THE BARDIC SCHOOLS
We must now, leaving verifiable history behind us, attempt a cautious
step backwards from the known into the doubtful, and see what in the
way of literature _is said_ to have been produced by the pagans.
We know that side by side with the colleges of the clergy there
flourished, perhaps in a more informal way, the purely Irish schools
of the Brehons and the Bards. Unhappily however, while, thanks to the
great number of the Lives of the Saints,[1] we know much about the
Christian colleges, there is very little to be discovered about the
bardic institutions. These were almost certainly a continuation of
the schools of the druids, and represented something far more antique
than even the very earliest schools of the Christians, but unlike
them they were not centred in a fixed locality nor in a cluster of
houses, but seem to have been peripatetic. The bardic scholars grouped
themselves not round a locality but round a personality, and wherever
it pleased their master to wander--and that was pretty much all round
Ireland--there they followed, and the people seem to have willingly
supported them.
There seems to be some confusion as to the forms into which what must
have been originally the druidic school disintegrated itself in the
fifth and succeeding centuries, but from it we can see emerging the
poet, the Brehon, and the historian, not all at once, but gradually.
In the earliest period the functions of all three were often, if not
always, united in one single person, and all poets were _ipso facto_
judges as well. We have a distinct account of the great occasion upon
which the poet lost his privilege of acting as a judge merely because
he was a poet. It appears that from the very earliest date the learned
classes, especially the "fĭlès," had evolved a dialect of their own,
which was perfectly dark and obscure to every one except themselves.
This was the Béarla Féni, in which so much of the Brehon law and many
poems are written, and which continued to be used, to some extent,
by poets down to the very beginning of the eighteenth century. Owing
to their predilection for this dialect, the first blow, according to
Irish accounts, was struck at their judicial supremacy by the hands of
laymen, during the reign of Conor mac Nessa, some time before the birth
of Christ. This was the occasion when the sages Fercertné and Neidé
contended for the office of arch-ollav of Erin, with its beautiful robe
of feathers, the Tugen.[2] Their discourse, still extant in at least
three MSS. under the title of the "Dialogue of the Two Sages,"[3] was
so learned, and they contended with one another in terms so abstruse
that, as the chronicler in the Book of Ballymote puts it:--
"Obscure to every one seemed the speech which the poets uttered in
that discussion, and the legal decision which they delivered was not
clear to the kings and to the other poets.
"'These men alone,' said the kings, 'have their judgment and their
skill, and their knowledge. In the first place we do not understand
what they say.'
"'Well, then,' said Conor, 'every one shall have his share therein
from to-day for ever.'"[4]
This was the occasion upon which Conor made the law that the office of
poet should no longer carry with it, of necessity, the office of judge,
for, says the ancient writer, "poets alone had judicature from the time
that Amairgin Whiteknee delivered the first judgment in Erin" until
then.
That the Bardic schools, which we know flourished as public
institutions with scarcely a break from the Synod of Drumceat in 590
(where regular lands were set apart for their endowment) down to the
seventeenth century, were really a continuation of the Druidic schools,
and embodied much that was purely pagan in their curricula, is, I
think, amply shown by the curious fragments of metrical text-books
preserved in the Books of Leinster and Ballymote, in a MS. in Trinity
College, and in a MS. in the Bodleian, all four of which have been
recently admirably edited by Thurneysen as a continuous text.[5] He
has not however ventured upon a translation, for the scholar would be
indeed a bold one who in the present state of Celtic scholarship would
attempt a complete interpretation of tracts so antique and difficult.
That they date, partially at least, from pre-Christian times seems
to me certain from their prescribing amongst other things for the
poet's course in one of his years of study a knowledge of the magical
incantations called _Tenmlaida, Imbas forosnai,_[6] and _Dichetal do
chennaib na tuaithe_, and making him in another year learn a certain
poem or incantation called _Cétnad_, of which the text says that--
"It is used for finding out a theft. One sings it, that is to say,
through the right fist on the track of the stolen beast" [observe
the antique assumption that the only kind of wealth to be stolen is
cattle] "or on the track of the thief, in case the beast is dead. And
one sings it three times on the one [track] or the other. If, however,
one does not find the track, one sings it through the right fist, and
goes to sleep upon it, and in one's sleep the man who has brought it
away is clearly shown and made known. Another virtue [of this lay]:
one speaks it into the right palm and rubs with it the quarters of the
horse before one mounts it, and the horse will not be overthrown, and
the man will not be thrown off or wounded."
Another _Cétnad_ to be learned by the poet, in which he desires length
of life, is addressed to "the seven daughters of the sea, who shape the
thread of the long-lived children."
Another with which he had to make himself familiar was the _Glam
dichinn_,[7] intended to satirise and punish the prince who refused to
a poet the reward of his poem. The poet--
"was to fast upon the lands of the king for whom the poem was to be
made, and the consent of thirty laymen, thirty bishops"--a Christian
touch to make the passage pass muster--"and thirty poets should be had
to compose the satire; _and it was a crime to them to prevent it when
the reward of the poem was withheld_"--a pagan touch as a make-weight
on the other side! "The poet then, in a company of seven, that is, six
others and himself, upon whom six poetic degrees had been conferred,
namely a _focloc, macfuirmedh, doss, cana, clí, anradh,_ and _ollamh_,
went at the rising of the sun to a hill which should be situated on
the boundary of seven lands, and each of them was to turn his face to
a different land, and the _ollamh's_ (ollav's) face was to be turned
to the land of the king, who was to be satirised, and their backs
should be turned to a hawthorn which should be growing upon the top
of a hill, and the wind should be blowing from the north, and each
man was to hold a perforated stone and a thorn of the hawthorn in his
hand, and each man was to sing a verse of this composition for the
king--the _ollamh_ or chief poet to take the lead with his own verse,
and the others in concert after him with theirs; and each then should
place his stone and his thorn under the stem of the hawthorn, and if
it was they that were in the wrong in the case, the ground of the hill
would swallow them, and if it was the king that was in the wrong, the
ground would swallow him and his wife, and his son and his steed, and
his robes and his hound. The satire of the _macfuirmedh_ fell on the
hound, the satire of the _focloc_ on the robes, the satire of the
_doss_ on the arms, the satire of the _cana_ on the wife, the satire
of the _clí_ on the son, the satire of the _anrad_ on the steed,[8]
the satire of the _ollamh_ on the king."
These instances that I have mentioned occurring in the books of the
poets' instruction, are evidently remains of magic incantations and
terrifying magic ceremonies, taken over from the schools and times
of the druids, and carried on into the Christian era, for nobody, I
imagine, could contend that they had their origin after Ireland had
been Christianised.[9] And the occurrence in the poets' text-books of
such evidently pagan passages, side by side with allusions to Athairné
the poet--a contemporary of Conor mac Nessa, a little before the birth
of Christ, Caoilte, the Fenian poet of the third century, Cormac
his contemporary, _Laidcend mac Bairchida_ about the year 400, and
others--seems to me to be fresh proof for the real objective existence
of these characters. For if part of the poets' text-books can be thus
shown to have preserved things taught in the pre-Christian times--to be
in fact actually pre-Christian--why should we doubt the reality of the
pre-Christian persons mixed up with them?
The first poem written in Ireland by a Milesian is said to be the
curious rhapsody of Amergin the brother of Eber, Ir, and Erimon, who on
landing broke out in a strain of exultation:--
"I am the wind which breathes upon the sea,
I am the wave of the ocean,
I am the murmur of the billows,
I am the ox of the seven combats,
I am the vulture upon the rock,
I am a beam of the sun,
I am the fairest of plants,
I am a wild boar in valour,
I am a salmon in the water,
I am a lake in the plain,
I am a word of science,
I am the point of the lance of battle,
I am the god who creates in the head [_i.e._, of man] the fire
[_i.e._, the thought]
Who is it who throws light into the meeting on the mountain?
Who announces the ages of the moon [if not I]?
Who teaches the place where couches the sea [if not I]?"[10]
There are two more poems attributed to Amergin of much the same nature,
very ancient and very strange. Irish tradition has always represented
these poems as the first made by our ancestors in Ireland, and no doubt
they do actually represent the oldest surviving lines in the vernacular
of any country in Europe except Greece alone.
The other pre-Christian poets[11] of whom we hear most, and to whom
certain surviving fragments are ascribed, are Feirceirtné, surnamed
_filé_, or the poet, who is usually credited with the authorship of
the well-known grammatical treatise called _Uraicept na n-Éigeas_ or
"Primer of the Learned."[12] It was he who contended with Neidé for
the arch-poet's robe, causing King Conor to decide that no poet should
in future be also of necessity a judge. The Uraicept begins with this
preface or introduction: "The Book of Feirceirtné here. Its place
Emania; its time the time of Conor mac Nessa; its person Feirceirtné
the poet; its cause to bring ignorant people to knowledge." There
is also a poem attributed to him on the death of Curoi mac Daire,
the great southern chieftain, whom Cuchulain slew, and the Book of
Invasions contains a valuable poem ascribed to him, recounting how
Ollamh Fódla, a monarch who is said to have flourished many centuries
before, established a college of professors at Tara.
There was a poet called Adhna, the father of that Neidé with whom
Feirceirtné contended for the poet's robe, who also lived at the court
of Conor mac Nessa, and his name is mentioned in connection with some
fragments of laws.
Athairné, the overbearing insolent satirist from the Hill of Howth,
who figures largely in Irish romance, was contemporaneous with these,
though I do not know that any poem is attributed to him. But he and
a poet called Forchern, with Feirceirtné and Neidé, are said to have
compiled a code of laws, now embodied with others under the title of
_Breithe Neimhidh_ in the Brehon Law Books.
There was a poet Lughar at the Court of Oilioll and Mève in Connacht
about the same time, and a poem on the descendants of Fergus mac Róigh
[Roy] is ascribed to him, but as he was contemporaneous with that
warrior he could not have written about his descendants.
There is a prose tract called Moran's Will,[13] ascribed to Moran, a
well-known jurist who lived at the close of the first century.
Several other authors, either of short poems or law fragments, are
mentioned in the second and third centuries, such as Feradach king of
Ireland, Modan, Ciothruadh the poet, Fingin, Oilioll Olum himself,
the great king of Munster, to whom are traced so many of the southern
families. Fithil, a judge, and perhaps some others, none of whom need
be particularised.
At the end of the third century we come upon three or four names of
vast repute in Irish history, into whose mouths a quantity of pieces
are put, most of which are evidently of later date. These are the great
Cormac mac Art himself, the most striking king that ever reigned in
pagan Ireland, he who built those palaces on Tara Hill whose ruins
still remain; Finn mac Cúmhail his son-in-law and captain; Ossian,
Finn's son; Fergus, Ossian's brother; and Caoilte [Cweeltya] mac Ronáin.
The poetry ascribed to Finn mac Cúmhail, Ossian, and the other Fenian
singers we will not examine in this place, but we must not pass by one
of the most remarkable prose tracts of ancient Ireland with which I am
acquainted, the famous treatise ascribed to King Cormac, and well known
in Irish literature as the "Teagasg ríogh," or Instruction of a Prince,
which is written in a curious style, by way of question and answer.
Cairbré, Cormac's son, he who afterwards fell out with and overthrew
the Fenians, is supposed to be learning kingly wisdom at his father's
feet, and that experienced monarch instructs him in the pagan morality
of the time, and gives him all kinds of information and advice. The
piece, which is heavily glossed in the Book of Ballymote, on account
of the antiquity of the language, is of some length, and is far too
interesting to pass by without quoting from it.
THE INSTRUCTION OF A PRINCE.
"'O grandson of Con, O Cormac,' said Cairbré, 'what is good for a
king.'[14]
"'That is plain,' said Cormac, 'it is good for him to have patience
and not to dispute, self-government without anger, affability without
haughtiness, diligent attention to history, strict observance of
covenants and agreements, strictness mitigated by mercy in the
execution of laws.... It is good for him [to make] fertile land,
to invite ships to import jewels of price across sea, to purchase
and bestow raiment, [to keep] vigorous swordsmen for protecting his
territories, [to make] war outside his own territories, to attend the
sick, to discipline his soldiers ... let him enforce fear, let him
perfect peace, [let him] give much of metheglin and wine, let him
pronounce just judgments of light, let him speak all truth, for it is
through the truth of a king that God gives favourable seasons.'
"'O grandson of Con, O Cormac,' said Cairbré, 'what is good for the
welfare of a country?'
"'That is plain,' said Cormac, 'frequent convocations of sapient and
good men to investigate its affairs, to abolish each evil and retain
each wholesome institution, to attend to the precepts of the elders;
let every assembly be convened according to law, let the law be in the
hands of the nobles, let the chieftains be upright and unwilling to
oppress the poor,'" etc., etc.
A more interesting passage is the following:--
"'O grandson of Con, O Cormac, what are the duties of a prince at a
banqueting-house?'
"'A Prince on Samhan's [now All Souls] Day, should light his lamps,
and welcome his guests with clapping of hands, procure comfortable
seats, the cupbearers should be respectable and active in the
distribution of meat and drink. Let there be moderation of music,
short stories, a welcoming countenance, a welcome for the learned,
pleasant conversations, and the like, these are the duties of the
prince, and the arrangement of the banqueting-house.'"
After this Cairbré puts an important question which was asked often
enough during the period of the Brehon law, and which for over a
thousand years scarce ever received a different answer. He asks, "For
what qualifications is a king elected over countries and tribes of
people?"
Cormac in his answer embodies the views of every clan in Ireland in
their practical choice of a leader.
"From the goodness of his shape and family, from his experience and
wisdom, from his prudence and magnanimity, from his eloquence and
bravery in battle, and from the number of his friends."
After this follows a long description of the qualifications of a
prince, and Cairbré having heard it puts this question:--"O grandson of
Con, what was _thy_ deportment when a youth;" to which he receives the
following striking answer:
"'I was cheerful at the Banquet of the Midh-chuarta [Mee-cuarta,
"house of the circulation of mead"], fierce in battle, but vigilant
and circumspect. I was kind to friends, a physician to the sick,
merciful towards the weak, stern towards the headstrong. Although
possessed of knowledge, I was inclined towards taciturnity.[15]
Although strong I was not haughty. I mocked not the old although I was
young. I was not vain although I was valiant. When I spoke of a person
in his absence I praised, not defamed him, for it is by these customs
that we are known to be courteous and civilised (_riaghalach_).'"
There is an extremely beautiful answer given later on by Cormac to the
rather simple question of his son:
"'O grandson of Con, what is good for me?'
"'If thou attend to my command,' answers Cormac, 'thou wilt not
mock the old although thou art young, nor the poor although thou
art well-clad, nor the lame although thou art agile, nor the blind
although thou art clear-sighted, nor the feeble although thou art
strong, nor the ignorant although thou art learned. Be not slothful,
nor passionate, nor penurious, nor idle, nor jealous, for he who is so
is an object of hatred to God as well as to man.'"
"'O grandson of Con,' asks Cairbré, in another place, 'I would fain
know how I am to conduct myself among the wise and among the foolish,
among friends and among strangers, among the old and among the young,'
and to this question his father gives this notable response.
"'Be not too knowing nor too simple; be not proud, be not inactive,
be not too humble nor yet haughty; be not talkative but be not too
silent; be not timid neither be severe. For if thou shouldest appear
too knowing thou wouldst be satirised and abused; if too simple thou
wouldst be imposed upon; if too proud thou wouldst be shunned; if too
humble thy dignity would suffer; if talkative thou wouldst not be
deemed learned; if too severe thy character would be defamed; if too
timid thy rights would be encroached upon.'"
To the curious question, "O grandson of Con, what are the most lasting
things in the world?" the equally curious and to me unintelligible
answer is returned, "Grass, copper, and yew."
Of women, King Cormac, like so many monarchs from Solomon down, has
nothing good to say, perhaps his high position did not help him to
judge them impartially. At least, to the question, "O grandson of Con,
how shall I distinguish the characters of women?" the following bitter
answer is given:
"'I know them, but I cannot describe them. Their counsel is foolish,
they are forgetful of love, most headstrong in their desires, fond
of folly, prone to enter rashly into engagements, given to swearing,
proud to be asked in marriage, tenacious of enmity, cheerless at
the banquet, rejectors of reconciliation, prone to strife, of much
garrulity. Until evil be good, until hell be heaven, until the sun
hide his light, until the stars of heaven fall, women will remain as
we have stated. Woe to him, my son, who desires or serves a bad woman,
woe to every one who has got a bad wife'"!
This Christian allusion to heaven and hell, and some others of the same
sort, show that despite a considerable pagan flavouring the tract
cannot be entirely the work of King Cormac, though it may very well be
the embodiment and extension of an ancient pagan discourse, for, as we
have seen, after Christianity had succeeded in getting the upper hand
over paganism, a kind of tacit compromise was arrived at, by means of
which the bards and _fĭlès_ and other representatives of the old pagan
learning, were allowed to continue to propagate their stories, tales,
poems, and genealogies, at the price of incorporating with them a small
share of Christian alloy, or, to use a different simile, just as the
vessels of some feudatory nations are compelled to fly at the mast-head
the flag of the suzerain power. But so badly has the dovetailing of
the Christian and the pagan parts been managed in most of the older
romances, that the pieces come away quite separate in the hands of
even the least skilled analyser, and the pagan substratum stands forth
entirely distinct from the Christian accretion.
[1] O'Clery notices, in his Féilĭrè na Naomh, the lives of thirty-one
saints written in Irish, all extant in his time, not to speak of Latin
ones. I fancy most of them still survive. Stokes printed nine from the
Book of Lismore; Standish Hayes O'Grady four more from various sources.
[2] _See_ Cormac's glossary _sub voce._
[3] _See_ "Irische Texte," Dritte Serie, 1 Heft, pp. 187 and 204.
[4] Agallamh an da Suadh.
[5] "Irische Texte," Dritte serie, Heft i.
[6] _See_ above, p. 84.
[7] See O'Curry's "Manners and Customs," vol. ii. p. 217, and "Irische
Texte," Dritte serie, Heft. i. pp. 96 and 125.
[8] It is curious to thus make the steed rank apparently next to the
king himself, and above the wife and son, for the _anrad_ who curses
the steed ranks next to the _ollamh._
[9] Thurneysen expresses some doubt about the antiquity of the last
citation.
[10] See Text 1. paragraph 123 of Thurneysen's "Mittelirische
Verslehren" for three versions of this curious poem, printed side
by side from the Books of Leinster and Ballymote, and a MS. in the
Bodleian. The old Irish tract for the instruction of poets gives it
as an example of what it calls _Cetal do chendaib_. I have followed
D'Arbois de Jubainville's interpretation of it. He sees in it a
pantheistic spirit, but Dr. Sigerson has proved, I think quite
conclusively, that it is liable to a different interpretation, a
panegyric upon the bard's own prowess, couched in enigmatic metaphor.
(_See_ "Bards of the Gael and Gaul," p. 379.)
[11] A number of names are mentioned--chiefly in connection with law
fragments--of kings and poets who lived centuries before the birth
of Christ, including an elegy by Lughaidh, son of Ith (from whom the
Ithians sprang), on his wife's death, Cimbaeth the founder of Emania,
before whose reign Tighearnach the Annalist considered _omnia monumenta
Scotorum_ to be _incerta_, Roigne, the son of Hugony the Great, who
lived nearly three hundred years before Christ, and some others.
[12] The "Uraicept" or "Uraiceacht" is sometimes ascribed to Forchern.
It gives examples of the declensions of nouns and adjectives in Irish,
distinguishing feminine nouns from masculine, etc. It gives rules of
syntax, and exemplifies the declensions by quotations from ancient
poets. A critical edition of it from the surviving manuscripts that
contain it in whole or part is a _desideratum._
[13] Udacht Morain, H. 2, 7, T. C, D.
[14] In the original in the Book of Ballymote: "A ua Cuinn a Cormaic,
ol coirbre cia is deach [_i.e._, maith], do Ri. Nin ol cormac [_i.e._,
Ni doiligh liom sin]. As deach [_i.e._, maith], do eimh ainmne [_i.e._,
foighde] gan deabha [_i.e._, imreasoin] uallcadi fosdadh [_i.e._,
foasdadh] gan fearg. Soagallamha gan mordhacht," etc. The glosses in
brackets are written _above_ the words.
[15] Compare Henry IV.'s advice to his son, not to make himself too
familiar but rather to stand aloof from his companions.
"Had I so lavish of my presence been,
So common-hackneyed in the eyes of men,
So stale and cheap to vulgar company--
Opinion, that did help me to the crown,
Had still kept loyal to possession," etc.
As for Richard his predecessor--
"The skipping king, he ambled up and down
With shallow jesters and rash bavin wits,
Soon kindled, and soon burned; carded his state;
Mingled his royalty with capering fools,' etc."
"Henry IV.," Part I., act iii., scene 2.