The Swift, Memory of the Fianna
Caílte mac Rónáin was the fastest runner in the Fianna — faster than horses, faster than hounds, with speed that went beyond anything ordinary. He was the nephew of Fionn mac Cumhaill, and one of only two Fianna men to survive the Battle of Gabhra and live into the age of Saint Patrick.
He and Oisín told the stories of the Fianna to Patrick’s scribes — the great collection known as the Acallam na Senórach, the Colloquy of the Old Men. Between them they preserved what would otherwise have been lost. Oisín tended to mourn the Fianna’s people and their relationships. Caílte tended to explain the landscape — why every hill and river and valley in Ireland has the name it has, because he had run across the whole island and was there when the names were given. He was the Fianna’s living map of Ireland.
Patrick was charmed by him. The tradition records that two angels attended every telling of Caílte’s stories and wrote them down — the old heroic world given apostolic endorsement, its preservation declared not sinful but sacred.
His speed had been his defining gift in the Fianna’s life, and his memory was his defining gift in its afterlife.
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