Hero-Tales of Ireland

by Unknown

This transformation of the former people, or divinities, of America was finished just before the present race of men—that is, the Indians—appeared. This transformation does not take place in every American mythology as a result of single combat. Sometimes a great hero goes about ridding the world of terrible oppressors and monsters: he beats them, turns them into something insignificant; after defeat they have no power over him. We may see in the woods some weak worm or insect which, in the first age, was an awful power, but a bad one. Stories of this kind present some of the finest adventures, and most striking situations, as well as qualities of character in the hero that invite admiration.

In some mythologies a few personages who are left unchanged at the eve of man’s coming, transform themselves voluntarily. The details of the change vary from tribe to tribe; but in all it takes place in some described way, and forms part of the general change, or metamorphosis, which is the vital element in the American system. In many, perhaps in all, the mythologies, there is an account of how some of the former people, or gods, instead of fighting and taking part in the struggle of creation, and being transformed, retained their original character, and either went above the sky, or sailed away westward to where the sky comes down, and passed out under it, and beyond, to a pleasant region where they live in delight. This is that contingent to which I have referred, that part of “the first people” in which no passion was developed; they remained in primitive simplicity, undifferentiated, and are happy at present. They correspond to those gods of classic antiquity who enjoyed themselves apart, and took no interest whatever in the sufferings or the joys of mankind.

It is evident, at once, that to the aborigines of America the field for beautiful stories was very extensive.

Everything in nature had a tale of its own, if some one would but tell it; and during the epoch of constructive power in the race,—the epoch when languages were built up, and great stories made,—few things of importance to people of that time were left unconsidered; hence, there was among the Indians of America a volume of tales as immense, one might say, as an ocean river. This statement I make in view of materials which I have gathered myself, and which are still unpublished,—materials which, though voluminous, are comparatively meagre, merely a hint of what in some tribes was lost, and of what in others is still uncollected. What is true of the Indians with reference to the volume of their stories, is true of all races.

From what is known of the mind of antiquity, and from what data we have touching savage life in the present, we may affirm as a theory that primitive beliefs, in all places, are of the same system essentially as the American. In that system, every individual existence beyond man is a divinity, but a divinity under sentence,—a divinity weighed down by fate; a divinity with a history behind it, a history which is tragedy or comedy as the case may be. These histories extend along the whole line of experience, and include every combination conceivable to primitive man.

Of the pre-Christian beliefs of the Kelts, not much is known yet in detail and with certainty. What we may say at present is this, that they form a very interesting variant of that aforementioned Œcumenical religion held in early ages by all men. The peculiarities and value of the variant will be shown when the tales, beliefs, and literary monuments of the race are brought fully into evidence.

Now that some statement has been made touching Indian tales and their contents, we may give, for purposes of comparison, two or three of them, either in part or condensed. These examples may serve to show what Gaelic tales were before they were modified in structure, and before human substitutes were put in place of the primitive heroes.

It should be stated here that these accounts of a former people, and the life of the world before this, as given in the tales, were delivered in one place and another by some of these “former people” who were the last to be transformed, and who found means to give needful instruction to men. On the Klamath River, in Northwestern California, there is a sacred tree, a former divinity, which has been a great source of revelation. On a branch of the Upper Columbia is a rock which has told whole histories of a world before this.

Among the Iroquois, I found a story in possession of a doctor,—that is, a magician, or sorcerer,—who, so far as I could learn, was the only man who knew it, though others knew of it. This story is in substance as follows: