Source.—MacInnes, Folk-Tales from Argyleshire, vii., combined with Campbell of Tiree's version.
Parallels.—The earliest version, from an Egerton MS. of the fifteenth century, has been printed by Mr. S. H. O'Grady in his Silva Gadelica, No. 20, with an English version, pp. 332-42. Mr. Campbell of Tiree has given a short Gaelic version in the Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, 78-100. Campbell of Islay collected the fullest version of this celebrated story, which is to be found among his manuscript remains now in Edinburgh. Mr. Nutt has given his English abstract in Folk-lore, i. 373-7, in its original form. The story must have contained twenty-four tales or episodes of stories, nineteen of which are preserved in J. F. Campbell's version. For parallels to the various incidents, see Mr. Nutt's notes on MacInnes, pp. 470-3. The tale is referred to in MacNicol, Remarks on Dr. Johnson's Journey to the Hebrides, 1779.
Remarks.—Nothing could give a more vivid idea of what might be called the organisation of the art of story-telling among the Celts than this elaborate tale. Mr. Nutt is inclined to trace it, even in its present form, back to the twelfth or thirteenth century. It occurs in an MS. of the fifteenth century in an obviously unoriginal form which shows that the story-teller did not appreciate the significance of many features in the folk-tale he was retelling, and yet it was orally collected by the great Campbell in 1871, in a version which runs to 142 folio pages. Formally, its interest consists in large measure in the curious framework in which the subsidiary stories are imbedded. This is not of the elaborate kind introduced into Europe from the East by the Crusades, but more naive, resembling rather, as Mr. Nutt points out to me, the loosely-knit narratives of Charles Lever in his earlier manner.
XLIII. HOW FIN WENT TO THE KINGDOM OF THE BIG MEN.
Source.—J. G. Campbell, The Fians (Waifs and Strays, No. iv.), pp. 175-92.
Parallels.—The Voyage to Brobdingnag will occur to many readers, and it is by no means impossible that, as Swift was once an Irish lad, The Voyage may have been suggested by some such tale told him in his infancy. It is not, however, a part of the earlier recorded Ossianic cycle, though over-sea giants occur as opponents of the heroes in that as well as in the earlier Ultonian cycle.
XLIV. HOW CORMAC MAC ART WENT TO FAERY.
Source.—Kindly condensed by Mr. Alfred Nutt from an English version by Mr. S. H. O'Grady in Ossianic Society's Publications, vol. iii. The oldest known version has been printed from fourteenth century MSS., by Mr. Whitley Stokes, Irische Texte, iii. I. The story existed in some form in the early eleventh century, as it is cited in the epic catalogue contained in the Book of Leinster.
Parallels.—Mr. Nutt in his Studies on the Legend of the Holy Grail, p. 193, connects this visit of Cormac to the Otherworld with the bespelled Castle incident in the Grail Legend, and gives other instances of visits to the Brug of Manannan. Manannan Mac Lir is the Celtic sea-god.
XLV. RIDERE OF RIDDLES.