ficulty in following Finn into the cave of Slieve Cullinn, where
the witch turned him into a withered old man, for the village where he
lives has traditions of the same kind; the love affairs of Finn, of
Dermot and Grania, and of many others, are quite in harmony with a
hundred stories, and with the temper, of Irish lovers. A closer, a
simpler humanity than that of the other cycles pervades the Fenian
cycle, a greater chivalry, a greater courtesy, and a greater
tenderness. We have left the primeval savagery behind, the
multitudinous slaughtering, the crude passions of the earlier men and
women; we are nearer to civilization, nearer to the common temper and
character of the Irish people. No one can doubt this who will compare
the _Vengeance of Mesgedra_ with the _Chase of the Gilla Dacar_.

The elaborate courtesy with which Finn and his chief warriors receive
all comers, as in the story of Vivionn the giantess, is quite new,
even medieval in its chivalry; so is the elaborate code of honour; so
also is, on the whole, the treatment of women and their relation to
men. How far this resemblance to medieval romance has been intruded
into the stories--(there are some in which there is not a trace of
it)--by the after editors and re-editors of the tales, I cannot tell,
but however that may be, their presence in the Fenian cycle is plain;
and this brings the stories into a kindlier and more pleasurable
atmosphere for modern readers than that which broods in thunderous
skies and fierce light over dreadful passions and battles thick and
bloody in the previous cycles. We are in a gentler world.

Another more modern romantic element in the Fenian legends is the
delight in hunting, and that more affectionate relation of men to
animals which always marks an advance in civilization. Hunting, as in
medieval romance, is one of the chief pleasures of the Fenians. Six
months of the year they passed in the open, getting to know every part
of the country they had to defend, and hunting through the great woods
and over the hills for their daily food and their daily delight. The
story of the _Chase of the Gilla Dacar_ tells, at its beginning, of a
great hunting and of Finn's men listening with joy to the cries of the
hunters and the loud chiding of the dogs; and many tales celebrate the
following of the stag and the wild boar from early dawn to the
evening. Then Finn's two great hounds, Bran and Sceolaun, are loved by
Finn and his men as if th