Lays of the red branch . MESGEDRA : A LAY OF THE WESTERN GAEL. INTRODUCTORY NOTE. [Irish heroic tradition revolves in two chief cycles, separatedby an interval of about two centuries and a-half. In the first,Conor, King of Ulster, living about the commencement of theChristian era, occupies the central place; surrounded by Cuchul-lin, Conall Carnach, and the heroes of the Red Branch. Thefortunes of Deirdre and the sons of Usnach connect him withScotland ; those of his Amazonian rival, Maev, with Connaught,and those of Curi and Blanaid with Munster. In the secondcycle, Cormac son of Art must be

---

Lays of the red branch . MESGEDRA : A LAY OF THE WESTERN GAEL. INTRODUCTORY NOTE. [Irish heroic tradition revolves in two chief cycles, separatedby an interval of about two centuries and a-half. In the first,Conor, King of Ulster, living about the commencement of theChristian era, occupies the central place; surrounded by Cuchul-lin, Conall Carnach, and the heroes of the Red Branch. Thefortunes of Deirdre and the sons of Usnach connect him withScotland ; those of his Amazonian rival, Maev, with Connaught,and those of Curi and Blanaid with Munster. In the secondcycle, Cormac son of Art must be regarded as the central figure,though eclipsed by the more heroic forms of Finn and are here in the third century, and the dawn of the comingchange to Christianity tinges all the characters with a greatersoftness and humanity, as in the romance of the elopement ofDermid and Grania, and in many of the Ossianic the better defined and more characteristic forms of grandeur,with the stronger accompanim

---

Size: 2871px × 871px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookpu, booksubjectenglishpoetry