Writer weaves myth and truth into adventurous tales of ancient Erin
Christine Goldbeck on Morgan Llywelyn's Finn Mac Cool and Bard, two novels that treat Irish legend as the record of real people.
As printed in the Celtic Mirror, March 2003
Morgan Llywelyn's "Finn Mac Cool," like some of her previous works, takes readers on a spectacular adventure to ancient Ireland.
Llywelyn, who lives in Stillorgan, Ireland, is a writer of historical fiction. "Finn Mac Cool," a first-class read, was released last month in mass market paperback by Tor Books, New York.
Though this is a work of fiction, it is based on a man who roamed the hills and coasts of Celtic Erin.
Finn Mac Cool was a legendary warrior, who, according to folklore and scholarly studies, founded the first Irish Army, the Fianna, or the Fenians, in English.
The Annals of the Four Masters, considered to be one of the first accurate and written accounts of Celtic history, say Finn died in 283 AD. But, his legend, and the colorful stories of the army he created, live on heartily through Irish storytelling and skillful writers such as Llywelyn.
Even renowned writer/historians such as Seumas MacManus, who wrote "The Story of the Irish Race," and Edmund Curtis, author of "A History of Ireland," acknowledge that under Finn, the Fianna became a respected national police force known for victory in battle.
Llywelyn recreates the legend of Finn and his Fianna as well as the rule of the Ard Ri (High King) Cormac Mac Airt at Tara. From page one through to 528, she spins a story of adventure and romance. It is impossible to put this book aside to accomplish other things.
The author has the knack for making a reader see Finn and his men on wild boar hunts. She can make one feel the victory of battle and the hurt of a love lost.
In "Finn MacCool" Llywelyn recreates the aura of the era of the Fianna and of the so-called magical Tuatha De Danaan (pronounced Too-a-ha Day Dan-ann). In the book, Finn falls in love with one of these mythical beings, who bears his son, the legendary Oisin.
While in Llywelyn's work, the Tuatha De Danaan, or people of the Goddess Dana, are magical shapechangers, some historians argue that these people were the second inhabitants of Ireland and were not magical at all.
"Bard," also published by Tor Books, is another of her works that is well worth reading.
In this book, she writes of the Gaelic bard (poet) Amergin, whose poetic vision inspired his clan to leave Spain for the fabled Erin (Ireland) in the fourth century before Christ. On the Emerald Isle, Amergin meets up with the magical Shinann of the Tuatha De Danaan.
One need read no farther than the opening paragraph of "Bard," to know that this is also a book of superb quality.
It reads: "See a tall man pacing alone on the twilight beach, caught between the dying day and the incoming tide. Smell the moist air, heavy with salt. Hear the lapping of waves slapping the shore, the hiss of their withdrawal, their rushing return. Tide, flirting with sand, seducing, inviting, whispering tales from beyond the dark sea."
Her words suspend one in the beauty of poetry and visual art, and that paragraph is only one example of the many that can be found in Llywelyn's books.
A bit more into the beginning, the story connects with any American-Irish reader who dreams of standing on the earth of Ireland. "Yet the north wind persisted in torturing him with hints of that achingly beautiful and unreal land, his heart's home."
Other Llywelyn works praised by literary critics here and abroad include "The Elementals," "Druids," "O'Sullivan's March," "Red Branch," "Grania," and "Wind From Hastings."
In June, Llywelyn's "Brian Boru," an adaptation of her best-selling "Lion of Ireland," the book acclaimed by former President Ronald Reagan, will be available in hard cover from Tor Books for young adult readers.
The author not only writes of adventure, she lives it. A skilled equestrian, Llywelyn came within a half of a point of qualifying for the U.S. Olympic Team in 1976.
Additionally, she has been a model for Neiman-Marcus, an Arthur Murray dance instructor and a legal secretary.
Beyond the entertainment her books provide, Llywelyn's works serve another purpose.
For example, knowing that Finn MacCool and Amergin were real prompts one to pursue historical academic accounts of their lives and the imprints they left on the inhabitants of one's antecedents and of the people of contemporary Ireland.
And, for such reading, one can turn to the pages of the books written by MacManus and Curtis. They are older publications, but nonetheless worthy of attention. Seek them out at a library.
This reviewer did.
The giant outside the book
Finn Mac Cool was first published in 1994, ten years after Bard (1984), the other novel Goldbeck recommends here. The edition listed beside this review in our 2003 pages was a 2002 paperback.
The tradition Llywelyn worked from is worth setting out. Fionn mac Cumhaill was the posthumous son of Cumhall, leader of the Fianna, and of Muirne, and he was raised in hiding after Goll mac Morna's men hunted his family. He won his wisdom by burning his thumb on the Salmon of Knowledge while cooking it for the poet Finn Éces. At about ten he defeated Áillen, the fire-breathing figure who threatened Tara. He married Sadhbh, who had been turned into a deer, and their son was Oisín. Llywelyn's version gives Oisín a mother from the Tuatha De Danaan, which sits close to the Sadhbh story.
His life outside Ireland is large. In later folklore he is the good-natured giant credited with the Giant's Causeway, and with the Isle of Man and Rockall too. James Macpherson turned him into "Fingal" in the Ossian poems of 1760, whose authenticity is now generally doubted, and James Joyce folded him into Finnegans Wake. The best-loved account of his end says he never died at all, but sleeps in a cave with the Fianna until Ireland needs them.
One caution for careful readers. The review dates Finn's death to 283 AD on the authority of the Annals of the Four Masters. We could not confirm that date in a reference we trust, so treat it as the reviewer's source rather than ours. Llywelyn herself, as she told Thomas Larkin in this same feature, wrote Finn as a real man to see how the myth grew around him.
Questions readers ask
Was Finn McCool a real person?
Fionn mac Cumhaill is a hero of Irish mythology, leader of the Fianna and a seer and poet in the old tales. This magazine's 1990s reviewer cited the Annals of the Four Masters for a death in 283 AD, but modern reference works file him under mythology. Morgan Llywelyn's 1994 novel Finn Mac Cool deliberately writes him as a real man.
What is the story of Finn McCool and the Salmon of Knowledge?
The poet Finn Éces caught the Salmon of Knowledge and gave the young Fionn the job of cooking it. Fionn burned his thumb on the fish, and the wisdom passed to him instead of the poet; he was renamed Fionn after it. The episode comes early in his story, before he defeated Áillen, the fire-breathing figure who threatened Tara, at about ten.
Did Finn McCool build the Giant's Causeway?
In folklore he did. Later Irish and Scottish tradition turned Fionn into a benevolent giant and credited him with the Giant's Causeway, along with other landmarks such as the Isle of Man and Rockall. The older Irish tales present him differently, as a warrior, seer and poet who led the Fianna, a band of hunters and fighters, rather than as a giant.
Who was Oisín's mother?
In the best-known version Oisín's mother was Sadhbh, a woman who had been turned into a deer before she married Fionn mac Cumhaill. Morgan Llywelyn's novel Finn Mac Cool, first published in 1994, tells its own version, in which Finn falls in love with a woman of the Tuatha De Danaan who bears his son.
