heroes brave
Who furious round him throng?”
“That is the banner of Great Gaul:
That silken shred of gold,
Is first to march and last to turn,
And flight ne’er stained its fold.”
“Sweet bard, another now I see,
High o’er a host it glows,
Tell whether it has ever shone
O’er fields of slaughtered foes?”
“That gory flag is Cailt’s,” quoth he,
“It proudly peers in sight;
It won its fame on many a field
In fierce and bloody fight.”
“Sweet bard, another still I see;
A host it flutters o’er;
Like bird above the roaring surge
That laves the storm-swept shore.”
“The Broom of Peril,” quoth the bard,
“Young Oscar’s banner, see:
Amidst the conflict of dread chiefs
The proudest name has he.”
The banner of great Finn we raised;
The Sunbeam gleaming far,
With golden spangles of renown
From many a field of war.
The flag was fastened to its staff
With nine strong chains of gold.
With nine times nine chiefs for each chain;
Before it foes oft rolled.
“Redeem your pledge to me,” said Finn;
“And show your deeds of might
To Lochlin as you did before
In many a gory fight.”
Like torrents from the mountain heights
That roll resistless on;
So down upon the foe we rushed,
And [brilliant victory] won.
The above set of verses occur in several ballads with considerable variations. It was a sort of national war-song among the Finian leaders in their frequent conflicts with the Norwegians. In the translation several verses are taken from different sources.
Heroic daring and deeds are ascribed by the bard to each of the warrior-chieftains. Brown Diarmad MacDoon is foremost in the fight; the valiant Rayne leaves cloven heads behind him; great Gaul is ever the first to fight, and never turns his back on the foe; Cailte has won his fame on many a field; Oscar bears the proudest name of all the chiefs; and, finally, Finn himself comes before us, his banner, Deo-greine (Sunbeam), gleaming with its spangles of fame over that heroic band, whom he now invites to sweep down on the Lochlins.
The specimens now given of the ancient ballad poetry of the Gael will be sufficient to indicate its character and style. It only remains now to mention in connection with the heroic ballads the names of a few more of the better known ones.
There is a very fine ballad on the death of Dearg or Dargo. Others are the Expeditions or Imeachd of Finn, of Naoinear, or Nine, &c., and the Great Distress of the Fingalians—Teantachd Mor na Féinne. A Norwegian Hag is the theme of a good deal of composition, while the Invasion of Magnus or Manus is a ballad of considerable length and interest. This was probably the celebrated Magnus Barefoot, so well-known in the Hebrides, and throughout the north-west. From the Orkneys to the Isle of Man and Ireland, along the west coast of Scotland, the Lochlins traversed the seas for centuries and held rule; and well did they and the Highlanders know one another.
CHAPTER VI.
PROSE ROMANCES.
“Lying, worldly stories concerning the Tuatha de Danann, the sons of Milesius, and Finn Mac Cumhail with his Feine.”—Carsuel (A.D. 1567.)
It may be thought by some that too much has been said concerning the ballads and the character of the Féinne. Others may be quite dissatisfied with the fragmentary notices which have been taken of those grand Gaelic ancestors. The former ought to bear in mind that the authors of these Celtic romances were the fathers and for centuries the cultivators of Gaelic song and story; and that they were also “the cause” of much rhyme and romance in others. The student of Gaelic literature can no more give up his devotion to Ossian and to the bards who were his contemporaries and successors than the English student can forget his Chaucer and Spenser and the glorious poetic host of the Elizabethan age. The latter ought to remember that instead of a few paragraphs it would require many volumes to bring forward with fair adequacy the literature and history of the Finian period.
Let us now glance at the popular fictions of Irish romancists. To the Scottish student these are suggestive as presenting similar but varying conceptions regarding the same class of heroes.
As bearing on the Irish character of the present day, it is very remarkable that the Irish versions of the stories and ballads are, as compared with those of Scotland, characterised by more magnificent exaggerations and more gorgeous romance. The glow of richer eloquence and of a more splendid verbiage, combined at the same time with more of the sense of the ludicrous and incongruous, is felt as you tread the famous field of Magh-lene, or the more renowned scene of Cathgarbh [Gabhra], or listen to the cleverly invented dialogues between Ossian and Patrick, in the company and under the guidance of the Irish Gaelic literati. This is worth noting, for it indicates how early essential differences began to develop between the two tribes of the same race. At this very day the natural eloquence of Irishmen ([proverbially all] born orators) far transcends that of Highlanders, whose hardy native hills appear to have made them generally more men of brave deeds than of eloquent good words. The richer soil and the softer climate of Ireland have had a more emasculating influence on the Irish brother tribes; but nature is not always unkind; this possible disadvantage is more than counterbalanced by the rich flow, suavity, and sweetness of the Irish tongue. It is not only the eloquence but the peculiar character of Irish wit and humour that is traceable in Eire’s versions of the Celtic romances. There is also a stationary element observable in the history of the nation. The pre-Celtic, Celtic or Finian Ireland is very much to-day what it was upwards of a thousand years ago. St. Patrick may have made the most of Ireland nominally Christian but the essential heathenism of many of the people has never been yet eradicated; nor was it in the Highlands till this century, deeply and powerfully as the people were touched by drastic ecclesiastical and political changes. A Highland bard of great natural abilities and poetic endowments—William Livingston—has very well expressed in an interesting poem, “Eirin a’ gul” (Erin weeping), his satisfied conviction that the people have never changed. Livingston sang as a Scottish Gael of the pre-Reformation days would. He had as little regard for his Holiness in Rome as he had for the late Rev. Principal Candlish, of Edinburgh, when the latter was preaching in Greenock, and Livingston assumed a threatening attitude as if he would dirk the preacher, who had the temerity to touch up the Highlanders—about the Sustentation Fund, I suppose. It is melancholy to observe—especially suggestive to those who make so much of our boasted advancement in civilisation—that the Gaelic peasantry of Munster to-day cannot show that they have risen higher on the steps of their ancestral dead selves than what they were when the Gaelic ballads were first rehearsed on the glens and bens of ancient Muiman. The same remark till recently was applicable to many parts of the Highlands.
Among the most famous of the old Celtic romances are the three tragical stories of the “Children of Tuirrean,” the “Children of Lir,” and the “Children of Uisneach,” whom we have already come across in the Gaelic ballads; also the “Pursuit of Diarmad,” and the “Cattle Raid of Cuailgne.” As it has been always so popular in both Scotland and Ireland, let us look at the “Pursuit of Diarmad.” There is no space for even the briefest outlines of the large number of other celebrated fictions. The following paragraphs from this nearly endless Pursuit may be compared with the Scottish poetical version already given.
Finn is about to be married to the daughter of King Cormac, and high festival is held in the banquetting hall of royal Tara.
The King of Erin sits down to enjoy drinking and pleasure, with his wife at his shoulder, and Gràine at her shoulder. Finn MacCuhail is at the King’s right hand. Cairbre Liffeachair, the son of the king, is there, and so is Ossian, the son of Finn. The other chief Finian heroes are also there. (In the quotations I follow the Irish orthography of the proper names.)
“‘Tell me now,’ said Grainne to Daire Mac Morna of the songs, ‘who is that warrior at the right shoulder of Oisin, the son of Fionn?’ ‘Yonder,’ said the druid, ‘is Goll Mac Morna, the active, the warlike.’ ‘Who is that warrior at the shoulder of Goll?’ said Grainne. ‘Oscar, the son of Oisin,’ said the druid. ‘Who is that graceful-legged-man at the shoulder of Oscar?’ said Grainne. ‘Caoilte Mac Ronain,’ said the druid. ‘What haughty, impetuous warrior is that, yonder, at the shoulder of Caoilte?’ said Grainne. ‘The son of Lughaidh of the mighty hand, and that man is sister’s son to Fionn Mac Cumhaill,’ said the druid. ‘Who is that freckled, sweet-worded man, upon whom is the curling dusky-black hair, and [who has] the two red ruddy cheeks, upon the left hand of Oisin, the son of Fionn?’ ‘That man is Diarmad, the grandson of Duibhne, the white-toothed, of the lightsome countenance; that is the best lover of women and of maidens that is in the whole world.’ ‘Who is that at the shoulder of Diarmad?’ said Grainne. ‘Diorruing, the son of Dobhar Damhadh O’Baoisgne, and that man is a druid and a skilful man of science,’ said Daireduanach. ‘That is a goodly company,’ said Grainne.”
Miss Gràine Mac Cormac, or rather Princess Gràine, might well make this remarkable admission regarding the character of those heroes. She was emphatically a woman. The above series of questions is thoroughly in harmony with the inquisitorial character of ladies of fashion in general, as well as with ordinary feminine curiosity. This curiosity was awakened by the vision of and contact with a band of conquering heroes whose names have mysteriously touched the heart of the Celtic world for centuries. Let handsome young Diarmads be careful. Gràinne “called her attendant handmaid to her, and told her to bring to her the jewelled-golden-chased goblet which was in the grianan after her. The handmaid brought the goblet, and Grainne filled the goblet forthwith, and there used to go into it the drink of nine times nine men. Grainne said, ‘Take the goblet to Fionn first, and bid him take a draught out of it, and disclose to him that it is I that sent it to him.’” This was done by the obsequious handmaid; the same dose was sent to Cormac, his wife, and son, by the orders of Princess Gràine, with the result that “one after another they fell into a stupor of sleep and of deep slumber.” The scheming Gràine might well be satisfied with the immediate fruits of the potations which she administered to her father, Fionn and the rest. She is now to administer a dose of a different sort to Finn’s nephew, Diarmad. And while we cannot refuse our sympathies to the brave and betrothed Finn, severe as our ethics in the marital sphere may be, yet we cannot also help remembering that it was hard for a young princess to be wedded to even a sovereign person whose son and grandson were present. She must have intuitively felt it would be the union of June and December. Diarmad, “the white-toothed, of the lightsome countenance;” and “the best lover of women and of maidens in the whole world,” and Finn’s nephew, would naturally be esteemed a more desirable admirer by this highly passionate and royal girl.
Gràine turns to Diarmad and says to him: “Wilt thou receive courtship from me, O son of Duibhne?” “I will not,” said Diarmad. “Then,” said Gràine, “I put thee under bonds of danger and destruction, O Diarmuid, that is, under the bonds of Dromdraoidheachta, if thou take me not with thee out of this household to-night, ere Fionn and the King of Erin arise out of that sleep.” Diarmad replies by speaking of the bonds as “evil,” and indulges in expressions or self-depreciation. She reminds him of some brave deeds he performed once “on the plain of Teamhair [Tara],” when “Fionn and the seven battalions of the standing Fenians chanced to be there.” She insinuates that this was the cause of her admiration, seeing Diarmad taking “his caman from the next man to him, and winning the goal three times upon Cairber and upon the warriors of Teamhair.” She turned the light of her eyes upon him that day, and never gave her love to another, nor would she till she died. Diarmad wonders why it was not Finn that was the object of her love instead of himself, because “there is not in Erin a man that is fonder of a woman than he.” He now makes another excuse: Finn has the keys of Tara; they cannot leave the town. But the willing lady finds means of exit for herself and the reluctantly gallant gentleman. “There is a wicket-gate to my Grianan, and we will pass out through it.” Diarmad, after some more ungallant excuses, goes to “his people,” and particularly to Ossian, and says, “O, Oisin, son of Fionn, what shall I do with these bonds that have been laid on me?” “Thou are not guilty of the bonds which have been laid on thee,” said Oisin, “and I tell thee to follow Grainne, and keep thyself well against the wiles of Fionn.” The soft-hearted, but irresolute Diarmad, questions the rest of the Finian heroes in a similar fashion; and they all appear to be favourable to Gràine’s proposition and bonds; one of them, Caoilte, says very gallantly and emphatically, “I say that I have a fitting wife, and yet I had rather than the wealth of the world that it had been to me that Grainne gave that love.” This sounds very like the possible determination of a chivalrous Irish colonel of “the seven battalions of the standing Fenians.” After a little further hesitation, Diarmad at last exclaims. “Then go forward, O Grainne.” The hero now enters on a series of manly exploits. Gràine and he flee into Clanrickard, in Galway, where he fortifies a little grove in which they shelter themselves. Those in pursuit discover this grove, but Diarmad’s sagacious advisers before he left send the knowing dog, Bran, half-human, half-brute, to warn him. Bran has “knowledge and wisdom,” and thrusts his head into Diarmad’s bosom. That, and the friendly shouts of the dog’s far-off masters are sufficient.
There now appears in the relation a character well known in many stories—Aonghas, or Angus, vel Innes, vel Æneas, of the Brough, a place on the Boyne. He was the son of Dagdae, a king of the Danaans in Ireland; and mirabile dictu reigned over the island for eighty years. He was a great friend of Diarmad, to whom he presented two remarkable swords and two javelins equally remarkable and venomous in their character, designated—the former Moraltagh and Begaltagh; and the latter, Gathdearg and Gathbuidhe. He now comes to the help of the eloping fugitives in their besieged “grove,” where “Grainne awoke out of her sleep” in a rather disconcerted state of mind. Aonghas carries her off in a fold of his mantle, but Diarmad will not submit to be rescued in that rather inglorious fashion.
After that Aonghas and Gràine had departed. Diarmad “arose as a straight pillar and [stood upright], and girded his arms and his armour and his various sharp weapons about him.” He came to a door of the seven-wattled doors that there were to the enclosure, and asked who was at it. One or other of the chiefs of the Féinne was at the first five doors at which he successively interrogated; and each and all of them were ready to permit him tacitly to make his escape, but his chivalrous nature would not allow him to regain his freedom in any unknightly fashion. The sixth wicket is hostile: but it is not Finn’s. He comes to the seventh:—“He asked who was at it? ‘Here are Fionn, the son of Cumhaill, the son of Art, the son of Treunmhor, O’Baoisgne, and four hundred hirelings with him; and we bear thee no love, and if thou wouldst come out to us, we would cleave thy bones asunder.’ ‘I pledge my sword,’ said Diarmuid, ‘that the door at which thou art, O Fionn, is the first [i.e., the very] door by which I will pass of [all] the doors.’ Having heard that Fionn charged his battalions on pain of their death, and of their instant destruction, not to let Diarmad pass them without their knowledge. Diarmuid having heard that, arose with an airy, high, exceeding light bound, by the shafts of his javelins and by the staves of his spears, and went a great way out beyond Fionn and beyond his people without their knowledge or perception. He looked back upon them, and proclaimed to them that he had passed them, and slung his shield upon the broad arched expanse of his back, and so went straight westward; and he was not long in going out of sight of Fionn and of the Fenians.”
At Ros-da-shoileach (now Limerick) the hero found Aonghas and Gràine in a warm and comfortable hut, with half a wild boar on spits. Aonghas departs, leaving with them his best counsel against “the wiles of Finn.”
After availing themselves of various refuges, the fugitive pair approach the west coast of Kerry, where they see the allies of Fionn from the French coast drawing close to the shore. Nine times nine warriors step ashore, and Diarmad inquires what was their business, and what county they came from. [They reply that] they are “the three royal chiefs of Muir-n-iocht,” and are now come at Fionn Mac Cumhaill’s order to seek and to curb “a forest marauder” called Diarmuid O’Duibhne, whom he has outlawed. In a trial of skill Diarmuid kills fifty of these French Finians. These are styled “green” Finians, with three of whom Diarmad deals somewhat remorselessly in the course of a day or two. Their names will be interesting to the Gaelic reader—Duch-chosach (black-footed), Fionn-chosach (fair-footed), Treun-chosach (strong-footed). Before he finally encounters these and the “three enchanted hounds” Diarmad thus accoutres himself:—“He girt about him his suit of battle and of conflict, under which, through which, or over which, it was not possible to wound him; and he took the Moralltach, that is the sword of Aonghas na Brogha, at his left side, which [sword] left no stroke nor blow unfinished at the first trial. He took likewise his two thick shafted javelins of battle—from which none recovered, either man or woman, that had ever been wounded by them. After that, Diarmuid roused Grainne and bade her keep watch and ward for Muadhan, [saying] that he himself would go to view the four quarters around him. When Grainne beheld Diarmuid with bravery and daring [clothed] in his suit of anger and of battle, fear and great dread seized her.” But an off-hand reply “soothed Grainne, and then Diarmuid went in that array to meet the green Finians.” These are part of the troubles and feats of Diarmad MacDoon, the alleged ancestor of the great MacCailein line. The romance will be found in the third volume of the Transactions of the Dublin Ossianic Society, well edited by Mr S. H. O’Grady. Our own Highland versions on the subject are tolerably well known.
During the dreamy period of the Middle Ages the great literary source of amusement among the Gaels of Scotland were the “Ursgeuls,” noble or romantic tales, which upwards of thirty years ago were collected and published (1859-62) by J. F. Campbell, Esq., of Islay. They were not produced in the heroic ages, the period of the great mass of our ballad literature. The ballads and the tales, no doubt, have been mixed together; but the latter are distinctly of a later growth. Some of the tales were manufactured as recently as the eighteenth century; but the most of them belong to the pre-Reformation period. Some of them are traceable to classical sources; others indicate relationship with Oriental stories. From Japan to the Hebrides, as shown by Mr Campbell in his introduction and notes to the four volumes of his “West Highland Tales,” are found the relics of the same original “Sgeulachd,” with the modifications which country, clime, and circumstance would naturally necessitate. In their fundamental lines or conceptions these tales are the common property of the whole Aryan race—of the Hindoo in the east, and of the German and Celt of the west. The study of talelogy, as well as philology, leads us to the common origin of all the members of the Indo-European family. Many of the Highland tales must have been matured under the spirit that the crusades into the east invoked in the west. We find reference in them to Turks, Greeks, Romans, Spaniards, Franks, &c., and to conditions of life which show their close relations to mediæval times. They became the popular literary sustenance of the people, supplying the want which is met by the popular works of fiction or novels of the present day. We find every phase of character exhibited in their outlines, extravagant as many of them often are. They are still waiting classification.
Mr Campbell was a very enthusiastic collector of these tales for years. He traversed more than once the whole of the Highlands to gather up these fragments of bygone Celtic life. His success far exceeded his sanguine anticipations. His volumes constitute the monument of his success, as well as of the industry, talent, and scientific spirit which he brought to bear upon the work. He had many hearty assistants in all parts of the Highlands, whom he inspired [with much of his] own enthusiasm. Mr Hector MacLean, of Ballygrant, Islay, an able Gaelic scholar, and a man of real culture and literary talent, helped him in transcribing the Gaelic, while he himself transferred the tales into literal idiomatic English. It has been fortunate for our limited Gaelic literature that Mr Campbell has left us so much of our popular prose in these goodly four volumes, and so much of genuine ballad poetry in his “Leabhar na Féinne.” I give a specimen of these tales in translation. Space will not admit of giving the sgeulachd complete; but enough is presented to illustrate the general style and character. The reader of these tales realises at once their kinship with the Danish tales of Andersen, the German stories of Grimm, and the Welsh Mabinogion translated by Lady Guest.