Then, too, the
mountain-glory and the mountain-gloom are again and again
imaginatively described and loved. The windings and recesses, the
darkness and brightness of the woods and the glades therein, enchant
the Fenians even when they are in mortal danger. And the waters of the
great lakes, the deep pools of the rivers, the rippling shallows, the
green banks, the brown rushing of the torrents, are all alive in the
prose and song of Ireland. How deep was the Irish love of these
delightful things is plain from their belief that "the place of the
revealing of poetry was always by the margin of water." And the Salmon
of Knowledge, the eating of which gave Finn his pre-eminence, swam in
a green pool, still and deep, over which hung a rowan tree that shed
its red berries on the stream. Lovely were the places whence Art and
Knowledge came.
Then, as to all good landscape lovers, the beasts, birds, and insects
of Nature were dear to these ancient people. One of the things Finn
most cared for was not only his hounds, but the "blackbird singing on
Letterlee"; and his song, on page 114, in the praise of May, tells us
how keen was his observant eye for animal life and how much it
delighted him. The same minute realisation of natural objects is
illustrated in this book when King Iubdan explains to the servant the
different characteristics of the trees of the forest, and the mystic
elements that abide in them.
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