J. F. Campbell Collection > Original collection of the poems of Ossian, Orrann, Ulin, and other bards, who flourished in the same age

198 OSSIAN'S TALE.
was honoured above the rest; behold the uncer-
tainty of every thing under the sun.
years. What's certain is, that after having long continued at Tarah*,
it was, for the purpose mentioned, sent to Fergus, the first actual Icing
of Scots; and that it lay in Argyle (the original seat of tl>€ Scots in
Britain), till about the year of Christ 842, that Kenneth the Second,
the son of Alpin, having enlarged his borders by the conquest of tj^e
Picts, transferred this stone, for the same purpose as before, Co Scone.
The supreme kings of Ireland used to be inaugurated in times of h«a..
thenism on the hiU of Tarah, and the stone being inclosed in a wooden
chair, was thought to emit a sound under the rightful candidate (a thing
easily managed by the Druids), but to be mute under a man of none or
a bad title ; that is, one who was not for the turn of those priests.
Every one has read of JMemnon's vocal statute in Egypt. This fatal
stone ■was superstiously sent to confirm the Irish colony in the north of
Great Britain, where it continued as the coronation-seat of the Scottish
Icings, even since Christianity; till, in the year 1300, Edward the First
of England brought it from Scone, placing it under the coronation-chair
at Westminster, and there it still continues, the aucientest respected
naonuraent in the world ; for though some others may be more ancient
as to duration, yet thus superstitiously regarded, they are not. It is
jiow called by the vulgar, Jacob-stone, as this had been Jacob's piU
low at Bethel t.
* Teamhair, Tarah, Teamhra, Taragh, Temora; the ancient proper
name is Teamhra.
+ Gen. xxviii. 11, 18, 19. See Mr. Huddleston's Edition of To*
land's History of the Druids, pp. 150, 151, 152.