Ossian Collection > Gaelic bards

MODERN GAELIC BARDS.
ALEXANDER MACDOKALD.
Alexander MacDoxald, always styled by his own
countrymen, Mac Mhaiglistir Alastair, i.e. the son of
Mr. Alexander, a man of very vigorous parts, and to say
the least of it, unexcelled in point of general ability by
any of the Gaelic Bards — was the son of the Episcopalian
clergyman for the parishes of Ardnamurchan and
Moidart — at the end of the seventeenth, and beginning
of the eighteenth century.
His father resided at Dalilea in Moidart, and would
appear to have united the pleasant calling of the High-
land Tacksman with the functions — not over-burdensome
probably in a Presbyterian country, of the Episcopalian
clergyman.
This gentleman is said to have been a man of immense
bodily strength — nor is it strange that this quality is not
forgotten, even in a man who exercised his sacred vocation;
for it was a gift not superfluous in his circumstances :
not one which the habits of his Christian flock allowed to
rust in him unused. For instance, he had to walk to his
church many miles every Sunday, over a rough country,
at that time, without roads ; and then, after conducting
the service, back to his home in the evening.
Again, the funerals, which, in his clerical capacity, he
attended, were not always decorous scenes. His parish-
ioners, on such occasions, used to bring with them a