Celtic Lore & Legend

by Bob Curran

  The following extract is taken from a series of tales orally collected in the early 19th century by the Scottish folklorist J.F. Campbell (1821–1885). Many of these stories come from the Western Highlands and the Western Isles where Norse influence was particularly strong. The following story was recorded from Angus McDonald of Stoneybrodge on the island of South Uist around 1860 and reinforces the connection between Ireland and Scotland. It is also characterized by the almost surreal heroic deeds, which are sometimes to be found in Irish mythology.

  Story by Angus McDonald

  There was a king on a time in Eirinn, to whom the cess (misfortune and destruction) which the Lochlanners (Norsemen) had laid on Alba (Scotland) and Eireann was grievous. They were coming on his own realm, in harvest and summer, to feed themselves on his goods, and they were brave, strong men, eating and spoiling as much as the Scots and Irish (Albannaich and Eirionnaich; Alban-ians, Eirin-ians) were making ready for another year.

  He sent word for a counsellor that he had, and he told him all that was in his thought, that he wanted to find a way to keep the Scandinavians (Lochlainnaich, Lochlian-ians) back. The counsellor said to him that this would not grow with him (be achieved) in a moment, but if he would take his counsel, that it would grow with him in time.

  “Marry”, she told him “the hundred biggest men and woman in Eirinn to each other; marry that race to each other; marry that second race to each other again; and let the third kindred (ginealach) go to face the Lochlaners”.

  This was done and when the third kindred came to man’s estate, they came over to Albainn and Cumhal was at their head.

  It grew with them to rout the Lochlaners, and drive them back. Cumhal made a king of himself in Alba that time with these men, and he would not let Lochlaner or Irelander to Alba but himself. This was a grief to the King of Lochlann [Editor’s Note: Probably Western Norway. Much of the settlement on the Western coast of Scotland was initially believed to have come from Westfold.] and he made up with the King of Alba that there should be a friendship between them, her and yonder at that time. They settled together, the three kings—the King of Lochlann and the King of Alba, and the King of Eirinn—that they would have a great “ball” of dancing and there should be friendship and truce amongst them.

  There was a “schame” (plot) between the King of Eirinn and the King of Lochlann to put the King of Scotland (Alba) to death. Cumhal was so mighty that there was no contrivance for putting him to death, unless he was slain with his own sword when he was spoilt with drink, and love making and asleep.

  He had his choice of a sweetheart amongst any of the women in the company, and it was the daughter of the King of Lochlann whom he chose.

  When they went to rest, there was a man in the company, whose name was Black Arcan, whom they set apart to do the murder when they should be asleep. When they slept, Black Arcan got the sword of Cumhal, and he slew him with it. The murder was done and everything was right. Alba was under the Lochalaners and the Irelanders and the Black Arcan had the sword of Cumhal.

  The King of Lochlann left his sister with the King of Eirinn, with an order that if she should have a babe son to slay him but if it were a baby daughter, to keep her alive. A prophet had told that Fionn MacChumhail would come, and the sign for this was a river in Eirinn that no trout could be killed in till Fionn should come. That which came of the fruit of the wedding that was there, was that the daughter of the King of Lochlann bore a son and a daughter to Cumhal. Fionn had no sister but this one and she was the mother of Diarmaid. On the night they were borne, his muime (nurse) fled with the son, and she went to a desert place with him, and she was keeping him there till she raised him as a stalwart and goodly child. [Editor’s Note: This is a Scottish version of the birth of the celebrated Irish hero Fionn MacCumhail (Finn McCool) one of the foremost Knights of the Fianna in Irish mythology and father of the great Irish Bard and poet Oisin, who was also well known as a hero in the Western Isles.]

  She thought it was sorry for her that he should be nameless with her. The thing she did was to go with him to the town, to try if she could find means to give him a name. She saw the school-boys of the town swimming in a fresh water loch.

  “Go out together with these”, she said to him, “and if thou gettest hold of one, put him under and drown him; and if thou gettest hold of two, put them under and drown them”

  He went out on the loch and he began drowning the children, and it happened that one of the bishops of the place was looking on.

  “Who”, said he, “is that bluff fair son with the eye of a king in his head, who is drowning those school boys?”

  “May he steal his name!” said his muime. “Fionn son of Cumhall, son of Finn, son of every eloquence, son of Art, son of Eirinn’s high king, and it is my part to take myself away”.

  Then he came on shore and she snatched him with her.

  When the following (those who were pursuing them) were about to catch them, he leapt off his muime’s back, and seized her by the two ankles, and he put her about his neck. He went in through a wood with her and when he came out he had but the two shanks. He met with a loch after he came out of the wood, and he threw the two legs out on the loch, and it is Loch nan Lurgan, the lake of the shanks, that the loch was called after this. Two great monsters grew from the shanks of Fionn’s muime. That is the kindred that he had with the two monsters of Loch nan Lurgan.

  Then he went, and without meat or drink, to the great town. He met Black Arcan, fishing on the river, and a hound in company with him—Bran MacBruidehig (black, or raven, son of little yellow).

  “Put out the rod for me”, said he to the fisherman, “for I am hungry, to try if thou canst get a trout for me”. The trout was laid out to him, and he killed the trout. He then asked the trout from Black Arcan (he asked Arcan to give him the trout).

  “Thou art the man!” said Black Arcan; “when thou wouldst ask a trout and that I am fishing for years for the king, and that I am as yet without a trout for him”.

  He knew that it was Fionn that he had. To put the tale on the short cut, he killed a trout for the king, and for his wife, and for his son and for his daughter, before he gave any to Fionn. Then he gave him a trout. [Editor’s Note: This story of the fisherman doling out fish to all and sundry before giving the hero or holy man his portion is common in Irish storytelling. It is said that St. Teca of Aanghloo—County Londonderry in the North of Ireland—asked a fisherman on the banks of the River Roe, for the first fish that he caught. The fisherman landed a great fish which he gave to his wife, claiming that he would catch a bigger fish for the saint; he did in fact catch a larger fish which he gave to his own children, promising he would catch an even larger one for the holy man. When he did so, he presented it to a neighbor who was passing by and the saint lost patience and cursed the river so that it always ran red as blood. Similar stories exist on the Inner Hebridean islands of Islay and Jura and elsewhere in the Western Isles.]

  “Thou must”, said Black Arcan, “broil the trout on the further side of the river, and the fire on this side of it, before thou gettest a bit of it to eat, and thou shalt not have leave to set a stick that is in the wood to broil it”. He did not know what he should do. The thing that he fell in with was a mound of sawdust and he set it on fore beyond the river. A wave of the flame came over and it burned a spot on the trout, the thing that was on the crook. [Editor’s Note: Campbell points out in his notes on the text that the word that is used here in the original Gallic is the same that is used for a shepherd’s crook or a bishop’s crozier—bachall, generally the staff of a holy man. This may be a later addition to the tale, as the traditional way of roasting fish was probably on some sort of spit.] Then he put his finger on the black spot that came on the trout and it burnt him, and then he put it into his mouth. Then he got knowledge that it was Black Arcan who had slain his father, and unless he should slay Black Arcan in his sleep, that Black Arcan would slay him when he should wake. [Editor’s Note: This appears to
be a version of the Irish legend of the Salmon of Knowledge. Fionn catches the fish and cooks it but burns himself by touching its back and by sucking his finger, grains all the knowledge of the world, making him a formidable hero.] The thing that happened was that he killed the carle (Black Arcan), and then he got a glaive (a polearm, or sword/knife with a long curving blade) and a hound, and the name of the hound was Bran MacBuidheig.

  Then he thought that he would not stay any longer in Eirinn, but that he would come to Alba to get the soldiers of his father. He came to the shore in Fairbaine. There he found a great clump of giants, men of stature. He understood that these were the soldiers that his father had and that they were as poor captives by the Lochlaners hunting for them and not getting aught but the remnants of the land’s increase for themselves. The Lochlaners took from the arms (had taken their weapons) when war or anything should come, for fear they should rise with the foes. They had one special man for taking their arms, whose name was Ullamh Lamh fhada (Pronounced: oolav lav ada—Oolav Long Hand). He gathered the arms and he took them with him altogether, and it fell out that the sword of Fionn was amongst them. Fionn went after him, asking for his own sword. When they came within sight of the armies of Lochlann, he said:

  “Blood on man and man bloodless,

  Wind over hosts, ‘tis pity without the son of Luin”

  [Editor’s Note: In this version of the tale, Fionn’s sword seems to have been given a name—common in some Irish mythological tales. The name which he give it is MacLuan—son of Luan. In the couplet, Fionn is therefore referring to his weapon.]

  “To what might belong?” said Ulamh lamh fhada.

  “It is to a little bit of a knife of a sword that I had” said Fionn. “You took it with you among the rest, and I am the worse for wanting it and you are no better for having it”

  “What is the best exploit, thou wouldst do if thou hadst it?”

  “I wouldst quell the third part of the hosts that I see before me.”

  Oolav Longhand laid his hand on the arms. The most likely sword and the best that he found, he gave it to him. He seized it and he shook it, and he cast it out of the wooden handle, and said he—

  “It is one of the black-edged glaives,

  It was not Mac Luan, my blade;

  It was no hurt to draw it from sheath,

  It would not take the head of a lamb”

  Then he said the second time, the same words. He said for the third time:

  “Blood on man and bloodless man,

  Wind on the people, ‘tis pity without the son of Luan.”

  “What wouldst thou do with it if thou shouldst get it?”

  “I would do this, that I would quell utterly all I see.”

  He threw down the arms altogether on the ground. Then Fionn got his sword and said he then:

  “This is the one of thy right hand.”

  Then he returned to the people he had left. He got the Ord Fiannta of the Finn [Editor’s Note: This was said to be a great war horn of the Irish Fianna, described as being “a mighty cylinder of brass,” which called the Knights to battle. It now seems to have been transposed into Scottish legend. There are however representations of an ancient horn carved into stones in the West of Scotland and it is possible that there were several such horns, both in Scotland and in Ireland.] and he sounded it.

  There gathered all that were in the southern end of Alba of the Faiantaichain, to where he was. [Editor’s Note: The name “Faintaichain” may refer to a group of Dalriadans who may have been in the southwestern area of Scotland. Dalriada was an ancient Celtic maritime kingdom, which stretched from County Antrim in the North of Ireland into the Mull of Kintyre and possibly Argyll as well. The kingdom was comprised mostly of Irish settlers who spread out through Kintyre, Lorn, and the Western Isles. The Irish sector of the kingdom collapsed in the sixth century, mainly, it is thought, due to internal divisions within the country, but the Scottish section continued until the early ninth century. The great Scottish king Cineach MacAlpin (Kenneth MacAlpin) was believed to be descended from a Dalriadan Irish father. Fionn, therefore, might be seen as an Irish leader of nominally Scottish warriors.] He went with these men and they went to attack the Lochlann, and those which he did not kill, he swept them out of Alba.

  The Origins of Y Tylwyth Teg

  From earliest times, Men and the fairy kind seem to have existed side by side. Ancient myths and legends tell how, as the Sidhe (the People of the Mounds), they influenced and aided great heroes in their efforts or else worked against them on behalf of their enemies. Initially, they were probably no more than the embodiment of the elemental forces, which the Celts believed to be in the landscape all around them. Latterly, however, they were considered to be another race—not human—and were known under a variety of names. For example, as the Tuatha de Danaan (the People of Danu), they were known throughout ancient Ireland as great healers but also were feared as powerful magicians. According to the “Book of Invasions” (a monkish text probably written around the 12th century), they arrived “from the East” (Greece?) in a “golden mist” and partly drove out those who already occupied Ireland. As the slightly more hostile Sluagh in Scotland, they were responsible for creating fierce winds and for hurling stone and rocks at the humans whom they despised

  They often appeared, when they allowed the Sons of Adam to see them, as humanoid creatures, sometimes in old legends as beautiful men and girls, golden-skinned and with noble features. Their society, according to tradition, was loosely modeled on Celtic society itself so that the mortals whom they captured could make the transition between the two spheres of existence quite easily.

  But where had the fairy kind—the Sidhe, the Sluagh, or whatever local Celts chose to call them—come from? Had they, as some sources suggest, come from the East? Were they all that remained of the ancient gods and goddesses who had once been worshipped throughout the Celtic lands before the coming of Christianity? Or were they really angels who had been banished from Heaven? Were they friendly or utterly and implacably hostile towards Humankind? Down through the centuries, from very ancient to relatively recent times, there have been many explanations for their origin.

  One of those who considered the problem from a learned perspective and with regard to the Welsh Tylwth Teg (as the Sidhe were named in Wales) was the folklorist and Classicist Elias Owen, Vicar of Llanyblodwel. Turning his not inconsiderable knowledge to the matter, he began to speculate on the origins of these supernatural beings from earliest, mythological antiquity. His “Notes on Y Tylwyth Teg” (1895–6) set the Celtic fairies within a wider Classical and mythological context, as the following excerpt shows.

  Excerpt From “Notes on Y Tylwyth Teg”

  by Elias Owen

  The Fairy tales that abound in the Principality (of Wales) have much in common with like legends in other countries. This points to a common origin of all such tales. There is a real and unreal, a mythical and material aspect to Fairy Folk-lore. The prevalence, the obscurity and the different versions of the same Fairy tale shows that their origin dates from remote antiquity. The supernatural and the material are strangely blended together in these legends, and this also points to their great age, and intimates that these wild and imaginative Fairy narratives had some historical foundation. If carefully sifted, these legends will yield a fruitful harvest of ancient thoughts and facts connected with a history of a people which, as a race is, perhaps, now extinct, but which has to a certain extent been merged into a stronger and more robust race, by whom they were conquered and dispossessed of much of their land. The conquerors of the Fair Tribe have transmitted to us tales of their timid, unwarlike, but truthful predecessors of the soil, and these tales shew that for a time, both races were the inhabitants of the land, and to a certain extent, by stealth, intermarried.

  Fairy tales, much alike in character, are to be heard in many countries, peopled by peoples of the Aryan race [Editor’s Note: With whom the Celts were believed to have strong connec
tions], and consequently these stories in outline were most probably in existence before the emigration of the families belonging to that race. It is not improbable that the emigrants would carry with them, into all countries whithersoever they went, their ancestral legends, and they would have no difficulty in supplying these interesting stories with a home in their new country. If that supposition be correct, we must look for the origin of Fairy Mythology in the cradle of the Ayrian people, and not in any part of the world inhabited by the descendants of that great race.

  But it is not improbable that incidents in the process of colonisation would repeat themselves, or under special circumstances, vary, and thus we should have similar and different variations of the same historical event in all countries once inhabited by a diminutive race, which was overcome by a more powerful people.

  In Wales, Fairy legends have such peculiarities that they seem to be historical fragments of by-gone days. And apparently, they refer to a race which immediately preceded the Celt in the occupation of the country, and with which the Celt, to a limited degree, amalgamated.

  Names Given to the Fairies

  The Fairies have, in Wales, at least three common and distinctive names, as well as others that are not nowadays used.

  The first and most general name given to the Fairies is “Y Tylwyth Teg” or the Fair Tribe, as an expressive and descriptive term. They are spoken of as people, and not as myths or goblins, and they are said to be a fair or handsome race.