of the land of the Long Beards," to recover stolen cattle, as well as
his wife," who is stated by O'Beirne Crowe, on the authority of the
"Courtship of Trebland" in the Book of Fermoy, to have been Trebland, a
semi-deity, like Fraech himself. Except that Fraech is the chief actor
in both parts, and that there is one short reference at the end of the
second part to the fact that Fraech did, as he had promised in the
first part, join Ailill and Maev upon the War of Cualnge, there is no
connection between the two stories. But the difference between the two
parts is not only in the subject-matter; the difference in the style is
even yet more apparent. The first part has, I think, the most
complicated plot of any Irish romance, it abounds in brilliant
descriptions, and, although the original is in prose, it is, in
feeling, highly poetic. The second part resembles in its simplicity
and rapid action the other "fore tales" or preludes to the War of
Cualnge contained in this volume, and is of a style represented in
English by the narrative ballad.

In spite of the various characters of the two parts, the story seems to
have been regarded as one in all the manuscripts which contain it; and
the question how these two romances came to be regarded as one story
becomes interesting. The natural hypothesis would be that the last
part was the original version, which was in its earlier part re-written
by a man of genius, possibly drawing his plot from some brief statement
that Finnabar was promised to Fraech in return for the help that he and
his recovered cattle could give in the Great War; but a difficulty,
which prevents us from regarding the second part as an original legend,
at once comes in. The second part of the story happens to contain so
many references to nations outside Ireland that its date can be pretty
well fixed. Fraech and his companions go, over the sea from Ulster,
i.e. to Scotland; then through "north Saxon-land" to the sea of Icht