Returning to the theory of the historic aspect of the Fians, it should be noted that, while, when seen through the eyes of the annalists, the saga belongs to a definite historical period, when viewed by itself it belongs to a mythic age, and though the Fians are regarded as champions of Ireland, their foes are usually of a supernatural kind, and they themselves move in a magic atmosphere.  They are also brought into connection with the unhistoric Tuatha De Danann; they fight with them or for them; they have amours with or wed their women; and some of the gods even become members of the Fian band.  Diarmaid was the darling of the gods Oengus and Manannan, and in his direst straits was assisted by the former.  In all this we are in the wonderland of myth, not the terra firma of history.  There is a certain resemblance between the Cuchulainn and Fionn sagas, but no more than that which obtains between all sagas everywhere.  Both contain similar incidents, but these are the stock episodes of universal saga belief, fitted to the personages of individual sagas.  Hence we need not suppose with Professor Windisch that the mythic incidents of the Fionn saga are derived from the Cuchulainn cycle.

The personages against whom Fionn and his men fight show the mythic nature of the saga.  As champions of Leinster they fight the men of Ulster and Connaught, but they also war against oversea invaders—­the Lochlanners.  While Lochlann may mean any land beyond the sea, like the Welsh Llychlyn it probably meant “the fabulous land beneath the lakes or the waves of the sea,” or simply the abode of hostile, supernatural beings.  Lochlanners would thus be counterparts of the Fomorians, and the conflicts of the Fians with them would reflect old myths.  But with the Norse invasions, the Norsemen became the true Lochlanners, against whom Fionn and his men fight as Charlemagne fought Muhammadans—­a sheer impossibility.  Professor Zimmer, however, supposes that the Fionn saga took shape during the Norse occupation from the ninth century onwards.  Fionn is half Norse, half Irish, and equivalent to Caittil Find, who commanded the apostate Irish in the ninth century, while Oisin and Oscar are the Norse Asvin and Asgeirr.  But it is difficult to understand why one who was half a Norseman should become the chosen hero of the Celts in the very age in which Norsemen were their bitter enemies, and why Fionn, if of Norse origin, fights against Lochlanners, i.e.  Norsemen.  It may also be inquired why the borrowing should have affected the saga only, not the myths of the gods.  No other Celtic scholar has given the slightest support to this brilliant but audacious theory.  On the other hand, if the saga has Norse affinities, and if it is, in origin, pre-Celtic, these may be sought in an earlier connection of Ireland with Scandinavia in the early Bronze Age.  Ireland had a flourishing civilisation then, and exported beautiful gold ornaments to Scandinavia, where they are still