From "Old Celtic Romances," by P. W. Joyce, LL.D.
XXXVII.
TENNYSON'S "VOYAGE OF MAILDUNE."
("Founded on an Irish Legend: a.d. 700.")
Of the tale called the "Voyage of Maildune," the oldest copy is in the Book of the Dun Cow, which was copied from older books eight hundred years ago: but here the story is imperfect at both the beginning and end, portions of the book having been torn away at some former time. There is, however, a perfect copy in the Yellow Book of Lecan.[50] It was translated and published for the first time in "Old Celtic Romances" in 1879. When this book appeared, the great English poet, Alfred Tennyson (afterwards Lord Tennyson), read the story, and made it the subject of a beautiful poem, also called "The Voyage of Maildune." Portions of the beginning and end of this poem are here given:—
I.
I was the chief of the race—he had stricken my father dead—
But I gather'd my fellows together, I swore I would strike off his head.
Each of them looked like a king, and was noble in birth as in worth,
And each of them boasted he sprang from the oldest race upon earth.
Each was as brave in the fight as the bravest hero of song,
And each of them [liefer] had died than have done one another a wrong.
He lived on an isle in the ocean—we sail'd on a Friday morn—
He that had slain my father the day before I was born.
II.
And we came to the isle in the ocean, and there on the shore was he.
But a sudden blast blew us out and away thro' a boundless sea.