Hew Morrison Collection > Minor poems, and translations, in verse

FAINASOLLIS.
The following Poem of Ossian is remarkable for its variety of versions, ge-
nerally agreeing throughout in the narrative of incidents, but differing ma-
terially as to the catastrophe. This circumstance was probably inevitable,
and may plausibly be accounted for from the oral transmission of the story
through such a long series of ages. The present translator's inducement
in having made preference of the version here given was on account of
its superior beauty, and that its authenticity has been clearly ascertained
so far back as the beginning of the seventeenth century. That it must at
that period have been considered as the most genuine is evident from its
having been recognised by John Mackay, a bard of the time, better known
to Highlanders by the cognomen of " Piobaire Dall."* In order to gra-
tify the curious reader, several of the different versions of the catastrophe
of this poem are subjoined to it.
The following is an account, as traditionally given, of the incidents
which occurred previous to the opening of the poem : —
Myro, son of the king of Sora, t sailing once along the Irish coast,
came to a bay remarkable for its beautiful seclusion. Surveying the
smooth expanse, he beheld a group of nymphs desporting themselves, as
they thought, unseen, and enjoying the cool of the summer eve among the
•See his Address to Sir Alexander Macdanald of Sleat, in the " Beauties of Gaelic
Poetry," in which the original of the following poem appears, as well as the information
embodied in the preliminary narrative.
■f Sorcha in the original. It is uncertain what island was known by this'denomination
in the times of Ossian. It may be supposed, however, to he one of the Orkneys, from the
affinity betwixt the names. Sorcha was probably derived from two words, now obsolete,
—ore, a whale, and a, an island : the Isle of Whales. The island is frequently mentioned
in the poems of Ossian, and seems to have been noted for the cruelty of its inhabitants.