The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Táin Bó Cúalnge

The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Táin Bó Cúalnge
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The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Táin Bó Cúalnge by Unknown

Published:

1914

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The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Táin Bó Cúalnge
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Translated by Joseph Dunn

Book Excerpt

may be the precise dates of these events, which we are not in a position to determine more accurately, the composition of the Táin Bó Cúalnge antedates by a considerable margin the epic tales of the Anglo-Saxons, the Scandinavians, the Franks and the Germans. It is the oldest epic tale of western Europe, and it and the cycle of tales to which it belongs form "the oldest existing literature of any of the peoples to the north of the Alps."[7] The deeds it recounts belong to the heroic age of Ireland three hundred years before the introduction of Christianity into the island, and its spirit never ceased to remain markedly pagan. The mythology that permeates it is one of the most primitive manifestations of the personification of the natural forces which the Celts worshipped. Its historical background, social organization, chivalry, mood and thought and its heroic ideal are to a large extent, and with perhaps some pre-Aryan survivals, not only those of the insular Celts of two thousand years

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