GREGORY, Lady. Daughter of Dudley Persse, D.L., of Roxborough, Co. Galway. She has identified herself with the modern Irish literary movement. Besides the books here noted she has written a great many plays for the Abbey Theatre. Her home is Coole Park, Gort, Co. Galway.
⸺ CUCHULAIN OF MUIRTHEMNE. Pp. 360. (Murray). 6s. Pref. by W. B. Yeats. (N.Y.: Scribner). 2.00. 1902.
The Cuchulain legends woven into an ordered narrative. The translation for the most part is taken from texts already published. Lady Gregory has made her own translation from them, comparing it with translations already published. “I have fused different versions together and condensed many passages, and I have left out many.” The narrative is not told in dialect, but in the idiom of the peasant who speaks in English and thinks in Gaelic. “I have thought it more natural to tell the stories in the manner of thatched houses, where I have heard so many legends of Finn, &c. ... than in the manner of the slated houses where I have not heard them.” The matter also is often such as the peasant Seanchuidhe might choose; the clear epic flow being clogged with garbage of the Jack-the-Giant-killer type. Fiona MacLeod says very well of the style that it is “over cold in its strange sameness of emotion, a little chill with the chill of studious handicraft,” and speaks elsewhere of its “monotonous passionlessness” and its “lack of virility.” Yet to the book as a whole he gives high, if qualified, praise. W. B. Yeats, in his enthusiastic Preface, speaks of it as perhaps the best book that has ever come out of Ireland. All these remarks apply also to the following work.
⸺ GODS AND FIGHTING MEN. Pp. 476. (Murray). 6s. Pref. by W. B. Yeats. (N.Y.: Scribner). 2.00. 1906.
Treats of: Part I. “The Gods” (Tuatha De Danaan, Lugh, The Coming of the Gael, Angus Og, the Dagda, Fate of Children of Lir, &c.); II. “The Fianna” (Finn, Oisin, Diarmuid, and Grania). The Finn Cycle is treated as being wholly legendary.
⸺ A BOOK OF SAINTS AND WONDERS. (Murray). 5s. 1907.
A series of very short (half page or so) and disconnected stories of fragmentary anecdotes. Told in language which is a literal translation from the Irish, and in the manner of illiterate peasants. First, there are stories of the saints, all quite fanciful, of course, and usually devoid of definite meaning. Then there is the Voyage of Maeldune, a strange piece of fantastic imagination often degenerating into extravagance and silliness. The book is not suitable for certain readers owing to naturalistic expressions.
⸺ THE KILTARTAN WONDER-BOOK. Pp. 103. 9 in. + 7. (Maunsel). 3s. 6d. net. Illustr. by Margaret Gregory. Linen cover. 1910.
Sixteen typical folk-tales collected in Kiltartan, a barony in Galway, on the borders of Clare, from the lips of old peasants. “I have not changed a word in these stories as they were told to me.”—(Note at end). But some transpositions of parts have been made. It does not appear whether the stories were told to Lady Gregory in Irish or in English. Nothing unsuited to children. All the tales are distinctly modern in tone if not in origin. The illustrations are quaint and original, with their crude figures vividly coloured in flat tints.