[4] O' Flanagan first printed two versions of it in the solitary volume which comprises the "Transactions of the Gaelic Society," as early as 1808. The older of these two versions agrees closely with that contained in "Egerton, 1782," of the British Museum, but neither of the MSS. which he used is now known to exist. Eugene O'Curry edited the story from the text in the Yellow Book of Lecan, with a translation in the "Atlantis," a long defunct Irish periodical. Windisch edited the oldest existing version, that of the Book of Leinster, in the first volume of "Irische Texte." None of these three versions differ appreciably. In the second volume of the same, Dr. Whitley Stokes edited a consecutive text from 56 and 53 of the MSS. in the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh, the latter of which is a vellum of the fifteenth century. Finally, the text of both these MSS. was published in full in vol. ii. of Dr. Cameron's "Reliquiæ Celticæ," where he also gives a translation of the first. Keating, too, in his history, retells the story at considerable length. Windisch's, O'Curry's, and O'Flanagan's texts were reprinted in 1883 in the "Gaelic Journal." In addition to all these Mr. Carmichael published in Gaelic in 1887 an admirable folk-lore version of the story from the Isles of Scotland in the thirteenth volume of the "Transactions of the Inverness Gaelic Society," and the tale is retold in English, chiefly from this version, by Mr. Jacobs in the first series of his "Celtic Fairy Tales." M. d'Arbois de Jubainville has given a French translation of the entire story from the Book of Leinster, the older Edinburgh MS., and the Highland Folktale, the latter two being translated by M. Georges Dottin. Macpherson made this story the foundation of his "Darthula." Dr. Dwyer Joyce published the story in America as an English poem. Sir Samuel Ferguson, Dr. Todhunter, and the present writer have all published adaptations of it in English verse, and Mr. Rolleston made it the subject of the Prize Cantata at the Féis Ceóil in Dublin in 1897. Hence I may print here this new and full opening of a piece so celebrated. For text see _Zeit. f. Celt. Phil._ II. 1, p. 142. [5] "Gleann Masáin, ón Gleann Masáin, Árd a chneamh, geal a ghasáin, Do ghnidhmís codladh corrach Os inbhear mongach Masáin." [6] We have seen that none of the race of Ir claim descent from Conor; all their great families O'Mores, O'Farrells, etc., descend from Fergus mac Róigh [Roy] or Conall Cearnach (_see_ ch. VI note 17); yet Conor had twenty-one sons, all of whom, says Keating, died without issue except three--"Benna, from whom descended the Benntraidhe; Lamha, from whom came the Lamhraidhe; and Glasni, whose descendants were the Glasnaide; but even of these," adds Keating, "there is not at this day a single descendant alive in Ireland." _See_ O'Mahony's translation, p. 278. [7]