Page:EB1911 - Volume 10.djvu/402

 Cétchathach, High King of Ireland, who died in 157. Cumall carried off Murna Munchaem, the daughter of a Druid named Tadg mac Nuadat, and this led to the battle of Cnucha, in which Cumall was slain by Goll mac Morna ( 174). Find was born after his father’s death and was at first called Demni. He is leader of the fiann or féinne (English “Fenians”), a kind of militia or standing army which was drawn from all quarters of Ireland. His father had held the same office before him, but after his death it passed to his enemy Goll mac Morna, who retained it until Find came to man’s estate. Find usually resided at Almu (Allen) in Co. Kildare, where he was surrounded by some of the contingents of the fiann, the rest being scattered throughout Ireland to ward off enemies, particularly those coming from over the sea. In times of invasion Find collected his forces, overcame the foe, and pursued him to Scotland or Lochlann (Scandinavia) as the case might be. When not engaged in war the fiann gave themselves up to the chase or love-adventures. We are informed in great detail as to the conditions of admission to this privileged band, which were at once singular and exacting. The foremost heroes in Find’s train were his son Ossian, his grandson Oscar, Cailte mac Ronain, and Diarmait O’Duibne, whose elopement with Find’s destined bride Grainne, daughter of the High-King Cormac mac Airt ( 227–266), forms the subject of a celebrated story. These, like Find, were all of the Ua Baisgne branch, with which was allied the Ua Morna, with whom they were generally at variance. The latter hailed from Connaught, chief among them being Goll and Conan. By the annalists Find is represented as having met with death by treachery either in 252 or 283. Under Coirpre Lifeochair, successor to Cormac mac Airt, the power of the fiann became intolerable. The monarch accordingly took up arms against them and utterly crushed them at the battle of Gabra ( 283). Very few survived the defeat, but the story makes Ossian and Cailte live on until after the arrival of St Patrick in 432.

It is incredible that such a band as the fiann should have existed in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. A number of sagas older in date than the Ossianic stories have been preserved, which deal with events happening in the reigns of Art son of Conn (166–196), Lugaid mac Con (196–227), and Cormac mac Airt (227–266), but none of these in their oldest shape contain any allusion whatsoever to Find and his warriors. In the history of the Boroma, contained in the book of Leinster, Find is merely a Leinster chieftain who assists Bressal the king of Leinster against Coirpre Lifeochair. It can be shown that Find was originally a figure in Leinster-Munster tradition previous to the Viking age, but we have no documentary evidence concerning him at this time. He seems primarily to have been regarded as a poet and magician. Later he appears to have been transformed into a petty chief, and Zimmer even tried to show that his personality was developed in Leinster and Munster local tradition out of stories clustering round the figure of the Viking leader Ketill Hviti (Caittil Find), who was slain in 857. By the year 1000 Find was certainly connected in the minds of the people with the reign of Cormac mac Airt, but the process is obscure. Recently John MacNeill has pointed out that in the oldest genealogies Find is always connected with the Ui Tairrsigh of Failge (Offaley, a district comprising the present county of Kildare and parts of King’s and Queen’s counties). The Ui Tairrsigh were undoubtedly of Firbolg origin, and MacNeill would account in this manner for the slow acceptance of the stories by the conquering Milesians. Whilst the Ulster epic was fashionable at court, the subject races clung to the Fenian cycle. For the last 800 years Find has been the national hero of the Gaelic-speaking populations of Ireland, the Scottish Highlands and the Isle of Man. See also (subsection Irish Literature).

—A. Nutt, Ossian and the Ossianic Literature (London, 1899); H. Zimmer, “Keltische Beiträge iii.,” Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum (1891), vol. xxxv. pp. 1-172; L. C. Stern, “Die Ossianischen Heldenlieder,” Zeitschrift für vergleichende Litteraturgeschichte (1895; trans, by J. L. Robertson in Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, 1897–1898, vol. xxii. pp. 257-325); J. MacNeill, Duanaire Finn (London, 1908).

 FINNO-UGRIAN, or, the designation of a division of the Ural-Altaic family of languages and their speakers. The first part is the name given by their neighbours, though not used by themselves, to the inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic. It is probably the same word as the Fenni of Tacitus and  of Ptolemy, though it is not certain that those races were Finns in the modern sense. It possibly means people of the fens or marshes, and corresponds to the native word Suomi, which appears to be derived from suo, a marsh. Finn and Finnish are used not only of the inhabitants of Finland but also in a more extended sense of similar tribes found in Russia and sometimes called Baltic Finns and Volga Finns. In this sense the Esthonian tribes (Baltic), the Laps, the Cheremis and Mordvins (Volga), and the Permian tribes are all Finns. The name is not, however, extended to the Ostiaks, Voguls and Magyars, who, though allied, form a separate subdivision called Ugrian, a name derived from Yura or Ugra, the country on either side of the Ural Mountains, and first used by Castrén in a scientific sense.

The name Finno-Ugric is primarily linguistic and must not be pressed as indicating a community of physical features and customs. But making allowance for the change of language by some tribes, the Finno-Ugrians form, with the striking exception of the Hungarians, a moderately homogeneous whole. They are nomads, but, unlike the Turks, Mongols and Manchus, have hardly ever shown themselves warlike and have no power of political organization. Those of them who have not come under European influence live under the simplest form of patriarchal government, and states, kings or even great chiefs are almost unknown among them.

Their headquarters are in Russia. From the Baltic to south Siberia extends a vast plain broken only by the Urals. Large parts of it are still wooded, and the proportion of forest land and marsh was no doubt much greater formerly. The Finno-Ugric tribes seem to shun the open steppes but are widely spread in the wooded country, especially on the banks of lakes and rivers. Their want of political influence renders them obscure, but they form a considerable element in the population of the northern, middle and eastern provinces of Russia, but are not found much to the south of Moscow (except in the east) or in the west (except in the Baltic provinces). The difference of temperament between the Great Russians and the purer Slavs such as the Little Russians is partly due to an infusion of Finnish blood.

Physically the Finno-Ugric races are as a rule solidly built and, though there is considerable variation in height and the cephalic index, are mostly of small or medium stature, somewhat squat, and brachy- or mesocephalic. As a rule the skin is greyish or olive coloured, the eyes grey or blue, the hair light, the beard scanty. Most of them seem deficient in energy and liveliness, both mental and physical; they are slow, heavy, conservative, somewhat suspicious and vindictive, inclined to be taciturn and melancholy. On the other hand they are patient, persevering, industrious, faithful and honest. When their natural mistrust of strangers is overcome they are kindly and hospitable.

I. Tribes and Nations.—The Ugrian subdivision, which seems to be in many respects the more primitive, consists of three peoples standing on very different levels of civilization, the Ostiaks and Voguls and the Hungarians.

The Ostiaks (Ostyaks or Ostjaks) are a tribe of nomadic fishermen and hunters inhabiting at present the government of Tobolsk and the banks of the Obi. They formerly extended into the government of Perm on the European side of the Ural Mountains. The so-called Ostiaks of the Yenisei

appear to be a different race and not to belong to the Finno-Ugrian group. The Ostiaks are still partially pagan and worship the River Obi. Allied to them are the Voguls, a similar nomadic tribe found on both sides of the Urals, and formerly extending at least as far as the government of Vologda. The languages of the Ostiaks and Voguls are allied, though not mere dialects of one another, and form a small group separated from the languages of the Finns both Western and Eastern.