PRE-DANISH POETS
The sagas and historic tales, and the poetry that is mingled with
them, are of far greater importance from a purely literary point of
view than any of the other known productions during the pre-Norman
period. Although in almost every instance, I may say, their authorship
is unknown, they are of infinitely greater interest than those pieces
whose authorship has been carefully preserved. One of the first poets
of renown after St. Patrick's time was Eochaidh [Yohy], better known
as Dallán Forgaill. It is to him the celebrated "Amra," or elegy
on Columcille, whose contemporary he was, is ascribed,[1] and this
poem in the Béarla Feni, or Fenian dialect, has come down to us so
heavily annotated that the text preserved is the oldest miscellaneous
manuscript we have, the Leabhar na h-Uidhre, is almost smothered in
glosses and explanations, and indeed would be perfectly unintelligible
without them. The gloss and commentary is really far more interesting
than the poem, which indeed, considering the fame of Dallán, is
very disappointing; but no doubt it derived half its importance
from being in the Fenian dialect, and hence incomprehensible to the
ordinary reader. "He wrote," says the learned Colgan, who published
at Louvain the lives of the saints which O'Clery collected for him
at the beginning of the seventeenth century, "in the native speech,
and in ancient style, several little works which cannot in later ages
be easily penetrated by many otherwise well versed in the old native
idiom and antiquity, and hence they are illustrated by our more learned
antiquaries with scattered commentaries, and as rare monuments of our
ancient language and antiquity it is customary to lecture on them and
expound them in the schools of antiquaries of our nation. Among these
is one panegyric or poem always held in great esteem on the praises of
St. Colomb, and entitled 'Amra Choluim cille,'" etc. Colgan adds in a
note, "I have in my possession one copy of this work, but putting aside
a few scattered commentaries which it contains, it is penetrable to-day
to only a few, and these the most learned."
This obscure poem is not, so far as I can see, composed in any metre
or rhythm. It, with its gloss, is divided into seven chapters and
an introduction. Here is the comment on the first words _Dia, Dia,_
which will show better than anything that could be written, the very
high state of independent development which the Irish poets had early
attained in the technique of their art. We must remember that the
manuscript in which we find this was copied about the year 1100, and
the commentary may be much older. Irish is indeed the only vernacular
language of western Europe where poetic technique had reached so high
a perfection in the eleventh century. Fully to see the significance of
this one must remember that the English language had not at this time
even begun to emerge. Compare this highly-developed critical commentary
with anything of the same age that Germany, France, or Italy has to
show.
"_Dia, Dia,_[2] God, God, etc.," says the commentator, "it is why he
doubles the first word on account of the rapidity[3] and avidity of the
praising, as _Deus, Deus meus,_ etc. But the name of that with the Gael
is 'Return-to-a-usual-sound,' for there be three similar standards of
expression with the poets of the Gaels, that is _re-return to a usual
sound_, and _renarration mode_ and _reduplication_, and this is the
mark of each of them. The _return_ indeed is a doubling of one word in
one place in the round, without adhering to it from that forth. The
_renarration_ mode again is renarrating from a like mode; that means
the one word--to say it frequently in the round, with an intervention
of other words between them, as this--
"'Came the foam which the plain filters,[4]
Came the ox through fifty warriors;
So came the keen active lad
Whom brown Cu Dinisc left.'"
"But 'reduplication' is, namely 'refolding,' that is 'bi-geminating,' as
this--
"I fear fear / after long long /
Pains strong strong / without peace peace /
Like each each / until doom doom /
For gloom gloom / will not cease cease."[5]
"There are two divisions of these in this fore-speech [to the
Amra]; that is, we have the 'Return-to-a-usual-sound' and the
'renarration-mode,' but in the body of the hymn we have the
'renarration-mode' only."
Here is another passage which will show the difficulty that was found
so early as the eleventh century in explaining this Fenian dialect.
"IT IS A HARP WITHOUT A _ceis_, it is a church without an
abbot--_i.e., ceis_ is a name for a small harp which is used as an
accompaniment to a large harp in co-playing; or it is a name for the
small pin which holds the cord in the wood of the harp; or for the
tacklings, or for the heavy cord. Or the _ceis_ in the harp is what
holds the side part with its chords in it, as the poet said--it was
Ros[6] mac Find who sang it, or Ferceirtné[7] the poet,
The base-chord concealed not music from the harp of Crabtene,
Until it dropped sleep-deaths upon hosts.
* * * * *
Sweeter than any music, the harp
Which delighted Labhraidh [Lowry] Lorc the Mariner,
Though sullen about his secrets was the King,
The _ceis_, or base-chord of Craftiné concealed it not."
This poem is an allusion to the sagas which grouped themselves round
the sons of Ugony the great and Lowry the Mariner, who reigned about
530 years B.C.
In another place he quotes a poem of Finn mac Cúmhail's.
"'AND SEA-COURSE'--_i.e._, he was skilful in the art of _renis_[8]
that is 'of the sea,' or it may be _rian_ that would be right in it,
as Finn, grandson of Baoisgne [Bweesgna] said--
'A tale I have for you. Ox murmurs,
Winter roars, summer is gone.
Wind high cold, sun low,
Cry is attacking, sea resounding.
Very red raying has concealed form.
Voice of geese [Barnacles] has become usual,
Cold has caught the wings of birds,
Ice-frost time; wretched, very wretched.[9]
A tale I have for you.'"
Another verse quoted alludes to the chess-board of Crimhthann Nianáir,
who came to the throne eleven years before the birth of Christ.[10]
"FECHT AFOR NIA NEM--_i.e._, the time when the champion would come,
that is Columcille, for _nia_ means a champion, as is said--
"'The chessboard of Crimhthann, brave champion,
A small child carries it not on his arm (?)
Half of its chessmen are of yellow gold.
The other half of white bronze.
One man of its chessmen alone
Would purchase six married couples.'"
The ancient commentator quotes, thirty-five times in all, from various
poems, in explanation of his text, including poems ascribed to
Columcille himself, and to Gráinne, the daughter of Cormac mac Art, who
eloped from Finn mac Cúmhail. He quotes the satire made on Breas in the
time of the Tuatha De Danann, and a verse of St. Patrick (some of whose
Irish poetry is also quoted by the "Four Masters"), and a poet called
Colman mac Lenene, who was first a poet, but afterwards became a saint,
and founded the great school of Cloyne.
Dallán wrote two other Amras, one on Senan of Innis Cathaigh, "which,"
remarks Colgan, "on account of antiqueness of style and gracefulness
is amongst those fond of antiquity, always held in great esteem,"
and another in praise of Conall of Inskeel in Donegal, in one grave
with whom he was buried. There has also come down to us in the same
inscrutable Fenian dialect a poem of his consisting of eighty-four
lines on the shield of Hugh, King of Oriel, which, unlike his Amra, is
in perfect rhyme and metre.[11]
It was he who headed the bardic body when they were so nearly banished
from the kingdom, and were only saved by the intervention of St.
Columcille at the Synod of Drom Ceat [Cat], of which more hereafter.
There is a curious specimen of his overbearing truculence in a story
preserved in the same manuscript (of about the year 1100) that has
preserved his Amra; it is headed "A Story from which it is inferred
that Mongan was Finn mac Cúmhail." The poet was stopping with Mongan,
King of Ulster.
"Every night the poet would recite a story to Mongan. So great was his
lore that they were thus from Halloweve till May-day. He had gifts and
food from Mongan. One day Mongan asked his poet what was the death
of Fothad Airgdech. Forgoll said he was slain at Duffry in Leinster.
Mongan said it was false. The poet [on hearing that] said he would
satirise him with his lampoons, and he would satirise his father and
his mother and his grandfather, and he would sing [spells] upon their
waters, so that fish should not be caught in their river-mouths. He
would sing upon their woods so that they should not give fruit, upon
their plains so that they should be barren for ever of any produce.
"Mongan [thereupon] promised him his fill of precious things, so far
as [the value of] seven bondmaids, or twice seven bondmaids, or three
times seven. At last he offers him one-third, or one-half of his land,
or his whole land; at last [everything] save only his own liberty with
that of his wife Breóthigernd, unless he were redeemed before the end
of three days.
"The poet refused all except as regards his wife. For the sake of his
honour Mongan consented. Thereat his wife was sorrowful, the tear was
not taken from her cheek. Mongan told her not to be sorrowful, help
would certainly come to them."
Eventually the poet is very dramatically shown to be in the wrong.[12]
Dallán Forgaill was succeeded in the Head Ollamhship of all the Irish
bards by his pupil Senchan Torpeist, who was equally overbearing, and
whose intolerable insolence is admirably satirised in the story called
the "Proceedings of the Great Bardic Association." Only two poems of
his have come down to us, one being his elegy on the death of his
master Dallán Forgaill.
The next great lay poet of importance seems to have been Cennfaeladh,
who died in 678, whose verses are constantly cited by the "Four
Masters." He was originally an Ulster warrior who was wounded in
the battle of Moyrath, which was fought when Adamnan, Columcille's
biographer, was eleven years old, and he was brought to be cured
to the house of one Brian in Tuaim Drecain, where there were three
schools, one of classics,[13] one of law, and one of poetry. He used
to attend--apparently during his convalescence--these various schools,
and what he heard in the day he would repeat to himself at night, so
that "his brain of forgetfulness was extracted from his head after
its having been cloven in the battle of Moyrath." "And he put a clear
thread of poetry through them, and wrote them on flags and on tables,
and he put them into a vellum book." Hence he became a great lawyer as
well as a poet, and a considerable part of the celebrated Brehon Law
Book, called the Book of Acaill, is ascribed to him.[14]
Angus Céile Dé[15] [Kail-a Day], or the Culdee, is the next poet of
note who claims our attention. He flourished about the year 800, and
is the author of the well-known Féilĭrè, or Calendar. In this work one
stanza in _rinn áird_ metre is devoted to each day of the year, in
connection with the name of some saint--an Irish one wherever possible.
The Féilĭrè is followed by a poem of five or six hundred lines, which
with its glosses and commentaries is probably the most extensive
piece of Old Irish poetry that we have. Whitley Stokes, who edited it
with great care, considers it to be of the tenth rather than the late
eighth or early ninth century. If so, this would leave its authorship
doubtful, but it has been shown, I think by Kuno Meyer, that the number
of deponental forms contained in it might point to a higher antiquity
than that which Whitley Stokes allows. It has certainly been always
hitherto accepted as the work of Angus, and as it cannot well, in any
case, be more than a century or so later, we may let it stand here, as
it has always done, under his name. In the ancient and curious Irish
notes and commentary on the Féilĭrè we find a great number of verses
quoted from the poet-saints, and these include St. Patrick, St. Ciaran
the elder, St. Comgall with St. Columcille his friend, St. Ité the
virgin, St. Kevin of Glendaloch, St. Ciaran of Clonmacnois, St. Molaise
[Moleesha] of Devenish (who sent Columcille to banishment), St. Mochuda
of Lismore, St. Molling, St. Fechin of Forc, St. Aireran of Clonard,
Maelruan of Tallaght, Adamnan (Columcille's biographer), and Angus
the Culdee himself, a goodly company of priests and poets; but no one
seems to have been anything esteemed in ancient Erin unless he either
was or was reputed to be a poet! Of true poetic spirit it contains not
much, but it is a wonderful example of technical difficulties overcome.
The metre is one of the most difficult, a six-syllable one, with
dissyllabic endings. The first stanzas, translated into the metre of
the original, run as follows:--
"Bless, O Christ, my speaking,
King of heavens seven,
Strength and wealth and POWER
In this HOUR be _given_.
_Given_,[16] O thou brightest,
Destined chains to sever,
King of Angels GLORIOUS,
And victORIOUS _ever._
_Ever_ o'er us shining,
Light to mortals given,
Beaming daily, NIGHTLY,
BRIGHTLY out of heaven."
The Saltair na Rann has also been usually ascribed to Angus, but it
can hardly be, as Dr. Whitley Stokes has shown, earlier than the year
1000,[17] for it mentions apparently as contemporaries Brian king of
Munster, and Dub-da-lethe archbishop of Armagh, appointed in 988. It
is a collection of one hundred and sixty-two poems in early Middle
Irish containing between eight and nine thousand lines, mostly composed
in Deibhidh [D'yevvee] metre. These poems are all of a more or less
religious cast, and most of them are based (like the Saxon Caedmon's)
on Old Testament history, but they also contain a prodigious deal of
curious matter. The opening poem begins--
"Mo rí-se rí nime náir."[18]
("My king is the King of noble Heaven.")
It tells of the creation of the world, of the sun, of heaven and earth,
light and darkness, day and night, of how the earth separated from
the primal material, and was surrounded by the firmament, the world
being "like an apple, goodly and round"; then the king created the
mists, the current of the cold watery air, the four chief winds, and
the eight sub-winds, with their colours, "the white, the clear purple,
the blue, the great green, the yellow, the red truly-bold, ... the
black, the grey, the speckled (?), the dark (?), the dull-black, the
dun-coloured."[19] The poet then discusses the distance from the earth
to the firmament, the seven planets, the distance from the earth to
the moon, from moon to sun, the windless ethereal heaven, the distance
between the firmament and the sun, the motionless Olympus or third
heaven, the distance from the firmament to heaven and from the earth
to the depths of hell, the five zones, the firmament round the earth,
like its shell round an egg, the seventy-two windows of the firmament,
with a shutter on each, the seventh heaven revolving like a wheel, with
the seven planets from the creation, the signs of the zodiac,[20] the
time (30 days 10½ hours) that the sun is in each, the day of the month
on which it enters each, the month in which it is in each, the division
of the firmament into twelve parts, and the five things which every
intelligent man should know--the day of the month, age of the moon,
height of the tide, day of the week, and saints' festivals![21]
The attribution of colours to the winds in this poem is curious and
appears to be Irish. I have met traces of this fancy even amongst the
modern peasantry. There is a strange entry in the Great Brehon Law
Book, the Seanchas Mór, which quotes the colours of the winds in the
same order.
"The colour of each," says this strange passage, "differs from the
other, namely, the white and the crimson, the blue[22] and the green,
the yellow and the red, the black and the grey, the speckled and the
dark, the _ciar_ (dull black) and the grisly. From the east comes the
crimson wind, from the south the white, from the north the black, from
the west the dun. The red and the yellow winds are produced between
the white and the crimson, the green and the grey between the grisly
and the white, the grey and the _ciar_ between the grisly and the
jet-black, the dark and the mottled between the black and the crimson.
And those are all the sub-winds contained in each and all the cardinal
winds."
After thus describing the creation of the world in the first poem, we
are introduced in subsequent ones to heaven and the angels, who are
named for us, and then shown hell and Lucifer's abode, the description
of which, except that it is in verse, reminds us of that given by St.
Brendan. Next we are introduced to Adam and Eve, and it is stated that
Adam had spent a thousand years in the Garden of Eden. The jealousy
of Lucifer is described, and his temptation of Eve, whom he persuades
to open the door and let him into the garden. Then he makes her eat
the apple, and Adam takes half from her and eats also. The eleventh
poem describes the evil result, and is quite Miltonic and imaginative.
It tells us how for a week, after being driven out, Adam and his wife
remain without fire, house, drink, food, or clothing. He then begins
to lament to Eve over all his lost blessings and admits that he has
done wrong. Thereupon Eve asks Adam to kill her, so that God may pity
him the more. Adam refuses. He goes forth in his starvation to seek
food, and finds nothing but herbs, the food of the lawless beasts. He
proposes then to Eve to do penance and adore God in silence, Eve in the
Tigris for thirty days, and Adam in the Jordan for forty-seven days,
a flagstone under their feet and the water up to their necks. Eve's
hair fell dishevelled round her and her eyes were directed to heaven
in silent prayer for forgiveness. Then Adam prays the river Jordan "to
fast with him against God, with all its many beasts, that pardon may be
granted to him." Then the stream ceased to flow, and gathered together
every living creature that was in it, and they all supplicate the
angelic host to join with them in beseeching God to forgive Adam. They
obtain their request, and forgiveness is granted to Adam and to all his
seed except the unrighteous. When the devil, however, hears this, he,
"like a man in the shape of a white angel," goes to Eve as she stands
in the Tigris, and gets her to leave her penance, saying that he had
been sent by God. They then go to Adam, who at once recognises the
devil, and shows Eve how she has been deceived. Eve falls half dead
to the ground and reproaches Lucifer. He, however, defends himself,
and repeats to them at length the story of his expulsion from heaven
for refusing to worship Adam. He concludes by threatening vengeance
on him and his descendants. Adam and his wife then live alone for a
year on grass, without fire, house, music, or raiment, drinking water
from their palms, and eating green herbs in the shadows of trees and
in caverns. Eve brings forth a beautiful boy, who at once proceeds to
cut grass for his father, who calls him Cain. God at last pities Adam
and sends Michael to him with various seeds, and Michael teaches him
husbandry and the use of animals. Seven years afterwards Eve brings
forth Abel. In a vision she sees Cain drinking the blood of Abel.
In this manner, with a free play of the imagination, the writer runs
through both Old and New Testaments, down to the denial of Peter and
the death of Christ, in 150 poems, to which are appended twelve more,
eleven of them in a different and more melodious metre, "rannaigheacht
mhór," on the resurrection.
There were a number of other pre-Danish poets, but only occasional
pieces of theirs have been preserved. Their obits are often mentioned
by the annalists, but the few longer pieces of theirs that have
survived to our day being mostly historical or genealogical, and as
such devoid of much literary interest, we may neglect them.
[1] Mr. Strachan, however, has lately cast doubts upon its genuineness
and ascribes it in its present form to a later date.
[2] I follow here O'Beirne Crowe's imperfect rendering. If he
translates some words of this difficult piece inaccurately it does not
much matter for my purpose.
[3] _Ar abela no ar lainni an molta._ This word _Abél_ for "quick,"
"rapid," though neither in O'Reilly's nor Windisch's nor the Scotch
Gaelic dictionaries, is a common one in the spoken language of West
Connacht. It occurs twice in the "Three Shafts of Death," where it is
mistranslated by "awful," but it must be carefully distinguished from
M. I. _Abdul_, Keating's _Adhbhal_. The word is not known in Waterford,
and my friend the late Mr. Fleming, who was the chief authority in the
Royal Irish Academy on the spoken language, and who hailed from that
county, was, I believe, unacquainted with it.
[4] This translation is evident nonsense, but I cannot better it. The
original is "Ric in sithbe sitlas mag."
[5] Is é immoro adíabul, _i.e._, afhillind, _i.e._, doemnad, ut est
hoc, _i.e._,
"Águr águr iar céin chéin
Bith i péin, phein ni síth síth,
Amail cách cách, co bráth bráth,
In cech tráth tráth, cid scíth scíth."
My translation is in the exact metre of the original, and conveys
in English the manner in which the heptasyllabic Irish lines were
pronounced, in which, despite of what some continental scholars have
advanced, there is, I believe, _no alternation of beat or stress at
all_, and neither trochee nor iambus. O'Beirne Crowe mistranslates
_águr_ by "I ask."
[6] Ros was chief poet of Erin in the time of St. Patrick, and is said
to have helped him in redacting the Brehon Law.
[7] Ferceirtné was the poet at Conor mac Nessa's Court in the first
century B.C., who contended in the "Dialogue of the Two Sages," _see_
above p. 240.
[8] See above for _réin_ being used for sea, p. 10.
[9] The translation is doubtful. Dr. Sigerson has well versified it in
his "Bards of the Gael and Gaul," p. 116. The original has a curious
metrical effect not unlike that other piece attributed to Finn, quoted
above p. 275. It might be printed thus--
Scél lém duib Roruad rath
Dordaid dam Rocleth cruth,
Snigid gaim Rogab gnath
Rofaith sam. Giugrand guth.
Gaeth ard huar, Rogab uacht
Isel grian Ete én,
Gair arrith Aigre ré
Ruthach rían. E, mosclé.
[10] _See_ above p. 27 for Crimhthann's chess-board.
[11] Published by Professor Connellan, but without a translation, at
p. 258 of Vol. V. of Ossianic Society's publications. It, too, is in
the Féni dialect. The first verse, in honour of Dubh-Giolla, "the Black
Attendant," which was the name of the King's shield will show its
abstruseness.
"Dub gilla dub, arm naise,
Eo Rosa raon slegh snaise,
Adeardius daib diupla gainde
d'Aodh do cinn lainne glaise."
It would appear that Dallán could write Irish as well as Béarla Féni
from this verse, which is ascribed to him by the "Four Masters."
"Dallán Forgaill," they say, "dixit hoc do bhás Choluim Cille."
"Is leigheas legha gan lés
Is dedhail smeara re smuais
Is abhran re cruit gan chéis
Sinne déis ar nargain uais."
"It is the healing of a leech without light [_i.e._, in the dark]; it
is a dividing of the marrow from the bone; it is the song of a harp
without a base-string that we are, after being deprived of our noble."
This verse does not occur in the Amra, though the expression a "harp
without a base-string" does.
[12] _See_ the whole story, carefully edited by Kuno Meyer, in "The
Voyage of Bran," p. 45, where the poet is called Forgoll, but this is
evidently the same as our Dallán Forgaill, though Kuno Meyer appears
not to think so, for he has the following note: "Forgoll seems to
have been an overbearing and exacting _filé_ of the type of Athirne
and Dallán Forgaill." But as the story synchronises with the life of
Dallán Forgaill, and there is, so far as I know, no second poet known
as Forgoll, it is evidently the same person. The "Dallán," _i.e._,
the "blind man" (for he lost his eyesight through overstudy), being
prefixed to Forgaill appears to inflect it in the genitive case, as An
Tighearna easbuig, "the Lord Bishop," _i.e._, the lord of a bishop,
"the blind man of a Forgall."
[13] Scoil "legind."
[14] _See_ one of the poems ascribed to him printed by Professor
Connellan from the Book of Ballymote, Ossianic Society, vol. v. p. 268.
If it is Cennfealadh's it has been greatly altered during the course of
transcription.
[15] Céile Dé, or Culdee, _i.e._, "Servus Dei," was a phrase used with
much latitude, and in general denoted an ascetic, but occasionally also
a missionary, monk. We find the Dominicans of Sligo called Culdees in a
MS. of the year 1600. They seem to have arisen in the seventh or early
eighth century. The Scottish Culdees, becoming lax in later times,
married and established a spurious hereditary order. There is, of
course, no truth in the fable that they were the pre-Patrician or early
Scottish Christians, a notion which Campbell has propagated in his fine
poem "Reulura," _i.e._, "réull-úr":--
"Peace to their souls, the pure Culdees
Were Albyn's earliest priests of God,
Ere yet an island of her seas
By foot of Saxon monk was trod!"
[16] This _tour de force_, which consists of laying stress in the
beginning of each succeeding stanza upon the word which ended the
last, is common in Irish and is called _conachlonn_. It is much used
by Angus. It seems to be self-evolved in Irish, whose prosody is full
of original terms unborrowed from the Latin, which, to my mind, tells
strongly in favour of pre-Christian culture. It is curious that Horace
who falls into _conachlonn_ in his second ode, never returned to a form
so well adapted to lyric purposes:--
"Dextera sacras jaculatus arces
_Terruit_ urbem.
_Terruit_ gentes," etc.
[17] He has edited the text without a translation from the only MS.
that contains it--Rawlinson, B 502, in the Bodleian, in the "Anecdota
Oxoniensia" Series. Oxford deserves splendidly of Celtic scholars. If
only Dublin would follow her example!
[18]
"Mo rí-se rí nime náir
Cen huabur cen immarbáig,
Dorósat domun dualach,
Mo rí bith-beo bith-buadach."
[19]
"In gel in corcarda glan,
In glass ind uaine allmar,
In buidi in derg, derb dána,
Nisgaib fergg frisodála,
In dub, ind liath ind alad,
In t-emen in chiar chálad,
Ind odar doirchi datha
Nidat soirchi sogabtha."
The hundred and fifty-second poem, which is a beautiful one, again asks
what are the colours of the winds. Line 7,948.
[20] A good example of how Irish assimilates foreign words by cutting
off their endings:--
"Aquair, Pisc, Ariet, Tauir, Treb,
Geimin choir, ocus Cancer,
Leo Uirgo, Libru, Scoirp scrus,
Sagitair, Capricornus."
Leo is pronounced _L'yo_ as a monosyllable.
[21] _See_ Whitley Stokes' introduction for the analysis of the 1st,
the 11th, and the 12th poem.
[22] "Glas" must be here translated "blue." It is a colour used by the
Irish with great latitude, and apparently means yellowish, or light
blue, or greenish grey. To this day a _grey_ eye is _súil ghlas_ and
_green_ grass is _feur glas_, yet the colour of grass is not that of a
grey or even of a grey-green eye. We want a study on colours and their
shades as at present used by the Irish and the Scotch Highlanders.