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To help his memory the early "shanachie" or story-teller grouped his romantic story-store under different heads, such as "Táins" or Cattle-spoils, Feasts, Elopements, Sieges, Battles, Destructions, Tragical Deaths; but it is easier for us now to group them in another way, and to class together the series of tales referring to the Tuatha De Danann or ancient deities, those belonging to the Red Branch cycle of King Conchobar and Cuchulainn, those relating to Finn, and the Legends of the Kings.
As a typical example, we may take the author of The Vicar of Wakefield. At his first school at Lissoy, Oliver Goldsmith came under Thomas Byrne, a regular shanachie, possessed of all the traditional lore, with a remarkable gift for versifying.
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