Macaustkr — Tcmair Brcg : Remains and Traditions of Tara. 315 



here presume to exist between the epic and the stories on wliicli the "official 

 historians" founded their catalogues of kings. 1 The Ogham inscriptions teach 

 us that even proper names appeared in ttie epic language in a form quite 

 different from their form in current speech— far greater is the difference, 

 indeed, than that between the way in which Homer pronounced the names of 

 his heroes, and the barbarous way in which English schoolboys are taught to 

 pronounce them, though that is saying much — so that it is not surprising 

 that the popular narrators gradually substituted for these unfamiliar forms 

 names with which they were better acquainted. So, in the story of Job and 

 similar modern Arab versions of Hebrew narratives, all extra-biblical 

 personages introduced are fitted with familiar Arabic names. 



We have seen that the Tuatha list comes nearest to the original form. 

 The Ulidian and the Fir Bolg lists are closer to one another {e.g. in the 

 relationships alleged to exist between the kings), but farther from the original 

 form. I take it that the Ulidian version is not derived from the Tuatha 

 version, but represents an independent line of tradition, and that the Fir 

 Bolg version is a derivative from the Ulidian ; probably developed in 

 south-east Leinster, owing to the prominence given to the deity of the Slancy 

 river. 



We can now, I think, make some way towards reconstructing a skeleton 

 of the original epic. The number of names in the lists oscillates between 

 seven and eight. On the whole, the probability is in favour of seven as being 

 the original number. It is the number of Tuatha kings, and it is also the 

 number of Fir Bolg kings when we displace Slainge and restore Eochu mac Eire 

 to his proper place at the head. 



In the Tuatha list the first three kings are well-known gods — Bres, Nuadu, 

 Lug. The fourth is also a god. The other three, Delbaeth, Fiachu, and the 

 triplicity with which the list ends, are not gods — at least, there is nothing 

 about them which we can point to as divine. It is a mistake to suppose that 

 the Tuatha De Dananii are a pantheon of gods pure and simple ; the mere 

 fact that we are told of the gods which they worshipped — Brian, [uchar, and 

 Iucharba — shows that this easy solution of the Tuatha problem is onl] 

 partially successful. And the final triplicity of kings arc sn far human, that 

 almost the only thing that we are told about them is the nature of the gods 



1 A translation of the version which I learnt will be found in the Quarterly StaU 

 of the Palestine Exploration Fund. liiOS p. 315. It is instructive to notice that another 

 version of the story, so different as to l>e an almost independent paraphrase, »ill be 

 found in the Rev. J. U. Hanauer's Fott loreoftht Holy Land, p, 17. This, as illustrating 

 the different versions of the " epic " tale, makes the parallel even more illuminating, In 

 Dr. Walter Leaf's Hoinni-nmt Histivn other parallels "ill bo found, in chapter viii, headed 

 " The Achaian Epos.'' 



