Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian > Volume 3

AN £PIC POEM. 165
lent as the grove of evening ? Stand tliey, like
a silent wood, and Fingal on the coast ? Fingal,
who is terrible in battle, the king of streamy
Morven!" "Hast thou seen the warrior?"
said Cairbar with a sigh. " Are his heroes many
on the coast ? Lifts he the spear of battle ? Or
comes the king in peace ? " " In peace he comes
not, king of Erin ! I have seen his forward
spear *. It is a meteor of death. The blood of
thousands is on its steel. He came first to the
shore, strong in the grey hair of age. Full rose
his sinewy limbs, as he strode in his might. That
sword is by his side, which gives no second f
wound. His shield is terrible, like the bloody
moon, ascending through a storm. Then came
* M6r-annal here alludes to the particular appearance
of Fingal's spear. If a man, upon his first landing in a
strange country, kept the point of his spear forward, it
denoted, in those days, that he came in a hostile man-
ner, and accordingly he was treated as an enemy ; if he
kept the point behind hira, it was a token of friendship,
and he was immediately invited to the feast, according
to the hospitality of tlie times.
t This was the famous sword of Fingal, made by Luco,
a smith of Lochlin, and after him poetically called the
son of Luno : it is said of this sword, that it killed a man
at every stroke ; and that Fingal never used it but in
times of the greatest danger.