Irish Texts Society Main Series

This first volume of the Main Series, which was edited, appropriately enough, by the Irish Texts Society's first President, Douglas Hyde, contains two tales belonging to the so-called cycle of romantic tales. The earliest examples of these tales date to the fifteenth century, but they are very common in the later manuscript literature of the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Of the two tales edited by Hyde, one, theAdventures of the Sons of the King of Norway, probably dates to the seventeenth century, whereas the other, theLad of the Ferule, may not be earlier than about 1800.
A new Introduction to the edition, provided by Máire Ní Mhaonaigh in 1998, includes a full discussion of the thematic structure, style, and manuscript tradition of both tales.