The Battle of the Birds is a Scottish fairy tale collected by John Francis Campbell in his Popular Tales of the West Highlands. He recorded it in 1859 from a fisherman near Inverary, John Mackenzie and was, at the time, building dykes on the Ardkinglas estate. Joseph Jacobs took it from there for his Celtic Fairy Tales and added some additional elements.

The youngest son is a stock character in fairy tales, where he features as the hero. He is usually the third son, but sometimes there are more brothers, and sometimes he has only one; usually, they have no sisters.