Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 3 (Celtic and Slavic).djvu/259

Rh at Cnucha, where Cumhal, father of Fionn, fell. Later his opponent Goll became head of the Féinn, and then Fionn himself; but as a result of their new pretensions the Féinn were finally destroyed at Gabhra.

Many Féinn stories are coloured by this scheme, which was applied to them at an early period; yet alongside the oldest references to it we find stories or allusions which show that the imaginative aspect was as strong then as it was later, and that at an early date there was much Fionn literature so well known that mere reference to its persons or incidents sufficed.$2$

A recent writer suggests that Fionn was originally a hero of the subject race of the Galióin in North Leinster,$3$ who are constantly associated with Firbolgs and Fir Domnann. These appear to be remnants of a pre-Celtic population in Ireland,$4$ and are usually despised for evil qualities, though they have strong magical powers, just as conquerors often consider aboriginal races to be superior magicians, if inferior human beings. These races furnished military service for the Celtic kings of their district down to the rise of the dominant "Milesian" monarchs in the fifth century; and of these Fianna Fionn (whose name means "white" and has nothing to do with fianna or féinn), whether he really existed or not, was regarded as chief. Mac Firbis, a seventeenth century author, quotes an earlier writer who says that Fionn was of the sept of the Uí Tarsig, part of the tribe of the Galióin. Cumhal, his father, of the clanna Baoisgne, is represented in the Boyish Deeds of Fionn (Macgnímartha Finn)$5$—a story copied from the tenth century Psalter of Cashel into a later manuscript— as striving at Cnucha with Uirgreann and the clanna Luagni, aided by the clanna Morna, both subject tribes, for the chief Fiannship (Fiannuigeacht). Only in later accounts of the battle is Conn, the High King (Ardrí), introduced, and though the annalistic conception colours the introduction to this otherwise mythical tale, it appears to be based on recollections of clan feuds, especially as Fionn himself was later slain by