eenth year of the reign of Conaire. Cuchulain had completed his
seventeenth year at that time. That is, it was in the thirty-second year of
the reign of Octavius Augustus that the same expedition took place. Eight
years after the Tain Bo Cualnge, Christ was born, and Mary had completed
twelve years then, and that was in the fortieth year of the reign of
Octavius Augustus; and in the twenty-sixth year of the reign of Conaire and
Conchobar, and in the second year after the birth of Christ, Cuchulain
died. And twenty-seven years was Cuchulain's age at that time."

These apparent synchronisms, of course, may only rest upon the imagination
of the Christian annalists of Ireland, who hoped to exalt their ancient
rulers and heroes by bringing them into relation with and even making them
participate in the events of the life of the Saviour. But in placing the
date of the expedition of the Tain at about the beginning of the Christian
era, Irish tradition is undoubtedly correct, as appears from the character
of the civilization depicted in the Ulster tales, which corresponds in a
remarkable degree with what authors of antiquity have recorded of the Celts
and with the character of the age which archaeologists call "la Tene," or
"Late Celtic," which terminates at the beginning of the first century of
our era. Oral tradition was perhaps occupied for five hundred years working
over and developing the story of the Tain, and by the close of the fifth
century the saga to which it belonged was substantially the one we have
now. The text of the tale must have been completed by the first half of the
seventh century, and, as we shall see, its oldest extant version, the Book
of the Dun, dates from about the year 1100.

But, whatever may be the precise dates of these events, which we are not in
a position to determine more accurately, the composition of the Tain
Bo Cualnge antedates by a considerable margin the epic tales of the
Anglo-Saxons, the Scandinavians, the Franks and the Germans. It is the
oldest epic tale of western Europe, and it and the cycle of tales to which
it belongs form "the oldest existing literature of any of the peoples to
the north of the Alps."[7] The deeds it recounts belong to the heroic age
of Ireland three hundred years before the introduction of Christianity into
the island, and its spirit never ceased to remain markedly pagan. The
mythology that permeates it is one of the most primitive manifestations of
the personi