A Legend of Knockmany

What Irish man, woman or child has not heard of our famous Irish Hercules, the great and glorious Fin M’Coul? Not one, from Cape Clear to the Giant’s Causeway and all the way back to Cape Clear. And speaking of the Giant’s Causeway brings me straight to the start of my story.

It so happened that Fin and his men were all at work on the Causeway, building a bridge across to Scotland, when Fin, who was very fond of his wife Oonagh, took it into his head to go home and see how the poor woman was getting on without him. So he pulled up a fir tree, lopped off the roots and branches to make a walking stick of it, and set off for home.

Fin and Oonagh lived at that time on the very top of Knockmany Hill, which faces a cousin of its own called Cullamore, half hill and half mountain, on the other side of the valley.

There was another giant in those days named Cucullin. Some say he was Irish and some say he was Scottish, but whichever he was, there is no doubt he was a terror. No other giant of the time could stand up to him. He was so strong that when he was really angry he could stamp his foot and shake the whole country around him. His name and fame spread far and wide, and it was said that nothing in the shape of a man had any chance against him in a fight. With one blow of his fist he had flattened a thunderbolt, and he kept it in his pocket in the shape of a pancake to show his enemies before he fought them. He had given every giant in Ireland a thorough beating except Fin M’Coul himself, and he swore he would never rest, night or day, winter or summer, until he had served Fin the same way.

To tell the plain truth of it, Fin had heard that Cucullin was coming to the Causeway to test his strength against him, and he was seized with a very sudden and tender longing to see his poor wife, who was leading such a lonely life without him.

People wondered why Fin had built his house on such a windy spot, and they even told him so. “What do you mean, Mr M’Coul, by pitching your tent on top of Knockmany, where there’s never a moment without a breeze, day or night, winter or summer, and where there’s a terrible want of water besides?”

“Why,” said Fin, “ever since I was the height of a round tower, I’ve been known to like a good view. And where in the world, neighbours, could I find a better view than from the top of Knockmany? As for water, I’m sinking a pump, and as soon as the Causeway is finished I mean to complete it.”

That was more of Fin’s cleverness. The real reason he chose the top of Knockmany was so that he could see Cucullin coming towards the house. And if he wanted a place to keep a sharp lookout, and between ourselves he badly did, he could not have found a handier one in all the province of Ulster.

“God save all here!” said Fin cheerfully, putting his honest face round his own door.

“Musha, Fin, my darling, you’re welcome home to your own Oonagh, you great fellow!” And there followed a kiss that is said to have made the waters of the lake at the foot of the hill ripple with kindness and sympathy.

Fin spent two or three happy days with Oonagh and was very comfortable, considering how much he dreaded Cucullin. But the dread grew on him so much that his wife could see something was weighing on his mind. Oonagh coaxed him into telling her what was wrong.

“It’s this Cucullin that’s troubling me,” said Fin. “When the fellow gets angry and starts stamping, he’ll shake a whole townland. And everyone knows he can stop a thunderbolt, for he carries one about with him in the shape of a pancake to show anyone who doubts it.”

As he spoke, he put his thumb in his mouth, as he always did when he wanted to see the future or know what had happened while he was away. His wife asked him why.

“He’s coming,” said Fin. “I can see him below Dungannon.”

“Goodness, my dear! And who is it?”

“That brute Cucullin. And how to deal with him I don’t know. If I run away, I’m disgraced, and I know that sooner or later I must meet him, for my thumb tells me so.”

“When will he be here?”

“Tomorrow, about two o’clock,” said Fin with a groan.

“Well, my hero, don’t be downhearted,” said Oonagh. “Leave it to me, and maybe I’ll get you out of this fix better than you could ever manage yourself, with all your rule of thumb.”

She made a great smoke on top of the hill, then put her finger in her mouth and gave three whistles. By that Cucullin knew he was invited to Cullamore, the storyteller’s signal of welcome to a traveller.

Meanwhile Fin was very gloomy and did not know what to do. Cucullin was an ugly customer, and the thought of that pancake flattened the very heart inside him. What chance would he have, strong and brave as he was, against a man who could stamp the country into earthquakes and knock thunderbolts into pancakes?

“Oonagh,” he said, “can’t you do anything for me? Where’s all your cleverness? Am I to be skewered like a rabbit in front of your eyes, and my name disgraced for ever before my whole tribe, and me the best man among them? How am I to fight this mountain of a man, this cross between an earthquake and a thunderbolt, with a pancake in his pocket?”

“Be easy, Fin,” said Oonagh. “Honestly, I’m ashamed of you. Talking of pancakes, maybe we’ll give him as good as he brings. If I don’t feed him better than he’s been fed this many a day, never trust Oonagh. Leave him to me and do just as I tell you.”

That eased Fin’s mind a great deal, for he trusted his wife, knowing she had got him out of many a scrape.

Oonagh drew out nine woollen threads of different colours, as she always did to find the best way to succeed in anything important. She plaited them into three plaits of three colours each, and tied one round her right arm, one round her heart and one round her right ankle, for then she knew that nothing she tried could fail.

When all that was ready, she sent round to the neighbours and borrowed twenty-one iron griddles, the flat iron plates used for baking. She kneaded them into the middles of twenty-one cakes of bread and baked them on the fire in the usual way, putting each one in the cupboard as it was done. Then she put on a big pot of fresh milk and made it into curds and whey. Having done all this, she sat down quite contented to wait for Cucullin, who was expected at about two o’clock the next day, for Fin knew as much by sucking his thumb.

Now Fin’s thumb had this curious power, and in something of the same way his great enemy Cucullin had a secret of his own. Everyone knew that all his enormous strength lay in the middle finger of his right hand, and that if he were ever unlucky enough to lose it, he would be no stronger than an ordinary man for all his size.

The next day Cucullin was seen coming across the valley, and Oonagh knew it was time to begin. She fetched the cradle, made Fin lie down in it and covered him up with the bedclothes. “You must pass for your own child,” she said. “So lie there snug, say nothing, and do as I tell you.”

At about two o’clock, as expected, Cucullin came in. “God save all here! Is this where the great Fin M’Coul lives?”

“It is indeed, honest man,” said Oonagh. “God save you kindly. Won’t you sit down?”

“Thank you, ma’am. You’re Mrs M’Coul, I suppose?”

“I am, and I hope I have no reason to be ashamed of my husband.”

“No,” said the giant, “he has the name of being the strongest and bravest man in Ireland. But for all that, there’s a man not far from here who’d very much like to try a fall with him. Is he at home?”

“Why, no,” she said, “and if ever a man left his house in a fury, he did. Someone told him that a big lump of a giant called Cucullin was down at the Causeway looking for him, so off he went to try and catch him. Honestly, I hope for the poor giant’s sake he doesn’t find him, for if he does, Fin will make paste of him.”

“Well,” said the other, “I am Cucullin. I’ve been hunting him these twelve months, but he always kept out of my way, and I’ll never rest night or day till I get my hands on him.”

At that Oonagh gave a loud, scornful laugh and looked at him as if he were a mere scrap of a man. “Have you ever seen Fin?” she asked.

“How could I? He always took care to keep his distance.”

“I thought as much. If you take my advice, you poor-looking creature, you’ll pray night and day that you never do, for it will be a black day for you when you see him. But in the meantime, the wind is blowing on the door, and since Fin is away, maybe you’d be kind enough to turn the house round. Fin always does it when he’s here.”

Even Cucullin was startled at that, but he got up, pulled the middle finger of his right hand until it cracked three times, went outside, put his arms round the house and turned it as she asked. When Fin saw this, the sweat of fear broke out all over him, but Oonagh, trusting to her plan, was not a bit dismayed.

“Well, since you’re so obliging,” she said, “maybe you’d do us another good turn, as Fin isn’t here to do it himself. After this long dry spell we’re badly off for water. Fin says there’s a fine spring somewhere under the rocks at the foot of the hill, and he meant to pull them apart, but when he heard about you he went off in such a temper that he forgot all about it. If you could find it, I’d take it as a kindness.”

She took Cucullin down to look at the place, which was all solid rock. He studied it for a while, cracked his right middle finger nine times, stooped down and tore open a cleft about four hundred feet deep and a quarter of a mile long, which has since been named Lumford’s Glen.

“Now come in,” she said, “and eat a bite of our humble food. Fin wouldn’t refuse to treat you kindly in his own house, enemies though you are, and he wouldn’t be pleased with me if I didn’t do it while he’s away.”

She brought him in and set before him half a dozen of those cakes, along with a can or two of butter, a side of boiled bacon and a stack of cabbage, and told him to help himself. This was, the storyteller jokes, long before potatoes were ‘invented’. Cucullin put one of the cakes in his mouth and took a huge bite, and let out a thundering noise somewhere between a growl and a yell.

“Blood and fury! What’s this? Two of my teeth are out! What kind of bread is this you’ve given me?”

“What’s the matter?” asked Oonagh coolly.

“Matter! The two best teeth in my head are gone!”

“Why, that’s Fin’s bread, the only bread he ever eats at home. But I forgot to tell you that nobody can eat it except himself and that child in the cradle. Still, I thought that since you’re said to be a sturdy little fellow for your size, you might manage it, and I didn’t want to insult a man who thinks he can fight Fin. Here’s another cake. Maybe it’s not as hard as that one.”

Cucullin was not just hungry but starving, so he tackled the second cake, and straight away there came another yell, twice as loud as the first. “Thunder and gallows! Take your bread away, or I won’t have a tooth left in my head! There’s another pair gone!”

“Well, honest man,” said Oonagh, “if you can’t eat the bread, say so quietly, and don’t be waking the child in the cradle. There now, you’ve woken him.”

Fin let out a squall that startled the giant, coming from such a youngster as he was supposed to be. “Mother,” he said, “I’m hungry. Give me something to eat.” Oonagh went over and handed him a cake with no griddle in it, and Fin, whose appetite had been sharpened by watching all this eating, gobbled it down in no time.

Cucullin was thunderstruck. He silently thanked his stars that he had been lucky enough to miss Fin, for, as he said to himself, “I’d have no chance against a man who can eat bread like that, when even his son in the cradle can munch it in front of my eyes.”

“I’d like a look at the lad in the cradle,” he said to Oonagh. “A baby who can manage food like that is no joke to look at, or to feed in a hungry summer.”

“With all my heart,” said Oonagh. “Get up, my darling, and show this decent little man something worthy of your father, Fin M’Coul.”

Fin, who was dressed as much like a little boy as possible, got up and brought Cucullin outside. “Are you strong?” he asked.

“Thunder and wounds! What a voice for such a little chap!”

“Are you strong? Can you squeeze water out of that white stone?” And he put a stone into Cucullin’s hand. Cucullin squeezed and squeezed, but nothing came.

“Ah, you’re a poor creature! You, a giant! Give me the stone, and when you see what Fin’s little son can do, you can judge what my daddy is like.” Fin took the stone, swapped it for the curds, and squeezed until the whey, clear as water, trickled out of his hand in a little shower.

“Now I’ll go back to my cradle,” he said, “for I won’t waste my time with anyone who can’t eat my daddy’s bread or squeeze water from a stone. You’d better clear off before he comes home, for if he catches you, he’ll make porridge of you in two minutes.”

After what he had seen, Cucullin thought the same himself. His knees were knocking with terror at the idea of Fin coming home, and he hurried to say goodbye to Oonagh and assure her that he never wanted to hear of her husband, let alone see him. “I admit fairly that I’m no match for him, strong as I am,” he said. “Tell him I’ll avoid him like the plague and keep well away from this part of the country for the rest of my life.”

Fin had got into the cradle, where he lay very quietly, his heart in his mouth with delight that Cucullin was leaving without discovering the tricks played on him.

“It’s lucky for you he isn’t here,” said Oonagh, “for he’d make hawk’s meat of you.”

“I know it,” said Cucullin. “Nothing else would he make of me. But may I feel what sort of teeth Fin’s lad has, to eat griddle bread like that?”

“With the greatest pleasure,” said she. “Only, since they’re far back in his head, you must put your finger in a good way.”

Cucullin was amazed to find such a powerful set of grinders in someone so young. But he was far more amazed, when he pulled his hand out of Fin’s mouth, to find that he had left behind the very finger on which all his strength depended. He gave one loud groan and collapsed with terror and weakness.

That was all Fin wanted. Now he knew that his mightiest and bitterest enemy was at his mercy. He leaped out of the cradle, and in a few minutes the great Cucullin, who for so long had been the terror of Fin and all his followers, lay dead in front of him. So it was that Fin, through the wit and invention of his wife Oonagh, beat his enemy by cunning, which he could never have done by force.

About this tale

Jacobs took “A Legend of Knockmany” from William Carleton’s Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry. In his notes he points out that Fin (Finn) and Cucullin (Cuchulain) could never have met in the old sagas, since Cuchulain’s legendary date is the first century and Finn’s the third, and he calls this a comic, grotesque version rather than an account that fits the earlier heroic chronology.

He also explains Fin’s thumb, which shows him the future, as an echo of Finn’s famous wisdom-tooth, and Cucullin’s power-finger as an example of a hero whose strength or life is kept in one part of the body. Knockmany Hill is in County Tyrone; a griddle is a flat iron plate for baking bread.

Read the original: Joseph Jacobs, Celtic Fairy Tales (Project Gutenberg 7885, Legend of Knockmany)

For older readers: broken teeth, a finger bitten off and a defeated opponent killed after asking to leave. The exaggerated dialogue can be read aloud without caricaturing an Irish accent.

Reading the story closely

Oonagh changes the meaning of what Cucullin sees. Turning a house and opening a spring really demonstrate his strength, but she presents them as ordinary chores. The iron-filled bread and the curds then make staged comparisons look like fair tests. Make two columns for what Cucullin actually experiences and what he concludes about the absent Fin. His mistake is not lack of strength; it is trusting that the conditions of the demonstrations are equal.

The last encounter changes the stakes. Cucullin has already renounced the fight before Fin bites off the source of his strength and kills him. Stop the reading at his farewell and imagine the tale ending there, then compare it with the actual ending. The difference helps separate a clever escape from an act of revenge rather than treating every outcome of a successful trick as equally justified.

Talk about it

• Why did Fin build his house on top of windy Knockmany Hill?
• What tricks did Oonagh use to make Cucullin think Fin was enormous?
• Where did Cucullin’s strength lie, and how did Fin take it away?

Related stories

• How Fin Went to the Kingdom of the Big Men — another adventure of Fin from Jacobs’s Celtic tales
• Life’s Secret — a Bengali tale where a hero’s life is hidden in a single object
• Jack and His Master — more Irish humour from the same collection