Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

DUNSCAICH. 423
still more striking Blaveu, backed by the remoter group
which constitutes the central mountainous tract of Sky.
An extensive wood, chiefly of ash, of considerable an-
tiquity, but fast wearing away, since entirely neglected,
not only adds beauty to this part of the island, but serves
to prove what art might do in ornamenting and improv-
ing the country.
Enough of the castle of Dunscaich remains, to render
it still a picturesque object. The rock on which it stands
is detached from the shore, but by a chasm so narrow as
to have admitted of a bridge of communication, which,
containing an aperture or discontinuity in the middle, has
served the purpose of a drawbridge. No more is known
of the date of this building than of others in this country
but, from its general aspect, it can scarcely be supposed
three centuries old. The masonry is of a character which
is never found in the Highlands, of a distant date. It
can only, however, be considered as a castellated mansion
; as it does not afford room to accommodate more
than the ordinary retinue of a chief The very name of
Dunscaich reminds us, of course, of Cuchullin and his
" lonely sunbeam." The true enthusiast in Ossian, to
whom date, style, manners, and every thing else, are
nothing, who, like the lover, would annihilate even time
when it stands in the way of his hypothesis, may be per-
mitted here to worship Bragela, or the King of the Isle
of Mist, or Macpherson, or all three.
But Vallancey says that Cuchullin was not King of
the Isle of Mist, and that he has usurped the place of
King Manuanan in the poems. This enchanter is the real
King of the Mists ; while he is also the Pagan Neptune,
the God of the Sea. My former genealogy was wrong :
Lear, or Lir, his father, is the sea itself, not a two-legged
man. Truth is a beautiful substance : when we can fish
it out. It is plain that the Highlanders must resign all
;