River Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland

Lisa Schneidau

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN:
  9781803990866
• Print ISBN:
  9780750997225
• Subtopic: Ecology

Rivers and streams sculpt our landscape, and have connected our communities throughout history, from mountain to estuary and to the wide sea beyond. They give us water and food, trade and transport – yet they have a life-force all of their own.
In this collection of traditional folk tales from wild rivers, lakes, and streams, Lisa Schneidau retells old stories of danger and transformation, of river goddesses, ghosts and the mysterious creatures that dwell in the watery arteries of Britain and Ireland.

1

SACRED BEGINNINGS

All was a-shake and a-shiver – glints and gleams and sparkles, rustle and swirl, chatter and bubble.

Kenneth Grahame, from The Wind in the Willows (1908)

Have you ever stopped to wonder where all that river water comes from, flowing through seasons and years and ages, and how many people have stopped and wondered at the same thing?

The water of rivers must begin somewhere, whether it’s bubbling from a spring, oozing from a peatland pool or seeping through a chalk aquifer. From there on, a seemingly endless flow of water makes its way down to the wide ocean, carving out the land as it goes, shifting shape over time.

Of course, rivers are not a linear matter; they are part of the great cycle of water that includes land, sky, the oceans and all living things. But where rivers spring from the land, there is magic to be found.

Similar motifs echo through the folk tales of Britain and Ireland: the coming of a great flood; the direction of giants in shaping the land with water; and feminine wisdom, flowing like emotion and bringing life to the land all around.

FINTAN MAC BOCHRA

Fintan mac Bochra first appears in the Lebor Gabala Erenn (Book of Invasions) from the twelfth century, which attempts to put ancient Irish history into a Biblical context. He is a compelling father figure for Ireland, and the only Irishman to survive the great flood. ‘Bochra’ may refer to his mother, or just to the sea in general, but some suggest that Fintan’s mother was Banba, one of the three ancient land goddesses of Ireland.

The Hill of Tounthinna overlooks the River Shannon, near Portroe, County Tipperary. A kype is the hooked mouthpart of a male salmon at breeding time.

This is my own interpretation of how these snippets of ancient Irish folklore might play out in story form.

Fintan mac Bochra was one of the first people ever to set eyes on the beautiful Emerald Isle, and it was just as well, for he had the eyes, the ears and the heart of a poet. Some say that he was a lucky man to be on the boat that sailed there, because there were only three men but fifty women. Fintan chose Cesair, daughter of Banba, for his wife, but when they all landed and set about making a life for themselves, there was little time to sort out the imbalance between men and women.

It was only the second full moon after they had landed when the tidal wave hit their little settlement, and it showed little mercy. That morning Fintan had travelled inland and uphill to forage. When the water hit, he was in a little cave in the hill that would come to be called Tounthinna. That journey saved his life. Later that afternoon Fintan walked down from the hill and over the brow towards home, but instead of the comforting sight of huts and buildings and home fires, the wide ocean met him far too soon; the sea had eaten the land, and it had swallowed everything. All his companions had perished, and Fintan was alone in a strange place.

He stood at the edge of the water, overwhelmed with sorrow, and tears welled in his eyes. ‘As if there wasn’t enough water already,’ said Fintan mac Bochra. ‘The whole world has turned to water, and I with it.’

There was magic in his words. Fintan’s eyes shifted to the side of his head, his neck folded into silver flaps as his arms became fins and his legs fused into a tail. Fintan leapt into the air and down into the water, a sleek, scaly salmon. And that is how Fintan mac Bochra survived the great flood.

Who knows what Fintan saw of their old settlement under the waves, or whether he ever saw his wife Cesair again? He stayed a salmon for a whole cycle of the sun, flashing silver in the rivers and travelling thousands of miles through the northern seas.

That is how Fintan got to know the life of the rivers of Ireland.

The next summer, Fintan the salmon was leaping a waterfall on the Shannon when, mid-air, his fins broadened and turned tawny, his great kype transformed into a hooked beak, and his eyes became black and beady. Fintan the eagle shook the last beads of river water from his feathers and flew up into the heavens. He soared across the blue skies that day to the mountains of the west.

Fintan the eagle explored the island of Ireland from north to south, and from east to west. He saw all the great rivers of Ireland from his bird’s-eye view. He saw the River Bann, the Barrow, and the Blackwater; the Boyne, the Erne, the Shannon and the Nore; the loughs at the coast and the loughs inland. He learned the play of nature in these great bodies of water, the creatures that needed their gifts and those who could be preyed upon.

That is how Fintan understood the flow of the rivers of Ireland.

The next summer, Fintan the eagle was restless. He was chasing a raven through the valleys one morning when, drawing a deeper breath than normal, he felt his wings shrink back, his body compact, and his skull tighten. Fintan the eagle became Fintan the peregrine falcon, diving for cover; and it was all he could do to escape the mobbing from two very amused ravens that day.

Fintan the falcon roamed the length and breadth of Ireland, his keen eyes observing everything on the land, and how the wild creatures were faring. He noticed more humans settling as the waters receded, and animals kept within fences; he saw wagons and chariots, and great battles between clans, then the crows making their feasts. He observed new clans arriving from across the sea, as old clans made use of some of their magic and forgot the rest.

That is how Fintan learned the stories of the rivers of Ireland.

One morning the next summer, Fintan woke and found himself curled up high in a tree, but without feathers to warm his toes or the wings to reach the ground. Fintan was back in his human form. He had to edge along the branch of the great tree he was in and climb clumsily to safety on the ground.

Fintan, now eighteen years of age, started his new journey as a man. He walked all the ancient paths of Ireland, and he saw many tribes gain power and fall in their turn. He met a great and fearless leader to the north, a hound of men with a hero light around his head. He helped a great leader to the south, a man with fairy blood who led a famous war band and who gained all the knowledge there was to know in the world.

That is how Fintan could tell the fate of the rivers of Ireland.

But something even more magical happened to Fintan: he never seemed to age, as he watched everything birth and live and perish around him. Some say that Fintan lived for many thousands of years, and that he knew the rivers and islands of Ireland and their poetry better than any man alive or dead.

One day, on the island of Achill in the county of Mayo, Fintan met a hawk perching on the low branch of a rowan tree, and he smiled, for he knew what it felt like to be this creature. The hawk’s feathers were battered and scruffy, but his eyes were bright.

‘You made it, then,’ said the Hawk of Achill.

‘If you mean that I have seen many things, then let me tell you, so you may wonder at them,’ replied Fintan with a grin, and he sat down beside the hawk and started to tell his stories.

‘Yes, I was there too,’ said the hawk, when Fintan told of the heroes of Ireland.

‘Yes, I was there too,’ he said when Fintan described the war bands and the tribes and the magic.

‘Yes, I was there too, when they were written,’ he said, after Fintan had recited all of the ancient Irish poetry he had heard (which was to say, all the Irish poetry that ever existed).

‘Yes, I saw that, and it was lucky I could fly,’ said the hawk when Fintan told him of the tidal wave, the great flood, and the death of his wife Cesair.

‘Then we are about the same great age, you and I?’ asked Fintan.

‘About 5,500 years old apiece, I reckon,’ said the hawk. ‘But let me tell you of something now. Have you heard of St Patrick, and of the new religion – that of Christ?’

The hawk told Fintan what he knew.

‘So, our time is done, and our stories must end here,’ said Fintan.

Fintan and the hawk died then, under the shade and the protection of the rowan tree. But they didn’t die completely, because now their stories have travelled to you.

TAMARA, TAVY AND TORRIDGE

The huge granite mass of Dartmoor, in Devon, is sometimes called ‘the mother of rivers’. The moor is full of treacherous peatlands, with few places as bleak as Cranmere Pool, a good 16-mile round trip from where I am writing. Cranmere used to be a deep pool of water, and a wild ghost called Benjie is still said to be working there, doomed for eternity to try and empty the pool with a sieve. The rivers Torridge (East Okement tributary), Tavy and Dart all start near Cranmere Pool. Of the rivers in this story, the Torridge flows north, picking up other parts of the river from the north-west coast of Devon, until it meets the sea at Braunton. The Tavy flows south-west and meets the Tamar at Plymouth Sound. You’ll find a story from the River Dart later in this book.

The River Tamar, or ‘great water’, first recorded by Ptolemy in the second century, begins elsewhere. It rises on Wooley Moor at Morwenstow to the north, with Bodmin Moor in the west and Dartmoor in the east. The Tamar forms part of the boundary between Devon and Cornwall.

This origin tale of Tamara, originally written in Victorian times, is a classic part of every storyteller’s repertoire in Devon and Cornwall. It has been the topic of many a conversation with fellow storytellers, but it has taken me a long time and a lot of trial and error to find a version I like telling! Given I have worked on the Torridge and Taw for many years and live in Dartmoor National Park – and dance ‘Tamara’ with Beltane Border Morris – it would be rude not to.

In the earliest days, the cold days, there were no people in the islands of Britain, and there were no trees. Those were the times when – if you had been there – you could see the bones of the land sticking out, and when giants carved up the landscape and hurled rocks around for fun. But the giants weren’t the only spirits who loved the land. The little, homely earth spirits lived in burrows in the lower, softer ground, and very rarely went above the surface, because it was cold and dangerous. They clung to the security of their earthy caverns and tunnels, dank with peat and thick with magic.

But young spirits always want to explore. That was the case with young Tamara, an earth spirit who was born north-west of the great moor, just as the earth was warming. She was never content with staying underground in safety – there was too much of the world to see.

‘Don’t stay up there for too long,’ Tamara’s father would say. ‘The giants will crush you, and the sun will burn you all away.’

‘Just for a little time, father, I’ll be back soon. It’s all so serious underground,’ she said, and flashed him a smile.

The days came and went. For Tamara, a little time became a longer time, and a longer time became a whole day above ground. She was fascinated with the roof of the sky, the brightness of the sun, and the sparkle it made in the stones; she would make up stories as she danced across the plains. Her father pleaded and scolded, but it made no difference.

One day, Tamara dared to climb to the high rocks, where the stones glit...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the Author
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Sacred Beginnings
• 2 Running Deep
• 3 Enchanted Water
• 4 Curious Creatures
• 5 Metamorphosis
• 6 Breathing Underwater
• 7 The Ravenous River
• 8 Flood and Future
• Story Sources and Further Reading