ABSTRACT
The Tain is, in the words of Thomas Kinsella, ‘the nearest approach to a great epic that Ireland has produced’. While the narrative itself is set in the pre-medieval world of iron-age Ireland, it survives in three medieval recensions. The first is spread across three manuscripts, of which the oldest is the twelfth-century Lebor na hUidre; the second is found in the twelfth-century Book of Leinster; and the third is fragmentary and incomplete. There was a fine, firm, righteous, generous princely king ruling over Ireland, Niall Frassach, son of Fergal. Ireland was prosperous during his reign. Great kings and wide-eyed queens and the chiefs and nobles of the territories were ranged on the stately seats of the assembly.
