The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland Part 22

The charming tale, of his marriage with Ethne ni Dunlaing is taken from Keating's FORUS FEASA. From this source also I have taken the tales of the Brehon Flahari, of Kiernit and the mill, and of Cormac's death and burial. The _Instructions of Cormac_ have been edited and translated by Dr Kuno Meyer in the Todd Lecture Series of the Royal Irish Academy, xiv., April 1909. They are found in numerous MSS., and their date is fixed by Dr Meyer about the ninth century. With some other Irish matter of the same description they const.i.tute, says Mr Alfred Nutt, "the oldest body of gnomic wisdom" extant in any European vernacular. (_FOLK-LORE_, Sept. 30, 1909.)

The story of Cormac's adventures in Fairyland has been published with a translation by Standish Hayes O'Grady in the _TRANSACTIONS OF THE OSSIANIC SOCIETY_, vol. iii., and is also given very fully by d'Arbois de Jubainvilie in his CYCLE MYTHOLOGIQUE IRLANDAIS. The tale is found, among other MSS., in the BOOK OF BALLYMOTE, but is known to have been extant at least as early as the tenth century, since in that year it figures in a list of Gaelic tales drawn up by the historian Tierna.

The ingenious story of the _Judgment concerning Cormac's Sword_ is found in the BOOK OF BALLYMOTE, and is printed with a translation by Dr Whitly Stokes in _IRISCHE TEXTE_, iii. Serie, 7 Heft, 1891.

p.r.o.nouncing Index

The correct p.r.o.nunciation of Gaelic proper names can only be learned from the living voice. It cannot be accurately represented by any combination of letters from the English alphabet. I have spared the reader as much trouble as possible on this score by simplifying, as far as I could, the forms of the names occurring in the text, and if the reader will note the following general rules, he will get quite as near to the p.r.o.nunciation intended as there is any necessity for him to do. A few names which might present some unusual difficulty are given with their approximate English p.r.o.nunciations in the Index.

The chief rule to observe is that vowels are p.r.o.nounced as in the Continental languages, not according to the custom peculiar to England. Thus _a_ is like _a_ in _father_, never like _a_ in _fate, I_(when long) is like _ee_, _u_ like _oo_, or like _u_ in _put_ (never like _u_ in _tune_). An accent implies length, thus _Dun_, a fortress or mansion, is p.r.o.nounced _Doon_. The letters _ch_ are never to be p.r.o.nounced with a _t_ sound, as in the word _chip_, but like a rough _h_ or a softened _k_, rather as in German. _Gh_ is silent as in English, and _g_ is always hard, as in _give_. _C_ is always as _k_, never as _s_.

In the following Index an accent placed after a syllable indicates that the stress is to be laid on that syllable. Only those words are given, the p.r.o.nunciation of which is not easily ascertainable by attention to the foregoing rules.