A Century of Science, and Other Essays

by John Fiske

Thus Mr. Curtin was led to explore the counties of Kerry, Galway, and Donegal. "Comforting myself with the Russian proverb that 'game runs to meet the hunter,' I set out on my pilgrimage, giving more prominence to the study and investigation of Gaelic, which, though one of the two objects of my visit, was not the first. In this way I thought to come more surely upon men who had myth tales in their minds than if I went directly seeking for them. I was not disappointed, for in all my journeyings I did not meet a single person who knew a myth tale or an old story who was not fond of Gaelic, and specially expert in the use of it, while I found very few story-tellers from whom a myth tale could be obtained unless in the Gaelic language; and in no case have I found a story in the possession of a man or woman who knew only English."

There is something so interesting in this fact, and so pathetic in the explanation of it, that we are tempted to quote further: "Since all mental training in Ireland is directed by powers both foreign and hostile to everything Gaelic, the moment a man leaves the sphere of that class which uses Gaelic as an every-day language, and which clings to the ancient ideas of the people, everything which he left behind seems to him valueless, senseless, and vulgar; consequently he takes no care to retain it, either in whole or in part. Hence the clean sweep of myth tales in one part of the country,—the greater part, occupied by a majority of the people; while they are still preserved in other and remoter districts, inhabited by men who, for the scholar and the student of mankind, are by far the most interesting in Ireland."

The fate of the Gaelic language has, indeed, been peculiarly sad. In various parts of Europe, and especially among the western Slavs, the native tongues have been to some extent displaced by the speech of conquering peoples; yet it is only in Erin that, within modern times, a "language of Aryan stock has been driven first from public use, and then dropped from the worship of God and the life of the fireside." Hence, while in many parts of Europe the ancient tales live on, often with their incidents more or less dislocated and their significance quite blurred, on the other hand, in English-speaking Ireland they have been cleared away "as a forest is felled by the axe."

Nevertheless, in the regions where Irish myths have been preserved, they have been remarkably well preserved, and bear unmistakable marks of their vast antiquity. One very noticeable feature in these myths is the definiteness and precision of detail with which the personages and their fields of action are brought before us. This is a characteristic of mythologies which are, comparatively speaking, intact; and, as Mr. Curtin observes, it is to be seen in the myths of the American Indians. As long as a mythology remains intact it "puts its imprint on the whole region to which it belongs." Every rock, every spring, is the scene of some definite incident; every hill has its mythical people, who are as real to the narrators as the flesh-and-blood population which one finds there. In this whole world of belief and sentiment there is the vigour of fresh life, and the country is literally enchanted ground. But when, through the invasion of alien peoples, there is a mingling and conflict of sacred stories, and new groups of ideas and associations have partly displaced the old ones, so that only the argument or general statement of the ancient myth is retained, and perhaps even that but partially, then "all precision and details with reference to persons and places vanish; they become indefinite; are in some kingdom, some place,—nowhere in particular." There is this vagueness in the folk-tales of eastern and central Europe as contrasted with those of Ireland. "Where there was or where there was not," says the Magyar, "there was in the world;" or, if the Russian hero goes anywhere, it is simply across forty-nine kingdoms, etc.; "but in the Irish tales he is always a person of known condition in a specified place" (for example, "There was a blacksmith in Dunkenealy, beyond Killybegs," etc., page 244).

As to the antiquity and the primitive character of Mr. Curtin's stories an experienced observer can entertain no doubt. His book is certainly the most considerable achievement in the field of Gaelic mythology since the publication, thirty years ago, of Campbell's "Tales of the West Highlands;" and it does for the folk-lore of Ireland what Asbjörnsen and Moe's collection (the English translation of which is commonly, and with some injustice, known by the name of the translator as Dasent's "Norse Tales") did for the folk-lore of Norway. This is, of course, very high praise, but we do not believe it will be called extravagant by any competent scholar who reads Mr. Curtin's book. The stories have evidently been reduced to writing with most scrupulous and loving fidelity. In turning the Gaelic into English some of the characteristic Hibernian phrases and constructions of our language have been employed, and this has been done with such perfect good taste that the effect upon the ear is like that of a refined and delicate brogue.

The mythical material in the stories is largely that with which the student of Aryan folk-lore is familiar. We have variants of Cinderella, the swan maidens, the giant who had no heart in his body, the cloak of darkness, the sword of light, the magic steed which overtakes the wind before and outstrips the wind behind; the pot of plenty, from which one may eat forever, and the cup that is never drained; the hero who performs impossible tasks, and wooes maidens whose beauty hardly relieves their treacherous cruelty: "I must tell you now that three hundred king's sons, lacking one, have come to ask for my daughter, and in the garden behind my castle are three hundred iron spikes, and every spike of them but one is covered with the head of a king's son who couldn't do what my daughter wanted of him, and I'm greatly in dread that your own head will be put on the one spike that is left uncovered." The princess in this story—Shaking-Head—is such a wretch, not a bit better than Queen Labe in the "Arabian Nights," that one marvels at the hero for marrying her at last, instead of slicing off her head with his two-handed sword of darkness, and placing it on the three-hundredth spike. But moral as well as physical probabilities are often overstrained in this deliciously riotous realm of folk-lore.

Along with much material that is common to the Aryan world there is some that is peculiar to Ireland, while the Irish atmosphere is over everything. The stories of Fin MacCumhail (pronounced MacCool) and the Fenians of Erin are full of grotesque incident and inimitable drollery. Fin and his redoubtable dog Bran, the one-eyed Gruagach, the hero Diarmuid, the old hag with the life-giving ointment, the weird hand of Mal MacMulcan, and the cowherd that was son of the king of Alban make a charming series of pictures. Among Fin's followers there is a certain Conán Maol, "who never had a good word in his mouth for any man," and for whom no man had a good word. This counterpart of Thersites, as Mr. Curtin tells us, figures as conspicuously in North American as in Aryan myths. Conán was always at Fin's side, and advising him to mischief. Once it had like to have gone hard with Conán. The Fenians had been inveigled into an enchanted castle, and could not rise from their chairs till two of Fin's sons had gone and beheaded three kings in the north of Erin, and put their blood into three goblets, and come back and rubbed the blood on the chairs. Conán had no chair, but was sitting on the floor, with his back to the wall, and just before they came to him the last drop of blood gave out. The Fenians were hurrying past without minding the mischief-maker, when, upon his earnest appeal, Diarmuid "took him by one hand, and Goll MacMornee by the other, and, pulling with all their might, tore him from the wall and the floor. But if they did, he left all the skin of his back, from his head to his heels, on the floor and the wall behind him. But when they were going home through the hills of Tralee, they found a sheep on the way, killed it, and clapped the skin on Conán. The sheepskin grew to his body; and he was so well and strong that they sheared him every year, and got wool enough from his back to make flannel and frieze for the Fenians of Erin ever after." This is a favourite incident, and recurs in the story of the laughing Gruagach. In most of the Fenian stories the fighting is brisk and incessant. It is quite a Donnybrook fair. Everybody kills everybody else, and then some toothless old woman comes along and rubs a magic salve on them, when, all in a minute, up they pop, and go at it again.

One of the quaintest conceits, and a pretty one withal, is that of Tir na n-Og, the Land of Youth, the life-giving region just beneath the ground, whence mysteriously spring the sturdy trees, the soft green grass, and the bright flowers. The journey thither is not long; sometimes the hero just pulls up a root and dives down through the hole into the blessed Tir na n-Og,—as primitive a bit of folk-lore as one could wish to find! A lovely country, of course, was that land of sprouting life, and some queer customs did they have there. The mode of "running for office" was especially worthy of mention. Once in seven years all the champions and best men "met at the front of the palace, and ran to the top of a hill two miles distant. On the top of that hill was a chair, and the man that sat first in the chair was king of Tir na n-Og for the next seven years." This method enabled them to dispense with nominating conventions and campaign lies, but not with intrigue and sorcery, as we find in the droll story of Oisin (or Ossian), which concludes the Fenian series.

The story of the Fisherman's Son and the Gruagach of Tricks is substantially the same with the famous story of Farmer Weathersky, in the Norse collection translated by Sir George Dasent. Gruagach (accented on the first syllable) means "the hairy one," and, as Mr. Curtin cautiously observes, "we are more likely to be justified in finding a solar agent concealed in the person of the laughing Gruagach or the Gruagach of Tricks than in many of the sun myths put forth by some modern writers." He reminds one of Hermes and of Proteus, and in the wonderful changes at the end of the story we have, as in Farmer Weathersky, a variant of the catastrophe in the story of the Second Royal Mendicant in the "Arabian Nights;" but the Irishman gives us a touch of humour that is quite his own. The Gruagach and his eleven artful sons are chasing the fisherman's son through water and air, and various forms of fish and bird are assumed, until at length the fisherman's son, in the shape of a swallow, hovers over the summerhouse where the daughter of the king of Erin is sitting. Weary with the chase, the swallow becomes a ring, and falls into the girl's lap; it takes her fancy, and she puts it on her finger. Then the twelve pursuers change from hawks into handsome men, and entertain the king in his castle with music and games, until he asks them what in the world he can give them. All they want, says the old Gruagach, is the ring which he once lost, and which is now on the princess's finger. Of course, says the king, if his daughter has got the ring, she must give it to its owner. But the ring, overhearing all this, speaks to the princess, and tells her what to do. She gets a gallon of wheat grains and three gallons of the strongest potheen that was ever brewed in Ireland, and she mixes them together in an open barrel before the fire. Then her father calls her and asks for the ring; and when she finds that her protests are of no avail, and she must give up, she throws it into the fire. "That moment the eleven brothers made eleven pairs of tongs of themselves; their father, the old Gruagach, was the twelfth pair. The twelve jumped into the fire to know in what spark of it would they find the old fisherman's son; and they were a long time working and searching through the fire, when out flew a spark, and into the barrel. The twelve made themselves men, turned over the barrel, and spilled the wheat on the floor. Then in a twinkling they were twelve cocks strutting around. They fell to, and picked away at the wheat, to know which one would find the fisherman's son. Soon one dropped on one side, and a second on the opposite side, until all twelve were lying drunk from the wheat."

One seems to see the gleam in the corner of the eye and the pucker in the Gaelic visage of the old narrator. To be sure, it was the wheat. It couldn't have been the mountain dew; it never is. Well, when things had come to this pass, the spark that was the fisherman's son just turned into a fox, and with one smart bite he took the head off the old Gruagach, and the eleven other boozy cocks he finished with eleven other bites. Then he made himself the handsomest man in Erin, and married the princess and succeeded to the crown.