SOURCE: "History or Fable?," in Early Irish History and Mythology, The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1946, pp. 260-85.

[In the following essay, O 'Rahilly traces the ways in which various Celtic gods, heroes, and myths have been treated as exaggerated but real figures and stories from ancient history.]

To our forefathers of a few centuries ago the history of Ireland appeared to be known, at least in outline, continuously from a couple of thousand years B. C. down to their own time. Nowadays we are naturally more sceptical. Before we can give credence to precise statements regarding events in remote times, we have to assure ourselves that these statements are based on contemporary, or nearly contemporary, records.

The critical evaluation of the sources of our knowledge of pre-Christian Ireland is of recent growth. About the middle of the last century those two great contemporary scholars, O'Donovan and O'Curry, still had almost unbounded confidence in the historical accuracy of most of our records relating to pre-Christian times. Thus in O'Donovan's opinion the Tuatha Dé Danann 'were a real people, though their history is so much wrapped up in fable and obscurity'.¹ A folk version of the myth of the birth of Lug, which he records, he regards as 'evidently founded on facts', while conceding that the facts have been 'much distorted'.² O'Curry seems to have accepted without question the history of Ireland as related in Lebor Gabála and elsewhere from at least the time of the 'Milesian' invasion onwards.³ Even the story of the Second Battle of Mag Tuired, in which the mythical Tuatha Dé Danann vanquish the no less mythical Fomoire, he is inclined to regard as veracious.⁴

Euhemerism, that is, the treating of divine beings as if they were men of a far-off age, has long been a favourite method of manufacturing early history, in Ireland and elsewhere. Our Irish pseudo-historians were thorough-going euhemerists; so, too, were the inventors of the pre-Christian parts of our genealogies. By thus humanizing and mortalizing the divinities of pagan Ireland, they hoped to eradicate the pagan beliefs that still lingered on among many of their countrymen. Cormac mac Cuilennáin (t 908) turns Manannán mac Lir into a skilful navigator who lived in the Isle of Man and who was afterwards deified by the Irish and the Welsh. Flann Mainistrech (t 1056) devotes a poem (LL 11 a 19 ff.) to recounting the deaths of all the leading members of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Doubtless his intention was to emphasize their mortal nature, for he must have been well aware that many of the personages he mentions were really pagan deities.⁵

The euhemeristic method has several features which have ensured it a continued popularity in Ireland. It is easy to apply; it enables the uncritical writer to fill up the historical vacuum which he abhors; and it gives us the flattering notion that the records of our history reach back into a very remote past. Moreover with the lapse of time and the disappearance of pagan beliefs the original divine character of the euhemerized personages became increasingly difficult to recognize and was frequently quite forgotten. Accordingly it is not surprising to find that euhemerism still has its votaries. Thus, to take a rather extreme instance, a well-known scholar of our own day has argued that the god Oengus, of Bruig na Bóinne, was originally 'a real historical character who lived, probably, some time towards the beginning of the Bronze Age.' Similarly the goddess Medb has been treated as 'a real historical character' by Eoin Mac Neill and others. One May readily concede that famous men (e. g. Brian Bóramha and his son Murchadh) have frequently been credited with fabulous achievements in the popular imagination of a later age. But that admission does not alter the fact that the euhemeristic method in general is worthless and misleading, and can throw light neither upon history nor upon religion. As Alfred Nutt wrote many years ago, 'the mythology of the Celts has suffered more than that of any other race from the euhemerising methods of investigation applied to it'.⁶

With euhemerism is usually associated rationalization, which would explain the supernatural as due to the misunderstanding or exaggeration, by simple or stupid people, of what was originally not supernatural at all. Among many of our population the belief long persisted that a supernatural personage had his dwelling beneath a local lake. Our early rationalizers tried to explain away this belief by averring that the site of the lake had once been dry land, and that, when the lake was formed by the bursting forth of water from a well, the dwelling of the local lord had been engulfed in the flood and he himself drowned therein. As an example of modern rationalization we may quote O'Donovan's opinion of the Tuatha Dé Danann: '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'.⁷ Similarly O'Curry rationalizes the supernatural powers of the Túatha Dé into their 'scientific superiority'.⁸ We are indebted to a contemporary of these scholars for the following amusing explanation of Finn's custom of chewing his thumb in order to acquire occult knowledge. Finn, 'when in deep thought, seems to have been in the habit of biting his nails'; but the common people, observing the beneficial results of his meditations, distorted his unpleasant habit into the chewing of his thumb, which they regarded as 'some mysterious act necessary to his communication with the unseen world'.⁹ The submarine Otherworld was sometimes conceived as a glass house in the sea; and into such a glass house the enchanter Merlin is said to have taken the thirteen treasures of Britain. An eighteenth-century Welshman, Lewis Morris, explains that 'this house of glass, it seems, was the museum where they kept their curiosities to be seen by everybody, but not handled', and he makes Merlin 'the keeper of the museum'.¹⁰ Of all the methods applied to the interpretation of mythic material, the rationalistic method is surely the most absurd.

One sometimes hears the question asked: 'Where are we to draw the line between fact and fiction?' It would, no doubt, be very convenient if we could draw such a line: if we could, for instance, assume that before A.D. 200 we have fiction, and after that time fact.¹¹ Actually no such line can be drawn. Even in the accounts we possess of historical persons, like Colum Cille or Brian Bórama, fiction is blended with history or legend (i.e. semi-history). Speaking generally, however, we may say that our annalistic records, which begin immediately after the official introduction of Christianity in the year 431, give us fact. For the pre-Christian period contemporary records fail us; but fortunately we are not left completely in the dark. In early Christian Ireland the popular memory was extraordinarily tenacious and conservative regarding the various origins of the different strata of the population; and with the help of these popular traditions, which have been in part preserved, it is possible to trace our history, in some of its broad outlines, back to a period antecedent to the Christian era.

The history of pre-Christian Ireland as related in Lebor Gabála seems to have imposed itself easily on our ancestors. In the course of time the increasing antiquity of the record only strengthened its authority; and as late as the seventeenth century it was accepted unquestioningly as historical truth by scholars like the Four Masters, Keating,¹² and Duald Mac Firbis. Despite its generally spurious character, Lebor Gabála embodies some popular traditions concerning the Goidelic invasion and the names of the pre-Goidelic inhabitants (pp. 194, 197). One section of it, that relating to the Tuatha Dd Danann, owes its origin to a desire to reduce the deities of pagan Ireland to the level of mortal men. This part of Lebor Gabála misled d'Arbois de Jubainville¹³ into treating the whole work as a mythological compilation, a kind of Irish theogony, into which he read the struggles of the 'gods of life and light' against the 'gods of death and night'. Actually Lebor Gabála is no more a mythological treatise than it is an historical one.¹⁴

While no one nowadays would accept all the fictions of Lebor Gabála,¹⁵ its influence on opinion is by no means exhausted. The biggest fiction of the authors of Lebor Gabála, and a fiction which necessitated a long series of other fabrications to support it, was their claim that the dominant Goidels had been in occupation of Ireland from a very remote period; and it is precisely this 'pious fraud' that has been most readily accepted by many scholars in recent times. Sir John Rhys, as is well known, maintained that the Goidels were settled, not only in Ireland but also in Britain, from a remote antiquity;'¹⁶ indeed Rhys's theorizings are quite as imaginative and unsubstantiated as anything in Lebor Gabála. Even yet similar views are put forward from time to time by archmologists, who, chafing under the limitations of their science, too often succumb to the temptation to lend a specious semblance of reality to their speculations by linking them arbitrarily with the names of historical peoples.

Even scholars who are rightly sceptical regarding the historicity of most of the kings who are recorded as having reigned in pagan times seem to lose their caution when dealing with the alleged kings of Ireland during the early centuries of our era. Despite the fact that the story of Tuathal's birth and upbringing 'reads like a fairy tale', Mac Neill gives it sufficient credence to infer from it that there was probably 'a plebeian revolution' in Ireland in the second century A.D.¹⁷ The same scholar regards Medb as an historical queen of Connacht who 'flourished just at the commencement of the Christian era'; and because the pedigree represents Tuathal as sixth in descent from Eochu Fedlech, Medb's father, he concludes that Tuathal flourished 'between A.D. 150 and A.D. 175'.¹⁸ Likewise he regards Cormac ua Cuinn as an historical king, who conquered Tara from the Lagin.'¹⁹ During Cormac's reign, he writes, 'we trace the establishment in Ireland of permanent military forces, the Fiana, adopted no doubt in imitation of the Roman military organization'.²⁰ This idea that the Fiana, the hunting and fighting bands of Finn and Goll, were modelled on the Roman legions goes back to John Pinkerton, who wrote, as far back as 1814: 'His [i.e. Finn's] formation of a regular standing army, trained to war, in which all the Irish accounts agree, seems to have been a rude imitation of the Roman legions in Britain'.²¹ Now the Fiana in question are indissolubly linked with Finn and Goll; and the only connexion they have with Cormac is that Finn and his fellows are often supposed to have lived contemporaneously with Cormac. The question of their historicity is bound up with the historicity of Finn and Goll; if these are mythical figures, so too are the Fiana, who have no existence apart from them.

The Irish genealogists did their work thoroughly. Not only did they provide every Irish family of importance with a pedigree which went back to Míl of Spain (or to Ith, Mil's uncle), but they also invented a pedigree of Mil's ancestors going back to Noah and thence to Adam. All this was accepted as indubitable truth by our native scholars. Mac Firbis in 1650, in the preface to his great genealogical compilation, stoutly affirms his belief in it.²² So does Thady Roddy (Tadhg Ó Rodaighe), who, writing in 1700, boasts that 'all the familyes of the Milesian race' can trace their pedigree back to Adam.²³ As late as 1856 Eugene O'Curry is strongly inclined to make a similar claim, and deprecates the 'scepticism' with which some would regard such pedigrees.²⁴ In our own day one may still notice a certain reluctance among Irishmen to consign these imposing lists of ancestors to the scrap-heap. Mac Neill at one time held that 'the extant genealogies of great families are substantially accurate as far back as the Birth of our Lord.²⁵ A few years later, in 1908, he is decidedly more sceptical; he has not 'a shadow of doubt' that 'the authentic genealogies reach back in no instance beyond the year 300 A.D.'²⁶ Yet in 1919 we find him treating as historical the pedigree of the kings of Tara in the first and second centuries A.D.;²⁷ and in 1941 he treats the same pedigree as historical back to the middle of the third century.²⁸

The fact is that no trust can be placed in the pedigrees of pre-Christian times. The pedigree-makers and the authors of Lebor Gabála worked hand in hand. Their object was the same, namely, to provide a fictitious antiquity for the Goidels and a fictitious Goidelic descent for the Irish generally (p. 162). Accordingly they filled out the pre-Christian part of the pedigrees of the kings of Tara and of Cashel with mythical or fanciful names, drawn in part from the traditions of the pre-Goidelic Erainn. It is sometimes argued that, because people have been known who could repeat their pedigree back for seven generations, the pedigree of King Loegaire († 463) must be trustworthy for at least a couple of centuries previous to his time.²⁹ Unfortunately the cases are not parallel. The record that we possess of the ancestors of Loegaire was not derived from Loegaire himself or from any contemporary of his, but forms part of a lengthy pedigree, invented several centuries after his death, in which his descent is traced back to the fabulous Míl. Moreover, as we have seen, the inventors of this and similar pedigrees were very far indeed from being animated by a desire for historical truth and accuracy; indeed one need not hesitate to say that their object was rather to disguise the truth.

The Laginian pedigree is instructive in this connexion. The death of Bresal, king of Lagin, is chronicled in AU under 435 and 436; he was thus an elder contemporary of Loegaire, king of Ireland. Elsewhere he is called Bresal Bélach, as in the pedigree, according to which he was grandson of Cathaer Már (or Mór).³⁰ Accordingly, Meyer places the floruit of Cathaer Már (whom he takes to have been an historical king) in the fourth century.³¹ Actually, there can hardly be a doubt, Cathaer Már is the ancestor-deity of the Lagin, the Otherworld god from whom they claimed descent.³² Hence we see that the compilers of the Laginian pedigree did not shrink from making a purely mythical personage grandfather of an historical king who lived in the early fifth century.

As Cathaer Mar was ancestor of the Lagin, so Conn Cétchathach was ancestor of their enemies, the Goidels of the Midlands. Hence our pseudo-historians, without troubling on this occasion to adapt their implied chronology to that of the genealogists, thought it appropriate to make Cathaer and Conn contemporaries and rivals,³³ and so in the list of kings of Tara Cathaer appears as Conn's immediate predecessor. So in the tract on the Bórama Cathaer's grandson, Bresal Belach, is said to have won a battle at Cnámross against Conn's great-grandson, Cairbre Lifechar, and to have slain three of Cairbre's sons,³⁴ although according to the pedigree Cairbre Lifechar was five generations removed from Loegaire, who historically was Bresal's junior contemporary. On the other hand, as we have seen (p. 19), Failge Berraide or Failge Rot, who fought battles in 510 and 516, is said to have been a son of Cathaer Már, which would imply that Cathaer lived in the fifth century! It is vain to attempt to resolve these inconsistencies; the fact is that Cathaer Mar, as a non-historical character, does not belong to any century more than another.

Our earliest critic of any of the Ulidian tales is Aed mac Crimthainn, the twelfth-century scribe of the Book of Leinster, who records his opinion that 'Táin Bó Cualnge' includes fictitious and foolish things (quaedam figmenta poetica … quaedam ad delectationem stultorum), and is fable rather than history.³⁵ Many centuries elapse before we hear a similar critical voice. Keating and his contemporaries have no doubts about the historical character of the Ulidian tales. Concerning 'Tain Bó Cualnge' O'Curry wrote in 1855: 'Though often exhibiting high poetic colouring in the description of particular circumstances, it unquestionably embraces and is all through founded upon authentic historic facts'; and again: 'The chief actors in this warfare are all well-known and undoubted historical characters, and are to be met with not only in our ancient tales, but in our authentic annals also'.³⁶ Zimmer in 1884 affirmed his belief in the historicity of Ailill, Medb, Conchobar, Cuchulainn and Finn.³⁷ A few years later Meyer writes: 'Conchobor and Cuchulaind were, I believe, historical personages'.³⁸

With greater insight Alfred Nutt wrote in 1888: 'This [viz. the Ulidian] cycle, in its origin almost if not wholly mythic, was at an early date (probably as early as the eighth century) euhemerised, and its gods and demigods made to do duty as historical personages living at the beginning of the Christian era'.³⁹ In his Hibbert Lectures, published in the same year, Rhys, like Nutt, regards the Ulidian tales as based on myth, not on history; but in his attempts to unravel the underlying myths and to explain the actors in them he is very much at sea. Thus he regards Cūichulainn as 'the Sungod or Solar Hero';⁴⁰ and he takes Conchobar mac Nesa, Cormac mac Airt and Conaire Mór to be representatives of 'the Celtic Zeus'.⁴¹

The view of Rev. Edmund Hogan in 1892 approximates to that of O'Curry; he regards the characters of the Ulidian tales as 'real personages,' on the ground that there is mention of them in Irish documents from the eighth century onwards.⁴² Windisch's view in 1905 is not very dissimilar. Concerning 'Táin Bó Cualnge' he writes: 'Es ist sehr wohl moglich, sogar wahrscheinlich, dass es einst einen König Conchobar von Ulster, eine Königin Medb von Connacht gegeben hat, dass Ulster und Connacht aus ähnlichen Anlässen, wie sie in der Sage geschildert werden, Krieg mit einander geführt haben, dass Helden mit den Namen, die in der Sage genannt werden, warum nicht auch ein Held Namens Cuchulinn, in solchen Kämpfen sich ausgezeichnet haben. Aber ein geschichtliche Genauigkeit in dem Berichte davon ist nicht zu erwarten. Dazu waltet in der Sage die Phantasie zu sehr vor'.⁴³

The euhemeristic tendency is by no means extinct. Because myth has become attached to certain historical personages, it is supposed by those who have no deep acquaintance with Celtic mythology that characters like Cúchulainn and Fergus mac Roich were likewise historical.⁴⁴

Actually the Ulidian tales are wholly mythical in origin, and they have not the faintest connexion with anything that could be called history, apart from the fact that traditions of warfare between the Ulaid and the Connachta have been adventitiously introduced into a few of them, and especially into the longest and best-known tale, 'Táin Bó Cualnge'. Cúichulainn, who in the Táin is assigned the role of defender of the Ulaid against their invaders, can be shown to be in origin Lug or Lugaid, a deity whom we may conveniently call the Hero, provided we bear in mind that he was a wholly supernatural personage, and not a mere mortal. The other leading characters, such as Cú Roí, Fergus, Briccriu and Medb, are likewise euhemerized divinities.⁴⁵

The other great cycle of storytelling, that of the Finnian tales (as we may call them), is concerned mainly with Finn mac Cumaill, his son Oisín, Diarmait mac Duinn (D. ua Duibne), and Goll mac Morna. Finn and his fellows are represented as a fian⁴⁶ or band of hunters and warriors; and the rivalry between Finn and Goll is rationalized into a contest concerning the rígfhénnidecht or leadership of the fian. Keating claims that Finn and his fian were real persons (FF ii, 324), though he admits that not a few of the tales told about them, such as 'Cath Fionntrágha', are fictitious romances (ib. i, 50; ii, 326). O'Curry's views are identical. 'It is quite a mistake', he writes,⁴⁷ 'to suppose Finn Mac Cumhaill to have been a merely imaginary or mythical character. Much that has been related of his exploits is, no doubt, apocryphal enough; but Finn himself is an undoubtedly historical personage, and that he existed about the time at which his appearance is recorded in the annals, is as certain as that Julius Caesar lived and ruled at the time stated on the authority of the Roman historians'.

John O'Donovan likewise held that Finn and his fiana were historical. 'I have always believed,' he writes, 'that Finn Mac Cumhaill was a real historical personage, and not a myth or a god of war.… He was the son-in-law of the famous Cormac Mac Airt monarch of Ireland, and the general of his standing army. He was slain in the year A. D. 284, according to the Annals of Tighernach, a period to which our authentic history unquestionably reaches'.⁴⁸ W. M. Hennessy, while accepting the popular opinion that 'a person named Find Mac Cumhaill did live' in the third century, held that 'his history has degenerated into a pure myth'.⁴⁹ The views of Windisch (in 1878) concerning Finn and his fellows resemble those of O'Curry, except that Windisch is sceptical as to the complete accuracy of the dates assigned to them in early Irish history.⁵⁰ As a curiosity may be mentioned the theory put forward by Zimmer in 1891, that Finn is in origin the Norseman Caittil Find who was slain in Munster in 857, and that the Finnian tales have their origin in popular recollections of the Norse invaders.⁵¹ Contrast with this the conclusion reached by Alfred Nutt, that 'from the earliest date to which we can trace it, the Ossianic saga is romantic rather than historical; in other words, it narrates to a very slight extent events which ever actually happened, or which ever would happen'.⁵²

Scottish scholars, as was to be expected, have also interested themselves in the question. W. F. Skene, in 1862, propounded the theory that the Feinne (sic) 'were of the population who immediately preceded the Scots in Erin and Alban'.⁵³ Equally extravagant is the theory of David MacRitchie, that the Fians (sic), the Picts and the 'fairies' are all 'historical people,' who were 'closely akin to each other, if not actually one people under three names'.⁵⁴ J. A. MacCulloch's view resembles that of Nutt. 'Little historic fact,' he writes, 'can be found in it' (viz. the Finn saga); and 'whether personages called Fionn, Oisin, Diarmaid, or Conan, ever existed [or not], what we know of them now is purely mythical'.⁵⁵

Whereas the Ulidian tales are tied down geographically and are assigned to a definite period of pseudo-history, the Finnian tales are much more elastic in both respects, and in particular they possessed (unlike the Ulidian tales) a local adaptability, which contributed in no small measure to their increasing popularity. While Cúchulainn belonged to the Ulaid alone, Finn had no exclusive connexions with any tribe, and he and his fiana were free to indulge in war or the chase or adventure in any part of the country, so that eventually, as may be inferred from 'Acallam na Senórach', there was hardly a district in Ireland that did not acquire associations with them. In Gaelic Scotland, too, the stories of Finn and his fiana became thoroughly acclimatized.

Unlike the heroes of the Ulidian tales, Finn mac Cumaill and the members of his fiana are entirely ignored by the genealogists and by the authors of Lebor Gabála. However, the growing importance of the Finnian tales and poems made it necessary to allocate a place in pseudo-history to Finn; and so we find the Irish World-Chronicle recording his death, just as it records the death of Cuchulainn. Finn is there said to have been slain by the Luaigni of Tara in the reign of Cairbre Lifechar.⁵⁶ His death at the hands of the fian of the Luaigni is also recorded by Cinaed ua hArtacáin.⁵⁷ His birth is assigned to the reign of Conn, or of Conn's predecessor Cathaer Mar.⁵⁸ Elsewhere Finn is supposed to have lived in the reign of Cormac,⁵⁹ Conn's grandson. But the author of the compilation known as 'Macgnimartha Find', probably because of the difficulty he found in reconciling his sources, deliberately refrains from introducing any king of Ireland into his tale, and leaves Finn divorced from pseudo-history.⁶⁰

While Finn's lifetime is made to extend over a period of four generations, from Conn Cetchathach to Cairbre Lifechar,⁶¹ his son Oisin and his nephew Caílte were, by a later convention, supposed to have lived sufficiently long to have held converse with St. Patrick. This idea⁶² of Oisin and Caílte surviving into Christian times proved very popular, and underlies 'Acallam na Senórach' (a long prose text interspersed with poems), as well as a great deal of later 'Ossianic' verse.⁶³

Traditions of a hero of superhuman accomplishments, one of whose names was Finn, must have been known in various parts of the country; and it is possible to distinguish a Finn of Midland tradition, a Laginian Finn, and a Finn associated with the Erainn of Munster. In the pedigree of the kings of Tara, Finn is father of Eochu Fedlech,⁶⁴ while the pedigree of the kings of Lagin includes Finn Fili,⁶⁵ son of Rus Ruad. The Finn of romance (Finn mac Cumaill) was, however, disassociated from these, and various special pedigrees were invented for him. Sometimes he is made to descend from Nuadu Necht,⁶⁶ ancestor of the Lagin; at other times from Daire,⁶⁷ son of Ded, ancestor of the Erainn. There is a similar fluctuation regarding his descent on the maternal side. Finn's mother is best known as Muirne, daughter of Tadg, son of Nuadu (or Nuadu Necht); but according to other accounts his mother was Torba or Tarbda, who was of the Erainn of Cermna (in Co. Cork).⁶⁸ Likewise there were at least two different accounts of Finn's death. Usually he is represented as having been slain at Brea, or Ath Brea, on the River Boyne;⁶⁹ but another tradition made his death take place in Luachair Dedad, in the south-west of Ireland.⁷⁰

In 'Tochmarc Ailbe' Finn is represented as an officer in the service of Cormac, king of Tara, and as captain of Cormac's fighting-men (ta sech ceithirne).⁷¹ He wedded Grdinne, Cormac's daughter; but as a result of her unfaithfulness he was temporarily banished from Tara. Later he was reconciled to Cormac, and wedded another daughter of his, named Ailbe. Here we probably have the Finn of Midland tradition. His close relations with Cormac are what one would expect, for reasons that will appear later. Naturally, when he is brought into association with a pseudo-historic king of Ireland, Finn's role has to be a subordinate one.

On the whole it is the Laginian Finn who is best known. According to Laginian tradition Finn compelled his maternal grandfather, Tadg mac Nuadat, to surrender Almu (the hill of Allen, near Kildare town); and in the later literature it is an established convention that Almu was Finn's principal residence.⁷² In the legendary battle of Cnamross, in which Bresal Belach defeated Cairbre Lifechar, king of Tara, Finn and his fian are said to have fought on the side of the victors.⁷³ Conversely Goll, who is Finn's enemy in the primitive myth, is associated with the Luaigni,⁷⁴ who were the fightingmen of the early kings of Tara; and as the Luaigni were said to have slain Cathaer Mar,⁷⁵ king of the Lagin, so too they are said to have slain Finn.⁷⁶ Hence Conn Cetchathach, king of Tara, sometimes takes the place of Goll as enemy of the youthful Finn.⁷⁷

Our storytellers may be forgiven for the fluctuating chronology they assign to Finn and his fian, for none of their alleged achievements has the remotest connexion with history. Finn and his fellows (Goll, Diarmait, Oisin, etc.) never existed. Finn is ultimately the divine Hero, Lug or Lugaid, just like Cúchulainn.⁷⁸ Lugaid, who was especially prominent in the traditions of the Erainn, appears in pseudo-history as Lugaid mac Con, who is the immediate predecessor of Cormac in the list of the kings of Ireland, and again as Lugaid Laga, who is likewise contemporary with Cormac, and who is represented as brother of Ailill Aulomm. We find early mention of the fian of Lugaid mac Con,⁷⁹ which we may regard as the forerunner of the fian of Finn. So we understand why the Finn of Southern tradition is represented as the friend and avenger of Lugaid mac Con.⁸⁰ Likewise we see the probable reason why Finn was made contemporary with Cormac. Finn's rival, Goll ('the one-eyed'), who was also called Aed ('fire'), is the sun-deity, who was also the lord of the Otherworld. The enmity between Finn and Goll mac Morna is but another version of the enmity between Lug and Balar, and between Cúchulainn and Goll mac Carbada. According to the primitive myth,⁸¹ the newly-born Hero 'slew' or overcame the Otherworld deity. The latter had many appellations; here we need only mention that one of his names in Laginian tradition was Nuadu Necht. As it happens, the Laginian Finn, descended from Nuadu, has his counterpart in the Gwyn, son of Nudd, of Welsh mythical tradition.⁸²

We have several versions of the myth of Finn's overcoming of the Otherworld-god. Two of them may be briefly mentioned here. In 'Acallam na Senórach' it is told how the youthful Finn slew Aillen mac Midgna of the sid (or Otherworld) of Finnachad, and how Goll had to surrender to Finn the leadership of the fiana of Ireland (rigfhéinnidhecht Eirenn).⁸³ This deposition of the euhemerized Goll is admittedly an immediate consequence of Finn's victory over Aillen; and so the conclusion is sufficiently obvious, that the Aillen whom Finn overthrew was in reality Goll himself. Elsewhere⁸⁴ the personage whom Finn deposes is his maternal grandfather, Tadg mac Nuadat. The youthful Finn threatened Tadg with battle, and Tadg, unable to resist, surrendered Almu, where he lived, to Finn.

In pagan belief the deity Nuadu (of whom Tadg mac Nuadat was but an alias) was lord of the sid of Almu.⁸⁵ The primitive version of the rivalry between Finn and Nuadu would have told how Finn 'slew' Nuadu, as elsewhere he slays Aillen, and as Lug slays his maternal grandfather Balar; but when Nuadu had been euhemerized into an historical person, it was natural to assume that Finn, after overthrowing his maternal grandfather, deprived him of his property rather than his life. As the sid or Otherworld was above all a place of feasting,⁸⁶ we understand why Finn is represented as presiding over feasts in Almu. Similarly Finn's victory over Aillen means that he deposed the lord of the festive Otherworld; but in 'Acallam na Senórach' the myth has been adapted to pseudo-history, with the result that the feast no longer belongs to the sid, but is represented as the Feast of Tara (feis na Temra), which is being held by King Conn Cetchathach and is being assailed by the fire-breathing Aillen.

The hill of Almu (Allen), therefore, was a sid or hill within which the Otherworld, ruled by Nuadu, was believed to be located; and Finn's taking possession of it is merely a late euhemeristic inference from his victory over Nuadu in the pagan myth. Accordingly it is not a matter for surprise if those who have explored the hill of Allen in the hope of finding material evidence of Finn's residence thereon have returned disappointed. Thus O'Donovan writes in 1837: 'I traversed all the hill, but could find upon it no monuments from which it could be inferred that it was ever a royal seat.… And still, in all the Fingallian or Ossianic poems, this hill is referred to as containing the palace of the renowned champion, Finn Mac Cool, who seems to have been a real historical character that flourished here in the latter end of the third century'.⁸⁷ Later explorers of the hill have naturally had no better success.⁸⁸ Mac Neill, who (like the others) entirely misses the mythological significance of Finn, tries to explain away the absence of all traces of former habitation on the hill by suggesting that 'its military value must have consisted in its being a watching place from which the Leinster king in his stronghold of Ailinn might be warned of an enemy's approach'.⁸⁹ T. O'Neill Russell tried to get over the difficulty by suggesting⁹⁰ that our storytellers have confused Almu (the hill of Allen) with Ailenn (Knockawlin, near Kilcullen), which was at one time the residence of the kings of Leinster, so that Ailenn 'may have been the hill on which Finn Mac Cumhaill had his dun'. This suggestion was taken up by Meyer, who, observing that Ailenn was assigned as residence to Finn Fili, mythical king of the Lagin, asserted that 'the connexion of Find mac Cumaill with the hill of Allen rests on a confusion with his namesake [Finn Fili] and of Alenn with Almu (Allen)'.⁹¹ Actually there is no 'confusion' between Finn Filí and Finn mac Cumaill, who are always kept distinct, even though they are ultimately the same; nor is there ever any confusion in the literature between Ailenn and Almu. In his role of pseudo-historical king of Lagin, Finn Filí was inevitably thought to have resided in Ailenn, which was the residence of the kings of Lagin in early historical times. Finn mac Cumaill's residence on Almu is simply a way of saying that he overcame the god Nuadu, who ruled over the Otherworld within the hill. To look for traces of Finn mac Cumaill's dzun on the hill of Allen is as vain as to try to discover Bodb Derg's residence on Slievenamon or Mider's on Croghan Hill. The Otherworld is impervious to archeological exploration.

Conn Cetchathach and Cormac ua Cuinn have been mentioned above as the two 'kings of Ireland' with whom Finn is most frequently associated. The Dictionary of National Biography treats these two personages as historical kings, and devotes several columns to an account of the doings of each of them. It may be worth while to examine their alleged historicity a little more closely.

Conn was one of the numerous names applied to the god of the Otherworld, from whom the Celts believed themselves to be descended, and after whom they were wont to name themselves, both as individuals and as tribes. Hence the Midland Goidels called themselves Connacht(a), 'descendants of Conn'. The pseudo-historians and the genealogists, following their custom, turned Conn into an Irish king, making him son of Fedlimmid Rechtaid,⁹² son of Tuathal Techtmar.

As a common noun conn (cond) means 'sense, reason', and goes back to Celt. ^*kondo-, IE. ^*kom-dho-.⁹³ We may take it, therefore, that the name Conn was applied to the god in his capacity of god of wisdom.⁹⁴ Welsh tradition affords a close parallel in Pwyll, 'head of Annwfn', whose name (Welsh pwyll, 'sense, reason, prudence') is the counterpart of Ir. ciall and is synonymous with conn. In Gaul Condos and Senocondos are known to have been in use as personal names;⁹⁵ as the Otherworld deity was characterized at once by great age and great wisdom,⁹⁶ the latter name, meaning 'the wise old one',⁹⁷ would have been a very appropriate designation for him.

The word conn (cond) means also 'head' and (figuratively) 'chief. A possible explanation of this is to see in it a secondary use of conn, 'reason', the head being the seat of reason. In any event a word meaning 'head' would be an appropriate designation of the Celtic Otherworld-deity.⁹⁸ On Gaulish monuments he is often represented as a triple-faced head, or as a triple head. Welsh tradition tells of the joyous feasting in the Otherworld island of Gwales, presided over by Bran's Head, and known as yspydawt urdawl Benn, 'the hospitality of the honourable Head'.⁹⁹ So it is possibly significant that Pwyll is called, not 'lord of the Otherworld', but 'head of the Otherworld', penn Annwvyn. Sufficient evidence remains to show that in pagan Ireland, too, there was a similar belief concerning the divine Head presiding at the Otherworld feast.¹⁰⁰

A plain trace of the divinity of Conn is seen in the text 'Baile Chuinn Chetchathaig',¹⁰¹ which purports to be a prophecy by Conn concerning the kings of Ireland who were to succeed him. Here Conn, as befits his name, is the god of foreknowledge and prophecy. It is interesting to observe the modifications introduced into 'Baile in Scáil',¹⁰² a later and longer text on the same theme. This tells how Conn one day, after a magic mist had come upon him near Tara, found himself in the Otherworld, and how the lord of the Otherworld, who is here identified with Lug mac Ethlenn,¹⁰³ fore-told to Conn the kings who were to succeed him. Here Conn is merely king of Tara, and as a mortal he no longer possesses the power of seeing into the future; hence it is necessary to transport him to the Otherworld in order that the future may be revealed to him.

Cormac, who is made grandson of Conn, is likewise, I have little doubt, a wholly unhistorical personage. His name,¹⁰⁴ the story of his birth and upbringing, and the story of his wedding Ethne Thoebfhota, all suggest his ultimate identity with the divine Hero, Lug or Lugaid. In Ernean tradition he appears as Cormac Conn Loinges, who in the Ulidian tales is very artificially made son of Conchobar, king of Ulaid.¹⁰⁵ As the kingship of Tara was taken over by the Goidels from the Erainn, so also, it would appear, was Cormac. The Goidelic Cormac is distinguished by being called Cormac ua Cuinn,¹⁰⁶ which practically means 'Cormac of the Goidels'. In the regnal lists he succeeds Lugaid mac Con, of the Erainn, as king of Tara,¹⁰⁷ and after this there is no further mention of the Erainn ruling in Tara. He is said to have been twice driven out of Tara by the Ulaid.¹⁰⁸ These 'exiles' (loingis) of Cormac have doubtless been inherited from the earlier Cormac Conn Loinges, though they may also be regarded as typifying vicissitudes in the warfare of the early Goidelic kings with their neighbours. We also hear of Cormac winning battles against each of the four provinces,¹⁰⁹ much like Tuathal.

Lug, in one of his functions, was the divine prototype of human kingship; and so Cormac has become an idealization of the first Goidelic king of Tara. In later times his supposed reign had in retrospect something of the halo of the Golden Age, and under his rule, it was thought, Tara reached the summit of its glory.¹¹⁰ He is said to have built the great ráith at Tara.¹¹¹ To him is attributed the compilation of a fictitious 'Saltair Temrach', and he is also credited with the authorship of 'Tecosca Cormaic', an Old-Irish text which professes to be a series of counsels given by him to his son Cairbre. Together with his mythical predecessors Conchobar and Morann, he is one of the three who believed in the true God before the coming of St. Patrick.¹¹² In no small measure, as Gwynn has shown,¹¹³ this glorification of Cormac is of learned origin, suggested by the biblical descriptions of King Solomon and his house.

Just as Cormac, Goidelic king of Tara, is ultimately a borrowing of a legendary Ernean namesake, so his alleged son and successor, Cairbre Lifechar, is, as we have seen (p. 139 f.), a borrowing of the Laginian Cairbre whom we meet elsewhere as Cairbre Nia Fer, king of Tara.

¹ FM i, 23 n.

² ib. 18 n.

³ See his MS. Materials, 446 ff. He has very exaggerated ideas of the antiquity of many of the texts he is dealing with. Thus of the tale of the First Battle of Mag Tuired he says: 'The antiquity of this tract, in its present form, can scarcely be under fourteen hundred years' (ib, 246).

⁴ ib. 247 f.

⁵ A generation or two before Flann's time Eochaid ua Flainn had composed a poem in which he names many of the Túatha Dé; at the end of the poem he is careful to add: cia dosruirmend nis-adrand, 'though he (the author) enumerates them, he does not worship them' (LL 10 a 42; of ZCP xiv, 178 4).

⁶ Folk-lore Record iv, 38 (1881).

⁷ FM i, 24 n.

⁸ MS. Materials 250.

⁹ John H. Simpson, Poems of Oisin, Bard of Erin (1857), 207 n.

¹⁰ Quoted by Rhys, Hibbert Lectures 1886, 155, n. 4.

¹¹ According to Mac Neill, 'neither history nor genealogy in Ireland, it may confidently be affirmed, is credible in detail beyond A.D. 300' (Celtic Ireland 57). The implication is that our 'history' is trustworthy, even in detail, as far back as A.D. 300,—a view which will commend itself only to the credulous and the uncritical.

¹² Keating's credulity is shaken only with regard to the expedition of the lady Ceasair to Ireland forty days before the Flood (FF i, 146 ff.). Charles O'Conor, in 1766, criticizes Keating's work as 'a most injudicious Collection; the historical Part is degraded by the fabulous, with which it abounds' (Dissertations on the History of Ireland, p. x). Yet he himself accepts as historical the 'Milesian' invasion, and the subsequent kings of Ireland as enumerated in L. G., and also the heroes of the Ulidian tales and Finn mac Cumaill.

¹³ Le cycle mythologique irlandaise et la mythologie celtique (1884 English translation by R. I. Best, 1903).

¹⁴ Compare Meyer's animadversions on d'Arbois's view of Lebor Gabála: 'Die Zeit, wo man in diesem Machwerk die Urgeschichte Irlands sah, ist hoffentlich auf immer vortiber; es ware aber auch an der Zeit, es nicht ohne weiteres als Fundgrube far irische Mythologie und Sagengeschichte zu benutzen' (Sitz.-Ber. der preuss. Akad. der Wissensch. 1919, 546).

¹⁵ This statement, though true in substance, may yet be slightly misleading. In Ireland our tendency with regard to early Irish history is to accept as historical truth any statement, true or otherwise, that we have heard repeated sufficiently often; and if to-day, speaking generally, we are not prepared to swallow all the fictions of Lebor Gabála. one probable reason is that we are no longer sufficiently familiar with them.

¹⁶ One of his guesses as to the date of their arrival was 'more than a millennium before the Christian era'.

¹⁷ Phases of Irish History 119 f.

¹⁸ ibid. 118.

¹⁹ ib. 120 ff.

²⁰ Saorstat Eireann Official Handbook (1932), 45; and cf. Phases of Irish History 150, Jrnl. Cork Hist. and Arch Soc. 1941, 7 f.

²¹ Inquiry into the History of Scotland ii, 77. This has been quoted approvingly by Petrie, Hist. and Antiqq. of Tara Hill (1839) p. 25, and by O'Donovan, FM i, 119 n. Macalister in adopting the same view gives free rein to his imagination: 'Cormac had ample opportunities of becoming acquainted with Roman methods of government, and with the machinery of empire. These methods he ambitiously set himself to imitate in his own kingdom.… He organized a standing army—a thing till then unheard of in Ireland. So deep was the impression produced by this innovation that the general entrusted with its organization has dominated the country's folk-lore ever since, in the person of the gigantic [sic] Find mac Cumhaill' (The Archaeology of Ireland, p. 21). Pokorny, Hist. of Ireland 25, echoes Mac Neill.

²² O'Curry, MS. Materials 575, = Gen. Tracts 10.

²³ Miscellany of the Irish Arch. Society 120.

²⁴ MS. Materials 205.

²⁵ Ireland before St. Patrick 14. With regard to 'our lists of kings and their order of succession' he expresses the opinion that they 'are probably fairly authentic in the main as far back as 200 B.C.' (ibid.).

²⁶ ITS vii, p. xl.

²⁷ Phases of Ir. History 118.

²⁸ See the next note.

²⁹ So, relying on the fact that Cormac's name appears six generations earlier than that of Loegaire, Mac Neill writes: 'Reckoning by generations, we can thus date the floruit of Cormac and the main prominence of the Fiana about the middle of the third century' (Jrnl. Cork Hist. and Arch. Soc. 1941, p. 8).

³⁰ e.g. R 117 a 26. In the list of kings of Lagin, LL 39 b, Bresal Belach occupies the first place.

³¹ Zur kelt. Wortkunde §44, where Meyer suggests an impossible etymology of Cathaer.

³² He is thus identical with Nuadu Necht. The name Cathaer, as I hope to show elsewhere, is a borrowing of an Ivernic (Hiberno-Brittonic) form of Celt. ^* Catutegernos, 'battle-lord'. The Otherworld deity was also the god of war.

³³ e.g. LL 24 a 11, R 124 a 26 (= LL 315 b 45), Fotha Catha Cnucha (RC ii, 86). See also Gwynn's discussion of Cathaer's date, Met. D. iii, 508 f. But in 'Esnada Tige Buchet' Cathaer is an elder contemporary of Cormac Conn's grandson (RC xxv, 24).

³⁴ RC xiii, 50; and cf. Met. D. iii, 130-132, RC xvii, 28.

³⁵ TBC Wi, p. 911.

³⁶ MS. Materials pp. 33, 41. O'Curry's confidence in 'our authentic annals' is to be noted. He was unaware that the Irish 'annals' previous to A.D. 431 are a concoction devoid of all historical value.

³⁷ Keltische Studien ii, 189.

³⁸ The Archaeological Review i, 68 (1888).

³⁹ Studies in the Legend of the Holy Grail 185. Cf. also The Archwological Review iii, 211. J. A. MacCulloch in 1911 ranges himself with Alfred Nutt: 'Though some personages who are mentioned in the Annals figure in the [Ulidian] tales, on the whole they deal with persons who never existed' (The Religion of the Ancient Celts 127). MacCulloch's conclusion is excellent, though he does appear to attach undue importance to the Irish 'Annals' (of the first century B.C.!).

⁴⁰ Rhys applies 'solar' methods of interpretation in all directions with incredible recklessness. The gai Bulga, Cuchulainn's weapon, he interprets as 'the appearance of the sun as seen from the Plain of Murthemne when rising out of the sea to pierce with his rays the clouds above' (The Hibbert Lectures 1886, 481). In this inept explanation, as throughout the book, one can see the influence of Max Müller and his school, who imagined that all kinds of myths and mythical figures originated in solar or atmospheric phenomena.

⁴¹ The equation of these three personages with the Celtic (or any other) Zeus is so absurdly inappropriate that one cannot but sympathize with Windisch's protest: 'Warum konnen jene drei irischen Könige, soviel auch uber sie gefabelt worden ist, ihrem Kerne nach nicht historisch sein? (Das kelt. Brittannien 118).

⁴² Cath Ruis na Rig, p. x.

⁴³ TBC Wi, p. viii. Twenty-seven years previously, in 1878, Windisch had expressed very similar views (RC v, 79).

⁴⁴ In 1917 van Hamel expressed his belief in the historicity of Cuchulainn, Conn and Cormac (cf. ZCP xii, 451 f.). For more recent examples of the euhemeristic interpretation of Irish mythical material see H. M. and N. K. Chadwick, The Growth of Literature i, pp. 179, 236 (1932).

⁴⁵ For the moment I have to content myself with this bald summary of my views. The details and the proofs, which would fill many chapters, must be deferred to a later volume.

⁴⁶ Otherwise spelled fiann; and often used in the plural (na fianna, fianna Erenn, fianna Finn).

⁴⁷ MS. Materials 303.

⁴⁸ Ossianic Soc. iv, 285. Similarly O'Donovan asserts his belief that 'Diarmaid and Gráinne were historical personages, and that the romance of their running away is founded on historical facts' (letter of 1837, in Rev. P. Walsh, The Placenames of Westmeath i, 53).

⁴⁹ RC ii, 87. This drew from Alfred Nutt the apposite rejoinder: 'So far from his history having degenerated into a myth, his myth has been rationalized into history,' Folk-lore Record iv, 39 (1881).

⁵⁰ RC v, 82 f.

⁵¹ Kelt. Beitrage iii, in Zeit. für deutsches Alterthum, Bd. xxxv. Cf. Nutt's summary and criticism in Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition, iv, p. xxii ff. For a refutation of Zimmer's exaggerated views regarding Norse influence on Irish, see Meyer, Sitz.-Ber. der preuss. Akad. der Wissensch. 1918, 1042 ff.

⁵² Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition iv, p. xxi.

⁵³ The Book of the Dean of Lismore, ed. M'Lauchlan, p. lxxvi ff. He identifies the 'Feinne' with the Cruithni of Scotland and the Tuatha Dé Danann of Ireland.

⁵⁴ See MacRitchie's book, Fians, Fairies and Picts (1893).

⁵⁵ The Religion of the Ancient Celts 144 f. Under the influence of Skene's theory, MacCulloch supposes, without any justification, that the Finn-saga was 'the saga of a non-Celtic people occupying both Ireland and Scotland' (ib. 146). Compare Mac Neill's view that 'the Fenian epic originated among the Galeoin who dwelt in the neighbourhood of Almu' (ITS vii, p. xxxii).

⁵⁶ RC xvii, 21; and cf. Ann. Clon. 61. The absence of the entry of his death in Al, 8 b, may be attributed to the abbreviating tendencies of the scribe.

⁵⁷ LU 4152 (= Met. D. ii, 12); RC xxiii, 310, §29. Gilla Coemain records the slaying of Finn by the three sons of Urgriu (Trip. Life, ed. Stokes, 536.6.).

⁵⁸ Met. D. ii, 74; Fotha Catha Cnucha, RC ii, 86; and cf. Ac. Sen. 1678.

⁵⁹ e.g. Ac. Sen. 2381; Aided Finn, in Meyer's Cath Finntraga, p. 73.

⁶⁰ Mac Neill, ITS vii, p. xxix f., draws unwarranted conclusions from the absence of any reference to a king of Tara in 'Macgnimartha Find,' which he dates far too early ('about 900').

⁶¹ According to the reckoning of the Four Masters, Conn began to reign in A.D. 123, and Cairbre Lifechar was slain in 284. In the same Annals Finn's death is dated 283. Meyer (Fianaigecht p. xxvii) says that in the tract on the Bórama 'Finn converses with Moling (t 697), so that well-known historical [sic] personages who lived centuries apart are brought together'. This is an error; in the tract in question Finn converses with his foster-brother, Molling Luath, son of Fiachu mac Conga (LL, 297 a 1), an imaginary character, who is quite distinct from the seventh-century saint Molling who plays a part later in the tale (LL 305 a 22).

⁶² It goes back at least to the twelfth century, being found in a poem ascribed to Caílte, LL 208 a 24, = Eriu i, 72.

⁶³ Compare the extravagant life-spans credited to various members of the fiana in an Ossianic poem, RC xvi, 26 f. Finn is said to have lived for 249 years, ibid.; for 230 years, Ac. Sen. 2537.

⁶⁴ In some versions of the pedigree this Finn is son of Finnlug (R 137 b 39; IT i, 121), in others he is son of Fintan, son of Finngoll, son of Finnlug (R 136 a 19, 144 a 15).

⁶⁵ Finn mac Cumaill is even more distinguished as a poet and seer (filí) than as a warrior; hence Finn Filí would have been a very appropriate name for him. So Finnecis (read Finn Eces, 'Finn the poet or seer') was a name for Finn mac Cumaill (Macgn. Find, RC v, 202, §22).

⁶⁶ ZCP viii, 560; R 118 a, = LL 311 c (quoted in Meyer's Fianaigecht, p. xvii); Laud 610 (quoted in Meyer's Cath Finntraga, p. 76). His connexion with the Ui Thairsig (of the Ui Fhailge) likewise links him with the Lagin (Cath Finntrága, loc. cit.; Ac. Sen. 6547 ff.).

⁶⁷ ZCp viii, 560; YBL 119 a 37; LL 379 a 35-37; ITS xxviii, 16, 18. So Daire Derg is said to have been another name for Morna, father of Goll (RC v, 197).

⁶⁸ Meyer's Fianaigecht, pp. xxix (1. 19), 48; Gen. Tracts 148 (where Chruithentuaith is to be emended to Ernaib). We are told (ibid.) that this Torba or Tarbda was also mother of another Finn, called Finn mac Geoir (or Gleoir); doubtless the two Finns are ultimately one and the same. In 'Macgnimartha Find' Cumall marries successively Torba and Muirne (the mother of Finn), and Finn mac Gleoir is another name for Finn mac Cumaill (RC v, 197 f.). According to another account Finn's mother was Fuince, daughter of Dáire (Anecdota ii, 76).

⁶⁹ RC xvii, 21; xxiii, 328; Meyer's Cath Finntrága, p. 75; ZCP i, 464.

⁷⁰ Ac. Sen. 1766; RC xxiii, 328. 16. Compare Gilla in Chomded's statement that Finn was buried in Ard Caille in Muscraige Tri Maige, in the north of Co. Cork (Fianaigecht 46).

⁷¹ ZCP xiii, 254. So also Meyer's Cath Finntraga, p. 73; ZCP i, 472.

⁷² In 'Aided Finn' we are told that, after Cormac's death, Finn resided mainly in Almu (Meyer's Cath Finntraga p. 73. 30). Compare RC ii, 90 (Fotha Catha Cnucha), and Almu Lagen, les na Fian, port ragnathaig Find firfhial, Met. D. ii, 72 (and Ac. Sen. 1262).

⁷³ RC xiii, 50.

⁷⁴ RC ii, 88; v, 197. In 'Cath Maige Lena' Goll and his men fight on Conn's side against the men of Munster.

⁷⁵ R 136 a 55; LL 24 a 11; Lr. na gCeart 204. In an Ossianic poem (ITS vii, 86) Goll boasts that he slew Cathaer in battle.

⁷⁶ Fianaigecht pp. xxii, 70, 98; RC xvii, 21; Meyer's Cath Finntraga, p. 75. See p. 274, n. 2.

⁷⁷ Cf. Fianaigecht 46, §8 (Gilla in Chomded); ITS vii, 33 f. In the Dindshenchas poem on Almu, Conn brings about Cumall's death, but is friendly to the youthful Finn, Met. D. ii, 74-76 (similarly Fotha Catha Cnucha, RC ii, 88-90). Ultimately Conn and Goll represent the one deity (cf. pp. 318-320).

⁷⁸ It should be added, however, that the name Finn (Welsh Gwyn, Celt. ^* Vindos), meaning 'white', would be no less appropriate to the Otherworld-god than to the Hero. Compare the mythical names Finn-goll and Finn-lug. This may help to explain why Finn is represented as the rival of Diarmait for the hand of Grainne, and is thus assigned a role which in primitive myth would belong to the Otherworld deity. On the other hand, making Finn the rival of Diarmait may equally well be a storyteller's invention, like making Gráinne daughter of Cormac ua Cuinn. We may compare the unfavourable light in which Conchobar mac Nesa, as wooer of Deirdre, is depicted by the author of 'Longes Mac nUsnig.'

⁷⁹Fian Maicc Con is incidentally alluded to by Tirechan in his memoir of St. Patrick. See p. 201 f.

⁸⁰ Finn is said to have been Mac Con's feinnid or fian- leader; and after Ferches had slain Mac Con, Finn slew Ferches in revenge (Fianaigecht 38; and cf. San. Corm. 1084). In an account of the battle of Cenn Abrat Finn mac Cumaill fights on Mac Con's side (Anecdota ii, 76).

⁸¹ This I hope to discuss at length on another occasion.

⁸² It is, however, right to add that the Welsh traditions regarding Gwyn ab Nudd are few and fragmentary, and leave it by no means certain that Gwyn represents the Hero, like his Irish namesake Finn. In the mabinogi of Branwen' there is mention of Heilyn, son of Gwyn Hen. This Gwyn Hen may, or may not, be the same as Gwyn ab Nudd; but his epithet, hen, 'old,' would be appropriate to the Otherworld deity, but not to the Hero.

⁸³ Ac. Sen. 1721 ff. Aillen used to burn Tara every samain with a fiery rock that issued from his mouth (see p. 110, n. 6, p. 111, n. 1). For a folk-version see Curtin, Myths and Folk-Lore of Ireland 213 ff.

⁸⁴ In the verse dindshenchas of Almu (Met. D. ii, 72 ff.), and in the derived prose-tale 'Fotha Catha Cnucha' (RC ii, 86 ff.).

⁸⁵ In Ac. Sen., 5119, Tadg mac Nuadat is a member of the Tuatha Dé Danann and dwells in the sid of Almu. In Meyer's Hail Brigit, p. 16, §19, Almu is 'the dwelling-place of Tadg, son of Nuadu Necht'. According to Met. D., ii. 72, Nuadu built a residence for himself on Almu, and his son Tadg inherited it; in this text, and in 'Fotha Catha Cnucha'. Nuadu and Tadg are reduced to the position of 'druids' of Cathaer Mór in order to accommodate the Finn story to pseudo-history.

⁸⁶ See p. 121 f.

⁸⁷ Quoted in ZCP, iv, 340.

⁸⁸ So W. M. Hennessy and J. F. Campbell (RC ii, 87), T. O'Neill Russell (ZCP iv. 339), and Lady Gregory (ITS vii, p. lix).

⁸⁹ ITS vii, p. lix. Lately the same scholar has written: 'The chief centre of the Fiana at Almhuin was a permanent military camp' (Jrnl. Cork Hist. and Arch. Soc. 1941, 7).

⁹⁰ ZCP iv. 341 f.

⁹¹ Meyer, Hail Brigit p. 8 n.

⁹² Fedlimmid Rechtaid is a mere name to us. He was possibly taken over from Laginian tradition. Fedlimmid Fortren, whose name occurs in the mythical part of the Laginian pedigree, is called Fedelmid Rechtaid in a metrical version of the same (AID i, 28, §16, = Fortren Fedelmid, ib. 40, §18).

⁹³ Walde-Pokorny, i, 458; Pedersen, V. G. ii, 502.

⁹⁴ Mac Neill erroneously interprets Conn as 'the Freeman,' and, no less erroneously, takes Leth Moga [Nuadat] to mean 'the Slave's Half,' in contrast to Leth Cuinn, 'the Freeman's Half (Celtic Ireland 61).

⁹⁵ See Holder, s.vv. Condus, Senocondos.

⁹⁶ Cf. infra, p. 318 f. Conn Cetchathach is called Cond Crinna, 'Conn the Wise', LL 364. 5, = Martyr. Tallaght 122. The word crinna (crinda), 'prudent, wise', is a derivative of crin, 'old, withered'. In Munster Irish crionna has come to mean 'old', for, as the Munster proverb has it, 'good sense only comes with age' (Ni thagann ciall ruim aois).

⁹⁷ Thurneysen's interpretation is 'den Verstand eines Alten habend' (Rom.-Germ. Kommission, 20. Bericht, 198).

⁹⁸ The head symbolizes the sun as well as wisdom. See infra, p. 300, n. 2.

⁹⁹ The storyteller (mabinogi of Branwen) rationalizes the tradition by supposing that Bran was dead, and that his head had been cut from off his body. In Norse mythology Odin has a double in the all-knowing Mimir; and we are told that, after Mimir's head had been cut off by the Vanir, Odin kept it alive by means of his spells and drew from it a store of hidden knowledge. The cutting off of Mimir's head is, of course, a piece of rationalization, analogous to that in 'Branwen'.

¹⁰⁰ It is thus that we can explain the Irish traditions of a severed head speaking at a feast, viz. the head of Lomna (San. Corm. s. v. 'orc treith'), the head of Finn mac Cumaill (ZCP i, 464 f.), and the heads of Donn Bó and Fergal mac Maile Duin (RC xxiv, 58 ff.).

¹⁰¹ Edited by Thurneysen, Zu ir. Hss. u. Litteraturdenkmalern i, 48 ff.

¹⁰² ZCP iii, 458; xiii, 372.

¹⁰³ The transference of the functions of the Otherworld deity to Lug is a mythological impossibility, and marks a redactor's mishandling of the original story. A Scal, meaning 'the Phantom' or the like, is an appropriate name for the Otherworld deity; so that Baile in Scail = Baile Chuinn. (Compare Scdl Balb as a name for Cian, the father of Lug, LL 9 a 43, RC xv, 317, xvi, 50.) In the text Lug is referred to as a scal, though he himself disclaims the name and says that he is 'of the race of Adam'.

¹⁰⁴Cor(b)mac is from ^* Korbo-makkvos. In Maccorb we have the same components reversed. Cormac's explanation of corb as 'chariot' (San. Corm. 204), suggested by carbat, can be dismissed as a fiction; but a discussion of the probable meaning of the word would occupy too much space here. Compare other names for the youthful Hero, viz. Commac (otherwise Mac Con), and Macc ind Oc (a corruption of ^* Maccon Oc), = Welsh Mabon.

¹⁰⁵ See p. 130 ff.

¹⁰⁶ So nearly always in early texts. In late texts he is called Cormac mac Airt.

¹⁰⁷ Cf. SG i, pp. 255, 317.

¹⁰⁸ RC xvii, pp. 14, 16. He was driven out first by Fergus Dubdetach, and afterwards by Eochaid Gunnat (Meyer's Cath Finntraga, p. 72 f.); these two kings belonged to the Dal Fiatach. Another text speaks of his being driven out by Fiachu Araide, of the Dál nAraidi, and of his going into exile (for longes) to Fiachu Mullethan in Munster (ZCP viii, 314. 8-9). Another account says that he was banished by the Ulaid into Connacht (LL 328 f 18). Compare also his banishment 'across the sea': loingeas mor Cormuic maic Airt tar magh rein fri re teora mbliadan (RC xvii, 13; and cf. ZCP xiii, 375.22, 376.7).

¹⁰⁹ RC xvii, 13; and cf. ZCP xiii, 375 f.

¹¹⁰ Cf. Met. D. i, pp. 14, 28-36; Aided Finn, in Meyer's Cath Finntraga, p. 73 (= SG i, 89 f.); IT iii, 85 f. Tara is pre-eminently the residence of Cormac: ard-chathir Cormaic meic Airt, Met. D. i, 14. Cormac brought the hostages of Ireland to Tara, ib. 16.

¹¹¹ RC xxv, 24-26.

¹¹² LU 4045-51. Elsewhere (Meyer, Death-Tales p. 8) there are only two such believers, Conchobar and Morann.

¹¹³ Met. D. i, 70 ff.

A. (or Ann.) Clon. = The Annals of Clonmacnoise, translated by Conell Ma Geoghagan; ed. D. Murphy.

Ac. Sen. = Acallamh na Senórach, ed. Stokes (IT iv).

Al = The Annals of Inisfallen (facsimile).

ÄID = Uber die dlteste irische Dichtung, by K. Meyer (reprinted from Abhandlungen der königl. preuss. Akademie, 1913).

Anecdota = Anecdota from Irish Manuscripts.

FF = Foras Feasa ar Eirinn, by Keating; ed. Comyn and Dinneen (ITS).

FM = Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters, ed. O'Donovan.

Gen. Tracts = Genealogical Tracts, i, ed. T. Ó. Raithbheartaigh.

Holder = Alt-celtischer Sprachschatz, by A. Holder.

IT = Irische Texte, ed. Windisch and Stokes.

ITS = Irish Texts Society.

L. G. = Lebor Gabála, in LL and later MSS. (At present being edited by R.A.S. Macalister for ITS).

LL = The Book of Leinster (facsimile).

Lr. na gCeart = Leabhar na gCeart or The Book of Rights, ed. O'Donovan.

LU = Lebor na hUidre, ed. Best and Bergin.

Mart. (or Martyr.) Gorman = The Martyrology of Gorman, ed. Stokes.

Met. D. = The Metrical Dindshenchas, ed. Edward Gwynn.

R = Rawlinson B 502 (facsimile).

RC = Revue Celtique.

San. Corm. = Sanas Cormaic, ed. Meyer (Anecdota iv).

S. G. = Silva Gadelica, ed. S. H. O'Grady.

TBC Wi. = Táin Bó Cualuge, ed. Windisch (from LL, etc.)

Trip. Life = The Tripartite Life of Patrick with Other Documents relating to that Saint, ed. Stokes. (The text of the Tripartite Life has been re-edited by K. Mulchrone.)

V. G. = Vergleichende Grammatik der keltischen Sprachen, by H. Pedersen.

Walde-Pokorny = Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der indogermanischen Sprachen, by A. Walde; ed. J. Pokorny.

YBL = The Yellow Book of Lecan (facsimile).

ZCP = Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie.