By ELEANOR HULL.
Ireland has the unique distinction of having preserved for mankind a
full and vivid literary record of a period otherwise, so far as
native memorials are concerned, clouded in obscurity. A few
fragmentary suggestions, derived from ancient stone monuments or from
diggings in tumuli and graves, are all that Gaul or Britain have to
contribute to a knowledge of that important period just before and
just after the beginning of our era, when the armies of Rome were
overrunning western Europe and were brought, for the first time, into
direct contact with the Celtic peoples of the West. Almost all that
we know of the early inhabitants of these countries comes to us from
the pens of Roman writers and soldiers--Poseidonius, Caesar,
Diodorus, Tacitus. We may give these observers credit for a desire to
be fair to peoples they sometimes admired and often dreaded, but
conquerors are not always the best judges of the races they are
engaged in subduing, especially when they are ignorant of their
language, unversed in their lore and customs, and unused to their
ways. Valuable as are the reports of Roman authorities, we feel at
every point the need of checking them by native records; but the
native records of Gaul, and in large part also those of Britain and
Wales, have been swept away. Caesar is probably right in saying that
the Druids, who were the learned men of their race and day, committed
nothing to writing; if they did, whatever they wrote has been
irrecoverably lost.
But Ireland was exempt from the sweeping changes brought about
through long periods of Roman and Saxon occupation; no great upheaval
from without disturbed the native political and social conditions up
to the coming of the Norse and Danes about the beginning of the ninth
century. Agricola, standing on the western coast of Britain, looked
across the dividing channel, and reflected upon "the beneficial
connection that the conquest of Ireland would have formed between the
most powerful parts of the Roman Empire," but, fortunately for the
literature of Ireland, if not for her history, he never came. The
early incursions of the Scotti or Irish were eastward into England,
Wales, and Gaul, and there seem to have been few return movements
towards the west. Ireland pursued her path of native development
undisturbed. It is to this circumstance that she owes the
preservation of so much of her native literature, a great body of
material, historical, religious, poetic, romantic, showing marks of
having originated at a very early time, and of great variety and
interest.
At what period this literature first began to be written down we do
not know. Orosius tells us that a traveler named Aethicus spent a
considerable time in Ireland early in the fifth century "examining
their volumes", which tends to prove that there was writing in
Ireland before St. Patrick. But the native bard must have made
writing superfluous. The man who could, at a moment's notice, recite
any one out of the 350 stories which might be called for, besides
poetry, genealogies, and tribal records, was worth many books. Only a
few were expert enough to read his writings, but all could enjoy his
tales.
The earliest written records that we have now existing date from the
seventh or eighth century; but undoubtedly there is preserved for us,
in these materials, a picture of social conditions going back to the
very beginning of our era, and coeval with the stage of civilization
known in archaeology as _La Tène_ or "Late Celtic".
To help his memory the early "shanachie" or story-teller grouped his
romantic story-store under different heads, such as "Táins" or
Cattle-spoils, Feasts, Elopements, Sieges, Battles, Destructions,
Tragical Deaths; but it is easier for us now to group them in another
way, and to class together the series of tales referring to the
Tuatha De Danann or ancient deities, those belonging to the Red
Branch cycle of King Conchobar and Cuchulainn, those relating to
Finn, and the Legends of the Kings. The hundred or more tales
belonging to the second group are especially valuable for social
history on account of the detailed descriptions they give of customs,
dress, weapons, habits of life, and ethical ideas. To the historian,
folklorist, and student of primitive civilizations they are documents
of the highest importance.
It seems likely that the Red Branch cycle of tales, including the
epic tale of the Táin or Cattle-spoil of Cualnge, which has gathered
round itself a number of minor tales, had some basis of historical
fact, and arose in the period of Ulster's predominance to celebrate
the deeds of a band of warlike champions who flourished in the north
about the beginning of the Christian era. No one who has visited the
raths of Emain Macha, near Armagh, where stood the traditional site
of the ancient capital of Ulster, or has followed the well-defined
and massive outworks of Rath Celtchair and the forts of the other
heroes whose deeds the tales embody, could doubt that they had their
origin in great events that once happened there. The topography of
the tales is absolutely correct. Or again, when we cross over into
Connacht, the remains at Rath Croghan, near the ancient palace of the
Amazonian queen, Medb, testify to similar events. She it was who in
her "Pillow Talk" with her husband Ailill declared that she had
married him only because in him did she find the "strange bride-gift"
which her imperious nature demanded, "a man without stinginess,
without jealousy, without fear." It was in her desire to surpass her
husband in wealth that she sent the combined armies of the south and
west into Ulster to carry off a famous bull, the Brown Bull of
Cooley, the only match in Ireland for one possessed by her spouse.
This raid forms the central subject of the _Táin Bó Cúalnge_. The
motif of the tale and the kind of life described in it alike show the
primitive conditions out of which it had its rise. It belongs to a
time when land was plenty for the scattered inhabitants to dwell
upon, but stock to place upon it was scarce. The possession of herds
was necessary, not only for food and the provisioning of troops, but
as a standard of wealth, a proof of position, and a means of
exchange. Everything was estimated, before the use of money, by its
value in kine or herds. When Medb and Ailill compare their
possessions, to find out which of them is better than the other,
their herds of cattle, swine, and horses are driven in, their
ornaments and jewels, their garments and vats and household
appliances are displayed. The pursuit of the cattle of neighboring
tribes was the prime cause of the innumerable raids which made every
man's life one of perpetual warfare, much more so than the
acquisition of land or the avenging of wrongs. Hence a motif that may
seem to us insufficient and remote as the subject of a great epic
arose out of the necessities of actual life. Cattle-driving is the
oldest of all occupations in Ireland.
The conditions we find described in these tales show us an open
country, generally unenclosed by hedges or walls. The chariots can
drive straight across the province. There are no towns, and the
stopping places are the large farmers' dwellings, open inns known as
"houses of hospitality", fortified by surrounding raths or earthen
walls, the only private property in land, in a time when the
tribe-land was common, that we hear of at this period. Within these
borders lay the pleasure grounds and gardens and the cattle-sheds for
the herds, which the great landowner or chief loaned out to the
smaller men in return for services rendered. Here were trained in
arts of industry and fine needlework the daughters of the chief men
of the tribe and their foster-sisters, drawn from the humbler
families around them. The rivers as a rule formed the boundaries of
the provinces, and the fords were constantly guarded by champions who
challenged every wayfarer to single combat, if he could not show
sufficient reason for crossing the borderland. These combats were
fought actually in the ford itself, and all wars began in a long
series of single hand-to-hand combats between equal champions before
the armies as a whole engaged each other.
To fight was every man's prime duty, and the man who had slain the
largest number of his fellows was acclaimed as the greatest hero. It
was the proud boast of Conall Cernach, "the Victorious", that seldom
had a day passed in which he had not challenged a Connachtman, and
few nights in which a Connachtman's head had not formed his pillow.
It shows the primitive savagery of the period that skulls of enemies
were worn dangling from the belt, and were stored up in one of the
palaces of Emain Macha as trophies of valor. So warlike were the
heroes that even during friendly feasts their weapons had to be hung
up in a separate house, lest they should spring to arms in rivalry
with their own fellows.
Yet in spite of this rude barbarism of outward life, the warriors had
formed for themselves a high and exacting code of honor, which may be
regarded as the first steps toward what in later times and other
countries became known as "chivalry"; save that there is in the acts
of the Irish heroes a simplicity and sincerity which puts them on a
higher level than the obligatory courtesies of more artificial ages.
Generosity between enemies was carried to an extraordinary pitch.
Twice over in fights with different foes, Conall Cernach binds his
right hand to his side in order that his enemy, who had lost one
hand, may fight on equal terms with him. The two severest combats
sustained by Cuchulainn, the youthful Ulster champion, in the long
war of the Táin are those with Loch the Great and Ferdiad, both
first-rate warriors, who had been forced by the wiles of Medb into
unwilling conflict against their young antagonist. In their youth
they had been fellow-pupils in the school of the Amazon Scathach, who
had taught them both alike the arts of war. When Loch the Great, as a
dying request, prays Cuchulainn to permit him to rise, "so that he
may fall on his face and not backwards towards the men of Erin," lest
hereafter it should be said that he fell in flight, Cuchulainn
replies: "That will I surely, for it is a warrior's boon thou
cravest," and he steps back to allow the wounded man to reverse his
position in the ford. The tale of Cuchulainn's combat with Ferdiad
has become classic; nothing more pathetic or more full of the true
spirit of chivalry is to be found in any literature. Each warrior
estimates nobly the prowess of the other, each sorrowfully recalls
the memory of old friendships and expeditions made together. When
Ferdiad falls, his ancient comrade pours out over him a passionate
lament. Each night, when the day's combat is over, they throw their
arms round each other's neck and embrace. Their horses are put up in
the same paddock and their charioteers sleep beside the same fire;
each night Cuchulainn sends to his wounded friend a share of the
herbs that are applied to his own wounds, while to Cuchulainn Ferdiad
sends a fair half of the pleasant delicate food supplied to him by
the men of Erin. We may recall, too, Cuchulainn's act of compassion
towards Queen Medb near the close of the Táin. Her army is flying in
rout homeward across the Shannon, closely pursued by Cuchulainn. As
he approaches the ford he finds Queen Medb lying prostrate on the
bank, unable any longer to guard the retreat of her army. She appeals
to her enemy to aid her; and Cuchulainn, with that lovable boyish
delight in acts of supreme generosity which is always ascribed to
him, undertakes to shield the retreat of the disordered host from his
own troops and to see them safely across the river, while Medb
reposes peacefully in a field hard by. The spirit which actuates the
heroes is well expressed by Cuchulainn when his friends would
restrain him from going forth to his last fight, knowing that in that
battle he must fall: "I had rather than the whole world's gold and
than the earth's riches that death had ere now befallen me, so would
not this shame and testimony of reproach now stand recorded against
me; for in every tongue this noble old saying is remembered, 'Fame
outlives life.'"
The Irish tales surpass those of the Arthurian cycle in simplicity,
in humor, and in human interest; the characters are not mere types of
fixed virtues and vices, they have each a strongly marked
individuality, consistently adhered to through the multitude of
different stories in which they play a part. This is especially the
case with regard to the female characters. Emer, Deirdre, Etain,
Grainne may be said to have introduced into European literature new
types of womanhood, quite unlike, in their sprightliness and humor,
their passionate affection and heroic qualities, to anything found
elsewhere. Stories about women play a large part in ancient Irish
literature; their elopements, their marriages, their griefs and
tragedies, form the subject of a large number of tales. Among the
list of tales that any bard might be called upon to recite, the
"Courtships" or "Wooings" probably formed a favorite group; they are
of great variety and beauty. The Irish, indeed, may be called the
inventors of the love-tale for modern Europe.
The gravest defect of this literature (a defect which is common to
all early literature before coming under the chastening hand of the
master) is undoubtedly its tendency to extravagance; though much
depended upon the individual writer, some being stylists and some
not, all were prone to frequent and grotesque exaggerations. The lack
of restraint and self-criticism is everywhere apparent; the old Irish
writer seems incapable of judging how to shape his material with a
view to presenting it in its best form. Thus, we have the feeling,
even with regard to the _Táin Bó Cúalnge_, that what has come down to
us is rather the rough-shaped material of an epic than a completed
design. The single stories and the groups of stories have been
handled and rehandled at different times, but only occasionally, as
in the Story of Deirdre (the "Sorrowful Tale of the Sons of Usnech"),
or in the later versions of the "Wooing of Emer", or the Book of
Leinster version of the "Wooing of Ferb", do we feel that a competent
artist has so formed his story that the best possible value has been
extracted from it. Yet, in spite of their defects, the old heroic
sagas of Ireland have in them a stimulating force and energy, and an
element of fine and healthy optimism, which is strangely at variance
with the popular conception of the melancholy of Irish literature,
and which, wherever they are known, make them the fountain-head of a
fresh creative inspiration. This stimulating of the imagination is
perhaps the best gift that a revived interest in the old native
romance of Ireland has to bestow.