The Mythology of Ancient Britain and Ireland/Annex 2
Selected books bearing on
Celtic mythology
To give in the space that can be spared any adequate list of books dealing with the wide subject of Celtic Mythology would be impossible. The reader interested in the matter can hardly do better than consult Nos. 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 11, and 14 of the Popular Studies in Mythology Romance and Folklore, published by Mr. Nutt. In these sixpenny booklets he will find, not only scholarly introductions to the Gaelic Tuatha Dé Danann, Cnchulainn and Ossianic cycles, the Welsh Mabino- gion, and the Arthurian legend, but also bibliographical appendices pointing out with sufficient fulness the chief works to consult. Should he be content with a more superficial survey, he might obtain it from the present writer's The Mythology of the British Islands, London, 1905, which aimed at giving, in a popular manner, sketches of the different cycles, and retellings of their principal stories, with a certain amount of explanatory comment.
For the stories themselves, he may turn to Lady Gregory's Cuchulain of Muirthemne, London, 1902, andGods and Fighting Men, London, 1904, which give in attractive paraphrase all of the most important legends dealing with the Red Branch of Ulster and with the Tuatha Dé Danann and the Fenians. More czact translations of the Ulster romances will be found in Miss E. Hull's The Cuchnllin Saga in Irish Literature, London, 1898; in Monsieur H. d'Arbois de Jubainville's L'Épopée Celtique en Irlande, Paris, 1892 (vol. v. of the Cours de Littérature Celtique"); and in Miss W. L. Faraday's The Cattle Raid of Cualnge, London, 1904. The Fenian sagas are best studied in the six volumes of the Transactions of the Ossianic Society, Dublin, 1854-61; in Mr. S. H. O'Grady's Silva Gadelica, London, 1892; and in the Rev. J. G. Campbell's The Fians, London, 1891 (vol. iv. of 'Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition'). Lady Charlotte Guest's Mabinogion can now be obtained in several cheap editions, while Monsieur J. Loth's translation, Les Mabinogion, Paris, 1889, forms vols, iii. and iv. of the 'Cours de Littérature Celtique.'
Critical studies on the subject in handy form are as yet few. We may mention De Jubainville's Le Cyce Mythologique Irlandais et la Mythologie Celtique, Paris, 1884 (vol. ií, of the 'Cours'), translated by Mr. R. L. Best as The Irish Mythological Cycle and Celtic Mythology, Dublin, 1903; Professor J. Rhŷs's Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by Celtic Heathendom (The Hibbert Lectures for 1886), London, 3rd edit., 1898, with their sequel, Studies in the Arthurian Legend, Oxford, 1891; and Mr. Alfred Nutt's The Voyage of Bran, son of Febal, 2 vols., London, 1895–97. The results of more recent, and current, research will be found in special publications, such as the volumes of the Irish Texts Society, and the numbers of the Revue Celtique, the Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie, and the Transactions of the Cymmrodorion Society.
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