The Ossianic tales and poems are very numerous. Indeed O’Curry says that if printed at length in the same form as the text of O’Donovan’s edition of the _Four Masters_ they would occupy as many as 3000 pages of such volumes. And that statement was made before the publication of Campbell’s Scottish collection, known as _Leabhar na Feinne_. Apart from the tales, it is believed that the poetry alone extends to upwards of 80,000 lines. Yet, compared with the wealth of ancient texts that represent the Heroic saga, we have very few old vellum MSS. representing the Ossianic. Of many of the pieces there are two redactions, one on vellum, the other on modern paper—the latter usually the longer and more profuse. It would seem as if the Ossianic tales took hold of the imagination of the Gael much more powerfully than did those of the Heroic cycle, with the result that they have been in process of evolution down almost to the present day—certainly to the end of the eighteenth century, which witnessed that wonderful recrudescence of production, associated in Scotland with the names of Macpherson, Smith, Clark, Maccallum, and others. The earliest references to Fionn occur in two Irish poets, one of the tenth and the other of the eleventh century; in the Annals of Tighernach, who died in 1088; and in the venerable Leabhar Na h’Uidhre and Book of Leinster. So that as early as the origin of these latter two MSS. we have written Ossianic or Fionn tales; and, seeing these literary monuments were compiled from older documents it is at least possible, as scholars affirm that some of the tales may have been written down in MS. before the end of the seventh century. The first remarkable development in the evolution of the saga took place between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, the most characteristic feature of the change being the prominence given to foreign invasion, especially the invasion of Lochlanners. Fionn is no longer a tribal chief in one locality, but the acknowledged leader of all Gaeldom against the intruding aliens.