The High Deeds of Finn MacCool

Any of the individual stories - well, most of them - were fine and interesting. En mass - ugh. Too much stubborn, to the point of stupid - I'd say testosterone poisoning, but the (few) females suffer from the same problem. Mildly interesting echoes of other cultures' stories - two that ring of Beowulf (Finn defeats a creature that's been destroying the king's hall once a year for several years; another one he wrestles with an arm that comes down the chimney and (I think) tears it off). In the latter Beowulf story there are also echoes of The Ear, The Eye and The Arm - Finn gets the help of seven men, each of whom can do one impossible thing (track a ship across an ocean, climb a smooth tower, etc), and all of whom disappear never to show more show up again at the end of that story. The early stories are fairy-tale style - things just happen the way they do, and no one ever questions anything. Later ones get more personality, but the personalities are not particularly pleasant - the long holding of a grudge is featured, usually causing at least one death, in half a dozen stories. Interesting and I'm glad I read it, I probably won't reread. show less