gnise Finn or Oisin or Oscar, if you ment them, so easily as
you would Cuculain or Fergus MacRoy or Naisi. Civilization
appears to have declined far between the two ages, to have become
much less settled,--as it naturally would, with all that fighting
going on. I take it that all the stories of both cycles relate
to ages of the breakup of civilization: peaceful and civilized
times leave less impress on the racial memory. The Fenians are
distinctly further from such civilized times, however, than are
the Red Branch: they are a nomad company, but the Red Branch had
their capital at Emain Macha by Armagh in Ulster. But what
mystery, what sparkling magic environs them! Mr. Rollerstone
cites this as an example: Once three beautiful unknown youths
joined Finn's company; but stipulated that they should camp
apart, and be left alone during the nights. After awhile it fell
out what was the reason for this: one of them died between every
dusk and dawn, and the other two had to be watching him. That is
all that is said; but it is enough to keep your imagination at
work a long while.

--And then, the manvantara dies away in a dolphin glory of
mystical colors in the many tales of wondrous voyages and islands
in the Atlantic: such as the Voyage of Maelduin, of which
Tennyson's version gives you some taste of the brightness, but
none at all of the delicacy and mysterious beauty and grace.

Except the classical, this is the oldest written literature in
Europe; and I doubt there is any other that gives us such a wide
peep-hole into lost antiquity. Yes; perhaps it is the best lens
extant, west of India. It is a lens, of course, that distorts:
the long past is shown through a temperament,--made into poetry
and romance; not left bare scientific history. But perhaps
poetry and romance are after all the truest and final form of
history. Perhaps, in looking at recent ages, we are balked of
seeing their true underlying form by the dust of events and the
clamor of details; for eyes anointed they might resolve
themselves into Moyturas and Camlans endlessly fought; into
magical weapons magically forged; into Cuculains battling
eternally at the Watcher's Ford, he alone withstanding the great
host of this world's invaders, while all his companions are under
a druid sleep. . . . It is the most splendid scene or incident
in the _Tann Bo Cuailgne;_ and I cannot think of it, but it
calls up before my mind's eye another picture: t