Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian, the son of Fingal

3o6 cath-loda:
in a land unknown I Starno fent a dweller of Loda, to
bid Fingal to the feaft : but the king remembered the
pail, and all his rage arofe.
Nor Gormal's mofly towers ; nor Starno iliall Fingal •
behold. Deaths wander, like fhadows, over his fiery
foul. Do I forget that beam of light, the white-handed
daughter* of kings? Go, fon of Loda ; his words are but
blafhs to Fingal : blafls, that, to and fro, roll the thiftle
in autumnal vales.
Duth-marunof, arm of death I Cromma-glas, of iron
fhields I Struthmor, dweller of battle's wing ! Cormar,
whofe fhips bound on feas, carelefs as the courfe of a me-
teor, on dark ftreaming clouds 1 Arife, around me, chil-
dren of heroes, in a land unknown. Let each look on his
fliield, like Trenmor, the ruler of battles. '* Come down,
faid the king, thou dweller between the harps. Thou
Ihalt roll this llream away, or dwell with me in earth."
Around him they rofe in wrath. No words came forth:
they feized their fpears. Each foul is rolled into itfelf.
At length the fudden clang is w^aked, on all their echo-
ing iliields. Each took his hill, by night ; at intervals,
they darkly Hood. Unequal burfts the hum of fongs,
between the roaring wind. Broad over them rofe the
moon. In his arms, came tall Duth-maruno ; he from
Croma-charn of rocks, ftern hunter of the boar. In his
dark boat he rofe on waves, when CrumthormothJ awak-
ed its woods. In the chafe he Ihone, among his foes : Np
fear was thine, Duth-maruno.
Son of Comhal, he faid, my fleps fliall be forward thro'
night. From this fliield I lliall view them, over their
gleaming
• Agandecca, the daughter of Starno, whom her father killed, on account of
her diicovering to Fingal, a plot laid againft his life. Her ftory is related at
large, in the third book of Fingal.
■f Duth-maruno is a name very famous in tradition. [Many of his great anions
are handed down, but the poems, which contained the detail of them, are long
fince loft. He lived, it is fuppofed, in thai part of the north of Scotland, which
is over againft Orkney. Duth-maruno, Cromma-glas Strouthmor, and Cormar,
are mentioned, as attending Comhal, in his laft battle againJl the tribe of Morni,
in a poem, which is ftill prefen-ed. It is not the work of Offian; the phrafeo-
logy betrays it to be a modern conipofition. It is fomething like thofe trivial com-
pofitions, which the Irifh bards forged, under the name of OfTian, in the fifteenth
and fixteenth centuries. Duth-maruno figrifies, black andjlcady; Cromma-glas,
bending and fivarthy; Struthmor, rnarin;^ jlream; Cormar, expert at fea.
t Crumthormoth, one of the Orkney or Shetland iflands. The name is not of
Galic original. It was fubjed to its own petty king, who is mentioned in one of
Oflian's poems.