J. F. Campbell Collection > Report of the Committee of the Highland Society of Scotland, appointed to inquire into the nature and authenticity of the poems of Ossian

GAELIC MANUSCRIPTS 297
but the cover of it has the following date in a modern
hand, though black letter. " Gleann Masain an cuige la
deag do an . . . Mh : : : do bhlian ar tsaoirse Mile da chead,
trichid sa hocht." That is. Glen Masa n, the Ì5th day of
the ... of M : : : of the year of our Redemption 1238.
The date being so particular, must be thought to have been
taken from the MS. itself when it was more entire than it
is now, for it is greatly mutilated. Glenmasan, where it was
written, is a valley in the district of Cowal, which, with
Glenurchay and Gleneiti, two other vales of Argyllshire,
is celebrated in the passage to be presently quoted from it,
as the scene in which the sons of Usnoth followed the
chace.
It ^appears from a note on the margin of its 15th leaf,
that it formerly belonged to the Rev. William Campbell,
miinister of Kilchrenan and Dalavich, who was a native of
Cowal, and to whom it may perhaps have descended ècom
his grand uncle Mr. Robert Campbell in Cowal, an accom-
plished scholar and poet, who wrote the eighth address pre-
fixed to the Archaeologia of Mr. Edward Lhuyd.
It consists of some mutilated tales in prose, intetspersed
with verse. One of them regards the tragical story of
Deardir, Dearduil, or Darthula, and the three sons of
Usnoth, Naos, Ainle, and Ardan, from which the following
extract is ijiade, and a Jac simile exhibited in Plate III.
No. 4. down to the eighth line of the verse, to enable such
as are curious on this head to form à judgment of the age
of the MS.
Do dech Deardir ar a helse ar crichibh Alban agus ro
chan an Laoidh — Of which the Englisli is as follows :
Darthula looked behind her towards the land of Albidnf,
and raised the strain —
j i. e. Scotland