Part 7

The red-haired boy worked well, but at the end of the year he suddenly died. A cart drawn by a horse appeared, and Finn and his men tried to place the body in it; but it could not be moved until the horse wheeled round and did the work itself, starting immediately afterwards with its load. Finn and his men followed, but a great mist came on, so that they could not see clearly. At last they arrived at an old, black castle standing in a glen. Here they found the table laid, and sat down to eat, but before long the red-haired boy appeared alive, and cried vengeance upon Finn and his sons. The men tried to draw their swords, but found them fastened to the ground, and the red-haired boy cut off fifty heads.

Now, however, the great Manannan appeared. He bade the red-haired boy drop his sword, or he would give him a slap that would turn his face to the back of his head. He also bade him replace the heads on the fifty men. The red-haired boy had to submit, and after that he troubled Finn no more. Manannan dispelled the mist, and brought Finn and his men back to their own home, where they feasted for three days and three nights.

This somewhat gruesome story contains several points of interest. The stealing of the clothes is an incident which occurs with slight variations in many folk-tales. In "The Stolen Veil"[94] Musäus tells us how the damsel of fairy lineage was detained when her veil was carried off, and it was only after she had recovered it that she was able, in the guise of a swan, to return to her home.

We have read, too, of how the Shetlander captured the sealskin of the Finn woman, without which she could not return as a seal to her husband.[95] It should also be noted that the fairy ogress is a large woman, apparently a giantess, while her three sons have the red hair so often associated with the fairies. At the end of the tale Finn and his men are saved by Manannan, the Celtic god of the sea, who has given his name to the Isle of Man. In Balor of Tory Island the great Fomorian chief, we have another giant, with an eye at the back of his head, which dealt destruction to all who encountered its gaze. I was told in Tory Island that when Balor was mortally wounded water fell so copiously from his eye that it formed the biggest lough in the world, deeper even than Lough Foyle.[96]

These giants belonged to an olden time and a very primitive race. They have passed away, and are no longer like the fairies--objects of fear or awe.

The fairies, being believed to be fallen angels, are especially dreaded on Hallow Eve night. In some places oatmeal and salt are put on the heads of the children to protect them from harm. I first heard of this custom in the valley of the Roe, where there are a large number of forts said to be inhabited by the fairies. The neighbourhood of Dungiven on that river is rich in antiquities. I was told there was a souterrain under the Cashel or "White Fort," said to have been built by the Danes. There is another under Carnanban Fort, and not far from this there are the stone circles at Aghlish. An old woman of ninety-six showed them to me, and said it was a very gentle[97] place, and it would not be safe to take away one of the stones.

Here we have an instance of the strong belief that to interfere in any way with stone, tree, or fort, belonging to the fairies is certain to bring disaster. About sixty-five years ago, when the railway was being made between Belfast and Ballymena, an old fort with fairy bushes in the townland of Lenagh stood on the intended track, and had to be removed. The men working on the line were most unwilling to meddle with either fort or bushes. One, however, braver than the rest began to cut down a thorn, when he met with an accident which strengthened the others in their refusal. In the end the fort had to be blown up, I believe by the officials of the railway, and underneath it a very fine spearhead and other implements were found.[98]

A fort near Glasdrumman, Co. Down, was demolished by the owner, but the country-people noted that the man who struck the first blow was injured and died soon afterwards, while the owner himself became a permanent invalid. A woman living near this fort related that in the evening after the work was begun she heard an awful screech from the fort; presumably the fairies were leaving their home.

A curious story was told me by an old woman in the Cottage Hospital at Cushendall. A man at Glenravel named M'Combridge went out one evening to look for his heifer, but could not find it. He saw a great house in one of his fields, where no house had been before, and, wondering much at this, he went in. An old woman sat by the fire, and soon two men came in leading the heifer. They killed it with a blow on the head and put it into a pot. M'Combridge was too much afraid to make any objection; he rose, however, to leave the house, but the old woman said: "Wait; you must have some of the broth of your own heifer." Three times she made him partake of the broth, and he was then unable to leave the house. She put him to bed, and the man gave birth to a son. He fell asleep, but was wakened by something touching his ear, and found himself on the grass near his home, and the heifer close to his ear.

This fantastic story no doubt represents a dream, but does it contain a reminiscence of the couvade, where, after the birth of the child, the father goes to bed? Sir E. B. Tylor, in the "Early History of Mankind," has shown how widespread this custom was both in the Old and the New World.

In these stories, drawn from various parts of Ulster, we seem to hear echoes of a very distant past. The giants often appear as savages of low intelligence. In the fairies, I think, we may plainly see a tradition of a dwarf race, although it is true that the country-people do not regard them as human beings; indeed, I was told in Co. Tyrone that when the fairies were annoying a man he threw his handkerchief at them, and asked if among them all they could show one drop of blood. This, being spirits, they could not do. In the Grogach the human element is more pronounced, and both Danes and Pechts are usually regarded as men and women like ourselves, although of smaller stature. It will thus be seen that in Ulster we have traditions of giants, fairies, Grogachs, Danes, and Pechts; and in Donegal I was also told of a small race of yellow Finns. Can we identify any of these with the prehistoric races of the British Isles and of Europe?

It has been held by many that the relics of Palæolithic man do not occur in Ireland, but the Rev. Frederick Smith has found his implements, some of them glaciated, at Killiney[99]; and Mr. Lewis Abbott, who has made the implements of early man a special study, believes that Palæolithic man lived and worked in Ireland. In a letter to me he states that this opinion is based on material in his possession. "I have," he writes, "the Irish collection of my old friend, the late Professor Rupert Jones; in this there are many immensely metamorphosed, deeply iron-stained (and the iron, again, in turn further altered), implements of Palæolithic types.... They are usually very lustrous or highly 'patinated,' as it is called." In his recent paper, "On the Classification of the British Stone Age Industries,"[100] in describing the club studs, Mr. Abbott writes: "I have found very fine examples in the Cromer Forest bed, and under and in various glacial deposits in England and Ireland." How long Palæolithic man survived in Ireland it would be difficult to say, but in such characters as the fairy ogress we are brought face to face with a very low form of savagery. It will be noted that her sons are red-haired. Now, I have often found red hair ascribed to fairies and Danes, but not to Pechts. This persistent tradition has led me to ask whether red was the colour of the hair in some early races of mankind. The following passage in Dr. Beddoe's Huxley Lecture[101] favours an affirmative answer: "There are, of course, facts, or reported facts, which would lead one to suspect that red was the original hair colour of man in Europe--at least, when living in primitive or natural conditions with much exposure, and that the development of brown pigment came later, with subjection to heat and malaria, and other influences connected with what we call 'civilisation.'"

We have seen that the implements of early man are found in spots sacred to the fairies. The Rev. Gath Whitley considers the Piskey dwarfs the earliest Neolithic inhabitants of Cornwall, and describes them as a small race who hunted the elk and the deer, and perhaps, like the Bushmen, danced and sang to the light of the moon.[102] Our traditional Irish fairies bear a strong resemblance to these Piskey dwarfs of Cornwall, and also to the Welsh fairies of whom Sir John Rhys writes that when fairyland is cleared of its glamour there seems to be disclosed "a swarthy population of short, stumpy men, occupying the most inaccessible districts of our country.... They probably fished and hunted and kept domestic animals, including, perhaps, the pig, but they depended largely on what they could steal at night or in misty weather. Their thieving, however, was not resented, as their visits were believed to bring luck and prosperity."[103] This description might apply to our Ulster fairies, who in many of the stories appear as a very primitive people. In some of the tales, however, the fairies are represented in a higher state of civilisation. They can spin and weave; they inhabit underground but well-built houses, and in the Irish records they are closely associated with the Tuatha de Danann.

I believe these Tuatha de Danann are the small Danes, who, according to tradition, built the raths and souterrains. The late Mr. John Gray[104] would ascribe a Mongoloid origin to them. In a letter written to me shortly before his death he stated his belief that the Danes and Pechts "were of the same race, and were identical with a short, round-headed race which migrated into the British Isles about 2,000 B.C. at the beginning of the Bronze Age.... The stature of these primitive Danes and Pechts was five feet three inches, and they must have looked very small men to the later Teutonic invaders of an average stature of five feet eight and a half inches."

In his papers, "Who built the British Stone Circles?"[105] and "The Origin of the Devonian Race,"[106] Mr. Gray has fully described this round-headed race, who buried in short cists, and whom he believes to have been a colony from Asia Minor of Akkadians, Sumerians, or Hittites, who migrated to England by sea in order to work the Cornish tin-mines and the Welsh copper-mines.

For a fuller exposition of these views I must refer the reader to Mr. Gray's very interesting articles.

In regard to the Tuatha de Danann, according to Keating,[107] they came from Greece by way of Scandinavia. This might lead us to infer a northern origin, or, at least, that they had taken a different route from those who came by the Mediterranean to the West of Europe. They appear to have known the use of metals and to have ploughed the land.

Dr. O'Donovan, in writing of these Tuatha de Danann, says: "From the many monuments ascribed to this colony by tradition and in ancient Irish historical tales, it is quite evident that they were a real people, and from their having been considered gods and magicians by the Gaedhil or Scoti who subdued them, it may be inferred that they were skilled in arts which the latter did not understand." Referring to the colloquy between St. Patrick and Caoilte MacRonain, Dr. O'Donovan says that it appears from this ancient Irish text that "there were very many places in Ireland where the Tuatha de Dananns were then supposed to live as sprites or fairies." He adds: "The inference naturally to be drawn from these stories is that the Tuatha de Dananns lingered in the country for many centuries after their subjugation by the Gaedhil, and that they lived in retired situations, which induced others to regard them as magicians."[108]

What is here averred of the Tuatha de Danann may be true of other primitive races who may have survived long in Ireland. It is difficult to exterminate a people, and they could not be driven farther west.

It appears to me that in the traditions of the Ulster peasantry we see indications of a tall, savage people, and of various races of small men. Some were in all probability veritable dwarfs, like those whose skeletons have been found in Switzerland, near Schaffhausen. Others may have been of the stature of the round-headed race described by Mr. John Gray, but in tradition they all--fairy, Grogach, Pecht, and Dane--appear as little people. In these tales we have not a clear outline--the picture is often blurred--but as we see the red-haired Danes carrying earth in their aprons to build the forts, the Pechts handing from one to another the large slabs to roof the souterrains, and the Grogachs herding cattle, we catch glimpses of the life of those who in long past ages inhabited Ireland.

FOOTNOTES:

[83] Reprinted from the _Antiquary_, August, 1913.

[84] "An Ancient Irish Parish, Past and Present."

[85] See Ulster Fairies, Danes, and Pechts, p. 27.

[86] Keating, "History of Ireland," book i., chap. viii. (translation by P. W. Joyce, LL.D., M.R.I.A.). See _ante_, p. 60.

[87] See Traditions of Dwarf Races in Ireland and in Switzerland, pp. 50-52.

[88] "Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts," second edition, p. 123 note.

[89] A village about six miles from Ballycastle, where there is a round tower.

[90] It is referred to in the "Guide to Belfast and the Adjacent Counties," by the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club, 1874, pp. 205, 206; also by Borlase in "Dolmens of Ireland," vol. i., p. 371.

[91] A similar tale, but with more details, is related of Finn by William Carleton. It was first published in Chambers' _Edinburgh Journal_ in January, 1841, with the title, "A Legend of Knockmary," and was reprinted in Carleton's collected works under the title "A Legend of Knockmany." It is given by Mr. W. B. Yeates in his "Irish Fairy and Folk Tales." In Carleton's tale Finn's opponent is not Goll, but Cuchullin. In the notes first published in Chambers' _Journal_ reference is, however, made to Scotch legends about Finn McCoul and Gaul, the son of Morni, whom I take to be the same as Goll. A version of the story is also given by Patrick Kennedy in "Legendary Fictions of the Irish Celts," under the title "Fann MacCuil and the Scotch Giant," pp. 179-181. This Scotch giant is named Far Rua, and the fort to which he journeys is in the bog of Allen.

[92] In Ireland "ditch" is used for an earth fence.

[93] Claive Solus was the name given to it by the old woman, who narrated the story, and she translated it "sword of light."

[94] See J. K. A. Musäus, "Volksmährchen der Deutschen," edited by J. L. Klee (Leipzig, 1842); "Der geraubte Schleier," pp. 371-429.

[95] See "The Testimony of Tradition" (London, 1890, pp. 1-25), by Mr. David MacRitchie, F.S.A.Scot.; also by the same author, "The Aberdeen Kayak and its Congeners." Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. xlvi. (1911-12), pp. 213-241. Mr. MacRitchie believes that the magic sealskin was a Kayak.

[96] See p. 75.

[97] Fairy-haunted.

[98] This spearhead is in the possession of Mr. Robert Bell, a member of the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club, from whom I heard this narrative.

[99] "The Stone Age in North Britain and Ireland," by the Rev. Frederick Smith, Appendix, p. 396.

[100] See _Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute_, vol. xli., 1911, p. 462.

[101] "Colour and Race," delivered before the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, October 31, 1905.

[102] "Footprints of Vanished Races in Cornwall," by the Rev. D. Gath Whitley, published in the _Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall_, 1903, vol. xv., part ii., p. 283.

[103] "Celtic Folklore," vol. ii., chap. xii., pp. 668, 669.

[104] Treasurer to the Anthropological Institute.

[105] Read before Section H of the British Association at the Dublin Meeting, September, 1908, published in _Nature_, December 24, 1908, pp. 236-238.

[106] Published in _London Devonian Year-Book_, 1910.

[107] "History of Ireland," book i., chap. x.

[108] See "Annals of the Four Masters," vol. i., note at p. 24.

The Rev. William Hamilton, D.D.[109]

AN EARLY EXPONENT OF THE VOLCANIC ORIGIN OF THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY

"Here, hapless Hamilton, lamented name! To fire volcanic traced the curious frame, And, as his soul, by sportive fancy's aid, Up to the fount of time's long current strayed, Far round these rocks he saw fierce craters boil, And torrent lavas flood the riven soil: Saw vanquished Ocean from his bounds retire, And hailed the wonders of creative Fire."

DRUMMOND.

These lines are taken from a poem, "The Giant's Causeway," written in 1811, when the nature of the basaltic rocks was regarded as doubtful, and many held that their origin was to be traced to the action of water rather than fire. Hamilton is rightly brought forward as a champion of the volcanic theory. In his "Letters concerning the Northern Coast of Antrim," published towards the close of the eighteenth century, he adduces strong reasons to show that the Giant's Causeway is no isolated freak of Nature, but part of a vast lava field which covered Antrim and extended far beyond the Scottish islands. Nor does he confine his attention to geology, but fulfils the promise on the title page, giving an account of the antiquities, manners, and customs of the country. To those who care to read of this part of the world before the days of railroads and electric tramways, when Portrush was a small fishing village, and the lough which divides Antrim from Down bore the name of the ancient city of Carrickfergus, this old volume will possess many attractions. Three copies lie before me; two belong to editions published in the author's lifetime; the third was printed in Belfast in 1822, and contains a short memoir and a portrait of Dr. Hamilton. The latter is taken from one of those black silhouettes by which, before the art of photography was known, our grandfathers strove to preserve an image of those they loved. In this imperfect likeness we can see below the wig a massive forehead, and features which betoken no small determination of character. We can well believe that we are gazing on the face of a scholar, a man of science, a divine, of one who believed that death, even in the tragic form in which it came to him, was but the laying aside of a perishable machine, the casting away of an instrument no longer able to perform its functions.

William Hamilton was born in December, 1757, in Londonderry, where the family had resided for nearly a century, his grandfather having been one of the defenders of the city during the famous siege. Little is known of his boyhood. Before he was fifteen he entered the University of Dublin, and after a distinguished career obtained a fellowship in 1779. It was while continuing his theological and literary studies that his attention was drawn to the new sciences of chemistry and mineralogy. We can imagine the ardent student attracting around him a band of kindred spirits, who, meeting on one evening of the week under the name of Palæosophers, studied the Bible and ancient writings bearing on its interpretation, and the next, calling themselves Neosophers, discussed the phenomena of Nature, and the discoveries of Cavendish, or the views of Buffon and Descartes. Nor did his marriage in 1780 to Sarah Walker interrupt these pursuits.

Hamilton was one of the founders of the Royal Irish Academy, and dedicated his "Letters concerning the Coast of Antrim" to the Earl of Charlemont, the first president of that body. The book opens with an account of his visit to the Island of Raghery or Rathlin, where he was charmed with the primitive manners of the people and the friendly relations existing between them and their landlord. He examined the white cliffs, the dark basaltic columns, and the ruins of the old castle, where Robert Bruce is said to have made a gallant defence against his enemies. Here he found cinders embedded in the mortar, showing that the lime used in building the walls had been burnt with coal. This is adduced as a proof that the coal-beds near Fair Head had been known at an early period, possibly at a time anterior to the Danish incursions of the ninth and tenth centuries--a view confirmed by the discovery of an ancient gallery extending many hundred yards underground, and in which the remains of the tools and baskets of the prehistoric miners were found.

In a later letter a history is given of the Giant's Causeway, and of the various opinions which have been held regarding its origin. Beginning with the old tradition[110] that the stones had been cut and placed in position by the giant, Fin McCool or Fingal, when constructing a mighty mole to unite Ireland to Scotland, Hamilton alludes to the crude notions exhibited in some papers published in the early Transactions of the Royal Society. He criticizes severely "A True Prospect of the Giant's Causeway," printed in 1696 for the Dublin Society, showing how the imagination of the artist had planted luxuriant forest-trees on the wild bay of Port Noffer, and transformed basaltic rocks into comfortable dwelling-houses. The two beautiful paintings made by Mrs. Susanna Drury in 1740 are referred to in very different language, and anyone who has seen engravings of these will endorse his opinion, and feel that this lady has depicted, with almost photographic accuracy, the Causeway and the successive galleries of basaltic columns, which lend a weird and peculiar grandeur to the headlands of Bengore.

A large portion of Hamilton's work is occupied with a minute investigation of these headlands, and of the lofty promontory of Fair Head. A description is given of the jointed columns of the Causeway, whose surface presents a regular and compact pavement of polygon stones; we are told that this basaltic rock contains metallic iron, and that he has himself observed how, in the semicircular Bay of Bengore, the compass deviates greatly from its meridian, and each pillar or fragment of a pillar acts as a natural magnet. He also points out that columnar rocks are found in many parts of Antrim, and traces the basaltic plateau from the shores of Lough Foyle to the valley of the Lagan; nay more, he bids us extend our gaze, and remember "that whatever be the reasonings that fairly apply to the formation of the basaltes in our island, the same must be extended with little interruption over the mainland and western isles of Scotland, even to the frozen island of Iceland, where basaltic pillars are to be found in abundance, and where the flames of Hecla still continue to blaze."[111]

Hamilton argues, in opposition to the views of many of his contemporaries, that the vicinity of the Giant's Causeway to the sea has nothing whatever to do with the peculiar structure of its jointed columns, which he ascribes to their having been formed by the crystallization of a molten mass. The following are his words: