Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian > Volume 2

lo T E M O R A: Book I.
cliiefs of Selma heard their joy *. We thought
tliat nilghty Cathmor came. Cathmor the friend
of itrangers! the brother of red-haired Cairbar.
Their fouls were not the fame. The hght of
heaven was in the bofom of Cathmor. His
towers rofe on the banks of Atha : feven paths
led to his halls. Seven chiefs flood on the
* Fingal's army heard the joy that was in Cairbar's camp.
The charafter given of Cathmor is agreeable to the times.
Some, through oftentation, were hofpitable ; and others fell
naturally into a cuftom handed down from their anceftors.
But what marks ftrongly the charafter of Cathmor, is his
averfion to praife ; for he is reprefented to dwell in a wood to
avoid the thanks of his guells ; which is ftill a higher degree
of generofuy than that of Axylus in Homer : for the poet does
not fay, but the good man might, at the head of his own
ta,ble, have heard with pleafure the praife bellowed on him by
thie people he entertained.
No nation in the world carried hofpitality to a greater
length than the ancient Scots It was even infamous, for
many ages, in a jnan of condition, to have the door of his
houfe fhut at all, lest, as the bards exprefs it, the stran-
ger. SHOULD COME AND BEHOLD HIS C NTRACTED SOUL.
oome of the chiefs were pofiefled of this hofpitable difpofuion
to an extravagant degree ; and the bards, perhaps upon a pri-
vate account, never failed to recommend it, in their eulo-
giums. Cean uid' na dai , or the point to ni-hich all the roads
tfthe Jirangers lead, was an invariable epithet given by them
to the chiefs ; on the contrary, they dirtinguifhed the inhof-
pltable by the title oi the cloud Tvhich the Jirangers Jhun, This
laft however was fo uncommon, that in all the old poems I
have ever met with, I found but one man branded with this
i^gnominious appellation ; and that, perhaps, only founded
upon a private quarrel, which fubfifted between him and the
patron of the bard, who wrote the poem.
paths.