During the dreamy period of the Middle Ages the great literary source of amusement among the Gaels of Scotland were the “Ursgeuls,” _noble_ or romantic tales, which upwards of thirty years ago were collected and published (1859-62) by J. F. Campbell, Esq., of Islay. They were not produced in the heroic ages, the period of the great mass of our ballad literature. The ballads and the tales, no doubt, have been mixed together; but the latter are distinctly of a later growth. Some of the tales were manufactured as recently as the eighteenth century; but the most of them belong to the pre-Reformation period. Some of them are traceable to classical sources; others indicate relationship with Oriental stories. From Japan to the Hebrides, as shown by Mr Campbell in his introduction and notes to the four volumes of his “West Highland Tales,” are found the relics of the same original “Sgeulachd,” with the modifications which country, clime, and circumstance would naturally necessitate. In their fundamental lines or conceptions these tales are the common property of the whole Aryan race—of the Hindoo in the east, and of the German and Celt of the west. The study of talelogy, as well as philology, leads us to the common origin of all the members of the Indo-European family. Many of the Highland tales must have been matured under the spirit that the crusades into the east invoked in the west. We find reference in them to Turks, Greeks, Romans, Spaniards, Franks, &c., and to conditions of life which show their close relations to mediæval times. They became the popular literary sustenance of the people, supplying the want which is met by the popular works of fiction or novels of the present day. We find every phase of character exhibited in their outlines, extravagant as many of them often are. They are still waiting classification.