O F ANCIENT POETRY, Collected in the Highlands of Scotland, AND Tranflated from the Galic or Erfe Language, Vos quoque qui fortes animas, belloque peremtas LUCAN EDINBURGH: Printed for G. HAMILTON and J. BALFOUR. MDCCLX: PREFACE.. TH 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 æra of the moft remote antiquity and this tradition is fupported by the spirit and strain of the poems them-felves; which abound with those ideas, and paint thofe manners, that belong to the moft early ftate of fociety. The diction too, in the original, is very obfolete; and differs widely from the ftyle of fuch poems as have been written in the fame language two or three centuries ago. They were certainly compofed before the establish- A 22 ment: |