been noted, has come down to us in a late Middle Irish text from which
I now translate it for the first time. My attention was first called
to it years ago by my friend, Dr. Nicholas O'Donnell of Melbourne,
an Australian born and bred, but a good Irish scholar, who made a
transcript of the story for me from an Irish MS. which he picked up in
Australia. It may well have been taken from a vellum, for the initial
letter is omitted and a great space left for the scribe to insert it in
colours later on. I have carefully compared the copy of the Australian
text with four other copies which I find in the Royal Irish Academy,
the oldest of which however only dates from 1788, but I found virtually
no difference between them, and it is evident that they are all drawn
from the same original. There seems to be no variant known. There is
an ancient poem of great interest bearing on this story, called the
Colloquy between Fintan and the Hawk of Achill. It is in Egerton, 1782,
and the text was published in "Anecdota from Irish MSS." vol. I., p.
24, but has never been translated. Fintan, who survived the flood,
holds colloquy with the bird, which asked him about his life, and
Fintan asks the bird's age. "O hawk from cold Achill take a benison and
a victory, from the time you were born of an egg, tell the number of
[the years of] your life."
"I am of the same age as thou, O Fintan, son of Bochra." The Bird asks
Fintan "since he was a poet and a prophet" to tell him the greatest
evils he had ever experienced. We learn from the answer that the
ancient salmon in our story was really a rebirth of Fintan himself,
and it is exceedingly interesting to find the wily old crow[19] who
ate Léithin's young ones, appear upon the scene again, as a leading
personage in another drama. Fintan tells how the Creator placed him in
the cold streams in the shape of a salmon, how he frequented the Boyne,
the Bush, the Bann, the Suck, the Suir, the Shannon, the Slaney, the
Liffey, etc., etc. At last he came to Assaroe.
[19] The word "préachan," though it usually means crow, is applied to
the seabhac or hawk in this poem. In Co. Roscommon I always heard the
Marsh Harrier (or Kite as they called him in English), termed "préachan
gcearc" in Irish.
"A night I was on the wave in the north and I at seal-frequented
Assaroe. I never experienced a night like that from the beginning to
the end of my time.[20]
[20] Literally "of the world."
"I could not remain in the waterfall. I give a leap--it was no luck for
me--the ice comes like blue glass between me and the pool of the son of
Modharn.
"There comes a crow out of cold Achill, above the inver of Assaroe, I
shall not hide it, though it is a thing to keep as a secret. He swept
away with him one of my eyes.
"The Goll or Blind One of Assaroe has clung to me [as a name] from that
night. Rough the deed. I am ever since without my eye. No wonder for me
to be aged."
THE BIRD.
"It was I who swallowed thy eye, O Fintan. I am the grey Hawk, who be's
alone in the waist of Achill."
Fintan demands eric [recompense] for his eye, but the implacable old
crow answers:
"Little eric would I give thee, O Fintan, son of Bochra the soft, but
that one remaining eye in the withered head quickly would I swallow it
of one morsel."
The bird goes on to tell Fintan about the various battles it had seen
in Ireland. As for the battle of Moytura in Cong:
"It was there thy twelve sons fell; to see them, awsome was the blow,
and I gnawed off each fresh body[21] either a hand or one foot or one
eye."
[21] Literally "limb."
The old crow it was who carried off the hand of Nuadh covered with
rings, which had been lopped off in the slaughter, and which was
replaced later on by a silver hand, whence the King of the Tuatha De
Danann received the cognomen of Nuadh of the silver hand, but his real
hand was the plaything of the crows' young for seven years. He recounts
all the eyes he had picked out of heroes' heads after famous fights.
It was he too who perched upon Cuchulainn's shoulder, when, dying, he
had bound himself to the standing stone,[22] but though his life had
almost departed from him the hero pierced him with his _cletin curad_
or hero's little quill. "I came above the hero as his countenance was
darkening in death to eat his eyes, it was not an errand of luck, I
stoop my head. He feels me on his face, he raises up his weakening
hand, he puts his hero's little quill through my body at the first
effort (?) I take a troubled flight to Innis Geidh across the valleyed
sea and draw forth from myself, rough the task, the hard tough shaft of
the dartlet. The head remains in my body. It tortured my heart sorely:
sound I am not since that day, and I conceal it not since I am old. It
was I who slew, great the tidings, the solitary crane that was in Moy
Leana and the eagle of Druim Breac, who fell by me at the famous ford.
[22] See my "Literary History of Ireland," p. 351.
It was I who slew, pleasant the supper, the solitary crane of blue
Innis Géidh. IT WAS I WHO CHEWED BENEATH MY COMB THE TWO FULL-FAT BIRDS
OF LEITHIN. It was I who slew, royal the rout, THE SLENDER BLACKFOOT of
Slieve Fuaid; the BLACKBIRD of Drum Seghsa of the streams died in the
talons of my daughter."
It is plain then that this ancient poem, found in Egerton 1782, and in
the Book of Fermoy, actually presupposes our story, and has a close
connection with it.
THE STORY.
A gentle, noble, renowned patron there was of a time in the land of
Ireland, whose exact name was Ciaran of Cluan.[23] A good faith had he
in the mighty Lord.
[23] _i.e._, Clonmacnoise.
One day Ciaran bade his clerics to go look for thatch for his church,
on a Saturday of all days,[24] and those to whom he spake were Sailmin,
son of Beogan, and Maolan, son of Naoi, for men submissive to God were
they twain, so far as their utmost diligence went, and many miracles
were performed for Maolan, as Ciaran said in the stanza,
[24] Literally "especially."
Maolan, son of Naoi the cleric,
His right hand be for our benison
If the son of Naoi desired it
To work miracles like every saint.
And, moreover, Sailmin, son of Beogan, he was the same man of whom, for
wisdom, for piety, and for religion, Ciaran spake the stanza,
Sailmin melodious, son of Beogan.
A faith godlike and firm.
No blemish is in his body.
His soul is an angel.
He was the seventh son of the sons of Beogan of Burren,[25] and those
men were the seven psalmists of Ciaran, so that from them are the
"Youth's Cross" on the Shannon, and the [other] "Youth's Cross" on the
high road to Clonmacnoise [named].
[25] In West Clare.
Howsoever the clerics fared forth alongside the Shannon, until they
reached Cluain Doimh. There they cut the full of their little curragh
of white-bottomed green-topped rushes. But [before they had done] they
heard the voice of the clerics' bell at the time of vespers on Sunday,
so they said that they would not leave that place until the day should
rise on them on Monday, and they spake the lay as follows:
The voice of a bell I heard in Cluan[26]
On Sunday night defeating us,
I shall not depart since that has been heard,
Until Monday, after the Sunday.
On Sunday did God shape-out Heaven,
On that day was the King of the apostles born;
On Sunday was born Mary
Mother of the King of Mercy.
On Sunday, I say it,
Was born victorious John Baptist.
By the hand of God in the stream in the East
Was he baptised on Sunday.
On Sunday, moreover, it is a true thing,
The Son of God took the captivity out of hell.
On a Sunday after the battle ...?
Shall God deliver the judgment of the last day.
On a Sunday night, we think it melodious,
The voice of the cleric I hear,
The voice I hear of a bell
On Drum Diobraid above the pool.
The voice of the bell I hear
Making me to postpone return ...?
The voice of the bell I hear
Bringing me to Cluan.
By thy hand O youth,
And by the King who created thee,
My heart thinks it delightful
The bell and the voice.
[26] _i.e._, Clonmacnoise.
Howbeit the clerics abode that night [where they were] for the love
of the King of Sunday. Now there occurred, that night, a frost and
a prolonged snow and a rigour of cold, and there arose wind and
tempest in the elements for their skaith, without as much as a bothy
or a lean-to of a bed or a fire for them, and surely were it not for
the mercy of God protecting them round about, it was not in the mind
of either of them that he should be alive on the morrow after that
night, with all they experienced of oppression and terror from the
great tempest of that wild-weather, so that they never remembered
their acts of piety or to say or sing a prayer (?) Nor could they
sleep or rest, for their senses were turned to foolishness, for they
had never seen the like or the equal of that storm, and of the bad
weather of that night, for the venom of its cold and moreover for the
bitterness of the morning [which followed it]. And as they were there
on the morning of the next day they heard a gentle, low, lamentable,
woe-begone conversation of grief above their heads on high, on a tall,
wide-extended cliff. And [the meaning] was revealed to them through the
virtue of their holiness, and although much evil and anxiety had they
suffered, [still] they paid attention to the conversation and observed
it. And they between whom the conversation was, were these, namely an
eagle who was called Léithin[27] and a bird of her birds[28] in dialogue
with her, piteously and complainingly lamenting their cold-state,
pitifully, sadly, grievously; and said the bird to the eagle:
[27] Apparently "the little grey one," from "liath"-grey; pronounced
"Lay-heen." I have made her feminine and called her "she" in the
translation, but the Irish makes her masculine.
[28] _i.e._, one of its own young eagles, or nestlings.
"Léithin," said he, "do you ever remember the like of this morning or
of last night to have come within thy knowledge before?"
"I do not remember," said Léithin, "that I ever heard or saw the like
or the equal of them, since the world was created, and do you yourself
remember, or did you ever hear of such [weather]?" said the eagle to
the bird.
"There are people who do remember," said the bird.
"Who are they?" said the eagle.
"Dubhchosach, the Black-footed one of Binn Gulban,[29] that is the
vast-sized stag of the deluge,[30] who is at Binn Gulban; and he is the
hero of oldest memory of all those of his generation (?) in Ireland.
[29] Now Ben Bulben in Co. Sligo.
[30] _i.e._, "As old as the deluge."
"Confusion on thee and skaith! surely thou knowest not that; and now
although that stag be far away from me I shall go to see him, to find
if I may get any knowledge from him!"
Therewith Léithin went off lightly, yet was she scarcely able to rise
up on high with the strength of the bad weather, and no more could she
go low with the cold of the ...? and with the great abundance of the
water, and, though it was difficult for her, she progressed lightly
and low-flying, and no one living could reveal or make known all that
she met of evil and of misery going to Ben Gulban looking for the
Blackfoot. And she found the small-headed swift-footed stag scratching
himself against a bare oak rampike. And Léithin descended on a corner
of the rampike beside him. And she saluted the stag in his own language
and asks him was he the Blackfoot. The stag said that he was, and
Léithin spoke the lay:
Well for you O Blackfoot,
On Ben Gulban high,
Many moors and marshes,
Leap you lightly by.
Hounds no more shall hunt you
Since the Fenians fell,
Feeding now untroubled
On from glen to glen.
Tell me stag high-headed,
Saw you ever fall
Such a night and morning?
You remember all.
[THE STAG ANSWERS.]
I will give you answer
Léithin wise and gray,
Such a night and morning
Never came my way.
"Tell me, Blackfoot," said Léithin, "what is thy age?"
"I shall tell thee," said the Blackfoot. "I remember this oak here
when it was a little sapling, and I was born at the foot of the oak
sapling, and I was reared upon that couch [of moss at its foot] until
I was a mighty-great stag, and I loved this abode [ever], through my
having been reared here. And the oak grew after that till it was a
giant oak (?) and I used to come and constantly scratch myself against
it every evening after my journeyings and goings [during the day] and I
used [always] to remain beside it in such wise till the next morning,
and if I had to make a journey or were hotly hunted I used to reach
the same tree, so that we grew up with one another, until I became a
mighty-great stag, and this tree became the bare withered rampike which
you see, so that it is now only a big ruined shapeless-stump without
blossom or fruit or foliage to-day, its period and life being spent.
Now I have let a long period of years[31] go by me, yet I never saw and
never heard tell-of, in all that time, the like of last night."
[31] Or, "a cargo of five hundred years."
Léithin departs [to return] to his birds after that, and on his
reaching home the other[32] bird spoke to him, "have you found out what
you went to inquire about?"
[32] Literally "second."
"I have not," said Léithin, and she began to revile the bird for all
the cold and hardships she had endured, but at last she said, "who do
you think again would know this thing for me?" said Léithin.
"I know that," said the bird, "Dubhgoire the Black caller of
Clonfert[33] of Berachan."
[33] Perhaps "Cluansost." There is no Berachan in Clonfert in the
martyrologies. See "The Death of Bearachan," p. 63.
"Well then I shall go seek him."
And although that was far away from her, yet she proceeded until she
reached Clonfert of St. Berachan, and she was observing the birds until
they had finished their feeding [and were returning home], and then
Léithin saw one splendid bird beautifully-topped, victorious-looking,
of the size of a blackbird, but of the brightness of a swan, and as
soon as it came into its presence Léithin asks it whether it were
Dubhgoire. It said that it was. It was a marvel [to Léithin] when
it said that it was, namely that the blackbird should be white, and
Léithin spake the lay.
"How is that O Dubhgoire, sweet is thy warbling, often hast thou paid
thy calls throughout the blue-leaved forest.
"In Clonfert of the bright streams and by the full plain of the Liffey,
and from the plain of the Liffey coming from the east to Kildare behind
it.
"From that thou departest to thy nest in the Cill which Brigit blessed.
Short was it for thee to overleap every hedge till thou camest to the
townland in which Berachan was.
"O Dubhgoire tell to me--and to count up all thy life--the like of
yesterday morning, didst thou ever experience it, O Dubhgoire?"
[DUBHGOIRE ANSWERS.]
"To me my full life was three hundred years before Berachan, the
lifetime of Berachan I spent [added thereto], I was enduring in lasting
happiness.
"Since the time that Lughaidh of the Blades was for a while in the
sovereignty of all Ireland I never experienced by sea or by land such
weather as that which Léithin mentions in his lay."[34]
[34] Literally, "I never got on sea or land a knowledge of that lay of
Leithin's."
"Well, then, my own errand to thee," said Léithin, "is to enquire if
thou didst ever experience, or remember to have seen or [to have heard]
that there ever came such a morning as yesterday for badness."
"I do not remember that I ever saw such," said Dubhgoire, "or anything
like it."
As for Léithin, she was sad and sorrowful, for those tidings did not
help (?) her, and she proceeded on her way till she reached her nest
and birds.
"What have you to tell us to-day?" said the bird.
"May you never have luck nor fortune," said Léithin. "I have no more
news for you than I had when departing, except all my weariness from
all the journeyings and wanderings which you contrive to get me to
take, without my getting any profit or advantage out of you," and
with that she gave a greedy venemous drive of her beak at the bird,
so that she had like to have made a prey and flesh-torn spoil of it,
with vexation at all the evil and misery she had experienced going
to Kildare, so that the bird screeched out loudly and pitifully and
miserably.
[A while] after that Léithin said, "It's a pity and a grief to me if
any one in Ireland knows [that there ever came a night worse than that
night] that I myself do not know of it."
"Well, then, indeed, there is one who knows," says the bird, "Goll of
Easruaidh (_i.e._, the Blind One of Assaroe) and another name of him is
the Éigne[35] of Ath-Seannaigh (_i.e._, the salmon of Ballyshannon), and
it is certain that he knows about that, if any one in the world knows
about it."
[35] This is an old poetic word for a salmon.
"It is hard for me to go the way you tell me," said Léithin, "yet
should I like exceeding well to know about this thing."
Howsoever she set out, and she never came down until she reached
Assaroe of Mac Modhuirn, and she began observing and scrutinizing
Assaroe until she saw the salmon feeding near the ford, and she saluted
him and said, "Delightful is that O Goll, it is not with thee as with
me, for our woes are not the same," and she spake the lay:
[LÉITHIN SPEAKS.]
"Pleasant is that [life of thine] O Goll with success (?) many is the
stream which thou hast adventured, not the same for thee and for us,
if we were to relate our wanderings.
"It is to thee that I have come from my house, O Blind one of Assaroe,
how far doth thy memory go back, or how far is thy age to be reckoned?"
[THE SALMON ANSWERS.]
"As for my memory, that is a long one. It is not easy to reckon it.
There is not on land or in bush a person like me--none like me but
myself alone!
"I remember, it is not a clear-cut remembrance, the displacing showers
of the Deluge, four women and four men, who remained after it in the
world.
"I remember Patrick of the pens coming into the land of Ireland,
and the Fir Bolg, manful the assembly, coming from Greece to take
possession of it.
"Truly do I mind me of Fintan's coming into the country close to me.
Four men were the crew of his ship, and an equal number of females.
"I remember gentle Partholan's taking the kingship over Ulster. I
remember, a while before that, Glas, son of Aimbithe in Emania.
"I chanced to be one morning that was fair, on this river, O Léithin, I
never experienced a morning like that, either before it or after it.
"I gave a leap into the air under the brow of my hard rock [here], and
before I came down into my house [of water] this pool was one flag of
ice.
"The bird of prey[36] seized me above the land with a furious ungentle
onslaught, and bore away my clear blue eye. To me it was not a pleasant
world."
[36] Literally "eagle," but this is a mistake, it was not an eagle.
* * * * *
"Well now, my own object in coming to thee," said Léithin, "was to
enquire of thee whether thou dost ever remember such a morning as was
yesterday?"
"Indeed saw I such a morning," quoth Goll. "I remember the coming
of the deluge, and I remember the coming of Partholan and of Fintan
and the children of Neimhidh and the Fir Bolg and the Tuatha De
Danann, and the Fomorians and the sons of Milesius and Patrick son of
Alprunn, and I remember how Ireland threw off from her those troops,
and I remember a morning that was worse than that morning, another
morning not speaking of the great showers out of which the deluge
fell. And the deluge left only four men and four women, namely, Noe,
son of Laimhfhiadh and his wife, and Sem, Cam and Japhet, and their
three wives, for in truth that was the crew of the ark, and neither
[church] man nor canon reckon that God left undestroyed in the world
but those four. However, wise men truly recount that God left another
four keeping knowledge and tribal-descent and preserving universal
genealogies, for God did not wish the histories of the people to fade,
and so he left Fintan son of Laimhfhiadh towards the setting of the
sun, south, keeping an account of the west of the world, and, moreover,
Friomsa Fhurdhachta keeping the lordship of the north, and the prophet
and the Easba? duly ordering [the history of the] south. And those
are they who were alive outside of the ark, and I remember all those
people. And Léithin," said Goll, "I never saw the like of that morning
for vemon except one other morning that was worse than the morning that
you speak of, and worse than any morning that ever came before it. It
was thus. One day I was in this pool and I saw a beautifully coloured
butterfly with purple spots in the air over my head. I leapt to catch
it, and before I came down the whole pool had become one flag of ice
behind me, so that [when I fell back] it bore me up. And then there
came the bird of prey[37] to me, on his seeing me [in that condition],
and he gave a greedy venemous assault on me and plucked the eye out of
my head, and only for my weight he would have lifted me, and he threw
the eye into the pool, and we both wrestled together until we broke
the ice with the violence of the struggle, and with the [heat of the]
great amount of crimson-red blood that was pouring from my eye, so that
the ice was broken by that, so that with difficulty I got down into
the pool [again], and that is how I lost my eye. And it is certain O
Léithin," said Goll, "that that was by far the worst morning that I
ever saw, and worse than this morning that thou speakest of."
[37] Literally "eagle." MSS. reads "fiolar"--"the eagle," which is
evidently a mistake.
* * * * *
Now as for the clerics, they took council with one another, and
determined to await [the eagle's return] that they might know what she
had to relate. However they experienced such hardships and anguish
from the cold and misery of the night, and they could not [despite
their resolution] endure to abide [the eagle's return]. So Maolan, the
cleric, said, "I myself beseech the powerful Lord, and the chosen
Trinity, that the eagle, Léithin, may come with the knowledge she
receives to Clonmacnoise and tell it to Ciaran," [and therewith they
themselves departed.]
Now as for Goll [the salmon], he asked Léithin, after that, who was it
that sent her in pursuit of that knowledge.
"It was the second bird of my own birds."
"That is sad," said Goll, "for that bird is much older than thou or
than I either, and that is the bird that picked my eye out of me, and
if he had desired to make thee wise in these things it would have been
easy for him. That bird," said he, "is the old Crow of Achill. And
its talons have got blunted with old age, and since its vigour and
energy and power of providing for itself have departed from it, its
way of getting food is to go from one nest to another, smothering and
killing every bird's young, and eating them, and so thou shalt never
overtake thy own birds alive. And O beloved friend, best friend that I
ever saw, if thou only succeedest in catching him alive on thy return,
remember all the tricks he has played thee, and avenge thy birds and
thy journeyings and thy wanderings upon him, and then too mind thee to
avenge my eye."
Léithin bade farewell to Goll, and off she went the self-same way she
had come, in a mighty swift course, for she felt certain [now] that
she would not overtake her birds alive in her nest. And good cause had
she for that dread, for she only found the place of the nest, wanting
its birds, they having been eaten by the Crow of Achill. So that all
Léithin got as the result of her errand was the loss of her birds.
But the old Crow of Achill had departed after its despoiling [the
nest], so that Léithin did not come upon it, neither did she know what
way it had gone.
Another thing, too, Léithin had to go every Monday, owing to the
cleric's prayer, to Clonmacnoise. There the eagle perched upon the
great pinnacle of the round tower[38] of Clonmacnoise, and revealed
herself to the holy patron, namely Ciaran. And Ciaran asked her for her
news. And Léithin said she was [not?] more grieved at her wanderings
and her loss than at that. Thereupon Ciaran said that he would give her
the price and reward of her storytelling; namely, every time that her
adventures should be told, if it were stormy or excessive rain that was
in it at the time of telling, it should be changed into fine sky and
good weather.
[38] Literally "Bell-house."
And Léithin said that it was understood by her [all along] that it
was not her birds or her nest she would receive from him; and since
that might not be, she was pleased that her journeyings and wanderings
should not go for nothing.
And [thereupon] Léithin related her goings from the beginning to the
end, just as we have told them above. So those are the adventures of
Léithin. Thus far.
THE COMPARISON AS TO AGE BETWEEN THE FOUR ELDERS; NAMELY, THE CROW OF
ACHILL, THE GREAT EAGLE OF LEAC NA BHFAOL, THE BLIND TROUT OF ASSAROE,
AND THE HAG OF BEARE.
PREFACE.