Blair Collection > Beside the fire

PREFACE. XXVll
tained in their proper places, but couched in different
language, while he introduces a run of his own which
the Irish has not got, in describing the swift movement
of the kerne. Every time the kerne is asked where he
comes from, the Highlander makes him say —
" I came from hurr}'-skurry.
From the land of endless spring,*
From the loved swanny glen,
A night in Islay and a night in Man,
A night on cold watching cairns
On the face of a mountain.
In the Scotch king's town was I born,
A soiled sorry champion am I
Though I happened upon this town."
In the Irish ISIS, the kerne always says —
•' In Dun Monaidh, in the town of the king of Scotland,
I slept last night.
But I be a day in Islay and a day in Cantire,
A day in Man and a day in Rathlin,
A day in Fionncharn of the watch
Upon Slieve Fuaid,
A little miserable traveller I,
And in Aileach of the kings was I born.
And that," said he, " is my stor)-."
Again, whenever the kerne plays his hr.rp the High-
lander says : —
"He could play tunes and oirts and orgain.
Trampling things, tightening strings.
Warriors, heroes, and ghosts on their feet,
Ghosts and souls and sickness and fever,
* Campbell has mistranslated this. I think it means "from the bottom of
the well of the deluge.''