Book Description

A.H. Leahy's Heroic Romances of Ireland include two volumes of scholarly translations of Irish legends. Although many of the stories in these books center around cattle raids, they have numerous supernatural incidents and remnants of pre-Christian religious beliefs. The first volume contains five separate stories: the "Courtship of Etain," the "Boar of Mac Datho," the "Sick-bed of Cuchulain," the "Death of the Sons of Usnach" (Book of Leinster version), and the "Combat at the Ford" out of the Book of Leinster version of the "Tain bo Cuailnge." Two versions are given of the "Courtship of Etain "; and the "Sick-bed of Cuchulain." Volume II includes the five "Tains" or Cattle-Forays of Fraech (Tain bo Fraich), Dartaid (The Raid for Dartaid's Cattle), Regamon (The Raid for the Cattle of Regamon), Flidais (The Driving of the Cattle of Flidais), and Regamna (The Apparition of The Great Queen to Cuchulain); They are all expressly named as "fore-tales," remscela, or preludes to the story of the great war of Cualnge, which is the central event in the Ulster heroic cycle. As an appendix, this book includes the Irish text and literal translation of an incident of the Courtship of Etain, which is translated in the first volume.