rney, "that an evil spirit
in the shape of a cat assumed command over these animals in various
districts, and that when those wicked beings pleased they could compel
all the cats belonging to their division to attack those of some other
district. The same was said of rats; and rat-expellers, when commanding
a colony of those troublesome and destructive animals to emigrate to
some other place, used to address their 'billet' to the infernal rat
supposed to hold command over the rest. In a curious pamphlet on the
power of bardic compositions to charm and expel rats, lately published,
Mr. Eugene Curry states that a degraded priest, who was descended from
an ancient family of hereditary bards, was enabled to expel a colony of
rats by the force of satire!"

Hence, of course, Shakespeare's reference to rhyming Irish rats to
death.

A few words upon the writers in this collection. Of Folk Tale collectors
the palm must be given to Dr. Douglas Hyde, whose great knowledge of
Irish, combined with a fine literary faculty, has enabled him to present
the stories he has generously granted me the use of, in a manner which
combines complete fidelity to his original, with true artistic feeling.

Dr. Joyce has not only granted the use of his fine Heroic Tale of the
Pursuit of the Gilla Dacker, but had the honour of supplying Alfred,
Lord Tennyson, the late Poet Laureate, with the subject of his "Voyage
of Maeldune" in a story of that name, adapted into English in his "Old
Celtic Romances." The Laureate acted on my suggestion that he should
found a poem upon one of the romances in that book; and to that
circumstance I owe the kind permission by his son and Messrs. Macmillan
to republish it at length in this volume.

Besides Dr. Hyde and Dr. Joyce I have been enabled, through the friendly
leave of Messrs. Macmillan and Elliot and Stock, to use Mr. Jeremiah
Curtin's and Mr. Larminie's excellently told Irish Fairy Tales. These
two latter Folk Tale collectors have worked upon Dr. Hyde's plan of
taking down their tales from the lips of the peasants, and reproducing
them, whether from their Irish or Hiberno-Irish, as clearly as they were
able to do so. The recent death of both of these writers is a serious
loss to Irish Folk Lore.

Obligations are due to Miss Hull for two hitherto unpublished and fine
Folk Tales, to Lady Gregory for the use of her "Birth of Cuchulain," to
Standish James O'Grady for his "Boyish Exploits of Cuchulain and The