Blair Collection > Galic antiquities

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D
R
O:
the upland rock. No hunter, when the fign is feen, dlfturbs their
peace ; for the foul of Dargo is fad and the fwift-bounding com-
panion of his chace howls befide im. — I alfo feel thy grief at my
heart, O Dargo ; my tears tremble as dew on the grafs, when I
remember thy woful tale.
Com HAL fat on that rock, where now the deer graze on his
tomb. The mark of his bed are three gray flones and a leaf lefs
oak ; they are mantled over with the mofs of years. His war-
riors reded around the chief. Leaning forward on their fhields,
they liftened to the voice of the fong. Their faces are fidelong
turned ; and their eyes, at times, are fhut. ( The bard praifed the
deeds of the king, when his blading fword and the fpear of In-
nisfail f rolled before them, like a wreath of foam, the battle.
The fong ceafed ; but its found was ftill in our ear, as the
voice
poems, but can repeat, at leaft, fome part Falans. Sometimes Inti/e/iiil (cems to de-
of Dargo. note fome of the Hebrides ; and Inni/lore
As the narration of this poem, how- (lands always for the Orkneys, or at leaft
ever, is put for the moft part in the mouth the greateft part of them. — It may be
of Ullin, and as the tr.infa£lions of it fuit alfo proper to obferve the footing on
his time better than Offian's, who, if which the kings of Morven or Caledonia
then born, muft have been very young, were with thefe neighbouring countries.
we may fuppofe Dan an Deirg to have With the inhabitants of Innfcfail and
been the compofition of Ullin. Of this Innijlore, they generally lived on good
hoary and venerable bard, Offian always terms ; and feem to have been their fupe-
fpeaks with reverence, and afcribes to riors. With the legal fovereigns of Erin
him many epifodes in his larger poems. and their people they were nearly allied ;
f As the names of Lochlin, Erin, and and frequently affifted them againft the
Innisfail, often occur in this and fome of ufurpationsof the Firbolg, and the incur-
theotherpoemsthat follow, it maybe pro- fions of the Scandinavians. With their
per to remember, that by Lochlin is meant fouthern neighbours, beyond the friths
Js'orway, or Scandinavia in general ; of Forth and Clyde, the kings of Mor-
bj Erin, Ireland; and by Innisfail, a ven feem to have had very little friendly
part of the fanie country inhabited by the intercourfc.