Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian > Volume 2

Book IV. An E P I C P O E M. 95
fouls of their race, while they behold them
lonely in the midft of woe. Call mc, my father,
away ! When Cathmor is low on earth. Then
Ihall Sul-malla be lonely in the midft of woe !'*
of winds, and roar of water-falls. The gloominefs of the
fcenes around them was apt to beget that melancholy difpofi-
tion of mind, which moft readily receives impreffions of the
extraordinary and fupernatural kind. Falling afleep in this
gloomy mood, and their dreams being dillurbed by the noife
of the elements around, it is no matter of wonder, that they
thought they heard the voice of the dead. This 'voice of the
dead, however, was, perhaps, no more than a fhriller whiftle
of the winds in an old tree, or in the chinks of a neighbour-
ing rock. It is to this caufe I afcribe thofe many and impro-
bable tales of ghofts, which we meet with in the Highlands t
for, in other refpefts, we do not find that the inhabitants are
more credulous than their neighbours.