The romantic tales here retold for the English reader belong neither to the category of folk-lore nor of myth, although most of them contain elements of both.

They belong, like the tales of Cuchulain, which have been similarly presented by Miss Hull,[1] to the bardic literature of ancient Ireland, a literature written with an artistic purpose by men who possessed in the highest degree the native culture of their land and time.

The aim with which these men wrote is also that which has been adopted by their present interpreter.

I have not tried, in this volume, to offer to the scholar materials for the study of Celtic myth or folk-lore.

My aim, however I may have fulfilled it, has been artistic, not scientific.