Fionn mac Cumhaill

Fionn mac Cumhaill — known in Scotland as Fingal — is the central hero of the Fenian Cycle, the second great cycle of Irish mythology. Where the Ulster Cycle is heroic and tragic, the Fenian Cycle is more lyrical, more connected to the landscape, and more tinged with elegy. Fionn is older than the Fianna he leads, older than the Ireland he patrols, and the cycle ends in his disappearance rather than his death.

The story of how he gained his extraordinary wisdom — touching the Salmon of Knowledge while cooking it for his druid-teacher Finnegas, burning his thumb and reflexively putting it in his mouth — is one of the most famous origin stories in Irish mythology. The salmon had absorbed the wisdom of the world by eating the hazel nuts that fell into the Well of Wisdom; Fionn got it all by accident, and ever after could access that wisdom by sucking his thumb.

Fionn is associated with specific landscapes across Ireland and Scotland — the Giant's Causeway, Fingal's Cave, dozens of hills and loughs bear his name or his legend. He is said to sleep beneath a hill in Ireland (various hills claim the honour) with the Fianna around him, ready to rise when three blasts on his great horn summon them. The sleeping-king tradition attaches to him in Ireland as firmly as it attaches to Arthur in Britain.