Now the people who lived in the British Isles long ago were not English.  It will be simplest for us to call them all Celts and to divide them into two families, the Gaels and the Cymry.  The Gaels lived in Ireland and in Scotland, and the Cymry in England and Wales.

It is to Ireland that we must go for the very beginnings of our Literature, for the Roman conquest did not touch Ireland, and the English, who later conquered and took possession of Britain, hardly troubled the Green Isle.  So for centuries the Gaels of Ireland told their tales and handed them on from father to son undisturbed, and in Ireland a great many old writings have been kept which tell of far-off times.  These old Irish manuscripts are perhaps none of them older than the eleventh century, but the stories are far, far older.  They were, we may believe, passed on by word of mouth for many generations before they were written down, and they have kept the feeling of those far-off times.

It was from Ireland that the Scots came to Scotland, and when they came they brought with them many tales.  So it comes about that in old Scottish and in old Irish manuscripts we find the same stories.

Many of the manuscripts which are kept in Ireland have never been translated out of the old Irish in which they were written, so they are closed books to all but a few scholars, and we need not talk about them.  But of one of the great treasures of old Irish literature we will talk.  This is the Leabhar Na h-Uidhre, or Book of the Dun Cow.  It is called so because the stories in it were first written down by St. Ciaran in a book made from the skin of a favorite cow of a dun color.  That book has long been lost, and this copy of it was made in the eleventh century.

The name of this old book helps us to remember that long ago there was no paper, and that books were written on vellum made from calf-skin and upon parchment made from sheep-skin.  It was not until the twelfth century that paper began to be made in some parts of Europe, and it was not until the fifteenth century that paper books became common in England.

In the Book of the Dun Cow, and in another old book called the Book of Leinster, there is written the great Irish legend called the Tain Bo Chuailgne or the Cattle Raid of Cooley.

This is a very old tale of the time soon after the birth of Christ.  In the book we are told how this story had been written down long, long ago in a book called the Great Book Written on Skins.  But a learned man carried away that book to the East.  Then, when many years had passed, people began to forget the story of the Cattle Raid.  So the Chief minstrel called all the other minstrels together to ask if any of them knew the tale.  But none of them could remember more than a few verses of it.  Therefore the chief minstrel asked all his pupils to travel into far countries to search for the rest which was lost.

What followed is told differently in different books, but all agree in this, that a great chief called Fergus came back from the dead in order to tell the tale, which was again written down.