Gods and Fighting Men

Lady Gregory

The Story of the Tuatha de Danaan and of the Fianna of Ireland, arranged and put into English by Lady Gregory

Gods and Fighting Men was first published in 1904, two years after Cuchulain of Muirthemne, and complements that work. It contains the other mythological histories of early Ireland, the stories of Lugh, of Mananaan, the Children of Lir, the coming of the Tuatha de Danaan, as well as those that deal with Oisin, Finn MacCumhal, the Fianna and their exploits, Oisin, and Diarmuid and Grania.

Lady Gregory collected the stories from many original sources, and in translating them from the early Irish and putting them down in ‘Kiltartanese’ (English with Gaelic syntax), a style called after the townland close to her home Coole Park, where such language was common, she created a unified group of tales that – with Cuchulain of Muirthemne – made a greater impact on people’s appreciation of the wealth and strength of Irish mythology than any other similar work.

Their influence was increased by the Prefaces that the poet W. B. Yeats wrote for each volume, praising their contents. In the Preface to this volume Yeats claimed that when children ‘imagine a country for themselves, it is always a country where one can wander without aim, and where one can never know from one place what another will be like, or know from one day’s adventure what may meet one with tomorrow’s sun. I had wished to become a child again that I might find this book, that not only tells one of such a country, but is fuller than any other book that tells of heroic life, of the childhood that is all folklore, dearer to me than all the books of the western world.’ It is not surprising that Yeats used Lady Gregory’s versions of the tales for many of his plays.

Gods and Fighting Men and Cuchulain of Muirthemne are two of the most important works to have come out of Ireland in the opening years of the twentieth century, not only for their influence on others, but because here, for the first time, readable versions of the Irish myths were made available to the general public. The two books have since then introduced generations of new readers to these great tales.

This edition contains all Lady Gregory’s final corrections for the book, Yeats’s Preface and a foreword by the late Daniel J. Murphy, Professor Emeritus of English Literature, Baruch College, City University of New York. The cover design is by Jim Fitzpatrick.

paperback € 12.50