• Finn and the Phantoms

    [Illustration from the Fenian Cycle by Arthur Rackham in ten Irish Fairy Tales by James Stephens, 1920] Caílte mac Rónáin of the Fianna once declared: “If there were seven tongues in my head and seven rhetorics of wise men in each tongue, I would not manage to tell half or a third of Fionn’s goodness. For Fionn never refused a person who had but a head to wear something and legs to move.” ( Ó hÓgáin Dáithí, Fionn Mac Cumhaill: Images of the Gaelic Hero, Gill and Macmillan, Dublin, 1988, p. 119.) I. The editions and their manuscripts 1. Introducing Finn and the narrative Fionn (or Find, Finn) mac Cumhaill…