the stories, and down indeed to the
present day, the Tuatha De Danaan appear in various forms, slowly
lessening in dignity and power, until they end in the fairy folk in
whom the Irish peasants still believe. They are alive and still
powerful in the third--the Fenian--cycle of stories, some of which are
contained and adorned in this book. In their continued presence is the
only connexion which exists between the three cycles. No personages of
the first save these of the gods appear in the Heroic cycle, none of
the Heroic cycle appears in the Fenian cycle. Seventeen hundred years,
according to Irish annalists, separate the first from the second, more
than two hundred years separate the second from the beginning of the
third.

The third cycle is called Fenian because its legends tell, for the
most part, of the great deeds of the Feni or Fianna, who were the
militia employed by the High King to support his supremacy, to keep
Ireland in order, to defend the country from foreign invasion. They
were, it seems, finally organized by Cormac mac Art, 227 A.D.(?) the
grandson of Conn the Hundred Fighter. But they had loosely existed
before in the time of Conn and his son Art, and like all mercenary
bodies of this kind were sometimes at war with the kings who employed
them. Finally, at the battle of Gowra, they and their power were quite
destroyed. Long before this destruction, they were led in the reign
of Cormac by Finn the son of Cumhal, and it is around Finn and Oisin
the son of Finn, that most of the romances of the Fenian cycle are
gathered. Others which tell of the battles and deeds of Conn and Art
and Cormac and Cairbre of the Liffey, Cormac's son, are more or less
linked on to the Fenians. On the whole, Finn and his warriors, each of
a distinct character, warlike skill and renown, are the main
personages of the cycle, and though Finn is not the greatest warrior,
he is their head and master because he is the wisest; and this
masterdom by knowledge is for the first time an element in Irish
stories.

If the tales of the first cycle are mythological and of the second
heroic, these are romantic. The gods have lost their dreadful, even
their savage character, and have become the Fairies, full often of
gentleness, grace, and humour. The mysterious dwelling places of the
gods in the sea, in unknown lands, in the wandering air, are now in
palaces under the green hills of Ireland, or by the banks of swift
clear rivers, like the