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Note II.
On the Text of these Stories.
It is necessary to make a few observations about the text of those tales. In what language exactly are they couched? In writing this book there were three courses open to me.
First, I might have reduced all the grammatical forms to those of the older and purer language found in the ancient MSS., and, by the aid of scientific treatment and philology, have given, as nearly as possible, a reproduction of the subtle and various inflections of this old Aryan language in its least adulterated forms.
Secondly, disregarding all purity of inflection, and all established rules whatsoever, I might have written the stories down exactly as I heard them, changing the stereotyped orthography of the various words so as to correspond to the sounds given to them by my shanachies, and leaving unaltered all errors of inflection and grammar; writing fear icéint for fear éigin, fuaiḋ sé lófa for ċuaiḋ sé leó, etc.; since the words were so pronounced, and writing air an leac, leis an ḃean, for air an leic, leis an mnaoi, wherever the story-teller forgot to inflect leac and bean properly.
Thirdly, I might, while retaining the ordinary and universally accepted orthography of the last three centuries, write down the stories as they were told; but in the writing of them correct, for myself, errors of grammar, and, more especially, errors of inflection; and upon occasions even go so far as to substitute a word here and there in place of some barbaric half-Anglicised compound used by my narrator in the heat of story-telling, as, for instance, ḃí sé spaisdeóraċt for "ḃí
