Dal Riada Folk Tales

Introduction

Long before Ireland or Scotland ever developed distinct national identities, what would become Erin and Alba were divided into many smaller kingdoms with local chieftains and kings vying for power and territory. Perhaps the most unusual of these kingdoms was Dál Riada - Dál meaning portion of and Riada referring to some long-forgotten clan name or the like (see also Dál Riata or Dalriada).

Said to have been founded in the fifth century by the legendary Gaelic king, Fergus Mór mac Eirc, at one time the territory included what is now north-east County Antrim - the Antrim Glens and along the north coast to include Rathlin Island. To the north was what is present-day Argyll, from Kintyre up through the Western Isles, or Inner Hebrides, to the Isle of Skye.

Swirling in and around this ancient kingdom and her many islands and countless miles of rugged coastline was the restless waters of the Sea of Moyle - the north channel where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Irish Sea - and what is now the Sea of the Hebrides. Far from being a barrier, the sea connected every part of the kingdom. Only one good day's sailing separated Skye from the southern Antrim Glens, the two furthest points. The widest sea crossing was between the Antrim and Kintyre coasts, which is little over 12 miles at the closest point. A journey of this distance was easier to undertake and less perilous over water than through thickly wooded countryside full of wild boar, red stags and wolves, not to mention bands of potentially hostile clansmen.

It is suggested that the islands and hinterland of the Argyll coast were raided and later settled by a tribe of Gaels from the Irish side of the north Channel. Indeed, Argyll literally means Coast of the Gael. This tribe was known to Greek and Roman writers as the Scoti. Some historians have suggested that the Scoti were to the Gaels what the Vikings were to the Norse - seafaring warriors and pirate raiders. In any case, the Scoti subsequently gave their name to Scotia - Scotland - but that was not for several centuries to come.

Like all the smaller kingdoms that once existed throughout the islands of Ireland and Britain, their borders were in constant flux and their rulers always under threat. Dál Riada did not last as long as some others. It flourished and declined within three or four centuries, though scholars debating the exact details of its rise and fall are far from agreed. Suffice to say, it is a complex historical conundrum involving complicated genealogies and scant archaeological or documentary evidence to prove or disprove any one theory, timeline or set of events.

What is not in dispute, however, is that despite recognised federal borders being in place this long many centuries, and strong national traits and identities firmly established on either side of the Sea of Moyle, the people of what was once the kingdom of Dál Riada share a common Gaelic heritage. Ulster Irish, for example, and especially the dialect once spoken on Rathlin Island, bears closer correlation to the Scots Gaelic of the west coast than Irish spoken anywhere else on the island of Ireland. Latterly, accents and dialects of English heard throughout the region, often impenetrable to outsiders, are easily understood across the board.

I have had a lifelong interest in the local Glens of Antrim history, myths and legends and I am constantly reminded of how the folklore, music and stories of this part of County Antrim are intertwined with those of the Hebridean Islands and Argyll. I think it is all but beyond doubt that many of the people now living in what was the ancient Kingdom of Dál Riada share ancestral, historical and cultural roots. These connections long pre-date the Plantation of Ulster in the seventeenth century, largely by Scottish settlers.

It is well documented that the McDonnells of Antrim are direct descendants of the twelfth-century Hiberno-Norse Warrior Somerled, and for 400 hundred years the clan were Lords of the Isles with strongholds, most notably on Islay and the Antrim coast. That people have been travelling back and forth across the sea between Ireland and Scotland for centuries is also evidenced throughout the Antrim Glens by the prevalence of family names like McAllister, McKeegan, McKinley, McAuley, and so forth.

From the misty Isle of Skye to the beautiful Glens of Antrim and everywhere in between, I have had the great pleasure of travelling through the islands and western highlands. It has been my experience that, in the main, the local people are possessed of identifiable, inherent characteristics: a love of the land and the natural world, hard-working, welcoming and warm (once you get by an initial reserve), loyal and loving to their own, and always up for a bit of craic - be it music, song or story.

As a traveller, I always feel as much at home in some far-flung Hebridean island as I do in the Glens of Antrim where I live. As a storyteller and a singer, I am most comfortable telling stories and singing songs that embrace the history and folklore and landscapes and people that I know best. By extension I include the rest of what was Dál Riada simply because it feels so culturally familiar to me.

In this collection I have tried to find interesting stories that reflect the diversity of folklore to be found throughout the region. Sadly, because of the limitations of this book, I have not been able include all of the many fascinating snippets of lore and legend I have come across. From faerie mice on Rhum to an imprisoned ghostly Norse maiden on Canna and many more fantastical creatures and characters, there is literally a story to be found on every rocky islet and in every locality, however small or remote.

As always, some places have yielded more than others either because of geography, local history, size of population or a combination of these factors. An island like Skye, with its ancient past, spectacularly mountainous landscapes and relatively large population, is obviously going to deliver more folklore than somewhere like Jura, for example, with a small number of inhabitants and a less-prominent historical role, beautiful and interesting as it is. Of course, it also depends on whether early collectors took an interest in a particular place or not, and if their stories were recorded or died out due to the migration of people or the encroachment of the modern world.

In my quest to find material I have combed through many older collections and reference books (for my full list see the sources section at the end of this book). We are all indebted to those who had the foresight to collect these stories and folklore first-hand, often in the old Gaelic, and set them down in print. Generally, debate still smoulders among storytellers, writers and academics about the ethics and value of writing down stories from the oral tradition. In a world that values oral storytelling much less than it once did, it is, in my opinion, essential to preserve these stories in whatever way we can and make them available to as wide an audience as possible.

The alternative is to risk the loss of these precious folk tales and all the beauty and wisdom that goes along with them. I do not subscribe to the view that I have heard espoused by some, that once a story is written down it somehow dies. How could that be? Written down, the words are there to be pored over and, filtered through the reader's imagination, to delight and inspire. From the page they can be lifted, reimagined and retold at any time by anyone. It does not go without saying, however, that the storyteller must pay all due respect to the folkloric conventions of the culture from which the story has come. This was unconsciously intrinsic to tellers of the oral tradition but could be easily and innocently overlooked when working from written source material.

In any case, the folk tales in this anthology have already been written down in some form another, and in some cases hundreds of years ago. For my part, I have felt the need to rework every story to a lesser or greater degree, whether to make the archaic language more accessible, or the narrative flow better, or simply to breathe new energy into the story by way of a little judicious creativity. For this I make no apology. My brief was to reimagine and rework these old stories to suit the tastes of a modern audience. I believe this continuous process keeps the stories alive, interesting and relevant to successive generations of storytellers and students of folklore. Besides, it is my strong conviction that every storyteller must imbue the tale they are telling with their own personality and style, while at the same time - and it's worth mentioning again - staying true to the tradition. This is what I have endeavoured to do and, I hope, achieved.

The researching and writing of this book has, as always, been very satisfying, but the sheer joy and excitement of revisiting many of the spectacular land and seascapes from which the stories originate is always tremendously emotional and special. This is especially so for me when I visit the Western Isles because I have fond memories of my father reminiscing about the Sea of the Hebrides and her many beautiful islands and moods. His ship patrolled these waters during the latter half of the Second World War, training the Atlantic convoy escort groups, meeting incoming convoy ships and guiding them to the safer waters of the Irish Sea, and hunting lone-wolf U-boats.

Today, standing on the cliff tops at Fairhead looking out across the swirling sound to Rathlin; or wandering among the grassy sand dunes on Islay listening to the myriad voices of geese and swans; or catching glimpses of eagles and...