Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian > Volume 1

ex A CRITICAL PTS3KRTATTOK
praise that can be given to the beauty of a living
woman, is to say, " She is fair as the ghost of the
*' hill; when it moves in a sun-beam at noon,
^^ over the silence of Morven." " The hunter
'•'■ shall hear roy voice from his booth. He shall
•'fear, but love my Voice. For sweet shj?ll my
^' voice be for my friends; for pleasatvt were they
'' to me."
Besides ghosts, or the spirits of departed men,
we find in Osslan some instances of other kinds of
machinery. Spirits of a superior nature to ghosts
are sometimes alluded to, which have power to
embroil the deep; to call forth winds and storms,
and pour them on the land of the stranj^er; to
overturn forests, and to send death amorvg 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 description of Fingars airy
hall, in the poem called Berrathon, and of the
ascent of jNIalvina into it, deserves parlicnilar no-
tice, as remarkably noble and magnificent. But
above all, the engagement of Fingal u ith the spirit
of Loda, in Carric-thura, cannot be mentioned
without admiration. I forbear transcribing the
passage, as it must have drawn the attention of
every one who has read the works of Ossian. The
undaunted courage of Fingal, opposed to all the
terrors of the Scandinavian god; the appearance
and the speech of that awful spirit; the wound
which he receives, and the shriek which he sends
f jrth, " ;is rolled Into himself, he rose upon the