Ossian Collection > Original collection of the poems of Ossian, Orrann, Ulin, and other bards, who flourished in the same age

PREFACE. xllx
tlieir country is universally known by t]ie name
Scotland ; they have no other name for tlieir own
race tlian the Scots. Scot is a very general proper
name, and is often incorporated with the name of
places. 3. Among the Gael, on the other hand,
the term Scot is utterly unknown; they never call
themselves by this name, they never call Iheir
country Scotland. Scot is never used as a proper
name among ihe pnre Highlanders; nor does the
appellation of a single town, valley, or river, shew
that it wa« known to their language. Buchanan
expresses his surprise at this strange circumstance,
that one half of the nation should completely have
forgotten its own name. 4. Tiie Highlanders
universally call themselves the Gael, their own
nation Gaeltachd; the kingdom of Scotland at
large, they know only by the name Albin (Albion),
and its inhabitants by the nmr.e of Albanich, the
term of Albin is employed as a proper name, and
it is often incorporated with the name of places,
Bredalbin, kc. 5. On the other hand, the word
Albin, or Albion, is utterly unknown among the
common people of the Scots, who have not learnt
it from books, or from their northern neighbours.
(J. The natural inference from these circumstances
iS, that the Gael and Scots, are a distinct race;
that the Gael are the race who possessed Cale-
donia in the time of the Romans, and iVIbin in
the time of the Greeks. These observations,
drawn from circumstances of which every one may