the
herd of which he was the head, and as the "Brown" is always represented as
accompanied by his fifty heifers, there were sufficient grounds for putting
the Brown Bull Quest in the class of Cow-spoils.

The prominence accorded to this class of stories in the early literature of
Ireland is not to be wondered at when the economic situation of the country
and the stage of civilization of which they are the faithful mirror is
borne in mind.[1] Since all wars are waged for gain, and since among the
Irish, who are still very much a nation of cattle raisers, cattle was the
chief article of wealth and measure of value,[2] so marauding expeditions
from one district into another for cattle must have been of frequent
occurrence, just as among the North American Indians tribal wars used to be
waged for the acquisition of horses. That this had been a common practice
among their kinsmen on the Continent also we learn from Caesar's account of
the Germans (and Celts?) who, he says, practised warfare not only for a
means of subsistence but also for exercising their warriors. How long-lived
the custom has been amongst the Gaelic Celts, as an occupation or as a
pastime, is evident not only from the plundering incursions or "creaghs"[3]
as they are called in the Highlands and described by Scott in _Waverley_
and _The Fair Maid of Perth_, but also from the "cattle-drives" which have
been resorted to in our own day in Ireland, though these latter had a
different motive than plunder. As has been observed by Sir Henry Sumner
Maine, Lord Macaulay was mistaken in ascribing this custom to "some native
vice of Irish character," for, as every student of ancient Ireland may
perceive, it is rather to be regarded as "a survival, an ancient and
inveterate habit" of the race.

One of these many Cattle-preys was the Tain Bo Cualnge,[4] which, there can
be little doubt, had behind it no mere myth but some kernel of actual
fact. Its historical basis is that a Connacht chieftain and his lady went
to war with Ulster about a drove of cattle. The importance of a racial
struggle between the north-east province and the remaining four grand
provinces of Ireland cannot be ascribed to it. There is, it is true, strong
evidence to show that two chief centres, political, if not cultural and
national, existed at the time of the Tain in Ireland, Cruachan Ai, near the
present Rathcroghan in Connacht, and Emain Macha, the Navan Fort, two miles
west of Armagh in Ulster,