Blair Collection > Popular tales of the West Highlands > Volume 1

Ixxii INTRODUCTION.
abuse each other, and after wliich they boast. War
is rapine and cruel bloodshed, as described by old
fishermen in Barra, and by the Times' correspondent
at Tetuan ; and it is not altogether the chivalrous
pastime which poets have sung.
In another class of tales, told generally as plain
narrative, and which seem to Ijelong to savage times, a
period appears to be shadowed out when iron weajaons
were scarce, and therefore magical ; perhaps before
the wars of Eirinn and Lochlann began ; when combs
were inventions sufficiently new and wonderful to be
magical also ; when horses were sacred, birds sooth-
sayers ; apples, oak trees, wells, and swine, sacred or
magical. In these the touch of the cold steel breaks
all spells ; to relieve an enchanted prince it was but
necessary to cut off his head ; the touch of the cold
sword froze the marrow when the giant's heads leaped
on again. So Hercules finished the Hydra with iron,
though it was hot. The white sword of light which
shone so that the giant's red-haired servant used it as
a torch when he went to draw water by night, was
surely once a rare bright steel sword, when most swords
were of bronze, as they were in early times, unless it
is still older, and a mythological flash of lightning.
This CLAiDHEAMH GEAL soLUis is almost always
mentioned as the property of giants, or of other super-
natural beings, and is one of the magic gifts for which
men contend with them, and fight with each other ; and
in this the Gaelic tradition agrees with other popular
lore.
Fionn had a magic sword forged by a fairy smith,
according to a story sent me from Islay, by Mr. Car-
michael. King Arthur had a magic sword. The Manks
hero, " Olave " of Norway, had a sword with a Celtic
name, " Macabuin," made by a smith who was surely