Chapter 24

Down to the close of the sixteenth century and during the greater part of the seventeenth, verse, with few exceptions, continued to be made in the classical metres of Ireland, by specially trained poets, who did not go outside these metres. In the ensuing century the classical metres began to be discarded and a wonderful and far-reaching change took place, which shall be made the subject of a future chapter. We must now proceed to examine a species of popular poetry which flourished during all this period side by side with the bardic schools, although no trace remains to-day of its origin or its authors. This is the so-called Ossianic poetry.

[1]This is a kind of rhetoric; some of these unrhymed outbursts were calledrosgby the Irish. Irish literature is full of such pieces. Some of the Brehon Law though printed in prose seems to have been composed in it. Other examples are the cry of the Mór-rígan, or war-goddess, in the end of the Battle of Moytura."Peace to heav'n "Sith go neimHeav'n to earth Neamh go domhan,Earth neath heav'n Domhan fá neimStrength in each," etc. Neart i gcách," etc.or the description of the Dun Bull of Cuailgne in the Táin Bo, or part of the first poem attributed to Finn mac Cool, or trie well-known eulogy on Goll the Fenian, or Mac Mhurighs incitement at the battle of Harlaw, or some of the verses in the preface to the Amra. About the last specimen of unrhymed poetry, in a species of Droighneach metre, I find in the Annals of Loch Cé on the death of Mac Dermot as late as 1568."Gég iothmar fhineamhna na n-éigeas ocus na n-ollaman,Craobh cumra cnuais na gcliar ocus na gcerbach,Dóss díona na ndámh ocus na ndeóraidhBile buadha buan fhoscaidh na mbrughaidh ocus na mbiattach."

"Peace to heav'n "Sith go neimHeav'n to earth Neamh go domhan,Earth neath heav'n Domhan fá neimStrength in each," etc. Neart i gcách," etc.

or the description of the Dun Bull of Cuailgne in the Táin Bo, or part of the first poem attributed to Finn mac Cool, or trie well-known eulogy on Goll the Fenian, or Mac Mhurighs incitement at the battle of Harlaw, or some of the verses in the preface to the Amra. About the last specimen of unrhymed poetry, in a species of Droighneach metre, I find in the Annals of Loch Cé on the death of Mac Dermot as late as 1568.

"Gég iothmar fhineamhna na n-éigeas ocus na n-ollaman,Craobh cumra cnuais na gcliar ocus na gcerbach,Dóss díona na ndámh ocus na ndeóraidhBile buadha buan fhoscaidh na mbrughaidh ocus na mbiattach."

[2]Thus the nearest approach that Columcille makes to Latin rhyme is in the final unaccented syllable. See his "Altus" beginning"Altus prosator vetustus Sed et erit in sæculaDierum et ingenitus Sæculorum infinitaErat absque origine Cui est unigenitusPrimordii et crepidine. Christus et sanctus spiritus," etc.

[2]Thus the nearest approach that Columcille makes to Latin rhyme is in the final unaccented syllable. See his "Altus" beginning

"Altus prosator vetustus Sed et erit in sæculaDierum et ingenitus Sæculorum infinitaErat absque origine Cui est unigenitusPrimordii et crepidine. Christus et sanctus spiritus," etc.

[3]"Formam poesis celticæ, exemplis allatis, tarn vetustioribus quam recentioribus vel hodiernis, magis ornatum esse apparet quam ullius gentis formam poeticam, ac magis ornatam in vetustioribus carminibus ipsis, quam in recentioribus. Quo majore ornatu, haud dubie effectum est, ut jam inde ab illis temporibus quibus ad interitum ruebat Romanum imperium, celtica forma, primum integra, deinde ex parte, non solum in latina sed etiam (aliarum) linguarum carmina transferretur atque in iis permanserit" ("Grammatica Celtica," Ebel's edition, p. 977).

[4]"Magis progressa consonantia, cum frequentiore allitteratione, amplior finalis sæpius trissyllaba invenitur in Anglo-Saxorum carminibus latinis; ad quos, cum ipsi principio cum ceteris Germanis non usi sint nizi allitteratione, ab Hibernis hanc formam esse transgressam putandum est, ut transiit scriptura atque ars pingendi codices et ornandi" (Ibid., p. 946).In another passage he expresses himself even more strongly; for of rhyme he says: "Hanc formam orationis poeticæ quis credat esse ortam primum apud poetas Christianos finientis imperii Romani et transisse ad bardos Cambrorum et in carmina gentilia Scandinavorum" (Editio Ebel, p. 948).

In another passage he expresses himself even more strongly; for of rhyme he says: "Hanc formam orationis poeticæ quis credat esse ortam primum apud poetas Christianos finientis imperii Romani et transisse ad bardos Cambrorum et in carmina gentilia Scandinavorum" (Editio Ebel, p. 948).

[5]"Origo enim rîmæ arabica inter fabulas omnino rejicienda est.... Porro rîma ex solo naturali processu latinæ linguæ explicari nullo modo potest. Apud Latinos nec res extitit nec nomen.... Assonantia finalis vel rîma, sæculo quarto abeunte et quinto incipiente vulgaris ævi, primus occurrit in hymnis latinis ecclesiæ mediolanensis qui sancto Ambrosio et Sancto Augustino tribuuntur. Prima itaque rîmæ certa exempla inveniuntur in solo celtico, apud celticas gentes, in carminibus conditis a poetis, qui vel celticæ originis sunt, vel apud celticas gentes diu commoraverunt. Verosimile ut hosce hymnos mediæ latinitatis constructos esse juxta formam celticæ poesis quæ tune vigebat, et quæ jam assonantiam finalem præbet in antiquis ejus reliquiis huc-usque detectis. Profecto carmina hibernica et brittanica vetustiora quæ ad nos pervenerunt sæculum octavum vel septimum superare non videntur. Sed temere non est affirmare celticas gentes quæ moris consuetudinisque majorum tertaces semper fuerunt, jam multo antea, primis nempe vulgaris ævi sæculis, eamdem poeticam formam adhibuisse" ("Glossæ Hibernicæ Veteres Codicis Taurinensis." Lutetiæ. 1869. p. xxxi.).

[6]"Concludendum est igitur versum romanicum, accentu legatum et pari syllabarum numero, oriri potuisse ex duplicis causæ concursu, nempe à naturali explicatione latinæ linguæ, et ab exemplo pariter efficaci affinium celticorum populorum; sed rîmam seu assonantiam finalem, a solis celticæ phonologiæ legibus derivatam esse" (Ibid., p. xxxii.).

[7]"Mittelirische Verslehren," "Irische Texte," iii. p. 1.

[8]Seehis article in "Revue Celtique," vi., p. 336.

[9]"Dass die irische Versform von der lateinischen Versform beeinflusst worden ist, scheint mir zweifellos zu sein. Es fragt sich nur was die irischen Barden schon hatten als dieser Einfluss begann. Das was Thurneysen ihnen zugestehen will ist mir etwas zu wenig" ("Irische Texte," iii. 2, p. 448).

[10]"Wir haben," says Zimmer, of this hymn, "ein altes einfaches und ehrwürdiges Monument vor uns, an das eine jüngere Zeit mit verändertem Geschmack, passend und unpassend, an—und eingebaut hat."

[11]Deibhidh, in Old IrishDebide, a neuter word, which Thurneysen translates "cut in two," is not really a rhyme but a generic name for a metre, containing twenty-four species. The essence of the principalDeibhidh, however, is the peculiar manner of rhyming with words of a different length, so that this system has sometimes been loosely calledDeibhidhrhyme. In the oldest poetry a trisyllable instead of a dissyllable rhyme could be used as the end word, of the second line when the first line ended with a monosyllable, but in the strictness of later times this was disallowed.

[12]"Tús onóra cidh dualdi,Tuar anshógha aneigsi.Glac bárr-lag mar chúbhairtonnDo sháraigh dath na bhfaoilionn.Gníomh follus fáth na h-eachtraFá'r ciorrbadh mochuideachta."These specimens are taken from unedited manuscripts in my own possession, copied by O'Curry from I know not what originals.

[12]"Tús onóra cidh dualdi,Tuar anshógha aneigsi.

Glac bárr-lag mar chúbhairtonnDo sháraigh dath na bhfaoilionn.

Gníomh follus fáth na h-eachtraFá'r ciorrbadh mochuideachta."

These specimens are taken from unedited manuscripts in my own possession, copied by O'Curry from I know not what originals.

[13]Thus in the Codex St. Pauli we find these verses:—"Messe ocus PangurbanCechtar náthar friasaindánBith a menma-sunn friseilggMu menma céin imsain-ceirdd.Caraim-se fos ferr gachcluOc mo lebran leiringnuNi foirmtech frimm PangurbanCaraid sesin amacc-dán."

[13]Thus in the Codex St. Pauli we find these verses:—

"Messe ocus PangurbanCechtar náthar friasaindánBith a menma-sunn friseilggMu menma céin imsain-ceirdd.

Caraim-se fos ferr gachcluOc mo lebran leiringnuNi foirmtech frimm PangurbanCaraid sesin amacc-dán."

[14]The end rhyming words in verses 6-10 for example are as follows—fóe nóe,báthahilblátha, bláthaib thráthaib, gnáth tráth,dathomoithgretho, chéulArggutnéul, mrathetargnath, cruais clúais,básindgás, n-Emnecomamre.

[15]Compare, too, the verses that the monk wrote in the margin of the St. Gall MS. which he was copying, on hearing the blackbird sing—"Dom farcai fidbaidaefálFomchain lóid lain luad nad célHuas mo lebrán indlinechFomchaintrírechinna nén;"the language of which is so ancient as to be nearly unintelligible to a modern, though the metre is common from that day to this. "A thicket of bushes surrounds me, a lively blackbird sings to me his lay, I shall not conceal it, above my many-lined book he sings to me the trill of the birds," etc. Commenting on these verses Nigra says feelingly, "Mentre traduco questi versi amo figurarmi il povero monaco che, or fá più di mille anni, stava copiando il manoscritto, e distratto un istante dal canto dei merli contemplava dalla finestra della sua cella la verde corona di boscaglie che circondava il suo monastero nell Ulster o nel Connaught, e dopo avere ascoltato l'agile trillo degli uccelli, recitava questi strofe, e rapigliava poi più allegro l'interrotto lavoro."It has often been alleged that the word rhyme is derived from the Irishrím, "number,"rímaire, "a reckoner," andrimim, "I count;" but in Anglo-Saxonrímhas the same meaning, so that unless the Anglo-Saxons borrowed the word, as they certainly did the thing, from the Irish, this is inconclusive.In fol. 8a of the "Liber Hymnorum" we read in the preface to the very ancient hymn "In Trinitate spes mea," the following note: "Incertum est hautem in quo tempore factus est, Trerithim dana doronadh ocus xi. caiptell déac ann, ocus dalíni in cech caiptiull, ocus se sillaba déc cechai. Is foi is rithim doreir in ómine dobit ann.,"i.e., "in rhyme it was made and eleven chapters thereon and two lines in every chapter, and sixteen syllables in each. It is onitherhymeis because of the 'omine' that is in it." In the preface to the hymn, "Christus in nostra insula," the scholiast writes, "Trerithim dana dorigned," which Whitley Stokes translates by "inrhythmmoreover it was made," butrithimevidently means the same in both passages, namely,rhymenot rhythm, at least if the first passage is rightly translated by Dr. Stokes himself. I doubt, however, ifrímorrithimever meant "rhyme" in Irish.

[15]Compare, too, the verses that the monk wrote in the margin of the St. Gall MS. which he was copying, on hearing the blackbird sing—

"Dom farcai fidbaidaefálFomchain lóid lain luad nad célHuas mo lebrán indlinechFomchaintrírechinna nén;"

the language of which is so ancient as to be nearly unintelligible to a modern, though the metre is common from that day to this. "A thicket of bushes surrounds me, a lively blackbird sings to me his lay, I shall not conceal it, above my many-lined book he sings to me the trill of the birds," etc. Commenting on these verses Nigra says feelingly, "Mentre traduco questi versi amo figurarmi il povero monaco che, or fá più di mille anni, stava copiando il manoscritto, e distratto un istante dal canto dei merli contemplava dalla finestra della sua cella la verde corona di boscaglie che circondava il suo monastero nell Ulster o nel Connaught, e dopo avere ascoltato l'agile trillo degli uccelli, recitava questi strofe, e rapigliava poi più allegro l'interrotto lavoro."

It has often been alleged that the word rhyme is derived from the Irishrím, "number,"rímaire, "a reckoner," andrimim, "I count;" but in Anglo-Saxonrímhas the same meaning, so that unless the Anglo-Saxons borrowed the word, as they certainly did the thing, from the Irish, this is inconclusive.

In fol. 8a of the "Liber Hymnorum" we read in the preface to the very ancient hymn "In Trinitate spes mea," the following note: "Incertum est hautem in quo tempore factus est, Trerithim dana doronadh ocus xi. caiptell déac ann, ocus dalíni in cech caiptiull, ocus se sillaba déc cechai. Is foi is rithim doreir in ómine dobit ann.,"i.e., "in rhyme it was made and eleven chapters thereon and two lines in every chapter, and sixteen syllables in each. It is onitherhymeis because of the 'omine' that is in it." In the preface to the hymn, "Christus in nostra insula," the scholiast writes, "Trerithim dana dorigned," which Whitley Stokes translates by "inrhythmmoreover it was made," butrithimevidently means the same in both passages, namely,rhymenot rhythm, at least if the first passage is rightly translated by Dr. Stokes himself. I doubt, however, ifrímorrithimever meant "rhyme" in Irish.

[16]The various Saor bards were called theAnshruth-bairdne(great stream of poetry?), theSruth di aill(stream down two cliffs?), theTighearn-bhard(lord bard), theAdhmhall, theTuath-bhard(lay bard), thebo-bhard(cow-bard) and theBard áine. The highest of the Daor bards was called thecúl-bhard(back bard), and after him came theSruth-bhard(stream-bard), theDrisiuc, thecromluatha, theSirti-uí, theRindhaidh, theLong-bhard, and thebard Loirrge.

[17]Thus the head of the patrician bards was entitled to make use of the metres callednath, metres in which the end of each line makes a vowel rhyme or an alliteration with the beginning of the next, the number of syllables in the line and of lines in the verse being irregular. There were six kinds ofnáthmetres, calledDeachna. All these the first bard practised with two honourable metres besides, called the great and littleSéadna.The ANSHRUTH used the two kinds of metres calledOttbhairdne, the SRUTH DI AILL usedCasbhairdne, the TIGHEARN-BHARD usedDuanbhairdne, a generic metre of which there were six species calledDuan faidesin, duan cenátach, fordhuan, taebh-chasadh, tul-chasadh,andsreth-bhairdne. All the metres which these five employed were honourable ones, and went under the generic name ofpríomhfódhta.Then came the ADHMHALL with seven measures for himself,bairdne faidessin, btogh-bhairdne, brac-bhairdne, snedh-bhairdne, sem-bhairdne, imard-bhairdne,andrathnuatt.The TUATH-BHARD had all theRannaigheachtmetres and the BO-BARD all theDeibhidhmetres, and these two, Rannaigheacht and Deibhidh, though thus lowly thought of in early—probably pre-Danish—days, were destined in later times, like the cuckoo birds, to oust their fellows and reign in the forefront for many hundred years. The Tuath-bhard had also two other metresSeaghdhaandTreochair, and the Bo-bhard in addition to Deibhidh had long and shortdeachubhaidh.The classification of the Daor bards and their metres is just as minute.

The classification of the Daor bards and their metres is just as minute.

[18]The lowest grade offiléwas called thefuctuc(word maker?). In his first year he had to learn fifty ogams and straight ogams amongst them. He had to learn the grammar calledUraicept na ti-éigsine, and the preface to it, and that part of the book calledréimeanna, or courses, with twentydréachts(stories?), six metres and other things. The six metres were the sixdianscalledair-sheang, midh-sheang, iar-sheang, air-throm, midh-throm, andiar-throm.

[19]Each of the twelve years had its own course of the same nature as the above.

[20]I have seen it stated, but I do not know on what authority, that their income derived from land, in what is the present county of Donegal, was equal to £2,000 a year.

[21]SeeKeating's "Forus Feasa" under the reign of Aedh mac Ainmireach.

[22]Lios-an-doilli.e., the "blind man's fort."Seethe preface to O'Donovan's "Satires of Angus," for this story.

[23]He preserved eight pieces of O'Daly, who is called Muireach Albanach, and in one place Muireach Lessin Dall (i.e., Lios-an-Doill) O'Daly.

[24]"DiombuaidhTriallo Thulchaibh FáilDiombuaidhIathÉireann d'fhágbháil,Iath mhilis naMbeannMbeachach,Inis naN-EangN-Óig-eachach."Deibhidh metre.SeeHardiman, vol. ii. p. 226.

[24]"DiombuaidhTriallo Thulchaibh FáilDiombuaidhIathÉireann d'fhágbháil,Iath mhilis naMbeannMbeachach,Inis naN-EangN-Óig-eachach."

Deibhidh metre.SeeHardiman, vol. ii. p. 226.

[25]"Dándimghiodh duinere dánFáchiniodhdonchuireríoghDo bhiadhcroch roimhear gachraonOch!ganAodh Doiredar ndíon."Rannaigheacht Mór metre. From a MS. poem.

[25]"Dándimghiodh duinere dánFáchiniodhdonchuireríoghDo bhiadhcroch roimhear gachraonOch!ganAodh Doiredar ndíon."

Rannaigheacht Mór metre. From a MS. poem.

Side by side with the numerous prose sagas which fall under the title of "Fenian," and which we have already examined in Chapter XXIX., there exists an enormous mass of poems, chiefly narrative, of a minor epic type, or else semi-dramatic épopées, usually introduced by a dialogue between St. Patrick and the poet Ossian. Ossian[1]was the son of Finn mac Cúmhail, vulgarly "Cool," and he was fabled to have lived in Tír na n-og [T'yeer na nogue], the country of the ever-young, the Irish Elysium, for three hundred years, thus surviving all his Fenian contemporaries, and living to hold colloquy with St. Patrick. The so-called Ossianic poems are extraordinarily numerous, and were they all collected would probably (between those preserved in Scotch-Gaelic and in Irish) amount to some 80,000 lines. My friend, the late Father James Keegan, of St. Louis, once estimated them at 100,000. The most of them, in the form in which they have come down to us at the present day, seem to have been composed in rather loose metres, chiefly imitations of Deibhidh and Rannaigheacht mór, and they wereeven down to our fathers' time exceedingly popular both in Ireland and the Scotch Highlands, in which latter country Iain Campbell, the great folk-lorist, made the huge collection which he called Leabhar na Féinne, or the Book of the Fenians.

Some of the Ossianic poems relate the exploits of the Fenians, others describe conflicts between members of that body and worms, wild beasts and dragons, others fights with monsters and with strangers come from across the sea; others detail how Finn and his companions suffered from the enchantments of wizards and the efforts made to release them, one enumerates the Fenians who fell at Cnoc-an-áir, another gives the names of about three hundred of the Fenian hounds, another gives Ossian's account of his three hundred years in the Land of the Young and his return, many more consist largely of semi-humorous dialogues between the saint and the old warrior; another is called Ossian's madness; another is Ossian's account of the battle of Gabhra, which made an end of the Fenians, and so on.[2]

The Lochlannachs, or Norsemen, figure very largely in these poems, and it is quite evident that most of them—at least in the modern form in which we now have them—are post-Norse productions. The fact that the language in which they have for the most part come down to us is popular and modern, does not prove much one way or the other, for these small epics which, more than any other part of Irish literature, were handed down from father to son and propagated orally, have had their language unconsciously adjusted from age to age, so as to leave them intelligible to their hearers. As a consequence the metres have in many places also suffered, and the old Irish system, which required a certain number ofsyllables in each line, has shown signs of fusing gradually with the new Irish system, which only requires so many accented syllables.

It is, however, perfectly possible—as has been supposed by, I think, Mr. Nutt and others—that after the terrible shock given to the island by the Northmen, this people usurped in our ballads the place of some older mythical race; and Professor Rhys was, I believe, at one time of opinion that Lochlann, as spoken of in these ballads, originally meant merely the country of lochs and seas, and that the Lochlanners were a submarine mythical people, like the Fomorians.

The spirit of banter with which St. Patrick and the Church are treated, and in which the fun just stops short of irreverence, is a mediæval, not a primitive, trait, more characteristic, thinks Mr. Nutt, of the twelfth than of any succeeding century. We may remember the inimitable felicity with which that great English-speaking Gael, Sir Walter Scott, has caught this Ossianic tone in the lines which Hector McIntyre repeats for Oldbuck—

"Patrick the psalm-singer,Since you will not listen to one of my stories,Though you have never heard it before,I am sorry to tell youYou are little better than an ass;"

to which the saint, to the infinite contempt of the unbelieving antiquary, is made to respond—

"Upon my word, son of Fingal,While I am warbling the psalms,The clamour of your old woman's talesDisturbs my devotional exercises."

Whereat the heated Ossian replies—

"Dare you compare your psalmsTo the tales of the bare-armed Fenians,I shall think it no great harmTo wring your bald head from your shoulders."

Here, however, is a real specimen from the Irish, which will give some idea of the style of dialogue between the pair. St. Patrick, with exaggerated episcopal severity, having Ossian three-quarters starved, blind, and wholly at his mercy, desires him to speak no more of Finn or of the Fenians.

"OSSIAN."Alas, O Patrick, I did think that God would not be angered thereat; I think long, and it is a great woe to me, not to speak of the way of Finn of the Deeds."PATRICK."Speak not of Finn nor of the Fenians, for the Son of God will be angry with thee for it, he would never let thee into his court and he would not send thee the bread of each day."OSSIAN."Were I to speak of Finn and of the Fenians, between us two, O Patrick the new, but only not to speak loud, he would never hear us mentioning him."PATRICK."Let nothing whatever be mentioned by thee excepting the offering of God, or if thou talkest continually of others, thou, indeed, shalt not go to the house of the saints."OSSIAN."I will, O Patrick, do His will. Of Finn or of the Fenians I will not talk, for fear of bringing anger upon them, O Cleric, if it is God's wont to be angry."

"Alas, O Patrick, I did think that God would not be angered thereat; I think long, and it is a great woe to me, not to speak of the way of Finn of the Deeds.

"Speak not of Finn nor of the Fenians, for the Son of God will be angry with thee for it, he would never let thee into his court and he would not send thee the bread of each day.

"Were I to speak of Finn and of the Fenians, between us two, O Patrick the new, but only not to speak loud, he would never hear us mentioning him.

"Let nothing whatever be mentioned by thee excepting the offering of God, or if thou talkest continually of others, thou, indeed, shalt not go to the house of the saints.

"I will, O Patrick, do His will. Of Finn or of the Fenians I will not talk, for fear of bringing anger upon them, O Cleric, if it is God's wont to be angry."

In another poem St. Patrick denounces with all the rigour of a new reformer.

"PATRICK."Finn is in hell in bonds, 'the pleasant man who used to bestow gold,' in penalty of his disobedience to God, he is now in the house of pain in sorrow...."Because of the amusement [he had with] the hounds and for attending the (bardic) schools each day, and because he took no heed of God, Finn of the Fenians is in bonds...."Misery attend thee, old man, who speakest words of madness; God is better for one hour than all the Fenians of Erin."OSSIAN."O Patrick of the crooked crozier, who makest me that impertinent answer, thy crozier would be in atoms were Oscar present."Were my son Oscar and God hand to hand on Knock-na-veen, if I saw my son down it is then I would say that God was a strong man."How could it be that God and his clerics could be better men than Finn, the chief King of the Fenians, the generous one who was without blemish?"All the qualities that you and your clerics say are according to the rule of the King of the Stars, Finn's Fenians had them all, and they must be now stoutly seated in God's heaven."Were there a place above or below better than heaven, 'tis there Finn would go, and all the Fenians he had...."Patrick, inquire of God whether he recollects when the Fenians were alive, or hath he seen east or west, men their equal in the time of fight."Or hath he seen in his own country, though high it be above our heads, in conflict, in battle, or in might, a man who was equal to Finn?"PATRICK."(Exhausted with controversy and curious for Ossian's story.)"'Ossian sweet to me thy voice,Now blessings choice on the soul of Finn!But tell to us how many deerWere slain at Slieve-na-man finn.'"OSSIAN."'We the Fenians never used to tell untruth, a lie was never attributed to us; by truth and the strength of our hands we used to come safe out of every danger."'There never sat cleric in church, though melodiously ye may think they chant psalms, more true to his word than the Fenians, the men who shrank never from fierce conflicts."'O Patrick, where was thy God the day the two came across the sea who carried off the queen of the King of Lochlann in ships, by whom many fell here in conflict."'Or when Tailc mac Treoin arrived, the man who put great slaughter on the Fenians; 'twas not by God the hero fell, but by Oscar in the presence of all."'Many a battle victory and contest were celebrated by the Fenians of Innisfail. I never heard that any feat was performed by the king of saints, or thathereddened his hand.'"PATRICK."'Let us cease disputing on both sides, thou withered old man who art devoid of sense; understand that God dwells in heaven of the orders, and Finn and his hosts are all in pain.'"OSSIAN."'Great, then, would be the shame for God not to release Finn from the shackles of pain; for if God Himself were in bonds my chief would fight on his behalf."'Finn never suffered in his day any one to be in pain or difficulty without redeeming him by silver or gold or by battle and fight, until he was victorious."'It is a good claim I have against your God, me to be amongst these clerics as I am, without food, without clothing or music, without bestowing gold on bards,"'Without battling, without hunting, without Finn, without courting generous women, without sport, without sitting in my place as was my due, without learning feats of agility and conflict,'" etc.

"Finn is in hell in bonds, 'the pleasant man who used to bestow gold,' in penalty of his disobedience to God, he is now in the house of pain in sorrow....

"Because of the amusement [he had with] the hounds and for attending the (bardic) schools each day, and because he took no heed of God, Finn of the Fenians is in bonds....

"Misery attend thee, old man, who speakest words of madness; God is better for one hour than all the Fenians of Erin.

"O Patrick of the crooked crozier, who makest me that impertinent answer, thy crozier would be in atoms were Oscar present.

"Were my son Oscar and God hand to hand on Knock-na-veen, if I saw my son down it is then I would say that God was a strong man.

"How could it be that God and his clerics could be better men than Finn, the chief King of the Fenians, the generous one who was without blemish?

"All the qualities that you and your clerics say are according to the rule of the King of the Stars, Finn's Fenians had them all, and they must be now stoutly seated in God's heaven.

"Were there a place above or below better than heaven, 'tis there Finn would go, and all the Fenians he had....

"Patrick, inquire of God whether he recollects when the Fenians were alive, or hath he seen east or west, men their equal in the time of fight.

"Or hath he seen in his own country, though high it be above our heads, in conflict, in battle, or in might, a man who was equal to Finn?

"(Exhausted with controversy and curious for Ossian's story.)

"'Ossian sweet to me thy voice,Now blessings choice on the soul of Finn!But tell to us how many deerWere slain at Slieve-na-man finn.'

"'We the Fenians never used to tell untruth, a lie was never attributed to us; by truth and the strength of our hands we used to come safe out of every danger.

"'There never sat cleric in church, though melodiously ye may think they chant psalms, more true to his word than the Fenians, the men who shrank never from fierce conflicts.

"'O Patrick, where was thy God the day the two came across the sea who carried off the queen of the King of Lochlann in ships, by whom many fell here in conflict.

"'Or when Tailc mac Treoin arrived, the man who put great slaughter on the Fenians; 'twas not by God the hero fell, but by Oscar in the presence of all.

"'Many a battle victory and contest were celebrated by the Fenians of Innisfail. I never heard that any feat was performed by the king of saints, or thathereddened his hand.'

"'Let us cease disputing on both sides, thou withered old man who art devoid of sense; understand that God dwells in heaven of the orders, and Finn and his hosts are all in pain.'

"'Great, then, would be the shame for God not to release Finn from the shackles of pain; for if God Himself were in bonds my chief would fight on his behalf.

"'Finn never suffered in his day any one to be in pain or difficulty without redeeming him by silver or gold or by battle and fight, until he was victorious.

"'It is a good claim I have against your God, me to be amongst these clerics as I am, without food, without clothing or music, without bestowing gold on bards,

"'Without battling, without hunting, without Finn, without courting generous women, without sport, without sitting in my place as was my due, without learning feats of agility and conflict,'" etc.

Many of these poems contain lyrical passages of great beauty. Here, as a specimen, is Ossian's description of the things in which Finn used to take delight. It is a truly lyrical passage, in the very best style, rhyme, rhythm and assonance are all combined with a most rich vocabulary of words expressive of sounds nearly impossible to translate into English. It might be thus attempted in verse, though not quite in the metre of the original. Finn's pursuits as depicted here by Ossian show him to have been a lover of nature, and are quite in keeping with his poem on Spring; his are the tastes of one of Matthew Arnold's "Barbarians" glorified.

"Oh, croaking Patrick, I curse your tale.Is the King of the Fenians in hell this night?The heart that never was seen to quail,That feared no danger and felt no spite.[3]What kind of a God can be yours, to grudgeBestowing of food on him, giving of gold?Finn never refused either prince or drudge;Can his doom be in hell in the house of cold.[4]The desire of my hero who feared no foeWas to listen all day to Drumderrig's sound,To sleep by the roar of the Assaroe,And to follow the dun deer round and round.The warbling of blackbirds in Letter Lee,The strand where the billows of Ruree fall,The bellowing ox upon wild Moy-mee,The lowing of calves upon Glen-da-vaul.The blast of a horn around Slieve Grot,The bleat of a fawn upon Cua's plain,The sea-birds scream in a lonely spot,The croak of the raven above the slain.The wash of the waves on his bark afar,The yelp of the pack as they round Drumliss,The baying of Bran upon Knock-in-ar,The murmur of fountains below Slieve Mis.The call of Oscar upon the chase,[5]The tongue of the hounds on the Fenians' plain,Then a seat with the men of the bardic race,—Of these delights was my hero fain.But generous Oscar's supreme desire,Was the maddening clashing of shield on shield,And the hewing of bones in the battle ire,And the crash and the joy of the stricken field."[6]

In entire accordance with this enthusiastic love of nature is Ossian's delightful address to the blackbird of Derrycarn, a piece which was a great favourite with the scribes of the last century.[7]Interpenetrated with the same almost sensuousdelight at the sights and sounds of nature, are the following verses which the Scotsman, Dean Macgregor, wrote down—probably from the recitation of a wandering harper or poet—some three hundred and eighty years ago.

"Sweet is the voice in the land of gold,[8]And sweeter the music of birds that soar,When the cry of the heron is heard on the wold,And the waves break softly on Bundatrore.Down floats on the murmuring of the breezeThe call of the cuckoo from Cossahun,The blackbird is warbling amongst the trees,And soft is the kiss of the warming sun.The cry of the eagle at AssaroeO'er the court of Mac Morne to me is sweet;And sweet is the cry of the bird below,Where the wave and the wind and the tall cliff meet.Finn mac Cool is the father of me,Whom seven battalions of Fenians fear,When he launches his hounds on the open lea,Grand is their cry as they rouse the deer."

Caoilte [Cweeltya] too, the third great Fenian poet, was as impressionable to the moods of nature as his friends Ossian and Finn. Compare with the foregoing poems his lay on the Isle of Arran, in Scotland.[9]

THE ISLE OF ARRAN."Arran of the many stags, the sea inpinges upon her very shoulders! An isle in which whole companies were fed, and with ridges among which blue spears are reddened."Skittish deer are on her pinnacles, soft blackberries on herwaving heather; cool water there is in her rivers, and musk upon her russet oaks.[10]"Greyhounds there were in her and beagles, blackberries and sloes of the dark blackthorn, dwellings with their backs set close against her woods, while the deer fed scattered by her oaken thickets."A crimson crop grew on her rocks, in all her glades a faultless grass; over her crags affording friendly refuge leaping went on, and fawns were skipping."Smooth were her level spots, fat her wild swine, cheerful her fields ... her nuts hung on the boughs of her forest hazels, and there was sailing of long galleys past her."Right pleasant their condition, all, when the fair weather set in. Under her river-banks trouts lie; the seagulls wheeling round her grand cliff answer one the other—at every fitting time delectable is Arran!"

"Arran of the many stags, the sea inpinges upon her very shoulders! An isle in which whole companies were fed, and with ridges among which blue spears are reddened.

"Skittish deer are on her pinnacles, soft blackberries on herwaving heather; cool water there is in her rivers, and musk upon her russet oaks.[10]

"Greyhounds there were in her and beagles, blackberries and sloes of the dark blackthorn, dwellings with their backs set close against her woods, while the deer fed scattered by her oaken thickets.

"A crimson crop grew on her rocks, in all her glades a faultless grass; over her crags affording friendly refuge leaping went on, and fawns were skipping.

"Smooth were her level spots, fat her wild swine, cheerful her fields ... her nuts hung on the boughs of her forest hazels, and there was sailing of long galleys past her.

"Right pleasant their condition, all, when the fair weather set in. Under her river-banks trouts lie; the seagulls wheeling round her grand cliff answer one the other—at every fitting time delectable is Arran!"

In another poem that Caoilte is fabled to have made after he met and consorted with St. Patrick is a vivid description of a freezing night as it appeared to a hunter. A great frost and heavy snow had fallen upon the whole country, so that the russet branches of the forest were twisted together, and men could no longer travel. "A fitting time it is now," said Caoilte, "for wild stags and for does to seek the topmost points of hills and rocks; a timely season for salmons to betake them into cavities of the banks," and he uttered a lay.

"Cold the winter is, the wind is risen, the high-couraged unquelled stag is on foot, bitter cold to-night the whole mountain is, yet for all that the ungovernable stag is belling.[11]"The deer of Slievecarn of the gatherings commits not his side to the ground; no less than he, the stag of frigid Echtgé's summit who catches the chorus of the wolves."I, Caoilte, with Brown Diarmuid,[12]and with keen, light-footed Oscar; we too in the nipping nights' waning end, would listen to the music of the [wolf] pack."But well the red deer sleeps that with his hide to the bulging rock lies stretched, hidden as though beneath the country's surface, all in the latter end of chilly night."To-day I am an aged ancient, and but a scant few men I know; once on time, though, on a cold and icebound morning I used to vibrate a sharp javelin hardily."To Heaven's King I offer thanks, to Mary Virgin's Son as well; often and often I imposed silence on [daunted] a whole host, whose plight to-night is very cold [i.e., who are all dead now]."

"Cold the winter is, the wind is risen, the high-couraged unquelled stag is on foot, bitter cold to-night the whole mountain is, yet for all that the ungovernable stag is belling.[11]

"The deer of Slievecarn of the gatherings commits not his side to the ground; no less than he, the stag of frigid Echtgé's summit who catches the chorus of the wolves.

"I, Caoilte, with Brown Diarmuid,[12]and with keen, light-footed Oscar; we too in the nipping nights' waning end, would listen to the music of the [wolf] pack.

"But well the red deer sleeps that with his hide to the bulging rock lies stretched, hidden as though beneath the country's surface, all in the latter end of chilly night.

"To-day I am an aged ancient, and but a scant few men I know; once on time, though, on a cold and icebound morning I used to vibrate a sharp javelin hardily.

"To Heaven's King I offer thanks, to Mary Virgin's Son as well; often and often I imposed silence on [daunted] a whole host, whose plight to-night is very cold [i.e., who are all dead now]."

It is curious that in the more modern Ossianic pieces, such as the scribes of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries delighted in transcribing, there is little mention made of Caoilte, and the complaints about surviving the Fenians and being vexed by the clerics are more usually put into the mouth of Ossian.

Here is one of the moans of Ossian in his old age, when fallen on evil times, and thwarted at every turn by St. Patrick and his monks.

Long was last night in cold Elphin,[13]More long is to-night on its weary way,Though yesterday seemed to me long and ill,Yet longer still was this dreary day.And long for me is each hour new born,Stricken, forlorn, and smit with griefFor the hunting lands and the Fenian bands,And the long-haired, generous, Fenian chief.I hear no music, I find no feast,I slay no beast from a bounding steed,I bestow no gold, I am poor and old,I am sick and cold, without wine or mead.I court no more, and I hunt no more,These were before my strong delight,I cannot slay, and I take no prey:Weary the day and long the night.No heroes come in their war array,No game I play, there is nought to win;I swim no stream with my men of might,Long is the night in cold Elphin.Ask, O Patrick, thy God of grace,To tell me the place he will place me in,And save my soul from the Ill One's might,For long is to-night in cold Elphin."

There is a considerable thread of narrative running through these poems and connecting them in a kind of series, so that several of them might be divided into the various books of a Gaelic epic of the Odyssic type, containing instead of the wanderings and final restoration of Ulysses, the adventures and final destruction of the Fenians, except that the books would be rather more disjointed. There is, moreover, splendidmaterial for an ample epic in the division between the Fenians of Munster and Connacht and the gradual estrangement of the High-king, leading up to the fatal battle of Gabhra; but the material for this last exists chiefly in prose texts, not in the Ossianic lays. It is very strange and very unfortunate that notwithstanding the literary activity of Gaelic Ireland before and during the penal times, no Keating, or Comyn, or Curtin ever attempted to redact the Ossianic poems and throw them into that epic form into which they would so easily and naturally have fitted. These pieces appear to me of even greater value than the Red Branch sagas, as elucidating the natural growth and genesis of an epic, for the Irish progressed just up to the point of possessing a large quantity of stray material, minor episodes versified by anonymous long-forgotten folk-poets; but they never produced a mind critical enough to reduce this mass to order, coherence, and stability, and at the same time creative enough to itself supply the necessary lacunæ. Were it not that so much light has by this time been thrown upon the natural genesis of ancient national epics, one might be inclined to lay down the theory that the Irish had evolved a scheme of their own, peculiar to themselves, and different altogether from the epic, a scheme in which the same characters figure in a group of allied poems and romances, each of which, like one of Tennyson's idylls, is perfect in itself, and not dependent upon the rest, a system which might be taken to be a natural result of the impatient Celtic temperament which could not brook the restraints of an epic.

The Ossianic lays are almost the only narrative poems which exist in the language, for although lyrical, elegiac, and didactic poetry abounds, the Irish never produced, except in the case of the Ossianic épopées, anything of importance in a narrative and ballad form, anything, for instance, of the nature of the glorious ballad poetry of the Scotch Lowlands.

The Ossianic metres, too, are the eminently epic ones of Ireland. It was a great pity, and to my thinking a greatmistake, for Archbishop Mac Hale not to have used them in his translation of Homer, instead of attempting it in the metre of Pope's Iliad—one utterly unknown to native Ireland.

I have already observed that great producers of literature as the Irish always were—until this century—they never developed a drama. The nearest approach to such a thing is in these Ossianic poems. The dialogue between St. Patrick and Ossian—of which there is, in most of the poems, either more or less—is quite dramatic in its form. Even the reciters of the present day appear to feel this, and I have heard the censorious self-satisfied tone of Patrick, and the querulous vindictive whine of the half-starved old man, reproduced with considerable humour by a reciter. But I think it nearly certain—though I cannot prove it[14]—that in former days there was real acting and a dialogue between two persons, one representing the saint and the other the old pagan. It was from a less promising beginning than this that the drama of Æschylus developed. But nothing could develop in later Ireland. Everything, time after time, was arrested in its growth. Again and again the tree of Irish literature put forth fresh blossoms, and before they could fully expand they were nipped off. The conception of bringing the spirit of Paganism and of Christianity together in the persons of the last great poet and warrior of the one, and the first great saint of the other, was truly dramatic in its conception, and the spirit and humour with which it has been carried out in the pieces which have come down to us are a strong presumption that under happier circumstances something great would have developed from it. If any one is still found to repeat Macaulay's hackneyed taunt about the Irish race never having produced a great poem, let him ask himself if it is likely that a country, where, for a hundred years after Aughrim and the Boyne, teachers who for long before thathad been in danger, were systematically knocked on the head, or sent to a jail for teaching; where children were seen learning their letters with chalk on their father's tombstones—other means being denied them; where the possession of a manuscript might lead to the owner's death or imprisonment, so that many valuable books were buried in the ground, or hidden to rot in walls[15]—whether such a country were a soil on which an epic or anything else could flourish. How, in the face of all this, the men of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries preserved in manuscript so much of the Ossianic poetry as they did, and even rewrote or redacted portions of it, as Michael Comyn is said to have done to "Ossian in the Land of the Ever-Young," is to me nothing short of amazing.

Of the authorship of the Ossianic poems nothing is known. In the Book of Leinster are three short pieces ascribed to Ossian himself, and five to Finn, and other old MSS. contain poems ascribed to Caoilte, Ossian's companion and fellow survivor, and to Fergus, another son of Finn; but of the great mass of the many thousand lines which we have in seventeenth and eighteenth century MSS. there is not much which is placed in Ossian's mouth as first hand, the pieces as I have said generally beginning with a dialogue, from which Ossian proceeds to recount his tale. But this dramatic form of the lay shows that no pretence was kept up of Ossian's being the singer of his own exploits.[16]From the paucity of the pieces attributed to him in the oldest MSS. it is probable that the Gaelic race only gradually singled him out as their typical pagan poet, instead of Fergus or Caoilte or any other of hisalleged contemporaries, just as they singled out his father Finn, as the typical pagan leader of their race; and it is likely that a large part of our Ossianic lay and literature is post-Danish, while the great mass of the Red Branch saga is in its birth many centuries anterior to the Norsemen's invasion.[17]

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