Finnegan
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Jump to navigationJump to search- Tim Finnegan: hero of the street ballad Finnegan's Wake; he is supposedly an Irish emigré who is working as a labourer in New York
- Finnegan's Wake: a popular Irish-American ballad → "Finn again is awake" → a reference to the common legend that great heroes of the past are not dead but merely asleep, ready to return in their country's hour of greatest need (e.g. King Arthur, Finn MacCool)
- Finn MacCool: Finn MacCool (Fionn mac Cumhail) was an Irish mythical hero; he is sometimes portrayed as a giant
- fin: (French) end → fin-again → the end of another Viconian cycle
- Fionn, Finn: (Irish) fair, fair-haired; white; bright → Finn is actually a nickname meaning "fair" (in reference to hair colour), "white" or "bright"
- Finnegas: the young Fionn mac Cumhail met the poet Finn Eces (Finneces, Finegas, Finnegas) near the river Boyne and studied under him. Finneces had spent seven years trying to catch the Salmon of Knowledge, which lived in a pool on the Boyne: whoever ate the salmon would gain all the knowledge in the world. Eventually he caught it, and told the boy to cook it for him. While cooking it Fionn burned his thumb, and instinctively put his thumb in his mouth, swallowing a piece of the salmon's skin. This imbued him with the salmon's wisdom. He then knew how to gain revenge against Goll, and in subsequent stories was able to call on the knowledge of the salmon by sucking his thumb
- Solomon: the third and last King of Israel, renowned for his wisdom, and often associated in FW with the similarly spelled Salmon of Knowledge, which was also a repository of great wisdom
- egg → Humpty Dumpty
