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Táin Bó Cúailnge or the "Cattle Raid of Cooley" (TBC) is the most famous epic narrative in early Irish literature, having been brought to prominence in modern times by Thomas Kinsella's iconic translation (1969). The origins of TBC were described by Kinsella as "far more ancient" than the medieval manuscripts that relate it and associated prequels to the tale, called remscéla. One of these, not included in Kinsella's translation, is Táin Bó Fraích — "The raid of Fráoch's cattle" (TBF). TBF comes in two discontinuous parts which differ in subject matter and style. We examine the structural relationships between TBF as presented by Leahy [Heroic Romances in Ireland (David Nutt, London, 1906)] and TBC from a social networks point of view and compare them with the seven smaller tales presented in Kinsella's text. We find that network structures in Kinsella's text — both TBC itself and the remscéla he selected — are similar to those in TBF, and somewhat moreso the first part than the second. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1760 James Macpherson published the first volume of a series of epic poems which he claimed to have translated into English from ancient Scottish-Gaelic sources. The poems, which purported to have been composed by a third-century bard named Ossian, quickly achieved wide international acclaim. They invited comparisons with major works of the epic tradition, including Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and effected a profound influence on the emergent Romantic period in literature and the arts. However, the work also provoked one of the most famous literary controversies of all time, coloring the reception of the poetry to this day. The authenticity of the poems was questioned by some scholars, while others protested that they misappropriated material from Irish mythological sources. Recent years have seen a growing critical interest in Ossian, initiated by revisionist and counter-revisionist scholarship and by the two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the first collected edition of the poems in 1765. Here, we investigate Ossian from a networks-science point of view. We compare the connectivity structures underlying the societies described in the Ossianic narratives with those of ancient Greek and Irish sources. Despite attempts, from the outset, to position Ossian alongside the Homeric epics and to distance it from Irish sources, our results indicate significant network-structural differences between Macpherson's text and those of Homer. They also show a strong similarity between Ossianic networks and those of the narratives known as Acallam na Senórach ( Colloquy of the Ancients) from the Fenian Cycle of Irish mythology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]