the disjointed fragments together, smooth the asperities and hand
down to posterity the finished epic of the Celtic world, superior, perhaps,
to the Iliad or the Odyssey. What has come down to us is "a sort of
patchwork epic," as Prescott called the Ballads of the Cid, a popular
epopee in all its native roughness, wild phantasy and extravagance of deed
and description as it developed during successive generations. It resembles
the frame of some huge ship left unfinished by the builders on the beach
and covered with shells and drift from the sea of Celtic tradition. From
the historical standpoint, however, and as a picture of the old barbaric
Celtic culture, and as a pure expression of elemental passion, it is of
more importance to have the genuine tradition as it developed amongst the
people, unvarnished by poetic art and uninfluenced by the example of older
and alien societies.

According to the Chronicles of Ireland, as formulated in the Annals of
Tigernach,[5] who died in 1088, King Conchobar of Ulster began to reign in
the year 30 B.C., and he is said to have died of grief at the news that
Christ had been crucified. His reign therefore lasted about sixty
years. Cuchulain died in the year 39 A.D. in the twenty-seventh year of
his age, as we learn from the following entry: "The death of Cuchulain, the
bravest hero of the Irish, by Lugaid son of Three Hounds, king of Munster,
and by Erc, king of Tara, son of Carbre Niafer, and by the three sons of
Calatin of Connacht. Seven years was his age when he assumed arms,
seventeen was his age when he followed the Driving of the Kine of Cualnge,
but twenty-seven years was his age when he died."[6]

A very different account is given in the manuscript known as H. 3. 17,
Trinity College, Dublin, quoted by O'Curry in his _Manuscript Materials_,
page 508. The passage concludes with the statement: "So that the year of
the Tain was the fifty-ninth year of Cuchulain's age, from the night of his
birth to the night of his death." The record first quoted, however, is
partly corroborated by the following passage which I translate from the
Book of Ballymote, facsimile edition, page 13, col. a, lines 9-21: "In the
fourteenth year of the reign of Conaire (killed in 40 B.C.) and of
Conchobar, the Blessed Virgin was born. At that time Cuchulain had
completed thirteen years; and in the fourth year after the birth of Mary,
the expedition of the Kine of Cualnge took place ... that is, in the
eight