The tale is a good deal longer; but the above portion will give an idea of the style and manner of the whole. Unlike many of the ballads, the language of these tales is thoroughly popular. Mr Campbell had in his possession, besides what he published, much material deposited after his recent death in the Advocates’ Library. _A Popular Rhyme_, frequently occurring in the tales, is a great favourite as a boat song. It fills the same place in the popular romances that the “Banners” does in the heroic ballads. The original will be found in the second volume of Campbell’s “Tales,” and is regarded as very old. “The vigorous and elastic spirit that pervades the following verses must have strung the heart of many a hardy mariner who loved to feel the fresh and briny breeze driving his snoring Birlinn, bounding like a living creature over the tumbling billows of the inland loch, or the huge swell of the majestic main.” Pattison translates thus:— We turned her prow unto the sea, her stern unto the shore, And first we raised the tall, tough masts, and then the canvas hoar; Fast filled our towering, cloud-like sails, for the wind came from the land, And such a wind as we might choose, were the winds at our command: A breeze that rushing down the hill would strip the blooming heather, Or rustling through the green-clad grove, would whirl its leaves together. It heaped the ruins on the land, though sire and sire stood by, They could no help afford, but gaze with wan and troubled eye! A flap, a flash, the green roll dashed, and laughed against the red; Upon our boards, now here, now there, it knocked its foamy head. The dun bowed whilk in the abyss, as on the galley bore, Gave a tap upon her gunwale and a slap upon her floor. She could have split a slender straw—so clean and so well she went— As still obedient to the helm her stately course she bent. We watched the big beast eat the small—the small beast nimbly fly, And listen to the plunging eels—the sea-gulls’ clang on high— We had no other music to cheer us on our way Till round those sheltering hills we passed, and anchored in this bay. When the hero or heroes of the tale had to undertake a sea voyage this rhyme was invariably introduced by the reciter as a fit description of how it was accomplished. _Ghearradh i cuinnlein caol coirce le feabhas a stiuraidh_ appears to have been the highest conception of skilful steering, and we may readily believe that it would be hard to surpass such a marvellous feat. Much complaint has been made against these same “lying, worldly stories,” which the good bishop Carsuel found obstructing his reforming efforts. Several of his profession since have uttered the same complaint. But surely if the minds of the people were not filled with a better gospel, the wisest thing they could do was to extract any lessons of prudence and morality that they could find in these simple tales.