Love affairs form a staple ground for fiction, with a very substantial under-strata of facts, even in the nineteenth century; and the annals of pre-Christian Erinn are by no means deficient in the same fertile source of human interest.  The History of the Exile is still preserved in the Leabhar Buidhe Lecain, now in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin.  It is a highly romantic story, but evidently founded on fact, and full of interest as descriptive of public and private life in the fifth century before Christ.  It tells how Maen, though supposed to be deaf and dumb, was, nevertheless, given in charge of two officers of the court to be educated; that he recovered or rather obtained speech suddenly, in a quarrel with another youth; and that he was as symmetrical of form and noble of bearing as all heroes of romance are bound to be.  His uncle expelled him from the kingdom, and he took refuge at the court of King Scoriath.  King Scoriath had a daughter, who was beautiful; and Maen, of course, acted as a knight was bound to do under such circumstances, and fell desperately in love with the princess.  The Lady Moriath’s beauty had bewildered more heads than that of the knight-errant; but the Lady Moriath’s father and mother were determined their daughter should not marry.

The harper Craftine came to the rescue, and at last, by his all-entrancing skill, so ravished the whole party of knights and nobles, that the lovers were able to enjoy a tete-a-tete, and pledged mutual vows.  As usual, the parents yielded when they found it was useless to resist; and, no doubt, the poet Craftine, who, poet and all as he was, nearly lost his head in the adventure, was the most welcome of all welcome guests at the nuptial feast.  Indeed, he appears to have been retained as comptroller of the house and confidential adviser long after; for when Labhraidh Maen was obliged to fly the country, he confided his wife to the care of Craftine.  On his return from France,[85] he obtained possession of the kingdom, to which he was the rightful heir, and reigned over the men of Erinn for eighteen years.

Another Historic Tale gives an account of the destruction of the court of Da Derga, but we have not space for details.  The Four Masters merely relate the fact in the following entry:—­

“Conaire, the son of Ederscel, after having been seventy years in the sovereignty of Erinn, was slain at Bruighean Da Dhearga by insurgents.”  Another prince, Eochaidh Feidhlech, was famous for sighing.  He rescinded the division of Ireland into twenty-five parts, which had been made by Ugaine Mor, and divided the island into five provinces, over each of which he appointed a provincial king, under his obedience.  The famous Meadhbh, or Mab, was his daughter; and though unquestionably a lady of rather strong physical and mental capabilities, the lapse of ages has thrown an obscuring halo of romance round her belligerent qualifications, and metamorphosed her into the gentle “Faery Queen” of the