"Students of Irish and English literature will welcome this historical and critical analysis of the Irish poetry composed during an interesting but neglected period. . . . In the first part [Russell K. Alspach] reviews the extant verse of the period. He discusses, for instance, the origins of that airy piece of satire, "The Land of Cokaygne"; he also gives specimens of verse in the old English dialects of Fingal, Forth, and Bargy. In the second part he deals with the early translators, chroniclers, and historians who opened up the rich. world of Irish mythology to the non-Gaelic speaking Irish."--Irish Independent