Pagan Ireland.

by Eleanor Hull

Ollamhs and Filidh

Authorities: O'Curry's "Manners and Customs," and "Manuscript Materials of Irish History." M. D'Arbois de Jubainville's " Introduction a 1'Etude de la Litterature Celtique (1883). The Mac Ternan Prize Essay on Irish Poetry by Dr. Douglas Hyde. Introduction to the Senchus Mor, etc.

The File.

Let us speak a little further of the ancient laws of Ireland and of the Brehons or judges who administered them. Strange as it may appear to us now, it was, in the very earliest times of all, the Poet, or File, who administered the law, and laid down the rules for the country, and gave decisions in disputed cases. We think of poetry in these days as only a pleasant pastime for those people who have not very much practical work to do, and are inclined to be dreamy and contemplative. Busy people think that it is not meant for them, and they are inclined to despise those who read and think about poetry. In consequence of this way of looking at it, poetry is now chiefly written for people with leisure, and no one expects others to interest themselves in it. But in early times the ideas about poetry were entirely different. It was then the most necessary and practical thing that could be imagined; for everthing of any importance was composed and written in poetry.

The laws, the genealogies of the clans, the history of the tribes, were all composed and recited in verse. Consequently, the most important persons in the land^ next to the chiefs, were the Fili. It was their business to act as law-givers, arbitrators, genealogists, and historians, besides being the story-tellers and poets of the tribe. They were treated with the greatest respect, and were constantly in attendance on the chief, taking part in his councils. It was not simply in order to remember the laws and annals more easily, before writing was invented, that they were recited in verse, as some people seem to think; it was also to add dignity to them. Nearly all primitive peoples proclaim matters of importance to themselves in a sort of rude verse, and this was no doubt also the case in Ireland. Even in St. Patrick's day or later, when the laws were revised and written down, perhaps for the first time, a Fil6 was called in "to put a thread of poetry round them." The people would have thought little of decisions made in plain prose, and the law-givers themselves would have felt that they had lost some of their dignity.

The preparation of the File for his position was a long and arduous one. The post of Fil was generally retained in certain families, and the sons were specially educated by a careful course of study for their exalted position. It would seem that in early pagan times, ell as the most famous school of instruction in feats of war and championship. We read of some of the young aspirants to the office of Fil6 being sent there for their final instruction.

One consequence of their specialised education was to encourage a style in laying down legal decisions, and carrying on the duties of their office, which was quite different from the ordinary language of common life.

It became technical and full of expressions and words not understood by anyone but themselves probably methods of expression retained from an older time, but which had gone out of use. Exactly the same thing happens nowadays; law deeds and state records are full of archaic forms and words which ordinary people cannot understand, but which have to be adhered to if the document is to become legal. It was only the other day that the German Emperor made a decree commanding his Ministers and officers to draw up their reports in simpler language, because they were so long and difficult to understand that it was tedious and troublesome to follow them. Now, one of the old kings of Ulster is said to have been obliged to make exactly the same kind of revolution in legal style as the Kaiser has attempted. The occasion was this : Adna, a learned Connaught man, was the chief Fil of Ulster in the days of Conor mac Nessa. He had a son named Nedhe, whom he designed to follow him in the post of Ollamh (Ollav), or Head of the Poets of Ulster, on his own death.

He sent him for instruction to the school of the learned teacher, Eochaid, in Scotland. One day Xedhe was walking along the shore, meditating; for it was on the sea-coast that knowledge was most generally believed to be revealed to the Fite. He hearkened to the voice of the waves, for it seemed to him that they bore him a message, in a sad, strange, trembling murmur, which they were unable to translate into human speech. It was the funeral wail over his father's tomb that the waves had borne to him; and when he had made an incantation over them, he understood their voice, and knew that his father was dead. He returned to the school, and told all this to his master, who counselled him to set forth at once for Ireland. Meanwhile, before his arrival, the post of Ollamh had been given to Athairne, a celebrated, but cruel and dangerous, satirist, and he had been solemnly seated in the official chair of the chief Fil of Ulster, and clothed in the official robe, which was in three colours, and made entirely of birds' feathers.

When Nedhe arrived at Emain Macha he at once passed on to the king's palace to claim his succession

Robes of state made in a similar way, belonging to the Hawaiian Islanders, may be seen in the British Museum. They are entirely made of scarlet and yellow feathers, and the effect is that of thick plush. Yellow is the royal colour, and only worn by chiefs. The feathers are closely sewn into a net-work ground and cut short to the office of Ollamh; Athairne was not there at the moment, and Nedhe straightway seated himself in the official chair, which was empty, with the cloak of honour thrown across the back.

Athairne was soon informed what had happened, and he went up to Nedhe, asking, with a courtesy unusual to him : " Who is the learned poet upon whom the mantle with its splendour rests?" Nedhe replies, and a long and animated discussion follows, in which each poet displays his knowledge of philosophy, literature, and druidism. This debate, which was really a trial of skill to prove which was most fitted to occupy the exalted position to which both aspired, was listened to with great attention by the king, surrounded by all his counsellors.

As the conversation was carried on in the obscure language used by the learned, they probably could not understand very much; and when the matter was finally settled, and Nedhe was proved to be in every way qualified to hold the post, they had not been able to seize the drift of the discourse sufficiently to understand how tue decision was arrived at. Thereupon, Conor declared that the poets spoke for themselves alone, and made a monopoly of their science, while the people were unable to understand a word they said. Henceforth, the king decreed that the power of deciding disputes and matters of public arbitration should no longer reside in the professional class only, but should be shared by the whole tribe in public assembly. The legend was evidently invented to explain a fact. The system was brought out of the seclusion of a separate caste, and became an affair of national interest and importance.

His Rank and Duties.

Yet the File did not lose his position of honour in the change; the Ollamh or chief File of the tribe always ranked next to the king, and was his counsellor. He went about with a retinue almost equal to that of the king, and he was provided with grazing, cattle, and refection at the public expense. The Seanachie, or Historian, was treated with similar liberality. The order of the Filidh, or the Fili, was sub-divided into seven or more ranks, according to the learning and powers of the poet; and each rank had a fixed staff of servants and order of precedence in all public assemblies. It is a little difficult to distinguish between the duties of a Brehon and those of a File of the higher ranks; possibly the Brehon concerned himself chiefly with private cases and the Ollamh with public concerns. But if the privileges of the Ollamh were great, they were not won without severe labour. He was, in the widest sense of the word, a learned man, so far as the scholarship of his day would take him. He was bound to be acquainted with the precise genealogies of his tribe; to know the affairs of general history, so far as it was possible in those times, and to compare them with the annals of his own race; he had to master the intricacies of a most intricate system of verse-making, and to be able to improvise on any occasion suitable poems or satires; and he had to be familiar with the numberless prose tales, some historic and others imaginative, which he must be ready to recite whenever called upon.

His education for the higher grades occupied twelve years of hard work, and often involved going to school at a distance from his native land. The keeping of the genealogies was considered of great importance in early times, as on it depended the position of each freeman in the tribe, and his right to whatever land or property he possessed. The genealogies were carefully revised at every public assembly, and written up to date. But, besides this, the Poets were the educators of the youth of the tribe. They were the professors of learning, and kept schools in which the lads, especially those who aspired to enter their order, were trained. We shall have to speak of these schools when we come to deal with the education of the children.

The ideal set before an Ollamh was a very high one. He was to be possessed of " purity of learning, purity of mouth (that is, he was not to satirise unjustly), purity of hand (from blood-shedding), purity of marriage, and purity (or honesty) from theft and robbery." It is sad to have to say that the Fili fell very far short of many of these virtues, and their own pride and misdeeds brought about their fall. They became lifted up in their minds by the honour that was everywhere paid to them; and as no one could control them or deny them anything they wished, they became outrageous in their demands, and would ask the most absurd and cruel things merely to show their power.

If they were refused, they would pour forth biting satires on the person who refused them and on all that he possessed; and so terrified were the people of being satirised, that they preferred to give even their wives and children to the poets, rather than to bring down on themselves the danger of their curse, which was supposed not only to raise on the face three great disfiguring blisters, but to bring desolation on the family. So far from keeping their mouths pure from unjust satire, they used it on every possible occasion, and in the cruellest way.

One of the blackest characters of all was Athairne, who disputed with Nedhe the Chair of Ollamh at Emain Macha. He used to make circuits through all the provinces of Ireland, and the people were so terrified at his coming, that they would meet him on the borders of their territory, and offer him everything that they possessed, rather than excite his revenge and wrath. It was a bad day for Ireland when he became chief poet of Ulster, and it was through Nedhe's generosity that he became it; for when Nedhe had proved himself the equal or superior of Athairne in the learned contest, he resigned his rights to him, because he was the older man, and he said he would be content to become his pupil. We are glad to read that Athairne met his deserts in the end; for he caused so many wars and troubles in the kingdom, that Conor had him put to death with all his family, and his house destroyed.

The Fill became so wicked, that they were three times about to be banished from the kingdom; they would have been finally banished by Aedh, King of Ireland, in the sixth century, but that Columcille came over from Scotland to plead for their existence. He had, when a lad, like all the young children of Ireland who wished to become learned, attended one of their schools, and he was himself a great poet, and devoted to the study of poetry. He, therefore, felt a deep interest in the poets, in spite of all their exactions and ill-deeds. But it was plain that things could not go on as they were; so Columcille had the whole matter discussed, and it was decided that their retinues should be lessened, and that only a very few Ollamhs and Fili should be allowed in each territory, instead of the vast hoards of them then going about eating up the country.

The rewards that they might ask for their poems were, too, settled definitely, and they could not henceforward ask more than the fixed payment. Besides the Fili, there were the hosts of the bards, who were of a lower standing, and did not receive the learned education of the File\ They were singers of songs, and they, too, wandered about, often with fiddles or small harps, living on the bounty of the peasants. They were also broken up into many grades. It would be difficult to remember all the divisions there were of poets of one sort or another in Ireland.

The Old Stories.

In spite of their bad ways, we have much cause to be thankful to the Fili; for it was thev who probably composed and certainly kept in memory all those stories of the old kings and those fine romances which delight us even in these days; it is from them that we learn the stories of Cuchu- lain and of Finn, and of the brave deeds of our forefathers; and how they lived, and what they thought and felt and believed. If it had not been for the professional poet, who was obliged to recite these tales, they would all have been forgotten.

The Ollamh was obliged to be able to recite at any moment any of the three hundred and fifty stories which it was his business to know. We have lists of these old stories entered in the books in which the monks and scribes afterwards wrote down all the tales they could get. But many books have been lost or destroyed, so that we have only part of the stories left. There are three or four famous old books, all written by hand, which contain collections of these stories, besides other things. One is called the Leabhar na h-Uidhre, or Book of the Dun Cow, because it was written on brown parchment made out of the skin of St. Ciaran's favourite cow it was written at his monastery at Clonmacnois in the twelfth century.

It is now carefully kept in the Royal Irish Academy. This is one of the most valuable books in Ireland. Another is called the Book of Leinster; it was written down about sixty years later. It was compiled by a bishop of Kildare for King Dermot mac Morrogh, the King of Leinster who invited Strongbow to bring over the Normans to Ireland, and that is how it got its name.

There are a great number of stories in it, too, and it is kept in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin. Besides the stories, many of the poems of the Filidh are preserved in these big books; and what is more interesting still, we have yet some of the lesson books from which they taught a knowledge of poetry to their pupils, with examples of the different kinds of verse. These examples show us how difficult it must have been to learn the three hundred and fifty kinds of versification which the Ollamh had to acquire and teach, for they are very intricate and puzzling indeed, much more difficult than any poetry we have nowadays. The poetry of the bards was much simpler, and was often sung to the harp, as Carolan composed and sang in later days. They wandered from house to house, and sang the praises of those who treated them with hospitality.