But there was yet another era consecrated6 in story-telling, another age of history peopled by other characters, in which the households of many chieftains and some even of the chiefs themselves delighted. These are pictured in the romances that were woven around Conn of the Hundred Battles, his son Art[Pg 364] the Lonely, his grandson Cormac mac Art, and his great-grandson Cairbré of the Liffey. This cycle of romance may be called the "Fenian" Cycle, as dealing7 to some extent with Finn mac Cúmhail and his Fenian[2] militia8, or the "Ossianic" Cycle since Ossian, Finn's son, is supposed to have been the author of many of the poems which belong to it.
In point of time—as reckoned by the Irish annalists and historians—the men of the Fenian Cycle lived something over two hundred years later than those of the Cuchulain era[3] and in none of the romances do we see even the faintest confusion or sign of intermingling the characters belonging to the different cycles. One of the surest proofs—if proof were needed—that Macpherson's brilliant "Ossian" had no Gaelic[Pg 365] original, is the way in which the men and events of the two separate cycles are jumbled9 together.
As the war between Ulster and Connacht, which followed the death of the children of Usnach, is the great historic event which serves as basis to so many of the Red Branch romances, so the principal thread of history round which many of the Fenian stories are woven, is the gradual and slowly increasing enmity which proclaimed itself between the High-kings of Erin and their Fenian cohorts, resulting at last in the battle of Gabhra, the fall of the High-king, and the destruction of the Fenians.
Thus in the battle of Cnucha is related how Cúmhail[4] [Cool], the father of Finn, made war upon Conn of the Hundred Battles because he had raised Criomhthan of the Yellow Hair to the throne of Leinster, and how he obtained the aid of the Munster princes in the war. At the battle of Cnucha or Castleknock, near Cool's rath—now Rathcoole some ten miles from Dublin—Cool was routed and slain10 by the celebrated11 Connacht champion Aedh mac Morna, who lost an eye in the battle and was thenceforth called Goll (or the blind)[5] mac Morna. Many of the Munster Fenians followed Cool in this battle, and we find here the broadening rift13 between the Fenians of Munster and of Connacht which ultimately tended to bring about the dissolution of the whole body.
Again we find in the fine tale called the Battle of Moy Muchruime how Finn, through spite at his father Cool being thus killed by Conn of the Hundred Battles, kept out of the way when Conn's son Art was fighting the great battle of Moy Muchruime and gave him no assistance.
And again it was partly because Finn kept out of the way on that occasion that Conn's great-grandson fought the battle[Pg 366] of Gabhra against Finn's son Ossian and his grandson Oscar, a battle which put an end to Fenian power for ever.
Of many of these tales we find two redactions, that of the old vellum MSS. and that of the modern paper ones, the latter being as a rule much longer and more decorative14. Here, for instance, is the later version of one passage out of many which is slurred15 over or disregarded in the old one[6]; it is the sailing of Cúmhail, Finn's father, to Ireland to take the throne of Leinster. I translate this from a modern manuscript of the battle of Cnucha, in my own possession, as a good instance of the decorative, and in places inflated16 style of the later redactions of many of the Fenian sagas18.
THE SAILING OF CúMHAIL.
"Now the place where Cúmhail chanced to be at that time was between the islands of Alba and the deserts of Fionn-Lochlan, for he was hunting and deer-stalking there. And the number of those who were with the over-throwing hero Cúmhail in that place, was thrice fifty champions of his own near men. And he heard at that time that his country was left without any good king to defend it, and that Cáthaoir Mór [king of Leinster] had fallen in the pen of battle, and that there was no hero to keep the country. Thereupon, those chieftains were of a mind to proceed unto the isolated19 green isle20 of Erin, there to maintain with valour and might the red-hand province of Leinster. And joyfully21 they proceeded straight forwards towards their ship.[7]
"And there they quickly and expeditiously22 launched the towering,[Pg 367] wide-wombed, broad-sailed bark, the freighted full-wide, fair-broad, firm-roped vessel23, and they grasped their shapely well-formed broad-bladed, well-prepared oars24, and they made a powerful sea-great, dashing, dry-quick rowing over the broad hollow-deep, full-foamed, pools [of the sea], and over the vast-billowed, vehement25, hollow-broken rollers, so that they shot their shapely ships under the penthouse of each fair rock in the shallows nigh to the rough-bordered margin26 of the Eastern lands, over the unsmooth, great-forming, lively-waved arms of the sea, so that each fierce, broad, constant-foaming, bright-spotted, white-broken drop that the heroes left upon the sea-pool with that rapid rowing, formed [themselves] like great torrents27 upon soft mountains.
"When that valiant28 powerful company perceived the moaning of the loud billow-waves and the breaking forth12 of the ocean from her barriers, and the swelling29 of the abyss from her places, and the loud convulsion of the sea from her smooth streams, it was then they hoisted30 the variegated31, tough-cordaged, sharp-pointed mast with much speed. And when the great foundation-blasts of the angry wind touched the even upright-standing32, sword-straight masts, and when the huge-flying, loud-voiced, broad-bordered sails swallowed the wind attacking them suddenly with sharp voice, that stout33, strong, active, powerful crew rose up promptly34 and quickly, and every one went straight to his work with speed and promptitude, and they stretched forth their ready courageous35, white-coloured, brown-nailed hands most valiantly36 to the tackling, till they let the wind in loud, sharp, fast, voice-bursts into the shrouds37 of the mast, so that the ship gave an eager, very quick, vigorous leap forward, right straight into the salt-ocean, till they arrived in the delightfully-clear, cold-pooled, querulously-whistling, joyfully-calling reaches of the sea, and the dark sea rose speedily around them in desperate-daring floodful doisleana, in hardly-separated ridges38 and in rough-grey, proud-tongued, gloomy-grim, blue-capacious valleys, and in impetuous shower-topped wombs [of water]; and the great merriment of the cold wind was answered by the chieftains, strong-workingly, stout-enduringly, truly-powerfully, and they proceeded to manage and attend the high-ocean, until at last the strong and powerful sea overcame the intention of the high wind, and the murmur39 and giddy voice of the deep was humbled40 by that great rowing, till the sea became restful, smooth, and very calm behind them, until they took port and harbour at Inver Cholpa, which is at this time called Drogheda."
The stories about Cormac mac Art, his grandfather Conn of the Hundred Battles, and his son Cairbré of the Liffey,[Pg 368] which are numerous, are mostly more or less connected with the Fenians, and may, as they deal with the same era and the same characters, be conveniently classed along with the Fenian sagas. One of the best known of these sagas is the Battle of Moy Léana[8] in which Conn of the Hundred Battles slew42 his rival Owen, who had forced from him half his kingdom. Owen had lived for six years in Spain, and had married a daughter of the Spanish king. At the end of this time he was seized with great home-sickness and he proposed to return to Ireland. When his father-in-law heard this, he said to him:—
"If that Erin of which you speak, Owen, were a thing easily moved, we would deem it easier to send the soldiers and warriors44 of Spain with you thither45 to cut it from its foundation and lay it on wheels and carry it after our ships and place it a one angle of Spain"—a grandiloquent46 speech which Owen did not relish47; "He did not receive it with satisfaction, and it was not sweet to him," says the saga17.
The King perceived this however, and offered him just what he wanted, two thousand warriors to help him and his exiles in acquiring the kingdom. The account of their embarcation and voyage is perhaps as good a specimen48 of exaggerated verbosity49 and of the rhetoric50 of the professed51 story-teller as any other in these sagas, which abound52 with such things, and it is perhaps worth while to give it at length. It will be seen that the story-teller or prose-poet, passes everything through the prism of his imagination, and aided by an extraordinary exuberance53 of vocabulary and unbounded wealth of alliterative adjectives, wraps the commonest objects in a hurricane of—to use his own phrase—"misty54-dripping" epithet55. The Battle of Moy Léana is recorded in the Annals of Ulster, by Flann in the eleventh century, and by the Book of Leinster, and no doubt the essence of the saga is very ancient, but the[Pg 369] dressing56-up of it, and especially the passage I am about to quote, is, in its style—not to speak of the language which is modern—almost certainly post-Norman.
THE SAILING OF OWEN MóR.
"Then that vindictive57 unmerciful host went forward to the harbours and ports where their vessels58 and their sailing ships awaited them; and they launched their terrible wonderful monsters; their black, dangerous, many-coloured ships; their smooth, proper-sided, steady, powerful scuds59, and their cunningly-stitched Laoidheangs from their beds and from their capacious, full-smooth places, out of the cool clear-winding60 creeks61 of the coast, and from the calm, quiet, well-shaped, broad-headed harbours, and there were placed upon every swift-going ship of them free and accurately62 arranged tiers of fully-smoothed, long-bladed oars, and they made a harmonious63, united, co-operating, thick-framed, eager-springing, unhesitating, constant-going rowing against currents and wild tempests, so that loud, haughty64, proud-minded, were the responses of the stout, fierce-fronted, sportive-topped billows in conversing65 with the scuds and beautiful prows66.
"The dark, impetuous, proud, ardent67 waters became as white-streaked, fierce-rolling, languid-fatigued68 Leibhiona, upon which to cast the white-flanked, slippery, thick, straight-swimming salmon70, among the dark-prowling, foamy-tracked heads [of sea monsters] from off the brown oars.
"And upon that fleet, sweeping71 with sharp rapidity from the sides and borders of the territories, and from the shelter of the lands, and from the calm quiet of the shores, they could see nothing of the globe on their border near them, but the high, proud, tempestuous72 waves of the abyss, and the rough, roaring shore, shaking and quivering, and the very-quick, swift motion of the great wind coming upon them, and long-swelling, gross-springing, great billows rising over the swelling sides of the [sea] valleys, and the savage73, dangerous, shower-crested sea, maintaining its strength against the rapid course of the vessels over the expanse, until at last it became exhausted74, subdued75, drizzling76 and misty, from the conflict of the waves and fierce winds.
"The labouring crews derived77 increased spirits from the bounding of the swift ships over the wide expanse, and the wind coming from the rear, directly fair for the brave men, they arose manfully and vigorously to their work, and lashed78 the tough, new masts to the brown, smooth, ample, commodious79 bulwarks80, without weakness,[Pg 370] without spraining82, without overstraining. Those ardent, expert crews put their hands to the long linen83 [sails] without shrinking, without mistake, from Eibhil to Achtuaim, and the swift-going, long, capacious ships, passed from the hand-force of the warriors, and over the deep, wet, murmuring pools of the sea, and past the winding, bending, fierce-showery points of the harbours, and over the high-torrented, ever-great mountains of the brine, and over the heavy, listless walls of the great waves, and past the dark, misty-dripping hollows of the shores, and past the saucy84, thick-flanked, spreading, white-crested currents of the streams, and over the spring-tide, contentious85, furious, wet, overwhelming fragments of the cold ocean, until the sea became rocking like a soft, fragrant86, proud-bearing plain, swelling and heaving to the force of the anger and fury of the cold winds.
"The upper elements quickly perceived the anger and fury of the sea growing and increasing. Woe87 indeed was it to have stood between those two powers, the sea and the great wind when mutually attacking each other, and contending at the sides of strong ships and stout-built vessels and beautiful scuds. So that the sea was in showery-tempestuous, growling88, wet, fierce, loud, clamorous89, dangerous stages after them, whilst the excitement of the murmuring dark-deeded wind continued in the face and in the sluices90 of the ocean from its bottom to its surface. And tremulous, listless, long-disjointed, quick-shattering, ship-breaking, was the effect of the disturbance91, and treacherous92 the shivering of the winds and the rolling billows upon the swift barks, for the tempest did not leave them a plank93 unshaken, nor a hatch unstarted, nor a rope unsnapped, nor a nail unstrained, nor a bulwark81 unendangered, nor a bed unshattered, nor a lifting uncast-down, nor a mast unshivered, nor a yard untwisted, nor a sail untorn, nor a warrior43 unhurt, nor a soldier unterrified, nor a noble unstunned—excepting the ardour and sailorship of the brave men who attended to the attacks and howlings of the fierce wind.
"However, now, when the wind had exhausted its valour and had not received reverence94 nor honour from the sea, it went forward, stupid and crestfallen96, to the uppermost regions of its residence; and the sea was fatigued from its roarings and drunken murmurings, and the wild billows ceased their motions, so that spirit returned to he nobles and strength to the hosts, and activity to the warriors, and strength to the champions. And they sailed onwards in that order without delay or accident until they reached the sheltered smooth harbour of Cealga and the shore of the island of Greagraidhe."
Who or what the Fenians were, has given rise to the greatest diversity of opinion. The school of Mr. Nutt and Professor[Pg 371] Rhys would, I fancy, recognise in them nothing but tribal97 deities98, euhemerised or regarded as men.[9] Dr. Skene and Mr. Mac Ritchie believed that they were an altogether separate race of men from the Gaels, probably allied99 to, or identical with, the Picts of history; and the latter holds that they are the sidhe [shee] or fairy folk of the Gaels. The native Irish, on the other hand, who were perfectly100 acquainted with the Picts, and tell us much about them, have always regarded the Fenians as being nothing more or less than a body of janissaries or standing troops of Gaelic and Firbolg families, maintained during several reigns101 by the Irish kings, a body which tended to become hereditary102. Nor is there in this account anything inherently impossible or improbable, especially as the Fenian régime synchronises with a time when the Irish were probably aggressively warlike. Keating, writing in Irish about the year 1630, gives the traditional account of them as he gathered it from ancient books and other authorities now lost, and this certainly preserves some ancient and unique traits. He begins[Pg 372] by rejecting the ridiculous stories told about them, such as the battle of Ventry and the like, as well as the remarks of Campion and of Buchanan, who in his history of Scotland had called Finn a giant.
"It is proved," writes Keating, "that their persons were of no extraordinary size compared with the men that lived in their own times, and moreover that they were nothing more than members of a body of buanadha or retained soldiers, maintained by the Irish kings for the purpose of guarding their territories and of upholding their authority therein. It is thus that captains and soldiers are at present maintained by all modern kings for the purpose of defending their rule and guarding their countries.
"The members of the Fenian Body lived in the following manner. They were quartered on the people from November Day till May Day, and their duty was to uphold justice and to put down injustice103 on the part of the kings and lords of Ireland, and also to guard the harbours of the country from the oppression of foreign invaders104. After that, from May till November, they lived by hunting and the chase, and by performing the duties demanded of them by the kings of Ireland, such as preventing robberies, exacting105 fines and tributes, putting down public enemies, and every other kind of evil that might afflict106 the country. In performing these duties they received a certain fixed107 pay....
"However, from May till November the Fenians had to content themselves with game, the product of their own hunting, as this [right to hunt] was their maintenance and pay from the kings of Ireland. That is, the warriors had the flesh of the wild animals for their food, and the skins for wages. During the whole day, from morning till night they used to eat but one meal, and of this it was their wont108 to partake towards evening. About noon they used to send whatever game they had killed in the morning by their attendants to some appointed hill where there were wood and moorland close by. There they used to light immense fires, into which they put a large quantity of round sandstones. They next dug two pits in the yellow clay of the moor109, and having set part of the venison upon spits to be roasted before the fire they bound up the remainder with sugàns—ropes of straw or rushes—in bundles of sedge, and then placed them to be cooked in one of the pits they had previously110 dug. There they set the stones which they had before this heated in the fire, round about them, and kept heaping them upon the bundles of meat until they had made them seethe111 freely, and the meat had become thoroughly112 cooked. From the greatness of these fires it has[Pg 373] resulted that their sites are still to be recognised in many parts of Ireland by their burnt blackness. It is they that are commonly called Fualachta na bhFiann, or the Fenians' cooking-spots.
"As to the warriors of the Fenians, when they were assembled at the place where their fires had been lighted, they used to gather round the second of those pits of which we have spoken above, and there every man stripped himself to his skin, tied his tunic113 round his waist, and then set to dressing his hair and cleansing114 his limbs, thus ridding himself of the sweat and soil of the day's hunt. Then they began to supple115 their thews and muscles by gentle exercise, loosening them by friction116, until they had relieved themselves of all sense of stiffness and fatigue69. When they had finished doing this they sat down and ate their meal. That being over, they set about constructing their fiann-bhotha or hunting-booths, and preparing their beds, and so put themselves in train for sleep. Of the following three materials did each man construct his bed, of the brushwood of the forest, of moss117, and of fresh rushes. The brushwood was laid next the ground, over it was placed the moss, and lastly fresh rushes were spread over all. It is these three materials that are designated in our old romances as the tri Cuilcedha na bhFiann—the three Beddings of the Fenians."
Every man who entered the Fenian ranks had four geasa [gassa, i.e., tabus] laid upon him,
"The first, never to receive a portion with a wife, but to choose her for good manners and virtues118; the second, never to offer violence to any woman; the third, never to refuse any one for anything he might possess; the fourth, that no single warrior should ever flee before nine [i.e., before less than ten] champions."
There was a curious condition attached to entrance into the brotherhood119 which rendered it necessary that
"Both his father and mother, his tribe, and his relatives should first give guarantees that they should never make any charge against any person for his death. This was in order that the duty of avenging120 his own blood [wounds] should rest with no man other than himself, and in order that his friends should have nothing to claim with respect to him however great the evils inflicted121 upon him."
All the Fenians were obliged to know the rules of poetry,[10][Pg 374] for no figure in Irish antiquity122, layman123 or cleric, could ever arrive at the rank of a popular hero unless he could compose, or at least appreciate a poem.
The Fenian tales and poems are extraordinarily124 numerous, but their conception and characteristics are in general distinctly different from those relating to the Red Branch. They have not the same sweep, the same vastness and stature125, the same weirdness126, as the older cycle. The majority of them are more modern in conception and surroundings. There is little or no mention of the war chariot which is so important a factor in the older cycle. The Fenians fought on foot or horseback, and we meet, too, frequent mention of helmets and mail-coats, which are post-Danish touches. Things are on a smaller scale. Exaggeration does not run all through the stories, but is confined to small parts of them, and it is set off by much that is trivial or humorous.
The Fenian stories became in later times the distinctly popular ones. They were far more of the people and for the[Pg 375] people than those of the Red Branch. They were most intimately bound up with the life and thought and feelings of the whole Gaelic race, high and low, both in Ireland and Scotland, and the development of Fenian saga, for a period of 1,200 or 1,500 years, is one of the most remarkable127 examples in the world of continuous literary evolution. I use the word evolution advisedly, for there was probably not a century from the seventh to the eighteenth in which new stories, poems, and redactions of sagas concerning Finn and the Fenians were not invented and put in circulation, while to this very day many stories never committed to manuscript are current about them amongst the Irish and Scotch128 Gaelic-speaking populations. We have found no such steady interest evinced by the people in the Red Branch romances, and in attempting to collect Irish folk-lore I have found next to nothing about Cuchulain and his contemporaries, but great quantities about Finn, Ossian, Oscar, Goll, and Conan. The one cycle, then, antique in tone, language, and surroundings, was, I suspect, that of the chiefs, the great men, and the bards; the other—at least in later times—more that of the un-bardic129 classes and of the people.
I do not mean to say that many of the Cuchulain stories were not copied into modern MSS. and circulated freely among the people all over Ireland during the eighteenth century and the beginning of this, especially Cuchulain's training, Conlaoch's (his son's) death, the Fight at the Ford130, and others, but these appear never to have put out shoots and blossoms from themselves and to have generated new and yet again new stories as did the ever-youthful Fenian tales; nor do they appear to have equally entwined themselves at this day round the popular imagination.
A striking instance of how the Ossianic tale continued to develop down to the eighteenth century was supplied me the other day when examining the Reeves Collection.[11] I there[Pg 376] came upon a story in a Louth MS., written, I think, in the last century, which seemed to me to contain one of the latest developments of Ossianic saga. It is called "The Adventures of Dubh mac Deaghla," and tells us of how a prophet was born of the race of Eiremóin, "and all say," adds the writer, "that it was he was the druid who prophesied131 to Fiacha Sreabhtainne that he should fall in the battle of Dubh-Cumair by the three brothers, Cairioll, Muircath, and Aodh." He also "prophesied to the race of Tuathal that Cairbré of the Liffey was that far-branching tree which was to spread round about through the great circuit of Erin, around which smote132 the powerful wind from the south-west, overthrowing133 it wholly to the ground—which wind meant the Fenians, as had been announced by the smith's daughter."[12] The Fenians it seems heard that this Torna had prophesied about them and intended to kill him, and he and his family had to emigrate to Britain. From there he sends a letter in true epistolary style to an old friend of his, one Conor son of Dathach, beginning "Dear Friend"—an evident mark of seventeenth or possibly eighteenth century authorship, for there are no letters written in this style in the older literature, and this piece evidently follows a[Pg 377] Latin or a Spanish, or possibly an English model. However this may be, Torna's letter asks Conor for news of the situation, and in time receives the following answer:
"To Torna son of Dubh, our dear friend in Glen Fuinnse in Britain in Saxony.
"Thy affectionate missive was read by me as soon as it arrived, and it had been a cause of joy to me, were it not for the way we are in at Tara at this moment.
"For we never felt until the Munster Fenians came and encamped at the marsh134 of Old Raphoe and Treibhe to the south-west; the warriors of Leinster also and Baoisgnidh, together with Clan135 Ditribh and Clan Boirchne, were to the south of them, towards the bottom of the stream of Gabhra and on the west towards the old fort of Mève; and that same evening the King having received an account of the encamping of the Fenians urges messengers secretly to Connacht to the Clan of Conal Cruachna that they might come, along with all the king's friends from the western border of Erin; and other messengers he despatches to Scotland for the Clan of Garaidh Glúnmhar, desiring Oscar of the blue Javelin136, Aodh, Argal, and Airtre to come from abroad without delay, and that secretly.
"On the early morning of the morrow, before the stars of the air retired137, the King urged the druids of Tara against the Fenians to argue with them, and ask what was the cause of their rebelling in this guise138, or who it was with whom they had now come to do battle, because they appeared not in habiliments of peace or friendship, but a flush of anger appeared in the face and countenance139 of every several man of them.
"'And there is another unlawful thing of which ye are guilty,' said the druids, 'which shows that ye have broken the vow140 of allegiance and obedience141 to your king, in that ye have come in array and garb142 of battle to the door of his fortress143 without receiving his leave or advice, without giving him notice or warning. To what point of the compass do ye travel, or on what have ye set your mind [that ye act not] as is the right and due of a prince's subjects, and as was always before this the habitude of the bands that came before ye; and as shall last with honest people till the end of the world.'
"However, now the druids are a-preaching to them and casting at them bold storm-showers of reproofs144 by way of retarding145 them till the coming back of the messengers who went abroad, for Mac Cool is not amongst them to excite them against us, and we hope that[Pg 378] they will remain thus until help come to us. For this is the eleventh day since the druids went from us, and our watchmen who observe what approaches and what goes, disclose all tidings to us, and they are ever a-listening to the loud argument of the druids and the captains against one another. Moreover, the desire of the Fenians to make a rapid assault upon Tara is the less from their having heard that Cairbré was gone on his royal round to Dun Sreabhtainne to visit Fiacha,[13] though he is really not gone there, but to a certain place under cover of night with his women and the royal jewels of Tara. And it was lucky for him that he did not go to Dun Sreabhtainne, for the Fenians had sent Cairioll and nine mighty146 men with him to plunder147 Dun Sreabhtainne. In that, however, they miscarried, for his tutor was gone off before that with Fiacha, by order of the King, to the same place where the women were. That, however, we shall pursue no further at present.
"But it is easy for you who are knowledgeable148 to form a judgment149 upon the state in which the inhabitants of a country must be, over which such a whelming calamity150 is about to fall. Let me leave off. And here we send our affectionate greeting to you, and to you all, with the hope of some time seeing you in full health, but I have small hope of it.
"From your faithful friend till death, Conor, son of Dathach in Tara, the royal fortress of Erin. Written the 20th day of the month of March in the year of the age of the world ... " [The figures in the MS. are not legible].
The romance, which is a long one, is chiefly occupied with events relating to the family of Dubh mac Deaghla in Britain. But later on in the book the Conor who despatched this letter turns up and gives in person a most vivid description of the Battle of Gowra, and the events which followed his letter.
I have only instanced and quoted from this comparatively unimportant story, as showing one of the very latest developments of Fenian literature, and as proving how thoroughly even the seventeenth and eighteenth century Gaels were imbued[Pg 379] with, and realised the spirit of, the Fenian Cycle, and also as a peculiar151 specimen of what rarely happens in literature, but is always of great interest when it does happen—a specimen of unconscious saga developing into semi-conscious romance.
There are comparatively few ancient texts belonging to the Finn saga, compared with the wealth of old vellum books that contain the Red Branch stories. There is, however, quite enough of documentary proof to show that so early as the seventh century Finn was looked on as a popular hero.
The actual data that we have to go upon in estimating the genesis and development of the Fenian tales have been lucidly152 collected by Mr. Nutt. They are, as far as is known at present, as follows. Gilla Caemhain, the poet who died in 1072, says that it was fifty-seven years after the battle of Moy Muchruime that Finn was treacherously153 killed "by the spear points of Urgriu's three sons."[14] This would make Finn's[Pg 380] death take place in 252, for Moy Muchruime was fought according to the "Four Masters" in A.D. 195. Tighearnach the Annalist, who died in 1088, writes that Finn was killed in A.D. 283, "by Aichleach, son of Duibhdrean, and the sons of Urgriu of the Luaighni of Tara, at Ath-Brea upon the Boyne." The poet Cinaeth O Hartagain, who died in A.D. 985, wrote: "By the Fiann of Luagne was the death of Finn at Ath-Brea upon the Boyne." All these men in the tenth and eleventh centuries certainly believed in Finn as implicitly154 as they did in King Cormac.
The two oldest miscellaneous Irish MSS. which we have, are the Leabhar na h-Uidhre and the Book of Leinster. The Leabhar na h-Uidhre was compiled from older MSS. towards the close of the eleventh century, and the Book of Leinster some fifty years later. The oldest of them contains a copy of the famous poem ascribed to Dallán Forgaill in praise of St. Columcille, which was so obscure in the middle of the eleventh century that it required to be glossed156. In this gloss155, made perhaps in the eleventh century, perhaps long before, there is an explanatory poem on winter, ascribed to Finn, grandson of Baoisgne, that is our Finn mac Cool, and in the same commentary we find an explanation of the words "diu" = long, and "derc" = eye, in proof of which this verse is quoted, "As Gráinne," says the commentator157, "daughter of Cormac, said to Finn."
"There lives a man
On whom I would love to gaze long,
For whom I would give the whole world,
O Son of Mary! though a privation!"
This verse, quoted as containing two words which required explanation in or before the eleventh century, pre-supposes the story of Diarmuid and Gráinne. In addition to this we have the apparently158 historical story of the "Cause of the Battle of Cnucha." We have also the story of the Mongan, an Ulster king of the seventh century, according to the annalists who[Pg 381] declared that he was not what men took him to be, the son of the mortal Fiachna, but of the god Mananán mac Lir, and a re-incarnation of the great Finn, and calls back from the grave the famous Fenian, Caoilte, who proves it. This account is strongly relied upon by Mr. Nutt to prove the wild mythological159 nature of the Finn story, but it is by no means unique in Irish literature, for we find the celebrated Tuan mac Cairrill had a second birth also, and the great Cuchulain too has his parentage ascribed to the god Lugh, not to Sualtach, his reputed father. Consequently, supposing Finn to have been a real historical character of the third century, there would be nothing absolutely extraordinary in the story arising in half pagan times that Mongan, also an historical character, was a re-incarnation of Finn.
In the second oldest miscellaneous manuscript, the Book of Leinster, the references to Finn and the Fenians are much more numerous, containing three poems ascribed to Ossian, Finn's son, five poems ascribed to Finn himself, two poems ascribed to Caoilte the Fenian poet, a poem ascribed to one of Finn's followers160, allusions162 to Finn in poems by one Gilla in Chomded and another, passages from the Dinnsenchas or topographical tract163 about Finn, the account of the battle of Cnámhross, in which Finn helps the Leinstermen against King Cairbré, the genealogy164 of Finn, and the genealogy of Diarmuid O'Duibhne.
Again, in the Glossary165 ascribed, and probably truly, to Cormac, King-Bishop166 of Cashel, A.D. 837-903, there are two allusions to Finn, one of which refers to the unfaithfulness of his wife. This, indeed, is not contained in the oldest copy, but Whitley Stokes, than whom there can be no better authority, believes these allusions to belong to the older portion of the Glossary, a work which is probably much interpolated.
But there is yet another proof of the antiquity of the Finn stories which Mr. Nutt does not note, and in some respects it is[Pg 382] the most important and conclusive167 of all. For if, as D'Arbois de Jubainville has, I think, proved, the list of 187 historic tales contained in the Book of Leinster was really drawn168 up at the end of the seventh or beginning of the eighth century, we find that even then Finn or his contemporaries were the subjects of, or figure in, several of them, as in the story of "The Courtship of Ailbhe, daughter of King Cormac mac Art, by Finn," "The Battle of Moy Muchruime," where King Art, Cormac's father, was slain; "The Cave of Bin169 Edair," where Diarmuid and Gráinne took shelter when pursued by Finn; "The Adventures of Finn in Derc Fearna (the cave of Dunmore)," a lost tale; "The Elopement of Gráinne with Diarmuid," and perhaps one or two more.
Thus Finn is sandwiched in as a real person along with his other contemporaries, not only in tenth and eleventh century annalists and poets, but is also made the hero of historic romance as early as the seventh or eighth century. Side by side in our list with the battle of Moy Muchruime we have the battle of Moy Rath. Copies of both, coloured with the same literary pigments170, exist. The last we know to be historical, it can be proved; why should not the first be also? It is true that the one took place 438 years before the other, but the treatment of both is absolutely identical, and it is the merest accident that we happen to have external evidence for the latter and not for the former. I can see, then, no sufficiently171 cogent172 reasons for viewing Finn mac Cúmhail with different eyes from those with which we regard his king. Cormac mac Art is usually acknowledged to have been a real king of flesh and blood, whose buildings are yet seen on the site of Tara, after whose daughter Gráinne one of them is named, why should Finn, his chief captain, who married that Gráinne, be a deity173 euhemerised? I do not see any arguments sufficient to differentiate174 this case of Finn, to whom no particular supernatural qualities (except the knowledge he got when he[Pg 383] chewed his thumb) are attributed, from that of Cormac and other kings and heroes who were the subjects of bardic stories, and whose deaths were recorded in the Annals, except the accident that the creative imagination of the later Gaels happened to seize upon him and make him and his contemporaries the nucleus175 of a vast literature instead of some earlier or later group of perhaps equally deserving champions. Finn has long since become to all ears a pan-Gaelic champion just as Arthur has become a Brythonic one.
Of the Fenian sagas the longest—though it is only fragmentary—is that known as the Dialogue or Colloquy176 of the Ancients, which is preserved in the Book of Lismore, and would fill about 250 of these pages. The plot of it is simple enough. Caoilte [Cweeltya] the poet and Ossian, almost sole survivors177 of the Fenians—who had lived on after the battle of Gabhra, where Cairbré, the High-king, broke their power for ever—meet in their very old age St. Patrick and the new preachers of the gospel. Patrick is most desirous of learning the past history of the island from them, and the legends connected with streams and hills and raths and so forth, and these are willingly recounted to him, and were all written[15] down by Brogan Patrick's scribe for posterity178 to read hereafter. The saga describes their wanderings along with the saint, the stories they relate to him, and the verses—over a couple of thousand—sung or repeated by them to the clerics and others.[16] Some of these pieces are exceedingly beautiful. Here is a specimen, the lament179 which Credé made over her husband who was drowned at the battle of Ventry. Caoilte repeats the verses to Patrick:
"The haven180 roars, and O the haven roars, over the rushing race of Rinn-da-bharc. The drowning of the warrior of Loch-da-chonn, that[Pg 384] is what the wave impinging on the strand181 laments182.[17] Melodious183 is the crane, and O melodious is the crane, in the marshlands of Druim-dá-thrén. 'Tis she who may not save her brood alive. The wild dog of two colours is intent upon her nestlings. A woful note, and O a woful note is that which the thrush in Drumqueen emits, but not more cheerful is the wail184 which the blackbird makes in Letterlee. A woful sound, and O a woful sound, is that the deer utters in Drumdaleish. Dead lies the doe of Drumsheelin,[18] the mighty stag bells after her. Sore suffering, and O suffering sore, is the hero's death, his death, who used to lie by me.... Sore suffering to me is Cael, and O Cael is a suffering sore, that by my side he is in dead man's form; that the wave should have swept over his white body, that is what hath distracted me, so great was his delightfulness185. A dismal186 roar, and O a dismal roar, is that the shore's surf makes upon the strand.... A woful booming, and O a boom of woe, is that which the wave makes upon the northward187 beach, butting188 as it does against the polished rock, lamenting189 for Cael now that he is gone. A woful fight, and O a fight of woe, is that the wave wages with the southern[Pg 385] shore. A woful melody, and O a melody of woe, is that which the heavy surge of Tullacleish emits. As for me the calamity which has fallen upon me having shattered me, for me prosperity exists no more."
Perhaps the Fenian saga, next in length and certainly in merit, is the well-known "Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne."[19] Diarmuid of the Love-spot unwittingly causes Gráinne, daughter of Cormac mac Art, the High-king, to fall in love with him, just on the eve of her marriage with his captain, Finn mac Cool. He is driven to elope with her, and is pursued round Ireland by the vengeful Finn, who succeeds after many years in compassing the death of the generous and handsome Diarmuid by a wild boar, and then winning back to himself the love of the fickle190 Gráinne.
The Enchanted191 Fort of the Quicken Tree, the Enchanted Fort of Céis Corann,[20] the Little Brawl192 at Allen,[21] the Enchanted Fort of Eochaidh Beag the Red,[22] the Pursuit of Sive, daughter of Owen óg, the Pursuit of the Giolla Deacar,[23] the Death of the Great Youth the King of Spain's son,[24] The Feast in the House of Conan,[25] the Legend of Lomnochtan of Slieve Riffé,[26] the Legend of Ceadach the Great,[27] the Battle of[Pg 386] Tulach na n-each,[28] the Battle of Ventry,[29] the Battle of Cnucha, the Battle of Moy Muchruime,[30] the Battle of Moy Léana,[31] the youthful Exploits of Finn mac Cool,[32] the Battle of Gabhra,[33] the Birth of King Cormac,[34] the Battle of Crinna,[35] the Cause of the Battle of Cnucha,[36] the Invitation of Maol grandson of Manannán to the Fenians of Erin,[37] the Legend of the Clown in the Drab Coat,[38] the Lamentation193 of Oilioll after his children,[39] Cormac's Adventure in the Land of Promise,[40] the Decision about Cormac's Sword,[41] an ancient fragment about Finn and Gráinne,[42] an ancient fragment on the Death of Finn[43]—are some of the remaining prose sagas of this cycle.
********
[1] Moore's genius has stereotyped194 amongst us the term Red Branch knight4, which, however, has too much flavour of the medi?val about it. The Irish is curadh, "hero." The Irish for "Knight" in the appellations195 White Knight, Knight of the Glen, etc., is Ridire (pronounced "R?d-?r-y?," in Connacht sometimes corruptly196 "Rud-ir-ya"), which is evidently the medi?val "Ritter," i.e., Rider.
[2] Moore helped to bring this word into common use under the form of Finnian in his melody, "The wine-cup is circling in Alvin's hall." It is probable that he derived the word from Finn, and meant by it "followers of Finn mac Cool." The Irish word is Fiann (pronounced "Fee-an") and has nothing to do with Finn mac Cúmhail. In the genitive it is nà Féine (na Fayna). It is a noun of multitude, and means the Fenian body in general. The individual Fenian was called Féinnidhe, i.e., a member of the Fenian force. The bands of militia were called Fianna [Fee-?n-a], The word is declined An Fhiann, na Féinne, do'n Fhéinn [In Eean, n? Fayn-a, don Aen] and its resemblance to the proper name Finn is only accidental. The English translation of Keating made early in the last century, by Dermot O'Conor, does not use the term "Fenian" at all, but translates the word by "Irish Militia." Nor does O'Halloran, in 1778, when he published his history, seem to have known the term. The first person who appears to have used it is Miss Brooke, as early as 1796: in her translation of some Ossianic pieces, I find the lines—
"He cursed in rage the Fenian chief
And all the Fenian race."
I have been told that Macpherson had already used the word, but I have looked carefully through his Ossian and have not been able to find it. Halliday in his edition of Keating, in 1808, talks in a foot-note of "Fenian heroes." It was John O'Mahony the head-centre of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, a brilliant Irish scholar and translator of Keating, who succeeded in perpetuating197 the ancient historic memory by christening the "men of '68" the "Fenians."
[3] Cormac mac Art came to the throne, A.D. 227, according to the "Four Masters"; A.D. 213, according to Keating.
[4] See ch. XX, note 9.
[5] The word is long obsolete198. Goll is a stock character in Fenian folk-lore, a kind of Ajax.
[6] Contained in the Leabhar na h-Uidhre, a volume copied about the year 1100, and printed in "Revue Celtique," vol. ii. p. 86.
[7] With this thunderous description, all sound and fury, and signifying very little, compare the Homeric description of a like scene, clear, accurate, cut like a gem199:
το?σιν δ??κμενον ο?ρον ?ει ?κ?εργο? ?π?λλων,
ο? δ??στ?ν στ?σαντ?, ?ν? θ? ?στ?α λευκ? π?τασσαν
?ν δ??νεμο? πρ?σεν μ?σον ?στ?ον, ?μφ? δ? κ?μα
στε?ρ? πορφ?ρεον μεγ?λ? ?αχε, νη?? ?ο?ση?
?η δ? ?θεεν κατ? κ?μα, διαπρ?σσυσα κ?λευθα.
ILIAD I., p. 480.
But the Irish passage, though quoted here to exemplify a common feature of the Fenian tales, really dates from a time of decadence200.
[8] Published by Eugene O'Curry for the Celtic Society. I adhere to his admirable, and at the same time perfectly literal, translation.
[9] Mr. Nutt seems to believe that the whole groundwork of the Fenian tales is mythical201. His position with regard to them is fairly summed up in this extract from his note on Mac Innes' Gaelic stories. "Every Celtic tribe," he writes, "possessed202 traditions both mythical and historical, the former of substantially the same character, the latter necessarily varying. Myth and history acted and reacted upon each other, and produced heroic saga which may be defined as myth tinged203 and distorted by history. The largest element is as a rule suggested by myth, so that the varying heroic sagas of the various portions of a race, have always a great deal in common. These heroic sagas, together with the official or semi-official mythologies204 of the pre-Christian Irish are the subject-matter of the Annals. They were thrown into a purely205 artificial chronological206 shape by men familiar with biblical and classical history. A framework was thus created into which the entire mass of native legend was gradually fitted, whilst the genealogies207 of the race were modelled, or it may be remodelled208 in accord with it. In studying the Irish sagas we may banish209 entirely210 from our mind all questions as to the truth of the early portions of the Annals. The subject matter of the latter is mainly mythical, the mode in which it has been treated is literary. What residuum of historic truth may still survive can be but infinitesimal." (See Mr. Nutt's valuable essay on Ossianic or Fenian Saga in "Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition," vol. ii. p. 399.)
[10] "Of all these," says, with true Celtic hyperbole, the fifteenth-century vellum in the British Museum, marked "Egerton, 1782," "not a man was taken until he was a prime poet versed211 in the twelve books of poetry. No man was taken till in the ground a large hole had been made such as to reach the fold of his belt, and he put into it with his shield and a forearm's length of a hazel stick. Then must nine warriors having nine spears, with a ten furrows212' width between them and him, assail213 him, and in concert let fly at him. If he were then hurt past that guard of his, he was not received into the Fian-ship. Not a man of them was taken until his hair had been interwoven into braids on him, and he started at a run through Ireland's woods, while they seeking to wound him followed in his wake, there having been between him and them but one forest bough214 by way of interval215 at first. Should he be overtaken he was wounded and not received into the Fian-ship after. If his weapons had quivered in his hand he was not taken. Should a branch in the wood have disturbed anything of his hair out of its braiding he was not taken. If he had cracked a dry stick under his foot [as he ran] he was not accepted. Unless that [at full speed] he had both jumped a stick level with his brow, and stooped to pass under one on a level with his knee, he was not taken. Unless also without slackening his pace he could with his nail extract a thorn from his foot he was not taken into the Fian-ship. But if he performed all this he was of Finn's people." (See "Silva Gadelica," p. 100 of English vol.)
[11] These MSS. volumes, fifty-four in number, had most of them belonged to Mr. MacAdam, editor of the "Ulster Journal of Arch?ology," from whom Bishop Reeves bought them. On the lamented216 death of that great scholar they were put up to auction217, when the Royal Irish Academy bought some thirty volumes, the rest unfortunately were allowed to be scattered218 again to the four winds of heaven. For his exertions219 and generosity220 in securing even so many of these MSS., especially those which at first sight looked least important, but which contained treasures of folk-lore and folk-song, the Hon. Treasurer221, the Rev95. Maxwell Close, has placed Irish-speaking Ireland under yet another debt of gratitude222 to him. It is not always that which is most ancient which is most valuable from a literary or a national point of view. The pity of it is that any Irish MS. that comes into the market should not be bought up for the nation with the money assigned by the Government and confided223 to the Royal Irish Academy for Irish studies, unless a special search should show that the Academy already possesses a copy of each piece in it. I am convinced that many hundreds or thousands of pieces have been through neglect to do this irreparably lost to the nation. Oh the pity of it!
[12] This is in allusion161 to the romance of Moy Muchruime, where we read of the prophecy and what followed. For Cairbré see above, p. 32.
[13] Fiacha was the King's son, and succeeded him in the sovereignty. He was finally slain by his nephews, the celebrated Three Collas—they who afterwards burned Emania and caused the Ultonian dynasty and the Red Branch knights, after a duration of more than seven hundred years, to set in blood and flame, never to rise again.
[14] "There were many among the Fenians," says Keating, "who were more remarkable for their personal prowess, their valour, and their corporeal224 stature than Finn. The reason why he was made king of the Fiann, and set over the warriors, was simply because his father and grandfather had held that position before him. Another reason also why he had been made king of the Fiann was because he excelled his contemporaries in intellect and learning, in wisdom and in subtlety225, and in experience and hardihood in battlefields. It was for these qualities that he was made king of the Fiann, and not for his personal prowess or for the great size or strength of his body."
"Warrior better than Finn," says an old vellum MS. in the British Museum, "never struck his hand into chiefs, inasmuch as for service he was a soldier, a hospitaller for hospitality, and in heroism226 a hero. In fighting functions he was a fighting man, and in strength a champion worthy227 of a king, so that ever since and from that until this, it is with Finn that every such is co-ordinated."
And in another place the same vellum says, "A good man verily was he who had those Fianna, for he was the seventh king ruling Ireland, that is to say, there were five kings of the provinces, and the King of Ireland, he being himself the seventh conjointly with the King of all Ireland."
In a MS. saga in my own possession, called "The Pursuit of Sadhbh (Sive)," there is an amusing account of the truculence228 of the Fenians about their exclusive right of hunting, and the way they terrorised the people they were quartered on, but I have not space for this extract.
[15] See above, p. 116.
[16] This has been edited by Standish Hayes O'Grady in his "Silva Gadelica," from the Book of Lismore.
[17] "Géisid cuan, ón géisid cuan
Os buinne ruad rinnda bharc,
Badad laeich locha dhá chonn
Is ed cháinios tonn re trácht."
"Silva Gadelica," p. 113 of Gaelic volume, p. 122 of English volume. I have not altered Dr. O'Grady's beautiful translation.
[18] This passage and that about the crane are not explained in the "Colloquy," but curiously229 enough I find the same passage in the saga called the Battle of Ventry, which Kuno Meyer published in "Anecdota Oxoniensia" from a fifteenth-century vellum in the Bodleian. The lady is there called Gelges [white swan], and as she sought for Cael among the slain "she saw the crane of the meadow and her two birds and the wily beast yclept the fox a-watching of her birds, and when she covered one of the birds to save it he would make a rush at the other bird, so that the crane had to stretch herself out between them both, so that she would rather have found and suffered death by the wild beast than that her birds should be killed by him. And Gelges mused230 on this greatly and said, 'I wonder not that I so love my fair sweetheart, since this little bird is in such distress231 about its birdlets.'" She heard, moreover, a wild stag on Drum Reelin above the harbour, and it was vehemently232 bewailing the hind41 from one pass to the other, for they had been nine years together and had dwelt in the wood that was at the foot of the harbour, the wood of Feedesh, and the hind had been killed by Finn, and the stag was nineteen days without tasting grass or water, mourning for the hind. "It is no shame for me," said Gelges, "to find death with grief for Cael, as the stag is shortening his life for grief of the hind," etc.
[19] Pronounced "Graan-ya." This story has been edited and translated in the third volume of the Ossianic Society by Standish H. O'Grady, and has been since reprinted from his text. Dr. Joyce also translated it into English in his Old Celtic romances, but omits the cynical233 but most characteristic conclusion. The story was only known to exist in quite modern MSS., but I find an excellent copy written about the year 1660 in the newly-acquired Reeves Collection in the Royal Irish Academy. This saga was in existence in the seventh century, for it is mentioned in the list in the Book of Leinster. It is the subject of a recent cantata234 by the Marquis of Lome and Mr. Hamish Mac Cunn.
[20] Published by O'Grady in his "Silva Gadelica."
[21] Published by O'Grady in his "Silva Gadelica."
[22] The Irish text published without a translation by Patrick O'Brien in his Bláithfleasg.
[23] Published by O'Grady in his "Silva Gadelica."
[24] I published in a periodical a translation of this from a MS. in my own possession.
[25] Published in vol. ii. of Ossianic Society.
[26] Is being published in the "Gaelic Journal" by the editor.
[27] Mentioned by Standish H. O'Grady, but I have met no copies of it, though I have heard a story of this name told orally.
[28] Mentioned by Standish H. O'Grady.
[29] Published from a fifteenth-century vellum in the Bodleian by Kuno Meyer in a volume of the "Anecdota Oxoniensia."
[30] Published by Standish H. O'Grady in "Silva Gadelica" from the Book of Leinster. I have a seventeenth-century paper copy of the same saga which is completely different.
[31] Published by O'Curry for the Celtic Society.
[32] Edited by O'Donovan for the Ossianic Society and by Mr. David Comyn with a translation into modern Irish for the Gaelic League.
[33] Edited by O'Kearney for the Ossianic Society, vol. i.
[34] Published in "Silva Gadelica."
[35] Published in "Silva Gadelica."
[36] A brief tale in the Leabhar na h-Uidhre, published in "Revue Celtique," vol. ii.
[37] Mentioned by Standish H. O'Grady in his preface to Diarmuid and Gráinne, but unknown to me.
[38] Published without a translation by O'Daly of Anglesea Street in "Irish Self-taught," and with a translation in the "Silva Gadelica."
[39] Usually joined on to the modern version of the Battle of Mochruime.
[40] Published by Standish H. O'Grady for the Ossianic Society, vol. iii. p. 212, from a modern MS.; and by Whitley Stokes in "Irische Texte," iii. Serie, Heft. i. p. 203, from the Book of Ballymote and Yellow Book of Lecan.
[41] Published by Stokes in the same place as the last.
[42] "Zeitschrift für Celt Phil.," Band I. Heft. 3, p. 458, translated by Kuno Meyer.
[43] Ibid., and O'Grady, "Silva Gadelica."
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conjured
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| 用魔术变出( conjure的过去式和过去分词 )； 祈求，恳求； 变戏法； （变魔术般地） 使…出现 | |
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bards
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| n.诗人( bard的名词复数 ) | |
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epic
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| n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的 | |
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knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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knights
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| 骑士； （中古时代的）武士( knight的名词复数 )； 骑士； 爵士； （国际象棋中）马 | |
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consecrated
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| adj.神圣的，被视为神圣的v.把…奉为神圣，给…祝圣( consecrate的过去式和过去分词 )；奉献 | |
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dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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militia
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| n.民兵，民兵组织 | |
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jumbled
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| adj.混乱的；杂乱的 | |
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slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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rift
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| n.裂口，隙缝，切口；v.裂开，割开，渗入 | |
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decorative
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| adj.装饰的，可作装饰的 | |
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slurred
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| 含糊地说出( slur的过去式和过去分词 )； 含糊地发…的声； 侮辱； 连唱 | |
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inflated
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| adj.（价格）飞涨的；（通货）膨胀的；言过其实的；充了气的v.使充气（于轮胎、气球等）( inflate的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）膨胀；（使）通货膨胀；物价上涨 | |
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saga
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| n.(尤指中世纪北欧海盗的)故事，英雄传奇 | |
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sagas
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| n.萨迦（尤指古代挪威或冰岛讲述冒险经历和英雄业绩的长篇故事）( saga的名词复数 )；（讲述许多年间发生的事情的）长篇故事；一连串的事件（或经历）；一连串经历的讲述（或记述） | |
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isolated
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isle
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joyfully
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expeditiously
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vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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oars
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| n.桨，橹( oar的名词复数 )；划手v.划（行）( oar的第三人称单数 ) | |
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vehement
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26
margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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27
torrents
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| n.倾注；奔流( torrent的名词复数 )；急流；爆发；连续不断 | |
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28
valiant
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| adj.勇敢的，英勇的；n.勇士，勇敢的人 | |
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29
swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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30
hoisted
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| 把…吊起，升起( hoist的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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31
variegated
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| adj.斑驳的，杂色的 | |
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32
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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34
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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35
courageous
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| adj.勇敢的，有胆量的 | |
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36
valiantly
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| adv.勇敢地，英勇地；雄赳赳 | |
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37
shrouds
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| n.裹尸布( shroud的名词复数 )；寿衣；遮蔽物；覆盖物v.隐瞒( shroud的第三人称单数 )；保密 | |
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38
ridges
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| n.脊( ridge的名词复数 )；山脊；脊状突起；大气层的)高压脊 | |
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39
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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40
humbled
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| adj. 卑下的，谦逊的，粗陋的 vt. 使 ... 卑下，贬低 | |
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41
hind
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| adj.后面的，后部的 | |
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42
slew
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| v.（使）旋转；n.大量，许多 | |
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43
warrior
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| n.勇士，武士，斗士 | |
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44
warriors
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| 武士，勇士，战士( warrior的名词复数 ) | |
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45
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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46
grandiloquent
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| adj.夸张的 | |
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47
relish
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| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
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48
specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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49
verbosity
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| n.冗长，赘言 | |
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50
rhetoric
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| n.修辞学，浮夸之言语 | |
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51
professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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52
abound
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| vi.大量存在；(in，with)充满，富于 | |
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53
exuberance
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| n.丰富；繁荣 | |
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54
misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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55
epithet
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| n.（用于褒贬人物等的）表述形容词，修饰语 | |
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56
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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57
vindictive
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| adj.有报仇心的，怀恨的，惩罚的 | |
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58
vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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59
scuds
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| v.（尤指船、舰或云彩）笔直、高速而平稳地移动( scud的第三人称单数 ) | |
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60
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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61
creeks
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| n.小湾( creek的名词复数 )；小港；小河；小溪 | |
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62
accurately
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| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
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63
harmonious
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| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
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64
haughty
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| adj.傲慢的，高傲的 | |
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65
conversing
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的现在分词 ) | |
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66
prows
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| n.船首( prow的名词复数 ) | |
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67
ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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68
fatigued
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| adj. 疲乏的 | |
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69
fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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70
salmon
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| n.鲑，大马哈鱼，橙红色的 | |
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71
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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72
tempestuous
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| adj.狂暴的 | |
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73
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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74
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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75
subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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76
drizzling
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| 下蒙蒙细雨，下毛毛雨( drizzle的现在分词 ) | |
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77
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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78
lashed
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| adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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79
commodious
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| adj.宽敞的；使用方便的 | |
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80
bulwarks
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| n.堡垒( bulwark的名词复数 )；保障；支柱；舷墙 | |
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81
bulwark
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| n.堡垒，保障，防御 | |
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82
spraining
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| 扭伤（关节）( sprain的现在分词 ) | |
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83
linen
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|
| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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84
saucy
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|
| adj.无礼的；俊俏的；活泼的 | |
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85
contentious
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| adj.好辩的，善争吵的 | |
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86
fragrant
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|
| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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87
woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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88
growling
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|
| n.吠声, 咆哮声 v.怒吠, 咆哮, 吼 | |
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89
clamorous
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| adj.吵闹的，喧哗的 | |
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90
sluices
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| n.水闸( sluice的名词复数 )；（用水闸控制的）水；有闸人工水道；漂洗处v.冲洗( sluice的第三人称单数 )；（指水）喷涌而出；漂净；给…安装水闸 | |
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91
disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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92
treacherous
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|
| adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的 | |
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93
plank
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| n.板条，木板，政策要点，政纲条目 | |
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94
reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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95
rev
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| v.发动机旋转，加快速度 | |
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96
crestfallen
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|
| adj. 挫败的，失望的，沮丧的 | |
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97
tribal
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| adj.部族的，种族的 | |
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98
deities
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| n.神，女神( deity的名词复数 )；神祗；神灵；神明 | |
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99
allied
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| adj.协约国的；同盟国的 | |
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100
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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101
reigns
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| n.君主的统治( reign的名词复数 )；君主统治时期；任期；当政期 | |
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102
hereditary
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| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
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103
injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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104
invaders
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| 入侵者，侵略者，侵入物( invader的名词复数 ) | |
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105
exacting
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| adj.苛求的，要求严格的 | |
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106
afflict
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| vt.使身体或精神受痛苦，折磨 | |
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107
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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108
wont
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|
| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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109
moor
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| n.荒野，沼泽；vt.(使)停泊；vi.停泊 | |
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110
previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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111
seethe
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| vi.拥挤，云集；发怒，激动，骚动 | |
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112
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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113
tunic
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| n.束腰外衣 | |
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114
cleansing
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| n. 净化(垃圾) adj. 清洁用的 动词cleanse的现在分词 | |
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115
supple
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| adj.柔软的，易弯的，逢迎的，顺从的，灵活的；vt.使柔软，使柔顺，使顺从；vi.变柔软，变柔顺 | |
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116
friction
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| n.摩擦，摩擦力 | |
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117
moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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118
virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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119
brotherhood
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| n.兄弟般的关系，手中情谊 | |
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120
avenging
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| adj.报仇的，复仇的v.为…复仇，报…之仇( avenge的现在分词 )；为…报复 | |
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121
inflicted
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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122
antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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123
layman
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| n.俗人，门外汉，凡人 | |
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124
extraordinarily
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| adv.格外地；极端地 | |
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125
stature
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| n.（高度）水平，（高度）境界，身高，身材 | |
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126
weirdness
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| n.古怪，离奇，不可思议 | |
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127
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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128
scotch
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| n.伤口，刻痕；苏格兰威士忌酒；v.粉碎，消灭，阻止；adj.苏格兰(人)的 | |
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129
bardic
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| adj.吟游诗人的 | |
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130
Ford
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| n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过 | |
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131
prophesied
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| v.预告，预言( prophesy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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132
smote
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| v.猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去式 ) | |
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133
overthrowing
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| v.打倒，推翻( overthrow的现在分词 )；使终止 | |
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134
marsh
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| n.沼泽，湿地 | |
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135
clan
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| n.氏族，部落，宗族，家族，宗派 | |
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136
javelin
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| n.标枪，投枪 | |
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137
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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138
guise
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| n.外表，伪装的姿态 | |
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139
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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140
vow
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| n.誓(言)，誓约；v.起誓，立誓 | |
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141
obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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142
garb
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| n.服装，装束 | |
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143
fortress
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| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
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144
reproofs
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| n.责备，责难，指责( reproof的名词复数 ) | |
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145
retarding
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| 使减速( retard的现在分词 )； 妨碍； 阻止； 推迟 | |
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146
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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147
plunder
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| vt.劫掠财物，掠夺；n.劫掠物，赃物；劫掠 | |
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148
knowledgeable
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| adj.知识渊博的；有见识的 | |
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149
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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150
calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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151
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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152
lucidly
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| adv.清透地，透明地 | |
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153
treacherously
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| 背信弃义地； 背叛地； 靠不住地； 危险地 | |
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154
implicitly
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| adv. 含蓄地, 暗中地, 毫不保留地 | |
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155
gloss
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| n.光泽，光滑；虚饰；注释；vt.加光泽于；掩饰 | |
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156
glossed
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| v.注解( gloss的过去式和过去分词 )；掩饰（错误）；粉饰；把…搪塞过去 | |
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157
commentator
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| n.注释者，解说者；实况广播评论员 | |
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158
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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159
mythological
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| adj.神话的 | |
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160
followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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161
allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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162
allusions
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| 暗指，间接提到( allusion的名词复数 ) | |
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163
tract
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| n.传单，小册子，大片(土地或森林) | |
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164
genealogy
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| n.家系，宗谱 | |
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165
glossary
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| n.注释词表；术语汇编 | |
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166
bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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167
conclusive
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| adj.最后的，结论的；确凿的，消除怀疑的 | |
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168
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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169
bin
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| n.箱柜；vt.放入箱内；[计算机] DOS文件名:二进制目标文件 | |
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170
pigments
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| n.（粉状）颜料( pigment的名词复数 )；天然色素 | |
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171
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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172
cogent
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| adj.强有力的，有说服力的 | |
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173
deity
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| n.神，神性；被奉若神明的人(或物) | |
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174
differentiate
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| vi.(between)区分；vt.区别；使不同 | |
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175
nucleus
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| n.核，核心，原子核 | |
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176
colloquy
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| n.谈话，自由讨论 | |
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177
survivors
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| 幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 ) | |
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178
posterity
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| n.后裔，子孙，后代 | |
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179
lament
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| n.悲叹，悔恨，恸哭；v.哀悼，悔恨，悲叹 | |
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180
haven
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| n.安全的地方，避难所，庇护所 | |
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181
strand
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| vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地） | |
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182
laments
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| n.悲恸，哀歌，挽歌( lament的名词复数 )v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的第三人称单数 ) | |
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183
melodious
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| adj.旋律美妙的，调子优美的，音乐性的 | |
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184
wail
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| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
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185
delightfulness
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| n.delightful（令人高兴的，使人愉快的，给人快乐的，讨人喜欢的）的变形 | |
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186
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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187
northward
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| adv.向北；n.北方的地区 | |
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188
butting
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| 用头撞人（犯规动作） | |
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189
lamenting
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| adj.悲伤的，悲哀的v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的现在分词 ) | |
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190
fickle
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| adj.(爱情或友谊上)易变的，不坚定的 | |
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191
enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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192
brawl
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| n.大声争吵，喧嚷；v.吵架，对骂 | |
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193
lamentation
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| n.悲叹，哀悼 | |
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194
stereotyped
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| adj.(指形象、思想、人物等)模式化的 | |
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195
appellations
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| n.名称，称号( appellation的名词复数 ) | |
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196
corruptly
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| 腐败（堕落）地，可被收买的 | |
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197
perpetuating
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| perpetuate的现在进行式 | |
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198
obsolete
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| adj.已废弃的，过时的 | |
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199
gem
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| n.宝石，珠宝；受爱戴的人 [同]jewel | |
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200
decadence
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| n.衰落，颓废 | |
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201
mythical
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| adj.神话的；虚构的；想像的 | |
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202
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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203
tinged
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| v.（使）发丁丁声( ting的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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204
mythologies
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| 神话学( mythology的名词复数 )； 神话（总称）； 虚构的事实； 错误的观点 | |
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205
purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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206
chronological
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| adj.按年月顺序排列的，年代学的 | |
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207
genealogies
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| n.系谱，家系，宗谱( genealogy的名词复数 ) | |
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208
remodelled
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| v.改变…的结构[形状]( remodel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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209
banish
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| vt.放逐，驱逐；消除，排除 | |
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210
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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211
versed
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| adj. 精通，熟练 | |
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212
furrows
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| n.犁沟( furrow的名词复数 )；（脸上的）皱纹v.犁田，开沟( furrow的第三人称单数 ) | |
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213
assail
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| v.猛烈攻击，抨击，痛斥 | |
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214
bough
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| n.大树枝，主枝 | |
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215
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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216
lamented
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| adj.被哀悼的，令人遗憾的v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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217
auction
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| n.拍卖；拍卖会；vt.拍卖 | |
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218
scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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219
exertions
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| n.努力( exertion的名词复数 )；费力；（能力、权力等的）运用；行使 | |
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220
generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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221
treasurer
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| n.司库，财务主管 | |
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222
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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223
confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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224
corporeal
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| adj.肉体的，身体的；物质的 | |
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225
subtlety
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| n.微妙，敏锐，精巧；微妙之处，细微的区别 | |
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226
heroism
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| n.大无畏精神，英勇 | |
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227
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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228
truculence
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| n.凶猛，粗暴 | |
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229
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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230
mused
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| v.沉思，冥想( muse的过去式和过去分词 )；沉思自语说（某事） | |
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231
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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232
vehemently
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| adv. 热烈地 | |
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233
cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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234
cantata
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| n.清唱剧，大合唱 | |
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