Page:Celtic Stories by Edward Thomas.djvu/7



my gratitude to Lady Gregory, Mrs. A. W. Hutton, Dr. P. W. Joyce and Eugene O'Curry's publishers, Messrs. Williams & Norgate, for their permission to use the following books:—

Cuchulain of Muirthemne, by Augusta Gregory. (Murray.)

The Tain, by Mary Hutton. (Maunsel & Co.)

Old Celtic Romances, by P. W. Joyce. (Longmans, Green & Co.)

Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, by Eugene O'Curry. (Williams & Norgate.)

Dr. Joyce has allowed me to make an adaptation of his 'Fairy Palace of the Quicken Trees', which I have called 'The Palace of the Mountain Ash Trees'. 'The Land of Youth' is based chiefly on Professor O'Looney's rendering of a poem on Oisin in Tir-nan-oge ('Transactions of the Ossianic Society'). I have also had very great pleasure, and not a little help, in writing these Celtic tales, from reading Dr. Kuno Meyer's Ancient Irish Poetry (Constable). My debt to Lady Charlotte Guest's Mabinogion is as plain as it is huge. But those who read this book will not have read hers, while many if not all who have read mine will very soon afterward read hers: so that if I am an insolvent debtor at least I am no thief.

The spelling of some of the chief names in these stories has been changed so that English children may at once be able to pronounce them, as Uspathadden Penkower for Yspaddaden Pencawr. I hope this will give no trouble to bilingual Welsh children.

EDWARD THOMAS.