Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

6 OSSIAN
rolling near. My son looks on screaming sea-fowl, a
young wanderer on the field. Give the head of a boar
to Can-dona,* tell him of his father's joy, when the
bristly strength of I-thorno rolled on his lifted spear.
Tell him of my deeds in war! Tell where his father
fell!"
"Not forgetful of my fathers," said Fingal, "I have
bounded over the seas. Theirs were the times of danger,
in the days of old. Nor settles darkness on me, before
foes, though youthful in my locks. Chief of Crathmo-
craulo, the field of night is mine."
Fingal rushed, in all his arms, wide-bounding over
Turthor's stream, that sent its sullen roar, by night,
through Gormal's misty vale. A moon-beam glittered
on a rock ; in the midst, stood a stately form ; a form
with floating locks, like Lochlin's white-bosomed maids.
Unequal are her steps, and short. She throws a broken
song on wind. At times she tosses her white arms :
for grief is dwelling in her soul.
" Torcul-torno,t of aged locks ! " she said, " where now
are thy steps, by Lulan? Thou hast failed, at thine
* Cean-daona, head of the people, the son of Duth-maruno.
He became afterwards famous, in the expeditions of Ossian,
after the death of Ungal. The traditional tales concerning him
are very numerous, and, from the epithet in them bestowed on
him {Candona of boars), it would appear that he applied himself
to that kind of hunting, which his father, in this paragraph, is so
anxious to recommend to him.
t Torcul-torno, according to tradition, was king of Crathlun,
a district in Sweden. The river Lulan ran near the residence of
Torcul-torno. There is a river in Sweden, still called Ltiia,
which is probably the same with Lulan. The war between
Starno and Torcul-torno, which terminated in the death of the
latter, had its rise at a hunting party. Starno being invited, in
a friendly manner, by Torcul-torno, both kings, with their
followers, went to the mountains of Stivamore, to hunt. A boar
rushed from the wood before the kings, and Torcul-torno killed
it. Starno thought this behaviour a breach upon the privilege
of guests, who were always honoured, as tradition expresses it,