The larger Irish legendary literature divides itself into three cycles—the divine, the heroic, the Fenian. Of these three the last is so well known orally in Scotland that it has been a matter of dispute to which country it really belongs. It belongs, in fact, to both. Here, however, comes in a strange contrast with the other cycles. The first is, so far as I am aware, wholly unknown in Scotland, the second comparatively unknown. What is the explanation? Professor Zimmer not having established his late-historical view as regards Fionn, and the general opinion among scholars having tended of recent years towards the mythical view, we want to know why there is so much more community in one case than in the other. Mr. O’Grady long since seeing this difficulty, and then believing Fionn to be historical, was induced to place the latter in point of time before Cuchullin and his compeers. But this view is, of course, inadmissible when Fionn is seen not to be historical at all. There remains but one explanation. The various bodies of legend in question are, so far as Ireland is concerned, only earlier or later as they came into the island with the various races to which they belonged. The wider prevalence, then, of the Fionn Saga would indicate that it belonged to an early race occupying both Ireland and Scotland. Then entered the Aryan Gael, and for him, henceforth, as the ruler of the island, his own gods and heroes were sung by his own bards. His legends became the subject of what I may call the court poetry, the aristocratic literature. When he conquered Scotland, he took with him his own gods and heroes; but in the latter country the bardic system never became established, and hence we find but feeble echoes of the heroic cycle among the mountains of the North. That this is the explanation is shown by what took place in Ireland. Here the heroic cycle has been handed down in remembrance almost solely by the bardic literature. The popular memory retains but few traces of it. Its essentially aristocratic character is shown by the fact that the people have all but forgotten it if they ever knew it. But the Fenian cycle has not been forgotten. Prevailing everywhere, still cherished by the conquered peoples, it held its ground in Scotland and Ireland alike, forcing its way in the latter country even into the written literature, and so securing a twofold lease of existence. That it did not deserve this wider popularity is evident enough. Interesting though it be, it is not equal in interest to the heroic cycle. The tales of the latter, though fewer in number, less bulky in amount, have upon them the impress of the larger constructive sweep of the Aryan imagination. Their characters are nobler; the events are more significant. They form a much more closely compacted epic whole. The Fenian tales, in some respects more picturesque, are less organised. It would be difficult to construct out of them a coherent epic plot; and what is, perhaps, not the least in significance, they have far more numerous, more extended, more intimate connections with the folk-tale.
The Fenian cycle, in a word, is non-Aryan folk-literature partially subjected to Aryan treatment. It occupies accordingly a middle position. Above the rank of the folk-tale it has been elevated; but to the dignity of the heroic legend it has not attained.
The tales included in the present volume form part of a large collection, which I began to make as far back as the year 1884. All have been taken down in the same way—that is to say, word for word from the dictation of the peasant narrators, all by myself, with the exception of two taken down by Mr. Lecky in precisely similar fashion; difficult and doubtful parts being gone over again and again. Sometimes the narrators can explain difficulties. Sometimes other natives of the place can help you. But after every resource of this kind has been exhausted, a certain number of doubtful words and phrases remain, with regard to which—well, one can only do one’s best.
The districts from which the tales were obtained are three in number, each represented by two narrators. Renvyle, the most southern of the three, is situated in Connemara. It is a narrow peninsula, forming the extreme north-western point of the county of Galway, jutting out opposite Mayo. Terence Davis is a labourer pure and simple, a man of about forty-five years of age, and blind of one eye. Some of his tales he got from his mother. Michael Faherty was, when I first made his acquaintance, a lad of about seventeen. He was recommended, as the best pupil in the National School, to Mr. Lecky, who, finding him intelligent, selected him as the best person from whom, on account of his youth, the very latest development of the language could be learnt. He lived with his uncle, who had, or has still, a small holding on the Blake property, and who was also a pilot and repairer of boats. Both his tales were taken down by Mr. Lecky. Next in order, going northward, comes Achill Island, distant some twenty-five miles from Renvyle by sea, more than sixty miles by land.[1] Two narrators from that locality are also represented in the book. One of them, Pat. M’Grale, is a man of middle age, a cottier with a small holding, and besides, a Jack-of-all-trades, something of a boatman and fisherman, “a botch of a tailor,” to use his own words, and ready for any odd job. He can read Irish, but had very little literature on which to exercise his accomplishment. He knows some long poems by heart, and is possessed of various odds and ends of learning, accurate and not. John M’Ginty, a man of Donegal descent and name, has also some land; but his holding is so small that he is to a great extent a labourer for others, and was engaged on relief works when I first came to know him. He, also, is a middle-aged man. He knows many Ossianic poems by heart, which, he told me, his father taught him, verse by verse.
Glencolumkill is the extreme south-west corner of Donegal, remote, like Achill and Renvyle. It is chiefly represented by the tales of Pat. Minahan, from whom I obtained more stories than from any other one man. He said he was eighty years of age; but he was in full possession of all his faculties. He also had a holding on which he still worked industriously. He had no children; but his nephew, who lived with him, made up for all deficiencies of that nature. His style, with its short, abrupt sentences, is always remarkable, and at its best I think excellent. Jack Gillespie, known as Jack-Anne—the latter his mother’s name—to distinguish him from other Jack Gillespies, was a man of sixty or over, also a cottier.
The tales were written down in places sufficiently varied;—from the Renvyle library to the neat little farmhouse parlour at Malinmore, where I spent so many a winter’s evening, solitary but for the occasional visits of some one or other of my story-tellers;—from little smoky cabins, with inquisitive hens hopping on the table, to the unroofed freedom of rock or brae, under summer skies, by those thrice-lovely shores of Renvyle; by the scarcely less beautiful, though far more rugged, crags and cliffs of Achill; by “the wild sea-banks” of what has been described as the “grandest coast in Europe”—that of Glencolumkill.
The beauty of Scotch scenery has been discovered by one critic to be reflected in the picturesqueness of the Scotch tales. I am not without hope that a like influence has contributed something of a like quality to those now submitted to the reader.
William Larminie.
[1] The Sound, very narrow, is now bridged over.
