The Boyhood of Finn mac Cumhal
In Ireland long ago, centuries before the English appeared in that
country, there were kings and chiefs, lawyers and merchants, men of
the sword and men of the book, men who tilled their own ground and men
who tilled the ground of others, just as there are now. But there was
also, as ancient poets and historians tell us, a great company or
brotherhood of men who were bound to no fixed calling, unless it was
to fight for the High King of Ireland whenever foes threatened him
from within the kingdom or without it. This company was called the
Fianna of Erinn. They were mighty hunters and warriors, and though
they had great possessions in land, and rich robes, and gold
ornaments, and weapons wrought with beautiful chasing and with
coloured enamels, they lived mostly a free out-door life in the light
hunting-booths which they made in the woods where the deer and the
wolf ranged. There were then vast forests in Ireland, which are all
gone now, and there were also, as there still are, many great and
beautiful lakes and rivers, swarming with fish and water-fowl. In the
forests and on the mountain sides roamed the wild boar and the wolf,
and great herds of deer, some of giant size, whose enormous antlers
are sometimes found when bogs are being drained. The Fianna chased
these and the wolves with great dogs, whose courage and strength and
beauty were famous throughout Europe, and which they prized and loved
above all things. To the present day in Ireland there still remain
some of this breed of Irish hounds, but the giant deer and the wolf
are gone, and the Fianna of Erinn live only in the ancient books that
were written of them, and in the tales that are still told of them in
the winter evenings by the Irish peasant's fireside.
The Fianna were under the rule of one great captain or chief, and at
the time I tell of his name was Cumhal, son of Trenmor. Now a tribe or
family of the Fianna named the Clan Morna, or Sons of Morna, rose in
rebellion against Cumhal, for they were jealous and greedy of his
power and glory, and sought to have the captaincy for themselves. They
defeated and slew him at the battle of Cnucha, which is now called
Castleknock, near the City of the Hurdle Ford, which is the name that
Dublin still bears in the Irish tongue. Goll, son of Morna, slew
Cumhal, and they spoiled him of the Treasure Bag of the Fianna, which
was a bag made of a crane's skin and having in it jewels of great
price, and magic weapons, and strange things that had come down from
far-off days when the Fairy Folk and mortal men battled for the
lordship of Ireland. The Bag with its treasures was given to Lia, the
chief of Luachar in Connacht, who had the keeping of it before, for he
was the treasurer of Cumhal, and he was the first man who had wounded
Cumhal in the battle when he fell.
Cumhal's wife was named Murna, and she bore him two sons. The elder
was named Tulcha, and he fled from the country for fear of Goll and
took service with the King of Scotland. The younger was born after
Cumhal's death, and his name was called Demna. And because his mother
feared that the sons of Morna would find him out and kill him, she
gave him to a Druidess and another wise woman of Cumhal's household,
and bade them take him away and rear him as best they could. So they
took him into the wild woods on the Slieve Bloom Mountains, and there
they trained him to hunt and fish and to throw the spear, and he grew
strong, and as beautiful as a child of the Fairy Folk. If he were in
the same field with a hare he could run so that the hare could never
leave the field, for Demna was always before it. He could run down and
slay a stag with no dogs to help him, and he could kill a wild duck on
the wing with a stone from his sling. And the Druidess taught him the
learning of the time, and also the story of his race and nation, and
told him of his right to be captain of the Fianna of Erinn when his
day of destiny should come.
One day, while still a boy, he was roaming through the woods when he
came to the mansion of a great lord, where many boys, sons of the
chief men of Ireland, were being trained in manly arts and exercises.
He found them playing at hurling, and they invited him to join them.
He did so, but the side he was on won too easily, so they divided
again, and yet again, giving fewer and fewer to Demna's side, till at
last he alone drove the ball to the goal through them all, flashing
among them as a salmon among a shoal of minnows. And then their anger
and jealousy rose and grew bitter against the stranger, and instead of
honouring him as gallant lads of gentle blood should have done they
fell upon him with their hurling clubs and sought to kill him. But
Demna felled seven of them to the ground and put the rest to flight,
and then went his way home. When the boys told what had happened the
chief asked them who it was that had defeated and routed them
single-handed. They said, "It was a tall shapely lad, and very fair
(_finn_)." So the name of Finn, the Fair One, clung to him
thenceforth, and by that name he is known to this day.
By and by Finn gathered round him a band of youths who loved him for
his strength and valour and for his generous heart, and with them he
went hunting in the forests. And Goll, and the sons of Morna, who were
now captains of the Fianna under the High King, began to hear tales of
him and his exploits, and they sent trackers to inquire about him, for
they had an inkling of who this wonderful fair-haired youth might be.
Finn's foster mothers heard of this. "You must leave this place," they
said to him, "and see our faces no more, for if Goll's men find you
here they will slay you. We have cherished the blood of Cumhal," they
said, "and now our work is done. Go, and may blessing and victory go
with you." So Finn departed with naught but his weapons and his
hunting gear, very sorrowful at leaving the wise and loving friends
who had fostered his childhood; but deep in his heart was a wild and
fierce delight at the thought of the trackless ways he would travel,
and the wonders he would see; and all the future looked to him as
beautiful and dim as the mists that fill a mountain glen under the
morning sun.
Now after the death of Cumhal, his brother Crimmal and a few others of
the aged warriors of the Fianna, who had not fallen in the fight at
Cnucha, fled away into Connacht, and lived there in the deepest
recesses of a great forest, where they hoped the conquerors might
never find them. Here they built themselves a poor dwelling of tree
branches, plastered with mud and roofed with reeds from the lake, and
here they lived on what game they could kill or snare in the wild
wood; and harder and harder it grew, as age and feebleness crept on
them, to find enough to eat, or to hew wood for their fire. In this
retreat, never having seen the friendly face of man, they were one day
startled to hear voices and the baying of hounds approaching them
through the wood, and they thought that the sons of Morna were upon
them at last, and that their hour of doom was at hand. Soon they
perceived a company of youths coming towards their hut, with one in
front who seemed to be their leader. Taller he was by a head than the
rest, broad shouldered, and with masses of bright hair clustering
round his forehead, and he carried in his hand a large bag made of
some delicate skin and stained in patterns of red and blue. The old
men thought when they saw him of a saying there was about the mighty
Lugh, who was brother to the wife of Cumhal, that when he came among
his army as they mustered for battle, men felt as though they beheld
the rising of the sun. As they came near, the young men halted and
looked upon the elders with pity, for their clothing of skins was
ragged and the weapons they strove to hold were rusted and blunt, and
except for their proud bearing and the fire in their old eyes they
looked more like aged and worthless slaves in the household of a
niggardly lord than men who had once been the flower of the fighting
men of Erinn.
But the tall youth stepped in front of his band and cried aloud--
"Which of ye is Crimmal, son of Trenmor?" And one of the elders said,
"I am Crimmal." Then tears filled the eyes of the youth, and he knelt
down before the old man and put his hands in his.
"My lord and chief," he said, "I am Finn, son of Cumhal, and the day
of deliverance is come."
[Illustration: "And that night there was feasting and joy in the
lonely hut"]
So the youths brought in the spoils of their hunting, and yet other
spoils than these; and that night there was feasting and joy in the
lonely hut. And Crimmal said--
"It was foretold to us that one day the blood of Cumhal should be
avenged, and the race of Cumhal should rule the Fianna again. This was
the sign that the coming champion should give of his birth and
destiny; he was to bear with him the Treasure Bag of Cumhal and the
sacred things that were therein."
Finn said, "Ye know the Bag and its treasures, tell us if these be
they." And he laid his skin bag on the knees of Crimmal.
Crimmal opened it, and he took out the jewels of sovranty the magic
spear-head made by the smiths of the Fairy Folk, and he said, "These
be the treasures of Cumhal; truly the ripeness of the time is come."
And Finn then told the story of how he had won these things.
"But yesterday morning," he said, "we met on our way a woman of noble
aspect, and she knelt over the body of a slain youth. When she lifted
her head as we drew near, tears of blood ran down her cheeks, and she
cried to me, 'Whoever thou art, I bind thee by the bonds of the sacred
ordinances of the Gael that thou avenge my wrong. This was my son
Glonda,' she said, 'my only son, and he was slain to-day wantonly by
the Lord of Luachar and his men.' So we went, my company and I, to the
Dún of the Lord of Luachar, and found an earthen rampart with a fosse
before it, and on the top of the rampart was a fence of oaken posts
interlaced with wattles, and over this we saw the many-coloured thatch
of a great dwelling-house, and its white walls painted with bright
colours under the broad eaves. So I stood forth and called to the Lord
of Luachar and bade him make ready to pay an eric to the mother of
Glonda, whatsoever she should demand. But he laughed at us and cursed
us and bade us begone. Then we withdrew into the forest, but returned
with a great pile of dry brushwood, and while some of us shot stones
and arrows at whoever should appear above the palisade, others rushed
up with bundles of brushwood and laid it against the palisade and set
it on fire, and the Immortal Ones sent a blast of wind that set the
brushwood and palisade quickly in a blaze, and through that fiery gap
we charged in shouting. And half of the men of Luachar we killed and
the rest fled, and the Lord of Luachar I slew in the doorway of his
palace. We took a great spoil then, O Crimmal--these vessels of bronze
and silver, and spears and bows, smoked bacon and skins of Greek wine;
and in a great chest of yewwood we found this bag. All these things
shall now remain with you, and my company shall also remain to hunt
for you and protect you, for ye shall know want and fear no longer
while ye live."
And Finn said, "I would fain know if my mother Murna still lives, or
if she died by the sons of Morna."
Crimmal said, "After thy father's death, Finn, she was wedded to
Gleor, Lord of Lamrigh, in the south, and she still lives in honour
with him, and the sons of Morna have let her be. Didst thou never see
her since she gave thee, an infant, to the wise women on the day of
Cnucha?"
"I remember," said Finn, "when I was, as they tell me, but six years
old, there came one day to our shieling in the woods of Slieve Bloom a
chariot with bronze-shod wheels and a bronze wolf's head at the end of
the pole, and two horsemen riding with it, besides him who drove. A
lady was in it, with a gold frontlet on her brow and her cloak was
fastened with a broad golden brooch. She came into our hut and spoke
long with my foster-mothers, and me she clasped in her arms and kissed
many times, and I felt her tears on my face. And they told me
afterwards that this was Murna of the White Neck, and my mother. If
she have suffered no harm at the hands of the sons of Morna, so much
the less is the debt that they shall one day pay."
Now it is to be told what happened to Finn at the house of Finegas the
Bard. Finn did not deem that the time had come for him to seize the
captaincy of the Fianna until he had perfected himself in wisdom and
learning. So on leaving the shelter of the old men in the wood he went
to learn wisdom and the art of poetry from Finegas, who dwelt by the
River Boyne, near to where is now the village of Slane. It was a
belief among the poets of Ireland that the place of the revealing of
poetry is always by the margin of water. But Finegas had another
reason for the place where he made his dwelling, for there was an old
prophecy that whoever should first eat of the Salmon of Knowledge that
lived in the River Boyne, should become the wisest of men. Now this
salmon was called Finntan in ancient times and was one of the
Immortals, and he might be eaten and yet live. But in the time of
Finegas he was called the Salmon of the Pool of Fec, which is the
place where the fair river broadens out into a great still pool, with
green banks softly sloping upward from the clear brown water. Seven
years was Finegas watching the pool, but not until after Finn had come
to be his disciple was the salmon caught. Then Finegas gave it to Finn
to cook, and bade him eat none of it. But when Finegas saw him coming
with the fish, he knew that something had chanced to the lad, for he
had been used to have the eye of a young man but now he had the eye of
a sage. Finegas said, "Hast thou eaten of the salmon?"
"Nay," said Finn, "but it burnt me as I turned it upon the spit and I
put my thumb in my mouth" And Finegas smote his hands together and was
silent for a while. Then he said to the lad who stood by obediently,
"Take the salmon and eat it, Finn, son of Cumhal, for to thee the
prophecy is come. And now go hence, for I can teach thee no more, and
blessing and victory be thine."
With Finegas, Finn learned the three things that make a poet, and they
are Fire of Song, and Light of Knowledge, and the Art of Extempore
Recitation. Before he departed he made this lay to prove his art, and
it is called "The Song of Finn in Praise of May":--
May Day! delightful day!
Bright colours play the vales along.
Now wakes at morning's slender ray,
Wild and gay, the blackbird's song.
Now comes the bird of dusty hue,
The loud cuckoo, the summer-lover;
Branching trees are thick with leaves;
The bitter, evil time is over.
Swift horses gather nigh
Where half dry the river goes;
Tufted heather crowns the height;
Weak and white the bogdown blows.
Corncrake sings from eve till morn,
Deep in corn, a strenuous bard!
Sings the virgin waterfall,
White and tall, her one sweet word.
Loaded bees of little power
Goodly flower-harvest win;
Cattle roam with muddy flanks;
Busy ants go out and in.
Through, the wild harp of the wood
Making music roars the gale--
Now it slumbers without motion,
On the ocean sleeps the sail.
Men grow mighty in the May,
Proud and gay the maidens grow;
Fair is every wooded height;
Fair and bright the plain below.
A bright shaft has smit the streams,
With gold gleams the water-flag;
Leaps the fish, and on the hills
Ardour thrills the flying stag.
Carols loud the lark on high,
Small and shy, his tireless lay,
Singing in wildest, merriest mood
Of delicate-hued, delightful May.[20]
[20] I am much indebted to the beautiful prose translation of
this song, published by Dr Kuno Meyer in _Ériu_ (the Journal of
the School of Irish Learning), Vol. I. Part II. In my poetic
version an attempt has been made to render the riming and
metrical effect of the original, which is believed to date from
about the ninth century.