But it is still a matter of question whether the whole Fer Diad episode may not be late. Professor Zimmer thinks it is; but even the greatest scholar, with a theory to prove, is not quite free. It will of course be noticed, on this side, that the chief motives of the Fer Diad episode all appear previously in other episodes (e.g. the fights with Ferbaeth and with Loch). Further, the account even in YBL is not marked by old linguistic forms as are other parts of the tale, while much of it is in the bombastic descriptive style of LL. In the condition in which we have the tale, however, this adventure is treated as the climax of the story. Its motive is to remove Cuchulainn from the field, in order to give the rest of Ulster a chance. But in the account of the final great fight in YBL, Cuchulainn's absence is said to be due to his having been wounded in a combat against odds (crechtnugud i n-ecomlund). Considering, therefore, that even in YBL the Fer Diad episode is late in language, it seems possible that it may have replaced some earlier account in which Cuchulainn was so severely wounded that he was obliged to retire from the field.
PREVIOUS WORK ON THE 'TAIN'
Up to the present time the Tain has never been either printed or translated, though the LU version has been for thirty years easily accessible in facsimile. Dr. Windisch's promised edition will shortly be out, containing the LL and LU texts, with a German translation of the former. The most useful piece of work done hitherto for the Tain is the analysis by Professor Zimmer of the LU text (conclusion from the Book of Leinster), in the fifth of his Keltische Studien (Zeitschrift für vergl. Sprachforschung, xxviii.). Another analysis of the story, by Mr. S. H. O'Grady, appeared in Miss Eleanor Hull's The Cuchullin Saga; it is based on a late paper MS. in the British Museum, giving substantially the same version as LL. This work contains also a map of ancient Ireland, showing the route of the Connaught forces; but a careful working-out of the topography of the Tain is much needed, many names being still unidentified. Several of the small introductory Tana have been published in Windisch and Stokes's Irische Texte; and separate episodes from the great Tain have been printed and translated from time to time. The Fight with Fer Diad (LL) was printed with translation by O'Curry in the Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish. The story of the Two Swineherds, with their successive reincarnations until they became the Dun Bull and the White-horned (an introductory story to the Tain ), is edited with translation in Irische Texte, and Mr. Nutt printed an abridged English version in the Voyage of Bran.
The Leinster version seems to have been the favourite with modern workers, probably because it is complete and consistent; possibly its more sentimental style has also served to commend it.
AIM OF THIS TRANSLATION
It is perhaps unnecessary to say that the present version is intended for those who cannot read the tale in the original; it is therefore inadvisable to overload the volume with notes, variant readings, or explanations of the readings adopted, which might repel the readers to whom it is offered.
At the present time, an enthusiasm for Irish literature is not always accompanied by a knowledge of the Irish language. It seems therefore to be the translator's duty, if any true estimate of this literature is to be formed, to keep fairly close to the original, since nothing is to be gained by attributing beauties which it does not possess, while obscuring its true merits, which are not few. For the same reason, while keeping the Irish second person singular in verses and formal speech, I have in ordinary dialogue substituted the pronoun you, which suggests the colloquial style of the original better than the obsolete thou.
The so-called rhetorics are omitted in translating; they are passages known in Irish as rosc, often partly alliterative, but not measured. They are usually meaningless strings of words, with occasional intelligible phrases. In all probability the passages aimed at sound, with only a general suggestion of the drift. Any other omissions are marked where they occur; many obscure words in the long descriptive passages are of necessity left untranslated. In two places I have made slight verbal changes without altering the sense, a liberty which is very rarely necessary in Irish.
Of the headings, those printed in capitals are in the text in the MS.; those italicised are marginal. I have bracketed obvious scribal glosses which have crept into the text. Some of the marginal glosses are translated in the footnotes.