Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 3 (Celtic and Slavic).djvu/273

Rh as in many poems which lament his ultimate lonely death by Fionn, after a brave defence. In these Goll is superior to Fionn, and he was the popular hero of the Féinn in Donegal and Connaught, as if there had been a cycle of tales in these districts in which he was the central figure.$36$

Fionn also fought the Muireartach, a horrible one-eyed hag whose husband was the ocean-smith, while she was fostermother to the King of Lochlann. She captured from the Féinn their "cup of victory"—a clay vessel the contents of which made them victorious—but after a battle in which the King of Lochlann was slain, the cup was recovered. The hag returned, however, and killed some of the Féinn, but Fionn caused the ground to be cut from under her and then slew her.$37$ This hag, whose name perhaps means "the eastern sea," has been regarded as an embodiment of the tempestuous waters; and in one version the ocean-smith says that she cannot die until she is drowned in "deep, smooth sea"—as if this were a description of the storm lulled to rest. When she is let down into the ground, the suggestion is that of water confined in a hollow space;$38$ and if so, the story is a romantic treatment of the Celtic rite of "fighting the waves" with weapons at high tides.$39$

While the King of Lochlann is associated with this hag, he and the Lochlanners are scarcely discriminated from Norsemen who came across the eastern sea, invading Ireland and capturing Fionn's magic possessions, his dogs, or his wife. Yet there is generally something supernatural about them; hence, probably before Norsemen came to Ireland, Lochlann was a supernatural region with superhuman people. Rhŷs equates it with the Welsh Llychlyn—"a mysterious country in the lochs or the sea"—whence Fionn's strife would be with supernatural beings connected with the sea, an interpretation agreeing with the explanation of the Muireartach.

Once Fionn, having made friends with the giant Seachran, was taken with him to the castle of his mother and brother,