A Literary History of Ireland, from Earliest Times to the Present Day

by Douglas Hyde

That the Bardic schools, which we know flourished as public institutions with scarcely a break from the Synod of Drumceat in 590 (where regular lands were set apart for their endowment) down to the seventeenth century, were really a continuation of the Druidic schools, and embodied much that was purely pagan in their curricula, is, I think, amply shown by the curious fragments of metrical text-books preserved in the Books of Leinster and Ballymote, in a MS. in Trinity College, and in a MS. in the Bodleian, all four of which have been recently admirably edited by Thurneysen as a continuous text.[5] He has not however ventured upon a translation, for the scholar would be indeed a bold one who in the present state of Celtic scholarship would attempt a complete interpretation of tracts so antique and difficult. That they date, partially at least, from pre-Christian times seems to me certain from their prescribing amongst other things for the poet's course in one of his years of study a knowledge of the magical incantations called Tenmlaida, Imbas forosnai,[6] and Dichetal do chennaib na tuaithe, and making him in another year learn a certain poem or incantation called Cétnad, of which the text says that—

"It is used for finding out a theft. One sings it, that is to say, through the right fist on the track of the stolen beast" [observe the antique assumption that the only kind of wealth to be stolen is cattle] "or on the track of the thief, in case the beast is dead. And one sings it three times on the one [track] or the other. If, however, one does not find the track, one sings it through the right fist, and goes to sleep upon it, and in one's sleep the man who has brought it away is clearly shown and made known. Another virtue [of this lay]: one speaks it into the right palm and rubs with it the quarters of the horse before one mounts it, and the horse will not be overthrown, and the man will not be thrown off or wounded."

Another Cétnad to be learned by the poet, in which he desires length of life, is addressed to "the seven daughters of the sea, who shape the thread of the long-lived children."

Another with which he had to make himself familiar was the Glam dichinn,[7] intended to satirise and punish the prince who refused to a poet the reward of his poem. The poet—

"was to fast upon the lands of the king for whom the poem was to be made, and the consent of thirty laymen, thirty bishops"—a Christian touch to make the passage pass muster—"and thirty poets should be had to compose the satire; and it was a crime to them to prevent it when the reward of the poem was withheld"—a pagan touch as a make-weight on the other side! "The poet then, in a company of seven, that is, six others and himself, upon whom six poetic degrees had been conferred, namely a focloc, macfuirmedh, doss, cana, clí, anradh, and ollamh, went at the rising of the sun to a hill which should be situated on the boundary of seven lands, and each of them was to turn his face to a different land, and the ollamh's (ollav's) face was to be turned to the land of the king, who was to be satirised, and their backs should be turned to a hawthorn which should be growing upon the top of a hill, and the wind should be blowing from the north, and each man was to hold a perforated stone and a thorn of the hawthorn in his hand, and each man was to sing a verse of this composition for the king—the ollamh or chief poet to take the lead with his own verse, and the others in concert after him with theirs; and each then should place his stone and his thorn under the stem of the hawthorn, and if it was they that were in the wrong in the case, the ground of the hill would swallow them, and if it was the king that was in the wrong, the ground would swallow him and his wife, and his son and his steed, and his robes and his hound. The satire of the macfuirmedh fell on the hound, the satire of the focloc on the robes, the satire of the doss on the arms, the satire of the cana on the wife, the satire of the clí on the son, the satire of the anrad on the steed,[8] the satire of the ollamh on the king."

These instances that I have mentioned occurring in the books of the poets' instruction, are evidently remains of magic incantations and terrifying magic ceremonies, taken over from the schools and times of the druids, and carried on into the Christian era, for nobody, I imagine, could contend that they had their origin after Ireland had been Christianised.[9] And the occurrence in the poets' text-books of such evidently pagan passages, side by side with allusions to Athairné the poet—a contemporary of Conor mac Nessa, a little before the birth of Christ, Caoilte, the Fenian poet of the third century, Cormac his contemporary, Laidcend mac Bairchida about the year 400, and others—seems to me to be fresh proof for the real objective existence of these characters. For if part of the poets' text-books can be thus shown to have preserved things taught in the pre-Christian times—to be in fact actually pre-Christian—why should we doubt the reality of the pre-Christian persons mixed up with them?

The first poem written in Ireland by a Milesian is said to be the curious rhapsody of Amergin the brother of Eber, Ir, and Erimon, who on landing broke out in a strain of exultation:—

"I am the wind which breathes upon the sea,
I am the wave of the ocean,
I am the murmur of the billows,
I am the ox of the seven combats,
I am the vulture upon the rock,
I am a beam of the sun,
I am the fairest of plants,
I am a wild boar in valour,
I am a salmon in the water,
I am a lake in the plain,
I am a word of science,
I am the point of the lance of battle,
I am the god who creates in the head [i.e., of man] the fire [i.e., the thought]
Who is it who throws light into the meeting on the mountain?
Who announces the ages of the moon [if not I]?
Who teaches the place where couches the sea [if not I]?"[10]

There are two more poems attributed to Amergin of much the same nature, very ancient and very strange. Irish tradition has always represented these poems as the first made by our ancestors in Ireland, and no doubt they do actually represent the oldest surviving lines in the vernacular of any country in Europe except Greece alone.

The other pre-Christian poets[11] of whom we hear most, and to whom certain surviving fragments are ascribed, are Feirceirtné, surnamed filé, or the poet, who is usually credited with the authorship of the well-known grammatical treatise called Uraicept na n-Éigeas or "Primer of the Learned."[12] It was he who contended with Neidé for the arch-poet's robe, causing King Conor to decide that no poet should in future be also of necessity a judge. The Uraicept begins with this preface or introduction: "The Book of Feirceirtné here. Its place Emania; its time the time of Conor mac Nessa; its person Feirceirtné the poet; its cause to bring ignorant people to knowledge." There is also a poem attributed to him on the death of Curoi mac Daire, the great southern chieftain, whom Cuchulain slew, and the Book of Invasions contains a valuable poem ascribed to him, recounting how Ollamh Fódla, a monarch who is said to have flourished many centuries before, established a college of professors at Tara.