Till round those sheltering hills we passed, and anchored in this bay.
When the hero or heroes of the tale had to undertake a sea voyage this rhyme was invariably introduced by the reciter as a fit description of how it was accomplished. Ghearradh i cuinnlein caol coirce le feabhas a stiuraidh appears to have been the highest conception of skilful steering, and we may readily believe that it would be hard to surpass such a marvellous feat. Much complaint has been made against these same “lying, worldly stories,” which the good bishop Carsuel found obstructing his reforming efforts. Several of his profession since have uttered the same complaint. But surely if the minds of the people were not filled with a better gospel, the wisest thing they could do was to extract any lessons of prudence and morality that they could find in these simple tales.
As to the preservation and age of these romances the question is excellently stated in the following sentences by [Standish O’Grady]: “Whatever it may be that has given vitality to the traditions of the mythic and elder historic period, they have survived to modern times; when they have been formed into large manuscript collections, of which the commonest titles, ‘Bolg an t-Salathair,’ answering to a ‘Comprehensive Miscellany.’ These were for the most part written by professional scribes and schoolmasters, and being then lent to, or bought by those who could read, but had no leisure to write, used to be read aloud in farmer’s houses on occasions when numbers were collected at some employment, such as wool-carding in the evenings; but especially at wakes. Thus the people became familiar with all these tales. The writer has heard a man who never possessed a manuscript, nor heard of O’Flanagan’s publication, relate at the fireside the death of the sons of Uisneach without omitting one adventure, and in great part retaining the very words of the written versions.” “It has been already said that some of these legends and poems are new versions of old; but it is not to be supposed that they are so in at all the same degree or the same sense as, for instance, the modernised Canterbury Tales are of Chaucer’s original work. There is this great difference, that in the former, nothing has been changed but some inflections and constructions, and the orthography which has become more fixed; the genius and idiom of the language, and in a very great measure the words, remaining the same; while in the latter all these have been much altered. Again the new versions of Chaucer are of the present day; whereas our tales and poems, both the modifications of older ones, and those which in their very origin are recent, are one with the other, most probably three hundred years old.”
It was the authors, writers, and preservers of these tales and romances that manufactured and handed down to us the fabulous chronicles in which the early migrations and history of the Gaelic clans lie embedded. Let us cast a glance at these interesting chronicles, the historical value of which has not yet been decided by our Celtic literati.
It has been a question much discussed, how the British islands were first peopled; whether some other nameless tribes landed before the Celts; and in what manner the Celts came into possession. It is admitted by some Cymri in traditions that their brother Gaels were before them, whoever had been in possession before the Gaels. Hu the Mighty, the great ancestor of the Welsh, being a wise ruler, entered into federal relations with the Gaels on his arrival, the land being extensive enough for the two Celtic tribes. This Hu Gadarn, who is said to have come with his people direct from the regions round about “where Constantinople now is,” is thus described in the poetry of his country:—
“The mighty Hu with mead would pay
The bard for his melodious lay;
The Emperor of land and sea
And of all living things was he.”