FRAGMENTS OF ANCIENT POETRY, Collected in the HIGHLANDS of SCOTLAND, AND Translated from the GALIC or ERSE Language, Vos quoque, qui fortes animas belloque peremptas Plurima fecuri fudistis carmina, Bardi. LUCAN. First Printed in the Year 1760. T PREFACE. HE Public may depend on the following Fragments as genuine Remains of ancient Scottish Poetry. The Date of their Compofition cannot be exactly ascertained, Tradition, in the Country where they were written, refers them to an Era of the most remote Antiquity: And this Tradition is fupported by the Spirit and Strain of the Poems themselves; which abound with those Ideas, and paint thofe Manners, that belong to the most early State of Society. The Diction too, in the Original, is very obfolete; and differs widely from the Style of fuch Poems as have been written in the fame Language two or three Centuries ago. They were certainly composed before the Establishment of Clanfhip in the Northern Part of Scotland, which is itself very ancient; for had Clans been then formed and known, they must have made a confiderable Figure in the Work of a Highland Bard; whereas there is not the leaft Mention of them in these Poems. It is remarkable that there I 4 are are found in them no Allufions to the Chriftian Religion or Worship; indeed, few Traces of Religion of any Kind. One Circumstance feems to prove them to be coeval with the very Infancy of Christianity in Scotland. In a Fragment of the fame Poems, which the Tranflator has feen, a Culdee or Monk is reprefented as defirous to take down in Writing from the Mouth of Ofcian, who is the principal Perfonage in several of the following Fragments, his Warlike Atchievements, and thofe of his Family. But Ofcian treats the Monk and his Religion with Difdain, telling him, that the Deeds of fuch great Men were Subjects too high to be recorded by him, or by any of his Religion: A full Proof that Christianity was not as yet eftablished in the Country. Though the Poems now published appear as detached Pieces in this Collection, there is Ground to believe that most of them were originally Episodes of a greater Work which related to the Wars of Fingal. Concerning this Hero innumerable Traditions remain, to this Day, in the Highlands of Scotland. The Story of Ofcian, his Son, is fo generally known, that to defcribe one in whom the Race of a great great Family ends, it has paffed into a Proverb; "Ofcian the laft of the Heroes." There can be no Doubt that these Poems are to be ascribed to the Bards; a Race of Men well known to have continued throughout many Ages in Ireland and the North of Scotland. Every Chief or great Man had in his Family a Bard or Poet, whose Office it was to record, in Verfe, the illuftrious Actions of that Family. By the Succeffion of these Bards, fuch Poems were handed down from Race to Race; fome in Manufcript, but more by oral Tradition. And Tradition, in a Country fo free of Intermixture with Foreigners, and among a People fo ftrongly attached to the Memory of their Ancestors, has preserved many of them, in a great measure, incorrupted to this Day. They are not set to Mufic, nor fung. The Verfification in the Original is fimple; and, to fuch as understand the Language very smooth and beautiful. Rhyme is feldom used: But the Cadence, and the Length of the Line varied, fo as to fuit the Sense. The Translation is extremely literal. Even the Arrangement of the Words in the Original has been imita ted; |