The Wild stream-sides. The bitter juice of the fruit is 



Apple. still used for sprains and bruises, and to-day 



as of old the Gaelic poet has no more frequent 



comparison of his sweetheart's charm than to 



the delicate-hued, sweet-smelling apple e.g., 



" Iseabail og 



An or-fhuilt bhuidhe 

 Do ghruaidh mar ros 

 'S do phog mar ubhal," 



where the poet praises his Isabel of the yellow 

 tresses and rose-flusht cheek and kissing-moutli 

 sweet as an apple. Once the apple was far 

 more common in Scotland than it is now. An 

 old authority, Solinus, says that Moray and all 

 the north-east abounded in the third century 

 with fruit-bearing apple-trees, and Buchanan 

 even speaks of Inverness-shire as being un- 

 surpassed for the fruit. Visitors to lona, 

 to-day, who see it a sandy treeless isle, may 

 hardly credit that it was once famous for its 

 apple-orchards, and that too as late as the 

 ninth century, till the monks of lona were 

 slain and the orchards destroyed by the 

 ravaging vikings out of Norway. Beautiful 

 Arran, too, was once lovelier still, so lovely 

 with apple-blossom and ruddy yellow fruit that 

 it was called Emhain Abhlach, the Avalon of 

 the Gael. 



To come in a waste piece of tangled woods, 

 128 



