And the waters of the great lakes, the deep pools of the rivers, the rippling shallows, the green banks, the brown rushing of the torrents, are all alive in the prose and song of Ireland.

How deep was the Irish love of these delightful things is plain from their belief that "the place of the revealing of poetry was always by the margin of water." And the Salmon of Knowledge, the eating of which gave Finn his pre-eminence, swam in a green pool, still and deep, over which hung a rowan tree that shed its red berries on the stream.

Lovely were the places whence Art and Knowledge came.
Then, as to all good landscape lovers, the beasts, birds, and insects of Nature were dear to these ancient people.

One of the things Finn most cared for was not only his hounds, but the "blackbird singing on Letterlee"; and his song, on page 114, in the praise of May, tells us how keen was his observant eye for animal life and how much it delighted him.

The same minute realisation of natural objects is illustrated in this book when King Iubdan explains to the servant the different characteristics of the trees of the forest, and the mystic elements that abide in them.