Ossian Collection > Original collection of the poems of Ossian, Orrann, Ulin, and other bards, who flourished in the same age

118 THE FINGALIANS* GREAT DISTRESS,
ed thick and niimf^rous their tents near the house
vhere Finjsjal resided. A niessa^^e came to Fin-
gal — a heavy tale of woe to us: it was the conflict
of the heroes in Iiniis-Phail, courtinir the battle
on the northern sliore. Fiuga!, and all the Fiu-
galian chiefs together, formed a council, to send
the king's daughter, if he would accept other, to
the king of Lochlin, of sharp arms. The king's
daughter, of the fairest skin and bluest eye, we
sent, attended by a hundred steeds, the most
stately that ever trode the heath, with a hundred
riders on their backs, with their golden robes glit-
tering like the sun's rays. On the shore, no sooner
had she alighted, than behiiul her she lefr the hor-
ses, and, with two golden apples in her right hand,
stepped forward to meet them : her vestments
being covered with the richest gold, the picture of
that crown to which armies submit. Beautiful
maid, of the curled locks, tell us thy news from
Fingal's host. If thy wife, she said, had proved
false and unjust to thee — had conunitted an atro-
cious deed — in her place you shall have me as
exchange ; you shall receive a hundred steeds, the
most beautiful that ever stood on a hill; a hundred
riders on their backs, with golden robes sparkling
like the sun beams ; a himdred horns that can
make wine of pure water; whoever shall drink out
of them shall find his health never impaired.
These you shall get; and a hundred belts — the
waist which they surround shall not die; every af-