Excerpt from The Cuchullin Saga in Irish Literature: Being a Collection of Stories Relating to the Hero Cuchullin, Translated From the Irish by Various Scholars, Compiled and Edited With Introduction and Notes A recent American essayist, Mr. Godkin, has said that 'no country retains the hearty affection of its educated classes which does not feed their imagination.' Patriotism, that is to say, does not rest to any large degree upon a natural pride in the physical beauty of the country that gave us birth, nor yet on a legitimate satisfaction in its commercial or industrial prosperity; it rests upon what we may call the historic imagination. It connects itself with certain events in the past history of our country, or with occurrences, sometimes of a semi - legendary character, that have stamped themselves upon the mind of the nation in a series of vivid mental pictures, and have fostered a just pride in the deeds and epochs of their forefathers. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.