BDL and Duanaire Finn

The collection closest in time to BDL is DF, compiled in Ostend in 1626-7 by Aodh Ó Dochartaigh for Captain Sorley MacDonell.  The evidence suggests that the material in DF has a northern Irish provenance, and for that reason alone it is of considerable significance, since there are very few surviving ballad MSS from the north of Ireland.  Chronologically DF is a very broad collection, containing a range of texts which, in terms of their likely dates of composition, span the entire period from the twelfth century to the sixteenth.  Gerard Murphy tentatively ascribed 14 of the ballads in DF to the late Middle Irish period (c. 1100-1175), 23 (including 'many poems of doubtful date') to the Intermediate period (c.1200-c.1250), and 33 to the Classical period, the figures for this last period being 10 c. 1300, 17 c. 1400-c. 1500., and 6 c. 1500-1600.

 

Texts common to BDL and DF

Although BDL and DF together provide a total of 96 complete ballad texts, they have only four in common.  These are:

BDL IV: DF LV ('Is fada a-nocht a nOil Finn')

BDL V: DF LVIII ('The Chase of Slievenamon')

BDL VII: DF LXV ('The Magic Cloak')

BDL IX: DF VII ('Caoilte and the Creatures').

Quatrains from BDL XXV ('The Death of Cumhall') are found in DF II (and in its later version, DF LXVI).

The small number of texts common to BDL and DF is remarkable. The lack of correspondence within such a wide corpus surely demonstrates the rich variety of different poems available during the Middle Ages, and underlines the fact that substantial compilations could be made without any great degree of interdependence.

If DF stands apart from BDL to a large extent, it is also distinctive within Irish tradition, since it contains only a relatively small number of ballads which are regularly found in the later Irish MSS, with which BDL shares a substantial proportion of its texts.

It is noteworthy that the texts which BDL shares with DF occur within the first third of the BDL selection, and that, with the exception of BDL IX / DF VII, the corresponding texts in DF are found towards the end of that MS (from LVII onwards). As the selection in DF appears to become more modern as it progresses, it is possible that the sharing of texts may owe something to chronology; BDL is seen to share common ground with DF on the basis of texts which evidently belong to the period after 1400.  It is also tempting to suggest that the first nine poems in BDL belong to a slightly earlier group of texts.  However, the fact that only a few texts are shared between the two collections suggests that this is not solely a matter of chronology.

The first three of the ballads common to BDL and DF are also found fairly regularly in the later Irish MSS; only BDL IX/DF VII lacks later attestation.  The other DF texts which are found in the later Irish MSS are: LVII, LIX, LX, LXIII, LXIV, LXVI and LXVII.  The total number of texts thus found in DF and the later MSS is 10.  Given that it is a century later than BDL, it is all the more surprising that DF does not contain many more of those ballads found in BDL and the later Irish MSS.  It thus seems likely that the disparity in the selection of texts is caused not by chronology, but by the nature and provenance of the sources which supplied the material in DF.  DF now appears to be off-beat in terms of the general post-1600 development of both Irish and Scottish ballad tradition.

Thematic emphases in DF

It was noted in The Sample of Ballads in BDL that BDL is distinctive for its high proportion of elegiac ballads.  This feature is thrown into sharp relief by the interests of DF.  In DF elegies and elegiac verse form only a small proportion of the collection (1 item alluding to the death of Oscar, 1 catalogue of deceased warriors, 5 laments for the past (4 of which are very brief), and 1 lament for an animal). There are no poems in the collection devoted solely to the circumstances of a hero's death.  There are no examples of individual poems which are  specifically concerned with the eulogising of warriors.

DF's staple is adventure narrative, with a very substantial number of poems (some 18 items) describing encounters with exotic enemies and strangers, including seven ballads on Viking themes, and lesser numbers narrating hunts (2 items), encounters with monsters (2 items), wooings and abductions (2 items).

Three ballads acknowledge, or are concerned with, the elopement of Diarmaid and Gráinne, and four are based on the rivalry between Fionn and the Tara dynasty. No less than nine ballads take their themes from the enmity between the Clann Baoisgne and the Clann Morna, and Goll and his kindred appear to have a particular prominence, with four poems which centre on the last stand of Goll against Fionn on a sea-girt cliff. The debate between Patrick and Oisean is strongly represented in six poems.

Onomastic interests are revealed in several poems, though only one is specifically concerned with the origin of a name. There are no poems devoted solely to natural description, though descriptions occur within particular poems.  DF also contains two types of verse not represented in BDL, namely poems which describe the pedigrees and relationships of warriors (5 items) and those which recount the history and achievements of weapons and other military accoutrements (6 items).