J. F. Campbell Collection > Transactions of the Ossianic Society > Volume 4

0. I have heard music more melodious tlian yonr music,
The' greatly thou praisest the clerics ;
The song of the blackbird of Letter Lee,
And the melody which the Dord Fiaiin made.
The very sweet thrush of Gleann-a-sgail,
Or the dashing of the barks touching tlie strand ;
More melodious to me was the cry of the hounds,
Than of thy schools, chaste cleric.
Little Cim, Gnu of my heart,
The small dwarf who belonged to Fionn ;
When he chaunted tunes and songs.
He put us into deep slumbers.
Blathnaid, the youthful maid,
Who was never betrothed to man under tlie sun,
Except to little Cnu alone,
0, Patrick, sweet was her mouth.
The twelve hounds wliich belonged to Fionn,
When they were let loose through Glen llatli ;
Were sweeter than musical instruments,
And their face outwards from the Suir.
' Cijii. Dr. O'Donovan says that Cnu was taken hy Fionn near a
Sith (a fairy haunt) in Magh Feimhean, an extensive plain situated near
Sliabh-na-m-ban in the county of Tipperary, (see le^bAn Pa s-Coahc,
Book (if Rights, p. 18, note b), and that he was scarcely tall enough to
reach the strings of the harp. From the frequent allusion made to him
in Ossianic Toetry, in connection with Fionn, he seems to have been his
chief musician, by whose soothing strains the Fenians were lulled into
deep and heavy slumbers. Cijú or Ctjo, also signifies a nut or kernel ; and
one of the prettiest ballads ever written by the late Edward Walsh, was
entitled " Mo Chraoibliin Cno" (.my cluster of nuts) commencing tiius : —
" My heart is far from Liffey's tide,
And Dublin town ;
It strays beyond the Southern side
Of Cuoc Maol Donn:
Where Ceapa Chuinn liath woodlands green.
Where Abhuin Mhor's waters fiow ;
AVhere dwells unsung, unsought, unseen,
Mo Chraoibhin Cno.
Low ehisterinR in her leafy green.
Mo Chraoibhin Cno."