stward into England,
Wales, and Gaul, and there seem to have been few return movements
towards the west. Ireland pursued her path of native development
undisturbed. It is to this circumstance that she owes the
preservation of so much of her native literature, a great body of
material, historical, religious, poetic, romantic, showing marks of
having originated at a very early time, and of great variety and
interest.

At what period this literature first began to be written down we do
not know. Orosius tells us that a traveler named Aethicus spent a
considerable time in Ireland early in the fifth century "examining
their volumes", which tends to prove that there was writing in
Ireland before St. Patrick. But the native bard must have made
writing superfluous. The man who could, at a moment's notice, recite
any one out of the 350 stories which might be called for, besides
poetry, genealogies, and tribal records, was worth many books. Only a
few were expert enough to read his writings, but all could enjoy his
tales.

The earliest written records that we have now existing date from the
seventh or eighth century; but undoubtedly there is preserved for us,
in these materials, a picture of social conditions going back to the
very beginning of our era, and coeval with the stage of civilization
known in archaeology as _La Tene_ or "Late Celtic".

To help his memory the early "shanachie" or story-teller grouped his
romantic story-store under different heads, such as "Tains" or
Cattle-spoils, Feasts, Elopements, Sieges, Battles, Destructions,
Tragical Deaths; but it is easier for us now to group them in another
way, and to class together the series of tales referring to the
Tuatha De Danann or ancient deities, those belonging to the Red
Branch cycle of King Conchobar and Cuchulainn, those relating to
Finn, and the Legends of the Kings. The hundred or more tales
belonging to the second group are especially valuable for social
history on account of the detailed descriptions they give of customs,
dress, weapons, habits of life, and ethical ideas. To the historian,
folklorist, and student of primitive civilizations they are documents
of the highest importance.

It seems likely that the Red Branch cycle of tales, including the
epic tale of the Tain or Cattle-spoil of Cualnge, which has gathered
round itself a number of minor tales, had some basis of historical
fact, and arose in the period of Ulster's predominance to celebrate
th