And with
every door that you unlock, you will become aware of others and
still others that are yet shut fast, until at last you learn with
something of pain, that the great palace of our Literature is so
vast that you can never hope to open all the doors even to peep
inside.
Chapter II THE STORY OF THE CATTLE RAID OF COOLEY
OUR earliest literature was history and poetry. Indeed, we might
say poetry only, for in those far-off times history was always
poetry, it being only through the songs of the bards and
minstrels that history was known. And when I say history I do
not mean history as we know it. It was then merely the gallant
tale of some hero's deeds listened to because it was a gallant
tale.
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.
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