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

OBSERVATIONS, ETC. 131
of Myself, and my Father, and Gaul, were the three of
greatest prowess among the heroes.
The error may have proceeded from mistaking Glonti
prov,-ess, for Clann children.
S/a/i-za 7. " 'Noavil ii'm bionan e s mac Cubhail
*' An riogh sin a bha air na Fiannibh
" Dhef heudadh fir an domhain
" Dol na Thallamhsan gun iaruidh."
There is no word in the Gaelic language that bears the-
most distant likeness to ^ Noavil^ which begins this quota-
tion. It is to be presumed from the English that is given
for it, Dost thou imagine, that the translator read, or took it,
for Jin Saoil. And if we read it so, the literal translation
of the passage is as follows —
Dost thou imagine that he was equal to the son of
Comhal ?
That king who was over the heroes of Fingal.
All the men of the world might enter
Into his hall unbidden.
Instead of which it is thus rendered in the version or
Mr. Hill — '■' Dost thou imagine that he is equal to the son
*' of Comhal ? that king who ruled over the nations, who
" defeated all the people of the earth, and visited their
" kingdoms unsent for."
There seems but one way of accounting for so singular a
translation of a very plain passage. Mr. Hill had observed
(p. 10.), that he was " inclined to suspect that there are in
" the song of Dermid killing the wild Boar, some words di-
" rectly clerived from the English, as Bheist, thri, &.c."
It did not, perhaps, occur to him that the Gaelic òèist and
tri wese synonymous with the bestia and tria of the Latin ;
in which they were known for a w^hole millennium, and we
kno-ifr not how much longer, before the English language^
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