Legendary fictions of the Irish Celts

Legends of the Celtic Saints. 349
slightly, and connected them without scruple with the
memory of the humble-minded and earnest worker in
God's vineyard.
If any of our readers feel disposed to apply the test,
" Cui bono ? " to our light labour, we beg to say, that it
can scarce ever be uninteresting to learn something of
the circumstances, the habits, or the language of those
who, in succession, held our native soil before us for
thousands of years. Well, we are often in doubt as to
their implements of labour, their dress, their merry-
makings, their funerals, or the terms on which they held
their lands. But here in these wild, purposeless, and
artlessly-constructed tales, we have the very words, and
assemblages of words, that have, for two or three thousand
years, filled their ears at their comfortable fireside gather-
ings, or travelled with them in their tedious and difficult
progresses from the far East. We certainly did nothing
for the Greeks and Romans, but our gratitude would be
not small to those writers who might have left us, but
unfortunately did not, a correct report of their fireside
stories, if they were accustomed to the indulgence of
such. So rapid have been the changes in our social
customs, and so altered our tastes in many things ; so
powerful is becoming the influence of the mighty dollar
and splendid shilling ; and so terrible the battle of life,
that if such task as we have undertaken be not now
achieved, it would become impracticable, even within a