These heroic tales read like the _Arabian Nights_, often with the exaggerated fancy of _Don Quixote_. The extraordinary variety and human interest of the ballads may be gleaned even from their names. For example: The Story of Cuchulinn and Eimer, his wife; his sword; his chariots; Garbh Mac Stairn; and Conlaoch; and Connal’s revenge. The Story of Fionn and his Feinn; his pedigree; stories about his birth; Ossian and Padruig; Ossian’s last hunt; how he got his sight; the loss of the Fenian history; Ossian’s controversy with Padruig; his lament for his comrades; their names; their favourite music; how nine went forth to seek a whelp. Caoilte; how he slew a magic boar and a giant. The following would pass as the titles of chapters in the great classic of Cervantes: The adventure with the timbrel player; With Silhalan; The adventure of the hag; The stealing of Fionn’s cup; The adventure with the enchanter’s family; Roc, the King’s one-legged runner; The smithy song, how they got swords; The one-eyed giantess and her ships; The battle with Manus; Fionn’s expedition to Lochlan; His puzzle; His enchantment in the rowan booth; The adventure of the nine with a horseman; The adventure in the house of the king of the fair strangers; The Black Dog slain by Bran; The adventure of the six at the golden castle; The tightest fight of the Feinn; The expedition of eight or of the six to foreign lands; The distressed maiden; The battle of Fair Strand, in which the Feinn defeated the whole world in arms; The maid of the fair white garment; Ossian’s courting; How Bran was killed and Gaul’s dog; Fionn’s encounter of wits with Ailbhe, Cormac’s daughter; The elopement of Grainne, Fionn’s wife, with Diarmad, Fionn’s nephew; Diarmad’s lament for his comrades; The story of Gaul Macmorna; his adventure with Lamh-fhad; Gaul’s last words to his wife. The parodies have these headings: The black wrapper; A dream; The tailor and the Feinn; The truiseal stone; Diarmad’s speech. Among later heroical ballads occur subjects like these: The lay of the great fool; Oscar and the giant; Muirchadh Mac Brian and the heiress of Dublin; Muirchadh Mac Brian’s riding dress; Hugh O’Neil’s horse. Such sumptuous narrative, spiced with no lack of imaginative detail, might satisfy even Chaucer’s merry group as they foregathered to listen to the story-telling at the Tabard Inn centuries ago. In 1841, some thirty years before _Leabhar na Feinne_, Mackenzie’s _Beauties of Gaelic Poetry_ appeared. It is a work of more general interest than the other, in so far that it gives gems of every type of poem. Here are to be found in concise compass the best productions of the best bards during the last 300 years, with brief biographical sketches, critical and explanatory notes, and other elucidations.