Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 3 (Celtic and Slavic).djvu/43

Rh little sense of proportion and were infected by a vicious rhetorical verbosity and exaggeration. Many tales revel monotonously in war and bloodshed, and the characters are spoiled by excessive boastfulness. Yet in this later stratum the mythopoeic faculty is still at work, inasmuch as tales were written in which heroes were brought into relation with the old divinities. The main sources for the study of Irish mythology are the documents contained in such great manuscripts as the Book of Leinster and the Book of the Dun Cow (Leabhar na hUidhre),38 written in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, but based on materials of older date. Later manuscripts also contain important stories. Floating tales and traditions, fairy- and folklore, are also valuable, and much of this material has now been published.39

Among the British Celts, or those of them who escaped the influence of Roman civilization, the mythological remains are far less copious. Here, too, the euhemerizing process has been at work, but much more has the element of romance affected the old myths. They have become romantic tales arranged, as In the Mabinogion, In definite groups, and the dramatis personae are the ancient gods, though It Is difficult to say whether the Incidents are myths transformed or are fresh romantic inventions of a mythic kind. Still, the Welsh Mabinogion is of great importance, as well as some parts of Arthurian romance, the poems about Tallesin, and other fragments of Welsh literature. The euhemerizing process is still more evident in those portions of Geoffrey of Monmouth's History which tell of the names and deeds of kings who were once gods.

Thus If materials for Irish and British mythology are copious, they must be used with caution, for we cannot be certain that any one story, however old, ever existed as such In the form of a pagan myth. As the mountain-peaks of Ireland or Wales or the Western Isles are often seen dimly through an enshrouding mist, which now Is dispersed in torn wisps, and now gathers again, lending a more fantastic appearance to the shattered