ronok said:
Wasn't it an all-knowing salmon?
Hah, that was Fintan, who gave his wisdom to Finn Mac Cumhail. Now, the legendary
fíanna of the heroic age were associated with this Finn.
However,
fían in general refers to a group of (usually) young warriors. It had the function of something like a modern American college fraternity, a place were rich young teenagers would come into manhood, meet many of his future buddies, prove his valor in the community, etc. A boy would enter after his period of fosterage came to an end in his mid-to-late teens, and leave when he was given his inheritance. It was, in one historian's words, "legally licensed juvenile delinquency". They would serve their local king, patrol the borders, hunt in the fringes of the land, and do lots of boyish things. After the first phase of christianity in Ireland, the church became hostile to the fíanna, because 1) the fíanna were immoral, had loads of sex, beat people up, etc; 2) the fíanna operated on the fringes of the land, the very land being acquired for monastic purposes; 3) the fíanna and the chiefly court were associated with many pagan practices, like the employment of druids and satirists, as well as many rituals; churchmen would often refer to them as "mac báis" - meaning "sons of the dead/damned" - which implied that they were destined to Hell (opposite, BTW, was "mac bethad" - the name of the Scottish king known in English as Macbeth); and 4) the fíanna were the people that ordinary people were mostly likely to admire, and thus competed with the church for influence on the popular mind.
The fíanna, their champions and their deeds, are the subjects of a large chunk of native Irish literature.
Keep it alive!!! 
In the name of William Wallace dont do it!!! 
: I know that prince Llewelyn had been defeated in the battle of Orewyn Bridge (1282) 
