Motif Index Of Early Irish Literature

This index is intended primarily for the use of students of folklore and custom and of comparative literature. To this end, the references to early Irish or Hiberno-Latin sources are frequently supplemented by references to modern scholarly works in which motifs found in Celtic are cited for purposes of comparative study in various fields of literary or cultural history, such as mediaeval romance. A few references to early Welsh documents have also been added, and, though no effort has been made to cover modern Irish folklore, scattered references to that field have also been inserted. To insure as wide usefulness as possible, preference is given to translations contained in books of relatively easy accessibility, and more than one reference is frequently given to different translations of a single motif. --from the Preface