Preface
An interesting point in the tale, as we have it, of The Courtship of Ferb is the difference between the sources from which it is drawn. The ballad version, marked XII in the translation, supposed according to the story to have been composed by Conor's bard Ferchertne, is at the end of the tale as transcribed in the Book of Leinster, and gives what we may call the Ulster version of the story; the prose version, with the poems marked I to XI, gives the incidents as related by one who may be regarded as a sympathiser with Connaught. A manuscript of the fifteenth century in the British Museum, marked Egerton 1782, gives a third account, which in the main agrees with the ballad or Ulster version; but the short poem included in it, although somewhat corrupt, would seem to be an imperfect reproduction of the poem marked IV in the Connaught story, or of a poem similar to it. As to the comparative dates, Windisch appears to hold that the Ulster version is in the main the older, though some of the poems of the Connaught version, such as IV and IX, may be specially ancient. One of the principal tests given by Windisch is the druidical prophecy brod ane in airidig, in the verse marked 22 of the ballad version, with similar expressions in the poem IV, brod in airigid; and in the Egerton manuscript brod ind airdig and brod inn airdich. Windisch is doubtful whether the word brod stands for "meat" or for "drinking cups,"
xix
