Standish O'Grady; selected essays and passages

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IRISH BARDIC HISTORY
Lia Fail, or stone of destiny, which has given to Ireland
one of its many names. It was removed to its present
position to mark the grave of rebels slain there in '98,
from a rath further south named Rath Laegairey.
Two ancient fables affect to give the history of this
stone ; according to the first, it was brought by the
gods into Erin ; according to the second, by the Mile-
sians from Asia into Spain, and thence, by Heber and
Heremon, into Ireland.
MYTHS OF THE SEA.
It is natural to suppose that in minds so tender and
imaginative, and so susceptible to all impressions, as
were those in which the bardic history of Ireland shaped
itself, the sea should form a considerable source of legend
and poetry. In Homer, the sea seems an object of
fear and dislike,—the fishy sea, the winedark sea, and
other allusions, seem to indicate this, and the motion
and sound of waves around the bark of Ulysses, returning
from the sacrifice to Apollo, exhibits an equally sombre
feeling concerning this element. In the Iliad and the
Odyssey, this element was not regarded as in a happy
or sympathetic relation with man.
The tone of the bardic literature of Ireland is quite
different. One of the noblest thoughts, having re-
ference to the sea, is seen in the oft-recurring notion that
it sympathised with and was aware of the dangers sur-
rounding the greater heroes of the isle. In such moments,
then, at three diverse points, the ocean roars a note of
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