An Chraobh Airgid

Person

Fionn mac Cumhaill

Fionn mac Cumhaill · Old Irish Find mac Cumaill

Say it: fyun (or fin) mok COOL Fionn: Munster /fʲũːn̪ˠ/ · Connacht /fʲin̪ˠ/ · Ulster /fʲɨn̪ˠ/

Leader of the Fianna: poet, hunter and seer. In later folklore, a giant.

Open it on the full site There every name opens, and a web shows who is kin to whom.

Born Demne, he became Fionn, “fair, bright”, after burning his thumb on the salmon of Linn Féic and tasting its knowledge (see Finnéces). In the medieval tales he is the warrior-poet of the Fianna. In the Acallam na Senórach he is ten years old when he keeps Tara awake against Aillén and is given the leadership of the Fianna; and long after, Caílte tells Patrick that if the brown leaf the wood let fall had been gold, and the white wave silver, Fionn would have given it all away. In later folklore he grows into a giant who builds causeways and throws mountains. James Macpherson’s Ossian (1760s) made him famous across Europe as Fingal.

Kin and bonds

In the tales

  • The Boyhood Deeds of Fionn A druid and a warrior woman hide a hunted boy in the woods. Years later a poet on the Boyne gives him a salmon to cook, and tells him not to taste it.
  • The Colloquy of the Ancients The last two of the Fianna part in tears. One goes into a hill to his mother; the other finds Patrick blessing Fionn’s old fort, and tells him the story of every hill.
  • The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne Promised to the ageing Fionn, Gráinne puts the feast to sleep and lays a geis on Diarmuid to take her away. Fionn hunts them for sixteen years.
  • Fionn and the Burning of Tara For twenty-three years a man of the sídhe has played Tara to sleep at Samhain and burned it. Then a boy of ten, an outlaw, offers to keep it till morning.
  • Oisín in Tír na nÓg Niamh of the Golden Head carries Fionn’s son away to the Land of the Young. Three hundred years go by like three, and then he asks to go home.
  • Fionn and the Giant’s Causeway The strongest giant in Ireland is coming for Fionn. Fionn’s wife has a plan, a cradle and twenty-one iron griddles.

See also

  • Almu The Hill of Allen. Fionn’s white fort in Leinster.
  • Binn Ghulbain Benbulben. The Sligo mountain where Diarmuid met the boar.
  • Cael ua Nemhnainn A young warrior of the Fianna who won Créde with a poem, and was drowned at Ventry.
  • Mongán The son Manannán foretold, born to a mortal mother.
  • Niamh Niamh of the Golden Head: the daughter of the King of Tír na nÓg, who rode out of the west for Oisín.
  • Oscar Oisín’s son and Fionn’s grandson: the young champion who stood by Diarmuid.
  • Saint Patrick Ireland’s patron saint, and in the later tales the last listener of the Fianna.
  • Sliabh Bladhma The Slieve Bloom Mountains. The forest where Fionn was reared in secret.
  • Teamhair The Hill of Tara. Seat of the high kings, and of the stone that cried out.

Sources

Medieval manuscript. Written down by Irish scholars between the eighth and seventeenth centuries.

Each tale above lists the sources it is retold from. Every source the site draws on is listed on the full site.