the oldest romances in English literary forms that seem to correspond
to the literary forms which were used in Irish to produce the same
effect, and has been divided into two parts. The first part contains
five separate stories, all of which are told in the characteristic form
of prose and verse: they are the "Courtship of Etain," the "Boar of Mac
Datho," the "Sick-bed of Cuchulain," the "Death of the Sons of Usnach"
(Book of Leinster version), and the "Combat at the Ford" out of the
Book of Leinster version of the "Tain bo Cuailnge." Two versions are
given of the "Courtship of Etain "; and the "Sick-bed of Cuchulain," as
is pointed out in the special preface prefixed to it, really consists
of two independent versions. It was at first intended to add the
better-known version of the "Death of the Sons of Usnach" known as that
of the Glenn Masain MS., but the full translation of this has been
omitted, partly to avoid making the volume too bulky, partly because
this version is readily attainable in a literal form; an extract from
it has, however, been added to the Book of Leinster version for the
purpose of comparison. In the renderings given of these romances the
translation of the prose is nearly literal, but no attempt has been
made to follow the Irish idiom where this idiom sounds harsh in
English; actives have been altered to passive forms and the reverse,
adjectives are sometimes replaced by short sentences which give the
image better in English, pronouns, in which Irish is very rich, are
often replaced by the persons or things indicated, and common words,
like iarom, iarsin, iartain, immorro, and the like (meaning thereafter,
moreover, &c.), have been replaced by short sentences that refer back
to the events indicated by the words. Nothing has been added to the
Irish, except in the Leabhar na h-Uidhri version of "Etain," where
there is a lacuna to be filled up, and there are no omissions. The
translations of the verse and of the rhetoric are, so far as is
possible, made upon similar lines; it was at first intended to add