The passage is especially well suited to give an idea of the style of Irish composition, as it contains all the three forms used in the romances, rhetoric, regular verse, and prose:  the prose also is varied in character, for it includes narrative, rapid dialogue, an antiquarian insertion, and two descriptive passages.  The piece of antiquarian information and the resume of the old legend immediately preceding the second rhetoric can be seen to be of a different character to the flowing form of the narrative proper; the inserted passage being full of explanatory words, conid, issairi, is aice, &c., and containing no imagery.  The two descriptions, though short, are good examples of two styles of description which occur in some other romances; neither of these styles is universal, nor are they the only styles; the favour shown to one or the other in a romance may be regarded as a characteristic of its author.

The first style, exemplified by the description of Mider’s appearance, consists of a succession of images presented in short sentences, sometimes, as in this case, with no verb, sometimes with the verb batar or a similar verb repeated in each sentence, but in all cases giving a brilliant word-picture, absolutely clear and definite, of what it is intended to convey.  The second style, exemplified here by the description of the horses that Mider offers to Eochaid, consists of a series of epithets or of substantives, and is often imitated in modern Irish.  These passages are usually difficult to translate, as many words appear to be coined for the purpose of the descriptions; but, in the best writings, the epithets are by no means arbitrary; they are placed so as to contrast sharply with each other, and in many cases suggest brilliant metaphors; the style being in this respect more like Latin than English.  Absolutely literal translations quite fail to bring out the effect of such passages; for not only is the string of adjectives a distinctively Irish feature, but both in English and in Greek such metaphors are generally expressed more definitely and by short sentences.  There is also a third style of description which does not appear in the prose of any of the romances in this collection, but appears often in other romances, as in the Bruidne da Derga, Bricriu’s Feast, and the Great Tain; it resembles the first style, but the sentences are longer, yet it does not give clear descriptions, only leaving a vague impression.  This style is often used for descriptions of the supernatural; it may be regarded as actual reproductions of the oldest pre-Christian work, but it is also possible that it is the result of legends, dimly known to the authors of the tales, and represented by them in the half-understood way in which they were apprehended by them:  the Druidic forms may have been much more clear.  Such passages are those which describe Cuchulain’s distortions; the only passage of the character in this collection is in the verse of