Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 3 (Celtic and Slavic).djvu/261

Rh out or in coming in, ever flagged," possessed a "beauty-spot"

(ball-seirc); and no woman who saw it could resist "the lightsome countenance" of "yellow-haired DIarmaid of the women."

Goll of clanna Morna, Fionn's enemy, and then his friend, but with whom a feud arose which ended In his death, was probably the ideal warrior, prodigiously strong, noble, and brave, of a separate saga. Conan Maol was also of clanna Morna, and his father aided in slaying Cumhal at Cnucha, for which Fionn afterward put an eric, or fine, upon him. Although of the Féinn, he was continually rejoicing at their misfortunes in foul-mouthed language; and this Celtic Thersites, "wrecker and great disturber of the Féinn," was constantly in trouble through his boldness and reckless bravery —"claw for claw, and devil take the shortest nails, as Conan said to the devil." In later accounts he appears rather as a comic character. MacLugach of the Terrible Hand is also prominent; so, too, is Fergus True-Lips, the wise seer, interpreter of dreams, and poet. Others come and go, but round these circles all the breathless interest of this heroic epos. Their occupations were fighting on a vast scale, the records of which, like those of the Cúchulainn saga, are often tiresome and ghastly; mighty huntings, watched from some hill- top by Fionn, and described with zest and not a little romantic beauty as the hunt wends by forests, glens, watercourses, or smiling valleys; lastly, love-making, for these warriors could woo tenderly and with compelling power. Their vast strength and size—one of their skulls held a man seated— tend to remove them from the puny race of mere human beings; yet though of divine descent, they were not immortal, so that Caoilte says of a goddess: "She is of the Tuatha Dé Danann, who are unfading and whose duration is perennial; I am of the sons of Milesius, that are perishable and fade away.$6$

While the Cuchulainn legend had a definite number of tales and, after a certain date, remained complete, the Fionn