Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/258

 220 Reviews.

pours the shafts out before his feet, and takes up and nocks the deadly arrow, we forget all about the petty romance of Phaiakia. So the last scene of Cuchullin's life, the tragedy of Deirdre in our cycle, the death of Oscar, the betrayal of Diarmaid in the Fenian lays, and many more, utterly rebut the reproach of lack of beauty and loftiness levelled against the old Irish literature.

Miss Hull's Chart of the Conachar-Cuchullin Cycle is very help- ful, as is also her table illustrating the Gathering of the Men of Ulster. These old catalogues of warrior contingents, such as the famous Ship Catalogue of the Iliad, the mustering of the Scandi- navian heroes that fought at Bravalla, the list of the guards of King David and Olaf Tryggwason, the description of the chiefs in Laxdgela (which are supposed to be based on a Celtic model), are not only excellent examples of true epic style, but also wonderful epitomes of history and geography, and their preservation (owing to the technical skill with which they were put together) is always a thing to be grateful for.

It may be worth while to notice a few easily corrected misprints : p. Ixiii. 26, for " Lugh " read " Laegh " ; p. Ixxi. 8, for " thunder " read "lightning," and 10, for "thunder" read "thunderbolt;" p. liv. 12, for "Spenser's Faerie Queene" read " Shakespere's Midsummer Night's Dream." It would be better to print the poem on p. 123 line for line in the verses according to metre. It would be well, even at the cost of leaving out much else, to have literal translations, however tentative, of all the poems in the Tain b6 Cuailgne.

Noteworthy are the triads that occur in the Tain, and com- parable to those which, perhaps on Irish models, occur in early Icelandic works. The Instruction of Cuchullin to his royal pupil is not unlike the Counsels in the Eastern tale of the Tomb of Nushirwan, but Counsels to Kings were a favourite form of ethical exercise among Aryans, Semites, and Turanians also, and it is but natural to find a specimen in Old Irish Literature. Note- worthy also the omens, the saws, the proverbs, the gessas, the dreams, the reasons given for the interpretation of certain place- names, the late poem in the Phantom Car of Cuchullin that gives the popular list of his feats, including great prowess in swimming far beyond even Beowulf's boasts. It is of course quite a mistake to suppose that " Kennings" (a bad name for the Irish figurative terms) were introduced from Scandinavia. It is far more likely