Now we come to a third cycle: the "Fenian" named after Finn Mac Cool, according to most Irish writers; the "Ossianic" named after Ossian, Finn's famous son, according to most Scotch. We need only speak of it here of course on its purely Irish side and from the Fenian aspect, as the reader will find it fully dealt with under its Ossianic aspect elsewhere. The heroes of this cycle, if we accept their historical existence in Ireland, lived from the second to the fourth centuries of the Christian era. Art, his grandson Cormac, and Cormac's son, Cairbre; Cool, his son Finn, and King Goll: these, with Owen Mor and many another, fill the Fenian romances with their fierce and picturesque pursuit of destiny and death. They only await the hand of that predestined shaper into final and positive and modernly intelligible form of the confused romances which treat of their doings, to add a new epic to the larger literature which has the Old World for its text and the New World for its interpreter.
These three great cycles of Irish romance by no means exhaust the wealth of story, still lurking perdu in old MSS. or in rare and rarely read works. Some of these additional tales have already reached American readers under modern retellings or poetic interpretations; such as, e. g., 'The Voyage of Maeldune', retold memorably, and differently enough, in flowing hexametrical periods by Tennyson:—
"And we came to the Isle of Shouting; we landed; a score of wild birds
Cried from the topmost summit with human voices and words;
Once in an hour they cried, and whenever their voices pealed,
The steer fell down at the plow and the harvest died from the field,
And the men dropt dead in the valleys, and half of the cattle went lame,
And the roof sank in on the hearth, and the dwelling broke into flame;
And the shouting of these wild birds ran into the hearts of my crew,
Till they shouted along with the shouting, and seized one another and slew;
But I drew them the one from the other; I saw that we could not stay,
And we left the dead to the birds, and we sailed with our wounded away."
Tennyson took his version from Joyce's 'Early Celtic Romances'. In this volume we have, among other legendary romances, five or six of the most wonderful or moving tales in Celtic or any other literature. Three of these are—The Three Sorrowful Tales of Erin', comprising 'The Fate of the Children of Usna' (or 'Deirdrê'); 'The Fate of the Children of Lir'; and 'The Fate of the Children of Tuirenn'. The names of the three others are 'The Voyage of Maeldun' (the oldest copy of which is dated 1100), 'The Pursuit of Dermot and Grania', and 'Ossian in the Land of Youth'. Of these perhaps the story of 'Deirdrê' is the best known, and American readers may be referred to the fine epical version by Dr. Robert D. Joyce ('Deirdrê'), published some years ago by Roberts Brothers of Boston. Two brief examples of the short episodical narratives which make up the marvelous 'Voyage of Maeldun' may be cited here,—'The Miller of Hell' and 'Signs of Home,' the latter giving the return of the Celtic Ulysses and his companions.
THE MILLER OF HELL
The next island they came to, which was not far off from the last, had a large mill on it; and near the door stood the miller, a huge-bodied, strong, burly man. They saw numberless crowds of men and horses laden with corn coming towards the mill; and when their corn was ground they went away towards the west. Great herds of all kinds of cattle covered the plain as far as the eye could reach, and among them many wagons, laden with every kind of wealth that is produced on the ridge of the world. All these the miller put into the mouth of his mill to be ground; and all as they came forth went westward.
Maeldun and his people now spoke to the miller, and asked him the name of the mill, and the meaning of all they had seen on the island. And he, turning quickly towards them, replied in a few words:—
"This mill is called the Mill of Inver-tre-Kenand, and I am the Miller of Hell. All the corn and all the riches of the world that men are dissatisfied with, or which they complain of in any way, are sent here to be ground; and also every precious article and every kind of wealth which men try to conceal from God. All these I grind in the Mill of Inver-tre-Kenand and send them away afterwards to the west."
He spoke no more, but turned round and busied himself again with his mill. And the voyagers, with much wonder and awe in their hearts, went to their curragh and sailed away.