ancient tales home to the modern reader. "The Courtship of Ferb" is one of the finest stories in old Irish literature, and a good example of the Irish cante fable, or inter-woven song and story, in the manner of "Aucassin and Nicolete."

Miss Hull and Lady Gregory, in the books to which their names are attached above, have aimed at collecting in one volume all, or nearly all, of the ancient legends centering around the national hero, Cuchulinn. They necessarily invite comparison with each other. Such a comparison Mr. Edward Garnett has lately instituted in the "Academy," with the result that, on the whole, he gives the palm to Miss Hull.

It is our opinion also that she has better fulfilled the conditions laid down above as essential to any, even a very free, treatment of these sagas. Although Miss Hull confesses to occasionally humoring popular taste and susceptibilities, she rarely sins in this respect, and has mainly confined herself to reproducing in a literary form the versions made by Stokes, Windisch, Meyer, and other scholars. We have already given an example of her style in the "Combat of Conall and Mesgegra" above.

Among the translations printed by her are three specially made for her by the veteran native scholar, Standish Hayes O'Grady, one of which, the "Cattle-spoil of Coolney," is the first attempt, and a highly successful one, to render into English that greatest Irish epic in its entirety. The text chosen is, however, not the best available; and we shall have to wait for some time yet for adequate English rendering of this Irish Iliad in its oldest and most perfect form.

Lady Gregory's book possesses great literary merit, which has secured for it at the hands of reviewers abundant if somewhat indiscriminating praise. It is only right to point out that, from the point of view of scholarship, it suffers from some serious defects. The author presents us with a fairly complete version of many of the tales; but the arrangement of her book is likely to mislead by giving a unity to the stories which they do not possess. Like the Greek poets who dealt with early mythology or the story of Troy, the old Irish romance-writers had a stock of ancient legend to draw upon, but often employed their own imagination.

Now, if we can imagine Homer and Hesiod, the "Prometheus" of Eschylus, the "Argonautica" of Apollonius, the "Ajax" and the "Philoctetes" of Sophocles, and the "Orestes," the "Electra" and the "Iphigenias" of Euripides, supplemented by such passages from Eschylus' trilogy as might throw light on the last four plays, all boiled down into a single volume, we shall have some idea of the plan on which Lady Gregory's book is based.

If, further, we suppose that in such a volume, put before us as a substitute for Greek literature, all conflicting passages are omitted, as well as those in which the story, as given by the original poet, differs from the editor's conception of what the story ought to be, while of the remaining parts, some are given in abstract, some closely follow previous English or German translations, and all are thrown into such a uniform literary style as to suggest, wherever possible, the modern Greek, we shall realize what a false impression of old Irish literature may be created by "Cuchulain of Muirthemne." To substitute an abstract for independent literary productions, to replace an old literature that is just beginning to become known by a digest, a Testtament by a Diatessaron, is surely not desirable.

Independently of divergences in the versions of one story, there are many allusions in different stories which point to different bodies of tradition, and are quite inconsistent with each other, as might indeed be expected if we remember that we are dealing with the works of authors separated in time by hundreds of years.

Thus the tale of Doel Dermait's sons, which Lady Gregory, from internal evidence, puts late in Cuchulinn's life, opens by representing his journey to Ciarraige or Kerrywhich, by the by, is a district of Roscommon, not the Munster county-as connected with the trials of Cuchulinn's heroism described in the "Feast of Bricriu." But since Bricriu is killed in the war of Coolney, this is at variance with the supposed order of the tales; so Lady Gregory commences the story by saying, "One time Cuchulain was gone south to Ciarraige, in the province of Munster" (the words

CUCHULAIN.

in italics being added by her), and omits altogether the first few pages which deal with Bricriu, and indicate that the "Sons of Doel Dermait" is really an independent story connected with that earlier period when Bricriu was yet alive. Again, the story of Blanaid, wife of Curoi, gives an account of Cuchulinn which does not agree with Lady Gregory's conception of him; so she omits all mention of his defeat and captivity at the hands of Curo.

We come next to the question as to how far Lady Gregory gives us the spirit of the individual stories, and what is the nature of her alterations. We are afraid that by too great sympathy with the sentiments of that portion of the Irish peasantry with whom she is specially acquaintedthe people of Kiltartan, to whom she dedicates her bookshe has too often given a false coloring to the stories. Not that we mean to find fault with the language she has chosen which, as Mr. Yeats rightly says, fits the stories admirably. But she allows her preconceived notions to affect the characters and incidents. For one of her pieces, the "Wedding of Maine Morgor," otherwise known as the "Courtship of Ferb." only one source is indicated, and as this source is available in the literal translation made by Mr. Leahy, we may take this tale as the easiest to examine.

Perhaps the most remarkable alteration in Lady Gregory's version is the introduction of Fiannamail as "the son of the innkeeper at Cruachan." Attention is specially drawn to "the innkeeper's son" by the heading of p. 171. An "innkeeper's son" has a democratic flavor that rather surprises the reader of a saga, which, as a rule, pays little attention to any one beneath the rank of a chief, a bard. or a lady. Now we find that the Irish word rendered by "innkeeper" is rechtaire, which means "steward"; and thar Fiannamail, the eighth in rank among the youths of Croghan, was the son of the high steward of (not "at") Croghan. The word rechtaire being given correctly "steward" by Lady Gregory elsewhere (e. g., on p. 269), it is hard at first to see where the "innkeeper" comes from. If, however, we refer to Windisch's translation, which

as

she has here "used to help her in working from the Irish text," it appears that the German word used is Wirtschafter. So Lady Gregory's "innkeeper" turns out to be a mistranslation from the German, not a difference of interpretation on literary or scholarly grounds.

If, again, we compare the opening of the "Debility of the Ultonians" in Lady Gregory's version with that made by Miss Hull from the German of Windisch, we shall find that the general effect of her omissions and additions is to change the whole tone and character of the legend. Macha, the semi-supernatural wife of the wealthy land-owner, has become an Irish country woman of the present day. Lady Gregory's account makes "the man of the house" have the "care of all his children" till the woman comes "to tend him and them.' She "goes to where the meal is," "takes it out," "bakes a cake," "makes up" and "covers over" what appears to be a peat fire, just as the wife of a small farmer might do to-day.

But all these phrases are Lady Gregory's. They are not in the original story, which we can read in Miss Hull's version. Here the woman "stirs" and "puts out" the fire (apparently one of wood). Crundchu is no poor man; he has a kitchen apart from the living room, and servants to wait on him. Moreover, the gathering or fair, which, according to Lady Gregory, was but a poor show, was, according to the original, brilliant, not only with regard to the spectators, but also as regards the horses and the costumes. Not only were there games and races at this gathering, but combats, tournaments and processions. The last three are lumped together by Lady Gregory in the unimpressive phrase, "all sorts of amusements."

Lady Gregory's omissions are of two kinds. She frequently leaves out traits which seemed to her barbaric or grotesque, and she compresses where the original seemed to her too diffuse. From too nice a taste she evidently feels out of sympathy with the spirit of this primitive civilization. Perhaps we ought not to object to her giving Cuchulinn only one pupil in each eye, as is the case with ordinary mortals, instead of five pupils of different color which he possesses in the original story. Such a survival of a mythological age is not uncommon in Irish legends of all times.

But what shall we say to her omissions at the end of the "High King of Ireland," as she calls the tale commonly known as "The Destruction of Dá Derga's Hostel"? King, Conary, exhausted with the long fight, is dying of thirst. and, though hardly a man can be spared from the few remaining defenders of the house, he sends his foster-father, MacCecht, to get him a draught of water. MacCecht starts forth and bursts through the attacking force, carrying the king's young son with him under his armpit, and holding in one hand an iron spit and in the other Conary's huge golden cup. But all the rivers and lakes of Ireland have run dry; in none can he get the fill of the cup. At last he discovers a spring of water; but meanwhile the boy has expired under his arm. Back he hastens to the scene of battle, only to arrive just as two foemen are striking off the dead king's head. Having first slain them both, he pours the water into the neck and gullet of the king, whereupon the severed head opens its lips and says: "A good man, MacCecht, an excellent man, MacCecht! A brave warrior without, a brave warrior within! He brings a drink, he saves a king, he doth a deed!" etc. Lady Gregory says nothing of the boy; makes MacCecht pour the water into Conary's mouth and throat; and omits also the miraculous speech of the dissevered head. Against the omission of tedious repetitions and bombastic descriptions we have nothing to say, holding, with the author of the "Hostel," that it is "weariness of mind, confusion to the senses, tediousness to hearers, superfluity of narration, to go over the same things twice." But we must protest against the mutilation of an ancient story by treatment such as this.

Lady Gregory has included in her collection several stories which have not yet been edited and translated in their oldest versions, though they are accessible to Irish scholars in such manuscripts as the "Yellow Book of Lecan." One of these is the story entitled "The Only Son of Aoife," to which a particular interest attaches as the Irish version of the combat between father and son, well

known to English readers through Matthew Arnold's rendering of the Roostem and Sohrab episode from the "Shahnameh." Here Lady Gregory gives us a version which is modern in tone and spirit and omits or distorts several essential features and incidents of the story.

One of the worst instances of this is where Aoife is made, out of jealousy of Emer, to contrive to bring about the death of her son by putting yeasa, or prohibitory injunctions, on him. In the old versions there is not a word of this. It is Cuchulinn himself who leaves the geasa. The modern ending also is deplorably weak.

In the old version Conlaech, when the son has received his death-wound from his father's thrust with the gae bulg a rare weapon made out of bones-he cries out, "Scathach never taught me that!" thereby revealing his identity. Cuchulinn carries his dying son in his arms to where the heroes of Ulster are assembled, and Conlaech says: “If I were among you for five years, I should scatter the men of the world before you on every side till your dominion should extend as far as Rome herself. Since that cannot be, O father, name to me the famous men who are here that I may greet them." Then he puts his arms around the neck of each of them, bids his father farewell and dies. And for three days and nights, to make even the brute world share this sorrow, not a calf in Ulster was allowed to take suck from its mother.

We are far from wishing to minimize the literary quality of Lady Gregory's book. The translations which she has chosen to reproduce almost verbally are generally the most literary and pleasing; her analyses of other translations are done in a pleasant and uniform style. The additions that she has made all produce the desired effect of suggesting modern Connacht and Munster ideas and traditions. But the book gives a wrong idea of the unity of the romances; it shows little anxiety to give the stories accurately; it turns romances, written to suit an audience of chiefs, into folk-tales of modern date. The tales of the Cuchulinn saga are here reproduced in a style which, in our opinion, would have better suited the later stories of Finn and his companions; so that we cannot join Mr. Yeats in the view expressed in his preface, that "nobody, except for a scientific purpose, will ever need any other text than this."

The lyrical poetry of Ireland may be roughly divided into two kinds-the poetry of the professional bard attached to the court and person of a chief, and that of the unattached popular poet. To give a faithful and vivid account of the Irish court poets and their work would be a difficult but a fascinating task. We have to deal with distinct personages, whose history is often known. Their fates as well as their songs are interwoven with the history of the dynasties and the great houses of Ireland, whose retainers they were, and whose joys and sorrows they shared and expressed. Again, we are well informed from early documents about them as a class, about their position in society, their privilegs and their degrees, and about the long training which they underwent.

The subjects of the bulk of bardic poetry are praise and satire. Indeed, from the beginning these have been the keynotes of Celtic poetry. The Greek writer, Poseidonios, the teacher of Cicero, speaking of the bards of Gaul, says that to extol and to lampoon were their two main functions. To him we owe the following anecdote of the first Celtic poet of whom we hear in history, a Gaulish bard of the second century, B. C. Poseidonios relates that one day, when Louernius, king of a Gaulish tribe, the Arverni, gave a grand feast in a specially constructed quadrangular hall, a bard had the misfortune to arrive too late. Seeing the king passing out in his chariot, he followed him on foot, and, running alongside the royal car, recited a poem in praise of the king, and deplored his own bad luck in having arrived post festum. The king, delighted with the poetry, threw him his purse. The bard picked it up and then poured out his thanks in the following strain:

"The track of earth on which thou ridest along brings gold and benefits to men."

This earliest note of Celtic poetry is eminently characteristic. The same scene might have been enacted at any time in mediæval Wales or Ireland.

Comparatively little of the bardic poetry of Ireland has yet been published, though there is no lack of material even of very early date. As an old example we may instance the spirited ode to the sword of Cerball by his hereditary bard, Dallan mac More, composed in 909 A. D., and beginning:

"Hail, sword of Cerball! great woof of war,

Oft hast thou been in the

Oft giving battle, beheading high chieftains."

Thus the bard apostrophizes the sword, an heirloom of the royal family to which he owes allegiance. He enumerates the battles in which it has been engaged, the kings who have wielded it, the warriors who have fallen by it. The poem is one of many similar productions which possess not only poetical but historical value. One wishes that R. L. Stevenson had been acquainted with this poem before he wrote the "Song of the Sword of Allan Breck."

Many fine examples from a later age are contained in O'Grady's "Catalogue of Irish Manuscripts in the British Museum," a book which makes one realize more clearly than any other that the true history of Ireland has never yet been written. From a large number here for the first time published, and accompanied by masterly translations, we select the following characteristic specimens.

The first is a panegyric by Ferrall Oge mac Ward urging the claims of his lord, Turlough O'Neill, to be acknowledged leader of all Ireland. The date is about 1567 A. D. The poem describes the quiet, peace and plenty accruing from O'Neill's just but rigorous rule:

"So stern the sway of Ailech's King that from Torach (Torry Island) to Dundalk a lone woman goes unchallenged. A nut-laden bough all on the royal road, even the ill-disposed would for a whole year pretermit to pluck, for peril of Niall of the Nine Hostages his descendant. In Ulster's land of placid waterfalls, under the Chief of Cobthach's gentle blood, save for their cornyards' protection, no single cow would have a herdsman. Such this present O'Neill's new reign of law that, though 'twere crammed with treasure, a house all doorless he would make secure against the man of depredation. Enmity is abolished: in Flann's land now, under the rule of Crimthann's gentle race, one holds his whilom foemen to be a fitting bedfellow."

It is an idyllic picture, such as has been painted at other times of the government of other kings; and, if it is not altogether borne out by impartial history, the enthusiasm of the bard and the ideal he holds up are themselves facts of no small importance.

The second, written about the time of the first plantations of Ulster, describes graphically the foreign invasion the uprooting of ancient customs, when the fighting men of the four provinces, gentle and simple, are driven to take distant foreign service:

"In their place we have a conceited and impure swarm, of foreigners' blood, of an excommunicated rabble-Saxons are there and Scotsmen. This the land of noble Niall's posterity (i. e., Ulster) they portion out among themselves without leaving a jot of Flann's milk-yielding Plain (i. e., Ireland), but we find it cut up into 'acres.' We have lived to see (affliction heavy!) the tribal convention places emptied; the finny wealth perished away in the stream; dark thickets of the chase turned into streets. A boorish congregation is in the House of Saints; God's service performed under shelter of simple boughs; poets' and minstrels' bedclothes thrown to litter cattle; the mountain allotted all in fenced fields."

Of the purely lyrical poetry of ancient Ireland next to nothing has been published; but from the few specimens which have been made known it is safe to predict that, with wider knowledge of these poems, the interest in Irish literature will spread in ever wider circles. These songs possess many of the essential qualities of the best lyrical poetry. Nothing, for example, can exceed the pathos and beauty of the "Song of the Old Woman of Beare." It is the lament of Digdi, the aged nun of Berehaven, who, for a hundred years, had worn the veil which St. Cummin blessed upon her head. She contrasts the privations and suffer

ings of her old age with the pleasures of her youth, when she had been the delight of kings. She draws her imagery from the flood-tide and ebb-tide of the wide Atlantic, on whose shores she had lived and loved and suffered: "The wave of the great sea talks aloud,

Winter has arisen.

What the flood-wave brings to thee,

The ebbing wave carries out of thy hand."

The glorious kings on whose plains she rode about in swift chariots with noble steeds have all departed:

"Tis long since storms have reached
Their gravestones that are old and decayed."

And as for herself:

"I had my day with kings
Drinking mead and wine:
To-day I drink whey-water
Among shrivelled old hags.

My arms when they are seen
Are bony and thin:

Once they would fondle,

They would be round glorious kings.

The maidens rejoice

When May-day comes to them:
For me sorrow is meeter,

For I am wretched, I am an old hag.
Amen! woe is me!

Every acorn has to drop.

After feasting by shining candles

To be in the darkness of a prayer-house!"

Other poems display that artistic faculty of detailed description which we have already noticed in the sagas. And here the nature-poems call for special mention as the earliest of their kind in European literature. They are permeated with that rapturous love of nature which is generally looked upon as a sentiment of entirely modern origin.

"King and Hermit" is a colloquy between Guaire of Aidne, a well-known king of the seventh century, and his brother Marban, who has become a hermit. The king remonstrates with him for leading a retired and simple life when all the pleasures of the royal court might be his. The hermit answers, not in an austere or ascetic spirit, as one might expect, but extolling the delights of his forest dwelling above that of the king's palace itself:

"I have a shieling in the wood,

None knows it save my God:

An ashtree on the hither side, a hazelbush beyond,
A huge old tree encompasses it.

Two heath-clad doorposts for support,
And a lintel of honeysuckle:

The forest around its narrowness sheds
Its mast upon fat swine.

The music of the bright red-breasted birds,
A lovely moment!

The strain of the thrush, familiar cuckoos
Above my house.

The voice of the wind against the branchy wood
Upon the deep-blue sky:

Falls of the river, the note of the swan,
Delightful music!

A clutch of eggs, honey, delicious mast,
God has sent it:

Sweet apples, red whortle-berries,
Berries of the heath. . .

Without an hour of fighting, without the din of strife
In my house,

Grateful to the Prince who giveth every good

To me in my shieling."

Mr. Carmichael's work, entitled "Carmina Gadelica," affords a new proof of the longevity and tenacity of Gaelic oral tradition, for in it we find modern versions of poems which can, in many instances, be traced back to the beginning of Christianity in these islands, and in some even to pre-Christian times. Indeed, were it not for the introduction of Christian names, many of the songs would ap

pear purely pagan. Even as it is, the figures of Christ and Mary, Patrick and Brigit, archangels and apostles, appear sometimes in the same poem side by side with Queen Maive and Emir, Carmac and Cairbre, Finn and Oisin, not to speak of fairies, brownies, kelpies and glasticks.

Mr. Carmichael's two magnificent volumes-a worthy example of the perfection to which, under the skilful and artistic supervision of Mr. W. B. Blaikie, the famous house of Constable has brought the art of typography-are the result of forty-four years' research and collection in the western isles, especially the Outer Hebrides. More than two hundred separate pieces have thus been written down for the first time.

According to Mr. Carmichael, he was but just in time to save these precious relics, which are now rapidly becoming inferior in quality as well as meagre in quantity. For religion, as understood and practiced by a narrow-minded and fanatical ministry, has declared war against the innocent pastimes of a simple people, and suppresses them with intemperate zeal, forcing the itinerant minstrel to break his fiddle, thrashing girls for singing Gaelic songs, denouncing even the Gaelic language from the pulpit. Thus it happens that Mr. Carmichael has derived his chief information from Catholic parishes where greater freedom is allowed. In his introduction he gives a delightful picture of a ceilidh, or social gathering, at which stories and ballads are recited and rehearsed, songs are sung, riddles proposed, and proverbs quoted. In the words of the Highland song:

"In the long winter night

All are engaged,

Teaching the young

Is the grey-haired sage,

The daughter at her carding,

The mother at her wheel,

While the fisher mends his net

With his needle and his reel."

These stories and songs, if written down, would fill many volumes. One story alone, "The Leeching of Cian's Leg"a short Irish version of which will be found in O'Grady's "Silva Gadelica"-occupies twenty-four nights in the telling. Mr. Carmichael has limited his collection for the present to prayers, charms and incantations. There is no phase or function of the life of the people, from morning to night, from the cradle to the grave, which is not hallowed by one of these. When kindling or "smooring" a fire, sowing or reaping, milking cows or marking lambs, warping or weaving cloth, bathing or hunting, even when entering the court-house as a litigant, a prayer or charm rises to their lips. Though the language be modern, the contents often recall ancient times. At weaving or "walking" the cloth the women sing:

"May the man of this clothing never be wounded,
May torn he never be!

What time he goes into battle or combat,
May the sanctuary shield of the Lord be his!"

When a man has shorn a sheep and has set it free, he waves his hand after it, and says:

"Go shorn and come woolly,
Bear the Beltane female lamb!
Be the lovely Bride thee endowing,
And the fair Mary thee sustaining,
The fair Mary sustaining thee.
Michael the chief be shielding thee
From the evil dog and from the fox,
From the wolf and from the sly bear,
And from the taloned birds of destructive bills,
From the taloned birds of hooked bills!"

As we should expect in all genuine Gaelic folk-lore, the Irish element is predominant, carrying us back to a time before the Irish colonization of Scotland, or when a common tradition still united the two nations. Indeed, Scotland has preserved many an ancient Gaelic custom and tradition that has been forgotten in Ireland.

To the blending of paganism and Christianity we have already referred: in reality it is rather a combination of pagan cult with Christian faith. We find allusions to the

worship of the sun, moon, stars and fire. A charm for making a person invisible to mortal eyes, or for transforming one object into another, bears the title Fath-fith, evidently identical with the old Irish Faed Fiada, said to have been sung by St. Patrick when he changed himself and his companions into a herd of deer to escape the ambush.

Other poems take us back to the dim times of early Irish Christianity. Thus the poem of the Lord's day can, as Mr. Carmichael observes, be traced back to the eighth century. It is indeed merely a versified form of the old Irish tract called "Cáin Domnaig," or Law of Sunday, which still awaits publication. Like the latter, it prescribes the duration of Sunday:

"From setting of sun on Saturday

Till rising of sun on Monday."

It mentions the kinds of work from which all are to abstain, almost in the same order as the old Irish treatise: "Without taking use of ox or man,

Or of creature, as Mary desired,

Without spinning thread of silk or of satin,
Without sewing, without embroidery either,

Without sowing, without harrowing, without reaping," etc. And it permits the following occupations, also enumerated almost verbatim in the Irish text:

"To keep corn on a high hillock,

To bring physician to a violent disease,

To send a cow to the potent bull of the herd,

To go with a beast to a cattle-fold,

Far or near be the distance,

Every creature needs attention."

Of saints, those most often mentioned in these invocations are Patrick, Brigit, with her cloak (fo brat, which the translator renders "beneath her corselet"), Columkille, whose favorite day was Thursday, Ciaran, Moluag, Oran and Adamnan.

But perhaps the most interesting of all the poems, certain to become the subject of much discussion and speculation among scholars, are the charms for bursting veins and sprains. These bear a surprising resemblance to the famous Merseburg charm, one of the very scanty pagan remains of Old High German literature. Like all old German and Anglo-Saxon charms it is introduced by a short narrative giving, as it were, an instance of its application. Such epical introduction is never found in genuine Celtic charms, so that its occurrence in these Gaelic specimens at once betrays their non-Celtic origin. In the German version the gods Wuotan (Odin) and Phol (Balder) ride to the chase, when the leg of Phol's horse is sprained. Many goddesses, and finally Wuotan himself, sing charms over it, of which this is the burden:

"Bone to bone, Blood to blood,

Limb to limb,

As though they were glued."

In the Gaelic versions it is Christ riding on an ass or horse, or St. Brigit with a pair of horses, who heal the sprained or broken leg of the animal:

"She put bone to bone,

She put flesh to flesh,

She put sinew to sinew, She put vein to vein."

As no borrowing from Old High German is to be thought of, we can only suppose that this charm has come into Gaelic either from an Anglo-Saxon or, more likely, a Norse source now lost to us.

Mr. Carmichael has enhanced the value of his collection by a literal translation and notes containing a glossary of the rarer words, as well as the most varied information on many ancient customs now rapidly disappearing. He confesses that he has been unable to render adequately the intense power and supreme beauty of the original Gaelic, a sigh which every conscientious translator of Celtic poetry will echo. We cannot conclude without expressing the wish that Mr. Carmichael may be spared to collect and publish every scrap of Highland lore which can still berescued from oblivion.-Quarterly Review, London.