"'Sons of Cona!' Fingal cried aloud, 'stop the hand of death. Mighty was he that is low; much is he mourned in Sora! The stranger will come towards his hill, and wonder why it is so silent. The king is fallen, O stranger! The joy of his house is ceased. Listen to the sound of his woods. Perhaps the ghost is murmuring there! But he is far distant, on Morven, beneath the sword of foreign foe.'
"Lorma sat in Aldo's hall. She sat at the light of a flaming oak. The night came down, but he did not return. The soul of Lorma is sad. 'What detained thee, hunter of Cona? thou didst promise to return. Has the deer been distant far? Do the dark winds sigh round thee on the heath? I am in the land of strangers; who is my friend but Aldo? Come from the sounding hills, O my best beloved.'
"Her eyes are turned towards the gate. She listens to the rustling blast. She thinks it is Aldo's tread. Joy rises in her face! But storm returns again, like a thin cloud on the moon.... His thin ghost appeared on a rock, like a watery beam of feeble light, when the moon rushes sudden from between two clouds, and the midnight shower is on the field. She followed the empty form over the heath. She knew that her hero fell. I heard her approaching cries on the wind, like the mournful voice of the breeze, when it sighs on the grass of the cave!
"She came. She found her hero! Her voice was heard no more. Silent she rolled her eyes. She was pale, and wildly sad! Few her days on Cona. She sank into the tomb. Fingal commanded his bards; they sang over the death of Lorma. The daughters of Morven mourned her for one day in the year, when the dark winds of autumn returned."
In Ossianic times there were prophets and prophetesses, who were consulted by the chiefs of armies and by the common people on important occasions. Even a thousand years after the time of Ossian, the bards uttered their prophetic sayings. We have the story of five bards passing an October night in the house of a chief, who, like his guests, was a poet, entertaining their hearers with poetic descriptions of the night. The first bard delivered himself thus:
"Night is dull and dark. The clouds rest on the hills. No star with green trembling beam; no moon looks from the sky. I hear the blast in the wood, but I hear it distant far. The stream of the valley murmurs, but its murmur is sullen and sad. From the tree, at the grave of the dead, the long-howling owl is heard. I see a dim form on the plain! It is a ghost! it fades, it flies. Some funeral shall pass this way: the meteor marks the path. The distant dog is howling from the hut of the hill. The stag lies on the mountain moss: the hind is at his side. She hears the wind in his branchy horns. She starts, but lies again. The roe is in the cleft of the rock; the heath-cock's head is beneath his wing. No beast nor bird is abroad, but the owl and the howling fox. She on a leafless tree; he in a cloud on the hill. Dark, panting, trembling, sad, the traveller has lost his way. Through shrubs, through thorns he goes, along the gurgling mill. He fears the rock and the fen. He fears the ghost of night. The old tree groans to the blast; the falling branch resounds. The wind drives the weathered burs, clung together, along the grass. It is the light tread of a ghost! He trembles amidst the night. Dark, dusky, howling night, cloudy, windy, and full of ghosts! The dead are abroad! My friends, receive me from the night."
The second bard says:
"The wind is up. The shower descends. The spirit of the mountain shrieks. Woods fall from high. Windows flap. The growing river roars. The traveller attempts the ford. Hark! that shriek! He dies! The storm drives the horse from the hill, the goat, the lowing cow. They tremble as drives the shower, beside the mouldering bank. The hunter starts from sleep, in his lonely hut; he wakes, the fire decayed. His wet dogs smoke around him. He fills the chinks with heath. Loud roar two mountain streams, which meet beside his booth. Sad on the side of the hill the wandering shepherd sits. The tree resounds beside him. The stream roars down the rock. He waits for the rising moon to guide him to his home. Ghosts ride on the storm to-night. Sweet is their voice between the squalls of wind. Their songs are of other worlds. The rain is past. The dry wind blows. Streams roar and windows flap. Cold drops fall from the roof. I see the starry sky. But the shower gathers again. The west is gloomy and dark. Night is stormy and dismal. Receive me, my friends, from night."
The third bard sings:
"The wind still sounds between the hills, and whistles through the grass of the rock. The firs fall from their place. The turfy hut is torn. The clouds divided, fly over the sky, and show the burning stars. The meteor, token of death, flies sparkling through the gloom. It rests on the hill. I see the withered form, the dark-browed rock, the fallen oak. Who is that in his shroud beneath the tree by the stream? The waves dark tumble on the lake, and lash its rocky sides. A maid sits sad beside the rock, and eyes the rolling stream. Her lover promised to come. She saw his boat, when yet it was light, on the lake. Is this his broken boat on the shore? Are these his groans on the wind? Hark! the hail rattles around. The flaky snow descends. The tops of the hills are white. The stormy wind abates. Various is the night, and cold. Receive me, my friends, from night."