THE FIANS OF KNOCKFARREL.
(A Ross-shire Legend.)
I.
On steep Knockfarrel had the Fians made,
For safe retreat, a high and strong stockade
Around their dwellings. And when winter fell
And o'er Strathpeffer laid its barren spell—
When days were bleak with storm, and nights were drear
And dark and lonesome, well they loved to hear
The songs of Ossian, peerless and sublime—
Their blind, grey bard, grown old before his time,
Lamenting for his son—the young, the brave
Oscar, who fell beside the western wave
In Gavra's bloody and unequal fight.
Round Ossian would they gather in the night,
Beseeching him for song … And when he took
His clarsach, from the magic strings he shook
A maze of trembling music, falling sweet
As mossy waters in the summer heat;
And soft as fainting moor-winds when they leave
The fume of myrtle, on a dewy eve,
Bound flush'd and teeming tarns that all night hear
Low elfin pipings in the woodlands near.
'Twas thus he sang of love, and in a dream
The fair maids sighed to hear. But when his theme
Was the long chase that Finn and all his men
Followed with lightsome heart from glen to glen—
His song was free as morn, and clear and loud
As skylarks carolling below a cloud
In sweet June weather … And they heard the fall
Of mountain streams, the huntsman's windy call
Across the heaving hills, the baying hound
Among the rocks, while echoes answered round—
They heard, and shared the gladness of the chase.
He sang the glories of the Fian race,
Whose fame is flashed through Alba far and wide—
Their valorous deeds he sang with joy and pride …
When their dark foemen from the west came o'er
The ragged hills, and when on Croumba's shore
The Viking hordes descending, fought and fled—
And when brave Conn, who would avenge the Red,
By one-eyed Goll was slain. Of Finn he sang,
And Dermaid, while the clash of conflict rang
In billowy music through the heroes' hall—
And many a Fian gave the battle-call
When Ossian sang.
Haggard and old, with slow
And falt'ring steps, went Winter through the snow,
As if its dreary round would ne'er be done—
The last long winter of their days—begun
Ere yet the latest flush of falling leaves
Had faded in the breath of chilling eves;
Nor ended in the days of longer light,
When dawn and eve encroached upon the night—
A weary time it was! The long Strath lay
Snow-wreathed and pathless, and from day to day
The tempests raved across the low'ring skies,
And they grew weak and pale, with hollow eyes,
The while their stores shrank low, waiting the dawn
Of that sweet season when through woodlands wan
Fresh flowers flutter and the wild birds sing—
For Winter on the forelock of the Spring
Its icy fingers laid. The huntsmen pined
In their dim dwellings, wearily confined,
While the loud, hungry tempest held its sway—
The red-eyed wolves grew bold and came by day,
And birds fell frozen in the snow.
Then through
The trackless Strath a balmy south wind blew
To usher lusty Spring. Lo! in a night
The snows 'gan shrinking upon plain and height,
And morning broke in brightness to the sound
Of falling waters, while a peace profound
Possessed the world around them, and the blue
Bared heaven above … Then all the Fians knew
That Winter's spell was broken, and each one
Made glad obeisance to the golden sun.
Three days around Knockfarrel they pursued
The chase across the hills and through the wood,
Round Ussie Loch and Dingwall's soundless shore;
But meagre were the burdens that they bore
At even to their dwellings. To the west
"But sorrow not," said Finn, when all dismay'd
They hastened on a drear and bootless quest—
With weary steps they turned to their stockade,
"To-morrow will we hunt towards the east
To high Dunskaith, and then make gladsome feast
By night when we return."