LUOIGH NA SEALGA.
POEM OF THE CHASE.
There are many poems of great beauty and interest in the Irish language, several of which have become known to the English reader through the medium of a translation. Of those poems there is a particular class known to Irish scholars by the name of the “Fenian Tales”—an appellation which they derive from Finn, or Fionn, the son of Cumhail (the Fingal of Macpherson), and his heroes the Fionna Eironn. Fionn, renowned for his martial exploits, flourished about the beginning of the third century, under Cormac,[1] of whose forces he was the commander-in-chief. He has been to the Milesian bards what King Arthur was to the Britons, the theme of many a marvellous achievement and poetic fiction. Oisin, his son, was equally celebrated as a warrior and a poet; and of him it might be said, as of Achilles, Æschylus, Alfred, Camoens, Cervantes, and many another, that “one hand the sword and one the harp employed.” Numerous poems have been ascribed to him; but there is no proof that he has a legitimate claim to any composition extant. As for the impostures of Macpherson, they have been sufficiently exposed; and no one who has taken pains to investigate the subject, or who has the least knowledge of Irish history, antiquities, or language, will pretend that he is worthy of the slightest credence. The date and origin of the Fenian Tales, from which he drew many of the materials of his centos, are altogether uncertain. It may seem, however, not unreasonable, from slight internal evidence, to conjecture that some of them may have been composed soon after the introduction of Christianity, though they must since have suffered many changes and modifications.[2] In few countries, if in any, did the Christian religion win its way more easily than in Ireland; and yet it can scarcely be supposed that its triumph became universal without some reluctance on the part of the people, whose habits it condemned, and to whose superstitions it was strenuously opposed. It attempted to produce such a complete revolution in their tastes and occupations, that it would be surprising had not various objections been started to its reception. The quiet and devotion of the monastic life formed a melancholy contrast to the spirit-stirring excitements of the chase, and to those games of strength and skill in which the heroes of the Ossianic age delighted. They who rejoiced in the clash of arms, in the music of hounds and horns, and in the feast and the revel, could have small taste for the chiming of bells in the services of religion, for the singing of psalms, and still less for fasting—
——the waster gaunt and grim,
That of beauty and strength robs feature and limb.
The bards, it may well be imagined, who were always not only welcome but necessary guests at all the high festivals of the chiefs and princes, would be among the first to lament a change of manners by which their pleasures and honours were abridged or abolished; and to give more effect to their complaint, as well as to conceal its real authors, they put it into the mouth of Oisin, their great master, by poetic licence, though in violation of chronology. They ascribed to him those sentiments which they thought he would have expressed, had he really been the contemporary of Saint Patrick.[3] At the same time it must be admitted, that in the Poem of the Chase at least, such a description of the creative power of the Deity is given by the saint, as is worthy of a Christian missionary, though he is obliged to succumb to the stern indignation of the “Warrior Bard.”
Leaving the further consideration of this subject for the present, I proceed to give an analysis of the Poem of the Chase, from which the reader may be enabled in some degree to judge how far Spenser is justifiable in affirming that the poems of the Irish bards “savoured of sweet wit and good invention.”
The poem commences by Oisin asking St Patrick if he had ever heard the tale of the chase; and on receiving an answer in the negative, accompanied with a request that it may be told truly, he feels indignant at the suspicion that he or any of the Fionna Eironn could ever deviate from the strictest veracity, and retaliates by declaring how much he prized his former friends, whose virtues he records, beyond Patrick and all his psalm-singing fraternity. Patrick, in reply, exhorts him not to indulge a strain of panegyric which borders on blasphemy, and extols the power of that great Being by whom all the Fenian race had been destroyed. The mention of his friends’ extinction calls forth a fresh burst of indignation from Oisin, and leads him to compare the pleasures of the days gone by with the melancholy occupations of psalm-singing and fasting. Patrick requests him to cease, and not incur the impiety of comparing Finn with the Creator of the universe. Oisin replies in a style more indignant, and after reciting a number of the glorious exploits of the Fenians, asks by what achievements of Patrick’s Deity they can be matched. The saint, justly shocked by such daring, accuses him of frenzy, and tells him that Finn and his host have been doomed to hell-fire by that God whom he blasphemes: but this only provokes Oisin to make a comparison between Finn’s generosity and the divine vengeance; and as for himself, it is a sufficient proof of his sanity that he allows Patrick and his friends to wear their heads. Patrick, as if tacitly admitting the validity of his argument, pays him a compliment, and requests him to proceed with the promised tale. Oisin complies, and informs him that while the Fenian heroes were feasting in the tower of Almhuin, Finn having withdrawn from the company and spied a young doe, pursued her with his two hounds Sceolan and Bran as far as Slieve Guillin, where she suddenly disappeared. While he and his hounds are left in perplexity, he hears a sound of lamentation, and looking round espies a damsel of surpassing beauty, whom he accosts, and with friendly solicitude asks the cause of her grief. She replies that she had dropped her ring into the adjoining lake, and adjures him as a true knight to dive into the water to find and restore the lost treasure. He complies, and succeeds; and while handing her the ring, is suddenly metamorphosed into a withered old man.
Mean time the absence of their chief begins to create some fears for his safety in the breasts of the Fenians. Caoilte expresses his apprehension that he is irrecoverably lost, when bald Conan, the Thersites of the Fenian poems, rejoicing at the idea, boasts that he will in future be their chief. The Fenians having indulged in a laugh of scorn to hear such arrogance from one they contemned, proceed in quest of Finn, and discover the old man, who whispers in the ear of Caoilte the story of his strange metamorphosis. Conan, on hearing it, waxes valiant, and utters some bitter reproaches against Finn and the Fenians. He is rebuked by Caoilte; but still continuing to vituperate and boast, he is answered at last by the sword of Osgar. The Fenians interfere, and having put an end to the strife, and learned the cause of Finn’s misfortune, they search the secret recesses of Slieve Guillin, and at length find the enchantress, who presents a cup to Finn, of which he drinks, and is restored to his former strength and beauty.
Miss Brooke, a lady to whose genius and taste Irish literature is greatly indebted, has given a translation of this poem in her “Reliques of Irish Poetry,” published in 1788. Every Irish scholar is bound to speak with respect of her patriotic literary labours, and the present writer would be among the last to pluck a single leaf from the chaplet which adorns her brows—
——neque ego illi detrahere ausim