Two Irish Arthurian Romances – Eachtra An Mhadra Mhaoil, Eachtra Mhacaoimh-An-Iolair. The Story of The Crop Eared Dog, The Story of Eagle Boy

Cur síos

x + 208 pp. ISBN 1 870 16610 8

The tales featured in this volume, which was edited by R. A. S. Macalister, are examples of Irish Arthurian literature. However, as Joseph Falaky Nagy pointed out in 1998 in his new Introduction to Macalister’s edition, these Irish stories, are, like the romantic tales to which they belong, ‘the product of confluence and mutual reinforcement between the native and foreign sources available to the author-storyteller’. Among the native sources of these essentially romantic tales were the stories of Fionn and the Fianna. Nagy’s new introduction is accompanied by an appendix edited from a critical review by T. F. O’Rahilly of the original edition, which does much to remedy the all too evident deficiencies of Macalister’s editorial policies.
This volume contains a new introduction by Joseph Falaky Nagy (1997)