Till safe I see you return to me again.
The charm that Mary made to her cattle,
Early and late, going and coming from pasture,
Still keep you safe from quagmire and marsh,
From pitfalls and from each other’s horns,
From the sudden swelling (of the torrent about) the Red Rock
And from Luath of the Fingalians.
St. Patrick’s milkmaid attend your feet,
Safe and scaithless come ye home again.
The reference to “Luath,” Cuchullin’s matchless dog, so celebrated in the Ossianic poems and old Fingalian tales, is curious. The ghosts of the Fingalian heroes, existing in a sort of middle state—not yet exactly saved nor wholly lost—with those of their famous dogs, were believed to visit at times the scenes of their former exploits for the sake of the hunting, in which they so much delighted, and a cow or other animal, running about excitedly and wildly, and, to all human investigation, causelessly, was supposed to be the work of a passing Fingalian hunting party, invisible to mortal eyes, Luath, unmatched in spirit-land as upon earth, still leading the chase as of old. On the lines about St. Patrick’s dairymaid or milkmaid Mr. Carmichael has the following note, which will be read with interest, and which we give in his own words:—