An gaidheal - National Library of Scotland

,August, 1873. THE GAEL. 187diii'erent authors, still the same factsand almost the same way of statingthem, are to be found in all. Theyare no doubt an embodied form ofthe traditions, then common to thepeople, and handed down from ageto age. The compilers of many ofthe documents may have had accessto written information now lost ; buteven if they had not they could havegathered the substance of them fromrecitation and oral tradition. Manspoke before he communicated histhoughts in written language, and herecited long before he read. In thismanner have the poems of Ossianbeen handed down to us. WhenAlban's national minstrel was foreversilent, and when his thrilling harpwas reverently hung up in the spacioushall, where once its mournfulnotes mourned Evarillan, and Oscar,and Malvina, and sung in lightermartial strains of the battlefield andlove, then admiring minstrels ofinferior fame caught up the echoesof its lingering notes, and repeatedthem until they were at last establishedin the form we now possessthem. In this manner too, were theIliad and Odyssey of Homer, preservedfrom floating for ever ou thedark waters of Lethe.We may be allowed here tomention that the most perfect collec- ,tion of Pictish and Scottish Chroni- i are said to have come fromcles is that edited Ijy Dr. Skene andpublished by the authoiity of theLords Commissioners of her Majesty's;TreasuiT. This is an invaluable|work. In addition to a leai-nedpreface of neai-ly 200 pages, in whichthe i^rincipal questions relating tothe early history of Scotland arediscussed and cleared of much ofthe haze previously surrounding them\t contains a complete and exceedinglyuseful index noviinum et rerum.The compilers of the ScottishLegends delighted to assert and reassertthe fabulous anticpiity of theScots. It was an inexhaustible theme,and one strongly united to the chordsof the nation's being. Whethersung by the poet, or noted by thechronicler, it always met ^vith asympathetic response. The mind ofthe Gael, ever prone to pore over thedark and mysterious, seized hold ofit as a present fact. It was rehearsedbefore the battle, and at the grandcelebrations of state; in a word itwas one of the gi'eatest of thoseprinciples which tended to infuse aspirit of chivalry and daring into thehearts of our warriors of ancientdays. These traditions are not to belaughed at as a peculiarity of theScottish race. Almost evei'y ancientnation, civilized and uncivilized,traced its origin back through thedark ages of time, till it fixed on thatwhich stood up in the universaldimness more clear and conspicuousthan the rest. This was the casewith the Scots, and how fanciful andstrange soever their traditionarylegends may appear, they are not onewhit more chimerical than those ofGreece or Rome.In the " Pictish Chronicle," themost ancient MS. bearing on thehistory of Scotland, the Scots (whowere then improperly called Hibei--nienses or Hibernians) and the PictsScythia,and thence to derive their- origin.The Scythians were also calledAlbani, from the white colour of theirhau". This name under the formAlban was afterwai'ds applied to thecountry of the Picts, or that part ofScotland noi-th of the Fii-ths of Forthand Clyde. They are mentioned ashaving bluish grey cat-like eyes, andas seeing equally well in the nighttime.The wide expanse of theirterritories extended from the EastIndies to the Germanic confines.They abounded in gold and valuable