S36 



ON THE NATURE AND 



authenticated poems,* premising that the importance of the errand, which 

 is to warn his friends, " the sons of green Erin," of impending destruction, 

 and to advise them to save themselves by retreat, sufficiently justifies the 

 apparition. " A dark red stream of fire comes down from the hill. Crugal 

 sat upon the beam : he that lately fell by the hand of Swaran striving in the 

 battle of heroes. His face is like the beam of the setting moon : his robes 

 are of the clouds of the hill : his eyes are like two decaying flames. Dark is 

 the wound on his breast. The stars dim-twinkled through his form ; and his 

 voice was like the sound of a distant stream. Dim and in tears he stood, 

 and stretched his pale hand over the hero. Faintly he raised his feeble voice, 

 like the gale of the reedy Lego. 'My ghost, O ('onnal ! is on my native hills, 

 but my corse is on the sands of UUin. Thou shalt never talk with Crugal, 

 nor find his lone steps on the heath. I am light as the blast of Cromla, and I 

 move like the shadow of mist. Connal, son of Colgar ! I see the dark cloud 

 of death. It hovers over the plains of Lena. The sons of green Erin shall 

 fall. Remove from the field of ghosts.' Like the darkened moon, he retired 

 in the midst of the whistling blast." 



Let us take another very brief but very beautiful example. " Trenmor 

 came from his hill at the voice of his mighty son. A cloud, like the steed of 

 the stranger, supported his airy limbs. His robe is of the mist of Lano, that 

 brings death to the people. His sword is a green meteor half extinguished. 

 His face is without form and dark. He sighed thrice over the hero ; and 

 thrice the winds of the night roared around. Many were his words to Oscar. 

 He slowly vanished, like a mist that melts on the sunny hill." 



The idea of his still pursuing his accustomed occupation of riding with his 

 glittering sword (its glitter now half-extinguished, and of a green hue) on the 

 steed of the stranger — a steed won in battle — his own limbs rendered airy, 

 and the steed dissolved into the semblance of a cloud — is not only exquisite 

 as a piece of poetic painting but as a fact consonant with the popular tradi- 

 tion of all other countries, which uniformly allotted to the shades or ghosts 

 of their respective heroes their former passions and inclinations, the pastimes 

 or employments to which they had devoted themselves while on earth, and 

 the arms or implements they had chiefly made use of. Thus, the Scandina- 

 vian bard, Lodbrog, while singing his own death-song, literally translated 

 from the Runic into Latin by Olaus Wormius, and transferring, in like man- 

 ner, the pursuits of his life to his pursuits after death ; " In the halls of our 

 father Balder I know seats are prepared, where we shall soon drink all out 

 of the hollow sculls of our enemies. In the house of the mighty Odin no 

 brave man laments death. I come not with the voice of despair to Odin's hall."f 

 The same popular belief was common to the Greeks and Romans. Thus, 

 iEneas, according to Virgil, in his descent to the infernal regions, beholds the 

 shades of the Trojan heroes still panting for fame, and amusing themselves 

 with the martial exercises to which they had been accustomed, and with airy- 

 semblances of horses, arms, and chariots : 



The cliief siirveypd full many a shadowy car, 

 Illiisivfi arms, and coiirs(;rs tiaiu'd for war. 

 Tlieir lances fix'd in earth, their steeds around, 

 Now free fron) harness, graze the iiiiinic ground. 

 The love of liorses which ihey had, alive. 

 And care of chariots, after death survive.f 



Virgil, while true to the tradition of his country, is well known to have 

 copied his description from Homer ; and in Homer's time the same popular 



* See Report of the Committee of the Highland Society of Scotland appointed to inquire into the Nature 

 and Authenticity of the Poems of Ossiaii, drawn up, according to the Directions of the Committee, by 

 Henry Mackenzie, Esq. its Convener or Chairman, p. 153, and p. 190 — 260. 

 t See Blair's Dissertation on Ossian. 



t Arma procul, currusque virfim miratur inanes. 

 Stant terril defixse hastae, passimque soluti 

 Per cainpos pascuntur equi ; qua? gratia currfim 

 Armorumque fuit vivis, quse cura nitentes 

 Pascere equos ; eadera sequitur tellure repostos. 



JEneid, vi. 651. 



