OWL 307 



Ovid telling us how it once boasted the human form, but lost it 

 for a very small offence. " Owls to Athens " is a saying somewhat 

 akin to "Coals to Newcastle." 



In connection with this " Bird of Pallas/' so well known in the 

 Highlands of Scotland as elsewhere, many references are to be 

 found in Celtic song and story ; in Sean dana one reference is 

 '^ Mu thim chioll mo ghlas chiabhan, ag iadhadh tha 'chomhachag 

 chorr/' Around my grey locks the dismal owl hovers. The most 

 important, especially in point of length and historical interest, is 

 "The Song of the Owl," of which several accounts are given by 

 different individuals. Professor MacKinnon says : "In 1776 Ronald 

 Macdonald, son of Alexander Macdonald the poet, published a valu- 

 able collection of Gaelic poetry ; the ballad entitled ' Oran na Comh- 

 achaig ' was printed for the first time in this collection. Domhnull 

 Mac Fhionnlaidh, who is said to have lived some three hundred 

 years ago, is generally believed to be the author. Interesting 

 reminiscences of this old poet and huntsman are given in The 

 Gael, Vol. V., page 328." The ballad, as printed by the Professor, 

 extending to sixty-seven verses, is quoted here, with the transla- 

 tion given by Mrs Grant of Laggan. (See Mackenzie's Beauties, 

 p. 17, for his account, also Vol. II. of the Lays of the Deer Forest, 

 by the Sobieski Stuarts, appendix.) 



Another account I have come across says : " ' Oran na Comh- 

 achaig, or Song of the Owl,' was made by a well-known Lochaber 

 hunter of the deer, when he and the owl, with whom he communes in 

 the song, were both old and both suffering from the termagant wife 

 the old hunter had foolishly married. This song describes Lochaber 

 scenery with almost the realism and beautiful word-painting of 

 Scott and Maclntyre, the former of whom refers to it in the 

 Antiquary, where he says, ' Elspeth sitting ghastly on the hearth, 

 like the personification of old age in the hunter's Song of the Owl.' 

 The old hunter who made the song died about 1590, or perhaps 

 some years earlier. When the Comhachag bard was still young, 

 Duncan Leodasach Macgregor was the great ' Cattle Lifter ' and 

 disturber of the Highlands from Lochaber to Perth and Lennox. 

 The song is not generally known." 



Mrs Grant's account is as follows : " A solitary hunter, unable 

 to pursue the chase any longer, on account of old age, lived in 

 Strathmashie in a small house, to which in 1772 or 1773 (?) some 

 cattle drovers came, and for reasons of their own turned the 

 hunter out of doors. He took shelter in a barn, and while lying 

 meditating, saw an owl seated (or perched) on one of the spars 

 or beams, to which bird he, to while away the time, etc., commenced 

 to compose a long poem containing the sketch of his former life, 

 describing his sensations, opinions, and recollections, and introduces 

 an eulogium on the companions of his youth. The poem is peculiar 

 from its length and originality, and being evidently produced by 

 individual feeling — a feeling in which neither the tenderness of 



