wn material, or as Tennyson treated the
stories of the MORT D'ARTHUR, that is to say, to present it as a fresh
work of poetic imagination. In some cases, as in the story of the
Children of Lir, or that of mac Datho's Boar, or the enchanting tale
of King Iubdan and King Fergus, I have done little more than retell
the bardic legend with merely a little compression; but in others a
certain amount of reshaping has seemed desirable. The object in all
cases has been the same, to bring out as clearly as possible for
modern readers the beauty and interest which are either manifest or
implicit in the Gaelic original.

[1] CUCHULAIN, THE HOUND OF ULSTER. By Eleanor Hull.

For stories which are only found in MSS. written in the older forms of
the language, I have been largely indebted to the translations
published by various scholars. Chief among these (so far as the
present work is concerned) must be named Mr Standish Hayes
O'Grady--whose wonderful treasure-house of Gaelic legend, SILVA
GADELICA, can never be mentioned by the student of these matters
without an expression of admiration and of gratitude; Mr A.H. Leahy,
author of HEROIC ROMANCES OF IRELAND; Dr Whitly Stokes, Professor Kuno
Meyer, and M. d'Arbois de Jubainville, whose invaluable CYCLE
MYTHOLOGIQUE IRLANDAIS has been much in my hands, both in the original
and in the excellent English translation of Mr R.I. Best. Particulars
of the source of each story will be found in the Notes on the Sources
at the end of this volume. In the same place will also be found a
pronouncing-index of proper names. I have endeavoured, in the text, to
avoid or to modify any names which in their original form would baffle
the English reader, but there remain some on the pronunciation of
which he may be glad to have a little light.

The two most conspicuous figures in ancient Irish legend are
Cuchulain, who lived--if he has any historical reality--in the reign
of Conor mac Nessa immediately before the Christian era, and Finn son
of Cumhal, who appears in literature as the captain of a kind of
military order devoted to the service of the High King of Ireland
during the third century A.D. Miss Hull's volume has been named after
Cuchulain, and it is appropriate that mine should bear the name of
Finn, as it is mainly devoted to his period; though, as will be seen,
several stories belonging to other cycles of legend, which did not
fall within the scope of Miss Hull's work, have been included