_Source_.--From the old Irish "Echtra Condla chaim maic Cuind
Chetchathaig" of the _Leabhar na h-Uidhre_ ("Book of the Dun Cow"),
which must have been written before 1106, when its scribe Maelmori
("Servant of Mary") was murdered. The original is given by Windisch in
his _Irish Grammar_, p. 120, also in the _Trans. Kilkenny Archaeol.
Soc._ for 1874. A fragment occurs in a Rawlinson MS., described by Dr.
W. Stokes, _Tripartite Life_, p. xxxvi. I have used the translation of
Prof. Zimmer in his _Keltische Beiträge_, ii. (_Zeits. f. deutsches
Altertum_, Bd. xxxiii. 262-4). Dr. Joyce has a somewhat florid version
in, his _Old Celtic Romances_, from which I have borrowed a touch or
two. I have neither extenuated nor added aught but the last sentence of
the Fairy Maiden's last speech. Part of the original is in metrical
form, so that the whole is of the _cante-fable_ species which I believe
to be the original form of the folk-tale (Cf. _Eng. Fairy Tales_,
notes, p. 240, and _infra_, p. 257).
_Parallels_.--Prof. Zimmer's paper contains three other accounts of the
_terra repromissionis_ in the Irish sagas, one of them being the
similar adventure of Cormac the nephew of Connla, or Condla Ruad as he
should be called. The fairy apple of gold occurs in Cormac Mac Art's
visit to the Brug of Manannan (Nutt's _Holy Grail_, 193).
_Remarks_.--Conn the hundred-fighter had the head-kingship of Ireland
123-157 A.D., according to the _Annals of the Four Masters_, i. 105. On
the day of his birth the five great roads from Tara to all parts of
Ireland were completed: one of them from Dublin is still used.
Connaught is said to have been named after him, but this is scarcely
consonant with Joyce's identification with Ptolemy's _Nagnatai_ (_Irish
Local Names_, i. 75). But there can be little doubt of Conn's existence
as a powerful ruler in Ireland in the second century. The historic
existence of Connla seems also to be authenticated by the reference to
him as Conly, the eldest son of Conn, in the Annals of Clonmacnoise. As
Conn was succeeded by his third son, Art Enear, Connla was either slain
or disappeared during his father's lifetime. Under these circumstances
it is not unlikely that our legend grew up within the century after
Conn--_i.e._, during the latter half of the second century.
As regards the present form of it, Prof. Zimmer (_l.c._ 261-2) places
it in the seventh century. It has clearly been touched up by a
Christian hand who introduced the reference to the day of judgment and
to the waning power of the Druids. But nothing turns upon this
interpolation, so that it is likely that even the present form of the
legend is pre-Christian-_i.e._ for Ireland, pre-Patrician, before the
fifth century.
The tale of Connla is thus the earliest fairy tale of modern Europe.
Besides this interest it contains an early account of one of the most
characteristic Celtic conceptions, that of the earthly Paradise, the
Isle of Youth, _Tir-nan-Og_. This has impressed itself on the European
imagination; in the Arthuriad it is represented by the Vale of Avalon,
and as represented in the various Celtic visions of the future life, it
forms one of the main sources of Dante's _Divina Commedia_. It is
possible too, I think, that the Homeric Hesperides and the Fortunate
Isles of the ancients had a Celtic origin (as is well known, the early
place-names of Europe are predominantly Celtic). I have found, I
believe, a reference to the conception in one of the earliest passages
in the classics dealing with the Druids. Lucan, in his _Pharsalia_ (i.
450-8), addresses them in these high terms of reverence:
Et vos barbaricos ritus, moremque sinistrum,
Sacrorum, Druidae, positis repetistis ab armis,
Solis nosse Deos et coeli numera vobis
Aut solis nescire datum; nemora alta remotis
Incolitis lucis. Vobis auctoribus umbrae,
Non tacitas Erebi sedes, Ditisque profundi,
Pallida regna petunt: _regit idem spiritus artus
Orbe alio_: longae, canitis si cognita, vitae
Mors media est.
The passage certainly seems to me to imply a different conception from
the ordinary classical views of the life after death, the dark and
dismal plains of Erebus peopled with ghosts; and the passage I have
italicised would chime in well with the conception of a continuance of
youth (_idem spiritus_) in Tir-nan-Og (_orbe alio_).
One of the most pathetic, beautiful, and typical scenes in Irish legend
is the return of Ossian from Tir-nan-Og, and his interview with St.
Patrick. The old faith and the new, the old order of things and that
which replaced it, meet in two of the most characteristic products of
the Irish imagination (for the Patrick of legend is as much a legendary
figure as Oisin himself). Ossian had gone away to Tir-nan-Og with the
fairy Niamh under very much the same circumstances as Condla Ruad; time
flies in the land of eternal youth, and when Ossian returns, after a
year as he thinks, more than three centuries had passed, and St.
Patrick had just succeeded in introducing the new faith. The contrast
of Past and Present has never been more vividly or beautifully
represented.