for the insertion, as Cuchulain is supposed to be on his sick-bed when
the exhortation is given); and both then continue the story in a quite
different form, which may be called the "Literary" form. The cause of
the sickness is not given in the Literary form, which commences with
the rousing of Cuchulain from his sick-bed, this rousing being due to
different agency from that related in the Antiquarian form, for in the
latter Cuchulain is roused by a son of the fairy king, in the former b
his wife Emer. The journey of Laeg to Fairyland is then told in the
literary form with different detail to that given in the Antiquarian
one, and the full conclusion is then supplied in this form alone; so
that we have, although in the same manuscript version, two quite
distinct forms of the original legend, the first defective at the end
of the story, the other at its beginning.

Not only are the incidents of the two forms of the story different in
many respects, but the styles are so absolutely different that it would
seem impossible to attribute them to the same author. The first is a
mere compilation by an antiquarian; it is difficult to imagine that it
was ever recited in a royal court, although the author may have had
access to a better version than his own. He inserts passages which do
not develop the interest of the story; hints at incidents (the
temporary absence of Fergus and Conall) which are not developed or
alluded to afterwards, and is a notable early example of the way in
which Irish literature can be spoiled by combining several different
independent stories into one. There is only one gem, strictly so
called, and that not of a high order; the only poetic touches occur in
the rhetoric, and, although in this there is a weird supernatural
flavour, that may have marked the original used by the compiler of this
form ' the human interest seems to be exceptionally weak.