place to say we have in the Celtic
literature of the past not only an almost inexhaustible mine of
beauty, but the material for a new and vivid Anglo-Celtic literature
of the imagination.

In the ensuing brief sketch of some of the main features of this
subject, at once so fascinating and so important, no attempt is made
to do other than to interest, and perhaps allure further, the general
reader. For convenience's sake, this brief paper may be divided into
four sections:--Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and Cornish.

I--IRISH

"From what dragon's teeth, and when sown, sprang forth this warlike
crop?" asks Mr. Standish O'Grady, writing in his 'History of Ireland'
of the host of famous heroic men and women whose names have come
down to us from the antique periods of the Gael. "Out of the ground
they start," he tells us, "the armies of her demigods and
champions,--beautiful heroic forms,--in the North the Red Branch, in
the South the Ernai or Clan Dega, in the West Queen Meave and her
champions, in the Southeast that mysterious half-red Meave and her
martial grooms!"

A wonderful world! that heroic Ireland, the old Ireland of Queen Meave
and Cuculain, which only now for the first time is become at all a
possible region for the most of us. It is due to the remarkable modern
band of Irish writers and scholars represented by Mr. O'Grady in the
one category, and his older namesake, Mr. Standish Hayes O'Grady of
the 'Silva Gadelica,' in the other, that this literature is at last
unsealed for those readers who have no Gaelic equipment to aid them.
With their aid Queen Meave emerges into new life in poetry and
romance; Cuculain is seen fighting afresh his ancient battles; and St.
Patrick encounters again the primitive Ossian: all these, fortunately,
are now as much within the reach of an American audience as their
classic prototypes in Homer or in the northern sagas. These few more
familiar names, out of the vast number which threaten confusion in the
old Irish romances and bardic books, may serve as clues in the
perplexing labyrinth of a subject which seems at first so difficult to
penetrate. Take Queen Meave, for instance: how do we arrive at her
place and story, so early in the centuries? She belongs to the second
great cycle of Irish legendary history, in which she has Cuculain,
Conor mac Nessa, Fergus, and Deirdre, as companions in romance. In
this cycle the dramatic centre is the fierce interminable war between
Connaug