an unknown monkish writer compiled the
_Navigatio S. Brendani_, drawing the material for his episodes from
_Imram curaig Maelduin._ This famous work only appears in an Irish dress
in a confused and disconnected "Life of St Brendan" in the Book of
Lismore. The same MS. contains yet another voyage, the "Adventure of
Tadg MacCein."

Fenian or Ossianic cycle.

We must now turn our attention to the later heroic cycle, commonly
called the Fenian or Ossianic. Unfortunately the origin of the stories
and poems connected with Finn and his warriors is obscure, and scholars
are by no means agreed over the question (see FINN MAC COOL). In the
earlier cycle the figures and the age in which they live are sharply
drawn, and we can have no hesitation in assuming that the _Tain_
represents in the main the state of Ireland at the beginning of the
Christian era. Finn and his companions are nebulous personages, and,
although it is difficult to discover the actual starting-point of the
legend, from the 12th century onwards we are able to trace the
development of the saga with some degree of certainty. A remarkably
small amount of space is devoted to this cycle in the oldest MSS. Of the
134 pages contained in LU. only half-a-dozen deal with Finn as against
58 with Cuchulinn. In LL. the figures are, Ulster cycle 100 pp.,
Ossianic 25 pp., the latter being mainly made up of short ballads,
whilst in 15th-century MSS., such as the Book of Lismore and Laud 610,
the proportion is overwhelmingly in favour of the later group. Again in
Urard MacCoisi's list of tales, which seems to go back to the 10th
century, only two appear to deal with subjects taken from the Ossianic
cycle. In the first instance Finn seems to have been a poet, and as such
he appears in the 12th-century MSS., LU. and LL. Thus the subjects of
the Ossianic cycle in the earliest MSS. appear in a new dress. The
vehicle of the older epic is prose, but the later cycle is clothed in
ballad form. Of these ballads about a dozen, apart from poems in the
_Dindsenchus_ are preserved in LU., LL. and YBL., and none of these
poems are probably much older than the 11th century. In the commentary
to the _Amra_ of Columbkille a beautiful poem on winter is attributed to
Finn. At the same time we do find a few prose tales, e.g. "_Fotha catha_
_Cnucha_" in LU., describing the death of Cumall, Finn's father, and in
LL. and Rawlinson B 502, part of which Zimmer assigns to the 7th
century, we have th