Irish Mythology – The Fenian Cycle

In This video, I give an overview of third of four cycles, The Fenian Cycle. In future videos we will delve into the various tales, and figures involved with this cycle.

in this video we’re gonna be talking about the third cycle in Irish mythology which is the Fenian cycle if you’re not already seeing my first two videos on the mythological and Ulster cycles I suggest you go watch those first as some of the stories mentioned in this cycle reference earlier tales and figures in those cycles the Fenian cycle is similar to the also cycle in the sense that it is primarily concerned with Irish heroes the tales from this cycle set around the third century and take place in the provinces of monster and Leinster this cycle has a very strong link to the Irish speaking communities in Scotland and it is interesting to note a lot of texts related to the cycle originated in that country the stories and poems from this cycle are related to Finn McCool and from the and Athena his army the most important source when it comes to the Fenian cycle is a toggle of national rank found in only to 15th century manuscripts the Book of Lists more and Load 6/10 an 18th century manuscript from Killiney County Dublin is also relevant the text date back to the 12th century or made up of linguistic evidence including conversations between culture my Cronyn and ocean last member of the FINA and also a st. Patrick and consists of roughly 5,000 lines the fact these manuscripts date from a much later period is interesting as it shows a long tradition of oral storytelling which was passed down from generation to generation the FINA in the story I divided into fin McCall’s clan Bosh kina and the clan at Morna led by his enemy gormak Mona but mourner killed Finn’s father cool in the bustle and young Finn was brought up in secrecy while being trained in the art of poetry Finn burned his thumb while cooking the salmon of knowledge which allowed him to suck or bite his thumb to receive bursts of wisdom he took his place as a leader of his band and Tails in his cycle to other many adventures when looking at the world during this cycle we see your who’s spending the time hunting fighting and engaging in adventures with the spiritual world there is no mention of religion in these tales new entrants into the FINA are expected to be knowledgeable in poetry as well as physically capable but the main thing we take away from this cycle is hero-worship in my next video we’ll gonna be looking at the fourth and final cycle in Irish mythology which is the historical cycle and then once I’ve concluded this series we are going to start looking more in-depth into your specific tales and the figures from these cycles and as I mentioned in my last video I’m going to keep up with this same format showing imagery with voiceover and hopefully also have all this time goes on I do want to thank everyone for subscribing watching and giving me thumbs up and even leave in comments below give me suggestions on how to improve or what you want to see in future videos I am going to be keeping up with a regular schedule so look out for more videos soon