Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race - Knowledge Rush

CHAPTER VII: THE VOYAGE OF MAELDUN 265they observed two giant and shadowy figures talking to eachother across the glen. One of the apparitions said to the other:“Do you see that man down below? I was the second door-postof battle on the day of Gowra, and that man there knows all aboutit better than myself.” [308]The End of FinnAs to Finn himself, it is strange that in all the extant mass ofthe Ossianic literature there should be no complete narrative ofhis death. There are references to it in the poetic legends, andannalists even date it, but the references conflict with each other,and so do the dates. There is no clear light to be obtained on thesubject from either annalists or poets. Finn seems to have meltedinto the magic mist which enwraps so many of his deeds in life.Yet a popular tradition says that he and his great companions,Oscar and Keelta and Oisīn and the rest, never died, but lie, likeKaiser Barbarossa, spell-bound in an enchanted cave where theyawait the appointed time to reappear in glory and redeem theirland from tyranny and wrong.[309]CHAPTER VII: THE VOYAGEOF MAELDŪNBesides the legends which cluster round great heroic names, andhave, or at least pretend to have, the character of history, thereare many others, great and small, which tell of adventures lyingpurely in regions of romance, and out of earthly space and time.As a specimen of these I give here a summary of the “Voyage