The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland | Page 6

fellows and foes, their close relation to supernatural beings and their doings, are far apart from the more natural humanity of Cormac and Finn, of Dermot and Goll, of Ois��n and Oscar, of Keelta, and last of Conan, the coward, boaster and venomous tongue, whom all the Fenians mocked and yet endured. They are a very human band of fighting men, and though many of them, like Ois��n and Finn and Dermot, have adventures in fairyland, they preserve in these their ordinary human nature. The Connacht peasant has no difficulty in following Finn into the cave of Slieve Cullinn, where the witch turned him into a withered old man, for the village where he lives has traditions of the same kind; the love affairs of Finn, of Dermot and Grania, and of many others, are quite in harmony with a hundred stories, and with the temper, of Irish lovers. A closer, a simpler humanity than that of the other cycles pervades the Fenian cycle, a greater chivalry, a greater courtesy, and a greater tenderness. We have left the primeval savagery behind, the?multitudinous slaughtering, the crude passions of the earlier men and women; we are nearer to civilization, nearer to the common temper and character of the Irish people. No one can doubt this who will compare the Vengeance of Mesgedra_ with the _Chase of the Gilla Dacar.
The elaborate courtesy with which Finn and his chief warriors receive all comers, as in the story of Vivionn the giantess, is quite new, even medieval in its chivalry; so is the elaborate code of honour; so also is, on the whole, the treatment of women and their relation to men. How far this resemblance to medieval romance has been intruded into the stories--(there are some in which there is not a trace of it)--by the after editors and re-editors of the tales, I cannot tell, but however that may be, their presence in the Fenian cycle is plain; and this brings the stories into a kindlier and more pleasurable atmosphere for modern readers than that which broods in thunderous skies and fierce light over dreadful passions and battles thick and bloody in the previous cycles. We are in a gentler world.
Another more modern romantic element in the Fenian legends is the delight in hunting, and that more affectionate relation of men to animals which always marks an advance in civilization. Hunting, as in medieval romance, is one of the chief pleasures of the Fenians. Six months of the year they passed in the open, getting to know every part of the country they had to defend, and hunting through the great woods and over the hills for their daily food and their daily delight. The story of the Chase of the Gilla Dacar tells, at its beginning, of a great hunting and of Finn's men listening with joy to the cries of the hunters and the loud chiding of the dogs; and many tales celebrate the following of the stag and the wild boar from early dawn to the evening. Then Finn's two great hounds, Bran and Sceolaun, are loved by Finn and his men as if they were dear friends; and they, when their master is in danger or under enchantment wail like human beings for his loss or pain. It is true Cuchulain's horses weep tears of blood when he goes forth to his last battle, foreknowing his death; but they are immortal steeds and have divine knowledge of fate. The dogs of Finn are only dogs, and the relation between him and them is a natural relation, quite unlike the relation between Cuchulain and the horses which draw his chariot. Yet Finn's dogs are not quite as other dogs. They have something of a human soul in them. They know that in the milk-white fawn they pursue there is an enchanted maiden, and they defend her from the other hounds till Finn arrives. And it is told of them that sometimes, when the moon is high, they rise from their graves and meet and hunt together, and speak of ancient days. The supernatural has lessened since the heroic cycle. But it is still there in the Fenian.
Again, the Fenian cycle of tales is more influenced by Christianity than the others are. The mythological cycle is not only fully pagan, it is primeval. It has the vastness, the savagery, the relentlessness of nature-myths, and what beauty there is in it is akin to terror. Gentleness is unknown. There is only one exception to this, so far as I know, and that is in the story of The Children of Lir. It is plain, however, that the Christian ending of that sorrowful story is a later addition to it. It is remarkably well done, and most tenderly. I believe that the artist