“When heroes rush together, When battle wakes around, With clash, and clang, and crushing blows, I hear my sweetest sound.” So Oscar spoke.—Thus Diarmad said, “When in my secret ear Sweet woman whispers love for me, My best loved sound I hear.” “When first I catch my good hounds’ cry, Where the proud stag stamps the ground, And stands at bay,” MacLuy said, “I hear my sweetest sound.” Then Fingal said, “My music is The banner’s fluttering fold, When winds blow free, and the brave I see Beneath its streaming gold.” Alas! alas! my sweetest sound Was once in Fingall’s hall; To hear bards sing and heroes speak, And now they’ve perished all! The above has been translated by Pattison, and I use his rendering. It gives us a good picture of a social gathering of the Finian heroes. The bowl goes round, the harpers begin, and the warriors deliver themselves successively on the objects which most moved their hearts. Fingal sat there as lord of the feast, and directed their intercourse. Conan, rash and thoughtless, but bold, loves the rattling dice; Oscar loves the waking of battle, Diarmad the whispering of woman’s love, MacLuy the hound in the chase. Fingal himself delights in the banner fluttering over the brave in battle, and Ossian, as usual, regretfully declares that his sweet sound was once in the hall of Fingal, who now with his heroic followers have all perished. The titles of some of the other ballads are _Ossian’s Lament_, _Cailte and the Giant_, &c. We have a special set in several dialogues between Ossian and Patrick on the Féinn and their exploits, and on the comparative merits of the Christian religion and the stories of the Féinne. One of them is called _Oisein agus an Cleireach_, or Ossian and the Cleric, in which we have a description of a battle between the Finians and the Norse. The saint is very agreeable in this poem, very unlike what he is in _Ossian’s Prayer_, and concedes much to the bard, so much, indeed, that he is willing to rear an altar, not to God, but to Finn! It is difficult to say whether the ballad refers to a Manus, or Magnus, of the third or of the twelfth century. Actually known historic facts favour the latter. The length of the ballad varies; some of the versions are upwards of two, some three hundred lines long. I here translate the first few verses:— _Ossian._—O Cleric, that singest the psalms! Rude are thy thoughts I ween; Hearest thou a little my songs On the Féinn thou hast never seen? _Cleric._—’Tis thine to delight in the songs Of the Féinn whom thou didst see— Sounds of psalms on my lips are sweeter Than Finian rhymes to me.