Ossian Collection > Works of Ossian, the son of Fingal > Volumes 3 and 4

178 COLNA-DONA:
turn. Battles rife before him, blue-fhield-
ed kings del'cend to war: the darkened moon
looks from heaven, on the troubled field. •
He fhall burft, with morning, from dreams,
and fee the tombs of warriors round. He iliall
afk about the ftone, and the aged will reply,
*'This grey ftone was raifed by Oflian, a chief
of other years I "
* ) From Col - amon came a bard , from
Car-ul, the friend of ftrangers. He bade us
to the feaft of kings , to the dwelling of bright
Colna«
*) The inanners of the Britons and Caledonians we-
re fo liinilar, in the days of Ofiian, that there
can be 116 doubt , that they were originally the
lame people, aiid defcended from thofe Gauls
who firft posl'efled themfelves of South -Britain,
and gradually migrated. This hy.pothefis is more
rational than the idle fables of ill - informed fe-
nachies , who bring the Caledonians from diftant
countries. The bare opinion of Tacitus, (which,
by - the - bye, was only founded on a fimilarity of
the perlbnal figure of the Caledonians to the
Germans of his own time ) tho' it has ftaggered
fome learned men, is not lufhcient to make tis
believe, that the antient inhabitants of North-
Britain were H German oniony* A discufllon of
a point