s gifted race never developed a drama of its own.
This is doubtless partly due to the political conditions of the island.
And, moreover, we are constantly struck by the lack of sustained effort
which prevented the _filid_ from producing great epics in verse.
Dramatic material is abundantly present in the old epics, but it has
never been utilized. As one might expect from the vernacular literature
of Ireland, these romances are pervaded by a keen sense of humour. We
feel that the story-teller is continually expecting a laugh and he
exaggerates in true Irish fashion, so that the stories are full of
extravagantly grotesque passages. In the later LL. version we notice a
tendency to linger over pathetic situations, but this is unknown in the
earlier stage. Perhaps the most serious defect of all Irish literary
products is the lack of any sense of proportion, which naturally goes
hand in hand with the love of the grotesque. Far too much attention is
paid to trivial incidents and minute descriptions, however valuable the
latter may be to the antiquarian, to the detriment of the artistic
effect. Further, the story-teller does not know when to stop. He goes
meandering on long after the main portion of the story is finished, with
the result that Irish romances are apt to end in a most uninteresting
anticlimax. Finally we are wearied with a constant repetition of the
same epithets and similes, and with turgid descriptions; even the
grotesque exaggerations pall when we find them to be stereotyped. But
the early epics do not offend our sense of propriety in expression to
the same extent as the later Finn cycle.

The _Tain Bo Cualnge_ formed a kind of nucleus round which a number of
other tales clustered. A number of these are called _remscela_ or
introductory stories to the _Tain_. Such are the "Revealing of the Tain"
(already mentioned), the "Debility of the Ultonians" (giving the story
of the curse), "The Cattle-Driving of Regamon, Dartaid and Flidais,"
"_Tain bo Regamna_," "The Cattle-Driving of Fraech," "The Dispute of the
Swineherds," telling the previous history of the Bulls, "The Capture of
the Fairy Mound," "The Dream of Mac oc," the "Adventures of Nera," the
"Wooing of Ferb." Other stories form a kind of continuation of the
_Tain_. Thus the "Battle of Rosnaree" ("_Cath Ruis na Rig_") relates how
Conchobar, as a result of the loss of the Bull, sends an army against
the kings of Leinster and Tara, and would have been routed but