Whitley Stokes

Whitley Stokes was an Irish lawyer and one of the major Celtic scholars of the 19th century. He was the grandson of the Dublin physician of the same name. For many years he worked in British India, where he helped draft codes of law, while also editing and translating early Irish, Welsh, Cornish and Breton texts.

In 1891 he published, in the journal Revue Celtique, an edition and English translation of Cath Maige Tuired, the Second Battle of Mag Tuired. The tale, preserved in a 16th-century manuscript but drawing on much older material, tells how the Tuatha De Danann defeat the Fomorians. Their champion Balor has an eye that destroys any army it looks on; its lid has to be lifted by four men. Lugh kills him with a sling-stone that drives the eye out through the back of his head.

Stokes's edition was the first full publication of the text and remained the standard one for decades.