told it as I have heard Con O'Keefe tell it, especially when overcome by liquor, at which time, the truth is sure to come out – it is proof positive, that there have been fairies in this neighborhood, and that within the memory of man!"
Such a logical conclusion was incontrovertible, especially when enforced by a facetious wink from the schoolmaster; so, I even left matters as they were, and listened with all proper attention to other stories in the same vein, and to the same effect. If the narrator did not credit them, most of his auditors did, which amounts to much the same in the end. Some other time, perhaps, I may be tempted to relate them.
LEGENDS OF FINN MAC COUL
There is a similarity, all over the world, between the popular legends and traditions of different nations. They are reproduced, with slight differences of circumstance and costume, to suit each new locality. For example, the Maiden Tower at Constantinople, actually built by the Emperor Manuel, centuries ago, for the purpose of a double communication – with Scutari, on the Asian side, and with the point of coast occupied by the Serai Bournou on the Asian. Whenever the hostile visit of a Venetian fleet was anticipated, a strong iron chain used to be drawn on both sides, across the entire breadth of the strait. Respecting this are several legends, all of which have their prototypes in the West.
The generally received account has appropriated it as the place in which, for safety, a damsel was held in close retirement until the fatal time named in a prediction should have passed away; but a serpent, accidentally brought up in a basket of fruit, caused the maiden's death. Here is a striking illustration of the similarity between the legends of the East and those of the West. In the Third Calendar's Story, in the Arabian Nights' Entertainments (which have charmed all of us in youth, and rarely fail to delight us when we return to them in maturer years), the whole interest turns on an incident of the same character. Both stories appear deeply imbued with that fatality which forms the distinguishing feature in Eastern belief and practice. Near Bristol, also, are the remains of a tower, called Cook's Folly, erected to be the dwelling-place of a youth of whom it had been predicted that (like the heroine of the Turkish legend) his life would be in peril from a serpent until the completion of his eighteenth year. The dangerous time had nearly expired, when the youth died from the venomous bite of an adder, which had been accidentally conveyed to his isolated abode in a bundle of fagots.
In the south of Ireland, on the summit of a mountain called Corrig Thierna (Athe Chieftain's Rock), is a heap of stones which, if there be truth in tradition, was brought there to build a castle in which was to dwell a son of Roche, Prince of Fermoy, of whom it had been predicted that he would be drowned before his twentieth year. The child, when only five years old, fell into a pool of water which had been collected, on the top of the mountain, to make mortar for the erection of the tower, in which it was intended he should be kept "out of harm's way," until the perilous period had elapsed. The child was drowned. In each case, the prophecy appears to have brought about its own fulfilment. There is a moral in these old traditions, did we but know how to seize and apply it.
Washington Irving has localized several legends as American, but his Rip Van Winkle has been traced to a German origin, and many of his other legends appear to be old friends in a new attire. Who can say whence any traditional stories are derived? Some years ago, a supplement to the Thousand-and-One Nights, containing an Arabian tale called the Sage Heycar, was published at Paris, and the translator noted the curious fact that this Oriental story contained many incidents exactly similar to passages in the life of Æsop: such as sixteen pages of details of a visit made by Heycar to the court of Pharaoh, which are the same, word for word, with the account of the like visit made by Æsop. So, too, the challenge which Pharaoh sent to the King of Abyssinia, demanding him to build a palace in the air, and the ingenious means to which Æsop had recourse, are transferred to Heycar. Even the fables of Æsop, the Phrygian, have been claimed for Lokman, the Arabian philosopher, and now the very incidents of his life are taken from him by Heycar.
The Coventry legend of Lady Godiva is claimed by the Arabians. In Von Hammer's new Arabian Nights is the story called Camaralzeman and the Jeweller's Wife, founded on an incident precisely similar to that in which the English heroine appears.
The truth is, it is impossible to ascertain what coincident mythology connects the East and the West. We know not what relation Thor of Scandinavia may have with Vishnu of Hindostan. The oldest English and Irish stories appear to have corresponding legends among the Celts, Danes, Scandinavians, and Normans, and, again, these have wandered either to or from the East. Even such thoroughly English stories as Tom Thumb, Jack the Giant Killer, and Whittington and his Cat, are claimed as aboriginal in foreign countries. The Wise Men of Gotham, one of the oldest English provincial legends, is given, nearly verbatim, in one of the German popular stories, collected by the Brothers Grimm, and its incidents may be found in the Pentamerone (in the story of Bardiello), but has been translated from the Tamul tongue, which is a dialect of Southern India, as the "Adventures of Gooroo Noodle and his Five Disciples."
The Germans are very fond of legendary lore. Like the Irish, they have their cellar-haunters, who invariably tap the best wine, and make themselves merry with whatever the cellar and larder can supply. Like the Irish, too, they have traditions of gigantic dwellers in the land, in days gone by, and they re-people the Hartz with men of enormous stature and strength, capable of daring and doing any thing, yet who differ from the Genii, in the Arabian Tales, who are spoken of as possessing supernatural powers, while the giants of Western tradition, having nothing remarkable, except their size and strength, and so far from being endowed with more than human powers, may be noticed, on the contrary, as being slow-witted and rather dull of comprehension, – for, like most very tall people of the present day, their upper story is unfurnished. Such were Finn Mac Coul, and his great rival, Ossian, neither of whom can be named as remarkably bright "boys." There are a few instances of this which may be worth recording. For example: —
FINN AND THE FISH
In the good old times, "when Malachi wore the collar of gold, which he won from the proud invader," no Irish hero was more celebrated than Finn Mac Coul. What cabin is there, from the Giant's Causeway to Cape Clear, which is not full of his glory?
Finn Mac Coul was famous for his strength of mind and body, for his wisdom and his might. The Saxons fled before him when he unfurled Ireland's ancient banner – which bore the poetical name of The Sunburst – and thousands arrayed themselves around it; mountain and vale, plain and tarn, hall and bower, were full of the glory of his graceful deeds of gentle courtesy. His mighty mind was suitably lodged, for he was tall as one of the sons of Anak, and might have passed for own brother to him of Gath.
Before relating any of his wonderful bodily achievements, it may be as well to mention the mysterious manner in which his wisdom, like a tangible revelation, fell upon him.
In the ancient days of Ireland's glory, the province of Munster was a Kingdom, and was called Momonia. One of the Mac Carthy family had sovereign sway. He was a good-natured, soft-hearted, fat-headed sort of neutral character – one of that class, still too common in Ireland, known by the apologetic sobriquet of "nobody's enemy but his own." He kept open house for all comers, and the effect of his undiscriminating hospitality was, that, a monarch in name, he was next to a pauper in reality, living, as the saying is, quite "from hand to mouth." This he could have borne, for, like the eels, he was used to it, but the empty state of his exchequer rendered him unable to pay for the military services of his subjects, and the result was, that his dominions gradually fell into a state of partition among his brother monarchs of greater power, richer treasury, and smaller hospitality.
It happened that one of these, named Mac Murragh – an ancestor of him whose daughter's frailty led to the subjugation of Ireland by Henry II. – ruled over Leinster, while poor Mac Carthy was enjoying nominal empire over the rich plains of Munster. Mac Murragh was ambitious. He saw what an easy prey Momonia might be. He wished to feed his herds upon that beautiful tract of land intersected by the river Suir, which even yet is called "The Golden
