VOLUME V SLICE V Cat to Celt (continued 14)

We can conclude this survey of medieval Irish literature by mentioning briefly two departments of learning to which much attention was paid in Ireland. These are law and medicine. The so-called Brehon Laws (q.v.) are Law. represented as having been codified and committed to writing in the time of St Patrick. There is doubtless some grain of truth in this statement, as a fillip may have been given to this codification by the publication of the Theodosian Code, which was speedily followed by the codes of the various Teutonic tribes. The Brehon Laws were no doubt originally transmitted from teacher to pupil in the form of verse, and traces of this are to be found in the texts which have been preserved. But the Laws as we have them do not go back to the 5th century. In our texts isolated phrases or portions of phrases are given with a commentary, and this commentary is further explained by some later commentators. Kuno Meyer has pointed out that in the commentary to one text, Críth Gablach, there are linguistic forms which must go back to the 8th century, and Arbois de Jubainville, who apart from Sir Henry Maine is the only scholar who has dealt with the subject, has attempted to prove from internal evidence that part of the oldest tract, the one on Athgabáil or Seizure, cannot, in its present form, be later than the close of the 6th century. Cormac’s Glossary contains a number of quotations from the commentary to Senchus Mór, which would therefore seem to have been in existence about 900. The Irish Laws were transcribed by O’Donovan and O’Curry, and have been published with a faulty text and translation in five volumes by the government commissioners originally appointed in 1852. A number of other law tracts must have existed in early times, and several which have been preserved are still unedited. Kuno Meyer has published the Cáin Adamnáin or Adamnan’s Law from an Oxford MS. Adamnan succeeded in getting a law passed which forbade women to go into battle. An interesting but little-investigated text in prose and verse called Leabhar na gCeart or Book of Rights was edited with an English translation by O’Donovan (1847). It deals with the rights to tribute of the high-king and the various provincial kings. The text of the Book of Rights is preserved in YBL. and BB. In its present form it shows distinct traces of the influence of the Viking invasions, and cannot go back much beyond the year 1000. At one time it was incorporated in a larger work now lost, the Psalter of Cashel. We also possess a 9th-century treatise on Sunday observance (Cáin Domnaig).

The medical profession in Ireland was hereditary in a number of families, such as the O’Lees (from Irish liaig, “a leech”), the O’Hickeys (Irish icide, “the healer”), the O’Shiels, the O’Cassidys, and many others. These families each Medicine. had their own special leech-books, some of which are still preserved. In addition to these there are many others. The medical literature which has come down to us is contained in MSS. ranging from the 13th to the 18th centuries. The Irish MSS. are translations from the Latin with the invariable commentary, and they further contain additions derived from experience. YBL. contains four of these tracts, and amongst others we may mention the Book of the O’Hickeys, a translation of the Lilium Medicinae of Bernard Gordon (written 1303), the Book of the O’Lees (written in 1443), the Book of the O’Shiels, transcribed in 1657, and the Book of MacAnlega, transcribed in 1512. Of these texts only two have been published as yet from MSS. in Edinburgh. O’Curry drew up a MS. catalogue of the medical MSS. in the Royal Irish Academy, and many more are described in O’Grady’s catalogue of Irish MSS. in the British Museum. Some few MSS. deal with the subject of astronomy, but up to the present no description of the texts has been published.

With the steady advance of the English power after 1600 it was only natural that the school of bardic poets should decline. But at the beginning of the 17th century for the last time they gave a great display of their resources. Later Irish literature. Tadhg MacDaire, the ollam of the earl of Thomond, composed a poem in elaborate verse exalting the line of Eber (represented by the reigning families of Munster) at the expense of the line of Eremon (represented by the reigning families of the other provinces). In a body of verse attributed to Torna Éces (c. 400), but obviously of more recent origin, the Eremonian, Niall Noigiallach, is lavishly praised, and Tadhg’s attack takes the form of a refutation of Torna’s pretensions. The challenge was immediately taken up by Lughaidh O’Clery. The recriminations of the two bards extend to nearly 3000 lines of verse, and naturally drew down the attention of the whole Irish world of letters. Soon all the hereditary poets were engaged in the conflict, which raged for many years, and the verses of both parties were collected into a volume of about 7000 lines in debide metre, known as the Contention of the Poets. Amongst the prominent poets of the period may be mentioned Tadhg Dall O’Higinn (d. shortly before 1617) and Eochaidh O’Hussey, who between them have left behind nearly 7000 lines in the classical metres, Bonaventura O’Hussey and Ferfesa O’Cainti. The intricate classical measures gradually broke down. Dr Douglas Hyde gives it as his opinion that the exceedingly numerous metres known in Middle Irish had become restricted to a couple of dozen, and these nearly all heptasyllabic. Nevertheless they continued to be employed till into the 18th century. However, during the 17th century we find a new school arising with new principles and new methods. These consisted in (1) the adoption of vowel rhyme in place of consonantal rhyme, (2) the adoption of a certain number of accents in each line in place of a certain number of syllables. Thus, according to what we have just said, the accented syllables in a line with four accents in one line will fall on, say, the following vowels e, u, u, e, and the line rhyming with it will have the same sounds in the same or a different sequence. (For English imitations see Hyde, A Literary History of Ireland, pp. 548 ff.)

The consequences of the changed political conditions were of the greatest importance. The bards, having lost their patrons in the general upheaval, threw behind them the old classical metres and turned to the general public. At the same time they had to abandon the countless chevilles and other characteristics of the old bardic language, which were only understood by the privileged few. But to compensate for this much more freedom of expression and naturalness were possible for the first time in Irish verse. The new metres made their appearance in Ireland about 1600, and the learned Keating himself was one of the first to discard the ancient prosody. During the latter half of the 17th century and throughout the 18th century the body of verse produced in Ireland voices the sorrows and aspirations of the whole nation, and the literary activity in almost every county was correspondingly great. It is only during the last few years that the works of any of the poets of this period have been published. Pierce Ferriter was the last chieftain who held out against Cromwell’s army, and he was hanged in 1653. His poems have been edited by P.S. Dinneen (Dublin, 1903). The bard of the Williamite wars was David O’Bruadar (d. 1697-1698). From this period date three powerful satires on the state of affairs in Munster, and in particular on the Cromwellian settlers. They are of a coarse and savage nature, for which reason they have never been printed. Their titles are the Parliament of Clan Thomas, the Adventures of Clan Thomas, and the Adventures of Tadhg Dubh (by Egan O’Rahilly). A description of the parliament of Clan Thomas is given by Stern in the Zeitschr. f. celt. Phil. v. pp. 541 ff.

A little later we come across a band of Jacobite poets. The gallant figure of Charles Edward was so popular with Irish bards that a conventional stereotyped form arose in which the poet represents himself as wandering in a wood and meeting a beautiful lady. We are treated to a full description of all her charms, and the poet compares her to all the fair heroines of antiquity. But she replies that she is none of these. She is Erin seeking refuge from the insults of foreign suitors and looking for her mate. The idea of such poems is a beautiful one, but they become tedious when one has read a dozen of them only to find that there are scores of others in exactly the same strain. Besides the Visions (Aisling), as they are termed, there are several noteworthy war-songs, whilst other poems are valuable as giving a picture of the state of the country at the time. We can do no more than mention the names of John O’Neaghtan (d. c. 1720; edition of his poems by A. O’Farrelly, Dublin, 1908), Egan O’Rahilly, who flourished between 1700 and 1726; Tadhg O’Naghten, Andrew MacCurtin (d. 1479), Hugh MacCurtin, author of a grammar and part editor of O’Begley’s Dictionary; John Clárach MacDonnell (1691-1754), John O’Tuomy (d. 1775); Andrew Magrath, Tadhg Gaolach O’Sullivan (d. c. 1795), author of a well-known volume of religious poems, a valuable source of information for the Munster dialect; and Owen Roe O’Sullivan (d. 1784), the cleverest of the Jacobite poets (his verses and bons mots are still well known in Munster). These poets hailed mostly from the south, and it is chiefly the works of the Munster poets that have been preserved. Ulster and Connaught also produced a number of writers, but very little beyond the mere names has been preserved except in the case of the Connaught poet Raftery (1784-1835), whose compositions have been rescued by Hyde (Abhráin an Reachtúire, Dublin, 1903). Torlough O’Carolan (1670-1738), “the last of the bards,” was really a musician. Having become blind he was educated as a harper and won great fame. His poems, which were composed to suit his music, are mostly addressed to patrons or fair ladies. His celebrated “Ode to Whisky” is one of the finest bacchanalian songs in any language. Michael Comyn (b. c. 1688) is well known as the author of a version based upon older matter of “Ossian in the Land of Youth.” This appears to be the only bit of deliberate creation in the later Ossianic literature. Comyn also wrote a prose story called “The Adventures of Torlogh, son of Starn, and the Adventures of his Three Sons.” Brian MacGiolla Meidhre or Merriman (d. 1808) is the author of perhaps the cleverest sustained poem in the Irish language. His work, which is entitled the Midnight Court, contains about 1000 lines with four rhymes in each line. It describes a vision in which Aoibhill, queen of the Munster fairies, is holding a court. A handsome girl defends herself against an old man, and complains to the queen that in spite of all her charms she is in danger of dying unwed. Merriman’s poem, which was written in 1781, has recently been edited with a German translation by L.C. Stern (Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie, v. 193-415). Donough MacConmara (Macnamara) (d. c. 1814) is best known as the author of a famous lyric “The Fair Hills of Holy Ireland,” but he also wrote a mock epic describing his voyage to America and how the ship was chased by a French cruiser. He is carried off in a dream by the queen of the Munster fairies to Elysium, where, instead of Charon, he finds Conan, the Thersites among the Fenians, acting as ferryman (Eachtra Ghiolla an Amaráin, or The Adventures of a Luckless Fellow, edited by T. Flannery, Dublin, 1901).

During the first half of the 19th century nothing new was produced of a high order, though the peasants retained their love for poetry and continued to copy the MSS. in their possession. Then came the famine and the consequent drain of population which gave Irish the death-blow as a living literary force. The modern movement has been dealt with above in the section on Irish language.

It remains for us to glance briefly at the later religious literature and the collections of folk-tales. The translation of the New Testament made by William O’Donnell and published in 1603 was first undertaken in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, who sent over to Dublin the first fount of Irish type. Bishop Bedell, one of the very few Protestant clergymen who undertook to learn Irish, translated the remainder of the Scriptures with the help of a couple of natives, but the whole Bible was not translated and published until 1686. This version naturally never became popular, but it is a valuable source of information with regard to Modern Irish. It is perhaps of interest to note that the earliest specimen of printing in Irish is a ballad on Doomsday (Dublin, 1571). A version of the English Prayer Book was published in 1716.

The scholars of the various Irish colleges on the continent were particularly active in the production of manuals of devotion mainly translated from Latin. We can mention only a few of the more important. Sgathán an chrábhaidh (The Mirror of the Pious), published in 1626 by Florence Conry; Sgathán sacramente na h-Aithrighe (Mirror of the Sacrament of Penance), by Hugh MacCathmhaoil, published at Louvain, 1618; The Book of Christian Doctrine, by Theobald Stapleton (Brussels, 1639); Párrthas an Anma, or The Paradise of the Soul, by Anthony Gernon (Louvain, 1645); a book on Miracles, by Richard MacGilla Cody (1667); Lochrán na gcreidmheach, or Lucerna Fidelium, by Francis O’Mulloy (Louvain, 1676); O’Donlevy’s Catechism (1742). O’Gallagher, bishop of Raphoe, published a collection of sermons which went through twenty editions and are still known at the present day. He is one of the earliest writers in whom the characteristics of the speech of the north are noticeable. The only Catholic version of any considerable portion of the Scriptures up till quite recently was the translation of the Pentateuch by Archbishop MacHale, who also turned six books of the Iliad into Irish. It is only within recent years that attention has been paid to the collection of folk-songs and tales in Irish, although as long ago as 1825 Crofton Croker published three volumes of folk-lore in the south of Ireland which attracted the attention of Sir Walter Scott. Nor do the classic stories of Carleton fall within our province. We may mention among others Patrick O’Leary’s Sgeuluidheacht Chuige Mumhan (Dublin, 1895); Hyde’s Beside the Fire (London, 1890) and An Sgeuluidhe Gaedhealach, reprinted from vol. x. of the Annales de Bretagne (London, 1901); Daniel O’Fogharta’s Siamsa an Gheimhridh (Dublin, 1892); J. Lloyd’s Sgéalaidhe Óirghiall (Dublin, 1905); and Larminie’s West Irish Folk-Tales (London, 1893). The most important collections of folk-songs are Love-Songs of Connaught (Dublin, 1893) and Religious Songs of Connaught (Dublin, 1906), both published by Hyde. The most extensive collection of proverbs is the one entitled Seanfhocla Uladh by Henry Morris (Dublin, 1907). See also T. O’Donoghue, Sean-fhocail na Mumhan (Dublin, 1902).

Authorities.—In the absence of a comprehensive history, the best manual is Eleanor Hull’s Text Book of Irish Literature (2 parts, London, 1904-1908; vol. 2 contains a bibliographical appendix). D. Hyde’s larger History of Irish Literature (London, 1899) is only trustworthy as regards the more modern period. A full bibliography of all published material is contained in G. Dottin’s article “La littérature gaélique de l’Irlande” (Revue de synthèse historique, vol. iii. pp. 1 ff.). Dottin’s article has been translated into English and supplemented by Joseph Dunn under the title of The Gaelic Literature of Ireland (Washington, 1906, privately printed). The following are important works:—W. Stokes and J. Strachan, Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (2 vols., Cambridge, 1901-1903); J.H. Bernard and R. Atkinson, Liber Hymnorum (London, 1895); E. O’Curry, Lectures on the MS. Materials of Ancient Irish History (Dublin, 1873) and Lectures on the Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish (3 vols., Dublin, 1873); P.W. Joyce, A Social History of Ancient Ireland (2 vols., London, 1903); E. O’Reilly, Irish Writers (Dublin, 1820); S.H. O’Grady, Catalogue of Irish MSS. in the British Museum (London, 1901); H. d’Arbois de Jubainville, Introduction à l’étude de la littérature celtique (Paris, 1883), Essai d’un catalogue de la littérature épique de l’Irlande (Paris, 1883), L’Épopée celtique en Irlande (Paris, 1892), La Civilisation des Celtes et celle de l’épopée homérique (Paris, 1899); E. Windisch, Táin Bó Cualnge, ed. with an introd. and German trans. (Leipzig, 1905); L. Winifred Faraday, The Cattle-Raid of Cualnge (London, 1904); the Irish text according to LU. and YBL. has been published as a supplement to Ériu; Eleanor Hull, The Cuchulinn-saga (London, 1899); W. Ridgeway, “The Date of the First Shaping of the Cuchulinn Cycle,” Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. ii. (London, 1907); A. Nutt, Cuchulin, the Irish Achilles (London, 1899); H. Zimmer, “Keltische Beiträge” in Zeitschrift f. deutsches Altertum, vols. 32, 33 and 35, and “Über den compilatorischen Charakter der irischen Sagentexte in sogenannten Lebor na hUidre,” Kuhn’s Zeitschr. xxviii. pp. 417-689. We cannot here enumerate the numerous heroic texts which have been edited. For texts published before 1883 see d’Arbois’s Catalogue, and the same writer gives a complete list in Revue Celtique, vol. xxiv. pp. 237 ff. The series of Irische Texte, vols. i.-iv. (Leipzig, 1880-1901), by E. Windisch (vols. ii.-iv. in conjunction with W. Stokes), contains a number of important texts. Others, more particularly those belonging to the Ossianic cycle, are to be found in S.H. O’Grady’s Silva Gadelica (2 vols. London, 1892). See also R. Thurneysen, Sagen aus dem alten Irland (Berlin, 1901); P.W. Joyce, Old Celtic Romances (London², 1901).

For the Ossianic cycle see H. Zimmer, “Keltische Beiträge III.” in vol. 35 of the Zeitschr. f. deutsches Altertum, also Gottinger Gelehrte Anzeigen, 1887, pp. 153-199; A. Nutt, Ossian and the Ossianic Literature (London, 1899); L.C. Stern, “Die ossianischen Heldenlieder,” in Zeitschr. f. vergleichende Litteraturgeschichte for 1895, trans. by J.L. Robertson in Transactions of the Inverness Gaelic Society, vol. xxii.; J. MacNeill, Duanaire Finn (London, 1908); Book of the Dean of Lismore, ed. by T. Maclauchlan (Edinburgh, 1862), and in vol. i. of A. Cameron’s Reliquiae Celticae (Edinburgh, 1892); Transactions of the Ossianic Society (6 vols., Dublin, 1854-1861); Miss Brooke, Reliques of Ancient Irish Poetry (Dublin, 1789).

Keating’s History was translated by John O’Mahony (New York, 1866). The first part was edited with Eng. trans. by W. Halliday (Dublin,1811) and the whole work in 3 vols. for the Irish Texts Society by D. Comyn and P. Dinneen (London, 1901-1908). Comparatively few specimens have been published of the older bards. Several from a Copenhagen MS. were printed by Stern in the Zeitschr. f. celt. Phil. vol. ii.; J. Hardiman, Irish Minstrelsy (2 vols., Dublin, 1831); J.C. Mangan, The Poets and Poetry of Munster (Dublin4, no date); G. Sigerson, The Bards of the Gael and Gall (Dublin, 1906). Editions of the poems of Ferriter, Geoffrey O’Donoghue, O’Rahilly, John O’Tuomy, Andrew Magrath, John Claragh MacDonnell, Tadhg Gaolach and Owen Roe O’Sullivan by Dinneen, Gaelic League, Dublin, and Irish Texts Society, London, 1900-1903.

(E. C. Q.)

II. Scottish Gaelic Literature.—It is not until after the Forty-five that we find any great manifestation of originality in the literature of the Scottish Highlands. The reasons for this are not far to seek. Just as the dialects of Low German in the middle ages were overshadowed by the more brilliant literary dialect of the south, so Scotch Gaelic was from the outset seriously handicapped by the great activity of the professional literary class in Ireland. We may say that down to the beginning of the 18th century the literary language of the Highlands was the Gaelic of Ireland. During the dark days of the penal laws and with the extinction of the men of letters and their patrons in Ireland, an opportunity was given to the native Scottish muse to develop her powers. Another potent factor also made itself felt. After Culloden the causes of the clan feuds and animosities of the past were removed. The Highlands, perhaps for the first time in history, formed a compact whole and settled down to peace and quietude. A remarkable outburst of literary activity ensued, and the latter half of the 18th century is the period which Scottish writers love to call the golden age of Gaelic poetry. But before we attempt to deal with this period in detail, we must examine the scanty literary products of Gaelic Scotland prior to the 18th century.

The earliest document containing Gaelic matter which Scotland can claim is the Book of Deer, now preserved in the Cambridge University Library. This MS. contains portions of the Gospels in Latin written in an Irish hand with “Book of Deer.” illuminations of the well-known Irish type. At the end there occurs a colophon in Irish which is certainly as old as the 9th century. Inserted in the margins and blank spaces are later notes and memoranda partly in Latin, partly in Gaelic. The Gaelic entries were probably made between 1000 and 1150. They relate to grants of land and other privileges made from time to time to the monastery of Deer (Aberdeenshire). The most interesting portion deals with the legend of Deer and its traditional foundation by St Columba. The language of these entries shows a striking departure from the traditional orthography employed in contemporary Irish documents. The Advocates’ Library in Edinburgh contains a number of MSS. probably written in Scotland between 1400 and 1600, but with one exception the language is Irish.

The solitary exception just mentioned is the famous codex known as the Book of the Dean of Lismore. The pieces contained in this volume are written in the crabbed current Roman hand of the period, and the orthography is “Book of the Dean of Lismore.” phonetic, both of which facts render the deciphering of this valuable MS. a task of supreme difficulty. The contents of this quarto volume of 311 pages are almost entirely verse compositions collected and written down by Sir James Macgregor, dean of Lismore in Argyllshire, and his brother Duncan, between the years 1512 and 1526. A disproportionate amount of space is allotted to the compositions of well-known Irish bards such as Donnchadh Mór O’Daly (d. 1244), Muiredhach Albanach (c. 1224), Tadhg Óg O’Higgin (d. 1448), Diarmaid O’Hiffernan, Torna O’Mulconry (d. 1468). But native bards are also represented. We can mention Allan Mac Rorie, Gillie Calum Mac an Ollav, John of Knoydart, who celebrates the murder of the young lord of the isles by his Irish harper in 1490, Finlay MacNab, and Duncan Macgregor, the transcriber of the greater part of the volume. The poems of the last-mentioned writer are in praise of the Macgregors. A few other poems are by Scottish authors such as Campbell, Knight of Glenorchy (d. 1513), the earl of Argyll and Countess Isabella. A number consist of satires on women. These Scottish writers are still under the influence of Irish metric, and regularly employ the four-lined stanza. They do not appear to adhere to the stricter Irish measures, but delight rather in the freer forms going by the name of óglachas. The Irish rules for alliteration and rhyme are not rigidly observed.

The linguistic peculiarities of the Dean’s Book await investigation, but among the pieces which represent the Scottish vernacular of the day are the Ossianic Ballads. These, twenty-eight in number, extend to upwards of 2500 lines, and form by far the most important part of the collection. Thus the Dean’s Book was compiled a full hundred years before the earliest similar collection of heroic ballads was made in Ireland. In Scotland the term Ossianic is used loosely of both the Ulster and the Fenian cycles, and it may be as well to state that three of the pieces in the volume deal with Fraoch, Conlaoch and the Bloody Rout of Conall Cearnach. It is interesting to note that nine of the poems are directly attributed to Ossian, two to Ferghus File, one to Caoilte Mac Ronan, and one to Conall Cearnach, whilst others are ascribed to Allan MacRorie, Gillie Calum Mac an Ollav and Caoch O’Cluain, who are otherwise unknown. The Dean’s Book was first transcribed by Ewen MacLachlan in 1813. Thomas MacLauchlan published the text of the Ossianic ballads with modern Gaelic and English renderings in 1862. In the same volume W.F. Skene gave a useful description of the MS. and its contents. Alexander Cameron revised the text of the portion printed by MacLauchlan, and his amended text is printed in his Reliquiae Celticae, vol. i. (See also L.C. Stern, Zeitschr. f. celt. Phil. i. 294-326.)

Between the Book of the Dean and the Forty-five we find another great gap, which is only bridged over by a collection which presents many points of resemblance to Macgregor’s compilation. The Book of Fernaig, which is also written in a “Book of Fernaig.” kind of phonetic script, was compiled by Duncan Macrae of Inverinate between 1688 and 1693. The MS. contains about 4200 lines of verse of different dates and by different authors. The contents of the collection are mainly political and religious, with a few poems which are termed didactic. As in the Dean’s Book love-songs and drinking-songs are conspicuously absent, whilst the religious poetry forms about one-half of the contents. In state politics the authors are Jacobite, and in church politics Episcopalian. The Ossianic literature is represented by 36 lines. There are a number of poems by 16th-century writers, among whom is Bishop Carsewell. Mackinnon has pointed out that the language of the Book of Fernaig corresponds exactly to the dialect spoken in Kintail at the present day. The text of the Book of Fernaig is printed in its entirety in vol. ii. of Cameron’s Reliquiae Celticae, and many of the poems are to be found in standard orthography in G. Henderson’s Leabhar nan Gleann. The metres employed in the poems show the influence of the English system of versification. (See Stern, Zeitschr. f. celt. Phil. ii. pp. 566 ff.)

Two other Highland MSS. remain to be noticed. These are the Red and Black Books of Clanranald, which are largely taken up with the histories of the families of Macdonald and with the achievements of Montrose, written in the “Red and Black Books of Clanranald.” ordinary Irish of the period by the Macvurichs, hereditary bards to the Clanranald chiefs. The Red Book was obtained by Macpherson in 1760 from Neil Macvurich, nephew of the last great bard, and it figured largely in the Ossianic controversy. In addition to poems in Irish by Neil Macvurich, who died at a great age some time after 1715, and other bardic matter, the MSS. now contain only three Ossianic poems, and these are in Irish. During the Ossianic controversy the Red Book of Clanranald was supposed to contain the originals of much of Macpherson’s famous work; but, on the book coming into the hands of the enthusiastic Gaels of the closing years of the 18th century, and on its contents being examined and found wanting, the MS. was tampered with.

Mackenzie’s Beauties of Gaelic Poetry contains poems written by a number of writers who flourished towards the end of the 17th century and at the beginning of the 18th. These are Mary Macleod, John Macdonald (Iain Lom), Archibald Mary Macleod. Macdonald, Dorothy Brown, Cicely Macdonald, Iain Dubh Iain ’Ic. Ailein (b. c. 1665), the Aosdan Matheson (one of his poems was rendered in English by Sir Walter Scott under the title of “Farewell to Mackenzie, High Chief of Kintail”), Hector Maclean (also known through a translation by Scott called “War-song of Lachlan, High Chief of Maclean”), Lachlan Mackinnon, Roderick Morrison (an Clarsair Dall), and John Mackay of Gairloch, but we can here only notice the first two. The famous Mary Macleod, better known as Mairi Nighean Alastair Ruaidh (c. 1588-1693), was family bard to Sir Norman Macleod of Bernera, and later to John “Breac” Macleod of Macleod, in honour of whom most of her poems were composed. Like very many of the Highland poets Mary had little or no education, and it would seem that none of the poems which have come down to us were composed before 1660. Her pieces are composed in the modern Irish metres with the characteristic vowel rhymes of the accented syllables. As might perhaps be expected it was only the Macvurichs (the professional bards of the Clanranald) who went on practising the classical debide metre. This they still continued to do during the first quarter of the 18th century. Mary Macleod’s best-known pieces comprise a dirge on the drowning of Iain Garbh (Mac’Ille Chalum) in the Minch, a song “An Talla ’m bu ghnath le MacLeoid,” and an ode to Sir Norman Macleod of Bernera, produced during her exile in Mull, which begins “’S mi’m shuidhe air an tulaich.” For the details of her career, which are the subject of some dispute, the reader may be referred to a paper by Alexander Mackenzie in the Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, vol. xxii. pp. 43-66. Mary Macleod is accounted one of the most musical and original of the Highland bards.

John Macdonald, better known as Iain Lom (d. c. 1710), was a vigorous political poet whose verses exercised an extraordinary influence during his lifetime. He is said to have received a yearly pension from Charles II. for his “Iain Lom.” services to the Stuart cause. His best-known poems are Mort na Ceapach, on the murder of the heir of Keppoch, who was eventually avenged through the poet’s efforts, and a piece on the battle of Inverlochay (1645). However great the inspiration of Mary Macleod and Iain Lorn, they were after all but political or family bards. In succession to them there arose a small band of men with loftier thoughts, a wider outlook and greater art. The literature of the Scottish Highlands culminates in the names of Alexander Macdonald, Duncan Ban MacIntyre and Dugald Buchanan.

Alexander Macdonald, commonly called Alasdair MacMaighstir Alasdair (b. c. 1700), was the son of an Episcopalian clergyman in Moidart. He was sent to Glasgow University to fit himself for a professional career. But an imprudent Alexander Macdonald. marriage caused him to abandon his studies, and about 1729 he received an appointment as a Presbyterian teacher in his native district. He was moved from place to place, and from 1739 to 1745 he taught at Corryvullin on the Sound of Mull, the scene of some of his most beautiful lyrics. About 1740 he was invited to compile a Gaelic vocabulary, which was published in 1741. Macdonald has thus the double distinction of being the author of the first book printed in Scotch Gaelic and of being the father of Highland lexicography. The news of the landing of the Pretender brought visions of release to the poverty-stricken poet, who was by this time heartily sick of teaching and farming. He turned Roman Catholic, and was present at the unfurling of the Stuart standard. He was given the rank of captain, but rendered greater services to the Jacobite cause with his stirring poems than with the sword. After Culloden he suffered great privations. But in 1751 he visited Edinburgh and brought out a collection of his poetry, which has the honour of being the first original work printed in Scotch Gaelic. His volume was therefore entitled Ais-eiridh na Seann Chanain Albannaich (Resurrection of the Ancient Scottish Tongue). Till the day of his death he led a more or less wandering life, as he was dependent on the generosity of Clanranald. Only a small part of Macdonald’s compositions have been preserved (thirty-one in all). These naturally fall into three groups—love-songs, descriptive poems and patriotic and Jacobite poems. In his love-songs and descriptive poems Macdonald struck an entirely new note in Gaelic literature. His Moladh Mòraig and Cuachag an Fhasaich (also called A’Bhanarach Dhonn) are his best-known compositions in the amatory style. But he is distinctly at his best in the descriptive poems. We have already seen that even as early as the 8th century the poets of Ireland gave expression to that intimate love of nature which is perhaps the most striking feature in Celtic verse. Macdonald had a wonderful command of his native Gaelic. His verse is always musical, and his skilful use of epithet, often very lavishly strewn, enables him to express with marvellous effect the various aspects of nature in her gentler and sterner moods alike. His masterpiece, the Birlinn of Clanranald, which is at the same time, apart from Ossianic ballads, the longest poem in the language, describes a voyage from South Uist to Carrickfergus. Here Macdonald excels in describing the movement of the ship and the fury of the storm. In Allt an t-Siucair (The Sugar Brook) we are given an exquisite picture of a beautiful scene in the country on a summer morning. Other similar poems full of melody and colour are Failte na Mòr-thir (Hail to the Mainland), Oran an t-Samhraidh (Ode to Summer), and Oran an Gheamhraidh (Ode to Winter). When this gifted son of the muses identified himself with the Stuart cause he poured forth a stream of inspiring songs which have earned for him the title of the Tyrtaeus of the Rebellion. Among these we may mention Oran nam Fineachan Gaelach (The Song of the Clans), Brosnachadh nam Fineachan gaidhealach (A Call to the Highland Clans), and various songs to the prince. But incomparably the finest of all is Oran Luaighe no Fucaidh (Waulking Song). Here the prince is addressed as a young girl with flowing locks of yellow hair on her shoulders, and called Morag. She had gone away over the seas, and the poet invokes her to return with a party of maidens (i.e. soldiers) to dress the red cloth, in other words, to beat the English red-coats. The song contains forty-seven stanzas in all, with the characteristic refrain of the waulking-songs. Am Breacan Uallach is a spirited poem in praise of the kilt and plaid, which had been forbidden by the English government. Macdonald is also the author of a number of poems in MS. which have been called the quintessence of indecency. His works have gone through eight editions, the last of which is dated 1892.

In connexion with Macdonald’s Jacobite songs it will be well to mention here the name of a kindred spirit, John Roy Stuart (Iain Ruadh Stiubhart). Stuart was a gallant soldier who was serving in Flanders with the French against the English when the rebellion broke out. He hurried home and distinguished himself on the field of battle. After Culloden he gave vent to his dejection in two pathetic songs, one on the battle itself, while the other deals with the sad lot of the Gael.

The only poet of nature who can claim to rival Macdonald is a man of a totally different stamp. Duncan Bàn Maclntyre (Donnachadh Bàn, 1724-1812) was born of poor parents in Glenorchy, and never learned to read and Duncan Bàn. write or to speak English. He was present on the English side at the battle of Falkirk, on which he wrote a famous ode, and shortly afterwards he was appointed gamekeeper to the earl of Breadalbane in Coire Cheathaich and Ben Dorain, where he lived for many years until he accepted a similar appointment from the duke of Argyll in Buachaill-Eite. Stewart of Luss is credited with having taken down the 6000 lines of verse of his own composition which MacIntyre had carried about with him for many years, and his works were published in 1768. In his later years he was first a volunteer and afterwards a member of the city guard in Edinburgh. In addition to his poems descriptive of nature MacIntyre composed a number of Jacobite martial songs, songs of love and sentiment, and comic and satiric pieces. The poem Mairi bhàn òg addressed to his wife is, on account of its grace and delicate sentiment, generally held to be the finest love-song in the language. But it is above all as the poet of ben and corrie that MacIntyre is remembered. He has been called the Burns of the Highlands, but the bitterness and intellectual power of the Ayrshire poet are absent in MacIntyre. Duncan Bàn describes fondly and tenderly the glories of his native mountains as only one can who spends his life in daily communion with them. His two great compositions are styled Ben Dorain and Coire Cheathaich. The former is a long poem of 550 lines divided into eight parts, alternating with a sort of strophe and antistrophe, one slow called urlar in stately trochees, the other swift called siubhal in a kind of galloping anapaests; the whole ending with the crunluath or final quick motion. It is said to follow very accurately the lilt of a pipe-tune. The poem, which might be called the “Song of the Deer,” has been well done into English by J. S. Blackie. Coire Cheathaich (The Misty Corrie), a much shorter poem than Ben Dorain, gives a loving description of all the prominent features in the landscape—the flowers, the bushes, the stones, the hillocks with the birds and game, and the whirling eddies with the glistening salmon. MacIntyre’s works went through three editions in his lifetime, and a twelfth was issued in 1901.

From Duncan Bàn we pass on to consider the compositions of two men who hailed from the outlying parts of Gaeldom. Robert Mackay, or, as he is generally called, Rob Donn (1714-1778), was a native of Strathmore, Sutherlandshire, Rob Donn. who, like Duncan Bàn, never learned to read or write. His life, which was uneventful, was spent almost entirely within the confines of the county of his birth. He left behind a large number of poems which may be roughly classified as elegiac, love and satiric poems. His elegies are of the typical Highland kind. The singer is overwhelmed with sadness and despairing in his loss. His best-known composition in this style is “The Death-Song of Hugh.” Having just heard of the death of Pelham, the prime minister, Mackay finds a poor friend of his dying alone amid squalor in the heart of the mountains. In a poem composed on the spot the poet contrasts the positions of the two men and reflects on the vanity of human existence. Among his love-poems the “Shieling Song” is deservedly famous. But it was above all as a satirist that Mackay excelled during his lifetime. Indeed he seems to have had the sharpest tongue of all the Highland bards. We have already seen what powers were attributed to satirical poets in Ireland in medieval times, and though bodily disfigurements were no longer feared in the 18th century, nothing was more dreaded, both in Ireland and Scotland, than the lash of the bard. Hence many of Rob Donn’s compositions have lost their point, and opinions have been greatly divided as to his merits as a poet. His collected poems were first published in 1829, a second edition appeared in 1871, and in 1899 two new editions were issued simultaneously, the one by Hew Morrison, the other by Adam Gunn and Malcolm Macfarlane. Another satirical poet who enjoyed a tremendous John MacCodrum. reputation in his own day was John MacCodrum, a native of North Uist and a contemporary of the men just mentioned. It is related of MacCodrum that the tailors of the Long Island refused to make any clothes for him in consequence of a satire he had directed against them. He was encountered in a ragged state by the Macdonald, who on learning the cause of his sorry condition promoted him to the dignity of bard to his family. Consequently a number of his compositions are addressed to his patrons, but one delightful poem entitled Smeòrach Chlann-Domhnuill (The Mavis of Clan Donald) describes in verses full of melody the beauties of his beloved island home.

In the lyrical outburst which followed the Forty-five it was only to be expected that religious poetry should be represented. We have seen that much of the space in the Dean’s Book and in the Book of Fernaig is allotted to verse of a pious order, though apart from the works of such Irish singers as Donnchadh O’Daly the poems do not reach a very high pitch of excellence. The first religious poem to be printed in Scotch Gaelic was a long hymn by David Mackellar, published in 1752. But incomparably the greatest writer of hymns and sacred poems is Dugald Buchanan (1716-1768). Buchanan was born in Strathyre in Perthshire and was the son of a miller. He Dugald Buchanan. received a desultory kind of education and tried his hand at various trades. In 1753 he was appointed schoolmaster at Drumcastle near Kinloch Rannoch. He was selected to assist Stewart of Killin in preparing the first Highland version of the New Testament for the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge (published 1767), and at the same time he issued an edition of his own poems. Of all Gaelic books this has been far and away the most popular, having gone through no less than forty editions. Buchanan seems to have been very susceptible to religious influences, and the stern Puritan doctrines of retribution and eternal damnation preached around him so worked on his mind that from his ninth to his twenty-sixth year he was a prey to that mental anguish so eloquently described by Bunyan. The awful visions which presented themselves to his vivid imagination find expression in his poems, the most notable of which are “The Majesty of God,” “The Dream,” “The Sufferings of Christ,” “The Day of Judgment,” “The Hero,” “The Skull,” “Winter” and “Prayer.” In the “Day of Judgment,” a poem of about 120 stanzas, we are given in sublime verses a vivid delineation of the crack of doom as the archangel sounds the last trumpet. The poet then goes on to depict the awful scenes consequent upon the wreck of the elements, and pictures the gathering together of the whole human race before the Throne. But Buchanan’s masterpiece is admittedly “The Skull.” Traces of the influence of English writers have been observed in all the poet’s writings, and it seems certain that the subject of his greatest poem was suggested by Shakespeare. The poet seated by a grave espies a skull. He takes it up and muses on its history. This poem in 44 stanzas concludes with a picture of the torments of hell and the glories of heaven.

The writers whom we have been discussing are practically unknown save to those who are able to read them in the original. Now we have to turn our attention to a man whose works have never been popular in the Highlands, but Macpherson’s “Ossian.” who nevertheless plays a prominent part in the history of European literature. Though the precise origin of the Fenian cycle may remain a moot-point to all time, the development of the literature centring in the names of Finn and Ossian is at any rate clear from the 11th century onwards. The interest taken in Celtic studies since the middle of the 19th century in Ireland and Scotland and elsewhere has accumulated a body of evidence which has settled for all time the celebrated dispute as to the authenticity of Macpherson’s Ossian. James Macpherson (1736-1796), a native of Kingussie, showed a turn for versification whilst yet a student at college. Whilst acting as tutor at Moffat he was asked by John Home as to the existence of ancient Gaelic literature in the Highlands. After some pressing Macpherson undertook to translate some of the more striking poems, and submitted to Home a rendering of “The Death of Oscar.” Blair, Ferguson and Robertson, the foremost men in the Edinburgh literary circles of the day, were enthusiastic about the unearthing of such unsuspected treasures, and at their instance Macpherson published anonymously in 1760 his Fragments of Ancient Poetry, collected in the Highlands of Scotland and translated from the Gaelic or Erse Language. This publication contained in all fifteen translations, preceded by a preface from the pen of Blair. Published under such auspices, Macpherson’s venture was bound to succeed. In the preface it was stated that among other ancient poems an epic of considerable length existed in Gaelic, and that if sufficient encouragement were forthcoming the author of the versions would undertake to recover and translate the same. A subscription was raised at once, and Macpherson set out on a journey of exploration in the Highlands and islands. As the result of this tour, on which he was accompanied by two or three competent Gaelic scholars, Macpherson published in London in 1762 a large quarto containing his epic styled Fingal with fifteen other smaller poems. In the following year a still larger epic appeared with the title of Temora. It was in eight books, and contained a number of notes in addition to Cath-Loda and other pieces, along with the seventh book of Temora in Gaelic as a specimen of the original. Ten years later a new edition of the whole was issued. The authenticity of Macpherson’s translations was soon impugned by Dr Johnson, Hume and Malcolm Laing, and the author was urged by his friends to publish the originals. Macpherson prevaricated, even though the Highlanders of India sent him a cheque for £1000 to enable him to vindicate the antiquity of their native literature. Macpherson at different times, and particularly towards the end of his life, seems to have had some intention of publishing the Gaelic of his Ossian, but he was naturally deterred by the feeling that his knowledge of Gaelic was becoming shakier with his continued absence from the Highlands. At any rate he left behind a quantity of Gaelic matter in MS. which was ultimately published by the Highland Society of London in 1807. This MS., however, was revised and transcribed by Ross and afterwards destroyed, so that we are ignorant of its nature. The Highland Society also instituted an inquiry into the whole question, but their conclusions were somewhat negative. They succeeded in establishing that the characters introduced by Macpherson were familiar in the Highlands and that Ossianic ballads really existed, which Macpherson had utilized. Macpherson’s claims still found ardent advocates, such as Clark, in the ’seventies, but the question was finally disposed of in papers by Alexander Macbain (1885) and L.C. Stern (1895). We can here only summarize briefly the main lines of argument. (1) Macpherson’s Ossian is full of reminiscences of Homer, Milton and the Hebrew prophets. (2) He confuses the Ulster and the Fenian heroic cycles in unpardonable fashion. (3) The Gaelic text of 1807 only represents one-half of the English versions (11 poems out of 22 poems). Some Gaelic fragments from different pens appeared prior to 1807, but these differ considerably from the “official” version. (4) In the Gaelic text of 1807 the version of the passage from Temora is quite different from that published in 1763. (5) Macpherson’s Gaelic is full of offences against idiom and unnaturally strained language. (6) The names Morven and Selma are entirely of his own invention (see also Macpherson, James). As a result of the stir caused by Macpherson’s work a number of men set about collecting the genuine popular literature of the Highlands. A few years before the appearance of Fingal, Jeremy Stone, a schoolmaster at Dunkeld, had collected ten Ossianic ballads and published one of them in an English versified translation. For this collection see a paper by D. Mackinnon in the Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, vol. xiv. pp. 314 ff. Unfortunately other persons were led to follow Macpherson’s example. The chief of these imitators were (1) John Clark, who in 1778 published, along with several others, an English poem Mordubh, later translated into Gaelic by Gillies; (2) R. Macdonald, son of Alexander Macdonald, who is the author of The Wish of the Aged Bard; (3) John Smith of Campbeltown (d. 1807), author of fourteen Ossianic poems styled Seandàna, published in English in 1780 and in Gaelic in 1787; (4) D. MacCallum of Arisaig, who in 1821 published Collath and a complete Mordubh “by an ancient bard Fonar.”

We have now reviewed in turn the greatest writers of the Scottish Highlands. The men we have dealt with created a kind of tradition which others have attempted to carry on. Ewen Maclachlan (1775-1822), the first transcriber of Later poets. the Dean’s Book, was assistant librarian of King’s College and rector of the grammar school of Aberdeen. Amongst other things he translated the greater part of seven books of Homer’s Iliad into Gaelic heroic verse, and he also had a large share in the compilation of the Gaelic-English part of the Highland Society’s Dictionary. A number of Gaelic poems were published by him in 1816. These consist of poems of nature, e.g. Dàin nan Aimsirean, Dàn mu chonaltradh, Smeòrach Chloinn-Lachuinn, and of a well-known love-song, the Ealaidh Ghaoil. William Ross (1762-1790), a schoolmaster at Gairloch, is the typical Highland poet of the tender passion, and he is commonly represented as having gone to an early grave in consequence of unrequited affection. His finest compositions are Feasgar Luain and Moladh na h-òighe Gaelich. Another exquisite song Cuachag nan Craobh, is usually attributed to this poet, but it seems to go back to the beginning of the 18th century. A fifth edition of Ross’s poems appeared in 1902. The most popular writer of sacred poems after Buchanan is undoubtedly Peter Grant, a Baptist minister in Strathspey, whose Dàin Spioradail (first published in 1809) reached a twentieth edition in 1904, Sweetness, grace and simplicity are the characteristics which have endeared him to the heart of the Gael. Two other well-known hymn-writers spent their lives in Nova Scotia—James Macgregor (1759-1830) and John Maclean, a native of Tiree. The compositions of the latter have been published under the title Clarsach na Coille (Glasgow, 1881). But John Morrison (1790-1852), the poet-blacksmith of Rodel, Harris, is the most worthy of the name of successor to Buchanan. His works have been carefully edited in two volumes by George Henderson (2nd edition, 1896). His poems are remarkably musical and imaginative. Two of the most characteristic are An Iondruinn and Tha duin’ òg agus seann duìn’ agam. William Livingston or MacDhunleibhe (1808-1870) was a native of Islay. He received scarcely any education, and was apprenticed as a tailor, but he early made his way to the mainland. He was ever a fierce Anglophobe, and did his best to make up for the deficiencies of his early training. He published in English a Vindication of the Celtic Character, and attempted to issue a History of Scotland in parts. His poems, which have been at least twice published (1858, 1882), are equally powerful in the expression of ruthless fierceness and tearful sorrow. In Fios thun a’ Bhaird he sings pathetically of the passing of the older order in Islay, and another powerful poem entitled Duan Geall deals with the campaign of the Highlanders under Sir Colin Campbell in the Crimea. Livingston’s contemporary, Evan Maccoll (1808-1898), the son of a small farmer on Lochfyneside, in his early years devoured eagerly all the English literature and Gaelic lore that came in his way. In 1836 he issued a volume of songs called the Mountain Minstrel, containing his productions in Gaelic and English. Two years later two volumes appeared, one entirely in Gaelic, styled Clarsach nam Beann, the other in English under the old title. A third edition of the Gaelic collection was published in 1886. Maccoll acted for many years as clerk in the custom-house at Liverpool, and afterwards he filled a similar post at Kingston, Canada. He has been called the Moore of Highland song. His spirit is altogether modern, and his poems are much nearer the Lowland type than those of the older bards. Among his best-known pieces are Bàs Mairi and Duanag Ghaoil. We can do no more than mention the names of John Maclachlan of Rahoy (1804-1874), James Munro (1794-1870), well known as a grammarian, Dugald Macphail (b. 1818), Mrs Mary Macpherson, Angus Macdonald (1804-1874), Mrs Mary Mackellar (1834-1890) and Neil Macleod (b. 1843), author of a popular collection Clarsach an Doire (1st ed., 1883; 3rd ed., 1904). Neil Macleod is also the writer of the popular song An Gleann’s an robh mi òg. Others whom we cannot mention here are known as the authors of one or more songs which have become popular. It is natural to compare the state of affairs at the beginning of the 20th century with that obtaining in 1800. In the dawn of the 19th century every district in the Highlands had its native poet, whilst a century later not a single Gaelic bard of known reputation existed anywhere within its borders. It is only too evident that the new writers prefer English to Gaelic as a medium of literature, partly because they know it better, but also because in it they appeal to a far wider public.

It will have been observed that we have said nothing about prose works written in Gaelic. Original Gaelic prose is conspicuous by its absence. The first printed work is the translation of Knox’s Liturgy by Bishop Carsewell, Prose writers. published in 1567 (reprinted in 1873). Calvin’s Catechism is said to have been issued in 1631. The Psalms and Shorter Catechism appeared in 1659, while two other psalters saw the light before the end of the century, one by Kirke (1684), the other issued by the Synod of Argyll (1694). The language of all these publications may, however, be termed Irish. Apart from reprints of the catechism and psalter, the only other Gaelic matter which appeared in print before 1750 were Kirke’s Irish version of the Bible in Roman type with a vocabulary (1690), and the Vocabulary by Alexander Macdonald (1741). But from the middle of the 18th century translations of the works of English religious writers streamed from the various presses. Alleine, Baxter, Boston, Bunyan, Doddridge and Jonathan Edwards were all prime favourites, and their works have gone through many editions. Apart from a well-meant but wholly inadequate version of Schiller’s Tell, the only non-religious work which can be termed literature existing in a Gaelic translation is a portion of the Arabian Nights, though fragments of other classics such as Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare have appeared in magazines. The one-sided character of Gaelic literature, in addition to exercising a baneful influence on Highland character, has in the long run of necessity proved adverse to the vitality of the language. The best standard of Gaelic is by common consent the language of the Scriptures. James Stewart of Killin’s version of the New Testament, published by the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge, was followed by a translation of the Old Testament in four parts (1783-1801), the work of John Stewart of Luss and John Smith of Campbeltown. The whole Gaelic Bible saw the light in 1807. But the revision of 1826 is regarded as standard. The translators and revisers had no norm to follow, and it is difficult to say how far they were influenced by Irish tradition. Much in the Gaelic version seems to savour of Irish idiom, and it is a pity that some competent scholar such as Henderson has not investigated the question. Of original prose works we can mention two. The one is a History of the Forty-five (Eachdraidh a’ Phrionnsa, no Bliadhna Thearlaich), published in 1845 by John Mackenzie, the compiler of the Beauties of Gaelic Poetry (1806-1848). A second edition of this book appeared in 1906. The other is the more famous Caraid nan Gaedheal, by Norman Macleod (new edition, 1899). This volume consists mainly of a number of dialogues dealing with various departments of Highland life, which were originally contributed to various magazines from 1829 to 1848. Macleod’s style is racy and elegant, and his work is deservedly popular.

In conclusion we must take notice of the more important collections of folklore. Gaelic, like Irish, is extraordinarily rich in proverbs. The first collection of Gaelic proverbs was published in 1785 by Donald Macintosh. This work was supplemented and enlarged in 1881 by Alexander Nicolson, whose book contains no fewer than 3900 short sayings. A large collection of Gaelic folk-tales was gleaned and published by J.F. Campbell under the title of Popular Tales of the West Highlands (4 vols., Edinburgh, 1862). Alexander Carmichael published a version of the Táin Bó Calnge, called Toirioc na Táine, which he collected in South Uist (Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, ii. 25-42), also the story of Deirdre and the sons of Uisneach in prose taken down in Barra (ib. xiii. 241-257). Five volumes of popular stories, collected by J.G. Campbell, D. MacInnes, J. Macdougall and Lord Archibald Campbell, have been published (1889-1895) by Nutt under the title Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition. These collections contain a good deal of matter pertaining to the old heroic cycles. Seven ballads dealing with the Ulster cycle were collected and printed by Hector Maclean under the title Ultonian Hero-ballads (Glasgow, 1892). Macpherson gave a fillip to collectors of Ossianic lore, and a number of MSS. going back to his time are deposited in the Advocates’ Library at Edinburgh. J.F. Campbell spent twelve years searching for variants, and his results were published in his Leabhar na Feinne (1872). This volume contains 54,000 lines of heroic verse. The Edinburgh MSS. were transcribed by Alexander Cameron, and published after his death by Alexander Macbain and John Kennedy in his Reliquiae Celticae. This work is therefore a complete corpus of Gaelic heroic verse. Finally the charms and incantations of the Highlands have been collected and published by Alexander Carmichael in two sumptuous volumes under the title Carmina Gadelica (1900).

Authorities.—The standard work is Magnus Maclean, The Literature of the Highlands (London, 1904); see also various chapters in the same writer’s Literature of the Celts (London, 1902); L.C. Stern, Die Kultur der Gegenwart, i. xi. 1, pp. 98-109; Nigel MacNeill, The Literature of the Highlanders (Inverness, 1892); J.S. Blackie, The Language and Literature of the Scottish Highlands (Edinburgh, 1876); P.T. Pattison, Gaelic Bards (1890); L. Macbean, Songs and Hymns of the Scottish Highlands (Edinburgh, 1888); John Mackenzie, Sàrobair nam Bàrd Gaelach, or The Beauties of Gaelic Poetry (new ed., Edinburgh, 1904); A. Sinclair, An t-Oranaiche (Glasgow, 1879); The Book of Deer, edited for the Spalding Club by Dr Stuart (1869); Alexander Macbain, Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, vols. xi. and xii.; The Book of the Dean of Lismore, edited by T. Maclauchlan (1862); Alexander Cameron, Reliquiae Celticae (Inverness, 1892-1894); John Reid, Bibliotheca Scoto-Celtica (Glasgow, 1832); Catalogue of the books in the Celtic department, Aberdeen University Library (1897); George Henderson, Leabhar nan Gleann (Inverness, 1898); D. Mackinnon, “The Fernaig MS.” in Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, xi. 311-339; J.S. Smart, James Macpherson, An Episode in Literature (London, 1905); L.C. Stern, “Die Ossianischen Heldenlieder” in Zeitschrift für vergleichende Litteraturgeschichte (1895), translated by J.L. Robertson in Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, xxv. 257-325; G. Dottin, Revue de synthèse historique, viii. 79-91; M.C. Macleod, Modern Gaelic Bards (Stirling, 1908).

(E. C. Q.)

III. Manx Literature.—The literary remains written in the Manx language are much slighter than those of any other Celtic dialect. With one small exception nothing pertaining to the saga literature of Ireland has been preserved. The little we possess naturally falls under two heads—original compositions and translations. With regard to the first category we must give the place of honour to an Ossianic poem contained in a MS. in the British Museum (written in 1789), which relates how Orree, Finn’s enemy, was tormented by the women of Finn’s household when the latter was away hunting, how he in revenge set fire to the house, and how Finn had him torn in pieces by wild horses. Most of the existing literature of native origin, however, consists of ballads and carols, locally called carvels. These used to be sung on Christmas eve in the churches, the members of the congregation each bringing a candle. Any one who pleased could get up and sing one. These carvels deal largely with the end of the world, the judgment-day and the horrors of hell. About eighty of them were published under the title of Carvalyn Gailckagh (Douglas, 1891). An attempt is being made by Yn Cheshaght Gailckagh to revive the Oiel Voirrey (=Irish Oidhche Fhéile Mhuire), “the feast of Mary,” as the festival used to be called, and gatherings in the old style have been held in Peel for the last two or three years. Apart from the carvels there are other ballads in existence, the most important of which were printed in vol. xvi. of the Publications of the Manx Society. The earliest is an 18th-century song of Manannan Mac y Lheir, traditionally supposed to have been written in the 16th century, and which tells of the conversion of the island by St Patrick. Then comes Baase Ittiam Dhône (The Death of Brown William), dealing with the death of William Christian, who was shot as a traitor in 1662. The best-known Manx song is Mylecharaine (= Irish Maolchiarán). It is directed against a man of this name who was the first to give a dowry to his daughter, the custom having previously been for the bridegroom to pay money to the father of the bride. Others are Ny Kirree fo Sniaghtey (The Sheep under the Snow), a song about the loss of the Douglas herring fleet in 1787 (reprinted at Douglas, 1872), and O Vannin Veg Veen (Dear little Mona). A further ballad was taken down by J. Strachan and is published in the Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie, i. 79. In 1760 Joseph Bridson wrote a “Short Account of the Isle of Man” in Manx (Coontey Ghiare jeh Ellan Vannin ayns Gailck), which was reprinted in vol. xx. of the Publications of the Manx Society. The translated literature is almost entirely of a religious character. Jenner prints a list of twenty-three volumes in his article referred to below, but we can only here mention the most important. The first is the translation of the English Prayer-Book by Bishop Phillips, 1610 (published by A.W. Moore, Oxford, 1895). The Sermons of Bishop Wilson in 3 vols. (1783) are a very rare work, highly important for our knowledge of Manx prose, and it is to be hoped that Yn Cheshaght Gailckagh will see their way to reprint it. A translation of parts of Milton’s Paradise Lost (Pargys Caillit) by Thomas Christian, 1796, is reprinted in vol. xx. of the Publications of the Manx Society. The later translation of the Church of England Prayer-Book was printed in 1765 and again in 1777 and 1840. But by far the most important of all is the translation of the Bible. The energetic Bishop Wilson managed to get parts of the Scriptures translated and the Gospel of St Matthew was printed in 1748. Wilson’s successor, Bishop Hildesley, completed the work, and in 1775 the whole Bible appeared. The last reprint of the Bible appeared in 1819, that of the New Testament in 1810 (?). As a curiosity it may be mentioned that recently Aesop’s Fables have been translated into the vernacular (Douglas, 1901).

Authorities.—H. Jenner, “The Manx Language: its Grammar, Literature and Present State,” Transactions of the London Philological Society (1875), pp. 172 ff.; Publications of the Manx Society, vols. xvi., xx., xxi.; L.C. Stern, Die Kultur d. Gegenwart, i. xi. 1, pp. 110-11.

IV. Welsh Literature.—The oldest documents consist of glosses of the 9th and 10th centuries found in four MSS.—Oxoniensis prior and posterior, the Cambridge Juvencus and Martianus Capella. These glosses were published Early MSS. by J. Loth in his Vocabulaire vieux-breton (1884), but their value is entirely philological. In addition, we possess two short verses, written in Irish characters, preserved in the Juvencus Manuscript in the University Library at Cambridge (printed in Skene’s Four Ancient Books of Wales). This manuscript is a versification of the Gospels dating from the 9th century. The value of these two verses is threefold: they give us, in the first place, a specimen of the Welsh language at a time when the modern laws of euphony were in a comparatively elementary stage; secondly, they are of the utmost importance to the historian tracing the development of Welsh versification, and, in future research, they must be taken into account by the historian of modern metres in other languages; and, thirdly, the similarity of their form and diction to other verses, attributed to Llywarch Hen, and preserved in a much later orthography, will be a serious consideration to the higher critic in Welsh literature.

All the prose and verse of the succeeding centuries, that is to say from the 10th to the beginning of the 14th, is preserved in four important manuscripts, written during the latter half of the period. The first of these manuscripts is “Black Book of Carmarthen.” the Black Book of Carmarthen, a small quarto vellum manuscript of fifty leaves, written in Gothic letters by various hands during the reign of Henry II. (published in facsimile by Gwenogvryn Evans, Oxford, 1907). This book belonged originally to the priory of Black Canons at Carmarthen, from whom it passed to the church of St David; at the suppression of the monasteries in the reign of Henry VIII. it was presented by the treasurer of that church to Sir John Price, one of the king’s commissioners, and from him it passed eventually into the hands of Sir Robert Vaughan, the owner of the famous “Book of Aneirin.” Hengwrt collection. It is now among the Peniarth Manuscripts, undoubtedly the most valuable collection of Welsh manuscripts in the United Kingdom. The second manuscript is the Book of Aneirin, a small quarto manuscript of nineteen leaves of vellum, written about 1250. It was at one time in the possession of Sir Thomas “Book of Taliessin.” Phillips of Middlehill, and now belongs to the free library of the city of Cardiff. The third is the Book of Taliessin, in the Hengwrt and subsequently in the Peniarth collection. It is a small quarto manuscript containing thirty-eight leaves, written in Gothic letters, about the early part of the 14th century. The fourth manuscript, and in some respects the most important, is the Red Book “Red Book of Hergest.” of Hergest, so called from Hergest Court, one of the seats of the Vaughans. It is a folio volume of 360 leaves written by different hands between the beginning of the 14th and the middle of the 15th century. This manuscript, which is the most extensive compilation of the medieval prose and verse of Wales, is now in the possession of Jesus College, Oxford, and is kept in the Bodleian Library of that university. The main body of the poems contained in these four MSS. was printed by W. F. Skene with a tentative English version in his Four Ancient Books of Wales.

The other Welsh manuscripts, ranging down from the 15th to the 18th century, are far too numerous to notice, and it is outside the scope of this article to deal minutely with the original sources of the text of Welsh writings.

We will now only endeavour to sketch the history of Welsh literature from these early centuries down to our own times, and to show how the Celtic people of Wales have developed a literature true to their own genius, and how that literature stands to this day both a minister to the culture of the Welsh people and a sure indication of it.

1. Early Latin Writers.—The works now known as those of Gildas (q.v.) and Nennius (q.v.) are written in Latin; they throw considerable light on the origin of Welsh romantic literature and on the history of the earlier poems. Gildas was born at Ailclyd, the modern Dumbarton, that part of Britain which is called by Welsh writers Y Gogledd, or the North. Several dates have been assigned for his birth and death, but he probably flourished between 500 and 580, and his book, De Excidio Britanniae seems to have been written about 560. This work is Gildas a sketch of British history under the Romans and in the period after their withdrawal from the country, and includes the period of the wars of the Britons with the Picts, Scots and Saxons. Mr Skene suggests very reasonably that the well-known letter of the Britons to Aetius, asking for Roman aid, is misplaced, and that if put in its own place some of the anachronisms of Gildas will disappear. This work, which contains some spirited attacks on the leaders of the Britons for their sins, is strangely full of contradictions. It seems to be the work of some person well versed in the facts of that part of British history, to which he had an easy access, but who supplemented them with traditional details and with dates which were mere guess-work. Mr Skene thinks that the work of Nennius was originally written in Welsh in the north and was afterwards translated into Latin. To this nucleus was added the genealogies of the Saxon kings down to 738. Afterwards some person, called Marc in the Vatican manuscript, appended probably about 823 the life of St Germanus and the legends of St Patrick, which were subsequently incorporated with the history. Some South Welshman added to the oldest manuscript of the history in these countries, about 977, a chronicle of events from 444 to 954, in which there are genealogies beginning with Owain, son of Hywel Dda, king of South Wales. This chronicle, which is not found in other manuscripts, has been made the basis of two later chronicles brought down to 1286 and 1288 respectively. It is consequently not the work of one author. A learned Irishman named Gilla Coemgin, who died in 1072, translated it into Irish and added many things concerning the Irish and the Picts. The Historia Britonum is more valuable for the legendary matter which it contains than for what may be accepted as history, for it gives us the British legends of the colonization of Great Britain and Ireland, the exploits of King Arthur and the prophecies of Merlin, which are not found elsewhere before the 12th century. The date of the book is of the greatest importance to the history of medieval romance, and there can be no doubt that it is earlier than the Norman Conquest and that the legends themselves are of British origin.

2. The Epic Period, 700-950.—The higher criticism of the early poetry of Wales contained in the four ancient manuscripts already mentioned has undergone a good many changes since their contents first excited the curiosity of English scholars. In turn Welshmen, with more zeal than discretion, have displayed an amazing charlatanism in the extraordinary theories which they put forth, and Englishmen have shown an utmost meanness in belittling what is undoubtedly a most valuable monument of the past. But now the labours of Zeuss and others who have made a study of Celtic philology furnish us with much safer canons of criticism than existed in 1849, when even a learned Welshman, the late Thomas Stephens, who did more than any one else to establish the claims of his country to a real literature, doubted the authenticity of a large number of the poems said to have been written by Taliessin, Aneirin, Myrddin and Llywarch Hen, who are supposed to have lived in the 5th century. A great service was done to Welsh literature by the publication of the texts of those poems from the four ancient manuscripts by W.F. Skene. In addition to the text, translations of the poems were furnished by Dr Silvan Evans and the Rev. Robert Williams, but the translation, though on the whole a very creditable work, is full of mistakes which few men, writing at that time, could have avoided. The publication of the text of the Black Book, with notes by Dr Gwenogvryn Evans, will be of great service towards clearing up the mist which envelops this older literature.

Most of the poems in these four manuscripts are attributed to four poets, Aneirin, Llywarch Hen, Taliessin and Myrddin, who are said to have lived and written in Cumbria or Y Gogledd, where the actors in the events referred to also lived. The greater part of this region enjoyed substantial independence down to the end of the 9th century, with the exception of the interval from 655, when they were subjected to the kingdom of Northumbria by Oswy after the defeat of Cadwallawn and Penda, to the battle of Dunnichen in 686, when Ecfrid, king of Northumbria, was defeated. From the 7th to the 9th century Cumbria, including under that name all the British territory from the Ribble to the Clyde, was the principal theatre of British and Saxon conflict. The rise of the dynasty of Maelgwn Gwynedd, who, according to Welsh tradition, was a descendant of Cunedda Wledig, one of the Picts of the north, brought Wales into close connexion with the Cumbrian kingdom, and prepared both North and South Wales for the reception of the northern traditions and the rise of a true Welsh literature.

Whether the poets of the north really wrote any of the poems which in a modified form have come down to us or not, there can be no doubt that a number of lays attributed to them lived in popular tradition, and that under the sudden burst of glory which the deeds of Cadwallawn called forth and which ended in the disastrous defeat of 655, a British literature began to spring up, and was nourished by the hopes of a future resurrection under his son Cadwaladr, whose death was disbelieved in for such a long time. These floating lays and traditions gradually gathered into North Wales, brought thither by the nobility and the bards who fled before advancing hosts of the victorious Saxon kings of the north. The heroes of the north became now the heroes of Wales, and the sites of the battles they fought were identified with places of similar name in Wales and England.

By far the longest and the most famous poem of this series is attributed to Aneurin. This spelling of his name is comparatively modern, and in the old manuscripts it is given as Aneirin. The later form seems to have been affected Aneurin by the form eurin, “golden,” and to owe the continuation of the misspelling to a belief that the poet and Gildas, whose name is supposed to be the Latin form of the Old English gylden, were one and the same person. This poem, called the Gododin (with notes by T. Stephens and published by Prof. Powel for the Cymmrodorion Society, London, 1888), is extremely obscure, both on account of its vocabulary and its topography and allusions. It deals mainly with “the men who went to Cattraeth,” which is supposed to have been fought between the Britons and the Scots under Aedan, king of Dalriada, and the pagan Saxons and their British subjects in Devyr (Deira) and Bryneich (Bernicia), and the half-pagan Picts of Guotodin, a district corresponding to the northern half of the Lothians along the Firth of Forth. Critics have attempted with partial success to cast some light on its obscurity by supposing that the poem as a whole is made up of two parts dealing with two distinct battles. This may or may not be, but there is no doubt that many of the stanzas of the poem as found in the manuscript are not in their proper places, and a critical readjustment of the different stanzas and lines would do much towards solving its problem. It seems probable, too, that the original nucleus of the poem was handed down orally, and recited or sung by the bards and minstrels at the courts of different noblemen. It thus became the common stock-in-trade of the Welsh rhapsodist, and in time the bards, using it as a kind of framework, added to it here and there pieces of their own composition formed on the original model, especially when the heroes named happened to be the traditional forefathers of their patrons, and occasionally introduced the names of new heroes and new places as it suited their purpose; and all this seems to have been done in early times. Older fragments dealing too with the legendary heroes of the Welsh were afterwards incorporated with the poem, and some of these fragments undoubtedly preserve the orthographical and grammatical forms of the 9th century. So that, on the whole, it seems as fruitless to look for a definite record of historical events in this poem as it would be to do so in the Homeric poems, but like them, though it cannot any longer be regarded as a correct and definite account of a particular battle or war, it still stands to this day the epic of the warriors of its own nation. It matters not whether these heroes fought at far Cattraeth or on some other forgotten field of disaster; this song still reflects, as a true national epic, the sad defeats and the brave but desperate rallies of the early Welsh. Like the music of the Welsh, its dominant note is that of sadness, expressing the exultation of battle and the very joy of life in minor notes. To a great extent Welsh poets are to this day true and faithful disciples of this early master.

Many of the poems attributed to Taliessin are undoubtedly late. Indeed, both Taliessin and Myrddin,2 the one as the mythological chief of all Welsh bards and the other as a great magician, seem pre-eminently suited to attract a great Taliessin. deal of later Welsh poetry under their aegis; but the older poems attributed to them are worthy of any literature. Sometimes, as in the verses attributed to Llywarch Hen beginning Stafell Cynddylan, an early specimen of poetic grief over departed glory, we find that gentle elegiac note which is so common in early English poetry. In the Taliessinic poems, the Battle of Argoed Llwyvain and others, we have that boldness of portraiture which is found in the Gododin, whilst in many a noble line we seem to hear again the ravens screaming shrilly over their sword-feasts, and the strong strokes of the advancing warriors.

It was but natural that all the pseudo-prophetic poems, written of course after the events which they foretold, should be attributed to the chief among seers, Myrddin, or, as Merlin. his name is written in English, Merlin; so that all the poems accredited to him, with the exception perhaps of the Avallenau, were not written before the 12th century.

In most of the poems attributed to Llywarch Hen and in some of the Myrddin poems, the verses begin with the same line, which, though it has no direct reference to the subject of the poem itself, is used as a refrain or catch-word, exactly like the refrains employed by Mr Swinburne and others in their ballads. These lines generally refer to some natural object or objects, as, for instance, “the snow of the mountain” or “bright are the tops of the broom.”

The first period, then, of Welsh literature lies between 700 and 950. It is in most respects the epic period, the period in which poets wrote of great men and their deeds, the legendary and the historic heroes of the Cymry, men like Urien Rheged, and heroes like Hyveidd Hir. Even in the next period the epic note had not quite died out.

3. The Prose Romances and the Poet Princes, 1100-1290.—It will be seen that there is a considerable gap between the first and second period of Welsh literature. It must not be supposed, however, that nothing was composed or written during these years. Indeed, it may well be that some of the poetry attributed to the minor bards of the last period was composed between 900 and 1100, and that some other poetry too was written and lost. But there are abundant reasons for believing that Welsh poetry was at a very low ebb during those years. The progress of Wales as a political unit had suffered a check after the battle of Chester in 613. The effects of this defeat were not immediate, as the Welsh had still enough of their characteristic hopefulness to expect ultimate victory; we therefore have reasons for believing The Gododin series. that the Gododin series of poems were still used—or perhaps used then for the first time—to spur on “the hawks of war” to greater efforts. Gradually, however, the Angles, hemming them in on all sides from the Clyde to the Severn, began to press nearer and nearer; the Welsh at last seem to have lost heart, and no one any longer “had the desire of song.” Content with their old epics and their older myths, which owe perhaps to these years a darker and more sombre tinge, they allowed their song to be hushed. The great lords had hardly chosen their final abodes; the smaller lords had all been killed in war and their places taken now by one, now by another, so that the warrior prince himself had not the leisure, and hardly the inspiration necessary, for song, and the bards found but scanty patronage among such a diminished and poverty-stricken nobility. The only order that seemed to prosper was that of the monks, and we owe them our gratitude for preserving the ancient writings and the ancient traditions; but they were simply copyists, though they had undoubtedly some hand in giving the Gododin its final form and in setting in its convenient framework the names of the forefathers of their aristocratic abbots.

In the year 1044 Gruffydd ab Llewelyn conquered Hywel ab Edwin and became king of Wales. By means of his diplomacy and his arms he succeeded in stemming the tide of Saxon invasion that was threatening to overflow even the little remnant of land that was left to the Welsh, and his strong rule gave the Welsh muse another opportunity. Gruffydd, however, died in 1063, and was eventually succeeded in 1073 by Trahaern in North Wales, and Rhys ab Owen in South Wales. The rule of these two princes was destined to be the last period of literary inertness in the long interval following the confinement of Wales to her inaccessible highlands.

During these years a man was hiding in Ireland, called Gruffydd ab Cynan, a scion of the old branch of Welsh kings. In Brittany, too, Rhys ab Tewdwr, a claimant to the throne of South Wales, had sought the protection of his Breton kinsmen. In 1073 Rhys ab Tewdwr obtained the throne of Rhys ab Owen, and, after many years of hard fighting, Gruffydd ab Cynan, with the help of Rhys ab Tewdwr, defeated Trahaern at the battle of Myrydd Carn in 1081. On the accession of these two powerful princes the whole country broke forth into songs of praise and jubilation, and the long night was at an end.

It is important to remember that both Gruffydd and Rhys had a direct personal influence on the literary revival of their times. Gruffydd ab Cynan while in exile had seen how the Irish Oenach was held, and had seen prizes given for poetry and song. We have it on the authority of Welsh writers that he reorganized the bards and improved the music, and in many other ways gave a great and beneficial impulse to Welsh literature. He may have brought over some of the later Irish legends which have had such a powerful effect on the literature of Wales.

Rhys ab Tewdwr, too, brought with him from Brittany an enthusiasm for the old Celtic tales, and perhaps some of the tales themselves which had been by that time forgotten in Wales, tales of the Round Table, and Arthur “begirt with British and Armoric knights,” of knightly deeds and magical metamorphoses, which were destined to influence profoundly all the literatures of the West. We find, therefore, in this period that poetry flourished mostly in the North under Gruffydd ab Cynan, and prose in the south under Rhys ab Tewdwr, where the new enthusiasm for the old Welsh legends resulted in the Geoffrey of Montmouth. History of Britain of Geoffrey of Monmouth, which is an expansion of the books attributed to Gildas and Nennius. It was written in Latin sometime before 1147, and is dedicated to Robert, earl of Gloucester, the grandson of Rhys ab Tewdwr. In the introductory epistle, Geoffrey states that Walter, archdeacon of Oxford, had given him a very ancient book in the British tongue, giving an account of the kings of Britain from Brutus to Cadwaladr, and that he had translated it into Latin at the archdeacon’s request. The book, however, is a compilation and not a translation, but the materials were probably drawn from British sources. In this history Geoffrey asserts that the deeds of Arthur “were commonly related in a pleasing manner.” He was perhaps originally but the hero of some popular ballad, or of a forgotten stanza of the Gododin, and the importance of his name in the literature of the world seems to be due to an accident. We cannot, however, in this article consider the Arthurian Legend (q.v.) as a whole; we must be content with dealing with the most important of the romantic tales which are contained in the Red Book of Hergest. They may be divided into four classes:—

(i.) The Mabinogi proper, containing (1) Pwyll, prince of Dyvet; (2) Branwen, daughter of Llyr; (3) Manawyddan, son of Llyr; (4) Math, son of Mathonwy.

(ii.) Old British tales referring to Roman times, viz. (1) Lludd and Llevelys; (2) The Dream of Macsen Wledic.

(iii.) British Arthurian tales, viz. (1) Kilhwch and Olwen; (2) The Dream of Rhonabwy.

(iv.) Later tales of chivalry, viz. (1) The Lady of the Fountain; (2) Peredur, son of Evrawc; (3) Geraint, son of Erbin.

The group of four romances in the first class forms a cycle of legends and is called in the manuscript Pedeir Keinc y Mabinogi—the Four Branches of the Mabinogi; so it is only these four tales that can, strictly speaking, be called The Mabinogion. Mabinogion. In these stories we have the relics of the ancient Irish mythology of the Tuatha Dé Danann, sometimes mixed with later myths. The Caer Sidi, where neither disease nor old age affects any one, is the Sid of Irish mythology, the residence of the gods of the Aes Side. It is called in one of the old poems the prison of Gweir, who no doubt represents Gaiar, son of Manandán MacLir, the Atropos who cut the thread of life of Irish mythology. Llyr is the Irish sea-god Lir, and was called Llyr Llediaith, or the half-tongued, implying that he spoke a language only partially intelligible to the people of the country. Bran, the son of Llyr, is the Irish Bran MacAllait, Allait being one of the names of Lir. Manawyddan is clearly the Manandán or Manannán MacLir of Irish mythology. These tales contain other characters which may not have been borrowed from Irish mythology but which are common to both mythologies; for example, Rhiannon, the wife of Pwyll who possessed marvellous birds which held warriors spell-bound for eighty years by their singing, comes from Annwn, or the unseen world, and her son Pryderi gives her, on the death of Pwyll, as a wife to Manawyddan.

Of the second class the first story relates to Lludd, son of Beli the Great, son of Manogan, who became king after his father’s death, while his brother Llevelys becomes king of France and shows his brother how to get rid of the three plagues which devastated Britain:—first, a strange race, the Coranians, whose knowledge was so great that they heard everything no matter how low soever it might be spoken; second, a shriek which came into every house on May eve, caused by the fighting of two dragons; and third, a great giant who carried off all the provisions of the king’s palace every day. The second tale relates how Maxen, emperor of Rome, has a dream while hunting, in which he imagines that he visits Britain, and in Caer Seint or Carnarvon sees a beautiful damsel, Helen, whom he ultimately finds and marries. Both tales are British in origin and are founded on traditions referring to Roman times.

The most important of these tales are undoubtedly those contained in the first class, and the story of Kilhwch and Olwen. The form in which they are found in the Red Book of Hergest is, as we have already said, comparatively speaking, modern. But it is apparent to any one reading these tales that the writers or compilers, as Matthew Arnold has suggested, are “pillaging an antiquity, the secret of which they do not fully possess.” The foundations of the tales are the old Celtic traditions of the gods and the older heroes, and they clearly show Goidelic influence both in the persons they introduce and in their incidents. The tales would at first exist only in oral tradition, and after the advent of Christianity the characters they contain lost their title of divinity and became simply heroes—warriors and magicians. In time the monks began to write these ancient traditions, embellishing them and suppressing no doubt what they considered to be most objectionable. These then are the tales which we now possess—the traditional doings of the old heroes as set in order by Christian writers.

The changes which these later copyists wrought in the substance of the tales fall into two main divisions. In the first place, they attempted to find some connexion between tales or cycles of tales which originally had no connexion whatever, and were therefore forced to invent new incidents or to introduce other incidents from the outside in order to establish this connexion; and secondly, as in the case of the Gododin, the tales were twisted and altered to support references to and explanations of names known to the writer. So we find in the tale of Math vab Mathonwy the incident of the pigs is expanded to explain some place-names which the writer knew. It is this also that gives a local interest to the tales; for instance, Dyvet, the land of Pwyll, has come to be regarded as the home of Hud a Lledrith, of magic and enchantment. Some places in North Wales, especially in the vicinity of Carnarvon, seem to be well known to the writers, and, therefore, to have associated with them to all time the glamour of the Mabinogion.

Besides the scholastic efforts of the monks, which in course of time so greatly changed these old legends, there was another class of men who had no little influence on the form and matter of Welsh, and consequently of European, romance. These were the Welsh jongleurs—the professional story-tellers, against whom the bards proper nursed a deadly hatred because, presumably, their tales drew larger audiences and won greater rewards than the awdlau of the poets. There is little doubt that this order existed in Wales at a very early period, being quite a natural evolution of the older poet who sang in comparatively free metres of the deeds of the great dead. It is these men who invented the term Mabinogi, which is supposed to mean a “tale for young people”; but whatever the word may mean, the fact that they were the stock-in-trade of the professional story-teller will explain a good many of their structural peculiarities.

Thus there existed two distinct classes of tales, though it is to be supposed that the subject matter of both was more or less common; there are, in the first place, the “four branches” and the tales of the second class, and, secondly, tales like those of the third class. With the exception of the Irish influence, which we have already referred to, and some later additions from early continental romance in the third class, we may take it that these three classes are of purely British origin. The pedair cainc are the old tales which were first committed to writing at an early period before the influence of the Armoric Arthur began to be felt, that is to say, about the beginning of the reign of Rhys ab Tewdwr in 1073. The other tales, that is those we have put in the third class, remained for a much longer time unwritten and were not set in writing before the early Arthur of Armoric and British romance had been evolved. This will account for the fact that Arthur is not mentioned in the first class of tales, and that in the third class he is simply a British Arthur. The third class is, therefore, in a sense later than the first and second, but its materials are as old as the oldest of the Mabinogion proper, and they show the influence of Irish mythology to the same extent. In the first class Irish names like Penardim, which have not been assimilated, show conclusively that the tale is a written one, while the eloquence of the descriptions in Kilhwch ac Olwen seem to point to the fact that it was up to a late period a spoken tale. Other such tales there were once, but they have now been lost.

The romances of the fourth class do not claim much notice. They are mostly imitations or translations of Norman French originals, and they belong to the history of European chivalry rather than to the history of Welsh literature.

As literature the Mabinogion may rank among the world’s classics. We cannot here point out their beauties, but it will be sufficient to notice that the unknown writer who gave them their final form was a true artist in every sense of the word. In Branwen verch Lyr, for instance, the whole setting of the story is that of a great tragedy, a tragedy neither Hellenic nor Shakespearean, but the strong and ruthless tragedy of the Celts,—the tragedy of nature among unnatural surroundings, the tragedy which in our times Mr Thomas Hardy has so successfully developed. In this tale, Branwen is introduced as the sister of Manawyddan, the king of all Britain, and as the “fairest maid in the world.” But as the tragedy deepens we read how this woman, dowered with beauty and goodness and nobility of lineage, is simply used as a pawn in a political game, and the full force of the tragedy falls on her own undeserving head. She is subjected to all kinds of indignities in her husband’s court in Ireland, but throughout all her severe trials she preserves the cold and detached haughtiness which characterizes the full-bosomed heroines of the northern sagas; and, in the end, when her brother has delivered her and punished the Irish, and when she has safely reached the shores of her own Môn, she raises her eyes and beholds the two islands, Britain and Ireland. “’Ah God!’ said she, ‘is it well that two islands have been made desolate for my sake?’ And she gave a deep groan and died.” So was her tragedy consummated, and the writer, with a superb tragic touch, mentions the very shape of the grave in which they left her on the bank of the Alaw in Môn.

One of the earliest poets of this period whose productions we can be certain of is Meilir, bard of Trahaern, whom Gruffydd ab Cynan defeated at the battle of Carn, and afterwards of the conqueror Gruffydd himself. His best piece is the Death-bed of the Bard, a semi-religious poem which is distinguished by the structure of the verse, poetic feeling and religious thought. Meilir was the head of a family of bards; his son was Gwalchmai, one of the best Welsh poets; the latter had two sons, Einion and Meilir, some of whose poetry has reached us. In Gorhoffedd Gwalchmai, Gwalchmai’s Delight, there is an appreciation of the charms of nature, medieval parallels to which are only to be found in Ireland. His Arwyrain i Owain is an ode of considerable beauty and full of vigour in praise of Owain Gwynedd, king of North Wales, on account of his victory of Tal y Moelvre, part of which has been translated by Gray under the name of “The Triumphs of Owen.” Kynddelw, who lived in the second half of the 12th century, was a contemporary of Gwalchmai, and wrote on a great number of subjects including religious ones; indeed some of his eulogies have a kind of religious prelude. He had a command of words and much skill in versification, but he is pleonastic and fond of complicated metres and of ending his lines with the same syllable.