The ancient myth said that the nine hazels of
wisdom grew round a deep spring beneath the sea, and the hazels were
the hazels of inspiration and of poetry--so early in Ireland were
inspiration and poetry made identical with wisdom. Seven streams of
wisdom flowed from that fountain-head, and when they had fed the world
returned to it again. And all the art-makers of mankind, and of all
arts, have drunk of their waters. Five salmon in the spring ate of the
hazel nuts, and some haunted the rivers of Ireland; and whosoever,
like Finn, tasted the flesh of these immortal fish, was possessed of
the wisdom which is inspiration and poetry. Such was the ancient Irish
conception of the art of poetry.
It is always an art which grows slowly into any excellence, and it
needs for such growth a quieter life than the Irish lived for many
centuries. Poems appear but rarely in the mythological or heroic
cycles, and are loosely scattered among the prose of the bardic tales.
A few are of war, but they are chiefly dirges like the Song of Emer
over the dead body of Cuchulain, or that of Deirdre over
Naisi--pathetic wailings for lost love. There is an abrupt and pitiful
pain in the brief songs of Fionnuala, but I fancy these were made and
inserted in Christian times. Poetry was more at home among the Fianna.
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