Episode 43: Fionn Pt 5 – The Lad of the Skins

“The Lad of the Skins will destroy ourselves and the whole of the Fianna!”

A tale of Fionn and the Fianna featuring heroism (maybe), murder (definitely), theft, even more animal transformations (it wouldn’t be a Fenian tale without some animal transformations) and other laddish pursuits. Stick around for the post credit sequence!

This is the story of the Lad of the Skins – otherwise known as the Céatach/Ceudach tale. Possibly the most popular folk tale of the Fianna.

Even if you’ve not listened to the rest of the Fenian cycle episodes this is a great one to jump in at as it’s fairly stand alone – though you can also find links to the other Fenian tales below.

The Cauldron of Plenty

So in the episode I mention the Cauldron of Plenty when I haven’t told the stories of The Dagda yet – and I’m afraid that’s how it’s going to remain (sorry! I’ll get round to it in a decade or so).

But it’s some kind of law that when you mention that Cauldron you have to show a picture of the actual Gundestrup cauldron – as below. This exceptional Iron Age Cauldron is actually from Denmark but is so striking in its pagan imagery and its state of preservation, due to being in a bog for a couple of thousand years, that it has become the exemplar par excellence of magical Iron Age cauldrons.

Its exact origins are unknown but many believe it shows specific scenes from Celtic, and specifically Irish, mythology. It certainly seems to involve a lot of animal/human hybrids, which as you will probably have noticed is rife in the Fenian tales, as well as other Irish stories (though of course also in a lot of other myths of the time, not least those of Greece and Rome).

It’s certainly a fantastic piece of work anyway – and if you want to imagine the Cauldron of Plenty I reckon you could do far worse than use this as your basis.

More from the Fenian cycle….

Featured Folklorist: Lady Augusta Gregory

Selected Sources

• The Ceudach Tale in Scotland and Cape Breton – Natasha Sumner
• Gaelic Folk-Tales and Mediæval Romances: A Study of the Early Modern Irish ‘Romantic Tales’ and Their Oral Derivatives – Alan Bruford
• Bòcan website version – A multilingual English/Gaelic website with lots of interesting stories, they have a number of versions of the tale in English and some only in Gaelic (which I alas have not been able to read). Generally a very interesting site.
  
  Versions of the tale I read (not all mixed into the final story):
  
• Gods and Fighting men – Lady Augusta Gregory at Sacredtexts.org
• GILLA NA GRAKIN AND FIN MACCUMHAIL in Myths and Folks Tales of Ireland – Jeremiah Curtin
• KING MANANAUN in West Irish Folk Tales and Romances by William Larmine
• Ceatach and Blackbird in Children of the Salmon by Eileen O’Faoláin (Have to buy this one)
• Céatach in Folktales of Ireland by Sean O’Sullivan, (available to borrow from Internet Archive) – this is one of those ones that’s really quite wildly different and didn’t make it in. It would take me about 5 episodes to tell with my usual style
• The lad with the skin coverings in Waifs and strays of Celtic tradition, Vol 4 collected by John Gregerson Campbell
• The lad in the skin coverings in Waifs and strays of Celtic tradition, Vol 3 by the Rev. James MacDougall
• The Lad in the Skin Coverings – from the Bòcan website, referenced as contributor: Essaidh Stiùbhart