Boinne, the son of Breacal, exclaimed,
With quickness, fierceness, and valour,--
I and the Fians of Breatan,
Will be with Oscar of Eamhain.
There were thus in this battle, besides Feinne of Erin, Feinne of
Alban, Breatan, and Lochlan.
Alba or Alban was Scotland, north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde.
Breatan was not Wales, but the southern districts of Scotland, of which
Dunbreatan, now Dumbarton, was the chief seat.
Lochlan was the north of Germany, extending from the Rhine to the
Elbe;[34] and the name of Lochlanach was originally applied to the
ancient traditionary pirates termed the Fomorians. When the Norwegian
and Danish pirates appeared in the ninth century, they were likewise
called Lochlanach; and the name of Lochlan was transferred to Norway
and Denmark, from whence they came. There is every reason to believe
that the Low German race were preceded, in the more ancient Lochlan, by
a Celtic people.
[34] A passage in one of the oldest of the MSS., deposited in the
Library of the Faculty of Advocates, shows that the term Lochlan was
anciently applied to the districts east of the Rhine. “Cæsar came with
some entire legions of the ruthless youth of Italy into the rough land
of Gallia, and the wide and long country of Lochlain. For these are one
and the same country; _but for the interposition of the clear current
of the Rhine, which divides and sunders the two lands_.”
The Feinne then belonged to the pre-Milesian races, and were connected,
not only with Erin, but likewise with Alban, Breatan, and Lochlan.
Now, there are just two people mentioned in the Irish records who had
settlements in Ireland, and who yet were connected with Alban, Breatan,
and Lochlan. These were the people termed the Tuatha De Danann, and the
Cruithne.
The traditionary migration of the Tuatha De Danann brings them from
Lochlan, where they possessed four cities, to Alban, where they
inhabited a district termed Dobhar and Jr Dobhar; and from thence they
went to Erin, where they drove out the Firbolg, to be subdued in their
turn by the Milesian Scots.
The Cruithne are likewise brought from Lochlan to Erin and from Erin to
Alban, where they founded a kingdom, which included, till the seventh
century, the Cruithne of Ulster, and which was subverted in the ninth
century by the Milesian Scots.
These two tribes were thus the prior race in each country. Both must
have been prior to the Low German population of Lochlan. The Cruithne
were the race prior to the Scots in Alban, and the Tuatha De Dannan
the prior colony to the Milesian Scots in Erin. The Feinne are brought
by all the old historic tales into close contact with the Tuatha De
Danann; a portion of them were avowedly Cruithne; and if they were,
as we have seen, in Erin, not of the Milesian race, but of the prior
population, and likewise connected with Alban, Breatan, and Lochlan,
the inference is obvious, that, whether a denomination for an entire
people or for a body of warriors, they belonged to the previous
population which preceded the Germans in Lochlan and the Scots in Erin
and Alban.
This view is corroborated by the fact, that in the old poems and tales
the Feinne appear, as we have said, in close connexion with the Tuatha
De Danann. They are likewise connected with the Cruithne, as in the
Lamentation of Cuchullin over the body of his son Conlaoch, in Miss
Brooke’s collection, where he says--
Alas! that it was not in the land of the Cruithne
Of the Feinne bloody and fierce,
That thou didst fall, active youth,
Or in the gloomy land of Sorcha.
While the traditions of the Cruithne, in narrating their migration and
the names of their leaders, mention, as the mythic poet of their race,
a name singularly like that of Ossian--
Cathmolodar the hardknobbed,
And Cathmachan the bright,
Were glorious youths;
The two valiant sons of Cathluan,
His hardy puissant champions;
Heavy, stern was their trampling,
Cing victorious in his victory.
Im, son of Pernn, were their names;
_Huasein_ was the name of his poet,
Who sought out the path of pleasantry.
In answering, then, the preliminary questions of who were the Feinne?
and to what period do they belong? we may fairly infer that they were
of the population who immediately preceded the Scots in Erin and in
Alban, and that they belong to that period in the history of both
countries, before a political separation had taken place between them,
when they were viewed as parts of one territory, though physically
separated, and when a free and unrestrained intercourse took place
between them; when race and not territory was the great bond of
association, and the movements of their respective populations from one
country to the other were not restrained by any feeling of national
separation.
It was natural that the deeds and events connected with this warrior
race, associated as they must have been with the physical features of
the country in which they dwelt, should have formed the subject of
the early poems and legendary tales of their successors, and that a
body of popular poetry should have sprung up in each country, which
occupied itself with adventures, expeditions, and feats of bravery of
this previous race, which were common to both countries, and which,
attributed to their mythic poets, and full of the names of heroes, and
of the scenes of their exploits, would be appropriated by the bards of
each country to their own districts. The names of the places connected
in tradition with these events would, as they were localized in the
respective countries, be identified with its scenery and physical
features, and thus a species of Fenian topography would spring up
in each country, which, having a common origin, would bear the same
character, and possess a mutual resemblance. Each country would thus
claim the Feinne as their exclusive property, and could point to a
body of popular Ossianic poetry in support of their claim, and to the
Fenian names of their localities, in proof of the events which form the
subject of the poems having there occurred.
The allusions to Fingal in the older Scottish historians who wrote long
before Macpherson’s Ossian appeared, or the controversy arose, show
that stories of the Feinne were current in Scotland, and that they were
regarded as belonging to this country as much as to Ireland, while the
Fenian names of localities in charters and other documents evince that
a Fenian topography likewise existed in Scotland before that period.[35]
[35] It is unnecessary here to repeat these references. They will be
found in the Report of the Highland Society, page 21.
The quotation from Barbour shows that the name of Fingal was known
long before the time of Macpherson; and as most Gaelic proper names
had a corresponding name in English which resembled it in sound, and
was held to represent it, as Hector for Eachin, or Hugh for Aodh, it
is not unlikely that Fingal may have been known as the recognised
representative in English of Finn.
In fact, Finn and Fingal are both real names, and closely related to
each other.
_Gal_ is a syllable of unknown origin and meaning, which enters largely
into the composition of Gaelic proper names. Thus we have Aedgal,
Aelgal, Angal, Ardgal, Artgal, Bodgal, Comgal, Congal, Donngal,
Dubhgal, Dungal, Feargal, Fingal, Gormgal, Leargal, Maengal, Riagal,
Saergal, Smiorgal. Some also take the form of _galach_; as Congalach,
Dungalach, Fiangalach, Irgalach.
Those in which the first syllable expresses a colour appear both alone
and with the affix _gal_, as Dubh and Dubhgal, Finn and Finngal, and
are really the same name. The annals of the Four Masters mention
several persons of the name of Finn, and, in 741, Finghal of Lismore.