The Fenian stories became in later times the distinctly popular ones. They were far more of the people and for the people than those of the Red Branch. They were most intimately bound up with the life and thought and feelings of the whole Gaelic race, high and low, both in Ireland and Scotland, and the development of Fenian saga, for a period of 1,200 or 1,500 years, is one of the most remarkable examples in the world of continuous literary evolution. I use the word evolution advisedly, for there was probably not a century from the seventh to the eighteenth in which new stories, poems, and redactions of sagas concerning Finn and the Fenians were not invented and put in circulation, while to this very day many stories never committed to manuscript are current about them amongst the Irish and Scotch Gaelic-speaking populations. We have found no such steady interest evinced by the people in the Red Branch romances, and in attempting to collect Irish folk-lore I have found next to nothing about Cuchulain and his contemporaries, but great quantities about Finn, Ossian, Oscar, Goll, and Conan. The one cycle, then, antique in tone, language, and surroundings, was, I suspect, that of the chiefs, the great men, and the bards; the other—at least in later times—more that of the un-bardic classes and of the people.
I do not mean to say that many of the Cuchulain stories were not copied into modern MSS. and circulated freely among the people all over Ireland during the eighteenth century and the beginning of this, especially Cuchulain's training, Conlaoch's (his son's) death, the Fight at the Ford, and others, but these appear never to have put out shoots and blossoms from themselves and to have generated new and yet again new stories as did the ever-youthful Fenian tales; nor do they appear to have equally entwined themselves at this day round the popular imagination.
A striking instance of how the Ossianic tale continued to develop down to the eighteenth century was supplied me the other day when examining the Reeves Collection.[11] I there came upon a story in a Louth MS., written, I think, in the last century, which seemed to me to contain one of the latest developments of Ossianic saga. It is called "The Adventures of Dubh mac Deaghla," and tells us of how a prophet was born of the race of Eiremóin, "and all say," adds the writer, "that it was he was the druid who prophesied to Fiacha Sreabhtainne that he should fall in the battle of Dubh-Cumair by the three brothers, Cairioll, Muircath, and Aodh." He also "prophesied to the race of Tuathal that Cairbré of the Liffey was that far-branching tree which was to spread round about through the great circuit of Erin, around which smote the powerful wind from the south-west, overthrowing it wholly to the ground—which wind meant the Fenians, as had been announced by the smith's daughter."[12] The Fenians it seems heard that this Torna had prophesied about them and intended to kill him, and he and his family had to emigrate to Britain. From there he sends a letter in true epistolary style to an old friend of his, one Conor son of Dathach, beginning "Dear Friend"—an evident mark of seventeenth or possibly eighteenth century authorship, for there are no letters written in this style in the older literature, and this piece evidently follows a Latin or a Spanish, or possibly an English model. However this may be, Torna's letter asks Conor for news of the situation, and in time receives the following answer:
"To Torna son of Dubh, our dear friend in Glen Fuinnse in Britain in Saxony.
"Thy affectionate missive was read by me as soon as it arrived, and it had been a cause of joy to me, were it not for the way we are in at Tara at this moment.
"For we never felt until the Munster Fenians came and encamped at the marsh of Old Raphoe and Treibhe to the south-west; the warriors of Leinster also and Baoisgnidh, together with Clan Ditribh and Clan Boirchne, were to the south of them, towards the bottom of the stream of Gabhra and on the west towards the old fort of Mève; and that same evening the King having received an account of the encamping of the Fenians urges messengers secretly to Connacht to the Clan of Conal Cruachna that they might come, along with all the king's friends from the western border of Erin; and other messengers he despatches to Scotland for the Clan of Garaidh Glúnmhar, desiring Oscar of the blue Javelin, Aodh, Argal, and Airtre to come from abroad without delay, and that secretly.
"On the early morning of the morrow, before the stars of the air retired, the King urged the druids of Tara against the Fenians to argue with them, and ask what was the cause of their rebelling in this guise, or who it was with whom they had now come to do battle, because they appeared not in habiliments of peace or friendship, but a flush of anger appeared in the face and countenance of every several man of them.
"'And there is another unlawful thing of which ye are guilty,' said the druids, 'which shows that ye have broken the vow of allegiance and obedience to your king, in that ye have come in array and garb of battle to the door of his fortress without receiving his leave or advice, without giving him notice or warning. To what point of the compass do ye travel, or on what have ye set your mind [that ye act not] as is the right and due of a prince's subjects, and as was always before this the habitude of the bands that came before ye; and as shall last with honest people till the end of the world.'
"However, now the druids are a-preaching to them and casting at them bold storm-showers of reproofs by way of retarding them till the coming back of the messengers who went abroad, for Mac Cool is not amongst them to excite them against us, and we hope that they will remain thus until help come to us. For this is the eleventh day since the druids went from us, and our watchmen who observe what approaches and what goes, disclose all tidings to us, and they are ever a-listening to the loud argument of the druids and the captains against one another. Moreover, the desire of the Fenians to make a rapid assault upon Tara is the less from their having heard that Cairbré was gone on his royal round to Dun Sreabhtainne to visit Fiacha,[13] though he is really not gone there, but to a certain place under cover of night with his women and the royal jewels of Tara. And it was lucky for him that he did not go to Dun Sreabhtainne, for the Fenians had sent Cairioll and nine mighty men with him to plunder Dun Sreabhtainne. In that, however, they miscarried, for his tutor was gone off before that with Fiacha, by order of the King, to the same place where the women were. That, however, we shall pursue no further at present.
"But it is easy for you who are knowledgeable to form a judgment upon the state in which the inhabitants of a country must be, over which such a whelming calamity is about to fall. Let me leave off. And here we send our affectionate greeting to you, and to you all, with the hope of some time seeing you in full health, but I have small hope of it.
"From your faithful friend till death, Conor, son of Dathach in Tara, the royal fortress of Erin. Written the 20th day of the month of March in the year of the age of the world ... " [The figures in the MS. are not legible].
The romance, which is a long one, is chiefly occupied with events relating to the family of Dubh mac Deaghla in Britain. But later on in the book the Conor who despatched this letter turns up and gives in person a most vivid description of the Battle of Gowra, and the events which followed his letter.
I have only instanced and quoted from this comparatively unimportant story, as showing one of the very latest developments of Fenian literature, and as proving how thoroughly even the seventeenth and eighteenth century Gaels were imbued with, and realised the spirit of, the Fenian Cycle, and also as a peculiar specimen of what rarely happens in literature, but is always of great interest when it does happen—a specimen of unconscious saga developing into semi-conscious romance.
There are comparatively few ancient texts belonging to the Finn saga, compared with the wealth of old vellum books that contain the Red Branch stories. There is, however, quite enough of documentary proof to show that so early as the seventh century Finn was looked on as a popular hero.
The actual data that we have to go upon in estimating the genesis and development of the Fenian tales have been lucidly collected by Mr. Nutt. They are, as far as is known at present, as follows. Gilla Caemhain, the poet who died in 1072, says that it was fifty-seven years after the battle of Moy Muchruime that Finn was treacherously killed "by the spear points of Urgriu's three sons."[14] This would make Finn's death take place in 252, for Moy Muchruime was fought according to the "Four Masters" in A.D. 195. Tighearnach the Annalist, who died in 1088, writes that Finn was killed in A.D. 283, "by Aichleach, son of Duibhdrean, and the sons of Urgriu of the Luaighni of Tara, at Ath-Brea upon the Boyne." The poet Cinaeth O Hartagain, who died in A.D. 985, wrote: "By the Fiann of Luagne was the death of Finn at Ath-Brea upon the Boyne." All these men in the tenth and eleventh centuries certainly believed in Finn as implicitly as they did in King Cormac.
The two oldest miscellaneous Irish MSS. which we have, are the Leabhar na h-Uidhre and the Book of Leinster. The Leabhar na h-Uidhre was compiled from older MSS. towards the close of the eleventh century, and the Book of Leinster some fifty years later. The oldest of them contains a copy of the famous poem ascribed to Dallán Forgaill in praise of St. Columcille, which was so obscure in the middle of the eleventh century that it required to be glossed. In this gloss, made perhaps in the eleventh century, perhaps long before, there is an explanatory poem on winter, ascribed to Finn, grandson of Baoisgne, that is our Finn mac Cool, and in the same commentary we find an explanation of the words "diu" = long, and "derc" = eye, in proof of which this verse is quoted, "As Gráinne," says the commentator, "daughter of Cormac, said to Finn."
"There lives a man
On whom I would love to gaze long,
For whom I would give the whole world,
O Son of Mary! though a privation!"