The Song of the Smithy

With his blunt ploughshare (a) that grew russet red.

O’er the fifth of Munster in their hurrying speed,

(a) Eite is a piece added to a ploughshare when worn, a peri-

(2) I am indebted to MacLean for this clever suggestion. The grave of Thor is shewn at Old Upsala. The same Gaelic word

(c) In Gillies this varies considerably. (d) Here there is a break in Gillies also, and the meaning is obscure. MacCallum makes it, “Leave me not alone in a strait

(e) This is so in Gillies also. Irish writers say that the Feinne were a standing army of Irish warriors divided into seven battalions; this makes the men of Lochlann to be so divided. One Irish author says that the Feinne were Norsemen who guarded

From Donald MacPhie, smith, Breubhaig, Barra, who learnt it from his uncle Hector MacLaine.—H. M’Lean.

Breubhaig, Barra, October 1, 1860.

1 Spaoili, probably Upsala.

2 Teinne, a mass, or bar of metal.

% Meirbhe, same as Beirbhe, Bergen?

5 Ceard, any kind of smith; or-cheard, a goldsmith; ceard airgid, a silversmith; eeard copair, a coppersmith; ceard stavin, a tinsmith, tinker; ceard spainean, a spoonsmith, Gipsies and travelling tinkers are pre-eminently ceardan or smiths, because they work in a great variety of metals. Ceard nan Gallan, the smith of the branches or youths, so called from being well adapted to cut down the young and strong.

8 Feall here is probably fial mispronounced.

So far this is almost the very same as the version given in Gillies, published 1786. The number of verses is the same, and the number of lines, and the order of the story the same; but there are considerable variations in a small way. In the 8th verse they set off to travel ‘as chuige mugha na luimedheirg,” on a yellow mountain, as Beither, a dragon, which may mean, like the fifth of Munster of Limerick, but which I suspect refers to some other legend, for it does not appear how Munster should run like a dragon. In the 16th verse only one smith, he who spoke, has seven hands. In the 20th verse Ossian’s sword is “Deire nan colg,” the end of anger. In the 26th, the word is teann ruith, hard running, instead of the word pronounced teavrai; and there are many slight verbal differences and changes in orthography. The piece is without doubt the very same which is in Gillies, and if the book is in the Long Island it might have been learned from it. But, on the other hand, the book professes to be a collection made in the Highlands, its genuineness has never been questioned, and I believe that this is but a proof of the tenacity of popular memory for things which suit popular taste.

Another version was taken down for MacCallum, and published in 1816; I have indicated the chief differences in the footnotes. There is an Irish prose version of the story lately published (Ossianic Society’s 2d vol.), which differs materially; it reduces the whole to a race; Fionn carried his sword with him; the smith is a giant with one leg, one arm, and one eye, who is bound by Fionn; his name is Roc, son of Diocan. As the Manks tradition (see introduction, vol. i. lvi.) agrees with these Gaelic poems, I suspect the Irish story is the tradition more fallen to decay.

Now as an example of the way in which these poems pervade the whole traditions of the country and are interwoven with each other, let me give the following account of a visit to pick up a version of the poem in Islay. MacLean’s letter seems worth preservation.

Sir—I called on old MacPhail at Scanlistle last Friday; it was the first time I had spoken to him for at least twenty years, for it is but lately that he has come to this parish. He left it fully more than twenty-five years ago, and was for a long time a workman with Doctor MacTavish. There the poor fellow got hurt, and the result was that he lost his leg. It may be well to state that he was a skilful and industrious workman, as there is a current opinion that these story-tellers are found among the worthless and lazy. Before he left this parish he was a workman with old Rounsfell at Persabas, and he was the person that was always sent to kiln-dry and mill the corn at Ballygrant. It was then, while kiln-drying corn, that he amused me with these Fenian stories. I regret to say that the verses are not so complete as I used to hear them from him, I reminded him of Sinsearrachd Fhinn, of which he was wont to give me a long list, but of this he could remember nothing the other day. I remember it went this way:—Fionn MacCumhail, ’Ic Trathuil, ’Ic treun-moir, ’Ic cham laora, but I cannot remember any other name beyond cam laora, or crooked toes,

When I entered the house he was sitting by the fireside with his wooden leg. The old fellow’s eye brightened when he saw me, and I told him I wished to hear some of his old lore again. 0,” said he, “b’ abhaist domh *bhith ’gan gabhail sin a chumail toil-inntinn riut ” (I used to be reciting these to thee to keep thee pleased). ‘Cha bhiodh esan ach ’na phaisde an sin” (he would be but a child then), said his brother’s wife. “Bha e ’na bhalach caol, luirgneach ’san am ” (he was a slender leggy boy at the time), a description which is not altogether inappropriate yet. I inquired of him about the old people whom he was wont to hear reciting these stories in his youth, and he enumerated several, and said that the poems were long and beautiful, and that to listen to them was the delight of all. He quotes something here and there of almost all [ I have got. “Bas Gharuidh,” he related to me, ‘The Incident of the Pigeons;” but with respect to Fionn, he says his thigh was cut through, and that he was worthless ever afterwards,

“O bu lurach an eachdraidh i nuair a bhiodh i air a h-innseadh gu ceart” (Oh that history was one of price when it was rightly told), exclaimed he with enthusiasm. During the conversation 1 gave him three glasses of good strong whisky, and you would not know that he had tasted it, further than being in good spirits. Verily alcohol is not always poison, as total abstainers pronounce it to be,—I am, Sir, yours sincerely,

The conversation is written in Gaelic, but a translation is sufficient.

I give the verses as an example of the way in which scraps may be picked up, which might be used in mending other versions.

From Malcolm MacPhail, Scanlistle, aged eighty years, Learnt it from Alexander MacQueen, Persabas, sixty years ago. MacQueen was past eighty years of age at that time.

There was seen nearing us A big man upon one foot, With his black dusky black skin mantle, With his hammering tools, and his “steel lathe.”

One shaggy eye in his forehead, Making ever for MacChumhail, “Who is thyself,” said MacChumhail, “Or whence art thou?”

“I came to lay you under enchantments, Six of the chiefs of the Feinne, To be chasing me without hurry, West to the door of my workshop.”

He set off like the wind of the spring time, Out to the dark mountains of the high grounds.

He would take but a single step, O’er each single cold glen of the desert; Thou could’st have seen but hardly A tuck of his clothing o’er his hurdles.

Rugha is a smith according to the reciter. Raute is a Lapp nickname for a smith, as I learned on the Tana, where I took the sketch of the skin-clad smith, whose portrait I give as an illustration. (See Frontispiece.)

Here the old man forgot his poem, but remembered a bit of his story.

“When Caoilte was at full speed, thou might’st see three heads on him. His two shoulders would be rising aloft, as though there were two heads, and his head would be crouching down, he would be going as it seems half bent.” At vol. ii., 425, this occurs in the tale of the white chief, and this explains what I did not understand.

Here this poem ends, so far as this old man is concerned; but enough remains to prove that he did not borrow from Gillies or MacCallum, for there are several lines and some verses which are not to be found in the books.

It is also manifest that there is a great deal missing. In the Lay of Diarmaid, he says that he was one of the party; his sword is mentioned here, but he is not.

MacLean writes:—“At the end of this verse MacPhail relates that the arms required to be tempered in the blood of a living person; that the smith’s daughter took a fancy to Fionn, who had a love spot (which was Diarmaid’s property), and that she told him, unless he killed her father with the sword, that her father would kill him. This Fionn accordingly did. This is different from the usual story, according to which the sword is tempered in the blood of the old woman, the smith’s mother. Probably the variation may be owing to forgetfulness on the part of MacPhail, caused by old age and by having had a paralytic stroke last winter.”

“This was when they got the arms; they had before but ‘Tunnachan,’ they were sticks with sharp ends made on them, and these ends burned and hardened in the fire. They used to throw them from them, and they could aim exceedingly with them, and they could drive them through a man. They used to have a bundle with them on their shoulders, and a bundle in their oxters. I myself have seen one of them that was found in a moss, that was as though it had been hardened in the fire.”

This then gives the popular notion of the heroes, and throws them back beyond the iron period.

“There was a great day of battle between themselves and the Lochlanners, which was called Latha nan Tunnachan, the day of the stakes. I have heard old men speaking of it, and it was down thereabouts, about Chnoc angail that they gave it. They had a great day there.”

This then fixes the period; at the time of the wars with Lochlann in Islay.

“It was in the side of a knoll at Alltan a chuirin that the fairy smith had his smithy.”

“There was a great carlin once in Lochlann. It is Muirearteach maol ruadh that they used to say to her. She came from Lochlann, and she brought a smithy and the smith (ceardach agus an Gobha) with her on her back to sharpen the spears; she was but a witch, but the Fheinn slew her. Said the King of Lochlann when he heard this”—here comes in verse 23 of the poem given already, page 144, with the English word sink introduced, and a few variations; and this joins the lay of the witch to the lay of the smithy.

“The Lochlanners were difficult (that is, cross and fierce); and they had so much iodramanach and witchcraft that it is thus they used to do much of their valour.”

“Goll was the strongest man that was in the Fheinn, and he could eat seven stacks at his dinner. Fionn was a patient worthy man, and they used always to take his counsel. Fionn and Osgar, Goll and Oisean, four ‘postaichean ’ of the Feinne, the high law people, Luchd ladh.”

This would seem to explain how three generations fill such a large space in Celtic popular tradition. If the names of the original warriors became the names of offices or officers they may have been Celtic gods at first and commanders of Irish, Scotch Scandinavian, and British Feinne afterwards, in the third century and in the twelfth. There were many Osgars at the battle of Gaura, and Fionn, who is killed in one century, is all alive the next.

“Fionn was not a king over land, he was but a chief over the men.”

“Was there any other name said to him but Righ na Feinne, king of the Fane?”

“There was not.”

“It is Conan who was the weakest man that was in the Fheinn, because they used to keep him maol (cropped). He had but the strength of a man, but if the hair should get leave to grow there was the strength of a man in him for every hair that was in his head; but he was so cross that if the hair should grow he would kill them all. He was so short-tempered (ath-ghoirid) that he used to be always fighting with them.”

So all accounts agree; and Kai, Arthur’s attendant, was of the same disposition.

“When Goll would be in great rage the one eye would come ‘dorn gulban’ out, and the other eye would go ‘dorn gulban’ in. I think myself that his appearance would not be beautiful then.”

Neither narrator, scribe, nor translator knows what “dord gulban” means, but Conall Gulban struck dorn a fist on a man, and knocked his eye out on his cheek.

“Did you ever hear,” what Righ Mhor bheinn (king of Morven, of great hills), said to Fionn?

“I have heard it,” (chual). This was put as an experiment to try the effect of a leading question, and it produced a contradiction; but he might have heard the name and have forgotten it till reminded.

“They would be always staying over at Fas Laigheann, at Goirtean taoid, when they were in this island (Islay), and the place for the caldron is there yet, and they say that the caldron is buried there. It is Eas Laigheann nan sruth seimh that they used to call it— lin of Laigheann of the still streams—they were so fond of it. They had no house at all there.”

This joins Gaelic to Welsh and Irish traditions, for this caldron is often mentioned, and it upsets Scotch and Irish topography altogether.

“There came a woman on them there once from the westward, and they said to her—

We lay it as a circuit and as spells on thee.

That thou tell us who thou art, or thy people.

I am the daughter of the king of Sorchann,*

Sorchann, MacLean suggests, may be Drontheim or Trondjem. Sorchan used to mean an elevation on which a shinny ball was placed to be ‘hit off,” and it meant any other hillock, Baoidhre, from Beithir, a large serpent or dragon, and Righ, a king, so called probably from having a serpent as part of his armorial bearings.—H. M‘L.

Shield of armies,

And that his name is Baoidhre borb,

And that he will take me with him.

Though great our time from the Fane,

Though long be the night to day,

It was not our wont to be without music.

“They were is such a great (iomagain) trouble about the man who was coming that they did not set up any music.”

“We will rise out in the morning,’ said they, ‘to see who is coming upon us.’”

coig ceud laoch. Leum an deo as a’ mhnaoi an an taobh eile dhiu leis an eagal. “There was seen coming near us a great man on his dun black, white-haired steed, walking on the sea, in from the western airt. ‘Let us lay our counsel together, See who will take a tale from the youth,’ Spoke Goll, with great care and a frown, ‘Who will go under my shield to ward off the tempered strokes.’ “The man who came struck a shield blow, and he asked for a battle of five hundred heroes. The life leaped out of the women on the other side of them for fear.

“They killed him at last.

They buried at the top of the lin

The great man of great honour and esteem.

Fionn MacChumail put a golden ring

On each of his fingers in honour of the king.

I saw a man in Goirtean taoid (in Islay), and he found one of the rings on the point of his sock when he was ploughing—Murchadh MacNeacail. It was one of the old Highland ploughs he had. There were great long beaks on them. The carle got much money for the ring.”

Now this is the story of the well-known poem of Fainesoluis, localized in Islay, and the finding of a gold ring assumed to be proof positive of its exact truth by the old man who tells it. I also have a gold ring which was found in Islay with a lot of others, It is said that the finder made handles for a chest of drawers of these gold rings, and that a pedlar gave him a fine new brass set in exchange for the old ones, which he carried off and sold. Some of them are said to be in the museum at Glasgow, one I have, and the rest were probably melted. I know of several discoveries of gold rings, chains, etc., made in Islay. Now it is possible that this tradition of the Feinne may be true. The story is in Dean MacGregor’s MS. as a poem of 161 lines, attributed to Ossian in 1530. It is claimed by Irish writers as Moira Borb, 1789, in vol. v. of the Ossianic Society’s transactions, 1860.

I have three traditionary versions as poems, one written down in September 1860, in Barra, called MacOighre Righ na Ior-smàil; eighty-four lines from Donald MacPhie, Breubhaig, who says he learned it from Hector MacLaine (smith), an uncle of his who could neither read nor write, and who died aged about eighty some twenty years ago. In this, Padruig and Oisean, and Fionn, and Fionn’s four sons, and Osgar, and the daughter of the king under the waves, and a big man who comes in a ship, are the actors. The language is curious, and the poetry good. I regret extremely that I have no room for it.

The other is from Patrick Smith, South Boisdale, South Uist; an old man who learned it in his youth from Roderick MacVicar, North Uist, seventy-three lines, Macabh Mor MacRigh na Sorcha. The story is the same, but Padruig does not appear. The burial of the hero at the top of a lin with rings on his fingers is given, which is in the Dean’s version. The last line, is the first and last line in the Dean’s, and generally my version and this fragment and the Dean’s might be fused so as to make a more complete story, and a longer and perfectly genuine poem in Scotch Gaelic. The third version is called Dan na H-ighean, and has eighty-four lines, written by Mr. Torrie in Benbecula, from the dictation of Donald Macintyre, who learned it some fifty years ago from an old man who afterwards went to America, John MacInnes or Iain og MacFhionlai. This joins Scotch and Irish traditions, MacPherson’s Ossian, with genuine traditions and old MSS., and joins poetry to prose tales.

“There was a young lad in the Fheinn, who was called Coireall, and he used always to be in the house of the women, because he had not come to the age of a man. It is Goll that had Mir mora na Feinne, the great morsel of the Fane, that was every bit of marrow that was in every bone to be gathered together and brought to him. Coireall came in, and he took with him some of the marrow, and he and Goll fell out (went over each other). The law that Fionn made was, that they should drive bones through the wattled rods that were dividing the house, and the one with whom the bone should go, the marrow to be his.”

This is the common partition in Highland cottages, rods woven into a kind of rude basket-work, and plastered with clay. Rob Roy’s house at the head of Glenshira, near Inverary, is so divided.

They did that, and Goll dragged Coireall through the wattled rods with the bone.

After that they went to try each other to the strand (cladach), and Coireall won of Goll, and he left the woman’s house.”

Cluiche ri cluiche nan soc, Cluiche nan corcan ’s nam bian; A’ chulaidh chomhraig a bh’ aig an dis Cha ’n fhaca mi roimhe riamh. Each game to the game of the ends, The game of the whittles and skins, The battle array that these two had, I never before have seen. This then paints the dwellings of the heroes as very rude, and gives the clue to another poem which I have: sixty lines of very good popular poetry, describing how Goll slew Coireall at a merrymaking, and how Fionn lamented over his son, and why he hated Goll thenceforth. I have not found this in any book as yet. “It must be that the Feinn were strong?”

“Hoo! They were as strong as the horses. There was one who was called Mileach Mor, and he sent word for them at once, and the chase fallen short. When they arrived, they were put into a long house there, and they were without anything. A big black girl came in, and she asked a battle of warriors from them.”

“Let me get to her,” said Conan.

Conan went, and she seized him, and she floored him, and she plucked three of her hairs, and she bound his three smalls. Then she went out, and they loosed Conan. She came in again, and she sought a battle of warriors, “Let me get at her,” said Conan.

“What canst thou do?” said they to him. They let him go, and she floored him, and this time she did something else to him, and then she went out.

They killed the Mileach Mor, and they had the keep of a day and a year there.

This joins an Islay tradition to one published by Mr. Simpson in 1857, as current in Mayo (see pages 235 and 242), and it also joins in with a great many other stories which I have in manuscript, and with Magach Colgar, No. XXXVL, and so to ancient MSS. now in the Advocate’s Library. And thus one old Highlander with a failing memory, but who can still remember some scraps of what he learned in his youth, and could remember in his manhood, forms one mesh in a net-work of tradition, and manuscript and print; history and mythology, prose and poetry, which joins the whole Gaelic family together, extends over three centuries, and may be found to join them to the earliest records of the Pagan world. This is no solitary case. The man is a specimen of a class which survives in far-away corners, but which must soon vanish before modern ways, together with the Gaelic language.