The Literature of the Celts

The Literature of the Celts is by Magnus Maclean. According to the preface, Celtic studies have grown apace within recent years, and the old scorn, the old apathy and neglect are visibly giving way to a lively wonder and interest. In the story of the children of Lir, St Kemoc comes, the sound of the Christian bell is heard and a spell is broken; thereafter the children of Lir, no longer swans, receive Christian baptism and die.

The text names the third Sorrow of Gaelic storydom as that of Deirdre and the Sons of Uisneach, which does not belong, strictly speaking, to the mythological cycle. The text announces Elements of Gaelic Grammar, in four parts, by Alexander Stewart, Minister of the Gospel at Dingwall, and says a second edition, corrected and enlarged, was issued in 1812, a third in 1876, and a fourth in 1879. The text says there are in all five short Gaelic poems or fragments in the MS., the first, of eight stanzas, being in praise of Aedh, son of Diarmad.