What is remarkable in the Irish tales is the contemporary tenderness.

The Vikings were as savage as the Irish, but the savagery is not mingled with the Irish tenderness.

At last, when we pass from the Hero Cycle into the Cycle of Finn, there is scarcely any of the ancient brutality to be found in the host of romantic stories which gather round the chivalry of the Fenians.
There are other characteristics of these old tales on which I must dwell.

The first is the extra-ordinary love of colour.

This is not a characteristic of the early German, English or Scandinavian poems and tales.