Ossian Collection > Waifs and strays of Celtic tradition > Volume 4

I nt 7-0 duct ion.
these various manifestations of myth- and legend-
creating impulse assumed shape in the consciousness
of the Gaelic race. But there is something to be said
on the other side.
The moral and intellectual level of the men to whom
we owe the preservation of Gaelic legend in the Middle
Ages may be little, if at all, superior to that of the folk
of to-day ; but it was certainly much higher than
that of the folk of their day. Not only did they exer-
cise selection in what they committed to the memory of
their pupils, or to the vellum leaves which formed the
proudest treasure of a monastery or a chieftain's court,
but they were necessarily and inevitably indifferent
to whatever did not come within certain well-marked
limits. Again leaving the Christian element out of
consideration, these limits, as far as the native litera-
ture was concerned, may be said to have been con-
terminous with the mythical, historical, and customary
antiquities of the tribe or clan. Whatever could exalt
the pride or strengthen the pretensions of the clan
chieftains, the clan wise men, or the clan brehons,
that would be eagerly sought after by the clan story-
teller — that would be cherished and recorded by the clan
scribes. Thus it has come about that such a large pro-
portion of the MS. space is taken up by genealogies ;
that legends, obviously mythical in their origin, have put
on a quasi-historical form and connected themselves
with the fortunes of special clans ; that topographical
legends are so carefully noted ; that the rights and
customs, whether of the tribe or the individual, are set
forth with such minuteness. What room was there for
the folk-tale in the ideal library of an Irish chieftain,
which is what the great MSS. of Irish antiquity aimed
at being ? The argument ex silentio would be invalid,
even if it were rigorously correct, and it is not. Even
from Irish mythic and heroic legend as it has come down