Chapter X: Preface: Footnote 1

_Lectures on the MS. Materials of Ancient Irish History_, p. 41.

Footnote 2:

_Lectures on the MS. Materials of Ancient Irish History_, p. 30.

Footnote 3:

_Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish_, vol. iii. p. 403.

Footnote 4:

Author of _The Collegians_.

Footnote 5:

More correctly written Uisnach. See _Loch Etive and the Sons of
Uisnach_, Macmillan & Co.

Footnote 6:

Advertisement to ‘Inisfail,’ p. 52.

Footnote 7:

1. Lays of the Western Gael. 2. Congal. 3. Poems. By Sir Samuel
Ferguson. Bell and Sons.

THE SONS OF USNACH

Footnote 8:

Ulster.

Footnote 9:

Eman, also called Emania, stood nearly on the present site of Armagh.

Footnote 10:

Page 9. _He taught her all the Ogham Signs to read._ The Ogham
characters are a species of alphabet, or as some call them cypher, cut
upon stones, or wooden staves. They are found in many parts of
Ireland; and much has been written on them by the most learned Irish
antiquarians of recent times, especially by Bishop Graves.

Footnote 11:

The Irish, originally ‘Scoti,’ were so called from Scota.

Footnote 12:

Ballyshannon.

Footnote 13:

Howth.

Footnote 14:

Page 38. _By Geisa bound._ These _Gesa_, or _Geisa_, often as trivial
in character as they were rigidly enforced, have a large place in the
legends of the Irish pre-Christian times. Sometimes they applied to
particular individuals alone: thus, in the case of Cuchullain, it was
a _Gesa_ that no one should wake him out of his sleep. Sometimes they
were self-imposed: thus Fergus Mac Roy and Cuchullain also, had bound
themselves in youth never to refuse an invitation to the feast of a
good man, however humble. The most remarkable illustrations of the
_Gesa_ will be found in ‘Conary,’ the noble poem of my friend, Sir
Samuel Ferguson, who speaks of them as ‘certain sacred injunctions,
the violation of which was attended with temporal punishment. The
agents in inflicting such retribution appear in the form of Fairies.’
(Poems by Sir Samuel Ferguson, p. 61. McGee, Dublin; George Bell,
London.)

Footnote 15:

Page 39. _Deirdré and he were playing chess together_: Chess was a
favourite game with the Irish, and is frequently alluded to in the
earliest tales.

THE CHILDREN OF LIR

Footnote 16:

Page 73. _The ‘Lia Fail,’ and Ogham lore revered._ The ‘Lia Fail,’ or
‘Stone of Destiny,’ was the stone on which the Irish ‘Chief Kings,’ or
Ard-Righs, were crowned at Tara. It was subsequently used for the same
purpose during many centuries in Scotland, to which it had been
brought by the Dalriad Irish recorded by Bede, at the coronation of
her Kings of Irish race. It was removed by Edward the First from Scone
to Westminster Abbey, where it still supports the chair of Edward the
Confessor. (See ‘Hist. of Scotland’ by Sir Walter Scott, vol. i. p.
34.)

Footnote 17:

Bamba, Fodhla, and Eire.

Footnote 18:

The current running between Cantire, in Scotland, and the northern
coast of Ireland.

Footnote 19:

Achill Island, on the coast of Connaught.

Footnote 20:

The ‘Tonsured One,’ _i.e._ St. Patrick.

Footnote 21:

‘The term _Mael_, Mull (or Moyle, as Moore calls it), does not
properly apply to the current itself, but to the _Mael_, or bald
headland by which it runs.’--_Professor Eugene O’Curry._

Footnote 22:

‘They met a young man of good family whose name was Aibhric, and his
attention was often attracted to the birds, and their singing was
sweet to him, so that he came to love them greatly, and that they
loved him; and it was this young man that afterwards arranged in order
and narrated all their adventures.’--_The Fate of the Children of
Lir_, prose version by Professor O’Curry.

Footnote 23:

Page 105. _Or Acaill_; Now Achill Head.

THE FORAY OF QUEEN MEAVE

Footnote 24:

Now Connaught.

Footnote 25:

Now Ulster.

Footnote 26:

Chief King.

Footnote 27:

Now Dundalk.

Footnote 28:

Armagh.

Footnote 29:

_Cu_ in Irish means hound.

Footnote 30:

Page 146. _Hail Eric just._ The fine exacted for various offences by
the Brehon law.

Footnote 31:

Page 151. _The dread Mor Reega._ The War Goddess of the ancient Irish.
An account of this divinity will be found in the admirable essay
contributed to the ‘Revue Celtique’ (May 1870), by W. M. Hennessy,
Esq.

Footnote 32:

Page 153. _Among the Sidils._ The Fairy Hills.

Footnote 33:

Page 181. _There shone the torque of Meave._ ‘Take off his armour that
I may see the Brooch for the sake of which he undertook the combat.
Leagh came, and stripped Ferdīa.... Cuchullain saw the brooch; and he
began to lament and moan for him.’ (MS. translation, by Professor
O’Looney.)

Footnote 34:

Page 191. _And, southward next, that lake._ Lough Derg in Donegal, a
place of pilgrimage still frequented. To this island properly belongs
the legend illustrated by Calderon in his ‘Purgatory of St. Patrick,’
so admirably presented to the English reader by my lamented friend,
the late Denis Florence MacCarthy.

Footnote 35:

The Shannon.

Footnote 36:

Page 201. _Beside Ath-Luain._ Now Athlone.

Footnote 37:

Page 226. _From Caiseal’s crested rock._ Now Cashel.

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Transcriber’s Notes

This file uses _underscores_ to indicate italic text. New original cover art included with this ebook is granted to the public domain.

The original printed book included both footnotes and endnotes. In this edition, all notes have been converted to sequentially numbered endnotes.

De Vere consistently spells the Irish title “ollamh” as “ollamb”; this and other non-standard spellings of Irish words have not been corrected.

There are some errors and inconsistencies in the rendering of single and double quotation marks in nested dialogue, especially in the long narration by Fergus starting on page 138. These have been silently corrected.

The following changes and corrections have been made:

• p. vi: Added closing single quotation mark after phrase “a famous
scribe named Maelmire, who was killed there in 1106.”
• p. 1: Added closing single quotation mark after phrase “goodlier is
this child / Than e’er till now on proudest parent smiled!”
• p. 16: Added opening single quotation mark before phrase “Ever at
Uladh’s feasts the clansmen say,” change internal opening single
quotation mark in this stanza to double quotation mark, and add
closing double quotation mark to end of stanza.
• p. 17: Added opening single quotation mark before phrase “Their
singing is the best all Uladh boasts” and at the start of the
following stanza.
• p. 28: Added opening single quotation mark before phrase “Lay first
that head, and march we hence this night!”
• p. 69: Added closing single quotation mark after phrase “A woman’s
hand one day shall strike him dead!”
• p. 78: Replaced “Finōla” with “Finola” in phrase “Finola paced the
high-arched alleys green.”
• p. 80: Added period and closing single quotation mark after phrase
“if not--my hate.”
• p. 81: Added closing single quotation mark after phrase “Their voices
too are voices of the Gael!”
• p. 89: Added exclamation mark and closing single quotation mark after
phrase “Farewell, my little Conn!”
• p. 90: Added closing single quotation mark after phrase “Thou hear’st
the charge: how makest thou reply?”
• p. 114: Added period after phrase “Through Faith the birthright,
though the younger son.”
• p. 145: Changed “bou” to “boughs” in phrase “Bird-song by autumn
chilled, that brake through boughs.”
• p. 153: Added closing single quotation mark after phrase “My strength
must lessen day by day.”
• p. 155: Changed “o er” to “o’er” in phrase “o’er the axle bent.”
• p. 164: Added closing single quotation mark after phrase “this Island
should be theirs!”
• p. 190: Changed “Fionbannagh” to “Fionbannah” in phrase “the Bulls
that shake this day our land, / Fionbannah, and the Donn.”
• p. 203: Added closing single quotation mark after phrase “Is past
since northward to the war we marched.”
• p. 227: Added closing single quotation mark after phrase “One day I
shared her feast: she shall not die!”
• p. 228: Added comma after phrase “The household stuffs, rich vests,
and precious dyes.”