is the central event in the Ulster heroic cycle, and appear suited for
rapid prose recitations, which were apparently as much a feature in
ancient as they are in modern Irish. Such pieces can hardly be
reproduced in English prose so as to bring out their character; they
are represented in English by the narrative ballad, and they have been
here rendered in this way. Literal translations in prose are printed
upon the opposite page to the verse, these translations being much more
exact than the translations in the first volume, as the object in this
case is to show the literal Irish form, not its literal English
equivalent, which is in this case the verse. The "Tain bo Fraich" is
also, in a sense, a "fore-tale" to the Great Raid, but is of a
different character to the others. It consists of two parts, the
second of which is not unlike the four that have just been mentioned,
but the first part is of a much higher order, containing brilliant
descriptions, and at least one highly poetic passage although its Irish
form is prose. Fraech has been treated like the other fore-tales, and
rendered in verse with literal prose opposite to the verse for the
purpose of comparison. The notes to all the five Tana in the second
volume accompany the text; in the first volume all the notes to the
different romances are collected together, and placed at the end of the
volume. The second volume also includes a transcript from the
facsimile of that part of the Irish text of the tale of Etain which has
not before been published, together with an interlinear literal
translation. It is hoped that this arrangement may assist some who are
not Middle Irish scholars to realise what the original romances are.


The manuscript authorities for the eleven different romances (counting
as two the two versions of "Etain") are all old; seven are either in
the Leabhar na h-Uidhri, an eleventh-century manuscript, or in the Book