Читать книгу 366 Celt: A Year and A Day of Celtic Wisdom and Lore - Carl McColman - Страница 49

As the stories, particularly in the Irish tradition, have come down to us, they are organized neither by chronology nor by key characters, but by theme. The myths include battles, invasions, wooings, visions, cattle-raids, adventures, voyages, feasts, deaths, and so forth. Modern storytellers, however, have tended to try to put the tales into some semblance of order, and so have developed a series of cycles that cover the sweep of Irish mythic history, from the first inhabitants of the land up to the semi-legendary tales of early historical kings. As might be expected, the myths begin with the exploits of gods and godlike beings; eventually such supernatural figures are reduced to fairies. But even the mortal heroes have a larger-than-life quality about them, a theme that plays out in several tales that involve time-travel: someone from the mythic era, upon encountering mortals from a later age, always finds them as small and weak compared to the robust heroes of old.