Sacred Texts Legends and Sagas Celtic Index Previous
The books mentioned below have been of much assistance to me while preparing these tales of Ancient Ireland, and I hereby express my indebtedness to the authors of the respective volumes.
Gregory, Lady Isabella Augusta, Book of Saints and Wonders. Charles Scribner's Sons.
Hull, Eleanor, Textbook of Irish Literature. Benziger Brothers.
Hyde, Douglas, Literary History of Ireland, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. Charles Scribner's Sons.
Joyce, Patrick Weston, Ancient Irish, Music. Longmans, Green & Co.
Keating, Geoffrey (1570?-1644?), History of Ireland (Foras Feasa ar Eirinn’, preface signed by the author in 1629).
Mangan, James Clarence, Complete Poems. P. J. Kenedy & Sons.
Meyer, Kuno, Translation from the Book of Lismore.
Petrie, George, Ancient Collection of the Music of Ireland.
Annals of the Four Masters. Compiled by three scholars of the historic O’Clery house and Peregrin O’Duidenan, the historian and genealogist, early in the seventeenth century, and produced by John Colgan in 1645. The annals begin with the deluge, and close with the year 1616.
The initial letters used at the beginning of the Tales, and other decorations in book and cover, are taken from The Book of Kells, acknowledged to be the most beautiful
illuminated vellum in the known world. This ancient volume is the work of an unnamed Irish monk of Kells monastery in the seventh century. The weird and commanding beauty of the pages have been at once both the inspiration and despair of artists for centuries, and the wonder of line and color would be unbelievable but for the ancient manuscript treasured at Trinity College, Dublin. The soul of an artist went into the precious volume known even in tenth-century Europe as the "wonder of the Far Western World."
The music for the book was arranged by Geraldine G. Saltzberg.
All quoted verses or chants are in italic.
M. E. R.