Introduction

With Gratitude

Though this novel appears as the fourth in the series, it is technically the first in that cycle of the Irish hero of the late fifth century, Cormac mac Art. Herein is chronicled all the information we have concerning Cormac’s early life, his youth, the death of his father and the orphaned youth’s employment in Leinster as warrior-and the events that led up to Cormac’s long series of adventures away from his beloved homeland; the reaver or pirate Robert E. Howard wrote of in Tigers of the Sea.

If you are discovering Cormac for the first time, this is the beginning and the best place to begin the cycle. If you’ve been with us through Tigers of the Sea and Offutt’s Sword of the Gael, The Undying Wizard, and Sign of the Moonbow, you will surely welcome this look into Cormac’s origins-including his first meeting with Samaire of Leinster.

Accounts of the later events of Cormac’s adventurous life were found and authenticated with relative ease. The stories had been passed down orally in the Irish tradition and more than one writer of the fifth through tenth centuries had written of his exploits: as commander of a crew of piratic reavers and the subsequent years as reaver with Wulfhere the Dane; of his adventures in Britain and Denmark and the little kingdom of Galicia; among the Tuatha de Danann within the Emerald Isle; of his crossing of life-paths with Arthur of Britain and with Hengist, among the first of those from oversea to carve out sword-lands in Britain to become England, of the matter of the sigil-ring of Egypt; of his perilous struggles with such sorcerers as Thulsa Doom, Tarmur Roag, Lucanor of Antioch, and others.

Some of these adventures have appeared in the books previously mentioned; others are to follow as Offutt and Zebra Books continue to present the cycle for the modern reader.