[43] Ibid., and O'Grady, "Silva Gadelica."
[CHAPTER XXX]
MISCELLANEOUS ROMANCE
In addition to the stories that centre round Cuchulain and round Finn there are a number of miscellaneous ones dealing with episodes or characters in Irish history; some are in short groups or minor cycles, but others are completely independent tales. All are built upon lines similar to those which we have been considering, and they are composed for the most part in a mixture of both verse and prose. Some of these sagas deal with pre-Christian times, and others with the early mediæval period. Very few, if any, deal with post-Danish and still fewer with post-Norman subjects. The seventh century was the golden era of the Irish saga, and nothing that the race did in later times improved on it. Out of the hundred and eighty-seven stories whose names are preserved in the Book of Leinster, in a list which must have been, as D'Arbois de Jubainville points out, drawn up in the seventh century, about one hundred and twenty seem to have utterly perished. Of the others—many of which, however, are preserved only in the baldest and most condensed form—some four or five relate to the Fenian Cycle, some eighteen are Red Branch stories, and some eight or nine, mostly preserved in the colourless digests of the Book of Invasions, are mythological. About twenty-one of the others belong to minor groups, or are miscellaneous single tales. Some of them are of the highest interest and antiquity. Of these the storming of the Bruidhean [Bree-an] or Court of Dá Derga is, after the Táin Bo Chuailgne, probably the oldest and most important saga in the whole range of Irish literature.
These two stories substantially dating from the seventh century, and perhaps formed into shape long before that time, are preserved in the oldest miscellaneous MSS. which we possess, and throw more light upon pagan manners, customs, and institutions than perhaps any other.[1]
The period in which the Court-of-Dá-Derga story is laid is about coincident with that of the Red Branch Cycle, only it does not deal with Emania, and the Red Branch, but with Leinster, Tara, and the High-king of Erin, who was there resident. The High-king at this time was the celebrated Conairè the "Great," and rightly, if we may believe our Annals, was he so called, for he had been a just, magnanimous, and above all fortunate ruler of all Ireland for fifty years.[2] So just was he, and so strict, that he had sent into banishment a number of lawless and unworthy persons who troubled his kingdom. Among these were his own five foster brothers whom he was reluctantly compelled to send into exile along with the others. These people all turned to piracy, and plundered the coasts of England, Scotland, and even Ireland, wherever they found an opportunity of making a successful raid upon the unarmed inhabitants.[3] It so happened that the son of the King of Britain, one Ingcel, also of Irish extraction, had been banished by his father for his crimes, and was now making his living in much the same way as the predatory Irishmen. These two parties having met, being drawn together by a fellow-feeling and their common lawlessness, struck up a friendship, and made a league with one another, thus doubling the strength of each. Soon after this the High-king found himself in Clare, called thither to settle, according to his wont, some dispute between rival chiefs. His business ended, he was leisurely taking his way with his retinue back to his royal seat at Tara, when on entering the borders of Meath he beheld the whole country in the direction of his city a sheet of flame and rolling smoke. Terrified at this, and divining that the banished pirates had made a descent on his capital during his absence, he turned aside and took the great road that, leading from Tara to Dublin, passed thence into the heart of Leinster. Pursuing this road the King crossed the Liffey in safety and made for the Bruighean [Bree-an] or Court of Dá Derg on the road close to the river Dothar or Dodder, called ever since Boher-na-breena,[4] the "road of the Court," close to Tallacht, not far from Dublin. This was one of the six great courts of universal hospitality[5] in Erin, and Dá Derg, its master, was delighted and honoured by the visit from the High-king.
The pirates having plundered Tara, took to their vessels, and having laden them with their spoils were now under a favourable breeze running along the sea coast towards the Hill of Howth, when they perceived from afar the King's company making in their chariots for Dublin along the great high road. One of his own foster brothers was the first to recognise that it was the High-king who was there. He was kept in view and seen at last to enter Dá Derg's great court of hospitality. The pirates ran their ships ashore to the south of the Liffey, and Ingcel the Briton set off as a spy to examine the court and the number of armed men about it; to see if it might not be possible to surprise and plunder it during the night. On his return he is questioned by his companions as to what he saw, and by this simple device—familiar to all poets from Homer down—we are introduced to the principal characters of his court, and are shown what the retinue of a High-king consisted of in the sixth or seventh century, about which time the saga probably took definite shape on parchment, or in the second or third century if we are to suppose the traits to be more archaic than the composition of the tale. We have here a minute account of the King and the court and the company, with their costumes, insignia, and appearance. We see the King and his sons, his nine pipers or wind-instrument players, his cupbearers, his chief druid-juggler, his three principal charioteers, their nine apprentice charioteers, his hostages the Saxon princes, his equerries and outriders, his three judges, his nine harpers, his three ordinary jugglers, his three cooks, his three poets, his nine guardsmen, and his two private table attendants. We see Dá Derg, the lord of the court, his three doorkeepers, the British outlaws, and the king's private drink-bearers. Here is the description of the King himself—