There are two complete translations of these Gaelic poems before the world besides Macpherson’s—Macgregor’s and Clerk’s. The last is absolutely literal, while Macgregor’s is also pretty faithful to the Gaelic. Both versions are neither blank verse, nor rhyme, nor prose, but are couched in a species of rhythmic verse in lines of various lengths. Neither the one nor the other is ever likely to become popular, so that a literal popular version is still required for those whom Macpherson’s own cannot satisfy. I have thrown into a very literal blank verse the whole of _Carrick_, from which I take the following description of Finn’s encounter with the Ghost of Lodin. It is a fair specimen of the poems as a whole, and gives us an inkling of their mythology, which here and elsewhere is vague and shadowy:— LODIN’S GHOST. A fire descended in the dark beyond; The moon was red and languid in the east; A blast came down in sadness from the plain; And on its wings the semblance of a man;— Cru-Lodin standing pale upon the plain— He nigh approached unto his own abode, Holding his dark spear useless in his hand; His red eye like the blazing of the skies; His speaking like the thunder on the hill In shadowy darkness distant far away; Finn lifted up his spear amid the night; And on the meadow was his shouting heard. FINN. “Son of the Night, begone thou from my side. Betake thee to thy wind and be away! Why camest thou to my presence, shadowy one? Thy semblance is unreal as thine arms. Can thy brown form be terrible to me, Thou Phantom of the Circles Lodin owns? Frail is thy shield, and weak thy vapoury cloud; Thy bare sword like a flame across the surge; Which shall be cleft asunder by the blast, And scattered thou thyself without delay, Begone thou Dismal Offspring of the skies! Recall thy blast to take thee and begone.” THE GHOST. “Would’st thou from my own circle me coerce?” Spake the deep voice of hollowest refrain. “It is to me that hosts of heroes yield; I glance but on the people from the height, They are dispersed like ashes ’neath my gaze. Out of my breath proceeds the blast of death. I journey loftily upon the wind; And tempests hurry forth themselves on high Around my brow, cold, melancholy, pale; But calm is my abode beyond the clouds, And pleasant the broad fields of my repose.” FINN.