*DUAN FIRST.

ARGUMENT.-FINGAL, when very young, making a voyage to the Orkney islands, was driven by stress of weather, into a bay of Scandinavia, near the residence of Starno, king of Lochlin. Starno invites Fingal to a feast. Fingal, doubting the faith of the king, and mindful of a former breach of hospitality, refuses to go.-Starno gathers together his tribes; Fingal resolves to defend himself. -Night coming on, Duth-maruno proposes to Fingal to observe the motions of the enemy.-The king himself undertakes the watch. Advancing towards the enemy, he, accidentally, comes to the cave of Turthor, where Starno had confined Conban-carglas, the captive daughter of a neighbouring chief.-Her story is imperfect, a part of the original being lost.-Fingal comes to a place of worship, where Starno, and his son Swaran, consulted the spirit of Loda concerning the issue of the war.-The rencounter of Fingal and Swaran.-Duän first concludes with a description of the airy hall of Cruth-loda, supposed to be the Odin of Scandinavia.

A TALE of the times of old!

Why, thou wanderer unseen! Thou bender of the thistle of Lora; why, thou breeze of the valley, hast thou left mine ear? I hear no distant roar of streams! No sound of the harp from the rock! Come, thou huntress of Lutha, Malvina, call back his soul to the bard. I look forward to

* The bards distinguished those compositions, in which the narration is often interrupted by episodes and apostrophes, by the name of Duän. Since the extinction of the order of the bards it has been a

general name for all ancient compositions in verse. The abrupt manner in which the story of this poem begins may render it obscure to some readers; it may not, therefore, be improper, to give here the traditional preface, which is generally prefixed to it. Two years after

Lochlin of lakes, to the dark billowy bay of Uthorno, where Fingal descends from ocean, from the roar of winds. Few are the heroes of Morven in a land unknown!

Starno sent a dweller of Loda to bid Fingal to the feast; but the king remembered the past, and all his rage arose. "Nor Gormal's mossy "towers, nor Starno, shall Fingal behold. Deaths "wander, like shadows, over his fiery soul! Do I "forget that beam of light, the white-handed "daughter of kings? Go, son of Loda; his "words are wind to Fingal; wind, that, to and "fro, drives the thistle in autumn's dusky vale. "Duth-maruno,† arm of death! Cromma-glas,

he took to wife Ros-crana, the daughter of Cormac, king of Ireland, Fingal undertook an expedition into Orkney, to visit his friend Cathulla, king of Inistore. After staying a few days at Caric-thura, the residence of Cathulla, the king set sail to return to Scotland; but a violent storm arising, his ships were driven into a bay of Scandinavia, near Gormal, the seat of Starno, king of Lochlin, his avowed enemy. Starno, upon the appearance of strangers on his coast, summoned together the neighbouring tribes, and advanced, in a hostile manner, towards the bay of U-thorno, where Fingal had taken shelter. Upon discovering who the strangers were, and fearing the valour of Fingal, which he had, more than once, experienced before, he resolved to accomplish by treachery what he was afraid he should fail in by open force. He invited, therefore, Fingal to a feast, at which he intended to assassinate him. The king prudently declined to go, and Starno betook himself to arms. The sequel of the story may be learned from the poem itself.

* Agandecca, the daughter of Starno, whom her father killed, on account of her discovering to Fingal a plot laid against his life. Her story is related at large in the third book of Fingal.

† Duth-maruno is a name very famous in tradition. Many of his great actions are handed down, but the poems which contained the detail of them, are long since lost. He lived, it is supposed, in that part of the north of Scotland which is over against Orkney. Duthmaruno, Cromma-glas, Struthmor, and Cormar are mentioned, as attending Comhal, in his last battle against the tribe of Morni, in a

"of iron shields! Struthmor, dweller of battle's 'wing; Cormar, whose ships bound on seas, "careless as the course of a meteor, on dark-rol"ling clouds! Arise round me, children of he❝roes, in a land unknown! Let each look on his shield, like Trenmor, the ruler of wars." "Come "down," thus Trenmor said, " thou dweller be"tween the harps! Thou shalt roll this stream 'away, or waste with me in earth."

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Around the king they rise in wrath. No words come forth: they seize their spears. Each soul is rolled into itself. At length the sudden clang is waked on all their echoing shields. Each takes his hill by night; at intervals they darkly stand. Unequal bursts the hum of songs between the roaring wind!

Broad over them rose the moon!

In his arms came tall Duth-maruno; he, from Croma of rocks, stern hunter of the boar! In his dark boat he rose on waves, when Crumthormo* awaked its woods. In the chase he shone among foes: No fear was thine, Duth-maruno!

"Son of daring Comhal, shall my steps be for"ward through night? From this shield shall I poem which is still preserved. It is not the work of Ossian; the phraseology betrays it to be a modern composition. It is something like those trivial compositions, which the Irish bards forged, under the name of Ossian, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Duthmaruno signifies, black and steady; Cromma-glas, bending and swarthy; Struthmor, roaring stream; Cormar, expert at sea.

* Crumthormoth, one of the Orkney or Shetland islands. The name is not of Galic original. It was subject to its own petty king, who is mentioned in one of Ossian's poems.

"view them, over their gleaming tribes? Starno,

king of lakes, is before me, and Swaran, the "foe of strangers. Their words are not in vain, "by Loda's stone of power. Should Duth-ma"runo not return, his spouse is lonely at home; "where meet two roaring streams on Crathmo"craulo's plain. Around are hills, with echoing woods, the ocean is rolling near. My son looks "on screaming sea-fowl, a young wanderer on "the field. Give the head of boar to Can-do"na* tell him of his father's joy, when the brist

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*Cean-daona, head of the people, the son of Duth-maruno. He became afterwards famous, in the expeditions of Ossian, after the death of Fingal. The traditional tales concerning him are very numerous, and, from the epithet in them, bestowed on him (Can-dona of boars,) it would appear, that he applied himself to that kind of hunting, which his father, in this paragraph, is so anxious to recommend to him. As I have mentioned the traditional tales of the Highlands, may not be improper here to give some account of them. After the expulsion of the bards from the houses of the chiefs, they being an indolent race of men owed all their subsistence to the generosity of the vulgar, whom they diverted with repeating the compositions of their predecessors, and running up the genealogies of their entertain ers to the family of their chiefs. As this subject was, however, soon exhausted, they were obliged to have recourse to invention, and form stories, having no foundation in fact, which were swallowed with great credulity by an ignorant multitude. By frequent repeating, the fable grew upon their hands, and, as each threw in whatever cir cumstance he thought conducive to raise the admiration of his hearers, the story became at last, so devoid of all probability, that even the vulgar themselves did not believe it. They, however, liked the tales so well, that the bards found their advantage in turning professed tale-makers. They then launched out into the wildest regions of fiction and romance. I firmly believe there are more stories of giants, enchanted castles, dwarfs and palfreys, in the Highlands, than in any country in Europe. These tales, it is certain, like other romantic compositions, bave many things in them unnatural, and, consequently, disgustful to true taste; but, I know not how it hap pens, they command attention more than any other fictions I ever met with. The extreme length of these pieces is very surprising, some of them required many days to repeat them; but such hold they

"ly strength of U-thorno rolled on his lifted 66 spear. Tell him of my deeds in war! Tell "where his father fell!"

"Not forgetful of my fathers," said Fingal, "I "have bounded over the seas. Theirs were the "times of danger, in the days of old. Nor set"tles darkness on me, before foes, though youth"ful in my locks. Chief of Crathmo-craulo, the "field of night is mine."

Fingal rushed, in all his arms, wide-bounding over Turthor's stream, that sent its sullen roar, by night, through Gormal's misty vale. A moonbeam glittered on a rock; in the midst stood a stately form; a form with floating locks, like Lochlin's white-bosomed maids. Unequal are her steps, and short. She throws a broken song on wind. At times she tosses her white arms: for grief is dwelling in her soul.

"Torcul-torno,* of aged locks!" she said, “where take of the memory, that few circumstances are ever omitted by those who have received them only from oral tradition: What is still more amazing, the very language of the bards is still preserved. It is curious to see, that the descriptions of magnificence introduced in these tales are even superior to all the pompous oriental fictions of the kind.

* Torcul-torno, according to tradition, was king of Carthlun, a district in Sweden. The river Lulan ran near the residence of Torcultorno. There is a river in Sweden still called Lula, which is probably the same with Lulan. The war between Starno and Torcul-torno, which terminated in the death of the latter, had its rise at a hunting party. Starno being invited, in a friendly manner, by Torcul-torno, both kings, with their followers, went to the mountains of Stivamore to hunt. A boar rushed from the wood before the kings, and Torcultorno killed it. Starno thought this behaviour a breach upon the privilege of guests, who were always honoured, as tradition expresses