This saga of the Irish Celts is retold by Rosemary Sutcliff with a magical weaving together of passion and poetry. The boy who takes up the spear and shield of Manhood on this day will become the most renowned of all the warriors of Ireland, men will follow at his call to the world's end, and his enemies will shudder at the thunder of his chariot wheels. So the prophecy went, and as the boy Cuchulain heard it, he went forward to claim the weapons of his manhood. This is the story of how he became the greatest of heroes—the Hound of Ulster.

The Hound of Ulster is a gripping retelling of the Ulster Cycle - the Irish myths about the semi-divine warrior hero Cuchulain and the Cattle Raid of Cooley. The stories apparently date from the bronze age oral tradition, but were finally written down in the 8th century. Sutcliff writes well and vividly. The stories are a mixture of savagery and lyricism, wild fantasy and psychological realism. Cuchulain in his battle frenzy literally metamorphoses into a monster, yet when he mourns the dead he is completely human. The original Ulster Cycle, also known as The Tain, is available in an English translation by Thomas Kinsella from Oxford University Press.

Sent from England.