104 



spiorad, spirit ; corp (corpus,) body ;' beist, beast ; ros^ rose ; halhj 

 hall; roda, road ; arm, arms ; anam (anima,) soul; muinaidh (mon- 

 tes,) mountains ; ceir (cera,) wax ; libhearn (liburna,) navis ; stoirm, 

 storm ! ! ! 



The following words and phrases from Macpherson, have been 

 noticed by Laing, as of modern introduction to the Gaelic : 



Earradh, literally the English array from the Teutonic, raia, rada, ordo, hence raiment, 

 array. 



As diasul, or greine, would signify Sunday, he was obliged to adopt the English idiom in 

 translating the day of the sun,* S'grian orradh na beinn, the sun gilding the hills. 



Anam, the soul, from anima ; deur, a tear, derived by Lloyd from the Teutonic ; am- 

 measg, amidst, expressions which no credulity, however weak, can impute to Ossian, and 

 which, instead of the second (third) century, demonstrate a recent translation into a mixed 

 language of the eighteenth. 



The warrior's grave is translated palin, a shroud, from the Latin pallium, and the 

 English pall. 



Faisich, a desert, is a correlative term, suggested by its contrast with peopled or culti. 

 vated fields ; but as all places were equally desert to a tribe of hunters, who subsisted in the 

 desert, there was no relative to suggest either the idea or the name. The same observation is 

 applicable to autumn's dark storms. Among hunters who have neither harvests nor fruits, 

 " autumni perinde nomen et bona ignorantur." 



The English name and idiom of steel for armour are assigned by Macpherson, from his 

 own Highlander, " steel speaks on steel " to the third century, when steel was seldom or never 

 used in armour by the Romans themselves. — The German stahel, the Saxon and Scandina- 

 vian stall, is repeated by name. Chuinic is e na stalin chruai. " She saw him in his hard steel." 



Macpherson, it seems, was greatly puzzled to find an adequate 

 expression for boss. To transcribe itself would have been too gross, 

 and therefore he chose " the Saxon and German cup. Seached cop- 

 pain a 6' h'air an sciath, seven bosses rose on the shield : " 



* The day of the sun is an imitation from Ezekiel, i. 28 : " The appearance of the bow 

 that is in the cloud, in the day of rain." 



