Page 15. This stanza on Bran’s colour is given by O’Flaherty, in 1808,
in the “Gaelic Miscellany.” The first two lines correspond with those of
my shanachie, and the last two correspond _in sound_, if not in sense.
O’Flaherty gave them thus—
“Speckled back over the loins,
Two ears scarlet, equal-red.”
How the change came about is obvious. The old Irish suaiṫne, “speckled,”
is not understood now in Connacht; so the word uaiṫne, “green,” which
exactly rhymes with it, took its place. Though uaiṫne generally means
greenish, it evidently did not do so to the mind of my reciter, for,
pointing to a mangy-looking cub of nondescript greyish colour in a corner
of his cabin, he said, sin uaiṫne, “that’s the colour oonya.” The words
os cionn na leirge, “over the loins,” have, for the same reason—namely,
that learg, “a loin,” is obselete now—been changed to words of the same
sound. airḋaṫ na seilge, “of the colour of hunting,” _i.e._, the colour
of the deer hunted. This, too, the reciter explained briefly by saying,
seilg sin fiaḋ, “hunting, that’s a deer.” From the vivid colouring of
Bran it would appear that she could have borne no resemblance whatever
to the modern so-called Irish wolf-hound, and that she must in all
probability have been short-haired, and not shaggy like them. Most of the
Fenian poems contain words not in general use. I remember an old woman
reciting me two lines of one of these old poems, and having to explain
in current Irish the meaning of no less than five words in the two lines
which were
Aiṫris dam agus ná can go
Cionnas rinneaḋ leó an trealg,
which she thus explained conversationally, innis dam agus ná deun breug,
cia an ċaoi a ndearnaḋ siad an fiaḋaċ.
Page 17, line 9. Pistrogue, or pishogue, is a common Anglo-Irish word
for a charm or spell. Archbishop MacHale derived it from two words, fios
siṫeóg, “knowledge of fairies,” which seems hardly probable.
Page 19. “A fiery cloud out of her neck.” Thus, in Dr. Atkinson’s Páis
Partoloin, from the “Leabhar Breac,” the devil appears in the form of an
Ethiopian, and according to the Irish translator, ticed lassar borb ar a
bragait ocus as a shróin amal lassair shuirun tened. “There used to come
a fierce flame out of his _neck_ and nose, like the flame of a furnace of
fire.”
Page 19. According to another version of this story, the blind man was
Ossian (whose name is in Ireland usually pronounced Essheen or Ussheen)
himself, and he got Bran’s pups hung up by their teeth to the skin of a
newly-killed horse, and all the pups let go their hold except this black
one, which clung to the skin and hung out of it. Then Ossian ordered the
others to be drowned and kept this. In this other version, the coal which
he throws at the infuriated pup was tuaġ no rud icéint, “a hatchet or
something.” There must be some confusion in this story, since Ossian was
not blind during Bran’s lifetime, nor during the sway of the Fenians.
The whole thing appears to be a bad version of Campbell’s story, No.
XXXI., Vol. II., p. 103. The story may, however, have some relation to
the incident in that marvellous tale called “The Fort of the little Red
Yeoha” (Bruiġion Eoċaiḋ ḃig ḋeirg), in which we are told how Conan looked
out of the fort, go ḃfacaiḋ sé aon óglaċ ag teaċt ċuige, agus cu ġearr
ḋuḃ air slaḃra iarainn aige, ’na láiṁ, agus is ionga naċ loirġeaḋ si an
bruioġion re gaċ caor teine d’á g-cuirfeaḋ si ṫar a craos agus ṫar a
cúḃan-ḃeul amaċ, _i.e._, “he saw one youth coming to him, and he having a
short black hound on an iron chain in his hand, and it is a wonder that
it would not burn the fort with every ball of fire it would shoot out of
its gullet, and out of its foam-mouth.” This hound is eventually killed
by Bran, but only after Conan had taken off “the shoe of refined silver
that was on Bran’s right paw” (An ḃróg airgid Aiṫ-leigṫhe to ḃí air croiḃ
ḋeis Brain). Bran figures largely in Fenian literature.
[I believe this is the only place in which Finn’s _mother_ is described
as a fawn, though in the prose sequel to the “Lay of the Black Dog”
(Leab. na Feinne, p. 91) it is stated that Bran, by glamour of the
Lochlanners, is made to slay the Fenian women and children in the seeming
of deer. That Finn enjoyed the favours of a princess bespelled as a fawn
is well known; also that Oisin’s mother was a fawn (see the reference in
Arg. Tales, p. 470). The narrator may have jumbled these stories together
in his memory.
The slaying of Bran’s pup seems a variant of Oisin’s “Blackbird Hunt”
(_cf._ Kennedy, Fictions, 240), whilst the story, as a whole, seems to
be mixed up with that of the “Fight of Bran with the Black Dog,”of which
there is a version translated by the Rev. D. Mac Innes—“Waifs and Strays
of Celtic Tradition,” Vol. I., p. 7, _et seq._
It would seem from our text that the Black Dog was Bran’s child, so that
the fight is an animal variant of the father and son combat, as found in
the Cuchullain saga. A good version of “Finn’s Visit to Lochlann” (to be
printed in Vol. III. of “Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition”) tells how
Finn took with him Bran’s leash; and how the Lochlanners sentenced him
to be exposed in a desolate valley, where he was attacked by a savage
dog whom he tamed by showing the leash. Vol. XII. of Campbell’s “MSS. of
Gaelic Stories” contains a poem entitled, “Bran’s Colour.” This should be
compared with our text.—A.N.]