Part 1

HERO-TALES OF IRELAND

COLLECTED BY JEREMIAH CURTIN

LONDON MACMILLAN AND CO. 1894

University Press: JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

TO THE RIGHT HON. JOHN MORLEY,

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR IRELAND.

SIR,—

To you, a thinker who values every age of human history, and a statesman who takes deep interest in the nation which produced and kept these tales, I beg to dedicate this volume.

JEREMIAH CURTIN.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

INTRODUCTION ix

ELIN GOW, THE SWORDSMITH FROM ERIN, AND THE COW GLAS GAINACH 1

MOR’S SONS AND THE HERDER FROM UNDER THE SEA 35

SAUDAN OG AND THE DAUGHTER OF THE KING OF SPAIN; YOUNG CONAL AND THE YELLOW KING’S DAUGHTER 58

THE BLACK THIEF AND KING CONAL’S THREE HORSES 93

THE KING’S SON FROM ERIN, THE SPRISAWN, AND THE DARK KING 114

THE AMADAN MOR AND THE GRUAGACH OF THE CASTLE OF GOLD 140

THE KING’S SON AND THE WHITE-BEARDED SCOLOG 163

DYEERMUD ULTA AND THE KING IN SOUTH ERIN 182

CUD, CAD, AND MICAD, THREE SONS OF THE KING OF URHU 198

CAHAL, SON OF KING CONOR, IN ERIN, AND BLOOM OF YOUTH, DAUGHTER OF THE KING OF HATHONY 223

COLDFEET AND THE QUEEN OF LONESOME ISLAND 242

LAWN DYARRIG, SON OF THE KING OF ERIN, AND THE KNIGHT OF TERRIBLE VALLEY 262

BALOR ON TORY ISLAND 283

BALOR OF THE EVIL EYE AND LUI LAVADA, HIS GRANDSON 296

ART, THE KING’S SON, AND BALOR BEIMENACH, TWO SONS-IN-LAW OF KING UNDER THE WAVE 312

SHAWN MACBREOGAN AND THE KING OF THE WHITE NATION 335

THE COTTER’S SON AND THE HALF SLIM CHAMPION 356

BLAIMAN, SON OF APPLE, IN THE KINGDOM OF THE WHITE STRAND 373

FIN MACCOOL AND THE DAUGHTER OF THE KING OF THE WHITE NATION 407

FIN MACCOOL, THE THREE GIANTS, AND THE SMALL MEN 438

FIN MACCOOL, CEADACH OG, AND THE FISH-HAG 463

FIN MACCOOL, FAOLAN, AND THE MOUNTAIN OF HAPPINESS 484

FIN MACCOOL, THE HARD GILLA, AND THE HIGH KING 514

THE BATTLE OF VENTRY 530

NOTES 547

INTRODUCTION.

The tales included in this volume, though told in modern speech, relate to heroes and adventures of an ancient time, and contain elements peculiar to early ages of story-telling. The chief actors in most of them are represented as men; but we may be quite sure that these men are substitutes for heroes who were not considered human when the stories were told to Keltic audiences originally. To make the position of these Gaelic tales clear, it is best to explain, first of all, what an ancient tale is; and to do this we must turn to uncivilized men who possess such tales yet in their primitive integrity.

We have now in North America a number of groups of tales obtained from the Indians which, when considered together, illustrate and supplement one another; they constitute, in fact, a whole system. These tales we may describe as forming collectively the Creation myth of the New World. Since the primitive tribes of North America have not emerged yet from the Stone Age of development, their tales are complete and in good preservation. In some cases simple and transparent, it is not difficult to recognize the heroes; they are distinguishable at once either by their names or their actions or both. In other cases these tales are more involved, and the heroes are not so easily known, because they are concealed by names and epithets. Taken as a whole, however, the Indian tales are remarkably clear; and a comparison of them with the Gaelic throws much light on the latter.

What is the substance and sense of these Indian tales, of what do they treat? To begin with, they give an account of how the present order of things arose in the world, and are taken up with the exploits, adventures, and struggles of various elements, animals, birds, reptiles, insects, plants, rocks, and other objects before they became what they are. In other words, the Indian tales give an account of what all those individualities accomplished, or suffered, before they fell from their former positions into the state in which they are now. According to the earliest tales of North America, this world was occupied, prior to the appearance of man, by beings called variously “the first people,” “the outside people,” or simply “people,”—the same term in all cases being used for people that is applied to Indians at present.

These people, who were very numerous, lived together for ages in harmony. There were no collisions among them, no disputes during that period; all were in perfect accord. In some mysterious fashion, however, each individual was changing imperceptibly; an internal movement was going on. At last, a time came when the differences were sufficient to cause conflict, except in the case of a group to be mentioned hereafter, and struggles began. These struggles were gigantic, for the “first people” had mighty power; they had also wonderful perception and knowledge. They felt the approach of friends or enemies even at a distance; they knew the thought in another’s heart. If one of them expressed a wish, it was accomplished immediately; nay, if he even thought of a thing, it was there before him. Endowed with such powers and qualities, it would seem that their struggles would be endless and indecisive; but such was not the case. Though opponents might be equally dexterous, and have the power of the wish or the word in a similar degree, one of them would conquer in the end through wishing for more effective and better things, and thus become the hero of a higher cause; that is, a cause from which benefit would accrue to mankind, the coming race.

The accounts of these struggles and conflicts form the substance of the first cycle of American tales, which contain the adventures of the various living creatures, plants, elements, objects, and phenomena in this world before they became what they are as we see them. Among living creatures, we are not to reckon man, for man does not appear in any of those myth tales; they relate solely to extra-human existences, and describe the battle and agony of creation, not the adventures of anything in the world since it received its present form and office. According to popular modes of thought and speech, all this would be termed the fall of the gods; for the “first people” of the Indian tales correspond to the earliest gods of other races, including those of the Kelts. We have thus, in America, a remarkable projection of thought, something quite as far-reaching for the world of mind as is the nebular hypothesis for the world of matter. According to the nebular hypothesis, the whole physical universe is evolved by the rotary motion of a primeval, misty substance which fills all space, and which seems homogeneous. From a uniform motion of this attenuated matter, continued through eons of ages, is produced that infinite variety in the material universe which we observe and discover, day by day; from it we have the countless host of suns and planets whose positions in space correspond to their sizes and densities, that endless choral dance of heavenly bodies with its marvellous figures and complications, that ceaseless movement of each body in its own proper path, and that movement of each group or system with reference to others. From this motion, come climates, succession of seasons, with all the variety in this world of sense which we inhabit. In the theory of spiritual evolution, worked out by the aboriginal mind of America, all kinds of moral quality and character are represented as coming from an internal movement through which the latent, unevolved personality of each individual of these “first people,” or gods, is produced. Once that personality is produced, every species of dramatic situation and tragic catastrophe follows as an inevitable sequence. There is no more peace after that; there are only collisions followed by combats which are continued by the gods till they are turned into all the things,—animal, vegetable, and mineral,—which are either useful or harmful to man, and thus creation is accomplished. During the period of struggles, the gods organize institutions, social and religious, according to which they live. These are bequeathed to man; and nothing that an Indian has is of human invention, all is divine. An avowed innovation, anything that we call reform, anything invented by man, would be looked on as sacrilege, a terrible, an inexpiable crime. The Indian lives in a world prepared by the gods, and follows in their footsteps,—that is the only morality, the one pure and holy religion. The struggles in which creation began, and the continuance of which was creation itself, were bequeathed to aboriginal man; and the play of passions which caused the downfall of the gods has raged ever since, throughout every corner of savage life in America.

This Creation myth of the New World is a work of great value, for by aid of it we can bring order into mythology, and reconstruct, at least in outline, and provisionally, that early system of belief which was common to all races: a system which, though expressed in many languages, and in endlessly varying details, has one meaning, and was, in the fullest sense of the word, one,—a religion truly Catholic and Œcumenical, for it was believed in by all people, wherever resident, and believed in with a vividness of faith, and a sincerity of attachment, which no civilized man can even imagine, unless he has had long experience of primitive races. In the struggle between these “first people,” or gods, there were never drawn battles: one side was always victorious, the other always vanquished; but each could give one command, one fateful utterance, which no power could resist or gainsay. The victor always said to the vanquished: “Henceforth, you’ll be nothing but a ——,” and here he named the beast, bird, insect, reptile, fish, or plant, which his opponent was to be. That moment the vanquished retorted, and said: “You’ll be nothing but a ——,” mentioning what he was to be. Thereupon each became what his opponent had made him, and went away over the earth. As a rule, there is given with the sentence a characteristic description; for example: “The people to come hereafter will hunt you, and kill you to eat you;” or, “will kill you for your skin;” or, “will kill you because they hate you.”

One opponent might be turned into a wolf, the other into a squirrel; or one into a bear, the other into a fox: there is always a strict correspondence, however, between the former nature of each combatant and the present character of the creature into which he has been transformed, looked at, of course, from the point of view of the original myth-maker.

The war between the gods continued till it produced on land, in the water, and the air, all creatures that move, and all plants that grow. There is not a beast, bird, fish, reptile, insect, or plant which is not a fallen divinity; and for every one noted there is a story of its previous existence.

This transformation of the former people, or divinities, of America was finished just before the present race of men—that is, the Indians—appeared. This transformation does not take place in every American mythology as a result of single combat. Sometimes a great hero goes about ridding the world of terrible oppressors and monsters: he beats them, turns them into something insignificant; after defeat they have no power over him. We may see in the woods some weak worm or insect which, in the first age, was an awful power, but a bad one. Stories of this kind present some of the finest adventures, and most striking situations, as well as qualities of character in the hero that invite admiration.

In some mythologies a few personages who are left unchanged at the eve of man’s coming, transform themselves voluntarily. The details of the change vary from tribe to tribe; but in all it takes place in some described way, and forms part of the general change, or metamorphosis, which is the vital element in the American system. In many, perhaps in all, the mythologies, there is an account of how some of the former people, or gods, instead of fighting and taking part in the struggle of creation, and being transformed, retained their original character, and either went above the sky, or sailed away westward to where the sky comes down, and passed out under it, and beyond, to a pleasant region where they live in delight. This is that contingent to which I have referred, that part of “the first people” in which no passion was developed; they remained in primitive simplicity, undifferentiated, and are happy at present. They correspond to those gods of classic antiquity who enjoyed themselves apart, and took no interest whatever in the sufferings or the joys of mankind.

It is evident, at once, that to the aborigines of America the field for beautiful stories was very extensive.

Everything in nature had a tale of its own, if some one would but tell it; and during the epoch of constructive power in the race,—the epoch when languages were built up, and great stories made,—few things of importance to people of that time were left unconsidered; hence, there was among the Indians of America a volume of tales as immense, one might say, as an ocean river. This statement I make in view of materials which I have gathered myself, and which are still unpublished,—materials which, though voluminous, are comparatively meagre, merely a hint of what in some tribes was lost, and of what in others is still uncollected. What is true of the Indians with reference to the volume of their stories, is true of all races.

From what is known of the mind of antiquity, and from what data we have touching savage life in the present, we may affirm as a theory that primitive beliefs, in all places, are of the same system essentially as the American. In that system, every individual existence beyond man is a divinity, but a divinity under sentence,—a divinity weighed down by fate; a divinity with a history behind it, a history which is tragedy or comedy as the case may be. These histories extend along the whole line of experience, and include every combination conceivable to primitive man.

Of the pre-Christian beliefs of the Kelts, not much is known yet in detail and with certainty. What we may say at present is this, that they form a very interesting variant of that aforementioned Œcumenical religion held in early ages by all men. The peculiarities and value of the variant will be shown when the tales, beliefs, and literary monuments of the race are brought fully into evidence.

Now that some statement has been made touching Indian tales and their contents, we may give, for purposes of comparison, two or three of them, either in part or condensed. These examples may serve to show what Gaelic tales were before they were modified in structure, and before human substitutes were put in place of the primitive heroes.

It should be stated here that these accounts of a former people, and the life of the world before this, as given in the tales, were delivered in one place and another by some of these “former people” who were the last to be transformed, and who found means to give needful instruction to men. On the Klamath River, in Northwestern California, there is a sacred tree, a former divinity, which has been a great source of revelation. On a branch of the Upper Columbia is a rock which has told whole histories of a world before this.

Among the Iroquois, I found a story in possession of a doctor,—that is, a magician, or sorcerer,—who, so far as I could learn, was the only man who knew it, though others knew of it. This story is in substance as follows:

Once there was an orphan boy who had no friends; a poor, childless widow took the little fellow, and reared him. When the boy had grown up somewhat, he was very fond of bows and arrows, became a wonderful shot. As is usual with orphans, he was wiser than others, and was able to hunt when much smaller than his comrades.

He began to kill birds for his foster-mother; gradually he went farther from home, and found more game. The widow had plenty in her house now, and something to give her friends. The boy and the woman lived on in this fashion a whole year. He was good, thoughtful, serious, a wise boy, and brought game every day. The widow was happy with her foster-son.

At last he came late one evening, later than ever before, and hadn’t half so much game.

“Why so late, my son; and why have you so little game?” asked the widow.

“Oh, my mother, game is getting scarce around here; I had to go far to find any, and then it was too late to kill more.”

The next day he was late again, a little later than the day before, and had no more game; he gave the same excuse. This conduct continued a week; the woman grew suspicious, and sent out a boy to follow her foster-son, and see what he was doing.

Now what had happened to the boy? He had gone far into the forest on the day when he was belated, farther than ever before. In a thick and dense place he found a round, grassy opening; in the middle of this space was a large rock, shaped like a millstone, and lying on one side, the upper part was flat and level. He placed his birds on the rock, sprang up, and sat on it to rest; the time was just after midday. While he was sitting there, he heard a voice in the stone, which asked: “Do you want me to tell a story?” He was astonished, said nothing. Again the voice spoke, and he answered: “Yes, tell me a story.”

The voice began, and told him a wonderful story, such as he had never heard before. He was delighted; never had he known such pleasure. About the middle of the afternoon, the story was finished; and the voice said: “Now, you must give me your birds for the story; leave them where you put them.” He went away toward home, shot what birds he could find, but did not kill many.

He came the next day, with birds, and heard a second story; and so it went on till the eighth day, when the boy sent by the foster-mother followed secretly. That boy heard the story too, discovered himself, and promised not to tell. Two days later the widow sent a second boy to watch those two, and three days after that a third one. The boys were true to the orphan, however, and would not tell; the magic of the stories overcame them.

At last the woman went to the chief with her trouble; he sent a man to watch the boys. This man joined the boys, and would not tell. The chief then sent his most trusty friend, whom nothing could turn aside from his errand. He came on the boys and the man, while they were listening to a story, and threatened them, was very angry. The voice stopped then, and said: “I will tell no more to-day; but, you boys and you men, listen to me, take a message to the chief and the people,—tell them to come here to-morrow, to come all of them, for I have a great word to say to every person.”

The boys and men went home, and delivered the message. On the following day, the whole people went out in a body. They cleared away the thick grass in the open space; and all sat down around the stone, from which the voice came as follows:—

“Now, you chief and you people, there was a world before this, and a people different from the people in the world now,—another kind of people. I am going to tell you of that people. I will tell you all about them,—what they did; how they fixed this world; and what they became themselves. You will come here every day till I have told all the stories of the former people; and each time you will bring a little present of what you have at home.”

The stone began, told a story that day, told more the next day. The people came day after day, week after week, till the stone told all it knew. Then it said: “You have heard all the stories of the former world; you will keep them, preserve them as long as you live. In after times some man will remember nearly all of these stories; another will remember a good many; a third, not so many; a fourth man, a few; a fifth, one story; a sixth, parts of some stories, but not all of any story. No man will remember every story; only the whole people can remember all. When one man goes to another who knows stories, and he tells them, the first man will give him some present,—tobacco, a bit of venison, a bird, or whatever he has. He will do as you have done to me. I have finished.”

Very interesting and important are these statements touching the origin of stories; they indicate in the Indian system revelation as often as it is needed. In Ireland, the origin of every Fenian tale is explained in a way somewhat similar. All the accounts of Fin Mac Cool and his men were given to Saint Patrick by Ossian, after his return from Tir nan Og, the Land of the Young, where he had lived three hundred years. These Fenian tales were written down at that time, it is stated; but Saint Patrick gave an order soon after to destroy two-thirds of the number, for they were so entertaining, he said, that the people of Erin would do nothing but listen to them.

In every case the Fenian tales of Ireland, like the tales of America, are made up of the adventures of heroes who are not human. Some writers assert that there have never been such persons on earth as Fin Mac Cool and his men; others consider them real characters in Irish history. In either case, the substantial character of the tales is not changed. If Fin and his men are historical personages, deeds of myth-heroes, ancient gods of Gaelic mythology, have been attributed to them, or they have been substituted for heroes who were in the tales previously. If Fin and his men are not historical, they are either the original non-human heroes, or a later company of similar character substituted in the tales for the original heroes, or for some successors of those heroes; at this date it would be difficult to decide how often such substitutions may have been made.

The following tale of Pitis and Klakherrit, though condensed, is complete; it is given here not because it is the best for illustration, but because it is accessible. The tale is dramatic; the characters are well known; it is ancient, and may be used to show how easily the character of stories may be modified without changing their structure, simply by changing the heroes. This tale of Pitis and Klakherrit is not more than third rate, if compared with other Indian tales, perhaps not so high in rank as that, still, it is a good story.

At a place called Memtachnokolton lived the Pitis people; they were numerous, all children of one father. They lived as they liked for a long time, till one of them who had gone hunting did not return in the evening. Next day two of his brothers went to look for him, and found his headless body four or five miles away, at the side of a deer-trail. They carried the body home, and buried it.

On the following day, another went to hunt, and spent the night out in like manner. Next day his headless body was found, brought home, and buried. Each day a Pitis went to hunt till the last one was killed; and the way they died was this:—