Iona has become now the locus classici of the Gaelic, not to
say the whole Scottish race.
say the whole Scottish race.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v06 - Cal to Chr
The
bardic schools, which did so much for Irish poetry from the sixth
century to the seventeenth, insisted upon its conventions to a degree
that was excessive. Geoffrey Keating, who carried on his great work
at the same time as the Four Masters, in the first half of the seven-
teenth century, and who was a poet as well as a historian, still
used the bardic prosody, and wrote some delightful poems by its
rules; but he lent his influence to aid the new liberty in prose and
verse that Irish literature was learning. Keating's name is of first-
rate importance in its record, for this very reason. He was the first
really to conceive of Irish literature as a literature for the people,
and not only for the elect. He was the first to do this; and partly
because he did it, he was the last great landmark in the larger
Gaelic literature of Ireland. His History of Ireland,' the result
of an enforced retirement from preaching, was, says Dr. Hyde,
"the most popular book ever written in Irish. ” He marks too the
## p. 3416 (#390) ###########################################
3416
CELTIC LITERATURE
transition, as we pointed out, from the old bardic tradition in Irish
poetry. After his coming the bards threw away their superfluous
prosody and wrote for the people, and became poets indeed, instead
of the most ingenious of schoolmen. The result was the remarkable
body of Irish poetry which belongs to the last three centuries, and
which contains many of the characteristics of folk-song and culture
poetry, in a most tuneful and idiosyncratic fashion quite its own.
Let us listen again to Dr. Hyde on this point:-
"What the popular ballads of the folk had been like prior to the seven-
teenth century we have no means of knowing. No scribe would demean his
learned pen by committing them to paper; but from that date down to the
beginning of the present century the bards the great houses being fallen —
turned instinctively to the general public, and threw behind them the metres
that required so many years of study in the schools, and dropped at a stroke
several thousand words which no one understood except the great chiefs or
those trained by the poets, while they broke out into beautiful but at the
same time intelligible verse, which no one who has once heard and learned is
likely to forget. This is to my mind the real glory of the modern Irish
nation; this is the sweetest creation of Gaelic literature; this is the truest note
of the enchanting Irish siren, and he who has once heard it and remains
deaf to its charm has neither heart for song nor soul for music. The Gaelic
poetry of the last two centuries is the most sensuous attempt to convey music
in words ever made by man. It is absolutely impossible to convey the
lusciousness of sound, richness of rhythm, and perfection of harmony in
another language. "
Discounting what we will in the natural enthusiasm of one who
has devoted himself heart and soul to the cause of the Gaelic
tongue and of Irish literature, quite enough remains to carry the
contention for the continuing interest of native Irish poetry after so
many centuries. That such a poetry and such a language should
suddenly decay after so noble and enriched a record in the past, is
nothing short of a tragedy in the history of tongues.
Dr. Hyde's own collection of the 'Love Songs of Connacht' is the
best example that American readers could possibly have of this
Irish poetry, the late flowering of so venerable and noble a tree.
And with this work, and some of the collections of the folk-tales
still current in Erse-speaking Ireland, made by Dr. Hyde, Mr. Jere-
miah Curtin, and Mr. Larminie, and Englished for us, we must bring
this brief outline of the Irish contribution to Celtic literature to a
close. Its modern interpretation is only now beginning to take its
due place, let us remember, both at the hands of its scholars and on
the lips of its poets. And if any reader should think the scholars
still, after all we have said, too difficult to follow, let us recommend
them to turn to the poems and tales of Mr. W. B. Yeats and to the
## p. 3417 (#391) ###########################################
CELTIC LITERATURE
3417
romantic pages of Mr. Standish O'Grady, the latest exponents in our
more modern tongue of that imagination, and that subtlety and
energy of thought, which are characteristically Irish.
Of the three great cycles of Gaelic literature, the third is the (so-
called) Ossianic. Of this cycle Finn (Fionn, Fingal) is the central
hero. The second great cycle is that which treats of the heroes of
the Ultonians, i. e. , the Red Branch of Ulster; among this cycle
Cuculain (Cuchullin, Cohoolin, Coolin) is the supreme type. No liv
ing writer has so well reconstructed the past for us as Mr. Standish
O'Grady has done, and nowhere is he so successful as in his vivid
and beautiful historical romance, of which Cuculain is the hero. Of
the famous "battle-prop of the valor and torch of the chivalry of the
Ultonians » Mr. O'Grady has given us an account which deserves to
pass into the fixed literature of our race. Apart from its vividness,
charm, and power, The Coming of Cuculain' affords a general idea
of the first great heroic cycle (its predecessor dealing entirely
with mythical or mythopoeic beings), and of primitive heroic life as
reflected in that literature. The excerpts selected are (1) the opening
of the romance, and (2) from the chapter telling how Cuculain won
his knighthood.
FROM THE COMING OF CUCULAIN>
I
TH
HE Red Branch feasted one night in their great hall at
Emain Macha. So vast was the hall that a man such as
men are now, standing in the centre and shouting his
loudest, would not be heard at the circumference; yet the low
laughter of the King sitting at one end was clearly audible to
those who sat around the Champion at the other. The sons of
Dithorba made it, giants of the elder time, laboring there under
the shoutings of Macha and the roar of her sounding thongs.
Its length was a mile and nine furlongs and a cubit. With her
brooch-pin she plowed its outline upon the plain, and its
breadth was not much less. Trees such as earth nourished then
upheld the mossy roof beneath which feasted that heroic brood,
the great-hearted children of Rury, huge offsprings of the gods
and giants of the dawn of time. For mighty exceedingly were.
these men. At the noise of their running to battle all Ireland
shook, and the illimitable Lir trembled in his watery halls; the
roar of their brazen chariots reverberated from the solid canopy
of heaven, and their war-steeds drank rivers dry.
## p. 3418 (#392) ###########################################
3418
CELTIC LITERATURE
A vast murmur rose from the assembly, for like distant
thunder or the far-off murmuring of agitated waters was the con-
tinuous hum of their blended conversation and laughter, while
ever and anon, cleaving the many-tongued confusion, uprose
friendly voices, clearer and stronger than battle trumpets, when
one hero challenged another to drink, wishing him victory and
success, and his words rang round the hollow dome. Innumer-
able candles, tall as spears, illuminated the scene. The eyes of
the heroes sparkled, and their faces, white and ruddy, beamed
with festal mirth and mutual affection. Their yellow hair shone.
Their banqueting attire, white and scarlet, glowed against the
outer gloom. Their round brooches and mantle-pins of gold or
silver or golden bronze, their drinking vessels and instruments
of festivity, flashed and glittered in the light. They rejoiced in
their glory and their might and in the inviolable amity in
which they were knit together; a host of comrades, a knot of
heroic valor and affection, which no strength or cunning, and
no power seen or unseen, could ever release or untie.
At one extremity of the vast hall, upon a raised seat, sat
their young king, Concobar Mac Nessa, slender, handsome, and
upright. A canopy of bronze, round as the bent sling of the
Sun-god, the long-handed, far-shooting son of Ethlend, encircled
his head. At his right hand lay a staff of silver. Far away at
the other end of the hall, on a raised seat, sat the Champion,
Fergus Mac Roy, like a colossus. The stars and clouds of night
were round his head and shoulders, seen through the wide and
high entrance of the Dûn, whose doors no man has ever seen
closed and barred. Aloft, suspended from the dim rafters, hung
the naked forms of great men clear against the dark dome,
having the cords of their slaughter around their necks and their
white limbs splashed with blood. Kings were they, who had
murmured against the sovereignty of the Red Branch. Through
the wide doorway out of the night flew a huge bird, black and
gray, unseen; and soaring upwards sat upon the rafters, its eyes
like burning fire. It was the Mór Reega, or Great Queen, the
far-striding, terrible daughter of Iarnmas (Iron-Death). Her
voice was like the shouting of ten thousand men. Dear to her
were these heroes. More she rejoiced in them feasting than in
the battle prowess of the rest.
When supper was ended, their bard, in his singing-robes and
girt around the temples with a golden fillet, stood up and sang.
## p. 3419 (#393) ###########################################
CELTIC LITERATURE
3419
He sang how once a king of the Ultonians, having plunged into
the sea-depths, there slew a monster which had wrought much
havoc amongst fishers and seafaring men. The heroes attended
to his song, leaning forward with bright eyes. They applauded
the song and the singer, and praised the valor of the heroic
man who had done the deed. Then the Champion struck the
table with his clenched hands and addressed the assembly.
Wrath and sorrow were in his voice. It resembled the brool
of lions, heard afar by seafaring men upon some savage shore
on a still night.
"Famous deeds," he said, "are not wrought now among the
Red Branch. I think we are all become women. I grow weary
of these huntings in the morning and mimic exercises of war,
and this training of steeds and careering of brazen chariots
stained never with aught but dust and mire, and these unearned
feastings at night and vain applause of the brave deeds of our
forefathers. Come now, let us make an end of this.
Let us
conquer Banba (Ireland) wholly in all her green borders, and let
the realms of Lir, which sustain no foot of man, be the limit of
her sovereignty. Let us gather the tributes of all Ireland, after
many battles and much warlike toil. Then more sweetly shall
we drink, while the bards chant our prowess. Once I knew a
coward who boasted endlessly about his forefathers, and at last
my anger rose, and with a flat hand I slew him in the middle
of his speech, and paid no eric, for he was nothing. We have
the blood of heroes in our veins, and we sit here nightly boast-
ing about them: about Rury, whose name we bear; and Macha
the warrioress, who brought hither bound the sons of Dithorba
and made them rear this mighty Dûn; and Kimbaoth son of
Fiontann; and my namesake Fergus, whose crooked mouth was
no dishonor, and the rest of our hero sires; and we consume the
rents and tributes of Ulster which they by their prowess con-
quered to us, and which flow hither in abundance from every
corner of the province. Valiant men too will one day come
hither and slay us as I slew that boaster, and here in Emain
Macha their bards will praise them. Then in the halls of our
dead shall we say to our sires, 'All that you got for us by your
blood and your sweat, that we have lost, and the glory of the
Red Branch is at an end. '»
That speech was pleasing to the Red
out that Fergus Mac Roy had spoken well.
Branch, and they cried
Then all at once, on
## p. 3420 (#394) ###########################################
3420
CELTIC LITERATURE
a sudden impulse, they sang the battle song of the Ultonians,
and shouted for the war so that the building quaked and rocked,
and in the hall of the weapons there was a clangor of falling
shields, and men died that night for extreme dread, so mightily
shouted the Ultonians around their king and around Fergus.
II
On the morrow there was a great hasting of the Red Branch
on the plain of the assemblies. It was May-day morning and
the sun shone brightly, but at first through radiant showers.
The trees were putting forth young buds; the wet grass sparkled.
All the martial pomp and glory of the Ultonians were exhibited
that day. Their chariots and war-horses ringed the plain. All
the horses' heads were turned towards the centre where were
Concobar Mac Nessa and the chiefs of the Red Branch. The
plain flashed with gold, bronze, and steel, and glowed with the
bright mantles of the innumerable heroes, crimson and scarlet,
blue, green, or purple. The huge brooches on their breasts, of
gold and silver or gold-like bronze, were like resplendent wheels.
Their long hair, yellow for the most part, was bound with orna-
ments of gold. Great truly were those men; their like has not
come since upon the earth. They were the heroes and demigods
of the heroic age of Erin, champions who feared naught beneath
the sun; mightiest among the mighty, huge, proud, and uncon-
querable, and loyal and affectionate beyond all others; all of the
blood of Ir, son of Milesius, the Clanna Rury of great renown,
rejoicing in their valor, their splendor, their peerless king.
Concobar had no crown. A plain circle of beaten gold girt his
broad temples. In the naked glory of his regal manhood he
stood there before them all, but even so a stranger would have
swiftly discovered the captain of the Red Branch; such was his
stature, his bearing, such his slow-turning, steady-gazing eyes
and the majesty of his bearded countenance. His countenance
was long, broad above and narrow below, his nose eminent, his
beard bipartite, curling and auburn in hue, his form without any
blemish or imperfection.
"Let the tameless horses of Macha be harnessed to the
chariot," cried Concobar, "and let Læg, son of the King of
Gabra, drive them hither, for those are the horses and that the
chariot which shall be given this day to Cuculain. "
## p. 3421 (#395) ###########################################
CELTIC LITERATURE
3421
Then, son of Sualtam, how in thy guileless breast thy heart
leaped when thou heardest the thundering of the great war-car
and the wild neighing of the immortal steeds, as they broke
from the dark stable into the clear-shining light of day, and
heard behind them the ancient roaring of the brazen wheels, as
in the days when they bore forth Macha and her martial groom
against the giants of old, and mightily established in Eiria the
Red Branch of the Ultonians! Soon they rushed to view from
the rear of Emain, speeding forth impetuously out of the hollow-
sounding ways of the city and the echoing palaces into the
open, and behind them in the great car green and gold, above
the many-twinkling wheels, the charioteer, with floating mantle,
girt round the temples with the gold fillet of his office, leaning
backwards and sideways as he labored to restrain their fury
unrestrainable: a gray long-maned steed, whale-bellied, broad-
chested, with mane like flying foam, under one silver yoke, and
a black lustrous tufty-maned steed under the other; such steeds.
as in power, size, and beauty the earth never produced before
and never will produce again.
Like a hawk swooping along the face of a cliff when the
wind is high; or like the rush of March wind over the smooth
plain; or like the fleetness of the stag roused from his lair by
the hounds and covering his first field, was the rush of those
steeds when they had broken through the restraint of the chari-
oteer, as though they galloped over fiery flags; so that the earth
shook and trembled with the velocity of their motion, and all
the time the great car brayed and shrieked as the wheels of
solid and glittering bronze went round, and strange cries and
exclamations were heard, for they were demons that had their
abode in that car.
The charioteer restrained the steeds before the assembly, but
nay-the-less a deep purr like the purr of a tiger proceeded
from the axle. Then the whole assembly lifted up their voices
and shouted for Cuculain, and he himself, Cuculain the son of
Sualtam, sprang into his chariot all armed, with a cry as of a
warrior springing into his chariot in the battle, and he stood
erect and brandished his spears, and the war sprites of the Gael
shouted along with him; for the Bocanahs and Bananahs and the
Geniti Gluidi, the wild people of the glens, and the demons of
the air, roared around him, when first the great warrior of the
Gael, his battle-arms in his hands, stood equipped for war in his
## p. 3422 (#396) ###########################################
3422
CELTIC LITERATURE
chariot before all the warriors of his tribe, the kings of the
Clanna Rury and the people of the Emain Macha. Then too
there sounded from the Tec Brac the boom of shields and the
clashing of swords and the cries and shouting of the Tuatha Dée
Danann, who dwelt there perpetually; and Lu the long-handed,
the slayer of Balor, the destroyer of the Fornoroh, the immortal,
the invisible, the maker and the decorator of the firmament, whose
hound was the sun, and whose son the viewless wind, thundered
from heaven and bent his sling five-hued against the clouds;
and the son of the illimitable Lir in his mantle blue and green,
foam-fringed, passed through the assembly with a roar of far-off
innumerable waters, and the Mór Reega stood in the midst with
a foot on either side of the plain, and shouted with the shout of
a host, so that the Ultonians fell down like reaped grass with
their faces to the earth, on account of the presence of the Mór
Reega and on account of the omens and great signs.
The following poems from the ancient Erse are taken from the
'Lyra Celtica: an Anthology of Representative Celtic Poetry,' edited
by Elizabeth A. Sharp.
THE MYSTERY OF AMERGIN
AM the wind which breathes upon the sea,
I
I am the wave of the ocean,
I am the murmur of the billows,
I am the ox of the seven combats,
I am the vulture upon the rocks,
I am a beam of the sun,
I am the fairest of plants,
I am a wild boar in valor,
I am a salmon in the water,
I am a lake in the plain,
I am a word of science,
I am the point of the lance of battle,
I am the God who creates in the head [i. e. , of
man] the fire [i. e. , the thought].
Who is it who throws light into the meeting on the mountain
[if not I]?
Who announces the ages of the moon [if not I]?
Who teaches the place where couches the sun [if not I]?
## p. 3423 (#397) ###########################################
CELTIC LITERATURE
3423
THE SONG OF FIONN
AY-DAY, delightful time! How beautiful the color!
M
The blackbirds sing their full lay. Would that Læg were
here!
The cuckoos sing in constant strains. How welcome is the noble
Brilliance of the seasons ever! On the margin of the branching
woods
The summer swallows skim the stream: the swift horses seek the
pool;
The heather spreads out her long hair; the weak fair bow-down
grows.
Sudden consternation attacks the signs; the planets, in their courses
running, exert an influence:
The sea is lulled to rest, flowers cover the earth.
VISION OF A FAIR WOMAN
TEL
ELL us some of the charms of the stars:
Close and well set were her ivory teeth;
White as the canna upon the moor
Was her bosom the tartan bright beneath.
Her well-rounded forehead shone
Soft and fair as the mountain snow;
Her two breasts were heaving full;
To them did the hearts of heroes flow.
Her lips were ruddier than the rose;
Tender and tunefully sweet her tongue;
White as the foam adown her side
Her delicate fingers extended hung.
Smooth as the dusky down of the elk
Appeared her shady eyebrows to me;
Lovely her cheeks were, like berries red;
From every guile she was wholly free.
Her countenance looked like the gentle buds
Unfolding their beauty in early spring;
Her yellow locks like the gold-browed hills;
And her eyes like the radiance the sunbeams bring.
## p. 3424 (#398) ###########################################
CELTIC LITERATURE
3424
In contemporary Celtic poetry no one surpasses Mr. W. B. Yeats,
particularly in the re-creation of that wonderful past with whose
atmosphere his whole work is charged. As an example of Mr. Yeats's
narrative method with legendary themes we may quote some lines
from his beautiful 'The Wanderings of Oisin' (Ossian):—
F
LED foam underneath us, and round us a wandering and milky
smoke,
High as the saddle-girth, covering away from our glances the tide;
And those that fled, and that followed, from the foam-pale distance
broke;
The immortal desire of immortals we saw in their faces, and sighed.
I mused on the chase with the Fenians, and Bran, Sgeolan, Lomair,
And never a song sang Neave, and over my finger-tips
Came now the sliding of tears and sweeping of mist-cold hair,
And now the warmth of sighs, and after the quiver of lips.
Were we days long or hours long in riding, when, rolled in a grisly
peace,
An isle lay level before us, with dripping hazel and oak?
And we stood on a sea's edge we saw not; for whiter than new-
washed fleece
Fled foam underneath us, and round us a wandering and milky smoke.
And we rode on the plains of the sea's edge-the sea's edge barren
and gray,
Gray sands on the green of the grasses and over the dripping trees,
Dripping and doubling landward, as though they would hasten away
Like an army of old men longing for rest from the moan of the seas.
But the trees grew taller and closer, immense in their wrinkling bark;
Dropping-a murmurous dropping-old silence and that one sound;
For no live creatures lived there, no weasels moved in the dark-
Long sighs arose in our spirits, beneath us bubbled the ground.
And the ears of the horse went sinking away in the hollow night;
For as drift from a sailor slow drowning the gleams of the world
and the sun,
Ceased on our hands and our faces, on hazel and oak leaf, the light,
And the stars were blotted above us, and the whole of the world
was one.
## p. 3425 (#399) ###########################################
CELTIC LITERATURE
3425
Finally, here is one of Mr. Yeats's "old songs re-sung":
THE MADNESS OF KING GOLL
SAT on cushioned otter skin:
I
My word was law from Ith to Emen,
And shook at Invar Amargin
The hearts of the world-troubling seamen,
And drove tumult and war away
From girl and boy and man and beast;
The fields grew fatter day by day,
The wild fowl of the air increased;
And every ancient Ollave said,
While he bent down his faded head,-
"He drives away the Northern cold. "
They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech-leaves old.
I sat and mused and drank sweet wine;
A herdsman came from inland valleys,
Crying, the pirates drove his swine.
To fill their dark-beaked hollow galleys.
I called my battle-breaking men
And my loud brazen battle-cars
From rolling vale and rivery glen,
And under the blinking of the stars
Fell on the pirates of the deep,
And hurled them in the gulph of sleep:
These hands won many a torque of gold.
They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech-leaves old.
But slowly, as I shouting slew
And trampled in the bubbling mire,
In my most secret spirit grew
A whirling and a wandering fire:
I stood: keen stars above me shone,
Around me shone keen eyes of men:
And with loud singing I rushed on
Over the heath and spungy fen,
And broke between my hands the staff
Of my long spear with song and laugh,
That down the echoing valleys rolled.
They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech-leaves old.
And now I wander in the woods
When summer gluts the golden bees,
VI-215
## p. 3426 (#400) ###########################################
3426
CELTIC LITERATURE
Or in autumnal solitudes
Arise the leopard-colored trees;
Or when along the wintry strands
The cormorants shiver on their rocks;
I wander on, and wave my hands,
And sing, and shake my heavy locks.
The gray wolf knows me; by one ear
I lead along the woodland deer;
The hares run by me, growing bold.
They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech-leaves old.
I came upon a little town
That slumbered in the harvest moon,
And passed a-tiptoe up and down,
Murmuring to a fitful tune,
How I have followed, night and day,
A tramping of tremendous feet,
And saw where this old tympan lay,
Deserted on a doorway seat,
And bore it to the woods with me;
Of some unhuman misery
Our married voices wildly trolled.
They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech-leaves old.
I sang how, when day's toil is done,
Orchil shakes out her long dark hair
That hides away the dying sun
And sheds faint odors through the air:
When my hand passed from wire to wire
It quenched, with sound like falling dew,
The whirling and the wandering fire,
But left a mournful ulalu;
For the kind wires are torn and still,
And I must wander wood and hill,
Through summer's heat and winter's cold.
They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech-leaves old.
## p. 3427 (#401) ###########################################
CELTIC LITERATURE
3427
II-SCOTTISH
EARLY Celtic literature in Scotland is so intimately allied with the
Irish, that much of the previous section must be held to belong as
much to the present one. We shall not need to recapitulate here
what is there dealt with. The two Gaelic currents began to sepa-
rate, if almost imperceptibly, even then; and only in century-long
stages, after passing the point marked by the medieval recapitu-
lators of Ossian and St. Patrick. How closely intermingled these
currents were up to that point may be learnt from the evidence of
such exquisite lines as those preserved by the Scottish Dean Mac-
gregor, entitled 'Ossian Sang':-
:-
SWEET is the voice in the land of gold,
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 breeze
The call of the cuckoo from Cossahun,
The blackbird is warbling among the trees;
And soft is the kiss of the warming sun.
The cry of the eagle of Assaroe
O'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.
The last verse is eloquent as to the common traditions of the
Scots and Irish Gael. Ossian is dealt with separately under his own
proper heading, however, and we need not discuss here his interest,
literary and historical.
Turning to St. Patrick, let us accept provisionally the account
that makes him of Gaelo-Brythonic race, born about 387 A. D. at Kil-
patrick on the Clyde, -Strathclyde being an old famous region of the
northern Brythonic stock. The remains, in prose and verse, of the
early Scottish literature dealing with St. Patrick are of course not so
numerous as the Irish; but as the two were freely interchangeable*
*«The early literature of the Scottish Gael," says the Rev. Nigel MacNeill
in his interesting work (The Literature of the Highlanders, "cannot be well
understood apart from early Irish literature. The ballads of the two countries
describe the same struggles, the characters engaging in the strife are the
same and bear the same names. »
## p. 3428 (#402) ###########################################
3428
CELTIC LITERATURE
in the early period when his record was being written down, it fol-
lows that where Irish memoranda of his true and his legendary his-
tory, his hymns, and so forth, existed, the Scottish chroniclers and
bards would accept them without feeling the need of making a sep-
arate record. Nor must we forget, in speaking of St. Patrick, that
the pre-Christian romantic mythology, with its Firbolgs and ancient
heroic gods, giants, and men, is just as much to be limned into the
background of the picture in the case of early Scottish as in that of
Irish Gaelic tradition and its earliest scriptive forms.
Curiously enough, if Scotland gave Ireland the saint that in course
of time became almost its national symbol,- Patrick,-Ireland in turn
gave Scotland its dearest saint,-Columba. He was born in 521, near
Temple Douglas (Tulach-Dubh-glaise); in 545 founded a church in
Derry; later, the famous church at Kells; and in 563, after some
jealousy had been at work against him, he left for Ireland, and after
pausing at Colonsay, he went on to Ia, now known the world over as
Iona.
Iona has become now the locus classici of the Gaelic, not to
say the whole Scottish race. Recently, a writer of profound imagina-
tion, Miss Fiona Macleod, has dated from its lonely shores the ded-
ication of that impressive book 'The Sin-Eater, and Other. Tales,'
showing how it still keeps for those of the true faith its old effect:-
"I mo cridhe, i mo ghraidh,»
(Isle of my heart, isle of my love,)
as Columba is said to have called it. His followers, the little sacred
circle of twelve, the Family of Iona,' had to be militant with a
vengeance: Milesian-or soldiering-as well as cleric, in their work;
and the old traditions are full of references to their fight against the
Féinne and the house of Ossian. But having so far prevailed as
they did, they became in turn the chroniclers of the very things they
had fought against. So in a sense, and a very real one, Iona is the
first centre of the literature of the Scots Gaels to which we can
point.
The total effect of Columba, or Columcill, upon Gaelic life
and literature, Irish and Scots, was immense indeed; to gather whose
force one must read in the Book of Deer' and the old Irish MSS.
on the one hand, and the Latin hymnology of the Celtic church on
the other.
But in speaking of Columba let us not forget the tender and
beautiful figure of St. Bridget,- another of that mysterious train,
including Merlin and St. Patrick, which has associations with Strath-
clyde -
"Bonnie sweet St. Bride of the
Yellow, yellow hair! »
St. Bridget, the St. Mary of the Gael, whose story has been retold
by Miss Fiona Macleod in 'The Washer of the Ford,' may first be
## p. 3429 (#403) ###########################################
CELTIC LITERATURE
3429
found depicted by the side of Patrick and Columba in the famous
antique relic, the 'Domhnach Airgid,' dating back to the sixth or
seventh century. She appears constantly in Gaelic hagiology, and
with poetic as well as saintly fame casting a halo about her yellow
hair. O'Curry's 'MS. Materials,' and other collections make it pos-
sible, luckily, for other than purely Gaelic students to read of her
as she appeared in early time. She is a peculiarly interesting figure,
because in the Celtic races women have always counted peculiarly:
and there are signs that they will count even more in time to
come. St. Bridget (Brigit, Bride, Breed), then, is the type for all
time of the Celtic womanhood dowered with divine inspiration,
poetry, and charm. The following variant on an old Gaelic poem is
by Miss Fiona Macleod (From the Hills of Dream'): -
ST. BRIDGET'S MILKING SONG
sweet St. Bride of the
Yellow, yellow hair:
Paul said, and Peter said,
And all the saints alive or dead
O
Vowed she had the sweetest head,
Bonnie sweet St. Bride of the
Yellow, yellow hair.
White may my milking be,
White as thee:
Thy face is white, thy neck is white,
Thy hands are white, thy feet are white,
For thy sweet soul is shining bright—
O dear to me,
O dear to see,
St. Bridget white!
Yellow may my butter be,
Soft and round:
Thy breasts are sweet,
Soft, round, and sweet,
So may my butter be:
So may my butter be, O
Bridget sweet!
Safe thy way is, safe, O
Safe, St. Bride:
May my kye come home at even,
None be fallin', none be leavin',
## p. 3430 (#404) ###########################################
3430
CELTIC LITERATURE
Dusky even, breath-sweet even,
Here, as there, where, O
St. Bride, thou
Keepest tryst with God in heaven,
Seest the angels bow,
And souls be shriven --
Here, as there, 'tis breath-sweet even,
Far and wide-
Singeth thy little maid,
Safe in thy shade,
Bridget, Bride!
Passing from the early legendary hagiological chronicles of the
Scots Gaels, we come to a period when the reader must be content
to go again to Irish sources for his knowledge of the continuators of
Gaelic literature. What we have said previously of the Irish may be
referred to here. The mediæval scribes and bards busied themselves
mainly with reproducing the past, though with a vivid coloring out
of their own living present. When we have referred all of their
subject-matter dealing with the saints and heroic figures of primitive
history to its own period, all that remains is curiously little. Unfor-
tunately, it is less than it might have been, if it had not been for
the terrible and often wanton destruction of MSS. which has bereft
us, in Scotland especially, of some of the richest treasures the Celtic
genius has produced. It is only needed to instance the tailor who
was found cutting up an ancient MS. for patterns, to show how
almost inconceivably wholesale the havoc thus done has been in the
last six centuries.
Some of the most interesting and valuable of the Scottish con-
tributions to Gaelic literature are in what we may call ballad form.
Such is the tragic tale of 'Deirdrê,' in the Glen-mason MS. (thirteenth
century), which is preserved in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh.
Others again are versions of poems correspondent to those given,
for instance, in the Book of the Dean of Lismore. ' Of this heroic
poetry much would have been lost if it had not been for the zeal of
collectors, who for the last five centuries have been collecting in old
MSS. or from the mouths of the Highlanders the ballads and tales
of old time. "The last and greatest of the ballad and tale collect-
ors," says Mr. MacNeill, was Mr. Campbell, who in 1859-60 trav-
ersed the whole Gaelic area; and assisted by intelligent Highlanders
formed large collections, of which he has given a considerable quan-
tity to the world in his four volumes of tales. Ali these are gen-
uine productions. " We may quote further what the same writer
says of the uncertain chronology of these ballads: -"They may have
## p. 3431 (#405) ###########################################
CELTIC LITERATURE
3431
been composed centuries before they were committed to writing.
We have fragments, such as the Glen-mason MS. , written as early as
the twelfth century, in the hand and language common to the learned
in both Albin and Erin at the time. The Book of the Dean of Lis-
more, however, is written phonetically to represent the spoken lan-
guage of his day, and is mainly in the Perthshire dialect. " Cuculain
and many other of the heroes that we mentioned in our Irish article
reappear in these ballads; and in them the Féinne fight out their
ancient battles to the bitter end. A new and rather different color-
ing is lent, too, to the Scottish ballads by the Norse element, and
the constant wars in which the Vikings and the Gaels encountered
time after time lend some of their finest episodes to this poetry.
If we turn from the ballads to the prose tales and romances, we
find the same strong resemblances and the same significant differ-
ences. The Irish have always the more fluent and eloquent a
faculty in prose and verse. Their adjectival energy is greater; they
are more given to extravagances of style, both in point of sentiment
and of humor. The Scotch are on the other hand more simple
and more terse, and they touch the deeper notes of pathos and of
mystery more often. Nothing more instructive can be devised for
the Celtic student than to take the volumes in verse and prose
representing the three Celtic lands, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and to
compare their style, method, and literary idiosyncrasies. For this
comparison Mr. Campbell's wonderful 'Tales of the West Highlands,'
in prose, and in verse his 'Leabhar na Féinne,' may be cited, with
works of Dr. Hyde, Mr. Standish Hayes O'Grady, Dr. Joyce, in
Irish; and in Welsh, the 'Mabinogion' in Lady Guest's exquisite
English version, or the 'Myvyrian Archæology. '
In the fourteenth century, which gave Dafydd ap Gwilym to
Wales, we find Gaelic becoming more definitely a conscious literary
language. But the Dafydd of Scotland came more than a century
earlier, being born at the end of the twelfth century. This was the
famous Muireadach Albannach (Murdoch the Scot), several of whose
poems figure in the Dean of Lismore's book, and whose effect on
succeeding bards was only less powerful than Dafydd's on his Welsh
successors. The Dean's book has poems, too, by two woman poets:
Efric, wife of the last of the famous MacNeills of Castle Sween, and
Isabel, Countess of Argyle. Efric's lament for her husband contains
some touching lines; e. g. : —
"There's no heart among our women;
At the sport, no men are seen;
Like the sky when windless, silent
Is the music of Dun Sween! »
## p. 3432 (#406) ###########################################
CELTIC LITERATURE
3432
Sir Duncan Campbell, "Duncan Mac Cailem, the good knight,"
son of Sir Colin, is another of the poets in Dean Macgregor's collec-
tion; but perhaps we ought to pause here to say a word of the Dean
himself. "Sailing in among the inner Hebridean Isles," says Mr. Mac-
Neill, "we find in the fertile island of Lismore -'the great garden'
-a man in the fifteenth century often referred to in Gaelic litera-
ture: the Rev. Mr. James Macgregor. A native of Perthshire, .
with a heart filled with the enthusiasm and perfervid spirit of his
countrymen, he and his brother got up the collection of songs and
ballads" to which we have had occasion so often to refer. But we
must pass on now to the later period of Gaelic literature, in which the
modern developments have their beginning. The Scots Gael entered
on a new phase, we are told, with Mary MacLeod (Mairi ni'n Alastair
Ruaidh), who was born at Harris in 1569, and died a centenarian in
Skye in 1674. Mairi was as perfect an example of the folk-minstrel
as Celtic literature can provide; for she could not even write, al-
though her prosody is elaborate, and her metres often intricate and
original to a degree. The first of the distinctively Jacobite bards,
who flourished at the end of the seventeenth and through the eigh-
teenth century, was John MacDonald, whose 'Battle of Inverlochy' has
been vigorously translated by Professor Blackie. Hector Maclean;
Roderick Morrison, called An Clarsair Dall, or the Blind Harper;
John Maclean, whose songs were heard by Dr. Samuel Johnson and
Boswell on their journey to the Hebrides; and John MacCodrum (a
poet whose wit and satiric powers remind us not a little of more than
one of the Welsh satirical bards), are among the poets of this time
who specially deserve note.
In the eighteenth century, Gaelic Scotland produced some remark-
able religious poets, including David MacKellar, author of the well-
known 'MacKellar's Hymn'; John Mackay; Donal Matheson, who had
satirical as well as religious power; Lauchlan Maclauchlan; and
Dugald Buchanan.
The great link between the eighteenth and the nineteenth centu-
ries is Duncan Ban Macintyre, "a name loved throughout the High-
lands and Islands. " The Hunter Bard of Glenorchy, as he is often
called, though his best title is the affectionate Gaelic "Duncan of
the Songs," was born on the 20th of March, 1724, at Druimliaghart
in Glenorchy, Argyll. His first song was composed on a sword with
which he was armed at the battle of Falkirk - where he served on
the Royalist side as substitute for a neighboring gentleman.
"This sword," says his biographer, Thomas Pattison, "the poet lost or
threw away in the retreat. On his return home therefore the gentleman to
whom it belonged, and whose substitute he had been, refused to pay the
sum for which he had engaged Duncan Ban to serve in his stead. Duncan
## p. 3433 (#407) ###########################################
CELTIC LITERATURE
3433
consequently composed his song on The Battle of the Speckled Kirk’-
-as
Falkirk is called in Gaelic-in which he good-humoredly satirized the gentle-
man who had sent him to the war, and gave a woful description of the black
sword that worked the turmoil,' and whose loss, he says, made its owner
'as fierce and furious as a gray brock in his den. ' The song immediately
became popular, and incensed his employer so much that he suddenly fell
upon the poor poet one day with his walking-stick, and striking him on the
back, bade him 'go and make a song about that. ' He was however after-
ward compelled by the Earl of Breadalbane to pay the bard the sum of 300
merks Scots (£16, 17s. 6d. ), which was his legal due. »
Duncan ended his days in Edinburgh, where he died in 1812,- one
of the last links of the moving record of the early eighteenth century
and its Jacobite associations.
Duncan was a contemporary of Macpherson's, and with Macpher-
son and his 'Ossian,' to which a special article is devoted elsewhere,
we may well leave our chronicle, forbearing to touch on the debat-
able ground of later and contemporary Celtic literature in Scotland.
Enough to say that Duncan Ban Macintyre has no lack of worthy
followers in Gaelic poetry, and that with the Anglo-Celtic develop-
ment, associated with such names as Dr. Norman Macleod, Professor
Blackie, Robert Buchanan, George MacDonald, William Black, and,
among new-comers, Miss Fiona Macleod and Mr. Neil Munro, there
seems every prospect that the Gaelic spirit promises to achieve
greatly in the new centuries to come.
The first selection is from the 'Sean Dana,' or Ancient Poems,
collected, or rather written (from oral legendary lore and ballads), by
Dr. John Smith, late in the eighteenth century.
PROLOGUE TO GAUL
ow mournful is the silence of Night
H
When she pours her dark clouds over the valleys!
Sleep has overcome the youth of the chase:
He slumbers on the heath, and his dog at his knee.
The children of the mountain he pursues
In his dream, while sleep forsakes him.
Slumber, ye children of fatigue;
Star after star is now ascending the height.
Slumber! thou swift dog and nimble-
Ossian will arouse thee not from thy repose.
Lonely I keep watch,—
And dear to me is the gloom of night
When I travel from glen to glen,
With no hope to behold a morning or brightness.
## p. 3434 (#408) ###########################################
CELTIC LITERATURE
3434
Spare thy light, O Sun!
Waste not thy lamps so fast.
Generous is thy soul as the King of Morven's:
But thy renown shall yet fade;
Spare thy lamps of a thousand flames
In thy blue hall, when thou retirest
Under thy dark-blue gates to sleep,
Beneath the dark embraces of the storm.
Spare them, ere thou art forsaken for ever,
As I am, without one whom I may love!
Spare them, for there is not a hero now
To behold the blue flame of the beautiful lamps!
―
Ah, Cona of the precious lights,
Thy lamps burn dimly now:
Thou art like a blasted oak:
Thy dwellings and thy people are gone
East or west; on the face of thy mountain,
There shall be no more found of them but the trace!
In Selma, Tara, or Temora
There is not a song, a shell, or a harp;
They have all become green mounds;
Their stones have fallen into their own meadows;
The stranger from the deep or the desert
Will never behold them rise above the clouds.
And O Selma! home of my delight,
Is this heap my ruin,
Where grows the thistle, the heather, and the wild grass ?
The following lines of St. Columba are taken from the 'Lyra
Celtica, cited above:-
COLUMCILLE FECIT
(ST. COLUMBA MADE IT)
D
ELIGHTFUL Would it be to me to be in Uchd Ailiun
On the pinnacle of a rock,
That I might often see
The face of the ocean;
That I might see its heaving waves
Over the wide ocean,
When they chant music to their Father
Upon the world's course;
## p. 3435 (#409) ###########################################
CELTIC LITERATURE
That I might see its level sparkling strand,
It would be no cause of sorrow;
That I might hear the song of the wonderful birds,
Source of happiness;
That I might hear the thunder of the crowding waves
Upon the rocks;
That I might hear the roar by the side of the church
Of the surrounding sea;
That I might see its noble flocks
Over the watery ocean;
That I might see the sea monsters,
The greatest of all wonders;
That I might see its ebb and flood
In their career;
That my mystical name might be, I say,
Cul ri Erin [Back turned to Ireland];
That contrition might come upon my heart
Upon looking at her;
That I might bewail my evils all,
Though it were difficult to compute them;
That I might bless the Lord
Who conserves all,
3435
Heaven with its countless bright orders,
Land, strand, and flood;
That I might search the books all,
That would be good for my soul;
At times kneeling to beloved Heaven;
At times psalm-singing;
At times contemplating the King of Heaven,
Holy the chief;
At times at work without compulsion,
This would be delightful;
At times plucking duilisc from the rocks;
At times at fishing;
At times giving food to the poor;
At times in a carcair [solitary cell]:
The best advice in the presence of God
To me has been vouchsafed.
The King whose servant I am will not let
Anything deceive me.
The third selection is an example of later Gaelic. This stirring
Hebridean poem is sometimes spoken of as from the ancient Gaelic.
## p. 3436 (#410) ###########################################
3436
CELTIC LITERATURE
Probably by this is meant merely old Gaelic, medieval or even later.
The translation is by Mr. Thomas Pattison, and is included in his
'Gaelic Bards. ' He has the following note upon it:
:-
«This effusion, although in its original form it is only a kind of wild
chant, almost indeed half prose, yet is the germ of the ballad.
It occurs
in many of the tales contained in that collection,— the repository of old Gaelic
lore, the Popular Tales of the West Highlands,' sometimes more and some-
times less perfect. The original will be found in the second volume of the
The vigorous and elastic spirit that pervades these verses
must have strung the heart of many a hardy mariner, who loved to feel
the fresh and briny breeze drive his snoring birlinn bounding like a living
creature over the tumbling billows of the inland loch, or the huge swell of
the majestic main. "
Tales.
―
WⓇ
-
IN HEBRID SEAS
E TURNED her prow into the sea,
Her stern into the shore,
And first we raised the tall tough masts,
And then the canvas hoar;
Fast filled our towering cloud-like sails,
For the wind came from the land,
And such a wind as we might choose
Were the winds at our command:
A breeze that rushing down the hill
Would strip the blooming heather,
Or rustling through the green-clad grove,
Would whirl its leaves together.
But when it seized the aged saugh,
With the light locks of gray,
It tore away its ancient root,
And there the old trunk lay!
It raised the thatch too from the roof,
And scattered it along;
Then tossed and whirled it through the air,
Singing a pleasant song.
:-
It heaped the ruins on the land:-
Though sire and son stood by,
They could no help afford, but gaze
With wan and troubled eye!
## p. 3437 (#411) ###########################################
CELTIC LITERATURE
A flap, a flash, the green roll dashed,
And laughed against the red;
Upon our boards, now here, now there,
It knocked its foamy head.
She could have split a slender straw,
So clean and well she went,
As still obedient to the helm
Her stately course she bent.
We watched the big beast eat the small,
The small beast nimbly fly,
And listened to the plunging eels,
The sea-gull's clang on high.
We had no other music
To cheer us on our way:
Till round those sheltering hills we passed
And anchored in this bay.
III
WELSH
THE laws governing the life of languages are as elusive as those
that decide the fate of races and empires. Why is the Welsh tongue
still alive and vigorous, and the Irish (pace Dr. Douglas Hyde) mori-
bund? It is a difficult question, but some light on it may be had by
traversing the early history of Welsh literature.
The like difficulty meets us in both Welsh and Irish: that of
deciding how far the medieval scribes and scholars doctored the
older material which fell into their hands. But in Welsh, the sepa-
element is often even a
-
3437
ration of the primitive from the medieval
more difficult task than in Irish.
In sketching the early course of Welsh literature, we cannot do
better than turn to the striking instance afforded by the name and
fame of Merlin. In legendary Welsh history, Merlin appears under
almost as many guises as he does in the pages of Malory's 'Morte
d'Arthur. ' Merddin Emrys (Ambrosius), Merddin Sylvester (Merlin
the Wild), Merddin ab Morvryn (or Merlin Caledonius),- his name
and fame vary according to the chronicler. Of these, Merlin the son
of Morvryn, the most tangible in the list, was also known as Caledo-
nius, because the Kymry of the sixth century lived in that greater
Wales which ranged as far north as the Caledonian Forest. After
the terrible battle of Arderydd, Merlin, having seen his kindred all
but obliterated, was seized, tradition tells us, with a frenzy, and
## p. 3438 (#412) ###########################################
3438
CELTIC LITERATURE
thereafter his bardic utterances assumed a more and more mystical
and oracular form. This, added to his mysterious and magnetic per-
sonality and wildly impressive personal presence, may well have led
on in process of time, by gradual legendary accretions, to the final
conception of a Merlin miraculous, supernatural, dæmonic! However
this may be, nothing can be more instructive than to compare the
late Merlin with the early Merlin, and to trace his phases in Welsh
folk-tale, and define his poetry finally in the pages of the 'Black
Book of Carmarthen. ’
The 'Black Book of Carmarthen,' in its strikingly decorative
black and red manuscript, makes a wonderful testament of old
Welsh poetry. If we could solve all its problems and read all that
is written between its lines, we should be very near the great secret
of the Druidic religion and of Celtic mythology, as well as the
secret of Merlin's actual and imaginary effect in Welsh literature.
The battle of Arderydd has been cited above as a determining
event in Merlin's history. The opening poem in the 'Black Book of
Carmarthen' is a remarkable rhymed dialogue between Merlin and
Taliesin, some of whose lines are extremely imaginative and touch-
ing in their archaic simplicity. Merlin begins:-
"How sad is Merlin now! how sad!
Keduyf and Kadvan—are they dead?
The furious slaughter filled the field,
And pierced was the Tryrwyd shield! »
Taliesin replies:-
"His house-folk did not falter in the fight! "
So it goes on, telling of the battle and its consequences, until one
reaches at the end that mysterious verse which haunts the imagina-
tion and the ear of the reader. Merlin again speaks:-
"Sevenscore chieftains
Were turned into spirits;
In the wood of Celyddon
Were they transformed.
The wood of Celyddon is the Caledonian Forest. So far as these
excerpts go, they might seem to be the writing of the real Merlin.
There is internal evidence however that this poem, the much dis-
puted poem of the 'Apple-trees,' and others that follow it in the
'Black Book,' were written not earlier than the twelfth century.
Stephens, usually an acute critic, imputes in his 'Literature of the
Kymry these poems to Gwalchmai and other bards of later date.
## p. 3439 (#413) ###########################################
CELTIC LITERATURE
3439
But even so, these poets evidently founded their poems upon earlier
ones, traditionally handed on as Merlin's.
From such later sources as the 'Myvyrian Archæology,' or Skene's
'Four Ancient Books of Wales,' or the admirable Oxford texts edited
by Professor Rhys and Mr. Gwenogfvyn Evans, one can rehabilitate
at will the Merlin of the 'Black Book of Carmarthen,' much as
Villemarqué has done after a fashion quite his own. Enough will
so be certainly discovered to outline a primitive Merlin, an original
sixth-century Merlin, under the impressive mediæval robes of the
Latin-Welsh romantic chroniclers and poets. Enough too will be
made clear to show a basis of myth and prehistoric legend behind
the remotest recorded name, time, or place that can be counted
historical.
The same is true of Taliesin, who appears, by the poetical remains
attributed to him,- some of them clearly medieval, others just as
clearly primitive, — even more interesting as a poet than Merlin.
Just as there are several Merlins, however, there are two Taliesins:
there is the fifth-century Taliesin, and there is the pseudo-Taliesin
of the twelfth. Both are wonderful in their way, and one knows not
which to admire most -him who wrote the 'Battle of Gwenystrad,' .
which is undoubtedly a primitive war song, or the medieval poet
who chose to take the disguise of Taliesin, and taking too, probably,
some of the traditional fragments of his early poetry, worked them
up afresh with curious mediæval art and mystic imagination. For
comparison let us take an early and a late poem, commonly gath-
ered, as in the 'Myvyrian Archæology,' under one head.
Take first one of the later poems, the mystical Song to the
Wind,' which even in its English dress won Emerson's admiration,
and which, if we allow for all differences between medieval and
modern imagination, is as wonderful a poem of its kind as any litera-
ture is likely to afford. As it is given among our selections, it need
not be quoted here. In point of time it is usual to assign it,
as Stephens does, to the twelfth or thirteenth century. But it
seems to me to bear traces again of being an older, more primitive
poem, retouched certainly, and probably reshaped, by a twelfth-
century poet. And now for a genuine Taliesin, or what at any rate
many critics think to be genuine. This you may have in the famous
'Gwaith Gwenystrad' (Battle of Gwenystrad), one of the most spir-
ited war poems in existence, copied and recopied by a long succession
of Kymric scribes, and which the writer came upon first in the MS.
collection of William Morris o Gaergybi yn Mon, who flourished
about 1758. Here are four lines of Morris's copy literatim, which
will give a better idea than any criticism of mine of the mingled
realism and imagination of the poem:-
## p. 3440 (#414) ###########################################
3440
CELTIC LITERATURE
"Yn nrws rhyd gwelais i wyr lledruddion,
Eirf ddillwng y rhag blawr gofedon,
Unynt tanc gan aethant golludion,
Llaw ynghroes gryd ygro granwynion. »
And here is a rough, vigorous translation of these lines from the
same volume:-
"In the pass of
their arms.
. .
bardic schools, which did so much for Irish poetry from the sixth
century to the seventeenth, insisted upon its conventions to a degree
that was excessive. Geoffrey Keating, who carried on his great work
at the same time as the Four Masters, in the first half of the seven-
teenth century, and who was a poet as well as a historian, still
used the bardic prosody, and wrote some delightful poems by its
rules; but he lent his influence to aid the new liberty in prose and
verse that Irish literature was learning. Keating's name is of first-
rate importance in its record, for this very reason. He was the first
really to conceive of Irish literature as a literature for the people,
and not only for the elect. He was the first to do this; and partly
because he did it, he was the last great landmark in the larger
Gaelic literature of Ireland. His History of Ireland,' the result
of an enforced retirement from preaching, was, says Dr. Hyde,
"the most popular book ever written in Irish. ” He marks too the
## p. 3416 (#390) ###########################################
3416
CELTIC LITERATURE
transition, as we pointed out, from the old bardic tradition in Irish
poetry. After his coming the bards threw away their superfluous
prosody and wrote for the people, and became poets indeed, instead
of the most ingenious of schoolmen. The result was the remarkable
body of Irish poetry which belongs to the last three centuries, and
which contains many of the characteristics of folk-song and culture
poetry, in a most tuneful and idiosyncratic fashion quite its own.
Let us listen again to Dr. Hyde on this point:-
"What the popular ballads of the folk had been like prior to the seven-
teenth century we have no means of knowing. No scribe would demean his
learned pen by committing them to paper; but from that date down to the
beginning of the present century the bards the great houses being fallen —
turned instinctively to the general public, and threw behind them the metres
that required so many years of study in the schools, and dropped at a stroke
several thousand words which no one understood except the great chiefs or
those trained by the poets, while they broke out into beautiful but at the
same time intelligible verse, which no one who has once heard and learned is
likely to forget. This is to my mind the real glory of the modern Irish
nation; this is the sweetest creation of Gaelic literature; this is the truest note
of the enchanting Irish siren, and he who has once heard it and remains
deaf to its charm has neither heart for song nor soul for music. The Gaelic
poetry of the last two centuries is the most sensuous attempt to convey music
in words ever made by man. It is absolutely impossible to convey the
lusciousness of sound, richness of rhythm, and perfection of harmony in
another language. "
Discounting what we will in the natural enthusiasm of one who
has devoted himself heart and soul to the cause of the Gaelic
tongue and of Irish literature, quite enough remains to carry the
contention for the continuing interest of native Irish poetry after so
many centuries. That such a poetry and such a language should
suddenly decay after so noble and enriched a record in the past, is
nothing short of a tragedy in the history of tongues.
Dr. Hyde's own collection of the 'Love Songs of Connacht' is the
best example that American readers could possibly have of this
Irish poetry, the late flowering of so venerable and noble a tree.
And with this work, and some of the collections of the folk-tales
still current in Erse-speaking Ireland, made by Dr. Hyde, Mr. Jere-
miah Curtin, and Mr. Larminie, and Englished for us, we must bring
this brief outline of the Irish contribution to Celtic literature to a
close. Its modern interpretation is only now beginning to take its
due place, let us remember, both at the hands of its scholars and on
the lips of its poets. And if any reader should think the scholars
still, after all we have said, too difficult to follow, let us recommend
them to turn to the poems and tales of Mr. W. B. Yeats and to the
## p. 3417 (#391) ###########################################
CELTIC LITERATURE
3417
romantic pages of Mr. Standish O'Grady, the latest exponents in our
more modern tongue of that imagination, and that subtlety and
energy of thought, which are characteristically Irish.
Of the three great cycles of Gaelic literature, the third is the (so-
called) Ossianic. Of this cycle Finn (Fionn, Fingal) is the central
hero. The second great cycle is that which treats of the heroes of
the Ultonians, i. e. , the Red Branch of Ulster; among this cycle
Cuculain (Cuchullin, Cohoolin, Coolin) is the supreme type. No liv
ing writer has so well reconstructed the past for us as Mr. Standish
O'Grady has done, and nowhere is he so successful as in his vivid
and beautiful historical romance, of which Cuculain is the hero. Of
the famous "battle-prop of the valor and torch of the chivalry of the
Ultonians » Mr. O'Grady has given us an account which deserves to
pass into the fixed literature of our race. Apart from its vividness,
charm, and power, The Coming of Cuculain' affords a general idea
of the first great heroic cycle (its predecessor dealing entirely
with mythical or mythopoeic beings), and of primitive heroic life as
reflected in that literature. The excerpts selected are (1) the opening
of the romance, and (2) from the chapter telling how Cuculain won
his knighthood.
FROM THE COMING OF CUCULAIN>
I
TH
HE Red Branch feasted one night in their great hall at
Emain Macha. So vast was the hall that a man such as
men are now, standing in the centre and shouting his
loudest, would not be heard at the circumference; yet the low
laughter of the King sitting at one end was clearly audible to
those who sat around the Champion at the other. The sons of
Dithorba made it, giants of the elder time, laboring there under
the shoutings of Macha and the roar of her sounding thongs.
Its length was a mile and nine furlongs and a cubit. With her
brooch-pin she plowed its outline upon the plain, and its
breadth was not much less. Trees such as earth nourished then
upheld the mossy roof beneath which feasted that heroic brood,
the great-hearted children of Rury, huge offsprings of the gods
and giants of the dawn of time. For mighty exceedingly were.
these men. At the noise of their running to battle all Ireland
shook, and the illimitable Lir trembled in his watery halls; the
roar of their brazen chariots reverberated from the solid canopy
of heaven, and their war-steeds drank rivers dry.
## p. 3418 (#392) ###########################################
3418
CELTIC LITERATURE
A vast murmur rose from the assembly, for like distant
thunder or the far-off murmuring of agitated waters was the con-
tinuous hum of their blended conversation and laughter, while
ever and anon, cleaving the many-tongued confusion, uprose
friendly voices, clearer and stronger than battle trumpets, when
one hero challenged another to drink, wishing him victory and
success, and his words rang round the hollow dome. Innumer-
able candles, tall as spears, illuminated the scene. The eyes of
the heroes sparkled, and their faces, white and ruddy, beamed
with festal mirth and mutual affection. Their yellow hair shone.
Their banqueting attire, white and scarlet, glowed against the
outer gloom. Their round brooches and mantle-pins of gold or
silver or golden bronze, their drinking vessels and instruments
of festivity, flashed and glittered in the light. They rejoiced in
their glory and their might and in the inviolable amity in
which they were knit together; a host of comrades, a knot of
heroic valor and affection, which no strength or cunning, and
no power seen or unseen, could ever release or untie.
At one extremity of the vast hall, upon a raised seat, sat
their young king, Concobar Mac Nessa, slender, handsome, and
upright. A canopy of bronze, round as the bent sling of the
Sun-god, the long-handed, far-shooting son of Ethlend, encircled
his head. At his right hand lay a staff of silver. Far away at
the other end of the hall, on a raised seat, sat the Champion,
Fergus Mac Roy, like a colossus. The stars and clouds of night
were round his head and shoulders, seen through the wide and
high entrance of the Dûn, whose doors no man has ever seen
closed and barred. Aloft, suspended from the dim rafters, hung
the naked forms of great men clear against the dark dome,
having the cords of their slaughter around their necks and their
white limbs splashed with blood. Kings were they, who had
murmured against the sovereignty of the Red Branch. Through
the wide doorway out of the night flew a huge bird, black and
gray, unseen; and soaring upwards sat upon the rafters, its eyes
like burning fire. It was the Mór Reega, or Great Queen, the
far-striding, terrible daughter of Iarnmas (Iron-Death). Her
voice was like the shouting of ten thousand men. Dear to her
were these heroes. More she rejoiced in them feasting than in
the battle prowess of the rest.
When supper was ended, their bard, in his singing-robes and
girt around the temples with a golden fillet, stood up and sang.
## p. 3419 (#393) ###########################################
CELTIC LITERATURE
3419
He sang how once a king of the Ultonians, having plunged into
the sea-depths, there slew a monster which had wrought much
havoc amongst fishers and seafaring men. The heroes attended
to his song, leaning forward with bright eyes. They applauded
the song and the singer, and praised the valor of the heroic
man who had done the deed. Then the Champion struck the
table with his clenched hands and addressed the assembly.
Wrath and sorrow were in his voice. It resembled the brool
of lions, heard afar by seafaring men upon some savage shore
on a still night.
"Famous deeds," he said, "are not wrought now among the
Red Branch. I think we are all become women. I grow weary
of these huntings in the morning and mimic exercises of war,
and this training of steeds and careering of brazen chariots
stained never with aught but dust and mire, and these unearned
feastings at night and vain applause of the brave deeds of our
forefathers. Come now, let us make an end of this.
Let us
conquer Banba (Ireland) wholly in all her green borders, and let
the realms of Lir, which sustain no foot of man, be the limit of
her sovereignty. Let us gather the tributes of all Ireland, after
many battles and much warlike toil. Then more sweetly shall
we drink, while the bards chant our prowess. Once I knew a
coward who boasted endlessly about his forefathers, and at last
my anger rose, and with a flat hand I slew him in the middle
of his speech, and paid no eric, for he was nothing. We have
the blood of heroes in our veins, and we sit here nightly boast-
ing about them: about Rury, whose name we bear; and Macha
the warrioress, who brought hither bound the sons of Dithorba
and made them rear this mighty Dûn; and Kimbaoth son of
Fiontann; and my namesake Fergus, whose crooked mouth was
no dishonor, and the rest of our hero sires; and we consume the
rents and tributes of Ulster which they by their prowess con-
quered to us, and which flow hither in abundance from every
corner of the province. Valiant men too will one day come
hither and slay us as I slew that boaster, and here in Emain
Macha their bards will praise them. Then in the halls of our
dead shall we say to our sires, 'All that you got for us by your
blood and your sweat, that we have lost, and the glory of the
Red Branch is at an end. '»
That speech was pleasing to the Red
out that Fergus Mac Roy had spoken well.
Branch, and they cried
Then all at once, on
## p. 3420 (#394) ###########################################
3420
CELTIC LITERATURE
a sudden impulse, they sang the battle song of the Ultonians,
and shouted for the war so that the building quaked and rocked,
and in the hall of the weapons there was a clangor of falling
shields, and men died that night for extreme dread, so mightily
shouted the Ultonians around their king and around Fergus.
II
On the morrow there was a great hasting of the Red Branch
on the plain of the assemblies. It was May-day morning and
the sun shone brightly, but at first through radiant showers.
The trees were putting forth young buds; the wet grass sparkled.
All the martial pomp and glory of the Ultonians were exhibited
that day. Their chariots and war-horses ringed the plain. All
the horses' heads were turned towards the centre where were
Concobar Mac Nessa and the chiefs of the Red Branch. The
plain flashed with gold, bronze, and steel, and glowed with the
bright mantles of the innumerable heroes, crimson and scarlet,
blue, green, or purple. The huge brooches on their breasts, of
gold and silver or gold-like bronze, were like resplendent wheels.
Their long hair, yellow for the most part, was bound with orna-
ments of gold. Great truly were those men; their like has not
come since upon the earth. They were the heroes and demigods
of the heroic age of Erin, champions who feared naught beneath
the sun; mightiest among the mighty, huge, proud, and uncon-
querable, and loyal and affectionate beyond all others; all of the
blood of Ir, son of Milesius, the Clanna Rury of great renown,
rejoicing in their valor, their splendor, their peerless king.
Concobar had no crown. A plain circle of beaten gold girt his
broad temples. In the naked glory of his regal manhood he
stood there before them all, but even so a stranger would have
swiftly discovered the captain of the Red Branch; such was his
stature, his bearing, such his slow-turning, steady-gazing eyes
and the majesty of his bearded countenance. His countenance
was long, broad above and narrow below, his nose eminent, his
beard bipartite, curling and auburn in hue, his form without any
blemish or imperfection.
"Let the tameless horses of Macha be harnessed to the
chariot," cried Concobar, "and let Læg, son of the King of
Gabra, drive them hither, for those are the horses and that the
chariot which shall be given this day to Cuculain. "
## p. 3421 (#395) ###########################################
CELTIC LITERATURE
3421
Then, son of Sualtam, how in thy guileless breast thy heart
leaped when thou heardest the thundering of the great war-car
and the wild neighing of the immortal steeds, as they broke
from the dark stable into the clear-shining light of day, and
heard behind them the ancient roaring of the brazen wheels, as
in the days when they bore forth Macha and her martial groom
against the giants of old, and mightily established in Eiria the
Red Branch of the Ultonians! Soon they rushed to view from
the rear of Emain, speeding forth impetuously out of the hollow-
sounding ways of the city and the echoing palaces into the
open, and behind them in the great car green and gold, above
the many-twinkling wheels, the charioteer, with floating mantle,
girt round the temples with the gold fillet of his office, leaning
backwards and sideways as he labored to restrain their fury
unrestrainable: a gray long-maned steed, whale-bellied, broad-
chested, with mane like flying foam, under one silver yoke, and
a black lustrous tufty-maned steed under the other; such steeds.
as in power, size, and beauty the earth never produced before
and never will produce again.
Like a hawk swooping along the face of a cliff when the
wind is high; or like the rush of March wind over the smooth
plain; or like the fleetness of the stag roused from his lair by
the hounds and covering his first field, was the rush of those
steeds when they had broken through the restraint of the chari-
oteer, as though they galloped over fiery flags; so that the earth
shook and trembled with the velocity of their motion, and all
the time the great car brayed and shrieked as the wheels of
solid and glittering bronze went round, and strange cries and
exclamations were heard, for they were demons that had their
abode in that car.
The charioteer restrained the steeds before the assembly, but
nay-the-less a deep purr like the purr of a tiger proceeded
from the axle. Then the whole assembly lifted up their voices
and shouted for Cuculain, and he himself, Cuculain the son of
Sualtam, sprang into his chariot all armed, with a cry as of a
warrior springing into his chariot in the battle, and he stood
erect and brandished his spears, and the war sprites of the Gael
shouted along with him; for the Bocanahs and Bananahs and the
Geniti Gluidi, the wild people of the glens, and the demons of
the air, roared around him, when first the great warrior of the
Gael, his battle-arms in his hands, stood equipped for war in his
## p. 3422 (#396) ###########################################
3422
CELTIC LITERATURE
chariot before all the warriors of his tribe, the kings of the
Clanna Rury and the people of the Emain Macha. Then too
there sounded from the Tec Brac the boom of shields and the
clashing of swords and the cries and shouting of the Tuatha Dée
Danann, who dwelt there perpetually; and Lu the long-handed,
the slayer of Balor, the destroyer of the Fornoroh, the immortal,
the invisible, the maker and the decorator of the firmament, whose
hound was the sun, and whose son the viewless wind, thundered
from heaven and bent his sling five-hued against the clouds;
and the son of the illimitable Lir in his mantle blue and green,
foam-fringed, passed through the assembly with a roar of far-off
innumerable waters, and the Mór Reega stood in the midst with
a foot on either side of the plain, and shouted with the shout of
a host, so that the Ultonians fell down like reaped grass with
their faces to the earth, on account of the presence of the Mór
Reega and on account of the omens and great signs.
The following poems from the ancient Erse are taken from the
'Lyra Celtica: an Anthology of Representative Celtic Poetry,' edited
by Elizabeth A. Sharp.
THE MYSTERY OF AMERGIN
AM the wind which breathes upon the sea,
I
I am the wave of the ocean,
I am the murmur of the billows,
I am the ox of the seven combats,
I am the vulture upon the rocks,
I am a beam of the sun,
I am the fairest of plants,
I am a wild boar in valor,
I am a salmon in the water,
I am a lake in the plain,
I am a word of science,
I am the point of the lance of battle,
I am the God who creates in the head [i. e. , of
man] the fire [i. e. , the thought].
Who is it who throws light into the meeting on the mountain
[if not I]?
Who announces the ages of the moon [if not I]?
Who teaches the place where couches the sun [if not I]?
## p. 3423 (#397) ###########################################
CELTIC LITERATURE
3423
THE SONG OF FIONN
AY-DAY, delightful time! How beautiful the color!
M
The blackbirds sing their full lay. Would that Læg were
here!
The cuckoos sing in constant strains. How welcome is the noble
Brilliance of the seasons ever! On the margin of the branching
woods
The summer swallows skim the stream: the swift horses seek the
pool;
The heather spreads out her long hair; the weak fair bow-down
grows.
Sudden consternation attacks the signs; the planets, in their courses
running, exert an influence:
The sea is lulled to rest, flowers cover the earth.
VISION OF A FAIR WOMAN
TEL
ELL us some of the charms of the stars:
Close and well set were her ivory teeth;
White as the canna upon the moor
Was her bosom the tartan bright beneath.
Her well-rounded forehead shone
Soft and fair as the mountain snow;
Her two breasts were heaving full;
To them did the hearts of heroes flow.
Her lips were ruddier than the rose;
Tender and tunefully sweet her tongue;
White as the foam adown her side
Her delicate fingers extended hung.
Smooth as the dusky down of the elk
Appeared her shady eyebrows to me;
Lovely her cheeks were, like berries red;
From every guile she was wholly free.
Her countenance looked like the gentle buds
Unfolding their beauty in early spring;
Her yellow locks like the gold-browed hills;
And her eyes like the radiance the sunbeams bring.
## p. 3424 (#398) ###########################################
CELTIC LITERATURE
3424
In contemporary Celtic poetry no one surpasses Mr. W. B. Yeats,
particularly in the re-creation of that wonderful past with whose
atmosphere his whole work is charged. As an example of Mr. Yeats's
narrative method with legendary themes we may quote some lines
from his beautiful 'The Wanderings of Oisin' (Ossian):—
F
LED foam underneath us, and round us a wandering and milky
smoke,
High as the saddle-girth, covering away from our glances the tide;
And those that fled, and that followed, from the foam-pale distance
broke;
The immortal desire of immortals we saw in their faces, and sighed.
I mused on the chase with the Fenians, and Bran, Sgeolan, Lomair,
And never a song sang Neave, and over my finger-tips
Came now the sliding of tears and sweeping of mist-cold hair,
And now the warmth of sighs, and after the quiver of lips.
Were we days long or hours long in riding, when, rolled in a grisly
peace,
An isle lay level before us, with dripping hazel and oak?
And we stood on a sea's edge we saw not; for whiter than new-
washed fleece
Fled foam underneath us, and round us a wandering and milky smoke.
And we rode on the plains of the sea's edge-the sea's edge barren
and gray,
Gray sands on the green of the grasses and over the dripping trees,
Dripping and doubling landward, as though they would hasten away
Like an army of old men longing for rest from the moan of the seas.
But the trees grew taller and closer, immense in their wrinkling bark;
Dropping-a murmurous dropping-old silence and that one sound;
For no live creatures lived there, no weasels moved in the dark-
Long sighs arose in our spirits, beneath us bubbled the ground.
And the ears of the horse went sinking away in the hollow night;
For as drift from a sailor slow drowning the gleams of the world
and the sun,
Ceased on our hands and our faces, on hazel and oak leaf, the light,
And the stars were blotted above us, and the whole of the world
was one.
## p. 3425 (#399) ###########################################
CELTIC LITERATURE
3425
Finally, here is one of Mr. Yeats's "old songs re-sung":
THE MADNESS OF KING GOLL
SAT on cushioned otter skin:
I
My word was law from Ith to Emen,
And shook at Invar Amargin
The hearts of the world-troubling seamen,
And drove tumult and war away
From girl and boy and man and beast;
The fields grew fatter day by day,
The wild fowl of the air increased;
And every ancient Ollave said,
While he bent down his faded head,-
"He drives away the Northern cold. "
They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech-leaves old.
I sat and mused and drank sweet wine;
A herdsman came from inland valleys,
Crying, the pirates drove his swine.
To fill their dark-beaked hollow galleys.
I called my battle-breaking men
And my loud brazen battle-cars
From rolling vale and rivery glen,
And under the blinking of the stars
Fell on the pirates of the deep,
And hurled them in the gulph of sleep:
These hands won many a torque of gold.
They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech-leaves old.
But slowly, as I shouting slew
And trampled in the bubbling mire,
In my most secret spirit grew
A whirling and a wandering fire:
I stood: keen stars above me shone,
Around me shone keen eyes of men:
And with loud singing I rushed on
Over the heath and spungy fen,
And broke between my hands the staff
Of my long spear with song and laugh,
That down the echoing valleys rolled.
They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech-leaves old.
And now I wander in the woods
When summer gluts the golden bees,
VI-215
## p. 3426 (#400) ###########################################
3426
CELTIC LITERATURE
Or in autumnal solitudes
Arise the leopard-colored trees;
Or when along the wintry strands
The cormorants shiver on their rocks;
I wander on, and wave my hands,
And sing, and shake my heavy locks.
The gray wolf knows me; by one ear
I lead along the woodland deer;
The hares run by me, growing bold.
They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech-leaves old.
I came upon a little town
That slumbered in the harvest moon,
And passed a-tiptoe up and down,
Murmuring to a fitful tune,
How I have followed, night and day,
A tramping of tremendous feet,
And saw where this old tympan lay,
Deserted on a doorway seat,
And bore it to the woods with me;
Of some unhuman misery
Our married voices wildly trolled.
They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech-leaves old.
I sang how, when day's toil is done,
Orchil shakes out her long dark hair
That hides away the dying sun
And sheds faint odors through the air:
When my hand passed from wire to wire
It quenched, with sound like falling dew,
The whirling and the wandering fire,
But left a mournful ulalu;
For the kind wires are torn and still,
And I must wander wood and hill,
Through summer's heat and winter's cold.
They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech-leaves old.
## p. 3427 (#401) ###########################################
CELTIC LITERATURE
3427
II-SCOTTISH
EARLY Celtic literature in Scotland is so intimately allied with the
Irish, that much of the previous section must be held to belong as
much to the present one. We shall not need to recapitulate here
what is there dealt with. The two Gaelic currents began to sepa-
rate, if almost imperceptibly, even then; and only in century-long
stages, after passing the point marked by the medieval recapitu-
lators of Ossian and St. Patrick. How closely intermingled these
currents were up to that point may be learnt from the evidence of
such exquisite lines as those preserved by the Scottish Dean Mac-
gregor, entitled 'Ossian Sang':-
:-
SWEET is the voice in the land of gold,
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 breeze
The call of the cuckoo from Cossahun,
The blackbird is warbling among the trees;
And soft is the kiss of the warming sun.
The cry of the eagle of Assaroe
O'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.
The last verse is eloquent as to the common traditions of the
Scots and Irish Gael. Ossian is dealt with separately under his own
proper heading, however, and we need not discuss here his interest,
literary and historical.
Turning to St. Patrick, let us accept provisionally the account
that makes him of Gaelo-Brythonic race, born about 387 A. D. at Kil-
patrick on the Clyde, -Strathclyde being an old famous region of the
northern Brythonic stock. The remains, in prose and verse, of the
early Scottish literature dealing with St. Patrick are of course not so
numerous as the Irish; but as the two were freely interchangeable*
*«The early literature of the Scottish Gael," says the Rev. Nigel MacNeill
in his interesting work (The Literature of the Highlanders, "cannot be well
understood apart from early Irish literature. The ballads of the two countries
describe the same struggles, the characters engaging in the strife are the
same and bear the same names. »
## p. 3428 (#402) ###########################################
3428
CELTIC LITERATURE
in the early period when his record was being written down, it fol-
lows that where Irish memoranda of his true and his legendary his-
tory, his hymns, and so forth, existed, the Scottish chroniclers and
bards would accept them without feeling the need of making a sep-
arate record. Nor must we forget, in speaking of St. Patrick, that
the pre-Christian romantic mythology, with its Firbolgs and ancient
heroic gods, giants, and men, is just as much to be limned into the
background of the picture in the case of early Scottish as in that of
Irish Gaelic tradition and its earliest scriptive forms.
Curiously enough, if Scotland gave Ireland the saint that in course
of time became almost its national symbol,- Patrick,-Ireland in turn
gave Scotland its dearest saint,-Columba. He was born in 521, near
Temple Douglas (Tulach-Dubh-glaise); in 545 founded a church in
Derry; later, the famous church at Kells; and in 563, after some
jealousy had been at work against him, he left for Ireland, and after
pausing at Colonsay, he went on to Ia, now known the world over as
Iona.
Iona has become now the locus classici of the Gaelic, not to
say the whole Scottish race. Recently, a writer of profound imagina-
tion, Miss Fiona Macleod, has dated from its lonely shores the ded-
ication of that impressive book 'The Sin-Eater, and Other. Tales,'
showing how it still keeps for those of the true faith its old effect:-
"I mo cridhe, i mo ghraidh,»
(Isle of my heart, isle of my love,)
as Columba is said to have called it. His followers, the little sacred
circle of twelve, the Family of Iona,' had to be militant with a
vengeance: Milesian-or soldiering-as well as cleric, in their work;
and the old traditions are full of references to their fight against the
Féinne and the house of Ossian. But having so far prevailed as
they did, they became in turn the chroniclers of the very things they
had fought against. So in a sense, and a very real one, Iona is the
first centre of the literature of the Scots Gaels to which we can
point.
The total effect of Columba, or Columcill, upon Gaelic life
and literature, Irish and Scots, was immense indeed; to gather whose
force one must read in the Book of Deer' and the old Irish MSS.
on the one hand, and the Latin hymnology of the Celtic church on
the other.
But in speaking of Columba let us not forget the tender and
beautiful figure of St. Bridget,- another of that mysterious train,
including Merlin and St. Patrick, which has associations with Strath-
clyde -
"Bonnie sweet St. Bride of the
Yellow, yellow hair! »
St. Bridget, the St. Mary of the Gael, whose story has been retold
by Miss Fiona Macleod in 'The Washer of the Ford,' may first be
## p. 3429 (#403) ###########################################
CELTIC LITERATURE
3429
found depicted by the side of Patrick and Columba in the famous
antique relic, the 'Domhnach Airgid,' dating back to the sixth or
seventh century. She appears constantly in Gaelic hagiology, and
with poetic as well as saintly fame casting a halo about her yellow
hair. O'Curry's 'MS. Materials,' and other collections make it pos-
sible, luckily, for other than purely Gaelic students to read of her
as she appeared in early time. She is a peculiarly interesting figure,
because in the Celtic races women have always counted peculiarly:
and there are signs that they will count even more in time to
come. St. Bridget (Brigit, Bride, Breed), then, is the type for all
time of the Celtic womanhood dowered with divine inspiration,
poetry, and charm. The following variant on an old Gaelic poem is
by Miss Fiona Macleod (From the Hills of Dream'): -
ST. BRIDGET'S MILKING SONG
sweet St. Bride of the
Yellow, yellow hair:
Paul said, and Peter said,
And all the saints alive or dead
O
Vowed she had the sweetest head,
Bonnie sweet St. Bride of the
Yellow, yellow hair.
White may my milking be,
White as thee:
Thy face is white, thy neck is white,
Thy hands are white, thy feet are white,
For thy sweet soul is shining bright—
O dear to me,
O dear to see,
St. Bridget white!
Yellow may my butter be,
Soft and round:
Thy breasts are sweet,
Soft, round, and sweet,
So may my butter be:
So may my butter be, O
Bridget sweet!
Safe thy way is, safe, O
Safe, St. Bride:
May my kye come home at even,
None be fallin', none be leavin',
## p. 3430 (#404) ###########################################
3430
CELTIC LITERATURE
Dusky even, breath-sweet even,
Here, as there, where, O
St. Bride, thou
Keepest tryst with God in heaven,
Seest the angels bow,
And souls be shriven --
Here, as there, 'tis breath-sweet even,
Far and wide-
Singeth thy little maid,
Safe in thy shade,
Bridget, Bride!
Passing from the early legendary hagiological chronicles of the
Scots Gaels, we come to a period when the reader must be content
to go again to Irish sources for his knowledge of the continuators of
Gaelic literature. What we have said previously of the Irish may be
referred to here. The mediæval scribes and bards busied themselves
mainly with reproducing the past, though with a vivid coloring out
of their own living present. When we have referred all of their
subject-matter dealing with the saints and heroic figures of primitive
history to its own period, all that remains is curiously little. Unfor-
tunately, it is less than it might have been, if it had not been for
the terrible and often wanton destruction of MSS. which has bereft
us, in Scotland especially, of some of the richest treasures the Celtic
genius has produced. It is only needed to instance the tailor who
was found cutting up an ancient MS. for patterns, to show how
almost inconceivably wholesale the havoc thus done has been in the
last six centuries.
Some of the most interesting and valuable of the Scottish con-
tributions to Gaelic literature are in what we may call ballad form.
Such is the tragic tale of 'Deirdrê,' in the Glen-mason MS. (thirteenth
century), which is preserved in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh.
Others again are versions of poems correspondent to those given,
for instance, in the Book of the Dean of Lismore. ' Of this heroic
poetry much would have been lost if it had not been for the zeal of
collectors, who for the last five centuries have been collecting in old
MSS. or from the mouths of the Highlanders the ballads and tales
of old time. "The last and greatest of the ballad and tale collect-
ors," says Mr. MacNeill, was Mr. Campbell, who in 1859-60 trav-
ersed the whole Gaelic area; and assisted by intelligent Highlanders
formed large collections, of which he has given a considerable quan-
tity to the world in his four volumes of tales. Ali these are gen-
uine productions. " We may quote further what the same writer
says of the uncertain chronology of these ballads: -"They may have
## p. 3431 (#405) ###########################################
CELTIC LITERATURE
3431
been composed centuries before they were committed to writing.
We have fragments, such as the Glen-mason MS. , written as early as
the twelfth century, in the hand and language common to the learned
in both Albin and Erin at the time. The Book of the Dean of Lis-
more, however, is written phonetically to represent the spoken lan-
guage of his day, and is mainly in the Perthshire dialect. " Cuculain
and many other of the heroes that we mentioned in our Irish article
reappear in these ballads; and in them the Féinne fight out their
ancient battles to the bitter end. A new and rather different color-
ing is lent, too, to the Scottish ballads by the Norse element, and
the constant wars in which the Vikings and the Gaels encountered
time after time lend some of their finest episodes to this poetry.
If we turn from the ballads to the prose tales and romances, we
find the same strong resemblances and the same significant differ-
ences. The Irish have always the more fluent and eloquent a
faculty in prose and verse. Their adjectival energy is greater; they
are more given to extravagances of style, both in point of sentiment
and of humor. The Scotch are on the other hand more simple
and more terse, and they touch the deeper notes of pathos and of
mystery more often. Nothing more instructive can be devised for
the Celtic student than to take the volumes in verse and prose
representing the three Celtic lands, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and to
compare their style, method, and literary idiosyncrasies. For this
comparison Mr. Campbell's wonderful 'Tales of the West Highlands,'
in prose, and in verse his 'Leabhar na Féinne,' may be cited, with
works of Dr. Hyde, Mr. Standish Hayes O'Grady, Dr. Joyce, in
Irish; and in Welsh, the 'Mabinogion' in Lady Guest's exquisite
English version, or the 'Myvyrian Archæology. '
In the fourteenth century, which gave Dafydd ap Gwilym to
Wales, we find Gaelic becoming more definitely a conscious literary
language. But the Dafydd of Scotland came more than a century
earlier, being born at the end of the twelfth century. This was the
famous Muireadach Albannach (Murdoch the Scot), several of whose
poems figure in the Dean of Lismore's book, and whose effect on
succeeding bards was only less powerful than Dafydd's on his Welsh
successors. The Dean's book has poems, too, by two woman poets:
Efric, wife of the last of the famous MacNeills of Castle Sween, and
Isabel, Countess of Argyle. Efric's lament for her husband contains
some touching lines; e. g. : —
"There's no heart among our women;
At the sport, no men are seen;
Like the sky when windless, silent
Is the music of Dun Sween! »
## p. 3432 (#406) ###########################################
CELTIC LITERATURE
3432
Sir Duncan Campbell, "Duncan Mac Cailem, the good knight,"
son of Sir Colin, is another of the poets in Dean Macgregor's collec-
tion; but perhaps we ought to pause here to say a word of the Dean
himself. "Sailing in among the inner Hebridean Isles," says Mr. Mac-
Neill, "we find in the fertile island of Lismore -'the great garden'
-a man in the fifteenth century often referred to in Gaelic litera-
ture: the Rev. Mr. James Macgregor. A native of Perthshire, .
with a heart filled with the enthusiasm and perfervid spirit of his
countrymen, he and his brother got up the collection of songs and
ballads" to which we have had occasion so often to refer. But we
must pass on now to the later period of Gaelic literature, in which the
modern developments have their beginning. The Scots Gael entered
on a new phase, we are told, with Mary MacLeod (Mairi ni'n Alastair
Ruaidh), who was born at Harris in 1569, and died a centenarian in
Skye in 1674. Mairi was as perfect an example of the folk-minstrel
as Celtic literature can provide; for she could not even write, al-
though her prosody is elaborate, and her metres often intricate and
original to a degree. The first of the distinctively Jacobite bards,
who flourished at the end of the seventeenth and through the eigh-
teenth century, was John MacDonald, whose 'Battle of Inverlochy' has
been vigorously translated by Professor Blackie. Hector Maclean;
Roderick Morrison, called An Clarsair Dall, or the Blind Harper;
John Maclean, whose songs were heard by Dr. Samuel Johnson and
Boswell on their journey to the Hebrides; and John MacCodrum (a
poet whose wit and satiric powers remind us not a little of more than
one of the Welsh satirical bards), are among the poets of this time
who specially deserve note.
In the eighteenth century, Gaelic Scotland produced some remark-
able religious poets, including David MacKellar, author of the well-
known 'MacKellar's Hymn'; John Mackay; Donal Matheson, who had
satirical as well as religious power; Lauchlan Maclauchlan; and
Dugald Buchanan.
The great link between the eighteenth and the nineteenth centu-
ries is Duncan Ban Macintyre, "a name loved throughout the High-
lands and Islands. " The Hunter Bard of Glenorchy, as he is often
called, though his best title is the affectionate Gaelic "Duncan of
the Songs," was born on the 20th of March, 1724, at Druimliaghart
in Glenorchy, Argyll. His first song was composed on a sword with
which he was armed at the battle of Falkirk - where he served on
the Royalist side as substitute for a neighboring gentleman.
"This sword," says his biographer, Thomas Pattison, "the poet lost or
threw away in the retreat. On his return home therefore the gentleman to
whom it belonged, and whose substitute he had been, refused to pay the
sum for which he had engaged Duncan Ban to serve in his stead. Duncan
## p. 3433 (#407) ###########################################
CELTIC LITERATURE
3433
consequently composed his song on The Battle of the Speckled Kirk’-
-as
Falkirk is called in Gaelic-in which he good-humoredly satirized the gentle-
man who had sent him to the war, and gave a woful description of the black
sword that worked the turmoil,' and whose loss, he says, made its owner
'as fierce and furious as a gray brock in his den. ' The song immediately
became popular, and incensed his employer so much that he suddenly fell
upon the poor poet one day with his walking-stick, and striking him on the
back, bade him 'go and make a song about that. ' He was however after-
ward compelled by the Earl of Breadalbane to pay the bard the sum of 300
merks Scots (£16, 17s. 6d. ), which was his legal due. »
Duncan ended his days in Edinburgh, where he died in 1812,- one
of the last links of the moving record of the early eighteenth century
and its Jacobite associations.
Duncan was a contemporary of Macpherson's, and with Macpher-
son and his 'Ossian,' to which a special article is devoted elsewhere,
we may well leave our chronicle, forbearing to touch on the debat-
able ground of later and contemporary Celtic literature in Scotland.
Enough to say that Duncan Ban Macintyre has no lack of worthy
followers in Gaelic poetry, and that with the Anglo-Celtic develop-
ment, associated with such names as Dr. Norman Macleod, Professor
Blackie, Robert Buchanan, George MacDonald, William Black, and,
among new-comers, Miss Fiona Macleod and Mr. Neil Munro, there
seems every prospect that the Gaelic spirit promises to achieve
greatly in the new centuries to come.
The first selection is from the 'Sean Dana,' or Ancient Poems,
collected, or rather written (from oral legendary lore and ballads), by
Dr. John Smith, late in the eighteenth century.
PROLOGUE TO GAUL
ow mournful is the silence of Night
H
When she pours her dark clouds over the valleys!
Sleep has overcome the youth of the chase:
He slumbers on the heath, and his dog at his knee.
The children of the mountain he pursues
In his dream, while sleep forsakes him.
Slumber, ye children of fatigue;
Star after star is now ascending the height.
Slumber! thou swift dog and nimble-
Ossian will arouse thee not from thy repose.
Lonely I keep watch,—
And dear to me is the gloom of night
When I travel from glen to glen,
With no hope to behold a morning or brightness.
## p. 3434 (#408) ###########################################
CELTIC LITERATURE
3434
Spare thy light, O Sun!
Waste not thy lamps so fast.
Generous is thy soul as the King of Morven's:
But thy renown shall yet fade;
Spare thy lamps of a thousand flames
In thy blue hall, when thou retirest
Under thy dark-blue gates to sleep,
Beneath the dark embraces of the storm.
Spare them, ere thou art forsaken for ever,
As I am, without one whom I may love!
Spare them, for there is not a hero now
To behold the blue flame of the beautiful lamps!
―
Ah, Cona of the precious lights,
Thy lamps burn dimly now:
Thou art like a blasted oak:
Thy dwellings and thy people are gone
East or west; on the face of thy mountain,
There shall be no more found of them but the trace!
In Selma, Tara, or Temora
There is not a song, a shell, or a harp;
They have all become green mounds;
Their stones have fallen into their own meadows;
The stranger from the deep or the desert
Will never behold them rise above the clouds.
And O Selma! home of my delight,
Is this heap my ruin,
Where grows the thistle, the heather, and the wild grass ?
The following lines of St. Columba are taken from the 'Lyra
Celtica, cited above:-
COLUMCILLE FECIT
(ST. COLUMBA MADE IT)
D
ELIGHTFUL Would it be to me to be in Uchd Ailiun
On the pinnacle of a rock,
That I might often see
The face of the ocean;
That I might see its heaving waves
Over the wide ocean,
When they chant music to their Father
Upon the world's course;
## p. 3435 (#409) ###########################################
CELTIC LITERATURE
That I might see its level sparkling strand,
It would be no cause of sorrow;
That I might hear the song of the wonderful birds,
Source of happiness;
That I might hear the thunder of the crowding waves
Upon the rocks;
That I might hear the roar by the side of the church
Of the surrounding sea;
That I might see its noble flocks
Over the watery ocean;
That I might see the sea monsters,
The greatest of all wonders;
That I might see its ebb and flood
In their career;
That my mystical name might be, I say,
Cul ri Erin [Back turned to Ireland];
That contrition might come upon my heart
Upon looking at her;
That I might bewail my evils all,
Though it were difficult to compute them;
That I might bless the Lord
Who conserves all,
3435
Heaven with its countless bright orders,
Land, strand, and flood;
That I might search the books all,
That would be good for my soul;
At times kneeling to beloved Heaven;
At times psalm-singing;
At times contemplating the King of Heaven,
Holy the chief;
At times at work without compulsion,
This would be delightful;
At times plucking duilisc from the rocks;
At times at fishing;
At times giving food to the poor;
At times in a carcair [solitary cell]:
The best advice in the presence of God
To me has been vouchsafed.
The King whose servant I am will not let
Anything deceive me.
The third selection is an example of later Gaelic. This stirring
Hebridean poem is sometimes spoken of as from the ancient Gaelic.
## p. 3436 (#410) ###########################################
3436
CELTIC LITERATURE
Probably by this is meant merely old Gaelic, medieval or even later.
The translation is by Mr. Thomas Pattison, and is included in his
'Gaelic Bards. ' He has the following note upon it:
:-
«This effusion, although in its original form it is only a kind of wild
chant, almost indeed half prose, yet is the germ of the ballad.
It occurs
in many of the tales contained in that collection,— the repository of old Gaelic
lore, the Popular Tales of the West Highlands,' sometimes more and some-
times less perfect. The original will be found in the second volume of the
The vigorous and elastic spirit that pervades these verses
must have strung the heart of many a hardy mariner, who loved to feel
the fresh and briny breeze drive his snoring birlinn bounding like a living
creature over the tumbling billows of the inland loch, or the huge swell of
the majestic main. "
Tales.
―
WⓇ
-
IN HEBRID SEAS
E TURNED her prow into the sea,
Her stern into the shore,
And first we raised the tall tough masts,
And then the canvas hoar;
Fast filled our towering cloud-like sails,
For the wind came from the land,
And such a wind as we might choose
Were the winds at our command:
A breeze that rushing down the hill
Would strip the blooming heather,
Or rustling through the green-clad grove,
Would whirl its leaves together.
But when it seized the aged saugh,
With the light locks of gray,
It tore away its ancient root,
And there the old trunk lay!
It raised the thatch too from the roof,
And scattered it along;
Then tossed and whirled it through the air,
Singing a pleasant song.
:-
It heaped the ruins on the land:-
Though sire and son stood by,
They could no help afford, but gaze
With wan and troubled eye!
## p. 3437 (#411) ###########################################
CELTIC LITERATURE
A flap, a flash, the green roll dashed,
And laughed against the red;
Upon our boards, now here, now there,
It knocked its foamy head.
She could have split a slender straw,
So clean and well she went,
As still obedient to the helm
Her stately course she bent.
We watched the big beast eat the small,
The small beast nimbly fly,
And listened to the plunging eels,
The sea-gull's clang on high.
We had no other music
To cheer us on our way:
Till round those sheltering hills we passed
And anchored in this bay.
III
WELSH
THE laws governing the life of languages are as elusive as those
that decide the fate of races and empires. Why is the Welsh tongue
still alive and vigorous, and the Irish (pace Dr. Douglas Hyde) mori-
bund? It is a difficult question, but some light on it may be had by
traversing the early history of Welsh literature.
The like difficulty meets us in both Welsh and Irish: that of
deciding how far the medieval scribes and scholars doctored the
older material which fell into their hands. But in Welsh, the sepa-
element is often even a
-
3437
ration of the primitive from the medieval
more difficult task than in Irish.
In sketching the early course of Welsh literature, we cannot do
better than turn to the striking instance afforded by the name and
fame of Merlin. In legendary Welsh history, Merlin appears under
almost as many guises as he does in the pages of Malory's 'Morte
d'Arthur. ' Merddin Emrys (Ambrosius), Merddin Sylvester (Merlin
the Wild), Merddin ab Morvryn (or Merlin Caledonius),- his name
and fame vary according to the chronicler. Of these, Merlin the son
of Morvryn, the most tangible in the list, was also known as Caledo-
nius, because the Kymry of the sixth century lived in that greater
Wales which ranged as far north as the Caledonian Forest. After
the terrible battle of Arderydd, Merlin, having seen his kindred all
but obliterated, was seized, tradition tells us, with a frenzy, and
## p. 3438 (#412) ###########################################
3438
CELTIC LITERATURE
thereafter his bardic utterances assumed a more and more mystical
and oracular form. This, added to his mysterious and magnetic per-
sonality and wildly impressive personal presence, may well have led
on in process of time, by gradual legendary accretions, to the final
conception of a Merlin miraculous, supernatural, dæmonic! However
this may be, nothing can be more instructive than to compare the
late Merlin with the early Merlin, and to trace his phases in Welsh
folk-tale, and define his poetry finally in the pages of the 'Black
Book of Carmarthen. ’
The 'Black Book of Carmarthen,' in its strikingly decorative
black and red manuscript, makes a wonderful testament of old
Welsh poetry. If we could solve all its problems and read all that
is written between its lines, we should be very near the great secret
of the Druidic religion and of Celtic mythology, as well as the
secret of Merlin's actual and imaginary effect in Welsh literature.
The battle of Arderydd has been cited above as a determining
event in Merlin's history. The opening poem in the 'Black Book of
Carmarthen' is a remarkable rhymed dialogue between Merlin and
Taliesin, some of whose lines are extremely imaginative and touch-
ing in their archaic simplicity. Merlin begins:-
"How sad is Merlin now! how sad!
Keduyf and Kadvan—are they dead?
The furious slaughter filled the field,
And pierced was the Tryrwyd shield! »
Taliesin replies:-
"His house-folk did not falter in the fight! "
So it goes on, telling of the battle and its consequences, until one
reaches at the end that mysterious verse which haunts the imagina-
tion and the ear of the reader. Merlin again speaks:-
"Sevenscore chieftains
Were turned into spirits;
In the wood of Celyddon
Were they transformed.
The wood of Celyddon is the Caledonian Forest. So far as these
excerpts go, they might seem to be the writing of the real Merlin.
There is internal evidence however that this poem, the much dis-
puted poem of the 'Apple-trees,' and others that follow it in the
'Black Book,' were written not earlier than the twelfth century.
Stephens, usually an acute critic, imputes in his 'Literature of the
Kymry these poems to Gwalchmai and other bards of later date.
## p. 3439 (#413) ###########################################
CELTIC LITERATURE
3439
But even so, these poets evidently founded their poems upon earlier
ones, traditionally handed on as Merlin's.
From such later sources as the 'Myvyrian Archæology,' or Skene's
'Four Ancient Books of Wales,' or the admirable Oxford texts edited
by Professor Rhys and Mr. Gwenogfvyn Evans, one can rehabilitate
at will the Merlin of the 'Black Book of Carmarthen,' much as
Villemarqué has done after a fashion quite his own. Enough will
so be certainly discovered to outline a primitive Merlin, an original
sixth-century Merlin, under the impressive mediæval robes of the
Latin-Welsh romantic chroniclers and poets. Enough too will be
made clear to show a basis of myth and prehistoric legend behind
the remotest recorded name, time, or place that can be counted
historical.
The same is true of Taliesin, who appears, by the poetical remains
attributed to him,- some of them clearly medieval, others just as
clearly primitive, — even more interesting as a poet than Merlin.
Just as there are several Merlins, however, there are two Taliesins:
there is the fifth-century Taliesin, and there is the pseudo-Taliesin
of the twelfth. Both are wonderful in their way, and one knows not
which to admire most -him who wrote the 'Battle of Gwenystrad,' .
which is undoubtedly a primitive war song, or the medieval poet
who chose to take the disguise of Taliesin, and taking too, probably,
some of the traditional fragments of his early poetry, worked them
up afresh with curious mediæval art and mystic imagination. For
comparison let us take an early and a late poem, commonly gath-
ered, as in the 'Myvyrian Archæology,' under one head.
Take first one of the later poems, the mystical Song to the
Wind,' which even in its English dress won Emerson's admiration,
and which, if we allow for all differences between medieval and
modern imagination, is as wonderful a poem of its kind as any litera-
ture is likely to afford. As it is given among our selections, it need
not be quoted here. In point of time it is usual to assign it,
as Stephens does, to the twelfth or thirteenth century. But it
seems to me to bear traces again of being an older, more primitive
poem, retouched certainly, and probably reshaped, by a twelfth-
century poet. And now for a genuine Taliesin, or what at any rate
many critics think to be genuine. This you may have in the famous
'Gwaith Gwenystrad' (Battle of Gwenystrad), one of the most spir-
ited war poems in existence, copied and recopied by a long succession
of Kymric scribes, and which the writer came upon first in the MS.
collection of William Morris o Gaergybi yn Mon, who flourished
about 1758. Here are four lines of Morris's copy literatim, which
will give a better idea than any criticism of mine of the mingled
realism and imagination of the poem:-
## p. 3440 (#414) ###########################################
3440
CELTIC LITERATURE
"Yn nrws rhyd gwelais i wyr lledruddion,
Eirf ddillwng y rhag blawr gofedon,
Unynt tanc gan aethant golludion,
Llaw ynghroes gryd ygro granwynion. »
And here is a rough, vigorous translation of these lines from the
same volume:-
"In the pass of
their arms.
. .
