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Pagan Ireland, by Eleanor Hull EPOCHS OF IRISH HISTORY r I? laud ELEANOR HULL /">> 56 In course of publication, each volume complete in itself, 216 each (/Vet). EPOCHS OF IRISH HISTORY. PAGAN IRELAND. By Eleanor Hull. Part i. Social Life in Pagan Ireland. Part ii. The Romance of the Early Kings. By the same Author, II.—EARLY CHRISTIAN IRELAND. Part i. Ireland Under Her Native Rulers. Part ii. The Island of Saints. This volume deals with the political and social condition of Ireland during the period of the great monastic settlements, Part i. devotes separate chapters to K. Laegaire and the times of St Patrick, the Foundation of the Kingdom of Scotland, Dermot Mac Cearbhal and the Fall of Tara, the Boromhe, the Battle of Moira, &c. Part ii. contains the Lives of Sts. Patrick, Brigit, Columcille, Finnian, Ciaran, and Adamnan, with chapters on the foreign work of the Irish Church, and on hermit monks, Culdees and other divisions of the early Christian communities. III.— IRELAND UNDER THE NORTHMEN. This volume deals with the struggle between the Irish Princes and the Northmen from the Irish point of view. Separate chapters are given to the reigns of Maelsechlain I. and II., Niall Glun- dubh, Murtough of the Leather Cloaks, Cormac Mac Cuileanan, Brian Boru, &c. The development of social life in Ireland during the same period {i.e. from 795 to the coming of the Normans in 1170) is traced, and the foundation of the cities of Dublin, Limerick and Waterford dealt with. M. H. Gill & So\, Ltd., Dublin and Waterford. IMPORTANT NEW IRISH BOOK. NOW READY. 292 pages. Croivn 8vo, cloth, 3/- net. Postage, 4:d. A Text Book of Irish Literature Parr ii. BY ELEANOR HULL AUTHOR OF " THE CUCHDLLIN SAGA IN IRISH LITERATURE " '• PAGAN IRELAND, ETC. This Volume deals fully with the question of the origin and spread of the Fenian or Ossianic Tales and Ballads, and with the Historical and Annalistic literature of Ireland. It takes up the history of the Bardic Poetry at the point at which it was left in the first Volume, and deals with the Jacobite Poetry of the Eighteenth Century ,/and with the popular songs and ballads down to our own day. /The Chronology of Irish writers is carried on from 1550 to 1850^ and a full Bibliography to both Volumes is added as an Appendix!_{ The Text Book of Irish Literature. Part I. By Eleanor Hull (Author of "The Cuchullin Saga "). Crown 8vo. 3s. net. This volume deals with the older Romance Literature of Ireland, and with the ecclesiastical, topographical and national materials produced in Ireland up to the early part of the sixteenth century. Particular attention is paid to the poetry of the earlier Bards, and to the anonymous poems of the ninth and tenth centuries, and a full chronology of writers up to 1500, so far as their names and tales are known is added. A 1 appendix gives the names an i summary of the contents of the great vellum manuscripts in which the larger mass of materials is preserved. Dublin M. H. GILL & SON, Ltd. AND WaTERFORD. I (Rpatba oi inalj 'Sistor^.— PAGAN IRELAND BY ELEANOR HULL AUTHOR OF "the CUCHULLIN SAGA IN IRISH LITERATURE." SECOND EDITION. Dublin M. H. GILL & SON, Ltd AND WaTERFORD CBmmVT HaL, MASS. Printed and Bound in Ireland. M. H. GILL & SON, Ltd. Dublin and >Vaterford 4444a Aoif 615 -00 biot) x^s eifce-ACc liom if tne -A5 muine^-O bui-CeAn Conn-dptx^ riA 5^^*^^^$^ 1 tunfTo^in, m>At\ fuil 50 ne^^pcoC-At) lei^ex^t) tiA nAite^fc fo xiti st^-A-o -ac^a 'n-A 5cpoit)e •00 fe^nC-Af If '00 fex\n-uiffcex^lc-Ait) n^ Ii6it\e-Ann. eit)Un nt CoiU. FOREWORD. There is an old tale told in Ireland of a loveable and bright and handsome youth named Donn-bo, who was the best singer of *' songs of idleness," and the best teller of " King-stories" in the world. He could tell a tale of each King who reigned at Tara from the Tale of the Destruction of Dind Righ, when Cobthach Coel- breg was killed, down to the Kings who reigned in his own time. " One night before a battle, the warriors said : Make minstrelsy for us, O Donn-bo." But Donn-bo said: ** No word at all will come on my lips to-night; there- fore, for this night let the King-buffoon of Ireland amuse you. But to-morrow at this hour, in whatever place they and I shall be, I will make minstrelsy for the fighting-men." For the warriors had said that unless Donn-bo went with them on that hosting, not one of them would go. On the evening of the morrow Donn-b6 lay dead, his fair young body stretched across the body of the King of Erin, for he had died in defending his chief. But his head had rolled away and lay ;„mongst a wisp of growing rushes by the water-side. At the feasting of the army on that night, a warrior " said : Where is Donn-b6, that he may make minstrelsy for us, and tell us the King-stories of Erin?" A valiant champion of the men of Munster answered : FOREWORD. "I will go over the battlefield and find him." He en- quired among the living for Donn-bo, but he found him not, and then he searched hither and thither among the dead. At last he came where the body of the King of Erin lay, and a young, fair corpse beside it. In all the air about was a low, sweet sound of minstrelsy, and the faint whisper of poets and bards reciting tales and poems, and the wild clear note of the dord jiansa, like the echo of an echo, in the clump of rushes hard by; and above them all a voice, very faint and still, that sang a tune that was sweeter than all the tunes of the whole world. The voice that sang was the voice of the head of Donn-b6. The warrior stooped to pick up the head. ** Do not touch me," said the head, " for we are com- manded by the King of the Plains of Heaven to make music to-night for our lord, the King of Erin, the shining one who lies dead beside us; and though all of us are lying dead, no faintness or feebleness shall pre- vent us from obeying that command. Disturb me not." ** The hosts of Leinster are asking for thee to make minstrelsy for them," said the messenger. *' When my minstrelsy here is done, I will go with you," said the head, *' but only if Christ, the Son of God, in whose presence I now am, go with me, and if you take me to my body again." "That shall be done, indeed," said the messenger, and he carried away the head. FOREWORD. When the messeng-er came again amongst the war- riors, they stopped their feasting and g-athered round him. " Hast thou brought anything from the battle- field?" they cried. "I have brought the head of Donn-b6," said the man. "Set it up upon a pillar, that we may see and hear it," cried they all; and they said, **It is no luck for thee to be like that, Donn- b6, and thou the most beautiful minstrel and the best in Erin. Make music for the love of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Amuse the Leinstermen to-night, as thou didst amuse thy lord awhile ago." Then Donn-b6 turned his face to the wall, that the darkness might be around him, and he raised his melody in the quiet night; and the sound of that minstrelsy was so piteous and sad, that all the host sat weeping at the sound of it. Then was his head taken to his body, and the neck joined itself to the shoulders again, and Donn-bo was satisfied. The old King-stories that Donn-bo loved have been forgotten by Erin's children. Even the few of them to v/hom the tales of Finn and of Cuchulain are not quite unknown, know little of the old romances of Cormac mac Airt, or of Niall of the Nine Hostages, or of Conn of the Hundred Fights; nor have they any re- membrance how the House of Da Derga was destroyed, nor why Tara fell, nor yet why men still say of an open-handed man "He is like Guaire the Hospitable." Yet from the tale of Dind Righ which Donn-bo knew, down to the times of the Northmen in Ireland, there is FOREWORD. no great King of Erin but has his own romance, and some fine tale told of his doings. These stories I havo told in this little book, and in the one that is to follow; not in a critical way for the learned or for wise people, but simply, as the old story-tellers told them at the kingly feasts, for the pleasure of the young folk of Ire- land. It was for some young people of the Gaelic League I wrote these chapters, and it seemed to me that perhaps other Irish men or women and chil- dren might like to know them too. For if on the Plains of Heaven an Irish king wearied for the stories of his ancestors, why should not the children of Erin care to hear them in the Valleys of Earth? So we will set Donn-bo's head on the pillar again, and bid him tell us tales.
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