: Nether Lochaber The Natural History Legends and Folk-lore of the West Highlands by Stewart Alexander Rev - Folklore Scotland Highlands; Natural history Scotland Highlands

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videatque, indigna suorum Funera: nec, cum se sub leges pacis iniquae Tradiderit, regno aut optata luce fruatur, Sed cadat ante diem, mediaque inhumatus arena."

Which Dryden, if with rather too much amplification, still very beautifully translates thus:--

"Yet let a race untamed and haughty foes His peaceful entrance with dire arms oppose, Oppress'd with numbers in th' unequal field, His men discouraged and himself expell'd: Let him for succour sue from place to place, Torn from his subjects and his son's embrace. First let him see his friends in battle slain, And their untimely fate lament in vain; And when at length the cruel wars shall cease, On hard conditions may he buy his peace. Nor let him then enjoy supreme command, But fall untimely by some hostile hand, And lie unburied on the barren sand."

Lord Falkland's eye fell on the following lines in the eleventh book:--

"Non haec, O Palla, dederas promissa parenti. Cautius ut saevo velles te credere Marti! Haud ignarus eram, quantum nova gloria in armis, Et predulce decus primo certamine posset. Primitiae juvenis miserae! bellique propinqui Dura rudimenta! et nulli exaudita Deorum Vota, precesque meae!"

--which the same translator has rendered as follows:--

"O Pallas, thou hast failed thy plighted word, To fight with caution, not to tempt the sword; I warn'd thee, but in vain, for well I knew What perils youthful ardour would pursue; That boiling blood would carry thee too far, Young as thou wert to dangers, raw to war; O curs'd essay of arms, disastrous doom, Prelude of bloody fields and fights to come, Hard elements of unauspicious war, Vain vows to heaven and unavailing care."

An old Gaelic MS.--"The Bewitched Bachelor Unbewitched"--Fairy Lore--Lacteal Libations on Fairy Knowes.

In looking over some old papers the other day we stumbled on some sheets of Gaelic MS. that had lain neglected for years, and every existence of which, indeed, we had well-nigh forgotten. One of these sheets contained the original of the following lines. It is in many respects a curious composition, written in a sort of rhythmical alliterative prose rather than in verse, somewhat in the manner of the conversational parts of the Gaelic Sgeulachdan or fireside tales of the olden time. Its tone throughout is gay and lively, with an occasional admixture of humour and double entendre that is very amusing, while its allusions to the manners and customs and superstitious observances of a past age render it, to our thinking, extremely interesting. The sheet in our possession is only a copy, the original, taken down from oral recitation, we believe, being in a MS. collection of Gaelic poems and tales by Rev. Mr. M'Donald, at one time minister of the parish of Fortingall, in Perthshire. Having only internal evidence to judge from, it is impossible with any confidence to assign even an approximate date to such a production as this, but we are probably not far wrong in placing it as early at least as the middle or close of the last century. It bears no title in the original; we may call it--

The Bewitched Bachelor Unbewitched.

The gudeman mumbled and grumbled full sore Over the butter-kits, all through the dairy: Over cheese, over butter, and milk-pails, he swore "'Tis the work, I'll be bound, of some foul witch or fairy.

How can I ever be happy or rich, If robbed and tormented by fairy and witch," Quoth he; and lo, with a sudden turn He stumbled and spilt the cream-full churn!

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