Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian, the son of Fingal

240 T E M O R A. book hi.
forgot at the feast ? "WTien did he forget the stranger, in the nmidst
of his echoing hall ? Ye are silent in my presence ! Connal is then
no more. Joy meet thee, O warrior, like a stream of light.
Swift be thy course to thy fathers, in the folds of the mountain-
winds. Ossian, thy soul is fire : kindle the memory of the king.
Awake the battles of Connal, when first he shone in war. The
locks of Connal were gray; his days of youth* were mixed with
mine. In one day Duth-caron first strung our bows against the
roes of Dunlora."
" Many," I said, " are our paths to battle, in green hilled In-
nis-fail. Often did our sails arise, over the blue-tumbling waters ;
when we came, in other days, to aid the race of Conar. The
strife roared once in Alnecma, at the foam-covered streams of
Duth-ula.f With Cormac descended to battle Duth-caron from
cloudy Morven. Nor descended Duth-caron alone, his son was
by his side, the long-haired youth of Connal, lifting the first of
his spears. Thou didst command them, O Fingal, to aid the king
of Erin.
*' Like the bursting stength of a stream, the sons of Bolga rushed
to war : Colc-ulla:j: was before them, the chief of blue-streaming
Atha. The battle was mixed on the plain, like the meeting of
two stormy seas. Cormac § shone in his own strife, bright as the
forms
* After the death of Comhal, and during the usurpation of the tribe of Morni,
Fingal was educated in private by Duth-caron. It was then he contraded that in-
timacy, with Connal the son of Duth-caron, which occasions his regretting so much
his fall. When Fingal was grown up, he soon reduced the tribe of Morni ; and,
as it appears front the subsequent episode, sent Duth-caron and his son Connal to
the aid of Cormac, the son of Conar, king of Ireland, who was driven to the last
extremity, by the insurredlions of the Fir-bolg. This episode throws farther light
on the contests between tlie Cael and Fir-bolg ; and is the more valuable upon that
account.
f Duth-ula, a river in Connau^ht ; it signifies, dark-rushing -water.
\ Colc-ulla, firm look in readiness ; he was the brother of Borbar-duthul, the fa-
ther of Cairbar and Cathmor, who, after the death of Cormac the son of Artho,
successively mounted the Irish throne.
§ Cormac, the son of Conar, the second king of Ireland, of the race of the Ca-
ledonians. This insurredlion of the Fir-bolg happened towards the latter end of the
long reign of Cormac. From several episodes and poems, it appears, that he never
possessed the Irish throne peaceably. The party of the family of Atha had made se-
veral attempts to overturn the succession in the race of Conar, before they effe;fted
it, in the minority of Cormac, the son of Artho. Ireland, from the most ancient
accounts concerning it, seems to have been always so disturbed by domestic commo-
tions, that it is difficult to say, whether it ever was, for any length of time, subjeft
10 one monarch. It is certain, that every province, if not every small district, had
its