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and law tracts; but it is poetry and narrative prose that are relevant to the early Irish myths and sagas. The earliest poetry was alliterative and syllabic, with end-rhyme appearing later. In Welsh literature, there are epics told entirely through the medium of verse – the Gododdin, for example; in Ireland, however, the storytelling medium is invariably prose. Some of the very archaic poetry is essential to the tales in which it appears; thus, the rhetorics in the early part of ‘The Cattle Raid of Cúailnge’ help to clarify the relationship among Ailill, Medb and Fergus.11 The poetry in ‘The Exile of the Sons of Uisliu’, on the other hand, reinforces the narrative, adds detail – mostly descriptive – and provides weight; but it could be omitted without loss of sense. Conceivably these myths/sagas were at one time recited entirely in verse; what remains, however, is largely decorative.

The earliest form of transmission must have been oral. Storytelling was a favourite entertainment among the Celts, and one version of ‘The Voyage of Bran’ states that Mongan (an Ulaid king who died about A.D. 625) was told a story by his fili (a kind of poet) every winter night from Samuin to Beltene. Presumably, the storytellers did not memorize entire tales – rather, they memorized the outlines and filled in the details extemporaneously. Eventually, perhaps as early as the seventh century, the tales began to be transcribed; and thereby two processes, rather opposite in effect, were initiated. In many cases, tales are reworked and acquire a literary veneer; this is certainly true of the Book of Leinster opening to ‘The Cattle Raid of Cúailnge’, and it would seem to apply to ‘The Cattle Raid of Fróech’ and to the concluding section of ‘The Wasting Sickness of Cú Chulaind’. But these same tales have also deteriorated considerably by the time they reach our earliest (twelfth-century) surviving manuscripts. This deterioration is not likely to have originated with the storytellers themselves, for a long tale would naturally be prolonged over several evenings (which would be in the storyteller’s interest, since during that time he would be enjoying his host’s hospitality); and in any case, as James Delargy has pointed out, no audience would ‘have listened very long to the story-teller if he were to recite tales in the form in which they have come down to us’.12 The people who wrote these stories down, however, were – for the most part – not literary artists; and of course, they lacked the incentive of an appreciative (and remunerative) audience. Banquet-hall transcription cannot have been easy, and the scribe doubtless grew weary before the storyteller did; consequently, it is not surprising that spelling is erratic, that inconsistencies abound (this could also result from a story-teller’s attempting to conflate multiple traditions) and that many tales deteriorate after a promising beginning. Some formulaic passages, such as in ‘The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel’, are represented simply by ‘et reliqua’. As manuscripts were recopied, moreover, additional errors inevitably appeared. Some areas are manifestly corrupt, and in the case of the archaic poetic sections it seems doubtful whether the scribes understood what they were writing. All this is hardly surprising – just consider the problems attendant upon the texts of Shakespeare’s plays, only four hundred years old – but it should be remembered that what survives in the manuscripts, however beautiful, is far from representative of these stories at their best.

The Irish Manuscripts

The language of these tales varies considerably as to date; but at its oldest, and allowing for some degree of deliberate archaism, it appears to go back to the eighth century; one may assume the tales were being written down at least then, if not earlier. Unfortunately, Scandinavian raiders were legion in Ireland at this time, and they tended to destroy whatever was not worth taking away; consequently, very few manuscripts predating A.D. 1000 have survived. Among the missing is the Book of Druimm Snechtai, which