PREFACE

The public may depend on the following fragments as genuine remains of
ancient Scottish poetry. The date of their composition cannot be exactly
ascertained. Tradition, in the country where they were written, refers
them to an aera of the most remote antiquity: and this tradition is
supported by the spirit and strain of the poems themselves; which abound
with those ideas, and paint those manners, that belong to the most early
state of society. The diction too, in the original, is very obsolete;
and differs widely from the style of such poems as have been written in
the same language two or three centuries ago. They were certainly
composed before the establishment of clanship in the northern part of
Scotland, which is itself very ancient; for had clans been then formed
and known, they must have made a considerable figure in the work of a
Highland Bard; whereas there is not the least mention of them in these
poems. It is remarkable that there are found in them no allusions to the
Christian religion or worship; indeed, few traces of religion of any kind.
One circumstance seems to prove them to be coeval with the very infancy
of Christianity in Scotland. In a fragment of the same poems, which the
translator has seen, a Culdee or Monk is represented as desirous to take
down in writing from the mouth of Oscian, who is the principal personage
in several of the following fragments, his warlike atchievements and
those of his family. But Oscian treats the monk and his religion with
disdain, telling him, that the deeds of such great men were subjects too
high to be recorded by him, or by any of his religion: A full proof that
Christianity was not as yet established in the country.

Though the poems now published appear as detached pieces in this