KING

5. CORMAC SETS UP THE FIRST MILL IN ERINN

6. A PLEASANT STORY OF CORMAC'S BREHON

7. THE JUDGMENT CONCERNING CORMAC'S SWORD

8. THE DISAPPEARANCE OF CORMAC

9. DESCRIPTION OF CORMAC

10. DEATH AND BURIAL OF CORMAC

NOTES ON THE SOURCES

PRONOUNCING INDEX

ILLUSTRATIONS

"FINN HEARD FAR OFF THE FIRST NOTES OF THE FAIRY HARP" (Frontispiece)

"THERE SAT THE THREE MAIDENS WITH THE QUEEN"

"THEY MADE AN ENCAMPMENT AND THE SWANS SANG TO THEM"

"BEAR US SWIFTLY, BOAT OF MANANAN, TO THE GARDEN OF THE HESPERIDES"

"THERE DWELT THE RED-HAIRED OCEAN-NYMPHS"

"THEY ALL TROOPED OUT, LORDS AND LADIES, TO VIEW THE WEE MAN"

"FERGUS GOES DOWN INTO THE LAKE"

"A MIGHTY SHOUT OF EXULTATION AROSE FROM THE ULSTERMEN"

"THEY ROSE UP IN THE AIR"

"SHE HEARD HER OWN NAME CALLED AGAIN AND AGAIN"

"AND THAT NIGHT THERE WAS FEASTING AND JOY IN THE LONELY HUT"

"THEY RAN HIM BY HILL AND PLAIN"

"DERMOT TOOK THE HORN AND WOULD HAVE FILLED IT"

"'FOLLOW ME NOW TO THE HILL OF ALLEN'"

"THEY RODE UP TO A STATELY PALACE"

"THE WHITE STEED HAD VANISHED FROM THEIR EYES LIKE A WREATH OF MIST"

Introduction

Many years have passed by since, delivering the Inaugural Lecture of
the Irish Literary Society in London, I advocated as one of its chief
aims the recasting into modern form and in literary English of the old
Irish legends, preserving the atmosphere of the original tales as much
as possible, but clearing them from repetitions, redundant
expressions, idioms interesting in Irish but repellent in English,
and, above all, from absurdities, such as the sensational fancy of the
later editors and bards added to the simplicities of the original
tales.

Long before I spoke of this, it had been done by P.W. Joyce in his OLD
CELTIC ROMANCES, and by Standish O'Grady for the whole story of
Cuchulain, but in this case with so large an imitation of the Homeric
manner that the Celtic spirit of the story was in danger of being
lost. This was the fault I had to find with that inspiring book,[3]
but it was a fault which had its own attraction.

[3] I gave this book--_The History of Ireland_ (HEROIC
PERIOD)--to Burne-Jones in order to interest him in Irish myth
and legend. "I'll try and read it," he said. A week afterwards
he came and said--"It is a new world of thought and