re cast is, in each
people, modified and varied by the animal life, the climate, the
configuration of the country, the nearness of mountain ranges and of
the sea, the existence of wide forests or vast plains, of swift rivers
and great inland waters.

The earliest tales of Ireland are crowded with the sea that wrapt the
island in its arms; and on the west and north the sea was the mighty
and mysterious Ocean, in whose far infinities lay for the Irish the
land of Immortal Youth. Between its shining shores and Ireland,
strange islands--dwelt in by dreadful or by fair and gracious
creatures, whose wonders Maeldun and Brendan visited--lay like jewels
on the green and sapphire waters. Out of this vast ocean emerged also
their fiercest enemies. Thither, beyond these islands into the
Unknown, over the waves on a fairy steed, went Oisin with Niam;
thither, in after years, sailed St Brendan, till it seemed he touched
America. In the ocean depths were fair cities and well-grassed lands
and cattle, which voyagers saw through water thin and clear. There,
too, Brian, one of the sons of Turenn, descended in his water-dress
and his crystal helmet, and found high-bosomed maidens weaving in a
shining hall. Into the land beneath the wave, Mananan, the proud god
of the sea brought Dermot and Finn and the Fianna to help him in his
wars, as is told in the story of the _Gilla Dacar_. On these western
seas, near the land, Lir's daughters, singing and floating, passed
three hundred years. On other seas, in the storm and in the freezing
sleet that trouble the dark waves of Moyle, between Antrim and the
Scottish isles, they spent another three centuries. Half the story of
the Sons of Usnach has to do with the crossing of seas and with the
coast. Even Cuchulain, who is a land hero, in one of the versions of
his death, dies fighting the sea-waves. The sound, the restlessness,
the calm, the savour and the infinite of the sea, live in a host of
these stories; and to cap all, the sea itself and Mananan its god
sympathise with the fates of Erin. When great trouble threatens
Ireland, or one of her heroes is near death, there are three huge
waves which, at three different points, rise, roaring, out of the
ocean, and roll, flooding every creek and bay and cave and river round
the whole coast with tidings of sorrow and doom. Later on, in the
Fenian tales, the sea is not so prominent. Finn and his clan are more
concerned with the land. Their work, their hu