es of Irish romance by no means exhaust the
wealth of story, still lurking _perdu_ in old MSS. or in rare and
rarely read works. Some of these additional tales have already reached
American readers under modern retellings or poetic interpretations;
such as, _e. g._, 'The Voyage of Maeldune', retold memorably, and
differently enough, in flowing hexametrical periods by Tennyson:--

"And we came to the Isle of Shouting; we landed; a score of wild
birds
Cried from the topmost summit with human voices and words;
Once in an hour they cried, and whenever their voices pealed,
The steer fell down at the plow and the harvest died from the field,
And the men dropt dead in the valleys, and half of the cattle went
lame,
And the roof sank in on the hearth, and the dwelling broke into
flame;
And the shouting of these wild birds ran into the hearts of my crew,
Till they shouted along with the shouting, and seized one another
and slew;
But I drew them the one from the other; I saw that we could not
stay,
And we left the dead to the birds, and we sailed with our wounded
away."

Tennyson took his version from Joyce's 'Early Celtic Romances'. In
this volume we have, among other legendary romances, five or six of
the most wonderful or moving tales in Celtic or any other literature.
Three of these are--The Three Sorrowful Tales of Erin', comprising
'The Fate of the Children of Usna' (or 'Deirdre'); 'The Fate of the
Children of Lir'; and 'The Fate of the Children of Tuirenn'. The names
of the three others are 'The Voyage of Maeldun' (the oldest copy of
which is dated 1100), 'The Pursuit of Dermot and Grania', and 'Ossian
in the Land of Youth'. Of these perhaps the story of 'Deirdre' is the
best known, and American readers may be referred to the fine epical
version by Dr. Robert D. Joyce ('Deirdre'), published some years ago
by Roberts Brothers of Boston. Two brief examples of the short
episodical narratives which make up the marvelous 'Voyage of Maeldun'
may be cited here,--'The Miller of Hell' and 'Signs of Home,' the
latter giving the return of the Celtic Ulysses and his companions.

THE MILLER OF HELL

The next island they came to, which was not far off from the last, had
a large mill on it; and near the door stood the miller, a huge-bodied,
strong, burly man. They saw numberless crowds of men and horses laden
with corn coming towards the mill; and wh