Fionn mac Cumhaill
Irish mythical hero
Fionn mac Cumhaill (alternatively spelled Finn mac Cumhaill), sometimes anglicised Finn McCool or MacCool, is a hero in Irish mythology, as well as in later Scottish and Manx folklore. He is the leader of the Fianna bands of young roving hunter-warriors, as well as being a seer and poet. He is said to have a magic thumb that bestows him with great wisdom. He is often depicted hunting with his hounds Bran and Sceólang, and fighting with his spear and sword. The tales of Fionn and his fiann form the Fianna Cycle or Fenian Cycle (an Fhiannaíocht), much of it narrated by Fionn's son, the poet Oisín; it has become the most important part of the c. 12th-century narrative Acallam na Senórach, and has also been told in other ancient Irish texts.
Etymology
In Old Irish, finn/find means "white, bright, lustrous; fair, light-hued (of complexion, hair, etc.); fair, handsome, bright, blessed; in moral sense, fair, just, true". It is cognate with Primitive Irish VENDO- (found in names from Ogam inscriptions), Welsh gwyn (cf. Gwyn ap Nudd), Cornish gwen, Breton gwenn, Continental Celtic and Common Brittonic *uindo- (a common element in personal and place names), and comes from the Proto-Celtic adjective masculine singular *windos.
Irish legend
Fionn's birth and early adventures are recounted in the narrative The Boyhood Deeds of Fionn and other sources.
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This entry incorporates text from “Fionn mac Cumhaill” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.