Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race - Knowledge Rush

CHAPTER VI: TALES OF THE OSSIANIC CYCLE 237by our harpers at great men's feasts. But now the Talkenn, 182Patrick, has come into Ireland, and has preached to us the OneGod and Christ His Son, by whose might these old days andways are done away with; and Finn and his Fianna, with theirfeasting and hunting and songs of war and of love, have no such [276]reverence among us as the monks and virgins of Holy Patrick,and the psalms and prayers that go up daily to cleanse us fromsin and to save us from the fire of judgment.” But Oisīn replied,only half hearing and still less comprehending what was said tohim: “If thy God have slain Finn and Oscar, I would say that Godis a strong man.” Then they all cried out upon him, and somepicked up stones, but the overseer bade them let him be until theTalkenn had spoken with him, and till he should order what wasto be done.Oisīn and PatrickSo they brought him to Patrick, who treated him gently andhospitably, and to Patrick he told the story of all that had befallenhim. But Patrick bade his scribes write all carefully down, thatthe memory of the heroes whom Oisīn had known, and of thejoyous and free life they had led in the woods and glens and wildplaces of Erin, should never be forgotten among men.This remarkable legend is known only in the modern Irishpoem written by Michael Comyn about 1750, a poem which maybe called the swan-song of Irish literature. Doubtless Comynworked on earlier traditional material; but though the ancientOssianic poems tell us of the prolongation of Oisīn's life, so thathe could meet St. Patrick and tell him stories of the Fianna,the episodes of Niam's courtship and the sojourn in the Land ofYouth are known to us at present only in the poem of MichaelComyn.The Enchanted Cave182 Talkenn, or “Adze-head,” was a name given to St. Patrick by the Irish.Probably it referred to the shape of his tonsure.