A day or two ago I had a letter from one of the best Greek scholars and
translators in England, who says of my "Cuchulain": "It opened up a
great world of beautiful legend which, though accounting myself as an
Irishman, I had never known at all. I am sending out copies to Irish
friends in Australia who, I am sure, will receive the same sort of
impression, almost an impression of pride in the beauty of the Irish
mind, as I received myself." And President Roosevelt wrote to me a
little time ago that after he had read "Cuchulain of Muirthemne," he had
sent for all the other translations from the Irish he could get, to take
on his journey to the Western States.
I give these appreciative words not, I think, from vanity, for they are
not for me but for my material, to show the effect our old literature
has on those who come fresh to it, and that they do not complain of its
"want of imagination." I am, of course, very proud and glad in having
had the opportunity of helping to make it known, and the task has been
pleasant, although toil-some. Just now, indeed, on the 6th October, I am
tired enough, and I think with sympathy of the old Highland piper, who
complained that he was "withered with yelping the seven Fenian
battalions."
II. THE AGE AND ORIGIN OF THE STORIES OF THE FIANNA
Mr Alfred Nutt says in _Ossian and the Ossianic Literature,_ No. 3 of
his excellent series of sixpenny pamphlets, _Popular Studies in
Mythology, Romance, and Folklore_:--
"The body of Gaelic literature connected with the name of Ossian is of
very considerable extent and of respectable antiquity.
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