Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

90 Critical Dissertation
embroil tlie deep — to call forth winds and storms,
and pour them on the land of the stranger — to
overturn forests, and to send death among the
people. We have prodigies too ; a shower of
blood ; and when some disaster is befalling at a
distance, the sound of death heard on the strings of
Ossian's harp : all perfectly consonant, not only to
the peculiar ideas of northern nations, but to the
general current of a superstitious imagination in
all countries. The desci-iption of Fingal's airy
hall, in the poem called Berrathon, and of the
ascent of Malvina into it, deserves particular notice,
as remarkably noble and magnificent. But above
all, the engagement of Fiugal with the spirit of
Loda, in Carric-thura, cannot be mentioned with-
out admiration. I forbear transcribing the pas-
sage, as it must have drawn the attention of everr
one who has read the works of Ossian. Thft
undaunted courage of Fingal, opposed to all thfe
terrors of the Scandinavian god — the appearance ant!
the speech of that awful spirit — the wound which
he receives, and the shriek which he sends forth,
*'as, roUed into himself, he rose upon the wind;"
are full of the most amazing and terrible majesty.
I know no passage more sublime in the writings of
any uninspired author. The fiction is calculated
to aggrandize the hero, which it does to a high
degree ; nor is it so unnatural or wild a fiction as
might at first be thought. According to the
notions of those times, supernatural beings were
material, and consequently, vulnerable. The spirit
of Loda was not acknowledged as a deity by Fingal ;
he did not worship at the stone of his power ;
he plainly considered him as the god of his ene-
mies alone ; as a local deity, whose dominion
extended no farther than to the regions where he
v/as worshipped ; who had, therefore, no title to
threaten him, and no claim to his submission.
We know there are poetical precedents of great