CHAPTER XIII

CELTIC LITERARY REVIVALS

Sixth century awakening throughout Celtdom—Illustrious names—Brittany’s wonderful cycle of song—Charming examples—Dearth of tenth century—A strange trait of Celtic life—The brilliant medieval renaissance—Output of Ireland, Wales, and Brittany—The Cornish dramas—Last speaker of that dialect—Period of inactivity and decline—Recrudescence—1745–1800 the high-water mark of Highland production—A galaxy of poets—Splendid lyrical outburst—New Ossianic cycle—Seana Dana—Caledonian bards—The Welsh Eisteddfod—Latest Celtic renaissance—Some characteristic features, results, manifestations—Antiquity, thou wondrous charm!

There comes a time in the history of races when, passing from simplicity to reflection, their deepest nature finds expression in some form of literature. That time for the Celtic people has been the late fifth, but more especially the sixth century of our era. And the remarkable fact confronts us then of a simultaneous poetic awakening in all the chief groups into which the Celtic remnant had been divided. Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Brittany were all involved in this primal literary activity.

A most curious phenomenon to contemplate is this racial renaissance. When the great Celtic empire had crumbled, and its defeated fragments were driven to their last resorts on the outmost confines of Europe, vanquished by the alien who kept them at bay, suddenly the sundered remnants burst into song. Plaintive and sad for the most part has been this utterance, but full of the wealth of sentiment, fancy, and old-time peculiarities of conception so characteristic of this ancient people.

St. Patrick, St. Sechnall, Dubthach, Fiacc, Dallan Forgaill, and others, inaugurated the new time in Ireland; St. Columba and his following accomplished a similar transition for Scotland, opening the pages of literary history with beautiful hymns and lyrics, which have continued to this day. In Wales the pregnant sixth century which gave us Columcille was _the_ great age of bardic literature—the age of such princes of poetry as Aneurin, Taliessin, Llywarch Hên, and Myrddin.

These are among the most illustrious names of the Celtic past. And in Brittany the same period is believed to have produced that wonderful cycle of song, some of which has been taken down from oral recitation so late as last century by the learned and enthusiastic M. de Villemarqué,[30] the Macpherson of Brittany, and published in his delightful _Barzaz-Breiz, Chants populaires de la Bretagne_, a number of which Mr. Tom Taylor has rendered into English. Those entitled—

The Wine of the Gauls, The Prediction of Gwenc’hlan, The Lord Nann and the Fairy, The March of Arthur, The Plague of Elliant, The Drowning of Kaer-Is—

are held to belong to the period with which we are dealing, and to have been in existence prior at least to the close of the sixth century. They are all distinguished by the presence of alliteration as well as rhyme, by a more or less complete division into triplets, like the ancient Welsh triads, as well as by a distinctly archaic impress in the manners described, and the feelings of the singer.

The names of the authors have not come down to us, as in the other three countries, but, having already quoted specimens of the fifth and sixth century poetry of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, it might not be uninteresting now to give characteristic examples of the early compositions of Brittany.

The Wine of the Gauls is undoubtedly ancient, so ancient indeed, that Part II. is regarded as a fragment of the song that accompanied the old Celtic sword-dance in honour of the sun. It runs thus:—

Blood wine and glee Sun to thee— Blood wine and glee. Fire! Fire! steel, oh! steel! Fire! fire! steel and fire. Oak! Oak! earth and waves, Waves, oak, earth and oak.

Glee of dance and song And battle throng. Battle, dance and song. Fire! fire, etc.

Let the sword blades swing In a ring, Let the sword blades swing. Fire! fire, etc.

Song of the blue steel Death to feel, Song of the blue steel. Fire! fire, etc.

Fight, whereof the sword Is the Lord, Fight of the fell sword! Fire! fire, etc.

Sword, thou mighty King Of battle ring, Sword, thou mighty King! Fire! fire, etc.

With the rainbow’s light Be thou bright, With the rainbow’s light. Fire! fire, etc.

Far more charming is the episode of Lord Nann and the Fairy, and genuinely typical of the powerful fancy and natural magic of the Celt.

The good Lord Nann and his fair bride, Were young when wedlock’s knot was tied— Were young when death did them divide.

But yesterday that lady fair Two babes as white as snow did bear: A man-child and a girl they were.

For making him a manchild’s sire, Lord Nann offered to get his bride any dainty food she liked, “meat of the woodcock from the lake or of the wild deer from the brake.” She chose the latter, while she grudged sending him to the wood.

The Lord of Nann when this he heard Hath gripp’d his oak spear with never a word,

His bonny black horse he hath leap’d upon; And forth to the greenwood he hath gone.

By the skirts of the wood as he did go, He was ’ware of a hind as white as snow;

Oh fast she ran and fast he rode, That the earth it s