a benighted time; at any rate we must admit it
was rather dark from an Irish literary, or even "Irish Ireland,"
point of view. It was before the Gaelic movement, and before we had
such things as "intellectuals" and the "economic man," or even the
Irish Literary Theatre. Leamy's gentle and loyal soul could have taken
no influence from the asperity of some of the intervening ferment,
"Parliamentarian" though he was. Had the impulse to write this volume
come to him in this later period he would only have drawn from the
time the nourishment which the atmosphere of sympathy always brings to
the artist. But the impulse came to him before this period, in an
atmosphere which held little that could nourish the sentiment so
abundant among us to-day. O'Curry's and Dr. Joyce's books were almost
the only sources of Gaelic inspiration open to a writer who was not a
professed student. Douglas Hyde, though always at work, had not yet
brought the fruits of his researches to light; Miss Eleanor Hull had
not collected into a handy volume the materials of "The Cuchullin
Saga"; Kuno Meyer we did not know; Standish O'Grady, though he had
published his "Heroic Period," had not yet begun popularising the
bardic tales in such volumes as "Finn and his Companions." No one was
reading anything about Ireland but political matter. I think one may
fairly claim some respect from this later day for a writer who
seventeen years ago, of his own motion, with scarce a word of
encouragement save from his wife and a friend or two--perhaps only one
friend--turned to our Gaelic past and strove to give to Irish children
something which would implant in them a love for the beauty and
dignity of their country's traditions.

The modest author would never have claimed for these little tales the
interest which I think they deserve. He wrote them for children, for
he loved children, and one can detect the presence of the child
listener at nearly every line. He was not thinking of a literary
audience; the child at his knee was enough. This is why we hear
(occasionally) a certain _naive_ accent which will not, perhaps,
please the contemporary critic; but (as there are many who again find
pleasure in early Victorian furniture) it may please others; I confess
it pleases me. And the absence of literary self-consciousness is
itself pleasant; indeed, much of the charm of these stories is the
charm of their unpremeditated art. But, though he did not write for
the critics,