with historical and critical notes, and a comprehensive glossary

] INTRODUCTION.
and prophecy, that the same individuals were professors of both, and henee it is that we
find the Romans using the terms indiscriminately, especially with reference to those in
their Gaulish provinces. Of the prophecies of the Gauls, many instances are related ; they
were hold in much estimation for their auguries and predictions, and were consulted by
even the emperors of Rome. Those soldiers who were in their armies, perhaps from
their national gravity, and dark and figurative manner of expression,* compared with their
Italian comrades, were looked on as seeing more clearly into futurity than others. The
spirit descended on their successors in the British isles. In the Principality, the faculty
in the bardic order was tacitly acknowledged, and Irish history affords many proofs
of the conjunction, whilst among the Scottish Gael, the ability to prognosticate unerr-
ingly, was repeatedly claimed, and respectfully conceded. Fingal himself, by concurrent
tradition, is allowed, with other attributes of one so illustrious, to have possessed in an
eminent degree, the ability to predict corning events. The court poets, about 1323,
delivered a prophecy respecting King David, which was fully credited.!
Numerous proofs of the unabated influence of bardie exhortations on individuals, clans,
and confederated armies, could be adduced. When the orator, standing on a cairn or
other eminence, harangued the assembled host, in energetic verse, descanting in glowing
terms on the well earned glories of the race—their heroism and other virtues, reminding
them that on present exertions depended their country's fate—their own, their wives and
children's safety ; that the freedom which their sires bequeathed, it was for them to
maintain and faithfully transmit to following generations ; and when he warned them that
the shades of their noble ancestors hovered near to witness their prowess, and bear them
to the realms of bliss, if they bravely fell, the climax was attained, and in the paroxysm
of generous resolution, with a simultaneous shout, the whole rushed forward to the melèe.
Those who survived, were welcomed by the fair with the songs of praise; the bards ex-
tolling their exploits in the most laudatory strains.
The War Song of Gaul in the fourth book of Fingal, shows the usual style of the
Prosnachadh cath, which is the name applied to it, corresponding to the Irish Kosgacath,
and the Welsh Arymes prydain.ì The address of that intrepid chief of the Caledonian
confederation, Galgacus, delivered to his troops previous to the great battle of the Gram-
pians, is highly interesting for its antiquity, the eloquence it displays, and the light it
throws on the sentiments of that unconquerable race, to whom the Britons of the south
alleged the gods themselves were scarcely equal. The famed Caractacus would animate
his forces in a similar manner ; and it is probable both delivered their harangues in
verse, and may indeed have been of the bardic order. The strife was truly "kindled by
the songs of the bards." "Go Ullin— go my aged bard! remind the mighty Gaul of
battle— remind him of his fathers—support the yielding fight; for the song enlivens war,"
says the king of Morven.
It is unnecessary to multiply examples : the practice was retained as long as clanship
was entire. The Brosnachadh cath Gariach, composed by Lachlan Mac Mhuireach, the
* Diod. Marcel. t Fonlun, xiii. 5. £ Cambrian Register.