present at the death of Conairey Mor, Chap. xxxiii., Vol. I.]
swine-herd, Lir and his ill-starred children, Mac Manar and his
harp shedding death from its stricken wires, Angus Og, the
beautiful, and he who was called the mighty father, Eochaidht
[Note: Ay-o-chee, written Yeoha in Vol. I.] Mac Elathan, a land
populous with those who had partaken of the feast of Goibneen, and
whom, therefore, weapons could not slay, who had eaten [Note: In
early Greek literature the province of history has been already
separated from that of poetry. The ancient bardic lore and
primaeval traditions were refined to suit the new and sensitive
poetic taste. No commentator has been able to explain the nature of
ambrosia. In the genuine bardic times, no such vague euphuism would
have been tolerated as that of Homer on this subject. The nature of
Olympian ambrosia would have been told in language as clear as that
in which Homer describes the preparation of that Pramnian bowl for
which Nestor and Machaon waited while Hecamede was grating over it
the goat's milk cheese, or that in which the Irish bards described
the ambrosia of the Tuatha De Danan, which, indeed, was no more
poetic and awe-inspiring than plain bacon prepared by Mananan from
his herd of enchanted pigs, living invisible like himself in the
plains of Tir-na-n-Og, the land of the ever-young. On the other
hand, there is a vagueness about the Feed Fia which would seem to
indicate the growth of a more awe-stricken mood in describing
things supernatural. The Faed Fia of the Greek gods has been
refined by Homer into "much darkness," which, from an artistic
point of view, one can hardly help imagining that Homer nodded as
he wrote.] at the the table of Mananan, and would never grow old,
who had invented for themselves the Faed Fia, and might not be seen
of the gross eyes of men; there steeds like Anvarr crossing the wet
sea like a firm plain; there ships whose rudder was the will, and