THE FÍRÉIN BROTHERHOOD
When I created the setting for the Song of Seare, I drew heavily on the true history and culture of Ireland between the third and the eighth centuries A.D. Many of the unusual details that set the story apart from other English- or continental-inspired medieval fantasy—such as the election of the kings and their successors (tanists)—come directly from the pages of Irish history, as do many of the fashions, customs, and laws.
But when it came to creating the Fíréin Brotherhood, I had a more difficult task at hand. I wanted the warrior-brotherhood to feel both realistic to the setting, but also have a magical, mysterious quality about it. After all, when the book opens, Conor is most definitely not the typical fantasy hero, and it was going to take more than a simple mentor to turn him from a bookish scholar into the reluctant but proficient warrior he becomes by the end of the book.
I drew on the real-life existence of two groups for the basis of the Fíréin. The first is a group known as the Red Branch Knights (even though “red” is thought to be a mistranslation of the Gaelic word for “royal.”) This was a militia who, according to the heroic stories, were loyal to the King of Ulster. Every summer, they would come to Emain, the seat of the king, to drill and train in military skills and arms. Other stories of the Red Branch Knights speak of their medical prowess, including an entire medical corps that traveled with the Ulster Army. These accounts imply that though they were essentially mercenaries, they were not uneducated nor unintelligent; they were renowned for their knowledge and healing abilities long before the first mention of what we’d consider “proper” physicians in Ireland.
Another group was known as the Fianna, or the Fena of Erin. This fighting force was loyal to the High King of Ireland, most notably in the late 200s AD. I was most interested in the fact that in addition to their fighting ability, candidates had to prove they were educated men by their ability to recite a large amount of poetry and stories, one of the markers of learning of the era. Another account speaks of how the men had to be able to run swiftly through the forest without snagging their long, unbound hair on branches (something that inspired my conception of the trackers and runners of the Fíréin brotherhood). Interestingly, the Fena’s loyalties remained uncertain: sometimes they fought with the High King and sometimes against. The histories don’t tell us why, leaving me to imagine that their loyalties were based on some internal criteria other than loyalty to title, clan, or bloodline.
Still, while archaeological and contemporary sources tell us that these two groups did exist, the historical fact has been so well folded into myth and legend that it’s hard to tell what’s true and what’s fiction. That suited me just fine when using them as a basis for the Fíréin: in the tales, both groups perform feats that call upon supernatural skills and knowledge that go well beyond the abilities of the typical historical Irish warrior. These otherworldly myths gave me the foundation for a brotherhood that would be spoken about in Seare with a mixture of admiration and apprehension.
In the Song of Seare, the Fíréin warriors have been awarded an almost mythological stature by the warriors of the kingdoms, reinforced by the fact that brothers who return to the kingdoms do so quietly and without drawing attention to their training at Ard Dhaimhin, adding to the perception that many may enter, but few may leave. I wanted their status as incomparable fighters to be rooted in truth—they really were better trained than the kingdom’s men, even those professional warriors who did nothing but prepare for battle—but I also wanted those reasons to be perceived as supernatural ability.
The solution to that problem was presented by the history of High King Daimhin, who formed the personal guard from which the Fíréin were descended. I described him as a mercenary living in the east, where he ostensibly worked with and fought alongside men of different origins and traditions. I theorized that he could have learned different regions’ fighting systems, which he would have internalized and brought back to Seare, then taught later to his personal guard. The unfamiliar methods would have not only taken opponents off guard and made them easier to subdue, but would also have conferred upon Daimhin’s men an almost heroic status.
This is why the training methods of Ard Dhaimhin utilize the traditional weapons of Seare (hand stones, slings, staff, spear, bow, and sword) but use a more formalized, codified system of training that is similar to both Roman Gladiatorial schools and the Chinese Shaolin Temple, birthplace of Shaolin Kung Fu. From the Roman accounts, I took the use of wooden practice swords and the graded levels of training. From the Chinese side, I drew on my own martial arts experience, which spans both Korean and Chinese arts. Kung fu in particular focuses heavily on conditioning and strength training as well as cultivating a sense of family within the school. (In fact, in addition to traditional Chinese forms of address used in my school, we referred to each other as brother and sister.) It was this stratified and yet communal feel that I adopted for the Fíréin brotherhood, layered with its obvious monastic overtones.
Additionally, I conceived of the Fíréin-made swords as being thinner and lighter—more consistent with a Chinese-style weapon and technique. Were this set in an environment with medieval-style plate armor, this would be a disadvantage, but in an era where armor was a combination of padded clothing, boiled leather, and small metal plates sewn to other materials, the fast, nimble Fíréin fighting style would have been devastating and difficult to defend against.
We learn in later books how Ard Dhaimhin went from being the seat of the High King and a thriving city to a cloistered society whose borders cannot be breached upon threat of death. In part, this is a nod to Ireland’s existing centers of learning and worship in the form of the nemetons—groves, shrines, and temples that served as the center of ancient Celtic paganism. But there is also the monastic tradition that grew up after the coming of Christianity to the isle, or in the case of this story, when Daimhin brought Balianism back to his homeland.
While Irish monasteries were known for welcoming students of all origins for varying periods of time without requiring them to make a life-long commitment (known as a permeable monasticism), they were also protected by great walls, and for good reason. As a center of learning, they were also known as centers of great wealth, something that drew later incursions from the Vikings, who wanted to pillage the monasteries’ riches. Irish monasticism is less reclusive than forms practiced elsewhere in Europe and no doubt benefited from the flow of information and out of settlement walls, while preserving a degree of separation from secular concerns.
But both Irish and continental monasteries found that over time, they had to leave the walls of their cloisters to both spread the gospel and the knowledge that was lost over centuries of conquests by “barbarians.” It’s this argument that Conor brings at the end of Oath of the Brotherhood and which permeates the other two books in the series: what good is their knowledge and prowess if they’re going to remain completely separated from the world around them? What purpose is there in possessing the light if they’re not going to use it to fight the darkness?
All these questions—and the Fíréin’s dedication to isolationism—feel real and plausible because it taps into the human impulse to protect ourselves, to resist change, to fear the unknown and therefore avoid action. Conor’s entrance into the Fíréin brotherhood is not merely a decision to learn to fight or to flee danger in the kingdoms: it’s a symbol of his willingness to commit himself to the unknown, even death, on the strength of his trust in Comdiu. His arrival in Ard Dhaimhin, as we see in Oath of the Brotherhood and will see on a much larger scale in future books, challenges the very principles of the brotherhood and asks whether inaction is truly a sign of faith or merely fear of an uncertain future.