ance to get the names of Irish places and
of Irish heroes correctly determined and to discard their English corrupted
spellings. There are certain barbarisms, however, such as Slane (Slemain),
Boyne (Boann), and perhaps even Cooley (Cualnge), which have been
stereotyped in their English dress and nothing is to be gained by reforming
them. The forms _Erin_ (dative of _Eriu_, the genuine and poetic name of
the island) and _Alba_ have been retained throughout instead of the hybrids
"Ireland" and "Scotland." Final _e_ is occasionally marked with a grave
(_e.g._ Mane, Dare) to show that it is not silent as it often is in
English.

I quite perceive that I have not always succeeded in reproducing the
precise shade of meaning of words certain of which had become antiquated
and even unintelligible to the native scholars of the later Middle Irish
period themselves. This is especially true of the passages in _rosc_, which
are fortunately not numerous and which were probably intentionally made as
obscure and allusive as possible, the object being, perhaps, as much the
music of the words as the sense. Indeed, in some cases, I have considered
myself fortunate if I have succeeded in getting their mere drift. No one
takes to heart more than the present writer the truth of Zimmer's remark,
that "it needs no great courage to affirm that _not one_ of the living
Celtic scholars, _with_ all the aids at their disposal, possesses such a
ready understanding of the contents of, for example, the most important Old
Irish saga-text, "The Cualnge Cattle-raid," as was required thirty or more
years ago in Germany of a good Gymnasium graduate in the matter of the
Homeric poems and _without_ aids of any kind."[13] However, in spite of its
defects, I trust I have not incurred the censure of Don Quijote[14] by
doing what he accuses bad translators of and shown the wrong side of the
tapestry, thereby obscuring the beauty and exactness of the work, and I
venture to hope that my translation may prove of service in leading
students to take an interest in the language and literature of Ireland.

WORKS ON THE TAIN BO CUALNGE

(Our Bibliography has no Pretension at being Complete)

The Tain has been analysed by J.T. Gilbert, in the facsimile edition of
LU., pages xvi-xviii, based on O'Curry's unpublished account written about
1853; by Eugene O'Curry in his "Lectures on the Manuscript Materials of
Ancient Irish History," pages 28-40, Dublin, 1861; by John