When Tuathal or Toole, called Techtmhar, or the Possessor, was High-king of Ireland, at the close of the first century, he had two handsome daughters, and the King of Leinster asked one of them in marriage and took and brought home to his palace the elder as his wife. This was as it should be, for at that time it was not customary for the younger to be married "before the face of the elder." The Leinster men, however, said to their king that he had left behind the better girl of the two. Nettled at this the King went again to Tara and told Tuathal that his daughter was dead and asked for the other. The High-king then gave him his second daughter, with the courteous assurance "had I one and fifty daughters they were thine." When he brought back the second daughter to his palace in Leinster she, like another Philomela, discovered her sister alive and before her. Both died, one of shame the other of grief. When news of this reached Tara steps were taken to punish the King of Leinster. Connacht and Ulster led a great hosting with 12,000 men into Leinster to plunder it. The High-king too marched from Tara through Maynooth to Naas and encamped there. The Leinstermen were at first successful; they beat the Ultonians and killed their prince; but at last all the invading forces having combined defeated them and slew the bigamist king. They then levied the blood-tax, which was as follows:—Fifteen thousand cows, fifteen thousand swine, fifteen thousand wethers, the same number of mantles, silver chains, and copper cauldrons, together with one great copper reservoir to be set up in Tara's house itself, in which would fit twelve pigs and twelve kine. In addition to this they had to pay thirty red-eared cows with calves of the same colour, with halters and spancels of bronze and bosses of gold.
The consequences of this unfortunate tribute were to the last degree disastrous for Ireland. The High-kings of Ireland continued for ages to levy it off Leinster, and the Leinstermen continued to resist. The Fenians took part in the conflict, for they followed Finn mac Cúmhail in behalf of the men of Leinster against their own master the High-king. The tribute continued to be levied, off and on, during the reigns of forty kings, whenever Leinster seemed too weak to resist, or whenever the High-king deemed himself strong enough to raise it: until King Finnachta at last remitted it at the close of the seventh century, at the request of St. Molling.[10]
"It is beyond the testimony of angels,
It is beyond the word of recording saints,
All the kings of the Gaels
That make attack upon Leinster."[11]
Of course the unfortunate province, thus plundered during generations, lost in some measure its nationality, and no doubt it was partly owing to this that it seemed more ready than any other district to ally itself with the Danes. The great Brian is said to have gained his title of Borumha or Boru through his having reimposed the tribute on Leinster, but though he conquered that province and plundered it, I am aware of no good authority for his actually re-imposing the Boru tribute.
Some of the early saints' lives, too, may be considered as belonging almost as much to historico-romantic as to hagiological literature. From one of these, at least, we must give an extract, so that this voluminous side of Irish literature may not remain unrepresented. Here is a fragment of the life of St. Ceallach [Kal-lach] which is preserved in that ample repository of ecclesiastical lore the Leabhar Breac, a great vellum manuscript written shortly after the year 1400. The story[12] deals with the dispute between Guairé [Goo-ǎr-yǎ], a well-known king of Connacht, and St. Ceallach, the latter of whom had during his student life left St. Ciaran and his studies, and thus drawn down upon himself the prediction of that great saint that he would die by point of weapon.
Guairé having banished Ceallach, against whom his mind had been poisoned by lying tongues, the fugitive took refuge in an island in Loch Con, where he remained for a long time. Guairé, still excited against him through the lies of go-betweens, invited him to a feast with intent to kill him. He refuses however to go. The King's messengers then requested him to at least allow his four condisciples, the only ones who had remained with him in his solitude, to go with them to the feast, saying that they would bear the king's messages to him when they returned. "I will neither prevent them from going nor yet constrain them to go," answered Ceallach, the result of which was that the four condisciples returned along with the envoys, and the king was greatly pleased to see them come, and meat and drink, with good welcome, were provided for them. After this the saga proceeds.
DEATH OF CEALLACH.
"Then a banqueting-house apart was set in order for them, and thither for their use the fort's best liquor was conveyed. On Guairé's either side were set two of them, and—with an eye to win them that they might leave Ceallach—great gifts were promised to them; all the country of Tirawley, four unmarried women such as themselves should choose out of the province, and, with these, horses and kine, sufficient marriage dowry for their wives (such gifts by covenant to be secured to them), and an adequate equipment of arms to be furnished to each one.
"That night they abode there, but, at the morning's meal, with one accord they consented to kill Ceallach.
"Thence they departed to Loch Con, and where they had left the boat they found it, and pulling off they reached Ceallach. They found him with his psalter spread out before him, as he said the psalms, nor did he speak to them. When he had made an end of his psalmody he looked at them, and marked their eyes unsteady in their heads, and clouded with the hue of parricide.
"'Young men,' said Ceallach, 'ye have an evil aspect, since ye went from me your natures ye have changed, and I perceive in you that for King Guairé's sake ye have agreed to murder me.'
"Never a tittle they denied, and he went on, 'An ill design it is, but follow now no longer your own detriment, and from me shall be had gifts, which far beyond all Guairé's promises shall profit you.'
"They rejoined, 'By no means shall we do as thou wouldst have us, Ceallach, seeing that if we acted so, not in all Ireland might we harbour anywhere.' And, even as they spoke, at Ceallach they drave with their spears in unison; yet he made shift to thrust his psalter in between him and his frock. They stowed him then in the boat amidships, two of themselves in the bow, and so gained a landing-place. Thence they carried him into the great forest and into the dark recesses of the wood.
"Ceallach said: 'This that ye would do I count a wicked work indeed, for in Clonmacnois [if ye spared me] ye might find shelter for ever, or should it please you to resort rather to Bláthmac and to Dermot, sons of Aedh Sláine, who is now King of Ireland [ye would be secure].'"
[Then Ceallach utters a poem of twenty-four lines.]
"'To advise us further in the matter is but idle,' they retorted, 'we will not do it for thee.'
"'Well then,' he pleaded, 'this one night's respite grant to me for God's sake.'
"'Loath though we be to concede it, we will yield thee that,' they said. Then they raised their swords which in their clothes they carried hidden, and at the sight of them a mighty fear took Ceallach. They ransacked the wood until they found a hollow oak having one narrow entrance, and to this Ceallach was committed, they sitting at the hole to watch him till the morning. They were so to the hour of night's waning end, when drowsy longing came to them, and deep sleep fell on them then.
"Ceallach, in trouble for his violent death, slept not at all, at which time it was in his power to have fled had it so pleased him, but in his heart he said that it were misbelief in him to moot evasion of the living God's designs. Moreover, he reflected that even were he so to flee they must overtake him, he being but emaciated and feeble, after the Lent. Morning shone on them now, and he (for fear to see it and in terror of his death) shut to the door, yet he said: 'to shirk God's judgment is in me a lack of faith, Ciaran, my tutor, having promised me that I must meet this end,' and as he spoke he flung open the tree's door. The Raven called then, and the Scallcrow, the Wren, and all the other birds. The Kite of Cluain-Eó's yew tree came, and the red Wolf of Drum-mic-dar, the deceiver whose lair was by the island's landing-place.
"'My dream of Wednesday's night last past was true,' said Ceallach, 'that four wild dogs rent me and dragged me through the bracken, and that down a precipice I then fell, nor evermore came up,' and he uttered this lay:—
"'HAIL to the Morning, that as a flame falls on the ground; hail to Him, too, that sends her, the Morning many-virtued, ever-new![13]
"'O Morning fair, so full of pride, O sister of the brilliant Sun, hail to the beauteous morning that lightest for me my little book!
"'Thou seest the guest in every dwelling, and shinest on every tribe and kin; hail O thou white-necked beautiful one, here with us now, golden-fair, wonderful!
"'My little book with chequered page tells me that my life has not been right. Maelcróin, 't is he whom I do well to fear; he it is who comes to smite me at the last.
"'O Scallcrow, and O Scallcrow, small grey-coated, sharp-beaked fowl, the intent of thy desire is apparent to me, no friend art thou to Ceallach.
"'O Raven that makest croaking, if hungry thou art now, O bird, depart not from this same homestead until thou eatest a surfeit of my flesh!
"'Fiercely the Kite of Cluain-Eó's yew tree will take part in the scramble, the full of his grey talons he will carry off, he will not part from me in kindness.
"'To the blow [that fells me] the fox that is in the darkling wood will make response at speed, he too in cold and trackless confines shall devour a portion of my flesh and blood.
"'The wolf that is in the rath upon the eastern side of Drum-mic-dar, he on a passing visit comes to me, that he may rank as chieftain of the meaner pack.
"'Upon Wednesday's night last past I beheld a dream, I saw the wild dogs dragging me together eastward and westward through the russet ferns.
"'I beheld a dream, that into a green glen they took me, four there were that bore me thither, but methought, ne'er brought me out again.
"'I beheld a dream, that to their house my condisciples brought me, for me they poured out a drink, and to me did they a drink quaff.
"'O tiny Wren most scant of tail, dolefully hast thou piped prophetic lay, surely thou art come to betray me and to curtail my gift of life![14]
"'O Maelcróin and O Maelcróin, thou hast resolved upon an unrighteous deed, for ten hundred golden ingots Owen's son[15] had ne'er consented into thy death!
"'O Maelcróin and O Maelcróin, pelf it is that thou hast taken to betray me; for this world's sake thou hast accepted it, accepted it for the sake of hell!
"'All precious things that ever I had, all sleek-coated grey horses, on Maelcróin I would have bestowed them, that he should not do me this treason.
"'But Mary's great Son up above me, thus addresses speech to me, "Thou must leave earth, thou shalt have heaven; welcome awaits thee, Ceallach."'"
The saint is then, as soon as the morning had fully risen, taken out of the tree by the four traitors, and put to death. The kite and the wolf and the scallcrow tear his flesh. The remainder of what is really a fine saga describes the hunt for the murderers and their final death at the hands of Ceallach's brother, who wrested for himself all the territory that Guairé had given them, marries Guairé's daughter, and is, like Ceallach his brother, finally himself put to death by Guairé's treachery.
It would be quite impossible within the limits of a volume like this to give any adequate study of the evolution of Irish saga. All Irish romances are compositions upon which more or less care had evidently been bestowed, in ancient times, as is evidenced by their being all shot through and through with verse. These verses amount to a considerable portion of the saga, often to nearly a quarter or even a third of the whole, and Irish versification is usually very elaborate, and not the work of any mere inventor or story-teller, but of a highly-trained technical poet. Very few pieces indeed, and these mostly of the more modern Fenian tales, are written in pure prose. It may be that the reciter of the ancient sagas actually sang these verses, or certainly gave them in a different tone from the prose narrative with which he filled up the gap between them. Whether the same man was both the composer of the verse and the framer of the prose narrative, in each particular story, is a difficult question to answer, but I should think that in most cases, at least in the older saga, incidents had been taken up by the bards and poets as themes for their verses, for perhaps ages before they were brought together by somebody and woven into one complete épopée with a prose intermixture. Dr. Sullivan thought that the Táin Bo Chuailgne was all originally written in verse, and has his own interpretation for the account given in the curious tale, the "Proceedings of the Great Bardic Institution," which tells us that the story was at one time lost, and that the Bardic Association was commanded to search for and recover it. This, according to him, meant that the verses had been lost, and that only a fragmentary form of it had been saved, the gaps being filled with prose. I do not quite know how far this is a probable suggestion, because it would appear to be reversing the processes which produce epic poetry in other literatures. The complete versified epic, the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Mahābhārata, are indeed "the hatch and brood of time," embodying not the first but the last results of a long series of national poetry. But to this last result, so close to them, so easily attainable, the Irish never arrived, and hence the various ballads that compose the books of their Red Branch Iliad, or Fenian Odyssey, remains separate to this day, and find their unity, if at all, only by means of a bridge of prose thrown across from poem to poem, by men who were not poets. Had the internal development of the Irish not been so rudely arrested by the Northmen towards the close of the eighth and the beginning of the ninth century, there is every reason to believe that both the Red Branch and the Fenian Cycle would have undergone a further development and appeared in poems of continuous verse.
The poems with which these sagas are intermixed are mostly of two kinds, one kind, speeches in the form of lays, placed in the mouths of the actors, prefaced by such words as "and he sang," "so that he spake the lay," or the like, and the other kind, which occurs less often, is as it were a résumé in verse of what had been just told in prose. In almost every case I should imagine that the narrative poems are the oldest, and of them the prose is not unfrequently, as it were, an explanation and an extension.