Ireland's crown of thorns and roses; or, The best of her history by the best of her writers, a series of historical narratives that read as entertainingly as a novel .. . f lerne was wisely judged by the Rom-ans to be a work better not attemi:>ted. The early centuries of the Christian era may be consid-ered the period pre-eminently of Pagan bardic or legendaryfame in Ireland. In this, which we call the Ossianic period,lived Cuhal or Cumhal, father of the celebrated Fin Mac Cum-hal, and commander of the great Irish legion called the FianaErion, or Irish militia. The Ossianic poems recount th
Ireland's crown of thorns and roses; or, The best of her history by the best of her writers, a series of historical narratives that read as entertainingly as a novel .. . f lerne was wisely judged by the Rom-ans to be a work better not attemi:>ted. The early centuries of the Christian era may be consid-ered the period pre-eminently of Pagan bardic or legendaryfame in Ireland. In this, which we call the Ossianic period,lived Cuhal or Cumhal, father of the celebrated Fin Mac Cum-hal, and commander of the great Irish legion called the FianaErion, or Irish militia. The Ossianic poems recount the mostmarvelous stories of Fin and the Fiana Erion whichare compounds of undoubted facts and manifest fictions, theprowess of the heroes being in the course of time magnifiedinto the supernatural, and the figures and poetic allegories ofthe earlier bards gradually coming to be read as of these poems are gross, extravagant and absurd. Oth-ers of them are of rare beauty, and are, moreover, valuablefor the insight they give, though obliquely, into the mannersand customs, thoughts, feelings, guiding principles, and mov-ing passions of the ancient Composed from the Book of Kells. CHAPTER IV. KING CORMAC THE FIRST—NIAL OF THE NINE HOSTAGES. As early as the reign of Ardi-Ri Cormac the First—thefirst years of the third century—the Christian faith had pene-trated into Ireland. Probably in the commercial intercoursebetween the Irish and continental ports, some Christian con-verts had been amongst the Irish navigators or historians think the monarch himself, Cormac, towardsthe end of his life, adored the true God, and attempted to putdown druidism. His reign, says Mr. Haverty, the his-torian, is generally looked upon as the brightest epoch inthe entire history of pagan Ireland. He established three col-leges; one for War, one for History, and one for Jurispru-dence. He collected and remodeled the laws, and publishedthe code which remained in for
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