Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/351

Rh unable even to conceive of the original Achilles upon the traditions of whom his work was based, and who belonged to a totally different order of things. He could no more reproduce the original Achilles of his people's myth, than we could re-create to-day such a character as Cuchulainn or Siegfried. The change of feeling is more and deeper than the change of outward life.

's book is intended primarily to put the old Irish romances before the general reader in such a way as may command his attention and win for them his admiration Those who, like myself, love these romances, cannot but feel the deepest interest in such an attempt, beset as it is with many and great difficulties.

Up to now the English reader who has not had a specialist library at his command has only had Miss Hull's Cuchullin Saga to refer to if he wished to form a general idea of the contents and nature of the Ulster or Cuchulainn cycle. Many who wish to know something about the Irish heroic tales will doubtless turn to Lady Gregory's book. They will find a more complete representation of the cycle than is afforded by Miss Hull. Lady Gregory has embodied about a dozen tales which Miss Hull had omitted, though she has omitted four to be found in the latter's work. She has indeed included at least one (the "Togail Bruidne dá Derga," englished as "The High King of Ireland") which does not really belong to the cycle at all, the connection being obviously later and artificial, the product of a time when the Cuchulainn cycle had overshadowed and attracted to itself many originally independent stories.

It may have been necessary to the object Lady Gregory has in view to leave the requirements of the student entirely out of account. But in reviewing the book as I have to do here from the special standpoint of the student, I am bound to point out: (1) the absolute inadequacy of the bibliographical indications; (2) the fictitious air of consistency and uniformity imparted to