Ossian Collection > Poems of Ossian

9 8 COLNA-DGNA:
Beneath the voice of the king, we moved
to Crona * of the ftreams, Tofcar of graffy
Lutha, and Offian, young in fields. Three
bards attended with fongs. Three boffy fhields
were borne before us : for we were to rear the
ftone, in memory of the paft. By Crona's
mofiy courfe, Fingal had fcattered his foes : he
had rolled away the ftrangers, like a troubled
fea. We came to the place of renown : from
the mountains defcended night. I tore an
oak from its hill, and railed a flame on high.
I bade my fathers to look down, from the
clouds of their hall ; for, at the fame of their
race, they brighten in the wind.
I took a ftone from the dream, amid ft the
fong of bards. The blood of Fingal's foes
hung curdled in its ooze. Beneath, I placed,
at intervals, three bofles from the fhields of
foes, as rofe or fell the found of Ullin's nightly
fong. Tofcar laid a dagger in earth, a mail
of founding fteel. We raifed the mould
around the ftone, and bade it fpeak to other
years.
* Crona, murmuring, was the name of a fmall ilrearn,
which difcharged itfelf in the river Carron. It is often
mentioned by Offian, and the feenes of many of his
poems are on its banks. The enemies whom Fingal de-
feated here, are not mentioned. They were, probably,
the provincial Britons. That tract of country between
the Friths of Forth and Clyde has been, through all anti-
quity, famous for battles and rencounters between the dif-
ferent nations, who were poflefled of North and South
Britain. Stirling, a town fituated there, derives its name
from that very circumftance. It is a corruption of the
•Galic name, Strila, i. e* the hilly ir reck, of contention.
Oozy