Morgan Llywelyn’s Finn Mac Cool

Morgan Llywelyn’s Finn Mac Cool

Morgan Llywelyn’s Finn Mac Cool, based on the legend, has been in my house for many years. It landed in a back row of books and was essentially lost. (Admit it. You, too, double the rows of books on your bookshelves so you can cram more in, don’t you? Be honest.) Eventually, we moved, and I packed and unpacked it. Found.

Included in a text box on the cover along with the title is the pitch: Did the Man Become the Legend or the Legend Become the Man? I don’t think this is a great draw into the book, but the condensed quote from the Booklist review on the back cover does a better job: “In addition to being fast-paced and full of action, this novel is witty in its descriptions of how Finn’s legends were seeded. . . .This is vintage Lywelyn, full of color and poetry and the wonderful flavor of real Irish speech.”

Morgan Llywelyn’s Finn Mac Cool as a Man

The most important thing from that list is Llywelyn’s take on how Finn became a legend. In this novel he is very much the opportunist that we know in the Greek hero Odysseus. In fact, all of his magical beginnings (e.g., his mother being one of the Tuatha Dé Danann) and his fortuitous gaining of magic powers (e.g., his foreknowledge of the future from the Salmon of Knowledge) are just stories he makes up in the spur of the moment. He has the memory and the energy to stick with them, so they become his legend. Perhaps it was because I’d seen the movie on Easter, but the whole time I was reading, the song “Jesus Christ, Superstar” was on repeat in my head (“Do you think you’re who they say you are?”)

Here, Finn’s origins are much more sordid. His father, Cuhal, kidnapped his mother (a woman far above his social rank), raped her and impregnated her. She left Finn out to the elements, and he was picked up by the two crones who raised him. Finn himself knows nothing of this history until Goll Mac Morna tells him. Even then, Finn is unsure the story is true. After all, Goll killed Finn’s father and was the Rígfénnid Fíanna until Mac Cool came along. Although Goll has sworn allegiance to Finn, they each always feel that the other is about to stab him in the back. Llywelyn does a good job with their complicated relationship.

The Relationship Between Finn and Goll

Goll admires Finn’s brash confidence and the way he is able to bring the fénnidi up from a rag-tag group of hellions to a respected army whose members move several steps up the caste ladder. (The fénnidi were known as the fiana and the fianna in the other books discussed in previous posts on this blog. According to this novel, fénnidi is a more ancient term, but they are the same landless warriors.)

For his part, Finn admires Goll’s wisdom from experience and his understanding of battle and war strategies as well as of human nature. Goll is a father figure as much as he is a rival. Significantly, Finn disavows all forms of revenge in the opening pages of the novel, so he is not to avenge his father’s death.

One more of my vacation photos from the Giant’s Causeway.

Finn Mac Cool’s Mental State

Finn has the same multiple marriages he has in the basic legend. His first wife, Sive, is his true love. While she disappears with a man that appears to be Finn and is never found, the legend of her having been turned into a doe by a druid is given some uncertainty. Here, this is just a thing Finn believes. When he finds a child in the woods, he assumes the boy is his son by Sive and names him Oisin. Oisin tells him that his mother was beaten and taken away by a man, but he can’t remember his mother’s name. He never says she’s a doe. Sadly, as Finn’s life winds down and his troubles wind up, he will see a doe in various situations, talks to it as Sive, and longs to be reunited with her.

Diarmait and Grania

The story of Diarmait (Dearmid in a previous post about The High Deeds of Finn Mac Cool) and Grania is also here. However, in Diarmait’s death, Finn is less to blame here. He doesn’t really have the power to bring a dying man to health by giving him water from his cupped hands. He made that legend up along with others about his magic powers. But Oisin believes in this power and begs Finn to save Diarmait. So Finn brings the water (only once on this telling). It trickles through his hands and Diarmait dies.

After the death of Diarmait, when Grania decides to marry Finn, it is far different from the story in The High Deeds of Finn Mac Cool. Grania is bent on revenge. She claims her place as Finn’s contract wife, so he is obliged to take her. Afterward, she makes his home a living hell. While the reader is to sympathize with Finn, it’s actually pretty satisfying to see this situation unravel. After all, Finn had sworn to disavow revenge and his pursuit of Diarmait is the breaking of his vow as well as the ruin of an innocent man.

A Few Issues with Morgan Llywelyn’s Finn Mac Cool

On the whole, I enjoyed this telling of Finn Mac Cool as something less than magical and something more than an opportunist (he borders on a narcissist at times). However it does have many weird moments and episodes. There’s the endless hunting, of course. Here the two favored hounds, Bran and Sceólang, are strangely depicted in stereotypical male/female roles, with Bran all action and Sceólang sort of hanging to the side and pretending to have had roles in the kills and captures.

Probably the worst parts are about Finn’s sexual prowess. While he has an immense weapon, he worries a lot about how to deploy it. Before Sive, he has a crush on a local girl. They find themselves rolling in the hay, where Finn ejaculates prematurely. (Yes, sex scenes are notoriously difficult to write and this one is truly awful.) This single instance haunts him for the rest of his life. Even though he has a very loving–and mutually satisfying–relationship with Sive; and even though he’s been married three times, he still frets about his abilities while seeking a fourth wife. All this is very cringeworthy, and the reader wonders why an editor didn’t tell Llywelyn to bounce it.

Nevertheless, I unexpectedly found the final pages of the books oddly moving as Finn and Goll come to meet their destiny and accept the brutality of their lives. If you’re a fan of legendary heroes, you might enjoy this one.