AEval, of Carriglea, the fairy queen of Munster, is one of the most
important characters in the history of the battle of Clontarf, the
character of which, and of the events that preceded and followed
its occurrence, and the chieftains and warriors who fought on one
side and the other, are identical, whether described by the bard
singing, or by the monkish chronicler jotting down in plain prose
the fasti for the year. The reader of these volumes can make such
deductions as he pleases, on this account, from the bardic history
of the Red Branch, and clip the wings of the tale, so that it may
with him travel pedestrian. I know there are others, like myself,
who will not hesitate for once to let the fancy roam and luxuriate
in the larger spaces and freer airs of ancient song, nor fear that
their sanity will be imperilled by the shouting of semi-divine
heroes, and the sight of Cuculain entering battles with the Tuatha
De Danan around him.

I hope on some future occasion to examine more minutely the
character and place in literature of the Irish bardic remains, and
put forward here these general considerations, from which the
reader may presume that the Ultonian cycle, dealing as it does with
Cuculain and his contemporaries, is in the main true to the facts
of the time, and that his history, and that of the other heroes who
figure in these volumes, is, on the whole, and omitting the
marvellous, sufficiently reliable. I would ask the reader, who may
be inclined to think that the principal character is too chivalrous
and refined for the age, to peruse for himself the tale named the
"Great Breach of Murthemney." He will there, and in many other
tales and poems besides, see that the noble and pathetic interest
which attaches to his character is substantially the same as I have
represented in these volumes. But unless the student has read the