of the courtiers expressed admiration for the amiability of the
king who thus consented to part from that which, on account of his
power, the four other provinces of Erin could not have wrested
from him. From this praise a cup-valorous associate dissented, and
maintained that it was no credit to him, since, had he refused, Meave
of herself could have compelled him to surrender it. The steward of
Dare, coming in at this inopportune moment, heard the insulting vaunt,
and went out in a rage and bore to his master the remark he had heard.
Dare, in a passion of resentment, withdrew his offer, swearing by all
the gods that Meave should not have the Brown Bull by either consent
or force. Meave, on hearing of his determination, was correspondingly
incensed, and without delay gathered together her forces and declared
war upon Dare.

In a hotly contested battle, the army of Meave defeated that of her
adversary, and the Brown Bull was carried back to her own country.
According to the grave narrative of the chronicler, the issue of
the bulls had yet to be fought out by the animals themselves, for no
sooner did the captive bull come into the province of Connaught than
there was precipitated a tremendous conflict with his rival, the
bull of Ailill. The tale describes vividly and with much of fabulous
admixture the contest, which resulted in the rout of the White-horned.
Thus was the honor of Meave doubly sustained by the wage of battle.

This and many other strange narratives with regard to the undoubtedly
historical Meave have vested her with a halo of romance, and so
veiled her real personality that it is rather in her mythical than her
historical character that she has come down to us; for there is little
doubt of her being the original of Queen Mab of fairy fame. Spenser
gathered much of his fairy lore in Ireland, and in the section where
this famous queen lived and where grew up the mass of tradition and
fable which must have appealed strongly to the imagination of the
author of the _Faerie Queen_.

The intense religious character of the Irish people is not to be
accredited to the persistence of superstitious influences and beliefs
in the new garb of Christian enlightenment; for although their
exuberant fancy has always peopled their land with races of malign as
well as of amiable spirits, the real impress of religion is that which
they received from early Christian sources. Bridget, the saint who
heads the calendar of Irish