Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian > Volume 2

Book VI. An EPIC POEM. 133
there among them, who can lift the fpear ? Not
fo peaceful was thy father, Borbar-duthul *,
king of fpears. His rage was a fire that al-
ways burned : liis joy over fallen foes was great.
Three days feafted the grey-haired hero, wlien
he heard that Calmar fell : Calmar, who aided
the race of Ullin, from Lara of the llreams.
Often did he feel, with his hands, the ftecl
which, they faid, had pierced his foe. He felt
it, with his hands, for Borbar-duthul's eyes had
failed. Yet was the king a fun to his friends ; a
gale to lift their branches round. Joy was
around him in his halls : he loved the fons of
• Borbar-duthul, the father of Cathmor, was the brother of
that Colc-ulla, who is fixid, in the beginning of the fourih
book, to have rebelled againft Cormac king of Ireland.
Borbar-duthul feems to have retained all the prejudice of his
f;imily againll the fucceffion of the pofterity of Conar, on the
Irifh throne. From this fliort epifode we learn fome fads
which tend to throA' light on the hiftory of the times. It ap-
pears, that, when Swaran invaded Ireland, he was only op-
pofed by the Cai.!, who polTefled Ulfler, and the north of that
ifland. Calmar, the fon of Matha, whofe gallant behaviour
aud death are related in the third book of Finga!, was the
only chief of the race of the Fir- bolg, that joined the Cael, or
Irilh Caledonians, during the invafion of Swaran. The inde-
cent joy, which Borbar-duthul exprefTed, upon the death of
Calmar, is well fuited with that fpirit of revenge, which fub-
f,fted, univerfally, in every country where the feudal fyftem
was eltabliflied. It would appear that fomeperfon had carried
to Borbar-duthul that weapon, with which, it was pretended,
Calmar had been killed.
K 3 Bolga.