echoes of a very distant past. The giants often appear as savages of low
intelligence. In the fairies, I think, we may plainly see a tradition of
a dwarf race, although it is true that the country-people do not regard
them as human beings; indeed, I was told in Co. Tyrone that when the
fairies were annoying a man he threw his handkerchief at them, and asked
if among them all they could show one drop of blood. This, being
spirits, they could not do. In the Grogach the human element is more
pronounced, and both Danes and Pechts are usually regarded as men and
women like ourselves, although of smaller stature. It will thus be seen
that in Ulster we have traditions of giants, fairies, Grogachs, Danes,
and Pechts; and in Donegal I was also told of a small race of yellow
Finns. Can we identify any of these with the prehistoric races of the
British Isles and of Europe?
It has been held by many that the relics of Palæolithic man do not
occur in Ireland, but the Rev. Frederick Smith has found his implements,
some of them glaciated, at Killiney[99]; and Mr. Lewis Abbott, who has
made the implements of early man a special study, believes that
Palæolithic man lived and worked in Ireland. In a letter to me he states
that this opinion is based on material in his possession. "I have," he
writes, "the Irish collection of my old friend, the late Professor
Rupert Jones; in this there are many immensely metamorphosed, deeply
iron-stained (and the iron, again, in turn further altered), implements
of Palæolithic types.... They are usually very lustrous or highly
'patinated,' as it is called." In his recent paper, "On the
Classification of the British Stone Age Industries,"[100] in describing
the club studs, Mr. Abbott writes: "I have found very fine examples in
the Cromer Forest bed, and under and in various glacial deposits in
England and Ireland." How long Palæolithic man survived in Ireland it
would be difficult to say, but in such characters as the fairy ogress we
are brought face to face with a very low form of savagery. It will be
noted that her sons are red-haired. Now, I have often found red hair
ascribed to fairies and Danes, but not to Pechts. This persistent
tradition has led me to ask whether red was the colour of the hair in
some early races of mankind. The following passage in Dr. Beddoe's
Huxley Lecture[101] favours an affirmative answer: "There are, of
course, facts, or reported facts, which would lead one to suspect that
red was the original hair colour of man in Europe--at least, when living
in primitive or natural conditions with much exposure, and that the
development of brown pigment came later, with subjection to heat and
malaria, and other influences connected with what we call
'civilisation.'"
We have seen that the implements of early man are found in spots sacred
to the fairies. The Rev. Gath Whitley considers the Piskey dwarfs the
earliest Neolithic inhabitants of Cornwall, and describes them as a
small race who hunted the elk and the deer, and perhaps, like the
Bushmen, danced and sang to the light of the moon.[102] Our traditional
Irish fairies bear a strong resemblance to these Piskey dwarfs of
Cornwall, and also to the Welsh fairies of whom Sir John Rhys writes
that when fairyland is cleared of its glamour there seems to be
disclosed "a swarthy population of short, stumpy men, occupying the most
inaccessible districts of our country.... They probably fished and
hunted and kept domestic animals, including, perhaps, the pig, but they
depended largely on what they could steal at night or in misty weather.
Their thieving, however, was not resented, as their visits were believed
to bring luck and prosperity."[103] This description might apply to our
Ulster fairies, who in many of the stories appear as a very primitive
people. In some of the tales, however, the fairies are represented in a
higher state of civilisation. They can spin and weave; they inhabit
underground but well-built houses, and in the Irish records they are
closely associated with the Tuatha de Danann.
I believe these Tuatha de Danann are the small Danes, who, according to
tradition, built the raths and souterrains. The late Mr. John Gray[104]
would ascribe a Mongoloid origin to them. In a letter written to me
shortly before his death he stated his belief that the Danes and Pechts
"were of the same race, and were identical with a short, round-headed
race which migrated into the British Isles about 2,000 B.C. at the
beginning of the Bronze Age.... The stature of these primitive Danes and
Pechts was five feet three inches, and they must have looked very small
men to the later Teutonic invaders of an average stature of five feet
eight and a half inches."
In his papers, "Who built the British Stone Circles?"[105] and "The
Origin of the Devonian Race,"[106] Mr. Gray has fully described this
round-headed race, who buried in short cists, and whom he believes to
have been a colony from Asia Minor of Akkadians, Sumerians, or Hittites,
who migrated to England by sea in order to work the Cornish tin-mines
and the Welsh copper-mines.
For a fuller exposition of these views I must refer the reader to Mr.
Gray's very interesting articles.
In regard to the Tuatha de Danann, according to Keating,[107] they came
from Greece by way of Scandinavia. This might lead us to infer a
northern origin, or, at least, that they had taken a different route
from those who came by the Mediterranean to the West of Europe. They
appear to have known the use of metals and to have ploughed the land.
Dr. O'Donovan, in writing of these Tuatha de Danann, says: "From the
many monuments ascribed to this colony by tradition and in ancient Irish
historical tales, it is quite evident that they were a real people, and
from their having been considered gods and magicians by the Gaedhil or
Scoti who subdued them, it may be inferred that they were skilled in
arts which the latter did not understand." Referring to the colloquy
between St. Patrick and Caoilte MacRonain, Dr. O'Donovan says that it
appears from this ancient Irish text that "there were very many places
in Ireland where the Tuatha de Dananns were then supposed to live as
sprites or fairies." He adds: "The inference naturally to be drawn from
these stories is that the Tuatha de Dananns lingered in the country for
many centuries after their subjugation by the Gaedhil, and that they
lived in retired situations, which induced others to regard them as
magicians."[108]
What is here averred of the Tuatha de Danann may be true of other
primitive races who may have survived long in Ireland. It is difficult
to exterminate a people, and they could not be driven farther west.
It appears to me that in the traditions of the Ulster peasantry we see
indications of a tall, savage people, and of various races of small men.
Some were in all probability veritable dwarfs, like those whose
skeletons have been found in Switzerland, near Schaffhausen. Others may
have been of the stature of the round-headed race described by Mr. John
Gray, but in tradition they all--fairy, Grogach, Pecht, and Dane--appear
as little people. In these tales we have not a clear outline--the
picture is often blurred--but as we see the red-haired Danes carrying
earth in their aprons to build the forts, the Pechts handing from one to
another the large slabs to roof the souterrains, and the Grogachs
herding cattle, we catch glimpses of the life of those who in long past
ages inhabited Ireland.
FOOTNOTES:
[83] Reprinted from the _Antiquary_, August, 1913.
[84] "An Ancient Irish Parish, Past and Present."
[85] See Ulster Fairies, Danes, and Pechts, p. 27.
[86] Keating, "History of Ireland," book i., chap. viii.
(translation by P. W. Joyce, LL.D., M.R.I.A.). See _ante_, p. 60.
[87] See Traditions of Dwarf Races in Ireland and in
Switzerland, pp. 50-52.
[88] "Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts," second edition,
p. 123 note.
[89] A village about six miles from Ballycastle, where there is
a round tower.
[90] It is referred to in the "Guide to Belfast and the
Adjacent Counties," by the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club, 1874, pp.
205, 206; also by Borlase in "Dolmens of Ireland," vol. i., p. 371.
[91] A similar tale, but with more details, is related of Finn
by William Carleton. It was first published in Chambers' _Edinburgh
Journal_ in January, 1841, with the title, "A Legend of Knockmary," and
was reprinted in Carleton's collected works under the title "A Legend of
Knockmany." It is given by Mr. W. B. Yeates in his "Irish Fairy and Folk
Tales." In Carleton's tale Finn's opponent is not Goll, but Cuchullin.
In the notes first published in Chambers' _Journal_ reference is,
however, made to Scotch legends about Finn McCoul and Gaul, the son of
Morni, whom I take to be the same as Goll. A version of the story is
also given by Patrick Kennedy in "Legendary Fictions of the Irish
Celts," under the title "Fann MacCuil and the Scotch Giant," pp.
179-181. This Scotch giant is named Far Rua, and the fort to which he
journeys is in the bog of Allen.
[92] In Ireland "ditch" is used for an earth fence.
[93] Claive Solus was the name given to it by the old woman,
who narrated the story, and she translated it "sword of light."
[94] See J. K. A. Musäus, "Volksmährchen der Deutschen," edited
by J. L. Klee (Leipzig, 1842); "Der geraubte Schleier," pp. 371-429.
[95] See "The Testimony of Tradition" (London, 1890, pp. 1-25),
by Mr. David MacRitchie, F.S.A.Scot.; also by the same author, "The
Aberdeen Kayak and its Congeners." Proceedings of the Society of
Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. xlvi. (1911-12), pp. 213-241. Mr.
MacRitchie believes that the magic sealskin was a Kayak.
[96] See p. 75.
[97] Fairy-haunted.
[98] This spearhead is in the possession of Mr. Robert Bell, a
member of the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club, from whom I heard this
narrative.
[99] "The Stone Age in North Britain and Ireland," by the Rev.
Frederick Smith, Appendix, p. 396.
[100] See _Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute_,
vol. xli., 1911, p. 462.
[101] "Colour and Race," delivered before the Anthropological
Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, October 31, 1905.
[102] "Footprints of Vanished Races in Cornwall," by the Rev.
D. Gath Whitley, published in the _Journal of the Royal Institution of
Cornwall_, 1903, vol. xv., part ii., p. 283.
[103] "Celtic Folklore," vol. ii., chap. xii., pp. 668, 669.
[104] Treasurer to the Anthropological Institute.
[105] Read before Section H of the British Association at the
Dublin Meeting, September, 1908, published in _Nature_, December 24,
1908, pp. 236-238.
[106] Published in _London Devonian Year-Book_, 1910.
[107] "History of Ireland," book i., chap. x.
[108] See "Annals of the Four Masters," vol. i., note at p.
24.
The Rev. William Hamilton, D.D.[109]
AN EARLY EXPONENT OF THE VOLCANIC ORIGIN OF THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY
"Here, hapless Hamilton, lamented name!
To fire volcanic traced the curious frame,
And, as his soul, by sportive fancy's aid,
Up to the fount of time's long current strayed,
Far round these rocks he saw fierce craters boil,
And torrent lavas flood the riven soil:
Saw vanquished Ocean from his bounds retire,
And hailed the wonders of creative Fire."
DRUMMOND.
These lines are taken from a poem, "The Giant's Causeway," written in
1811, when the nature of the basaltic rocks was regarded as doubtful,
and many held that their origin was to be traced to the action of water
rather than fire. Hamilton is rightly brought forward as a champion of
the volcanic theory. In his "Letters concerning the Northern Coast of
Antrim," published towards the close of the eighteenth century, he
adduces strong reasons to show that the Giant's Causeway is no isolated
freak of Nature, but part of a vast lava field which covered Antrim and
extended far beyond the Scottish islands. Nor does he confine his
attention to geology, but fulfils the promise on the title page, giving
an account of the antiquities, manners, and customs of the country. To
those who care to read of this part of the world before the days of
railroads and electric tramways, when Portrush was a small fishing
village, and the lough which divides Antrim from Down bore the name of
the ancient city of Carrickfergus, this old volume will possess many
attractions. Three copies lie before me; two belong to editions
published in the author's lifetime; the third was printed in Belfast in
1822, and contains a short memoir and a portrait of Dr. Hamilton. The
latter is taken from one of those black silhouettes by which, before the
art of photography was known, our grandfathers strove to preserve an
image of those they loved. In this imperfect likeness we can see below
the wig a massive forehead, and features which betoken no small
determination of character. We can well believe that we are gazing on
the face of a scholar, a man of science, a divine, of one who believed
that death, even in the tragic form in which it came to him, was but the
laying aside of a perishable machine, the casting away of an instrument
no longer able to perform its functions.
William Hamilton was born in December, 1757, in Londonderry, where the
family had resided for nearly a century, his grandfather having been one
of the defenders of the city during the famous siege. Little is known of
his boyhood. Before he was fifteen he entered the University of Dublin,
and after a distinguished career obtained a fellowship in 1779. It was
while continuing his theological and literary studies that his attention
was drawn to the new sciences of chemistry and mineralogy. We can
imagine the ardent student attracting around him a band of kindred
spirits, who, meeting on one evening of the week under the name of
Palæosophers, studied the Bible and ancient writings bearing on its
interpretation, and the next, calling themselves Neosophers, discussed
the phenomena of Nature, and the discoveries of Cavendish, or the views
of Buffon and Descartes. Nor did his marriage in 1780 to Sarah Walker
interrupt these pursuits.
Hamilton was one of the founders of the Royal Irish Academy, and
dedicated his "Letters concerning the Coast of Antrim" to the Earl of
Charlemont, the first president of that body. The book opens with an
account of his visit to the Island of Raghery or Rathlin, where he was
charmed with the primitive manners of the people and the friendly
relations existing between them and their landlord. He examined the
white cliffs, the dark basaltic columns, and the ruins of the old
castle, where Robert Bruce is said to have made a gallant defence
against his enemies. Here he found cinders embedded in the mortar,
showing that the lime used in building the walls had been burnt with
coal. This is adduced as a proof that the coal-beds near Fair Head had
been known at an early period, possibly at a time anterior to the Danish
incursions of the ninth and tenth centuries--a view confirmed by the
discovery of an ancient gallery extending many hundred yards
underground, and in which the remains of the tools and baskets of the
prehistoric miners were found.
In a later letter a history is given of the Giant's Causeway, and of the
various opinions which have been held regarding its origin. Beginning
with the old tradition[110] that the stones had been cut and placed in
position by the giant, Fin McCool or Fingal, when constructing a mighty
mole to unite Ireland to Scotland, Hamilton alludes to the crude notions
exhibited in some papers published in the early Transactions of the
Royal Society. He criticizes severely "A True Prospect of the Giant's
Causeway," printed in 1696 for the Dublin Society, showing how the
imagination of the artist had planted luxuriant forest-trees on the wild
bay of Port Noffer, and transformed basaltic rocks into comfortable
dwelling-houses. The two beautiful paintings made by Mrs. Susanna Drury
in 1740 are referred to in very different language, and anyone who has
seen engravings of these will endorse his opinion, and feel that this
lady has depicted, with almost photographic accuracy, the Causeway and
the successive galleries of basaltic columns, which lend a weird and
peculiar grandeur to the headlands of Bengore.
A large portion of Hamilton's work is occupied with a minute
investigation of these headlands, and of the lofty promontory of Fair
Head. A description is given of the jointed columns of the Causeway,
whose surface presents a regular and compact pavement of polygon stones;
we are told that this basaltic rock contains metallic iron, and that he
has himself observed how, in the semicircular Bay of Bengore, the
compass deviates greatly from its meridian, and each pillar or fragment
of a pillar acts as a natural magnet. He also points out that columnar
rocks are found in many parts of Antrim, and traces the basaltic plateau
from the shores of Lough Foyle to the valley of the Lagan; nay more, he
bids us extend our gaze, and remember "that whatever be the reasonings
that fairly apply to the formation of the basaltes in our island, the
same must be extended with little interruption over the mainland and
western isles of Scotland, even to the frozen island of Iceland, where
basaltic pillars are to be found in abundance, and where the flames of
Hecla still continue to blaze."[111]
Hamilton argues, in opposition to the views of many of his
contemporaries, that the vicinity of the Giant's Causeway to the sea has
nothing whatever to do with the peculiar structure of its jointed
columns, which he ascribes to their having been formed by the
crystallization of a molten mass. The following are his words:
"Since, therefore, the basaltes and its attendant fossils[112] bear
strong marks of the effects of fire, it does not seem unlikely that its
pillars may have been formed by a process, exactly analogous to what is
commonly denominated crystallization by fusion.... For though during the
moments of an eruption nothing but a wasteful scene of tumult and
disorder be presented to our view, yet, when the fury of those flames
and vapours, which have been struggling for a passage, has abated,
everything then returns to its original state of rest; and those various
melted substances, which, but just before, were in the wildest state of
chaos, will now subside and cool with a degree of regularity utterly
unattainable in our laboratories."[113]
It is true that modern geologists would not apply the term
"crystallization" to the process by which the basaltic columns have been
formed, but all would agree that they have assumed their peculiar shape
during the slow cooling of the molten lava of which they consist; thus
Professor James Thomson[114] states that the division into prisms has
arisen "by splitting, through shrinkage, of a very homogeneous mass in
cooling."
It would be tedious to repeat the reasoning by which Hamilton, following
in the steps of the French geologists, Desmarest and Faujas de St. Fond,
establishes the volcanic origin of the basalt. It is true, he assumes
the position of an impartial narrator, and brings forward at
considerable length the objections which had been urged against this
theory, but only to show that each one of them admits of a full and
complete answer. Thus he states that the absence of volcanic cones does
not embarrass the advocates of the system: "According to them, the
basaltes has been formed under the earth itself and within the bowels of
those very mountains where it could never have been exposed to view
until, by length of time or some violent shock of nature, the incumbent
mass must have undergone a very considerable alteration, such as should
go near to destroy every exterior volcanic feature. In support of this,
it may be observed that the promontories of Antrim do yet bear very
evident marks of some violent convulsion, which has left them standing
in their present abrupt situation, and that the Island of Raghery and
some of the western isles of Scotland do really appear like the
surviving fragments of a country, great part of which might have been
buried in the ocean."[115]
We thus see that Hamilton clearly perceived that great changes,
sufficient to sweep away lofty mountains, had taken place since those
old lava streams had flowed over the land. It is true that science has
advanced since his day with gigantic strides. Some things which he
regarded as doubtful have become certain, and others which he regarded
as certain have become doubtful, yet I trust that the preceding extracts
will show that his account of the basaltic rocks of Antrim may still be
read with interest and profit.
As an antiquarian, Hamilton touches on the evidences of early culture in
Ireland. He mentions the large number of exquisitely wrought gold
ornaments found in the bogs, and translates for us a poem of St.
Donatus, which, although doubtless a fancy sketch, shows the reputation
enjoyed by the island in the ninth century.
"Far westward lies an isle of ancient fame
By nature bless'd, and Scotia is her name,
An island rich--exhaustless is her store
Of veiny silver and of golden ore;
Her fruitful soil for ever teems with wealth,
With gems her waters, and her air with health.
Her verdant fields with milk and honey flow,
Her woolly fleeces vie with virgin snow;
Her waving furrows float with bearded corn,
And arms and arts her envy'd sons adorn.
No savage bear with lawless fury roves,
No rav'ning lion thro' her sacred groves;
No poison there infects, no scaly snake
Creeps through the grass, nor frog annoys the lake.
An island worthy of its pious race,
In war triumphant, and unmatch'd in peace."[116]
In referring to the doctrines and practices of the ancient Irish
Church, Hamilton enters on the field of controversy. It shows how widely
his book was known when we find the _Giornale Ecclesiastico_ of Rome
taking exception to some of his views. This criticism led to the
insertion in the second edition of the work, of a letter[117] dealing
more fully with ecclesiastical matters. The reasoning, even when
supported by the high authority of Archbishop Ussher, may possibly fail
to convince us of the identity of the Church of St. Patrick and St.
Columba with the Church of the Reformation; but we shall find abundant
proof of the vigour and independence which characterized not only the
early monks, but the Irish schoolmen of the Middle Ages.
Before this letter was published, Hamilton had accepted the living of
Clondevaddock in Donegal, and had taken up his abode amid the wild but
beautiful scenery surrounding Mulroy Bay. Here he expected to spend a
tranquil life, watching over the education of his large family, and
combining with his clerical duties the pursuit of science and
literature. In a favourable situation for observing variations of
temperature and the action of rain, wind, and tide, he pursued the
investigation of a subject which had already engaged his attention
before leaving Dublin. In a memoir[118] published after his death he
suggests that the cutting down of the forests may have affected a
sensible change in the climate of Ireland, and gives several instances
of the encroachment of the sea sand on fertile and inhabited land.
Perhaps the most striking is that of the town of Bannow in Wexford. It
was a flourishing borough in the early part of the seventeenth century,
while in his day the site was marked only by a few ruins, appearing
above heaps of barren sand, and where at the time of an election a
fallen chimney was used as the council table of that ancient and loyal
corporation.
When we read the closing pages of this paper it is difficult to believe
that troubled times were so near at hand; and even when he wrote his
"Letters on the French Revolution," Hamilton could not have foreseen
that he was soon to fall before the same spirit of wild vengeance, which
claimed so many noble victims on the banks of the Seine and the Loire.
He acted as magistrate as well as clergyman, and during nearly seven
years he was treated with respect and confidence by the people among
whom he lived. No doubt the majority of them did not regard him as their
pastor, but they appreciated his efforts for their temporal welfare; we
are told that the country was advancing in industry and prosperity, and
remained tranquil when other parts of Ulster were greatly disturbed. At
last, however, the revolutionary wave reached this remote district, and
a trivial incident inflamed the minds of the inhabitants against Dr.
Hamilton.