West Irish folk-tales and romances/Introduction

by William Larminie

INTRODUCTION.

WHATEVER profit might, from the scientific point of view, be considered likely to spring from a study of Gaelic folk-lore, it would probably be considered beforehand that it would come from the study of the material as a single body, uniform throughout, and, as such, to be brought into comparison with the folk-lore of other countries. When, however, we come to an actual survey of the material, certain appearances present themselves which lead us to expect that, possibly, a large part of our gain will accrue from the observation of the differences which characterise different parts of the material within itself. Ireland, though an island of moderate extent, is yet sufficiently large to contain districts far enough apart to isolate in some degree their respective peasant populations; while it is also admitted that the homogeneity of the Gaelic tongue does not indicate a corresponding homogeneity of race. It may turn out, in fact, ultimately, that we have in Ireland, not one, but several bodies of folk-lore placed in relations most favourable for aiding in the solution of certain problems; while, finally, we shall, by a comparison with the Gaelic folk-lore of Scotland, obtain a still wider field for similar observations and inferences.

It is true, unfortunately, that our Irish material is not by any means what it might have been, either in quantity or quality; its defects being such that any conclusions arrived at through the line of investigation here to be suggested must at present be considered of a very provisional nature. Of the folk-lore of the large province of Munster we know next to nothing. I have myself hitherto been able to make no attempt at collection in the southern counties. Some of Mr. Curtin's stories were probably obtained in Kerry; but he has not told us which. We have, therefore, nothing to fall back upon but the somewhat sophisticated little fairy tales of Crofton Croker. For Leinster, we are better off, as we have the Wexford tales of Kennedy. For the inland parts of Connaught we have Dr. Hyde's volume; for the coast of Connaught and Donegal, the tales included in this book, and many others in my possession not yet published.

With regard to Crofton Croker's tales, it needs but a small acquaintance with Ireland to be assured that they are not peculiar to Munster. The cluricaun still pursues his trade of boot-making by the shores of Achill Sound in Mayo. Donegal knows all that the south ever knew on the subject, and has perhaps even a greater wealth of information. It is admitted that in the city of Dublin the tribe does not now exist; but such is not the case even in this highly-civilised watering-place of Bray, only twelve miles distant from the metropolis. In a word, this minor mythology was, may we not say still is, common to the whole island.

The fairies, however, do not very often form the subjects of the longer detailed narratives. Let me now turn to these. Among the Connaught stories I have found a good many parallels on the coast to those of the inland districts, though I have not included any in this volume. In Donegal, on the other hand, while I have obtained only two partial variants of the inland Connaught tales, I have found several close parallels to the Connaught coast tales—a fact, however, which may be accounted for by the partially Donegalese descent of the Achill people. If we now bring the Wexford tales into comparison, it will be found that they do not contain many parallels to those of the other districts. I know of only five from Connaught, and two from the more distant Donegal, both variants of two of the Connaught tales, one of them, perhaps the best known of all such stories—no other, indeed, than Mr. Lang's "far-travelled tale"—that of "The Three Tasks"; the other, of which I obtained complete versions in Galway and in Mayo, and which I know to exist in Donegal, is represented in this volume by "Morraha Brian More," and in Kennedy by the "Fis fá an aon Sgeul." Now this latter does not appear to be much known except in Ireland; but it will hardly be contended that it was independently invented in the four Irish counties in which it has been discovered. Still less would this be maintained regarding the other. The tale, which has proved its popularity by flourishing in three quarters of the globe, shows the same quality on a smaller scale by flourishing in at least three provinces of Ireland.

And perhaps this is the best place to note that the theory of independent origin is contrary to one of the closest analogies to be observed in nature. When animals and plants of the same species are found in wide-distant regions, no naturalist assumes for a moment that they originated separately. However puzzling the problem may be, the student of nature seeks to solve it by explanations of a very different kind; and already many of the most difficult cases have yielded their secret to patient investigation. It will assuredly turn out to be the same with folk-tales. As regards Ireland we see that there is a presumption, which will scarcely be contested, in favour of the view that certain entire tales were dispersed from a common centre, thus showing on a small scale the working of the whole process. When, however, we come to parts of tales, such as special phrases, rhymes, etc., the evidence of a common origin is beyond question. There are plenty of minor examples in this volume; but here I would direct special attention to the three sea-runs which occur in "Bioultach," "King Mananaun," and "The Champion of the Red Belt," found in Galway, Mayo, and Donegal respectively (see Note, pp. 253-4). I think it difficult for any one who reads these and notes their likenesses and their differences, not to believe that they were originally composed by one person. The variations are easily accounted for by imperfect recollection, substitutions for forgotten phrases, and all the gradual alterations sure to arise in the case of irregular oral transmission among peasant narrators.

The evidence, then, seems so far to show that the fairy belief is common to all Ireland; that of the more elaborate traditional narratives, a certain small proportion seems to be widely diffused, while the larger portion separates into divisions peculiar to certain districts, the greatest divergence between one locality and another occurring when the localities are most widely separated.

Now, that there should be any considerable divergence seems surprising when the facts are fully taken into account. Ireland is not a large country. For centuries—we do not know how many—before the Norman invasion, the inhabitants had spoken Gaelic. The absence of political unity, the ceaseless wars and forays, must all have tended to fuse the population and obliterate original differences much more than a settled state of society. Yet they exist. The differences in folk-lore are not greater than other differences. Ethnologists know that the so-called Gaelic race is really a compound one, containing in addition to the true Celtic (Aryan) element probably two that are not Aryan—a Mongolian or Finnish element, and an Iberian element. Very little attempt has hitherto been made to settle in what parts of the country these elements respectively preponderate; but that there must be some preponderance of different races in different localities is shown clearly enough by the varying physical types. It is beyond question that Donegal differs from Connaught, and that both differ from Munster; and when we find that, in spite of a coexistence of at least two thousand years in the same island, and the possession of a common language, different districts have a different folk-lore, is it extravagant to surmise that these different bodies are due to varying racial deposits?

Let us now compare Ireland as a whole with the Scotch Highlands. The language of both is still, as for fifteen hundred years, practically the same. The inhabitants are of closely-allied race, in part identical, and for many centuries a constant communication was kept up between both countries. The folk-lore is partly alike, partly unlike. The similarity is occasionally very great. There are entire tales which are all but identical as told on both sides of the sea. There is identity of phrases and sentences. In Campbell's version of the "far-travelled tale," "The Battle of the Birds," occurs a striking phrase, in which the raven is said to have carried a man "over seven benns and seven glens and seven mountain moors." Nearly the same phrase occurs in Kennedy's version—"seven mountains (benns), seven glens and seven moors," which is the more surprising, as this story had passed, one does not know how long before, from its Gaelic into its English dress. Compare the phrase from "Morraha" in the present volume—"he sat down and gave a groan and the chair broke in pieces"—with Campbell's "The King of Assaroe"—"his heart was so heavy the chair broke under him." Many other examples could be given. We have before our eyes, so far as Irish and Scotch folk-lore are similar, an example of how two branches of a race originally so closely united as almost to form one, have for some hundreds of years drifted or been forced apart, the process being thus unfolded to us in the full light of history by which a body of folk-lore, originally one, has separated into divisions showing distinct characteristics, while it retains the strongest tokens of its original unity.

But it seems as if there was a large amount of folk-literature in each country which the other never possessed. To this I shall come presently, after I have first brought forward a comparison with German folk-lore. But before attempting that, it is desirable first to offer a few remarks on the style of the stories in this volume.

It will, I hope, be observed that the style is not uniform, but that it differs considerably from one story to another, and not so much in accordance with the narrator as with what he narrates. I must of course partially except the case of P. Minahan, whose individuality is stamped on everything that comes from him; but this is not so with the other narrators. If "The Gloss Gavlen" be compared with the only other tale of M'Ginty's, "The King who had Twelve Sons," it will be seen that the style of the two is quite distinct, the first being noticeable for a certain archaic simplicity of which there is no trace in the other. Again, the style of "Bioultach" is surely quite different from that of T. Davis's other contribution, "The Story," in "Morraha," while the opening of the latter from M'Grale is easily distinguishable from that of "The Little Girl who got the better of the Gentleman," or "Gilla of the Enchantments." Even Minahan varies with his subject, as will appear from a comparison of "The Woman who went to Hell" with "The Champion of the Red Belt." It seems from this as if some of the tales had a certain indestructibility of style, an original colour which passed unaltered through the minds of perhaps generations of reciters, this colour being determined at first by the character of the subject. In general, the tales of fierce fighting champions, of the more terrible monsters, sorcerers and the like, have a certain fierceness, if one may use the word, of style; while those of more domestic incident are told with quietness and tenderness.

Let me now briefly compare the folk-tales of Germany with those of the Scotch Highlands.

It cannot, I think, escape notice in reading Grimm's collection, that a very large number of the tales bear a strong impress of quiet domesticity. They are very properly named "household" in more senses than one. And this is a matter not merely of style but of substance. The incidents are, to a vast extent, domestic in character. There is no occasion to give a long list of the tales I refer to. I may mention as types "The Three Spinners," which turns entirely on the results of domestic drudgery to the female figure; and "Thrush-Beard," a tale analogous to "The Taming of the Shrew" legend. But this domestic stamp becomes more fully apparent when we bring into contrast the Highland stories. Among these there are indeed parallels to Grimm; but they are relatively few, and there is a whole class of incidents and stories of which little trace is found in the German collection. The domestic incident all but disappears. The tales are more romantic, picturesque, extravagant. The giants and monsters are more frequent and fearful. The stories of helping animals—and this is very characteristic—though not entirely absent, are far less numerous than in Grimm.

Now, turning to Ireland, we find that both classes of story meet upon Irish soil. Without making any allowance for the imperfect collection of our folk-lore, and the quantity that must have been lost owing to the lateness of our attempts to rescue it, it must be admitted that we have the domestic story fairly well developed. The two tales from Grimm that I have named, as well as many others, have the closest possible parallels in Kennedy, and I have myself met with additional examples on the coast of Connaught. The romantic and extravagant class of tales which flourish in the Highlands have also good representatives in our oral literature. Some specimens may be read in this volume. In one story, "Gilla of the Enchantments," is found a striking combination of the two. The story is, in part, a close variant of Kennedy's "Twelve Wild Geese," but it also contains, in addition to other matter, the wild incident of the daily cutting off of the brothers' heads by the sister, which is equally wanting in the variant to be found in Grimm.

The question now arises, How are these contrasts and similarities to be accounted for? Must we suppose them to be due to mere accident? If not, what law has been at work? Why have different kinds of tales drifted in different directions? What current of distribution has carried one set of tales to Scotland, part of the same and part of a different set to Ireland, while Germany has received a much larger share of the latter than Ireland, though in the other she has been left poor? It is clearly not commercial intercourse that has been at work, nor exogamy, nor slavery. Some other agency has to be sought for.

In the case of ancient Greece we have an instance in which an exceptionally rich body of legend has been proved to consist of elements brought from divers nations and races. The birthplace of many of the most considerable personages in Greek mythology has been found in Asian lands. The Centaurs, Perseus, Dionysus and Semele, Artemis, Adonis and Aphrodite herself, are believed to be all Asiatic in origin. Nay, more. These Orientals are shown to belong to two distinct races commingled in Babylonia: the Semites, who may have had distant affinities with the Iberians of the West; and the Accadians, whose connections were Mongol. It is true that the Greeks are held to have received these additions to their own store by means of commercial intercourse. The Phoenicians, those restless honey-gatherers of the old Mediterranean world, went about everywhere fertilising Western flowers with Eastern pollen; but in the case of the wild and barbarous north-west a similar agency cannot be found; and while we are justified in taking the hint supplied by the discovery of the compound racial nature of Greek myth, we are compelled by circumstances to seek for a different solution of the problem.

I have already adverted to the differences of race which exist in Ireland, more or less masked by the long predominance of the Aryan Gael. Such differences are not confined to Ireland. It is now admitted that the apparent predominance of the Aryan over most of Europe is, to a great extent, one of language merely. Furthermore, the elements which make up our population are found everywhere; the differences, mental and physical, which characterise different nations, being mainly due, first, to the minor variations which mark the branches of the great stocks, such as Celt, Teuton, and Slav among the Aryans, and secondly, to the continually varying proportions in which the different elements are blended. The principal fact is, that far the larger part of the Old World, excluding Africa, is occupied by three or four varieties of man, such as the Aryan, the Mongol, and the Iberian; the others, even when as important as the Semitic, holding very limited areas, and subject to continual contact with those more predominant. Of these again, it is worthy of remark that the most widely spread is not the Aryan, but the Mongol. The latter, in addition to the vast regions which are his openly, such as Japan, China, Central Asia, and his outlying posts in Europe, Finland, Hungary, and Turkey, is recognised by the type as leading a masked existence in the most western portions of our quarter of the globe. "Scratch the Russian and you will find the Tartar" is a saying which may be applied, mutatis mutandis, to many a nation much more remote from Central Asia; nor can we be surprised that such should be the case when we call to mind that this powerful branch of mankind has actually, within recent historical times, run the Aryan a neck-and-neck race for outward supremacy, while to the Semites he has scarcely left even their deserts.

With regard to the Iberian race, it has only to be noted that its distribution in the south and west of Europe is very extensive. It is still almost wholly predominant in Spain and Portugal. It probably constituted in old times, as now, the main non-Aryan element in Mediterranean Europe. North-westward it has had a wide extension into France, Britain, and Ireland, and probably into Scandinavia and other countries; while it is not impossible that to it also belong in part the non-Aryan inhabitants of Hindustan.

Applying these facts to Germany, the Scotch Highlands, and Ireland, do we not obtain a hint as to the phenomenon of folk-lore distribution? One race, let us say mainly Aryan, in Germany; another race, much less Aryan, in the Scotch Highlands; a third, a more even blend of the two—of Aryan and non-Aryan—in Ireland.

This theory seems to me to be only such a modification of a theory which originally prevailed as is now required by the facts. It was at first believed, apparently is still believed by some, that all these tales originally belonged to the Aryans alone. As soon, however, as it was found that many of them were the possession of races far removed from Aryan contact, it was at once seen that a modification of view was imperative. Then came the independent origin theory; and, amongst others of later birth, one which has recently attracted much attention—the Indian theory. This seems to me to involve the truth of several propositions which are surely a little hard to accept. We must hold, first, that the Aryans, when they entered India, had no folk-tales, because, according to the hypothesis, they carried none elsewhere; next, that the tales were either invented by the Aryans after they entered India, or were learned by them from the earlier peoples of that country. But that tales of one country, or one race, should have had a peculiar ability to diffuse themselves, wanting to all others, is a proposition that tries one's faith. Reverting again to the analogy already used, we know that there are animals common to India and Ireland whose original home was in neither country. There are men of the same Aryan descent by the Shannon and by the Indus whose ancestors had not their first common habitation by either river. And the folk-tales, so far as they are Aryan, did not originate south of the Himalayas, or west of the Irish Sea. But they cannot all be Aryan. Nothing could antecedently be more improbable than the suggestion that they were; and we might fairly regard it as refuted even if we had nothing to go on but the literary character of the tales. They bear the stamp of the genius of more than one race. The pure and placid but often cold imagination of the Aryan has been at work on some. In others we trace the more picturesque fancy, the fierceness and sensuality, the greater sense of artistic elegance belonging to races whom the Aryan, in spite of his occasional faults of hardness and coarseness, has, on the whole, left behind him. But as the greatest results in the realm of the highest art have always been achieved in the case of certain blends of Aryan with other blood, I should hardly deem it extravagant if it were asserted that in the humbler regions of the folk-tale we might trace the working of the same law. The process which has gone on may in part have been as follows:—Every race which has acquired very definite characteristics must have been for a long time isolated. The Aryans, during their period of isolation, probably developed many of their folk-germs into their larger myths, owing to the greater constructiveness of their imagination, and thus, in a way, they used up part of their material. Afterwards, when they became blended with other races less advanced, they acquired fresh material to work on. We have in Ireland an instance to hand, of which a brief discussion may help to illustrate the whole race theory.

The larger Irish legendary literature divides itself into three cycles—the divine, the heroic, the Fenian. Of these three the last is so well known orally in Scotland that it has been a matter of dispute to which country it really belongs. It belongs, in fact, to both. Here, however, comes in a strange contrast with the other cycles. The first is, so far as I am aware, wholly unknown in Scotland, the second comparatively unknown. What is the explanation? Professor Zimmer not having established his late-historical view as regards Fionn, and the general opinion among scholars having tended of recent years towards the mythical view, we want to know why there is so much more community in one case than in the other. Mr. O'Grady long since seeing this difficulty, and then believing Fionn to be historical, was induced to place the latter in point of time before Cuchullin and his compeers. But this view is, of course, inadmissible when Fionn is seen not to be historical at all. There remains but one explanation. The various bodies of legend in question are, so far as Ireland is concerned, only earlier or later as they came into the island with the various races to which they belonged. The wider prevalence, then, of the Fionn Saga would indicate that it belonged to an early race occupying both Ireland and Scotland. Then entered the Aryan Gael, and for him, henceforth, as the ruler of the island, his own gods and heroes were sung by his own bards. His legends became the subject of what I may call the court poetry, the aristocratic literature. When he conquered Scotland, he took with him his own gods and heroes; but in the latter country the bardic system never became established, and hence we find but feeble echoes of the heroic cycle among the mountains of the North. That this is the explanation is shown by what took place in Ireland. Here the heroic cycle has been handed down in remembrance almost solely by the bardic literature. The popular memory retains but few traces of it. Its essentially aristocratic character is shown by the fact that the people have all but forgotten it if they ever knew it. But the Fenian cycle has not been forgotten. Prevailing everywhere, still cherished by the conquered peoples, it held its ground in Scotland and Ireland alike, forcing its way in the latter country even into the written literature, and so securing a twofold lease of existence. That it did not deserve this wider popularity is evident enough. Interesting though it be, it is not equal in interest to the heroic cycle. The tales of the latter, though fewer in number, less bulky in amount, have upon them the impress of the larger constructive sweep of the Aryan imagination. Their characters are nobler; the events are more significant. They form a much more closely compacted epic whole. The Fenian tales, in some respects more picturesque, are less organised. It would be difficult to construct out of them a coherent epic plot; and what is, perhaps, not the least in significance, they have far more numerous, more extended, more intimate connections with the folk-tale.

The Fenian cycle, in a word, is non-Aryan folk-literature partially subjected to Aryan treatment. It occupies accordingly a middle position. Above the rank of the folk-tale it has been elevated; but to the dignity of the heroic legend it has not attained.

The tales included in the present volume form part of a large collection, which I began to make as far back as the year 1884. All have been taken down in the same way—that is to say, word for word from the dictation of the peasant narrators, all by myself, with the exception of two taken down by Mr. Lecky in precisely similar fashion; difficult and doubtful parts being gone over again and again. Sometimes the narrators can explain difficulties. Sometimes other natives of the place can help you. But after every resource of this kind has been exhausted, a certain number of doubtful words and phrases remain, with regard to which—well, one can only do one's best.

The districts from which the tales were obtained are three in number, each represented by two narrators. Renvyle, the most southern of the three, is situated in Connemara. It is a narrow peninsula, forming the extreme north-western point of the county of Galway, jutting out opposite Mayo. Terence Davis is a labourer pure and simple, a man of about forty-five years of age, and blind of one eye. Some of his tales he got from his mother. Michael Faherty was, when I first made his acquaintance, a lad of about seventeen. He was recommended, as the best pupil in the National School, to Mr. Lecky, who, finding him intelligent, selected him as the best person from whom, on account of his youth, the very latest development of the language could be learnt. He lived with his uncle, who had, or has still, a small holding on the Blake property, and who was also a pilot and repairer of boats. Both his tales were taken down by Mr. Lecky. Next in order, going northward, comes Achill Island, distant some twenty-five miles from Renvyle by sea, more than sixty miles by land.^[1] Two narrators from that locality are also represented in the book. One of them, Pat. M'Grale, is a man of middle age, a cottier with a small holding, and besides, a Jack-of-all-trades, something of a boatman and fisherman, "a botch of a tailor," to use his own words, and ready for any odd job. He can read Irish, but had very little literature on which to exercise his accomplishment. He knows some long poems by heart, and is possessed of various odds and ends of learning, accurate and not. John M'Ginty, a man of Donegal descent and name, has also some land; but his holding is so small that he is to a great extent a labourer for others, and was engaged on relief works when I first came to know him. He, also, is a middle-aged man. He knows many Ossianic poems by heart, which, he told me, his father taught him, verse by verse.

Glencolumkill is the extreme south-west corner of Donegal, remote, like Achill and Renvyle. It is chiefly represented by the tales of Pat. Minahan, from whom I obtained more stories than from any other one man. He said he was eighty years of age; but he was in full possession of all his faculties. He also had a holding on which he still worked industriously. He had no children; but his nephew, who lived with him, made up for all deficiencies of that nature. His style, with its short, abrupt sentences, is always remarkable, and at its best I think excellent. Jack Gillespie, known as Jack-Anne—the latter his mother's name—to distinguish him from other Jack Gillespies, was a man of sixty or over, also a cottier.

The tales were written down in places sufficiently varied;—from the Renvyle library to the neat little farmhouse parlour at Malinmore, where I spent so many a winter's evening, solitary but for the occasional visits of some one or other of my story-tellers;—from little smoky cabins, with inquisitive hens hopping on the table, to the unroofed freedom of rock or brae, under summer skies, by those thrice-lovely shores of Renvyle; by the scarcely less beautiful, though far more rugged, crags and cliffs of Achill; by "the wild sea-banks" of what has been described as the "grandest coast in Europe"—that of Glencolumkill.

The beauty of Scotch scenery has been discovered by one critic to be reflected in the picturesqueness of the Scotch tales. I am not without hope that a like influence has contributed something of a like quality to those now submitted to the reader.

William Larminie.

1. The Sound, very narrow, is now bridged over.