Of most of the tales preserved in twelfth to fifteenth century MSS. it may be said that in essence they come down to us from a remote antiquity, like stars pulsing their clear light out of the hidden depths of space.  Many of them exist as folk-tales, often wild and weird in form, while some folk-tales have no literary parallels.  Some are Maerchen with members of the Fian band as heroes, and of these there are many European parallels.  But it is not unlikely that, as in the case of the Cuchulainn cycle, the folk versions may be truer to the original forms of the saga than the rounded and polished literary versions.  Whatever the Fians were in origin—­gods, mythic heroes, or actual personages—­it is probable that a short Heldensage was formed in early times.  This slowly expanded, new tales were added, and existing Maerchen formulae were freely made use of by making their heroes the heroes of the saga.  Then came the time when many of the tales were written down, while later they were adapted to a scheme of Irish history, the heroes becoming warriors of a definite historic period, or perhaps connected with such warriors.  But these heroes belonged to a timeless world, whose margins are “the shore of old romance,” and it was as if they, who were not for an age but for all time, scorned to become the puppets of the page of history.

The earliest evidence of the attitude of the ecclesiastical world to these heroes is found in the Agallamh na Senorach, or “Colloquy of the Ancients."[515] This may have been composed in the thirteenth century, and its author knew scores of Fionn legends.  Making use of the tradition that Caoilte and Oisin had met S. Patrick, he makes Caoilte relate many of the tales, usually in connection with some place-name of Fian origin.  The saint and his followers are amazed at the huge stature of the Fians, but Patrick asperges them with holy water, and hosts of demons flee from them.  At each tale which Caoilte tells, the saint says, “Success and benediction, Caoilte.  All this is to us a recreation of spirit and of mind, were it only not a destruction of devotion and a dereliction of prayer.”  But presently his guardian angel appears, and bids him not only listen to the tales but cause them to be written down.  He and his attendant clerics now lend a willing ear to the recital and encourage the narrator with their applause.  Finally, baptism is administered to Caoilte and his men, and by Patrick’s intercessions Caoilte’s relations and Fionn himself are brought out of hell.  In this work the representatives of paganism are shown to be on terms of friendliness with the representatives of Christianity.