Above : Picture From Fenian Cycle

Although from this period, as from the preceding one, no manuscripts have been preserved, it occupies, nevertheless, a prominent position in Irish literature, one even more important than that occupied by the earlier era. It is the period in which occurred the events around which are woven all the stories of two of the three great cycles of Irish Literature. The preceding period was that of the ” Mythological Cycle ” ; the present one is that of the ” Red Branch Cycle,” and the ” Fenian Cycle.” The stories which have been grouped into those cycles were produced, in the form in which they have come down to us, in times much later ; but as the latter two deal with the characters and events of this period, it is appropriate to refer to them here.