Mr. Hardy on the Wolf in Scotland, ^69 



On the western shores of Argyle, the small isle of St. Mungo, 

 still used as a burial place, has been appropriated to this 

 purpose from the days when the wolves were the terror of the 

 land ; the passage between it and the main land opposing a 

 barrier, which they in vain attempted to cross * This 

 scarcely, however, accounts for those old modes of sepulture, 

 adopted by the jGirst inhabitants of Europe, in accordance with 

 the practices of the regions whence they sprung, and carried 

 with them in their migrations, as rites which it would be 

 sacrilege to abandon. 



It was also a remarkable feature in the history of these 

 primitive people, that many of them, especially those who 

 possessed the intermediate portions of Scotland and England, 

 were by preference hill-men. Not wholly for self-defence 

 would they fix their residences in the outlandish and ex- 

 posed tracts, where we now view with surprise their wretched 

 remains, and the traces of obsolete modes of agriculture. To 

 these remote uplands they were compelled in some measure 

 to resort, from the low countries being over-run with wild 

 beasts. " It is observable," it has been said, " in many of 

 the highest inhabited places in the Scottish Highlands, that 

 ridges can be distinctly traced near the summit of our most 

 elevated mountains. Some suppose that such appearances of 

 culture are referable to remote times, when, by reason of the 

 valleys being overgrown with woods, which were the haunts 

 of wolves, bears, and enormous snakes, it was necessary for 

 safety to retire to the tops of the hills, and there cultivate 

 those spots, which retain still the appearance of human in- 

 dustry."! 



It has been opposed to the authenticity of the Ossianic 

 poems that they omit all allusion to the chace of the wolf — 

 the Madadh alluidh or wild dog of the Caledonian forests.^ 

 This objection cannot attach to some of the Scottish histori- 

 ans, whose relations are pronounced to be equally fabulous. 

 To vary their exploits, which are often so uniform that we 

 seem transported to the halls of Odin, where the warriors 

 that fell in the fight of to-day, are re-animated to mingle in 

 the morrow's combat, their shadowy monarchs engage in 



* Constable's Edinburgh Magazine, Nov. 1817, p. 340. 



t Campbell's Grampians Desolate, p. 167. 



% Laing. Pinkerton's Enquiry into the Early Hist, of Scotland, ii. p. 85. 

 " The Gaelic names for the_wolf are Madadh alluidh, commonly used ; Faol chu, 

 Alia mhadadh, all of which are composed of an epithet, and a word which now 

 means dog." It is also called Foal and Mac tire, earth's son, (Campbell's 

 Tales of the West Highlands, i. p. 274.) 



