DeDanaan

MacCool, Finn (MacCumhaill) : Finn MacCool (Fingal) is a traditional Irish folk hero who actually may have lived in the 3rd century but who figures heavily in Irish mythology. A leader of a band of warriors, Finn is often portrayed as a giant with great strength and wisdom. According to folk tradition, Finn assembled a rock formation known as the Giants’ Causeway along the coast of Northern Ireland to enable other giants to travel between Scotland and Ireland. He and his son, Oisin, appear in the Fenian Cycle of ancient Irish tales, the most famous of which is “The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Grainne.” Grainne, who loves Oisin, is pressured to marry the father instead, but escapes by eloping with Diarmuid, Finn’s nephew. Finn pursues them, Diarmuid is slain by a giant boar, and ultimately, Grainne becomes Finn’s wife.

In the 1760’s, the Scottish poet James Macpherson (1736-1796) claimed dubiously to have discovered and translated tales written by Finn’s son, Oisin, whom he called Ossian. Two of his popular books are Fingal, an Ancient Epic Poem in Six Books (1762) and Temore (1763), an epic that he claimed was translated from the Gaelic of Ossian. Both Finn and his son frequently appear in Irish myth and literature, most notably in the poetry of William Butler Yeats.

Fable : A fable is a story, usually but not always about animals with human qualities, that illustrates some moral truth or wisdom. The familiar fable of “The Fox and the Grapes,” for example, suggests that people will belittle what they cannot get. The fox, after using all his wiles to reach the grapes hanging beyond his reach, concludes that they are sour anyway. Though fables have been discovered even among the Egyptian papyri (500BC), the development of the fable is most often associated with the Greek slave, Aesop. The French fabulist Jean de La Fontaine made perhaps the most celebrated collection of fables. Uncle Remus fables by Joel Chandler Harris celebrate the exploits of Brer Rabbit. “Animal Farm” by George Orwell and “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson are more up-to-date examples of fables.

Camelot : Camelot was King Arthur’s castle. In the Arthurian legends, Camelot represented a place of honor and peace, the home of the Round Table and King Arthur’s knights. It was the place from which the knights departed on their adventures, and to which they would return after the fighting was done and the foe was defeated. It was the court and seat of government. In pictures Camelot is usually depicted as a 12th- or 15th-century medieval castle, but Arthur actually lived in the 6th century, when there were no castles and clothes and armor were much simpler than are usually shown.

Blank Verse : Blank verse is unrhymed poetry, and usually refers to poems written in iambic pentameter. The plays of William Shakespeare are written mostly in blank verse, as are many English epic and dramatic poems.

An example from Shakespeare’s Hamlet:

How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.

Beowolf : Beowolf, which means “bee-wolf” or bear, is the hero of an epic poem composed in Old English around the year 700AD. Some scholars believe it was written by an English Christian who may have adapted an earlier epic or collection of folk tales. Based on Scandinavian history and legends, the story takes place about 200 years earlier. Beowolf has the quality of heroism in a cold and unfriendly world. He is a young Swedish prince who visits the famous mead-hall (feasting hall) of a Danish king, where he learns that the hall is attacked every night by a monster named Grendel. When he offers to fight the monster, he succeeds in tearing off one of its arms and drives it away. On the following night Grendel’s mother comes for vengeance. Beowolf kills her and rids the kingdom of its scourge. After 50 years of a peaceful reign, King Beowolf fights again — this time it is a dragon that is destroying the land. In a long and painful battle, the aged Beowolf kills the fire-breathing beast and saves his people. His body is placed on a huge funeral pyre to be burnt, but his deeds survive him in memory and legend for generations.

Avalon : A Celtic word meaning “the island of apples,” was an island paradise to which heroes were taken after their death. King Arthur was taken there after being mortally wounded in battle. In medieval romantic poetry, Avalon is the place where the fairy Morgan le Fay held her court.

Allegory : A literary device, an allegory is a story or a description in which events or characters stand for meanings not visible on the surface. An allegory treats one subject by disguising it as another. Allegorical characters often represent moral virtues or vices (such as Truth, Conscience, or Reason), rather than imitating human personality. Similar to the fable, the parable, and the morality play, the allegory is no longer widely used.

Irish Literary Renaissance : The Irish Literary Renaissance was a writers’ movement that worked to create literature with a truly Irish character, distinct from literature of England, through the study and revival of ancient Irish legends and folk tales. William Butler Yeats helped start the movement, which was partly the outcome of a trend toward political nationalism that developed in Ireland at the end of the 19th century. In 1902, Yeats and Irish playright Lady Augusta Gregory (1859-1932) established the Irish National Theatre Society, which became the movement’s most famous institution. It achieved an international reputation through its staging of the plays of John Millington Synge and Sean O’Casey. The movement is said to have influenced the work of James Joyce.

Newspeak : Newspeak is the official language of Oceania in the novel 1984 by George Orwell. The purposes and principles are described in great detail in an appendix to the book. Its creators invented new words, and also threw out many old words that the dictatorship thought were undesirable. An example of Newspeak is “Reporting bb dayorder doubleplusungood refs unpersons rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling.” Translated into ordinary English, this would read “The reporting of Big Brother’s Order for the Day. . . is extremely unsatisfactory and makes references to nonexistent persons. Rewrite it in full and submit your draft to higher authority before filing.”