Foremost among the tales are the epics, which for richness and originality have no equal in western Europe. Though many of them have been published, some 300 or 400, be longing to the greater or smaller cycles, still remain inedited and =translated- They are in prose interspersed with verse and show an ex traordinary perfection in the art of narration. The Irish literati arranged them under sev eral heads, probably as an aid to the memory, such as wars, sieges, expeditions, battles, border forays, cattle-raids, exiles of heroes, great feastings and elopements. Here it will be more convenient to group them broadly according to subject and at the same time chronologically into three great cycles. The oldest and the one we know least perfectly is the Mythological Cycle, which consists chiefly of accounts of the migrations of the races or tribes who succes sively peopled Ireland. How far we have here merely a euphemizing of the old Celtic pantheon and how much, if any, is based on historical events, it would be impossible to say, for only a part of it has been preserved. To this group belong some wonderful tales of rebirth, among which the story of Bran, son of Febal, is the most famous. The best known of the three cycles is the Heroic, called also the Cycle of Ulster, or of the Red Branch. The tales be longing to it bring into view the warriors of Ulster and have at bottom the rivalry and con flict between that Province and the rest of Ire lands, especially Connacht. Though the saga element is predominant here, the background is unquestionably historical. The events narrated are supposed to have taken place at about the beginning of the Christian era. The subjects are most often of tragic interest and many of the smaller tales served as introductions to the grandest and most epic composition of them all, -the Cattle Raid of Cualnge. The out standing characteristics of style in the Irish epic tales are movement, life, relief and real istic description. The Fenian or Ossianic Cycle points to the south of Ireland as the place of its origin. It deals with Finn MacCumaill, his son Ossin (Ossian), and the other chieftains of the Fianna (Fenians), half soldiers, half hunt ers, who seem to have flourished in the 2d and 3d centuries of our era. While the two cycles previously spoken of have been handed down almost entirely in prose, the Fenian Cycle is in verse and the poems and ballads of which it is composed are on the greatest variety of sub jects and almost without number. Some of these are unmistakably imitated from stories belonging to the earlier groups, and, while many of them contain nothing historical but a few proper names, there can be no doubt of the existence of their principal characters. The most extensive text, and at the same time one of the principal sources of Ossianic poetry, is the Colloquy of the Ancients. Connected with this cycle are a large number of romantic tales which are even now alive in Gaelic Ireland and Scotland. To the comparatively smaller saga groups belong the Iomhramha or
a literary genre as well as a conception peculiar to the Celts. These voyages were undertaken by pious pilgrims who, in search of the Land of Promise or of nothing more than a place of retirement and prayer, trusted themselves in a frail bark on the ocean to the will of God. They seem to have faken place in the 6th and 7th centuries when the Irish missionary spirit was most fervent. The most famous examples are the Voyage of Saint Brendan and the Voyage of Mael Duin. There are many other interesting tales of adventure in early Irish literature. Most of them are of native origin; for others the Irish story tellers got their char acters and scenes from Greece, Norway and the Orient. Classical and mediaeval literatures also had their influence, and the imitations which the Irish made of them, such as the ver sions of the Odyssey, the taking of Troy, Theseus and the Minotaur, Philip and Alex ander, the loves of Dido and Aeneas, show what foreign books were most in vogue in Ire land. On the other hand, from the debris of the literatures of the Celts have come the in fluences which have revolutionized European art. For the Arthurian romances, the Tristan and Grail sagas and the germ of the Divina Commedia, the world is indebted in the last analysis to Irish imagination. In Ireland, as in all Celtic countries, is to be found the oldest vernacular prose and poetry and the most de veloped folklore in western Europe. Much of this has been published but it represents only a small part of the great body of tradition. The earliest annals of Ireland have not been preserved. That they existed is proved by later citations. The oldest extant are the Annals of Tigernach (died 1088), of Innisfallen, of Leinster, of Boyle, of Ulster, of Connaught, of Loch Ce, the
tremely interesting. The principal treatises are made up chiefly of texts read and decisions rendered in the Irish law schools. Most of the manuscripts on the subject date from the 16th century, but according to tradition the texts go back to the 4th and 5th centuries. The largest and most important collection is known as the 'Senchus Mar,) which deals with all possible personal relations. There are also treatises and compilations of all kinds, on medicine, phar macy and astronomy, but especially on Latin and Irish grammar and Irish metrics, both of which were favorite studies with the ancient Irish. Valuable native glossaries, such as Cormac's of the 9th century, O'Mulconry's and O'Davoren's, have been preserved; they con sist of words which had become archaic in the time of the compiler and which he explains in more modern Irish.
Early Gaelic poetry is very largely on topo graphical, geographical, historical and chrono logical subjects and of little poetic value. It is the production of the learned court poets in their official capacity as historiographers, whose business it was to praise a king or family or chronicle the death of a warrior, and it is of interest only for history proper and for the history of the Irish language. Of late years only has attention been directed to the genuine old Irish lyric poetry. This is of very high quality and shows, among other things, that in the literature of the Irish, much earlier than in the literature of any other people, the love of nature found expression. From the 17th and 18th centuries, the flourishing period of Munster poetry, to the present day, though hundreds of poems are irretrievably lost, the production has been so great that out of those poems alone could be written a history of modern Ireland.
II. Scottish Gaelic Literature.—The at tention of the world was first called to the literature of the Celts by the publication, in 1760, of some fragments of Gaelic poems, pur porting to be genuine Gaelic ballads, by the in genious Scottish Highlander, James Macpherson. His 'Fingal,' which appeared in 1762, had an extraordinary success with the great writers of France and Germany. Manuscripts containing Scottish literature are neither so old nor so numerous as the Irish and are generally pos terior to the 16th century. The oldest is the Book of Deer, a gospel-book of the 9th century in Latin but containing half a dozen words in Scottish Gaelic of the Ilth or 12th century. The Gaelic literature of Scotland is almost exclusively in verse. The prose, of which much less is known, belongs chiefly to religious litera ture, which has been extensively cultivated since the Reformation. The first printed Gaelic book was the translation, in 1567, by Bishop Carswell of John Knox's 'Prayer Book.' There are many fine collections of hymns from modern times; the most celebrated of the religious poets was Dugald Buchanan, who was born in 1710. The oldest and most precious collection of poems is known as the Book of the Dean of Lismore (James Macgregor) and is now kept in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. It was compiled in the first half of the 16th century, at the time of the transition from Irish to Scotch Gaelic, and contains some 30 Ossianic poems. The subjects treated are about the same as are found in Ireland, which is to be ex pected, since the literature of Scotland, in its earlier stages, drew its inspiration and themes from the motherland. In fact, the early poetry of the two countries is so closely intertwined that distinction is scarcely possible. Compara tively few of the Scottish tales deal with the older, or Ulster, cycle. Most of them tell of the deeds of Finn and his companions, and it is this so-called Ossianic saga cycle that has taken on a new life in the Highlands. Much of this ballad material, though appearing only in later texts, can be traced back to the 12th century or earlier. But it is not so much in compositions whose subjects were derived from the epic legends common to Ireland and Scotland that the great richness of Scottish Gaelic literature consists, as in ballads which sing of events in the history of the country or were inspired by the observa tion of nature. Only the most eminent of the surprisingly great number of poets and poetesses who flourished from the time of Mary Macleod (1650-1720) to that of our contemporary, Mary Macpherson, poets of whom any country might well be proud, can be mentioned here. Alex ander Macdonald and Duncan Ban Macintyre, both of the 18th century, are the most pleasing and may be called the real national poets of Scotland. To the same century belong Robert Mackay (Rob Donn), distinguished as a satirist, and William Ross, at his best as a poet of nature, James MacGregor and Ewan Mac Lachlan. In addition to the work of the known poets, there are great collections, such as the