Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race - Knowledge Rush

214 Myths and Legends of the Celtic RaceHe rose—and in his hand the Muirdris' head.Gone was the blemish! On his goodly faceEach trait symmetric had resumed its place:And they who saw him marked in all his mienA king's composure, ample and serene.He smiled; he cast his trophy to the bank,Said, 'I, survivor, Ulstermen!' and sank."[251]This fine tale has been published in full from an Egerton MS.,by Mr. Standish Hayes O'Grady, in his “Silva Gadelica.” Thehumorous treatment of the fairy element in the story would markit as belonging to a late period of Irish legend, but the tragic andnoble conclusion unmistakably signs it as belonging to the Ulsterbardic literature, and it falls within the same order of ideas, ifit were not composed within the same period, as the tales ofCuchulain.Significance of Irish Place-NamesBefore leaving this great cycle of legendary literature let usnotice what has already, perhaps, attracted the attention of somereaders—the extent to which its chief characters and episodeshave been commemorated in the still surviving place-names ofthe country. 171 This is true of Irish legend in general—it isespecially so of the Ultonian Cycle. Faithfully indeed, throughmany a century of darkness and forgetting, have these namespointed to the hidden treasures of heroic romance which thelabours of our own day are now restoring to light. The nameof the little town of Ardee, as we have seen, 172 commemoratesthe tragic death of Ferdia at the hand of his “heart companion,”the noblest hero of the Gael. The ruins of Dūn Baruch, whereFergus was bidden to the treacherous feast, still look over thewaters of Moyle, across which Naisi and Deirdre sailed to their171 Dr. P. W. Joyce's “Irish Names of Places” is a storehouse of informationon this subject.172 P. 211, note.