AGE OF THE VERSIONS
There is no doubt that the version here translated is a very old one. The language in LU is almost uniformly Middle Irish, not more than a century earlier than the date of the MS.; thus it shows the post-thetic he, iat, etc. as object, the adverb with co, the confusion of ar and for, the extension of the b-future, etc. But YBL preserves forms as old as the Glosses:—
(1) The correct use of the infixed relative, e.g. rombith, 'with which he struck.' (LU, robith, 58a, 45.)
(2) The infixed accusative pronoun, e.g. nachndiusced, 'that he should not wake him.' (LU, nach diusced, 62a, 30.)
(3) no with a secondary tense, e.g. nolinad, 'he used to fill.' (LU, rolinad, 60b, 6.)
(4) Very frequently YBL keeps the right aspirated or non-aspirated consonant, where LU shows a general confusion, etc.
LL has no very archaic forms, though it cultivates a pseudo-archaic style; and it is unlikely that the Leinster version goes back much earlier than 1050. The latter part of the LU Tain shows that a version of the Leinster type was known to the compiler. The style of this part, with its piling-up of epithets, is that of eleventh-century narrative, as exemplified in texts like the Cath Ruis na Rig and the Cogadh Gaidhil; long strings of alliterative epithets, introduced for sound rather than sense, are characteristic of the period. The descriptions of chariots and horses in the Fer Diad episode in YBL are similar, and evidently belong to the same rescension.
The inferences from the facts noted in the foregoing sections may be stated as follows: A version of the Tain goes back to the early eighth, or seventh century, and is preserved under the YBL text; an opinion based on linguistic evidence, but coinciding with the tradition which ascribes the 'Recovery of the Tain' to Senchan Torpeist, a bard of the later seventh century. This version continued to be copied down to the eleventh century, gradually changing as the language changed. Meanwhile, varying accounts of parts of the story came into existence, and some time in the eleventh century a new redaction was made, the oldest representative of which is the LL text. Parts of this were embodied in or added to the older version; hence the interpolations in LU.
THE FER DIAD EPISODE
There is much difference between the two versions of this episode. In YBL, the introductory portion is long and full, the actual fight very short, while in LL the fight is long-drawn-out, and much more stress is laid on the pathetic aspect of the situation. Hence it is generally assumed that LL preserves an old version of the episode, and that the scribe of the Yellow Book has compressed the latter part. It is not, however, usual, in primitive story-telling, to linger over scenes of pathos. Such lingering is, like the painted tears of late Italian masters, invariably a sign of decadence. It is one of the marks of romance, which recognises tragedy only when it is voluble, and prodigal of lamentation. The older version of the Tain is throughout singularly free from pathos of the feebler sort; the humorous side is always uppermost, and the tragic suggestions interwoven with it.