The Story of the Lay of Diarmaid, No. 1

THE STORY OF THE LAY OF DIARMAID. ¹

NO. 1.

FIONN never was a king; it was Breean, his father's brother, who was king over the fifth which the Een had of Eirinn, and Fionn he was Fla, the chief of the Feene, and it was Osgar who was chief of the men.

It is Djeearmaid who was the man of the best head that was in the Een altogether, and no arm at all could make an impression upon him. There was BALL DORAIN (a mole, an otter-mark) in his right heel; and he could not be killed unless a spike should go into his heel in the mole.

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Graine, the wife of Een, saw the BALL SEIRC (beauty spot) that was on Djeearmaid, and she took love for him, and he fled before her, but she followed him; and they were dwelling in a cave. Djeearmaid would not approach her, and he used to put a symbol before the door, a quarter of a slaughtered animal on a stake; and Fionn, when he saw the sign was satisfied; but on a day the sign was changed. A ciuthach ¹ came into the cave, and Djeearmaid killed him with a spear, for Graine was unfaithful even to her lover.

There was an old woman there whom they used to call Mala Llee (gray eyebrow), and she had a herd of swine, and she had a venomous boar for guarding the pigs. There was no being that went to hunt this boar that came back alive. So it was that Fionn thought to send Djeearmaid to hunt him, to put an end to him.

When Djeearmaid gave out the shout of death, said Fionn to Grainne-

"Is that the hardest shriek to thy mind that thou hast ever heard?"

"It is not," said she, "but the shriek of the ciuthach, when Djeermaid killed him."

"Ye Gods! that Djeermaid were alive," said Fionn.

From Janet Currie, Stonybridge, September 14, 1860.---H. MACL.--Part is altered and omitted in the translation, and the Gaelic is not given, because there is nothing peculiar in the language. The legend is remarkable as containing incidents common to the story published by the Ossianic Society of Dublin in 1855.--J.F.C.

Footnotes

64:1 In this I have tried to spell the sound of the name.

65:1 Pr. kewach, described in the Long Island as naked wild men living in caves, supposed to be derived from "CIUTH, long hair behind," which word is applied in Islay to a pigtail. French, quene.