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ver their gleaming tribes. Starno, of lakes, is before me, and Swaran, the foe of strangers. Their words are not in vain, by Loda's stone of power. If Duth-maruno returns not, his spouse is lonely, at home, where meet two roaring streams, on Crathmo-craulo's plain. Around are hills, with their woods; the ocean is rolling near. My son looks on screaming sea-fowl, young wanderer of the field. Give the head of a boar to Candona, tell him of his father's joy, when the bristly strength of I-thorno rolled on his lifted spear."

"Not forgetting my fathers," said Fingal, "I have bounded over ridgy seas; theirs were the times of danger in the days of old. Nor gathers darkness on me, before foes, though I am young in my locks. Crathmo-craulo, the field of night is mine."

Chief of

He rushed, in all his arms, wide-bounding over Turthor's stream, that sent its sullen roar, by night, through Gormal's misty vale. A moon-beam glittered on a rock; in the midst stood a stately form; a form with floating locks, like Lochlin's white-bosomed maid. Unequal are her steps, and short: she throws a broken song on wind. At times, she tosses her white arms; for grief is in her soul.

،، Torcul-torno * of aged locks ! where now are thy steps, by Lulan? thou hast failed, at thine own dark streams, father of Conban-carglas! But I behold thee, chief of Lulan, sporting by Loda's hall, when the darkskirted night is poured along the sky.

e Cean-dona, head of the people,' the son of Duth-maruno. He became afterwards famous, in the expeditions of Ossian, after the death of Fingal. The traditional tales concerning him are numerous, and, from the epithet in them, bestowed on him (Candona of boars) it would appear, that he applied himself to that kind of hunting, which his father, in this paragraph, is so anxious to recommend to him. As I have mentioned the traditional tales of the Highlands, it may not be improper here, to give some account of them. After the expulsion of the bards from the houses of the chiefs, they, being an indolent race of men, owed all their subsistence to the generosity of the vulgar, whom they diverted with repeating the compositions of their predecessors, and rub ning up the genealogies of their entertainers to the family of their chiefs. As this subject was, however, soon exhausted, they were obliged to have recourse to invention, and form stories, having no foundation in fact, which were swallowed, with great cre dulity, by an ignorant multitude. By frequent repeating, the fable grew upen their hands, and as each threw in whatever circumstance he thought conductive to raise the admiration of his hearers, the story became, at last, so devoid of all probability that on the vuar theraselves did not believe it. They, however, liked the tales so well, ds found their advantage in turning professed tale-makers. They then ched ou into the wildest regions of fiction and romance. I firmly believe there are

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Thou, sometimes, hidest the moon, with thy shield. I have seen her dim in heaven, thou kindlest thy hair into meteors, and sailest along the night. Why am I forgot in my cave, king of shaggy boars? Look from the hall of Loda, on lonely Conban-carglas." "Who art thou," said Fingal, "voice of night?" She trembling, turned away. "Who art thou, in thy darkness?" She shrunk into the cave. The king loosed the thong from her hands: he asked about her fathers. "Torcul-torno,” she said, once dwelt at Lulan's foamy stream: he dwelt-but, now, in Loda's hall, he shakes the sounding shell. He met Starno of Lochlin, in battle; long fought the dark-eyed kings. My father fell, at length, blue-shielded Torcul-torno.

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“By a rock, at Lulan's stream, I had pierced the bounding roe. My white hand gathered my hair from off the stream of winds. I heard a noise. Mine eyes were up. My soft breast rose on high. My step was forward, at Lulan, to meet thee, Torcul-torno!

"It was Starno, dreadful king! His red eyes rol on Conban-carglas. Dark waved his shaggy brow, above his gathered smile. Where is my father, I said, he that was mighty in war? Thou art left alone among foes, daughter of Torcul-torno!

more stories of giants, inchanted castles, dwarfs, and palfreys, in the Highlands, than in any country in Europe. These tales, it is certain, like other romantic compositions, have many things in them unnatural, and, consequently, disgustful to true taste, but, I know not how it happens, they command attention more than any other fictions I ever met with. The extreme length of these pieces is very surprising, some of them requiring many days to repeat them; but such hold they take of the memory, that few circumstances are ever omitted by those who have received them only from oral tra dition. What is more amazing, the very language of the bards is still preserved. It is curious to see, that the descriptions of magnificence, introduced in these tales, are even superior to all the pompous oriental fictions of the kind.

Toicul-torno, according to tradition, was king of Crathlun, a district in Sweden. The river Lulan ran near the residence of Torcul-torno. There is a river in Sweden, still called Lula, which is probably the same with Lulan. The war between Starno and Torcul-torno, which terminated in the death of the latter, had its rise at a hunting party. Starno being invited, in a friendly manner, by Torcul-torno, both kings, with their followers, went to the mountain of Stivamor, to hunt. A boar rushed from the wood before the kings, and Torcul-torno killed it. Starno thought this behaviour a breach upon the privilege of guests, who were always honoured, as tradition expresses it, with the danger of the chase. A quarrel arose, the kings came to battle, with all their attendants, and the party of Torcul-torno were totally defeated, and he himself slain. Starno pursued his victory, laid waste the district of Crathfun, and coming to the residence of Torcul-torno, carried off, by force, Conban-carglas, the beautiful daughter of his enemy. Her he confined in a cave, near the palace of Gormal, where, on account of his cruel treatment, she became distracted.

The paragraph just now before us, is the song of Conban-carglas, at the time she was discovered by Fingal. It is in lyric measure, and set to music, which is wild and ple, and so inimitably suited to the situation of the unhappy lady, that few can hear without tears.

"He took my hand. He raised the sail. In this cave he placed me, dark. At times, he comes, a gather ed mist. He lifts, before me, my father's shield. Often passes a beam of youth, far-distant from my cave. He dwells lonely in the soul of the daughter of Torcultorno."

"Maid of Lulan," said Fingal, "white-handed Conban-carglas, a cloud, marked with streaks of fire, is rolled along thy soul. Look not to that dark-robed moon; nor yet to those meteors of heaven: my gleaming steel is around thee, daughter of Torcul-torno. "It is not the steel of the feeble, nor of the dark in soul. The maids are not shut in our caves of streams; nor tossing their white arms alone. They bend, fair within their locks, above the harps of Selma. Their voice is not in the desart wild, young light of Torcul

torno."

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Fingal, again, advanced his steps, wide through the bosom of night, to where the trees of Loda shook amid squally winds. Three stones, with heads of moss, are there a stream with foaming course; and dreadful, rolled around them, is the dark-red cloud of Loda. From its top looked forward a ghost, half-formed of the shadowy smoke. He poured his voice, at times, amidst the roaring stream. Near, bending beneath a blasted tree, two heroes received his words: Swaran of lakes, and Starno foe of strangers. On their dun shields, they darkly leaned their spears are forward in night. Shrill sounds the blast of darkness, in Starno's floating beard.

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They heard the tread of Fingal. The warriors rose in arms. Swaran, lay that wanderer low," said Starno, in his pride. "Take the shield of thy father; it is a rock in war." Swaran threw his gleaming spear;

By the beam of youth, it afterwards appears, that Conban-carglas means Swaran the son of Starno, with whom, during her confinement, she had fallen in love. b From this contrast, which Fingal draws, between his own nation and the inhi tants of scandinavia, we may learn that the former were much less barbarous than the latter.

This distinction is so much observed throughout the poems of Ossian, that here can be no doub, that he followed the real manners of both nations in his o ime. At the close of the speech of Fingal there is a great part of the original lost.

it stood fixed in Loda's tree. Then came the foes forward, with swords. They mixed their rattling steel. Through the thongs of Swaran's shield rushed the blade of Luno. The shield fell rolling on earth. Cleft the helmet fell down. Fingal stopt the lifted steel. Wrathful stood Swaran unarmed. He rolled his silent eyes, and threw his sword on earth. Then, slowly stalking over the stream, he whistled as he went.

Nor unseen of his father is Swaran. Starno turned away in wrath. His shaggy brows waved dark above his gathered rage. He struck Loda's tree, with his spear he raised the hum of songs. They came to the host of Lochlin, each in his own dark path; like two foam-covered streams, from two rainy vales.

To Tuthor's plain Fingal returned. Fair rose the beam of the east. It shone on the spoils of Lochlin in the hand of the king. From her cave, came forth, in her beauty, the daughter of Torcul-torno. She gathered her hair from wind; and wildly raised her song. The song of Lulan of shells, where once her father dwelt.

She saw Starno's bloody shield, Gladness rose, a light on her face. She saw the cleft helmet of Swaran; she shrunk, darkened, from the king. "Art thou fallen, by thy hundred streams, O love of Conban-carglas

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U-thorno, that risest in waters; on whose side are the meteors of night! I behold the dark moon descending behind thy echoing woods. On thy top dwells the misty Loda, the house of the spirits of men. In the end of his cloudy hall bends

forward Cruth-loda of

The sword of Fingal, so called from its maker, Luno of Lochlin.

The helmet of 3waran. The behaviour of Fingal is always consistent with that generosity of spirit which belongs to a hero. lie takes no advantage of a foe disarmed.

Conban-carglas, from seeing the helmet of Swaran bloody in the hands of Fingal, conjectured that that hero was killed. A part of the original is lost. It appears, however from the sequel of the poem, that the daughter of Torcul-terno did not long survive her surprise, occasioned by the supposed death of her lover. The description of the airy hail of Loda (which is supposed to be the same with that of Odin, the deity of Scandinavia) is more picturesque and descriptive, than any in the Edda, or other works of the northern Scalders,

swords. His form is dimly seen amidst his wavy mist. His right-hand is on his shield: in his left is the halfviewless shell. The roof of his dreadful hall is marked with nightly fires.

The race of Cruth-loda advance, a ridge of formless shades. He reaches the sounding shell to those who shone in war; but, between him and the feeble, his shield rises, a crust of darkness. He is a setting meteor to the weak in arms. Bright, as a rain-bow on streams, came white-armed Conban-carglas.

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