The Fians: Or Stories, Poems and Traditions of Fionn and His Warrior Band (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Fians: Or Stories, Poems,& Traditions of Fionn and His Warrior Band

The stories, poems, and traditions which are given in this volume have been gathered entirely from oral sources as Opportunities occurred. The labour of col lecting them has extended, over well-nigh thirty years, since the coming of the writer to his present charge. This is a personal and, perhaps, too obtrusive a matter to be mentioned; but it is due to the subject to say that the portals Of knowledge being, through English, to the boy whose native tongue Gaelic is, and the writer having received most of his training and education in the south, though aware Of the names of Finn maccoul and other ancient heroes of Gaelic times, was as much a stranger to these subjects as any one can be. All that he knew was only fragmentary pieces that were to be found in books that the Gaelic language was of Indo European and Aryan race, like Latin or Greek - and it was only gradually that it dawned upon him that, in the language itself and its stores of knowledge there was an abundance of unwritten literature that would bear com parison with any literary composition he had ever fallen in with. Those stores contain Songs, Ballads, Tales, Traditions, Proverbs, Riddles, etc. However it arose, or wherever it came from, there was a mist-like cloud overhanging the Highlands, and Gaelic was in neglect, which is gradually wearing away. It is a matter of much Satisfaction that these vapours and clouds, when they disappear, will Show a language through which the rays of human knowledge will receive much access of strength.

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