The Courtship of Ferb/Editor's Introduction

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

AT the time which is commonly known as the Heroic Age in Ireland, which tradition places in the first century of our era, the ruler of the kingdom of Connaught was the celebrated Queen Maev. In the tale of "The Courtship of Ferb" we hear that the son of Maev and her husband Alill, was a youth called Māni, usually known by the name of Māni More or Māni the tall, who surpassed in beauty and skill all the young men in Connaught of his time. At the opening of the tale, it was told how Māni desired to wed Ferb, the fair daughter of Gerg, who was the chief of Glenn Geirg, and dwelt at Rath Ini within the domains of the neighbouring kingdom of Ulster, whose king at that time was Conor, the son of Nessa. A magnificently equipped party was prepared by Maev and Alill to accompany their son to the wedding; it consisted of a hundred and fifty young warriors of Connaught, divided into three troops of fifty each. The appearance of these three troops was described in the tale, but in the manuscript account which we have of "The Courtship of Ferb," the first few pages are missing, so that the story commences abruptly in the middle of the account of the equipment of the second of the troops. As only a small part of the account of this second troop remains, and no part of the description of the first troop, the present translation commences with the account of the third; which we can see, from the fragment which we have of the first part of the story, was far the most magnificent of the three. The following translation, which differs very slightly from the German rendering of the Irish text made by Professor Windisch, describes the departure of the wedding party from Croghan, the capital of Connaught, and the events which followed after its arrival at Rath Ini.

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