--- title: Early Bardic Literature, Ireland., part 3 — Early Bardic Literature, Ireland. · full text with trees · page 2 description: Early Bardic Literature, Ireland., part 3, «Early Bardic Literature, Ireland.» by Standish O'Grady: the whole chapter, every sentence with its dependency tree and pragmatics. It begins: The earliest manuscript of these tales is the Leabhar [Note: Leabar na Heera.] na Huidhre, a work of the eleventh --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8109/3/page/2/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Early Bardic Literature, Ireland.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8109/) / Early Bardic Literature, Ireland., par… # Early Bardic Literature, Ireland., part 3 · page 2 [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8109/3/) **2** I hope on some future occasion to examine more minutely the character and place in literature of the Irish bardic remains, and put forward here these general considerations, from which the reader may presume that the Ultonian cycle, dealing as it does with Cuculain and his contemporaries, is in the main true to the facts of the time, and that his history, and that of the other heroes who figure in these volumes, is, on the whole, and omitting the marvellous, sufficiently reliable.[59](../../59/ "tree and pragmatics") I would ask the reader, who may be inclined to think that the principal character is too chivalrous and refined for the age, to peruse for himself the tale named the "Great Breach of Murthemney."[60](../../60/ "tree and pragmatics") He will there, and in many other tales and poems besides, see that the noble and pathetic interest which attaches to his character is substantially the same as I have represented in these volumes.[61](../../61/ "tree and pragmatics") But unless the student has read the whole of the Ultonian cycle, he should be cautious in condemning a departure in my work from any particular version of an event which he may have himself met.[62](../../62/ "tree and pragmatics") Of many minor events there are more than one version, and many scenes and assertions which he may think of importance would yet, by being related, cause inconsistency and contradiction.[63](../../63/ "tree and pragmatics") Of the nature of the work in which all should be introduced I have already given my opinion.[64](../../64/ "tree and pragmatics") For the rest, I have related one or two great events in the life of Cuculain in such a way as to give a description as clear and correct as possible of his own character and history as related by the bards, of those celebrated men and women who were his contemporaries and of his relations with them, of the gods and supernatural powers in whom the people then believed, and of the state of civilisation which then prevailed.[65](../../65/ "tree and pragmatics") If I have done my task well, the reader will have been supplied, without any intensity of application on his part--a condition of the public mind upon which no historian of this country should count--with some knowledge of ancient Irish history, and with an interest in the subject which may lead him to peruse for himself that ancient literature, and to read works of a more strictly scientific nature upon the subject than those which I have yet written.[66](../../66/ "tree and pragmatics") But until such an interest is aroused, it is useless to swell the mass of valuable critical matter, which everyone at present is very well content to leave unread.[67](../../67/ "tree and pragmatics") In the first volume, however, I have committed this error, that I did not permit it to be seen with sufficient clearness that the characters and chief events of the tale are absolutely historic; and that much of the colouring, inasmuch as its source must have been the centuries immediately succeeding the floruerunt of those characters, is also reliable as history, while the remainder is true to the times and the state of society which then obtained.[68](../../68/ "tree and pragmatics") The story seems to progress too much in the air, too little in time and space, and seems to be more of the nature of legend and romance than of actual historic fact seen through an imaginative medium.[69](../../69/ "tree and pragmatics") Such is the history of Concobar Mac Nessa and his knights--historic fact seen through the eyes of a loving wonder.[70](../../70/ "tree and pragmatics") Indeed, I must confess that the blaze of bardic light which illuminates those centuries at first so dazzled the eye and disturbed the judgment, that I saw only the literature, only the epic and dramatic interest, and did not see as I should the distinctly historical character of the age around which that literature revolves, wrongly deeming that a literature so noble, and dealing with events so remote, must have originated mainly or altogether in the imagination.[71](../../71/ "tree and pragmatics") All the borders of the epic representation at which, in the first volume, I have aimed, seem to melt, and wander away vaguely on every side into space and time.[72](../../72/ "tree and pragmatics") I have now taken care to remedy that defect, supplying to the unset picture the clear historical frame to which it is entitled.[73](../../73/ "tree and pragmatics") I will also request the reader, when the two volumes may diverge in tone or statement, to attach greater importance to the second, as the result of wider and more careful reading and more matured reflection.[74](../../74/ "tree and pragmatics") A great English poet, himself a severe student, pronounced the early history of his own country to be a mere scuffling of kites and crows, as indeed are all wars which lack the sacred bard, and the sacred bard is absent where the kites and crows pick out his eyes.[75](../../75/ "tree and pragmatics") That the Irish kings and heroes should succeed one another, surrounded by a blaze of bardic light, in which both themselves and all those who were contemporaneous with them are seen clearly and distinctly, was natural in a country where in each little realm or sub-kingdom the ard-ollav was equal in dignity to the king, which is proved by the equivalence of their cries.[76](../../76/ "tree and pragmatics") The dawn of English history is in the seventh century--a late dawn, dark and sombre, without a ray of cheerful sunshine; that of Ireland dates reliably from a point before the commencement of the Christian era luminous with that light which never was on sea or land--thronged with heroic forms of men and women--terrible with the presence of the supernatural and its over-arching power.[77](../../77/ "tree and pragmatics") [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8109/3/) **2** - ← previous: [page 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8109/3/) - next →: [Early Bardic Literature, Ireland., part 4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8109/4/) - ↑ back to [Early Bardic Literature, Ireland.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg8109/)