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326 pages

English

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Regarded by many as the quintessential collection of Irish mythology, Lady Augusta Gregory's Gods and Fighting Men brings together a vast compendium of tales and fables dating back to the earliest days of civilization in what is now known as Ireland. A folklorist with a genuine flair for storytelling, Gregory's renderings of the tales will engage and enthrall readers.

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 juin 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781775458432
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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GODS AND FIGHTING MEN
THE STORY OF THE TUATHA DE DANAAN AND OF THE FIANNA OF IRELAND
* * *
LADY AUGUSTA GREGORY
Contributions by
W. B. YEATS

*
Gods and Fighting Men The Story of the Tuatha de Danaan and of the Fianna of Ireland From a 1905 edition ISBN 978-1-77545-843-2 © 2012 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Preface PART ONE: THE GODS BOOK ONE: THE COMING OF THE TUATHA DE DANAAN Chapter I - The Fight with the Firbolgs Chapter II - The Reign of Bres BOOK TWO: LUGH OF THE LONG HAND Chapter I - The Coming of Lugh Chapter II - The Sons of Tuireann Chapter III - The Great Battle of Magh Tuireadh Chapter IV - The Hidden House of Lugh BOOK THREE: THE COMING OF THE GAEL Chapter I - The Landing Chapter II - The Battle of Tailltin BOOK FOUR: THE EVER-LIVING LIVING ONES Chapter I - Bodb Dearg Chapter II - The Dagda Chapter III - Angus Og Chapter IV - The Morrigu Chapter V - Aine Chapter VI - Aoibhell Chapter VII - Midhir and Etain Chapter VIII - Manannan Chapter IX - Manannan at Play Chapter X - His Call to Bran Chapter XI - His Three Calls to Cormac Chapter XII - Cliodna's Wave Chapter XIII - His Call to Connla Chapter XIV - Tadg in Manannan's Islands Chapter XV - Laegaire in the Happy Plain BOOK FIVE: THE FATE OF THE CHILDREN OF LIR PART TWO: THE FIANNA BOOK ONE: FINN, SON OF CUMHAL Chapter I - The Coming of Finn Chapter II - Finn's Household Chapter III - Birth of Bran Chapter IV - Oisin's Mother Chapter V - The Best Men of the Fianna BOOK TWO: FINN'S HELPERS Chapter I - The Lad of the Skins Chapter II - Black, Brown, and Grey Chapter III - The Hound Chapter IV - Red Ridge BOOK THREE: THE BATTLE OF THE WHITE STRAND Chapter I - The Enemies of Ireland Chapter II - Cael and Credhe Chapter III - Conn Crither Chapter IV - Glas, Son of Bremen Chapter V - The Help of the Men of Dea Chapter VI - The March of the Fianna Chapter VII - The First Fighters Chapter VIII - The King of Ulster's Son Chapter IX - The High King's Son Chapter X - The King of Lochlann and His Sons Chapter XI - Labran's Journey Chapter XII - The Great Fight Chapter XIII - Credhe's Lament BOOK FOUR: HUNTINGS AND ENCHANTMENTS Chapter I - The King of Britain's Son Chapter II - The Cave of Ceiscoran Chapter III - Donn Son of Midhir Chapter IV - The Hospitality of Cuanna's House Chapter V - Cat-Heads and Dog-Heads Chapter VI - Lomna's Head Chapter VII - Ilbrec of Ess Ruadh Chapter VIII - The Cave of Cruachan Chapter IX - The Wedding at Ceann Slieve Chapter X - The Shadowy One Chapter XI - Finn's Madness Chapter XII - The Red Woman Chapter XIII - Finn and the Phantoms Chapter XIV - The Pigs of Angus Chapter XV - The Hunt of Slieve Cuilinn BOOK FIVE: OISIN'S CHILDREN BOOK SIX: DIARMUID Chapter I - Birth of Diarmuid Chapter II - How Diarmuid Got His Love-Spot Chapter III - The Daughter of King Under-Wave Chapter IV - The Hard Servant Chapter V - The House of the Quicken Trees BOOK SEVEN: DIARMUID AND GRANIA Chapter I - The Flight from Teamhair Chapter II - The Pursuit Chapter III - The Green Champions Chapter IV - The Wood of Dubhros Chapter V - The Quarrel Chapter VI - The Wanderers Chapter VII - Fighting and Peace Chapter VIII - The Boar of Beinn Gulbain BOOK EIGHT: CNOC-AN-AIR Chapter I - Tailc, Son of Treon Chapter II - Meargach's Wife Chapter III - Ailne's Revenge BOOK NINE: THE WEARING AWAY OF THE FIANNA Chapter I - The Quarrel with the Sons of Morna Chapter II - Death of Goll Chapter III - The Battle of Gabhra BOOK TEN: THE END OF THE FIANNA Chapter I - Death of Bran Chapter II - The Call of Oisin Chapter III - The Last of the Great Men BOOK ELEVEN: OISIN AND PATRICK Chapter I - Oisin's Story Chapter II - Oisin in Patrick's House Chapter III - The Arguments Chapter IV - Oisin's Laments Notes
*
ARRANGED AND PUT INTO ENGLISH BY LADY GREGORY.
WITH A PREFACE BY W.B. YEATS
*
DEDICATION TO THE MEMBERS OF THE IRISH LITERARY SOCIETY OF NEW YORK
My Friends, those I know and those I do not know, I am glad in the yearof the birth of your Society to have this book to offer you.
It has given great courage to many workers here—working to build upbroken walls—to know you have such friendly thoughts of them in yourminds. A few of you have already come to see us, and we begin to hopethat one day the steamers across the Atlantic will not go out full, butcome back full, until some of you find your real home is here, and sayas some of us say, like Finn to the woman of enchantments—
"We would not give up our own country—Ireland—if we were to get thewhole world as an estate, and the Country of the Young along with it."
AUGUSTA GREGORY.
Preface
*
I
A few months ago I was on the bare Hill of Allen, "wide Almhuin ofLeinster," where Finn and the Fianna lived, according to the stories,although there are no earthen mounds there like those that mark thesites of old buildings on so many hills. A hot sun beat down uponflowering gorse and flowerless heather; and on every side except theeast, where there were green trees and distant hills, one saw a levelhorizon and brown boglands with a few green places and here and therethe glitter of water. One could imagine that had it been twilight andnot early afternoon, and had there been vapours drifting and frothingwhere there were now but shadows of clouds, it would have set stirringin one, as few places even in Ireland can, a thought that is peculiar toCeltic romance, as I think, a thought of a mystery coming not as withGothic nations out of the pressure of darkness, but out of great spacesand windy light. The hill of Teamhair, or Tara, as it is now called,with its green mounds and its partly wooded sides, and its more gradualslope set among fat grazing lands, with great trees in the hedgerows,had brought before one imaginations, not of heroes who were in theiryouth for hundreds of years, or of women who came to them in thelikeness of hunted fawns, but of kings that lived brief and politiclives, and of the five white roads that carried their armies to thelesser kingdoms of Ireland, or brought to the great fair that had givenTeamhair its sovereignty, all that sought justice or pleasure or hadgoods to barter.
II
It is certain that we must not confuse these kings, as did the mediaevalchroniclers, with those half-divine kings of Almhuin. The chroniclers,perhaps because they loved tradition too well to cast out utterly muchthat they dreaded as Christians, and perhaps because popular imaginationhad begun the mixture, have mixed one with another ingeniously, makingFinn the head of a kind of Militia under Cormac MacArt, who is supposedto have reigned at Teamhair in the second century, and making Grania,who travels to enchanted houses under the cloak of Angus, god of Love,and keeps her troubling beauty longer than did Helen hers, Cormac'sdaughter, and giving the stories of the Fianna, although the impossiblehas thrust its proud finger into them all, a curious air of precisehistory. It is only when one separates the stories from that mediaevalpedantry, as in this book, that one recognises one of the oldest worldsthat man has imagined, an older world certainly than one finds in thestories of Cuchulain, who lived, according to the chroniclers, about thetime of the birth of Christ. They are far better known, and one may becertain of the antiquity of incidents that are known in one form oranother to every Gaelic-speaking countryman in Ireland or in theHighlands of Scotland. Sometimes a labourer digging near to a cromlech,or Bed of Diarmuid and Crania as it is called, will tell one a traditionthat seems older and more barbaric than any description of theiradventures or of themselves in written text or story that has taken formin the mouths of professed story-tellers. Finn and the Fianna foundwelcome among the court poets later than did Cuchulain; and one findsmemories of Danish invasions and standing armies mixed with theimaginations of hunters and solitary fighters among great woods. Onenever hears of Cuchulain delighting in the hunt or in woodland things;and one imagines that the story-teller would have thought it unworthy inso great a man, who lived a well-ordered, elaborate life, and had hischariot and his chariot-driver and his barley-fed horses to delight in.If he is in the woods before dawn one is not told that he cannot knowthe leaves of the hazel from the leaves of the oak; and when Emerlaments him no wild creature comes into her thoughts but the cuckoo thatcries over cultivated fields. His story must have come out of a timewhen the wild wood was giving way to pasture and tillage, and men had nolonger a reason to consider every cry of the birds or change of thenight. Finn, who was always in the woods, whose battles were but hoursamid years of hunting, delighted in the "cackling of ducks from the Lakeof the Three Narrows; the scolding talk of the blackbird of Doire anCairn; the bellowing of the ox from the Valley of the Berries; thewhistle of the eagle from the Valley of Victories or from the roughbranches of the Ridge of the Stream; the grouse of the heather ofCruachan; the call of the otter of Druim re Coir." When sorrow comesupon the queens of the stories, they have sympathy for the wild birdsand beasts that are like themselves: "Credhe wife of Cael came with theothers and went looking through the bodies for her comely comrade, andcrying as she went. And as she was searching she saw a crane of themeadows and her two nestlings, and the cunning beast the fox watchi