Traditionally, the early religions and mythology of Europe have been viewed as inferior to the Eastern religions of India and others. While I don't think I want to rank one culture's symbolic treasury at the expensive of another, I do think that European (especially Nordic and Gaelic) mythology should be seen in the rich light they deserve.

Previously, I've talked about Odhinn and Nordic symbology and mythology. I figured I would do something similar with Fionn Mac Cumhal (or Finn Mac Coll, pronounced Finn Mac Cool, literally Fair Hero, the son of the Hazel) is one of the great epics of early Irish oral culture.¹

There was, near the River Boyne, a fountain of water called "Connla's Well" (also the Well of Segais). Near this well grew the Nine Hazels of Poetic Art, which produced both fruit (wisdom) and flowers (beauty) simultaneously. Nine is a special number to the Triple Goddess (Nine Muses) and Hazel² was the ninth letter of the Oghamm Alphabet (used by Celtic druids before Latinization with the advent of St. Patrick and Christianity).

These hazel trees (sometimes referred to as a single tree) are symbolically similar to the Hebrew Tree of Knowledge. To the Irish, the nuts from this tree contained all knowledge.³ The nuts from the tree would fall into the well, where a salmon would eat them. The knowledge of all things then passed to this salmon (called Fintan).

So, here we have phallic wisdom (in the form of the tree) dropping its seed into the primordial (feminine) waters (a symbol of the subconscious or even Jung's collective consciousness). This hard to obtain wisdom (in the form of the nut) is made easier to grasp by being wrapped in memory (as fish are often seen as a symbol for the thoughts that rise from the dream-world of the subconscious).

It was prophesied that whoever ate the Salmon of Knowledge would have all knowledge passed to him. In other accounts, this person was called fair (Finn in Gaelic).

Finn mac Coll⁴ began, at an early age, to study warfare and martial arts under Liath Luachra, a female warrior. He first test of battle was in avenging the death of his father. After this, he went to study poetry under a druid also named Finn.

Finn, the Druid (also called Finneces) was searching for the Salmon of Knowledge, but was unable to catch him until Finn, the Pupil, arrived. With the salmon securely roasting on a spit, the druid asked the young Finn to turn and cook the fish.

The young boy brought the fish to the old druid for him to eat, but he noticed that the boy's "countenance had changed" and asked him if he had tasted the salmon.

The young Finn said that while he was cooking, he burned his thumb on the salmon and had put his thumb in his mouth to cool the burn.

"Well," said the druid, "Take the Salmon of Knowledge and eat it, for in thee the prophecy is come true." From this point on, Finn just had to literally "suck his thumb" in order to foretell future events.

In other words, all knowledge is contained in the wisdom of an infant sucking his thumb. That seems like pretty rich symbolism to me.

Footnotes

1. The others are the Legend of Cuchulain and the Coming of the Tuatha de Danaan.
   
   
2. The hazel has often been associated with early religious practice and with modern folk magic. A hazel stick (or rod/wand) has been used for centuries in divining water, buried treasure, and even guilty criminals.
   
   This behavior is not strictly the affair of our European cousins, but Colonial Americans brought these traditions with them and this form of folk magic was popular (and quite accepted) in the backwoods of New England and in the hill country of the south during the early 1800's.
   
   
3. Wisdom, to the Celtic Irish, was embodied in the form of the hazel nut (sweet, compact, sustaining … all wrapped up in a hard shell that is difficult to crack or fathom). Robert Grave comments that this is where we get the expression, "the matter in a nut-shell" (The White Goddess, pg 181).
   
   
4. Coll, literally meaning, hazel. Yes, Finn was the son of the hazel, is the rightful heir of the knowledge contained in the hazel tree.