The references made in the two preceding chapters bear specially upon those Finns who "came ow'r fa Norraway" to the islands of Shetland and Orkney. But if the assumption be correct that many of the Finns who landed in Shetland and fished in Shetlandic waters came thither direct from the Hebrides, it is to be presumed that Gaelic as well as English tradition has something to say regarding them. And as there are several words in use in Shetland which are also in use among West Highlanders,[57] it is not unlikely that these people may be known in the West Highlands by the same name as in Shetland.

It is quite clear that Highland tradition does bear testimony to the former existence of a special race or caste of people known by a name which resembles that of the Finns so closely that it may reasonably be regarded as only a variant of "Finn." In a certain charter of Alexander II. of Scotland (A.D. 1214-49, reference is made to a well which is known in Gaelic as Tuber na Feinn, Feinne or Feyne; and an old gloss (date unknown) explains that this term signifies "the Well of the grett or kempis men callit Fenis."[58] Or, in more modern English, "The Well of the great men or champions called Feens, Fenns, Feenies, or Fennies."[59] Here, then, we have record of a certain race of "kempies" or fighters, who were known in English as Feens, etc., and in Gaelic as the Feinne. One does not require to know much of Gaelic tradition—one need not know anything of it—to be well aware of the fact that that legendary lore is fairly alive with stories of the "Feinne," whatever may have been the ethnological position of the caste thus named. And, just as in modern Shetland we have people proclaiming with pride their descent from the Finns, so have we West Highlanders and Hebrideans boasting that the Feinne were among their forefathers. Just as Mr. Karl Blind met with a modern Shetland woman who asserted that she was "fifth from da Finns," so did the late Mr. J. F. Campbell, in 1871, converse with a Skyeman, "Donald MacDonald, styled Na Feinne"[60]—that is, "of the Feens." If the "Feinne" of Gaelic story are really the same people as the "Finns" of Shetlandic tradition, it will not be for lack of statements made regarding them if we do not learn a great deal more about these people through Gaelic channels.

Without either hastily accepting or condemning this hypothetical identification, let us look a little further into the circumstances of the Gaelic Feinne. And it may be as well first to decide upon an English equivalent of this Gaelic plural. Mr. J. F. Campbell states that the singular is Fiann; but, even when writing in English, he prefers to adhere to the Gaelic form of the plural—thus, "the Feinn" or "the Feinne." However, both Dr. Skene and another writer (the late Rev. J. G. Campbell, Tiree), have Englished this into "the Fians." This approaches so closely to the marginal "Fenis" of the old charter of Alexander II., that we may take "the Feens" as a good enough modern English equivalent for the Gaelic plural. (For the vowels in Fians and Feinne receive the old or Continental pronunciation, these words having the sound of "Feeans" and "Fane," or "Fayny," according to modern English spelling.) In order, therefore, to avoid the confusion that might arise from Englishing "the Feinne" into "the Finns" (although we are tacitly assuming, in the meantime, that the latter really expresses the ethnological position of the former), let us refer to "the Feinne" of Gaelic story as "the Feens."[61]

So lately as the latter part of the seventeenth century, certain districts of Scotland were recognized as specially "the land of the Feinne." Dr. Skene, on the page which tells us of the Tobar na Feinne, or Well of the Feens, states that Kirke (the Rev. Robert Kirke, minister of Balquhidder, in Perthshire), in his Psalter, which was published in 1684, refers to the territory stretching from Loch Linnhe north-west to, and inclusive of, the Outer Hebrides[62] as "the generous land of the Feinne."

"The land of the Feens," therefore, according to this Scotch writer of the seventeenth century, embraced the Outer Hebrides and a certain portion of the opposite mainland, known in the Highlands as "the rough bounds." It is thus evident at the outset that we do not obviously make a false start in assuming that the Feens of Gaelic tradition ought to be regarded as forming a section of the Finns who visited Shetland in the seventeenth century. In 1684 Kirke regarded the Hebrides as the land of the Feens; in 1688 Wallace records the occasional arrival of Finns or Finnmen on the coasts of Orkney and Shetland. And we have already seen that skin kayaks, such as those which bore the Finn visitors to the islands of the north-east were employed at about the same period by inhabitants of the Hebrides. Certain sections of the Hebrideans are recorded in history as making warlike descents upon the fisheries of Orkney and Shetland. And these Hebrideans dwelt in "the land of the Feens."

But the seventeenth century is much too recent a date for studying the Gaelic accounts of the Feens. These accounts go back to the period when Gaelic was peculiarly associated with what seems to have been its earliest home in the British Islands—Ireland. That they also relate to the more recent period of the Irish or Gaelic settlements in Scotland is manifest. But they are substantially Gaelic (i.e., Irish), and they deal with events which cannot be limited to the time of the Irish invasions of Scotland; and they relate to localities which are not merely British, but European.

"Who were the Feens of tradition, and to what country and period are they to be assigned?" is the question asked by one of the most learned of the authorities from whom these statements are obtained.[63] And his answer, after due consideration, is, that "we may fairly infer that they were of the population who immediately preceded the Scots [Gaels] in Erin [Ireland] and in Alban [Scotland, north of the Forth and Clyde], and that they belong to that period in the history of both countries before a political separation had taken place between them, when they were viewed as parts of one territory, though physically separated, and when a free and unrestrained intercourse took place between them; when race, and not territory, was the great bond of association, and the movements of their respective populations from one country to the other were not restrained by any feeling of national separation."[64]

Distinct and important as this announcement is, it requires still further consideration. Our guide in this question has shown us that in such modern times as the seventeenth century, the Feens of Scotland were restricted to a small corner of the West Highlands and to the Hebrides; which territory was so far associated with them that an intelligent writer of that century spoke of it as the land of the Feens. But Dr. Skene points also to a much earlier period, when the Feens inhabited, if they did not possess and exclusively occupy, the whole of Ireland and Irish-Scotland. And he indicates further that they had dwelt in these districts before the advent of the Milesians (or Gaels). More than that, he shows us that the lands in which they lived included a portion of the continent of Europe.

In opposition to the theory manufactured by the Irish historians, that the Feens were "a standing body of Milesian militia, having peculiar privileges and strange customs," Dr. Skene holds the conviction that, "when looked at a little more closely," they "assume the features of a distinct race."[65] As a proof of this, he quotes three verses from an old poem on the Battle of Gabhra (or Gawra, as the more softened pronunciation has it). This battle of Gawra is said to have been fought in Ireland, on the border of the counties of Meath and Dublin, and it is placed by some in the third century A.D. It appears to have been the outcome of the resolution made by the High King of Ireland, Cormac Mac Art, to renounce for ever the tributary position which he and other kings occupied towards their over-lords, the Feens. The Irish monarch is said to have aimed at the complete extermination of the race in one district at least; to have "Great Alvin [apparently the modern Allen, near Dublin] cleared of the Feens."[66] At any rate, whatever its position in time and place, this battle clearly marks a crisis in the history of that latter race. For to them the battle of Gawra was a complete and crushing defeat; and thereafter their suzerainty was ended. "The kings did all own our sway till the battle of Gaura was fought," sings the bard of the Feens, "but since that horrid slaughter no tribute nor tax we've raised." The chroniclers state that the leader and an immense number of his warriors were killed, and only two thousand of the Feens of Ireland were left alive when the battle was over. And their bard sings thus:

But the Feenian army here engaged did not only consist of the Feens of Ireland; and this, indeed, is the reason why attention is now drawn to this battle. It is in regarding the battle of Gawra that we recognize the force of Dr. Skene's contention, that however the Feens may in later times have become restricted to this or that locality, they at one time formed a very widely spread race, the various divisions of which were ready to hasten to the aid of any portion of this great confederacy in time of danger. Whether Dr. Skene is precisely correct in stating that "race, and not territory, was the great bond of association," is a mere question of words. Because the Gaelic traditions emphatically show that although Ireland and other neighbouring lands were occupied by people of non-Feenic race, who were governed by their own kings, yet, as these kings were themselves subject to the Feens, who drew tribute from them, the real owners of these various territories were the powerful though scattered overlords, and not the races that were under their sway.[68] Mr. J. F. Campbell also states that the Feenic king was not distinguished by any territorial title: "always 'RÌgh na FÎnne or Feinne'" ("West Highland Tales," I, xiii). And in the pedigree which he gives on page 34 of his "Leabhar na Feinne," and which was compiled by a good archÆologist, the title given to three successive generations of the "royal family" of the Irish Feens is "General of the Feens" of Ireland; not "King of Ireland" itself.

This battle of Gawra, then, which seems to mark the period when the great Feenic confederacy was on the point of breaking up, was brought about by the evident resolve of the non-Feenic population of Ireland to throw off for ever this intolerable yoke. And the three verses which Dr. Skene extracts from the poem descriptive of the battle disclose to us that other sections of the Feenic confederacy had come to the help of that division which was resident in Ireland. The poem is supposed to be sung by a Feen of Ireland; and he states that

"There was thus in this battle," says Dr. Skene, "besides Feens of Ireland, Feens of Alban, Britain, and Lochlan."[69] Alban, he explains, denoted the whole of Scotland lying to the north of the Forth and Clyde. Britain, he states in this place, was South-Western Scotland. But elsewhere[70] he tells us that "Britain" signified "either Wales, or England and Wales together"; and again,[71] that that term included "England, Scotland, and Wales." At the very least, then, it denoted a part of Great Britain, then inhabited—not necessarily to the exclusion of other races—by Feens.

These two names, "Alban" and "Britain," do not, however, take us outside of the British Isles. But the third term, "Lochlan," does. "Lochlan," says our guide, "was the north of Germany, extending from the Rhine to the Elbe." And the Feens of that territory, the poem tells us, "from the chief to the leader of nine men," "mustered along with us [the Feens of Ireland] to share in the struggle," on this fateful day of Gawra.

Why Dr. Skene should limit "Lochlan" to these dimensions is not made quite clear. For Norway, Sweden, and Denmark constituted the "Lochlan" chiefly known to Gaelic writers. However, he seems to be of opinion that the term was "transferred" to Scandinavia in the ninth century, and that previously (as, for example, when the battle of Gawra was fought) it peculiarly denoted the more southern territory. If he is right in this, we cannot assume the Lochlan contingent as including the Feens of Norway. On the other hand, there does not seem to be any strong reason for believing that, at the date of Gawra, "Lochlan" did not take in the whole of Scandinavia, as in the ninth century and afterwards. It is at least noteworthy, in this connection, that in the pedigree previously referred to,[72] the ruler of the Feens of Ireland, when the battle of Gawra was fought, is stated to have been the grandson of a Finland woman. Quite apart from the assumed identity of Feen and Finn, this indicates a kinship that was not limited even by the river Elbe.[73]

But really the identity of Feen and Finn seems tolerably clear. Indeed, a contemporary writer,[74] who has studied ancient Ireland and its "Feinne" from his own point of view, appears to regard this identity as a thing perfectly manifest. And when, as tending to confirm this opinion, he embellishes his pages with several illustrations from scientific authorities in modern Finland, in which the ancient forms of art and dress are seen, it is plain that these designs are the same as those which are strongly associated with those portions of Scotland which were once known as The Land of the Feens.

Therefore, it appears probable that the "Feinne" of Lochlan, that is, of the country lying between the Rhine and the Elbe, who assisted their kindred in Ireland at the battle of Gawra, were simply the Finns of that territory. And that, consequently, that battle belongs to a period when the Mongoloid people, instead of being cut up, as now, into small detachments here and there, or amalgamated with other races, held a very distinct and important position throughout a considerable area of Europe.

However, this identity of "Feen" with "Finn" may not appear to some people as even a probability, without a fuller investigation into the circumstances of the people known to Gaelic tradition as the Feinne. It may therefore be desirable to continue to refer to the "Finns" of Gaelic folk-lore by the name of "Feens."