It is curious enough that the legend about deriving wisdom from sucking the scalded finger should be found in Wales, Ireland, and Scandinavia. But so it is, and Mr. Borrow is clearly entitled to the credit of having been the first to point out to the world this remarkable fact. In his work called the ‘Romany Rye,’ published some years ago, a story is related containing parts of the early history
of the Irish mythic hero Fion Mac Comhail, [33] or Fin Mac Coul, in which there is an account of his burning his thumb whilst smoothing the skin of a fairy salmon which is broiling over a fire, and deriving supernatural knowledge from thrusting his thumb into his mouth and sucking it; and Mr. Borrow tells the relater of that legend, his amusing acquaintance Murtagh, that the same tale is told in the Edda of Sigurd, the Serpent-Killer, with the difference that Sigurd burns his finger, not whilst superintending the broiling of a salmon, but whilst roasting the heart of Fafnir, the man-serpent, whom he had slain.
Here, in his note on Taliesin, he shows that the same thing in substance is said of the ancient Welsh bard. Of the three versions of the legend, the one of which Sigurd Fafnisbane is the hero is probably the most original, and is decidedly the most poetical.
Footnotes
[20] It is but right to state that the learned are divided with respect to the meaning of ‘Cumro,’ and that many believe it to denote an original inhabitant.
[21a] Yehen banog: humped or bunched oxen, probably buffaloes. Banog is derived from ban—a prominence, protuberance, or peak.
[21b] Above we have given what we believe to be a plain and fair history of Hu Gadarn; but it is necessary to state, that after his death he was deified, and was confounded with the Creator, the vivifying power and the sun, and mixed up with all kinds of myths and legends. Many of the professedly Christian Welsh bards when speaking of the Deity have called Him Hu, and ascribed to the Creator the actions of the creature. Their doing so, however, can cause us but little surprise when we reflect that the bards down to a very late period cherished a great many druidical and heathen notions, and frequently comported themselves in a manner more becoming heathens than Christian men. Of the confounding of what is heavenly with what is earthly we have a remarkable instance in the ode of Iolo Goch to the ploughman, four lines of which, slightly modified, we have given above. In that ode the ploughman is confounded with the Eternal, and the plough with the rainbow:—
‘The Mighty Hu who reigns for ever,
Of mead and song to men the giver,
The emperor of land and sea
And of all things which living be,
Did hold a plough with his good hand,
Soon as the deluge left the land,
To show to men, both strong and weak,
The haughty hearted and the meek,
There is no trade the heaven below
So noble as to guide the plough.’
To the Deity under the name of Hu there are some lines by one Rhys, a Welsh bard of the time of Queen Elizabeth, though they are perhaps more applicable to the Universal Pan or Nature than to the God of the Christians:—
‘If with small things we Hu compare,
No smaller thing than Hu is there,
Yet greatest of the great is He,
Our Lord, our God of Mystery;
How swift he moves! a lucid ray,
A sunbeam wafts him on his way;
He’s great on land, and great on ocean,
Of one more great I have no notion;
I dread lest I should underrate
This being, infinitely great.’