The Destruction Of Dá Dergas Hostel Whitely Stokes by Whitely Stokes instant download after payment.

Of the early Irish epic tales, "The Destruction of Dá Derga's Hostel" is a specimen of remarkable beauty and power. The primitive aspects of the story are made evident in the way that the plot turns upon the disasters that follow on the violation of taboos, by the monstrous nature of many of the warriors, and by the absence of any attempt to explain the beliefs implied or the marvels related in it. The powers and achievements of the heroes are fantastic and extraordinary beyond description. The natural and supernatural constantly mingle, yet nowhere does the narrator express surprise. The technical method of the tale, too, is curiously and almost mechanically symmetrical, after the manner of primitive art. Both description and narration are marked by a high degree of freshness and vividness.

This translation by Dr. Whitley Stokes was constructed by him on the basis of eight surviving medieval manuscripts, the oldest going back to about 1100 AD. The story itself is, without doubt, from several centuries earlier and belongs to the oldest group of extant Irish sagas.