Standish O'Grady; selected essays and passages

CUCULAIN, SON OF SUALTAM.
The student of Irish history, arrived at this point, may
not be inaptly compared to one who, after journeying
through some sombre and intricate forest, whose gloom
is not wholly unrelieved by small moonlit glades and
the cheerful tinkle of living streams, amid whose shadows
are seen passing shapes weird and unearthly, now,
suddenly emerging, finds around him the night, indeed,
but such a night ! flashing, as with stars and northerri
lights. Now, all over and on every side the bardic
firmament glitters with bright-burning fires, heroic
names and deeds innumerable, amongst whom, stars of
the first magnitude, shine out the Champions of the North,
the Red Branch Knights, Children of Rury.
Heretofore the student has beheld Ireland producing
her great names sparingly, but now, approaching the
age of the Incarnation, he beholds how the island starting,
as if from some magic slumber, all the deep fountains
of life suddenly unsealed, teems as with some vast par-
turition. Out of the ground start forth the armies of her
demi-gods and champions—an age bright with beautiful
heroic forms, loud with the trampling of armies and
war-steeds, with the roar of chariot-wheels and the
shoutings of warriors—in the North the Red Branch, in
the South the Ernai or Clan Dega, in the West Queen
Meave and her champions, and in the South-east that
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