Ossian Collection > Reliquiae Celticae > Volume 2

THE IJOOK OK OLAXRANALI). :
^ The salmon of the high stream of the Barrow,
And the Orkney Islands rising u]j simultaneously ;
Great softness of the heart which yielded sadness
Amongst the heroes of Norseland.
Tiie learned w.orc found in obscMuity,
Their protector lives not ;
They overstepped the rest,
Wlien they were grieved and sud.
He was the chief protector of the learned men of ycotl;ini:
He was the knowledge of the order of sciences.
His death has confirmed their difticulries.
The literati arc like trees without relief.
He was the lam[) of true history.
Or a person in its nearest type ;
Why, God, should it not be a grievance to us
That the earth is over his body, and I believe.
We are in want of gold and cattle.
Since the chief of Rushgarry died :
The learned men since the hour of his death
Have forsaken their havens of watching.
Flaming troubles pervaded the stars of heaven,
They poured forth showers of lightning ;
The hills are not illumined by day,
Their grief for him mastered them.
The rivers are rising (jver the woods,
There is a scarcity of fish in the bays ;
The fruitage is not found in the land,
The roaring of the sea is very coarse.
At the last hours of his death
Dreadful tokens appeared to us ;
Foreboding clouds which denoted grief
Were of gold coh^ur in the northern region.
1 Here at the top of page 249 — written in a diffei-ent hand ami iuulIi (
than this elegy — are inserted these four lines, which have no cdinjcticm
the i-est : —
In the town of the kings before us,
Tell this to its historians —
In short — to speak to us :
Not condemnable its front of truth.
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