.i. muic Criobais mhara Tallann tair .i. ria cloic ris ambenann tonn benus ria hail tairges tnu .i. mo bhoill as comairce diob nert mo leo uam fhaosamh domniadh .i. ni lag mar tu mar tusa ni triath mar tu
Oisin ro chan ann sin attraigh mara tallann. ar nia na muice.
TRANSLATION. My eyes slumbered in sleep, My spear was with my shield, My sword was in my hand, And my hand under my ear. A strange dream happened to me, I set swiftly my dogs On a sow in the plain upon flesh. She was fat to the tusk in her jaw, Thirty feet for me with my shoes In her side to the beard of her snout. Thirty inches for Finn in her tusk Fat above on her under her hide. Large as a caldron was each eye, Large as a vessel the hollow beneath. My sword hewed in her neck, And my dogs fixed on her ear. Sow of the sea of eastern Tallann, Which strikes the rock where the wave touches. My limbs were to me a protection to me strong, As thyself not weak like thee.
Ossian sung this at the shore of the sea of Tallann, for the champion of the sow.[38]
The tales of Cuchullin and Conlaoch, and the tale of the Sons of Uisneach, are good specimens of the second class. The latter is one of three tales, called the Three Woes, the two others relating to families of the Tuatha De Danann; but though these tales may be Irish, and of this period, they contain fragments of poems probably much older, and which may have been derived from another source. One of the poems in the tale of the Children of Uisneach contains such a tender recollection of and touching allusion to Highland scenery, that it is hardly possible to suppose that it was not originally composed by a genuine son of Alban.
It is the lament of Deirdre or Darthula over Alban, and the following is a translation:—
Beloved land that Eastern land, Alba, with its wonders. O that I might not depart from it, But that I go with Naise.
Beloved is Dunfidhgha and Dun Finn; Beloved the Dun above them; Beloved is Innisdraighende, And beloved Dun Suibhne.
Coillchuan! O Coillchuan! Where Ainnle would, alas! resort; Too short, I deem, was then my stay With Ainnle in Oirir Alban.
Glenlaidhe! O Glenlaidhe! I used to sleep by its soothing murmur; Fish, and flesh of wild boar and badger Was my repast in Glenlaidhe.