Ossian Collection > Sketches descriptive of picturesque scenery, on the southern confines of Perthshire

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this day to the Daoine Sht\ that may be
fuppofed to have belonged to the Druids ,
on the deflrudion of their order, fhould
not appear furprifing. There is nothing,
we know, which takes a more powerful
or lafling hold of the unenlightened
mind, than fuperflitious opinions. Whilft
hiftorical fads are loft or difguifed, fu-
perflitious opinions are handed down
from age to age ; they are imbibed at
an early period of life, and tranfmitted
from father to fon.
The Shi'ichs are believed, in the tra-
ditionary legends of the Highlanders, to
be of both fexes ; as we know, from the
teftimony of ancient hiftory, the Druids
alfo were. In Flavius Vopifcus*, we
have the following ftory of the Emperor
Diocletian.
" Whilft he lived amongft the Tun-
" grians (now Brabant), being yet of
" low rank in the army, as he was one
" day fettling the account of his board
** with
* In Numeriano.