Heroic Romances of Ireland | Page 8

remarkable in early
literature on account of the importance of the action of the two women
who are the heroines of this part of the tale. The action of Fand in
resigning her lover to the weaker mortal woman who has a better claim
upon him is quite modern in its tone.
The nearest parallel to the longer version of the "Sick-bed" is the
Egerton version of "Etain," which is a complete one, and makes a
stately romance. It is full of human interest, love being its keynote; it
keeps the supernatural element which is an essential to the original
legend in the background, and is of quite a different character to the
earlier Leabhar na h-Uidhri version, although there is no reason to
assume that the latter is really the more ancient in date. In the Leabbar
na h-Uidhri version of "Etain," all that relates to the love-story is told in
the baldest manner, the part which deals with the supernatural being
highly descriptive and poetic. I am inclined to believe that the
antiquarian compiler of the manuscript did here what he certainly did in
the case of the "Sick-bed of Cuchulain," and pieced together two

romances founded upon the same legend by different authors. The
opening of the story in Fairyland and the concluding part where Mider
again appears are alike both in style and feeling, while the part that
comes between is a highly condensed version of the love-story of the
Egerton manuscript, and suggests the idea of an abstract of the Egerton
version inserted into the story as originally composed, the effect being
similar to that which would be produced upon us if we had got
Aeschylus' "Choaphorae" handed down to us with a condensed version
of the dialogue between Electra and Chrysothemis out of Sophocles'
"Electra" inserted by a conscientious antiquarian who thought that
some mention of Chrysothemis was necessary. This version of the
legend, however, with its strong supernatural flavour, its insistence on
the idea of re-birth, its observation of nature, and especially the fine
poem in which Mider invites Etain to Fairyland, is a most valuable
addition to the literature, and we have to lament the gap in it owing to
the loss of a column in that part of the Leabhar na h-Uidhri manuscript
which has been preserved.
The last piece to be mentioned is the extract from the "Tain be
Cuailnge" known as the "Combat at the Ford." This seems to me the
finest specimen of old Irish work that has been preserved for us; the
brilliance of its descriptions, the appropriate changes in its metres, the
chivalry of its sentiments, and the rapidity of its action should, even if
there were nothing to stand beside it in Irish literature, give that
literature a claim to be heard: as an account of a struggle between two
friends, it is probably the finest in any literature. It has been stated
recently, no doubt upon sound authority, that the grammatical forms of
this episode show it to be late, possibly dating only to the eleventh
century. The manuscript in which it appears, however, is of the earlier
part of the twelfth century; no literary modem work other than Irish can
precede it in time; and if it is the work of an eleventh-century author, it
does seem strange that his name or the name of some one of that date
who could have written it has not been recorded, as MacLiag's name
has been as the traditional author of the eleventh-century "Wars of the
Gaedhill and the Gaill," for the names of several Irish authors of that
period axe well known, and the Early Middle Irish texts of that period
are markedly of inferior quality. Compare for example the Boromaean
Tribute which Stokes considers to take high rank among texts of that

period (Revue Celtique, xiii. p. 32). One would certainly like to believe
that this episode of the "Combat at the Ford" belongs to the best literary
period, with which upon literary grounds it seems to be most closely
connected.
But, whether this comparative lateness of the "Combat at the Ford" be
true or not, it, together with all the varied work contained in this
collection, with the possible exception of the short extract from the
Glenn Masain "Deirdre," is in the actual form that we have it, older
than the Norman Conquest of Ireland, older than the Norse Sagas. Its
manuscript authority is older than that of the Volsunga Saga; its present
form precedes the birth of Chretien de Troyes, the first considerable
name in French literature, and, in a form not much unlike that in which
we have it, it is probably centuries older than its actual manuscript date.
The whole thing stands at the very beginning of the literature of
Modern