CUCHULAIN, THE HOUND OF ULSTER. By Eleanor Hull.
There is one important tale of the Finn cycle, the Pursuit of Dermot and Grania, which I have not included. I have omitted it, partly because it presents the character of Finn in a light inconsistent with what is said of him elsewhere, and partly because it has in it a certain sinister and depressing element which renders it unsuitable for a collection intended largely for the young.
I gave this book—The History of Ireland (HEROIC PERIOD)—to Burne-Jones in order to interest him in Irish myth and legend. "I'll try and read it," he said. A week afterwards he came and said—It is a new world of thought and pleasure you have opened to me. I knew nothing of this, and life is quite enlarged. But now, I want to see all the originals. Where can I get them?"
I have only spoken of prose writing above. But in poetry (and in Poetry well fitted to the tales), this work had already been done nobly, and with a fine Celtic splendour of feeling and expression, by Sir Samuel Ferguson.