" The wasting of time has spared us a few things to
show that this rare and intricate metal work was not a myth, and
we are forced by an inexorable logic to accept as mainly true the
narration of the pride, the beauty, the generosity, and the large
lovable character of the ancient heroes. We may come to realize
that, losing their Druid vision of a more shining world mingling
with this, we have lost the vision of that life into the likeness
of which it is the true labor of the spirit to transform this life.
For the Tirnanoge is that Garden where, in the mind of the Lord,
the flowers and trees blossomed before they grew in the fields,
where man lived in the Golden Age before the outer darkness of the
earth was built and he was outcast from Paradise. There is no true
art or literature which has not some image of the Golden Life lurking
within it, and through the archaic rudeness of these legends the
light shines as sunlight through the hoary branches of ancient oaks.
Lady Gregory has done her work, as compiler with a judgment which
could hardly be too much praised, and she has translated the stories
into an idiom which is a reflection of the original Gaelic and is
full of charm.
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