Kitabı oku: «The Works of "Fiona Macleod", Volume IV», sayfa 16
Page 156. Finn—Oisìn—Oscur—Gaul—Diarmid—Cuchullin. These names as they stand exhibit the uncertainty of Gaelic name-spelling. In the case of the first named there is constant variation. The oldest writing is Find (also Fend), or Fin. Some Gaelic writers prefer, in modern use, Fionn. Through a misapprehension, Macpherson popularised the name in Scotland as Fingal, and the Féin and Fianna (for they are not the same, as commonly supposed, the former being the Clan or People of Finn, and the latter a kind of militia raised for the defence of Uladh), as the Fingalians. Some Irish critics have been severe upon Macpherson's "impossible nomenclature"; but Fingal is not "impossible," though it is certainly not old Gaelic for Finn – for the word can quite well stand for Fair Stranger, and might well have been a name given to a Norse (or for that matter a Gaelic) champion.
Fin MacCumhal (Fin MacCooal or MacCool) is now commonly rendered as Finn or Fionn. The latter is good Gaelic and the finer word, but the other is older. Fionn obtains more in Gaelic Scotland. Fingal and the Fingalians are modern, and due solely to the great vogue given by Macpherson – though many writers and even Gaelic speakers have adopted them.
Fionn's famous son, again, is almost universally (outside Gaelic Scotland and Ireland) known as Ossian, because of Macpherson's spelling of the name. Neither the Highland nor Irish Gaels pronounce it so – but Oshshen, and the like – best represented by the Gaelic Oisìn or Oisein. Personally I prefer Oisìn to any other spelling; but perhaps it would be best if the word were uniformly spelt in the manner in which it is universally familiar. Obviously, too, "Ossianic" is the only suitable use of the name in adjective form. Oscur is probably merely a Gaelic spelling of the Norse Oscar; though I recollect a student of ancient Gaelic names telling me that the name was Gaelic and only resembled the familiar Scandinavian word. Gaul is commonly so spelt; but Goll is probably more correct. Diarmid has many variations, from Diarmuid to Dermid; but Diarmid is the best English equivalent both in sound and correctness.
It is still a moot point as to whether in narration, Gaelic names should be given as they are, or be anglicised – or Gaelic exclamations to phrases in their original spelling, or more phonetically to an English ear. I think it should depend on circumstances, and within the writer's tact. I have myself been taken to task again and again, by critics eager with the eagerness of little knowledge, for partial anglicisation of names and presumed mistakes in Gaelic spelling, when, surely, the intention was obvious that a compromise was being attempted. Let me give an example. How would the English reader like a story of, say, a Donald Macintyre and a Grace Maclean and an Ivor Mackay if these names were given in their Gaelic form, as Domnhuil Mac-an-t-Saoir and Giorsal nic Illeathain and Imhir Mac Aodh – or even if simple names, like, say, Meave and Malvina, were given as Medb or Malmhin?
It is a pity there is not one recognised way of spelling the legendary name of Setanta, the chief hero of the Gaelic chivalry. Probably the best rendering is Cuchulain. The old form is Cuculaind. But colloquially the name in Gaelic is called Coohoolin or Coohullun; and so Cuculaind would mislead the ordinary reader. The Scottish version is generally Cuchullin – the ch soft: a more correct rendering of the Macphersonian Cuthullin, a misnomer responsible no doubt for the common mistake that the Coolin (Cuthullin) mountains in Skye have any connection with the great Gaelic hero (see p. 155). Setanta, a prince of Uladh, was taught for a time in the art of weaponry by one Culain or Culaind, and after a certain famous act of prowess became known as The Hound of Culain —Cu being a hound, whence Cuculain, or with the sign of the genitive, Cuchulain. Every variation of the name, and all the legends of the Cuchullin cycle, will be found in Miss Eleanor Hull's excellent redaction, published by Mr. Nutt. The interested reader should see also the classical work of O'Curry: the vivid and romantic chronicle of Mr. Standish O'Grady; and the fascinating and scholarly edition of The Feast of Bricrin, recently published as the second volume of the Irish Texts Society, by Dr. George Henderson, the most scholarly of Highland specialists.
Page 162 seq. No one has collected so much material on the subject of St. Michael as Mr. Alexander Carmichael has done. Some of his lore, in sheiling-hymns and fishing-hymns, he has already made widely known, directly and indirectly: but in his forthcoming Or agus Ob, already alluded to, there will be found a long and invaluable section devoted to St. Micheil, as also, I understand, one of like length and interest on St. Bride or Briget, the most beloved of Hebridean saints, and herself probably a Christian successor of a much more ancient Brighde, a Celtic deity, it is said, of Song and Beauty.
Page 181. Be'al. I do not think there is any evidence to prove that the Be'al or Bêl often spelt Baal – whose name and worship survive to this day in Bealltainn (Beltane), May-day – of Gaelic mythology, is identical with the Ph[oe]nician god Baal, though probably of a like significance. The Gaelic name, which may be anglicised into Be'al, signifies "Source of All."
I am inclined to believe that the Be'al or Bêl of the Gaels has his analogue in the Gaulish mythology in Hesus (also Esua, Aesus, and Heus), a mysterious (supreme?) god of ancient Gaul, surviving still in Armorican legend. If so, Hesus or Aesus may be identical with the "lost" Gaelic god Aesar or Aes. Aesar means "fire-kindler," whence the Creator. (In this connection I would ask if Aed, an ancient Gaelic god of fire, also of death, be identical with (as averred) a still more ancient Greek name of Fire, or God of Fire = Aed?). Be'al, the Source of All, may take us back to the Ph[oe]nician Baal: but the Gaelic Aes and the Gaulish Aesus (Hesus) take us, with the Scandinavian Aesir, further still: to the Persian Aser, the Hindoo Aeswar, the Egyptian Asi (the Sun-bull), and the Etruscan Aesar. The Bhagavat-Gita says of Aeswar that "he resides in every mortal."
Pages 199-203. This section, slightly adapted, is from an unpublished book, in gradual preparation, entitled The Chronicles of the Sìdhe.
Page 225. The Culdees. Though I have alluded in the text to the probable meaning of a word that has perplexed many people, I add this note as I have just come upon another theoretical statement about the Culdees as though they were an oriental race or sect. The writer evidently thinks they are the same as Chaldæans, and builds a startlingly unscientific theory on that assumption. In all probability the word is simply Cille-Dè, i. e., [the man of the] Cell of God —Cille being Cell, a Church – and so a Cille-Dè man would be "man of God," a monk, a cleric. A much more puzzling problem obtains in the apparent traces of Buddha-worship in the Hebrides. It may or may not be of much account that the author of Lewisiana "admits reluctantly" that "we must accept the possibility of a Buddhist race passing north of Ireland." I have not seen Lewisiana for some years, and cannot recall on what grounds the author arrives at his conclusion. But from my notes on the subject I see that M. Coquebert-Montbret, in the Soc. des Antiquaires de France, argues at great length that the Asiatic Buddhist missionaries who penetrated to Western Europe, reached Ireland and Scotland. He asks if the ancient Gaelic Deity named Budd or Budwas be not Buddh (Buddha). Another French antiquary avers that the Druids were "an order of Eastern priests adoring Buddwas." Some light on the problem is thrown by the fact that the Gaulo-Celtic museum in St. Germain is an ancient Celtic "god" – the fourth in kind that has been found – with its legs crossed after the manner of the Indian Buddha. It is more interesting still to note that in the Hebrides spirits are sometimes called Boduchas or Buddachs, and that the same word is (or used to be) applied to heads of families, as the Master.
Pages 242, 248. These two sections, rearranged, and in part rewritten, are excerpted from what I wrote in Iona, some five years ago, for a preface to The Sin-Eater.
Page 256. In its original form this was written about a book of great interest and beauty, The Shadow of Arvor: Legendary Romances of Brittany. Translated and retold by Edith Wingate Rinder.
Arvor (or Armor) is one of the bardic equivalents of Armorica, as Brittany is called in many old tales. The name means the Sea-Washed Land, Vor or Mor being Breton for "sea," as in the famous region Morbihan the Little Sea. Neither the Bretons for their Cymric kindred, however, call Brittany Arvor, or the Latinised Armorica. Arvor is the poetic name of a portion of Basse Bretagne only. Bretons call Brittany Breiz, and their language Brezoned, and themselves Breiziaded (singular Breiziad) – as they keep to the French differentiation of Bretagne and Grande Bretagne in Bro-Zaos, the Saxon-Land, as they speak of France (beyond Brittany), as Bro-chall, the Land of Gaul. In Gaelic I think Brittany is always spoken of as Breatunn-Beag, Little Britain. The Welsh call the country, its people, and language, Llydaw, Llydawiaid, Llydawaeg.
F. M.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
By Mrs. William Sharp
The first edition of The Divine Adventure: Iona: By Sundown Shores was published in 1900 by Messrs. Chapman and Hall. The Titular Essay (since revised) appeared first in The Fortnightly Review for November and December, 1899. A large portion of "Iona" (though in different sequence) appeared also in The Fortnightly, March and April, 1900. Both "spiritual histories" were published separately in book form in America by Mr. T. Mosher; "Iona," curtailed and rearranged under the title of "The Isle of Dreams," in 1905. The Essay "Celtic" in its original form, first printed in The Contemporary Review, will now be found, revised and materially added to, in The Winged Destiny. In this Uniform Edition of the writings of "Fiona Macleod" (William Sharp) the following stories, etc., have been transferred to the present volume: "The White Fever" and "The Smoothing of the Hand" from The Sin-Eater; "The White Heron" which relates to the earlier story of Mary Maclean in Pharais, is from The Dominion of Dreams, and in its earliest version appeared with illustrations in the Christmas number of Harper in 1898. "A Dream" appeared first in the Theosophical Review of September, 1904. Finally I have added to this volume the latter portion and some detached fragments from Green Fire, a Romance by "Fiona Macleod" dealing with Brittany and the Hebrid Isles and published in 1896 by Messrs. A. Constable, and in America by Messrs. Harper Bros. But William Sharp considered that the book suffered from grave defects of design and construction and decided that, when out of print, it should not be republished. "The Herdsman," however, is – as he stated in a note to the first Edition of The Dominion of Dreams, "a re-written and materially altered version of the Hebridean part of Green Fire of which book it is all I care to preserve." Nevertheless, in accordance with the wishes of several friends, I have very willingly put together a series of detached fragments from the book and placed them beside "The Herdsman" as, in our opinion equally worthy of preservation, since the author's prohibition precludes the possibility of reprinting the book in its entirety.
