This book is what its author believes to be the only attemptyet made to put the English reader into possession,in clear, compact, and what it is hoped may proveagreeable, form, of the mythical, legendary, and poetictraditions of the earliest inhabitants of our islands whohave left us written records—the Gaelic and the BritishCelts. It is true that admirable translations and paraphrasesof much of Gaelic mythical saga have been recentlypublished, and that Lady Charlotte Guest’s translation ofthe Mabinogion has been placed within the reach of theleast wealthy reader. But these books not merely eachcover a portion only of the whole ground, but, in addition,contain little elucidatory matter. Their characters standisolated and unexplained; and the details that would explainthem must be sought for with considerable troublein the lectures and essays of scholars to learned societies.The reader to whom this literature is entirely new isintroduced, as it were, to numerous people of whose antecedentshe knows nothing; and the effect is often disconcertingenough to make him lay down the volume indespair.
But here he will at last make the formal acquaintanceof all the chief characters of Celtic myth: of the Gaelicgods and the giants against whom they struggled; of the“Champions of the Red Branch” of Ulster, heroes of amartial epopee almost worthy to be placed beside “thetale of Troy divine”; and of Finn and his Fenians. Hewill meet also with the divine and heroic personages ofvithe ancient Britons: with their earliest gods, kin to themembers of the Gaelic Pantheon; as well as with Arthurand his Knights, whom he will recognize as no mortalchampions, but belonging to the same mythic company.Of all these mighty figures the histories will be brieflyrecorded, from the time of their unquestioned godhood,through their various transformations, to the last doubtful,dying recognition of them in the present day, as “fairies”.Thus the volume will form a kind of handbook to a subjectof growing importance—the so-called “Celtic Renaissance”,which is, after all, no more—and, indeed, no less—thanan endeavour to refresh the vitality of English poetry atits most ancient native fount.
The book does not, of course, profess to be for Celticscholars, to whom, indeed, its author himself owes all thatis within it. It aims only at interesting the reader familiarwith the mythologies of Greece, Rome, and Scandinaviain another, and a nearer, source of poetry. Its author’swish is to offer those who have fallen, or will fall, underthe attraction of Celtic legend and romance, just such avolume as he himself would once have welcomed, and forwhich he sought in vain. It is his hope that, in choosingfrom the considerable, though scattered, translations andcommentaries of students of Old Gaelic and Old Welsh,he has chosen wisely, and that his readers will be able,should they wish, to use his book as a stepping-stone tothe authorities themselves. To that end it is whollydirec