Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/348

 330 Reviews^

shalt not go out on every ninth night beyond Tara.^ Thou shalt not sleep in a house from which fireHght or any hght whatever is manifest,"- &c.

The main portion of the tale, which is full of interesting and archaic detail, need not occupy us at any length. It relates the infringement, one by one, of the tabus which bound the monarch, and his own consequent fall. As in the kindred tragedies in which the same motif is at work, Conaire, whose reign had been signalised by abundant prosperity and the love of a contented people, is unconscious of the breaking of his own tabus. He violates them in following the path of duty, and by the machinations of the elves, who had never forgiven the wedding of Etain to a mortal and who took these means to revenge themselves on her descendant. It is the inevitableness of fate that stirs us in these Irish tragedies. The remainder of the story is of more interest to the lover of old literature and to the artist than to the folklorist. It recounts the destruction by fire of the great house, or "Bruiden," in which Conaire had taken shelter after his fight with the pirates off the Hill of Howth. The terrible conflict within the burning house is pictured with a certain rough tragic grandeur that reminds readers of " Burnt Njal " of the parallel in Icelandic story. " And hardly a fugitive escaped to tell the tidings to the champions who had been at the house."

The Mabinogion. {Popular Studies, No. 12.) By Ivor B. John, M.A. D. Nutt. 6d.

Mr. John treats only of the four stories which form the true Mabinogi, and which in Lady Charlotte Guest's edition are printed with a number of tales belonging to other cycles. The main interest of these four stories lies in their close relationship, both in character and incident, to the romance of Ireland ; especially because they belong to a cycle of which, in its mythical stage, very few Irish examples remain, viz., the legends of the Tuatha De Danann (called in Welsh Uterature the Children or Tribe of Don). Many of the romances belonging to the Cuchulainn cycle, and many of the miscellaneous romances of Ireland, contain

' Probalily intended to secure attention to his kingly duties. ' Evidently a protective tabu.