You should know something of how stories of this kind are gathered
together. Many were taken down by the priests of early times, but none
were ever written until nearly a thousand years ago. Undoubtedly large
numbers of them have been lost by the death of the only person who knew
them.
It is only in the last few years that the Irish scholars have tried to
gather these tales together. There are many of these collectors of Irish
hero stories. Most of them, of course, are Irish, but America has
furnished one man who long will be remembered because of his work along
this line.
Jeremiah Curtin was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1840. He died in
1906. Into those sixty-six years he crowded the work of several ordinary
men. He had a great love for the languages and history. When he
graduated from Harvard, he was so well acquainted with Russian that he
went to St. Petersburg, now Petrograd, as Secretary of the American
Legation. While there he became interested in Russian literature and the
folk stories of the people. He translated many Russian books into
English and also collected a volume of their folk tales.
Many men would have been satisfied with this. Mr. Curtin was not. He
became connected with the Smithsonian Institute and while there studied
the folk tales of the various Indian tribes. He wrote two books of these
stories.
He next took up the study of Irish folk lore. He spent a great deal of
time in Ireland collecting the stories which appear in three books.
Whenever he heard of some old man or woman who knew an old story, he
went to that place and got the person to tell it to him, writing it down
as it was told. Many times it was one he had already heard, but that
could not discourage Mr. Curtin. As a result of this care his books are
very valuable to the older students of folk lore.
What an interesting life this man must have led! Think of the work he
must have done to learn the many languages well enough to get the
stories. We think we are well educated if we can read two or three
languages beside our own. Mr. Curtin, when he died, was familiar with
sixty languages!
And now that we know something about how folk lore is collected, we are
ready to make the acquaintance of Finn and his Fenian warriors.