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LXIV. Spenser's Irish River Stories
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
In his Reference Guide to Edmund Spenser (1923) Carpenter remarked (p. 101) that the “Spenserian place-names in Ireland have been but slightly studied.” The statement still holds. Although materials for the study of Irish place-names have been made accessible, editors and critics since 1923 have persisted in keeping alive fictions and interpretations which are no longer tenable.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1935
References
1 Spenser and Southern Ireland (Bloomington, Indiana, 1933).—This study is based on a pilgrimage to the Spenser country in June, 1929. I was there in the same month, for somewhat the same purpose, but did not, to my regret, happen to meet Professor Judson.
2 Op. cit., p. 16.
3 Colin Clouts Come Home Againe, ll. 100–103.
4 W. Stokes, “The Bodleian Dinnshenchas,” Folk-Lore, iii (1892), 467–516; “The Edinburgh Dinnshenchas,” Folk-Lore, iv (1893), 471–497; “The Rennes Dinnshenchas,” Revue Celtique, xv–xvi (1894–95); Edward Gwynn, “The Metrical Dindshenchas,” i–iv (Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, 1903–24).
5 P. W. Joyce, “Spenser's Irish Rivers,” Fraser's Magazine, xcvii (1878), 315–333, reprinted in The Wonders of Ireland (1911), pp. 72–114; Pauline Henley, Spenser in Ireland (Cork, 1928).—For a brief statement of Spenser's “declared interest in Irish poetry,” as expressed in his View of the Present State of Ireland, see H. S. V. Jones, A Spenser Handbook, pp. 385–386.
6 Joyce, op. cit., pp. 92, 96, 108.
7 W. L. Renwick, Daphnaïda and Other Poems, by Edmund Spenser (London, 1929), p. 183.
8 Canto xi, stanzas xl–xliv.
9 Spenser's story of Blomius is in keeping with the giant's reputation as suggested by the Dindshenchas of Slíab Bladma (Gwynn, Metrical Dindshenchas, ii, 54, l. 22: Slíab Bladma co mbantolcaib, “Mountain of Blad with [i.e., known for] woman-assaults”).
10 On the approximate pronunciation of Bladma as “Blawma,” see Joyce, p. 88. There are indications that a nominative form Bladma existed beside the common Blad, but they are not conclusive. There are at least two legendary Blads to whom the name of the mountain is ascribed.
11 See Miss Henley, op. cit., p. 85.—Her hybrid form Slieve Smól is indefensible and does not indicate clearly how Spenser arrived at “Mole.” Nor is the identity of the Fenian Smól so completely lost as Miss Henley imagines, but this is too long a story to recount here.
12 Whether or not Spenser followed this road to Youghal to sail for London with Raleigh in October, 1589, it is not at all improbable that he visited Youghal a number of times before he wrote Colin Clouts Come Borne Againe, independently of Raleigh. It would be hard to prove that Spenser did not pass Molana in the autumn of 1581 with Grey on his progress from Lismore to Youghal.
13 The extensive ruins of Molana Abbey stand close to the bank of the Blackwater, about five miles north of Youghal. The sight of them may well have recalled to Spenser the more familiar ruins of Ballybeg Abbey at Buttevant.
14 Op. cit., p. 86.
15 Mentioned by Miss Henley on the very next page (87).
16 Faerie Queene, Bk. vii, Canto vi, stanza xxxvi.
17 Mullaig is the genitive of Mullach, which means “summit” or “mountain top”; as Mullach Eireann is the name for the summit of Slievebloom, Spenser's “old father Mole” (see Dinneen's Dictionary, 1927, s.v. mullach), it would not be too much to hope to find an occurrence of Ard mullaig, which would mean “Height, or mountain-side, of Mulla,” and would satisfy Spenser's location of it “under the foote of Mole”:
Mole hight that mountain gray
That walls the North side of Armulla dale.
(Colin Clouts Come Home Againe, ll. 57, 104–105)
For Mullach Eireann ábu as the motto of the O'Dunnes, cf. John O'Daly, Laoithe Fiannuigheachta, Transactions Ossianic Society, iv (1856), 292, note 3. Mullach is of exceptionally frequent occurrence among place-names in the vicinity of Kilcolman.
18 It would not be surprising to learn of their existence somewhere in the many Irish manuscripts still unpublished.
19 The parallelism between the Celtic pantheon and the classical gods has long been recognized; cf. H. d'Arbois de Jubainville, Cours de Littérature Celtique, ii (1884); J. A. MacCulloch, The Religion of the Ancient Celts (Edinburgh, 1911); Alexander MacBain, Celtic Mythology and Religion (New York, 1917).
20 Spenser left Cambridge in 1576; he was visited by Raleigh at Kilcolman in 1589.
21 On attempts like MacNeill's (Duanaire, Introd.) to trace the origin of the Fenian cycle, see Kuno Meyer, Fianaigecht, Todd Lecture Series xvi (1910), pp. xiv–xvi.
22 Ed. Eoin MacNeill, Irish Texts Society vii (London, 1908). See especially “The Sword of Oscar.”
23 Ovid, Metam., v, 585–641.
24 Ovid, Metam., iii, 138–252.
25 MacNeill (Duanaire, pp. xliv–xlvi) suggests some parallels, and then leaves “to experts the further investigation of the Fenian epic as related to mythology.”
26 J. G. McKay, “The Deer-Cult and the Deer-Goddess Cult of the Ancient Caledonians,” Folk-Lore, xliii (1932), 144–174. This article is quite as true for the mythology of Ireland as it is for that of Scotland. For the analogy with Diana, see especially p. 160. On the connection with the Fenian cycle see p. 151, as well as Miss Hull's questionable comment on that connection in Folk-Lore, xxxviii (1927), 230. On the bones of gigantic deer found in Ireland, perhaps connected with the giant deer-goddess cult, see Wood-Martin, Elder Faiths of Ireland, i, 12–13, 62 ff.
27 Duanaire, p. xlv.
28 Meyer, Fianaigecht, p. xviii, note 3.—The text of another version of Ossian's birth is printed by Meyer, op. cit., p. xxvi, from which I translate as follows:
… Blái Derg from the swift Banba, mother of Ossian the hardy:
Blái came in the form of a deer to the meeting of the brigands,
So that Ossian was born thereby, to Blái Derg in the form of a deer.
The unidentified Banba may refer to the Bannow, now the river Corrock, in Wexford.
29 Published along with four other “Finnian Hunts,” including the “Chase of Glenn-an-Smóil,” by O'Daly, Trans. Ossianic Soc., vi (1858). Joyce has a translation of the first two in his Old Celtic Romances. On the Glenn-an-Smóil poem, see note 48 below.
30 The quotations are from Mutabilitie, Canto vi, stanzas xlv, xlvii, and l.
31 Spenser perhaps saved Faunus from the classical fate of Actaeon in order to emphasize the more authentic detail from his Irish source of the stony chastening of Molanna.
32 I propose this identification knowing that Grainne, daughter of Cormac and Isolt-like wife of Finn, has also been identified with Diana: see Folk-Lore, xvii, 441 ff.
33 Westropp, Proceedings Royal Irish Acad., xxxiv, Sec. C, p. 50: “Aine was unmarried.” See also E. Hull, Folk-Lore, xxxviii, 244: “Aine certainly had lunar traits in her legend.”
34 A thorough-going study of the archaeology and traditions of Knockainey has been made by Westropp, Proc. R. I. A., xxxiii–xxxiv, Sec. C. If the Midsummer rites still survived in the early years of the twentieth century, they must have been even more in evidence in Spenser's time.
35 This is the “best-known legend” (Westropp, xxxiv, 52) concerning Ailill Aulom. See E. Hull, “Legends and Traditions of the Cailleach Bheara or Old Woman of Beare,” Folk-Lore, xxxviii (1927), 225–254. On the Cailleach's connection with the Fenian cycle, see p. 230; also McKay, Folk-Lore, xliii (1932), 151, and note 26 above.
36 Revue Celtique, xiii, 436; Silva Gadelica, ii, 438; Coir Anmann (Irische Texte, iii, 304–305), §41.
37 Ed. R. A. S. Macalister and J. MacNeill (Dublin, 1916), p. 38. Cf. McKay, Folk-Lore, xliii, 149: “one was so tall that, when wading across the Sound of Mull, the water reached only to her knee.” See further Wood-Martin, Elder Faiths of Ireland, i, 360: “she was so tall that she could easily wade all the rivers and lakes of Ireland. … Some of the early Christian female saints seem also to have been fond of wading.” On this adoption of a pagan legend see Hull, p. 226: “the pagan goddess reappears in later days as a Christian nun.”
38 The modern story (Revue Celtique, iv, 186–192) indicates the persistence of the old tradition and offers further parallels with Diana. On Aine as a water goddess, see MacCulloch, op. cit., p. 70.
39 Mrs. M. M. Banks, “Some Traditions of Stone-Carrying Women,” Jubilee Congress of the Folk-Lore Society (1928), pp. 40–47.
40 Banks, op. cit., p. 43; Hull, op. cit., 236, 247.
41 See E. A. Conwell, Proc. R. I. A., ix (1867), 42, 356; E. A. Conwell, Discovery of the Tomb of Ollamh Fodla (Dublin, 1873), pp. 47–48.—I visited Slieve-na-Cailliaghe with Dr. Mahr of the National Museum of Ireland and Dr. Hencken of Harvard University, in August, 1928; it was quite as attractive as Rhys pictured it after his visit in 1894 (Celtic Folklore, i, 393). The view is as commanding as that from Knockainey, but thanks to the neighboring lakes, much more majestic.
42 Revue Celtique, iii, 342–355; Thurneysen, Irische Helden- und Königsage, p. 302.
43 Westropp (Proc. R. I. A., xxxiv, 156) rightly locates the district of Clíu “in southeast Limerick and along the Galtees to the Suir. … The mighty mountains bore his name, Crotta Clíach, which I venture to suggest are the two harp-like cooms, with strings and frames of stream gullies, seen on the flank above Aherlow.” Dinneen (Keating's History of Ireland, Irish Texts Society ed., iv, 218) also makes Clíu roughly co-extensive with the Spenser country.
44 E. S. Hartland, The Science of Fairy Tales (London, 1891), pp. 255–349.
45 Revue Celtique, xv, 440–441; Metr. Dinds., iii, 224–225; O'Grady, Silva Gadelica, ii, 477, 523.
46 The striking resemblances between the legends of Clíu and the Earl of Desmond are not, I think, accidental. For Loch Gur, where the Earl dwells with Aine (who may well, like Báine, have taken the form of a serpent or dragon), is still inhabited by its serpent. Are not the two names, in fact, variants of the same name? Báine (Uáine, Bu-áine) might well be the Irish name for the “dead Aine.” See Revue Celtique, iv, 185, 186, 192.—Strangely enough, Bodb Derg, who opposes Clíu's suit of his own daughter, helps Aengus to win Caerib. All three are síd legends: the síd (shee) of Aengus was the famous Brug na Bóinne or Brug meicc ind Oc (at Newgrange); the síd of Ailill was at Brug ríg (Bruree, near Kilcolman); the síd of Bodb was named for him Síd Boidb, although the legend of Crotta Clíach is associated with Síd Femin, the mound on the Suir. See Hogan, Onomasticon Goedelicum. According to the Acallam na Senórach 3350 (Irische Texte, iv, 1 Heft), Bodb, like Aengus, was a son of the Dagda, the father of the Gaelic gods.
47 Proc. R. I. A., xxxiv, Sec. C, p. 157. See also Joyce, Spenser's Irish Rivers, p. 106, for a summary of the story.
48 If, as seems likely, Spenser knew the story of the “Chase of Glenn-an-Smóil” (cf. note 29 above), or Glennasmole, he would naturally have associated it with his “old father Mole.” See Hogan, Onomasticon Goedelicum, p. 404; Trans. Oss. Soc., vi, p. 74, note, 120: it is possible that there were two distinct places named Glenn-an-Smóil. For indications of the popularity of the tale, see Seán O'Faoláin, “The Spurious Fenian Tale,” Folk-Lore, xli (1930), 157, and Darrell Figgis's modernization, The Return of the Hero (publ. 1923), passim.—The “Chase of Glenn-an-Smóil,” as it happens, is based largely on two themes: the chase of a woman (apparently a giantess) transformed into a deer, and the loathly hag or Wife of Bath motif, which O'Faoláin strangely fails to remark. See G. H. Maynadier, The Wife of Bath's Tale, pp. 34–37.
49 D. MacInnes and A. Nutt, Folk and Hero Tales from Argyllshire, p. 437.
50 Ancient lake sites and streams shrunken in modern times are pointed out by Westropp, Proc. R. I. A., xxxiv, 61, note 3; 173. According to the Metrical Dindshenchas (Gwynn, iv, 258; also Lismore Lives, p. 244), Loch Cenn (“the Lake of Heads”), formerly a beautiful sheet of water known as Loch Silenn, got its name from the nine hundred heads lopped off in battle by Cairpre Crom and thrown into the lake, which thereupon became “all blood beneath and above” and has been dry ever since (“Loch Cenn! woe to him who rows along its shore!”). Loch Cenn has been located in Mag Femin, the home of Finn's wife Sadb, or as a “broad expansion of the Camoge river”; in either case, it is only a short distance from Kilcolman Castle.—Since this paper was written, O'Rahilly (Hermathena, xlviii, 208 ff.) has identified Loch Cenn in Mag Femin with the modern townland of Lough Kent, about fifteen miles east of Galteemore, Spenser's “Arlo-hill.”
51 Cf. Wood-Martin, op. cit., ii, 30.
52 The same lake-formation story is told of Loch Laiglinni (Macalister-MacNeill, Lebar Gabála, p. 56; Metr. Dinds., iv, 256; Rev. Celt., xvi, 164) and Loch Garman (Metr. Dinds., iii, 174; Rev. Celt., xv, 428–431). The latter is another Finn story, with an interesting legend of the lake (Loch Garman, now Wexford Harbor) sprung after eight hundred years from the womb of his mother, the river Slane (Slaney), whom he overwhelms and drowns.
53 The best-known “love-spots” are those of Diarmaid; see Trans. Oss. Soc., iii, 50, note 2. See also Folk-Lore, xxi, 155 ff.
54 D. MacInnes and A. Nutt, Folk and Hero Tales from Argyllshire, p. 406.
56 Cf. Miss Henley, op. cit., p. 112.