Ireland has a rich set of myths and legends that I know almost nothing about other than the fact that there was a hero named Cú Chulainn that keeps showing up in Japanese RPGs*.
Fortunately back in the early 1900s an author and historian named Eleanor Henrietta Hull put in the effort to collect the most important myths surrounding that hero and used them to write the book Cuchulain, the Hound of Ulster. It’s an enjoyable read for any fan of mythology full of impossibly strong and skilled heroes, meddling fey gods, and mighty kings and queens brought low by their own hubris.
Sadly I don’t really have the background to really compare and contrast the various myths of the world, so instead let’s look at some basic statistics:
Word Count: 80908 words
Average Word Size: 4.06 letters
Median Word Size: 4 letters
Longest Word: characteristics (15 letters)
Sentence Count: 3157
Average Sentence Length: 25.628127969591386
Median Sentence Length: 23.0
Longest Sentence: 164 words long
That night there was no cheerfulness nor gaiety nor quiet pleasure in the tent of Ferdia, as there was wont to be on other nights; for he had made known what Meave had said to him and the command laid upon him to go on the morrow to combat with Cuchulain; and though Ferdia was merry and triumphant on his return, because of the gifts of the queen and the affection of Finnabar, and all the flattery that had been skilfully put upon him, it was not so with the men that were of his own household, for they understood that wherever those two champions of battle, those two slayers of a hundred should meet together, one of the two must fall, or both must fall: and well they knew that if one only should fall there, it would not be Cuchulain who would give way, for it was not easy to combat with Cuchulain on the Raid of the Kine of Cooley.
An interesting note: The author indicates she was explicitly aiming this book towards a younger audience but the sentence length is notably longer than most of the other more “mature” books I’ve analyzed. I think this is likely because the “mythic” writing style means that everyone speaks as if they were on stage; in most books the dialogue is short and to the point while descriptive text is longer. In this book everyone speaks only in the most dramatic of semi-run-on sentences and that raises the average.
* No, not the series you’re thinking of. The other one.
