e deeds of a band of warlike champions who flourished in the north
about the beginning of the Christian era. No one who has visited the
raths of Emain Macha, near Armagh, where stood the traditional site
of the ancient capital of Ulster, or has followed the well-defined
and massive outworks of Rath Celtchair and the forts of the other
heroes whose deeds the tales embody, could doubt that they had their
origin in great events that once happened there. The topography of
the tales is absolutely correct. Or again, when we cross over into
Connacht, the remains at Rath Croghan, near the ancient palace of the
Amazonian queen, Medb, testify to similar events. She it was who in
her "Pillow Talk" with her husband Ailill declared that she had
married him only because in him did she find the "strange bride-gift"
which her imperious nature demanded, "a man without stinginess,
without jealousy, without fear." It was in her desire to surpass her
husband in wealth that she sent the combined armies of the south and
west into Ulster to carry off a famous bull, the Brown Bull of
Cooley, the only match in Ireland for one possessed by her spouse.
This raid forms the central subject of the _Tain Bo Cualnge_. The
motif of the tale and the kind of life described in it alike show the
primitive conditions out of which it had its rise. It belongs to a
time when land was plenty for the scattered inhabitants to dwell
upon, but stock to place upon it was scarce. The possession of herds
was necessary, not only for food and the provisioning of troops, but
as a standard of wealth, a proof of position, and a means of
exchange. Everything was estimated, before the use of money, by its
value in kine or herds. When Medb and Ailill compare their
possessions, to find out which of them is better than the other,
their herds of cattle, swine, and horses are driven in, their
ornaments and jewels, their garments and vats and household
appliances are displayed. The pursuit of the cattle of neighboring
tribes was the prime cause of the innumerable raids which made every
man's life one of perpetual warfare, much more so than the
acquisition of land or the avenging of wrongs. Hence a motif that may
seem to us insufficient and remote as the subject of a great epic
arose out of the necessities of actual life. Cattle-driving is the
oldest of all occupations in Ireland.

The conditions we find described in these tales show us an open
country, generally unenclosed by hed