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cal. The Fenian heroes are often represented as feasting and drinking 

 together, giving mutual presents and playing at chess. They quarrel 

 — a blow is heard ringing from the fist of one on the ear of another, 

 like that of a sledge on an anvil. The striker is punished by a blow 

 of superior force, which breaks three teeth, and by the force of his 

 fall, two ribs.* Oisin, in his conversations with Patrick, treats him 

 with so little ceremony, that he sometimes gives him the lie direct. 

 ){ ir)oe-<i5 T)bu)Cf) -O^' <i f<itc<t)fte- -y:)ti, ^^ For you that is a falsehood! 

 defamer of Fionn :" (See LdO) -no. i?r<t)t)(tjf, Poem of Victory,) and 

 in the Poem of the Chase, calls him, in Miss Brooke's translation : 



" Patrick of the scanty store, 

 And meagre-making face." 



Naitnh-lSluadh-Crothach, the daughter of the fierce Garbh MaC" 

 Dolar, speaking of the high king of Greece, her persecutor, says, 

 wo ttltilttcf <t)^, my curse on him ! How would one of Macpher- 

 son's heroes been horrified at such an expression from a lady of 

 rank ! 



Goll Mac-Morne is described as a generous chief, always ready 

 to spread his shield before his friends in danger. He is said in the 

 poem of Bhin Bolbin, to come, not as Macpherson would have stated, 

 like an eagle rushing from her cliffs on the wings of the roaring wind, 

 but with the speed of a greyhound ; swift as a weasel on a rabbit ; 

 natural and striking comparisons, though Macpherson may have 

 thought them little accordant with his more lofty epic style, and as 

 degrading perhaps to the least of his heroes, as the comparison in 

 Homer, of Ajax, the bulwark of the Greeks, to an ass. 



* This quarrel forms the subject of the Irish poem, entitled "the Contestation of Goll 

 with Luaidhe-ladir of hosts in the house of Teamor." This poem is in Mr. Hardiman's 

 collection. 



