Gods and Fighting Men

Title

Gods and Fighting Men

Subject

Irish legend

Description

An extract from Lady Augusta Gregory's Gods and Fighting Men, an English translation of select Irish legends. The extract provides a detailed description of the foodstuffs Finn and his band of Fenian warriors discovered at the White Hill in Munster.

The extract is from the exposition of Chapter II of Book III and begins halfway down page 207. It is illustrative of the style parodied in Cyclops, 12:68-85.

Creator

Lady August Gregory (translator)

Source

Gaelic oral tradition: Fenian cycle

Publisher

Original: John Murray, Albemarle Street, W., London
Digital: https://archive.org/stream/godsfightingmens00greguoft#page/206/mode/2up

Date

Translation published 1904

Contributor

Posted by Eoin Mc Evoy

Format

Format: PNG image
File size: 431 KB
Dimensions: 336x555

Language

English

Original Format

Page of a book

Text

Chapter II. Cael and Credhe

Now as to Finn, when it was shown to him that the enemies of Ireland were coming, he called together the seven battalions of the Fianna. And the place where they gathered was on the hill that was called Fionntulach, the White Hill, in Munster. They often stopped on that hill for a while, and spear-shafts with spells on them were brought to them there, and they had every sort of thing for food, beautiful blackberries, haws of the hawthorn, nuts of the hazels of Cenntire, tender twigs of the bramble bush, sprigs of wholesome gentian, watercress at the beginning of summer. And there would be brought to their cooking-pots birds out of the oak-woods, and squirrels from Berramain, and speckled eggs from the cliffs, and a salmon out of Luimnech, and eels out of the Sionnan, and wood-cocks of Fidhrinne, and otters from the hidden places of the Doile, and fish from the coasts of Buie and Beare, and dulse from the bays of Cleire.

Files

GodsAndFightingMen.PNG

Citation

Lady August Gregory (translator), “Gods and Fighting Men,” James Joyce Digital Interpretations, accessed March 29, 2024, https://jamesjoyce.omeka.net/items/show/79.