The whole tale is much more like an old Border riding ballad than are the other three Preludes; it resembles the tone of Regamon, but differs from it in having a good deal of slaughter to relate, though it can hardly be called tragic, like Deirdre and Ferb, the killing being taken as a matter of course.  There is nothing at all supernatural about the story as contained in the old manuscripts, but a quite different’ version of the story given in the Glenn Masain Manuscript, a fifteenth century manuscript now in the Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh, gives another complexion to the tale.

The translation of this manuscript is at present being made in the Celtic Review by Professor Mackinnon; the version it gives of the story is much longer and fuller than that in the Leabhar na h-Uidhri, and its accompanying manuscripts.  The translation as printed in the Celtic Review is not as yet (July 1905) completed, but, through Professor Mackinnon’s kindness, an abstract of the general features of the end of the story may be given here.

The Glenn Masain version makes Bricriu, who is a subordinate character in the older version, one of the principal actors, and explains many of the allusions which are difficult to understand in the shorter version; but it is not possible to regard the older version as an abridgment of that preserved in the Glenn Masain Ms., for the end of the story in this manuscript is absolutely different from that in the older ones, and the romance appears to be unique in Irish in that it has versions which give two quite different endings, like the two versions of Kipling’s The Light that Failed.

The Glenn Masain version commences with a feast held at Cruachan, when Fergus and his exiles had joined their forces with Connaught as a result of the murder of the Sons of Usnach, as told in the earlier part of the manuscript.  At this feast Bricriu. engages in conversation with Fergus, reproaching him for his broken promises to the Ulstermen who had joined him, and for his dalliance with Queen Maev.  Bricriu, who in other romances is a mere buffoon, here appears as a distinguished poet, and a chief ollave; his satire remains bitter, but by no means scurrilous, and the verses put into his mouth, although far beneath the standard of the verses given to Deirdre in the earlier part of the manuscript, show a certain amount of dignity and poetic power.  As an example, the following satire on Fergus’s inability to keep his promises may be cited:—­

Fergus, hear thy friend lamenting! 
Blunted is thy lofty mind;
Thou, for hire, to Maev consenting,
Hast thy valour’s pride resigned.

Ere another year’s arriving,
Should thy comrades, thou didst vow,
Three-score chariots fair be driving,
Shields and weapons have enow!

When thy ladies, bent on pleasure,
Crowd towards the banquet-hall,
Thou of gold a goodly measure
Promised hast to grant to all!