Ossian Collection > Reliquiae Celticae > Volume 2

THE BUOK OF CLANRANALD. 143
11 pages ; we reproduce none of it. There follows on page 293 a
song in praise of love, and on page 295 another by Cathal
(M'Vurich) in dispi'aise of the same, followed by a vigorous poem
by Niall Mor M'Vui-ich wishing the prolongment of love's long
night :—
Let not in the morn ;
Rise and put out the day !
These poems are printed further on. Then on page 298 there
comes the first part of a poem by Diarmad M'Laoisighe M' an
Bhaird on the armorial bearing of the Red Hand ; this poem and
the reply to it by Eogan O'Donnelly are given in full in the Black
Book. Here Niall M'Vurich answers both the Irish claims for
the Red Hand in two poems of 23 verses each.
There are three handwritings in the Red Book. Up till the
beginning of the story of the Montrose wars is iu one handwriting,
both prose and poetry, possibly written, as the historian Laing
said, by Cathal M'Vurich ; while the Montrose wars and the rest
of the history is the work, and doubtless the handwriting, of Niall
M'Vurich. Cathals handwriting reappears in the poem of
O'Henna and the immediately subsequent description of the
arming of the Lord of the Isles. The following poems are written
in an ugly coarse hand : — Elegies on Allan of Clanranald (1715),
on Norman Macleod (1705), and on Sir James Macdonald, and
the poem about the exile of Ranald of Clanranald (1715-1725).
The rest of the poetry is in Niall M'Vurich's handwriting. The
contractions in the Red Bock are comparatively few, in this con-
trasting strongly with the Black Book ; but, when they exist,
they are the same in kind in both MSS.
CONTENTS OF THE BLACK BOOK.
We here give a short account of the varied contents of the
Black Book of Clanranald. The first 14 pages contam a mixed
gathering of scraps and jottings, English and Gaelic, half of the
number of pages, however, being blank. There is little connection
or interest in them, and the writing is mostly of the 17th centuiy.
The 15th page abruptly begins — the first portion evidently being
lost — " circles are two, viz., greater and lesser. The greater are
i?ix, tfec," describing the zones of the earth, and proceeding to give
a concise account of the globe and its divisions and, with the
interruption of a blank page, a concise geography of the world
ending on the 42nd page. All this is in English, and in the 17th
century script. Then follows a chronology extending to 13 pages ;
tlie Age of the World when Christ was l3orn is given as 5199,