[34] Angus Og was really a deity or fairy king. He appears also in the story of Midir and Etain. q.v.

X

THE DEATH AND BURIAL OF CORMAC

Strange was the birth and childhood of Cormac strange his life and strange the manner of his death and burial, as we now have to narrate.

Cormac, it is said, was the third man in Ireland who heard of the Christian Faith before the coming of Patrick. One was Conor mac Nessa, King of Ulster, whose druid told him of the crucifixion of Christ and who died of that knowledge.[35] The second was the wise judge, Morann, and the third Cormac, son of Art. This knowledge was revealed to him by divine illumination, and thenceforth he refused to consult the druids or to worship the images which they made as emblems of the Immortal Ones.

[35] See the conclusion of the Vengeance of Mesgedra.

One day it happened that Cormac after he had laid down the kingship of Ireland, was present when the druids and a concourse of people were worshipping the great golden image which was set up in the plain called Moy Slaught. When the ceremony was done, the chief druid, whose name was Moylann, spoke to Cormac and said: "Why, O Cormac, didst thou not bow down and adore the golden image of the god like the rest of the people?"

And Cormac said: "Never will I worship a stock[36] that my own carpenter has made. Rather would I worship the man that made it, for he is nobler than the work of his hands."

[36] The image was doubtless of wood overlaid with gold.

Then it is told that Moylann by magic art caused the image to move and leap before the eyes of Cormac. "Seest thou that?" said Moylann.

"Although I see," said Cormac, "I will do no worship save to the God of Heaven and Earth and Hell."

Then Cormac went to his own home at Sletty on the Boyne, for there he lived after he had given up the kingdom to his son Cairbry. But the druids of Erinn came together and consulted over this matter, and they determined solemnly to curse Cormac and invoke the vengeance of their gods upon him lest the people should think that any man could despise and reject their gods, and suffer no ill for it.

So they cursed Cormac in his flesh and bones, in his waking and sleeping, in his down sitting and his uprising, and each day they turned over the Wishing Stone upon the altar of their god,[37] and wove mighty spells against his life. And whether it was that these took effect, or that the druids prevailed upon some traitorous servant of Cormac's to work their will, so it was that he died not long thereafter; and some say that he was choked by a fish bone as he sat at meat in his house at Sletty on the Boyne.

[37] There are still Wishing Stones, which are used in connexion with petitions for good or ill, on the ancient altars of Inishmurray and of Caher Island, and possibly other places on the west coast of Ireland.

But when he felt his end approaching, and had still the power to speak, he said to those that gathered round his bed:—"When I am gone I charge you that ye bury me not at Brugh of the Boyne where is the royal cemetery of the Kings of Erinn.[38] For all these kings paid adoration to gods of wood or stone, or to the Sun and the Elements, whose signs are carved on the walls of their tombs, but I have learned to know the One God, immortal, invisible, by whom the earth and heavens were made. Soon there will come into Erinn one from the East who will declare Him unto us, and then wooden gods and cursing priests shall plague us no longer in this land. Bury me then not at Brugh-na-Boyna, but on the hither-side of Boyne, at Ross-na-ree, where there is a sunny, eastward-sloping hill, there would I await the coming of the sun of truth."

[38] This famous cemetery of the kings of pagan Ireland lies on the north bank of the Boyne and consists of a number of sepulchral mounds, sometimes of great extent, containing, in their interior, stone walled chambers decorated with symbolic and ornamental carvings. The chief of these mounds, now known as Newgrange, has been explored and described by Mr George Coffey in his valuable work NEWGRANGE, published by the Royal Irish Academy. Brugh=mansion.

So spake Cormac, and he died, and there was a very great mourning for him in the land. But when the time came for his burial, the princes and lords of the Gael vowed that he should lie in Brugh with Art, his father, and Conn of the Hundred Battles, and many another king, in the great stone chambers of the royal dead. For Ross-na-ree, they said, is but a green hill of no note; and Cormac's expectation of the message of the new God they took to be but the wanderings of a dying man.

Now Brugh-na-Boyna lay at the farther side of the Boyne from Sletty, and near by was a shallow ford where the river could be crossed. But when the funeral train came down to the ford, bearing aloft the body of the King, lo! the river had risen as though a tempest had burst upon it at its far-off sources in the hills, and between them and the farther bank was now a broad and foaming flood, and the stakes that marked the ford were washed clean away. Even so they made trial of the ford, and thrice the bearers waded in and thrice they were forced to turn back lest the flood should sweep them down. At length six of the tallest and mightiest of the warriors of the High King took up the bier upon their shoulders, and strode in. And first the watchers on the bank saw the brown water swirl about their knees, and then they sank thigh-deep, and at last it foamed against their shoulders, yet still they braced themselves against the current, moving forward very slowly as they found foothold among the slippery rocks in the river-bed. But when they had almost reached the mid-stream it seemed as if a great surge overwhelmed them, and caught the bier from their shoulders as they plunged and clutched around it, and they must needs make back for the shore as best they could, while Boyne swept down the body of Cormac to the sea.

On the following morning, however, shepherds driving their flocks to pasture on the hillside of Ross-na-ree found cast upon the shore the body of an aged man of noble countenance, half wrapped in a silken pall; and knowing not who this might be they dug a grave in the grassy hill, and there laid the stranger, and laid the green sods over him again.

There still sleeps Cormac the King, and neither Ogham-lettered stone nor sculptured cross marks his solitary grave. But he lies in the place where he would be, of which a poet of the Gael in our day has written:—

"A tranquil spot: a hopeful sound Comes from the ever-youthful stream, And still on daisied mead and mound The dawn delays with tenderer beam.

"Round Cormac, spring renews her buds: In march perpetual by his side Down come the earth-fresh April floods, And up the sea-fresh salmon glide;

"And life and time rejoicing run From age to age their wonted way; But still he waits the risen sun, For still 'tis only dawning day."[39]

[39] These lines are taken from Sir S. Ferguson's noble poem, The Burial of King Cormac, from which I have also borrowed some of the details of the foregoing narrative.



* * * * *



Notes on the Sources

The Story of the Children of Lir and The Quest of the Sons of Turenn are two of the three famous and popular tales entitled "The Three Sorrows of Storytelling." The third is the Tragedy of the Sons of Usna, rendered by Miss Eleanor Hull in her volume CUCHULAIN. I have taken the two stories which are given here from the versions in modern Irish published by the Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language, with notes and translation. Neither of them is found in any very early MS., but their subject-matter certainly goes back to very primitive times.

The Secret of Labra is taken from Keating's FORUS FEASA AR EIRINN, edited with translation by the Rev. P.S. Dineen for the Irish Texts Society, vol. i. p. 172.

The Carving of mac Datho's Boar. This is a clean, fierce, fighting story, notable both for its intensely dramatic denouement, and for the complete absence from it of the magical or supernatural element which is so common a feature in Gaelic tales. It has been edited and translated from one MS. by Dr Kuno Meyer, in Hibernica Minora (ANECDOTA OXONIENSIA), 1894, and translated from THE BOOK OF LEINSTER (twelfth century) in Leahy's HEROIC ROMANCES.

The Vengeance of Mesgedra. This story, as I have given it, is a combination of two tales, The Siege of Howth and The Death of King Conor. The second really completes the first, though they are not found united in Irish literature. Both pieces are given in O'Curry's MS. MATERIALS OF IRISH HISTORY, and Miss Hull has printed translations of them in her CUCHULLIN SAGA, the translation of the Siege being by Dr Whitly Stokes and that of the Death of Conor by O'Curry. These are very ancient tales and contain a strong barbaric element. Versions of both of them are found in the great MS. collection known as the BOOK OF LEINSTER (twelfth century).

King Iubdan and King Fergus is a brilliant piece of fairy literature. The imaginative grace, the humour, and, at the close, the tragic dignity of this tale make it worthy of being much more widely known than it has yet become. The original, taken from one of the Egerton MSS. in the British Museum, will be found with a translation in O'Grady's SILVA GADELICA. For the conclusion, I have in the main followed another version (containing the death of Fergus only), given in the SEANCUS MOR and finely versified by Sir Samuel Ferguson in his POEMS, 1880.

The Story of Etain and Midir. This beautiful and very ancient romance is extant in two distinct versions, both of which are translated by Mr A.H. Leahy in his HEROIC ROMANCES. The tale is found in several MSS., among others, in the twelfth century BOOK OF THE DUN COW (LEABHAR NA H-UIDHRE). It has been recently made the subject of a dramatic poem by "Fiona Macleod."

How Ethne quitted Fairyland is taken from D'Arbois de Jubainville's CYCLE MYTHOLOGIQUE IRLANDAIS, ch. xii. 4. The original is to be found in the fifteenth century MS., entitled THE BOOK OF FERMOY.

The Boyhood of Finn is based chiefly on the MACGNIOMHARTHA FHINN, published in 1856, with a translation, in the TRANSACTIONS OF THE OSSIANIC SOCIETY, vol. iv. I am also indebted, particularly for the translation of the difficult Song of Finn in Praise of May, to Dr Kuno Meyer's translation published in Eriu (the Journal of the School of Irish Learning), vol. i. pt. 2.

The Coming of Finn, Finns Chief Men, the Tale of Vivionn and The Chase of the Gilla Dacar, are all handfuls from that rich mine of Gaelic literature, Mr Standish Hayes O'Grady's SILVA GADELICA. In the Gilla Dacar I have modified the second half of the story rather freely. It appears to have been originally an example of a well-known class of folk-tales dealing with the subject of the Rescue of Fairyland. The same motive occurs in the famous tale called The Sickbed of Cuchulain. The idea is that some fairy potentate, whose realm is invaded and oppressed, entices a mortal champion to come to his aid and rewards him with magical gifts. But the eighteenth century narrator whose MS. was edited by Mr S.H. O'Grady, apparently had not the clue to the real meaning of his material, and after going on brilliantly up to the point where Dermot plunges into the magic well, he becomes incoherent, and the rest of the tale is merely a string of episodes having no particular connexion with each other or with the central theme. The latter I have here endeavoured to restore to view. The Gilla Dacar is given from another Gaelic version by Dr P.W. Joyce in his invaluable book, OLD CELTIC ROMANCES.

The Birth of Oisin I have found in Patrick Kennedy's LEGENDARY FICTIONS OF THE IRISH CELTS. I do not know the Gaelic original.

Oisin in the Land of Youth is based, as regards the outlines of this remarkable story, on the LAOI OISIN AR TIR NA N-OG, written by Michael Comyn about 1750, and edited with a translation by Thomas Flannery in 1896 (Gill & Son, Dublin). Comyn's poem was almost certainly based on earlier traditional sources, either oral or written or both, but these have not hitherto been discovered.

The History of King Cormac. The story of the birth of Cormac and his coming into his kingdom is to be found in SILVA GADELICA, where it is edited from THE BOOK OF BALLYMOTE, an MS. dating from about the year 1400.

The charming tale, of his marriage with Ethne ni Dunlaing is taken from Keating's FORUS FEASA. From this source also I have taken the tales of the Brehon Flahari, of Kiernit and the mill, and of Cormac's death and burial. The Instructions of Cormac have been edited and translated by Dr Kuno Meyer in the Todd Lecture Series of the Royal Irish Academy, xiv., April 1909. They are found in numerous MSS., and their date is fixed by Dr Meyer about the ninth century. With some other Irish matter of the same description they constitute, says Mr Alfred Nutt, "the oldest body of gnomic wisdom" extant in any European vernacular. (FOLK-LORE, Sept. 30, 1909.)

The story of Cormac's adventures in Fairyland has been published with a translation by Standish Hayes O'Grady in the TRANSACTIONS OF THE OSSIANIC SOCIETY, vol. iii., and is also given very fully by d'Arbois de Jubainvilie in his CYCLE MYTHOLOGIQUE IRLANDAIS. The tale is found, among other MSS., in the BOOK OF BALLYMOTE, but is known to have been extant at least as early as the tenth century, since in that year it figures in a list of Gaelic tales drawn up by the historian Tierna.

The ingenious story of the Judgment concerning Cormac's Sword is found in the BOOK OF BALLYMOTE, and is printed with a translation by Dr Whitly Stokes in IRISCHE TEXTE, iii. Serie, 7 Heft, 1891.



Pronouncing Index

The correct pronunciation of Gaelic proper names can only be learned from the living voice. It cannot be accurately represented by any combination of letters from the English alphabet. I have spared the reader as much trouble as possible on this score by simplifying, as far as I could, the forms of the names occurring in the text, and if the reader will note the following general rules, he will get quite as near to the pronunciation intended as there is any necessity for him to do. A few names which might present some unusual difficulty are given with their approximate English pronunciations in the Index.

The chief rule to observe is that vowels are pronounced as in the Continental languages, not according to the custom peculiar to England. Thus a is like a in father, never like a in fate, I(when long) is like ee, u like oo, or like u in put (never like u in tune). An accent implies length, thus Dun, a fortress or mansion, is pronounced Doon. The letters ch are never to be pronounced with a t sound, as in the word chip, but like a rough h or a softened k, rather as in German. Gh is silent as in English, and g is always hard, as in give. C is always as k, never as s.

In the following Index an accent placed after a syllable indicates that the stress is to be laid on that syllable. Only those words are given, the pronunciation of which is not easily ascertainable by attention to the foregoing rules.



INDEX

AEda is to be pronounced Ee'-da. Ailill " Al'-yill. Anluan " An'-looan. Aoife " Ee'-fa. Bacarach " Bac'-arah. Belachgowran " Bel'-ah-gow'-ran. Cearnach " Kar'-nah. Cuchulain " Coo-hoo'-lin. Cumhal " Coo'wal, Cool. Dacar " Dak'-ker. Derryvaragh " Derry-var'-a.

Eisirt " Eye'sert. Eochy " Yeo'hee.

Fiachra " Fee'-akra. Fianna " Fee'-anna. Finegas " Fin'-egas. Fionnuala " Fee-on-oo'-ala, shortened in modern Irish into Fino'-la.

Flahari " Fla'-haree.

Iorroway " Yor'-oway. Iubdan " Youb'-dan. Iuchar " You'-har. Iucharba " You-har'-ba.

Liagan " Lee'-agan. Lir " Leer. Logary " Lo'-garee.

Maev " rhyming to _wave_. Mananan " Man'-anan. Mesgedra " Mes-ged'-ra. Midir " Mid'-eer. Mochaen " Mo-_hain'. Mochaovog " Mo-_h_wee'-vogue. Moonremur " Moon'-ray-mur.

Oisin " Ush'-een (Ossian).

Peisear " Pye'-sar.

Sceolaun " Ske-o'-lawn (the e very short). Slievenamuck " Sleeve-na-muck'. Slievenamon " Sleeve-na-mon'.

Tuish " Too'-ish.

THE END