Fenian Cycle Archives - Bard Mythologies

Finn and the Fianna

After his tutelage with Aengus, Finn decided to seek out his father’s brother. Because Goll Mac Morna was still leader of the Fianna, Finn’s uncle was living with the remnants of Clan Baiscne in the forests, as humble hunters, no longer a part of the Fianna. Finn found them without too much trouble, for all he had to do to know where they were was chew on his thumb. He introduced himself as Cumhaill’s son. They were delighted to meet him, and when they saw that he had managed to find Cumhaill’s precious Oxter bag, they decided that the best thing to do would be to get him instated as the leader of the Fianna. So they set off to Tara to present him to the High King.

Now it happened that they arrived at Tara on Samhain eve, when the High King was preparing to put on his Samhain feast. This was his tradition every year, but for the last number of years, something dreadful would happen at this feast. Every year, the men sitting around the table would fall asleep, and when they woke, the High King’s hall would be on fire.

Finn Mac Cumhaill decided that he was going to do something about this. He decided that he would stay up all night to see what was going on. He made sure he would not fall asleep by standing with his head rested against the tip of his spear. Every time his head nodded, its weight would press into the spear’s point and wake him.

First, he heard an eerie song of great sweetness. All the men in the hall fell asleep at the sound of it, but Finn managed to keep himself awake. He saw a hillside near Tara, which was a fairy fort, open up, and magical creature emerging from the earth. It was singing the sweet song, and its breath was fiery. When the creature approached Tara, Finn doused its fiery breath with his cloak, and raced out to fight with it. The creature retreated back to the hillside, but just as it reached the fort, Finn Mac Cumhaill struck off its head! The hillside started to close, so Finn stuck his hand in to try and keep it open, but his thumb got stuck and he had a hard time to pull it out!

The people of Tara woke up, and there was great rejoicing when they found that the hall was not on fire around them, and the Finn Mac Cumhaill had killed the terrible fiery beast! The High King praised him, and Goll Mac Morna gave up his leadership of the Fianna to Finn. Each man of the Fianna put his hands in the hand of Finn as a token of loyalty, and in this way, he became their leader.

He met the heroes of the Fianna: Caoilte Mac Ronan, the fastest man in Ireland. Diarmuid, who was born with a love spot on his forehead, which meant that any woman who saw him would fall in love with his beauty. Conan Maol, who was Goll Mac Morna’s brother, and lost all the skin on his back because of an enchantment, and had the skin of a sheep stuck there instead.

As leader of the Fianna, Finn made some changes. The tests that a man had to pass to become one of the Fianna were already difficult, but Finn upped the ante. To join, a man had to be able to jump over a branch held higher than his head, and run under a branch held lower than his knees, without slowing his pace. He had his hair tied into braids, and all the Fianna would chase him through the forest, trying to catch him. If he was caught, of course, he failed, but he also failed if any hairs of his head came undone from the braids, or if he snapped a single twig on the trees as he ran, or if he startled a single bird into flight. Then he would have to stand in a hole up to his waist, with only a stick to fend off the entire Fianna, all armed with their swords, and if they could cut him or undo a single braid in his hair, he would not enter. He had to learn twelve books of poetry, and had to give up his ties to his family, swearing that he would never take revenge for their deaths, and they would not be allowed to avenge his death. He had to swear that he would not take any dowry with a wife, but would marry a woman for her own merits alone.

Under Finn’s leadership, the Fianna defended Ireland from threats inside and out. They often took it upon themselves to help the weakest and least powerful people in society.

The Birth and Boyhood of Finn Mac Cumhall

In Ireland long ago there was a powerful fighting force called the Fianna. This was a group of young men, who lived off the land, hunting and tracking in the summer months, and feasting and merry-making throughout the winter. They had all given up their family ties and their places in society to live this way, but they followed a strong set of values. Their mottos were: Strength of limb, purity of heart, and actions to match our words.

None of the Fianna owned land, or had any strong attachment to belongings. They were famous for their generosity; it was said that if the leaves on the trees were made of gold, and the waves on the sea were silver, the Fianna would give them all away. They were unfailingly generous, and expected the same measure of hospitality from others. Every house in Ireland had a door in those days that could be knocked on by the Fianna, and they would be welcomed in and given whatever aid they asked for. They went wherever they wanted in Ireland, North to South, East to West, and knew all the secrets of the land: the best places to sleep, the best places to find food, and the places that led to the Otherworld, and had to be respected.

Once, a group of noblemen’s sons sought out the Fianna and asked to join them. A man called Cáilte Mac Rónáin, who was a member of the Fianna, told them a story. A king of Ireland died, leaving two sons. The sons decided to divide Ireland equally between them. One son chose all of the valuables, the goods, the herds, rings, ornaments, forts and towns of Ireland, and the other chose all of the cliffs, rivers, nuts, fruits, the speckled salmon and the wild game. The noblemen exclaimed that this was a very unfair deal! And Cáillte replied that it showed the two kinds of men there are: one that would value the first half of Ireland, and one that would value the second. Each of that king’s sons felt he had by far the better deal, but it is only the second kind of man who would be happy in the Fianna.

During the summer months, the Fianna roamed throughout Ireland, hunting and living wild. But during the winter, they would stay in the houses of noblemen. And in exchange for this generosity, they acted as mercenary warriors on their behalf if they were needed. They paid for their lodging with entertainment: every night was a feast when the Fianna were around. There were great storytellers, poets and musicians among them, and their tales of their summertime adventures made the winters seem short for whoever they stayed with.

Now, there were two main groups within the Fianna. They were called Clan Morna and Clan Baiscne. Cumhaill, the leader of the Fianna, was from Clan Baiscne, and he was acknowledged by all as the leader. He was a great warrior, with great judgment and perception, and he owned a magical artefact called the Oxter bag. It was made out of Stork Skin, and it was one of the treasures of the Fianna. Whatever Cumhaill needed something, he had only to reach into the Oxter bag and it would be there in his grasp, no matter what it was. But there was a member of the Morna Clan, called Goll Mac Morna, who was the most powerful warrior in the Fianna, and every now and then, he would butt heads with Cumhaill. He often defied Cumhaill’s leadership in small ways, but nothing ever brought the conflict to a head, and Goll Mac Morna would always back down from directly challenging Cumhaill. One winter, tensions were so high between Cumhaill and Goll Mac Morna, that the two clans split up for the winter. Clan Baiscne stayed with a Druid named Tadhg, and Clan Morna stayed with Conn Cead Cathach, the King.

Tadhg had a daughter called Muirne, and Cumhaill fell in love with her over the course of the winter, and asked the druid for her hand in marriage. He refused, but Cumhaill was so in love with her that he defied the druid. He abducted Muirne, hoping to bring her back to her father after she had agreed to marry him, presenting it as a fait acompli, but when Tadhg heard what had happened, he was furious. He went to the King, Conn Cead Cathach, and asked him to send his army to kill Cumhaill, and slaughter his half of the Fianna. Now, of course, the King’s army at this time was the other half of the Fianna, the Morna clan, so the two factions of the Fianna found that they had to go into battle against each other.

During the fighting, Goll Mac Morna killed Cumhaill, and took leadership of the Fianna. The Oxter bag was stolen, and the great treasure of the Fianna lost. But Muirne had conceived a child with Cumhaill before he died. The druid Tadhg was furious, and threatened to kill Muirne, but her sister Bodhmall stepped in and brought her to Slieve Bloom and placed her under her protection. Muirne gave birth to the child and named him Deimne, and for the first six years of his life, he was raised on Slieve Bloom by his mother and his aunt. Muirne was a deer woman, that is, she could run with the deer, and swifter than the deer, and she taught her son to do the same. This was how he got his name, Deimne, which means “little stag”, and he could run as swiftly as a deer and swim as well as a salmon. His aunt, Bodhmall, was a trainer of warriors, many of whom went on to attempt the difficult tests to join the Fianna, and so she taught Deimne all the martial arts of Ireland as well. When he was a little boy, she used to play a game with him where she would chase him around a tree with a bit of ragweed in her hand, hitting him on the backside, until he was able to catch up with her and hit her with the ragweed!

By the time Deimne was six, Goll Mac Morna heard of him, and decided to kill him, and his mother. Bodhmall dressed Deimne in rags and sent him off with a group of travelling poets. They took him the length and breadth of the country, going to all sorts of different households, and they nicknamed him Finn, because of his golden hair. He spent a year with them, learning their stories and poetry, and then, at the age of seven, he met a woman whose son had been killed by a great warrior. Knowing the bond between mother and son, Finn promised to avenge her son’s death. He found the warrior, challenged him to single combat, and killed him. He found a strange-looking bag on the warrior’s body, made of stork skin. It turned out that this was the very same man who had stolen the Oxter bag from Cumhaill’s body! Fiinn did not know anything about this, but he took the bag with him.

Next, Finn went to study with an old Druid called Aengus, who had dedicated the last seven years of his life to fishing, and nothing but fishing. He was trying to catch the Salmon of Knowledge. Every year, the salmon of knowledge swam into the Otherworld, ate a berry from the tree of life there, and swam back to this world again. The berries from the tree of life gave him all the knowledge of the world, and it meant that whoever ate this salmon would then have access to all knowledge, of this world and the otherworld. After seven years crouched over his fishing pole, Aengus was crooked and gnarled by the time Finn came to him, and he was skin and bone, because he neglected to do anything that would take him away from his fishing. Finn offered to stay with him, and hunt and cook for him, in exchange for Aengus taking him on as his pupil.

Aengus got his strength back under Finn’s care, and he taught the boy the art of composing poetry, as they sat by the riverbank. At long last, Aengus was successful in his quest. He caught the wily salmon of knowledge! He gave it to Finn to cook, but warned him that he was not to take even the smallest taste of the fish: it was for Aengus alone. Now, as Finn was cooking the fish over the fire, a blister rose up on its skin, which he burst with his thumb. He burnt his thumb on the blister, and put it in his mouth to cool it down. When the fish was cooked, Aengus took one bite of it and knew that someone had tasted it before him: the knowledge was gone! He asked Finn if he had taken even a small bite, and Finn protested that he had not. At last, he told Aengus that he had burnt his thumb on the fish, and put it in his mouth to cool it. Aengus said Finn might as well have the rest of the fish, as he already had all the knowledge in the world. Finn said that he didn’t feel any different, so Aengus told him that he had to put his thumb in his mouth to access the knowledge he needed. Any time after that, when Finn needed to know something, or see the future, all he had to do was put his thumb between his teeth, and he would know the answer.

Conán Mac Morna

Background:
Conán is the brother of Goll Mac Morna, Fionn’s great rival in the Fianna. He was fondly nicknamed Conán Maol, for his bald head. He was also known as Mallachtán, which means insulter, as he often voiced how great he was, how deserving of respect and adulation, and how nobody else fared well by comparison.

It is clear that throughout the years the Baoiscne Clan is painted in a better light than the Morna Clan, with members of the Morna clan often depicted as having some major character flaws. Conán is no different. He displays a great lack of tact and delicacy, often acting as a bit of a troublemaker within the Fianna, cutting quite a comical buffoonish figure at times with his blustering ways. He is fat, greedy, and ostensibly favours the members of the Morna clan. He is, however, very loyal to Fionn, and will never run from a fight. In fact, within the Fianna he is most valued for his quarrelsome nature. They appreciated that he was always first into the fray of any fight. He never held back in defence of any of his brother, though they may be from the Baoiscne clan.

At one point, Fionn suggested that he should take the blackthorn as his totem plant, as the uncompromising, stubborn and prickly nature of the plant resembled his nature, but that occasionally it could blossom with masses of pure white flowers, brightening the entire plant. There was a great feeling of tolerance towards his behaviour among the Fianna, as they all understood that it was just his way, and that he meant nothing by it.

Stories of Conán:
On one occasion, when out hunting, the Fianna sought shelter in a cave. They slept well, but each man woke to find that they had been put under a spell, and that they were stuck to the ground. Caílte, who had spent the night running with animals, came to the cave and found them in this state. He released them by pouring magical water between their skin and the ground. Unfortunately, by the time he arrived at Conán, the water had run out. Fionn and Goll caught Conán by his wrists and heaved him off the ground with all their strength. As he was released from the ground Conán let out a big roar, as all of the skin on his back was torn off him. The Fianna laid him down, killed a sheep, skinned it, and pressed the raw hide to Conán’s back. This succeeded in replacing his lost skin. The Fianna sheared his back regularly, and the black glossy curls of his back were used to make a new jacket and trousers for his each year. Having to suffer this indignity is one explanation for his ready temper, and for his need to bolster up his position within the Fianna.

Conclusion:
Conán is a bit of a diamond in the rough. He is lucky that he is well understood by the members of the Fianna. His brothers know to take his roughness in good nature, as they know that beneath that bluster and the insults lies a true-hearted member of their tribe. He will always end up with his foot in his mouth, however, and when his protests at his own greatness go too far, he is often brought down to earth by one of the others. He can be misunderstood by people who don’t know him that well.

Liath Luachra

Background
Liath Luachra was a great warrior woman with a fierce spirit and the steadfast heart of a warrior. She lived in the mountains with Bodhmall, a druidess. Liath was not the marrying kind, preferring Bodhmall’s company, but she took in Bodhmall’s nephew Demne to raise from infancy.

Story of Liath Luachra
When Liath heard that Bodhmall was planning a journey to help her sister Muirne, She decided to accompany her, to ensure that everything was safe. On discovering that Muirne feared for the life of her newly born son Demne, Liath and Bodhmall resolved to take the child and rear him in the wilderness, away from his enemies.

While Bodhmall softly cherished her sister’s child, and taught him wisdom, Liath set about teaching him all the tricks of survival and all the martial skills she possessed. By night she slept with one eye open, keeping guard on her two precious charges. By day she would take Demne and teach him how to learn from his surroundings. Each week she would tell him to study a different animal and not to stop watching until he had learned something important from them. From the ant he learned to have an indomitable spirit. From the fox cubs he learned to be playful, but also to give as good as he got. From the salmon he learned the valuable art of being still, and from this lesson he came home with his arms filled with a large salmon for them to eat.

She would encourage him to race with the deer in the forest. She taught him to seek playmates in the animals of the forest, and to imitate all they did, thus allowing him to pick up the great arts of hunting naturally. She taught him how to cut and peel a birch bark to create an arrow that shot straight and true. She taught him to respect animals, but didn’t foster sentimentality. Demne knew well that to kill was a necessity for survival for them.

In this way Liath encouraged Demne’s independence, yet at the same time ensured that he was taught all he needed to know. When he was older she put a switch in his and, and held one in her own. She ran around a tree after him, hitting him with the switch when she caught up. He learned to run swiftly from this, and his desire to hit her back gave him the impetus to train as hard as he could. She demonstrated the great salmon leap and other great martial feats of the warrior, so that he could aspire to perfect them also. Eventually, when he hit her as many times as she hit him, Liath declared that he was fit to go his own way. So at the age of seven, Demne bid farewell to his foster mothers, and set out with a passing band of travelling bards. He was later to become the great hero Fionn Mac Cumhaill

Conclusion
Finding herself entrusted with the upbringing of a child, she dealt with it as she saw best, by teaching him the tools he would need in life. She put a lot of effort and focus into everything she did in life, from perfecting her own great skills to developing the warrior heart in a young boy. As a warrior she values competency, and the high expectations she had for Demne likely played a great part in making him the great man he was to become.

Caílte

Background:
It is said that the name Caílte means slender and fierce, which renders it a very suitable name for this character. He was a member of the Fianna who was as known for his athleticism as his willingness to help. He was a great personal friend of Fionn Mac Cumhaill, and most of the tales of the deeds of the Fianna involve Fionn and Caílte along with a few of the other more prominent members. Like Fionn, he was descended from the Baoiscne clan, a clan known for its generosity of spirit. There is nothing that he wouldn’t do for his brothers in the Fianna, and certainly nothing he wouldn’t do for Fionn. It is often his interventions that get the Fianna out of trouble. His feats usually involve great speed, as he was particularly known for his lightness of foot.

Stories of Caílte:
While out hunting, the Fianna were accosted by a hag. She refused to let them pass, and demanded that they race her. If they lost she would kill them and eat them. Caílte raced her, overtook her, turned around and cut off her head.

When Fionn wooed Gráinne, she demanded of him the gift of the male and female of every animal in Ireland in one single drove. Caílte ran the length and breadth of Ireland, collecting each animal, and managing to keep them all in one group, and drove them to Gráinne before the sun had set that very day.

He brought a herd of hares to Tara and placed them in a house with nine open doors. By racing around the house all night he was able to keep all the hares in until morning.

The king of Ireland wished to have a fistful of sand delivered to him every morning from each of the four shores of Ireland, as he could tell by the smell of the sand whether any enemies had landed during the night. Three men offered their services. The first man said that he could do the task as quickly as a leaf fall from a tree. The second man told him that he could do it as quickly as a cat slinks between two houses. The third man (Caílte) said that he could finish this task as fast as a woman changes her mind. The king, impressed by this, tasked him with the job. “I have just returned,” Caílte replied, holding out the bags of sand.

Conclusion:
Faithful comrade, good friend, and proactive member of the Fianna. You never get the sense that he ever expects to be owed any gratitude or service in return for his feats. He is delighted to possess such athletic skill as it renders him useful, but he does not let pride swell his head. For him, he is but one member of a tribe, and he never begrudges anyone else their place.

The Animals within Irish Myth

Many animals within Irish Mythology play important parts.

The Salmom of Knowledge is one such creature, and it has already been described how tasting the skin of this fish was enough to endow Fionn MacCumhal with great wisdom and foresight, making him the most respected of men among his contemporaries.

The Wild Boar is another popular animal in the cycle, and often plays a more sinister role. The most famous boar was the one responsible for the death of Diarmuid. It was in fact an enchanted human. When Diarmuid was a boy he was fostered in the house of Aengus Og, and was close friends with the steward of the household’s son. Diarmuid’s father, Donn, came to visit one day and was jealous of the attention bestowed on this other boy, feeling his more noble child was being slighted. When two hounds began to fight Donn seized his opportunity and broke the boy’s neck and threw the body into the midst of the fight, where it would look like the dogs had killed him. The steward was anguished and called for an inquiry where it was discovered that no mark from a dog was found on the child’s body. It was found that Donn had killed the boy, and in anger the steward struck his son’s corpse with a druidical wand and changed him into a boar. He then promised that one day Diarmuid would meet this boar again, and that then he would be killed. Thus it was when Diarmuid went hunting many years later with the still vengeful Finn, that he was gored by this same boar, Finn having deliberately placed him in danger, and so met his death. This boar, and other boars in Irish mythology have come to represent the wild, mysterious and untamed aspects of ancient Irish life, and are therefore animals to be feared.

Objects in Irish Mythology

Each Hero in Irish Mythology had his favourite sword, and some of these achieved legendary status.

One of the most legendary objects in Irish Mythology was the Gae Bolga, granted to Cuchulainn by Scathach. This was a spear, which separated into many barbs on entering the body. It was impossible to remove, and its wound was fatal. Only one of these existed, and it was the preserve of Cuchulainn, thus further underlining his status as the champion of all Ireland.

Lugh of the Tuatha De Danann carried a sword named Freagarach – Answerer – which cut through anything.

Diarmuid had two swords depending on the type of fighting necessary; Moralltach – Great fury – and Beagalltach – Small Fury. It was with Moralltach that he slew the giant guarding the tree of the berries of youth, and it was because he left his sword at home on the day of his final hunt that he was unable to defend himself against the magical boar that attacked him.

The God Manannan owned a boat named the Wave Sweeper, which could grow to accommodate any number of passengers and did not require oars or sails in order to move.

Irish folktales are full of objects such as magic shoes for swift walking, magic cloaks of invisibility, magic keys to open any locks, and magic sticks that grew to form bridges or supports. Once these objects were used they generally disappeared and returned to the fairy world from which they usually came.

From the fairy world also came the Banshee – which literally means a woman of the fairies. It was said that the Banshee would only walk near the house of one who was about to die.

Caoilte’s Rabble

Caoilte Mac Ronan was a thin, grey man, and he was the best runner in all of the Fianna. Once, a king in Ireland asked all the fastest men he could find which of them would be able to fetch him sands from all the beaches in Ireland the quickest. They each gave him an answer: days or weeks or months; but when he got to Caoilte, Caoilte only smiled and held out a bag of sand. “I got it,” said he, “while ye were talking.”

Now, one time, the Fianna had stirred up a rebellion among the people of Ireland, and they were at odds with the High King himself, in Tara. He had no intention of starting a fight with the Fianna, so he asked Finn Mac Cumhaill to come peacefully as his hostage until the trouble had blown over, and Finn had agreed.

Caoilte was not there when this bargain was made. When he heard that his leader and friend was being held hostage, he was furious, and set out to avenge Finn. He went on a rampage of destruction, going in through every door that the red east wind blew on and destroying all before him, setting fire to the fields, and giving one man’s wife to another.

At last he came to Tara, and to get himself inside quietly, he took the clothes off the doorkeeper. He snuck into the king’s hall, and took the king’s sword right out of his sheath, replacing it with his own, which was thin as a blade of grass after all the fighting he’d done with it. Still disguised as a servant, he stood behind the king at the feast, holding a candle.

Now, the king was jumpy after hearing all these rumours of Caoilte’s rampage, and he thought he spotted Caoilte there in the shadows. But Finn dismissed this. “Caoilte has a high mind,” he said “And he wouldn’t go creeping about Tara with a candle, he only does high deeds!”

The king was at ease after that, till Caoilte handed him a glass of wine. “There’s a smell of Caoilte’s skin off that wine,” the king said. And at that, Caoilte knew he was discovered, and spoke out.

“Tell me what to do to get freedom for Finn Mac Cumhaill,” he said.

The high king thought about this. It wasn’t that he wanted Finn Mac Cumhaill as a hostage. If nothing else, this business of looking over his shoulder in case there was an enraged man of the Fianna coming for him was playing havoc with his nerves. It was time he wanted, for the rebellion to die down, and so he decided to set Caoilte a task that would surely take even him some time to achieve.

“I have a mind,” said the High King, “to see every creature in Ireland all together in the one place. A pair of each.”

“Right,” said Caoilte, and away he went.

He searched through all of Ireland, hunting down birds and beasts, wild and tame. The creatures were all startled, but Caoilte herded them and drove them on before them so fast that they hadn’t the time to fight amongst themselves. All the same, the deer did not like being so close to the wolves, nor the backbirds to the foxes, so it was a terrible time he had to bring them all together in one place and drive them. He almost had it, when a raven broke south, and a wild duck north, and he had to run them both down and bring them back by their necks before anything else could escape.

At last, he brought them all before the gates of Tara as evening was closing in, and shouted up at the walls for them to send out the king.

The king thought to himself, “This is far too soon,” so he had his men tell Caoilte to wait until morning: he wanted to see all the animals together in daylight. He had them direct Caoilte to a particular house to keep the creatures in all night.

It was a house with nine doors.

No sooner had Caoilte driven all the animals and birds inside, then they let out a dreadful screech, and every one of them did all they could to escape. There was no rest for Caoilte that night; he had to run from door to door all around the house, flinging back birds and beasts all desperately trying to get away from him and each other.

At last, when the sun rose, Caoilte brought all the creatures before the High King of Tara, and such a noise they were still making, that the people called them Caoilte’s Rabble!

As he looked out over the creatures, the High King thought to himself that this hadn’t been a bad plan at all. He had bought another bit of time with Finn Mac Cumhaill as his hostage, and after all, this was a fairly magnificent gift. What king in the world wouldn’t want a gathering of all the wild creatures in his land brought to him as tribute?

So he let Finn Mac Cumhaill go. And the second Caoilte stopped herding and circling the animals, they bolted off in all directions, fleeing from Tara, no two by the same road, so all the profit the High King had of them was that one glance.

Grainne

Background
Diarmuid was a young lieutenant of Finn, the now aging hero and leader of the Fianna. At a banquet Grainne, who was at the time betrothed to Finn, fell in love with the young hero Diarmuid. She placed him under a geis, a bond that compelled him to take her from the palace at Tara. Therefore Diarmuid fled Tara with his leader’s fiancée.

Tales of Grainne & Diarmuid
Diarmuid faced the double-edged sword of betraying the geis or betraying his leader. He took Grainne into exile and they fled the Fianna who pursued them to win her back for the king. She had initially tricked Diarmuid into this situation and her powers of manipulation were strong. The couple were chased all over Ireland, but they were assisted by the god of love, Oenghus. They entered the forest of Duvnos which contained the tree of Immortality. In the forest a giant, Sharavan the Surly, guarded the tree of Immortality, and Diarmuid made an agreement with him that Sharavan would leave the lovers in peace if Grainne and Diarmuid did not take any of the berries from the tree. But Grainne soon persuaded her lover to pick berries and Diarmuid killed Sharavan in the process. Soon Finn and his men caught up with the pair, and they entered the forest. Finn knew that they were hiding in the tree of Immortality but decided to try to draw Diarmuid out. He and Oisín played chess beneath the branches and Diarmuid couldn’t resist dropping a berry onto the board to signify to Oisín which move to make. Having been assured that Diarmuid was indeed amongst the branches, Finn sent Garva up to kill him. But Diarmuid won and threw the body down. But Oenghus changed his appearance so that Finn believed the body thrown to the ground was in fact Diarmuid.

Conclusion
Grainne manages to pull Diarmuid away from his allegiance to the king and using the geis draws him into an unbreakable bond to her. From this the love between the two appears to be strong, and Grainne plays a masterful role in the relationship

Fionn Mac Cumhaill

Background
Finn (Fionn) was the hero of the Fenian cycle and was the greatest leader of the Fianna. He was born after the death of his father, and so reared by a wise woman who taught him well, and encouraged a strong affinity to nature.

Tales of Finn
His first major act was to kill his father’s murderer, Goll. Having completed this revenge he ventured to Finnegas. Finnegas was a bard who taught Finn the art of poetry and also the gift of prophecy along with general wisdom. Finnegas caught the salmon of knowledge and gave it to his young pupil to cook. As he did this Finn burnt his finger and so placed his thumb his mouth. From this he gained supernatural knowledge.

Finn was made the leader of the Fianna by saving Tara. Each year Tara was burnt to the ground at the feast of Samhain by a goblin called Aillen. Aillen would enchant the palace and send everyone to sleep, then burn down the palace. Finn kept himself awake during Aillen’s visit by resting his cheek against a spear made by Len, sword maker of the Gods, and so was able to kill the goblin.
Finn was a strong leader of the Fianna. He hunted a boar who tried to lead him and his men to the Otherworld.

Conclusion
Finn’s death was foretold as occurring when he drank from a horn. In his later years he attempted to jump across the River Boyne, but as he had by now drunk from a horn, he fell into the river and was drowned. Finn was a clever hero who led his band of men through many adventures and challenges, and armed with his strength and knowledge became the greatest leader of the Fianna.

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