The heroic tales of Ireland from a large and well-marked epic cycle, the central tale of the series being the anonymous "Cattle of Cooly," wherein is related the war waged by the Irish Queen Mab against her husband for the possession of a mystic brown bull. In the course of this war the chief hero, Cuchulaind, makes himself famous by defending the country of Ulster single-handed! The still extant tales of this epic cycle number about thirty, and give in detail the lives of hero and heroine from birth to death, besides introducing many legends from Celtic mythology. The oldest MS. version of these tales, in mingled prose and verse, dates back to the twelfth century, and is hence about as venerable as the Edda. The Fennian or Oisianic poems and tales form another famous Irish cycle, Finn, or Fingal, their hero, having acted as commander for a body of mercenaries in the third century. His poet son, Oisin (the Ossian of later Romance), is said to have composed at least one of the poems in the famous Book of Leinster. Between the twelfth century and the middle of the fifteenth, this Fennian epos took on new life, and it continued to grow until the eighteenth century, when a new tale was added to the cycle. The names of a few of the early Irish poets have been preserved in Irish annals, where we note, for instance, Bishop Fiance, author of a still extant metrical life of St. Patrick, and Dallan Frogaell, one of whose poems is in the "Book of the Dun Cow," compiled before 1106. Up to the thirteenth century most of the poets and harpers used to include Scotland in their circuit, and one of them, Muiredhach, is said to have received the surname of "the Scotchman," because he tarried so long in that country. When, after the fifteenth century, Irish literature began to decline, Irish poems were recast in the native Scotch dialect, thus giving rise to what is known as Gaelic literature, which continued to flourish until the Reformation. Samples of this old Gaelic or Erse poetry were discovered by James Macpherson in the Highlands, taken down from recitation, and used for the English compilation known as the Poems of Ossian. Lacking sufficient talent and learning to remodel these fragments so as to produce a real masterpiece, Macpherson--who erroneously termed his work a translation--not only incurred the sharpest criticism, but was branded as a plagiarist.