ith the Tuatha De Danaan are mythical and of
a great antiquity concerning men and women, the wisest and the best of
whom became gods, and who appear as divine beings in the cycle of
tales which follow after them They were always at war with a fierce
and savage people called Fomorians, whom they finally defeated and the
strife between them may mythically represent the ancient war between
the good and evil principles in the world.

In the next cycle we draw nearer to history, and are in the world not
of myth but of legend. It is possible that some true history may be
hidden underneath its sagas, that some of its personages may be
historical, but we cannot tell. The events are supposed to occur about
the time of the birth of Christ, and seventeen hundred years after
those of the mythical period. This is the cycle which collects its
wars and sorrows and splendours around the dominating figure of
Cuchulain, and is called the Heroic or the Red Branch or the Ultonian
cycle. Several sagas tell of the birth, the life, and the death of
Cuchulain, and among them is the longest and the most important--the
Tain--the _Cattle Raid of Cooley_.

Others are concerned with the great King Conor mac Nessa, and the most
known and beautiful of these is the sorrowful tale of Deirdre. There
are many others of the various heroes and noble women who belonged to
the courts of Conor and of his enemy Queen Maev of Connaght. The
_Carving of mac Datho's Boar_, the story of _Etain and Midir_, and the
_Vengeance of Mesgedra_, contained in this book belong to these
miscellaneous tales unconnected with the main saga of Cuchulain.

The second cycle is linked to the first, not by history or race, but
by the fact that the great personages in the first have now become the
gods who intervene in the affairs of the wars and heroes of the
second. They take part in them as the gods do in the Iliad and the
Odyssey. Lugh, the Long-Handed, the great Counsellor of the Tuatha De
Danaan, is now a god, and is the real father of Cuchulain, heals him
of his wounds in the Battle of the Ford, warns him of his coming
death, and receives him into the immortal land. The Morrigan, who
descends from the first cycle, is now the goddess of war, and is at
first the enemy and afterwards the lover of Cuchulain. Angus, The
Dagda, Mananan the sea-god, enter not only into the sagas of the
second cycle, but into those of the third, of the cycle of Finn. And
all along to the very end of