The bulk of the stories is plainly pagan; their originals were frankly so.

But the temper of their composers is more civilized than that of those who conceived the tales of the previous cycles; the manners, as I have already said, of their personages are gentler, more chivalrous; and their atmosphere is so much nearer to that of Christianity, that the new Christian elements would find themselves more at home in them than in the terrible vengeance of Lugh, the savage brutality of Conor to Deirdre, or the raging slaughterings of Cuchulain.

So much was this the case that a story was skilfully invented which linked in imagination the Fenian cycle to a Christianized Ireland.

This story--_Oisin in the Land of Youth_--is contained in this book.

Oisin, or Ossian, the son of Finn, in an enchanted story, lives for 300 years, always young, with his love in Tir-na-n-Og, and finds on his return, when he becomes a withered old man, St Patrick and Christianity in Ireland.