Westropp — The ^^ Mound of the Fiana " at Cromwell Hill. 81 



watched till one should open. On Samhain a "man" came ouh of one and 

 crossed to the other Sid \ Finn pursued and speared him as he ran, and then 

 went to Bri Eli and surprised a woman, whom he held as a hostage for the 

 return of his spear. It was thrown out of the mound, and he learned that 

 he had killed the slayer of his friends. 



Unsatisfied with his success, he set off to Slieve Donard, in Co. Down, to 

 its famous cairn (though the old name " Sliab Slanga " has been altered to 

 honour a later hermit, Domaugard) and caught another banshee, taking her 

 brooch, which she redeemed with a vessel full of gold and silver. The tale 

 how the Fiana dug into a Sid near Dungrot,' and forced its inmates to reju- 

 venate Finn, is generally known. To enter on the encyclopaedic subject of 

 the Finn myths lies outside our scope. I would only point to the number of 

 extremely primitive stories assimilated by them, and that Finn was a lineal 

 descendant of the god ISTuada, the common ancestor of the Munster princes, 

 who, under his title "Derg," gets connected with a fort in Mag Femen,- and 

 is apparently confused with Bodb Derg, of Slievenaman, whose mere affilia- 

 tion, through Oengus of the Brugh, to the Celtic pantheon is very evident. 

 In the words of the ancient tale of Bricriu's feast,^ " the sleep of a Sid 

 mound knows of an awakening," for "gods do not easily die," and it is still 

 evident that those (worshipped before the Celtic Dergthene forced their 

 way through the Suir and Maig valleys, from the coast of Co. Waterford, to 

 the border of Co. Galway) are still active for good or evil in the popular 

 belief. Men cross themselves " for fear of the Dannans " at Croachateeaun, 

 and pass hurriedly after nightfall Oebinn's Sid on Craglea and the Duma of 

 Donn of the Sandhills, near Lahinch, in Co. Clare ; children will not play on 

 the mote of Ludden, and the fairy lights on the motes of the great cemetery 

 of Temair Erann, on Slievereagh, are at least respected ; the tumuli and 

 cairn of 'Aine (as we saw) were the scenes of processions and rites.' 



In Ireland we live among survivals of the remotest past, not, as elsewhere, 

 seeking for their dead bones. 



' Book of Leinster, 145, b. 8. 



- " Fianaigecht " (ed. J. MacNeill, Ir. Texts Soc), and many sources. The attempt to 

 make the god Nuada Necht King of Leinster in later days probably arose from recollection 

 of its (possibly historic) King Nuada the Sage (" Lives of the Saints," Book of Lismore, 

 p. 237). Nuada as a human name occurs at least seven times in the Annals of Ulster 

 from A.D. 751 to 810, in East Connacht and North Leinster. The mothers of the Finn 

 champions were usually of the god race, the Tuatha De (Oath Finntraga, ed. Meyer, 

 p. 14). 



3 Ed. Ir. Texts Soc, pp. 213, 197. 



■' J. Grene Barry, N. Munster Arch. Soc, iv, p. 11, for Ludden Mote. Men did not 

 sit on the three tumuli on Cenn Febrat for fear of the Tuatha De (Silva Gadelica, ii, 

 p. 124, from Acallamh). For the 'Aine celebrations see supra, xxxiv, pp. 59-60. 



