A hundred touches in feeling, in ways of thought, in sensitiveness to beauty, in war and voyaging, and in ideals of life, separate it from that of the other Celtic races.
It is owing to the careful, accurate, and critical work of continental and Irish scholars on the manuscript materials of Irish Law, History, Bardic Tales, and Poetry; on customs, dress, furniture, architecture, ornament, on hunting and sailing; on the manners of men and women in war and peace, that the modern re-teller of the Irish tales is enabled to conserve the Irish atmosphere.

And this conservation of the special Irish atmosphere is the second result which the work of the critical scholars has established.

If the re-writer of the tales does not use the immense materials made ready to his hand for illustration, expansion, ornament and description in such a way that Ireland, and only Ireland, lives in his work from line to line, he is greatly to be blamed.
Mr Rolleston has fulfilled these conditions with the skill and the feeling of an artist.

He has clung closely to his originals with an affectionate regard for their ancientry, their ardour and their distinction, and yet has, within this limit, used and modified them with a pleasant freedom.

His love of Ireland has instilled into his representation of these tales a passion akin to that which gave them birth.