The The Hebridean islanders seldom look at it 

 Milky on gun frosty nights without in the long idle 

 '" hours recalling some old name or allusion, 

 some ancient rann or oran, some duan or 

 iorram of a later day, related to the mystery 

 and startling appealing beauty of the Silver 

 Road. It has many names on the lips of 

 these simple men, who have little learning 

 beyond the Bible and what life on the waters 

 and life in the hearts of other simple men and 

 women have taught them. Sometimes these 

 names are beautiful, as * Dust of the World ' 

 (or universe, an domhairi) or the ' Kyle of the 

 Angels ' (the Strait or Sound) : sometimes apt 

 and natural, as 'the Herring Way,' and 'the 

 Wake ' : sometimes legendary, as ' the Road 

 of the Kings ' (the old gods, from Fionn back 

 to the Tuatha Dedannan) or as 'the Pathway 

 of the Secret People ' : sometimes sombre or 

 grotesque, as ' The Shroud ' or as ' the Bag of 

 the Great Miller/ 



There is especial interest for us, of course, 

 in the legendary associations of the Anglo- 

 Saxon and Scandinavian and Celtic or Gaelic 

 peoples. These, in common with the majority 

 of western nations, image the Milky Way 

 more as a ' road ' or ' street ' than as a serpent 

 or than as a river though the Norse have 

 their Midhgardhsormr, connected in associa- 



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