have been unknown in those early times, for no traces of it are found in the old poetry." Yet Boadicea, queen of the Iceni, committed suicide only fifty years later, to escape Roman tyranny and lust! The oldest Irish version is in a MS. written nearly 700 years ago, and the composition may be much older, yet there Deirdre unpoetically knocks out her brains, evidently because no weapon could be had. The Scotch version ends far more poetically than either Macpherson's or the Irish one.

Fergus Mac Roich and Cormac Conloingeas, son of Conchobar, who had taken the sons of Uisnech under their protection, took vengeance for the sons of Uisnech, as far as they could, and then withdrew to the court of Queen Meave. Fergus was there her chief counsellor and friend.

As

Now we come to Cuchulinn, son of Sualtam, "fortissmus heros Scotorum," as Tigernach says. Like all mythic and fairytale heroes, strange tales are told of his birth. Dechtine, sister of Conchobar, lost a foster-child of somewhat supernatural descent. On coming from the funeral she asked for a drink; she got it, and as she raised it to her lips a small insect sprang into her mouth with the drink. That night the god Luga of the Long Arms appeared to her and said that she had now conceived by him. a result, she became pregnant. As she was unmarried, the scandal was great, but a weak-minded chief named Sualtam married her. She bore a son, and he was called Setanta, and this Setanta latterly got the name of Cuchulinn. The way Setanta got the name of Cuchulinn was this. Culand the smith invited Conchobar and his train to spend a night and a day in his house, and when closing the door for the night he asked Conchabar if he expected any more of his people to come. He did not. Culand then let loose his house dog and shut the door. But the boy Setanta came late and was set on by the furious animal. A severe fight took place, but Setanta killed the animal. The smith demanded eric for the dog and Setanta offered to watch the house until a pup of that dog should grow up. This he did, and hence got the name of Cu-chulaind, the dog of Culann.

This is evidently a myth founded on a popular etymology of Cuchulinn's name, and, though a smith, always a Druidic and mythic character, is introduced, it may have no further significance. Some of his youthful exploits are told. He prayed his mother to let him go to his uncle's court among the other boys; he goes, and appears a stranger among the boys playing hurley or shinty before the castle. They all set on him and let fly all their camags" and balls at him; the balls he caught and the hurleys

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Then his war rage seized him.

he warded off. "He shut one eye till it was not wider than the eye of a needle; he opened the other till it was bigger than the mouth of a meal-goblet." He attacked the youths and set them flying every way. Conchobar recognised him and introduced him to the boys. The next thing was the choosing of arms when he was fit to bear them. Conchobar gave him first ordinary weapons, but he shivered them with a shake. Fifteensets did he so break in ever rising grade of strength. At last Conchobar gave him his own royal weapons. These he could not shiver. Fifteen war-chariots did he break by leaping into them and shaking them, until he got the king's own chariot, which withstood him. He and the charioteer then darted off, reached Meath, challenged and slew three champions, and came back again to Emania, his uncle's capital, safe and sound.

A wife had now to be got for him, and Conchobar searched all Erin for a suitable partner, but in vain. The ladies of Erin greatly loved him, as the records say "for his splendour at the feat, for the readiness of his leap, for the excellence of his wisdom, for the melodiousness of his eloquence, for the beauty of his face, for the lovingness of his countenance. For there were seven pupils in his royal eyes, four in the one and three in the other for him ; seven fingers on each of his two hands and seven on each of his two feet." And another says, after the usual profusion of colour and minutiae as to garments-"I should think it was a shower of pearls that was flung into his head. Blacker than the side of a black cooking-spit each of his two brows; redder than ruby his lips." The Highland ballad of the Chariot of Cuchulin describes him even better and certainly in true Celtic style of successive epithets. Cuchulinn himself set out for a wife, and fell in with Emer, daughter of Forgill, a "noble farmer" holding extensive lands near Dublin. "Emer had these six victories upon her," says the tale, "the victory of form, the victory of voice, the victory of melodiousness, the victory of embroidery, the victory of wisdom, the victory of chastity." Emer did not immediately accept him, though latterly she was violently in love with him. Her father would not have him at all; he did not like professional champions. He got him to leave the country to complete his military education with the celebrated lady Scathach in the Isle of Skye. Cuchulinn went to Scathach, whose school was certainly no easy one to enter or pass through. Here he learned all those wonderful featscleasa-for which he is so famous in story. His special cleas was the gae bolg or belly-dart, a mysterious weapon mysteriously used, for it could only be cast at fords on water. It was at Scat

hach's school that he fell in with Ferdia Mac Damain, the Fir-bolg champion, who was the only man that could match Cuchulinn. Their friendship was great for one another, and they swore never to oppose one another.

Aoife or Eva, daughter of Scathach, and also an amazon, fell in love with Cuchulinn, and he temporarly married her, but like those heroes, he forgot her as soon as he left her. His son by her, Conloch, was not born before he left. When Cuchulinn returned to Erin he married Emer, daughter of Forgill, taking her by force from her friends.

We now come to the great "Tain Bo Chualgne," the "queen of Celtic epics," as Kennedy says. The scene shifts to Meave's palace at Cruachan. She and Ailill have a dispute in bed one night as to the amount of property each had. They reckoned cattle, jewels, arms, cloaks, chess-boards, war-chariots, slaves, and nevertheless found their possessions exactly equal. At last Ailill recollected the famous bull Finn-beannach (white-horned), which, after having ruled Meave's herds for a while, left them in disgust, as being the property of a woman, and joined the cattle of Ailill. Much chagrin was her portion, until she recollected that Daré of Fachtna in Cualgne possessed a brown bull, Donn Chuailgne, the finest beast in all Erin. She sent Fergus Mac Roich, with a company, to ask the bull for a year, and he should then be returned with fifty heifers and a chariot worth 63 cows. Daré consented, and and lodged Meave's deputies for the night. But getting uproarious in their cups, they boasted that if Daré would not give the bull willingly, they would take it by force. This so annoyed Daré that he sent Meave's embassy back without the bull. The queen was enraged, and at once summoned her native forces, including Ferdia and his Firbolg, and invited Fergus and Cormac to join her with all their followers. This they did, but unwillingly. So the large army moved against Ulster, Meave accompanying them in her chariot a lady of large size, fair face, and yellow hair, a curiously carved spear in her hand, and her crimson cloak fastened by a golden brooch.

The people of Ulster, meanwhile, were suffering from a periodical feebleness that came upon them for a heinous crime committed by them. They were, therefore, in a condition of childish helplessness, and they could neither hold shield or throw lance.

But when Meave, at the head of her exulting troops, approached the fords which gave access to the territory of Daré, there stood Cuchulinn. He demanded single combat from the

best warriors of her army, laying injunctions on them not to pass the ford until he was overcome. The spirit and usages of the time put it out of Meave's power to refuse, and there, day after day, were severe conflicts waged between the single Ultonian champion and the best warriors of Meave, all of whom he successively vanquished. Meave even called in the aid of magic spells. One warrior was helped by demons of the air, in bird shape, but in vain, and the great magician, Cailetin and his twentyseven sons, despite their spells, also met their doom. Cuchulinn further is persecuted by the war goddess, the Morrigan, who appears in all shapes to plague him and to frighten the life of valour out of his soul. Cuchulinn is not behind in daimonic influence, for with the help of the Tuatha-De-Manannan especially-he does great havoc among Meave's troops, circling round them in his chariot, and dealing death with his sling. Meave is getting impatient; time is being lost; the Ultonians will soon revive, and Cuchulinn must be got rid off. She calls on Ferdia, the only match there exists for Cuchulinn, but he refuses to fight with his school days' friend. Nay, he would by his vows be forced to defend him against all comers. The queen plies him in every way with promises, wiles, and blandishments; he will get Findabar, her daughter, for wife, and lands and riches; and, alas! he consents, he binding himself to fight Cuchulinn, and she binding herself to fulfil her magnificent promises. Fergus goes forward to apprise Cuchulinn of what occurred, that his friend and companion, Ferdia, was coming to fight with him. "I am here," said Cuchulinn, "detaining and delaying the four great provinces of Erin, since Samhain to the beginning of Imbule (spring), and I have not yielded one foot in retreat before any one during that time, nor will I, I trust, before him." Cuchulinn's charioteer gets his chariot yoked, with the two divine horses-those mystic animals that the gods had sent for Cuchulinn, the Liath Macha "Grey of Macha," the war-goddess, and the Dub-sanglend. "And then," says the tale, "the battlefighting, dexterous, battle-winning, red-sworded hero, Cuchulinn, son of Sualtam, sprang into his chariot. And there shouted around him Bocanachs, and Bananachs, and Geniti Glindi, and demons of the air. For the Tuatha-De-Danann were used to set up shouts around him, so that the hatred and the fear and the abhorrence and the great terror of him should be greater in every battle, in every battlefield, in every combat, and in every fight into which he went."

Ferdia's charioteer, who does not wish his master to fight with

his friend, Cuchulinn, hears Cuchulinn coming thundering to the ford, and describes the sound and its meaning to Ferdia in verse, following the introductory narrative. And he was not long "until he saw something, the beautiful, flesh-seeking, four-peaked chariot, with speed, with velocity, with full cunning, with a green pavilion, with a thin-bodied, dry-bodied, high-weaponed, longspeared, warlike creit (body of the chariot); upon two fleet-bounding, large-eared, fierce, prancing, whale-bellied, broad-chested, lively-hearted, high-flanked, wide-hoofed, slender-legged, broadrumped, resolute horses under it. A gray, broad-hipped, fleet, bounding, long-maned steed under the one yoke of the chariot. A black tufty-maned, ready-going, broad-backed steed under the other yoke. Like unto a hawk (swooping) from a cliff on a day of hard wind; or like a sweeping gust of the spring wind on a March day, over a smooth plain; or like the fleetness of a wild stag on his being first started by the hounds in his first field, were Cuchulaind's two horses with the chariot, as though they were on fiery flags; so that the earth shook and trembled with the velocity of their motion."

The heroes met at the ford--Cuchulinn is always connected with ford-fighting. They fought for three days, and on the fourth the fight was terrible and the feats grand; Cuchulinn hard pressed calls for his gae-bolg-a feat which Ferdia was unacquainted with, and Cuchulinn slays him. Cuchulinn mourns over his friend's body in piteous strains, and weak with grief and wounds he leaves his place at the ford, which he had defended so long and well.

Meave now passed into Ulster, seized the Donn Chualgre, and sent it to Connaught; she ravaged Ulster to the very gates of its capital, and then began to retire. But now the spell that bound the men of Ulster was broken, they woke and pursued; a great battle was fought in which, as usual, the combatants and arms are described minutely; indeed throughout the Tain we are treated to a profusion of colour-of red or yellow hair on the warriors' heads, coloured silk leiné or blouses, mantles held by rich brooches, and finely wrought shields. The Queen was defeated, but the Donn Chualgne reached Connaught nevertheless. This wonderful animal finding himself among strange pastures, gave vent to his wonder and vexation in a serious of mighty bellows. These brought the Finnbeannach on the scene at once; they fought, the Donn overcame and raising his rival on his horns rushed homewards, leaving detached parts of the Finnbeannach here and there on his way; such as at Athlone, which signifies the ford of the loin. His rage ceased not when he reached Cualgne, but he